Janet stopped at the corner, just as Jack should have, and listened.
Dolf’s distant yell echoed down the passage.
She swung the weapon out and around. Twenty feet in, a side passage opened on the right. Beyond that opening, one of Altmann’s men stepped into view, his head turned back toward the spot where Dolf’s yells had originated. Then, sensing Jack’s approach, he spun and raised his weapon, just before Janet put a bullet through his head.
Again she heard Dolf yell, although she still failed to make out his echoing words.
As if unaware of the chaos around him, Jack continued down the middle of the main passage, as if he was on a stroll beneath the noonday sun. Without slowing, his long stride carried him out of view around the bend. Janet felt her breath coming in gasps. What the hell was wrong with Jack? She hadn’t bothered to check him after the explosion and cave-in. He’d been bleeding from the mouth and chin, but it hadn’t seemed serious.
Janet knew that concussions sometimes did strange things to people. Whatever the cause of his bizarre behavior, if she didn’t do something quick, Jack was going to get himself killed.
Driven by a deep dread that at any second she would hear the echo of gunfire, that she would find Jack’s bloody body sprawled across the cavern floor, Janet dropped the sniper rifle, drew her Glock, and sprinted toward the spot where Jack had disappeared.
She burst around the corner to see Jack, who had dropped his gun, walking toward a narrow opening into a large torchlit cavern, his long shadow stretching back toward her. A man swung a gun out from behind the wall on the right, but Jack blocked her line of sight, leaving her no shot.
With memories of her two NCAA national triathlon championships flashing through her head, Janet closed the ground between them, knowing that she was already too late.
Suddenly, as if he’d just been hit by a passing truck, Jack spun, and Janet saw blood spurt from high up on his left shoulder. Then, with the amazing quickness she’d come to recognize, Jack’s spinning elbow impacted the man’s forearm, sending the gun flying away and leaving a bloody white shard of bone jutting out through the Nazi’s skin. Relief washed through Janet’s mind. Jack was back with her.
Then Janet saw Dolf step out from behind an outcropping, his gun hand rising toward the back of Jack’s head as Jack plunged his knife into his opponent’s armpit.
Launching herself through the air, Janet hit Dolf’s arm with all the momentum her shoulder could deliver, her speed and Dolf’s surprise at her unexpected arrival knocking the gun out of the big man’s hand as it discharged harmlessly. Janet landed in a shoulder roll that brought her back to her feet, but this time Dolf reacted faster, his fist catching the side of her head as she tried to duck away.
As the star-filled night sky twinkled all around her, Janet felt her body spinning weightless through empty space. Then the blackness took her.
CHAPTER 101
Tupac Inti watched Dolf crouch behind the outcropping that shielded them both from the view of those at the altar or standing in the cavern entrance, the albino’s gun held in a two-hand grip by his face, pointed straight up toward the ceiling. The gunshot from around the corner was surprisingly loud in the enclosed space, but the sound that followed it was unmistakable—the sharp crack of a breaking bone accompanied by the gurgling scream of the injured man.
Dolf swung around the corner, aimed his gun at someone, and started to pull the trigger. Suddenly, a woman catapulted her body into the albino’s arm, causing the gun to discharge harmlessly as it was knocked out of Dolf’s hand and clattered across the cavern’s stone floor. When she rolled to her feet, Tupac saw that it was the female NSA agent.
Before she could completely recover, Dolf lunged forward, delivering a glancing blow to the side of her head that sent her body spinning through the air to sprawl limply on the cavern floor. Instead of running across the cavern to retrieve his gun, Dolf stooped, picked up a rock the size of a soccer ball, raised it high above his head, and stepped toward the spot where Janet’s unconscious body lay face up.
From somewhere near the cavern entrance, Tupac heard Jack’s rage-filled scream.
“No!”
Then The Ripper launched himself into view, hitting Dolf in the right kidney with a shoulder. Driving with his legs, Jack lifted the bigger man, slamming him into the cavern wall with an impact that would have normally broken bones. But although he looked surprised, Dolf wasn’t stunned and grappled the smaller man into his powerful arms.
Tupac inhaled deeply, ignoring the pain in his ribs, and stood erect. If he was to have any chance, now was the time. Turning away from the death match playing out before him, Tupac faced up the rubble slope and put a lifetime’s strength into the chains that bound his wrists to his sides. At first, his only reward was an explosion of agony as his damaged ribcage cracked and shifted. Then with a loud pop and rattle, the chains parted and his arms were free.
Tupac exhaled, spat bloody foam, and forced himself to pull another painful breath into his lungs. Grinding his teeth, he climbed. With the sounds of hand-to-hand combat continuing behind him, Tupac reached the top of the slope. A fresh rush of panic threatened to rob him of his remaining strength. The bomb wasn’t here.
Then he saw it, the corner jutting out from behind a stone that had shifted in front of it as Tupac had scrambled up. The shaman removed the rock that blocked his access and stared at the bomb. It sat atop a flat ledge exactly where he’d left it two years ago. The boxy device was crude but effective. A single switch would power it on and start the two-minute digital timer. Once started, the bomb could not be stopped. If someone moved or tampered with it, a silver blob of mercury would roll from one end of its tiny tube to the other, instantaneously triggering the detonation of the two kilograms of rust-orange Semtex that rested within the case.
Having studied engineering and explosives at West Point, Tupac had chosen this enclosed spot with care. Just as Sampson had done to the Philistines, it would collapse this cavern beneath hundreds of tons of rock.
Tupac was glad for the two minutes. With his internal injuries he could never make it out of the cave in that amount of time, but it would allow him to move to a place where he could get one last look at the Incan Sun Staff he had tried so hard to keep from the hands of those who would abuse its power.
Tupac flipped the switch and watched the red digital counter start at 2:00.
Then the countdown began.
One last look would have to be enough.
CHAPTER 102
Conrad Altmann heard the shots behind him, saw Bones turn to look, and hissed, “Finish the sequence! Don’t look away again.”
When she returned her attention to the orb, Altmann could see his daughter’s genius shining in her eyes as she picked up where she had left off, not needing a pause to recollect her thoughts.
Behind him, Dolf was fighting The Ripper, hand to hand. No matter how good The Ripper was, he had no chance in such a contest. Altmann pushed all thoughts of it from his mind, reprimanding himself more harshly than he’d done with Bones. Right now, any distraction was intolerable.
As he progressed up and down the golden orb, precisely turning rings this way and that, something amazing was happening. With each turn of a golden ring as the complex sequence progressed, the orb caught torchlight, so that the light seemed to coalesce into glittering droplets that crawled across the surface and into the cracks between rings. To his amazement, with each droplet of light that the orb absorbed, the room around Altmann darkened perceptibly.
The low hum he’d felt during the entry of the previous sequence deepened to a barely audible thrumming that emanated from the altar, traversed up the length of the staff, and entered the orb. Altmann felt a tremor in his fingers and took a deep breath. But the tremor would not be stilled.
Seeing it, Bones glanced up at him, her look carrying an implied question. Do you need a break? Altmann scowled and she continued. He wanted to ask her how close they were to the end o
f the sequence but dared not break what remained of his concentration to do so. Amid this cacophony of distractions, he would persevere. For all he knew, the next turn might complete the combination. And that would unleash the power that rumbled beneath his feet, powering an interstellar beacon, recalling the master race that had found humans unready on their last visit.
Right here and now, he and Bones stood ready. Whether the rest of humanity was or was not, Altmann couldn’t care less.
CHAPTER 103
A sudden sense of imminent danger shifted Jack out of the mind trip that had held him just in time to see a man swing out from behind the right edge of an opening into a larger cavern, a gun clutched in both hands. Jack spun away from the gun’s aim-point, felt the bullet graze his left shoulder, and whirled. When his left elbow impacted the man’s right forearm, Jack felt the bone break before he heard it, saw the gun spin away across the floor as a sharp spear point of white bone jutted out through skin, leaving the hand that had previously held the gun dangling uselessly.
Pulling his knife from its sheath, Jack plunged it into the Nazi’s left armpit, giving it a hard twist as he watched the life drain from his enemy’s blue eyes. The rage that went into that final knife twist betrayed Jack as badly as the knife’s manufacturer, snapping the blade off at the haft.
His reemergence from the mind trip had left Jack shaken and disoriented. In the past he’d relied upon his intuition and his strange ability to sense what his opponents were about to do, to give him an extra edge in combat. But tonight his senses had betrayed him completely. Even now, conflicting compulsions buffeted him, leaving Jack desperate to use the Sun Staff to free himself from the demon that threatened his sanity, though another part of him just wanted to destroy the artifact.
Behind Jack, another shot rang out, spinning him around in time to see Dolf’s blow hurl Janet’s limp body across the stone cavern floor. But once again the scene before Jack’s eyes faded, replaced by the dream version. Jack stood alone in a cavern lit by torches mounted in six wall sconces. To his right, mounted atop a golden altar, the Sun Staff gleamed brilliantly.
“No!”
With frustration stoking his rage to a white heat, Jack forced his head back into the present.
Ten feet away, Dolf lifted a heavy slab of rock above his head and took a step toward the spot where Janet’s unconscious body lay. The Ripper moved. Every muscle in his legs fired Jack forward, eliminating the distance that separated him from the big man he was about to kill. As Dolf prepared to hurl the stone down into Janet’s skull, Jack’s shoulder hit him just above waist level on the right side.
Jack wrapped his arms around the giant and continued driving his legs as he levered Dolf’s body upward. Behind him the rock smashed harmlessly to the ground as he slammed Dolf’s body into the wall with bone-jarring force. Unfortunately, nothing broke. Worse, the impact stood Jack up, enabling Dolf to wrap his massive arms around Jack’s shoulders, crushing him face first into Dolf’s chest.
Bringing his right knee up hard into Dolf’s groin failed to loosen the hold. The realization that Dolf had worn a cup eliminated that area as a future target. With a wide grin, Dolf slid his embrace down to pin Jack’s arms at his sides. The albino hitched Jack up, lifting his feet off the ground, a move that enabled Dolf’s encircling arms to slide lower. With his fists cupped in the center of Jack’s back, Dolf squeezed harder, the tremendous pressure threatening to break Jack’s back and arms at the same time.
Jack struggled to draw breath, his muscles so taught that it seemed they might rip through his skin as he sought to resist the irresistible pressure Dolf applied. The realization that this man was going to kill him and then walk over, pick up the rock, and bash Janet’s beautiful head into red and gray mush pulled forth a hate that Jack had only felt for one other man. The adrenaline rush that accompanied that feeling misted his vision red.
The head-butt Jack attempted failed to reach high enough to impact Dolf’s nose, but it broke Dolf’s front teeth off at the gum line, sending them out through his lower lip. Still Dolf’s grip strengthened.
Jack threw his head forward once again, and Dolf lifted his chin to avoid a repeat. This time Jack tilted his head to the side, opened his mouth wide, and sank his teeth into the right side of Dolf’s throat. Ripping and gnashing, Jack tasted the blood that gush into his mouth as its coppery odor filled his nostrils.
With a scream, Dolf released his hold and reached up to thrust him away. But Jack wrapped his arms and legs around Dolf’s torso and held on, as his jaw muscles powered the teeth that ripped and chewed through flesh and cartilage.
A mighty thrust of Dolf’s arms tore Jack free, sending him tumbling to the floor. In flight, Jack whipped his legs, rolling into the crouch that would launch him back at his injured opponent.
Five feet away, Dolf stood still, eyes wide and staring as his big hands sought to staunch the flow of blood from the wound in the side of his neck. Jack knew he hadn’t been able to bite deep enough through all that neck muscle to fatally injure Dolf, but the look in the big man’s eyes said that he was scared shitless.
Jack launched himself at Dolf, feigning a left-hand blow at Dolf’s bloody throat and then dropping into a side kick that transferred all of Jack’s adrenaline-amplified strength into Dolf’s right kneecap. Through the sole of his boot, Jack felt the bone and tendons give way.
The pain would have left a lesser man rolling on the floor in agony, but Dolf merely dropped to his knees, holding his neck. With one last burst of will, the giant albino raised his eyes to lock with Jack’s, angry defiance shining in the pale orbs.
Jack kicked him in the teeth. The blow toppled Dolf’s body backward, his head striking the rock he’d tried to use on Janet, producing a sick crunch that sounded like a dropped melon. Standing over the dead Nazi, Jack spit the mouthful of Dolf’s blood and flesh onto the corpse and then turned away.
At that moment, Jack’s eyes were drawn up to the spot where Tupac Inti slid down a shale-covered rubble pile. Clearly visible on a small ledge above Tupac’s head, on the front of a shoebox-sized case, a red LED timer counted down. Jack had seen enough bombs to know exactly what that countdown meant.
With the current count showing 1:23, Jack moved to kneel at Janet’s side. Pressing a finger to the side of her neck, he breathed a sigh of relief. Her pulse was strong, and her breathing was steady. Suddenly Jack’s eyes were drawn to the Sun Staff mounted atop the altar on the far side of the cavern. Conrad Altmann and the petite woman stood in front of it, both focused on Altmann’s manipulation of the shimmering orb.
Jack found he had taken two steps toward the altar before he could stop himself. He had just enough time to grab the staff and escape the cavern, but not enough to come back for Janet. He looked back at her sprawled body, his thoughts flashing to that first night in Prague, to those two amazing weeks in Crete. Then his eyes flicked up to the red LED numerals on the bomb case. He now had fifty-eight seconds.
Moving quickly, Jack turned and knelt beside Janet. Grabbing her flashlight, he cradled Janet’s limp form carefully in his arms and rose to his feet. Striding rapidly back toward the cave entrance, Jack saw Tupac Inti lying on his side, blood bubbling from his open lips. In that noble face, his dark brown eyes stared across the room at the Incan Sun Staff and the two Nazis desperately working it.
Ignoring his frustration and the rage-filled scream that echoed deep in his head, Jack hugged Janet’s body to his chest, switched on the flashlight, and ran.
CHAPTER 104
Tupac Inti lay on the floor just beyond the place where a jutting section of the cavern wall blocked the bomb from Conrad Altmann’s view. He coughed again, felt the rib that had punctured his lung shift within his chest, and spit blood onto the stone. Pushing aside the pain that threatened to drive him into unconsciousness, he saw Jack Gregory pick up Janet and head for the exit. As the killer strode past his prone form, Tupac caught his gaze, saw the sadness and frustration within that look, and t
hen watched Jack break into a run out of the cavern.
Tupac understood that look. From the time he’d first met the strange man, he’d seen the raging passions within Jack and his inner struggle to control them. Here, in this cave, Jack had failed to accomplish the mission he’d been hired to do, namely saving Tupac’s life. Failure wasn’t something the man who people called The Ripper could tolerate.
Tupac had endured many failures in his own life, but tonight wasn’t going to be one of them. A quick glance up at the ticking timer brought a bubbling laugh from his throat, but Tupac managed to suppress a fresh bout of wet coughing. Shifting his gaze to the spot where Klaus Barbie’s bastard son and granddaughter worked so feverishly with the orb atop the Sun Staff, Tupac raised his voice so that it echoed through the altar cave.
“Altmann!”
The woman’s eyes briefly shifted to Tupac.
“Stay focused!” Conrad Altmann rasped.
Again Tupac laughed. He no longer felt any pain. It had grown so intense that his nerves and brain could no longer process the impulses.
“Did you really think I would bring you to the altar without consequence?”
Again he saw the woman flinch. Both her cadence of instruction and Altmann’s manipulation of the orb increased in speed as the thought that something was seriously wrong occurred to both of them.
Tupac continued speaking, though he briefly shifted his glance to the timer and its red LED numerals that counted down toward zero.
“How does it feel to be this close to your dream, to your destiny, only to have it snatched away from you in the last thirteen seconds?”
Tupac saw the realization of the meaning behind his last words dawn in Conrad Altmann’s face.
“Faster!” Altmann commanded.
Tupac tried to speak, but blood filled his throat and mouth. He spat a foaming mouthful onto the cavern floor. As he watched the older Nazi’s hands twist the rings, the speed and precision of his movements were simultaneously impressive and impotent.
Dead Wrong Page 26