She heard a shuffling coming down the hallway and knew immediately the downed man hadn’t been alone. Sarah was blind and on her back. She quickly felt around for the man’s fallen weapon and finally hit upon it as ten silenced rounds thumped into the wall and carpeting around her, with one actually striking the cast on her arm, breaking it apart in large chunks.
“Bastard!” she mumbled as she quickly raised the strange weapon. She prayed it wasn’t on safe because in the dark she would never find the selector switch on a weapon she knew nothing about. She squeezed the trigger. The weapon erupted with fire and a loud clacking noise as the silencer did its job. Bullets struck the wall, floor, and ceiling, and then in the flare of the muzzle, she saw bullets stitch a crooked pattern on a man no more than six feet from her, with a bullet finally striking him in an unprotected spot just above his body armor.
Sarah was shaking badly as she tore the night-vision scope from the face of the man under her. That was when she noticed his companion’s bullets had struck him several times in the side. She quickly held the scope to her eyes and looked around frantically. She tried desperately to control her breathing, thinking that anyone in a hundred-foot radius could hear her terror.
“What kind of screwed-up homecoming is this?” she whispered to herself, hoping her sour humor would allow her to inject more bravery into a terrifying situation.
Sarah picked herself up and then quickly felt her arm. She realized she hadn’t hurt it any more than it had been; it was sore, but at least she could move it. She hefted the heavy weapon and made for the stairwell beside her, knowing she had to get to either level seven or at the very least the computer center where she knew Pete Golding and his techs were always working.
For the first time in over a month, Sarah wasn’t thinking about the loss of Jack Collins.
Senator Garrison Lee was in his element. He sat with his longtime live-in companion in the cafeteria and went through each file that he himself had okayed in the years leading up to deprioritizing the items in the vaults on levels seventy-three and seventy-four.
“That’s it, Garrison, we’ve covered all six hundred and seventy-two vaults. What do you think?”
“I think I want some of that coffee, old girl, if you would be so kind.”
Alice shook her head and stood, tired herself. She decided she would have tea just to offset the mood that the caffeine would put the senator in.
Garrison looked at one file he had placed on the left side of the table, separating it from the others.
“Why that one?” Alice asked. She placed the cup of coffee on the table and sipped her own tea just as the lights in the cafeteria failed. The bright emergency lights came on, and Lee continued.
“Because, woman,” Lee said, also looking around him at the emergency lighting, “it’s the only vault that would make any sense. I’m surprised you didn’t pull this file immediately after learning the facts of the attacks at sea. I think you’re slowing down some.”
Alice raised her eyebrow but said nothing as she sat down.
“Okay, Mr. Lee, how about explaining?” Alice asked while she looked around in the now-shadowy cafeteria. Then the lights came back on at full strength.
“Point number one: This report from the USS Columbia states that the vessel that launched the attacks on Venezuela was like nothing ever encountered before. I quote, ‘a submarine of extraordinary capabilities,’ end quote. We’ve had a partial answer to why the complex was attacked from the very beginning. Someone was afraid of what we had stored in vault number 298907. A vault that was classified as cold and relegated to the storage level, all testing and analysis completed.” He slid the single folder over to Alice, who looked at the name and number on its outer jacket.
“Leviathan,” she said to herself.
“That’s right, Leviathan. Recovered in nineteen sixty-seven by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution off the coast of Newfoundland, with parts of her discovered as far south as Maine.”
Alice slid the file back to Garrison.
“The advanced submarine was estimated at more than one hundred years old, conservatively speaking, and”—Alice quoted from memory—”‘with a kerosene-and-diesel-mix electric power system that rivaled the diesel submarines of today.’ At the time you believed this vessel was what Jules Verne based his fictional Nautilus upon. Is my memory serving correctly?” she asked.
“Like a computer, young lady,” Garrison said as he slid a liver-spotted hand over hers. “Not bad at all for a woman approaching the century mark.”
“That’s you, my dear, not I.” She smiled and patted his hand. “Now, if I do remember correctly, carbon dating and other tests placed her destruction in a ten-year time frame between eighteen sixty and eighteen seventy-one. What does that have to do with today?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence, never have. Advanced submarine in the past, advanced submarine in the present, explosion that takes out what material we do have on level seventy-three, one-plus-one-plus-one equals someone wanted us not to reference that boat in our vault. Now we know why, and we know what attacked us—all we need is the who? Is it something in that vault that will give away this vessel’s technology, or on the other hand, maybe her metallurgy? Her home port or waters, or was something left aboard the relic that will assist in identifying the man behind such an advanced craft?”
“We better report to Niles and—”
That was as far as Alice got before several men broke through the double doors of the cafeteria and started rounding up the few people inside. In the next moment, a submachine gun was pointing right in Garrison Lee’s face.
Alice placed her hand on Garrison’s, letting him know that he was not to try anything foolish.
“Young man, please aim that weapon in another direction, unless of course you plan to murder us. If not, you little bastard, point it somewhere else.”
The masked gunman smiled inside his black nylon hood at the woman who continued to confront him with her eyes, even after he moved the weapon and aimed it at the floor. He then pulled a list out of his armored vest and looked at the typed names and their pictures. He looked from Alice to Garrison.
“Mrs. Hamilton, your reputation precedes you, ma’am. Would you and the senator please follow me to the main conference room?”
As the man spoke, the power grid flickered as it had before, and then the overhead lights went completely out.
“Don’t worry, ma’am, we have just sealed this level from the others, and that means we have successfully taken control of the most secure facility in the American government.”
Alice looked at Garrison Lee in the emergency lighting shining from the corners of the cafeteria. His one eye was glaring at the man standing over them. Once more, she took his hand and started to stand.
“Very well, young man, it seems you have the advantage,” Alice said as she assisted Lee to his feet.
“At least for the moment, you little prick,” Garrison Lee said directly into the man’s masked face, and as he did, he used his hand to slide the file they had been examining onto his vacated chair.
The man’s laugh sounded muffled, but it traveled through the entire cafeteria as he reached down and gathered up the folders on the table to take with him.
“I’d hate to run into you two in a dark alley,” he said as he gestured for them to head for the cafeteria doors.
Sarah cautiously opened the stairwell door one level up. She looked down the dark and curving hallway using the night scope, being careful not to look at the dim emergency lighting at the far end.
She held the door ajar by the barrel of the weapon, allowing her to see the comp center directly across from her. There were figures moving inside, but she couldn’t make out who they were. Then she smiled as she saw the form of Pete Golding throw a chair against the bulletproof glass as hard as he could, but all it did was bounce back and almost strike him. In the green haze of the scope, she saw Pete as he screamed in frustration. The sound didn
’t penetrate the glass, but the gesture was almost comical. Pete just wasn’t the herculean type.
With the weapon opening the door farther, Sarah stepped into the hallway, allowing the door to close gently behind her. She slowly made her way to the center and tapped on the glass doors with the gun barrel until Pete looked up. He twisted his head because he couldn’t see who was out there in the dark. Sarah waved him over, and the relief in Pete’s face was apparent. She mouthed something he couldn’t understand. Then, with her sore arm she reached into her jumpsuit pocket, brought out a Sharpie felt pen, and hastily scrawled, Attacked.
Pete nodded, and then he suddenly started pointing frantically behind Sarah as if the Devil himself were there.
Sarah turned and there were two men standing directly behind her. One grabbed the barrel of the weapon and pulled it from her grasp while the other grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the glass. Pete and his comp team were frantic. They was gesturing wildly and banging on the glass, screaming threats that went unheard. The man who had grabbed the gun saw Sarah’s cutoff sleeve, the sling, and the remains of the cast on her forearm. He reached out and hit her in the upper arm above the elbow, and Sarah immediately collapsed in agony.
Pete Golding and the other techs saw this and started throwing their bodies against the glass doorway. They were desperate to keep any harm from befalling the little geologist.
The masked man moved his weapon aside on its strap, then reached down and grabbed Sarah by the collar and pulled her to her feet.
“This is our little hero from level eight.”
The other man stepped back. “No casualties—remember the orders.”
“Unless in self-defense,” the smaller of the two said as he brought his weapon back around.
Sarah grimaced in pain, and then suddenly struck out with her right foot, trying desperately to kick at the two men, but her tennis shoes were striking nothing but empty air.
“These people just don’t know when to quit,” the larger assailant said, laughing at the violent way Sarah struggled.
Suddenly, the hooded face jerked violently forward and Sarah felt the splash of warm blood hit her in the face. There was a crack of a bullet, but only because it had penetrated the man’s skull and passed through, hitting the glass of the comp center. The other man tried to turn, but two bullets struck him in the side of the head and neck. As he fell, he pulled the stunned Sarah down with him.
Pete and the comp center technicians stopped banging on the glass as the blood from the first man obscured it. Pete straightened in shock as he prayed Sarah wasn’t hit. He looked from her form to the darkened hallway beyond. He couldn’t see anything.
Sarah kicked at the man who had fallen on her legs and at the same time struggled to get ahold of one of the fallen weapons. As her hand found one, there was a calm voice echoing from the bend in the long dark corridor.
“Little Sarah, always a fighter.”
The voice was familiar. Sarah searched the darkness, raising the automatic weapon toward the darkness.
“Not advisable, at least for the moment,” the voice said, as if reprimanding a child. “Tell me, dear Sarah, is Jack with you?”
Her recognition of the voice came flooding into her memory. Pictures of the man it belonged to hit her like ice water. Colonel Henri Farbeaux.
“Come now, you owe me your life. Surely worth the price of an answer.”
“This isn’t your style, Henri, extravagant though it is.” Sarah still twisted the weapon until its muzzle pointed into the dark.
“I’m what you would call a stowaway. As well as these people planned, it was far too messy. But then again, I don’t know the motivation behind it. Nor, dear Sarah, do I care. I’m here for the man that cost me the life of my wife.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Colonel?”
“She never returned from our little Amazonian excursion. Our Major Jack was the cause of that.”
Sarah made a face as she tried to sit up. “And you’re blaming the colonel?”
“Colonel? Colonel Collins? Ah, the rewards for having my wife meet her fate in a godforsaken lagoon. This is getting rich, little Sarah.”
“Henri … Jack is—” Sarah lost her voice for a moment. “Jack’s dead.”
There was silence from the hallway.
“He didn’t kill Danielle; we didn’t even know she was lost. Jack Collins never would have wanted that. He wanted everyone to make it out—even you, Henri.” Sarah twisted and tried to rise to her feet.
She tried to peer into the darkness, but she saw no movement. She thought about reaching down for the goggles, but decided she wouldn’t make the effort. Finally, she heard movement.
“A shame. I will not ask about the possibility of a lie, I can see the truth of it in your face. It hurts, does it not?”
Sarah saw the darker outline of the man as he stepped from the wall.
His weapon was still held at belt level and it was aimed right at her. She looked at the heavy weapon in her hands, then slowly tossed it away.
“A part of me died that day.” Sarah looked into the face of the Frenchman and didn’t flinch.
“Yes, loss will do that to one,” he said. He looked into her eyes as his silenced pistol finally wavered and then lowered. “You have been injured, I see.”
Sarah remained quiet as she looked at their old enemy. He had lost a large amount of weight, and his eyes were dark below and above the lids. There was a sense about him that he no longer held himself on a pedestal above others. Sarah could see that he was broken, mentally and physically. In addition, she was seeing something drain from the man like a tipping water glass. His hatred and willingness to strike out at something familiar, in this case Jack, were gone, as if hearing of his death completed the trade for Danielle.
“Stand aside, Sarah McIntire, and I will assist you in freeing your friends before one of them seriously injures themselves. Then I will leave you.”
Sarah finally turned and saw Pete Golding, forehead bleeding and holding his shoulder, furiously gesturing for his technicians to ram the door again. Sarah shook her head. Pete was magnificent with a computer keyboard, but in rescue attempts, he left a lot to be desired.
Farbeaux walked up to Sarah and looked at her for the longest time. His eyes bore into her own as if he were looking at someone he remembered from his past with fondness. Then he reached down, picked up the fallen goggles, raised them to his eyes, and at the same moment raised the pistol and aimed at the locks in the glass door.
Sarah was just relaxing when Farbeaux suddenly jerked and then tried to turn around. The silenced automatic fell from his hand as he gasped for breath. His other hand pulled the large dart from the back of his shoulder. He looked at Sarah as if she had been responsible; then his legs gave out. Sarah reached out for him as he collapsed.
As she looked up, twenty men approached. Several flashlights illuminated the stricken Farbeaux. Men spread out and covered the glass fronting of the computer center where Pete stared in shock at the four people standing at the center of the group—Director Compton, Virginia Pollock, Alice Hamilton, and Senator Garrison Lee. They were not bound, but each had an armed escort. A man stepped forward, separating himself from the group. He wore no hood, and he had loosened his upper body armor, undoubtedly for comfort.
Sarah watched the man examine the scene before him. His eyes went from his two dead commandos to the unconscious Henri Farbeaux.
“Lieutenant, are you all right?” Niles asked.
The man quickly held a hand up as his head turned and looked at Sarah. “Silence please, Doctor.”
“If you harm any more of my people, you may as well shoot us all right now,” Niles said, shaking a guard’s hand off his arm and stepping forward.
The man continued to look at Sarah with cold and very dark eyes.
“This one comes with us,” he said as he gestured one of his men forward.
“Sarah, are you hurt?” Alice aske
d as she held on to the senator.
“Just my pride,” she answered, as she was roughly turned and her hands wire-tied behind her back. Her eyes met Pete Golding’s, who stared through the glass in frustration.
“Is that … is that Colonel Farbeaux?” Compton asked.
Sarah was turned roughly about so she could face the group. Her anger was apparent as her eyes went from the man in front of her to the man who had tied her. With her arm and shoulder screaming in agony, she shook the man’s hands from her.
“Yes.”
“Is he … a part of this?”
Sarah thought about saying something about the colonel’s intentions, but she knew there was no point. She looked at Niles and shook her head.
“You know Henri was always an opportunist. What better way to get into the complex and steal than during a murder raid?” She said the last words looking right into the tall man’s eyes.
“We must go. We have several flights of stairs to traverse to get to the hangar,” the man said as he pulled Sarah roughly forward toward the others.
The tall man looked down at the Frenchman and then to the two bodies on the floor beside him. Then he pulled a nine-millimeter handgun from a shoulder holster, approached the prone Farbeaux, and placed the gun to his head.
“The same rules apply to him. You kill him, kill us,” Niles said, desperately trying to keep Farbeaux from dying. He despised the man, but he didn’t want him murdered in cold blood, either.
The leader of the assault closed his eyes in thought. After a moment, he straightened and holstered his weapon. He ordered two men to take the still form of Colonel Farbeaux, then turned to face Compton.
“You’re quickly running out of favors, Mr. Director. I will bring this man with us, only to ask for his execution for killing my men.”
“I thought violence and murder were not part of your orders,” Niles persisted in his antagonizing tone.
Leviathan: An Event Group Thriller Page 14