Library of Gold

by Alex Archer

  To her surprise, it worked.

  “I am just following orders,” he said in accented English.

  Before Annja could say anything further, she heard Vlad and Gianni calling her name.

  “Annja! Annja!”

  “Over here!”

  Seconds later the other two joined her in the cavern.

  “Who the hell is that?” Gianni asked. She ignored him, focusing instead on the Russian.

  “What orders? Who told you to follow us? And what were you supposed to do when you caught up?”

  “I was supposed—”

  That was as far as he got.

  There was a crack of sound and almost simultaneously a bullet drilled itself through the face of the man she was holding captive, coming so close to Annja’s own that she could feel the heat of its passage. Blood splattered all over her as the FSS officer’s head disintegrated beneath the force of the impact.

  For a moment, time stood still. Annja’s thoughts whirled like a cyclone in her head.

  What was he going to say that was worth killing him over? How many more were out there, in the dark, stalking them?

  Then instinct took over and she was diving to the side, shouting, “Down!” and hoping like hell her companions were listening.

  She hit the ground and rolled as bullets ricocheted off the rock wall where she’d been standing seconds before. She pulled herself around to the other side of a nearby stalagmite, hopefully out of the line of fire.

  Shouts in Russian came from somewhere in the darkness, and then there was the sound of a shot from very close by.

  Annja turned her head to see Vlad tucked as best he could behind another outcropping of stone, a big gun in hand. He sent another shot into the darkness, the report echoing loudly.

  Just like that, the cavern was full of bullets flying everywhere. The enemy was on the far side of the cavern, firing from the cover of darkness, visible only when the muzzle flash lit the space around their guns. Annja had the dead FSS agent’s pistol and was firing back, but more discriminately, waiting for those flashes of light, wishing all the while she hadn’t accidentally smashed the FSS agent’s night-vision goggles when she’d first struck him with her sword. Vlad produced another gun from somewhere on his person and was now alternating shots from one side of the pillar he hid behind to the other. Only Gianni was hanging back behind the protective cover of another stalagmite. And Annja couldn’t blame him. He didn’t have anything to shoot with and throwing rocks just really wasn’t an option.

  Their headlamps were making them perfect targets, but she didn’t dare turn hers off. It would leave her effectively blind with no way to see if their enemies began to move up on them out of the darkness. Besides, if the rest of the invaders were wearing night-vision goggles like the first man had been, the light from the headlamps would actually be working against them, making it more difficult for their high-tech equipment to work.

  The noise inside the room was deafening, the closeness of the chamber magnifying the boom of every shot tenfold, until Annja could barely hear anything but the gunfire.

  It couldn’t last long. She hadn’t found any spare magazines when she’d quickly searched the now-dead Russian at her feet. Vlad might have an extra reload or two, but given the amount of bullets flying through the air, it wasn’t going to be long before those, too, went dry.

  She had to get them out of this before that happened.

  Fate was conspiring against her, however.

  Annja felt it first, a low rumbling vibration that seemed to come up from the soles of her feet. Small streams of dust and dirt began falling from somewhere above them and the stalagmite she was hiding behind began to move violently from side to side.

  “Earthquake!” she heard Gianni shout.

  It wasn’t an earthquake, just a cave-in, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous. Annja threw her hands up over her head to protect herself from falling debris. At a loud rumbling from behind her, she spun about, staring in amazement at what she saw.

  A gaping hole was opening in the wall directly behind Gianni. Rocks and other debris tumbled outward, cascading down on her companion. One of those rocks struck him on the side of the head and he toppled over, clearly dazed.

  The rapidly enlarging opening revealed another tunnel on the far side. With the intended route now blocked and their enemy preventing them from going back the way they had come, they didn’t have much choice.

  Down the rabbit hole it is, then.

  Annja watched as Vlad stooped, grabbed the unconscious Gianni under both arms and dragged him through.

  Afraid she’d be gunned down the moment she broke cover, Annja glanced back the other way, looking for some sign that the gunmen had beaten a hasty retreat of their own, but she couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

  Now or never, Annja.

  “Come on!” Vlad shouted.

  Eight steps. That’s all it was between her and the tunnel where Vlad stood.

  Eight steps.

  She made four.

  There was a thunderous crack from above as the roof of the cavern split open and then Annja was buried in what felt like a ton of earth and rock. Darkness enveloped her.

  Chapter 20

  She regained consciousness with a heavy weight pressing against her. The ceiling collapse had dumped hundreds of pounds of earth, rock and ancient brick on her. Only her helmet had kept her alive, preventing her skull from being cracked open like an egg. She tried to move and discovered that she couldn’t.

  She couldn’t move at all.

  You’re trapped.

  You’re going to die here.

  Suffocate to death all alone.

  “No, I will not,” she said in fierce defiance.

  She’d been trapped with her right arm thrust up over her head and her face tucked into the crook of her arm, creating a mini air pocket. That had kept her from suffocating.

  Her head wasn’t pounding the way she would have expected it to if she were upside down and all the blood was rushing to it, so she concluded she must still be facing upward, toward the surface.

  If there even is a surface.

  She was not going to give in to panic.

  Her main problem was oxygen. Or lack thereof. That air pocket would be used up very quickly. The carbon dioxide she was emitting must already have significantly reduced the amount of oxygen in that tiny space. Her brain was starting to feel sluggish, her thought processes slowing down. If she didn’t get more oxygen soon, she really would die here.

  She couldn’t move more than a few scant millimeters, certainly not enough to dig herself out. But then again, maybe she didn’t have to.

  Without moving a muscle, Annja reached into the otherwhere and drew her sword.

  It sprang into existence, spearing upward from her outstretched hand and piercing the earth above her head. The tiniest whisper of air drifted down the length of her arm to reach her face.

  It was musty and full of dirt particles, but it was air nonetheless.

  There wouldn’t have been enough light for her to see even if she hadn’t been buried. But she could hear someone shouting and a strange rhythmic scratching sound. Like a giant cat scratching at the door to be let in.

  Or someone digging into the earth nearby in an effort to rescue her.

  “Here!” she shouted. “I’m here!”

  She worked her wrist muscles, wobbling the blade in the channel it had created, sending earth cascading down toward her but widening the hole above her head, letting in more air. More sound.

  Now she could make out the words.

  “Hang on, Annja! We’re coming!”

  She could feel them now, somewhere down around her midsection. Their proximity made her realize she didn’t need the sword anymore and being discovered with it would create its own host of problems. She let go of it and felt it vanish back into the nothingness of the otherwhere, ready for the next time she needed it.

  That rhythmic scratching was much close
r now, the sound filling her ears, and then she was being helped out of the mound of debris that had done its best to kill her.

  She felt hands on her body, helping her sit up. There were lights in her face and cool water slipping past her lips. She spat to clear the dirt out of her mouth and then gulped it down, thankful to be alive.

  “Easy,” said Vladimir, and she looked up into his anxious face.

  “What happened?” she asked, pushing the bottle of water away.

  “All that gunfire brought the tunnel down on our heads.”

  “Gianni?”

  “I’m good.”

  His voice had come from her left and with more effort than she expected—how long was I trapped in there, anyway?—she turned to get a look at him.

  He’d seen better days, that was for sure. His face and hands were covered with dirt, though whether that was from being buried himself or the effort he’d expended to dig her free, she didn’t know. But he smiled wearily and held up his hands in a “What are you gonna do?” gesture, so she knew he was all right.

  “Did he say anything to you?” Gianni asked, and for a moment Annja didn’t know what he was talking about.

  He must have seen the confused look on her face. “The gunman,” he explained. “Did the gunman say anything to you?”

  Annja coughed, then spat some more dirt out of her mouth. She didn’t want to scare either of them but they deserved the truth.

  “They were federal agents. FSS. They were here under orders, but that’s all I know.”

  Vlad swore loudly and rather vociferously in Russian. Or, at least, that’s what Annja thought he was doing. She only recognized a word here or there, but that was enough to know he was not being very complimentary toward the Federal Security Service or those in its employ.

  Gianni stared at her, an inscrutable expression on his face. “Is that all he said?”

  “Yes. The truth was, he’d tried to say something more, but that’s when a bullet took him.” Another inch to the left and she would have been the one with the shattered face. She shivered to think about it.

  Annja climbed to her feet and took a few tentative steps. When she didn’t immediately collapse, she declared herself as good as new. She and the others then took stock of their situation.

  The route they had previously been traveling was completely blocked by the cave-in. Which was a problem, because according to the map, the tunnel the FSS agents had rerouted them away from was the only one in this area that would lead them in the right direction. They were effectively cut off.

  Even worse, they were now in unfamiliar territory in this newly revealed tunnel. To get out, they were going to have to explore virgin territory and hope for the best.

  Great, Annja thought. Just great.

  At least they still had the map. Not the original; that was safely back at Vlad’s flat. The one she was carrying was a hand-drawn copy. She dug it out of the pocket of her pants and passed it over to Vlad, who took it with a nod.

  Now came the hard part.

  They set off down the tunnel before them with Vlad in the lead. Gianni’s headlamp had been damaged in the collapse, so he was in the middle, leaving her to bring up the rear.

  The tunnels here were smaller and, from the looks of them, considerably older. The brick-lined passageways were gone, leaving earthen walls shorn up with thick beams and the occasional section of tunnel that had been bored through solid rock. Unlike many they had passed through earlier, there was very little evidence of recent human occupation. No tracks through the dust, no discarded trash, no piles of human waste.

  Vlad followed some internal compass known only to him. Whenever there was a fork in the passageway, he would stand before the two choices for a moment, considering, and then make a decision based on some hidden criteria Annja couldn’t figure out. Each decision was made without hesitation, however, and it was for that reason Annja kept plodding along in his wake. She’d trusted him before and saw no reason not to continue doing so at this point. If anyone was going to get them out, it would be Vlad.

  As if in answer to her confidence, about two hours after they had set off from the cave-in, a horrendous stench filtered down to them from the tunnel ahead. It was so horrible Annja found herself gagging, trying to bring the air back up out of her lungs.

  Vlad, on the other hand, smiled.

  “Yes! Most excellent!”

  Most excellent? Annja thought. Are you insane?

  She understood what he meant, however, when they’d progressed through a few curves and were abruptly stopped by a river of black goo that tried to grip their boots. The source of the horrible stench. The black substance was emanating from a vertical shaft that opened into the center of the passageway. Vlad marched over to it, his boots making a loud sucking sound every time he lifted a foot.

  “Come,” he said to them cheerfully. “Look.” He pointed up the shaft.

  Reluctantly Annja made her way over to his side. Looking up she was surprised to see light and the plastic edge of a toilet seat high above.

  “Hotel Homeless,” Vlad explained. “Height of European poshness.”

  Annja couldn’t tell if that last was said in sarcasm or not. She also found herself wondering what the guests of the hotel would think about the way their waste was being disposed.

  “Not much farther.”

  Vlad was right. Ten minutes later they climbed another set of ladders similar to those they’d descended to enter the underground. The grate at the top lifted easily in Vlad’s big hands and they crawled out into street in front of the Hotel Homeless itself. An encampment at the edge of the city that was home to those who were down and out.

  Moments later Vlad was on his cell phone, making contact with the comrade who had picked up the van.

  They had survived their first journey into the Moscow underground.

  Chapter 21

  The rendezvous point was an abandoned military warehousing facility that had been mothballed shortly after the end of the Cold War. It was about a twenty-minute drive from the Kremlin. Goshenko’s driver was waiting for him beside a black Mercedes with government plates when Goshenko emerged from the building with Sergeant Danislov in tow. The two men climbed into the back and a moment later the driver pulled into traffic with all the grace of a barracuda slicing into a school of fish. Goshenko sat in icy silence, furious that such a simple plan had gone so awry. The coded message had been sent to Danislov fifteen minutes before.

  Target acquisition lost due to tunnel collapse. Crew injured. Awaiting new instructions at rendezvous point Charlie.

  It was a complete disaster and one that didn’t bode well for Goshenko’s search for the library. Without Creed and the map she had taken from the hand of the Virgin in Saint Basil’s, his chance of finding the vault where Ivan’s books were hidden was considerably lessened.

  “Explain this to me,” the colonel snapped.

  Danislov made no excuses as he laid out what had happened in crisp, clear sentences. “I divided my men into five-man teams and assigned them locations throughout the city where the fugitives might try to reach. One of those positions was an old ventilation shaft near Moscow University, used by many of the region’s homeless to access the underground.”

  With the smallest of hesitations, he continued. “My intent had been to join whichever team encountered our fugitives first and to take command myself. But my man on the ground took that option out of my hands when he chose to follow Miss Creed and her companions when they entered the tunnels.”

  “Why didn’t he wait?”

  “My guess is that he was concerned he would lose them in the tunnels. By the time I arrived at the location he’d reported in from, both Creed and my team were long gone. I descended into the tunnels, but with no idea which direction they had gone or the equipment I would need to navigate underground, I had no choice but to retreat.”

  “You guess?”

  “Yes, sir. I haven’t had the chance to speak to the man personal
ly yet, so all of this is conjecture on my part.”

  “And you don’t know what happened after that?”

  Danislov shook his head. “No, sir. The unit’s radio equipment failed almost immediately after they entered the underground. I received their coded message only moments before I relayed it to you, after they had emerged from the underground.”

  Goshenko cursed beneath his breath.

  The gates were open when they arrived and the driver went through, pulling to a stop a few hundred yards farther down the road in front of a long warehouse. Colonel Goshenko got out of the vehicle almost before it had come to a complete stop and Sergeant Danislov scrambled to follow.

  Five men had followed Miss Creed and her companions into the underground. Now only three remained—the squad leader, Chernov, and two others—and they looked like hell. All three had minor injuries and at least one of them had a pressure bandage wrapped around his head, indicative of a more serious problem. They were covered in grime and other less identifiable substances which, from the smell of them, were probably best left unmentioned. The corpse of a fourth man lay stretched out on the floor, not far from where the unit commander was standing.

  Goshenko barely spared the others a glance as he marched over to the group’s leader, a man named Nikolai Chernov.

  “What happened?” Goshenko demanded.

  Chernov explained that they’d been casing the entrance to the underground as ordered when the woman and her two companions had suddenly emerged from a van close to the grate. The trio had spent several minutes gearing up before removing the steel grate, and disappearing into the tunnels right before their eyes.

  “I didn’t want to lose them the way the first team had at the hotel, so I made the decision to enter the tunnels and pursue them as closely as I dared.”

  Of course they’d followed Creed and her companions. What else could they have done given their orders to find and detain them? Goshenko nodded, impatient to get to the important part of the story.

  They had lost radio contact with Sergeant Danislov shortly after entering the tunnels and so he’d been unable to keep them abreast of what was happening. That didn’t make him any less culpable for what happened next as far as the colonel was concerned. He’d had a mission to accomplish and he’d failed to carry it out. Goshenko was really just hearing him out to be certain there wasn’t anything he had missed. He’d already made his mind up about the commander on the ride over.