Threshold

by Jeremy Robinson

  Washington, D.C.

  “YOU WANT TO what!” Boucher said, as he stomped back and forth in the Oval Office.

  Duncan had spent every waking minute working through his options. The world needed defending. The Chess Team lacked a handler. His skill set—brilliant strategist, resistant to pressure, extreme determination—fit his role as president. But it was all for nothing when political chest thumping and loud-mouth pundits could tie his hands. He had come to a decision and just dropped the bomb on Boucher, who would be one of few people to ever know the truth.

  “I can’t do it, Tom,” Boucher said.

  Duncan could see Boucher working through the proposal despite his vocal opposition. He waited, leaning back on the couch. Boucher’s pacing slowed, which meant he was coming to his final decision; everything said before then was just blown-off steam.

  Boucher stopped pacing.

  He sat down on the couch across from Duncan.

  His mustache twitched a few times. “Damnit, Tom.”

  The irritated CIA chief looked at the folder in Duncan’s hands. “You have this all worked out, don’t you?”

  Duncan handed him the folder. “Every detail.”

  “Of course,” Boucher said, laying the folder open on the coffee table between the two men. He sifted through the pages. Each page represented a separate step in the president’s plan. E-mails to be faked. Documents to be forged. Databases to be altered. CIA stuff. All of it damning evidence that Duncan had knowingly ignored credible threats against the Siletz Reservation and Fort Bragg, that he had grossly underestimated the reach of their enemies, and that he had purposely provoked their wrath with the hopes of expanding the war on terror via the invasion of the countries responsible. Essentially, everything Marrs claimed to be true but wasn’t. The documents would reveal that Duncan did all of it despite strong opposition from Boucher, who had saved e-mails, recorded phone calls, and kept tabs on the president’s poor choices. The world would blame Duncan for more than three thousand five hundred American lives lost.

  Boucher was integral to this plan. Duncan couldn’t do it without him.

  The last few pages interested Boucher the most. He picked them up, reading each page in detail. Duncan saw him nod a few times. He was beginning to see the big picture.

  Boucher finished reading and put the pages back into the folder. He sat back, crossing his legs. “This might work.”

  “It will work.”

  “It’s a huge sacrifice.”

  Duncan nodded.

  “Everyone will believe the things Marrs has been saying.”

  Duncan shrugged. “It wouldn’t be possible without Marrs.”

  “It could land him in this office in the next election.”

  “We’ll worry about that later. What’s important is that we bury the truth deeper than any future president would think to dig.”

  Boucher smiled. “I’ll break out my shovel.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  El Mirador, Guatemala

  BEFORE THE BASE of the sacrificial pit reached the top, two things happened. The mismatched living skeletons began scaling the rough walls, eager to attack. And Ridley disappeared within the writhing mass of white spindly limbs. While many climbed the walls, scores more were still forming below.

  Not wanting any of the undead golems to reach the top of the pit, Queen, Bishop, and Knight opened fire. Sparks filled the air as bullets pierced brittle bones and struck stone. As limbs shattered and fell away, several of the skeletons toppled down, but whatever remained intact merged with loose bones below and rejoined the fight. All the while, the stone floor brought the horde closer.

  “We can’t stop them,” Knight said as he reloaded.

  “If we can subdue Ridley, maybe we can—”

  A rattling wave filled the air as the platform neared the top, allowing the bone golems access to it. In clear view, their patchwork bodies became more evident. Limbs of children mixed with adult heads. Mismatched arms and legs. Missing parts. They packed a lot of power when it came to inducing fear, but their physical prowess—hindered by age and handicap—dulled their effectiveness in combat. What they lacked in speed and toughness they made up for in numbers and an inability to feel pain.

  They arrived as a wave of death, flowing out of the pit and heading straight for Bishop, Knight, and Queen. The first to arrive were shredded by bursts of bullets, but with only thirty rounds per magazine, ammo ran dry quickly.

  Three skeletons dove at Queen, knocking her back. She tore the head from one, but its body continued to fight. They stabbed at her eyes with bony fingers, used their limbs like clubs, and congested the air with the foul-smelling dust of their long since decayed flesh. She struck back with balled fists, sweeping kicks, and bone-crushing head butts.

  She remembered the last time she’d delivered a head butt. It was to the man who had branded her forehead. Now it seemed he had returned from the dead with an army to exact his revenge. As she fell back under a surge of weight, it seemed like it might happen.

  Bishop, with his large size and resistance to injury and tiring, had more luck against the bone golems. Swinging his massive arms, the bodies before him simply fell apart. As a result he had a clear view of Queen going down and Richard Ridley making his escape.

  He looked for Knight and found him climbing up a large wall relief. Once on top he was free to move quickly, which was one of the things Knight did best. “Help Queen, I’ll go after Ridley!” he shouted, then ran above the skeletons, leaping for the exit. He ascended the stairs and disappeared into the dark hallway a moment later, leaving a slew of confused bone golems in his wake.

  Bishop waded his way through the golems, trying to reduce them to powder. But the ancient bodies crowded over him. He stumbled on a broken limb and fell to his hands. While his back was pummeled he felt a rumble beneath his palms. Something was shaking. The pit, he realized; without Ridley it was returning to its original state!

  “Queen don’t move!” he shouted. One false move could send them falling two hundred feet. The drop would kill Queen and leave him trapped at the bottom.

  Bishop pushed up hard and felt the bone golems clinging to his back fall away. He struck out to his right, sweeping his thick arm in a wide arc. The impact drove the skeletons back, tripping them up. Then a group of them fell away, disappearing into the pit. With his fear confirmed he shouted, “The pit is open again!”

  Making no effort to fight the reanimated dead, Bishop chose to simply charge through them. He hunched his shoulder forward and ran to where he’d last seen Queen. Like an NFL linebacker playing against a Pee Wee League team, he barreled through the mass of bodies and dove forward. The effect was immediate. Bodies fell away or fell to pieces under his weight. He stopped above Queen, tossed aside the golem on top of her, and pulled her to her feet.

  In a blur of movement Queen lobbed something over his head. He tried to track and identify it, but it disappeared into the sea of golems on the other side of the chamber. Her next words told him exactly what it was.

  “Fire in the hole!” she shouted.

  A grenade.

  Bishop turned away and saw Queen laying on the floor, curled into a ball, her back toward the impending blast. She had her hands over her ears, her eyes clenched shut, and her mouth open, ready for the contained blast. But with all the stone and bones filling the room, shrapnel could tear her apart. He moved to cover her with his body, but was too slow.

  A deafening explosion filled the ceremonial chamber before Bishop could take cover. He was thrown into the air and smashed against the stone wall. He growled in pain, but before the dust had even begun to settle, the ringing and pain in his ears faded. The shrapnel in his flesh popped out and the wounds healed. He looked for Queen.

  She was on her knees, shaking her head with a stunned look on her face, but she appeared to be unharmed. Still, she could have been shredded to bits.

  “You should have let me cover you,” he said.

  Queen sto
od, looking slightly offended. “You might be Superman, Bish, but I sure as shit am not Lois Lane.”

  Bishop grinned and said, “Copy that.” Queen might not be able to heal, but she knew her limits, and how to survive. She did not want, or need, a protector.

  She coughed from the foul air, removed her bandanna, and tied it around her mouth. “Where’s Knight?”

  “Went after Ridley.”

  That’s when the chamber ceiling, buried beneath hundreds of feet of jungle and the world’s largest pyramid, shook. Something massive had struck the surface above. Queen and Bishop charged up the stairs and into the tunnel, knowing that Ridley had most likely conjured something much stronger than golem skeletons. And whatever it was, Knight would be facing it alone.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Wiltshire, England

  “WELL, THIS IS unfortunate,” Alexander said as he exited the tiny spiraling tunnel and looked at the dead end.

  “Unfortunate is an understatement,” King said.

  Alexander squatted next to King, cramped in the small space. “I suppose it is.”

  King leaned back against the exposed concrete wall, hiding it with his body. Time was short, but he wanted some answers. “Now that we have some time to kill, why don’t you answer a few questions.”

  “I don’t think that—”

  “Who were you talking to on the phone?”

  “An associate.”

  “A member of the Herculean Society?”

  Alexander turned his palms up with a shrug. “They would not have my number otherwise. But this—”

  “Who were you talking about? The two people, who are they?”

  The combination of King’s questions and his constant interruptions were causing Alexander’s face to turn red with anger. He was pushing it, he knew, but answers flowed more easily from angry lips. “Why are you really here?”

  But Alexander was either too smart or too experienced to fall for King’s bait. Just as he was about to shout something, he stopped, grinned, and leaned back. With a calm voice, he said, “I could ask the same question of you, King. The death of your sister made you a fighting man. And now a little girl, who you’ve taken as your own—which was never my intention, by the way—has replaced that missing relationship and you’re desperate to get her back. You’re doing this just as much for yourself as you are for the ‘greater good.’”

  King felt his own anger rising. Alexander knew too much about him and had turned the conversation around. The problem was, King’s personal motivations didn’t conflict with the mission. He had no idea what Alexander’s endgame was, and it was clear he would get no closer to finding out.

  “You would do well to remember that you are here because I allowed it.”

  King was about to argue, but it was true. Alexander had led King to the Siletz Reservation and Fiona. And since being found beneath the Roman Forum, Alexander probably could have left King behind at any point. The question was, why? Why did Alexander, a man with extraordinary resources, intelligence, physical power, and a clandestine organization, allow King to tag along. So he asked, “Why?”

  Alexander grinned. “I’ve always enjoyed a good game of chess.”

  The implication of the statement was obvious. To Alexander, King was a pawn. We’ll see about that, King thought, but simply forced a grin. He’d pushed the subject enough. Trapped in a tiny cave with a man who could tear him apart started to make him feel like a frog in a blender. It was time to leave. He pointed to a trickle of water behind Alexander’s head. “With a steady supply of water, how long would you be able to regenerate your body?”

  “Indefinitely,” Alexander answered. “Why?”

  “If we’re stuck in here for a long time, or forever, I can eat you to stay alive for as long as it takes.”

  Alexander sneered at the thought, looking at King like he was a madman. “You would—” Then he paused, seeing the slight smile on King’s face. “You’re joking? You— What do you know?”

  King moved to the side, giving Alexander space to approach the concrete wall. “Put your ear against it.”

  Alexander leaned down and placed his ear against the cold, rough wall. Being close to the wall he could see a subtle curve to its shape. And within, he heard something … water!

  “It’s a drainage pipe,” King said. “Not built by Merlin, which means—”

  “I have no qualms about destroying it,” Alexander finished. “Move aside.”

  Alexander reached into his pocket and took out a small vial of black liquid. Before he drank it, King asked, “Would that work on me?”

  “The adrenaline rush alone might be enough to destroy your heart,” Alexander said. “And if you survived that and managed to employ your newfound strength, it’s likely you would break most of the bones in your body, which get no added strength from this brew. It’s only my ability to heal that allows me to use it.”

  Alexander poured a few drops of the liquid under his tongue. “You may envy my strength, but you shouldn’t. I don’t enjoy it. The pain is”—Alexander’s body shook as the adrenaline took hold—“excruciating.”

  King stepped aside as Alexander’s eyes went wide, his pupils dilating. Leaning back on his hands and one leg, Alexander struck out with his right leg, smashing the concrete. He grunted in pain, paused, then struck again. His fourth strike resulted in a loud crack. On the fifth, his foot shot through the wall into the void beyond. With the hole begun, it wasn’t long before he had kicked away an opening big enough for them to fit through.

  When he was done, he moved aside, his face twisted in pain. “The adrenaline is wearing off. I’ll just need a moment to heal.”

  Being eager to leave the tight confines of what was almost their tomb, King nodded and slid through the hole. After his waist passed through, he fell and landed in a stream of water. The drainage pipe was large enough to crouch in and the air fresher than the tomb’s, though tinged with mold. A ring of sunlight from a vertical tunnel farther down the pipe provided enough refracted light to see by. “I see an exit,” he said.

  But the joy of their impending escape was short-lived as he heard what sounded like a sporting event—loud shouts merging with the excited ebb and flow of a game. But there was no excitement in this cacophony of voices. Only terror. He suspected they were underneath the Stonehenge parking lot, which meant …

  King turned toward the tomb from which he’d just escaped. “Alexander! The car park is under attack!”

  Alexander quickly joined King in the tunnel and they rushed toward the circle of sunlight. When they reached it they found a metal rung ladder leading up to a drainage grate. King moved to the side.

  “You go first,” he said. “In case it needs persuading.”

  Alexander climbed the ladder and after two swift strikes pushed the grate aside with a scrape of metal on pavement. He poked his head outside and paused. After grunting with displeasure, he pulled himself out of the exit. King launched up the ladder and climbed topside.

  His first breath of fresh air was welcome. His second was out of a nightmare.

  FIFTY-SIX

  El Mirador, Guatemala

  THE CLOUDS OVERHEAD had thickened, blocking out more of the rising sun’s light. Combined with the thick jungle canopy, it was like a permanent twilight. Lightning occasionally lit the scene, allowing Knight a clearer view of his fleeing target. But his eyes were keen. Dim light or not, he could see Ridley ahead, weaving in and out of the tall, thin trees that filled the jungle. Ridley was a bigger man and a slower runner, but he also didn’t tire. Catching him would have to be done quickly, especially given the direction in which he was headed—straight back to the campsite where he would have plenty of hostages.

  Though the jungle canopy was thick with giant leaves, the ground was virtually vegetation free. Knight poured on the speed. While Ridley still ran in a haphazard line, most likely fearing a bullet shot, Knight only shifted if a tree or some other immovable object crossed his path.

 
He closed to within twenty feet and drew his sidearm. He couldn’t kill Ridley, but a few shots to the head should put him down long enough to subdue. He took aim and saw something disturbing.

  Ridley was smiling.

  Why would he be—

  The forest floor exploded as something massive struck with the force of a bomb.

  Knight slid to a stop, landing on his backside in a puddle of mud. In front of him, a long stone lay half buried in the dirt. A loud slurping sound came from the object as it began rising out of the muck. Knight followed the movement and saw a large silhouette standing above him.

  The stone is an arm!

  With a flash of lightning he saw the golem. It was a twenty-foot-tall statue of Chac, the Mayan god of rain. His eyes, carved thousands of years ago, were angry. His mouth was down-turned. Its body was covered in the horrified faces of those sacrificed to him. The frightening Mayan style only accentuated the menace emanating from the now-living stone.

  As though sensing Knight’s rising fear, the golem raised its giant hand to strike again.

  Knight scrambled in the mud, his feet slipping out from under him. Grasping a thin tree, he yanked his body out of reach just as the golem struck. The force of the impact knocked him forward. Rather than fall into the mud again he leaped, curled his body, and landed in a roll that flung him back to his feet. He continued the pursuit without pause.

  Though now he wasn’t just chasing Ridley, he was also running for his life. Lightning flashed again and he caught a glimpse of Ridley in the distance, still making for the camp. He gave chase. When the ground began to shake, he knew the golem had done likewise.

  Ridley rounded a mound that hid a smaller, not yet excavated temple inside, and disappeared from view. Rather than take the circuitous route around, Knight headed straight for it. He tore up the side and quickly realized his mistake. The ground was saturated and slippery. Each step slid out from under him, cutting his speed in half and giving the golem time to catch up.