Threshold

by Jeremy Robinson

  When it took its first step, its stumplike foot dented the solid stone mountainside.

  “It’s super dense,” Alexander said.

  “What?” Queen said. “How?”

  “The small stars. They were collapsing when I left. I thought they would go supernova, but instead their gravity drew the stone in, compressing it.”

  “Ridley did this?” Knight asked.

  “One of his duplicates.”

  “Where is Ridley?” Queen asked.

  “Headless,” Alexander said, then met Queen’s doubt-filled eyes. “He’s inside. Buried.” He turned to Knight. “Forever.”

  The mountainside shook as the giant stepped toward them. With its gait covering twenty-five feet, it would only take the golem a moment to reach them.

  Knight tried to stand, but the violently shaking earth stumbled him.

  Escape was impossible.

  Knight tightened his grip on Fiona and felt her move. Not now, he thought, don’t wake up now.

  But a sharp crack launched her upright.

  She looked up at the source of the sound through squinted eyes. The stealth Blackhawk was circling the giant, peppering it with a stream of bullets from its side-mounted minigun. The barrage glowed like an orange laser beam thanks to the bright tracer rounds. But the thousands of rounds striking the giant did nothing more than scratch its face. The golem swung its arm out, forcing the copter to bank away.

  Fiona looked up at Knight and saw his worried eyes looking back at her. She looked to the side and saw Queen on the ground beside Bishop, whose face was twisted in pain. She saw Alexander next and then King, laying on the ground, his eyes closed.

  She tried standing up, but Knight stood and held her tight. “I’m taking her. Going for the Blackhawk.”

  But Fiona fought against him, thrashing and shouting, “No!” Her voice was raspy, but clear.

  She broke free of his grasp and hobbled to King’s side. Her vision faded for a moment as she fell over his body. She pressed herself into him, head on his chest. With her eyes closed she ignored the voice of Knight pleading with her, the boom of the golem’s footsteps, and the chop of the Blackhawk.

  And she heard the one thing she needed to hear—King’s heartbeat.

  She stood on wobbly legs and turned toward the giant golem. Her dark hair billowed in the wind. The team watched in amazement as this thirteen-year-old girl stepped toward the golem.

  The golem turned its head toward her, stomping forward. It would reach her in five more steps.

  In a voice as loud as she could muster, Fiona shouted, “Tisioh fesh met!”

  The golem reacted immediately.

  Its knees buckled and fell apart.

  Its arms fell away and crashed to the ground.

  And its torso and head fell forward, crashing to the sloped mountainside and sliding to the bottom where their super dense weight buried them into the soft soil of the valley—just fifteen feet from where Fiona stood.

  Fiona collapsed, falling on top of King’s chest. She clutched him as she lost consciousness, listening to the sound of his heartbeat and the chop of the approaching Blackhawk.

  EIGHTY-FIVE

  Barents Sea

  COLD AIR WHIPPED against Rook’s face, frosting moisture onto his blond beard. But he remained at the bow of the ship, gloved hands on the rail. They had been at sea for three days and he had endured the presence of the Songbird’s two passengers—and the whimpered cries of their prisoner—long enough. With their voyage to Norway nearly at an end, it was time to act. On his way to the deck, he’d stared down one of the men and then laughed at him. Mocking him.

  The man showed no reaction, other than watching Rook leave. But the insult wouldn’t go unanswered. Not by these two. Rook knew he could have simply shot the men. He still had his Desert Eagle. But he wanted the confrontation to look unprovoked. He wasn’t sure how Dashkov would react if Rook killed them outright. But if it was self-defense …

  A moment later, Rook heard the cabin door open. Two sets of footsteps walked casually across the deck. The killers were confident. Relaxed.

  Rook held up a pack of cigarettes he’d borrowed from Dashkov. “Smoke?”

  “Not today,” one of the men said.

  Their footsteps grew closer. Too close to shoot. These guys really are old school, Rook thought. He guessed the plan. Stab him in the back. Maybe whisper some parting words. And then shove him overboard. They’d probably done it before.

  So when the nearest man paused to aim his strike, Rook spun. The thrust blade passed by his abdomen and beneath his arm. Rook took the attackers forearm, pulled him closer, wrapped his free hand around the man’s neck, and hurled him overboard.

  The second man roared with anger and charged. Though he was probably a good fighter in his day, the man was slow and couldn’t match Rook’s reach. Rook’s fist slammed head on into the man’s nose. The man stumbled back, ignoring the gouts of blood pouring from his ruined face, and drew a pistol.

  But once again, Rook was too quick. He kicked the weapon from the man’s hand and elbowed him in the chest. The man stumbled back and landed against the rail. Wasting no time, Rook took the man by his feet and flipped him, ass over teakettle, into the freezing arctic waters.

  A third set of footsteps approached from behind. Rook turned.

  Dashkov flicked his lighter and held it out to Rook.

  “I don’t smoke,” Rook said, handing the pack of cigarettes to the man.

  Rook could read the man’s questioning glance and pointed to the pack. Dashkov looked at the cigarettes and found a small mirror fragment taped to it. When Rook held the pack up, he’d got a peek at both men.

  Dashkov shook his head with a laugh. “What took you so long?”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “I’m not a bad man, Stanislav.” He smiled. “And they paid up front.”

  “And if someone comes looking for them?”

  “I’ll tell the truth, that I dropped them off and haven’t seen them since.”

  Both men laughed at this.

  “I think their plan was to disappear anyway,” Dashkov said. “Along with the girl.”

  “How long until we reach our stop?”

  “Two hours.”

  Rook smiled and headed for the cabin door. “I’ll go cut her loose and give her the good news.”

  * * *

  ROOK STOOD AT the rail once again, the newly freed woman by his side. She had wavy black hair cut to her shoulders. Her body was feminine and in great shape. Her dark brown eyes shown with intelligence and despite the wounds inflicted to her face, she was still quite striking, not to mention familiar. But he couldn’t place what was familiar about her and didn’t dwell on it.

  She had offered a quiet “Thank you” after being freed, but hadn’t said a word since. When she saw land ahead, she turned to Rook and again said, “Thank you.”

  “Do you need any help once we land?” Rook asked.

  For a moment he thought she wouldn’t reply, but then she spoke. “I’ll be fine.”

  She spoke with a confidence that convinced Rook she would be. “Sorry,” he said.

  She turned to him, confused. “For what?”

  “Not freeing you sooner.”

  She shrugged. “These things happen.”

  There it was again. The familiarity. Something in the casual shrug. Or was it the indifference to being bound and tortured?

  She noted his attention. “What?”

  “I feel like we’ve met before,” he said.

  After looking him up and down, she said, “No.”

  He wasn’t convinced. “What’s your name?”

  “Asya,” she said. “Asya Machtcenko.”

  Nope. Didn’t ring a bell.

  He turned back to the rail, looking at a small Norwegian village in the distance. The collection of small buildings looked like they couldn’t support a population of more than a thousand. There was a single line of electrical wires leading in
to the town and only two roads. A long pier stretching out into the ocean held ten fishing boats.

  Dashkov rested his elbows on the rail to Rook’s right. “You don’t want to go there. Let me take you a bit further. To civilization.”

  “Why?” Rook asked as he glanced down at the flask in Dashkov’s hand. “Is it a dry town?”

  The man didn’t laugh. “It is a cursed place.”

  Rook turned to him. “Cursed by what?”

  “Wolves,” he said. “Even out here you will hear them howl at night.”

  “Wolves aren’t so bad,” Rook said. As a native of New Hampshire, he had a long love affair with the outdoors, and the idea of living among wolves, no matter how afraid people were of them, appealed to him.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you heard them,” Dashkov said. “I have never felt such fear.”

  “Superstitions,” Asya said with a shake of her head. She wasn’t buying it either.

  “If it’s so bad, why does anyone live there at all?” Rook asked.

  Dashkov shrugged. “I have not stopped to ask. No one does.”

  “Then it’s safe to say not many people visit?”

  The fisherman frowned and nodded begrudgingly. He could see Rook making up his mind. He placed a hand on Rook’s shoulder. “Please, Stanislav. I will not come back for you here.”

  Rook looked at the shoreline, frigid and barren. The town appeared empty, though a few lights glowed in windows. The place was quiet, and despite Dashkov’s tales of frightful wolves, peaceful.

  “No one will come for you,” Dashkov added.

  Rook looked back at his new friend. “That’s the idea.”

  Dashkov looked beyond Rook and met the eyes of Asya. She nodded. The village was the perfect starting point for both of them. He pocketed his flask and headed back to the pilothouse. “I would look the other way one last time, Stanislav. For you. For Galya.”

  Rook tilted his head in thanks. “That’s all I ask.”

  EIGHTY-SIX

  Washington, D.C.

  THE FIFTH-FLOOR WINDOW provided a view of the oval courtyard in front of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Queen stared out the window, arms crossed over her chest. Dressed in jeans and an army green T-shirt, she looked like any other concerned family member of someone in the armed services, with one blazing exception. The red star-and-skull brand on her forehead glowed in the late-day sun.

  Knight sat in a chair next to her, feet up on the hospital bed next to him. He, too, was dressed casually, as casual as he dressed, in a black button-down shirt and black slacks. He looked down to his chest where Fiona’s head rested. It had been five days since the events in Turkey, and Fiona had been cleared to leave her room that morning. After four days on an IV, eating nonstop and receiving her glucose-balancing insulin, she had made a full recovery. She’d spent the day with Knight and Queen keeping vigil over Bishop and King, who were not recovering as quickly. In desperation, she had tried to remember the healing words Ridley had used, but could not remember the phrase. In fact, all traces of the language had been destroyed. The speakers of all the languages on earth that contained fragments of the mother tongue were dead, except for Fiona. All of the physical evidence Ridley collected had been condensed and destroyed within the super-dense golem’s body. Even Bishop’s camera, which held an image of the phrase Fiona scrawled on the wall had been destroyed in the battle. Nothing remained. The mother tongue had been buried deeper than ever before.

  Losing hope, Fiona had spent the majority of the morning crying over King before falling asleep on Knight.

  Bishop had several broken ribs, one of which had punctured a lung, a fractured collarbone, and more than a few bruised organs. After a round of surgeries he’d been wrapped up tight and placed in a bed. But he was expected to leave within the week.

  King, on the other hand, would not be recovering soon. If ever. The prognosis was grim. No one knew exactly what had happened to him—Alexander had disappeared shortly after their hurried departure from Turkey and returned to Iraq—but his symptoms were varied and extreme. His heart appeared scarred. Many of his veins had burst, leading to intense internal bleeding throughout his body, and in his brain. The resulting coma, according to the doctors, might be permanent, especially with the physical damage to his body being irreparable. On top of that, he had a shattered ankle, which was now bound in a liquid cast, and a four-inch-deep stab wound.

  Fiona wished she had no memory of what she’d done while under Ridley’s control, but she remembered it all. Trapping Knight and Bishop. Stabbing King. But the worst memory was that of adoring Ridley. She remembered the joy of hearing his voice, of following his orders. Stabbing King at that moment was the happiest moment of her life. Until Bishop undid the spell. As her mind returned to her, all the bliss faded away, replaced by seething hate. She was dealing with the emotion now, seeking guidance from Queen and Knight, but also seeing a therapist.

  Given the clandestine nature of their mission, family and friends hadn’t been notified of their return until that morning. Rook’s family was hit hard as they learned he was officially missing in action. As were George Pierce and Sara Fogg when they learned of King’s condition. Sara was still stuck in Africa, but would be returning in a few days. Pierce had hopped on the first available flight and would be arriving shortly. But the people everyone thought would be most eager to hear word of King, his parents, had not yet been reached. They’d been tried at their hotel room and at their home with no luck.

  Queen, Bishop, and Knight had waited in silence for the next shoe to drop. Only they and a few other people in the administration knew it was coming, but they understood why it had to be done. With new strange and violent enemies cropping up around the world, Deep Blue and the Chess Team needed to respond without encumbrance, without public attention. And there was only one way to achieve that goal. It would be the greatest sacrifice of Duncan’s life, but to truly protect the people who had elected him to office, it was the best course of action.

  Bishop picked up the remote from his bed and unmuted the TV mounted on the corner of the room. The voice of the reporter speaking on screen was excited. “We’re just moments away from President Duncan’s impromptu address to the nation. There has been a lot of speculation about what he’ll say. Since Senator Marrs revealed evidence that the president knew about the impending attacks on the Siletz Reservation and Fort Bragg and not only failed to act, but refused to act, he has remained silent behind the walls of the White House, giving no indication about his intentions. As the investigation proceeds, streamlined by CIA director Dominick Boucher’s full disclosure, the president’s options may be limited and out of his hands. Many expect him to fight the charges, but Boucher himself has asked for the president to step down.”

  “This is bullshit,” Queen said.

  “He’s doing the right thing,” Knight said.

  “This is how it has to be,” Bishop said. “He understands that.”

  Queen crossed her arms over her chest. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  The reporter held his hand to his ear. “Okay, the president is taking the stage. We now go live to the White House.”

  The image cut to an empty podium. Duncan took the stage looking very serious, but well. His posture was straight. This wasn’t a defeat for him, it was a transition. To something new. Possibly something better. He paused before the microphone, looked over the gathered sea of reporters, and spoke in a clear voice. “As the president of the United States, I swore to protect this nation from all enemies. In this endeavor, I have failed. I have made mistakes that are unforgivable.” He paused and faced the camera. “Some have said the president of this country is the leader of the free world. I would disagree with that. I represent the people of this country and as such it is you who are the leaders of the free world. And you need someone who represents you … better than I have.”

  He paused again. “As of nine o’clock this morning I have resigned as the President of
the United States—” A loud murmur became a torrent of shouted questions as the press corps could no longer contain themselves. Duncan raised his voice over the din. “Vice President Chambers is now the president and he will answer your questions.”

  With that, Duncan stepped down. The white-haired former vice president shook his hand and then took the stage.

  Bishop shut the TV off.

  In the silence that followed, Bishop, Queen, and Knight immediately became aware of a presence in the room. They turned to find George Pierce standing over King’s unconscious form—holding an empty syringe.

  Queen stormed toward him. “What the hell are you doing!”

  Pierce held his hands up defensively, still holding the syringe. “Trying to help.”

  Queen snatched the syringe from his hand. “What was in this?”

  “You won’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “An … an apple seed. Crushed. Liquefied.”

  She whipped the syringe into a nearby trash can. It shattered inside. “You injected King with an apple seed?”

  “From the Garden of the Hesperides. But I’m not really even sure they are apple seeds.”

  The name of the garden sounded familiar to Queen, but she continued her death stare at Pierce. She knew the man would never intentionally hurt King. They were like brothers. But desperate people sometimes make deadly mistakes.

  “I got them from Alexander.”

  Queen’s temper flared. “Alexander!”

  Pierce took a step back and found Queen more intimidating than a golem. “I stole it. In Rome. From Alexander’s gallery.”

  Queen knew the story, how they found Alexander beneath the ruins of the Roman Forum. She took a deep breath and eased back. “Did you test it?”

  “I only had enough to—”

  “Can you two be quiet, please?” Fiona stood behind Queen rubbing her eyes. Knight stood behind her, urging Queen to calm down with his hands.