by Jon Land
“Changed my mind,” Paddy said.
Michael swung toward Scarlett, who was shaking her head, flabbergasted, unable to believe what she’d just seen him do.
“Who’d you say you were again?” she asked, stepping behind some thick brush to cover her naked form.
“Just a friend,” Michael told her.
* * *
Paddy sent Michael and Scarlett, dressed in fresh clothes, for help, offering to stay with the others until at least she returned. Their trek through the woods would take them to an international way station from which they could summon the proper authorities. The jungle trails were too narrow to accommodate vehicles and the canopy too thick to allow for helicopters. Supply runs were normally made on the back of donkeys or horses, and they clung to the same path along which those runs were made. Cellular service was nonexistent down here and the kidnappers had destroyed the archaeological team’s satellite phone. It would take nearly a day to reach the way station on foot, nothing to do but talk through the long duration of the walk.
“My turn,” Michael told her. “What are you doing in a place like this?”
“I’m an archaeologist, remember? I go where the dig takes me. In this case, supervising undergraduates as a requirement of my masters degree.”
“In pursuit of pots and pans?”
“The native tribes had pots, no pans.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re really looking for, Scarlett?”
“Not until you do.”
“I asked you first,” Michael said, with a smile and a wink.
She looked away, then back again. “There are some well-regarded accounts of the Mayans venturing this far south in search of something.”
“What?”
“If it was the Mayans, something powerful or priceless, or both.”
“So you came down here, even though you have no idea what that might be?”
“I’ll know when I find it,” Scarlett told him. “It’s what every archaeologist wants more than anything, to make a discovery that changes the way we see the world, something about history no one’s ever known before.” Her gaze tightened on him. “It’s my turn now. What are you looking for?”
“The same thing you are, actually,” Michael told her.
* * *
“Answers. And I think you can help me,” he continued, thinking of the mysterious relic medallion he’d left with Alexander for safekeeping, the only thing he had left of his family. “In fact, I think we can help each other.”
Scarlett regarded his clothes, his disheveled appearance. “You? And how much more can you do than save my life?”
“Plenty,” Michael winked. “Trust me. And I only ask one thing in return.”
“What’s that?”
“You give me your phone number. And we keep what just happened quiet.”
“That’s two things.”
“File any reports you need to but leave me out of it.”
“What am I supposed to do, say it was Tarzan and Cheetah who saved me and my team?”
“With a little help from Jane,” Michael said, grinning.
* * *
Scarlett hugged Michael tight at the way station, her embrace lingering out of something more than just gratitude.
“Give me that number where I can reach you,” Michael said, when they finally eased apart. “So we can talk about that next dig.”
“All of a sudden you find ancient pots and pans interesting.”
“Actually, it’s something else I’m after.”
“Like what?”
“You’ll have to answer my call to find out.”
Michael left Scarlett reluctantly, staring at her until she drifted out of sight through the rear window of the SUV that would take him to Felix Eboue Airport in the city of Cayenne. He’d called ahead to make sure the Boeing 737 was waiting for him and, sure enough, it stood prepped and ready on the tarmac.
The door opened as he neared the stairs, a grinning Alexander stepping into the sun.
“Welcome back, Michael.”
Michael climbed the steps, suddenly realizing how taxed and worn every muscle in his body was from the exertion of the past six weeks, or maybe it was more; he wasn’t sure anymore. All he was thinking about was taking a shower as soon as he was on board.
“Paddy sends his best.”
“Who’s Paddy?” Alexander smiled.
FIFTY-NINE
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, FIVE YEARS AGO
After French Guiana, the next time Michael saw Scarlett was three months later when he invited her to meet him in Las Vegas to discuss his offer to fund future digs.
“You’re serious.”
“I’m going to e-mail you a ticket.”
“What about a hotel room?”
“I have a connection at the city’s best resort,” Michael told her.
He picked her up personally at the airport in his Ferrari Testarossa.
“I googled you,” she told him, as she climbed in.
“Happy with what you found?”
“Surprised.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what someone like you would be doing playing Navy SEAL in French Guiana.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Like what?”
“Me. No one can ever know of how we met or what happened in that jungle. No one can ever know of my involvement or interest in your activities. Consider me a secret partner, and a friend,” Michael said, and pulled into traffic.
“I never expected you to call.”
“I have my reasons.”
“Archaeological reasons?”
“An archaeological and historical mystery. The origins of a relic handed down to me by my family,” Michael elaborated, leaving things at that.
“You flew me to Las Vegas and want to fund digs because of a family heirloom?”
“Let me explain.”
BUNĂ ZIUA, ROMANIA, NOW
The initial digs that followed had yielded little, nothing really until the dig in Transylvania that had gotten Scarlett’s entire team murdered and landed her in the custody of the Securitate.
“I’ve seen what I needed to see,” Alexander informed Michael. “I count between six and eight men inside, no more. We stick to the plan and get the woman out.”
And in that moment a convoy of police cars tore onto the scene, a parade of officers armed with assault rifles spilling out and taking up posts around the building’s perimeter or rushing inside.
“Looks like we’re going to have to change our plans,” said Michael.
SIXTY
BUNĂ ZIUA, ROMANIA
Scarlett heard the key turning in the lock, the heavy wood door starting to ease open.
She had awoken initially with her head resting on a heavy plank table. Jolted by the shock of her unfamiliar surroundings, Scarlett jerked her hands upward to find they were bound by chains that ran through dual slots in the table descending all the way to heavy bolts drilled into the floor. Her legs, too, were chained and similarly affixed to another bolt drilled next to the first.
At first glance the room seemed to have no window. Then, on second, Scarlett realized there were actually two equally spaced on the wall to her left. But they were covered by shutters made of the same light wood paneling that adorned the walls. She noticed the fittings had been tied in a sash formed of chain link through which a lock had been bolted, denying her any sense of time’s passage since she’d been taken, whether this was day or night.
Scarlett sat up all the way, her stiff spine crackling. Her head was pounding, each breath drawing a throb of its own. Scarlett realized her upper arm was sore in the same place it was after she got her annual flu shot back home.
What had they given her?
Some sort of sedative for sure, denying her any memory beyond being dragged out the rear of the bar that opened onto an alley, and thrust into the back of a waiting van.
They knew I wa
s coming. The bartender was waiting for me.…
Scarlett again tried to recall what little exchange there’d been with Michael Tiranno. Had she told him where she was, what had happened? Then the door opened all the way and she stopped trying.
A burly man wearing a dark blue uniform, complete with tassels riding the shoulders, entered. He stood board stiff and had the look of a man who practiced his stance and posture in the mirror. He was flanked on either side by men wearing stiff low-rise jackets with holstered pistols clipped to their belts.
“I am Colonel Gastman,” the uniformed figure announced. “I wanted to make sure you are enjoying your stay with us, that you have everything you need.”
Scarlett stretched her arms out enough to rattle her chains. “I’m an American citizen.”
“We are well aware of that.”
“I want to call my embassy. I have nothing to say to you until you let me call my embassy.”
“You misunderstand, young lady. You are here for your own safety and protection.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That does not change the fact that you are in danger and, as commander of this post, it is my duty to protect you.”
“Then let me call my embassy.”
“In time. For now, you are under our protection.”
Scarlett leaned as far forward over the table as her bonds would allow. “You work for the man in the mask.”
“What man in a mask?”
“The one who ordered my team killed,” she followed, without missing a beat. “The one who kidnapped the young women and children from the village of Vadja. It’s him you should be after, those villagers you should be protecting.”
“I will see you safely transported in the morning,” the colonel said, instead of responding.
“Transported where?”
“A place where you will be safe, a place from where you can call anyone you like.”
“He’s coming for me, isn’t he? The man in the mask is coming for me.”
“I don’t know this masked man. Your safety is my only concern.”
He handed a set of keys to the man on his right.
“We are required to perform a search of your person before you are transferred.” A hint of a smile crossed Colonel Gastman’s face, as he pulled a plastic glove over his right hand. “I promise to make this as painless as possible.”
And he was moving toward Scarlett when explosions rattled the building, all the lights dying in the next instant.
SIXTY-ONE
BUNĂ ZIUA, ROMANIA
The guards who’d remained posted along the SRI building perimeter paid little heed to the approaching garbage truck until they realized it was angled straight for the iron fence and picking up speed. Its headlights looked dim and cloudy, barely denting the night. Nothing was revealed in its cab when the guards closest to the stairs opened fire, stitching a jagged design across the windshield and hood, which burst upward under the barrage. The engine belched steam as the truck crashed through the fence and slammed into the building façade.
“Now!” Alexander signaled Michael as they jogged in the garbage truck’s wake.
In the same moment, Alexander touched a key on his digital detonator rigged to the plastic explosives he’d pulled from the duffel bag that had been waiting for them in the Alfa Romeo, now packed into the stolen garbage truck’s cab. Michael felt the explosion suck the air out of him, as deafening as it was blinding, the entire front of the truck turned into a shrapnel bomb that obliterated anyone within twenty feet of the entrance while decimating the building façade.
Alexander tucked a hood over his face and watched Michael do the same. “Your goggles,” he reminded, both of them dressed in black military assault uniforms associated with special operations forces.
Michael fit the prototype for the next stage of night-vision goggles being developed by Tyrant Technologies over his eyes. Specially formulated, lightweight lenses coated with a clear resin designed to magnify available light while looking and fitting like ordinary sports goggles. Much less bulky and cumbersome than the current models being employed by the military today.
“Nice to have a chance to test them personally.”
“Stay in my shadow until we’re inside,” Alexander ordered, sliding into motion.
Michael followed, feet rolling over the rubble shed by the blast strewn all the way to the street, straight for the smoke and lingering flames. Stray gunshots rang out and he was conscious of Alexander returning the fire one way and then the other, seeming to hit everything he aimed at. Michael added his own bullets as his senses caught up with his consciousness, the feeling nothing like firing practice rounds at all.
The rubble reminded him of the brushy, hard-packed trails Paddy left him to negotiate in bare feet in the French Guiana jungle. He understood in that moment better than ever how men like Alexander came to be. How much practice was required to survive moments like this where a single misstep could easily mean death.
Michael began clacking off single shots with his submachine gun, a Heckler & Koch MP5, aimed at motion still rendered desperate by the explosion that had laid waste to the building. As Alexander had anticipated, their timing was perfect. Surging up the pile of rocks that had been the front steps and into the building, just as the forces concentrated inside were fighting to recover their bearings from the shock and overcome the debris hurtled inward by the blast. It smelled just as the refuse of Max Price’s Maximus Casino had after it imploded, the soot and gravelly grime washing through the air of the Strip like a blanket.
Michael realized he was holding his breath, still firing at anything that moved. He stumbled a few times over a floor littered with wall fragments and seared metal of the garbage truck along with chunks of tire rubber and a wheel somehow spinning on the floor. The interior was dark and smoke-rich, stealing sight of Alexander from him except for the muzzle flash of his sound-suppressed submachine gun firing left and forward, taking out all visible cameras first, while Michael advanced aiming his fire to the right through the haze of the emergency lighting that had kicked on once the explosion had cut the primary power.
They reached a set of stairs covered in bloodred carpeting now streaked with dust and more pieces of the shattered façade, just as four gunmen surged downward shooting blindly. Alexander shoved Michael aside, out of their narrow fire zone, both of them opening up with full automatic sprays that left the four uniformed men tumbling downward to land at the foot of the stairs in a heap.
Alexander was firing at another figure who’d appeared on the next landing up, when Michael heard the clatter of boots clacking over the same rubble they’d just negotiated. He swung and opened up with a fresh spray on the front door where two figures who’d survived the blast had just charged inside. Dropped them both, but felt his submachine gun click empty and cursed himself for not having kept better track of his bullets. He dove to the floor, reloading as he rolled beneath a fresh spray of fire, and glimpsing Alexander twirling to gun down another pair pouring inside after the first.
That exposed him to a concentrated assault from the second-floor landing, forcing him to spin to the cover of the nearest stud-bearing wall. Michael had just lurched back to his feet when he saw Alexander yank the pin from one of his grenades and hurl it upward. It exploded while still in the air, a single bright flash that blinded Michael even as his ears began ringing again, all sound shut out for the moment. He thought he heard Alexander calling to him but wasn’t sure until he saw his lithe shape flying up the stairs through a wave of descending smoke that looked like a storm cloud.
Michael started to pull himself back to his feet only to realize, incredibly, that he was already standing. Starting up the stairs as the soft spits of Alexander’s silenced submachine gun clacked again and again, conscious for the first time in that moment of the horrible cries of pain that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
Alexander was waiting for him on the second-floor landing, Michael re
aching it just as fresh fire resounded from an open doorway down the hall. Alexander rolled a fresh grenade along the dark wood floor. It erupted in a blinding flash that rained a shower of dark smoke and shrapnel inward over those inside now covering their ears.
He disappeared into that smoke before Michael found the bearings to follow. Reaching the room to find two dead gunmen and a man wearing a dark blue suit jacket with red tassels on the shoulders and bars identifying him as a colonel in the SRI.
Or Securitate.
“Vă rog!” he pleaded in Romanian. “Please!”
His shoulders rested against the wall, trembling hands raised in the air. The desk behind which he had hidden was cluttered with files and photos the colonel was in the process of dumping into a flaming trash bin. Smoke, ash, and char from the smoldering refuse thickened the air, coating it with a gray sheen.
Michael watched Alexander jam the taped suppressor on his submachine gun under the man’s double chin, finger coiled over the trigger.
“One chance. The girl—where is she?”
One of the colonel’s hands flopped back to his side while the other pointed a single finger upward. “Fourth floor. All the way down on right.”
“Keys,” Alexander demanded. “Keys!”
The colonel’s lowered hand moved to a pants pocket. Alexander slammed a booted foot atop it, mashing the fingers, and crouched to retrieve the keys himself. A slim pocketknife followed them out and Alexander pressed harder with his boot until he felt bones crack. Then reared back and slammed the man in the skull with the butt of his rifle. The colonel’s eyes rolled back in his head and his face fell forward to his chest, dazed but still conscious.
“Michael,” Alexander called, backpedaling while keeping his eyes on the colonel whose expression was now twisted in agony.
Michael watched the smoke from the flaming trash bin waft over the floor, a patch opening to reveal a thick folder waiting to join the others in the fire.
“Now!” Alexander ordered from the doorway.
But Michael had already stooped to retrieve the folder, his senses drifting in dreamlike fashion over the picture clipped to its front of a man he was sure he recognized.