Jasper’s stomach roiled. He was close enough to shoot Dane where he stood. But what if in the process, he clipped Eden? No way could he take that chance.
“Jasper,” Dane said, “I could have dropped you down that crevasse, but turns out you have brains as well as brawn, which means I’m going to need you to put down your gun and come with me.”
“No problem.” He set the gun on the bed. As soon as I get the chance, I’ll kill you with my bare hands, you lying sack of shit.
“Good. I would go ahead and dispose of you now, but that brawn of yours may yet come in handy. Leo and his men are at least an hour behind. They’ve been tracking me ever since we first met up.”
Eden’s face turned sickly pale. Her lower lip quivered.
“Dane,” Carl said. “It’s me you have a problem with. I’m the one who lied. Let Eden and Jasper go.”
“Oh right,” Dane waved the gun like the madman he’d turned out to be. “And the second they hit McMurdo, they’ll send out the cavalry. Not going to happen. Now, where are my manners? Before I so rudely interrupted, you were about to show your daughter her legacy. Since I’m part of the family, I would like to see it, too.”
“Very well.” Resigned to the fact that Dane wouldn’t easily go away, Carl gestured for them to follow him out of his bedroom and down another corridor. They exited the formal area through a second airlock. This time, they didn’t emerge into another part of the cavern, but at the top of an enormous flight of stairs. A metal rail had been attached to the sweating cave wall.
“Well?” They’d all bunched on the landing, but using his gun, Dane waved them along. “What are we waiting for? I’m ready to see my treasure.”
Jasper counted fifteen flights before they reached the lower landing. A vault door—the type he’d only seen in old bank robber movies—was closed. It had a combination lock and wheeled handle.
“What’s the combo?” Dane asked.
“You’ll have to shoot me before I tell you.”
“Fine.” Without hesitation, Dane shot Carl’s foot.
Eden screamed.
Blood splattered everywhere. On the floor and vault door. Most alarmingly, all over Eden’s clothes and face.
She went to her father, dropping to her knees to inspect his badly bleeding foot. “You’re horrible!” she screamed at Dane. “I loved you. How could you be so cruel?”
Jasper dragged his sweatshirt over his head to use as a bandage that would hopefully, at least slow Carl’s bleeding.
“You think me cruel? Your father not only hoarded whatever’s behind this door for himself, just as he took your mother. Did he ever tell you that she wanted me first? He stole her from me—just as he did all of my professional glory. I’m done being his second. Now, it’s my turn to be on top.”
“You forgot one thing!” At the top of the stairs, Leo, flanked by his men, stood on the upper landing. “You’re paid by me! Kill him. He’s outlasted his usefulness.”
The man nearest him raised his M16 and shot a single bullet into Dane’s chest. Blood gurgled from his mouth.
Eden cried out, sharply looking away.
Dane collapsed, falling into a pool of his own blood.
“Quickly,” Carl said. “Get me to the vault.”
Eden and Jasper helped him reach the lock. He worked the combination while Leo and his men charged down the stairs. Their hard-soled footsteps echoed through the vast space. “Jasper, please pull.”
The door weighed as much as a small car Jasper had once helped eight other guys move as a prank. Once it swung open wide enough for Carl to hobble through, Eden and Jasper followed, giving the door a mighty tug to close it behind them. Only then did Jasper fear what he’d done.
They were now locked into a chamber that could for all he knew be airtight.
The darkness was as complete as the silence.
Jasper took his penlight from his back pocket, shining it at Eden and Carl’s pale faces. “Everyone okay?”
Eden nodded.
“I’ll manage,” Carl said. “Jasper, to the right of the vault door is the overhead light switch. Would you please be so kind as to turn it on?”
He did. And then damn near fainted himself.
What he faced wasn’t a mere treasure, but an obscene hoard. The result of looting entire countries of their heritage and wealth. The cathedral of riches stretched as long as a football field and half as wide. There were piles upon piles of gold bullion. Egyptian statues and bejeweled sarcophaguses. Roman and Greek sculptures. Cases filled with jewels and crowns and scepters. Still more cases held gold and silver coins. A hundred open crates held gold-framed paintings.
Eden’s mouth hadn’t closed since Jasper had flipped on the lights.
“I told you,” Carl said. “All of this is for you. Together, we’ll find a cure for the cancer that killed your mother. We’ll vindicate her, then save millions of others.”
“It’s too late,” she whispered.
“No . . .” His bright-eyed hope faded. “I couldn’t save your mother, but I will save you.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Jasper said, “but first, please tell me there’s another way out of here? Leo and his guys aren’t screwing around. I already used a couple of their rocket launchers that I’m sure would work fine for blowing your vault door to kingdom come.”
His eyes widened. “What did you use them for?”
“Dad, it doesn’t matter. Is there a way out? Dane said Hitler always had an escape route.”
“He did. But what about the treasure? We can’t leave it. We’ll need to keep selling it off bit-by-bit to fund the cure. Your cure.”
She shook her head. “Please, let’s just go. I’m cold and hungry and want to go home.”
“Yes. Home.” As if resigned to his defeat, Carl reached for an emerald-topped cane to help him reach the vault’s rear entry. He’d just reached the lock when an explosion knocked him to his knees.
14
EDEN’S EARS BLED from the force of the blow. The ringing was so loud she struggled to form coherent thoughts.
Where were Jasper and her father?
“Carl?” Leo shouted. “Come out, come out, wherever you are! You’ve hidden from me long enough, old friend. Time to die!”
Eden spotted her father on the concrete floor, lying next to Jasper.
Her heart caught in her throat. Were they both dead?
Careful to stay out of Leo’s line of sight, she crawled to Jasper, covering his heart with her hand. It blessedly beat strong beneath her palm. “Jasper?” She gave him a gentle nudge. “Talk to me. I need you. Please, wake up.”
He eked his eyes open. “What happened?”
“Leo bulldogged his way into the vault. We have about two minutes before he finds us. Think you can not only move, but help me with my father?”
He nodded.
“Dad,” she crouched beside him, “you have to wake up. We need the combo to the back door.
“E-Eva Braun’s birthday . . .”
“I don’t know when that is.” She looked to Jasper. “Do you?”
“What do you think?”
She looked to her father, but he’d passed out cold.
Leo shouted, “Come out, come out wherever you are!” He punctuated his sentence by firing off a few rounds.
“This is a serious longshot,” she said, “but I swear once my mom told me I shared the same birthday with Babe Ruth, Bob Marley, and Ronald Reagan. She said there was a famous woman, too, but that since she’d not been treated so nice by history we wouldn’t mention her. What if my birthday is hers?”
“February 6?”
She nodded. “But the vault combination takes six digits. So we have 2-6-1-9—and then nothing.”
“How old was she when she died? We’ll count backwards.”
Leo shot again. From much closer. “Come out, kiddies. Time to play!”
Jasper was already at the combination lock, trying different numbers.
Sh
e tried focusing on the numbers, but she couldn’t hear her own thoughts over the racket of Leo and his men essentially partying with the treasure. Even from fifty yards away, their laughter and shouts echoed throughout the enormous vault. Through the crack between the two cases of art she hid behind, Eden watched two men play catch with gold bars. Another pair threw gold coins at each other. One guy had draped himself in jewels.
Leo, however, looked to be searching for them. He shot again. The bullet dislodged a rock in the cavern ceiling, causing a small avalanche of stone.
“Dad, you have to talk louder,” she begged with a growing sense of urgency.
“Got any more ideas?” Jasper asked. “None of these are working.”
Her father drifted in and out of consciousness.
“Think, babe. Maybe your dad once gave you a clue, and you didn’t even know. Is there anything else special about the locket?”
Leo shot the ceiling again. This time, rocks fell closer.
It was impossible to think with her heart beating so hard it hurt deep within her ribs.
Not bothering with the clasp, she jerked the locket from her neck, studying the intricate pattern. The tree had twelve branches at the top. Twelve roots at the bottom. “Try 1924!”
“No!”
More gunfire. Significantly more falling rocks on their end of the cavern.
She breathed so erratically that the lack of oxygen affected her vision. “Twelve! Try twelve!”
Rapid-fire machine gun bullets shredded the rock directly above her head. Did Leo know exactly where they were and was just screwing with them?
“Holy shit! It worked. Come on!”
“I can’t. Not without my father.”
In a heartbeat, Jasper was back beside her. Together they dragged her dad from the cavern and into another rock tunnel similar to the one they’d encountered many times before in this strange place.
Jasper slammed the vault door closed behind them, twisting the handle and lock mechanism. Hopefully, buying them time.
“L-leave me,” her dad said.
“Not a chance.” Jasper slung him over his shoulder just as another explosion shook the ground at their feet. Rocks rained from the ceiling. “Run!”
The tunnel led up and up, spiraling in a dizzying pattern.
She made the mistake of glancing back to find the tunnel collapsing behind them. Not only was the sight terrifying, but her soul wept for the lost history. Would any of the mythical bunker and treasure vault survive?
“Yeti!” she cried past searing lungs. “We forgot him.”
“Babe . . .” Running uphill while carrying her father had taken a toll on Jasper. His breathing sounded raspy. “Let’s save us first—then, the cat. For all we know, that whole section of the compound is gone.”
She nodded, but once again, tears stung her eyes. Yeti was just a cat—a cat she hadn’t even known all that long. But when she’d already lost so much, his furry life mattered.
On and on they trudged until reaching a steel door.
Eden tugged it open. The sudden change in pressure popped her ears. Ignoring the pain, she trudged through.
Just like that, they were back in the first corridor—the one with the subway tiles and all the doors.
“Let’s get you and your dad in a raft, then I’ll double back for the cat.”
She charged ahead to open the next door that led to the dock where they’d landed. It seemed like days earlier, but could only have been a couple hours. Every muscle in her body screamed, but she kept moving, yanking with all her might on the rope holding the row of rafts in place.
After setting her father on the dirt floor, Jasper handed her a knife. “Pick a lucky raft, then slash the rest. If Leo and his guys survived that explosion, I don’t want them following.”
She did as he’d asked.
Ten endless minutes later, two gunshots echoed through the cavern.
She froze. Was Jasper hurt?
Not thinking, just following her every screaming instinct, she jerked open the rusty-hinged door, then charged down the hall as fast as her lungs allowed. “Jasper?”
He emerged from the library at a dead run. “Go! Hurry! Leo’s guards are everywhere. Like cockroaches.” He held the cat beneath one arm and a sealed wooden case under the other.
She’d already dragged the boat to the water and transferred the good rope from their first ride to the new one.
“You’re awesome.” He kissed her while passing off Yeti who was still warm. Had he never moved from his spot by the fire? Jasper also handed her his package. “Can you believe the little monster slept through everything?”
“What’s this?” she asked.
“The Bible. I figured we could use all the Heavenly help we can get.”
She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him again. As always when their lips touched, a rush of pleasure surged through her—head to toes.
He hefted her father into the raft, then held it at the lapping water before hurrying her aboard. He snatched two paddles and three life jackets from a hook on the wall, as well as all of their winter gear and a box similar to the one they’d last seen marked with a red cross.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded.
Unconscious again, her father lay on the raft’s floor, leaning against her knees.
“No guarantees where this might take us—if anywhere at all.”
“I understand.” Tears stung her eyes. The river could lead to safety or certain death. Why was it that lately, all roads led to bad places? Was this fate’s way of preparing her for the inevitable end soon to come?
The door burst open.
Nausea gripped Eden’s stomach.
“Not so fast,” Leo said with three thugs behind him. “How can you even think of leaving without saying a proper goodbye?”
Jasper shoved off the raft and leapt in.
“Kill them!” Leo commanded.
Shots echoed through the chamber, ricocheting off the rock walls. The noise was deafening. Then came the rumble of not just another landslide, but what Eden feared might be the last of them all.
As the boat’s rubber sides deflated, the river’s current ferried them into darkness. Into certain death.
Dangerously cold water sloshed around their ankles, slithering insidiously higher.
“I love you,” she said through teeth chattering from the icy water’s all-too-familiar bite.
“Love you, babe. Don’t give up.”
“I-I won’t.” She clung to Yeti, selfishly wishing he were Jasper.
A terrifying roar grew closer and closer until their craft bobbed in black terror. With no light, all she had was the sound of what little remained of their ride being hurled against boulders.
“Give me your hand!” Jasper called above the water’s crashing.
In the absolute darkness, she fumbled behind her for that primal connection.
They might have five minutes to live or five seconds. All she knew was that she was selfishly beyond grateful to spend that time with him.
The current pushed faster and faster.
The water in their sinking boat rose higher and higher.
All she could do in the face of certain death was to squeeze Jasper’s hand, praying the end came blessedly swift.
15
“JASPER! COME ON, buddy. Talk to me.”
Jasper winced from the glare of sun. “Eden?” He sat up, only to grab his aching forehead and drop back down. For the first time in forever, he wasn’t cold. And far from being trapped in a dark cave, sunlight streamed across the foot of a proper bed. “Wait—Harding? What the hell are you doing in Antarctica?”
“What do you think? Saving your miserable ass. Nash, Everett, Briggs, Raleigh, Jackson and Sawyer—we’re all here. Well, I’m here. Everyone else is in the chow hall. You know we’ve always got your back.”
Jasper snorted. “You’re a little late. Where the hell am I? And where’s Eden? And her dad? Oh—and her cat.”
>
“They’re all fine. In rooms next to yours. We’re at McMurdo. When we didn’t hear from you, we got worried. I set wheels in motion and stumbled into one helluva mess. You sure know how to pick ’em. Here, I thought you were ditching work for a romantic rendezvous, and lo and behold you pop the cherry on a conspiracy that’s got the whole world riveted.”
“Wait—how did you even find us? How long have I been out?”
“Dude—you had an entire fringe army of Neo-Nazi’s on your tail. Once we found them, it was easy enough to find you. There aren’t a lot of places to hide down here. Plus, these douchebags have been leaving a trail of death. We’ve found a couple entrances to the underground compound—what was left of you and your raft washed up on the shore of the Ross Sea. We’re still trying to figure out where you popped out at. The compound itself is pretty eff’d up from itchy trigger fingers and too many plastic explosives. A worldwide team of eggheads are itching to get in there when engineers give it an all clear on safety. You’re lucky you made it out with only hypothermia and a frost-bitten little toe.”
“Did they amputate?”
Harding grinned. “Nah. Relax. You’re still pretty as ever for your girl.”
“Speaking of which . . .” Jasper sat up again, and this time stayed up long enough to get out of the bed and onto his feet. Someone had dressed him in sweats and thick white socks. “I need to see Eden.”
“Sure. She’s right next door.”
Jasper wandered that direction. He was achy as hell, but otherwise okay.
He entered Eden’s room and found her sleeping.
When he swept her hair back from her eyes, she woke with a start.
“Sorry, babe. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Like he’d been, she seemed dazed and disoriented. “Where are we? Are you okay? Where are my dad and Yeti?”
“Good. Everyone’s real good.” He relayed the same information Harding had given him.
Outcast (SEAL Team: Disavowed Book 2) Page 11