The scientist closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. When she opened them once more, Ethan glimpsed fear in their depths.
‘The content of each of these folders has horrifying implications on their own. In combination, they may mean something worse. We need to take a look at the other folders on your server.’
She studied Howard bleakly.
‘What about the fourth one, with the lists and medical data?’ said the Crovir immortal. ‘What do you make—?’
A trilling noise interrupted him. He removed his cell from his pocket, glanced at the screen, and took the call. ‘Hey Bernard. You and Rosa almost—?’
Ethan’s pulse jumped as he watched Howard’s expression change.
The Crovir immortal pulled the laptop across, jammed the phone between his ear and his shoulder, and started typing rapidly while he listened.
‘Okay. You know what to do,’ he said tersely. ‘Be safe.’
He disconnected, jumped to his feet, and grabbed the computer. ‘Bernard just spotted a dozen army vehicles barreling their way toward our location. They’ll be at the main gates in five minutes.’
They were halfway to the patio doors when an alarm sounded on Howard’s laptop. He tapped a key. A digital map of the estate filled the screen. Security sensors flashed red on the southeast perimeter.
‘They’ve entered our air space,’ he said grimly.
The sound of rotors drew their eyes to the sky.
Two Apache helicopters rose out of the next canyon and headed straight for them. Flashes erupted from the automatic machine guns mounted under the fuselage of the aircrafts. Rounds pelted the patio.
They turned and ran, Ethan’s fingers closing on Olivia’s hand just as they dashed inside the kitchen.
Madeleine stopped in the doorway and whirled around to face the approaching helicopters. ‘Hey, some of us are mortal, assholes!’
‘Will you get in here!’ roared Asgard.
He grabbed her around the waist and stormed into the mansion. Bullets peppered the spot where she had stood and chipped the marble floor several feet inside the house.
Howard paused at the central island and tapped a couple of keys on the laptop. Blast-resistant steel shutters started to drop down the windows and doors of the property, their electronic whir lost in the sound of gunfire from the helicopters. The light began to fade.
‘That should buy us some time!’
He closed the computer and followed them as they raced for the bunker’s lift. Muffled explosions sounded somewhere above when they entered the steel cabin. The doors started to close.
‘Wait!’ said Asgard.
He stabbed the open button on the control panel with his finger and slipped out through the widening gap.
‘Where the hell are you going?’ Howard shouted after his disappearing figure. The Crovir’s gaze shifted to Ethan. ‘Is he kidding me?’
Running footsteps rose from the corridor a moment later. Asgard skidded into view and jumped inside the cabin. The doors closed and the lift started its descent.
The Bastian noble tossed Ethan the sheathed twin blades and body harness before strapping his arming sword to his back and securing the holster holding his revolvers. ‘How soon until they breach the building?’
‘Depends how much firepower they brought with them,’ said Howard. He was working the laptop frantically. ‘I’m pretty sure those are Hydra rockets we’re hearing. And I wouldn’t be surprised if those helicopters had Hellfire missiles.’ Another alarm beeped on the screen. He stared at the flashing sensors around the estate. ‘Shit! These guys are everywhere!’
‘How did they find us?’ said Olivia.
Her fingers twitched against Ethan’s palm. He looked down and was surprised to see that he was still holding her hand.
Howard scowled. ‘I don’t—’
A deafening boom drowned out the rest of his words. Violent tremors rocked the lift.
A feeling of sudden weightlessness filled Ethan. He stared into Asgard’s startled face.
‘We’re dropping too fast!’ yelled Howard.
Ethan released Olivia’s hand and pressed his palms against the closest wall. It took but a heartbeat for him to map out the structure of the cabin. He clenched his teeth and channelled his powers into the metal. An ear-splitting screech erupted from outside. A grunt left his throat.
The lift juddered and slowed. It reached the bottom of the shaft with the faintest of jolts.
‘Whoa,’ muttered Howard.
The doors slid open. Another explosion echoed somewhere above, startling them.
‘Move!’ said Asgard.
Red lights pulsed against the walls of the bunker as they ran out into the dimly-lit cave.
‘In there!’ shouted Howard.
He indicated the glass chamber in the middle of the sunken stage.
‘Hang on!’ Ethan veered left and ran toward the armory.
He was inputting his biometric data into the security display on the door when Asgard reached his side.
They moved methodically around the room, jamming guns, magazines, and grenades in a pair of rucksacks. As they exited the chamber, a faint whine reached Ethan’s ears. He pushed his bag into Asgard’s hands and headed for the storage area.
The service elevator stood on the opposite side of the room. His heart slammed against his ribs as he watched the number change on the digital indicator above the doors.
He turned and sprinted toward the Bastian noble. ‘They’re here!’
Olivia and Madeleine were already in the glass room, the latter holding Howard’s laptop in her hands.
They jumped down the steps and bolted toward them. Ethan staggered to a halt in the doorway.
‘Howard!’
The Crovir immortal was bent over a computer station, his fingers moving frenetically over the keyboard. A ping sounded in the distance. Ethan turned.
Figures in army uniforms rushed toward the platform from the direction of the service elevator. They opened fire as they came, the muzzles of their machine guns flaring repeatedly in the gloom. Howard cursed and charged toward the glass chamber. A bullet slammed into his left shoulder when he was three feet from the threshold. He stumbled and started to fall.
Ethan lunged forward, grabbed his arm, and yanked him inside just as Asgard punched a button on the control panel. The doors slid closed.
Faint thuds rose around them as shots pelted the glass exterior.
Madeleine stared at the men who had surrounded the chamber, her fingers white on the laptop. ‘It’s bulletproof?’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Howard.
He was already working the digital display table. Olivia tore a strip off the bottom of her shirt and tied it around his shoulder.
He winced. ‘Thanks.’
A three-dimensional plan of the mansion flashed in front of them. Madeleine was gaping at it when a muffled boom made her jump.
One of the soldiers had lobbed a grenade at the doors.
‘It’s also blast proof, dumbasses,’ said Howard, glancing at the men on the other side of the glass wall. He shrunk the floating laser image with his fingers and scowled at the handful of flashing amber dots a few miles beyond the perimeter of the estate. ‘I don’t know how these bastards did it, but they found most of our escape routes out of here.’ He closed the projection and shut down the display table. ‘Let’s go!’
‘Go?’ said Madeleine. She looked around, bewildered. ‘Where?’
Howard took the laptop off her, grabbed a digital satellite phone from a concealed drawer, and moved to the left of the table. Asgard and Ethan herded the two women toward him.
A four-foot section of the metal floor started to sink beneath them. Madeleine stared at the steel walls of the secret lift rising around their legs.
Howard grinned and waved at the soldiers. ‘Goodbye!’
He stabbed his middle finger at the ceiling just as they disappeared from view. Thumps resonated above their heads when they exited the cabin one fl
oor below. The soldiers were firing at the curved glass wall that overlooked the lower level.
‘This way!’ said Howard.
They followed him down a row of towering computer servers to a steel door set deep in the rock face in the south wall of the cave. A distant blast brought a scattering of dust down around them as he punched a code into the security display.
The door led to a tunnel lit by ambient security lights. Cool, dry air washed over them when they went through. Howard came through last and secured the opening behind them. Twenty feet inside the passage, he stopped and removed the satellite phone from his pocket.
Madeleine looked at his hands. ‘Where’s the laptop?’
‘In the bunker.’
He chewed his lower lip and stared at the phone’s display, his thumb hovering over the touch screen.
‘What are you doing?’ said Madeleine.
Howard hesitated.
‘Press the button,’ ordered Asgard.
Ethan studied the tortured expression on his friend’s face, took the device off him, tapped the command key, and handed the phone back.
Tremors from a violent detonation shook the ground and walls around them.
‘What just happened?’ said Madeleine as they hurried along the sloping tunnel.
She glanced at Howard over her shoulder.
‘We just killed the servers,’ said Ethan.
Madeleine paled. ‘The data.’
‘It’s safe.’ Howard’s expression was grim. ‘I transferred everything to the backup servers.’
‘The mansion?’ said Asgard.
‘We’ve got five minutes until she blows.’
Olivia slowed and stared at them. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We rigged the whole place with explosives in case something like this ever happened,’ said Ethan.
He exchanged dark looks with Asgard and Howard. Although they had made plans to cover all eventualities, none of them had ever thought it would come to this. Their enemy had won the upper hand once more.
Faint rumbles travelled through the ground a short while later.
Olivia flinched. Ethan glanced at her and knew she was thinking of the abbess’s diaries, now forever lost to the inferno that raged where the mansion once stood.
The explosions continued for almost a minute.
They came to a curve in the tunnel. The ground leveled out. A mile and a half later, a steel door lit by a green security light appeared in the distance.
‘Wait,’ said Howard when they were ten feet from the exit.
They stopped while he checked something on the satellite phone.
He froze a couple of seconds later. ‘Shit.’
Ethan stiffened. ‘What?’
He showed them the display. ‘This is one of two tunnels whose location they hadn’t found. There are six external security sensors in a fifty-foot radius of that door. Five of them have been triggered.’
Ethan’s stomach lurched as he studied the flashing dots on the screen.
‘How the devil did they find this place?’ said Asgard.
‘I don’t kn—’
The color suddenly drained from Howard’s face. His stunned gaze moved to Madeleine.
‘Do you have a cell phone?’
‘Yes, but I disabled the GPS yesterday, when I went to AuGenD.’ Madeleine removed the device from the back pocket of her jeans. ‘The battery was dead. I found a charger in the kitchen this morning.’
‘May I?’ said Howard.
Madeleine shrugged. ‘Sure. But I don’t see how it’s going to—’
Howard tucked his satellite phone in his pocket, took the cell off her, and smashed it against the wall.
‘Hey!’ Madeleine scowled. ‘What the—?’
Howard pried off the broken rear cover. He studied the internal workings under one of the security lights and carefully tipped out a small object the size of a grain of rice.
‘What is that?’ said Asgard guardedly.
‘It’s an active RFID chip.’ Howard scowled. ‘A radio frequency identification chip.’
He dropped the microchip and ground it into the floor with his heel.
Madeleine gazed at Howard in wide-eyed horror. ‘You mean it’s been transmitting a signal, giving away our location?’
‘Yes,’ said the Crovir immortal bitterly. ‘It’s ultra high frequency, detectable below ground. Likely powered by the battery, which is why they didn’t come for us last night.’
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry—’
Madeleine pressed her hands over her mouth.
‘You weren’t to know,’ said Ethan curtly.
Olivia laid a hand gently on Madeleine’s arm.
Asgard stared at the steel door. ‘They know we’re here?’
Howard nodded. ‘And that’s the only exit out of this tunnel.’
The Bastian noble stood still for a moment before taking his rucksack off his shoulder. He handed Madeleine a Sig Sauer P250 and an FN90 assault rifle.
‘Do you know how to use this?’
She took the ammunitions pouch he gave her, looped the rifle’s sling over her head, and tested its weight in her hands. ‘Show me.’
Howard tucked two Glock19s in his waistband, grabbed a submachine gun from Ethan’s bag, and clipped a magazine belt around his hips.
Ethan loaded a pair of Colt semi-automatic pistols and placed them into the small of his back. ‘You gonna be okay with that shoulder?’
‘Yeah.’ Howard grimaced. ‘I have no intention of becoming those bastards’ lab rat.’
Ethan looked at Olivia. ‘Do you want a—?’
‘No,’ she said with a firm shake of her head.
She tore her gaze from the bagful of weapons.
Ethan studied the resolve in her eyes. ‘Stay behind me.’
She dipped her chin.
‘They’ll come at us hard and fast.’ Asgard had swapped his twin long-barreled Colt revolvers for an MP5. ‘Keep low.’
Madeleine and Howard nodded.
Asgard glanced at Ethan. ‘You know what to do.’
Ethan clenched his jaw. He would only use a physical weapon as a last resort.
They took up position behind the door while Asgard entered a code in the security display. The screen beeped. The exit unlocked with a faint pneumatic hiss. Warm air rushed in through the narrow gap at the doorjamb.
The first rounds slammed into the steel panel a second later. Asgard steadied it with his foot, poked his head an inch around the edge, and scanned the exterior surroundings. A bullet streaked past his temple and struck the wall of the tunnel. He pulled back sharply.
‘Twenty men, seven to the right, five to the left, and eight dead ahead!’ he shouted above the clatter of machine guns. ‘They’re about fifteen feet away!’
Ethan took a shallow breath and stared at the door.
‘And this time, mind our weapons,’ Asgard added with a grunt.
Heat flowed through Ethan’s chest. He felt his Elemental powers rise, stronger and more intense than they had ever been, ever since that first time he sensed Olivia in his mind. The alarm that had initially accompanied his experience of this upsurge had faded with the incidents at AuGenD. He was now more confident about his ability to control the unearthly force coursing through his veins. He focused.
The gunfire outside suddenly slowed. It stopped a moment later amidst alarmed shouts.
Asgard yanked the door open and stepped out into a wooded clearing. He dropped to one knee, steadied the butt of the machine gun against his shoulder, and fired rapidly at the group of men who stood staring in horror at their crushed weapons on the other side of the glade.
Howard and Madeleine fanned out next to him and shot at the soldiers diving behind the trees to the east and west.
Ethan hunkered down behind Asgard and felt Olivia move at his back. He looked around the clearing and disabled the handguns the soldiers were pulling from their tactical vests. To his surprise, he discovered he didn’t have to lift his h
ands to turn the weapons into unrecognizable lumps of metal.
A round object thudded on the ground four feet from Asgard. The Bastian noble stiffened.
Ethan narrowed his eyes at the grenade.
It rose and retraced its arc through the air toward a gaping soldier, detonating among the trees and driving several men to the forest floor.
‘You seriously have to teach me that trick!’ yelled Madeleine.
‘There’s more of them coming!’ warned Howard.
Figures rushed between the trees amidst the growing roar of engines. Two army Jeeps came plowing through the undergrowth from the south and braked to a halt some twenty feet from the clearing. The gunfire redoubled.
Ethan was working on destroying the soldiers’ weapons when he felt a sudden prick in his neck. He raised a hand and stared at the small metal object he removed from his skin.
It was a miniature dart.
Puzzlement turned to horror as the soporific effect of a powerful sedative started to kick in. Ethan turned and spotted the immortal Asgard had shot in Olivia’s room at the abbey. The man’s eyes gleamed in triumph behind the tranquilizer rifle resting against his shoulder.
Ethan’s legs started to go weak. He swayed and crumpled to his knees.
Olivia gasped behind him. ‘No!’
The sound tore through his mind, raw and filled with outrage. A wave of intense pressure drove him down at the same time that pain exploded behind his eyes, choking his breath. His limbs grew heavy, the drug working its way through his bloodstream. He thudded face-first in the dirt.
It took every ounce of his fading strength to fight the physical force battering him and raise his head. What he saw defied comprehension.
Branches bowed and creaked in the trees and underbrush, leaves rustling and drifting away wildly in a raging wind that seemed to blow outward from the middle of the clearing, lifting clouds of dirt and debris off the ground.
Legacy Page 17