“Now what did you do that for?” Zallas said as he reached over and used a towel to wipe some imagined dirt from his hands. “You’ll just have to dig him out of the mud later, think gentlemen, think.” Zallas tossed the towel away, relit his cigar, and then looked at Marko Korvesky. “Now, as partners we must have a talk, Marko. It seems you have not been exactly forthcoming with me concerning the acquisition of the antiquities you have been delivering.”
Marko refused to believe he had been fooled by this man, this idiot gangster. His grandmother had been right. He had brought this evil to the pass by selling their heritage. He wanted to be sick as he heard his men being pushed and shoved and slapped toward the hotel area. The desk clerks saw what was happening and ducked out of sight.
Dmitri watched Marko and knew the man would never reveal the location of the hidden temple, but Zallas had ways around that. He started to place a hand on the shoulder of the Gypsy but when he saw the black eyes look up at him he thought better of it and lowered his manicured hand and instead gestured toward the hotel.
“Come, Marko, this shouldn’t take long. We just need to ask a few questions about the location of the treasure of the Exodus.”
Marko managed to move his eyes to the one who had obviously fed the Russian the temple information—the tall man with the pencil-thin mustache was the obvious choice, as he was smirking at Marko and still pointing the gun at him. Marko then looked back at Zallas.
“I will kill every one of you for this,” he said as he was pushed in the back toward the lobby.
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you will, but you have some talking to do first.” This time Zallas did brave touching Marko on the shoulder as he was escorted out of the garden-spa area. “When I was a boy, it was explained to me by some very determined men of the Moscow police force the disadvantages of being a criminal in a closed society. I am a student of the techniques used back in the day and believe me, my friend, you and your men will end up telling us everything we want to know.” Zallas slapped Marko on the back and stopped and watched as the Gypsy leader was led through the lobby to the elevator that would take him and his men down into the cavernous basement of the hotel where the screaming of Marko and his men would be lost in the immense spaces below.
“I do not want the Gypsy hurt or killed at this time, we may have need of him after all of this is over,” he said without turning to face Ben-Nevin. “Are you sure you can break him your way?”
Zallas heard the chuckle of the Mossad agent but still didn’t turn to face him.
“I will be at the castle,” Zallas said as he adjusted the bright red silk scarf. “Assemble the men at midnight and we will then pay a visit to the pass.”
“Do you not think this is a priority over your Castle Dracula’s grand opening?” Ben-Nevin asked as Zallas moved off toward the escalator.
This time Zallas did stop and finally turn to face the Israeli.
“I have spent over $5 million on tonight just in entertainment and special effects for that club and I plan on bringing it in with what the Americans call a bang.”
As Zallas smiled and walked away, Ben-Nevin was thinking the same thing. He had yet to inform Zallas just who it was that would be coming after them. If the Russian knew that he wouldn’t be so cavalier about what was about to happen up in the pass. Ben-Nevin had no illusions that if somehow word got back to General Shamni that he was here, the Sayeret would explain it to Zallas and his men in no uncertain terms.
Ben-Nevin knew that Satan was in the air somewhere above the black storm clouds and he was coming their way.
* * *
Ryan was about to be the first to step out into the storm but Jack pulled on his arm until Jason was forced to hop from the sill of the large broken window.
“At ease, Mr. Ryan, I’ll be going out first. If I happen to fall take the interior route and get Sarah and the doc out as best you can.”
“I don’t mind saying, Colonel, that maybe Captain Everett has a point.”
“And what would that be, ol’ wise one?” Collins asked, knowing he was about to be slammed for privilege of command authority. He wasn’t disappointed.
“That maybe you should let us start sharing in these harebrained chances you seem to take.” Ryan looked at Collins and the normal, joking smile was absent this time. “With all due respect, of course.”
“Of course,” Collins confirmed. “Still, I’ll take this one. You go the way of our new Israeli Mossad agent friend and get these two the hell out of here. If not, join me on that three-inch ledge outside in a few minutes.” Collins raised his brows until Ryan couldn’t hold the colonel’s gaze any longer. He nodded that he understood. Jack slapped Ryan on the shoulder. “Please don’t be in a hurry to get killed, Mr. Ryan, there will be plenty of time for that in the near future, believe me.” Jack hopped up on the sill and then looked back at Sarah. “You be careful, short stuff, this wind will blow you right to Oz.”
“One fairy-tale land at a time, thank you,” Sarah said but Jack had already stepped out onto the ledge and into the driving rainstorm. “Ass, Colonel.” Sarah looked at Pete and stared him down until the computer expert looked away. Then she gestured to the doctor that perhaps he had better step out there and follow Jack.
Ryan watched as Jack stepped free of the room and started inching his way toward the distant cable car barn that looked like a domed stadium far ahead. He assisted Pete onto the slippery ledge and as Golding fought for a handhold against the falsity of the gray stone blocks, Ryan deftly reached out and slipped off Pete’s horn-rimmed glasses and then placed them in his shirt pocket.
“What you can’t see can’t hurt ya, Doc.”
Pete squeezed his eyes shut and then started inching his way along the three-inch ledge.
“After you, my dear,” Jason said, bowing at Sarah.
Just before Sarah stepped onto the sill she looked at Ryan, who wasn’t that much bigger than the diminutive lieutenant.
“You know, smart guy, since you’re trying your best to scare the doc, you know how far it is to the ground, and I believe some hotshot jet ace doesn’t have a parachute, does he?” she mocked and then deftly hopped onto the sill and started to walk along the ledge as she quickly caught up with a struggling Pete Golding.
Ryan had to smile at Sarah’s quick-wittedness. He stepped up to the sill and then took a cursory glance down to the now rain-washed grounds of the resort. He shook his head two times quickly as he realized McIntire was right—it was a long way down.
The jail break was on.
* * *
When Ryan finally made it to the corner of the hotel he saw Collins squatting just over one of the large square windows that made up the partial geodesic dome of the cable car barn. Sarah was sitting on the roof talking softly to Golding, who was still embarrassed at having slowed them down so much. Ryan bypassed the two and advanced to Jack’s location where he knelt beside the colonel.
“What have we got?” Ryan asked as he tried his best to turn his head away from the driving rain, which had threatened on more than one occasion to throw one of the four from the ledge on their trek across the sixth-floor ledge.
“We have one hell of a dandy-looking Russian getting ready to wow the world of entertainment.”
“What?”
Jack turned and faced Ryan. “The Russian is getting ready to join his guests up in the castle.”
“That means we have to wait until the castle car comes back?”
“We don’t have that luxury,” Jack said as he quickly came to a decision. “Well, we’re all wet anyway, a little more water won’t matter. Get the others and come on.”
Ryan gestured for Sarah and Pete to follow, but by the time he looked back Collins had already threaded his way through the mass of piping and other hazards as he made for the top of the cable car. He waited as the other three caught up.
“Jack, I think you’ve lost your mind,” Sarah said as she tried to catch her breath. Collins had to smile at the drow
ned rat look she was now sporting in her fancy dress. He shook his head at his private joke at McIntire’s expense. “We can’t ride the same car as Zallas!” she whispered with authority.
“I’m open to suggestions, people.”
Pete managed to rise up enough to see over Ryan and the cable car beyond.
“Excuse me, Colonel, but how do we get inside without that Russian guy seeing us?”
“Come on, Doc,” Ryan admonished just as Jack took off for the now moving car as it started its run for the castle. It had just cleared the interior area when Collins easily stepped onto the top. He turned and assisted Sarah on board and then at Ryan’s urging, Pete. Jason was the last one on.
“Boy, and I thought we would have it easier than Mendenhall down here at the resort. I was sorely mistaken.”
With Zallas below in warmth and comfort sipping champagne, the Event Group hitchhiked on top of the cable car with the lightning flashing around them.
Up ahead they saw the swirling spotlights that cast the castle in blue and purple through the driving rain.
They all realized at once the surreal situation they now found themselves in. Sarah smiled and looked at Jack, who was holding on to the cable pulley system that stood as high as a man. The wind picked up as the large car broke free of its enclosure and the four started getting pummeled by the storm.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Colonel?” Sarah said as she tried to shield her face from the raindrops.
“I think I do. Here we are riding a cable car toward Dracula’s Castle on a dark and stormy night in an attempt to save one of the Lost Tribes of Israel and a subspecies of wolf that had been mistaken for werewolves for three thousand years and then we have to pull our friends off a mountain that may or may not blow up in the next six hours. Did I leave anything out?” He grinned as the rain started becoming serious as they all hung on as the car swayed a bit.
“Yeah, you did leave something out,” Sarah corrected.
“What’s that?”
“That our duty, as the Event Group charter points out, is to discover just what in the hell is so important to the Jeddah and the Hebrews that they had to bury it two thousand miles away from their homeland, and whatever that is why are they are willing to destroy it so readily.”
Jack smiled and then leaned closer to Sarah.
“I didn’t want to use that many words.”
Sarah just stared at Jack as the cable car carrying Dmitri Zallas made its way to the nightmare scene far above as Castle Dracula waited.
CASTLE DRACULA
The guests were seated for the most part as the wait staff filled glasses of complimentary champagne to the elite crowd of thieves and bankers, in this case the same profession. The waterfall curtain was a particular favorite as the crowd oohed and awed over the multicolored display of falling water drops that changed hue every few seconds to the sound of recorded rock music. It was now ten o’clock.
Backstage Drake Andrews sat in a chair as his manager went over his play list. His part of the show was still two hours off and Drake had sworn he wouldn’t step foot out on the stage until the last minute. He had never felt as humiliated as he did on this rainy night in Romania. He heard loud laughter and he stepped to the curtain and looked.
“They actually have a white man dressed as Stevie Wonder? Oh, God, I’m going to be ruined.”
As they watched the Russian group take their places, Drake felt a slight tremor under his fingers as he held on to the door jamb. He rolled his eyes at his warm-up band. The vibration started and then stopped. He looked at his hands and cursed his luck once more.
“The music hasn’t even started yet and we’re already getting the shakes out of this place.”
PATINAS PASS
Niles had returned to the temple to retrieve Charlie Ellenshaw as he was sure the professor’s questions were driving Anya insane.
As he made his way down the torch-lit steps Niles thought he heard something behind him. He stopped and listened but nothing moved. He only heard the sizzle of the oil-encrusted torches. He turned away and started back down the steps but stopped once more as he realized this time he was not alone. As he slowly looked up the reason why he hadn’t seen anything behind him was due to the fact that the wolf was hanging upside down with its claws firmly dug into the rock stairwell. Mikla didn’t move as its nose twitched, smelling Niles.
Compton couldn’t help but moan under his breath. The Golia up close were the most frightening, most amazing creatures Compton had ever seen. If there was one thing that must come out of this unscathed it had to be these animals. In his opinion the Golia were the priority and once out of here he would try to make sure they always had a protected home—if he survived this current encounter that is.
Mikla whined deep in its throat and then released its right hand and brought it down to Niles’s head. The long, articulate singers and claws wrapped around his skull like a normal-sized man would hold an apple. The beast seemed amazed that Niles had no hair on the top of his head. The animal then clicked a claw up against his glasses, producing a clack. Then it hit the glasses again until they went askew on Compton’s face.
“Mikla, stop that! I swear your curiosity will get the best of you someday.”
Niles knew it was Anya but he refused to turn that way as Mikla quickly withdrew his hand. The Golia barked once, twice, and then hopped free of the wall and then Niles heard the popping hip joints and the way the Golia arranged its skeletal frame to accommodate its amazing ability to walk upright. The Golia stood before Niles and cocked its head. The beast sniffed at Compton one last time and then reached out and with one, long, sharpened claw clicked his glasses one last time until they were sitting straight on the director’s face and then the beast leaped to the wall and with the grace of a wall fly crawled up and into the darkness of the high reaches of the City of Moses.
“Thank you,” Niles said as he wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
“Mikla never means any harm. Unlike Stanus, Mikla has the ability to see things differently. He’s far more curious about humankind than is good for him. He has been the only Golia I have ever known to actually seek out a traveler.” Anya stepped into the torch light. Charlie Ellenshaw was with her and they both looked up and into the darkened upper reaches but Mikla was gone. “My grandmother wishes for you to join her. She says we have little time to explain our history so that the Keeper of Secrets can place it into proper historical perspective.”
“And just what does that mean?” Niles asked, looking up into the smiling face of Anya.
“She wants you to know why this place was selected by God for the Golia to live, and why this is the hiding place of the greatest discovery in the ancient world, and one that will vanish in just a few hours.”
Niles straightened and then fixed the young woman with a look that said he still didn’t fully understand.
“You will now see what it is you came here to see, Dr. Compton, and what it is that my grandmother and every ancestor of ours since the great Exodus has kept safe for over thirty-five hundred years here in these once forsaken mountains.”
“And that is?” Niles persisted.
“Have you not wondered why this temple is named the way it is named, doctor?”
“The City of Moses?”
“Exactly,” she said and then turned and went down into the bowels of the temple complex.
Niles looked at Charlie and then they both turned and followed in far more of a hurry than they intended.
The City of Moses was about to give up its ancient and devastating secret that some men in the world deemed important enough to kill an entire tribe over, and other men that were willing to destroy an entire historical heritage of that people for the mere threat of having their secret exposed to the world.
The Great Exodus was finally coming to a conclusion almost four thousand years after the fact.
FLIGHT 262, HEAVY COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT, SQUAWKING FRIENDLY OVER ROMANIAN AIRSPACE
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br /> The Hercules C-130 bumped and ground its way through roiling clouds that sparked brightly with electric streaks of lightning that came close to striking the airframe of the American-built heavy transport. The plane bounced and tossed the men around inside the cavernous belly of the aircraft, which elicited a loud yahoo from the commandos as they tried to shake off the nerves of the impending HALO jump from the ramp of the Hercules.
Major Donny Mendohlson sat at the small navigator’s table going over their flight path with the air force specialist. They had come to the conclusion that they couldn’t make the jump as high as they initially wanted because of the high altitude of the storm—they would land at least two miles downwind if they jumped at 32,000 feet. They would have to chance it at half that.
“Any contact from Demetrius?” Mendohlson asked as he placed his map into a plastic-lined cover and then put it in his jacket pocket. He and his men were dressed in black Nomex and were self-equipped to handle most anything thrown at them—if they all made it down through this backbreaking storm. It would be a first for all of them.
“There has been nothing coming from either the south or the north of Romania since the storm hit. The authorities are reporting that they are having a hard time evacuating the populace from the low-lying areas of the Danube.”
Major Mendohlson nodded his head as he zipped up his black body armor.
“Well, I guess they’ll be far too busy to be concerned about one small relief flight straying off course a little, especially in the storm of the century.”
“Get a flash priority one message off to Tel Aviv. Tell General Shamni that Operation Ramesses is a go.” The major looked at his black-painted watch and pushed the small timer. “We HALO in five to eight minutes.”
The call went out to Tel Aviv explaining that the world’s fiercest killers were about to jump headfirst into the cauldron of swirling blackness and exploding electrical strikes to finally end centuries of cover-up.
Carpathian: Event Book 08 Page 53