The whine was loud enough that Carl’s eyes flew open as Stanus released him and allowed the large American to slide to the stone floor. In the dark Everett could see the golden glowing eyes blink in confusion as Stanus whined again and then turned and looked around as if he were lost.
“You want what’s best for your people? This all has to end tonight or the world will descend on the Golia and the Jeddah and the people of the world will not understand. Believe me, we all know how the mob reacts to things that scare them. That’s what we do, my friends and I, we protect the world from our own fear of the unknown. Let me help Marko save his people, Stanus. Let me inside, we have to find a way out of the temple and get the Jeddah to safety.”
Stanus growled deep inside and Carl thought he had pushed the wrong button. The Golia looked at Everett and then reached outward, but instead of Stanus grabbing Carl and finishing what it had started, the beast grabbed the rock wall and leveraged itself to a standing position. As Carl sat in wonder, the beast raised its muzzle to the ceiling and in the darkness at the edge of the City of Moses, Stanus roared until rocks fell from the ceiling.
From the City of Moses to the entrance to the first temple, the roar brought every man, woman, and child to stillness. Zallas, who was nearing the columned temple complex, stopped and looked at the men around him. The roar of the animal bounced from wall to monument, from pyramid to obelisk, until it finally faded to nothingness.
* * *
Major Donny Mendohlson and the sergeant major stopped their travel down the long staircase to the temple when the roar froze their blood.
“Do you think command authority forgot to mention something about this mission?” the sergeant major asked as they continued their flight into the first outer temple.
* * *
As for Carl, he watched as Stanus reached down and took him by the neck once more and instead of pinching his head off like a tick, Stanus threw Everett onto its back and started to climb.
This is what the Golia did, and did very well.
* * *
Zallas was standing behind one of the smaller statues of the Egyptian god of the underworld. Anubis posed in an imposing posture wielding an Egyptian battleax and was standing legs apart and ready for battle. As Zallas looked at the statue he ran his hand along the gold leaf that had been pounded into the stone over three thousand years before. He smiled as he realized if the ancients had placed this much gold on mere statue finery, what lay in wait in the temple. He motioned for his men to redouble their efforts at getting inside. The return fire has ceased more than two minutes before. Zallas saw Colonel Ben-Nevin running down the ramp from the upper temple. It looked as if the devil himself were chasing him.
The Russian was perplexed as he leaned out and watched the Israeli gather four men at the bottom of the ramp and placed them facing the top. He gestured wildly and then his eyes looked the Russian’s way. The colonel ran to Dmitri’s position.
“Your fool men need to learn how to follow orders. We had the Israeli assault element pinned down and then your idiotic men decided to take matters into their own hands and now we have commandos inside the temple,” Ben-Nevin said angrily into the face of Zallas, who looked at him with a blank expression. “They are here to blow it up, you idiot. You must get more men up here and take that unit out!”
“Israeli commandos?” Zallas asked with an astonished look on his face. “What in the hell have you done to me? First I am eliminating members of NATO and now I’m up against the Israelis?”
“You knew what was at stake, did you think the men and women that have secured this place for almost four thousand years were going to allow you, a moron, to just waltz in here and upset an apple cart that is teetering on the brink anyway? Get men up here or we will have nothing.” Ben-Nevin braved reaching out, and taking the Russian by his tuxedo collar said, “You will have nothing, not even your little casino, it will all be gone. You have killed NATO members, you idiot.” Ben-Nevin smirked. “Do you think that any legalities will be observed when some black operations type smashes through your bedroom door in the middle of the night and places an ice pick in your brainstem? You have no choice now but to see this thing through and gather as much treasure as you can.”
“What is your game?”
“All I need is the proof of what’s inside this mountain; I couldn’t care less in whose possession it’s in. My mission is to prove the existence of the City of Moses, that’s all. Men in power only seek the current government’s downfall before they give back everything Israel has earned through blood and death.”
“You are insane, and the men you work for are maniacs,” Zallas said, regretting ever having listened to the spy, a man that was more highly trained at deceit and maneuver even far better than he could ever have been. “But as you say, I may as well get something out of this.”
“Sensible. Our only break is the fact that the Sayeret were caught off guard and most of them will not make it out of the ambush. Unfortunately we cannot get them all, they are too good. So may I suggest we either kill the commandos inside the temple, or we get what we can and escape to the resort, the one place our highly secretive Sayeret cannot go.”
Zallas knew he had totally misjudged his opportunity with this man. But he also knew he had come too far to let the chance slip of recovering some of the antiquities the Gypsy was selling off. Even if the temple collapsed he would still own the lease on the land and he would recover anything the Israelis buried.
“Look, the men they left behind, they must be out of ammunition, tell your men to advance into the temple.”
The mobster braved a look and saw that it had only been two men defending the front of the temple and now they had abandoned the defense and were running it through the large doors. He shook his head in anger as he realized one of the men was the American from the resort. His suspicions on the NATO aspect of the Americans’ story were now confirmed. He stood up in anger once he realized his six-plus men had been pinned down by only two defenders and he gestured wildly for his men to advance into the temple. Zallas was tired of this and needed to be at the castle not here in the middle of a storm deep inside a mountain in a temple he hadn’t known existed twenty-four hours before.
“Kill those men, now!” he ordered. Zallas then looked over at Ben-Nevin and then used his eyes to signal one of his bodyguards. The man turned his AK-47 assault rifle on the Israeli. “Shall we see what the temple holds, Colonel?”
Ben-Nevin looked from the barrel of the weapon and then over to the Russian, who was busy brushing some dust off his expensive coat. He decided that just the antiquities in the hands of the Russian would be enough for him to complete his mission, as the proof that the treasure of the Exodus existed would be enough for the old legends to be proven as real, upsetting the lies of the left-wing government. Now he knew it wouldn’t matter if the Russian was dead when the authorities uncovered the antiquities. No, he thought, it wouldn’t matter at all.
“Yes, let us see what the Jeddah have hidden away for us.”
* * *
Jack called a halt as the air was becoming far too hot for the band of escaping Gypsies to breathe adequately to maintain the fast pace. Collins placed a small girl on the nearest outcropping and then raised the torch high and looked along the wall that was no longer hewn from the mountain, but this was virgin stone. They had left the temple complex and were now deep in the mountain inside a natural cave system. As he moved the torch around Jack could see the many thousands of footprints in the fine dirt of the worn train. He then understood that the path they were following was worn that way because this was the train of the Golia and how they traversed the mountain without being seen by the human inhabitants on and below the peaks.
“How are we doing, Colonel?”
Jack turned and saw Niles Compton with Sarah in tow. The lieutenant was carrying the twin girl of the child Collins had been carrying. She placed the girl down next to her sister and the two Gypsy children held each
other as the American strangers discussed their options.
“If we don’t get these people out of here soon we’re going to have a mess on our hands as far as heat exhaustion is concerned.”
“We can’t go back and we can’t keep moving deeper into the mountain. Bullets or steam vents, not much of a choice,” Niles said as he cleaned his glasses the steam kept fogging.
“Jack, the shooting back in the temple has stopped,” Sarah said as she realized what that meant. Jason and Will were either dead or captured.
“I know,” Jack said worriedly. “Those two are on their own.” He looked at the worried faces of Sarah and Niles. “Don’t worry, they know the better part of valor when it’s called for. They’ll be all right,” Jack lied as best as he could for his benefit as much as for the others. It was Niles who voiced the far more immediate concern.
“Where is Mr. Everett?”
* * *
Alice watched the old woman sleep as she lightly dabbed at the sweat coming from Madam Korvesky’s brow. Anya held the old woman’s hand on the other side of the makeshift cot. Four of the village men were carrying a scythe, a long butcher knife, a large club, and of all things a wrist rocket slingshot. Alice could see that all were tiring. She was about to remove her hand when Madam Korvesky took hold of it and then turned her head to face Alice. Then she weakly turned and looked at Anya.
“Your hope chest,” she said in a barely audible whisper.
“What, Grandmamma?” Anya asked.
Before Madam Korvesky answered her granddaughter she turned and looked at Alice. “The chest in my home, it is Anya’s hope chest, it must be saved.”
“Grandmother, I don’t think we’ll be going back for my hope chest.”
Alice Hamilton listened to the exchange and remembered the heavy chest that Carl Everett had retrieved Madam Korvesky’s blanket from and how hard a time Carl had moving it.
“You must, and Mrs. Hamilton, the chest is yours, Keeper of Secrets,” she said as her voice was growing weaker by the minute.
“Grandmother, we cannot return to Patinas, it’s far too dangerous, Colonel Ben-Nevin and that Russian gangster have the town and the temple.”
“Mrs. Hamilton, promise me you will return to my home and take this gift I give you. Take it to your desert temple and place it among your greatest secrets. Hide well what it is you find.”
Alice looked from the closed eyes of Madam Korvesky to Anya, who looked as confused as herself.
“Promise me this, Mrs. Hamilton.”
“I promise,” Alice said knowing that Anya was right, there was no going back to Patinas. That way was forever blocked to the retreating Gypsies now. The only way was down the mountain, either through it or under it.
Alice looked down and Madam Korvesky had fallen asleep again. She watched as Denise Gilliam came over and checked her pulse and then felt the old woman’s forehead. She shook her head and then went to several old women who were holding children on their laps. She gave the adults salt pills for the heat and she handed out what little water they had to the smaller children. The long line of Patinas refugees stretched out for almost half a mile and only the flickering of a few torches announced they were hiding in the dark at all. The heat was growing the deeper they went.
* * *
Will tried to close the large double doors to the temple but they were too heavy and had not been closed in the past century. They creaked and groaned and then Ryan helped by throwing his weight against them. They finally managed to get them closed just as several large-caliber rounds struck the ancient wood.
“Jesus, I think we’re trapped,” Mendenhall said as he turned and faced the interior of the tomb. The three makeshift sarcophagi stood sentinel in the center of the large temple but other than that the room was bare of anything to fight with.
“Then may I ask why you led us in here?” Ryan asked as he ran to the far wall and started looking for an escape route.
“It was the only place I was familiar with.”
As they ran around looking for something to fight with, the double doors bent inward as the men outside started to force them open.
“Oops. I think they figured out we’re not shooting back anymore,” Ryan said as they both stopped and watched the doors slowly open.
“Gentlemen, you can still survive this night, we have no wish to kill Americans, so stand still with your hands where they can be observed, and we can end this.”
“Can I assume I am speaking with that traitorous little bastard, Colonel Ben-Nevin?” Will asked tauntingly as Ryan made the “what in the hell are you doing” face.
“You may assume. Now I am out of patience. We can just as easily bury your bodies up here among the rocks and the sheep, and believe me, my friends, no one will ever find you. You’ll be just another mysterious disappearance in the dark and dangerous Carpathian Mountains.”
Ryan looked at Will and shrugged his shoulders.
“Crap,” Mendenhall said as he realized the jig was up for him and his friend. “You know, this is your fault, I mean you could have come to the rescue with just a little more firepower,” Mendenhall said as he turned toward the double doors as they opened all the way and Colonel Ben-Nevin and sixty Romanian and Russian criminals rushed into the oldest vault in the history of the world.
“What we brought would have been enough if you ever learned to shoot straight, popping off rounds like we had a million of ’em,” Ryan shot back as he raised his hands into the air.
“Well at least I can say I didn’t spend my time getting mud baths while the rest of us—”
“Hands up,” one of the thugs said as he roughly shoved Will and turned him around.
Both Will and Jason looked at each other and each was far more worried about his friend than himself.
“This really sucks,” Jason said, resigned to the fact that he and Will were now out of the game.
As the men filled the room, Avi Ben-Nevin came through the door and Dmitri Zallas was close behind. The Russian stood in the doorway and lit a cigar and then looked at the two Americans. He shook his head and gestured to the Israeli to speak.
“Thank you, gentlemen, now we can conclude this business and be on our way,” Ben-Nevin said as the ground shook around them and dust filtered down from the stone cut ceiling. “Because one way or another, for some reason or other, I don’t think this mountain is entirely stable.”
Will and Jason looked around and then exchanged uneasy looks as the tremor was far longer than the last.
The colonel was right, the mountain was feeling its oats.
* * *
Jack knew he had to get the people up and moving. If Sarah was right he knew they were fast running out of time. If any kind of detonation in that temple were set off it would likely trigger a massive shift in the strata and that would result in the anchor pins holding the castle’s foundation to the mountain snapping off or pulling free of the mountain.
Sarah and Niles stood when they saw that Jack was about to order everyone forward once more. Sarah knew upon looking at the people they would never make it through the heat of the natural steam vents dotting the mountain.
“I know what you’re thinking, but we haven’t a choice, we have to keep moving and assume Mr. Everett has—”
The wall next to Jack and behind Niles Compton started to crumble as something was battering the stone and earth. The entire stone wall caved in and what was standing there froze everyone in place. Stanus roared and then stepped away from the hole it had made. The giant wolf vanished and then Carl Everett stepped through.
“This way to ladies’ linens, housewares, and ancient Egyptian passageways,” he said.
The line of displaced Gypsies erupted in cheering and crying as the cool air of the outside world started to flow into the mountain and cooled their heat-induced fear.
The second Exodus of the Jeddah had found a new route to salvation.
* * *
Major Donny Mendohlson could tell by the l
essening volume of fire coming through the noise of the storm that his men were seizing control of the rabble that had held them at bay for far too long. He was angry that the intelligence on the part of the mission planners had failed to foresee an armed force of defenders. He was far angrier at himself for considering the HALO jump the most dangerous aspect of Operation Ramesses and not the actual demolition of the site.
“As far as I can tell we were singularly lucky these weren’t trained soldiers,” the sergeant major said as he aimed his weapon toward the entrance of the temple they had just entered.
Major Mendohlson heard the noise and then aimed his own weapon at the entrance where a bright flash of lightning illuminated the opening just as a man ran through. They were getting ready to shred the intruder to pieces when the major held up his right hand.
It was Janos Vajic. He was soaked and mud-covered and realized that he had about been shot to death. He shook his head.
“We have about fifty percent casualties. We are setting up a dry place for the wounded and your medic is working on them.”
The major held the Mossad agent’s gaze waiting for the other shoe to fall.
“Eleven of your men are dead, Major.”
Mendohlson had just been handed an indication of what the butcher’s bill would be for this little foray to destroy something that couldn’t even be explained to him and his men. And now he had the dead to prove just how messed up the world had become. He turned on Vajic.
“Who in the hell are we fighting and just who is leading the defense inside that mountain?” Mendohlson asked.
For the first time Janos Vajic heard the firefight going on far beneath them in the temple. He couldn’t imagine it was the villagers of Patinas putting up such a spirited fight.
“You’re up against a ruthless bastard who is one of the richest mobsters in Eastern Europe. The man will stop at nothing to get anything he already does not own.”
Carpathian: Event Book 08 Page 60