Mendenhall and Ryan knew when playtime and the joking ceased and when it was time for the junior officer to take orders from a superior and this was one of those times as much as Will hated to admit it. He shook with anger that Ryan had gone without hesitation. He knew he had to move as the tower they had just climbed down was swaying the whole time they traversed the stairs.
Mendenhall moved his charges out of the tower to ease along the rim of the road, which was now only inches above the water. The first girl, the one dressed as Janis Joplin, slipped and nearly went in. Mendenhall and Ellenshaw caught her and pulled her back. The girl was shaking so badly Will knew he would never get her to attempt it again.
“Damn, Doc, we need a cab in the worst way!”
At that precise moment the dull red 1962 Chevy Impala bumped against the cable tower and careened into the stairwell doorway narrowly missing Mendenhall and Charlie. Will acted quickly, as he never looked a gift horse, or in this case, a gift boat, in the mouth. He reached out and used the door frame as leverage and jumped onto the hood of the car and then scrambled up the windshield and through the open window. Luckily the old and battered Chevy lodged momentarily against the cable tower, the bumper digging into the doorway. Mendenhall waved at Charlie, gesturing wildly for him to get all sixteen people into the car. It was going to be a tight squeeze but knew it was any boat in a storm. The Russians started jumping onto the car’s hood and top. The trunk sank in the water as even more jumped onto the car. Charlie was the last one on and got stuck on the top as he kicked out several times with the help of Drake Andrews until the Chevy dislodged from the tower.
Soon the Impala was moving rapidly down the most recent rapids to come into existence in the Eastern world—Dracula’s Wild Ride, Will would call it later when telling the tale.
The men and women of the Russian musical troupe, with Drake Andrews and Charlie Ellenshaw adding their weight, screamed as the car started twisting in the rapidly moving floodwaters as it rushed for a collision date with a doomed resort.
* * *
Zallas finally made it through the open window and it was another ten minutes of nearly falling ten times until they finally made it to the now silent promenade deck. Zallas took a head count and found he had only ten men left. He had lost another three in the harrowing climb down to the car. He gestured for his men to advance and make sure all of those insane dogs were gone.
As they approached the door it slid open automatically and then men jumped back with a start when they saw the prone body of Stanus. The giant wolf wasn’t moving as it lay on the Persian carpet of the car’s interior. Ben-Nevin, angry at seeing one of the animals that could no longer take his head off at the shoulders, stepped up and placed two bullets into the still animal’s back. The Golia didn’t move. Ben-Nevin gestured for them to get inside the car but had to brace himself as the castle shifted once more. It stilled but they all knew it wouldn’t stay that way as they all saw the very long, very deep crack in the cobbled flooring of the promenade.
“Come, you fools, get aboard, this castle is no longer destined to stay attached to this mountain.” He looked at Zallas as he stepped past the Israeli. “I guess the little American woman was right, you should have paid for a good engineer instead of the one you paid off.”
Zallas gave the colonel a filthy look as he stepped over the bleeding Golia. He should have noticed the large hitch in the beast’s chest as the automatic doors slid closed and the car started its slow push out from the covered promenade.
* * *
As the car below started to leave the barn, Jack knew they weren’t going to make it. It was too far down. They could possibly get Anya and Sarah and maybe the major on board the roof but that would be it. It was Anya and Mikla who settled it.
“You three go, Mikla will carry me, now move!” she shouted just as Mikla jumped onto the roof of the promenade. With another leap he easily managed to jump to the large window overlooking the moving car below. Without hesitation Mikla took a struggling Anya by the arm and tossed her roughly onto his back and then the Golia jumped free of the window and vanished.
“I guess he has his priorities,” Sarah said as she leaned out the large window and saw the Golia deposit an angry Anya on the cable car’s roof and then he started to climb again away from the frantically waving Gypsy and frustrated woman.
“I think maybe the wolf is coming back to—”
Sarah was unceremoniously yanked from the room by Mikla, who repeated the process until Sarah was standing next to Anya as they both looked up at the three men.
As they watched the wolf start its amazing climb once more, the floor cracked straight down the middle and this time the top half of the castle tilted to the far front and Jack felt it slipping free of the lower half.
“That’s it, out the window now!” he screamed as the tower started to crumble under their feet.
The three men scrambled out into the open storm as fast as they could but even as they gained purchase on the sloping wall they turned and saw the east parapet tilt. In the storm and lightning it was upright one moment and then during the next flash the tower was falling right past the man hanging on to the wall and just hoping the falling tower missed not only them but the entire cable car platform. It did as it went whooshing by them, splitting the rain and wind and creating its own storm as the large building blocks slammed into the club below. That force of impact finally sheared the foundation away from the mountain and the club went next, sliding and tumbling down the mountain heading straight for the resort far below.
Collins, Everett, and Mendohlson felt the wall they were holding on to ripple and start to give way.
“Well, it’s been one hell of a night, gentlemen, but it’s time to see if we can fly,” Mendohlson said as he leaped to the car now free of the barn and snagged a large cable. He was hanging on for dear life and then Jack and Carl breathed a sigh of relief as Mendohlson slowly made his way to the roof. Without comment, Jack, and then Everett, both let go of the wall as the same moment and snagged the same cable and went hand overhand to the car’s roof. Just as their feet touched down several bullets came smashing through the roof forcing the new passengers toward the centerline where the cables attached to the car and the huge pulley system. Jack looked down as the car went out over the abyss and their descent into the valley began.
Sarah and Anya were trying to see in the darkness just when the remains of the upper half of Dracula’s Castle would fall and crush them all to death when they saw in a flash of lightning the south parapet lean forward and then fall. It was like something out of a Hollywood movie about the wrath of God bringing down a stone monstrosity that dared rise against his mountain and his animals. The tower flew past the moving car and smashed into the main tower, shaking the cable and thus the car. It rocked back and forth with the force of the collision almost sending Jack and the others slinging off into the storm to their deaths. More bullets flew through the ornate wood ceiling as Zallas and his men continued to take potshots at them.
Suddenly in a bright flash the power lines exploded as part of the east parapet struck the second tower just as the cable car passed it, knocking free the power lines and shaking the car and the men inside enough that the intruders on the roof became a moot point as they all realized that the world was going to come crashing down upon them any second.
Finally the mountain gave one last tremendous shake and the remains of the castle, club and all, broke away, sending engineered stone blocks the size of houses and made in Hungary careening down the mountainside. The first twenty-two-ton block hit the first cable tower knocking it free of its cement base. The cables that ran through the pulley system on the tower unraveled sending the car plummeting to the road now three hundred feet down. Jack and the others barely held on to the heavy pulley block on the top of the car as they fell through the air. They waited for the crushing impact as they hit the bottom. They felt the tremendous jerk and then they all fell hard into the steel. The last cable
had hung up on the next tower and the cable continued to play out. They were moving but no longer falling, but being lowered like a slow elevator as the cable hung on tight to the second tower. They were now only a hundred feet off the rushing waters below.
Finally it was the 800,000-ton foundation that came next. The anchor pins the Golia had painstakingly undermined for months came free of their pilot holes and the entire structure, foundation, and sixteen hundred-ton steel pins came free with it. Together they came down the side of the mountain like a runaway block of stone connected by giant lawnmower blades. Both slammed into the second tower hitting it with so much force that it not only knocked it from its base but bent it double. The next tower was even easier, as the agglomeration of Dracula’s Castle’s remains sent the cable car the last hundred feet into the swirling waters of the flood.
As Jack, Sarah, Anya, Mendohlson, and Everett hung on for dear life, the car turned in a large circle and sped down the ravine toward the hotel. They all wanted to scream when Mikla jumped onto the top of the car. Anya reached out and grabbed the wolf by the ears and pulled it closer to her. She thought they had lost Mikla when the castle came down, but he must have jumped from damaged area to damaged area until he had reached the third tower.
Together with the Russian and his men below in the darkened car and screaming like schoolgirls on an amusement park ride, the Event Group, Anya, and the Israeli commando held on tightly as the cable car shot down the growing rapids, careening from bank to bank as they rushed toward the Edge of the World—literally.
* * *
Will couldn’t believe he was actually trying to steer the car in the rising water as the Chevy flew down the flooded road. The car smashed into the right berm, and then spun in a circle and then struck the left side. The Chevy was dangerously close to being sunk by the mass of humanity inside and on top of the car. Drake Andrews saw disaster coming their way first and started pounding on the roof as if Mendenhall could actually do something about what he was panicking over.
“Whoa, whoa, look out!” Andrews yelled and then watched as several hundred-ton blocks of stone bounced past them on their way to crash into the hotel. Then Drake and Charlie both started pounding the car’s roof when they saw the next little fright headed their way.
“Will!” Charlie screamed from the roof, not knowing that Mendenhall was busy turning the wheel of a car that was now floating faster than it ever drove.
Mendenhall looked in the rearview mirror past all of the wet heads inside the car and took in a sight that froze his blood. The cable car was right behind them and was coming on fast. He could see people inside and outside on the top. He braced for the impact and it soon came.
The cable car smashed into the Chevy sending Ellenshaw, Andrews, and the girl dressed as Janis Joplin free of the car and into the water. The cable car’s rear end flew up and that was when Major Mendohlson lost his fight with centrifugal force and followed them into the rapids.
Jack and Sarah tried to hold on to Everett and Anya but they too went over the side and into the water and they were quickly followed by Mikla, who went after the Jeddah princess. Jack cursed and then held on to Sarah as the car went straight for the geodesic dome of the large spa and nature center.
* * *
Niles Compton and Alice Hamilton had finally made it to the hotel to warn everyone of the disaster but all they saw of the remnants of the grand opening at the castle was the screaming, bloody, terrified guests from Castle Dracula running through the hotel. The staff had evacuated with them. Everyone was gathering at the front gate and trying desperately to get as far away from the Edge of the World as they could.
Niles pulled on Alice’s hand knowing the older woman was near to collapse, but still she clung to the burlap sack containing whatever it was she had removed from Madam Korvesky’s home. It had taken Niles another five minutes to find the radio in the office of Dmitri Zallas.
“Yes, Virginia, I’m sure,” Niles radioed Virginia Pollack at the Event complex in Nevada, “if we do not get the emergency evac in the next hour we’ll have an international mess on our hands that won’t end. We have the proof of theft and we have evidence that supports the Event call. Yes, immediately, we have to—”
Niles felt the rumble just in time as Alice dropped the sack she was carrying and then pushed Compton out of the way as the first stone block from the falling parapet struck the hotel and veered into the casino, smashing through to the far side where it landed in the Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Niles looked up as he felt the rain on his face and the howling wind coming from the space where the outer wall used to be. He was still holding the microphone from the radio in his hand. The cord had been sheared off as the block not only took half the office away, but the radio also.
Alice quickly retrieved the bag and then helped Niles to his feet.
“I think we did what Jack wanted, maybe it’s time to beat that hasty retreat they always talk about,” Alice said as she gingerly eased herself over the remains of the office.
Alice and Niles Compton had made it clear of the hotel when the remains of the castle’s foundation smashed into the hotel. The top floor collapsed into the fifth until the combined weight of both floors created the pancaking effect seen in building collapses. The hotel came down and pulled the casino into the water with it.
The Edge of the World had slipped completely off the grid.
* * *
The Chevy, the cable car, and those who had managed to hang on during their harrowing ride down the mountain slid into the cornerstone of what was left of the casino. The men and women inside and outside the Chevy jumped free but quickly went for cover as gunfire erupted from inside the cable car. The bullets smashed windows as the doors opened and several men jumped out into the water wanting to make it to the remains of the casino. Then several more men jumped free. Mendenhall watched as Jack Collins and Sarah McIntire jumped into the water from the top of the car. He opened his door and then allowed himself to taken by rushing water. The Russian musicians soon joined Will in the water as the last of Zallas’s men made a break for safety.
Dmitri Zallas was fuming. Not only had he been as frightened as a child and demonstrated so on the way down the mountain, but his most trusted men deserted him. Only Colonel Ben-Nevin remained. He gestured for Ben-Nevin to give him his gun. The colonel only smiled and rubbed the wound on his shoulder. He raised the pistol and pushed the barrel against Zallas’s ample chest until the scowling Russian stepped aside. Ben-Nevin shook his head as he passed the stunned gangster.
“I’m afraid our deal is off,” he said as the gun never wavered from the Russian’s chest.
“You have failed at your mission, your future will be as bleak as my own,” Zallas hissed.
“Possibly, but I believe that we may have caused enough of a mess for the world to notice that the current Israeli soft-liners have sent an illegal force of Israeli soldiers into a friendly nation and killed Romanian nationals, so in the end my benefactors will come to power anyway, so at least I have a fighting chance. And you? I’m afraid you have nothing. Now, excuse me as I find a ride out of here.”
Zallas watched Ben-Nevin as he stepped off into the rushing water and was gone as the car started to fill with muddy, dank water.
“I will kill you!” Zallas screamed as he made for the door in the darkness.
As he readied to jump into the rushing torrent, his shoulder was grabbed from behind. The claws dug deeply into the Russian’s shoulder, sending the nails so deep that they struck the man’s collarbone. He screamed in pain as he was suddenly jerked around. Standing there bleeding and wet was Stanus. The beast was still alive and well enough to stand upright in the rising water of the flood. The Golia was breathing heavily, trying to force life-giving air into its collapsing lungs. The animal had actually lain there and accepted the two bullets from Ben-Nevin’s gun and not moved an inch. Zallas realized that this was no ordinary dog—it was not only the largest wolf he had eve
r seen in his life, but it was also the smartest creature he had even known, including most of his business associates. Then he looked into the yellow eyes.
Stanus leaned in so close to the Russian that its breath fouled the man’s breathing. Stanus was near death, he could see that, but he also knew the beast was staying alive long enough to corner him before he could escape. Then he saw it. The eyes first flashed to brown and then back to the glowing yellow. Then he saw Marko in the reflection cast upon him. The Gypsy was there, inside the wolf, and the Russian knew this as a fact just as surely as he knew this nightmare from his childhood was going to kill him. Zallas shook his head just as the beast slowly opened its mouth and bit.
The screaming stopped almost as soon as it started as the cable car broke free of the remnants of the hotel and then circled once near the pool and then slowly went under the water.
Stanus, the alpha male of the Golia, was gone.
* * *
Jack saw Ben-Nevin leave the car and had jumped into the water to follow. Of all the people in this nightmare he knew that this man was at the root of what happened here tonight. He had tried to kill his people and Jack would never let that go. Sarah yelled after him and then carefully jumped into the swirling mass and followed him and Ben-Nevin into what was left of the casino.
“Hold it!” Jack yelled as his feet hit dry carpeting for the first time in what seemed hours. Ben-Nevin turned and without aiming fired three times, taking Collins by surprise. Jack’s reactions were barely fast enough to move out of the way. Luckily the casino was dark with only a few of the emergency lamps still operational. “Missed, Colonel, typical spook shooting, not very good. I see the Mossad doesn’t train their agents any better than the CIA,” Jack yelled as he tried to get the desired effect. He did.
Ben-Nevin angrily fired off three more shots and then Collins heard a curse as the firing pin on the colonel’s handgun came down upon nothing. Jack stood from his cover and saw Ben-Nevin standing there. He was looking past Jack and at something over his shoulder. Collins slowly turned and saw Carl standing there with Anya. They were battered and bruised and covered in mud but very much alive. Then Jack’s eyes traveled to where Anya stood and saw in the weak battery-driven lights that Mikla was standing next to her. The wolf was only looking in one direction—straight at Ben-Nevin, the man Mikla had saved Anya from on the train, and the Golia had a very long memory.
Carpathian: Event Book 08 Page 65