Part 28 (1/2)

Seconds later Skarda joined her. Outside, they could hear the pounding boots of Jaz's men, their weapons raking the house and the chopper with bullets. A man shouted. Then, with a thunderous roar, the grenades exploded, igniting the fuel and ammunition and ripping through the fuselage in a blizzard of superheated metal.

___.

Stepping off the elevator, Belisarius hurried down a dimly-lit corridor bored into the side of the mountain. Alone on his study, he'd heard the sounds of gunfire and the explosion. Was it the Atlanteans attacking? He doubted it. They wanted the Emerald Tablet and needed to keep him alive as a source of more orichalc.u.m. Had Skarda and Force survived? Maybe by some miracle. At any rate, Jaz's troops would take care of the interlopers.

It was time for him to get to Mount Tavrida.

Coming to a steel door, he tapped in a code on a touch pad and the door unlocked with an electronic snick. Pus.h.i.+ng it open, he entered a small vestibule, where another door blocked his path. But this one had been constructed of thicker steel and here was not only a touch pad but a fingerprint scanner as well. He keyed in a code, then laid his palm against the scanner screen. This time there was no noise. He grabbed the heavy handle and turned, pulling open the vault door.

Overhead lights blinked on automatically as he stepped inside. The vault walls were lined with tiers of steel shelves, cradling medieval and Renaissance oil paintings, a few Greek and Roman marble busts, and farther back, ingots of gold, stacked to the ceiling.

Belisarius smiled, as he always did, when he saw the dull gleam of the yellow metal. Over the years he'd been converting more and more of his a.s.sets to gold. It was ultimately untraceable, able to be melted down and recast in any form or shape, a currency that was recognized and valued the world over.

If the Atlanteans succeeded with their plans, he would be one of the wealthiest men on the planet.

Moving into the vault, he walked past an original Rubens portrait to the spot where the Emerald Tablet rested inside a steel case. Opening the lid, he checked to make sure the artifact was still inside, then closed it and stepped out into the corridor, pulling the heavy vault door shut behind him.

___.

When the helicopter exploded, Skarda and April threw themselves against the hard slate floor. Jagged fragments of metal and stone burst over their heads, the noise of the blast echoing in their ears. Rolling to his feet, Skarda saw that they were in a long, rectangular great room dominated by hand-carved oak furniture, the walls hung with oil paintings. At the far end logs crackled in a ma.s.sive fireplace.

At the high opening leading to the house an arm and hand flashed motion. A round object arced through the air.

”Grenade!” April yelled, immediately diving for the protection of a heavy table and tipping it over like a s.h.i.+eld in front of her.

Ducking low, Skarda leapt for the shelter of an oversized chair, clapping his hands over his ears.

With a deafening whump the bomb exploded, sending a whirlwind of razor-sharp confetti in all directions. Waiting a count of three, the commando took a quick step into the opening, spraying the room with a burst of bullets from his G36, blowing big chunks out of the limestone walls and ripping several paintings to shreds.

Behind the protective wall of the oak table, April waited, holding her breath, knowing that Skarda wouldn't make a move until she did. Then in one fluid motion she rolled out, snapping up to a crouch, seeing the commando still standing in the open pa.s.sageway, his figure obscured by a nebula of smoke.

The man saw her motion and whipped his rifle up- Her hand moved and one of her throwing knives flashed through the air, the blade burying itself to the hilt in his neck. He staggered back, letting go of his rifle and clawing at his throat. His knees sagged and he dropped to the floor.

Stooping to retrieve her knife, April wiped the blood on the commando's pants and sheathed it. She peered out into a marble-floored corridor leading west. Nothing moved. Ahead a short pa.s.sageway opened onto another huge doorway framed by an oak lintel. They moved forward, finding themselves in a circular room whose walls were constructed of stones and boulders mortared in place, clearly supporting one of the ma.s.sive turrets they'd seen from sky. Floor-to-ceiling windows fronted the south side and above them a balcony perimetered the circ.u.mference of the second floor.

As they entered, a man barged onto the balcony, swinging his rifle around in a tight arc, blazing fire.

April dived right into the shelter of a long couch, crouching, bullets cracking all around her, sending up clouds of splinters. Whipping up the barrel of her rifle, she twitched her finger. A slas.h.i.+ng stream of bullets caught the man across the midsection, doubling him in half. His body jerked back, out of sight.

The sound of shouts came to their ears. Three more men blitzed onto the balcony from a second-floor corridor, their guns spraying the room with bullets. Skarda and April dove, hitting the wood floor with their shoulders, rolling for the protection of the balcony overhang, out of the attackers' line of sight. Jumping to her feet, April freed a grenade from her webbing, whipping around to see Skarda following suit. The rattle of automatic weapons hadn't stopped-bullets chewed through furniture and stone, chipping off chunks of the bouldered wall.

Together they pulled the pins. April held up her right hand, her fingers counting out one...two...three...

Taking a step out, they lobbed the grenades at the balcony.

The explosions seemed to shake the house. A man screamed, then was abruptly silent. A mangled body pinwheeled to the floor, the dead man's head cras.h.i.+ng on an end table with a sickening thud and snap of bones.

April traded a quick glance with Skarda. He nodded. Like one person they leapt out of hiding, flipping around in mid-air and landing on their backs, sliding across the polished wood floor, letting loose with their Barretts on full auto.

Behind the railing of the balcony, one man was still alive, his blood-spattered face snarling with hate. Spotting him, Skarda fired. But the man leapt clear, whipping the barrel of his rifle around and pulling the trigger. A line of bullets strafed across Skarda's chest, pummeling him as if he'd been hit by blows from a gigantic hammer. Gritting his teeth in pain, he jerked up the Barrett and fired. The rounds. .h.i.t the commando in the mouth, blowing his jaw apart and splattering blood and brains against the wall behind him.

Coming to a crouch, April knelt beside him, her black eyes probing his. ”Hurt?”

He shook his head. The movement made him wince. The bullets had felt like spikes had been pounded into his chest, but they hadn't pierced the armor. ”I'll be black-and-blue,” he smiled ruefully.

She helped him to his feet. ”Okay. Let's get out of here! There's a staircase over there. The main house must be that way.”

They took the steps in a rush, emerging at the top in a low crouch. On this section of the balcony two doors stood open, separated by about twenty feet. Sprinting past the first door, April stabbed her rifle into the far doorway while Skarda took the first. They saw a library, its walls lined with built-in mahogany bookcases.

Empty.

Another twenty feet down a doorway led to a long pa.s.sageway, lined with a series of tall, narrow windows on both sides of the aisle. Hurrying along, Skarda could see the front grounds of the castle on his right, lit by unseen yellow lights, where a snow-covered circular drive looped around a garden and fountain to hook up with the main drive where it dropped out of sight over the edge of a pine-forested hillside. On his left, the windows looked out over an outdoor courtyard, where fifteen-foot-tall sculpted yew hedges formed a giant maze.

A m.u.f.fled shrill scream from outside made him turn his head. On the driveway a black BMW 760i had appeared, a dark shape in the diffused light. Skarda heard another scream and then Jaz came into sight, dragging Flinders toward the car. She yanked open the rear door and forced her inside, slamming it shut, then ran around to the driver's side and climbed in.

The BMW took off with a screech of tires.

April had seen her, too. ”We need a car.”

On the western end of the corridor, two commandos burst into view, dropping down and taking up defensive positions behind the stone walls. Behind them came the pounding of booted feet. Skarda spun around to see more men converging on the opposite end of the corridor.

They were boxed in.

”Jump!” April yelled at him.

Ripping two grenades from her webbing, she pulled the pins and tossed one right and one left. Then she spun around, her rifle stuttering out rounds on full auto at the windows. The plate gla.s.s above the courtyard shattered into a million fragments and they jumped, arms outspread, landing on top of one of the huge yews, their feet smas.h.i.+ng through leaves and branches and burying themselves half way down the length of the hedge.

Above them the grenades blew. Gla.s.s s.h.i.+vered and burst in a whirlwind of flying shards, drowning out shouts and screams. Billows of dark gray shot out over the courtyard.

Lunging forward against the dense foliage, Skarda clawed his way out of the yew, his feet smas.h.i.+ng through branches as he tumbled to the paved floor. He turned and caught April as he toppled forward. A door opened at the far end of the courtyard. Racing for it, they came upon another corridor that broadened into a kitchen, and beyond it, a mud room, where five sets of car keys dangled from a hang-on board.

April yanked opened the single door in the room. The garage. Flicking on a light, Skarda whistled, seeing two more BMW's, a Mercedes, a Hummer H2 SUT, and an Aston Martin Rapide.

”Aston Martin,” she decided.

Finding the key, they climbed in. Skarda hit the electronic door opener and she jammed down on the accelerator. The powerful car leapt forward, rocketing out of the garage and onto the twisting driveway.

By now the snow had stopped, giving way to tattered clouds revealing an inky-black sky littered with stars. She pumped the brake pedal and the Rapide swerved through a shallow S-curve.

Glancing over at him, April said, ”Odds are they're going to the airport. We're running out of time, which means they'll probably head for Crimea.”

”Munich?”

”That's the closest. Jaz will want to keep her weapons, so that means a private plane.”

Nodding his agreement, Skarda tapped out a text to Candy Man: ”Check on flight plans at Munich Airport, private jets bound for Crimea.”