30 Pieces of Silver (47 page)

“
Back away!” Lopez yelled over the automatic gunfire as he began dumping the contents into the chamber below.

The sergeant looked at Svengurd. “You want the honors?”

“
Abso-fucking-lutely.” The tall corporal lit a match off the side of his boot, flicking it into the plume of dust churned up by the tumbling packets. A sparkling fire bloomed from the cloud. At first it looked just like tiny sparkler, but then it became a roaring ball of flame cascading into the hole.

Brandt pulled her close as screams carried from the chamber. Explosion after explosion rocked the ground beneath them. But maybe, just maybe, if someone had been smart enough to head to the stairwell, they could have survived the inferno. Then Lopez jammed the bulldozer into gear as he leaped from the cab.

“
Wahoo!”

The bucket fell into the hole, dragging with it the rest of the bulldozer’s bulk. The heavy equipment plugged the hole perfectly, so that the next explosion had nowhere to vent, causing the entire hillside to shudder.

The monastery that sat high above them on the mountainside, quaked. The building’s foundation must have been connected to the chamber because the ancient walls shook, and then the entire structure imploded.

“
Come on!” Brandt shouted as the ground quaked again.

Within seconds, the entire monastery collapsed to rubble.

What had she done?

* * *

Brandt knew that Rebecca was in shock, but they needed to haul ass.

“
The car is just around the bend,” he reassured her, but nothing seemed to penetrate those unblinking eyes.

Not even a bullet whizzing past them brought speed to Rebecca’s feet. They had fallen behind, and already the Knot was well on its way to mounting an offensive. They only had another twenty yards to the crest of the knoll, but the sergeant feared they wouldn’t make it. Counting on bad aim wasn’t his usual exit strategy.

A spat of gunfire chewed the ground at their heels.

The enemy was catching up. Soon they would be within a scope’s range, which was as good as having a bull’s-eye on your back.

A muffled cry from Rebecca told him she was hit. Staying on her feet told him it wasn’t too bad, but it made her all the slower. The shots were getting closer and closer as they struggled up the last few yards, when Brandt heard an engine’s scream of protest. He knew the sound well.

“
Get down!” the sergeant shoved Rebecca to the ground as Lopez gunned the convertible up the ridge, jumping the car over them. After bouncing the landing, he executed a perfect one-eighty, putting the body of the convertible between them and the shooters.

“
Hop in!” the corporal shouted as he revved the engine again.

Half helping and half throwing, Brandt made sure Rebecca was in the backseat as he flung himself beside her.

He didn’t even need to yell, “go,” because Lopez was already laying down rubber over the hill. The flight down the steep, treacherous mountain road was a rough ride even by Lopez’s standards. No matter how hard he tried to listen for anyone in pursuit, Brandt couldn’t hear anything but the roar of their engine and the squeal of brakes.

“
Where are you hit?” the sergeant asked.

Rebecca bit her lip. “It’s nothing.”

“
Where?” Brandt demanded. He wasn’t about to execute the most balls-forward rescue ever, only to have her die of blood loss.

After Lopez banged them off a side railing, Brandt found the wound. A through-and- through to the upper calf and barely bleeding. Quickly he wrapped it as they finally made their way to level ground, which Lopez then made the most of, hitting the floorboard with the gas pedal.

“
Where are we going?” Rebecca squeaked as he cinched down the field dressing.

“
The docks.”

“How far away are those?”

“
Half a mile. Why?”

Then a truck-mounted machine gun answered his question.

* * *

Curled up inside the well of the backseat, Rebecca cringed, trying to block out the sound of gunfire and return gunfire, but it was all around. Above her, in front of her, and worst of all, behind her. Her world had descended into a hail of bullets. And from the quickening of the volleys, she could only assume they were losing ground.

“
Damn it! Can’t you go any faster?” Brandt asked of Lopez, even though Rebecca didn’t think anyone would even bother.

Davidson emptied another clip and crouched down beside her to reload, shouting at the corporal. “I told you we should have used a truck!” Then he grumbled under his breath, “The only way they caught up was to go off-road.” Yelling again as he rose to fire, “Which we could have done if we used a truck!”

“
Yeah, well,” Lopez started, and then had to swerve.

Brandt grabbed her by the back of the shirt. “Get ready to jump out.”

They must be close, so Rebecca peeked over the edge of the convertible and found a quaint dock. Everything was pristine, except there was no boat. She looked at Brandt, who seemed equally concerned, but Lopez was all smiles as he revved the engine to levels only a dog could hear.

“
If we had a truck, could we fucking do this?” he said as the car shot off the pier.

In midair the tires tucked into the wheel well, and somehow they hit the water as a boat.

“
Show-off,” Davidson mumbled as he fired at the truck that had skidded to a stop at the surf’s edge.

* * *

Brandt saw the car convert into a boat, yet he didn’t believe his eyes. Here they were, cruising over the Marmara Sea. It was something out of a movie only the sergeant could feel the leather seat under his butt, and the windshield wipers were working overtime as Lopez hit the waves headfirst.

“
I don’t…” Rebecca said as she looked over the side at the passing water. “Huh?”

Lopez yelled his answer. “You are looking at the Gibbs Aquada! The first mass-produced amphibious car! Road to water in under ten seconds! Tell me that doesn’t rock!”

“
All right, it rocks,” Davidson admitted.

Recovering from the shock, Brandt realized he really didn’t want any more surprises of this magnitude. “How about you guys lay out exactly how we are getting home?”

“
Sorry,” Rebecca said in a small voice, but with enough regret that she captured his attention.

“
Sorry because you bled on me, or sorry because we can’t go home?”

She attempted a smile, but failed rather spectacularly. “Both.”

“
Then
I’m
sorry, because no bones are so important that—”

With a hand on his arm, Rebecca sounded completely sincere. “It’s not about tracking down the skeletons. I’m pretty sure I know where Christ is. But that’s the problem. They’re never going to let me live with that knowledge.”

“
Then let the Knot find Him,” Brandt growled. “They want to keep them secret? Then let them have the body. Once your information is no longer time sensitive, you’re in the clear.”

“
Even if that were to happen any time soon, which I question given their loss of—” Her voice cracked. “Loss of so many experts in the chamber, you have no idea everything that I saw down there. I’ve seen their archives. Given enough time I could track them down. And they know it.”

Brandt searched her eyes, trying to think of something to say. Anything to say that didn’t confirm the fact that she was a marked woman. But, unfortunately, Rebecca was right. The only way she would ever be safe would be to find Jesus’ body, then hunt down the Knot and root them out.

“
Hey, just take her out of the hot zone, and we can go dig up the bones,” Davidson suggested, but the sergeant shook his head.

Rebecca might think she knew where the bones were, but he had seen how tentative the term “pretty sure” became once you were in the field.

Well, he couldn’t leave her a fugitive. “Where to, then?”

“
Rome.”

Brandt didn’t bother to ask why. .he just turned to Lopez. “Have any suggestions on how we get there?”

“
Now that you mention it,” his corporal said as he brought their boat perilously close to another island. “I was figuring this wasn’t the last leg on our journey so I arranged something with a little more power than this tub.”

How quickly the Gibbs Aquada became obsolete.

* * *

Of course Lopez came into the pier way too fast, forcing Rebecca to grab hold of the headrest to keep from falling overboard as he made a ninety-degree turn. On the other side of the small dock was a huge object draped in camouflage. She could only guess it was their next ride.

Bumping hard into the dock, their car-boat shuddered, then the passenger door’s seal cracked. They began taking on water, lots and lots of water.

“
Pop the trunk!” Davidson yelled.

As Rebecca scrambled out of the car, Svengurd helped the private grab several packs from the trunk until the leak exploded into a full geyser.

“
Everybody out!” Brandt yelled.

Lopez was already over at the other boat, removing the cover, but Davidson scrambled deeper into the trunk, clearly fishing for something, but the car tipped on end, sinking rapidly. Only Svengurd’s quick arm snatched the private to safety before he sank as well.

“
I’m still giving the orders, right?” Brandt asked Davidson as the kid dripped onto the wood planks.

“
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that was our ammo I was trying to get.”

The sergeant’s face went from anger to concern. “All of it?”

Rebecca felt her stomach contract as the private nodded. When did her life become dependent on how many bullets she had available?

“
Seriously, you guys, we’re not going to need ammo in this thing!” Lopez announced and everyone turned toward him.

Svengurd whistled at the sight. Low to the water and its nose brought in at a sharp point, this vessel was built for speed.

“
I told you guys the boat show was worth the price of admission!”

Davidson hopped in, quickly stowing their limited gear. Brandt steadied her as she climbed in since they were still feeling the effects of Lopez’s entrance to the bay. Almost slipping on the slick deck, the corporal caught Rebecca’s arm.

“
And there are sleeping quarters below deck for the lady,” Lopez said as guided her to a seat then raised his voice. “Actually there’s room for three down there so start picking straws!”

“
Svengurd, get the moorings,” Brandt ordered as he jumped in.

Lopez turned on the engine, and it sounded like a Harley-Davidson with a broken muffler. Pure, raw, undiluted power. The deck rumbled under her feet as the blond corporal tossed the lines into the boat. He went to hop in when Brandt pulled his gun.

“
Sorry, but you’re staying here.”

“
Sarge, what—” Svengurd stopped as Brandt cocked his gun.

Rebecca went rigid in her seat as the other men turned to see what the commotion was. She had known something was wrong between the men, but this wrong? Bad enough for Brandt to aim at one of his team?

“
Go to ground. Stay low until the heat is off, then get yourself to an American base, and we’ll sort it out from there.”

Davidson looked like he wanted to step between the two men, but then looked at Brandt’s stern face and decided against it. Instead he intervened verbally. “Boss, what’s up?”

“
Svengurd has become a possible liability, so he’s staying.”

This time the private inched in front of Brandt as he spoke. “Yeah, that poison plus the antidote could produce some pretty severe paranoid tendencies, so why don’t we put down the—”

“
We were ambushed in Belgium after he was on point, lost in the jungle for minutes at a time in Ecuador. Ambushed again in Paris after he was the only one alone getting the car at the airstrip.”

Rebecca could feel the shift in the mood as Davidson and Lopez digested their sergeant’s words. Svengurd must have felt it as well.

“
Guys, come on. Didn’t I just torch their headquarters? How many men have I dropped on this mission alone?”

The sergeant’s jaw clenched. “Exactly as a deep cover mole would. You would act completely normally to keep your cover until you were instructed to act against the team, then it would be us that was dropped.”

“
I was just poisoned, for Christ’s sake.” The corporal’s hand flexed over his weapon, but the action didn’t seem aggressive to Rebecca. Instead it seemed as if he didn’t know any other response when challenged than to go for his gun.

Lopez inched the boat away from the dock. “Sorry, man. See you back at the States.”

“
Wait!” Davidson cried out. “Come on, Sarge. We’ve been tight together for a day, and we’re still getting our asses kicked. What about that?”

Brandt’s eyes flashed to his private, then to Svengurd. “Show them your watchband.”

For the first time, Rebecca saw fear in the corporal’s face. He even stammered, “We don’t have time for this.”