Carpathian (78 page)

“What is a Forger?” Niles asked, as he was unfamiliar with the term.

“It’s a weapon that’s going to turn the interior of the temple into a ten-thousand-degree inferno in just about a millisecond,” Sarah explained. “It’s also enough firepower to shear the entire facing of the mountain off from the major fissure point just a quarter mile from the castle. That means the castle with all of those men and women inside is going to tumble like a house of cards if we don’t stop her people from setting that thing off. If not, the vibrations will do it anyway, just a little slower.”

“And we need that extra time to get those guests out of there,” Jack concluded.

Carl stepped forward with the torch and was about to protest but then he saw Anya and knew he wanted her out of there. He nodded once at Collins and then held the torch toward the open maw of the black hole and Niles bobbed his head and entered and then Sarah placed a hand on Collins’s arm and smiled.

“Don’t be a dick and leave me outside all alone, you hear me?”

Jack winked and then pushed Sarah through the hole. He looked at Everett and Anya.

“Good luck, Jack, see you on the outside,” he said as he gestured into the hole with the torch for her to go. Anya looked at Jack and nodded.

“Cancellation code Matilda, 112, you have that? That will get the commander of the Sayeret to cancel Operation Ramesses, but once the sequence is initiated on the Forger apparatus there is no stopping it.”

“Someday I’m going to find the guy that designed those damn things and their safety systems and break both of his arms,” Jack said as he thanked her and then left the way the long line of refugees had just fled.

“I hope the commander of that unit listens to him, the Sayeret tend to make up their own rules.”

“Well, your man is about to meet the guy that doesn’t follow rules at all.”

Everett nodded for Anya to go and then he went after her.

*   *   *

Mikla was waiting for his brother, Stanus, just above the temple. Mikla had been getting visions that were coming from the sleeping mind of Madam Korvesky and he was feeling confused as Stanus ran up to him. Stanus suddenly started feeling the push also from the old Gypsy and Stanus himself started rolling on the hard rock floor of the Golia path just above the City of Moses. The last vestiges of Marko Korvesky tried in vain to sort out the confusing messages being sent by the Gypsy. There were flashes of many humans running, screaming, and dying under the stormy night sky. The wolves rolled on the ground as the horrible visions penetrated both of the Golia’s minds. They were being asked to sacrifice one last time for the Jeddah. Stanus was refusing, Mikla was not. The wolves wrestled and growled. They snipped at each other and then they both became still as the vision was completed. They saw the mountain come down around them and their young.

Three miles away three adult male Golia poked their snouts out of the cave system in which Stanus had placed the clan. They had picked up on the troubled mind of Madam Korvesky also. The babies inside the cave system started howling and crying and the females lent their voices to that of the young. Suddenly twenty of the largest males sprung from the cave and ran headlong into the raging storm. A flash of lightning gave a strobe effect the side of the mountain, which for the first time in centuries saw the Golia moving out in force.

If there had been witnesses they would have seen the wolves heading south, toward Dracula’s Castle and the unsuspecting revelers that would never realize that myth and legend were coming to visit.

*   *   *

The Temple of Moses was fronted by two great gates with two charioteers facing one another done in various paints that had faded over the centuries with age and dust. The giant wooden doors were seventy feet high and almost four feet thick. As Ryan and Mendenhall watched, Zallas and his men streamed through the opening. The bright handheld floodlights they used illuminated objects missed in the torchlight.

They watched as the Russian’s men fanned out inside and were eyeing the Americans, really not knowing what to do with them. Zallas made things a bit clearer.

“You and your people have cost me considerable time and trouble. I am afraid I was a bit too hospitable to you before. Now I’m afraid, what do you Americans say? Oh yes, you have truly worn out your welcome,” Zallas said, as if he were proud of his Americanism.

“Well, excuse us all to hell,” Ryan said, making Mendenhall wince and take a deep breath.

Colonel Ben-Nevin walked up to Ryan and backhanded him. Ryan spit out blood and then faced the colonel.

“Captain Everett said you hit like a pussy, now I see that he wasn’t lying.”

Ben-Nevin brought his hand down again but this time Dmitri Zallas caught it in midair.

“We do not have the time for your dramatics, Colonel; let’s get what we came for.”

Ben-Nevin gave Ryan a dirty look and Jason blew him a kiss. Then he and Zallas walked over to the far left of the three large containers. Zallas had to suppress a smile as he closed his eyes and envisioned the treasure to behold. He opened them and the smile quickly left his face. Ben-Nevin got a confused look as he took in the mummified remains in the hand-hewn box. Both men turned to the center box and studied the remains inside.

“What is this?” Zallas asked as his eyes never left the wrapped and disintegrating corpse of Moses the Law Giver.

“This isn’t right—where are the antiquities, the gold, this isn’t what’s supposed to be here?” Ben-Nevin went to the third box and then turned away, his face white with shock. He looked around at the men staring back at him. Then he ran to the far wall and started feeling around. “There have to be hidden storage areas.”

“Looks like the Jeddah spent a lot of money over the centuries, huh?” Ryan quipped, making Mendenhall flinch once more. He sensed Ryan was really trying to get them shot faster than would be normal.

Ben-Nevin stopped searching and then took five quick steps toward Ryan and then pulled his Walther automatic and placed it against Jason’s forehead and pulled back the hammer.

“Where is the treasure of the Exodus?” he asked as Ryan smiled.

“Right here in my left front pocket, dickhead,” he said just as the barrel of the gun whacked him on the side of the head. Will started forward but one of Zallas’s men pointed an AK-47 at him and stopped Will from helping his friend.

“Ow,” Ryan said as his knees buckled. “That hurt.”

“Where is it?” Ben-Nevin insisted.

“You are wasting your time, spymaster,” Zallas said. “The villagers of Patinas have obviously emptied the temple of anything valuable and left us nothing but these rotten corpses,” he said as he kicked out with his black Armani shoe and knocked the box containing the body of Joshua onto the floor. The mummy rolled out and then came to a rest. Ryan looked at the mummy and then slowly stood up and faced Ben-Nevin. Will had his brows raised as Zallas looked from each man.

“That probably wasn’t the best thing to do, my friend,” Ryan said. “That was a very important man to a few people a while back.”

“A stinking corpse,” was all Zallas said.

“Look, I’m not a big believer in biblical teachings, but one thing I’ve learned is that everything has a basis in fact, and that little fact you just kicked over scares the hell out of me. If I were you I would quit while I was ahead. Nothing good ever comes from desecrating something that can bite you in the ass.”

“You bore me with your old wives’ tales,” Zallas said. He turned to Ben-Nevin. “Finish your business here and let us see what the backward Gypsies took out of here. Come, they only have one direction to go, and we shall meet them there.”

Ben-Nevin smiled and then as Zallas and his men started to file out of the temple and head for the ramp, he stepped up to Ryan.

Mendenhall didn’t think the Israeli colonel was the type to get long-winded and tell Ryan how bad his killing was going to be and thus affording Will a chance to help Ryan out of that killing. No, Ben-Nevin raised the barrel of the gun and his smile widened and that was when the bullet hit.

Will was shocked when he saw the weapon fly from Ben-Nevin’s hand. The colonel turned and looked but saw no one. He started to run just as another round pinged off the stone flooring. This time the colonel sprinted for the door holding his injured right shoulder.

“Damn it. Clear?”

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

Mendenhall heard the all clear calls coming from to the left of the doorway. That meant while Zallas and his men’s attention was on Ryan getting questioned by the colonel, someone had entered the temple unseen and taken up station behind Zallas and his people and then lay in silence until the men had left and had only exposed themselves when they had a chance.

Will went to Jason and helped him up.

“You can get him talking by doing something other than insulting him, you know,” Will said to a bleeding Ryan.

“Yeah, but pissing him off was more fun,” he said as he staggered and then caught himself. They looked up when three men came down from the high wall just to the left of the large door frame.

“Sorry, sweat rolled into my eyes at the last second, and then I missed him again. I must be getting old.”

Will and Jason looked the three men over and then Ryan’s eyes widened when he saw that one of the men in the black Nomex was none other than Janos Vajic.

“The hotel owner?” Jason asked.

“What?” Will said.

“Sorry, as I said, just dumb luck I missed. I guess you were right, Sergeant Major, I should have let you take the shot, but I wanted that bastard.”

“Next time I shoot,” said the burly man as he slammed another magazine into Vajic’s appropriated AK-47 and then handed it back to him.

“Uh, who in the hell are you guys?” Mendenhall finally asked.

The small man in the front reached over to his left shoulder and then pulled up a Velcro patch. Underneath was a black and gray version of the Israeli six-pointed star and that was enough not said for the two Americans.

“They are Sayeret, Lieutenant, and they are not very friendly.”

All eyes turned to see Jack Collins hop down from the back wall of the temple where the villagers had vanished over an hour before. Jack walked up to Jason and lifted his chin.

“You okay, Commander?”

“Yeah, I’ll be better when we get after that asshole colonel.”

Collins patted Jason on the back and then turned to face the three men and one in particular.

“Who’s in command?” Jack asked as his eyes searched all three. The three remained quiet as the small standoff went on.

“Colonel … Collins, is it?” Janos Vajic said as he stepped between the American and the Israeli major. Jack said nothing, as he had fixed the smaller man holding his glare as the commander of the Sayeret strike team. He ignored Janos.

“My compliments on what had to be one scary HALO through that storm.” Jack tilted his head and studied the man a moment and then finished, “Is it major or captain?”

The smaller man held eye contact. “Major, and you’ll forgive me if I leave it at that.”

“Yes, I understand the game, Major, and how it’s played. And you, sir, are not playing the way you’re supposed to.”

Jason and Will saw the sergeant major tense and raise his weapon just an inch or two as he watched the colonel talk.

The smaller man looked at his watch and then looked at his sergeant major and the man lowered his weapon.

“I am here to do a job, Colonel. If you are who I think you are you can understand that.”

“In order to follow your orders, Major, you will have to kill over three hundred innocent people. If you blow that weapon this entire mountain comes down on that resort.”

“I am assured that the destructive power is only sufficient enough to bring the temple down and to incinerate everything inside.”

Jack could have leaned over and kissed the mountain at that precise moment as the entire temple shook harder than anytime previous.

“There have been elements at work here that have guaranteed the destruction of not only the Temple and City of Moses, but the entire resort down below in the valley.”

“Elements?” the young major asked.

“Yeah, elements the likes you would never believe,” Ryan said for the colonel.

“I have my orders, Colonel, please, you and your men must vacate the temple.”

“Yes, I understand what a stickler for following orders General Shamni can be.”

All three Israelis froze at the name.

“Yes, I know the general very well. We taught commando tactics together at Sandhurst in England for a semester. Now, cancellation code Matilda, 112. Abort Operation Ramesses, Major.”

The three men again exchanged looks of distrust. Never would they have given this man any credence until Shamni’s name was mentioned. Only the prime minister knew the name of the man that headed the top secret Mossad.

“I’m sorry, Colonel, no dice. You know I cannot accept anything from you. I would like to trust you but this mission must succeed.”

“Listen, your mission is guaranteed to succeed, you don’t need that damn weapon, now stand down, Major!” Jack said taking a menacing step toward the Israeli.

The Uzi came up and Jack stopped but didn’t flinch.

“As I said, Colonel, we must—”

Before the major could finish a roar filled the inside of the temple and reverberated off the stone walls. The three men flinched as something jumped down into their midst and grabbed the small aluminum box. Before a shot could be fired, Stanus had taken the small device and hopped to the wall holding the case by the strap. The beast roared as it stopped and looked down. The major quickly raised his weapon after his initial shock at seeing the animal and fired. The bullet hit Stanus in the lower back and Jack heard the giant wolf yelp in pain as it leapt clear of the wall and disappeared high above. Jack lowered his head and then shook it.

“Damn fool.”

“Just what in the hell was that?” the sergeant major asked.

“That was one of the elements that are going to bring the castle down and you idiots just shot him,” Mendenhall said as he realized he was now concerned for the injured Golia.