Carpathian (80 page)

“In case you hadn’t noticed, this very big wolf wants all of you OUT OF HERE!” Charlie shouted at the top of his lungs just as Mikla roared and then jumped clear of the railing and onto a table, crushing it. The men and women sitting there just stared up at the amazing creature standing on the remains of the table and looking around curiously at the startled men and women. Mikla reached out and slapped at a frightened man in a tux, making sure his claws were retracted far enough that he didn’t decapitate him.

Some of the patrons of the grand opening became aware that this was not part of the show or a prank: there was a wolf standing in the middle of the club—and the wolf standing before them was as real as it gets. They panicked and started running in all directions screaming and yelling as Mikla added his voice to the confusion and started swiping at the passing stampede of humanity.

Charlie Ellenshaw looked down from the balcony as Pete joined him. They saw men and women running everywhere. They saw Drake Andrews try to help a lady who was attempting to get on the stage to escape the monster wolf that had just crushed her table, but her hand slipped out of Drake’s and she fell back into the maddened crowd. Andrews turned and started pushing the young Russian kids off the stage. As Charlie and Pete watched from above they exchanged looks and Charlie made a face. The panicked people below saw the first filtering of dust from the ceiling as it came down but no one inside Castle Dracula could care at the moment. Still the panicked guests streamed toward the stairs and the cable car platform seeking any way out of what had quickly become a nightmare.

“Wow, maybe you could have handled that just a little bit differently, Professor.”

*   *   *

The SUVs blasted down the slick, wet road as fast as they dared. Several of the all-terrain vehicles went flying off into the storm-driven night when they failed to take a corner at a reasonable speed, but each car was afraid of being the last to get to the castle. Dmitri Zallas was not feeling at festive as he had earlier that evening. In the first car was Zallas and Colonel Ben-Nevin, who was still holding his damaged shoulder from his near miss at the hands of the Israelis. The colonel sat in the backseat scowling, believing that no matter what happened from this point on his mission was a failure and now it wasn’t just his career that was over, but also his life, as the proof saying the City of Moses really existed had never been there in the first place. The legend was a lie, a falsity that held many of his people chained to the past, and one that he had come to despise above all else in Israel.

The black SUV swerved in the road as they came around the last bend. Zallas’s eyes widened when he saw the men and women running into the night. They were streaming down the staircases on the outside while many others were pushing and shoving to get inside one of the cable cars that had just arrived. He saw the heavily overloaded car sag on the large, thick, four-cable lines. He screamed in anger as the automatic doors on the car slid closed, surely injuring several of his guests. He watched all of this from far below as his four-wheel-drive pulled up to the first cable tower as the car high above them broke free from the car barn.

Zallas saw people streaming on and off the two small elevators and he decided to bypass them and run for the stairs. Rain made the going slippery as even more of his men pulled up and joined him in their run up to the club and possibly the escaping villagers of Patinas. Ben-Nevin joined him in the enclosed stairs thankful for being out of the storm with his arm throbbing because of the bullet having ripped into him from his own people …
Well, what used to be his own people
, he corrected himself. The Mossad colonel knew what they were doing now was a waste of time. It was just the Russian not wanting to be made a fool of. There were far worse things in the world than that, and a hanging rope for traitors was one of them.

The Russian stopped when they reached the top as his guests were screaming and yelling trying to get down the same stairwell. Zallas started angrily pushing them out of his way and as he crashed through the top floor door he even heard one of his men shoot someone below. Dmitri Zallas was now beyond caring about his guests. He wanted what was his and he wanted his resort protected, and right now neither was happening. He walked quickly to the entrance, pushing a dark-haired woman out of his way and then kicking at her angrily, and when her escort tried to stop Zallas, he pulled a handgun from his large coat and shot the man without a second thought. Several more shots were heard behind him when his men saw the example being set by their employer. With the rumors of a vast treasure lost, the men had become murderous.

Pete turned and saw Zallas just in time as the men walked into the club and onto the balcony section. Golding, with no warning at all, pushed Charlie over the railing and then he jumped after him. Ellenshaw struck the floor and felt his ankle bend in a manner that wasn’t conducive to walking upright. He rolled and yelled while grabbing for his injured leg.

Mikla was near the stage roaring angrily at the frightened people as they ran one way and then saw Mikla and then turned screaming running in the opposite direction. Drake Andrews and the terrified Russian band had abandoned everything and were battling to get through the wings just offstage, but every time they thought they found an exit they were stopped by the humanity trying to flee the now shaking castle. The American singer heard the roar of the animal and that turned into a long howl. He screamed for no other reason than he wanted to, as he and the others battled for their lives to get out. One second there was nothing but shouting and panic, and the next everyone went silent as they swore they could hear gunfire—quite a bit of it.

*   *   *

The only operational vehicles they could find were two very old cars used by the Gypsies to travel the lower valleys. One was a thirty-five-year-old Citroën and the other a beat-up, faded red 1962 Chevy Impala that came to Romania in God knows what manner or circumstance. Jack, Sarah, Anya, and Major Mendohlson were in the Chevy’s front seat with Mendenhall, Alice, her potato sack with her rocks, and sitting beside her was Ryan. Jack was cursing the slipping clutch as he downshifted the old standard transmission. Anya screamed next to him as someone ran into the road waving his arms.

“It’s Carl!” Anya shouted, happy to see him as he skidded to a stop beside the sliding Chevy. Major Mendohlson hoped the Citroën behind them didn’t slide into them as they waited for the American to get out of the storm. Carl quickly squeezed into the back by almost crushing the Israeli commando when he pushed the front seat up.

“Nice car, Jack,” Everett said as he pushed Mendenhall over.

“Yeah, I’m afraid shit red was all they had,” he said as he put the car back into gear and peeled out in the mud and running water.

Carl saw Anya turn her head and look at him, happy he was still alive and ashamed she had left with Alice and not said anything to him. He shook his head and then winked. She turned back with a smile on her muddy face. Only Jack noticed the look as he tried to keep the old Chevy on the road.

He couldn’t prove it, but Collins could swear the road was starting to move under the worn tires of the Chevy.

*   *   *

Two miles deep into the mountain the music of Drake Andrews and his new Russian backup band had finished the sabotage the Golia had started. The vibrations caused by the amazing sound system installed at Castle Dracula had started to shake away the last restraints holding the anchor pins in place. The six-foot-thick steel pins started to rotate as they lost their hold on the earth. As they turned, the heavy gauge steel snapped at several points along the two-mile anchorage. The next thing to tear loose was the foundation settings that connected the anchor pins to the castle’s main foundation. The castle slipped a foot away from the facing and tilted toward the resort far below, making the highest parapet shake and actually break into three separate sections that barely hung on.

The furthest, deepest anchor pin gave way with a totality that would have been heard in Bucharest if it hadn’t been buried deep in the mountain. After the steel broke in two, the whiplash fractured the remaining strata that kept the thermal vents intact. The underground geyser erupted into the cracks of the mountain where it built up enough pressure that the resulting explosion blew out the strong but now loose anchorage of the sixteen foundation pins. The force of the collapse pulled the top of the mountain toward the south, creating an avalanche of massive proportions. The rock fall started and continued rolling as it picked up speed and debris. The top of Patinas Pass turned to a viscous substance that resembled a wave as it collapsed, sending the pass into Patinas, burying the small village for all time.

The resulting release of energy had only one place to go, and that was through the area of least resistance and that meant through the thirty-five-hundred-year-old City of Moses. The explosion rocked the city, knocking over the wonderful obelisks and columns. The giant walled gate with the proud depictions of the Jeddah in their heyday of service to Pharaoh collapsed and then the stone carved ceiling came down upon three of the most famous men in the history of the world and crushed their remains to dust and buried them forever.

In just seconds the work of two thousand Jeddah and numerous engineers of Ramesses II came down, never again to see the light of day.

*   *   *

Pete Golding struggled to get Charlie Ellenshaw up and running when several people ran past with three of them stopping to help them up. Drake Andrews didn’t wait for a thank-you as he and the other Russian musicians fled as Mikla roared again right next to them. They hadn’t seen the wolf when they had stopped and didn’t look back now. Ellenshaw watched the panicked people for a moment and then shouted to Pete.

“I think that’s about enough, maybe we should split now, want do you think?”

Golding nodded that yes, he did think that was quite enough.

“Mikla, go!” Charlie shouted. “Run!”

The wolf suddenly went to all fours and looked around him as if he were confused. The Golia howled and then ran for the front with people screaming and jumping from the path of the giant.

Charlie saw Mikla jump onto the high stage and threaten several of the guests as they tried desperately to get away from what they thought was a Castle Dracula special effect gone awry. Ellenshaw saw two couples in the far darkened corner of the club still sitting, talking and drinking among the chaos. Ellenshaw hurriedly ran to their table tripping over several men as they tried to push themselves as far away from Mikla as they could get. The beast was standing upright, roaring and swiping at people as they ran by. Charlie was worried that instead of leaving, the giant Golia was starting to get its blood up and was becoming so excited that the claws would start slicing people in two soon if he and Pete didn’t get out of there.

The two men and two women finally looked up as they saw Ellenshaw with Pete close behind running and stumbling toward them. One man stood from the table and as he did three bullets stitched a line across his white tuxedo jacket sending the man slamming against the wall, spraying blood on his companions as he did. The women screamed and then two more rounds hit the tabletop shattering glasses and sending the remains of their cocktails flying. Charlie fell facefirst and then covered his head. Pete looked up and saw Zallas and his men standing at the railing of the balcony firing down. The bullets hitting the floor and walls around them were aimed at him and Charlie. Pete reached out and pulled Ellenshaw as close to the wall as he could for protection.

Mikla roared again as Drake Andrews with several of the young Russian musicians in tow had somehow not found their way out to the cable car platform where men and women were pushing and shoving to either get to the front of the line or they were slapping and shoving each other on the twin stairwells that wound down to the ground from the platform. Even these were causing more casualties among the guests than Mikla ever could as they were tumbling down the steel steps as if they were doing it intentionally, and it was one of these men that Jack nearly struck with the front bumper of the old Chevy as they skidded to a halt.

Even above the din of screaming guests and running feet, Jack could hear the sound of gunfire over the tremendous pounding of the door. Then they all heard the roar of a Golia and every man and woman inside the Chevy thought the worst—that one of the wolves was loose inside the club and was now in the process of killing everyone and that would not do for the secrecy needed for the species. Collins was thrown an Uzi without the silencer attachment as he, Carl, Mendohlson, Mendenhall, and Ryan all scrambled out of the car and into sheer madness as men and women in their finery splashed, screamed, fell, and rolled in the flooding mud caused by the raging storm.

As Collins hit the first step in the long stairwell to the top of the platform, the next cable car pulled in and Jack could hear the screaming, the jostling, and the cursing as men and women fought to be the first inside and away from the terrible things happening inside the club. As he hit the second platform of stairs on the way to the top with the others beating the steel stairs behind him, Jack flinched as first the body of a woman in an evening dress struck the side of the stairwell and spun off into the storm to strike the ground far below, then the body of a flailing man flew past striking the handrail on his way down.

As Sarah and Anya left Alice in the car with the smelly burlap bag, McIntire ran to the woman who fell to the ground. She checked for a pulse and in a flash of lightning Anya saw Sarah shake her head. Then she quickly checked the body that had landed only inches from his date. He too was broken and very much dead. Sarah knew if they didn’t get Zallas and his people under control soon they would have a disaster on their hands that would be capable of shining too much light on the Event Group. They had to save as many people as they possibly could and then get out of there without the Romanian authorities asking too many questions about the strange group of men and women that had attached itself to the NATO survey.