The Book of Names (31 page)

The clanging of the bells had stopped, he realized, as he took the spiraling stairs two at a time.

There were few people left on the lower level, save for several Dark Angels they spotted searching room to room in the alphabetically marked passageways that mirrored those above.

“Here,” Yael said, darting toward a floorplan painted on the rock wall behind the stairs. “This might save us some time.”

Frantically, David scanned the diagram. “Look—that balcony we saw—it leads to a Situation Room.”

“Like a war room,” Yael murmured. “Far above the arena, and probably impenetrable.”

She glanced nervously behind her, where Dark Angels were still moving methodically away from them, searching along the D corridor.

“The brass are probably gathered up there,” David said. “That might be where Crispin had Stacy.”

A perfect venue for an execution, he thought, but quickly blocked the image from his mind.

“She could still be down here somewhere,” Yael argued. “There's a trash containment center down this hall, and a fan room, and. . . what's this?” She pointed to a circular area just behind the rear staircase marked
OFF LIMITS
. “Off Limits? Do you think—”

David's mouth tightened. “One way to find out.”

They took off, heading for the area behind the staircase. When they reached the area marked
OFF LIMITS
, they found only an underground well surrounded by a safety railing.

“Well, that's a dead end.” David stared into the plummeting chasm, then raked a hand through his hair. His ribs were killing him. But he refused to acknowledge the pain.

“There's the containment center.” Yael pointed to the squat metal tank in the shadows of the hall.

“I'll check it out,” David said grimly.

The door was locked, as he expected. Grabbing hold of the built-in ladder, he began climbing toward the top as Yael glanced warily around. No one else was back here.
At the moment.

“Hurry,” she urged, then fell silent as he neared the top.

She understood his need to search everywhere. But the longer they lingered here, the greater the chance they'd be caught. She held her breath as he wrestled open the trap door at the top—and didn't exhale until his feet were thudding against the rungs of the ladder in descent.

“Nothing inside but garbage. Where could she be hiding?”

They both startled at a creaking noise nearby. Yael whirled and saw a large rat skittering from an alcove she hadn't noticed earlier. It was nearly invisible, a small opening tucked beneath a natural jut in the rock wall.

“There's something back there. Where there's a rat, there's usually food.”

David hurried toward the recess and she followed, her hands clenched at the thought of his stepdaughter alone down here in this horrible place.

They both spotted the door at the same time. It was unmarked and might have easily gone unnoticed in this remote area of the bunker.

The perfect place to keep a hostage
, Yael thought.

The door was ajar. She pushed it wide and noticed a faint medicinal odor. “Oh my God.”

The closetlike space appeared empty. David groped along the walls for a light switch, and a pale fluorescent glow lightened the room. They saw a chair, a bureau, and
an unmade cot. Remnants of what looked like a cheese sandwich remained on a tray at the foot of the bed.

“She was here. We probably missed her by minutes.” David felt as if the world was swallowing him up.

“Look at this!” Yael had dropped to her knees beside the cot and scooped up a rubber message bracelet from the slate floor. The words “Aim High” were stamped into the stretchy yellow rubber.

“It's hers.” David's voice was thick. “I bought it for her when she visited me last summer.”

He stared at the narrow band for a moment, then forced it over his swollen hand. Though it gripped his wrist tightly, uncomfortably, it made him feel closer to Stacy. “She was right here. That bastard—”

“Why aren't you upstairs? What are you doing in here?”

David and Yael wheeled as a deep voice filled the tiny room.

David did a double take. He didn't recognize the Dark Angel leveling a gun at them, but he immediately recognized the short, broad-shouldered man blocking the doorway.

Alberto Ortega
, former secretary-general of the UN.

David had met him once, back when his father was still alive, at a White House reception he'd attended with his parents and the Wanamakers and several other senators' families.

Wanamaker. I wonder how far back that connection goes. Who drafted whom?

“David Shepherd.” Ortega's eyebrows shot up. He took a step into the room. “How did you get down here? Never mind. It doesn't matter.”

He unclipped a beeper from his belt. “In twenty seconds, this hall will be teeming with Dark Angels,” he
remarked conversationally, his finger poised at the keypad. “Not that my friend Domino here can't handle the two of you.”

The Dark Angel with lank reddish hair and a matching soul patch drew back his lips in a charming smile. “And with double the pleasure I took killing your housekeeper.”

David went still as the air, his mind contorted with confusion and fury.
Then Dillon didn't kill Eva?

“I trust you've brought your book of names.” Ortega advanced a step.

“Got it right here.” On the words, David swung his duffel like a baseball bat, knocking the beeper from Ortega's fingers. The impact sent it clattering into the corner as David charged Ortega, jamming his right fist into that smug face. He pistoned his arm again and rearranged the swarthy features into a bloody mask of split flesh and broken teeth. Ortega toppled backwards into Domino, and in the instant they tottered off balance, David lunged for the Dark Angel's gun.

A shot exploded and he heard Yael curse behind him. His fingers closed on the red-hot barrel. Sweat poured down his face as he ignored the searing pain and wrestled for the gun. Domino outweighed him by a good thirty pounds, and David fought to keep his death hold on the weapon.

As Ortega staggered out of the way, Domino twisted the gun, forcing David's wrist backwards on itself. Pain ripped up his arm, his knees buckled for an instant. The groan that whistled through his teeth brought a smile to his opponent's face.

“Kill them!” Ortega gasped, struggling to his knees, blood spraying from what was left of his mouth. Yael flew at him like a 120-pound rocket, slamming him onto his back and into a thin pool of his own blood.

Straddling him, she stabbed her room key into his left eye. He tried to protect his face, blood seeping through his fingers, but she rammed the key again, this time into the hollow of his throat as his screams reverberated in her ears.

David heard them from a distance, from someplace deep inside his agony, as he and Domino exchanged vicious body blows. His ribs crackled as if he'd been rammed by a bull.

The gun. I can't let go of the gun
, he thought through a haze of desperation as Domino landed another savage punch.

Crashing his free fist into Domino's Adam's apple, he felt the man's tendons give way, watched the killer's eyes momentarily roll back in pain. And then Domino was smiling at him, even as he drove his fist down like an anvil onto David's skull.

Lights danced before David's eyes as he sank to his knees. His hand clasped empty air. He saw the gun swiveling toward his head. Willing his body, he tried to jackknife forward, to go for the gun or at least keep himself a moving target.

But before his muscles could uncoil, another man appeared behind the Dark Angel. Using both hands, the newcomer crashed a rock the size of a melon against the back of Domino's head.

David blinked hard. Wondered if his vision was jarred by the blow he'd taken to the head. He focused his eyes.

Incredulity filled him. The man standing over Domino was Dillon McGrath.

 

It was dark, so dark that Stacy couldn't see her own hands in front of her as she crawled along the sheet metal tunnel. The man had warned her to be as quiet as possible, to move slowly but steadily forward. But with every inch she wriggled along the narrow passageway, her weight creaked on the metal, and she tensed with fear that the sound could be heard below.

“The ventilation shaft is tight, probably quite dusty,” the man had told her, talking fast and looking all around as he hoisted her up through a trapdoor. They'd run to a side tunnel a short distance from where the lion-man had kept her.

“You'll have to go a ways before another corridor opens to your right. When it does, take it. Keep going—it's a long way. I'll meet you where it ends. No matter what you hear, don't stop, get to the end and wait for me there. Do you understand?”

Stacy didn't understand anything anymore. Now, squeezing her way down the tiny tunnel, the hairs on her neck suddenly stood on end as she heard the clang of alarm bells.

The lion-man knows I'm gone.
Her heart was hammering so hard it hurt. She tried not to think about him looking for her. Or about how cold she was, how lonely, how scared. She hoped she could trust the man who'd let her out, hoped she'd get to see her mom and David again. She just wanted things to be normal again.

Shivering, she forced herself to continue on. When she felt the side wall to her right disappear, she tried to manuever herself around the tight bend. It took several minutes of squirming and holding her breath as she twisted herself into the passage.

Her mouth was dry from the dust, her hands so cold they were numb. She wanted to get out of this cold metal prison so badly she could scream. But she couldn't scream. The lion-man would come. And the man with the different-colored eyes. She had to stay quiet.

She hadn't inched very far along the second tunnel when she thought she heard voices.
They're coming for me!
She stopped and listened, fear eating through her stomach.

Voices. She was right. She listened harder, straining to catch words.

It was women, arguing, angry.
The women who were crying?
They weren't crying now.

“Let them come for us. We'll fight them with our nails and our teeth.”

“We have the knives we snuck from our dinner trays. They've been sharpened on the rocks.”

“We can kill some of them, at least, before they kill us.”

But behind the determined voices, she heard other sounds. Some of the women were weeping. Pleading.

“If you fight them, they'll kill all of us.”

“Oh God, I don't want to die.”

Stacy froze. Who were they? Prisoners? Like she was? What was going to happen to them?

She heard the man's voice again in her head.
Keep going, don't stop no matter what. Get to the other end.

I can't do it.
She heard a sob from her own throat.
I can't just leave those women.

There was no room to turn around. Slowly, painfully, she began inching herself backwards the way she'd come.

Toward the voices.

 

David launched himself at Dillon and slammed him against the doorframe.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he snarled.

“Saving your life, for God's sake.” Dillon's blue eyes flashed into his. “Some way to thank me, by the way.”

“Thank you for what? Trying to end the world? Is
that
what all your metaphysics study is really about—
Father!
Did you confiscate my passport when you let this monster into my house to kill Eva?”

“Eva? She's dead? God in heaven!” The shock on Dillon's face appeared genuine. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it, then shoved David away.

“Well, your friend here might not be.” He sounded shaken. “So unless you're up for another go-round, I suggest we discuss this above ground—while we can still get out of here.”

Yael stood beside David, aiming Domino's gun at Dillon. “David, he did just save your life,” she said warily.

David's head was spinning with confusion as he tried to reconcile Dillon bashing Domino in the head, Eva's
murder, the missing passport, and his very presence in the bunker.

“Look out!” Dillon snapped as Domino snaked an arm toward David's pant leg.

David wheeled and kicked the Dark Angel in the jaw. After Domino's head lolled to the side, his body slumping into unconsciousness, they all three sprinted toward the back staircase. “What
are
you doing here, then?” David demanded.

“It's a long story. After you told me about the Hebrew lettering on your agate, it triggered a memory. I'd seen something similar before. I checked a volume on Jewish magic to see if it had anything on gemstones,” Dillon said breathlessly as they reached the stairs. “Found an entire section on the magical gemstones of the high priest's breastplate.”

“Go on,” David panted.

“Years ago I met a bishop in Rome. He's since been exposed for abusing young boys. Same poor kids he invited to his weekly Bible breakfasts. But it was his ring I remembered. Unusual—a smooth-faced ruby with Hebrew lettering.”

“The ruby from Aaron's breastplate?” Yael gasped, her cheeks flushed with the exertion of running up the stairs.

“I tracked him to the Scottish countryside. Took it from him. To return to the Israelis. But then I discovered this strange tarot card among his travel papers.”

Dillon was extremely fit, yet his breath was coming hard. “He kept talking about having to catch a flight to London. So that's where I headed. Ran into a German at Heathrow. He carried the same card. I attached myself to him, ended up here. Now you tell
me
what the hell is going on.”

They were halfway to the landing. David stopped short, ignoring the sharp pain wracking every inch of his body.