Nick yanked open the hatch and pointed his MP7 down the hole, ready to shoot first this time, but all he saw was a ladder leading down into darkness.
CHAPTER 24
Nick dropped down off the ladder into a narrow tunnel hewn from the bloodred rock of the citadel hill. Stone block pillars held the weight of the ceiling, spaced two meters apart along the walls and extending as far as his white tac light could reach in either direction.
“Which way?” asked Drake, dropping off the ladder.
Nick shook his head. “Didn’t see him.”
“What’s going on, One?” Static shrouded Scott’s voice, interference from the tons of earth and stone above them.
Nick covered one ear so that he could hear the engineer better. “The target from the university showed up. He dropped a mini flash bang and disappeared into a tunnel under the shop. Find out what this place is.”
There was a long pause. “I called up the archaeological records of Ankara. You must be in a cellar of some kind. There are no tunnels beneath the citadel.”
Nick squinted at the gloom beyond his light. “I beg to differ.”
“We’ve got to move if we want to catch him,” prompted Drake, switching his tac light to white as well. “Do we split up?”
“Negative. We take this guy together.” Nick stuck his index finger in his mouth and then held it out into the center of the tunnel for a few seconds. “This way,” he said, nodding to his front. “There’s a breeze.” He wiped his finger on his pants, raised his weapon to his shoulder, and started forward.
Drake followed behind. “I can’t believe you just did that. Who are you, Daniel Boone?”
“You have a better idea?”
“No.”
“Then shut up.”
After a few paces, Nick’s beam illuminated a wall at the end of the arches.
Drake let out a short sigh. “Dead end. You picked the wrong direction, Mr. Boone.”
Nick nodded and began to turn, but then he felt a breath of air tickle the sweat on his neck. He quickly shut off his light, motioning for Drake to do the same.
“That’s not a dead end,” he whispered, leading his teammate forward in the dark, feeling his way along the tunnel wall. “It’s a ninety-degree turn.”
Without the lights, the crushing weight of the darkness pressed in, and Nick had the unsettling feeling that something waited for them on the blind side of that corner, something accustomed to the dark, something that thrived on it. The air had grown colder. The dank smell it carried had grown stronger. He paused and knelt when they reached the end of the wall, reaching back to tap Drake’s boot in slow cadence: Three, two, one . . .
Nick took the corner low while Drake went high. Both tac lights came on as they twisted and flung their backs against the tunnel’s far wall.
A cloaked, hooded figure hovered above them, suspended in midair. Drake fired, spitting two rounds through his MP7’s suppressor. Dust exploded from the apparition’s chest. A grotesque head rocked forward into Nick’s light.
“Hold your fire,” whispered Nick. “It’s a body.”
Drake’s eyes were pinned to the ghastly thing, hanging from a recess in the tunnel wall. “It’s not a body. It’s a mummy,” he whispered back. “I hate mummies. They’re just zombies with better embalming.”
Nick panned his light down the passage. More bodies hung along the wall in arched alcoves, four feet off the floor. All of them wore tattered black robes, all were mummified so that their skin had turned gray and shrunk tight against their bones. Their eyes and mouths were sewn shut. He smiled at his teammate. “At least we know they can’t bite you.”
The passage remained narrow for a short stretch before it opened into a wide chamber. The ceiling rose to a height of at least five meters, supported by columns cut directly from the cave rock. The dead filled the walls, hanging in rows of recessed niches with their heads bowed and their arms crossed. More bodies lay on stone slabs beneath them. Some were empty, perhaps waiting for a future occupant. Directly ahead, at the far end of the chamber, was a large arched portal, leading into a black void. There were no other exits.
They crept forward with Drake in the lead, staying in the narrow aisle between the left wall and the slabs at its base. “A few of these mummies are fresher than others,” the big operative whispered, shining his light on the bodies on the slabs. “I think the Hashashin are still embalming their members.”
His words were followed by a faint click that sounded from the darkness to their right. Both men instinctively dropped to the floor, and an instant later, bullets riddled the bodies behind them. Dust and decayed flesh filled the air. Nick’s light cracked off the corner of a stone slab as he dropped and it flickered out. Drake’s flashed around the room as he scrambled for cover, playing havoc with the shadows of the dead. For a few seconds there was movement everywhere. Then the chamber went silent again. Nick lay prone behind an empty slab. Drake was on his back behind one that was occupied.
Nick glanced up at his partner. “Did you see him?”
“Negative. I’ve got nothing.” Drake adjusted his position, bumping the mummy. Its hand slipped down and rested on his forearm. He grimaced and tossed the rigid arm back across the corpse’s chest.
Nick inched forward so that he could get his barrel around the edge of his slab. Then he waved to Drake, touched his broken light, and pointed outward toward the void at the center of the room.
Drake nodded. He kept low, but he swung his weapon over the mummy, laying it across the corpse to shine his tac light out into the chamber. A cloaked shadow fled from the beam. Nick fired at it through the space between the slabs, emptying his clip.
If the Hashashin was hit, he gave no indication—no scream, not even a grunt. Instead, he responded with another hail of bullets, forcing both operatives to pull back. The mummy’s hand fell down and rested on Drake’s arm a second time.
Nick pocketed his empty clip and replaced it with a new one. “I don’t like this at all.”
“Tell me about it.” Drake tossed the mummy’s arm up to its chest again. “I can’t stay here. This guy won’t keep his hands to himself.”
Another torrent of automatic fire dug into the slabs and bodies, kicking up dust all around them. Nick judged the angle of the incoming rounds by the line between the slab hits and the wall hits. The shooter had moved ahead of them.
“He’s trying to flank us at the far end,” he said, firing a blind burst to keep the Hashashin from breaking their line of cover. As he did, more shots came from behind them, near the entrance. Nick rolled over, firing another blind burst to the rear. “Scratch that. There are two of them, and they’re trying to flank us on both sides.”
As he spoke, his tac light suddenly flickered on, still pointed behind them. A black figure ducked out of the cone of light. Nick shifted to follow, but all he saw were dozens of black-robed figures. He couldn’t tell which were dead and which were alive, and he didn’t have the bullets to find out.
Then a solution dawned on him.
“Shine your light at the portal ahead of us. I’ll watch our six. If anything enters your beam, shoot it. As long as we keep them away from the ends of these slabs, they can’t flank us. Move!”
Both men started crawling, Drake on his belly with his light pointed at the portal, Nick face up, scooting backward on his shoulders so he could keep his light and his weapon trained on the kill zone behind. Spurts of automatic fire tracked along with them, but the slabs deflected the rounds. The killers couldn’t get an angle on them. The plan was working.
Until Nick’s damaged light flickered out again.
A curtain of darkness closed over his kill zone.
“Go now!”
Drake doused his light and made a break for the large portal. Nick fired two more bursts into the black behind them and then rolled over and followed. Debr
is kicked up at his feet. Then a long suppressor appeared out of the dark to his immediate right. He let go of his MP7 and pushed the hot cylinder up and away, wincing as a burst of fire shot past his ear. Still fighting for control of the attacker’s weapon with his right hand, he grabbed the MP7 with his left and shoved the suppressor up into the man’s ribs. He pulled the trigger. The MP7 gave an empty click.
The assailant laughed and shouted in a language Nick did not recognize. Immediately, another volley ricocheted off the archway ahead. The Hashashin was trying to guide his partner’s shots using the sound of his own voice.
“Quiet, you.” Nick punched the killer repeatedly in the mouth before committing both hands to wresting his gun away. He shot his right hand under the assailant’s biceps and then weaved it back up to grab the barrel, making a modified figure four. Then he cranked the trapped arm backward and down, all the way to the floor. He heard the muted pop of a shoulder coming out of the socket. Even then, the Hashashin did not scream, but the machine gun came free.
Nick turned and flipped the weapon around, firing it into the dark with one hand while dragging his attacker backward through the portal by the collar of his robe. His captive fought against him, trying to gain a footing, but Nick put a stream of rounds into his legs to settle him down, finally getting a human response. The Hashashin let out a furious howl.
Two steps past the arch, Nick heard Drake’s voice in his ear. “Through here.” Invisible hands took hold of Nick and his captive and dragged them into a side room. A heavy door slammed shut. A bar slid into place. Drake’s tac light came on. “You hit?”
“No. You?”
“Not that I can tell. Who’s your friend?” The big operative had propped the Hashashin against the wall next to the door. He shined his light in the man’s face. He was their original target, the risen Ayan Ashaq. His legs were bleeding profusely and his face was battered. Blood dripped down his chin from both sides of his mouth.
Drake grimaced. “Nice work, boss.”
“Who sent you to kill us?” demanded Nick.
“I am the servant of the Emissary,” said the Hashashin in perfect English. “But you already know that.” The words brought on a fit of coughing and his robe fell open, exposing the green button-down shirt. A red stain grew at the center of his chest. Nick didn’t have much time.
“We know you’re planning a bio attack. What’s the target?”
The Hashashin gave him a grisly smile, showing two rows of bloody teeth. “You don’t know anything. You cannot . . . stop . . . the signs . . .” His voice trailed off and his head fell to the side.
“Nick, don’t,” warned Drake.
But Nick had already dropped into a crouch next to his captive. He shook the limp body like a rag doll. “I’m not through with you! What is the target?”
Suddenly the Hashashin came to life, lifting his torso off the wall. His eyes opened wide and bloodshot and he screamed with rage. He swung his left fist sideways at Nick’s head. Within a quarter of a second Drake put two bullets through the assassin’s forehead. The man fell back against the wall again and his hand dropped onto his thigh. It fell open, and a long metal spike rolled to the floor.
“Back away from him, Nick,” ordered Drake, his weapon still trained on the Hashashin.
Nick stayed where he was and patted the man’s cloak, looking for pockets. “Relax. I think he’s really dead this time.”
“You clearly don’t watch enough late-night movies.”
“No wallet. No ID.” Nick stood up. So much for getting some answers. He glanced warily at the door. “I wonder what happened to his friend.”
“My guess is he’s watching the door, waiting for reinforcements,” said Drake, searching the small chamber with his tac light. “He’ll try to pick us off the minute we step into the tunnel. When more arrive, they’ll breach the room.”
Nick stared down at the dead Hashashin. “I was praying that arch would lead us to an exit as I dragged him through. I should have prayed harder.”
After a heartbeat of silence, Drake nudged him and smiled, nodding toward the far corner of the room. He trained his light on a set of footholds cut into the rock wall, leading up to a stone hatch in the ceiling. “I think you did just fine.”
CHAPTER 25
While Drake climbed the footholds to test the stone hatch, Nick’s eyes drifted around the dark chamber. The walls were flat and bare. There was no furniture except for a wide circular pedestal that rose from the floor, perhaps serving as a table. He moved closer and knelt next to it, running his fingers along the side. He felt the indentations of script spiraling down from top to bottom.
“What’ve you got?” asked Drake, pressing his shoulders up against the heavy stone.
“I don’t know. Verses of some kind.”
Drake let out a long grunt. The hatch moved, but not far. He relaxed and it settled back into place. “Verses from the Quran?”
Nick used the glow of his smartphone screen to examine his find. “I don’t think so. Usually Quranic verses are written in Arabic. This appears to be Farsi.”
“You mean Iranian.”
“I mean Persian, and that’s not a language in my skill set.” He walked around the table, taking pictures. “We’ll have to get these translated.”
When he finished with the verses, Nick moved his light to the top of the pedestal. There were more carvings—a series of five symbols, four at the points of the compass and a larger one at the center, worn smooth and partially erased by time. Each was a simple shape or combination of shapes within a circle. Two of them matched the tattoos Nick had seen on his Hashashin targets.
He recognized the nearest of the four minor symbols as the double crescent moon worn by the incarnation of Ayan Ashaq, now lying dead a few feet away. The next around the circle was a combination of two triangles with their points overlapping, and the next a sort of sawtooth with a narrow base. The fourth symbol was nothing more than a horizontal crescent moon, its points directed downward.
Nick also recognized the fifth symbol, the larger one at the center of the table. Despite the wear of the stone, he could see the remnant of a crescent moon and an eight-pointed star, just like the tattoo on the man from Budapest and the DC bombing. Its honored position on this pedestal solidified what Nick already suspected. The man bearing that mark was in charge. He had to be the Emissary.
“Hey, professor,” said Drake, growing impatient in his awkward perch. “We can move this hatch if we both push together. You coming or what?”
—
No one spoke when the team finally reached its three-room hotel suite in downtown Ankara. Against the objections of his teammates, Nick had kept them out an additional hour after they escaped from the catacombs, driving a preplanned surveillance-detection route to make sure they weren’t followed.
Nick went straight to his room and shut the door, dropping his gear on the floor and collapsing onto his bed without bothering to undress.
He slept fitfully, his dreams full of half-decayed corpses in black robes, reaching for him out of a murky black ether. When he woke in the dim hour before sunrise, he couldn’t move, trapped in that place where the mind is awake but the body is not. The feeling of an evil presence weighed heavily on his senses. The curtain fluttered. The silhouette of a hooded man materialized in the corner next to the window, its edges bleeding into the shadows around it.
Though he tried to call out, Nick could not speak. He could not utter a sound. His MP7 lay on the floor, not three feet from his left hand, but he could not move to grab it.
The shadow glided to the foot of the bed, reaching into its cloak with a skeletal black hand.
Nick fought against his paralysis until all at once his voice and body broke free. He cried out with something between a growl and a scream and rolled over to grab his weapon.
When he rolled back to fire, he sa
w nothing but an empty wall.
Drake burst through the bedroom door with his Beretta in hand, but he stopped short, his eyes flitting from the weapon in Nick’s hands to the blank wall under his crosshairs. He blinked. “You . . . um . . . have a call on Scott’s video setup. It’s CJ.” The big operative watched Nick until he lowered the MP7. Then he slid his Beretta into his waistband and walked out of the room.
Both Scott and Drake eyed Nick with curiosity as he crossed the suite to their temporary computer station. Nick said nothing. He did not want to discuss it.
He sat down in front of a live telecom image of CJ on the center of three laptops. “You have something for me?”
“You look like death warmed over,” said the FBI agent, scrunching up her face.
“It’s the SATCOM link. It adds ten years. Come on. Don’t keep me in suspense.”
The FBI agent squinted at Nick for a second longer, but then she clicked her mouse and a photograph replaced her face on the screen. “We had to outsource to some folks at the National Archives,” she said, “but we finally restored that photograph from the bombing.”
Nick took in a breath. Except for some small discoloration and fading, he could swear he was looking at an unburned photo. He would never have thought that kind of restoration possible, not after seeing the damage done to the original.
The picture was clearly a surveillance photo, from the chest up, taken with a telephoto lens. The younger version of Nick was looking off camera. He tried to place the drab urban scene in the background, but the flat mud structures looked like any number of villages in the Middle East.
“Ring any bells?” asked CJ.
Nick shrank the picture with his mouse and moved it into the corner of the screen. “Give me a little time. It will come to me.”
“Time is something we don’t have. The president is certain that another attack is imminent, and I have nothing to give him. Please tell me you haven’t been gallivanting around Eastern Europe for two days only to come up empty-handed.”