And as deadly.
“Mr. Hajjar,” said Qobras. His tone made it clear that he was displeased at having to deal with the Iranian.
“Mr. Qobras,” Hajjar replied, with ersatz good humor. “I am delighted to speak to you at last.”
“You have something for me,” Qobras stated impatiently.
“Two things, in fact! The first is this little trinket.” Hajjar displayed the Atlantean artifact to the camera. “I understand this was taken from your—”
“Destroy it,” Qobras interrupted. “Melt it down. I will pay you fifteen million U.S. dollars on receipt of a complete video recording of its destruction.”
“Destroy it?” Hajjar was stunned. “Yes, I can do that, I have all the necessary facilities to handle precious metals, but…” He shook his head in disbelief. “Are you sure?”
“Melt it down. Completely. You can keep the gold and any other metals you extract, but I want it destroyed. It has caused enough trouble.”
Shaken, Hajjar replaced the artifact on his desk. “Destroy it. Okay. For … fifteen million dollars, you said?” The oversized image of Qobras nodded.
Kari looked on, appalled. If the artifact was destroyed, then the only link to finding Atlantis would be lost forever …
With enormous relief, Nina pulled herself out of the pipe.
The chamber she found herself in was rectangular, some six feet by eight, with numerous pipes running into it from above. The floor was awash in rancid water. “I’m in,” she said into the headset, turning her light onto the walls. A dirty ladder led upwards.
“Good,” said Chase, voice distorted by interference. “Now go up the ladder. And whatever you do …”
“Yes?”
“Don’t slip.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Water and sludge dripping off her wet suit, Nina ascended the ladder. She cautiously pushed at the metal cover at the top, and to her immense relief, it moved. She slid it aside, then climbed up. “I’m at the top.”
“Okay, you should be in a room with one door.”
She swept the beam around. “Yes.”
“Check at the door to make sure there’s nobody outside, then go left. There’s another door at the end of the corridor. Go through it.”
Heart suddenly pounding, Nina opened the door a crack and peered through. The stone-walled corridor outside was dimly lit and, except for a faint humming noise, silent. She looked in the other direction. A narrow flight of stairs led upwards. “It’s clear,” she whispered.
“Okay, go.”
She kicked off the sodden sneakers so as not to leave wet footprints, then padded lightly down the corridor. “Oh. Problem.”
Even through the hiss of static, she could hear the concern in Chase’s voice. “What?”
“There are two doors. Which one do I go through?”
“There’s only one on the plan, they must have added something. But one of them has to be the generator room. Try them both.”
Both doors bore a high-voltage warning symbol, so that didn’t help. Bracing herself, Nina tried the nearest one first.
It wasn’t a room full of technicians or a security station, thankfully. In fact, it looked more like the IT department at the university. She recognized one rack of equipment as a computer server—maybe Hajjar ran his own secure Internet link. Various black boxes were connected to it, as was a PC, a screensaver swirling on its monitor.
Out of curiosity—the room was small, the computer within arm’s reach of the door—she moved the mouse. The screen lit up with various windows. Most of them were incomprehensible status displays, but her eyes instantly went to one in particular. It was split in two, each part showing what was apparently a videoconference call.
She didn’t recognize the stern-faced man in one of them, but the other …
Hajjar.
“Nina?” Chase hissed. “What’s going on?”
“It’s a computer room—”
“Then forget it! Go into the other room, quick.”
It turned out to be her intended destination. A pair of large generators occupied most of the space, thrumming away. On the wall next to them was a complicated array of fuse boxes and circuit breakers.
“Another problem,” she said quietly. “All the labels are in Farsi!”
“I see you have Yuri there as well,” said Qobras.
“Giovanni!” Volgan said desperately, staggering to his feet. His guard raised the gun as if to club him again, but Hajjar shook his head. “Please, I’m sorry! I made a mistake, I know, but I’m sorry!”
Qobras shook his head. “Yuri… I trusted you. I trusted you, and then you betrayed me—and the entire Brotherhood! And for what? For money?” He shook his head again. “The Brotherhood provides for the needs of its own, you know that. But you wanted more? That is the thinking of those we are fighting to stop!”
“Please, Giovanni!” begged Volgan. “I will never—”
“Yuri.” The single word silenced Volgan instantly. “Hajjar, I have no use for him, and I am sure you do not either. I will pay you five million dollars to kill him, right now.”
“Five million dollars?” gasped Hajjar. Qobras nodded.
“Giovanni!” shrieked Volgan. “No, please!”
Hajjar sat motionless for a few seconds, apparently lost in thought… then he opened a slim drawer set into his desk, took out a silver revolver and fired.
Chase came back online. “Okay, I’ve got the wiring diagram. There should be three tall panels with a row of big switches running down them.”
Nina saw them. “Yes!”
“The middle panel. Turn off the third, fourth and sixth switches.”
Each heavy switch made a loud chung! noise as Nina moved it. “Okay, now what?”
“That’s it. You’re done. Find somewhere to hide and we’ll see you in five minutes.” The radio sent a crunch of static into her ear, then fell silent.
“Wait, Eddie—Eddie!”
Kari stared in disbelief at Volgan’s body. Even the guards seemed shocked by the suddenness of the killing. “My God!”
On the screen, Qobras reacted to her voice with wary surprise. “Hajjar! Who else is with you?”
Hajjar turned away from the bleeding body to face the screen. “I have a … rival of yours, you could say. Kari Frost.”
Qobras was stunned. “Kari Frost? Let me see!”
Chase and Castille quickly scaled the slope leading up from the river. Chase tested the fence by tossing a pair of wirecutters against it. No sparks, no shorting. It was dead.
“Go!” he ordered. Castille quickly used the wirecutters to snip the bottom of the fence. Chase pulled up the loose section like a flap, creating a gap just large enough for them to fit beneath.
On the other side, they jumped to their feet and looked up at the fortress. The rocky slope led up to the twisting access road, and the main entrance of the building itself. There were no guards in sight, but from what Shala had said, they would be there somewhere.
As well as his own gun, Castille still had one of the G3 rifles taken from Mahjad’s soldiers. Chase had his Wildey, and a weatherbeaten Uzi provided by Shala. He checked both guns. Ready for action.
“Okay,” he said, “time to be heroes.”
They set off at a run.
Nina decided that the server room was as good a hiding place as any. It also let her have another look at the computer.
It only took a moment to expand the window of the videoconference call the PC was relaying, and a little longer to increase the volume. Hajjar and the other man were talking about…
Kari!
Not only that, but now she appeared behind Hajjar, pushed into the frame by one of his men.
“What is she doing there?” Qobras demanded.
“I have some business with her father,” said Hajjar. “It is not your concern.”
“It is very much my concern!” Qobras almost shouted. “Kill her.”
Hajjar gaped at the screen. “What??
??
“Kill her! Now!”
Cold fear clenched Kari’s stomach. The gun was still in Hajjar’s hand. If he obeyed Qobras’s order, she could be dead in moments.
“Are you mad?” Hajjar exclaimed. “She is worth ten million dollars to me! Her father has already agreed to pay the ransom!”
“Listen to me,” said Qobras, leaning forward until his face filled the screen, “you have no idea how dangerous she is. She and her father are attempting to find what the Brotherhood has been fighting to keep hidden for centuries! If they do—”
Hajjar waved his hands. “I don’t care! All I care about is the ten million dollars for returning her to her father!”
Something approaching desperation crept into Qobras’s voice. “Hajjar, I will pay you twelve million dollars if you kill her.”
“You are out of your—”
“Fifteen million! Hajjar, I will pay any price you want! But only if you kill Kari Frost, right now!”
NINE
Nina stared at the monitor, shocked. Whomever the other man was, he was serious about wanting Kari dead. And from what she had already seen of Hajjar, his greed would soon force him to cave in and accept the blood money.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Unless …
“Two guards at the lower gate,” said Castille as he and Chase ran up the rocky slope.
“I see ’em,” Chase replied. “They’ll take a couple of minutes to get up here. Sod ’em for now. What about the top?”
“They must be inside the gate. What’s our best tactic? Something subtle?”
Chase raised his Uzi. “Subtle suits me.”
Hajjar was torn, looking between the other people in the room—even Kari—as if hoping for guidance. “Fifteen million?” he said at last. “Why? Why is it so important to you that she dies?”
“Twenty million!” shouted Qobras. “Twenty million dollars to kill her, now! Don’t ask questions, just—”
The screen went dark.
As did the entire room—the lights, Hajjar’s computer, everything. The only illumination came from the narrow stained-glass windows.
Hajjar and his guards were caught unawares, held in bewildered surprise.
Kari moved—
Nina had spotted the large red switches at the bottom of the control panels when she switched off the electric fence. She didn’t need fluency in Farsi or an electrician’s training to work out what they did.
She pushed them all. Everything went black.
Switching on the flashlight, she hurried from the room. Somebody was certain to investigate. As she ran down the darkened corridor, she pulled her belt around to bring the holster within easy reach.
The main gate was a huge archway running through the thick southern wall. Chase used his steel mirror to peek around the corner.
“Two guys in a little gatehouse at the far end, left,” he told Castille, “about fifteen feet. Doesn’t look like they’re on the ball.”
Castille brought up his rifle. “Still subtle?”
Chase nodded, watching the gatehouse in the mirror. “Let’s—”
The lights in the gatehouse went out, as did the CCTV monitors. The guards reacted with confusion.
“Oh bollocks!” Chase hissed. “She’s turned off the rest of the power!” The voices of the guards echoed down the passage, one of them using a walkie-talkie.
Castille made a face. “Subtle is out, then.”
“Fight to the end?”
“Fight to the end.”
A nod, then both men charged into the gateway, guns roaring as they blasted the gatehouse and its occupants apart.
Kari whipped around with the effortless grace of a ballerina, pivoting on one foot as she dropped to a crouch. At the same time, her other leg lanced out and scythed into her guard’s ankles from behind. He fell backwards, his head cracking against the hard marble.
She leapt up, pulling her knees high to curl herself into a ball, and bringing her cuffed wrists beneath her tucked feet.
Her heels hit the floor with a clack as she raised her hands in front of her. Somewhere outside, she heard the rattle of automatic weapons.
Chase.
In the low light, she saw Hajjar still sitting behind his desk, facing the dead plasma screen. The other guard fumbled with his MP-5.
The man at her feet had a gun, but it was still in its holster. The door was too far away.
Which left—
She vaulted onto Hajjar’s desk and slid across the gleaming surface on her butt just as he turned his chair around. Her feet smashed into the Iranian’s face, driving him back into the padded leather as she continued her slide right over the desk to land in his lap. The swivel chair spun around with the impact, its high back blocking both Kari and Hajjar from the guard’s view for a moment.
And in that moment, Kari wrenched the revolver from Hajjar’s hand.
A single shot was all she needed to hit the guard square in the forehead. He collapsed instantly, dead.
The other guard was recovering, pulling out his gun as he twisted to face her.
Kari kicked again, using Hajjar as a human springboard to launch herself into the air. The chair and its occupant toppled over with a crash. She performed a perfect somersault as a bullet cracked against the wall behind her.
She was still upside down in midair as she pulled the trigger. The bullet exploded in the guard’s chest, blood spurting out as she flopped back to the floor.
Kari landed on both feet beside the desk, coat swirling like a cape. She gave the body of her former guard a cold look. “You were right about the martial arts.”
She heard a noise behind her and whirled. Hajjar had crawled from his overturned chair, flattening himself against the wall beneath the plasma screen. As he raised his hook hand to the carved skirting along the base of the wall, a twisted smile of triumph on his bloodied lips, the floor beneath him dropped away and pitched him into darkness. Before Kari could react, the trapdoor snapped back into place, only the tiniest seam in the marble giving away that it had even been there at all.
She hurried to the spot and pushed at the skirting, but although a piece of it moved under her touch, nothing happened. The trapdoor had some kind of lock or timing mechanism to prevent people pursuing its user.
The artifact!
Kari frantically searched the desk for the orichalcum piece.
It wasn’t there!
She must have swept it along with her when she slid over the desk, dropping it right into Hajjar’s lap. And now he had used the shah’s secret escape route to make his getaway with it!
Spitting a Norwegian curse, Kari dropped the revolver into a pocket, picked up the dead bodyguard’s MP-5 and hurried from the room.
The spiraling chute deposited Hajjar in a small room two floors below. Like the rest of the fortress the room was dark, but once his disorientation cleared, that presented him with no problems. He had prepared the room carefully with everything he might need should he have to use his emergency exit.
Not, he thought as his hand felt for the battery-powered lantern he knew was there, that he had ever actually expected to do so. Especially to escape from someone who just a few seconds earlier had been his prisoner! Qobras was right—Kari Frost was indeed more dangerous than she seemed.
He found the lantern and switched it on. The contents of the room were exactly as he’d left them. Hurriedly slinging a satchel over one shoulder, he dropped the orichalcum bar into it before choosing a weapon.
Hajjar’s disability limited him to relatively small and light guns, but that didn’t mean he was limited in terms of firepower. The gun he selected was an Ingram M11, scarcely bigger than an ordinary pistol but able to spew bullets at the frightening rate of sixteen hundred rounds per minute. This particular gun had a special modification ordered personally by its owner: the magazine, protruding from the bottom of the handgrip, ended in a drum, more than doubling its capacity. With only one hand, reloadin
g was a task Hajjar preferred to delay.
There was one other weapon he chose. He unscrewed the steel hook from the metal cup covering the stump of his right wrist… and replaced it with a vicious, eight-inch serrated blade.
His pilot had standing orders in case of an emergency—get to the helipad and start the chopper. Hajjar had many enemies, and was under no illusions that the fortress was impregnable. Running from the danger and letting his men handle it was his preferred option.
But if he happened to run into any of his enemies along the way, he wanted to be prepared.
Nina went up the stairs and found herself in another corridor, this one lavishly decorated by someone with an apparent fetish for red velvet. Tall windows at each end let in enough light for her to switch off the flashlight. Through the nearest window she could see the surrounding mountains; the other one overlooked the courtyard at the center of the fortress.
From where she could hear gunfire. Chase and Castille were making their entrance.
She also heard running footsteps from around a corner coming towards her—probably somebody heading for the generator room to restore power. She ducked through the closest door. The brief glimpse she caught before closing it and plunging the room into darkness told her it was a library, the walls lined with bookcases of reference texts and historical tomes. Hajjar obviously liked to be as well informed as possible about the artifacts he traded.
Hands shaking, she pulled the gun from its holster, pointing it at the door as she backed away. The footsteps came closer.
If the door opened, would she have the necessary willpower to pull the trigger?
She didn’t need to find out. They faded, clattering down the steps into the basement.
With a sigh of relief, Nina turned on the flashlight again. A library would be a good place to hide out. It was unlikely that any of Hajjar’s people would feel the need to check a historical reference in the middle of a crisis. She just needed to wait for Chase to contact her again…