Black Scorpion (51 page)

Instead of continuing to right his aim, he slammed the pistol across the side of her skull, toppling the chair over to the floor with enough force to shatter the wood. Michael had burst into motion by that point, recalling the lesson that hesitation killed more men than bullets. He didn't hesitate, not at all, and was on Dracu just as his half brother was again righting the pistol on him.

Bang!

At such close range, the gun's percussion alone made Michael think he'd been shot. But he hadn't and continued to battle Dracu for control of the weapon, while beneath him a badly dazed Scarlett struggled to free herself from the remaining bonds of the chair.

Michael and Dracu continued to whirl about, past unfinished sections of the Forbidden City still mired in exposed wires lacking protective panels. This as more shots jerked from the Beretta's barrel to skewer the walls and ceiling. Dracu jerked the pistol hard to regain control of it, Michael feeling the shoulder injured in his fight with Durado Segura wrenched again, his whole arm starting to go numb and weak.

Even in those moments, Michael's mind raced with the madness of Dracu's plan. He and Aldridge Sterling flipping a switch, only to turn it back on after they'd made their money and their mark. And when that moment came, their power and control would be solidified to a degree certain to avoid retribution or retaliation. Vladimir Dracu was a shadow, a specter. With Michael out of the way, who would even know his true identity, much less his singular goal of claiming what he believed to be rightfully his: The Seven Sins and all Michael had created and built, including his multitude of successful ventures across all spectrums and industries.

Vlad would conquer Las Vegas without a gaming license and, just like the Mafia in the sixties and seventies, he'd be nowhere and be everywhere at the same time. Above all else, though, Vlad wanted the relic. The very object he considered mandatory to obtain power and success and the reason why, he must've believed, Michael had been able to rise from a peasant in Sicily to a billionaire tycoon in America.

Michael spotted Scarlett crawling away from the broken chair, stripping the rest of her rope bonds free. Going for Dracu's cell phone.

The next three shots flew sideways, kicking up sparks when at least one of them bore through a nest of exposed wires and circuits. Another shell expended before Michael realized lights powered by the hotel's emergency generators were flashing everywhere, the system overloading and triggering portions of the atrium floor sliding open to the sub-level below, a holding area.

Where the tigers had already been brought into their habitat, the one part of the Forbidden City that was completely finished.

The animals surged up through the openings provided two at a time, tethered to posts mounted below by thin but incredibly strong ballistic-nylon chains. Michael could see the tigers whipped into a frenzy by their sudden relative freedom, loud shots and energy swirling through the air. They surged about, a few rushing toward him and Vlad only to be yanked back by their tethers at the last moment.

One of the tigers swiped Dracu's phone away, just as Scarlett was about to grasp it. But she had the sense to lie totally still, even when the tiger roared with its teeth bared before lurching to join the other animals as they kept lunging for Michael and Vlad.

Seeing and smelling the ferocity of their struggle seemed to activate some primal instinct in the beasts' minds, increasing their level of aggression. They began circling, pawing the floor furiously, poised to attack had it not been for the limits their tethers placed upon them.

Their struggle took Michael and Vlad into the range of the tigers' tethers, and one of the big cats leaped for Dracu. The man known better known as Black Scorpion gave up trying to right his pistol on Michael and, instead, fired two shots into the animal when it was airborne, before Michael finally knocked the Beretta from his grasp, fresh pain exploding in his shoulder from the effort. The animal fell short of Dracu, hitting the floor dead and whipping the other tigers into an even worse frenzy. They started forward, hunched low in attack mode, only their tethers stopping them as Michael and Dracu drifted out of range again.

With no gun to battle for control over, Michael and Vlad wheeled across the floor, Michael fighting to angle for Scarlett while Dracu continued to maneuver toward the fallen cell phone. They wheeled in and around the tigers snapping and clawing as they tested the absolute limits of their bonds. Michael thought he had a clear path to Scarlett, but his injured shoulder betrayed him again and Vlad tripped him up before he could reach her.

Michael felt the animals clawing the air before him as he rose, spotting Dracu reaching down for the cell phone when a tiger lashed a paw at him, inadvertently swiping the phone away. That forced Dracu to backpedal, clearing a path to him for Michael.

Michael slammed into him hard, both men crashing to the floor, then swiftly regaining their feet and seeming to twirl dance-like across the floor. Michael managed a sidelong glance toward Scarlett who was moving for the phone again, before a pair of tigers caught the motion and lunged toward her. Michael's breath seized up as she managed to roll out of range just in time, barely escaping their attack.

His divided attention, though, gave Dracu the opening he needed to pound Michael's groin with a knee. A twist at the last instant spared him the brunt of the impact, but robbed him of his balance enough for Dracu's next blow to launch him off his feet. Crashing hard to the floor and sliding through the piles of glass he felt scratching at his skin through his clothes.

Recovering his senses, though, found Michael in easy reach of Dracu's phone. He took it in his grasp and smashed it upon the floor, then smashed it a second time, a third, and then a fourth, until nothing recognizable of the device remained.

“Michael!”

He swung at Scarlett's raspy cry to find her in Dracu's grasp, bent over the railing sixty stories over the Daring Sea on the back side of the resort opened up to the night beyond the shattered glass. His half brother grinning madly as he prepared to drop her from the top of the Forbidden City.

 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN

H
OIA-
B
ACIU
F
OREST,
R
OMANIA

Water was pooling along the access hall to Vlad Dracu's private lair and starting to climb. It surged down the tube accessing the first level and Alexander had to hold his breath, fighting against its torrents as he climbed.

He pushed himself out under four feet of rising water and burst upward to add his fire to the ratcheting shells of what was left of Paddy's team. Just three men, maybe four, by the look and sound of things when a big hand clamped down on his shoulder.

Alexander swung and found himself locked with Paddy's ice blue eyes, the grin stretched across his face belying the wounds he'd suffered in his shoulder and leg.

“I hate the bloody water, mate. Might never go for a swim again.”

“We ready to rain hell?”

Paddy flashed the detonator he'd taped to his palm. “Just say the word.”

“You're gonna need to go for one more swim first.”

Alexander twisted to resume firing at the remaining forces of Black Scorpion, pushing backward through the climbing waters when Paddy latched a quivery hand onto his shoulder.

“We lost a lot of good blokes today, mate.”

“Then let's make sure it was worth it,” Alexander followed, when a stairwell door burst open to allow a fresh surge of Black Scorpion forces to pour through into the waters.

He pumped one 40mm grenade out and then a second, his last, before the first had even exploded. The near twin blasts blew the door off its hinges, crushing whoever was behind it even as they left a thick enough debris field to block that route to anything but a few stray shots of errant fire. Return fire from Black Scorpion's forces continued to rage, and Alexander moved to help Paddy through the waters that had reached their necks, backpedaling as he held his M4 over the flow until it clicked empty and he tossed it aside.

They were almost to the breach now, the first light of dawn visible beyond through a clearing sky when both spotted an old man wearing a drenched bathrobe standing directly before them with one hand clamped to his forehead in the position of a salute. The other looked to be holding what looked and smelled like a marijuana blunt.

“Reporting for duty!” the old man said, saluting as the water climbed past his chest.

*   *   *

Bemke watched his technicians working feverishly to get the mainframe up and running again. Finally, the lights in the command center snapped back on, the steady whir of machines following immediately.

Wasting no further time, Bemke rushed back atop the dias to reboot his computer and reinitiate the activation sequence. His fingers flew across the keyboard, watching his screen return to life, ready to press the Execute key to complete his orders.

*   *   *

Raven managed to herd her charges into a tight cluster with the oldest, teenage girls mostly, on the outside to help the younger ones, the youngest of whom were already held in their arms. Raven scooped up a pair of six- or seven-year-olds who were floundering and about to panic, struggling against the waters rising through the exposed cave's diameter.

Dawn broke beyond it across a sky that had cleared during the course of the battle. Somehow the light reassured her and she pushed herself on with children hoisted over both shoulders.

If she felt the rising sun upon her, she was safe.

The simplicity of that notion was enough to speed her on, legs churning against the current and feeling the force of the tight cluster of former captives pressing forward behind her. If she stopped, they'd stop, a constant reminder of the very purpose that had drawn her here and in which she couldn't fail, simply couldn't. Every time she started to weaken or doubt, she thought of being soaked in her own mother's blood thanks to the very man who'd taken these children hostage.

Before she knew it, the spill and roar of the waterfall was upon her and Raven felt her legs sink into the waters of the manmade lake.

*   *   *

Alexander could see no trace of Raven or any of the hostages as he helped Paddy and the old man across the waters of the mountain lake that glowed green beneath the rising sun. That old man could only be the scientist she had reported rescuing years before from a Russian gulag, the man responsible for devising Black Scorpion's plot against America who might well prove to be a treasure trove of information.

And who knew what else?

Alexander pushed the old man atop the opposite shore and then dragged Paddy along with him the rest of the way.

“Time to rain hell … mate,” he said, and watched Paddy depress the detonator he'd taped to his palm.

*   *   *

Raven had gotten her rescued charges several hundred feet into the woods, safe from the blast zone, when she felt a rumble beneath her feet. Then the ground began to actually tremble. She heard any number of explosions muffled by the mountain itself, too far away and under too much cover to spot anything but a dark char cloud that must have burst through the breached entrance.

She felt strangely at peace, having done for these children what no one could had ever done, or could do, for her. Adnan Talu had rescued her from the massacre to which he was party, giving her a life more out of guilt than anything. But Raven had saved these young women and children to give them
back
their lives so they might never know the kind of pain and heartache that had rippled through her youth and clung to her still as an adult. The world had too many victims.

Now it would have thirty-six less.

*   *   *

Alexander had just reached the relative safety of the tree line with the old man and Paddy in tow when the initial series of explosions shook the ground with the fury of an earthquake, the illusion of the mountain itself shaking cast when he turned that way. A dense cloud of ash and smoke burst outward through the blown entrance, continuing to thicken and spread, huge cascades of water blown in all directions under the collective force of the blasts and resulting shock wave.

“Raven,” he said into what was left of his microphone.

“Heading toward the rendezvous point now and have collected a few of the Brit's men on the way. Two—no, three.”

“That'll please him no end,” Alexander said, stealing a glance at a still grimacing Paddy. “Get the vehicles ready to travel. We won't be long.”

*   *   *

Bemke had been literally counting down the seconds until the Execute command was ready when he heard the rumbling overhead. He had lived through earthquakes, some fairly large in scope, and the feeling of this was akin to that. The floor beneath him trembled and the keyboard and monitor atop his desk began to shake, actually lifting up and down before he clamped a hand down to hold them in place.

That's when he felt the first trickle of drops, drizzle-like, that could've simply been condensation dripping from the natural stone walls. But the drops quickly grew larger, and Bemke looked up to see water starting to stream down through the ceiling, finding gaps and spaces where none should have existed. Then he looked down and saw the stone floor cracking, water bubbling up through the fissures before beginning to surge through everywhere, as if someone had opened a million spigots at once.

Suddenly he felt his whole body shaking along with everything else in the command center. He maintained the presence of mind to still stretch a finger down toward the Execute key, almost there when the fortified ceiling ruptured and an endless blanket of water swallowed the world around him.

 

ONE HUNDRED TWELVE

L
AS
V
EGAS,
N
EVADA