Carpathian (68 page)

“I’m open to suggestions, people.”

Pete managed to rise up enough to see over Ryan and the cable car beyond.

“Excuse me, Colonel, but how do we get inside without that Russian guy seeing us?”

“Come on, Doc,” Ryan admonished just as Jack took off for the now moving car as it started its run for the castle. It had just cleared the interior area when Collins easily stepped onto the top. He turned and assisted Sarah on board and then at Ryan’s urging, Pete. Jason was the last one on.

“Boy, and I thought we would have it easier than Mendenhall down here at the resort. I was sorely mistaken.”

With Zallas below in warmth and comfort sipping champagne, the Event Group hitchhiked on top of the cable car with the lightning flashing around them.

Up ahead they saw the swirling spotlights that cast the castle in blue and purple through the driving rain.

They all realized at once the surreal situation they now found themselves in. Sarah smiled and looked at Jack, who was holding on to the cable pulley system that stood as high as a man. The wind picked up as the large car broke free of its enclosure and the four started getting pummeled by the storm.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Colonel?” Sarah said as she tried to shield her face from the raindrops.

“I think I do. Here we are riding a cable car toward Dracula’s Castle on a dark and stormy night in an attempt to save one of the Lost Tribes of Israel and a subspecies of wolf that had been mistaken for werewolves for three thousand years and then we have to pull our friends off a mountain that may or may not blow up in the next six hours. Did I leave anything out?” He grinned as the rain started becoming serious as they all hung on as the car swayed a bit.

“Yeah, you did leave something out,” Sarah corrected.

“What’s that?”

“That our duty, as the Event Group charter points out, is to discover just what in the hell is so important to the Jeddah and the Hebrews that they had to bury it two thousand miles away from their homeland, and whatever that is why are they are willing to destroy it so readily.”

Jack smiled and then leaned closer to Sarah.

“I didn’t want to use that many words.”

Sarah just stared at Jack as the cable car carrying Dmitri Zallas made its way to the nightmare scene far above as Castle Dracula waited.

CASTLE DRACULA

The guests were seated for the most part as the wait staff filled glasses of complimentary champagne to the elite crowd of thieves and bankers, in this case the same profession. The waterfall curtain was a particular favorite as the crowd oohed and awed over the multicolored display of falling water drops that changed hue every few seconds to the sound of recorded rock music. It was now ten o’clock.

Backstage Drake Andrews sat in a chair as his manager went over his play list. His part of the show was still two hours off and Drake had sworn he wouldn’t step foot out on the stage until the last minute. He had never felt as humiliated as he did on this rainy night in Romania. He heard loud laughter and he stepped to the curtain and looked.

“They actually have a white man dressed as Stevie Wonder? Oh, God, I’m going to be ruined.”

As they watched the Russian group take their places, Drake felt a slight tremor under his fingers as he held on to the door jamb. He rolled his eyes at his warm-up band. The vibration started and then stopped. He looked at his hands and cursed his luck once more.

“The music hasn’t even started yet and we’re already getting the shakes out of this place.”

PATINAS PASS

Niles had returned to the temple to retrieve Charlie Ellenshaw as he was sure the professor’s questions were driving Anya insane.

As he made his way down the torch-lit steps Niles thought he heard something behind him. He stopped and listened but nothing moved. He only heard the sizzle of the oil-encrusted torches. He turned away and started back down the steps but stopped once more as he realized this time he was not alone. As he slowly looked up the reason why he hadn’t seen anything behind him was due to the fact that the wolf was hanging upside down with its claws firmly dug into the rock stairwell. Mikla didn’t move as its nose twitched, smelling Niles.

Compton couldn’t help but moan under his breath. The Golia up close were the most frightening, most amazing creatures Compton had ever seen. If there was one thing that must come out of this unscathed it had to be these animals. In his opinion the Golia were the priority and once out of here he would try to make sure they always had a protected home—if he survived this current encounter that is.

Mikla whined deep in its throat and then released its right hand and brought it down to Niles’s head. The long, articulate singers and claws wrapped around his skull like a normal-sized man would hold an apple. The beast seemed amazed that Niles had no hair on the top of his head. The animal then clicked a claw up against his glasses, producing a clack. Then it hit the glasses again until they went askew on Compton’s face.

“Mikla, stop that! I swear your curiosity will get the best of you someday.”

Niles knew it was Anya but he refused to turn that way as Mikla quickly withdrew his hand. The Golia barked once, twice, and then hopped free of the wall and then Niles heard the popping hip joints and the way the Golia arranged its skeletal frame to accommodate its amazing ability to walk upright. The Golia stood before Niles and cocked its head. The beast sniffed at Compton one last time and then reached out and with one, long, sharpened claw clicked his glasses one last time until they were sitting straight on the director’s face and then the beast leaped to the wall and with the grace of a wall fly crawled up and into the darkness of the high reaches of the City of Moses.

“Thank you,” Niles said as he wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

“Mikla never means any harm. Unlike Stanus, Mikla has the ability to see things differently. He’s far more curious about humankind than is good for him. He has been the only Golia I have ever known to actually seek out a traveler.” Anya stepped into the torch light. Charlie Ellenshaw was with her and they both looked up and into the darkened upper reaches but Mikla was gone. “My grandmother wishes for you to join her. She says we have little time to explain our history so that the Keeper of Secrets can place it into proper historical perspective.”

“And just what does that mean?” Niles asked, looking up into the smiling face of Anya.

“She wants you to know why this place was selected by God for the Golia to live, and why this is the hiding place of the greatest discovery in the ancient world, and one that will vanish in just a few hours.”

Niles straightened and then fixed the young woman with a look that said he still didn’t fully understand.

“You will now see what it is you came here to see, Dr. Compton, and what it is that my grandmother and every ancestor of ours since the great Exodus has kept safe for over thirty-five hundred years here in these once forsaken mountains.”

“And that is?” Niles persisted.

“Have you not wondered why this temple is named the way it is named, doctor?”

“The City of Moses?”

“Exactly,” she said and then turned and went down into the bowels of the temple complex.

Niles looked at Charlie and then they both turned and followed in far more of a hurry than they intended.

The City of Moses was about to give up its ancient and devastating secret that some men in the world deemed important enough to kill an entire tribe over, and other men that were willing to destroy an entire historical heritage of that people for the mere threat of having their secret exposed to the world.

The Great Exodus was finally coming to a conclusion almost four thousand years after the fact.

FLIGHT 262, HEAVY COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT, SQUAWKING FRIENDLY OVER ROMANIAN AIRSPACE

The Hercules C-130 bumped and ground its way through roiling clouds that sparked brightly with electric streaks of lightning that came close to striking the airframe of the American-built heavy transport. The plane bounced and tossed the men around inside the cavernous belly of the aircraft, which elicited a loud yahoo from the commandos as they tried to shake off the nerves of the impending HALO jump from the ramp of the Hercules.

Major Donny Mendohlson sat at the small navigator’s table going over their flight path with the air force specialist. They had come to the conclusion that they couldn’t make the jump as high as they initially wanted because of the high altitude of the storm—they would land at least two miles downwind if they jumped at 32,000 feet. They would have to chance it at half that.

“Any contact from Demetrius?” Mendohlson asked as he placed his map into a plastic-lined cover and then put it in his jacket pocket. He and his men were dressed in black Nomex and were self-equipped to handle most anything thrown at them—if they all made it down through this backbreaking storm. It would be a first for all of them.

“There has been nothing coming from either the south or the north of Romania since the storm hit. The authorities are reporting that they are having a hard time evacuating the populace from the low-lying areas of the Danube.”

Major Mendohlson nodded his head as he zipped up his black body armor.

“Well, I guess they’ll be far too busy to be concerned about one small relief flight straying off course a little, especially in the storm of the century.”

“Get a flash priority one message off to Tel Aviv. Tell General Shamni that Operation Ramesses is a go.” The major looked at his black-painted watch and pushed the small timer. “We HALO in five to eight minutes.”

The call went out to Tel Aviv explaining that the world’s fiercest killers were about to jump headfirst into the cauldron of swirling blackness and exploding electrical strikes to finally end centuries of cover-up.

The black-painted C-130 made a final turn and headed for the far peaks of the Carpathians.

A futuristic form of Pharaoh’s once fierce and unbeatable chariots was heading the way of the Jeddah with the same intent as the once historical goal of the Egyptians—to make it all go away.

PATINAS PASS

Everett slowly sat up in bed and watched as Madam Korvesky was given a large injection of painkiller from a protesting Denise Gilliam. Carl just sat and listened as just moments before the Gypsy queen had been dreaming and shouting about the Golia. It was unclear what she had been trying to say when her eyes had sprung open and she sat straight up on the rickety cot. She awoke as she slowly blinked her eyes wide. She looked at Denise and that had been when the argument had started about the amount of morphine Denise thought appropriate.

Now Everett waited and watched as the old woman seemed to be in a deep trance of some kind. His eyes went to the doorway when Anya, Niles, and Charlie stepped in.

“She’s been this way for the past five minutes,” Everett said as he tossed the old Army blanket aside and then placed his feet on the floor and then started pulling on his boots. He was feeling much better after the energy-sapping ride with Stanus eight hours before.

Anya stepped to her grandmother and looked at Alice, who was still holding the woman’s hand. Alice shook her head indicating that she didn’t know what was happening. Anya whispered her grandmother’s name and then ran a hand over her open eyes. They stayed staring straight ahead and never flinched.

“She’s somewhere other than here,” she said as she turned and watched Carl get dressed. “Are you rested enough to be getting up?”

“With the crap that’s getting ready to come down I think Doc Ellenshaw may need some help, what do you think?” he asked as he was quickly becoming agitated with everyone’s concern over his little trip with Stanus.

“I think so, yeah,” Charlie said as he looked from Carl to the director.

Madam Korvesky blinked and then turned her head and looked at Alice. “They are coming for the treasure. They are coming now. They have Marko, but Marko is brave and strong. He will resist, but the men he thought were as strong as he will betray him, and then the Russian and the Israeli will come.”

“They are coming to the City of Moses?” Anya asked as she tried to get her grandmother to lie back down but she resisted her efforts.

“We must gather the menfolk and hide the women and children, Pharaoh is upon us.”

“Now is not the time to prove you’re a mysterious Gypsy woman, Grandmother, tell us what’s happening,” Anya said as Everett had to smile at her modern way of getting to the point. The old woman blinked again and looked at the much younger twin of herself sixty-five years before.

“Marko’s men will break under the torture of an Israeli traitor.”

“That damn Ben-Nevin,” Anya hissed.

“Yes, that’s the name I get, Ben-Nevin, a weak sort of name if you ask me. I believe he is the son of a man I once knew many years ago.” The old woman tried to move her legs in order to stand up but Alice and Anya were much too fast and strong for her. They held her in place.

“Send the Keeper of Secrets to Patinas to rouse the men by ringing the village bell. Arm them, as we must hold the temple until help arrives.”

“What are you talking about? What help?” Anya asked as she held her grandmother at arm’s length and looked at her.

“A very old and dear friend is coming.” She finally looked at Anya and her smile grew and her features cleared up as if the drugs and the effects of her amputation had vanished. “You know deep down inside of whom I speak, don’t you, girl-child?” Madam Korvesky turned her smile on Alice. “And so do you, do you not, Keeper of Secrets?”

Alice looked up at Niles and was worried that the old Gypsy queen had finally lost it.

“Come now, or should I ask Dr. Compton to explain it to you? I think he understands the situation.”

All eyes turned to Niles, who had turned away and paced back to the doorway deep in thought.

“Mr. Director, you have something to say?” Everett asked as he struggled shakily to his feet tucking in his denim shirt.

“Yes, Alice should know whom she is referring to, as we have dealt with the man many times over the years; he just didn’t know who we were.” Niles turned and looked at the expectant eyes. “His name is General Addis Shamni, if I’m not mistaken.”