The Cup (23 page)

CHAPTER 55

The back wall of the building was still intact and would protect them from behind. They retreated part of the way into the church and formed a line facing the doorway where the rebels had to enter. Broken masonry gave them some cover from rifle fire. It wouldn't protect them from grenades or from an RPG. They crouched behind the fallen stones, waiting.

Nick lay next to Selena. "Don't shoot until most of them have made it through the door. You see someone with anything more than a rifle, take him down first."

Selena's mouth was dry. She waited, breathing to slow down the adrenaline pumping through her.

A man with a cloth sweatband wrapped around his head came through the doorway, crouching low and swiveling his head from side to side. He had an AK. He said something over his shoulder and three more men followed him in. They moved toward the open entrance to the stairs and stopped. Selena aimed at the one nearest the opening. She felt Nick's hand on her arm and looked over at him. He shook his head.

Not yet.

Five more men came through the door. The first four stood in a group arguing about something. Nick waited but no one else came in.

"Now," he said.

Selena opened fire. She was aware of the others shooting. The night lit with flashes from the guns.

The hail of fire took down all four men by the trap door. The others dove for cover. In seconds, the sound of AK's mixed with the coughing of the MP7s. One of the rebels lifted his rifle over the rock he was hiding behind and fired blindly, spraying bullets in their direction. Selena shot off his hand. She could hear him screaming over the sound of the guns.

She'd never been in a firefight like this. Hundreds of rounds struck the rubble around her, sending chips of rock and masonry flying everywhere. Her gun locked open. She ducked down, ejected and jammed in another magazine, cocked the gun and waited for a lull in the shooting before she looked again.

She was looking at the wrong end of an RPG launcher.

"RPG!" she yelled.

The grenade screamed over her head and impacted against the back of the church, blowing a large opening in the wall. Selena raised up and shot the man with the launcher. It was a temporary reprieve. Someone else would pick it up.

It was only a question of time before more rebels came or they ran out of ammo. Either way they were cooked if they stayed where they were.

Ronnie crawled over to him.

"This is not good, Kemo Sabe."

"Yeah. We'll go out through that back wall. Once we're in the street, we can keep them busy until our ride gets here. Ronnie, Selena, you go first. Lamont and I will cover you. Once you're through, keep them off our six."

The volume of fire coming at them increased and then fell away.

Reloading,
Selena thought.

"Go," Nick said. He and Lamont raised up and began laying down fire.

Selena jumped up with Ronnie and ran in a crouch toward the opening blasted out of the back wall. She tripped and went down hard, rolled and came up again several steps behind Ronnie. He reached the opening, went through and then began firing over her head. She made it to the wall and through and moved to the other side.

She looked around the edge of the opening and began shooting at the piles of debris shielding the rebels. Nick and Lamont broke cover and ran toward them. She fired over their heads and prayed they'd make it. Rounds from the rebel guns were whistling through the opening and chipping stone from around it. Nick had almost reached her when he was hit and went down. He stumbled to his feet and made it the rest of the way.

"I'm all right. Glanced off the armor."

He took out his radio.

"Spooky One, this is Bird Boy. The LZ is hot, say again, LZ is hot."

"Copy, Bird Boy. ETA two minutes."

"Moving now. Out."

Behind the church was a street lined with the shattered trunks of trees. They were in a neighborhood of shops and cafés. Across the way was the remains of a two-story high shopping mall. The concrete façade was pockmarked and chipped, the big display windows long gone, but the building was still intact.

"In there," Nick said. "The roof's flat, it's perfect."

They ran across the street. Bullets kicked up pieces of pavement around their feet. They made it through into the building. Behind them, men were shouting.

Ahead of them an escalator led upward. They ran up the silent steps. The second floor was strewn with the remains of displays from the shops lining the sides of the mall. Several broken mannequins leaned in grotesque angles through the shattered windows of a clothing store. Glass crunched under their feet. The night sky showed through gaping holes in the roof.

Below, everything had gone silent.

"They'll be here any minute," Ronnie said. "How do we get to the roof?"

Selena pointed. "There's an exit door. There have to be stairs."

They ran to the door. It was locked.

Nick aimed his rifle at the lock and fired. He kicked the door open. Shots came from behind. They went through the door and slammed it shut. Bullets pounded into it on the other side. Stairs led down and up. They climbed up, forced open another door and found themselves on the roof.

Men were converging on the mall from either end of the street below.

"I'm low on ammo," Ronnie said.

Lamont pulled out two magazines and gave one to him.

"We need more than that, we're in what my grandma used to call a heap of trouble."

The voice of the chopper pilot came over the headset.

"Bird Boy, that you on that roof?"

"Where the hell is he?" Lamont said. "I can't hear him."

"Spooky One, yeah that's us. Hostiles on the ground. They have RPG's. Watch your ass."

"Uh, copy that. Standby."

"I hear something," Ronnie said.

"There he is." Selena pointed.

Coming toward them out of the night was a black shape that looked like nothing they'd ever seen before. The helicopter was all angles and odd surfaces that were hard to grasp, as though the machine was fluid in shape. As it drew closer they heard the sound of the engine for the first time, a soft, ominous rumble mixed with the muffled whir of rotors. The aircraft bristled with weapons.

The chopper angled to the left and unleashed a barrage from a chain gun at the rebel troops in the street. The surface of the street disintegrated. Cannon fire and heavy machine gun rounds shredded the men below.

The pilot brought the chopper close to the roof, hovering inches above the surface. They ran for the open compartment door. A crewman helped Selena in, then Ronnie, then Lamont. Nick came last. As they lifted away, the door to the roof flew open. A streak of fire shot out of the chopper and through the door. A ball of flame rose into the night sky. The roof of the mall fell in on itself, burying anyone below.

"Hell of a machine," Ronnie said. "You see what it did to those poor bastards?"

As they lifted away, Lamont looked out through the open door of the chopper at the ruins of the mall.

"They probably should've waited for a sale," he said.

CHAPTER 56

The experimental helicopter took them back to Incirlik and landed at a part of the base they hadn't seen before. It disappeared into a large hanger. Nick just had time to thank the pilot before they were hustled off.

Back in their quarters, Selena took the box from the crypt out of her pack and placed it on a table.

"I don't think they wanted us to get a good look at that helicopter," she said. "They were pretty quick to get us out of there."

They looked at the box.

"Open it up," Nick said. "Let's see what we've got."

Selena picked up the box and turned it around in her hands.

"There's no obvious way. There must be a hidden latch."

"Maybe it's just a solid piece of wood."

"No, it's too light."

"Try pressing on it."

Selena pressed on one of the sides. It moved in a quarter of an inch and clicked. Nothing else happened. She tried a different side with the same result. On a guess she tried the others as well. Every side did the same thing. The box was still closed.

"It's a puzzle box," she said. "You have to press different sides in the right sequence or you can't open it."

"It can't be that difficult, can it?"

"It's impossible, without knowing the right sequence or number of times to press. The only way we're going to get this open is to cut into it. But I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Why not?"

"We don't really know what's in here, do we? If it is the Grail, how would you like to

be the person responsible for damaging or destroying it?"

"We'll let…" Nick stopped..

"We'll let what?"
"I was going to say we'll let Harker worry about it."

"Let's wait until we get home. Hood may have an idea."

"We'll scan it," Nick said. "Take a look inside without opening the box. That way we'll know if it's the Grail or something else."

Selena set the box down.

"I need to get out of these clothes and take a shower and I need some aspirin. You weren't kidding when you said that jump would be hard on the body. I feel like someone tried to pull my arms off."

Nick came over and put his arms around her. "Not many men have done that jump. You're the only woman. You were terrific."

"Once is enough," she said. "I don't think I want to do it again. And I don't want to visit Syria again anytime soon."

"I'm going to call Hood while you're in the shower."

Selena began undressing. Nick punched in Hood's number.

"Nick. I'm glad you got out all right. Did you find anything?"

"Yes, but we're not sure exactly what it is."

Nick explained about the box.

"Do you think it's the Grail?" Hood asked.

"It could be. The box was under an altar, in a sealed crypt under the church. Someone went to a lot of trouble to hide it there. That crypt hadn't been opened for hundreds of years."

"I understand you had some trouble when you were leaving."

"Without your help we wouldn't have made it out of there. There were too many of them and they were closing in. Good news is there's one less priority target we have to worry about."

"Oh?"

"Abdul Haddad was there. I recognized him from his picture. He was the one who found the box. We got there just in time."

"What happened to him?"

"He made a dumb move. He's still in the crypt under the church."

"It's too bad you couldn't take him alive," Hood said. "We could have questioned him about the bomb."

"We went through his pockets but there wasn't much. Come to think of it, there was a piece of paper with something scrawled on it. I'll have Selena take a look at it and get back to you if it's anything important."

Nick paused. "How is Director Harker?"

"She's still in intensive care. There hasn't been much change. She doesn't wake up."

"A coma?"

"They're starting to call it that. She took a serious blow to the head. The side airbag didn't deploy. Now the only thing is to wait and see if she comes out of it."

"She's a tough lady. She'll pull through."

"I spoke with the president and he's good with you being in charge. You and I need to get together for an intensive briefing when you return. It looks like you'll be running the Project for a while and there are things you ought to know. Come back as soon as you can. My plane is still at Incirlik and at your disposal."

After he'd finished with Hood, Nick pulled off the body armor and winced. Under his shirt was a wide black and purple splotch on his side where the vest had stopped a round.

Better black and blue than dead
.

He was sore as hell from the jump. His back ached with constant, electric pain. It was stiffening up fast.

Selena was still in the shower. His back made it hard to bend down but he managed to get his boots off. He undressed and sat down in his shorts, waiting for her to finish. He picked up the box and pressed on it, trying random combinations, listening to the clicks. The box stayed closed.

Selena came out of the shower, drying her hair. She looked at the spreading bruise.

"My, that's impressive. You look like something from Picasso's blue period."

"How the water?"

"One thing about a big base like this, you don't run out of hot water."

"Lamont found a scrap of paper with something written on it in Haddad's pockets. Would you get it from him while I take a shower?"

"Sure."

Nick disappeared into the bathroom. Selena dressed in jeans and a loose top, put on a pair of walking shoes and went to find Lamont.

Nick stood in the shower and let hot water pour down on his back, hoping the knotted muscles would relax.

You're getting too old for this stuff
.
Maybe sitting at a desk wouldn't be a bad change after all.

He looked down at the dark bruising along his left side, then ran his fingers over the washboard ripple of scar tissue on the other side of his chest.

You're pushing your luck, buddy. It can't last forever..

His inner voice was back, nagging at him. He pushed it away and reached for the soap.

What if it really is the Grail in that box? What does it mean? What am I supposed to do with it? Who's supposed to have it? That tile said only a just man. Are you a just man?

It was a question he couldn't answer. One thing was sure, Haddad had not been a just man. Maybe Simon's prophecy wouldn't play out, now that ISIS couldn't get hold of the cup.

He'd finished dressing by the time Selena came back from Lamont with the contents of Haddad's pockets.

"There's only one word written on that paper," she said. "Athena."

"Athena? Like the Greek goddess?"

"Yes."

"That could mean anything."

"It could be a code name for an operation."

"A fanatic like Haddad wouldn't pick an infidel name for an operation. He'd be more likely to name it something like Allah's Vengeance. Something dramatic."

"It has to mean something. He wouldn't write that down unless it was important. Haddad was a smart guy."

"Until he went for that AK."

"Why don't you give it to Stephanie?" Selena said. "Have her do a search?"

"There are millions of references to Athena out there."

"She could eliminate anything that had to do with classical history or works of art, that sort of thing."

"That would narrow it down.  Good idea. Let me give her a call."

Steph picked up on the first ring.

"Hi, Nick."

"Hi, Steph. How's Junior?"

"Asleep, thank God. Burps is protecting him. The cat won't leave his side."

"He could do worse, believe me. I need you to do a search for me."

Nick told her what he wanted.

"I can't promise anything useful," she said.

"This guy wasn't thinking about statues on the Acropolis when he wrote this. The more I think about it, the more it feels important. Just do the best you can."

"I'll get on it right away. When are you coming home?"

"As soon as Hood's pilot has the Gulfstream ready."