Park Skarda-April Force: Emerald Part 18

THIRTY-FIVE.

"GO! Go! Go!" April yelled.

They dived for the cover of a fractured boulder, merging with its deep shadow. Crouching forward, April peered around the edge of the rock, staring out over the canyon floor, where the late afternoon sun was casting long shadows across the labyrinth of stone.The khaki-and-sand-colored chopper was settling to earth at the far end of the row of rock soldiers.

"Eurocopter Tiger. Probably Jaz," she said. Thirty seconds pa.s.sed before she saw the tall, spiky-haired woman jump out, followed by three men wearing black body armor despite the heat. "Yep. Jaz. Plus three guys."

Scuttling back to Skarda and Flinders, she issued terse orders. "Park, take Flinders and find some place to stash her-someplace with lots of dark shadows so she won't be seen. Then climb up on that ledge over there and stay hidden in those big rocks. I'm going to cover the other side. We left plenty of fresh footprints, so they're going to know we've been here, and they're not going to have any problem following our trail to the cave. If I were Jaz, I'd send a couple of men to look for us, just in case we're still here. Our best bet is to keep hidden until they're gone."

Popping open the gun case, she a.s.sembled the Steyr with expert fingers. Then she thrust the rifle into Skarda's hands and glanced back along the maze of rock formations. "Good thing we walked. She won't know when we were here, and that's to our advantage."

From the canyon floor shouts of discovery reached their ears. They'd found the footprints. Skarda took Flinders' arm, half-turning his head to lock eyes with April. Some unspoken communication pa.s.sed between them, something deep and intimate, that Flinders recognized but couldn't define or understand.

Then, pulling the Glock from her waistband, April took off running in a half-crouch for the dense, purpling shadows of the rocks.

___.

Skarda led Flinders up a narrow trail of broken limestone to a position on the rock wall where enormous chunks of basalt had tumbled to form a darkened overhang that looked out over the western half of the canyon. At this time of the day the sun had lowered to the point that the giant boulders were casting almost horizontal shadows, plunging the overhang into total darkness.

Scrambling up the basalt scaffolding, Skarda cast a glance into the deep fissure formed by the overhang. Then he climbed back down to give Flinders a boost up. "Stay there," he said in a low voice, watching her crawl back into the interior. "Don't move until we come back and call out your name, okay? In a place like this, any movement stands out like a neon sign."

When he heard her whisper back, he dropped to the ground and retraced his steps to the ledge April had pointed out to him. Climbing into the shadow of a towering shoulder of limestone, he rested the barrel of the Steyr on a flat shelf of rock and looked out over the maze of humps of ancient lava, conical tufa formations, and blackening shadows. There was no sign of Jaz and her men.

Or of April.

Now the only thing he could do was sit back and wait.

___.

The shadowed side of the sawtoothed tumulus of basalt looked like the entrance to a dark cave. Scuttling toward it, April dropped to her knees, merging with the inky blackness. From this position she could see three towering rock formations shaped like gigantic mushrooms sprouting from a field of granite boulders, standing like sentinels over the flat plateau that sloped down to the cave entrance on the lava field below. Anyone stalking them would have to make their way through the mushrooms.

Settling back, she became utterly motionless, a part of the rock itself. Either the men would come right away or they wouldn't. Her black eyes probed the lengthening shadows, her ears straining for the sc.r.a.pe of boot leather against stone.

But there was nothing. Only the faint susurration of the wind whispering around the rocks.

She gave them ten minutes. Then she moved forward in a low crouch, keeping to the shadows, careful to place her feet on bare rock to minimize stirring up puffs of dust. When she reached the shattered ruins of a limestone wall, she dropped to all fours and crawled closer. Pus.h.i.+ng the Komar further toward the middle of her back so it wouldn't clank against the stone, she used the wall's natural ledges to haul herself up in two smooth movements.

When she was just high enough to peer down into the canyon, she stopped. Her searching gaze swept over the chopper squatting on the tufa plain below, but she could see no sign of Jaz or her men. That meant they were most likely inside the cave.

Satisfied, she turned around and retraced her steps, dropping down the wall and crouching low as she hurried forward, retracing her steps along the way she'd come. When she reached the ledge where Skarda should be waiting, she froze in her tracks, listening, her fingers wrapping tightly around the b.u.t.t grip of the Glock.

Something cold blew against the back of her neck.

Skarda should have signaled her. Which meant something had gone wrong.

Skirting around a field of loose stones, she scuttled toward an egg-shaped boulder in the shadow of the rock ledge, flicking a glance up at it. He wasn't there. She dropped to her haunches, crab-walking around the boulder and leaning out so that she could look down into the deep channel of rock that ran below her position like a miniature canyon.

In the purple shadow of a vertical rock face she could see Skarda on his knees, hands clasped behind his head, looking at a thin man in body armor with his back pressed against the rock wall, his left arm pinning Flinders against him like a s.h.i.+eld, his right hand jamming the barrel of a Colt against her cheekbone.

Flinders' face writhed in terror.

They'd sent a man around the long way, on the floor of the canyon.

Without hesitation April dropped down into the shadowed channel, still hanging onto the Glock, but thrusting her hands away from her body.

Momentarily startled, the commando spun toward her, ramming the barrel harder against Flinders' cheek. But when he saw April's outflung arms, he visibly relaxed. A savage grin split his darkly-tanned face into a spider web of wrinkles. "Gun down or woman dies," he said in a thick Roman accent. Then into his throat mike he spoke a terse sentence in Italian.

With cool precision April bent to her knees, setting the Glock down on the flat rock, keeping her eyes fixed on the man's face and shoulders. If Flinders were able to s.h.i.+ft even an inch, she could easily shoot him. But the man was a pro-he knew it. Which was why he levered his arm more tightly across her stomach, hugging her closer to him.

Still grinning, he said, "Now knifes."

April's hand was just starting its move toward the chest sheath when Flinders' right foot raised up and stamped down on the commando's boot. But he was ready for it, s.h.i.+fting his leg slightly out of the way to deflect the blow.

But it was just a feint. Suddenly she sagged, her body going limp as if her bones had melted to jelly. Surprised, the man tried to tighten his grip, but she had already slipped down a few inches.

His eyes dropped.

Just for a moment.

With the speed of a striking snake April's hand flicked toward her chest. A second later the back of the commando's head was slammed against the rock, the black oxide blade of the Fusion Fulcrum driven through the frontal bone of his cranium.

A look of surprise froze on his face. Then he sank to his knees and flopped forward in a lifeless sprawl.

Tremors shook Flinders' body. Tears rolled down her face.

Climbing to his feet, Skarda put an arm around her shoulders.

Her eyes pleaded with April's. "I'm sorry," she said. "You told me not to move and I did."

April shook her head purposefully. "You're an amateur. But it's done. We won. That's all that counts." She bent, wrenching the knife from the Italian's forehead and wiping blood and brains on his pant leg. "He must have told them he had us. When he doesn't show up..."

Skarda nodded. To Flinders he said, "Okay, now get back into that overhang and stay there until we come back." He showed her a warm grin. "And don't move."

___.

Going flat on her belly, April snaked up the slope of a low ridge and looked down. This position spanned higher ground than where she had waited before, on a pyramid-shaped hump of tufa studded with basalt boulders. To the west, the sky was gilding rapidly as the sun lowered. It was getting harder and harder to probe for movement in the dense shadows.

Raising her head above a jagged fang of rock, she glanced to her left, where Skarda would be waiting with the Steyr. He was the worst shot of the two of them, and it would be easier for him to hit a moving target with the rifle on automatic. That left April with the Glock, her knives, and the Komar. In this light, the grenade launcher might wind up being her best bet.

For a long time she lay motionless, a mound of darkness in the deepening shadow. Then a sound came to her ears: the faint clink of metal on stone. Inching her head up, she studied the maze of stone formations just below her, concentrating on a narrow valley between two fairy chimneys that would provide the most logical access through the terrain.

Something moved in the shadows. The black outline of a man, glimpsed for a fraction of a second and then gone. Her eyes narrowed to slits. Without even the hint of a movement she waited.

Moments pa.s.sed and then again the man showed himself, disappearing almost instantly. April calculated her odds. The sun was quickly burning itself out and in minutes the green-gold sky would pale and plunge the canyon into darkness. In this maze of rocks and hidden valleys stalking a man would be suicide.

She counted on Skarda knowing what to do.

Patiently she waited, easing one of the throwing knives out of its sheath. At this distance and in this light her odds of hitting him were vastly decreased, but that wasn't her objective. Slitting her eyes, she watched the shadows.

Movement: the commando darting to the cover of a jumble of boulders and stone slabs.

Lifting her arm, April let the knife flash across the open s.p.a.ce between them. It clanked off rock, an inch above the man's head.

Whirling, he snapped up the snout of his G36 and sprayed the rocks in the direction of the throw. Bullets tore through basalt, chopping off huge chunks of jagged stone.

But April wasn't there. She was already racing toward Skarda's position as he sprang forward in a crouch and let loose with the Steyr, slamming the commando back against the rock in a spray of blood.

She reached his side.

"Good bird-d.o.g.g.i.ng," he said.

She shot him a terse grin and stared out into the darkness. "We've got one more and Jaz. Now they know where we are."

From the canyon floor they heard a low shout. In a dodging crouch April raced for a broken rock wall, rising up to peer over it. Below she could see the third man running for the Eurocopter, where Jaz stood next to the open fuselage door. The rotor blades began to spin.

Unslinging the Komar, April settled it on her shoulder, unfolding the stock and raising the leaf sights. Uncapping the safety plate, she put her finger on the trigger b.u.t.ton and sighted. The third commando was climbing into the chopper. Jaz hopped in after him, dropping to a crouch to haul the door shut.

Some sixth sense warned her.

Just as April fired she jerked her head up and launched herself from the open door, hitting the soft tufa with her knees, then rolling to her feet and pumping her thick-muscled legs in a desperate sprint for the rocks.

The grenade hit and exploded with a thunderous whump, lifting the chopper off the ground in a sheet of flame, pursued by a rolling red-orange fireball as the fuel tanks ignited. In moments the Eurocopter was a twisted ma.s.s of flaming wreckage, wreathed in billowing corkscrews of black smoke.

Skarda raced up and dropped down flat beside her, staring at the destruction below. She turned to him with a sour expression. "Jaz got away."

It wasn't what he wanted to hear. "Should we go down and look for her?"

April shook her head. "Too dark. Another time." She climbed to her feet. "Let's go get Flinders and get out of here."

THIRTY-SIX.

Paris, France BELISARIUS looked without interest at the reflected lights dancing in the Seine along the Quai Anatole France and climbed into the idling limousine. Settling back onto the soft leather, he waited.

This meeting was different. There had been no request to buy another Vril bar. A suspicion of alarm flashed through his brain, but he pushed it aside. As long as he had more bars, he was safe.

But whoever the buyer was, he didn't trust him.

Finally the metallic voice spoke. "How many bars do you have left?"

As he always did, Belisarius tried to a.n.a.lyze the tonal qualities of the unknown speaker. Male, American by the accent. But the pitch had been electronically lowered, stretching out the vowels and rendering the timbre deeper and more sonorous.

His mouth stretched in a tight smile. "You know I can't tell you that."

The buyer made no attempt to contest the statement. Instead he said, "Fifty million dollars for the rest of the bars."

Fighting down an instantaneous surge of greed, Belisarius sat up and considered the offer. Figures raced through his head. He had twenty-three bars left. At two million each, sold individually, he would gain an extra four million by making this deal. Not quite the bonus he would like for the risk he would run. And then there was the oddness of this meeting. In the past, the transactions had been simple: bring the single bar to the limo, let the money transfer, leave the bar.

But now the voice betrayed a sense of urgency. Some plan was in motion and a large number of bars were necessary to carry it out.

In the leather-scented darkness, Belisarius felt his lips curve into an avaricious smile. "One hundred million," he said.

It was a heady gamble, but once the final Vril bar left his possession, his safety net would be gone. He was a living witness, and the life expectancy of witnesses was many times very short.

But for money like this, it was worth the chance. He'd already anonymously bought a compound in Costa Rica, where he planned to have his face altered and live the rest of his days in luxury.

The voice didn't falter. "One hundred million. Agreed. When the conditions are met, I will transfer the money to your account."

"What conditions?"

"I want you to sink the bars to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean."

THIRTY-SEVEN.

Istanbul, Turkey IT was almost two o'clock in the morning by the time April handed the Land Rover's keys to the valet attendant at the Ciragan Palace Hotel. Skarda booked them into a suite overlooking the Bosphorus, but they were starving and too keyed up to sleep, so he ordered a plate of Adana kebabs and dolma for the women, and vegetarian beyaz peynir meze and cig kofte for himself, along with a bottle of Thracian Adakarasi.

After a few bites of the kebab, Flinders pushed her plate away. She looked up at both of them, her face pale and strained. "I thought I was going to die today."

"I didn't," Skarda said.

She shot him an surprised look. "Why?"

"Because April was there."

The point registered, but her face didn't change. "You two are made for this, but I belong in a library. Ancient ma.n.u.scripts may be less exciting, but they're safe." She looked at each of them in turn, her tortured eyes probing for an answer.

When Skarda spoke, his voice was kind. "We warned you it was going to get rough."

"The offer still stands," April told her. "We can put you in a safe house until this is over. Out of harm's way."

For a long moment Flinders continued to stare at them, a surge of emotions cascading across her face. Then she turned to look out over the water, where reflections s.h.i.+mmered from the ever-changing sequence of colored lights on the Bosphorus Bridge. Finally she shook her head. "No. I have to see this through, no matter what. I owe that to the memory of my parents."