Prime (28 page)

FORTY-NINE

For just a few moments, Sasha felt the sublime satisfaction of a
balanced equation. Order had come into her world at last. The Voynich
manuscript had given up its secrets, and in so doing, had shown her the
underlying arithmetic of the entire universe. She deftly entered information
into the virtual
urghan
, instructing
it to play a combination of notes—a specific low frequency sound—and then hit the
key that would turn data into music.

The next sound she heard however was not a
deep resonant bass tone, but a human voice; the voice of her former captor.
“Hello again.”

Even before she could look up, a lighting
bolt of pure chaos ripped through her.
No.
Not now. Not again
.

Rainer and four other men stood in a
semi-circle around her and Parker. She recognized two of the men—the two rogue
Night Stalker crewmen—but the other two were not really men at all; short but
massively muscled, they were the hideous science projects that the Chess Team
had dubbed ‘frankensteins.’ The renegade soldiers were armed with compact machine
pistols but the frankensteins needed no weapons.

Parker had gone rigid beside her, as if
straining to hold back an eruption of fear or rage—probably rage—but when he
spoke, his voice was flat, emotionless. “Kevin. How did you find us?”

“I took the liberty of tagging your little
girlfriend when she was my guest.”

“GPS trackers have a very limited range. You
couldn’t have known we’d be coming here.”

Rainer smiled. “You hear all kinds of funny
rumors these days. For example, I heard that you might be thinking of changing
careers. I just might have a place in my organization for you, especially if…”
He nodded toward Sasha. “…you can help me babysit our girl genius.”

Sasha squeezed her eyes shut.

Go
away!

The words were a silent scream in her head.

Go
away. Leave me alone. Let me finish
.

“Here’s how I see it,” Rainer continued.
“You’re on your own right now. Jack is looking for you; he knows you’re here in
France. How long do you think you can stay ahead of him? Come with me and you
get to spend as much time with her as you want. You’d like that, right?”

“Just like that?” said Parker. “I’m supposed
to believe that you would trust me?”

“Danny, you’ve always had a lousy poker face.
I can see the wheels turning in your head. You know this is the best option.”

Sasha barely heard the words being exchanged
between the men, the striking of a bargain in which she was merely an object.
Parker was no different than any other human variable; unpredictable,
inconsistent and driven by animal passions and irrational emotions. He wasn’t
interested in helping her resolve the equation, but only in possessing her.

Chaos swirled around in a haze of white
noise.

No, not white noise…a real
sound, vibrating through her bones.

Her eyes flew open.

The others hadn’t noticed it yet; they were
too consumed with their mundane game of life and death.

The ground beneath her was rippling faintly,
like the surface of a pond disturbed by a cast stone. She turned her head
slowly and saw that the effect was spreading to the limestone face of the cliff.
The dull white rock seemed to be shimmering, as if made of fog.

It’s
working!

The door to the Prime was opening, just as
Parker had said it would.
So close
.

The thing she had sought for so long—the
solution that would balance the equation of existence—was about to be taken
away from her by another damnable human variable.

Rainer drew in a deep breath and then let it
out with a dramatic sigh. “Maybe I was wrong about you, Danny. Here’s the
thing. We’re leaving with your girlfriend. You can come along, or I can put a
bullet between your eyes. Seems like a simple choice to me, but…” He shrugged.

“Don’t make me go,” Sasha whispered, barely
able to get the words out. She reached up and found Parker’s hand. She squeezed
it tight. “Please.”

He looked down at her, his earnest face
hiding none of his fear and concern…his affection. Then he turned his eyes back
to Rainer and muttered.
“Could use a little help here, Jack.”

Confusion flickered across Rainer’s face, but
before it could give way to comprehension, there was a loud
smack
, and the head of one of the
frankensteins blew apart in a fine red mist.

FIFTY

In the instant that the bullet from Knight’s Barrett M82 sniper rifle
erased the
frankenstein’s
head, King and the rest of
the team broke from cover and swept toward the rock wall. They bounded forward
in pairs. King and Bishop stopped and fired off a few rounds, aiming high so as
not to hit Parker and Sasha, while Rook and Queen raced forward a few feet, and
then they would switch roles.

Knight managed to get a second shot off
before Rainer and the others could fully process what was happening, but this
time his bullet only grazed the target.

They had debated how to best use that first
decisive shot; eliminate Rainer, cutting the head off the snake as it were, or
take out the frankensteins. The latter won out. Based on their experiences with
the monstrosities in Burma and Iran, the frankensteins were the bigger threat.
Deprived of leadership, they could still wreak unimaginable harm.

As he hit the ground, rolling left and coming
back up into a prone firing position, King saw that the decision to target the
frankenstein had yielded the expected results: Rainer and his men were
retreating, Parker had thrown himself over Sasha and they were huddled near the
rock face, and the sole remaining frankenstein, bleeding copiously from its
left shoulder, was charging headlong toward Rook and Queen. King turned the
barrel of his XM8 toward the creature, but before he could get a shot off, Rook
came up with one of his enormous Desert Eagle pistols.

His first shot caught the
frankenstein
full in the chest, the .50 caliber round staggering the creature back like a
battering ram. For most living things, it would have been a lethal shot—it
probably was for the chemical-crazed
frankenstein
as
well, but Rook didn’t take chances. He fought the massive pistol’s recoil with
a two-handed grip, brought it level and fired again. This time, there was no
uncertainty about the outcome; the bullet tore off the top of the abomination’s
skull.

King swung his barrel back toward Rainer, but
the rogue Delta commander and his men were zigzagging back into the tree line,
returning fire blindly to cover their escape. King got off a few shots before
the running men disappeared into the boughs.

“Rook, Queen, go after them.”

King wanted to give chase as well—hunt the
rabid Rainer down and personally put him out of everyone’s misery once and for
all—but first he had to make sure that Parker and Sasha were okay. He had used
them, dangled them in front of Rainer like bait, played them like pawns in his
own private chess game, and even though everything seemed to have gone
according to plan, if anything happened to them, it would be on his head.

He keyed his microphone. “Irish, this is
King. I’m coming to you.”

Parker had known the risks. When he’d come to
King in Turkey and asked for permission to take Sasha on some kind of treasure hunt,
King had seized on it as an opportunity not only to lure Rainer into the open
but also perhaps to smoke out any security leaks at CIA and JSOC. Nevertheless,
he had been forthright with respect to the dangers he and Sasha would be
facing.

“It will have to look absolutely real,” he
had told Parker. “You’ll be unarmed, no support, the CIA will be hunting for
you. We’ll try to stay one step ahead of you, but if Rainer makes his move and
we’re not ready...”

Parker had obviously been concerned about
putting Sasha at risk, but he understood what was at stake. “Make sure that
doesn’t happen.”

It had been a close thing, but the plan had
worked. Thanks to Parker’s stealthy radio calls, the team had finally gotten
ahead of Rainer and been waiting to spring the trap. Now King just had to make
sure that Parker and Sasha were okay.

“Danno!”

Parker raised his head just a little, mindful
of the fact that bullets were still flying not far away. “Cut it pretty close,
Jack.”

King breathed a sigh of relief. Sasha looked
a little freaked out—when didn’t she?—but both were unhurt.

“Come on. Let’s get you guys out of here.”

Sasha’s head came up. Her gaze flitted
between the men for a moment, then her eyes locked on Parker. “This was a
setup?”

Parker gave a heavy sigh. “Sasha, I’m so
sorry. We had to flush Rainer out. It was the only way.”

She kept staring at him with such intensity
that King feared his friend might melt, figuratively at least, from the rage
she was putting out. He wondered if this was a risk Parker had considered when
he’d agreed to the plan.

Sasha abruptly dropped her gaze and looked
around furtively. Then, moving quicker than King had ever seen her move, she
grabbed her computer and hurled herself toward the looming rock wall…

And vanished.

King’s mind refused to accept what he had
just seen.

Parker however reacted instantly. “Sasha!”

He too bolted right at the wall, and this
time, King knew that his eyes had not deceived him. Parker had not ducked
behind a bush or slipped into an unseen crevice in the cliff face. He reached
the wall and kept right on going, as if it were no more substantial than smoke.

Disbelief hit King like a physical blow,
leaving him numb all over.

You
saw what you saw
, he told
himself.
It’s a trick—smoke and
mirrors—nothing more
.

But if it was a trick, it was a damned good
one.

“Okay, Danno,” he said. “How’d you do that?”

He took a step toward the place where the
others had disappeared. He extended a hand. Where he expected to feel solid
rock beneath his fingertips, he felt only the barest of resistance, like the
push of air from an electric fan.

“Smoke and mirrors, my ass,” he muttered, and
with a deep breath to fortify his courage, King took another step forward.

FIFTY-ONE

Rook saw movement in the trees and followed it with the business end of
his XM8. The Desert Eagles were great for putting down those inhuman freakshows
but not very accurate past about thirty meters.

The
right tool for the right job, as Grandpa Tremblay always used to say.

A head appeared from behind a trunk—one of
the rogue Night Stalkers—and Rook squeezed the trigger.

“That was for Houston, motherfucker,” he
muttered as the distant figure slumped to the ground. He searched for another
target but saw nothing.

“Let’s go!” Queen urged.

Rook gave a terse nod. There were still two
more debts to collect on the balance sheet for Alpha team. Rainer owed a lot of
other men for the pain he’d caused, but unfortunately, they would be able to
kill him only once.

They crept into the woods, moving quickly but
cautiously, and emerged at the edge of a small vineyard. Rook glimpsed movement
in the rows of vines, but the running figure stayed low, depriving him of a
target.

Rook stared at the perfectly straight
parallel rows of vines, seeing them for the trap they were. “We go in there,
and we’ll be easy pickings.”

Queen groaned at the pun.
“Really?
That’s the best you’ve got?”

Rook shrugged then gestured to the perimeter
of the vineyard. “Do we go the long way around?”

“You’re asking me?”

“You’re the Queen.”

“Now that’s funny,” she returned, deadpan.

He chuckled to hide an unexpected feeling of
embarrassment; he hadn’t meant it as a joke. Keeping his carbine trained on the
vine tops, he struck out along the edge of the field.

He had gone only about twenty feet when
something hissed through the air right in front of him, accompanied by the
simultaneous report of a pistol. As he threw himself flat, he realized that the
shot had come from the woods, behind him.

Damn
it! They suckered me
.

As he scrambled on all fours for the
concealment of the vines, the ground all around him started exploding, bullets striking
like lightning bolts to the accompanying thunder of gunshots. Dirt sprayed into
his face, stinging like the bite of wasps, forcing him to close his eyes, but
he nevertheless brought his carbine up and returned fire.

Someone grabbed his shoulder.

He gave a yelp and twisted around to meet
this new threat, swinging the gun like a club, but through the ringing in his
ears and the pounding of his heart, a female voice reached out to him.
“Slow down, hero.
I got him.”

Rook slowly unclenched,
breathing heavily to damp down the deluge of adrenaline.
He opened his eyes and saw Queen kneeling
over him. “Which one?” he finally managed to say.

“Not Rainer.” There was a trace of
disappointment in her voice.

“You saved the big fish for me?
How thoughtful of you.”

“Fuck that. The asshole shot me, remember?
He’s mine.”

Rook got to his feet and then flashed a grin.
“Not if I see him first.”

With that, he wheeled around and sprinted
headlong into the vineyard. It was a stupid, cocky thing to do, but so far,
luck had played a more decisive role than caution in keeping him alive. Besides,
Rainer was alone now.

In his peripheral vision, he glimpsed a flash
of gold—Queen’s blonde locks, trailing behind her as she matched his pace in
the next row over. He threw her a wink, and then reached down into his deepest
reserves and put on an all-out burst of speed.

He spied movement ahead; Rainer had broken
from the cover of the vines and was racing for the parking area where Parker’s
rented Renault had been joined by two Volkswagen Eurovans.

Rook tried to get the fleeing man in his
sights, but he couldn’t hold a bead while he was running, and if he stopped for
a better shot, it might give Rainer the extra few seconds of lead time he
needed to reach his van…

Rook saw that his quarry was going to make it
to the vehicles anyway. He loosed a burst in the direction of he nearest van.
It rocked a little under the impact of the 5.56-millimeter rounds and then
lowered a few inches, as the air rushed from two of its tires.

Rainer threw up a hand in a reflexive, if
futile, attempt to protect his head from bullets and flying debris, but he did
not falter. He darted between the parked vans and disappeared from view.

Rook let his go of his XM8, allowing it to
hang by the sling, and drew one of his pistols. Even if Rainer somehow got the
other van rolling, one .50 caliber Action Express round would shut it down, and
one more would shut
him
down. That
was the great thing about the Desert Eagle—like with horseshoes and hand
grenades, you didn’t have to score a direct hit to get the job done. The recoil
was a son-of-a-bitch—he really needed to see about getting some kind of wrist
brace—but it wasn’t nearly as bad as being on the other end when the trigger
was pulled.

He expected to hear the van’s engine turn
over at any second, but all was silent. He reached the parking lot, Queen still
matching his full sprint, and charged toward the vehicles, the Desert Eagle
thrust out ahead of him like a battering ram.

Something moved out from behind the furthest
vehicle and Rook fired. The pistol bucked in his hands, and the round tore into
flesh in a spray of red, but Rook kept his gaze steady on the target, waiting
for Rainer’s dead body to hit the ground.

The shape did not fall.

It wasn’t Rainer.

With a howl of primal rage, the wounded
creature stepped into full view. It was a
frankenstein
.

Rook skidded to a stop, not twenty feet away.
His bullet had nearly taken the thing’s arm off; it would die eventually from
shock and blood loss, but its rage would sustain it long enough for it to do
some real damage.

Rook steadied the pistol in both hands, and
fired again…and again. Beside him, Queen had likewise stopped, and she was
emptying her carbine into the thing’s chest. The
frankenstein
pitched backward.

Then another one appeared to take its place…

And another…

And another…