War Bringer (17 page)

He checked the mag in the pistol he’d taken, then cautiously turned the corner. He could see across the opened overhead door, but not into the building. He did a quick look then stepped inside. The big garage was empty. An MP5 was disassembled on a table, in the process of being cleaned. Perfect. He was going back in the tunnels and needed all the firepower he could gather.

He scavenged what he could from the dead guys. One of them had an employee badge, which he took. Another had a KA-BAR in an ankle sheath.
 

He went back into the garage, where he finished the cleaning then reassembled the MP5. He found more rounds and magazines in a metal locker. He loaded all the magazines then stashed them in his thigh cargo pockets.

Weapons in place, he checked the fridge and found half a case of bottled water. He downed three bottles then stuffed one in another cargo pocket. Next, he had to decide whether to phone in to ops to check in with the guys.
 

He looked around the garage, trying to tell if there were any clues about where the tunnels were or how to get back to King’s Warren. There was a sweet Range Rover on a lift platform. Its door panels were in the process of being altered for drug transportation.
 

Kelan stared at that platform it was on. He remembered coming into a garage after the fight at the arena. They’d pulled inside, stopped, then they’d been lowered to an underground parking garage. Could this have been that same elevator?

He looked around for the button to operate the lift. It was there on the wall. A big green button. Kelan hit it and watched the Range Rover slip below the floor. He hit it again, calling it back. Time to call in to ops—but he sure as hell wasn’t waiting for them before going after Fiona.

He’d collected phones from each of the guys. One of them wasn’t screen-locked. He dialed Max. Because the number he was calling from was unknown to the team, the call was routed around to the usual message centers. Kelan pressed his code, and Max picked up immediately.

“Go, Kelan,”
Max answered tersely.
“Where the hell are you?”

“Wherever the hell this phone appears to be calling from. Somewhere out on the plains. No idea if I’m still CO anymore, either.”

“Never mind. I got it. You’re out east of Bennett. What the fuck are you doing there, bro?”

“I’m goin’ after Fiona. And once I have her secured, I’m gonna fillet King.”

Silence, then,
“We just got a call from Fiona.”

“Where was she? She okay?”

“She was about five miles south of your current location. No. She said something about tunnels. She got out long enough to call us—well, call you. Kit’s on his way out there with a few of the guys.”

“Have them come to these coordinates. The other site that Fiona called from has to be a trap; why would they have left me alive and let Fiona slip out long enough to summon the team otherwise? They’re waiting to ambush.”

“Copy that. Rocco and Selena are somewhere on site as guests of Jafaar’s. We think he’s wherever King is. We lost contact with them once they hit the prairie. Their signals were jammed when they got to the tunnels. They’re attending a celebration honoring King’s daughter’s nuptials.”

“Oh, hell no. I’m going in. I don’t want Fiona in there another night. She is not getting engaged or married or whatever tonight.”

“Negative. You’re going to wait for the team.”

“I am not waiting. There’s a vehicle elevator in the garage that I’m in. It goes down to a parking garage, and from there, into the tunnels. I’m starting two floors down. Come find me.”

“Fiona said the complex down there was huge. How are we going to know where you went?”

“Follow the bodies.”

“Shit, K—”
 

Kelan cut Max off by hanging up. He slipped the MP5 over his shoulder, hit the down button, then raced back to the Range Rover and jumped inside through the open sky roof. He scanned the area as the platform descended. He could only see one guard patrolling the area. The guard came over to see who was on the elevator. Kelan rolled out of the Range Rover before it settled on the ground. He slipped behind a couple other parked cars. When the guard saw that the vehicle was empty, he called up to the guys Kelan had laid out above. Their silence made him reach for his radio. Kelan rushed him, knife in hand, and sliced his throat.
 

He took the guy’s AK-47 and jogged across the parking garage to the stairwell. Inside, another guard stood on alert. He tossed the AK to him, then shot him while he reached for the weapon. This guy’s pistol had a silencer. King must want to keep things quiet should Kelan and the team infiltrate the wedding proceedings. Kelan took his pistol and mags then hurried down the steps.
 

He came out of the stairwell into some sort of landing or utility area. The flooring wasn’t as richly appointed as that down the main hallways. He walked out of the stairwell with such authority that it took the single guard a second to become alarmed, and by then, he had a hole in his forehead.
 

A woman came out of the ladies’ room as he turned down the hallway toward what appeared to be a main event ballroom. She glanced up at him, not in the least afraid. She wore an evening gown that looked as if it belonged on the red carpet.
 

She sucked in her breath and puffed up her chest. Tucking in her chin, she smiled at him. “Oh, but aren’t you delicious,” she purred in an accent that sounded British. “King has the most fearsome guard corps I’ve yet seen at one of these functions.”

She was flushed and something wasn’t right with her eyes. They were dilated, as if she were stoned or horny as all hell, like this whole event was some big orgy. Maybe it was, and Fiona was the night’s centerpiece.
 

The woman rubbed her hand on his arm. “Oh. Gives me shivers.”
 

He had to stink from sweating during his long run that afternoon, but that didn’t seem to put her off. “Where were you headed, ma’am?”
 

“Just back to the ballroom. Will you walk with me?”

Kelan nodded. Wearing the clothes from the closet in Fiona’s room meant he was dressed as any of the other guards, so he didn’t stand out. They passed one of the real ones. The woman he was with smiled at that guy, too. Her flirting gave Kelan the cover he needed to get her safely back with the others. When they reached the doors to the ballroom, he pulled her hand from his arm and urged her inside, then closed the doors behind her. He was just slipping the AK-47 through the handles when the guard they’d passed noticed the dead one.

“Hey!” he shouted, starting for Kelan at a run. He didn’t make it very far before a bullet in the head dropped him in place.

The blocked door wouldn’t hold the guests very long. And there had to be other ways in and out of that big ballroom. He just needed the hallway clear a little while he retrieved Fiona from their room.
 

* * *

Rocco and Selena circulated about the ballroom. It was densely populated with celebrities, wealthy businessmen and women, and high-ranking politicians, the who’s who of international powerhouses. No phones, cameras, or technical equipment of any sort was allowed in the ballroom. All guests had been searched, and any electronics they carried were confiscated until they left the premises.
 

Fortunately, the tour Rocco and Selena had taken a couple of hours earlier, before anyone arrived, let them stash the two phones they now used with the hidden cameras Greer had set up for them. They were recording everything that Rocco and Selena looked at.
 

Their tour had let them see all of the rooms that would be in use that night, along with the security offices that monitored the public rooms.
 

It was a massive underground event center in a renovated silo, like the one under the White Kingdom Brotherhood’s compound, except quite a bit bigger. Most of the rooms were standard fare for an event center—kitchen, restrooms, storerooms, lobby, quiet room with wall-mounted phones. Even the multistoried parking garage was all very normal.

The room that shocked Rocco was the rotunda several floors below. It looked like something from an ancient castle. It had to be fifty feet in diameter, with two courses of thick arches encircling an altar. The arches had a Moorish flair, with alternating dark and light stones. There were ten arches in all that led to an outer ring, which had only five arches, five exits to other hallways, which he and Selena were not allowed to inspect.
 

The floor of the rotunda was paved with heavy stones, the lines of which made a star. The points of that star aligned with the five exits. The ceiling of the rotunda was painted in a midnight-blue background with the moon and stars in the foreground. Rocco wasn’t familiar enough with the constellations to know which were being highlighted.
 

It was a beautiful room that might have been relocated from a world heritage site and reconstructed here in King’s bizarre underground world.

“What do you make of the rotunda?” Rocco asked Selena.
 

She sipped a glass of wine as she looked around the room. “It was stunning, and oddly overwhelming. I didn’t dig the pentagram on the floor. What do you suppose they do there?”

“Don’t know. That was the one room that had no surveillance cameras in it. Jafaar and a few of the other witnesses were heading there when they left here.”

“And what the fuck is a ‘witness’?” she asked. “If this has anything to do with Fiona, then we need to get down there ASAP.”

Rocco nodded. “Let’s make our way to the exit.”

They were just feet from the door when a woman came inside. She laughed and looked at a man who stayed on the far side of the doors…with an AK-47 in his hand. The hairs rose on Rocco’s neck until he realized that man was Kelan. He heard the rifle being shoved through the handles.
 

He turned and smiled at Selena. “Time for shit to hit the fan.” They crossed the room to the kitchen exit, making a plan as they went. “Get out of this ballroom and see if you can find something to block the other doors,” Rocco said. “The fewer people out wandering around, the less collateral damage that’ll happen once bullets start flying.”

“Some of the suits of armor in the hallway have swords or battle axes I might be able to liberate for that purpose.”

“Then keep your eyes on the stairs. Kit’s bound to be on his way in. Let him know where Kelan and I are.”

“Roger that.”

“Selena”—Rocco paused and looked at her—“remember you’re not bulletproof, okay?”

She smiled. “You sure about that?”

He shook his head, then took off for the hallway that had the stairs down to the rotunda.

* * *

Kelan jogged down the hallway to the stairs at the far end. Coming out in their corridor, he saw the door to Fiona’s room was open. He stepped inside cautiously, weapon in hand. He heard weeping. A quick sweep of the suite showed no one lying in wait for him. The crying was coming from the closet. He stepped into the bathroom and pushed the closet door open.
 

A girl sat on the padded bench, holding her face in her hands. As soon as she became aware of him, she gasped and jumped to her feet. He held a finger to his mouth.

“Where’s Fiona?” he asked.

“They have her.”

“Do you know where?”
 

She nodded.

Kelan regarded her silently. She had a bruise on her cheek and her lip was split. Would her help lead him into trouble, or was it his only option? “Can you take me there?”

Again, she nodded. “They are going to take her to the rotunda.”

“Is that where the wedding is being held?”

“No.” She started weeping again. “The wedding is tomorrow. Tonight is the initiation.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Because it’s horrible, and I could not help her escape.” She looked beyond him. “And I cannot help you, either.”

A commotion sounded in the other room. “Get down and stay down!” Kelan ordered the girl. He stepped out of the closet into the bathroom as the suite filled with armed guards. He slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it, then ducked behind the half wall of the shower.

When the guards kicked in the door, he shot the first two to come through. The next two were right on their heels and got into the closet before the second one hit the ground. He hurried to block them, but they came out a second later dragging the girl between them, a pistol to her head. Another man paused at the shot-up entrance to the bathroom.

“You’ve made quite the disturbance out of my party,” he said. He was a middle-aged blond man who was clearly the leader of this little group.
 

“Your party. So you’re King.”

“I’m many things to many people. Drop your weapon.”

“I came for Fiona. No one else has to get hurt.” Kelan looked at the guards as he said that.

The blond man chuckled. “You don’t get it, do you? No one else but Fiona matters. Not you. Not me. Not any of us here. Only Fiona is instrumental in King’s plans.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s made her so. If you come with me peacefully, I will allow you to have one final farewell.”

Kelan instantly calculated the outcomes of several different strategies. Most would cost the life of the girl he had found crying. He couldn’t let her be killed in cold blood. Holding up one hand, he slowly set his MP5 on the ground. Two of the remaining guards yanked his hands behind him and zip-tied them, then finished disarming him.
 

How much time had passed between when he hung up with Max and now? Was the team close? Where were Rocco and Selena?

“You cost me the lives of many men,” the man said through clenched teeth. “And on a night like this night, so critical to King’s success. Your death will be slow and painful and certain, but I haven’t the time to see to it properly at the moment.” He looked at the guards holding Kelan. “Take him to Pen 9 and secure him.”

Chapter
 
Sixteen