The Vengeance of the Tau, page 10
“What about this Arab agent? What’s his role in all this?”
“He thought the map would lead him to the ultimate weapon, something that would help his people settle their scores once and for all.”
Melissa’s face instantly paled. “Oh my God …”
Blaine fixed his stare briefly on the opening in the ground ten feet away.
“Was he right, Melissa?”
She swung back toward the screen, fleeing from the answer. Blaine watched her back arch as he continued to speak.
“Keep something in mind. There’s another party extremely interested in that map: the ones represented by those who tried to kill me as soon as I came into possession of it. Makes me think they’ve already got one of their own. Makes me think they don’t want anyone else joining the party.”
Melissa looked at him again. “Do you think they were the ones who killed Winchester?”
“Could be.” He hesitated. “What is this place, Melissa?”
“I … can’t tell you.”
His eyes went to the monitor screen. “Show me, then. Let me see for myself.”
“What’s it like spending your life helping people, Mr. McCracken?”
“Blaine.”
“Blaine.”
McCracken had sat down on the stool with the monitor’s remote control in his hand. He shrugged noncommittally.
“I think sometimes I do them more harm by trying.”
Melissa tried for a smile. “Not possible this time.” She eased the headphones over his ears. “We’ll run the whole thing in regular motion. It’s not very long.”
Blaine pressed PLAY and glued his eyes to the small screen. With dusk approaching, the contrast was better, but there still wasn’t much that could be made out clearly. A few times he stopped the tape and watched the portions again in slow motion. The last stretch, though, he watched frozen without expression, turning the machine off as soon as the screams were finished.
Behind him, Melissa was cringing as she lived the sights and sounds yet again.
“You saw this as it happened?” he posed.
“Yes.”
“He went on even after he saw the remains of Winchester’s killers at the bottom of those stairs.”
“My father thought he was beyond such a thing happening to him, especially inside a dig. It was like, well, it was like his home down there.”
“In the U.S. more people die at home than are murdered every year.”
Melissa swallowed hard. “My father was always cautious, almost plodding. As soon as he saw the bodies, he should have come back up. I told him to, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“I heard.”
Melissa stood at his side rigidly, staring straight ahead. McCracken angled his head to watch her.
“I’m going down there tomorrow morning,” she insisted flatly. “I’m going to seal the chamber where he was killed.”
“Before you know what lies beyond it?”
“That’s the thing, Blaine. I do know what lies behind it. I didn’t believe it before, but now I—”
“Sayin Hazelhurst!” Kamir’s shout from the rim above threw a shudder through both of them. “Sayin Hazelhurst!”
She moved out from the canopy and looked up at him. “Yes, Kamir.”
“You must come up here. Come quickly. Please!”
“Why? What is it?”
“Hurry, Sayin Hazelhurst. You must see for yourself.”
Chapter 12
THE TIRES ON all three vehicles, including McCracken’s jeep, had been slashed.
“Two more of the men are missing, Sayin Hazelhurst,” Kamir reported. “It must have been them.”
Melissa looked at Blaine. “Somebody wants to keep us from leaving.”
“Because they think you’ve seen too much,” he confirmed, “and they don’t want you spreading the word.”
“Me? What about you?” Melissa gazed down at the shredded tires. “They could have done this because of you, then. They could have followed you here and—”
“Nope,” Blaine interrupted. “Whoever did this was planted in the replacement work team your foreman hired in Izmir long before I showed up. Your father’s death and my appearance on the scene just speeded things along a bit. But relax, Melissa. The plant doesn’t necessarily know who I am.”
“And that’s supposed to help?”
“Oh yeah.”
Blaine knew the enemy would come at night, when the mounded dirt and debris pulled from the nearby excavation would make for decent camouflage, and he spent the last hour until dusk preparing for it. They had seven rifles left for six men, not including himself and Melissa. McCracken let Kamir keep the only fully automatic one and watched Melissa grab the semiautomatic A-2 for herself, handling it nimbly.
“You take a firearms course back at archaeology school?”
“These days it’s a required part of the curriculum,” she told him. “Word spreads of an especially good find and the vultures circle. More than one team recently has been ravaged by greed.”
“Wish our problems were that simple.”
The rest of their arsenal was composed of M-2 carbines dating back nearly forty years. He redistributed them among the five remaining workmen and gave Kamir instructions on exactly where the men should be placed. For his own part, Blaine was more than happy with his SIG-Sauer 9mm pistol. Sixteen shots plus one in the chamber and four spare clips.
As night fell their camp stood ready. Melissa crouched next to McCracken behind a mound of earth.
“How long?” she asked him.
“Oh, not long now.”
“How can you be so damn calm?”
“I was about to ask you the same question.”
Her eyes sought his out. Even in the night he could see they were vacant.
“Because,” Melissa started, “I don’t care what happens to me tonight. I don’t care about anything.”
“Bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because when you don’t care, you make mistakes. Other people get killed because of your indiscretions.”
“And what do you care about?”
As Blaine looked her way again, both of them heard a faint rustling sound nearby.
“They’re inside the camp!” Melissa rasped.
McCracken touched a finger to his lips signaling her to be quiet.
“But—”
The rustling came again. Melissa swung about trying to pinpoint the source of the noise.
“Do something!” she implored.
“I am,” Blaine said, holding his gun by his side.
There was a thumping sound from very close by.
One of the workmen advanced forward with Kamir’s M-16 leveled before him. Just behind him Kamir and two more figures appeared with their hands clasped over their heads, prodded forward by a pair of rifle barrels wielded by the final two workmen.
“Silahlarinizi birakin!” the workman in the front commanded.
“He says to drop your weapons,” Kamir translated out of turn, and one of the workmen at his rear slammed him in the knee with his rifle in response.
“Shit,” Melissa muttered, and tossed her A-2 aside.
McCracken held fast to his SIG.
The man in the middle repeated his command and the workman on his right shoved his two prisoners to the ground.
“Are you crazy?” Melissa whispered Blaine’s way.
McCracken looked at Kamir. “Tell them if they drop their guns now I won’t kill them.”
“But—”
“Do it!”
Kamir obeyed reluctantly. The three gunmen laughed.
Blaine laughed with them, SIG held a little higher. The leader in the center came forward and aimed his carbine straight for McCracken’s head. He smiled and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. The leader kept pressing. McCracken slid forward, and the two other gunmen tried to fire—with the same results. Blaine leveled his gun a foot away from the leader’s face.
“Kamir,” he said with neither his eyes nor aim wavering, “tell them to drop their guns.”
Still on the ground, Kamir gave the appropriate order. The three men’s weapons clacked to the earth. Blaine felt Melissa drawing up close on his right side.
“I removed the firing pins,” he told her. He turned his head slightly toward Kamir. “Yours, too. Sorry about that.”
“I understand, Sayin,” the foreman said.
“You knew the ones who ran off weren’t the only infiltrators,” Melissa concluded.
“And the thing I had to do was flush out the rest.”
“I’m impressed.”
McCracken moved more forward and pressed his pistol against the leader’s forehead. The man’s eyes bulged in terror.
“Tell him my gun still works,” Blaine instructed Kamir, who was back on his feet. “Tell him I will kill him unless he tells me how many more are out there and where.”
The leader spat out his pleading reply rapidly before Kamir had even completed his translation. His hands assumed the position of prayer.
“He says death at their hands will be much worse if he talks. He says he has made his peace with Allah and is prepared to join his ancestors.”
“Really? Then I guess I’ll have to come up with something more creative. …”
He grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and dragged him ten yards to the edge of the excavation the find was located within. Following his lead, the two workmen who had been taken prisoner did the same with the pair of remaining infiltrators. Melissa and a limping Kamir brought up the rear.
“We’re going to throw you all down there and then drop you through the doorway.”
Kamir translated McCracken’s words, but he didn’t have to. The trio of infiltrators sank to their knees, bowing to Blaine as if he were Allah.
Kamir was smiling. “I think they are ready to talk now.”
“Ask them how many?”
“They say they do not know,” the guide translated when the reply came. “But they think many men, easily more than a dozen.”
“Where are these men?”
“Everywhere around us,” Kamir translated gravely.
“How did they know when to make their move?”
Again Kamir listened, then spoke. “A brief flash of light was their signal.” His voice lowered. “I did not see it.”
“And how were they supposed to signal they had us?” McCracken asked in more of a rushed tone.
Kamir was halfway through the translation when the burst of bullets blazed in. Two of the infiltrators were the first to be hit by the spray, along with one of the still-loyal workmen. McCracken dove on top of Melissa and took her to the ground.
“Stay here!” he ordered her.
The third infiltrator scampered away. He stumbled and Blaine watched his spine arch when twin fusillades of bullets stitched up front and back.
They were surrounded!
Kamir had taken cover behind a stack of equipment, gun tilted around it. He aimed it into the night and pulled the trigger. It wouldn’t give.
“My rifle!” he shrieked.
“The firing pin!” Blaine said, and tossed Kamir the proper one for his gun.
He had pulled Melissa behind a mound of earth and debris before grabbing the discarded rifles. In less than thirty seconds, he managed to get three of their firing pins back into place.
Nearby, the loyal workman who had not been hit had crawled to the body of the one who had. Much to Blaine’s surprise, the man stirred, grimacing. He pointed to his shoulder as the origin of his wound. Weakened and incapacitated, he could still fight, at least shoot. Good. McCracken slid the trio of salvaged carbines their way and signaled them to take cover.
Blaine turned to speak to Melissa only to find her gone. He spotted her crawling in the direction of her jeep, tempting enemy bullets.
“Damn!”
He tried to go after her, but another cascade of gunfire pinned him down.
“Cover me!” he ordered Kamir.
“What?”
McCracken pointed to the front of their camp. “Most of the gunmen are approaching from there. Fire brief bursts in line with where I’m pointing. Order your men to watch either side. Tell them to fire at anything that moves that isn’t us.”
“Yes, Sayin.”
Blaine rose into a crouch.
“Now!”
He was away an instant before Kamir had fired his first burst, Melissa then in the process of reaching into her jeep’s cargo compartment. He got to her just as bullets shattered the window inches over her head and sprayed both of them with glass. Again he took her forcibly to the ground. They ended up on their sides staring at each other.
“Not too bright, Melissa.”
“Not as stupid as you,” she shot at him, showing a pair of neatly wrapped square packages. “You could have blown us both up.”
“Plastic explosives?”
“They couldn’t do us any good in the jeep.”
“I’m not sure they can do us any good now.”
The gunfire had reached a crescendo. It seemed to be pouring into the camp from everywhere at once. The workmen’s fire with the carbines was proving ineffectual. Kamir was holding the enemy reasonably at bay from the front, but he had already changed clips once and would have to do so again before the next minute was up, leaving him with only one in reserve.
A trio of black-clad men rushed into the camp from the left. McCracken rolled out and fired five shots from the SIG their way. Their bodies had not even gone still on the ground when another two burst in behind the wounded workman and tore him apart with automatic fire. Blaine rose into a crouch to shoot them, a pair of bullets for each.
“Jesus,” Melissa moaned, “how many of them are there?”
“Too many for us to get, and they don’t seem to be in a negotiating mood.”
A fresh burst ricocheted just over their heads.
“If it’s the find they want, they can have it!”
“Sorry, Melissa. It’s us. They want to make sure no one ever learns what you uncovered here.”
“How can you know that?”
“Logic. Just like I know since we can’t outfight them, we’ve got to get out.”
“They’ve got us surrounded!”
McCracken looked her square in the eyes. “Then we get out without leaving.”
“There?” Melissa posed fearfully with her gaze moving to the excavation just ahead of McCracken’s.
“It’s the only chance we’ve got right now.”
“No! You don’t under—”
A scream sounded from the center of the camp, and they looked through the night to see the second workman writhing on the ground, holding his midsection. His hands locked over the gaping wounds, and he shuddered one last time before death took him.
“Come on!” Blaine ordered.
Before Melissa could protest, he grabbed her arm and yanked her forward. A gunman charged them from the side, firing, and McCracken shot him in the head. Another rushed from the opposite angle and Blaine pumped a trio of rounds his way. They reached Kamir as he was jamming a fresh clip home into his M-16.
“Let’s go!” McCracken screamed over his return fire, grasping him.
“Go where, Sayin?”
“The excavation!”
“But—”
McCracken grabbed the M-16 from his hand. “Hurry! They’re hesitating!”
Blaine shoved Kamir behind him and let Melissa lead the way toward the excavation. M-16 in one hand and SIG in the other, he fired nonstop in an arc before him. He estimated that more than half of the attacking team had already perished for their efforts. The remainder of the opposition were choosing their way cautiously now. They could afford to do so, since they believed that they had their targets hopelessly pinned down, leaving them with no reason to rush.
Melissa clutched the two tightly wrapped packets of plastic explosives to her, as she nimbly descended the rope ladder with Kamir just above her. She unshouldered her semiautomatic rifle and handed it to him when they reached the bottom.
“Hurry!” she yelled up to McCracken, who had just clambered over the rim of the pit.
Blaine took the rungs so fast that he seemed to be sliding down rather than climbing. At the bottom he emptied the last of the M-16’s second clip into the top of the dangling rope ladder. All twenty feet of it dropped downward. Any pursuit that came now would have to come in a straight twenty-foot drop. He grabbed the severed ladder and brought it with him to the opening of the find. Melissa dropped the bulk of it down inside and wedged the topmost part beneath the unearthed stone tablet to hold it in place.
“You can’t go down there!” Kamir pleaded.
“No other choice I can see, and you’re coming with us.”
As Kamir started to protest, a bullet thumped into his thigh and he pitched sideways with a grunt. Another slammed him in the chest and spilled him to the ground. The gunman had dropped downward at the edge of the rim for his next shots, but Blaine found him in his sights before the man could get another round off. Two more bullets from the SIG caught him in the head. McCracken snapped a fresh clip home.
Melissa was kneeling next to Kamir. His breathing sounded wet. Saliva slipped through his mouth, stained with blood.
“It is better this way,” he managed.
“We’ll carry you,” Melissa insisted.
“No.” He looked at Blaine. “The rifle, hand it to me.” And, as McCracken placed the M-16 in his trembling grip with the final clip loaded, “I will cover you.”
McCracken nodded and placed the ejected clip from Melissa’s semiautomatic A-2 next to him. Melissa touched the dying man’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Kamir.”
“You are brave like your father, Sayin Hazelhurst. Go now. And may God be with you.”
“Too much to ask for, I’m afraid.”
Shapes darted about the rim, bullets fired wildly down into the pit. Kamir fired a token burst their way. McCracken eased Melissa ahead of him onto the ladder.
“The explosives,” he said, gazing one last time at Kamir before he started down after her.
“I have the packs.”
“We’ll need them.”
“For wh—” And then she realized his intention. “No, we can’t!”
