Black Rose

CHAPTER 63

Nick came down the steps, MP-5 held close by his cheek. He heard something scraping across the floor. He reached the bottom of the steps and saw Gutenberg and another man in front of a door set into the wall of the vault.

"It's all done, Gutenberg. Stop what you're doing."

Gutenberg froze. He turned toward Nick and raised his pistol. But he wasn't pointing at Nick and the others. The gun was aimed at the rows of steel containers.

"I wouldn't advise you to shoot," Gutenberg said. "Bullets will ricochet in here from the stone walls. If one of them hits any of those containers, you are all dead. It will take a week or so before they put your rotting, blackened body into the ground, but you'll still be dead. If you make one move toward me I'll fire."

"Nick, he means it," Selena said. "He's crazy."

Gutenberg heard her and laughed. "Crazy? I'm not the one who's crazy. It's people like you."

Ronnie whispered in Nick's ear. "I can take him. Let me take the shot."

"Don't try it," Gutenberg said.

"Looks like we have a stalemate," Nick said. "You know I can't let you go."

"You don't have a choice. I really will shoot, you know. Let me make a proposal."

Beside Gutenberg, Halifax started breathing heavily. He raised his hand and began rubbing his chest.

"Humor him, Nick." Selena's voice was quiet.

"I'm listening," Nick said. "What did you have in mind?"

On the side of the room, the big boiler fired up. The flames made a low, steady roar in the background.

"We're going into this tunnel," Gutenberg said.

Halifax clutched his chest. He gave a strangled cry, dropped his shotgun and fell against Gutenberg. The shotgun struck the floor and went off. The blast struck the big meter feeding gas to the boiler furnace. Gas poured out with a loud hissing sound. Ronnie fired at Gutenberg and hit him in the shoulder, sending his pistol flying. Gutenberg cursed and ducked behind the wooden door and pulled it shut behind him. They heard a bar fall into place on the other side.

The air in the vault stank of escaping gas.

"We have to get out of here," Nick said. "That gas will blow and we can't do anything about it."

"Which way?" Selena asked. She coughed.

"The way we came in. It's the quickest way out."

They ran to the stairs leading to the lower vault and scrambled down them. Fresh air blew in from the river, clearing away the cloud of gas that followed them. They went through the old door. The moon had come out, shining pale silver light over the river. Their raft was tied where they'd left it. They clambered in and paddled hard, away from the château. They'd reached the middle of the river before the gas exploded.

The sound was like deep thunder inside a mountain. A billowing gust of flame shot out of the open door in the lower vault. The retaining wall blew outward into the river, sending stones splashing into the water just yards away from where they fought to put distance between themselves and the building. Waves rocked the raft.

"Whoa," Ronnie said. "Look at that."

The foundation had been undermined by the explosion. The back wall of the building collapsed in slow motion and dropped into the water with an ominous grinding sound. Plumes of water fountained into the air and rained down around them.

One of the tall towers began to lean.

"The whole building is going," Selena said. "The vaults must have been destroyed. They were holding everything up."

The tower toppled onto the roof. A second tower crumbled, then the roof fell inward and the building collapsed upon itself. The noise was unlike anything Nick had ever heard. A great cloud of white dust rose into the moonlit night. The rumbling and grinding of stone went on for what seemed like a long time before the sounds died away.

The château was gone. Only the outer walls remained.

"Gutenberg," Selena said.

"He was under all that. He has to be dead. Keep paddling. Don't forget those cylinders full of plague were in there."

"They must have been wiped out by the explosion," Ronnie said. "The fire would have burned off anything that got released."

"Probably, but I don't want to wait and find out the hard way that it wasn't."

They paddled downstream until they came to the narrow cove they'd used to launch into the water. Their rented van was hidden under the trees nearby.

"What about the raft?" Selena asked.

"Leave it. We don't have time to pack it up. We need to get away from here. Get changed."

They changed into civilian clothes. The weapons and gear went into an aluminum case. Their diplomatic passports would get them past inspection and back to their plane, waiting in Geneva.