Callsign: King - Blackout

37

They marched like the professional soldiers they were, picking their way deftly over the uneven surface of the fractured road, maneuvering around abandoned vehicles and other obstacles without breaking stride. Suvorov led the way. Brown, either unable or unwilling to move with the same urgency, was being dragged along by two of the Spetsnaz.

King easily kept pace with them but did not allow the apparent truce to lull him into complacency. This was an alliance of convenience, and he did not doubt that, when or if they succeeded in dealing with the immediate crisis, the Russians would turn on him.

One thing at a time, he told himself.

They reached their destination only a few minutes later. The Louvre now bore little resemblance to the stately seventeenth century palace that had been transformed into what was arguably the most famous museum in the world. The classical facade had been devastated by the earthquake, particularly in the central part of the structure, which appeared to be on the verge of imploding. The towering pavilion had collapsed in on itself and the exterior walls, what little remained of them, leaned dangerously inward. In the foreground, little remained of the famous glass pyramids; the largest of the triangular structures now appeared to be nothing more than a twisted web of steel.

Suvorov had paused at the edge of the courtyard and was gazing in disbelief at the scene of near total destruction. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered, barely restraining his grief. “I was just here. A few hours ago.”

King surveyed the ruin. The Russian had been right about the connection between the Buddha statues-or rather their remains-and the cause of the event. This had almost certainly been ground zero. Something powerful had been awakened inside the museum, and even though he was still more than a hundred yards from the structure, he knew it was still there. He could hear it in the persistent crunching sound that emanated from the ruins, and he could feel it in every fiber of his body.

The Russian quickly overcame his shock and led the group into the courtyard. He directed one of his team to remain outside and signal with a gun shot if and when the dark shape pursuing them finally arrived. King didn’t doubt that it would show up, but he was starting to believe that what lay inside the museum might be even more dangerous. His dread, and an increasing sensation of vertigo, intensified with each step forward, and as they crawled through a gap in the museum’s exterior and into its lightless depths, he felt almost like he was in free fall.

Suvorov’s familiarity with the museum counted for little once they were inside. The labyrinth of corridors connecting the galleries and exhibition halls as shown on the floor plan had been remade by the temblor. Hallways were now blocked with rubble, while new passages had been created by the collapse of walls. There was no question however, as to the path they were to follow; gravity drew them irresistibly toward the center of the museum.

King saw nothing even faintly recognizable, but he knew that the heaps of stone and masonry probably concealed priceless and irreplaceable objets d’art, now damaged beyond any hope of recovery. The clumps of debris had all accumulated on the inward facing walls-at least where such walls were still standing.

Then, after only a few minutes, the meandering journey ended at the edge of a crater, more than a hundred yards across and open to the night sky. Flashlight beams probed the downward slope, revealing openings that led into ancient passageways-remnants of the twelfth century fortress upon which the palace had been built-cutting into the bedrock that was itself scoured clean of any debris left over from the collapse of the roof and the floors above.

The bottom of the crater however was filled with loose fragments of rock and rubble, a heap several yards in diameter, and as King stared at the accumulation, he realized that it was the source of the ominous grinding sound.

He didn’t know what the monster on the riverboat had been, but this surely was the black hole Pradesh had awakened.

The mound-what scientists called an ‘accretion disk’-was moving, the fragments were being pulled inward, compacted together and broken into smaller pieces by the force of gravity, and all occurring at different relativistic speeds as the matter approached and ultimately crossed the event horizon. Black holes could not be seen because their gravity was too strong to allow light to reflect back to an observer but an accretion disk was a pretty good indicator of the presence of a black hole. King recalled that the destruction of matter in a black hole also released gamma radiation, which could cause lethal cell damage in humans. That wasn’t something he wanted to think about.

Then he saw something else revealed in the glow of the flashlights. A group of people stood on the edge of the crater, about thirty yards away, similarly gazing down into its depths. He recognized one figure immediately, the tall, massive form of Alexander Diotrophes-the immortal Hercules himself-squinting into the glare.

This revelation was accompanied by equal parts anger and hope. Of course he’s here, King thought. He always seems to turn up when the world’s about to end. He probably saw this coming, but was too damn secretive to share what he knew with the rest of us.

On the other hand, there wasn’t much that Diotrophes didn’t know. If there was a way to stop this thing, Alexander would be able to tell him how.

Then he saw the faces of Alexander’s companions. His heart sank as a joyful squeal echoed from the walls of the crater.

“Dad!”