Carpathian

6

The two richly appointed cable cars were running normally up and down the massive eight-cable system. There had not been one flaw in the computer programming that ran the operation. With the cars operational and the final preparations for the extensive private weekend nearing completion, Janos Vajic was starting to get that horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach as they neared the beginning of what could possibly be the end of his dream.

Janos watched as several workers arriving from the castle exited the cable car. The men seemed to be in a far better mood since the actions of the night before in the mountains high above the castle. As Janos turned away he saw Gina step onto the cable car platform high above the atrium. She held out a flimsy sheet of paper.

“This was just faxed over from Bucharest.”

Vajic took the paper and scanned it very quickly.

“What in the hell is Zallas trying to do to us? He has every known black marketer, gangster, and white-collar criminal in the world on this list. If the press were to sneak in here during the weekend we would never open, and I don’t care if Zallas has the interior minister in his pocket or not. They will shut us down through international pressure alone!” He crumpled up the guest list and threw it over the edge of the cable car platform where it landed in a geranium bush.

“I figure all we can do is keep the security as tight as—”

“We will not be handling the security. The resort security staff is to step aside.”

“What? This is a casino, Janos; we have to have armed security at all—”

“Zallas is handling the security for this weekend. His own people will be here and he says it’s double our normal staff. He said the press will not get to within a hundred miles of Edge of the World.”

Janos could see his general manager deflate. He put an arm around her.

“I have regretted my decision on partnering with this man from the first day. It’s like he never had money before and now he’s crazed about how to spend it. It’s like the trouble with the villagers up in the pass: he sends a backward Russian up there in a pretend hunt, and only he comes back down, but the attacks have ceased. I just don’t understand it.”

“Where is that Neanderthal anyway?” Gina asked as she was led to the cable car that had just arrived.

“Look here,” Vajic said as he gestured out of the large plate glass window in the rear of the car. He was pointing far below to the swimming pool, which stretched five hundred feet in the back of the resort. Sitting by the pool was the Russian. He sat in a chaise longue and didn’t move.

“What’s he doing?” Gina asked.

“He’s been sitting there since the maintenance people showed up at four this morning. He hasn’t moved. He refuses food and water. He just sits and stares waiting for Zallas to arrive.”

“What’s wrong with him, and where are the Romanian hunters that accompanied him?”

“They’re missing. Or at least we haven’t seen a trace of them since they left here last night. He just mumbles about the pass,” he said as he glanced upward along the cables and the mountain beyond. “That’s it. He won’t move until he reports directly to Zallas.”

Gina watched the still and silent man far below. Then she turned to Janos.

“I have the most horrible feeling that we are in the middle of something here that we have no control over.”

Janos Vajic stepped to the front of the cable car and saw the black Mercedes approach from the south. He took a deep breath and then faced his general manager.

“Well, the man who is in control has just arrived.”

As Gina followed Vajic’s gaze she saw over fifty vehicles as they wound their way toward the richest resort in the Eastern world.

The criminal invasion of the Carpathians had begun.

Jack heard the knock on the door and Carl Everett, looking haggard and half asleep, stuck his head inside.

“I’ve noticed that the red Event lights are lit up like the Fourth of July around here. Fill me in on what we’ve missed?”

“You bet. Have a seat, Carl. We need to talk.”

Everett opened the office door and stepped in. He rubbed his eyes and took a seat in front of the desk.

“I thought I lost you for a minute over there. Is Ryan all right?”

“He slammed into his bunk doing mach one. He’ll not be with us for a while, double jet lag and all.”

“What about you?”

Everett didn’t answer for a moment as he took in the colonel.

“I’m pissed at a woman and a double-dealing little Mossad colonel who tried to kill us. But that’s not what’s on my mind at the moment. Can we go off subject for a second, Colonel?”

Jack leaned back in his chair and waited for the shoe to fall. He had noticed Carl had addressed him by his Army rank behind closed doors, something the Navy SEAL ordinarily never did. Collins nodded his head that he should continue.

“I think it only proper that I inform my commanding officer that I have applied for transfer to the new naval surface warfare center being set up at Cape Canaveral.”

Jack’s brows arched as he listened to his second in command, a man he had known in some tough times and a true friend. He knew why this was happening.

“The new euphemism for space warfare center? The surface part of the name has little to do with it. You’re not a shipboard officer, Carl. You’re something far more special than that.”

“Some would say, Colonel. But then again you cut me out of the loop in the search for your sister’s killer. That’s personal to me because I knew and liked Lynn. I think it best that I get on with this new program and see if I can help out some.”

“I wasn’t worried about you and Ryan while you were in Rome. Even when I knew your lives were in jeopardy. I can live with that. I can allow you to go into harm’s way as long as it’s in the line of duty and under the auspices of this department, the one in which you are assigned.” Jack stood from his chair and paced to the door and locked it and then turned and walked to his desk and sat. “I will not lose friends on a personal quest of vengeance when they find enough death around them every damn day right here in this madhouse of history. But that is to be expected and accepted. You dying performing a criminal act on my behalf is not, nor will it ever be, acceptable, Carl.”

Everett didn’t look away from Jack’s glaring eyes.

“That’s your mistake, Jack. If you can’t see the basic problem here you are far blinder than you realize. You are making mistakes not only in judgment on how to best go about finding your sister’s murderer, you’re cutting off the sounding boards and genius that make things work here at the Event Group, and that’s the people who believe they are more than just a goddamn team to you.”

Collins was trying to get everything settled in his mind from Everett’s verbal assault. For the first time in his adult life he didn’t know how to proceed.

“This communication you have going with the Frenchman has to stop, Jack.” Everett stood and faced his friend. “Farbeaux may be assisting you because you think he is better equipped to do what you plan on doing, finding the scumbag and killing him. But don’t you see that Henri Farbeaux doesn’t do anything without it benefiting Henri Farbeaux. He will kill you if he gets the chance — make no mistake about that.”

“There is a method to my madness, Carl. He may do what you say he will — maybe just to get Sarah, who knows, but there is one element in this equation you’re missing — that son of a bitch is expendable, you and my friends are not. No more people are being lost on my account. In the line of duty is one thing, dying for something personal is another.”

Everett set his jaw muscles and for the first time that Navy SEAL stare was directed at Jack.

“Transfer request stands. I’m needed elsewhere with everything coming down all over the world.”

Jack Collins took a deep breath and then sat into his chair. He looked at Everett and then down at his desk blotter. He nodded his head in agreement.

Carl Everett came to attention and saluted. Jack looked up and frowned.

“The Navy doesn’t salute indoors, Captain — dismissed.”

Everett allowed his gesture of respect to slip by the wayside. He turned abruptly and then unlocked the door and stepped out of the office.

As Europa sounded a tone over the speaker system embedded in the walls, Jack was staring at nothing. All thought of the past day’s events had slipped into a neutral position. He had just lost one of the best friends he had in the world because of the stubborn streak Sarah had warned him about a million and one times.

“Attention all personnel, as of 1245 hours this date an operational order has been issued by the director of Department 5656 declaring an Event in the Carpathian region of Romania. All departmental supervisors are to report to the main conference room immediately. All personnel are restricted to base and Gates 1 and 2 are now closed. Alert 2 status has been upgraded — full security measures are hereby in effect.”

Jack didn’t hear a word of the supercomputer as she gave the Event alert. His mind was on his friends — the ones he was losing because of his fears and the fear of others above him in rank.

Outside the office the Event teams were forming. The assault on the Carpathians was now an official case file.

The Event Group was now in its element.

The moon was bright and the villagers of Patinas were out in the cool of the evening. The village itself would be considered large for most in the region. The census taken in 1980 by the former communist government listed the occupants of that particular protected area as 752. The center square of the village of stone and wood houses was alight with the fire that was built every evening for the families of man to congregate and share stories on the events of their day. It had been a tradition for over two thousand years. The families gathered and laughed and sang and played their string instruments to the delight of the children. Most of the musical instruments were new and shiny and the electric lighting now coursing through the small village even newer than the instruments that began showing up the past two years as gifts from the man who would soon be their king.

As the Romanian Catholic church bell rang just once announcing the hour of nine, all those around the fire and sitting on the grass listening to the music started to say their good nights and good-byes to family and friends. As they all laughed their way to their houses or out of town for their farms and flocks, there was only one who remained behind. The old woman sat in her customary chair after waving off several of her nephews and nieces as they tried to persuade her not to sit out in the damp night.

When the villagers had all left the old Gypsy looked around her at what they had built over the years. She slowly stood and leaned on the wooden cane with the Eye of Ra inlaid in the handle. She slowly turned and looked at the mountain behind her that encircled the beautiful but small valley and pass that was Patinas. Her two different colored eyes fell upon the temple that only she could see. She shook her head. The steam escaping from several open vents along the mountain road leading to the pass high above was a constant reminder that somewhere far beneath the surface of the earth mother nature was cooking up quite a cauldron of fury that someday would be released into the valleys far below — a wrath of prehistoric power that could eventually level the 250-million-year-old mountain range. The hot water vapor from the hot springs that coursed through this particular mountain actually produced enough heat to change the weather conditions during the winter months as the vapors brought a false warmth to the village and the pass above them.

“We should have brought the entire mountain down upon you before it was ever completed.” She jabbed her cane at the darkness above and the mountain it hid in the night. “You are a curse that we should never have dared to lay claim to.” Suddenly her strength was gone and she turned and sat back into her chair.

“It would take more than that rickety old cane to bring down the temple, Grandmamma.”

The old woman closed her eyes and placed her forehead on the cane.

“There was death last night on the road to the pass. You disobeyed me, man-child.”

“No, one still lives. The message I wanted to deliver was delivered and the men that were with the filthy Slav paid the postage on that message. There will be no man allowed above that ridiculous castle. Never again will men come this way without invitation.”

The old Gypsy raised the cane an inch off the ground and then brought it down again as she turned to look at her grandson. The man was dressed in a bright red shirt with his ever-present head scarf, this one royal blue in color. His black beard and leather pants gleamed in the light of the rising moon. As he watched, the old woman forcibly calmed herself.

“You have been missed at the fire lately. You seem unaware that your family misses you. And for one who has delivered such magnificent gifts to the people it would seem you would be more interested in the activities here than down there,” she said as she jabbed her cane down the mountainside.

The young man snorted and then shook his head. “To sit around and sing old Gypsy songs that are just as much a lie as the ones we tell of the ancient times? No, I have no more interest in lies. It’s far past the time to be mere caretakers to riches and the knowledge of the old ones. It’s time we take what we have earned. And giving out a few small gifts as you call them is what a future king of the Gypsies does for his people.”

The old woman couldn’t argue the point.

“How many of our young men have you taken from the villages below?” she asked, fearing the answer.

“Enough to protect what is ours.”

“You have been in the temple recently.”

The man laughed. His grandmother always knew his fascination for the temple and what that place of magic held for him. Even as a small child he would wander into the mountain and sit for hours, sometimes days, just to speak with the guardians of the temple, his friends, the Golia, and marvel at the temple and plaza that surrounded it. She knew his love of the massive building blocks the ancient artisans built for a people that would never see it. He always thought about the sacrifice of his people for the good of men and women that had shunned the Jeddah since a time before the Exodus.

“Do not bother to hide your activities with another lie. Sister arrives on the morrow and she will discover what it is you’ve been up to, Marko.”

The man turned and the smile was gone.

“Yes, for the first time in many years we will see the sister, child, and the truth will be found out. I do not know what deal with what devil you may have made but sister will know what to do. I pray to God you have not been lying to me, Marko — or the Golia.” She smiled as she took in her grandson. “They are not quite as forgiving as this old woman.”

“You send her away for years to learn the ways of the Jewish state and to keep an ear to the ground about the temple and what’s hidden there. But I am left here to never see the real world. Never will I venture into the cities and live the real life that my sister was chosen for.”

“Marko, she was better equipped, more even-tempered to do the duties I have laid out for her. It’s not that I do not—”

Marko held up a hand, stopping his grandmother’s lie from continuing. He did manage to force a smile.

“It will be good to see sister again.” He turned and started walking away while looking up at the camouflaged temple. “It has been a very long time and I have indeed missed her.”

As she watched Marko walk away with his fists clenched into tight balls of anger, a small lamb that had come into the village from the flock outside the main gates bleated as he approached. Her grandchild kicked the small animal and it squealed and fell to the ground.

The old woman slowly got to her feet and went to the lamb and placed her aged hand upon it and stopped its hurtful bleating. The old woman stopped petting the frightened animal when the lamb’s eyes grew wide and the lamb regained its feet and bounced away toward the open gate. The old woman knew the beast was poised right behind her. She slowly and carefully turned.

The black-furred Golia was sitting on its hind haunches and was looking straight at her with its long ears up in a nonaggressive stance. As she examined the giant wolf she saw the yellow eyes take her in also with just as much curiosity.

“You have grown so, Stanus.” She slowly took a step forward and raised her hand to the animal’s jawline and used her short, broken fingernails to scratch the new leader of the Golia.

Stanus tilted its huge head to the left as the old woman scratched lightly. The eyes never left her age-lined face. As she scratched the alpha male as she had done on a million other occasions her hand slowly started to rise toward the left side of the animal’s face just below the ear. Stanus saw the movement and lightly growled and then raised its right paw to its face. She watched as the fingers slowly curled open and extended outward and was so large that the slim fingers and razor-sharp claws wrapped completely around her small wrist and hand. As the beast lowered the offending hand from its muzzle it came up on all fours and backed away a step and then sat once more on its haunches. The yellow, intense eyes never left the old woman’s face.

“Your trust is as empty as your den in the pass. Do you even know what Marko is up to, or are you just going along because you finally get to vent that stored rage you have deep inside — not unlike my grandson?”

The wolf tilted its large head to the right this time as it listened to the woman speak. She could see that the respect the animal had toward her was still present. She suspected that Stanus was conflicted. She was even receiving small bursts of knowledge streaming from the new leader of the Golia but she couldn’t understand the animal’s consternation. She smiled at Stanus as she looked up into those yellow eyes that stood a whole head higher than her entire height.

“How are the babies?”

The wolf whined deep in its chest.

“You haven’t been to the pass, have you? You’ve been with Marko.”

The low growl sounded once more.

“Whatever he is doing is against the will of his queen, and also against the family of Golia. I need you, Stanus, in the days ahead. We have to—”

The Golia suddenly jumped from its place. The giant leapt over the old woman and then jumped again and cleared the stone wall that lined the small village and vanished silently into the night.

The Gypsy queen turned and listened as the mountain came alive with the sound of many Golia who were not inside their dens or in the temple. There were more and more howls coming from the dark in recent months as more and more Golia defected to Stanus and Marko. It was not the fact that Marko wanted better for his people — as she was responsible for her grandson’s rebelliousness because truth be told she herself had been fighting with tradition and ancient superstition for most of her years to allow the people to be free of the curse placed upon them three and a half thousand years before. She and Marko just clashed as to the best way to free their people.

The ground shook and the night became a silent and bleak artwork of desolate landscape that screamed against the sign of the times. The howling awoke the night world of the Carpathians and brought every villager for miles around to their windows to close the shutters of their humble homes and farms.

The woman known to Israeli intelligence and the Event Group as Major Mica Sorotzkin was sitting and watching her reflection in the train’s filthy window. She saw the bloodshot eyes accompanied by the dark circles underneath and then she closed them against the worn and tired reflection. The raven-haired woman turned away from the nighttime countryside of Palilula, Serbia, as the train passed over an ancient trestle across the Danube. She closed her eyes and felt much safer as she entered Romania for the first time in nine years.

The car in which she rode remained virtually empty even though at the last stop before the Danube the train had made an unscheduled stop as over a hundred soldiers were escorted onto a few of the forward passenger cars. They were Romanian and they carried full field gear and packs and looked as if they were going on manuevers. The soldiers settled into their seats three cars forward and the weary woman thought nothing of them again.

Behind her closed eyelids she tried to bring to mind the memory of her last day in Patinas. How she had cried with a broken heart when her grandmother sent her away. First she had missed four years sacrificing her childhood for schooling in Prague under an assumed name. When that was complete her grandmother awarded her with another painful banishment — under her new name she would enter the military academy and finish her last two years of higher education. The academy just so happened to be in Israel. She was accepted with her new identity into the top secret military program called Talpiot. The academy is Israel’s most selective institution and accepts only fifty students a year. The school trains its students in physics and other sciences that most military-funded academies skim over. Its mission is to produce future leaders of the Israel Defense Forces who are not only capable of changing the “act first” attitude of a hard-line military, but to finally transform their armed forces into a model of efficiency.

She had performed so well in her two years at the Talpiot Academy that she drew the attention of the Mossad. The chance meeting was in the plan the whole time with the guidance of her grandmother, who seemed to be wiser than her years and always claiming that she was sending her to do the work of the people and it was something that her grandmother had had to do when her age so many years before, the only difference being that the queen had studied at Oxford and Cairo. They both had left home to learn the ways of the modern world to help protect the people.

She opened her eyes and looked out the window once more toward the distant mountain range hidden in the darkness beyond the clean and cold waters of the Danube. As her eyes scanned the darkness the dimly illuminated farmhouses along the train tracks slowly started coming to life for the hardworking folk of the soil-rich Danube valleys.

Mica half smiled as she realized that she was nearing her home and felt happy for the first time in years. She didn’t turn away from the smile that was returned in her reflection but did notice that the face had changed over the nine years she had been gone. Not that it had aged badly, but because her face was now showing the worries for her people far more than when she had been a child. Now she was slowly learning that the mountains could no longer be protected. She would have to break this news to her grandmother.

The worry over the fate of the temple and the men and beasts who protected it faded as she thought about setting foot in the pass once more. It was a place where she used to run and play with animals that lived in myth and legend. The Golia awaited her return and she anticipated rekindling the friendship that was lost when she was sent away.

Lost in thought, she was taken aback when she felt someone slide into the seat next to her.

“The general never realized just how good you were. But I knew as soon as I transferred you to Rome and put you on the trail of the lost legends you would dig up something to assist the righteous and bring what is ours back home.”

Mica turned away from the outside world and looked right into the face of Lieutenant Colonel Ben-Nevin. The pistol he held was low and aimed upward; its barrel, as well as his crooked smile, never wavered.

“Colonel, you and the people you follow have been listening to fairy tales that never had a basis in fact. Your kind has left Israel backward and alone in the world, and if it weren’t for the power of a few carefully chosen friends Israel would be nothing but a barren dustbowl today.”

“And this is coming from a tried-and-true patriot? I think not, Major.” The gun came up a little further. The woman slowly moved her eyes to better assess her situation, which was not a good one. The train’s car was nearly empty with the exception of a young boy and of all things he was accompanied by a goat. Welcome home, Anya, she thought to herself as she looked at the small boy at the front of the car and immediately regretted leaving her small cousin back in Rome, but she had thought it safer for the seller of oranges to stay safe for the time being.

The colonel watched her as she studied her situation and he smiled wider than before.

“Do not attempt it. I have over fifty men awaiting our arrival. You will lead us to the treasures of the Exodus so the true patriots of Israel can take back the people’s heritage.”

Anya Korvesky didn’t bother to look at the weapon because she knew how ruthlessly men of the colonel’s religious bent acted toward women. They were backward and only thought about their precious religious tilt. Most Israelis were now content to live in harmony with those around them, but others were far more resistant to making peace with people who didn’t care for the heavy-handedness of Jewish rule in the occupied territories. The colonel was part of an organization called Masada’s Patriots, named after the small mountain once laid siege to by the Roman army to settle a small revolt two thousand years before. She wondered if the colonel realized that every one of those long-ago patriots had committed suicide to escape Roman justice. Perhaps it was time to refresh Ben-Nevin’s memory on that point.

“You know there is no place you can ever run to and hide. General Shamni will burn any asset, kill any informer, he will take your group hostage in order to track you down and the law be damned.”

“And you, a favorite of his? Your betrayal will not sit well with the general just as mine will not. I’m afraid we are both in the same boat.” The look on his face was that of a cat staring at a caged canary. “Only, I have many friends and very powerful allies.”

Anya chanced a look around but still the only occupant of the car was the little boy and his goat far to the front. At four-thirty in the morning there just wasn’t any help to be had.

“This can all be so easy. We would be hailed as the man and woman who recovered the history and treasure of the chosen people, to prove to the world that, yes, God was once on our side and here is the proof,” Ben-Nevin said as his eyes widened and his breathing got heavier.

“It’s nothing but old wives’ tales to keep the people believing in their past when we should be looking toward the future. There is no gold and other treasure. There are no artifacts to prove God was once in our corner. There may be those who have scratched the truth but it will do them no good.” She looked the colonel straight in his eyes and didn’t flinch when he raised the pistol a little higher. “The Ark of the Covenant has been lost since the dawning of the Hebrew homeland — gone, Colonel. The treasure of the Exodus never existed. You have placed a warrant of death on you and your followers’ heads and every Israeli asset the world over will be out to track you down and kill you.”

“You can fool the general, Major, but I and my people are not as naive as many others. We know the truth. We know what Joshua did and we are destined to bring the truth back home to Israel despite what the general’s and prime minister’s traitorous moves are.”

“The general is a good man and so is the prime minister. They will never allow you to continue.”

“Good men always get better people killed. He and his kind will do anything to stop us from gaining the right to live — live and expand the borders of Israel.”

“And you think the recovery of some trinkets will allow the Jewish people to rise up and take control of everything? The people are not what you think they are, Colonel. They have evolved from the days where a few fundamentalists can whip them into patriotic frenzy. That policy had its place and its time. Everyone pulled together, and now you wish to take them apart, split the nation.” Anya leaned in toward Ben-Nevin, actually stunning him enough that he raised the gun fully into her face. “I’ll tell you, Colonel, since I have been with the Israeli people I have learned one inescapable fact — they like living, they also like to see their sons and daughters come home without having a bomb go off on their bus. Mothers, fathers, and grandparents like peace and are willing to break with tradition to have it. They actually like living … stupid bastards.”

“Some of us aren’t as dedicated to righteousness as others in our group. Some of us still like the finer things in life.”

“I know your kind, Colonel,” she looked away for the briefest of moments, “because I have a brother not unlike you. He would also bring the world crashing down because of something he believed in above all else. But even I don’t believe he would be capable of selling out his own people as you are doing.”

“I don’t seek the treasure,” he lied with an expert’s persuasiveness and Anya saw it in his eyes. “Israel needs living space and the way to achieve it is to make other lesser people realize that God has always been on our side.”

She smiled, knowing the colonel trapped himself.

“Adolf Hitler, 1928. Your grasp of history is admirable, Colonel Ben-Nevin. I wonder if your efforts to create Lebensraum, or living space for the people, will find as much enthusiasm as Hitler’s did in the thirties and forties. I seem to remember him butchering millions of our people to achieve that living space. He even attempted to track my people down thinking we knew such a great and devastating secret involving our shared ancestry.”

“Hitler was a maniac. And by your people I am assuming you mean the Gypsies?”

Anya smiled and arched her eyebrows.

“That’s just about as much of a history lesson I can take for one night, so why don’t we—”

The colonel realized they were no longer alone. The small boy with the goat was now standing in the aisle and staring at Ben-Nevin.

“Go away, child. Take your goat and sit down.”

The boy was about eleven or twelve and was looking from the man to the woman, who just now realized who the child really was. She hadn’t recognized him at first, and to carry a goat along? Things had remained as crazy in her small village as they always had been and she knew the boy’s arrival had been her grandmother’s doing.

“Excuse me,” the boy said in halting English. “Aunt Anya?”

Anya smiled back and then relaxed as she knew who the boy was now. She felt the tears well up in her eyes and tried not to show her weakness, but she knew she was nothing but a real woman and not the trained Mossad agent she thought she was. Anya now realized how much she had missed her home. As she studied the boy she nodded her head and the child’s smile widened.

“Hello, Georgi, do you know you look just like Kinta, your cousin who lived with me in Rome?” Anya said, smiling even wider as the boy of twelve did also. “He’s there right now but will be home by next week I hope.”

“Ah, the boy who rescued the Americans — the child selling the oranges!” Ben-Nevin said, unable to hide his surprise. “You never cease to amaze me, Major. To have a child from your home on duty in Rome and you managed to keep it from the Mossad; you are far more resilient than even I thought.”

Anya turned to face the colonel. “I am human. To have someone from my village kept me sane and on track to what I needed to do.” She lowered her eyes for a moment. “And I have made my mistakes but having my nephew’s help makes me realize what’s important, just like this child right here.” She smiled and looked up at the boy again, ignoring the colonel. “Yes, I am your great-aunt. Did Grandmamma send you here?”

“That’s enough,” Ben-Nevin said as he reached out and grabbed the boy by the arm. “Save family reunion time for later. He will come with us when I meet my people in Bucharest.”

The boy just looked at the hand holding his arm. At the same time the colonel saw his eyes raise and then the goat bleated and tried to step backward in the aisle. Its eyes widened and then it fell to the floor of the car and tried to get beneath the seat it was near. The colonel saw the smile on the boy’s lips widen even further and his eyes moved from the hand on his arm to an area behind Ben-Nevin’s shoulder. A loud, low-throated growl sounded from behind him. The colonel actually felt the moist, warm breath on his neck.

Anya didn’t know how it had happened, but somehow her young great-nephew had gotten one of the Golia on board the deserted train. She slowly turned her head and saw the animal sitting in the train’s aisle. The yellow eyes were firmly placed on the back of the colonel’s head. For his part, Ben-Nevin only swallowed and then slowly turned his head to see the giant black and gray furred animal sitting menacingly behind him.

“My God,” he whispered as his gun slowly started to come around.

“That,” Anya said with authority, “is not a good idea, Colonel. The beast would have your severed hand in its mouth before you could pull the trigger.” Anya sat further up in her seat and then looked more closely at the Golia. Her eyes widened when she saw the notch missing from the right ear. She remembered as a little girl how the animal became scarred in a fight with its older and far more aggressive brother, Stanus.

“Georgi, is that Mikla?”

The twelve-year-old boy nodded as the wolf whined and then flicked its ears in recognition of its name, but the yellow glowing eyes never left those of the colonel.

Anya smiled as she turned back to face a Golia pup that was born just two days after herself. They were so close in age that her grandmother always included the black wolf with the gray-tipped ears and tail to her yearly celebrations. She loved the memory of the small wolf at her side with his ridiculous head scarf — birthday hat on. The giant wolf paid her no mind, as it was the vibes coming from Ben-Nevin that held its attention.

“This is impossible, what is this creature?”

Anya slowly reached over and relieved the colonel of his weapon and then pointed it at him.

“An old and dear friend that I have missed.” She smiled and then saw that Mikla had turned his head and was now watching something far beyond her nephew’s head and shoulders. She heard the low growl start deep within Mikla’s throat. His ears slowly lay down and Anya knew that someone was coming and the giant Golia sensed it. Anya chanced a quick look up and her heart froze.

“It seems we are about to have company, Major — whatever your real name is,” Ben-Nevin said as he also looked up and saw the soldiers coming down the aisle of the car in front of them. They were laughing and joking and one of the Romanian troopers had a large bottle of vodka and the three soldiers kept looking behind them as if they were sneaking away for a nice nip of the strong alcohol.

This time there was no mistaking the menace in Mikla’s growl. The colonel cringed as he sensed the wolf change positions behind him. He closed his eyes as the growl became far deeper and far more menacing than moments before. The soldiers had reached the door of the car and were about to enter the connection to their own. Mikla took one leap and was in the center of the aisle ten feet in front of Anya and the boy as she kept the colonel covered with the gun.

“No, Mikla!” Anya shouted as the soldiers opened the door to their own car just as the giant beast took four more large strides toward the connecting door. Anya saw that the Golia was not going to obey, he sensed danger from the soldiers and was ready to defend her and the boy and there was nothing she could do or say that would dissuade the massive beast. Anya stood from her seat. “No, Mikla, no harm!” she shouted in the silent car.

Instead of obeying Anya, the wolf hopped onto its hind legs and the three people in the car heard the cracking and the popping of the bones as the hip and pelvis started to make the shift that gave the Golia its heaven-sent ability to climb straight up any wall, mountain, or building. First one hip popped and shifted, sending the beast to the right as its articulated fingers took hold of the two seats closest to the aisle. It used the seat backs as a stabilizing factor as the thigh bones fell into place in the secondary socket; this straightened the animal’s spine and aligned itself for the change enabling it to walk upright. The legs became stronger, longer and that brought the wolf into proper proportions to stand as a man.

Ben-Nevin could not believe what he was witnessing. His eyes widened as he saw the beast could not even stand to its full height because of its size. The ears were laid back against the wood paneling of the car’s ceiling and the growling intensified to the point that the Golia vibrated the windows around them.

The soldiers were in the space that separated the cars and were swilling the vodka and laughing. The Golia let loose another growl that froze the colonel’s blood in his veins.

“Mikla, leave them be! Come—”

Ben-Nevin reached out and took hold of the weapon he had been relieved of moments before. He turned it on Anya and pushed her back and was about to turn the weapon on the Golia when he felt the pistol ripped from his hand, taking three fingers along with it. The colonel looked up in shock as the animal had moved so fast that he never realized he was being assaulted. The wolf stood over the smaller man with the gun clenched inside the massive hand of the animal. The beast sniffed at the weapon in its left hand and then the yellow eyes slowly rose to meet the frightened and shocked eyes of Ben-Nevin.

Anya saw what was going to happen and jumped over the seats and scrambled between the Golia and the man it was about to shred to pieces. Before she could do anything to save the man she despised, the door at the front of the car slowly opened and they all heard the laughter of the Romanian soldiers as they started to enter the killing field.

“Mikla, home, now!” she shouted as loud as she could as the door remained halfway open as the three soldiers hesitated momentarily to swig some more vodka.

The beast turned its large head to the right and saw the soldiers. Anya could tell the Golia was confused as to which threat to take first. The massive head swung back to the Israeli Mossad colonel, who fell to the floor of the car and threw his arm up over his face splattering his suit with blood from his damaged hand. The animal raised the pistol it held by the barrel and closed its hand around it and then threw it to the back of the train car. Mikla leaned in close to Ben-Nevin and began opening its jaws wide. The teeth were straight and clean and they were the largest the colonel had ever seen. Then as suddenly as the action had started it stopped as the beast straightened and turned and looked at the soldiers as they finished their drink. The beast growled heavily and then started to turn toward the oncoming threat to the woman and the boy.

“Mikla, home!”

The Golia turned back and faced Anya and then reached down in a flash of movement and snatched up the boy and his goat in one muscled arm. Mikla then easily tossed the boy and dangling goat onto its back and then looked at Anya and growled, angry it had been called off from killing the soldiers. Its ears came back up and the creature with its massive strength reached out and took Anya by the arm and tucked her under its shoulder and then took one large step toward the wall of the car, kicking out with clawed feet the three seats between it and freedom. Mikla brought its muscled right leg up and kicked out once, twice, and then a third time into the glass and wood lining the window. The entire section of aluminum and wood framing separated from the train leaving a gash eight feet in diameter. The beast leaned out of the car as the wind caught its fur. Anya’s, the boy’s, and the goat’s eyes widened as the Golia leaned out into empty space as the train sped along. Mikla howled and then pushed off from the car, and the Golia and its frightened cargo fell free into the early morning darkness.

The Golia hit the ground at fifty-six miles an hour but the great beast never lost its footing as it caught the hardpan of the feeder road next to the tracks. The giant beast yelped in pain and then vanished into the breaking dawn.

The soldiers came through the open door and felt the wind before seeing the frightened and bloody man lying in the aisle. Their eyes went to the eight-foot hole in the side of the train car and the vodka bottle slipped out of the grasp of the man standing in front of the other two.

The next thing they knew their platoon sergeant was standing next to them. He looked at each man in turn and then bent over and picked up the half-finished vodka bottle. His eyebrows rose in a silent condemnation. The Romanian army sergeant just pointed back the way they had come.

“I think that just about covers drinking on duty — let’s go.”

The old woman held on to the side of the temple entrance where man-made materials met the natural stone of the mountain. She held fast as the air of the dawn cooled her face after the heat inside the massive structure. Madame Korvesky knew eyes were on her from just off the trail leading down into the mountain. The Golia were there and were watching her; some with only mild curiosity, and then there were the others with malice-laced thoughts. She knew these were the younger Golia — the males and few females that seemed to set out away from the rest. One of these was Stanus, who she knew was on his high ledge above the temple where he lay alone and watched everything occurring around the giant temple structure and the camouflaged opening that led deep into the mountain.

The heat inside had become unbearable for the old Gypsy to take at her age and now she was paying the price for staying so long inside. She managed a deep breath and felt the pain in both her legs from the ten thousand steps it takes coming and going from the depths of the great temple. She would have to make it home and drink as much bitterroot tea as she could stomach in order to ease the pain that would nearly cripple her when she awakened later. The tea alone she knew would probably kill her or constipate her so bad she would wish she were dead. She took another breath and then raised the flowered print dress to a spot just above her right ankle. It was purple and black and she knew that if it wasn’t broken it was a close imitation of a break. She could barely place any pressure on the ankle and foot without streaking jolts of pain shooting up her leg.

As she placed her cane carefully and took her first tentative steps down the small dirt trail that led into her village she heard the laughter of men somewhere ahead. It was only a few steps later that her grandson appeared on the trail with four of the men that had been his constant companions the past six years. Three were from their village but the fourth was from a farm more than fifteen miles away. She trusted none of them. Her grandson stopped and the talk between the Gypsy men ceased as they all took in her ragged and unhealthy condition. Marko looked shocked and then moved to her side as the other four men half bowed to the Gypsy queen and then faded off the trail and into the trees that lined it.

“What are you doing up here, Grandmamma?” Marko took her by the arm and held her as the talk of his men faded from ear.

He waited to speak again until the men had vanished. “You were in the temple?” His tone was still one of concern but now it was also laced with suspicion.

“I believe I am still allowed the freedom to come and go from my own temple, am I not?” She looked up at him and even managed a smile but she soon lost the will and the strength to produce either the smile or to keep her head held high.

“I must get you home and into your bed, you old foolish hen,” he said as he placed his arm around her and started her back down the trail. He grew silent as he walked. The sun was broaching the eastern edge of the mountains before he spoke again. “Stanus is quite agitated tonight. I think you could tell that from the fire pit this evening. I think one of his young ones is missing.”

The old woman didn’t respond. She just kept her walk slow and easy while using her cane as much as possible to lessen the pain in her right ankle.

“Of course it’s the male pup, Mikla. He always was surly and the only brother Stanus has a hard time controlling.”

The old woman walked in silence.

“Are you going to tell me what you were doing in the temple so late and without escort?”

“I could not sleep. And yes the encounter with Stanus tonight was the reason. I had to pray on it some. The alpha is conflicted about something.” She slowed and then looked upward into the dark features of her grandson. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, man-child?” She knew she had caught him off guard and turned the tables on him because Marko stopped and then stepped away from her so he could see her fully in the false light of dawn.

“With all of the changes in the valley below and even upon our own mountain, do you expect Stanus not to be confused? He will settle down, you will see. Now, do you know Mikla’s whereabouts?”

“Yes,” she said, suddenly refusing to play this game with her own flesh and blood. “I do know where Mikla is.”

Her right leg gave out completely and she collapsed almost to the ground before Marko’s strength stayed her fall. He lifted her up and carried her to a small outcropping of stone that lined the trail. He removed her sandal and saw that her ankle was swollen at least five times its normal size.

“What have you done? Did you fall on the great steps?”

“Oh, it’s only twisted; I do worse sometimes tripping over my own feet.”

He looked at her and then removed his blue head scarf and started wrapping the horribly swollen ankle.

“Twisted? If it’s not broken I would be surprised, Grandmamma.” He finished tying off the wrapping and then placed his elbows on his bended knees and then looked at the Gypsy queen. “Where is Mikla and what did you do to him to make your ankle swell like that? Is the Golia all right? Do I need to send Stanus to retrieve him?”

“That would not be a good task, as Stanus is not at all popular with Mikla and a few of the other pups. And Mikla needs no help getting home; he’s with two very reliable people.”

“What have you done?”

“Protected the future of our people the best way I knew how. Now help me get home so you can make me some bitterroot tea because I just cannot stomach the smell,” she said as she used his strong shoulder to pull herself off the rock.

Marko said nothing in response. He knew it wouldn’t do any good, as the old woman had the longest stubborn streak in her since Moses himself. He took a deep breath and knew he had to slow down her suspicions until he was ready for what needed to be done. He remained silent all the way home.

One hundred and eighty miles to the west three forms lay in a drainage ditch beside a deserted feeder road. The boy was sleeping soundly after their crazed exit from the train and Anya hoped he wasn’t in some form of mild shock. Her two young nephews, thanks to her grandmother, had saved her life twice in the past twenty-four hours.

It was Mikla she was most worried about. The Golia lay on its side and was licking the right rear paw and ankle. The beast had landed awkwardly when he jumped from the side of the car. The speed of the train was something the Golia was not familiar with and it had caught the great animal by surprise when they had landed hard. Mikla barely managed to keep his footing but soon had to stop to go on all fours until he had to rest his leg.

“Poor Mikla, it’s my fault for making you run when all you wanted was to hold your ground and protect us.” She reached out and ran her hand along his side. The giant wolf looked up and then whined and licked her hand. The young Golia held Anya’s eyes for the longest time and then with the articulated fingers of its right hand extended and the claws gleaming in the sunshine, Mikla reached up and took Anya’s hand and held it tight. The prehistoric wolf suddenly winced and closed its softly glowing yellow eyes and released Anya’s hand as it lay its head down into the grass.

“We’ll rest the best we can today and start out again tonight after it gets dark.” She rubbed his thick fur once again. “Maybe we can get you another train ride, maybe on top this time, huh?” she said with a smile and a hard rub of the black wolf’s fur. The ears popped up with their gray tips and she knew the thought of riding on a train, while his first trip didn’t end that well, still excited Mikla enough that he wanted to do it again. She knew his thoughts at extreme moments like this and his being excited and happy was easy to pick upon. But she wasn’t sure if Mikla was excited about the train or more to the point that he was nearing home.

The giant Golia laid its head against Anya and was content to close its glowing yellow eyes that were now fading to green as the sun started to rise higher.

Mikla had done the task he was sent out to accomplish and for the day at least the beast was content as he lay with those he was sent to protect.

7

Dmitri Zallas was most impressed as he toured the Roman mud baths and hot mineral springs adjacent to the Enviro Dome. Accommodations for a thousand or more guests who would undoubtedly enjoy the spa when it was fully operational were now finished. The steam from the natural hot springs and the mud that boiled through to the surface after being cooked for a million years far beneath the Carpathians made the gardens as lush as any tropical rain forest.

“I take it your man was successful with his foray into the Patinas Pass? Were you pleased?”

Zallas lost his smile as he turned to face his limited partner. “It was worth it, but very expensive. You shall have no more trouble in the mountains above the castle.”

Janos Vajic pursed his lips and then wrestled with the question in his mind for the briefest of moments before blurting it out.

“The man is a mess,” Janos said as he stepped to the geodesic dome. They were on the eighth floor nearest the cable car entrance. He pointed down toward the maintenance area a thousand yards away from the massive pool and spa. The man was sitting on the ground with his fur coat still on in the heat of the day with his knees pulled up to his chest as workers and maintenance personnel were forced to walk around him. He pointed his man out to Zallas, whose eyes narrowed to slits when he saw the hunter. “He’s been like that ever since he returned without his hunting companions — who are still among the missing by the way.”

“They are not missing, Janos; they just went home after failing this man. He did what I paid him to do.” He turned and looked at Vajic. “I will have him removed.”

“May I broach another subject with you?”

“Does it have anything to do with my guest list?” Zallas asked as he turned away and started for the escalator to head down to the casino.

“Well, although I have major concerns about several of the more … colorful names on that list, there is but one that makes me nervous. But I have to start with my first concern, which is obvious to any fool who steps on this property: the amount of private security you have brought in. You have over a hundred well-armed men; this will not look good, not only to the guests, but to the media.”

“Get to the point, Janos, for crying out loud.” Zallas stopped at the guardrail for the giant escalator and turned on his partner.

“There are certain members of the media who have started asking questions about how the land was transferred from the state to a private concern after so many years of protection. Dmitri, they are starting to ask questions. And look at this.” He held out the large guest list with close to two thousand names on it. “Stephan Antonescu, the interior minister, is on the list. We cannot have him on the property — at least not now.”

“The sale of the land cannot be traced to us through his office. Remember it was over the very loud and media-covered protests of our good interior minister that the land grant was enacted. He maneuvered the right element into the equation, one that no one in all of Romania could argue with. As a matter of fact the people believe this to be to their benefit — I mean what more powerful ally could we have than the most formidable military organization the world had ever known backing us through sheer necessity?” Zallas smiled as he took in the shocked features of his partner. “I mean with the security of a new nation at stake, what’s a little resort when the government finally has control over the one pass in the Carpathians that not even the mighty German army could capture.”

Janos Vajic heard noise coming through the glass panes of the dome and stepped over to the front of the great construction to look out toward the south where the new highway had been built to accommodate the resort. Lined against the afternoon sun was a long column of vehicles. Janos leaned closer to the glass as the long procession of trucks drove past the entrance to the resort and then continued west where they disappeared around a bend in the highway. He tried to see the vehicles in more detail but they were just too far away. Zallas saw Vajic as he struggled with the distance and he smiled and reached into his suit jacket pocket and brought out a small set of binoculars; gold-plated of course.

“Here, use these and allow the sight to ease your concerns. Look first to the lead vehicle’s markings, and then to the rear, view the military designations on those vehicles and then I will accept your apology for your baseless concern about land rights.”

Janos accepted the glasses and held the dark eyes of Zallas before putting the glasses to his own eyes. As he focused on the lead vehicle, an older military version of the venerable American jeep but built in the old Soviet Union, was leading forty two-ton trucks. He focused on the markings along the side of the hood next to the stenciled black and gray eagle: Brigada 2 Vânǎtori de Munte “Sarmizegetusa”—2nd Mountain Troops Brigade. He turned and looked at Zallas.

“The new Romanian mountain division?”

“Yes. Now look who’s bringing up the rear, Janos, why, it’s our saviors,” he said with a smile, “and the people ultimately responsible, although they didn’t know it at the time, for getting our land grant for us and almost forcing the new Romanian government to open up land that has not seen the outside world for nearly three thousand years.”

The smile made Vajic far more nervous than the anger Zallas could show from time to time. He turned the small gold-inlaid binoculars toward the end of the long column and placed the glasses on the strange-looking vehicles bringing up the rear of the military column.

“Oh my God,” he said as the lettering on the front of the vehicle’s bumper became legible: 223-SFOD-D82nd USA.

“If you are having trouble with understanding what you are seeing I am not surprised. After all you’re Romanian so there is no reason you should. I received the information last week about our guests down there. They are the 223rd Special Forces Operational Detachment — Delta Company — the famous All American Division. Those are American airborne troops down there, Janos, and what we are looking at is the one factor that gave us all of this,” he said as he gestured around the giant glass dome. “I give you NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the most powerful military force the world has ever seen.”

“What are they doing here?” Vajic asked as he lowered the glasses.

“The reason this area is so important to them is the fact that the Patinas Pass is a vital passage leading to the north of the nation. It is what’s known in military parlance as a choke point — one that was pointed out to our friends at the Ministry of Defense. Thus, our new NATO partnership has paid the full dividend. The pass is about to become militarized and the Americans are here to show them how to defend it against invasion from the south.” He smiled as he slapped Vajic on the back. “They will stay in the lowlands today and tonight and then head to the pass tomorrow to evaluate the defensive planning for an invasion that will never come.” He laughed. “It is so very easy to frighten a people that have lived under the yoke of totalitarianism for so long that they never recognize the real threat.”

Dmitri Zallas may have been comfortable, but Vajic wondered what other deals were made that wouldn’t be so beneficial to their resort.

“After the pass has been mapped and war plans made, the entire area will be up for leasing and improvement. That is my plan. The whole of the mountain will soon be ours and we will expand the property to the pass itself.”

As Janos allowed the plan of Zallas to set in, a loud whining rumble came to their ears.

Shockingly to everyone at the resort three American-made Black Hawk helicopters swooped low over the resort and then banked hard right to follow the disappearing trail of NATO vehicles.

“You see, Janos, who needs friends when you have the biggest bully on the block leading the way for you?”

“I have another issue, Dmitri. We have a hard weather front coming up from the Danube. This could play havoc with the opening night of the castle.”

“A storm?” Zallas asked with more enthusiasm than could ever have been warranted with such bad news for his opening night of Dracula’s Castle. “Excellent! What better ambience than to have a storm that night of nights.” He slapped Janos on the back.

Vajic watched Zallas turn on his heel and leave and he realized for the first time how deeply insane the Russian gangster really was. He wadded up the note and tossed it in a trash receptacle.

“Will this nightmare ever end?”

Four miles up the mountain and one mile above the new and improved Dracula’s Castle, the dark eyes watched the activity below. The eyes turned angry as the helicopters arrived and started making sweeps around the resort and the foothills to his mountain.

Marko Korvesky turned away from the scene below and then placed a hand onto the nearest tree and leaned heavily against it. His eyes went to the castle just below and then to the resort at the bottom of the mountain.

“What are you up to, Zallas?” he said as he watched the men finishing up their work far below. The sight of the soldiers was one Marko had never expected. As thoughts of possible betrayal entered his mind for the first time, he froze as he felt the presence behind him. He slowly turned and tried not to react to what he saw.

“You should always let your presence be known, Stanus.”

The giant Golia watched Marko for the longest time as it sat on a large boulder above the trail leading to the pass. The black fur was gleaming in the sun as its yellow eyes, now dulled by the daylight hours, moved from Marko to the valley far below. The man was getting mixed vibrations from the Golia as it sat silently and watched.

“That means nothing to us; the soldiers are nothing but more guardians for the people and the Golia.”

Marko only hoped that the half lie was good enough to satisfy Stanus and prayed the great wolf could not smell the sudden fear that the man had falsely represented the risk to the mountain, the temple, the people, and the one-of-a-kind species known as the Golia.

When Marko turned around Stanus was gone.

The proverbial last piece of the puzzle fell into place for the Event Group early that morning thanks to Pete Golding, who after being read the riot act by Niles earlier had gone straight to work with Europa, and the Cray system came through as always. She had successfully broken into the man Alice pegged as the leading authority on not only the ancient Jeddah, but also the wolves that accompany the legend. Pete had the floor inside the main conference room and he was out to impress. The circular monitors came alive with a picture of a bearded man with thick horned-rimmed glasses.

“Ladies and Gentlemen this is Professor Avi Feuerstein, former chair of medieval studies at UCLA.”

All eyes studied the grumpy-looking man in the tweed jacket.

“The good professor here produced a series of papers and letters saying that the settlement of the Hebrew homeland in Canaan was not God-inspired but one of a pure military nature against the citizens of the region right around the time of the Exodus. The man refuses to discuss the subject with anyone because of the ridicule he received for his outlandish theories. The man is virtually destitute and living in a hovel where he does nothing but his research projects he finances with his meager savings and by tutoring children in ancient Hebrew history.” Pete paused and nodded toward Alice, who was seated in her usual place beside the director.

“In all of his papers written on the subject of the Lost Tribe of the Jeddah he had never once mentioned anything about what he suspected of the Golia, who were the onetime protectors of not only the Jeddah but of all of the tribes of Israel and the northern and western borders of Egypt during the time of the pharaohs.”

Niles Compton cleared his throat, impatient for Alice to get to her point. “Does this man have the evidence you were looking for about the Jeddah and your theory on how they assisted in the mass Exodus out of Egypt?” He looked from Alice to Pete.

“Some of the information recovered by Europa doesn’t stem from Professor Feuerstein’s information about Egypt, nor does it spring from Hebrew tribal lore. It seems the man discovered a partial section of wall in a private collection that had been unearthed in Asia Minor. This wall was covered in Hieroglyphic Hittite — a long-dead language of a vanished culture and a historical enemy of the Jeddah tribe. It tells of Hittites battling forces from the great deserts of the south and against a people not known to them and with many standards and flags.”

On the many screens arrayed around the room depictions of paintings and artwork of the ancient Hittite culture shone brightly across the interested faces of the group.

“This was an army that was described in varying texts of the time as magical. They conquered all before it and no matter the tactic of the Hittite tribes they could not wrest their lands from these invaders. Soon the strange people and their even stranger god moved on to the great mountains of the north never to be heard from again.” Pete paused for the moment to make sure they were all watching as the picture changed to that of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis in an a military type stance with a large spear. It was beautifully done in black lacquer. “The Hittites spoke of the magical animals that did battle for these strange people. Beasts described as black devils of the night — gods capable of walking as men.”

“Where is this historically valuable wall the professor found?” Niles Compton asked.

“The section of wall was destroyed in a museum fire while in storage in Prague in 1974 according to Feuerstein’s notes. The fire was investigated and arson was proven.”

“Pete, I have about $20 million in support equipment and fuel waiting up at Nellis and they are awaiting our Group, can you get to the point,” Niles said.

“Right, sorry. Europa ran into a firewall where the professor had his proof hidden.” The lights changed as the pictures on the screen did. “Item number one,” Pete said as a freestanding statuette was shown on a soft bed of red satin. The way the piece was displayed reminded Alice Hamilton of the way the artifacts on the Golden Child those many years ago had been set up inside their displays.

“Ramesses II, am I correct?” asked Charlie Ellenshaw.

“Correct. This item was recovered while at auction in Paris in 1999 according to his notebook. But not before the unseen bidder placed a $500 million placement on the seven-inch statue.”

“It’s the pristine condition of the artifact,” Alice said as she studied the statue. “Not one item from that dynasty has ever turned up looking as if it had been carved and painted the day before. Whoever had this took extremely good care of it.”

“The possibility of a fake?” asked Niles Compton, who was looking at the statue closely.

“Zero,” Pete said as he pointed to the screen nearest him. “If you could lift the statue you would see the drill holes in the bottom of the carved pedestal. This was caused when the item was authenticated in 1977 by carbon 14 testing. The statue you’re looking at has been verified as 3,600 years old plus or minus five hundred years, which places this item squarely in the hands of Ramesses himself, or someone he knew anyway.”

That caused the group to nod their heads in unison as they realized Pete and Europa had done the impossible once again.

“Item number two.” On the screen a photo of a large stone block appeared and then the next view showed the giant stone in two separate halves. Alice Hamilton smiled for the first time in what seemed years to her. She was seeing an old lost friend. “Here is the picture found in his secured file.”

“Alice’s werewolf of Jericho,” Charlie Ellenshaw said aloud.

“Found inside the ruins at Tell es-Sultan, or, what’s left of the biblical city of Jericho, just as Alice said.”

“What is the professor’s take on its disappearance?” Niles asked, awaiting the confirmation Alice was seeking above all else.

“Feuerstein said it disappeared sometime after the war.”

Looks were exchanged around the table as Alice’s tale of what was seen aboard the Golden Child was now confirmed.

“While I am a firm believer of the romantic story of the Exodus as told in the Bible,” Alice said, “and while it may have been God who sent the plagues to curse Pharaoh, we can now start to see that it was the Israelite army and the Golia who secured the freedom of the Hebrew nation from what they thought of at that time was bondage, or at the very least undervalued servitude.”

“I believe you have one last item in your report, Pete?” Compton asked as he glanced at his wristwatch.

One more time the monitors changed and this series of pictures caught everyone’s attention. It was a view of another statue, of the impressively muscled Golia sitting upon a throne wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.

“I believe this is why Ramesses II allowed his indentured servants and northern army to leave Egypt. I believe the tribe of warriors known as the Jeddah, who served the house of Levite, were getting ready to overthrow the two kingdoms. This is not the only artifact depicting the animals on the throne of Egypt. There are many more, all collected over the years and hidden away. It’s as if someone were cleaning up after the fact.”

“What is the provenance of this piece?” Virginia Pollock asked as she studied the Golia rendered in heavily lacquered carved wood.

“This artifact was sold at auction seven months ago in Ukraine in a secret bidding. The statue is in superb condition, pristine craftsmanship, and undeniable scientific proof of its age.”

“Who bought it?” Jack asked, already guessing the answer.

A photo of a bearded man with dark eyes came on the screen. “This is the recipient of the $34 million sale.”

“Dmitri Zallas,” said Collins aloud.

“Jack?” Alice asked, not knowing the name. As she looked at Niles she could see that he also knew the man whose face stared at them from the many different screens.

“Former Russian Ten Most Wanted. He left Belarus ten years ago for more sunny and profitable climes. Current residence is unknown but he is a killer anywhere he goes. His hands are in any double dealing of antiquities the world over. He is more in the market for selling than buying. Europa, get me everything you have on Zallas and his whereabouts.”

“Yes, Colonel,” Europa answered.

“Can I make a point that Charlie and myself have been raking around for a while?”

Niles nodded his head.

“History is where our answers lie, just as it always is. The real key here is the Levite material Alice uncovered that says we have a starting point in Romania. For instance we now know the Roman Empire was terrified of that region. The Turks once chased Prince Vlad Tepes into the interior of his own nation and forced him to hide among the Carpathians to escape their wrath. Then suddenly and for no apparent reason the Turks began losing every battle against Vlad the Impaler now documented to have happened. He turned the tide of war after he found allies among his own people he never even knew existed, and ones that were brutishly ruthless — thus the horrific tales and vampiritic nature of Vlad Dracul’s reputation. A reputation I might add that may have been earned and based solely on the teeth, claws, and weaponry of not only the Golia, but one of the Lost Tribes of Israel — the Jeddah.”

Niles nodded that he agreed with Pete’s conclusions much to Jack’s and Alice’s relief.

“Lieutenant McIntire, have you filed your geological report with Alice’s team on the makeup of the Patinas Pass range in Romania?”

“The outstanding feature is the thermal makeup of the pass. The plates under the Carpathians are quite active in European terms as far as tectonic activity is concerned. The waters are boiled many miles below the mountain range and breach the surface in several areas creating natural hot springs in several small valleys below the mountain. The hot springs are actual weather variants that can change the temperature and makeup of their winters; the only section of the Carpathians that can lay that claim.” She smiled. “It may be one of the reasons that region is so full of old legends; fog appears from nowhere, sudden rain falls out of a clear night sky. The old tales of vampires and werewolves sprang from this very area.”

Sarah completed her report and then sat just as a Navy signalman walked in and handed Colonel Collins a message. Jack scanned it and then passed it over to Niles Compton. After reading the communiqué he cleared his throat. He looked down at Alice as she spoke in low tones with Virginia.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the situation is changing rather rapidly as unforeseen influences in Romania are starting to make this look far more serious than just a few stolen artifacts. This may involve Romanian government corruption at a high level, thus it is now a major concern for our nation’s military — Colonel Collins, would you please explain what I mean?” Niles asked and then went to his desk and picked up his phone.

“The person going about selling artifacts from the Exodus is known as Dmitri Zallas as we learned earlier. But one thing that just came to light is what he was investing in. Europa, NATO satellite image 1245 central Romania, please.”

On the monitors an image from space.

“Enhance grid coordinates 3489 and 3412. This is a high-altitude shot from one of our military Blackbird satellites taken five years and two months ago. As you see it’s just a beautiful mountain and valleys — nothing there but several small villages. Okay, Europa, yesterday’s satellite pass-by of the same coordinates.”

On the screen a massive resort complex came into view and Jack read from the report hastily compiled by Europa. “I give you the Edge of the World Hotel Resort and Casino, owned by none other than Dmitri Zallas. It sits four miles from Patinas Pass high above it — a pass that our new NATO ally Romania is now in the process of evaluating for possible invasion scenarios coming from the south. It’s a routine examination that all NATO selectees go through — the evaluation of their country’s defensive positions for possible future use.”

“What does this have to do with Alice’s investigation?” Virginia asked.

“Europa, enhance grid 29-b.”

On the numerous monitors, including the seventy-eight-inch screen in the center of the conference room, appeared an aerial shot of the Patinas Pass.

“Thus far we have counted no fewer than thirteen small villages near the pass, with the largest being this village dead center of Patinas.” Jack used a laser pointer and hit the exact location on the gridded photo. “This is the village of Patinas. We can’t get an exact census report until Europa gets it for us.” Jack looked at Pete Golding, who only nodded his head that he understood the unspoken directive.

At his desk Niles was speaking quickly and deliberately into his phone.

“This is a point of concern here. With the NATO question at hand the CIA did some digging for the U.S. Army that Europa kidnapped before the report went to the Pentagon and stored until it was collated with the name Zallas by my information request. The land that surrounded the Patinas Pass south of the mountains and north of the same range was all protected land. This we know, but what we didn’t know was the little known fact that the land is now owned by our friend Dmitri Zallas — the very same gentleman who seems to have struck it rich in the antiquities market. His resort opens for a private party day after tomorrow. That is one of the ways into the valley we can use. The other is NATO. We can get more people in theater by also using them as a front. Dr. Compton has already cleared it with the president, so half of our team will enter the valley with invitations to the private party and the other will travel to the Patinas Pass with the NATO element of the 82nd Airborne and Romanian army engineers. Captain Everett and Lieutenants Ryan and Mendenhall will accompany Alice to the pass.”

The hands of Pete Golding and Professor Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III shot into the air as both were about to protest their absence on the list of field representatives.

“Lower your hands, this isn’t third grade,” Niles said angrily, knowing that Jack had already requested the two professors be on the team because of Charlie’s knowledge of ancient legends and Pete’s computer genius — Collins figured they would need them both. “You’ll both be on Colonel Collins’s team. And you will follow orders.”

Both men smiled and nodded that they understood.

Collins sat down knowing Sarah’s eyes were on him. He kept his own eyes on the director as he continued.

“This Event was called because the mounting evidence Alice has presented was compelling. However, that is not the full measure of what’s happening here. We now have one-of-a-kind antiquities being sold off to private, unscrupulous characters. We’re going to find out where these artifacts are coming from. Number two, we have now confirmation from a State Department memo that the land granted to this Russian criminal was possibly attained through bribery and corruption, which could affect NATO’s ability to include Romania in the alliance. Most importantly this is an Event that has gone viral quickly. We have a chance to rewrite several very confusing pages regarding the history of the Exodus — pages that have vast implications as to the history and heritage of most everyone in the Palestine region. In other words, this is a very sensitive issue that needs to be handled by us, and us alone.” Niles looked at the clock on the wall. “Jack, how are you coming with the invitations to this gangster’s shindig he’s throwing with Jeddah money?”

“I have a fax coming through in a few minutes that will enable Europa to make exact copies of the invitation and to give her the opportunity to backdoor the computer system of the resort management company to enter the names we choose as invitees.”

“With permission.” Carl Everett spoke up for the first time during the meeting. “May I inquire as to the source of this invitation that is being provided to you?”

“The source is secure at this time.”

Carl looked away and over at Sarah McIntire, who knew exactly what it was Carl was thinking. There was only one man dark enough to have received a legitimate invitation from a man of such dubious distinction as Zallas and his international antiquities ring — Colonel Henri Farbeaux. Both Everett and McIntire knew this for a fact as soon as Jack couldn’t meet their eyes that his miscreant contact was indeed the Frenchman.

“The equipment to be used has already been loaded onto our 747-C at Nellis. From there we will fly to Bucharest. Once we land we will break into the first group consisting of our discovery team. They will penetrate the social function to ascertain the connection that exists between the resort ownership and the artifacts that have magically appeared over the last eight years. Lieutenant McIntire, Lieutenant Commander Ryan, and you, Pete, will accompany Colonel Collins and his team to the resort. Pete, you will need a secure cell link with Europa as you may need her if something turns up. I want one for my team also. The aerial photographs show the cell towers being erected but thus far are nonfunctional. We may have communication problems with the outside world, so see what can be done.”

“My duties?” Sarah inquired.

“You and the colonel will assess the situation and report back to me at NATO command at the base of the mountain. Lieutenant, you will evaluate the strata surrounding the resort for anomalies that may explain why the developer,” he made a face at the euphemism for the Russian gangster, “was so intent on building there. It may just be the hot springs, but look into it.”

Sarah wrote down her notes, deciding to hit the computer center before they left for Nellis so she could study the geological makeup of the Carpathians one more time.

“My base element will be going in as a civilian survey team there to get a good look at the pass. That means we will be going up with members of the 82nd Airborne to the villages below, and then the main village higher into the pass. This small village of Patinas seems to be the hub of all social activity in the area.”

“Why is that, Niles?” asked Pete Golding.

“The hot springs flow from the mountain near Patinas and the springs feed the entire valley system below. Besides, the larger cattle and sheep herds are near the village.”

“What personnel will be making up your team?” asked Alice as she slowly looked up from her notes and fixed Compton with her determined eyes.

“My team will be consisting of Captain Everett, Lieutenant Mendenhall, and Professor Ellenshaw, who will be using the link with Europa in the field if we can get communications up and running. So get with Pete on its operation, Charlie, in case we can figure out the COM problems. Also, Dr. Gilliam will act as both teams’ only physician. You will notice I am cutting the security element and the support teams from the list. The rest of the departments will stand down. This man may be far too dangerous to have a large Event team in the field, since we may have to get the hell out of there in a hurry. Virginia, you will see to it that all departments stick to their class schedules and their historical research.” Niles waited for Virginia to let it soak in that she wasn’t going into the field. She accepted the decision and then nodded her head.

Alice waited in silence and then looked up at Niles.

“Alice, you will accompany my team to the Patinas Pass.”

She breathed a sigh of relief at her being added to the Event. She thanked Niles with a slight nod of her head.

Charlie Ellenshaw got up from the table with a curious look on his face. He walked up to the monitor, which still held the aerial view of Patinas Pass. He looked hard into the image and then turned to face Niles.

“Niles, do you have any information on what this out-of-place structure is?” he said tapping the big screen monitor. Compton picked up the report Europa received after backdooring the real estate managing firm operating the resort.

Niles read the name and smiled.

“Well, since we’re going to the country whose name used to be Transylvania, I think it apropos that we also visit the nightclub known as Dracula’s Castle.”

Ellenshaw looked up and over at the others while muttering to himself.

“Oh, this is getting better and better.”

8

The view was spectacular in the late afternoon light. As Dmitri Zallas watched the preparations far below at the resort, workers behind him were putting the final touches on Dracula’s Castle, the nightclub to top all nightclubs. Zallas turned from the false parapet that was actually a ten-foot-by-eight-foot plate glass window and saw the stand-up cardboard cutout of the famous American crooner and onetime child recording star Drake Andrews, fresh from a ten-year run at the Las Vegas Hilton. He would be the first star to open at the resort and was booked for the next fourteen months. Zallas smiled at the lobby cutout of the famous star and lightly tapped the lifelike appearance.

“You have as much soul as that piece of cardboard, Zallas.”

The Russian looked up and his smile vanished as if it had never been there. He released his hold on the smiling Drake Andrews and looked around quickly to make sure his bodyguards were paying attention — they were. There were four large men in black jackets that stood at various locations throughout the interior of the falsified medieval castle. He also had over a hundred workers blowing fake cobwebs and setting up the last of the mood lighting that would illuminate the outside of the castle. The crazy Gypsy wouldn’t dare start trouble here.

Marko Korvesky stood defiant in the middle of the dance floor, forcing the workers to walk around him. The head scarf he wore was satin black and matched the all-black-leather clothes he wore with the exception of the bright purple shirt under his vest.

“You should not be here,” Zallas said as he stepped up to the edge of the dance floor waiting for the Gypsy to come to him. He didn’t.

“This mockery of our heritage should not be here, Slav.”

“I told you not to call me that,” Zallas hissed and then stepped onto the broad wooden dance floor in one wide and menacing step.

Marko smiled as he saw Zallas stop a few feet from him, well out of reach.

“You’re not a Slav?”

“I don’t like the word, that’s all I have to say on the subject.”

“I understand. Let us try another.” Marko placed his hands on his hips. “How about this for a name, Russian, just pick one — liar, cheat, gangster? I can go on.”

This time Zallas looked at his men and they stepped forward in a grouped warning toward the Gypsy.

“I had to build this. Just look at it, this is a moneymaker.” He gestured around him at the manufactured blocks of stone and plastic and Fiberglas that made up the castle. “It’s just one little change to our agreement.” He became serious as he looked back at the Gypsy and his enthusiasm was instantly absent from his features and voice. “A change that did not dictate your murdering my workers over.”

This time it was Marko who smiled. “Certain factions around these mountains didn’t take your intrusion above the castle all that well. It took some convincing to make them see things differently, which will cost you far more than you realize at the moment.” He paused while his eyes moved toward his bodyguards and then back at the Russian. “Now we hear and see soldiers in our valley. We hear the sounds of helicopters as they fly low over the pass. We see more soldiers coming from south of the Danube and beyond. Yes, Zallas, there will be more owed to us than our original agreement called for. The initial investment money we gave you with our artifacts has a very steep percentage rate. You see I am more of a businessman than you thought,” his smile returned, “or hoped for.”

“You’re worth millions upon millions right now, what more do you want?”

“Nothing. The money I received will ensure that my people are not without as they have been for so many years. No more sheep, no more cows and chickens. We deserve better and now we are going to live the way we were always meant to live.” Marko took a menacing step toward the Russian mobster, making the bodyguards move toward him. But a hand held high by Zallas stopped them. “If you go north of this toy castle I will not be able to control … control some of my friends.”

Dmitri Zallas saw Marko turn and start to walk away and then stop and face the Russian once more.

“You also need to have these fools of yours,” he gestured to the armed men in black coats, “looking for a woman with black hair in the company of a small boy. She will be coming your way on her trek to the pass. It would be to your benefit to have this woman held and then brought to me. She is not to be harmed in any way.”

“Ahhhh, now I see, the little sister returns to the fold. I can see why you’re so hard to deal with lately, my friend. Not to worry, she cannot get through my men. They are the best there is. The resort is the most guarded property this side of the Kremlin, I assure you.”

Marko laughed and then turned away but the laughter remained.

Zallas watched the Gypsy leave and then he snorted and pulled up his pants. He looked at his guards until they all turned away. He walked back to the window looking down upon the cable car lines and the resort far below. He swallowed and then closed his eyes blocking out the visage of Marko Korvesky, the bearded man who was the only person in the world that frightened Dmitri Zallas.

He soon gestured toward the larger of the bodyguards. The man was a Spetsnaz commando from the former Soviet Union and was linked to Zallas by pure meanness.

“Yes, Mr. Zallas?”

“Are we ready for Saturday night?”

“That Gypsy will lead us to it and there will not be anything this side of hell that can stop us from getting the information you seek from him.”

Zallas nodded just once as he turned to the opposite window and watched Marko walking the trail that led to the mountain above. He was there with his ever-present guard of four of the burliest-looking Gypsies Zallas had ever seen. They walked slowly and then disappeared into the trees. He turned and faced his man once more.

“If what I think is true, our limited partner has a secret that may make this resort’s worth pale in comparison. Yes, our Gypsy friend will let us in on that secret very soon and then I suspect we will discover where all of this ancient finery is coming from.” He smiled. “Have your former friends from your formative days been alerted that we move on Patinas on Saturday night at the latest?”

“They have arrived on the property and are awaiting your orders.”

“And they will have no problem doing the tasks I have set for them?”

“They will wipe out every man, woman, and child in that village if the need arises.”

Zallas turned away and watched the spot where the Gypsy had vanished into the tree line.

“For what he has hidden up there, believe me, the need will more than likely arise.”

As he watched the tree line he saw the shadows of the afternoon play against the gentle sway of the thin pines that made up the woods in the area. He could swear the shadows shifted shape against the force of the wind. He shook his head and sent the thought of things that go bump in the night out of his head.

As Zallas turned away from the window he failed to see the giant wolf as it slowly slid onto the crag on the side of the mountain beside the castle only ten feet away from the window where he had just been standing.

It was three hours later that Marko saw Stanus sitting beneath his grandmother’s window. The beast did not see the man’s approach, which was strange as nothing escaped the notice of the alpha.

Marko stopped twenty feet from the small cottage and the spot where the giant Golia lay on its stomach with its muzzle pointing up near the open window of his grandmother’s bedroom. He looked around and saw that most of the men of the village had not yet returned from the high pastures of the pass and the womenfolk were busy with chores and preparations for the evening meal.

Marko watched Stanus as the muzzle lifted once more and the Golia sniffed the air. Then the head of the alpha turned to the human. Stanus stood up so fast that Marko flinched, which was never a good idea when startling a Golia. The beast growled. It was not loud and not even menacing. It was the alpha letting Marko be aware of the power that stood not twenty feet from him.

“Is Mikla home?” Marko asked. The dimmed yellow eyes took in Marko and that, in and of itself, was unsettling. “Stanus, is Mikla back home at the temple?”

The Golia stared at Marko and then its ears lay back and the giant beast yawned. Stanus shook its head as if it was just waking up from a long sleep, and then without another gesture of any kind the Golia stood on its hind legs. Marko heard the distinctive resetting of the hip and pelvic bones as they slid into their secondary sockets and joints. Marko was like anyone who ever witnessed the change. He never ceased to wonder over the Golia’s ability to physically alter its shape. He watched in amazement as the right paw lifted and the fingers came free of the folded fistlike appendage. The clawed digits and thumb grasped the windowsill of his grandmother’s room and then using the sill as leverage pushed itself up and over the back wall and then disappeared into the rocks lining the village.

Marko was confused as to the way Stanus was acting ever since Mikla vanished. Then Stanus went out of control with the workers at the castle and killed three of them because of what the Golia perceived as an invasion of their land. It had taken Marko over fifteen hours of hard mental contact to get the great wolf to understand that the change was necessary and that killing these men could only bring more men to the pass.

Marko walked to the front of the small cottage and then stopped at the wooden front door. He reached out after taking a deep breath and lifted the iron latch and stepped into a darkened house.

“Grandmamma?” he called out as he looked at the cold stove. Not even her ever-present teapot was warm. He quickly went to the only other room in the cottage, her bedroom. He saw her lying on her small bed. She was holding the blankets up close to her chin and she was shaking. “Grandmamma, what have you done now?” he asked as he rushed to her side.

He saw her ankle placed on the bed outside the blanket. His eyes widened when he saw the purple and black swelling. The ankle was cocked off to one side and she moaned with pain in her sleep.

Marko shook his head. He knew she had somehow broken the ankle and now she might get gangrene from the injury if not set by one of the women in the village very soon. As he started to sit on the bed to rewrap her ankle he heard his grandmother call out in her sleep.

“Mikla, hold still, you must hold still!”

Marko’s eyes widened and he stood from the bed, stirring the old Gypsy queen to wakefulness. She looked around, wincing at the pain in her leg. Her eyes settled on Marko.

“Talking in my sleep was I?” the Gypsy queen asked as she lay her head back on the thin pillow that was made up of old clothes and a flour sack.

“You really did it, didn’t you?” he asked. “Where is Mikla? Is he with my sister?”

“You leave them be, Marko.”

“You cannot do this. You are too old to be making the spell. Look at what it has cost you, old woman. We will have to take that leg off if you do not get better. Sever your link with Mikla now because you will not survive the amputation of your leg with only half your brain working to fight the infection. Let Mikla go so you can heal.”

“Would that not be a benefit for the man-child? Would not my death bring you the power you seek among the people, maybe even the Golia?”

“You talk with a feverish mind,” Marko said as he calmed and then sat on the edge of the bed once again, lifting her swollen leg to his lap. “You know that no one person has ever controlled the Golia. They walk their own path,” he said as he shook his head and examined the damage she had done through her link with Mikla, the large male wolf that was missing from the den and the temple.

“Yes, they do walk their own path. My grandson should take that to heart.” She tried to sit up but couldn’t. She took several deep breaths and then lay back down. “They also do not take deceit the same way as a human may. They cannot understand what a lie is. What cost comes with betrayal? These things they cannot comprehend unless they have the Jeddah spell cast upon them and then they see.” She managed finally to raise her head enough to see Marko’s eyes. “They see a great many things, even that which is hidden deep within your mind. They see, they understand, and they react like an animal would — to protect itself and those it loves. Not that much different from ourselves, wouldn’t you say, grandson?”

“So you are helping sister find her way back home?” he said as he started wrapping the ankle.

“She will be here,” the old woman said as she finally lay back down and closed her eyes. “There are a great many tasks for her to do.”

Marko’s eyes grew dark as he finished off the wrapping. He gently lay down his grandmother’s ankle and then covered her with the blanket. He leaned over and kissed her forehead and then turned for the kitchen.

“I’ll make you some bitterroot tea and then we shall await sister’s arrival.” He turned and looked at the woman lying in the bed in severe pain and then he tossed a match into the woodstove. “I even think Stanus and a few of the other Golia will be interested as well.”

“And why is that, man-child?” she said as she started to drift off.

“Because Stanus just discovered you are responsible for Mikla being gone, and possibly even dead. You know Stanus may not like Mikla, but the animal is one of his Golia, and he takes their loss very personally.”

As Marko delivered the threat, or warning, he turned to fill the teapot with water from the pump when he thought he heard his grandmother say one last thing. Then he shook his head knowing he must have heard wrong.

He gave the handle a few angry pumps and then stopped and looked back into the bedroom. He tried to think of what she had just said but knew he didn’t hear it right.

“None of this will matter in two days?” he said to himself when he realized what the old woman had said in her sleep.

He turned back to the pump and filled the teapot with cold well water.

“What in the hell won’t matter in two days?”

The dark-haired woman lay with her head on Mikla’s heaving chest. She heard the whining coming from deep inside the Golia’s chest. For the first time in several hours the giant wolf lay still and was not attending to his broken hind ankle. The right rear paw and ankle was swollen to three times its normal size and walking on it the past night and day had only worsened a now critical condition.

Anya Korvesky used her Mossad field training to keep the injury as tight as possible and then releasing the pressure every ten minutes so the ankle could get its necessary blood flow. As it stood she was thinking that Mikla, a Golia she had known all her life, was critically injured and it was only the animal’s raw strength that kept it going. If a Golia lost the use of one of its limbs it became a danger to all of its kind — for a Golia that could not climb the steep rocks of the Carpathian Mountains a broken ankle was like a blind man in a gun battle, all of the power was taken from it. The Golia had survived by not allowing humans to see it in its natural element. Discovery would be the death knell of a race of beings that had been living next to civilization since the small mammals known as men crawled from the rocks somewhere in Africa.

Anya eased the boy’s head from her lap where he lay sleeping. They had traveled all night and were now just sixty miles from home.

During the daylight hours Anya was picking up vibes from Mikla. Random thoughts of the animal invaded her mind with a clouded picture of what was happening at Patinas Pass. She knew the animals were at once becoming divided, and then again together in a common goal, and Anya could not figure out the confusing picture she was getting. But the one thought she picked up from Mikla was the fact that Stanus, a beast Anya herself had never been close to, was the center of the troubles at home. Her brother, Marko, came and went in these thoughts, but she could not tell what his role was.

Mikla whined while deep in sleep and Anya placed her small hand on the animal and felt its intake of breath. She was tempted to slide her hand up and make the spell connection that came so easily to her kind. The one thing that linked the Jeddah with the Golia was the ability to become as one body and mind on a base level with one of God’s greatest creations. Her hand hovered over the white-tipped ears of Mikla. She closed her hand into a fist as she decided that she couldn’t afford to link wth the giant animal while it was hurt because it would incapacitate her to the same degree for as long as the link lasted. As she looked out from the stand of trees by the river she knew that losing control now could get her caught and the Golia killed, something she could never allow.

The hypnotic flow of the Danube seemed to calm the beast as it slept. This was the first time since the train that Mikla had rested without waking from the pain of its broken ankle. She decided it was time to wake and start the final run for home. She stood and looked down at the boy and the wolf. She nodded and then moved off to the river.

As she bent over to splash water in her face she thought about the general and the Mossad he ran. She couldn’t help but have the feeling that it wasn’t she who had betrayed the Israeli cause because she had been involved in something that was larger than the task and the road her grandmother had set her upon nine years earlier. She had not only lied to the Mossad, they had lied to her and knew far more than they should have about things involving the Golia and the cursed treasure wagons taken from the land of Egypt more than three thousand years before. She had many questions for her grandmother that would come after she warned her of Ben-Nevin — the colonel was closing in on her and she feared she was leading him right to the Patinas Pass.

She felt the presence behind her as her thoughts had betrayed her and allowed someone to come upon her without notice. She slowly turned and faced the intruder.

“Identification, please,” said a man dressed in the gray and black uniform of the Poliţia, the local law enforcement. The policeman was accompanied by another who sat in the passenger seat of a small, white-painted patrol car parked by the river. Anya had walked right past them without realizing it. She tried to smile but she knew her appearance was a major concern to the policeman.

“I’ve lost all of my identification,” she said trying to disarm the young man with her warm smile.

“Lost, huh?” The officer pulled out his notebook and rummaged through the pages as he searched for something. He stopped and read what it was he had written and then looked at the woman. He looked back to his notepad and then closed the book and fixed Anya with a stern look as his partner joined them at the river’s edge. The sun slowly went below the horizon to the west. “You fit the discription of a woman who caused several thousand leus in damage to a train car.”

Anya wanted to curse her luck.

“It happened on the Sarajevo limited from Bosnia. Have you recently been to Bosnia-Herzegovina, young lady?”

“No, I travel north. My home is there,” she said hoping that their conversation didn’t awaken Mikla and her nephew.

“And where is that?” The policeman continued the questioning as his partner moved to the side and then slowly started to get behind Anya.

She knew she was between the proverbial rock and hard place and also knew it would be far better, at least for these two innocent policemen, for her to be taken into custody. The alternative for the two law enforcement officials was not to be contemplated.

“We will have to take you in until we can be sure you are not the woman we seek.” The first man held his ground while the second uniformed officer went behind her. Anya was going to allow them to cuff her and take her in because she was out to save the lives of these two innocents who didn’t deserve to die for doing their jobs. She swallowed and waited.

Suddenly and without warning Mikla was there. The beast had jumped clear of the stand of trees they were hiding in and landed between Anya and the man in front of her. The action had been so fast and so unexpected that the second officer fell backward toward the flowing Danube. Mikla, his right rear foot and leg holding steady off the ground, bared its six-and-a-half-inch fangs at the men and then dipped its front half as it lowered its large frame closer to the ground. Anya knew Mikla was about to spring.

“No, Mikla!” she called out but it was too late as the beast jumped over the first policeman and then Anya herself and landed in front of the second stunned officer, who was still on his back trying to scramble away from the monstrous scene before him. As Mikla landed on the riverbank Anya heard the giant beast yelp as its injured leg came down hard after the leap. As she watched, Mikla quickly recovered and started limping toward the frightened man. The young policemen tried desperately as did the first to reach his holstered sidearm. Anya could only deal with one man at a time. Again she told Mikla to stop and then she spun and deftly removed the handgun that had just cleared the holster of the policeman that had questioned her. The man’s eyes widened at the speed at which he had been disarmed. Anya then reached out and hit the policeman with the edge of her right hand, sending the young man to his knees grasping his throat. Fighting for a breath would incapacitate him for the time she needed to bring Mikla back under control.

She moved quickly as the great Golia forgot all about its own injury and started to slowly walk toward the man on his back. Anya saw the policeman finally clear his weapon from its flapped holster and bring it up.

“No!” she shouted and was raising the pistol before she realized she had been about to shoot an innocent over her stupidity at getting caught before she reached home.

Mikla reacted so fast that the man saw his empty hand before he realized the gun was being held by the animal’s long and articulate fingers. The beast had narrowed its yellow eyes and was just holding the pistol in front of the man, who could not fathom what it was he was seeing — a giant wolf with the hands of a man? No, the policeman thought he may as well check out of this nightmare right now. He closed his eyes.

“Mikla, come now, we must leave,” Anya called out.

The great Golia, its hind leg and paw still a foot off the ground, turned to face Anya. The yellow eyes narrowed at her. She could see Mikla was having none of it. The wolf again lowered its white-tipped ears and then tossed the weapon into the river. As the beast was preoccupied with trying to decide if it should obey the order it had been given by Anya, the second policeman gained his feet at the same moment the first recovered from the blow to his throat. Both men stumbled, fell, and stumbled again to get back to their small Audi police car. Mikla turned and growled. The Golia jumped once more toward the police car as the two men managed to scramble inside with shouts of fear, joy, and terror all mixed together.

“Let them go, Mikla!” Anya shouted but knew the beast had its hackles up and there would be no calming it. She knew how wonderfully wild the Golia were and how uncontrollable the entire family could be when confronted with danger. The two men would suffer for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Her nephew came out of the stand of trees with tears streaming down his face as the boy realized just what it was he was about to witness — the dismembering of two human beings. Anya tossed the pistol she had taken from the first officer toward the riverbank and watched as Mikla covered the thirty feet to the patrol car in one long leap. The animal landed on the hood of the small white Audi, crushing the metal into the engine compartment and sealing the two policemen’s fate. As the front tires of the car exploded under the tremendous force of the animal’s landing on the car, Anya could hear the terrified screams of the men inside.

“Mikla, leave them alone,” she shouted, but the Golia was now frenzied through its pain and confusion at having awakened to find Anya gone and then finding out that two humans had successfully penetrated the animal’s perimeter without it being aware of it. That told the Golia it was dying, something the Golia clan had learned as man had, that they, above all animals of the world, knew they would someday die.

Anya tried with all of her ability to link with Mikla but the distance was too great without the use of touch. It was enough to get the animal to spin on the hood of the crushed patrol car in confusion as its thoughts were invaded. It suddenly stopped and then faced Anya and growled knowing it was she that was intruding on its thoughts. Anya swallowed and tried her best to get the beast to respond.

Mikla stopped its agitation momentarily as Anya’s thoughts entered its angered mind. The beast shook its head and then turned on Anya once more and this time the roar was something she had never heard in all her time with the Golia. Mikla was close to jumping from the car and killing her. He thought this was a betrayal. She made his mind see the men as they were. She forced the Golia to see that the men were not evil, but just men that meant them no real harm.

Mikla stopped moving in a circle and then jumped free of the hood as the men inside screamed again at the sudden departure of the wolflike creature. Mikla then used the crushed hood of the Audi and its humanlike hands to gain leverage and stood on both hind legs still favoring the broken ankle. Mikla towered over the crushed Audi.

“Mikla, let’s go home,” she said as calmly as she could and allowed her thoughts to change to the temple buried deep within the mountain. She projected thoughts of Patinas and the pass above it. Mikla seemed to calm with visions of home running through its thoughts.

When it looked as if Mikla had spent the anger and animal savagery it was feeling, the men inside the car made a horrible mistake. The first officer removed a shotgun from its bracket in the center console and when he charged a single round of double-ought buckshot into the chamber Mikla suddenly turned its attention back to the car. This time Anya couldn’t control the Golia as it reached out with both hands and took hold of the Audi’s bumper, lifting the front end of the car four feet off the ground and sending another wave of screams from the throats of the two policemen. Limping horribly on its broken ankle, Mikla roared again and this time used its massive weight advantage and spun the car up and over onto its top. The Golia roared as it limped back toward the upside-down Audi. Then with one last act of defiance the beast went to all fours and started ramming the smashed vehicle with the shocked and stunned policemen inside. The battering was horrendous as Mikla slammed into the patrol car again and again. Finally at the edge of the Danube the car slid into the river.

Anya saw the great Golia fall to the ground with an earth-moving crash and then lay still. Its energy was spent and it was in a total state of exhaustion. In the river the two policemen were still screaming as the white Audi started its run down the river.

Anya ran to Mikla and knelt beside the animal but before she could place a hand on its neck to soothe it, the right hand of the beast came up and took hold of her wrist, stopping her from making contact. The animal slowly let go and Anya withdrew her hand.

“Thank you. We cannot kill innocents; otherwise what good are we, Mikla? You’re not Stanus, nor am I my brother. We are not like them.”

“What is wrong with Mikla?” her nephew asked.

Anya stood up and watched as the sun vanished behind the mountains of Sarajevo to the west. She reached out and took her nephew and brought him to her and hugged the boy as she watched Mikla. Then she looked up and watched the police car vanish around the bend in the Danube with the shocked men still inside.

“He wants to go home,” she said hugging the boy closer. “He just wants to go home and not die out here in the flatlands.”

Mikla raised his head as Anya’s thought struck its mind. It whimpered and then lay still for a moment and then just as suddenly it stood, still favoring its leg, which had swollen two times larger than it had been before the confrontation. The beast looked toward the distant mountains and then shook its massive head as it tried to clear it of the residue of thought emanating from Anya. The Golia eased into the Danube and started swimming across.

Anya and Mikla were only twelve hours away from seeing a home she had not laid eyes on in nine years.

The 747-C conversion was broken into four distinct parts. The forward section housed communications, meeting rooms, and a research area. The center section was more of the same with small well-equipped laboratories complete with the latest carbon-dating equipment delivered special to the Group from the Sperry-Rand Corporation, and also a complete world library and hostile computer penetration expert thanks to the presence of Europa in the computer center at the top of the spiral staircase. The third area was for dining and the kitchen module. Complete showers and restrooms were next, followed by the sleeping area that could accommodate well over a hundred people in stacked and curtained private bunks. The bottom cargo area held everything from weapons hidden in the main and stern bulkheads and a complete document forgery section also run by the criminal mastermind Europa.

The soothing drone of the four General Electric engines had hypnotized most of the teams and they slept soundly in their bunks. The Air Force pilots attached to the Group had two full crews to man the giant jumbo jet on its long haul across the Atlantic and then over the boot of Italy to the eastern mountains called Carpathian.

Jack was sitting upstairs on the second deck reading a classified report that Niles had managed to get ahold of for him. They were national security briefing minutes from the White House. Collins sat and wondered as he read the report if the minutes to the national security meetings about the inclusion of Romania into NATO were offered voluntarily by the president or were they absconded by Niles, Pete, and Ma Barker — Europa? Jack was beginning to think the supercomputer was starting to like the criminal life, she was that good at it.

Jack heard someone coming up the spiral staircase to the second deck and he looked up from the small table that lined the communications center. It was Jack’s watch in operations and he thought everyone with the exception of the Air Force flight crew was asleep. He lowered the report on the NATO concerns about the inclusion of Romania when he saw it was Alice slowly making her way to him.

“Well, company at last,” Jack said as he tossed the highly classified report on the small desk in front of him. “Can’t sleep?”

Alice looked around and decided to sit at the computer station. She turned the chair and then smiled at Jack. She said nothing as she studied him.

“You remind me so much of that old bastard, Garrison,” she finally said as she looked away for the briefest of moments and then back at Collins. “You have the very same traits.”

“Well, I think I’m quite a bit behind the senator in most departments,” Jack said, embarrassed that she would compare him to Lee. “I think—”

“He was an ass at times also,” Alice said with her smile still in place. “As a matter of fact, Jack, he was a real dick when he wanted to be.” Alice batted her eyes at the colonel. “Just like you.”

Collins was taken aback by the sweet and innocent Shirley Temple approach used by Alice to get his attention with false flattery. He smiled and wanted to laugh at the innocent way she looked at that very moment.

“Now wait, Alice, I have explained my reasoning to everyone concerned when it comes to my sister’s murder. Everyone here knows what’s going to happen and I will not drag them into it. I have an expendable asset and source that will be used to find her killer and that’s it. None of my friends are going to get involved.” He paused and then leaned forward in his chair to make sure Alice saw him and heard his words. “And that goes double for Carl. I have reasons beyond which you cannot imagine. No, I’ll do it my way.”

Alice reached over and patted Jack’s knee and then leaned back in her chair with a sigh and closed her eyes.

“Jack, the one mistake Garrison Lee ever made was never explaining his feelings to anyone, including yours truly, almost until it was too late to do so.” She opened her eyes and looked at the man sitting across from her. “It’s not that you have not included your friends in your quest, Jack. It’s that you haven’t explained adequately enough on why.” She smiled and held his blue eyes with her own. “You must allow Carl into your world because you made it his world when you arrived. You know after he lost Lisa in Arizona during the Matchstick Event, he would have resigned if you hadn’t been in command at the time. You kept him going because no matter what, you kept going, even after all of the blood and heartache of your previous commands. The example was set and now you refuse to include the man who most admires you. That means that Lynn was his sister as much as yours. He admires you and looks to you as a big brother, and that, Jack, is all that man has.”

Alice had hit him with her revelations about Carl and the blow landed somewhat below the belt. Jack never realized how badly hurt Everett had been at the loss of his fiancée, because even the stoic Jack Collins was engrossed in his sorrowful feelings for himself for being shunned by the Army after Afghanistan. Jack looked at Alice and then leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

“How in the hell did the senator put up with you all those years?” he asked as he stayed close to her.

“Because he was always afraid I would murder him in his sleep.” She batted her eyes once more and then stood up and patted Jack on the shoulder and turned to leave with a yawn. “And don’t forget about Sarah, Jack — quit being an idiot about that goddamn Frenchman.” She turned and faced Jack just before she arrived at the spiral staircase. “She could never feel the same about any man as she does you. Even if you do what you have to do, she deserves every minute you’ve got left.” She turned away and started down the steps. “Or I just may have to give Lieutenant McIntire ideas about murdering some dumb bastard in his sleep — I mean it worked for me.”

Collins watched Alice start slowly back down the staircase to her bunk. Jack smiled at the wit of the woman and how she could weave logic into any scenario.

Jack’s thoughts turned inward as he examined the shaky-looking weather report coming from the Adriatic. It seemed the Carpathian region could be in for some serious rainfall. As he examined the swirl of black clouds closing on the resort and its mysterious inhabitants of Patinas, the 747 made a slow turn to the east as it started its run toward the Adriatic Sea and the night-shrouded mountains of Romania to the east.

The air base sat on the coast just south of the capital and away from the prying eyes of the press and the public. The command center housed the Special Operations dispatch and security for the base and at the moment was the new home of Mossad Lieutenant General Addis Shamni. He had been at the base since early morning and now watched as the sun set on the day.

“No word yet, General?” a voice asked from behind the burly ex-army soldier.

“None.” The general turned and faced the muscled man in the green T-shirt and desert camouflage pants. “There’s been no communication from either agent. Colonel Ben-Nevin, well, he wouldn’t contact us, would he? As for Major Sorotzkin.” The general shook his head. “Well, she may be just as lost to us as that traitorous bastard Ben-Nevin.”

The general paced to the coffee machine and poured another cup and then walked over to the window where he saw the Special Operations team rolling a giant Lockheed C-130 Hercules backward into a secure hangar area. Inside the darkened space waited the specialized equipment used by the strike team of twenty-three Sayeret commandos. The general knew for a fact that the men he was watching work silently inside the well-guarded hangar, ranked behind no organization in the world as far as skill in the art of death.

“I hope your men are patient, Captain.” Shamni turned from the window. “It could be a while until we get the go order. Circumstances and timing will dictate when your team will go in.”

“Yes, sir, we’ll find things to occupy our time,” the muscled captain said as he turned for the door. “We’re used to waiting.”

“The special explosives are secured?”

The bald-headed captain of the most elite fighting men in the world turned before opening the door. “Yes, it’s under the watchful eyes of your Mossad agents.”

“Do I detect some sort of disdain for my men and their capabilities, Captain?” the general asked with his coffee cup poised halfway to his mouth.

“Not at all, General Shamni, I mean it was your two people that have us sitting here at Palmachim awaiting the chance to invade a friendly country because they went bad on you. Disdain, General? Maybe that’s not the proper word here,” the captain said but left the rest of the sentence unvoiced as he left the office area.

“Yes, Captain, I can think of a few words myself that far exceed disdain.”

The general’s anger was directed at Ben-Nevin and not Major Sorotzkin. His thoughts about her were but flashes of worry in his mind. He could only hope the major made it home in one piece

Outside in the hangar a well-guarded fourteen-by-six-foot aluminum box was placed into the secured belly of the C-130 Hercules and lashed down tightly. That task completed, the men looked at the case with trepidation because for the first time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, a nuclear weapon had been placed aboard an Israeli warplane and it and the Israeli elite commandos, the Sayeret, were ready for their flight to the great north where a legendary tribe of their own people vanished 3,500 years before and had never been seen again.

Marko Korvesky sat in a large wooden chair near the dying fire as the embers burned down to near nothing. The woman next to him on the floor sat with her arm propped against his leg and watched the last of the flames they vanish. She wore nothing other than the gold earrings and necklace Marko had just given her this evening as a gift — which he was about to take back.

“The sun will be up in a few hours, you must not be seen leaving here.” Marko leaned over and kissed the top of the girl’s head and then smoothly removed the earrings and gold necklace with the unique inset that the young girl so loved. “And most assuredly not to be seen wearing these.” He tossed the relics into the air and then closed his large fist around them. “Go now.”

The girl whined and whimpered about having to leave her gifts here in Marko’s house, but she did as she was told and slowly dressed as Marko stood and poked at the embers of the dying fire. She waited for the dark-haired Gypsy to say something as she stood by the door with her hands on her hips. Her red dress and blue blouse clashed with everything inside the cluttered house. When she saw Marko just continuing to poke at the fire she puffed out her ample chest in hurt anger and then left.

Marko put down the poker and then opened his left hand to look at the earrings and the necklace. The earrings were nothing unique, except for the fact that they were over three thousand years old. The necklace was a favorite of his and he thought the young girl would be impressed. The Eye of Ra was the same design as his grandmother’s gold inlaid cane. The center pupil of the eye was a quarter-inch green stone that Marko had never seen before. But the artwork of the eye itself was something he couldn’t get enough of viewing.

He held the Egyptian jewelry in the palm of his hand and then turned away from the fireplace. His eyes widened when he saw the Golia staring at him through his open shutters.

“God be with you my old friend, where have—”

Stanus vanished from the open window in a blur of black-on-black motion.

Marko lowered his head. Had the giant beast seen the artifacts he had removed from the temple? Had he known of the other thefts of the people’s heritage? He shook his head but didn’t open his hand again. He jammed the necklace and earrings into his red shirt. He looked toward the window once more but saw no sign of Stanus. If the Golia thought it had been lied to about the strange people far below Marko didn’t know what Stanus would do. He thought he could eventually get the Golia to stay in the mountain and only come out when it was time to feed on their sheep and goats, but Marko also knew that he may have to do the unthinkable when it came to Stanus. The Golia was just too clever. And the same went for Mikla if the damn animal would ever show back up. Each of the two largest Golia disliked the other immensely. But the love they had for the rest of the beasts was unquestioned.

Stanus flew down the mountain at breakneck speed. The giant wolf was nothing but a black streak that could not be discerned as anything living as it made its way to the castle. If it had been seen as some of the Golia in the past had, the vision would have been spoken of as it were just another ghost that inhabited the Carpathians. Many rumors were started by the mere glimpse of a beast that was never really seen at all, and stories came and went of the unnatural things that roam the highlands of ancient and modern Walachia and Transylvania.

The Golia was on all fours as it neared the stone base of the castle. The back of the foundation was anchored to the rock wall of the mountain by three-foot-thick steel pylons. As Stanus came close to the edge of the castle where the side met the road which led to the villages below, the beast jumped and snagged one of the massive support braces that held the castle’s foundation pinned to the mountain. It used its large hand to grasp the steel and allow its momentum to swing it to the next support beam, and then again to the next highest. Finally the giant reached the very highest parapet of the man-made copy of Dracula’s Castle. Once braced it reached up and took hold of a facsimile of a steel weather vane that sat atop the parapet and watched the activity far below at the resort. The beast laid its ears back and growled low in its still heaving chest.

Suddenly the morning calm was broken by the thumping of a NATO Black Hawk helicopter as it flew low over the resort below.

Stanus watched the strange machine until it vanished beyond his sight to the right of the castle, which now blocked its view of the NATO encampment twenty miles away. The Golia shook its massive head in anger and then from side to side as the memory of the gold in Marko’s hand came into its large brain.

For the second time in as many minutes the dark morning peace was shattered by a sound that woke many of the men and women as they slept far below. Workers who were now spending their last night at the resort heard the sound they had been hearing off and on for the better part of the three years it had taken to build the Edge of the World.

The ear-shattering howl Stanus unleashed from his lungs was a cry of anguish at the possible betrayal of its onetime friend — Marko Korvesky, the Gypsy crown prince and the inheritor of the tribal standard of the Jeddah.

Stanus became more confused, which allowed the beast to revert to an age when the Golia had no masters, a creature that had become a legend over the years that would not die in the Carpathian Mountains and in most of Eastern Europe — the mythical beast called the werewolf.

As the 747–200 made a slow sweeping turn over the mountains of Bosnia the personnel on board were fully awake and doing their final prep work for the two Event teams. Niles and his people were poring over geological data supplied by Sarah McIntire, who explained to them just how amazing a geological mystery the Carpathians, and in particular the Patinas Pass, really was. There shouldn’t be volcanic activity in the area and hadn’t been in several thousand years, thus there was no real logical explanation for the hot springs and geysers that are known to exist there.

“Can this anomaly pose a danger to the people of the valleys above and below the pass?” Niles Compton asked, looking strange in his Group-issued khaki work clothes.

“If it poses a threat to them they are either oblivious to the danger or are not concerned. I suspect the latter because you cannot live near that pass or the village it’s named for and not know that the mountain you are sitting on is like a bad molar in a mouth full of dead or dormant teeth. There is a connection with the hot springs and the mountain and it cannot be a good one.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Has the Romanian government released any information about Patinas being seismically active?”

“With the land being privatized they now have a chance to get some geologists up there to see. They may not like what they find.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant, you can join your team. If need be we will get you up to Patinas in the next day or so. You just may be the first geologist into the pass.”

“Yes, sir,” Sarah said, and then nodded at Alice, who sat beside Niles and Captain Everett. Will Mendenhall, fresh from the shower, stepped aside so Sarah could pass in the tight space.

“Lieutenant Mendenhall, you’re late to my meeting. Are you pretty much up to speed on the people of the Patinas region and their customs?”

“All I know is that’s where Dracula is from,” Mendenhall said in all seriousness.

“Not exactly. You’ve been watching too many movies. Alice, explain to young Mr. Mendenhall the difference between legend and fact.”

Mendenhall sat down and then waited as Alice pulled out her notes.

“Prince Vlad Dracul, or Vlad Tepes if you prefer, was born in the south of what used to be known as Walachia, or Transylvania, which encompassed the region from the east and surrounded what is now known as the Carpathian Mountains, the history of which is far more documented than one would believe. And nothing has ever dispelled the rumors that something was wrong in the high mountains of that warring state.”

“For instance?” Will inquired, actually getting interested in what Alice was saying.

“For instance, in years 101 thru 102, and 105 to 106, Roman armies under the Emperor Trajan fought a series of military campaigns to subjugate the wealthy Dacian kingdom. By 106, under Trajan they succeeded in subduing the southern and central regions of Dacia but left one area of the very rich kingdom alone — Patinas. One of the most important passes in the entire country and the most experienced Roman commander under Trajan left it unguarded and undefended. No military commander would have left an avenue of attack that glaringly obvious to an enemy force without a garrison being stationed there.”

“The Romans, Lieutenant, placed men in any area where they thought an attack could originate, and Patinas was one of those areas.” Niles gestured for Alice to continue.

“After the Romans it was the Visigoths and Carpians, and after them Attila the Hun. But the one thing none of these invading and experienced war commanders ever occupied was the Patinas Pass. A Boy Scout could see the pass as an invasion route.” Alice lifted her file and then rummaged through it until she found the report she had been looking for.

“What about Dracula?” Will asked with raised brows and a hint of a smile.

“In 1241 thru 1242 during the Mongol invasion of Europe, Transylvania was among the territories devastated by the Golden Horde. A large portion of the population perished, but one thing remained constant: Genghis Khan, the ablest general ever to invade Transylvania, never took the Patinas Pass and there was never anything written in history about the khan to explain why he didn’t take and hold it. Something is not right on that mountain. It has remained inaccessible to invading armies since the dawn of written history. From Rome to the Habsburgs, the region was left alone for no apparent reason. Finally, after assisting Vlad the Impaler in his war with the Ottoman Empire and the invading Turkish armies, Prince Vlad,” she looked directly at Mendenhall, “or Dracula if you insist, deeded the land as a protected area after the war was finally won. The mountain with no name officially began its protected status. An explanation was never given forth by the prince even until the day he was executed.”

Will looked at the large satellite recon photo of the pass and saw that the winding road through the small village disappeared many times underneath massive ledges of rock and earth. He counted a hundred good ambush points for defending troops, and with the harsh terrain surrounding the Patinas Pass he could also see how rumors and legends of dark things roaming the Carpathians came about.

“As we deal with historical truth we must disallow any suggestion of the supernatural to enter the equation. Whatever is up there, and I believe my wolves are, they are not a legend or a myth, but something capable of scaring three of the most brutal men the world had ever seen, the Emperor Trajan, Genghis Khan, and finally, Vlad Dracul. I won’t even mention the German army in 1943. All of these men feared something in those mountains. These facts are not in dispute, Will, nor is the fact that historically speaking we have ventured into a world we know nothing of, and there just may be monsters in the rocks. No, Will, no myths, no legends of vampires and werewolves, cold, hard, historical data tell no lies. And this is when we learn that superstition and science can be one and the same.”

“I apologize for making light of it, I’m sorry,” Mendenhall said when he saw that his banter had brought the academic wrath of Alice down around his ears and she responded as any good schoolteacher would: she backhanded him with fact.

Alice relaxed and then smiled at Will and stood and patted his chest as the meeting slowly came to a close. The 747 had started its descent into Bucharest.

The Event Group had arrived on station to confront the inhabitants of a mountain pass that has frightened the most prolific killers in European history, from Rome to the Waffen SS of the German war machine. As the 747 touched down all thoughts turned to an Event that was as unorthodox as any the department had ever been sent on.

Operation Grimm had officially been activated and the Event Group was now on the clock.

9

The sun had been up for two and a half hours but the resort looked as if it had several thousand guests in attendance as the workers who had toiled hard at their labors were now packed and headed for buses that would take them back to Bucharest, Prague, Ukraine, and other points of the redrawn Eastern European portion of the globe. They would return and struggle through their countries’ worsening economies the best they could. Many of these men and women were more than happy to be leaving the wondrous resort they had built far behind them, never to be seen again.

Janos Vajic and general manager Gina Louvinski watched the line of chartered buses as they left the resort. Vajic glanced down at the woman, who had her clipboard clutched to her chest as she watched the last of the buses leave just as the first of the many hundreds of black stretch limousines started up the circular drive.

“This is like the return of Ceauşescu and his thugs,” Janos said as he watched the first of the arriving guests. “Please inform our host that the first of the mob has started to arrive.” Janos turned and allowed the sliding glass door to open automatically before he stopped and faced Gina with a wry smile on his clean-shaven face. “You can use a different descriptive for his friends if you like.”

“I don’t know, I think mob was a pretty apt description.”

Janos pulled a cell phone from his suit pocket and opened it. The reception bars were at zero.

“When are the cell towers supposed to come online?” he asked as he angrily slammed his phone closed.

“Not until next week because of weather concerns.”

“Damn, I don’t like the idea that the only way we have of reaching for help is our antiquated phone system with weather moving in.” Janos thought a moment and then turned to Gina. “Make sure our engineering staff is made aware that we need to keep the phone service up and running.”

Janos looked outside and saw that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He grimaced and had that horrible feeling in his gut that the gorgeous blue of the world would soon give way to darkness.

Several of the more burly men of her village managed to get the old woman out of bed and after the women had dressed her they had moved her while still ensconced in her large wooden chair out into the grassy square at the heart of Patinas. They propped her broken ankle onto a large cutting of firewood until she was comfortable. The breakfast fires had long been extinguished and the men for the most part had left for the high pastures. Madam Korvesky thanked the men and allowed them to depart for their chores. The women stayed long enough to exchange the morning’s gossip about the doings far below, and then they too eventually drifted away in twos and threes and went about their task of making life livable in the pass.

The old Gypsy woman allowed the sun to caress her face as she stared upward into the crystal blue sky. To her the Carpathians were the most misunderstood mountains on the face of the earth, and she knew well that her people had worked hard to make them seem so. But in her opinion these mountains were God’s last great masterpiece — beauty hidden amid the stone and steam of the pass.

She lowered her face as she heard the small bell around the neck of the goat at the gates leading to the road chime, and then she heard the goat bleat out a warning. Madam Korvesky turned and watched the goat for a brief moment until the animal went to its knees and continued to chew its cud, relaxing after an initial sound, or smell, had frightened it. She always ordered one of the young goats to be tied at the front and back gates of the village, just as a warning to the men, women, and children that there may be Golia about and to be aware of their thoughts.

“I see the pain medication and the antibiotics I got from that filthy Slav below at the resort have helped you. You survived the night.”

She didn’t turn to face her grandson but she did turn her face up to the sun once again.

“You sound almost disappointed, Marko.”

“You know that isn’t so. I want no harm to befall you. After all, you’re all I have.”

The old woman kept her eyes closed and her face turned to the warmth of the sun. She took a deep breath as the Percocet tablet she had taken earlier seemed to be helping not only herself, but she thought maybe it had also helped Mikla somewhere out on the flatlands.

“You also have your sister, don’t forget,” she said as Marko had already turned to leave.

“She isn’t a part of my life any longer. She left the people to join a world we know nothing of and now she will never be a part of the people again.”

“Unlike you, man-child, she did as she was told. She left her home because I said she had to.” The queen finally lowered her face from the warming rays of the sun and fixed Marko with a harsh glare. “And she will always be a part of us, make no mistake, my prince,” she said and then chuckled at the use of the title.

“If you say so, Grandmamma.” He smiled. “Now you take care of that leg.”

“You will not be tending your flock today?” she asked as he turned his back on her.

“No, I have other tribal business.”

“And what is that?”

“Nothing you need to worry over.”

“I believe your queen asked you a question, grandson,” she added sternly.

Marko stopped and took a deep breath before he turned to face her with his smile still lining his features above the black beard.

“I and a few others will see for ourselves this new world that has arrived on our doorstep — after all, I am young and must keep up with my sister as far as knowledge of the outside world is concerned.”

“I believe you have gained much of that knowledge the past few years, Marko. You have changed, and don’t think that I don’t know of your courting the evil that has arrived on our mountain.”

Marko decided that he no longer needed to respond to her accusations. Soon the people would see that his way into the future was the right way. Not the old way, but the human way. He was their leader and there was no returning to the old ways. No longer would the Jeddah be subject to the laws of the ancients. They would now join the people of the world and they would no longer struggle in the mountains to live, they would reap their reward for three thousand years of exile and finally use that which they have guarded for so long. That was the real sticking point between him, his sister, and grandmother — they all knew the time had come to abandon the old ways, but it was only he who wanted the rewards they deserved.

The sound of the goat’s bell sang out as the small animal stood and was looking nervously across the road and into a stand of barren trees and rock.

“The Golia seem to be agitated. They are out of the temple this fine day.”

Marko ignored her comment and then turned for the front gate, sidestepping the agitated goat as he did. The small animal kept its sharp eyes on something hiding across the road.

The old woman watched for the longest time just as she knew she was being watched in return. She suspected Stanus was there and he was wary of something. She thought maybe it was worry, or even anger at Mikla for vanishing as he had on her orders. Either way, the giant wolf was acting strangely and that fact alone worried the queen of the Gypsies.

All around the village of Patinas the Golia watched every move made by man, woman, or child. They were starting to feel they had been betrayed by the men and women they had lived with since the time of Abraham and Joseph.

Things had changed in the pass and whatever it was had the Golia on edge like no other time since their arrival in the pass three thousand years before.

The Boeing 747–200 taxied into the secure area of the international airport that was home to the Romanian air force and its 90th Tactical Airlift Flotilla. The Americans were using their status as part of the current NATO alliance maneuvers around the eastern Danube. They were a part of that exercise and attached to the group mapping the Patinas Pass. The president had used the awesome weight of the Oval Office to get the clearances.

The white and red 747 was flagged into a large hangar by United States Air Force personnel stationed there to handle American airlift capabilities while the maneuvers were in progress. As the four massive General Electric engines spooled down from their long and arduous journey, the giant hangar door slowly started to slide closed. Outside the hangar the engine noise of the 747 was replaced by the high turbine whine of two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters and that noise was soon joined by the start-up sounds of a brand-new Sikorsky Executive S-76C++ helicopter borrowed from the State Department and the ambassador to Romania.

The procession down the rolling steps of the aircraft started with Niles Compton replete in khakis and baseball cap. He was followed by Mendenhall, Ryan, and then Alice, who was flanked by the much larger Captain Everett. Then the science teams led by Pete Golding and Charlie Ellenshaw came down the long set of stairs. Finally, Jack and Sarah dressed in casual attire followed. They carried clothing bags for the nights and days they would be at the Edge of the World. Pete Golding and Jason Ryan were also similarly equipped, with the exception of Collins’s and Ryan’s nine-millimeter sidearms hidden away in their suit carriers.

“Dr. Compton?” asked an Air Force loadmaster and his assistant.

“I’m Compton,” Niles said as he reached the base of the stairs.

“Sir, your transportation is right outside for your flight to the Dacian Hot Springs bivouac area. We have a Sikorsky executive craft waiting as requested.” This remark elicited a dirty look from Will Mendenhall that was directed at Jason Ryan over his chance inclusion as a passenger on the luxurious helicopter while he had to vibrate to pieces in the Black Hawk.

“Thank you. Is there any further communication from Colonel Guillen of the 82nd Airborne since last night?” Niles asked as he stepped by the two airmen.

“No sir, they are waiting on your team for the reconnoitering of the pass itself. We have a report that the storm we have been monitoring has caused a lot of flooding in low-lying areas along the Danube in the south and west. There’s scuttlebutt that the maneuvers and the examination of the Patinas Pass may be canceled. The Romanian army could be called away for emergency relief. I’m afraid we have to rely on them to transport your equipment. They will follow as soon as we can get some of these people in line, just as soon as we can find someone that speaks English.”

“Very good, the Air Force is as efficient as ever and my compliments to your team for the weather heads-up.” Niles rubbed his chin as he saw their cargo being removed from the lower compartments of the 747 and was sorry to hear that the equipment would be out of U.S. hands.

As the Event Group personnel filed by the two watchful airmen, the American Air Force personnel saw the strange makeup of this NATO survey team. The two men exchanged looks after a smiling Charlie Ellenshaw walked past and gave the men a horrid open-handed salute and a broad smile until the crazy white-haired professor was pushed forward by Pete Golding. The last was Jack Collins, who looked the airmen over. They knew immediately that this man was an officer — one that looked capable — very capable and that instinctual, self-survival mechanisms that all private soldiers get when around a man they knew was a real soldier.

“NATO assayers my ass,” the smaller of the two airmen said as the door closed behind Jack.

The sergeant looked up at the red-liveried 747–200 and shook his head.

“Just who in the hell are these people?”

At two that afternoon over a thousand of the specially chosen guests of Dmitri Zallas were wandering through the hotel and the attached casino with mouths agape. Never had they seen anything like the Edge of the World in all of Eastern Europe. With the guests still flowing in for the first night of the three-day weekend they were matched by one attendant for every four guests — a major concern of Janos Vajic. His bottom line was going to bottom out over the losses this party would generate.

Vajic smiled as best he could as he stood inside the long covered walkway that connected the hotel proper with the real moneymaker next door — the casino with the name placed above the entrance in golden letters — the Dacian Room.

Janos stiffened when he saw Zallas approach with one of the five differing women he had seen him with in just the past two hours.

“I must say your staff is exceedingly efficient. My guests thus far truly believe they are in a Las Vegas — run facility. And I cannot wait for the grand opening of the castle tomorrow night. I expect the staff will be as professional there as here.”

Vajic nodded his head in acceptance of the compliment but deferred speaking in front of the Romanian bimbo currently inhabiting the man’s personal space.

“The interior minister has not arrived as of yet?” Zallas asked smiling as six guests walked past dressed in their finery on their way into the casino.

“I have not been informed as such. I suppose he will wait until night has fallen to make an appearance.” Janos looked at Zallas. “That would camouflage his arrival to the press corps that is building up outside the gates. Another matter you said not to worry about.”

Zallas caught the slight toward his other partner in the tangled web of financing for the Edge of the World along with the sniping about the press near the front gate. He only laughed.

“Very good, Janos, very good.” He stopped smiling as he leaned toward the Romanian. “Make sure your outstanding wit does not make an appearance in front of the minister. Am I understood? If not, that wit will bury you, quite literally.”

Vajic watched the smile return to the bearded face of the Russian as he placed a protective arm around the girl and slowly walked into the casino without a look backward.

“God help me,” he muttered.

Around him the excited guests of Dmitri Zallas knew they were in for the most interesting weekend in recent memory. And as fate would have it, they were indeed in for a most interesting and wild weekend.

The man sat and waited for the fax that was incoming from his contact inside the governing body of the state of Israel. The person that was sending the information that he waited on was embedded in the Israeli Security Council and received every bit of sensitive military intelligence that the prime minister was briefed on every morning.

Ben-Nevin was close to the woman and her pet dog and he knew it. It was that very same unusual animal that had him concerned, as he had never seen anything like it in all his experience. The size alone was terrifying and even more worrisome was the way the beast was handled by the girl. Ben-Nevin could not believe the narrow escapes from death he had experienced in just the past two days. For a man who had never had to use a weapon in anger he had almost lost everything before he had a chance to complete his mission.

The small roadside gas station had an eating area where you could force down a cold drink and a sandwich from a machine. The colonel had forgone the plastic-wrapped sandwich stuffed with greasy-looking sausage and settled for a soft drink. He sat waiting for the only fax machine within twenty miles to beep behind the counter where the bored clerk leaned against the service counter looking at a filthy magazine. It had cost the colonel his inexpensive wristwatch and twenty euros for the use of the gas station fax machine, which the clerk was unsure how to use in the first place.

His men were waiting outside in the false light of the evening underneath blinking and burned-out fluorescent lighting. After the train incident his men were jumpy and every time the lights flickered they looked about nervously. Ben-Nevin was smirking at his men as he knew they would feel much more apprehensive if they knew what it was that was traveling with the major. An abomination from a horror movie was walking with the woman and if they had seen what he had on the train he likely would no longer have any men to command.

As soon as his information arrived confirming the woman’s destination and the rest of the acquisition element being sent to him by friends of the organization, he would move.

As he sipped the Romanian version of cola through a straw he heard the phone behind the counter ring and then ring again in rapid succession. Ben-Nevin looked up and the burly man nodded his head. He disappeared toward the back of the small office adjacent the counter area.

Ben-Nevin used a napkin to dab at his thin mustache and then he pushed the can and napkin away and stood, careful using his wounded right hand with his missing fingers. By the time he reached the counter the clerk was back holding a sheet of fax paper. He held it out but just far enough out of the colonel’s reach that the gesture was clear. The man thought he deserved more money for the fax. Ben-Nevin smiled and then moved his left hand and pulled back his sport coat only slightly, just enough to expose the handle of the Glock nine-millimeter he was carrying. The colonel shook his head.

The clerk froze for the briefest of moments and then he too smiled a toothless grin and handed over the fax. Ben-Nevin took the fax but held the man’s eyes long enough that he soon lost the stupid smile and turned away.

The colonel quickly read the fax and smiled.

“I knew you were close, you little witch,” he said as he folded the fax and placed it in his coat.

Just as he realized he was only miles away from probably the richest archaeological finds in the history of the world, several sets of headlights pulled into the gas station. The clerk’s eyes widened when he saw how many men piled out of the seven cars. The new arrivals stretched and then shook hands with the men who had arrived earlier with the man with the mustache. The clerk turned and looked at the colonel, who was also looking at him. The heavyset attendant swallowed as the colonel raised his right hand. Then he smiled and raised his damaged and bandaged hand to his lips. “Shhh,” he said as he turned and left the station.

He walked out and shook hands with the men who had arrived to assist him in recovering what was Israel’s and although the men didn’t know it, they were also going to help him kill the little witch and her abnormally large dog.

“Gentlemen, I assume our equipment is in the trunks, so let’s move out. I want to make camp outside our target area and wait for our lady friend to arrive.”

“And where is the target area?” asked one of the bearded men who had just arrived.

Ben-Nevin pointed at the dim outline of the Carpathians in the near distance.

“Up there is where our reward will be found, my friends.”

“Does this place have a name?” the same man asked as he opened the rear door for the colonel.

“Yes, the Patinas Pass.”

Fifteen miles from Dacian Hot Springs and the NATO encampment, the two Black Hawks flying in formation peeled off from the Sikorsky executive helicopter. Inside the large helicopter Jack Collins felt for the invitation Europa had forged from the sample that had been sent to Jack by Henri Farbeaux, who owed the Group more than he could ever repay for the way they assisted in the Frenchman’s escape of American justice two months before. The invitation request was just the start of Jack’s plans for Colonel Farbeaux.

Collins smiled as he watched Pete Golding fiddling with his suit. The green tailored garment came complete with a bright gold cravat, and it was this item that made Pete look like an out-of-place version of Hugh Hefner — minus the girls and add on the horn-rimmed glasses.

In the corner seat facing the front of the Sikorsky, Jason Ryan was dozing with his chin resting on his hand. He was dressed like a newly installed but well-to-do young criminal fresh off the boat from Spain. Why Ryan chose that nationality Collins couldn’t fathom because as far as he knew Ryan had learned only one language in school and that was English, and at times even that talent was questionable.

Collins shook his head as he realized the newly promoted lieutenant commander could sleep through anything. It had to have been his naval aviation training that allowed the small man to tune out any noise after learning to ignore the jet engines of fighters. He smiled and then looked at Sarah, who was in turn looking at him. Her smile was magic to Jack as he took her in. She was dressed in an expensive Paris-made pantsuit that would be the envy of any woman at the Group if they had seen Sarah wearing it. It was white with a green blouse that just set off her eyes. Her hair, although short, was something Collins could never get enough of touching in more private moments, and it was now that he regretted any doubts that he may have had in regard to Sarah and the Frenchman. That smile she was currently hitting him with answered everything.

“Colonel?” The Air Force pilot’s voice came over the speaker on the side of the bulkhead. “Get everyone awake, we’re landing at the resort in two minutes.”

Jack and Sarah looked out the window on her side and saw the lights of the massive resort complex. The colonel’s eyes went past the hotel and up toward the mountaintop and remained there for a few seconds.

“Now that’s something you don’t see every day,” Jason said as he yawned and nodded out the large window. “Halfway up the mountain,” he said, pointing.

As they looked up toward the pass the purple and blue spotlights mixed with smaller white ones and enhanced by several blue and purple laser beams played a dance on the stone of Dracula’s Castle. The massive structure sat high above the resort and was reached by the giant cable car line reaching upward toward the strangest site any of them have ever seen on the face of a mountain. The castle with its five large parapets and the actual working drawbridge was not the only star of the mountainside attraction; the cable cars that sat motionless were the largest anyone had seen. The whole scene looked as if it had sprung from the pages of an Alistair MacLean novel.

“Think old Vlad the Impaler envisioned this for his legacy?” Sarah asked no one in particular as their helicopter started to settle onto the landing pad where four valets awaited their arrival.

“You know, I’m really starting to think that the bad guys’ side pays better,” Ryan said as he noticed the richly appointed valets in their bright red jackets and black pants.

“But our side has a more reliable 401(k) and far better dental,” Jack said as he unfastened his seat belt and then waited for the rear door to be opened.

“Well, here’s your chance to see how those bad guys live, Jason. Who knows, I can see you getting used to this life,” Sarah quipped as she released her belt.

Ryan shook his head as the other door opened. “As the colonel just said, we’ve seen a lot of these jerks retired early and permanently, so, no thanks, I’ll take my Navy pay and call it a day.”

As the four passengers stepped down from the Sikorsky, the valets emptied the baggage compartment and escorted the team into the hotel. They entered the main lobby and were stunned by the medieval artwork, weapons, and tapestries that lined the interior of the gorgeous property. Suits of armor of varying descriptions stood guard at every entrance and exit. Giant chains held a drawbridge in place that led into the breezeway connecting the hotel to the casino. Every detail was meticulously sculpted, carved, or molded.

“I think you were right the first time, Jason, I could get used to this,” Sarah said as she stared in awe at the 180-foot atrium reaching up to the sky — the core of the immaculate design.

“You would think the hotel would be far more crowded,” Ryan said as he followed their luggage.

“Yeah, but when you consider that this crowd here is only the friends and business acquaintances of Dmitri Zallas you have to admit it’s a decent turnout.” Collins also followed Ryan to the front desk with Sarah and an amazed Pete Golding in tow.

“I hope Mendenhall gets a cot next to Doc Ellenshaw, who’ll talk his ear off all night and day. That would make this whole wonderful experience complete.” He saw the colonel’s stare. “For me at least,” he added quickly.

After turning over their false passports and forged invitations to the front desk for laser scanning, the four Event Group personnel were escorted to their rooms, all on the sixteenth floor, the highest the hotel offered. Jack had requested the rooms for their excellent view of the castle and the mountain rising above. They all made plans to shower and then meet in an hour in the lobby for a tentative look-see at the property. Sarah wanted to get out to the spa area to take some readings on the hot springs and also take a sample of the mud that boiled up from somewhere beneath the hotel.

Jack opened his door and examined the room before stepping inside. He had warned his team to check their rooms very carefully, as he would not put it past the Russian mobster to bug his guests’ rooms. Jack knew the criminal mind and eavesdropping was always a profitable move in most cases.

Collins skipped moving his luggage in until he looked at every wall socket, light socket, and even checked the headboard. On his way to check the window frame he caught sight of the castle above. The lights cast eerily moving shapes and shadows in tints of purple and blues on the giant stone blocks that made up the construction. As he looked on his eyes moved up the road toward the pass. Of course he couldn’t see anything but he could imagine the hard life anyone who lived in the pass faced year in and year out. His eyes traveled back to the now empty Castle Dracula as it waited for its grand opening in just two nights.

There was a light knock upon his door. He went to the door and looked through the peephole and saw the top of Sarah’s head. He opened the thick door and allowed her to quickly step inside.

Sarah had changed into an evening dress of blue with a low neckline. She smiled and entered his room holding her high heels. She faced Collins and then dropped her shoes onto the expensive carpet.

“Is it against Army regulations for a colonel to zip up a lieutenant’s dress?” she asked as she turned around to expose her back and the open zipper.

Jack smiled and relaxed for the first time. He reached out and took Sarah by her shoulders.

“As a matter of fact it most assuredly is against Army regs, Lieutenant, but at the moment I’m a criminal on vacation and am also a sordid and salty character.” He slipped his hands under the dress’s two straps and pulled them free of her shoulders allowing the dress to slip from her body. He turned Sarah toward him and kissed her.

“Besides, for the next hour the U.S. Army can go—”

“At ease, Colonel,” Sarah whispered as she pulled Jack’s head down and kissed him — the maneuver successfully quieted her commanding officer and stilled his insults to the Army for at least the immediate future.

And for the next hour Castle Dracula — the nightclub, the Patinas Pass, and Alice Hamilton’s Little Red Riding Hood tale along with her Lost Tribes of Israel theory — all were temporarily placed on hold as Jack concentrated solely on the woman he knew he loved in the most desperate of ways.

Marko stood at the front of the hotel and was watching the guests as they milled about laughing and pointing at every piece of exquisite artwork along the walls, on pedestals and easels, all placed around the immense lobby. Most were probably scheming how to steal some of the artwork from the man who had invited them there.

Marko’s attire was all black. The shirt he wore was collarless and was buttoned to the top. The black satin vest and even blacker shirt gleamed in the false light of the front portico. The black head scarf was neatly tied in the back just over the foot-long ponytail. The goatee was freshly trimmed and his gold jewelry prominently displayed from his ears to his wrists. His larger Gypsy friends from the other villages were similarly dressed. The six men stood for a moment watching the guests wander the lobby through the twenty-foot-high plate glass windows. The Gypsy men brought many of the guests to a stop as they noticed the strangely dressed group in the exotic and a bit disturbing, peasant clothing.

Marko stepped across the threshold of the hotel he had financed though his theft of his tribe’s heritage. It was now time to reap some of the benefits of that shameful act.

Gina Louvinski saw the six men as they entered the lobby. The dark-haired man with the intense look was familiar. She had seen him interact with Zallas from time to time and it seemed to her that this man was not frightened of the Russian one iota. She watched as one of the hotel’s manager-on-duty staff approached the men as cautiously as he could and with a distasteful look on his face cleared his throat. Gina shook her head and then started forward to stop the trouble she was about to witness.

“May I help you gentlemen?” the shift manager asked Marko, who stood in front of his men.

The Gypsy looked at the manager irritably. “No, you may not.”

“Gentlemen, do you have an invitation in your possession for this weekend’s festivities?”

“No,” Marko said as he faced the shift manager with a dead sort of smile that faded long before it hit the black-mascara-lined eyes.

“That is all right, these gentlemen don’t need invitations — they are acquaintances of Mr. Zallas.” Gina turned away from the manager on duty and faced the Gypsy, who only looked at her as if he found her distasteful. His companions though did little to hide their appreciation of the general manager of the Edge of the World Hotel and Resort Casino. “Will you gentlemen be requiring accommodations for your stay?” she asked, praying at the same time they would not be staying overnight, as they were still attracting the strangest and most insulting looks from the real guests of Dmitri Zallas.

“No. Where is the Russian?” Marko asked.

“Mr. Zallas is inside the casino I believe. Would you gentlemen like a draw of chips for play?” She saw the irritated look on the Gypsy’s face. “On the house of course.”

Marko turned and walked away without another word. His followers did the same, only they smiled at her as they passed and those smiles weren’t that friendly. She was glad Zallas had to deal with them and not her.

Outside the moon started its slow climb into the sky, fighting its way above the rocky peaks of the Carpathians.

“Ah, Marko, and accompanied by our friends and neighbors as well! It was so kind of you to join us for our small celebration,” Zallas said, breaking away from the roulette table before the band of Gypsies could join him and his guests. He smiled as he took Marko by the elbow and tried to steer him away from the gamblers, who were watching them with much interest, as most had never laid eyes on a Gypsy before this rather unusual intrusion.

Marko froze to one spot and made Zallas look the fool as he embarrassingly pulled on a stone wall that refused to give. The large-framed Gypsy didn’t budge. The Russian smiled at the gawking guests and then leaned into Marko.

“What are you doing here?” he asked through clenched teeth and a false smile. “You said you weren’t interested in the day-to-day operations of our investment.”

“Remove your hand from me,” Marko said while staring straight ahead. Zallas did as he was told and then looked around smiling and hoping the guests didn’t see the hostility oozing from the dark man standing in the middle of his casino. “I am here to see the end result of that investment.”

“Now that you have seen it you must not come here again, and most assuredly not with your friends. There would be too many questions asked inside capital meeting rooms and that would lead to people that have a high stake in the success of this operation. There will be government eyes here tonight that will report all they see here at the Edge of the World, I assure you.”

Marko smiled for the first time as he turned and faced the Russian. “More eyes than you would ever dare to imagine, Slav. Sharp eyes that see much in the dark.”

Zallas was pretty much fed up with the old Hollywood version of “I’m a scary Gypsy” act and so he stepped up to Marko angrily and began to remind him about the ethnic slur he kept slinging at him.

“I told you not to call me a Slav, I don’t—”

“My friends and I shall tour the property and then I think we will eat. Make sure we are seated and well taken care of.”

“I am not—”

“You are what I always thought you were, Zallas, and this is why I have come to see my operation.” His smile grew as he took in the busy casino. “I mean the fruits of my investment, of course.”

The Russian watched as the six men moved off to snickers and outright hostility from the guests. He saw that the Gypsy ignored the looks and whispered remarks, or just didn’t hear them or heard them but couldn’t understand them.

Five miles to the east of the Edge of the World was the NATO bivouac area. The Romanian army made up the largest contingent at 150 men, just a little over company strength. The U.S. contingent was the second largest with eighty-eight engineers of the elite 82nd Airborne Division. Several other neighboring nations had men attached but for the most part it was an intimate get-to-know-you task that NATO had always loved. The men thus far seemed to enjoy the air and the mountains and not one of them had any doubts as to the falsity of the myths and legends surrounding this absolutely beautiful area of the world. After the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Carpathians were like the Garden of Eden.

“What did you think of those strange ducks that came in on the Black Hawks?”

His partner laughed as he reached behind him and removed a sharp rock from beneath his butt. He tossed the stone into the darkness.

“Tell me, when doesn’t a Black Hawk drop off some strange ducks, including us?”

“Yeah,” the man watching said as he removed his Kevlar helmet and then hefted the small M-14 battle rifle and pulled out the magazine from the receiver and looked inside. “This is the one thing I can’t get used to since we deployed back to the world,” he said shaking his head.

“And what is that?” asked his hole mate as he rummaged to remove more painful rocks under his rear.

“Carrying around blanks instead of hot loads — there’s something basically wrong with that.”

“Well, we can’t go around blasting away at out new allies, can we? Besides, those Romanians to our right over there aren’t commies anymore, we served with them in Afghanistan — the boys are fighters.”

“Yeah, well good for them, why don’t you go ask them if they happen to have any real bullets, smart-ass.”

Alice Hamilton pulled the collar of her green coat tightly around her neck as she looked past the soldiers and their equipment and brought the mountains into sharp focus. She couldn’t believe she was actually here looking up at them. To her mind’s eye the craggy scars of deep-cut rocks and small, time-worn grooves where water had saturated the stone through millions upon millions of years, all still looked beautiful. The scars in the rock reminded Alice of a perpetual covering of white snow and ice that remained year-round.

“Looking at them in the moonlight can almost allow your imagination to truly believe in the legends, can’t they?”

Alice turned and saw Carl Everett standing behind her. He was dressed in a down vest and blue denim work shirt. His boots were a worn civilian brand and his pants Levi’s.

“It didn’t take this view to make a believer out of me, Carl. I’ve seen these mountains a thousand times in my thoughts while never really knowing it was the Carpathians I was looking at. I could never imagine a more beautiful range.” She smiled as she turned back to face the imposing monoliths. “Especially when this old woman claims there be monsters up there,” she said in a mockingly ominous tone.

“Ah, you’re not old,” Carl said hoping Alice took his small joke the right way. She did.

“No, not old, but very much a believer in fairy tales — is that what you’re saying, Mr. Everett?” she asked, turning back and smiling at him.

“Yeah, something like that,” he said as he stepped up behind Alice and placed his thick arm around her and looked with her at her mountains. She placed her hand onto his and they just stood in silence.

“Uh, excuse me, are you Captain Everett?”

Carl and Alice both turned to see a young staff sergeant standing next to them.

“That’s me, Sergeant.”

The camouflaged sergeant handed Everett a piece of paper. As Carl reached for it he saw a lot of activity near where the Romanian army had set up for their maneuvers. To his shock it looked like they were packing up.

“What are the Romanians up to?” Everett asked as he clicked on a small flashlight to read the message.

“They’re leaving, sir. Because of the storm in the south there’s been massive flooding along the Danube and since these boys are engineers they’ve been ordered out to assist in evacuations if it comes to that.”

“What is it?” Alice asked as Carl lowered the note.

“He’s right, the Romanians have been ordered to the south and the 82nd has been directed to return to the air base.”

“That will leave us with no cover.”

“We have to get word to Jack.”

“Sir, we’ve been ordered to leave you with two Humvee transports and twenty men. The rest have to RTB.”

“Damn,” Everett cursed as his eyes roamed toward the top of the mountain. “With no cell connection we only have the Europa satellite link and even that is spotty because Europa will only be overhead twice a day. I’ll get with Will and get a message off to the colonel, by foot if we have to.”

Niles Compton walked up at that moment, hurriedly tucking in his shirt. Everett held the message up for him to see. Compton raised his hand.

“I’ve seen it — any suggestions?”

As they stood there watching, the cover and protection of the United States Army and the soldiers of their new Romanian ally continued to pack up their equipment. Soon several loud engine noises were heard as the large Black Hawks started to spool up. Everett nodded at Alice.

“Niles, we will have a short window in an hour to communicate with Europa, so I suggest we get Mendenhall and have him call Jack on the secure satellite cell and give them the heads-up that we just lost our cover. And be sure to remind everyone that with the weather moving in here this weekend we may even lose the satellite link with Europa.”

“Where are you going?” Niles asked when he saw Everett reach for a small satchel and remove something. It was a handgun and he tucked it in his waistband.

“Charlie Ellenshaw and I are going to mosey over toward the resort and see what we can see. If the last of the 82nd is ordered out we won’t have one bit of cover remaining. So I think we’ll study the lay of the land and how difficult it would be to get past the locals and enter the pass on our own. After all, Alice didn’t come all this way to not see her hard work pay off.” He smiled and nodded at Niles, then turned and left the breaking camp of NATO soldiers.

As the helicopters continued to spool up their twin engines, Alice turned and watched the mountain high above her knowing her answers were there, in the darkness of Patinas.

Jack and Sarah walked the spaces between the three sprawling buildings. The hotel, the casino, and the Enviro Dome — which Jack thought was a bit of overkill — were all impressively designed. Sarah had been most interested in the mud baths and the bubbling waters of the open hot springs. She leaned closer to one of the pools of water and touched the surface with her fingers.

“Jack, if this spring is any indication of the size and flow of the natural aqueduct that allows the water to flow this far from its source and still maintain the temperature as it is now, this area may have a serious seismic problem. And I do mean a significant one.”

“I’m not following,” Jack said as he too touched the extremely hot spring water as it bubbled before him.

“The temperature should have cooled far more than this in its passage from under the ground, or possibly even from as far away as the mountains that look down on this monstrosity. If this water is any indication of the thermal variance in this region we could be looking at a significant seismological event in the very near future.”

“In English, short stuff.”

“Jack, the ground this resort sits on is seismically active. There is significant thermal power building up from somewhere, and I bet it’s closer than these fools think. I suspect it’s where Alice’s pass is located. The direct line of flow is about right.”

“You mean this could all just blow up?” he asked as he looked around at a few of the guests as they admired the plant life that had been collected for the dome. “Come on, really?”

Sarah looked around and saw the bubbling mud and a look came to her face that Jack didn’t like.

“I mean, there would have to be some sort of warning, earthquakes and the like, right?”

Sarah looked at Collins with a raised left brow, a habit derived from Jack himself over the years and one that was becoming increasingly irritating.

“I know of a mountain that showed no significant activity for a 123-year sleep. There was almost no warning — no tremors or quakes, just a jump in mean temperature. Eleven days later the seismic activity started and on that day, May 18, 1980, the mountain exploded.”

Jack nodded his head in understanding. “Mount St. Helens?”

“Yes, and that mountain also had no significant activity almost until the day it was shattered into a million pieces. We could have the same thing building up here.”

“But in Romania? There are no volcanoes in this region.”

Sarah smiled at Jack’s naïveté. “My dear Colonel, there are over 692 dormant volcanoes in Eastern Europe alone. And remember, Italy, one of the most active regions in the world, is not that far away. Believe me, Jack, this place could blow and wipe this area clean of everything.”

Collins looked around the giant and very much gaudy dome structure.

“That may not be so bad,” he said as he took Sarah by the elbow and started walking toward the large escalator.

“What do you say we skip the escalator ride and get to bed and start fresh in the morning? You have to collate what you’ve seen here and I have to start running some names and faces through Europa. Maybe we can start marking some of the antiquities buyers anyway. We can start a file on every one we can get a real name for. It will solve a lot of problems in the future when it’s time to bring some of these thieving bastards down or at least to justice.”

“You mean we have to sleep in separate rooms tonight?” she asked with a false scowl.

“Knock it off, Lieutenant. You’ve had your fun for this trip.” He smiled and then relaxed. “I’ll tell you what, since you took advantage of your colonel earlier tonight, how about something to eat and then a nightcap?”

Sarah made a face at the trade of lovemaking for food and a drink, but she stopped and looked at Jack with her sad eyes.

“You know Alice is right.”

“Yeah, short stuff, what’s she right about?”

Sarah smiled up at Collins.

“You are a prick sometimes.”

“Ouch!”

Jason Ryan had his short black hair combed straight back and was shiny with oil. He was resplendent in his navy blue sport coat with a gold shirt opened at the collar with as many gold chains as his neck could bear. The necklaces and other jewelry had been liberated from some of the finest collections at the Event Group complex. If Ryan underwent close scrutiny — which his training told him he had been receiving since he and Pete arrived inside the casino — his wares would hold up under close examination. The Eye of Ra pendant on his lapel should attract one of the bigger fishes swimming around the casino. As for Pete Golding, Ryan wished he would stop fiddling with his cravat.

“Why do I get the strange clothing?” the computer genius asked as he tugged on the irritating cravat.

Ryan paused by the row of blackjack tables that stretched far into the distance of the casino. He noticed that only a quarter of the tables were occupied with guests. The others had their dealers standing by with hands folded neatly in front awaiting the spoiled guests of Dmitri Zallas. Ryan decided that someone enjoyed throwing money away by overstaffing.

“Look, Pete, the suggested clothing for you came from your own computer system — are you going to stand there and tell me that Europa was wrong about matching your style to what she knows of gangster fashion?”

Pete stopped adjusting the cravat and looked at Ryan. “Europa is never wrong, Mr. Ryan,” Pete said and then looked down at his green nylon knit suit with the yellow shirt and even yellower cravat. “But this time she’s a little short on being right.”

Ryan smiled at Pete’s obvious consternation that his Marilyn Monroe — voiced computer had screwed him.

“Can I interest you gentleman in some champagne?” came a voice from behind the two.

When Ryan turned he saw the same woman he had seen when they checked into the hotel. She stood smiling with a clipboard pressed to her chest and a waitress standing to her left. The young Romanian girl held a tray of champagne glasses perfectly balanced with an equally charming smile etched on her face. Through Ryan’s experience with almost every sort of woman in the world he could see that neither of the two could stand being in the casino with the current clientele. The taller woman was dressed in a black suit that showed off her long legs. Ryan could not help but stare at her.

With his current state of dress and attire, Ryan didn’t realize that his normal charm had to be triple its normal strength to cover for the slicked-back hair and the well-trimmed three-day-old beard. When he saw a small hint of disgust on the dark-haired woman’s face he almost went into panic mode and explained that this wasn’t really him at all, that he dresses normal, then he realized he couldn’t say anything because this woman was more than likely in on whatever deviltry was happening in the well-camouflaged den of thieves.

Pete Golding salvaged the situation by reaching over and removing two glasses from the tray with a smile and a nod of his head to the young waitress. He nudged Ryan until the commander reached for his glass without taking his eyes off the general manager, which her gold-plated tag on her breast pocket announced. The woman became uncomfortable when Ryan’s gaze lingered on the nametag a moment longer than was necessary. She adjusted the clipboard to cover her chest area.

“Thank you very much,” Pete said as he downed the champagne in one large swallow and then watched the tension develop between the woman and Ryan.

“Do you gentlemen require chips for the table games?” she asked just to see if the small man with the ridiculous gold chains and rings could speak or if his only verbal skills were grunting and pounding his chest like most of the other Neanderthals at the resort.

“Uh, no thank you,” Ryan finally managed to say as he handed over the untouched champagne to Pete, who switched hands with his empty glass and then downed Ryan’s offering. Jason leaned into Pete. “Why don’t you go track that waitress down and get another, Doc,” he whispered conspiratorially to his Don Knotts attired teammate.

Pete looked up and saw that the woman looked uncomfortable standing and speaking with what looked like an evil little drug lord. Golding leaned back.

“Perhaps we should be moving along.”

Ryan smiled and turned the computer whiz around and shoved him off in the direction of the young waitress who was serving champagne to several hard-looking men sitting at a blackjack table smoking large cigars. Ryan took an immediate dislike to the men but pushed them and Golding from his mind as he turned to face the general manager once more.

“Now where were we?” he asked with his most charming “I’m only a little ole naval aviator” look on his face. The sad puppy dog eyes were the kicker.

“You were about to go and join your friend — it seems he may have been a little jealous of your attention toward me.” She smiled and winked and then turned and walked away.

Ryan took a moment to reflect on her comment and then it hit him right between the eyes. He realized as he turned and closely examined the way Doc Golding was standing with a glass of champagne halfway to his mouth and the way he was crooking his arm as he did so. Ryan’s eyes widened when he realized the general manager of the resort, one of the best-looking women he had laid eyes on in quite a while, thought he was gay and that he and Pete Golding were together for the weekend. Ryan didn’t know if he should run to his room at that moment and kill himself or blow his cover immediately and confess his righteousness to the woman and hope for the best. If it had been a man assuming he was gay, that would have been fine with Ryan because he had nothing against that lifestyle except thinking that the lifestyle was flawed because it excluded the most important assets in the known world — women.

“Hey, hey, whoa there,” he said as he chased after Gina Louvinski to explain how his being gay was a flat-out scientific impossibility. Ryan quickly caught up with the general manager, who was busy perusing the casino floor.

“Hi again,” he said when he caught her. Gina rolled her eyes but kept the smile in place for as long as she could bear it. “I think you may have the wrong impression of me,” he said as he stopped in front of her and stepped from one foot to the other as he tried to keep her attention. She looked at his chains and his open collar and nodded her head. “Uh, I’m not gay in any shape, form, or fashion,” he said with a smile that only elicited a raised brow from Gina. “Really. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Mr. — ?”

“Ryan, name’s Ryan,” he said like a schoolboy telling the hall monitor his name.

She made a show of looking on her extensive guest list and as she did Ryan realized he had really chased this woman down to explain to her, not that he wasn’t gay, but that he wasn’t like these other men. He would rather be gay than have her think he was one of the bad guys.

“Mr. Ryan, you don’t seem to be on my guest list,” she said as she ran her manicured nail down the list, checking once again. “You are American?” she asked when she looked up into Ryan’s smiling face.

“Oh,” Ryan said as he felt the color drain from his face. “Uh.” He nodded his head toward Pete, who was speaking with the young waitress who looked to be explaining the game of blackjack to the computer expert. “My assistant is so used to me traveling using a false name that I forget sometimes not to use it.”

“So, what is your real name?” she asked while out of the corner of her eye she saw trouble brewing. The young waitress this man’s companion was speaking to was being touched and prodded by the men at the blackjack table. Pete Golding looked uncomfortable as he raised a finger and wagged it at the two Polish and two Romanian thugs as if he were a teacher admonishing a bad student. Ryan didn’t catch the eye movement or realize the Doc was in over his head.

“Uh, Mendenhall,” Ryan said as he forgot the cover name he had been issued as this woman’s eyes erased all pertinent information from his frontal lobe.

Without looking for the name the woman allowed her full attention to travel to the table where Pete was standing and the young waitress was dodging the probing hands of two of the men.

“Thank you, Mr. Mendenhall … would you excuse me?” she said and then turned and left Jason standing and wondering how he had lost his magical charm with women on the flight over here. He shook his head as he watched the woman move with purpose toward the gaming tables.

“Gentlemen, our waitresses are quite busy and cannot linger with one table too long,” Gina said to the thugs groping the young girl.

The man closest to the girl smiled and ran a hand up the girl’s thigh, forcing her to balance her tray of glasses while trying to avoid the touch. Pete saw panic in her eyes. He stepped forward and slapped the man’s hands away. That caught everyone’s attention from several tables around. Across the aisle Jason rolled his eyes and knew there was trouble right here in River City.

“That’s not acceptable, mister,” Pete said as he straightened up and realized what he had just done as the large man in the black clothing stood up from his chair at the table. The burly brute stepped into the girl, brushing her aside and confronted Pete.

It seemed time was standing still for Golding as the bearded man took him by the cravat he hated. The resort’s general manager braved getting between the two guests. When she did the other three men stood and started forward. The larger brute let go of Pete and then reached out and pulled the clipboard from Gina’s hands and ostentatiously dropped it to the carpeted floor. His smile widened as he reached out and roughly handled her left breast just under the black suit jacket she wore.

Pete’s eyes widened in shock at the way these men were acting. He had never been witness to anything so blatantly boorish. Pete slapped at the man’s hand again, and in response the man took Golding by the throat and started pushing him backward.

Gina Louvinski panicked and wanted to call for her security but all she saw around the casino were Zallas’s men, who not only weren’t moving toward the ruckus but were watching with humorous curiosity. Knowing she was on her own, Gina reached out and took the man’s large hand and tried to force it from Pete’s throat. A second man came around and wrapped his thick arms around the general manager and lifted her away.

The next thing the woman knew was the sensation of falling, which came on her so fast that she thought she had blanked out momentarily. She hit the floor and then saw the second man’s large frame, the thug who had wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor, come crashing down beside her.

Ryan moved far faster than he had ever moved before. Seeing Doc being assaulted and the woman grabbed was far more than Ryan’s mind could grasp at one time. The end result was that Jason Ryan reacted as he was taught by the colonel. The next move was to bring his hand up and into the thick wrist bone of the man holding Pete by the throat. The bent knuckles came up and smashed into the wrist of the mobster, separating the two halves of the bone. The man screamed in pain and shock and Golding slid to the floor gasping for air.

Gina tried to stand as she saw the two remaining men from the table charge toward the man she thought was called Mendenhall. She grimaced as she saw the small dark-haired man take a stance and as he did the brute whose wrist he had just shattered went to his knees holding his arm. Ryan kicked out with his new Gucci shoes and caught the mobster on the chin, sending him backward into one of the men coming to his rescue, knocking him over the blackjack table. Ryan readied himself for the fourth mobster to make his opening bid so Jason made ready to defend himself. His eyes widened though when the man pulled out a gun and brought it up toward the small naval aviator.

“Oh, shit,” Ryan said. “There always has to be one pussy in the crowd that brings a gun.” He waited for the bullet that would end his small adventure in the Carpathian Mountains.

Before the shot was fired, several men dressed in black suits swarmed the man with the gun and his three companions. One of the guards lifted the injured thug with the broken wrist to his feet and unceremoniously pushed him back.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, this is only our first night together and we have this breaking out in the first few hours?” Dmitri Zallas said as he approached the gaming area with many of his security men in tow. Janos Vajic was with him and he hurriedly went to Gina and helped her to her feet. Zallas looked at Ryan for the longest time, even tilting his big head so he could get a better look at the man he didn’t recognize. Then the Russian host looked over at the injured man, who was holding his shattered wrist and glaring at Ryan. “Leno Kurkovich, I should have known,” Zallas said as he reached out and helped the man lean against the blackjack table. “This may be appropriate behavior in Krakow my friend, but we expect a little more restraint here at the Edge of the World.” He leaned in close so the Polish mobster could see his face. “Misbehave again, my friend, and you and your companions will be living at this magnificent resort permanently — am I understood?”

The large Polish mobster only glared at the much smaller Ryan as the Navy man finally relaxed. Jason Ryan, USN, reverted to his aviator spirit and his natural way of looking at things — he winked at the killer, whose eyes suddenly widened. The man started forward but was stopped by Zallas.

“Enough!” Zallas said as he gestured for his security men to remove the four troublemakers. “See to it our friend here makes it to the infirmary.” Zallas patted the injured man on the back. “We have an exceptional medical staff and we’ll get you fixed up in time for the gala grand opening of Castle Dracula.” His head tilted to the left and his men removed the four from the casino.

Ryan stooped down and helped a stunned Pete Golding to his feet while at the same time retrieving Gina’s ever-present clipboard.

“Damn, Doc, you’ve been hanging out with crazy Charlie Ellenshaw too much for your own good — his and your confrontational attitudes are out of control.” He slapped Pete on the back. “Just like your overwhelming sense of justice.”

“Thanks, Mr. Ryan,” Pete said as he pulled the wrinkled and damaged cravat from around his neck. “I thought that monster was going to rip my head from my shoulders.”

“I think that was the object lesson he was trying to impart to you, Doc.”

“Gentlemen, I don’t know what to say,” Gina said as she retrieved her clipboard from Ryan’s hand. “But thank you.”

“Yes, I must say I have never seen our friend Mr. Kurkovich subdued with such reckless abandon,” Zallas said as he stepped up to Ryan and Golding. “And with such skill.” The Russian looked from Ryan to the still shaken Golding. “Both of you, exceptional indeed.”

Ryan didn’t say anything as he turned to face the host of this freak show. Their eyes met and Ryan knew this man was used to getting what he wanted.

“If we had our own security teams in place—” Janos began.

“If we had your security in place our two heroes here would now be dead and bleeding all over my new carpet.” He turned and faced Janos Vajic after cutting him off. “And we can’t have that can we, Janos?”

Vajic gave Zallas a weary look and then placed his arm around the young waitress and his general manager and started to steer them toward the breezeway that led into the hotel. “No, we cannot.”

Ryan watched the exchange and determined that the balding partner and his manager, Gina, were not too fond of the Russian.

The woman turned around as she was led away and caught the attention of Ryan, who was watching her leave. She mouthed the words “Thank you.” Then Ryan mouthed the words, “I’m not gay.”

Gina smiled as she was led away.

Zallas watched Ryan for the longest moment and then he too smiled: this small man wasn’t an associate of his or anyone else’s that was invited.

“Now, what can I do for two such exceptional gentlemen? I am deep in your debt. Especially since I don’t know either of you, and since this is my party I feel slighted somehow.”

Ryan looked over at Pete, who snagged another glass of champagne from a passing waitress to soothe his aching throat muscles, what was left of them anyway.

“Name is Jason Crubble.” He winced as he said his cover name. “My friend is Pete Postlewaite, and we’re here because we received an invitation.” He made a show of reaching into his coat pocket for the gilded and very much Europa-forged invite, but Zallas stayed his hand.

“That is not necessary, Mr. Crubble, not at all. If you’re here that means you were meant to share in this monumental achievement.” Zallas smiled as two gorgeous women came up and placed their arms around his waist, one on each side, and then they both eyed Jason appreciatively. “I am deeply in your debt, sirs, if you need anything.” He looked slightly to his left and then right at the two beautiful women at his side. “And I mean anything at all, you gentlemen have but to ask. I treat heroes with much respect.” He smiled as his eyes took in Pete Golding as he finished off another glass of champagne. “And from what I have seen, no ordinary heroes.”

As Zallas walked away he kept his eyes on the small Navy man and Jason knew they had blown their covers because of his stupidity and womanizing. Ryan saw one of the two women lag behind with a nodding glance from Dmitri Zallas as he did so. She stepped up to Ryan and took his arm and pursed her bright red lips. Ryan shook his head and removed her hand. He gestured toward Pete by tilting his head in the direction of the hotel, indicating it was time to leave. And then Ryan faced the woman Zallas had left for his enjoyment, but compared to the Romanian GM who had just been led away from the casino, this blonde would never be comparable to the dark-haired beauty.

“No thanks, beautiful, I’m gay.”

Dmitri Zallas saw that the small man had spurned his chance for an easy partnership in his room with the young female offered to him. He watched the two Americans leave and then he gestured for one of his bodyguards to join him.

“Yes, Mr. Zallas?”

“I want the interior minister to check out these two Americans and any other Western men and women I don’t recognize. I want complete workups on those two and any others I don’t recall having met before.”

“You suspect they are not here as your friends?” asked the big man.

Zallas laughed. “I have very few friends here.” He gestured at the roaming guests of the casino. “These are all business opportunities. But these two Americans, no, not friends, I suspect they are something much more.”

“Police?” the man asked. “Interpol?”

“Perhaps,” Zallas said, watching the two American men vanish into the breezeway. “Whoever they are, those two and anyone they converse with bear watching.”

Anya couldn’t move another step. She was carrying her nephew in both arms and had stumbled with the sleeping boy ten times in the past hour. She finally had to stop and rest.

It was a full five minutes later that Mikla came limping into their resting place. The giant wolf flopped to the ground, its massive chest heaving in and out in exhaustion. Anya reached out and felt the very tip of Mikla’s nose. It was warm and dry and that worried her. The Golia was feverish and there was nothing she could do until they reached home. She leaned back and was startled when she heard noise coming from in front of her. She raised her head up and scanned the darkness. She saw blazing lights in the distance and wondered just how far off course she was. She knew of no lights that bright within 150 miles of Patinas. She shook her head angrily as she realized they must be lost.

She lay down and placed a hand on Mikla. The wolf must have been desperately ill to get so lost on his way home. That was something Mikla was good at, finding his way anywhere he was sent and returning without fail — with the exception of their predicament at the moment.

Anya was so exhausted she couldn’t help it and closed her eyes thinking she would get just a couple of minutes of downtime. She went to sleep and for the next eight hours never realized that her home was only one mile distant and the lights she was seeing was the resort at the Edge of the World.

She had made it back home after nine long years, but for now she was too tired to care.

The six men sat at a large table in the very elegantly designed Roman Spring restaurant. The waitstaff was wondering just how many bottles of the $900 1995 Lafite Rothschild the strangely dressed men could drink. As it stood, the food and beverage manager had ordered a case out of San Francisco and another from a warehouse in France, so altogether the restaurant had eight bottles of the elite wine and six of them sat empty in front of the men. They had also dined on oysters, steaks, and a dozen other expensive entrées, most of which were picked up by the wait staff without so much as having been nibbled upon. They seemed to be content with Dmitri Zallas’s expensive and personal Lafite Rothschild. The large man with the silver-embroidered head scarf raised a hand for the waitress and indicated that they wanted another bottle of the expensive wine.

Marko watched as the staff started buzzing around knowing that Zallas had to be informed of the wine usage of his personal stock. The dark-haired man smirked because he knew the wine was a favorite of the man he had set up in business.

The wine steward arrived and opened the wine for the men but one of them removed the bottle from the steward’s hands after it was uncorked. Without waiting for it to breathe the large Gypsy started to sloppily pour the wine into their glasses.

Marko’s eyes were drawn to a couple who was being seated in the nearly empty Roman Spring restaurant. The man looked to be a little over six feet in height, which made the beautiful woman in the blue evening dress stand out that much more because of her small stature. His dark eyes watched as the man held out a chair for his more petite companion. His eyes studied the couple as they accepted their menus and listened to what the restaurant had to offer.

One of Marko’s companions held another glass of wine out for the prince of princes but immediately saw that Marko wasn’t there, at least in the mental sense. The men around the table knew the look. He was probing someone close by. Each man in turn quieted and placed his glass on the table. Each turned and looked in the direction of the two who had just been seated.

“Are you feeling something?” one of the men asked as he looked at the small woman across the way and was impressed by what he saw.

After a minute Marko blinked and then tried to focus once more on the man and at that exact moment the object of his concentrated thoughts looked up and the two men’s eyes met for the first time, and then the feeling slammed into the front of Marko’s brain like a sledgehammer. His eyes widened as the man’s secret opened up for Marko and for the first time in his life he was stunned at the feelings that came from someone he connected with. The man’s penetrating blue eyes met Marko’s brown ones and it was as if both men had an insight into the other. The stranger with the blue eyes raised a brow and then looked away. Marko did not, as his eyes were still wide. He was slowly feeling a knot grow in the pit of his stomach.

“Marko, you look as if you have seen Moses himself, what is it?” asked the man next to him, who removed the glass of wine from in front of Marko’s shaking hands.

“Let us leave this place,” was all Marko said as his eyes went from the man to the smiling woman. He watched her lightly touch the man’s hand from across the table and then saw her pull her hand away after initial contact as if it were forbidden somehow for the two to come into physical contact. “Go and I will meet you outside.” He looked at his men. “Go, brothers, I will join you soon.”

The men did as they were told and stood to leave without looking back at the man and woman who had frightened Marko — a man they had never seen shy away from trouble of any kind, and since they were witnessing this behavior for the first time they were unnerved by it. They started to move off toward the exit much to the relief of the waitstaff and the wine stewards, who couldn’t fathom how to begin explaining the missing wine to Zallas.

Marko sat alone at the table as his men filed out of the restaurant. The man and woman watched the Gypsy men exit.

As his men left as ordered, Marko continued to study the couple. The couple’s eyes never left each other, but he knew they were aware of everything happening around them. These two were not the same kind of people he had felt around him for most of the evening. The man and woman weren’t like Zallas and the other guests.

As Marko watched, his eyebrows rose as he caught a fleeting glimpse inside the man’s head that never ceased its locomotion-like activity — he could tell the stranger was not used to any inactive periods in his life. He was a hard man used to action. Marko tilted his head and concentrated on his company. Once he fought his way through her feelings for the man in front of her, he began to get a clear picture of the beautiful woman in the blue dress. Marko smiled when he realized this young lady was nothing but a teacher or some similar profession. He kept getting the impression of stones, diamonds, gold, ordinary rocks — and natural hot springs. Marko’s eyes widened again. This woman was here to study his lands — his mountain. Once that thought was clear he closed his eyes again and pushed his mind out toward the couple.

Marko again came awake and then stood and strode with confidence toward the man and woman. He stood next to the man and waited to be acknowledged. The dark-haired gentleman patted his mouth with a napkin and slowly sipped from his glass of water. He was intentionally waiting to look up at the man who had approached them.

“I was wondering if you were going to stare all night or come over and let us know what was on your mind,” Jack Collins said as he finally fixed Marko with his eyes. Sarah took a drink of her wine and waited.

“You must excuse me for staring, I am a local of this area and I was just wondering why you are here,” Marko asked with nothing more threatening than a dip of his head in acknowledgment to the woman, who nodded in a bored response.

“Well, we’re here to enjoy this new resort and to celebrate that fact with our host,” Jack offered, knowing that somehow this man knew he was lying. The smile remained above the well-trimmed goatee.

“American?” Marko asked as his eyes roamed over Sarah’s low-cut dress.

“Yes, we’re American,” Jack said. “And you’re Romanian, a Gypsy I would say.”

“Yes, it’s amazing how tourists to our lovely mountains expect the colors and the silk and the sitting around our campfires telling fortunes and stories of vampires, witches, and—”

“Werewolves?” Sarah asked. She saw the curious look on the Gypsy’s face. “Can’t forget the werewolves, I mean this is the Carpathian Mountains, right, vampires and werewolves and all that horror movie stuff?”

Marko’s smile broadened as he looked down upon the American woman and then turned and looked at Jack. “Yes, we Gypsies are a rather quaint people. We mix well with the farmers and the sheep men that live here.” He leaned over and looked from Jack to Sarah. “And we all like to keep the old folklore alive and well.” The man smiled broadly and then spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “But I’ll be honest with you, there really are no vampires around here. Vlad the Impaler came from the west of our mountains.”

“That covers vampires, but what about … other legends?” Sarah persisted. She looked at Jack and he nodded his head only slightly.

“That’s all they are, myths, legends, and people who have nothing better to do after the day’s chores than sit around a fire and tell stories to frighten children and entertain the few tourists that actually make it up the mountain.”

“I didn’t mean to be insulting to your way of life. I find your heritage fascinating.”

Marko looked at Sarah once more and then bowed. “Yes, Universal Studios and the rest of Hollywood has made quite a bit of money telling the world what they know of the Gypsy.” He became serious at that moment and his gaze turned on Collins. “And I will say this: the world knows nothing of us.” He switched his look toward Sarah and he placed both of his large hands on the table. “Nothing.”

He straightened and then fixed the two Americans with his dazzling smile, which highlighted his whole amazing outfit of reds, blacks, silvers, and blues. The gold he was wearing was exquisite and did nothing to make Jack and Sarah any less confident that this was their man.

“I hope I see you again before the weekend is over. If you get out and travel the roads ask for me, and you will be allowed anywhere that the regular tourists are not. I will be happy to show you the true Gypsy life. Perhaps you can join us tomorrow inside the pass?”

“Thank you. But if I may ask, why would we be accorded such a privilege?” Jack asked with his own small smile. He slowly lifted his glass of water and drank.

“Because I know you are not here to visit Zallas or be with the fools he has invited. You are here for another purpose,” he half bowed, “and that purpose shall remain yours and yours alone,” he straightened, “but if you need help, please ask anyone on the mountain about me, they will get word to me that you want to … talk.” Marko felt good letting them know that he was no fool. “Just ask for—”

“Marko Korvesky?” Jack said, throwing the Gypsy his own American-style curveball. He saw the smile falter a bit on the Gypsy’s face. He recovered quickly and to his credit the large man held his questions for now.

“Yes, how intriguing that you already know of me and my family.”

“Anyone who visits an area where they have never been would be wise to find out who is really in charge. And at the moment there are two powers in the area. Zallas, who controls everything from the castle to the resort, and the family Korvesky, the queen mother and her two grandchildren, Marko and Anya, who control the pass and everything related to the mountain.”

“I am indeed impressed, Mr.…”

Jack was taking a risk showing his cards like this but they had been presented with an opportunity and he knew he had to chance it. The prince of the Gypsies seemed intrigued that they knew so much. Collins also knew that Korvesky would want to keep him and Sarah close until he knew what motivated the two Americans.

“That doesn’t matter, just call me, Jack. This is Sarah.”

Marko bowed and then looked at both. “I must learn how my family has become so popular outside Patinas. And for you to know of my sister, that is truly vexing. You must visit Patinas and allow my people to show you the hospitality of not only the Gypsy family Korvesky, but of our friends and neighbors as well. Tomorrow afternoon and into the evening we will be celebrating. I would be pleased to see you there.” He leaned over and lightly touched Sarah on the arm. “I insist, as I wouldn’t want to have to come looking for you.”

“We would love to accept,” Sarah said. “May I ask if we can bring some acquaintances?”

“Please, bring anyone you wish. It will be a real experience in the Carpathians.” He gestured around him with distaste. “Not this.”

“I think that would be a fine idea. We’re here to map the pass for NATO. I’m sure you’ve seen the soldiers around?” Jack said.

“I do not understand the ways of the military world, Jack,” saying the name as if he had just eaten a rotten piece of fruit. “But if it’s information on the pass you seek, my grandmamma will be happy to answer any question you may have. She’s what we would call a student of Patinas history.”

“We look forward to it, tomorrow afternoon then?”

Marko bowed and left the table without another word. The waitstaff saw him coming and they parted like the Red Sea when they saw the look crossing his dark features. His eyes were aglow with what could only be described as pure fury.

“Well, I didn’t expect that,” Sarah said as she took a drink of wine.

Jack was watching the retreating form of Marko Korvesky. The man looked quite a bit more impressive than he did in his dossier photo.

“I’m sure he didn’t either.” He looked over at Sarah and tossed his napkin on the table and stood. He shoveled out a hundred-dollar bill for the waitstaff and then assisted Sarah to her feet.

“Okay, I know that look, Colonel, what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that when he was sitting at his table I was feeling like I was being spied on from inside my own head.” He looked up as he waited for Sarah to step away from the table. “And don’t ask because I don’t know. I’ve never had that feeling before in my life.” He took her by the arm and started to leave. “It’s like he was draining information from me.”

“Such as?”

“He now knows the faces of everyone on our team and suddenly he asks that we all come up to see the pass.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought Niles and his team into the conversation.”

As they walked he thought. He stopped and looked at Sarah as they waited for the elevator.

“He’s dangerous, but in what way I just don’t know yet.”

“What do we do?”

“We have to allow Niles’s team to do their jobs and we still have to accomplish what we set out to do. Our mission here is to track the artifacts and make a connection to the history Alice has put together.” Jack pursed his lips in thought. “No, we stay and they go. We need to stick close to Zallas.”

“Damn it!” Sarah said as the elevator doors slid open.

“What?” Jack asked.

“We get stuck here with gangsters and the lowlife scum of the earth, and Niles and his team get to spend time with a legendary people, and possibly even more legendary creatures.”

“Yeah, they get all of the fun. Get in the elevator, shorty, before I do let you go dance with the wolves. And speaking of wolves I hope Ryan and Pete stayed out of trouble.”

“It’s Ryan, what could possibly go wrong?” Sarah said with a smirk.

Ryan was in his room and he had just stepped out of the shower after having been driven crazy by the oil in his hair and the scratchiness of his three-day-old trimmed beard.

As he toweled off, Ryan slid into one of the fanciest complimentary robes he had ever seen just as a knock sounded on his door. Ryan walked over and looked through the peephole and saw a nervous-looking Pete Golding trying to peer into Ryan’s room through the same peephole. Jason let out a deep breath and then opened the door. The computer genius was still dressed in his green Don Knotts suit and looked distressed.

“Hey, Doc, what’s up?” Ryan asked as he finished drying off his hair and then half turned and tossed the damp towel on a chair.

Golding danced from foot to foot and then looked up and down the hallway; Jason caught the meaning and then stepped aside for Golding to enter.

Golding stopped just inside the door and wrung his hands together. He turned to face Jason, who stood by the door with his eyebrows raised.

“Look, I know I’m not the physical man that you and the colonel, Will, and Carl are, I know that. And I just want to apologize for getting us into that trouble downstairs. I could have blown everything.”

Ryan shook his head. “Look, Doc, you did what any one of us would have done. Treating someone who’s just trying to do her job like she’s a piece of furniture or someone’s personal touch toy, well, I think you did what we in the Security Department would have done, only you did it without thinking. That’s rare and it shows that you’re starting to get field instincts.” Ryan hoped the speech helped the doc, even though none of it was true. He took Pete by the arm and steered him back to the door. “Look, I know this is only your, what, third time in the field away from your mistress Europa? I think you’re becoming a real asset, Doc, I really do.”

“You really think so?” Pete asked, beaming.

“I never say things I don’t mean.”

Pete smiled and then stopped before the door, making Ryan run into him.

“Would you mention this to Professor Ellenshaw? He thinks he’s the only one outside of the Security Department that’s worthy of field operations.”

Ryan laughed and looked at the professor and winked, leaning close as if to pass a secret. “Here’s a little inside intel, Doc, for your ears alone. The colonel said that he would rather have you on loan from the computer center than ten Marines, because you think out of the box. And if he would rather have you than ten Marines, Doc, where does that leave crazy Charlie? Eatin’ your dust, that’s where.”

“Ohhh,” was all Pete could say.

Ryan patted him on the back to get him moving back toward the door.

“And Pete?”

“Yes, Commander?”

“Take that suit off and get back to your white shirt and black tie, it’s more you.”

“Oh, I see,” Pete said as he started to unbutton his shirt.

“In your room, Doc.” Jason managed to get the door open and then Pete started to step out rebuttoning his green shirt when he suddenly stopped. Ryan made a face and slowly glanced around Pete’s shoulder and his heart sank into his lower abdomen.

Gina Louvinski stood at the door with her eyes neutral as she watched Pete suddenly lower his hands from his shirt buttons and then step back against the open door. As for Ryan he was frozen in what he thought was the most compromising position he had ever been nailed in, and that was including last month when he had been forced to dress as a candy striper to escape a Las Vegas hospital.

“Oh, excuse me, I … I … I just wanted to say,” the dark-haired Romanian placed a hand over her mouth and averted her eyes, “I am so, so, sorry to have—”

“Doc, go to your room … now,” Ryan said, recovering.

Pete squeezed past the stunned resort manager and went to his room.

“As I said, I am so sorry for disturbing your … your … I am just sorry. I wanted to thank you personally for what you did downstairs. I assure you if our own security were on the premises this kind of behavior would not be tolerated. You and your…” Gina looked lost for the right word and Ryan flinched when she finally found it, “Your friend.”

Ryan pulled the woman into his room and closed the door, shocking her.

“Look, the doc is my friend, but it ends there,” Ryan said.

The general manager of the Edge of the World looked Ryan over as he spoke. She noticed he was minus the oil in his hair, and the gold chains and jewelry were noticeably absent. And as she looked toward the dresser drawers she saw regular clothing neatly folded and not one was a garment of the garish variety. She looked at Ryan and suspected something was way wrong with her initial assumption about the small dark-haired man.

“Hell, I don’t even know how to explain this.”

The woman could tell he wanted to say something but then thought what was the use? She watched him take a deep breath and then a look of resignation came over his features.

“Oh, what the hell? Whatever you think I am, I probably am. Right now I’m too tired and my hand hurts too much to care.” Ryan reached out and opened the door.

Gina reached out and closed the door and then looked Ryan over.

“Are all Americans as strange as you two?” she asked as she took in Jason’s nice features without the cover-up of beard and oil and gold.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

The general manager became serious and then took a step toward Jason.

“The men you dealt with tonight are the type that won’t forget such a slight. The owner didn’t have them removed, so please, watch yourself.” She turned for the door but Ryan stopped her and turned her around and at the same moment kicked the door closed with his foot.

“I’m not afraid of those guys. After all, I’m loud, proud, gay, and I’m gonna stay.” Ryan took her in his arms.

For the next four hours Lieutenant Commander Jason Ryan, USN, proved to one very perceptive general manager of the Edge of the World that, indeed, he wasn’t gay, and also he was still Jason Ryan, naval aviator and king womanizer of the planet.

10

Marko stood silently at the camouflaged entrance to the temple. He felt the heat as it poured from the cracks in the scared strata of the mountain as he stepped into the entranceway. His eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the oil lamps that stretched away into the infinite darkness of the immense staircase that wound down into the bowels of the mountain. He started down. Far below he saw the illumination of the temple lighting and he heard the flow of naturally boiled water as it bubbled up through the artesian pools far beneath the earth. The blast furnace of heat and steam made the walk down uncomfortable.

Marko was only halfway down the stairs when he heard a noise behind him. He stopped and peered into the flickering darkness cast by the oil lamps that lined the access to the temple. Seeing nothing, he was about to turn and start back down the staircase when he heard the low growl and this time he knew he had company. He reached out and removed the flaming bowl of oil that sat in a notch in the prehistorically carved tunnel. He held the bowl high in the air and that was when he saw the yellow eyes staring at him. They glowed angrily in the light cast by the oil lamp.

Stanus was standing on the steps twenty feet from Marko. His eyes were watching but the wolf wasn’t moving. The growling low in Stanus’s throat was unnerving.

“I’ve been searching for you, where have you been?” Marko asked as he gently placed the small bowl of flaming oil back into the notch.

Stanus growled once more and didn’t move. Instead of asking anything more, Marko slowly lowered himself to the three-thousand-year-old hewed stone. He took a deep breath and then looked back at Stanus, who was still standing motionless on the steps high above Marko.

“I know you think I have betrayed you, the Golia, and our people.” He held the wolf’s yellow eyes with his own, darker ones. “That ridiculous castle is as far as the human encroachment is going to get.” Marko made sure Stanus was looking at him. He was, intently. “But you will see that tomorrow soldiers will come. These are our soldiers, and a few Americans.” Marko laughed and then shook his head as he smiled over and up at Stanus, who wasn’t growling any longer, but had tilted its head as it tried to understand the words of the man without the spell being cast upon it. “You don’t even know what an American is, do you?”

Stanus flicked his ears as if saying, “Does it matter?”

“They are mapping the pass, as your ancestors once did, as my ancestor Kale once did. They are mapping it for the defense of the north in case war comes to the people not of this mountain. Not us, but the lowlanders.”

Stanus whined and then took three tentative steps down the staircase.

“The Golia must remain inside the temple for the next two days and then the men and soldiers will leave this place of the Golia and Jeddah. Do you understand me, Stanus?”

The wolf sat beside Marko and looked him in the eyes. The beast was a full four heads taller than Marko as he sat and looked down into the man’s face. Marko slowly lifted his hand toward the left side of the massive head of the wolf but the great beast pulled back out of touch. It was as if Stanus would not allow the joining spell to be cast. That made Marko nervous, but not for the first time around the great alpha male.

“We have set in motion events that will secure the safety of our mountain, our people, and our babies. Babies you have in the temple. We will never have to worry about security again. We have discovered after all these years what it takes to make sure we survive — money.” Marko held the gaze of the Golia and didn’t flinch. “You don’t know of money, do you? Think of gold, and gemstones — we have what the outside world craves. Like you crave the company of your Golia, they also must have things of material value.”

The wolf, without Marko casting the joining spell, had to be made to understand.

“This is why we must make sure nothing happens to either the soldiers that will come to map our home, or those men and women down below. I promise you, my friend, there will be no men allowed beyond the castle, just the soldiers, and they cannot be harmed. I cannot say this enough, Stanus — leave them be. I and my men will handle anyone who strays from the path. Keep the Golia babies safe inside the temple.”

Stanus didn’t move. It was like he was looking for the lie hidden inside Marko’s words.

“I know I told you that the newcomers would not breach the mountains and I swear to you it will not happen again. Grandmamma will have us destroy what is ours and abandon our home if threatened, but I say we can keep what is ours and remain where we have for the past three thousand years.”

Stanus surprised Marko by leaning into him and then rubbing its muzzle on the side of Marko’s face. Stanus was smelling him for any deceit, and luckily for Marko this time it was all the truth. He closed his eyes waiting for Stanus to disagree. It didn’t. The great wolf huffed as if to say, “We’ll see,” and then with one leap hopped over Marko and disappeared into the cavern that housed the greatest temple complex ever built by man.

Marko sat for the longest time and prayed he hadn’t made wrong choices in his partnership with the Russian. If he had, he knew he could end the entire dream that was their home and God’s personal dream that is the Golia.

That things would calm after the resort below was up and running and his people had a steady flow of untraceable money and not the artifacts Marko had had to steal from the temple to bribe not only the Russian, but also the interior minister. Tomorrow was Friday and after that if he could survive one more day and night without the Golia showing their fierceness to anyone, they could slide into safety on their mountain again and live in the way they had been denied for three and a half thousand years.

Colonel Ben-Nevin had his men dispersed as he compared his map to the terrain in front of the new resort. He had stopped his small convoy three miles to the west of the hotel and well away from the crowd of reporters and TV crews camped outside the front gates. His secret conspirator inside the Knesset had sent him the coordinates of the area the Israeli army had been alerted to. This information had been taken directly from the mouth of General Shamni himself when he reported to the committee overseeing foreign intelligence. The information was helpful in the fact it gave him a new starting point. He knew if the major was heading for Patinas, this was the only way in.

“Sir,” one of his men said as he approached the colonel.

“What is it?” Ben-Nevin asked as he looked up from the map.

“Our eastern team reports a NATO camp that is just breaking up on the far side of the resort. They say it looks like most of the contingent is leaving the area.”

“Most?”

“There is a platoon-sized element still bivouacked.”

“Our contact was right about NATO being interested in the pass, but I thought they would take a little more time in getting it done.”

The messenger was about to turn away when Ben-Nevin called him over to the hood of the car where he had the map spread out. He hit the gas station — supplied map with a finger of his undamaged left hand.

“I want ten men right here.” He jabbed at a spot he had been studying closely for the past two hours. “If she’s near she will have to pass through right there. It’s the only spot near enough to the foothills to even get close to the road leading to the pass. Yes, this is the spot. Tell the men I will join them soon.”

The man nodded and turned away to gather the men when he heard the sound of an automatic weapon being charged behind him. It seemed the colonel was about to go hunting.

It had taken Charlie Ellenshaw over an hour and a half to fully awaken. He stumbled behind Everett as they slowly surveyed the area to the front of the resort. Carl stopped and studied the hotel and the security situation. Charlie knelt beside him.

“I hope Niles got through to Jack because I don’t think we could get into that place. If that’s their normal security force it rivals several small nations I’ve been to.”

“Impossible to get in?” Charlie asked.

Everett smiled and looked at the professor of cryptozoology. “Impossible? Nah, just formidable, Doc, just formidable.”

Everett stood and started walking once more to the west. The lights of the resort still lit the night around them and Carl felt exposed. Finally he spied the road that led up the steep mountain. He was surprised when he saw two men standing by the side of the trail leading to the road. They talked a moment and then a third man came up and said something to them and then the three left. Everett took a deep breath when he realized how close they had come to walking right into the two men. He shook his head and then waved Charlie forward, silently cursing his stupidity in worrying about the lights of the resort when he should have been concentrating.

“Why don’t we just use the road?” Charlie asked when Everett continued to use the thin trees for cover.

“Well, Doc, if we—”

Before Carl could answer Ellenshaw, the noise of men shouting broke through the nighttime silence. They both heard men running. Everett reached up and pulled Ellenshaw down and they both waited.

“It seems awfully crowded out here in the woods for it being almost dawn.”

Everett had to agree with Charlie on that point.

Suddenly there were two sets of boots standing just above the small ditch they had crawled into. Everett shook his head when Ellenshaw started to move. The men spoke in a foreign language and Everett knew that language was not Romanian. He had heard it just two days ago in Rome. The two men hurried away and Everett rolled over onto his back until his eyes could see the fading lights of the stars as it neared dawn.

“How in the hell did they know to come here?” Carl asked those disappearing stars.

Charlie was about to ask the captain to explain when they heard the yelp of a large dog. Then another pain-filled cry came bursting through the trees. They heard men shouting and then a woman screamed an obscenity.

Everett reached behind him and pulled out the nine-millimeter.

“Come on, Doc, this doesn’t sound good.”

“Hey, do you have a gun for me?” Charlie whispered as loud as he dared.

“Damn, I accidentally issued it to Pete Golding,” Everett joked, knowing that would irk Charlie to no end. Then Carl slowly moved out of the small drainage ditch and into the trees. Ellenshaw looked lost for a moment and then frowned.

“Pete!” he cursed under his breath and then started after the captain.

It took several minutes for the woods along the road and adjoining trail to calm down from the excitement moments earlier, Carl and Charlie managing to keep out of sight.

Everett had a chance to see several of the men up close and he could see that they were not professional soldiers or even militarily trained. They acted like hired men from various professions and that made his job that much easier, as he could track the noisy men without being seen or heard.

After a long wait behind one of the larger pine trees, which were becoming far more sparse the nearer to the mountain they got, they watched eleven men as they started returning to the road in the same place they were before all the commotion began. All but one man, Carl corrected himself. This man silently stood his ground and listened to the early morning sounds.

In the weak light of dawn, Carl had a feeling of déjà vu as he watched the dark form standing just ahead of him and Charlie. The tall, thin man placed a hand on the tree and listened, and then suddenly vanished. Everett raised his head a little and tried to find out where the familiar form had disappeared to when he heard something. It was a small cry of pain as someone stumbled in the dim light of morning. Everett gestured for Charlie Ellenshaw to hold his ground and the professor nodded that he understood.

Carl moved slowly away from the last protected spot he had for a hundred yards. He kept close to the ground as he headed toward a large boulder that had tumbled from the mountain sometime in the past thousand years. Everett realized as he ran stooped over that he wasn’t getting enough exercise as he struggled to keep bent at the waist. Finally he placed his hands on the giant stone and knelt to catch his breath. He had felt exposed in the dawn light and knew he had been foolish to try to get as close as he could to where he thought the noise had originated. He finally controlled his breathing enough that he could listen. He heard the birds singing their morning songs and several of them even sprang from the trees above them. But of the strange noise he had heard, there was nothing.

Carl was about to turn away when he heard another cry and then a curse as someone was pushed from the small thatch of trees fifty feet beyond where Everett had pulled up.

“Traveling with a child has never been Mossad policy, Major Sorotzkin, you should know that.”

Carl saw the man and then the woman and boy. The child wasn’t the same but the woman was Anya Korvesky — the Mossad agent from Rome. And the man who held the two at gunpoint was the very same colonel that had tried to kill him and Ryan in the small antique shop near Vatican City.

“Well, imagine meeting you two here,” Carl muttered as he turned to make sure Charlie was still in his spot behind the large tree. His eyes widened when he saw that Ellenshaw wasn’t there. He hissed at having lost the professor. He angrily turned back to the strange scene ahead of him in the growing light. He then turned and made sure that the men who had left the area earlier were not returning. He guessed the arrogant man holding the woman and child at gunpoint thought he could handle this alone — which was right in line with Carl’s innovative plans.

“Did you not think we had the resources to trace your movements? All we had to do was watch General Shamni. Our people knew at the precise moment that the general discovered where you would be going. Did you know that he’s assembled a strike team, which means I have very little time to expose the truth of this mountain to all of Israel, or the most important of those people anyway.”

Everett watched the girl knowing she was fast and light on her feet. But as he did he knew she wouldn’t do anything to risk the life of the boy who clung to her.

“That will be the day when scum like you thinks he has a real soldier like General Shamni figured out.” The woman stopped walking but kept her hands where Colonel Ben-Nevin could see them. “I may not be his favorite right now, but he’s a man who loves his country, and you couldn’t think like him if your life depended on it.”

Ben-Nevin ignored the slight. “Now, where is that magnificent animal that saved you on the train? I must see the beast and know that the old tales are true.” He smiled knowing his captives couldn’t see it. “Because if the animals are real that means that other, more viable legends are also true.”

“Mikla died this afternoon in his sleep. He was too badly injured from a broken ankle that became infected.”

“This is a shame. I was looking forward to dispatching the animal myself and then mounting its head on my office wall.”

“You couldn’t outthink or outfight Mikla with an army of mercenaries.”

Ben-Nevin smirked, a gesture that Everett saw from his hiding place behind the large boulder. Then Carl winced angrily when the colonel shoved the woman in the back viciously with the barrel of his gun. She didn’t let out a sound as she was pushed forward, dragging the young boy with her. They stumbled and fell to the ground and Ben-Nevin moved to kick at the two prone forms.

Everett was just standing with his weapon held with both hands as he took quick aim at the colonel before he could bring his foot down on the defenseless woman. Suddenly he felt the sharp jab of a weapon as it was poked painfully into his spine.

“Don’t move,” came a heavily accented voice in English.

The sudden noise didn’t stop the kick that was delivered to Anya as she squeezed her eyes shut against the pain in her kidneys as the boot dug deeply into her. The boy, as brave as he could be, threw himself over Anya and waited for his turn. Ben-Nevin however had his attention drawn away by something beyond Anya’s hearing. She managed to raise her head and see a man walking toward them and from her skewed viewpoint the man walking with his hands up looked familiar. She felt the air part as Colonel Ben-Nevin stepped over her and her nephew.

“This is fortuitous, I must say.”

Everett was angry but he tried his best to hold it in check after being caught unawares by the two men who had managed to get behind him without him knowing it. He figured these two or more like them had also gotten poor Ellenshaw and that was why he wasn’t by the tree. Carl felt as if he had let Charlie down by leaving him behind.

In the early morning light Everett saw Colonel Ben-Nevin turn from him to look at the woman he had just kicked. She was looking up at Carl and he could see her eyes shift as she recognized him from Vatican City.

“Is that the way you treat women where you come from, dickhead?” Everett said as the weapon at his spine was shoved a little harder at his insult. He half turned to the men behind him. “As for you, that damn thing has bullets; I suggest you use them instead of trying to skewer me with the barrel.” That elicited another sharp jab.

“Are all you Americans so arrogant?” Ben-Nevin asked as he moved toward the three men. He gestured for the man with the AK-47 at Carl’s back to back away, not out of any consideration for the captain but the fact that Ben-Nevin didn’t want anyone too close to this man. He had seen him in action and had respect for anyone that can move as quickly as he had seen this man do. The two men took a step back and Everett was grateful for the relief and the maneuvering room in case an opportunity presented itself.

“Just the ones I know,” Carl answered as he glanced behind to see how far away the two men were. They were better than he thought, standing out of arm’s reach.

“Witty. Do you have a name, or just a number?” Ben-Nevin asked.

“I have a name, but only my mama’s allowed to use it. You can just call me Popeye the Sailor.”

Ben-Nevin raised his pistol but didn’t aim it at Everett but just waved it slowly back and forth to make sure the large American saw the weapon.

“All right, Mr. Popeye, where is the funny-looking white-haired man you came into the hills with?”

“White-haired man? You guys must have seen a ghost because I—”

The AK-47 butt plate to the back of Carl’s ribs ended his reply before it was finished as he went to his knees from the impact. He felt his breath leave his lungs and then he heard a woman’s voice ask Ben-Nevin to stop. Everett shook his head and then managed with some difficulty to take in a breath of air. He slowly glanced back at the man who had delivered the blow. He was standing behind him with a look of satisfaction on his face. The man’s accomplice reached down and pulled Everett to his feet where he did his best to steady himself as air slowly returned.

“You guys from the Middle East don’t have a sense of humor do you?” Everett said as it felt as if his ribs shifted back to the right spot inside his body.

“I am not the kind that will stand here and bandy words with you, Mr. Popeye. I will ask once more who you are and who you report to. If you do not answer, as you draw your next painful breath the very next sound you hear will be that bullet you requested earlier as it enters the back of your head.”

“My name is Popeye and I work for a man named Wimpy, and I hate him because he never pays me for my hamburgers.”

“Shoot this man,” Ben-Nevin said as he angrily turned away from the American to concentrate on the woman and the boy.

Everett knew he was had so he made ready to at least go down without the bullet-to-the-head thing. He would rather go out with his hands wrapped around the throat of the man who had hit him from behind.

Carl tensed as he started to spring, but before he could move he heard a loud whack and then an even louder grunt. Then another swish sounded in the morning air and after that a loud, painful yelp came as Everett rose and saw that Charlie Ellenshaw had came up from behind the two men and coldcocked them with a large tree branch. Now Ellenshaw stood there with the branch in his hands looking as if he had done something horribly wrong. It was as if he was sorrowful for hitting the men as hard as he had. Everett ignored him and reached for the fallen AK-47.

Ben-Nevin turned at the unusual sound and then his eyes widened when he saw the very man he had just asked the American about. He was standing with a large limb and the other American was reaching for one of the fallen weapons. The Mossad colonel quickly brought up his own weapon and just when he thought he had a shot at the American a sharp pain raced from his leg to his brain in record speed. When the shock settled he looked down and saw a small knife sticking from his left leg. As he brought the weapon over and around he saw that another small boy had once more saved the day for the man and the woman — at least momentarily. The gun went to the boy and that was when his legs were knocked out from under him by Anya, who had kicked out at the last moment before the weapon discharged in her nephew’s face.

Ben-Nevin hit the ground and he immediately felt the gun fly from his hand. He rolled as fast as he could before the large American could aim the weapon he had recovered. He rolled until he felt his body hit an incline and then the speed of his roll increased. Ben-Nevin finally came to a stop and before anyone could take quick aim at him he stood and vanished into the trees.

Carl had tried to raise the automatic weapon and at least try a shot at the escaping colonel, but one of the men Charlie had laid waste to came to and grabbed Everett’s ankle, stopping the aimed shot before he could pull the trigger. Carl hissed and then easily turned the AK-47 around and thumped the man on the head.

“That’s for the hit in the ribs,” he said as he started to turn away and then turned and hit the man again with the butt plate. “And that’s for waking up at the wrong time.” The man crumpled and stayed down.

Charlie Ellenshaw was wide-eyed as he watched an angry Captain Everett turn away and walk toward the fallen woman and boy. He gingerly stepped over the two men he had hit with the branch, which he still clutched. As he stepped over the men he tossed the branch away and his eyes widened when he saw the other AK-47 lying beside the man. He reached for the weapon just as Everett reached for it and removed it just as it touched Charlie’s outstretched fingers.

“Sorry, Doc, this isn’t an M-16, it’s far more sensitive and one shock to my back is enough for one evening.”

“Damn,” Ellenshaw hissed as Carl turned away once more.

Everett saw the woman as she slowly rose to her feet. He turned and made sure no more surprises were imminent and then he removed the magazine from the weapon he held and looked at the loads. He reinserted the clip and then took in the woman.

“Looks like you had a rough trip?” he said. He didn’t exactly aim the barrel of the AK-47 directly at Anya, but it wasn’t pointed in the opposite direction either. Even the boy was scrutinized by Everett. It had been he who eventually saved Carl’s life and that demanded respect.

The woman didn’t say anything as she helped the boy to his feet. She looked around and then faced the captain.

“He will be back with more men, I must leave.” She started to turn the boy away but Everett made sure she heard the safety being removed from the automatic weapon he now held on her. She turned angrily. “We must leave; he wants you as much as me. The colonel will be relentless, he has no choice now. He intends to kill you and anyone else in his way.”

Everett raised the barrel of the weapon toward the sky away from Anya. She nodded her head in a quasi-thank-you motion and then pulled the boy further into the trees they had initially been hiding in when they had been discovered by Ben-Nevin.

Carl followed the woman, the boy, and Charlie about two hundred yards further into the hills. Finally he spied the road that led upward toward the strange-looking castle and the pass above it.

“Aren’t we a little too close to the road?” Carl asked as Anya finally stopped and looked around her at the early morning landscape. “I would think that Ben-Nevin and his friends would use this to track you, I mean it’s the most expedient route.”

The woman looked at Carl. “The colonel would never be stupid enough to expose himself on the open road on this mountain. This is the one place on earth that is not controlled by men from the outside … no, we have to cross the road here and retrieve something I left behind.”

“What in the hell is so important that you would risk—”

Everett became angry when Anya Korvesky sprinted across the road with the boy close behind. They soon vanished behind a small wall of stacked rocks.

“Damn it!” Everett said as he gestured for Ellenshaw to follow him across. The two men made it without anyone seeing them. Carl hopped deftly over the stone wall and was followed by Charlie, who hit the wall and flew over headfirst landing squarely on his chin.

“Jesus, Doc, can you make any more noise?” Carl said as he tried to see where Anya and the boy had disappeared to.

“Sorry, misjudged the height somewhat.”

“Damn, if I lost that woman again…” Everett muttered and then left the sentence unfinished. “Doc, did you hear that colonel ask the woman about an animal?”

“I must have missed that,” Charlie said as he looked for the girl along with the captain.

“Well, we can’t find them by staying put, let’s go this way,” Everett said as he pulled Ellenshaw to his feet, but before they could take a step he saw the woman not ten feet from them just standing and looking at them.

“If we are not to be caught again you two will have to travel with a little more stealth than what you’ve shown you are capable of.”

“Sorry, I’m afraid it’s my fault, I’m not a real field—”

“That’s enough, Doc. She has learned just about all that I care to give her for the moment. At least until she can explain why she was trying to out our agent in Vatican City.”

“I wasn’t outing him as you so quaintly put it. I was trying to discover what he had learned about the pass and my people. That is what I do.”

“Yes, I believe you’re part of a tribe called the Jeddah. Why you’re part of Mossad is something we have yet to learn.”

“And suddenly, you, whoever you are, know quite a bit about a subject that absolutely fewer than a hundred men and women outside this mountain have ever heard. Perhaps I was watching the wrong contact at the Vatican. Maybe I should have let the young priest be and waited to follow you, especially since you’re quite the historian.” The woman took two steps backward into the trees and vanished.

Everett didn’t want to lose sight of her again, so he once more grabbed Charlie by his Windbreaker and pulled him into a large stand of trees where the woman vanished.

“Look, you’re not losing us again, so why don’t you—”

Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III and Carl came to a sudden stop just as their hearts did. Both men felt their mouths go slack when they saw the girl, the young boy, and the largest animal outside zoo walls they had ever seen. The wolf was lying on its side and with its head off the ground and was staring right at the two intruders. The wolf tried to rise but Anya was holding its ears and talking softly to the beast.

“Oh, my God,” Charlie said in a barely audible whisper.

The yellow eyes never left Carl or Ellenshaw as it continued to growl deep in its chest. Then it suddenly whimpered and curled into a ball and started licking one of its hind legs. Anya spoke to the beast once more and then she stood and faced the men.

“I have to get him home to my grandmother or we’ll lose him. Right now the break isn’t that bad but infection is soon to set in if my grandmother cannot get to him. Will you help me get my friend back to the pass?”

“Your friend?” Charlie asked as he took in the vision of the curled-up and very dangerous-looking wolf. “That animal has to weigh close to a thousand pounds!” Ellenshaw said just as many of the old werewolf tales came flooding back. That was one legend that Charlie always took with more than a grain of salt because he knew the physical limitation of the human body and those of the standard wolf. Any change from wolf to human form had always been the most severe of impossibilities in his learned opinion.

Everett continued to eye the woman. Then his eyes went to the giant wolf lying at her feet. The boy continued to stroke the animal and talk to it.

“Answer me this first, and then we can talk.”

“We have no time,” she said pleadingly.

“You have time for this because it’s very important to a person that’s very dear to me.”

Anya looked down at Mikla and then nodded her head at Everett.

“That is a Golia?”

“That is Mikla. The Golia know not the old name of their species. He cannot differentiate the difference by names, but by knowing.”

Everett smiled as he thought of how Alice was going to react.

“If you’re done with your questioning, can you help me get Mikla back to Patinas before Ben-Nevin returns?”

“I hope you don’t want us to carry him, I don’t think it would take kindly to the offer,” Charlie said as he continued to stare at the giant Golia as it continued to whine and lick its wound.

“He will follow, I just need cover and you have to be it. It will take a while for Mikla to make the climb.”

“Well,” Everett said as he pulled his walkie-talkie out and tried to reach Niles once again but he received no signal. He knew he would regret not being able to inform Jack of his discovery. “Why not?” he said as he gestured for the woman to start leading the way.

As Carl and Charlie watched, the giant wolf slowly rose to its four paws and with the right rear one off the ground started to limp after Anya and the boy. Carl reached around and unslung the second AK-47 from his shoulder and then handed it to Ellenshaw.

“Don’t shoot anything, just point it and if that doesn’t work throw it and run for your life.”

“Got it,” Ellenshaw said as he hefted the heavy Russian-made weapon. “Eat your heart out, Pete.”

Everett turned and watched as the woman, the boy, and the nightmare-sized wolf disappeared.

“Stay as close to them as you can. I’ll be skirting the side to make sure we don’t have any unwanted company closing in from the rear.”

“Right,” Ellenshaw answered as he smiled at Carl. “Alice was right, they do exist,” he said and then left to follow the woman and her friends.

Right,” Everett said as he watched Ellenshaw leave. “Now all we have to worry about is what else she was right about.”

Everett shook his head and then vanished into the trees.

The old woman used the door frame to steady herself as she gingerly eased her bad ankle out the door. She was careful not to slip on the morning dew that covered everything from the crags in the mountain to the high pastures to which all the men had left for two hours before sunrise.

The Gypsy queen had been dozing in her large chair with her feet propped on a small stool. She remembered hearing Marko snoring soundly on the small bed she had abandoned for the comfort of the chair. Her grandson had come in late and instead of going to sleep in his own house he chose to tend to his grandmother and rest there. He had been in a surly mood and she could tell he had been angered by something or someone. She had the distinct impression that he was troubled by something he hadn’t expected. He had mentioned that they could have visitors tomorrow to at least the lower villages by a group of Americans. And it was this issue that was troubling the man-child and she had picked up the strong vibes and instead of saying anything she had lain awake most of the night in worry about what the boy had done.

She stood in the doorway and looked south down the mountain and the feelings she was receiving became stronger. She winced as she placed too much weight on her healing but still heavily wrapped ankle. Suddenly it hit her like a sledgehammer blow to her brain. It was Anya. Mikla was with her and so was the boy, Georgi, and someone, no, she thought, two someones were with them. She tilted her head as she tried desperately for more information. Madam Korvesky was still feeling Anya’s fear of being caught but she also knew, or more to the point, felt, that the men following her were not the basis for her fear.

The old woman turned for the door and called out Marko’s name twice, very loudly. After she heard her grandson stir inside she reached up and grabbed the thin rope that was attached to a bell she had Marko install years before in case she needed help. She needed help now. She started ringing the bell with purpose, which should bring several of the local villagers in from a few of the lower pastures. A moment later she saw a few of the men trotting briskly down from the meadows just below the pass. Then she stopped ringing the bell when she felt Marko step up beside her while still tucking his shirt in.

“What is it, a fire?” he asked, his head about to explode from last night’s drinking.

“You smell of the grape, man-child,” she said as she took a tentative step out of the doorway. Marko reached out and took her by the arm to steady her.

“Is that what you woke me and the entire valley up for?” he asked angrily.

“No,” she said but waited till several of the men came bounding into her small fenced yard to explain further.

“What is it, a fire?” one of the men asked as he came sliding to a stop in front of Marko and his grandmother.

“Go quickly to your homes and retrieve your shotguns. Anya is here and she is in trouble. She’s close by, down there,” she said as she pointed down the mountain. “She is with Georgi and Mikla, they also have two men with them, they are not to be harmed. Bring them in. Kill anyone who is trying to harm them.”

Marko allowed his eyes to roam to the men after his grandmother’s rather brutal announcement.

“Kill them?” he asked.

“The evil men she is running from mean her harm. They mean us harm. Kill them all if they are near my granddaughter. Go now and bring her home.”

The village men of Patinas didn’t even look to Marko for guidance as they turned and ran for their own small and humble cottages to get their shotguns off mantels now cold from the morning cook fires. Marko was angry and disappointed that the men of the village still followed the old woman’s orders blindly and without question. He wondered if he would ever get that kind of devotion and respect when she was gone.

“You could have awakened me before you sounded the alarm, Grandmamma. This could have been done quietly and without having to resort to murdering someone who is probably lost from the resort and not chasing dear sister at all.” He turned to her in the doorway and escorted her to her chair. It irked him even more that she was smiling like a schoolgirl. “And why are you so happy? Is it the prospect of murder?”

“No, foolish man-child. I am happy because Anya has come home.”

Marko frowned as he went to the mantel and grabbed his old double-barreled shotgun. He broke it open and saw that the ancient paper-encased shells were still in.

“Then when she arrives we will offer sacrifice as in the old ways,” Marko said bitterly, “and feast as if it were harvest time, for this is the arrival of the prodigal daughter and the whole of the Jeddah should rejoice that she has come home to save us from the horrid and evil brother.” He slammed the double-barreled shotgun closed as he turned and left the cottage.

“Marko, I didn’t mean—”

Her words were cut off as the rickety old door slammed shut. She closed her eyes as she realized she had once again hurt Marko. She thought she could have handled the boy better after his parents died, but he had always been far too headstrong and jealous of the material things owned by those of the outside world.

Madam Korvesky knew in her heart that Marko, through trying to help his people, had allowed evil to enter their world and she no longer thought she could control the situation, and what was worse, control the Golia.

She was beginning to understand why Stanus was acting strange: the alpha male was feeling a change coming and he was preparing.

But what the giant Golia was preparing for exactly, she knew not.

Colonel Ben-Nevin kept his men well away from the main road heading to the pass. It was hard enough skirting the castle as early morning workers left behind continued to prepare for the next night’s grand opening. The colonel shook his head in anger as he realized the girl could be anywhere by now. The two men that had failed him so miserably were now back at their small camp nursing a broken nose and three cracked ribs. Of course he could not be blamed for the loss, not as long as others were so conveniently close by to blame.

“Colonel?” one of his men called out. “Sir, this just came in from Jerusalem.” He handed Ben-Nevin a fax from the machine at the local station.

“You can’t tell me this isn’t a government-run operation, we would be better off having Indians send up smoke signals.” He took the message and read it. “Recall the men, we’ll settle this problem from another direction,” he said as he crumpled up the message from his contact inside the Knesset. He gestured for his second in command to join him. “Gather the men, it seems we may have a friend in the area we didn’t know about.” He smiled. “And frankly, neither does he.”

The small man read the note after it was offered by the colonel.

“Who is Dmitri Zallas?” his man asked as he lowered the note.

“A man with as big an appetite as I when it comes to old things.”

“And where is this savior to our cause?”

“Why, he’s right down there,” Ben-Nevin said as he pointed south.

The man looked down the road that led to the valley and what his eyes saw in the morning sun was the gleaming facade of the largest resort hotel and casino in the Eastern European portion of the globe — the Edge of the World.

“Smile, my friend, sometimes we cannot complain about who our bedfellows are as long as they can help us and our people,” Ben-Nevin said as he gestured again, this time toward the north. “Besides, anyone with an imagination to build that will have an equally good time imagining what may lie in the mountains right above his head — after it’s explained to him.”

The man turned and looked to where Ben-Nevin had gestured above them in the mountains. “What in the hell is that?”

High above them stood the formidable presence of the new and improved Dracula’s Castle.

Niles Compton paced in front of the idling Humvee. The twenty men of the 82nd sat around eating their MREs and waiting for word as to when they would move to map the pass. Niles looked at his watch once more and then turned and faced Alice Hamilton.

“If Mendenhall can’t raise Jack or find out if they found our equipment with the satellite radios, this mission could fail before we even get a chance to see the pass.”

Alice folded her arms across her light jacket and then smiled at Niles. “Will’s all right, he has to be careful getting close to the resort and then he has to get Jack the message that Carl and Charlie are missing.”

“Where in the hell are those two?”

Alice reached out and patted Niles on the shoulder. The director wasn’t all that familiar with the vagaries of field operations. Oh, Niles knew the bottom line on what a mission costs and the organizational skills necessary to make a multi-billion-dollar operation run smoothly, but as far as his worry about field personnel was concerned he needed more practice — sometimes Alice wondered if Niles knew just how good every one of his people at Group was. She thought he just worried too much about his personnel.

Will Mendenhall approached Alice and Niles and he had Denise Gilliam along with him. She was eating from an MRE and frowning at the taste.

“Well?” Niles asked.

Mendenhall held up the small radio and tossed it to the director.

“Well, Sarah was right in her hunch, we are definitely having reception problems. I was able to contact the colonel and I managed after an hour to finally get the message understood. Colonel Collins suggested that we continue without the captain and Charlie. He said we should get Alice into the pass. If Everett turns up anywhere he said it would be there — the colonel said that is the one place where Mr. Everett knows we’ll be. He suggested we get to the pass and wait.”

“The colonel doesn’t feel it necessary for his team to drop the surveillance of the resort and join us?”

Mendenhall saw that the director wasn’t happy about Everett being missing or the fact that the colonel felt obligated to stay behind.

“He says that Sarah may have come across something that could be a danger to the entire region. Something about the venting of the hot springs, I couldn’t get it all because of all the iron ore in these mountains.”

Niles handed the small radio back to Will and then took a few steps away to think. He looked up as the twenty men left behind by the Airborne made ready for their foray into the pass. Niles shook his head and made his decision.

“As of right now we have little choice but to do as the colonel suggested.”

Alice released the breath she had been holding because she had been afraid that the mission to the pass would be canceled.

Compton looked at his watch. “We have only today to look things over, Alice, because tomorrow I want all my people secure in one place with the storm heading this way. If we don’t have radio reception now, just think how bad it will be tomorrow. No, we better get there and reconnoiter the pass.”

Will nodded and he and Denise Gilliam left to load their equipment.

“What’s wrong, Niles?” Alice asked.

Compton turned away from watching the two Army Humvees being loaded with surveying equipment.

“The radios, the satellite hookup with Europa, Captain Everett and Charlie coming up missing, Sarah sees something wrong geologically in this valley, and now we have one of the largest storms of the year heading our way.” Compton looked up and into the crystal blue morning sky and shook his head. “First we lose our Romanian military escort, our Airborne element has been cut down to nothing, and the fact that they have no weapons whatsoever.” He smiled at Alice. “I would say things could be going better.”

Alice Hamilton returned the smile and patted Niles on the shoulder.

“Garrison told me once that sometimes after all the power, all the expensive equipment, and having the smartest people in the world working for you, sometimes all we have in the end is your brain and your…” Again she smiled and winked. “Balls.” She turned away as Niles watched her. “In other words you can be the king of all you survey one moment and then you realize that the only real thing you have going for you is the fact that you are still sitting on nothing but your own ass in that exalted throne.”

“Just what in the hell is that cryptic statement about?” he asked her.

Alice stopped and fixed Niles with her eyes.

“It means sometimes we just have to do this without all the fancy toys and do it in an environment that bodes ill for those who fail. Now you know what being the director of Department 5656 is all about. Making it work no matter what.” She smiled and turned away to gather her notes and history of the pass. “And you just happen to be extremely fortunate, Niles my boy.”

“And why is that, Mrs. Hamilton?” Compton called after her.

“Because you have the best people in the world working for you, and you know what? They always get it done. And you will, too. Now let’s go see if this old woman’s cheese has totally slid off her cracker, or see if there be werewolves in them thar mountains,” she said in her best hillbilly accent.

Niles smiled as he watched the most brilliant woman he had ever known leave and get ready to fulfill her long dream of finding the Jeddah and then he turned and looked at the mountain high above.

“To tell you the truth, Alice old girl, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of finding up there.” He shook his head as the Humvees started their engines. “Damn it, Carl, where are you and Charlie?”

11

The restaurant was somewhat crowded, mildly surprising Jack and Sarah. As they were led to a table Collins saw Jason and Pete as they entered from the far end. Their eyes met for the briefest moment and then Jack sat at the table and was handed a menu. As he sat he looked up and saw that the waitress was leading both Pete and Ryan right to their own table. Ryan had a troubled look on his face and Pete just looked lost.

“Excuse me, but I see plenty of empty tables,” Ryan said as he ignored the menu offered by the waitress.

“Mr. Zallas left strict instructions to the restaurant staff that the four of you should be seated together.”

Collins listened to the exchange and at that moment he knew their cover was truly blown, or at the very least Zallas suspected that something was afoot with the Americans.

“Is there any particular reason for that request?” Jack asked, looking at the young girl.

“We were only left the instructions, sir.” She finally got Pete and Ryan to accept their menus as they acceded and sat at the table as the waitress poured coffee for the two newest guests while the hostess stood over them. The two waitstaff finally left.

“Well, this can’t be good,” Ryan said as he opened his menu.

“Very little is good at the moment,” Collins said as he sipped his orange juice. “It seems Mr. Everett and our good buddy Charlie Ellenshaw came up missing last night.”

“What in the hell—” Ryan started to say but Jack held up his hand to stay the question.

“We don’t know. The radios are crapping out on us. We also have a major storm heading this way and the Romanian army pulled out late last night to handle flooding in the south. I won’t even mention the fact we have missing trucks with our equipment inside of them, including our Sat system, so we don’t even have the fallback of communicating with Nellis.” He shook his head and then let out his breath in exasperation. “So that leaves us with twenty unarmed 82nd Airborne boys and two Humvees as backup if needed.”

Sarah shook her head and then reached for her cup of coffee. As she did the deep, dark liquid in the cup shook and then settled, and then the cup vibrated once more and the brew moved again and then stopped. The geologist studied the tabletop and waited but the tremors didn’t continue.

“If our cover here is blown I see no reason why we shouldn’t leave and get out there and find the captain and Charlie. I mean we’re back in the stone age here and believe me this Group isn’t used to that. Our well-planned Event has suddenly turned into a royal cluster—”

Jack looked at Ryan, successfully cutting off the profanity-laced finish. But Collins knew the new naval lieutenant commander had a point. It was dangerous being in a place where the host suspects that you are not who you pretend to be. And now you have people missing in the field and no way to talk to anyone. Yes, the stone age, he thought. Jack took a sip of his coffee. He set the cup down and then he felt it. He placed his hands palm down upon the wood. He looked at Jason, Pete, and Sarah, each in turn.

“I think the mission parameters have changed in the last twenty-four hours, and priorities have—” Pete started to say as he dabbed his mouth with his napkin.

“Not now,” Jack said. Collins threw his napkin on the table and started to stand.

“Where are you going?” Sarah asked.

“You and I are going to Patinas. The least we can do is make Zallas and his henchmen work that much harder to keep track of us. We’re splitting up. You two stay and keep an eye out for Alice’s artifacts. If Zallas starts to get cocky head north to the pass. I love Alice but getting people killed over this is a little much. And I’m afraid our Mr. Zallas may be a little more deadly than even the Interpol reports say he is.”

“Why are we going to Patinas?” Sarah asked as her chair was pulled out by Ryan.

“Just as you did a few minutes ago, I felt the tremor.”

Sarah was surprised that Jack had felt the earth move also before she had a chance to say anything.

“And besides, I have something else to show you, come on.”

The others followed Jack out of the restaurant and as they moved they all saw the two men follow who had been sitting at a table away from the group of Americans. Collins allowed the others to catch up as he stepped toward the large escalator that moved people to the top of the atrium. Jack walked to the base of the 170,000-ton people mover. He acted like he was tying his shoe and knelt over.

“What do you make of this?” he asked Sarah.

Pete and Ryan crowded around so most of the patrons moving between the restaurant and the casino couldn’t see what she was doing. Sarah knelt and examined the spot Jack was indicating.

“I saw that yesterday,” Collins said as he finished with the act on his shoe. He stood and waited while Sarah examined the concrete that made up the base of the giant escalator.

“This concrete and the reinforcement steel are only a few months old.” She ran her hand along the large crack in the concrete and then ran her small fingers deeper into the crevice and frowned. “Damn, this fault has to go all the way through to the rebar.”

“As serious as I thought?” he asked.

“That is not normal expansion of drying concrete. That fault is not natural, you can see where the two halves don’t line up and that means the entire escalator has shifted at its base and that indicates earth movement.” She pulled Collins away from the spot and she waited for Ryan and Pete to join them. “Jack, this entire valley is shifting for some reason.”

Collins watched Sarah walk over to the waterfall and the hot springs bath beneath it. Without hesitation McIntire knelt once again and tested the water with her fingers, frowning only momentarily before removing them.

“My best guess would be a five-degree rise since yesterday.”

All four Event Group members knew time was running short.

Everett waited for the large wolf to limp by him and Charlie. Anya was sure to walk between it and the two wide-eyed men. Mikla growled as it slowly slipped past. As it did, so, the two men had a chance to study the animal close up, something that would forever be etched in their memories.

Charlie nudged Carl and nodded toward the ground where the Golia laid its paws. For the first time they saw the one thing that made all of the legends, fairy tales, and myths come true for both of them — they could actually see the tightness of the fingers as they were folded into a paw form with the thumb tucked neatly inside. The pads were on the outside of the fingers and served as the contact point for the feet while on all fours.

Everett’s eyes went from the strangely folded-in fingers to the right hind ankle of the muscled animal. He saw the swelling under the weed-, straw-, and cloth-wrapped leg. He could clearly see that the pain of walking was sapping the giant’s strength.

The wolf moved through the underbrush and disappeared behind the boy and Anya. Carl tried his radio and for a moment thought he got the colonel. When he didn’t raise him he reported their situation anyway in hopes Jack could hear.

Sarah, Ryan, and Pete stood in a half circle around Jack as he dipped his head trying to listen to his radio, which had suddenly come to life. Luckily he had the volume turned low so the passing crowd of mobsters, thieves, and killers couldn’t hear. Collins was half in and half out of a small alcove that had a bust of Julius Caesar on a pedestal. Sarah heard Jack’s frustrated voice as he tried to communicate with whoever was calling. Finally he hissed and stepped out from behind the group.

“Billions of dollars in budgeted money, the most brilliant men and women in the world, the best equipment money can buy, and now we have to search for a pay phone, of which there probably isn’t one, all because we have these and no way to talk with any of our people.”

“Who was it?” Sarah asked.

“It was Carl and from what I could make out he and Charlie are all right and heading for the small village below the pass, and before you ask that is all I got besides something very cryptic that I’m not sure I want to clarify at the moment. In any case, Jason and Pete, you’re going hiking. Ascertain the situation with Mr. Everett and Ellenshaw if possible; if not, reconnoiter as far up as the castle. Report back the best way you can, if not, return.”

“What was the message, Colonel?” Ryan asked as he and Pete leaned in closer to Jack and Sarah.

“The captain said to tell Alice that the three little pigs do have something to worry about on the mountain.”

“What does—” Pete started to ask and then Ryan frowned and cut him off by holding up his hand.

“Who was the nemesis of the three little pigs, Pete?”

Light dawned in Golding’s eyes.

“The Big Bad Wolf.”

Everett stopped and listened when the birds stopped chirping and the insects went quiet. Charlie was starting to pick up on the vibes Carl was putting out that something wasn’t right. It had been ten minutes since they were separated from the boy, Anya, and the Golia they called Mikla. Everett knew they couldn’t have gone far, as he and Charlie were only separated from them for the few minutes they tried to reach Jack on the radio and satellite link.

“There are two scatterguns aimed at your backs and I would take it seriously when I tell you do not move.”

Everett froze at the sound of the voice. Whoever it was that came upon them unnoticed was well practiced at doing so. He never heard as much as the laying down of a footstep. Carl slowly turned and he felt Charlie behind him do the same.

The eyes were the first things Everett saw when he turned to face the man, eyes that were as dark as the night. The man raised the ancient sawed-off shotgun a few inches to make sure Carl knew that one wrong move and he would find out just how serious this man was.

“Why are you here?” Marko Korvesky asked the two men.

Everett waited while three more men came into view and all were carrying the shotguns. Carl sensed even more men hidden in the trees.

“We’re looking for someone we lost; a woman and a young boy.”

The man in the brightly colored garb said nothing at the information provided. He tilted his head and looked from Carl to the crazy white-haired Charlie Ellenshaw, who, to Everett’s immense pleasure had kept silent as he held his hands in the air.

“I too seek a young boy and a woman, they are from my village.” The man continued to look at Everett but did not lower the lethal-looking shotgun.

“Hello, Marko,” said a feminine voice from the direction of the tree line.

Carl saw the look come over the man’s face as Anya spoke. He didn’t know if the look was one of pleasure or one of stunned recognition. The man slowly turned and faced the woman who stepped into the small clearing. The captain relaxed when he saw the genuine smile of a man who was pleased, uncomfortable but pleased, to see the girl. The man lowered the shotgun and took a step toward her.

“Hello, baby sister. I would have expected you to come home with a bit more fanfare and not being chased through the woods by this rather large American.”

Anya smiled. It was a tired expression on an even more tired body as she took the remaining steps to her brother and wrapped her arms around him.

“I didn’t know how I would feel seeing you after so long. How I would feel about you being sent away and me having to stay.” He smiled and hugged her again. “But I was wrong. It is good to see you again.”

“Marko, what is happening here? There are more people who know about us now than there has been in the history of our people. What has happened?” she whispered as even more villagers came in. Carl counted seven men altogether and they were all armed.

“First, where is Mikla?” Marko asked as his demeanor changed faster than even Anya realized. “How badly is he injured?”

“How did you know he was hurt?” Anya asked as her eyes went to Everett as he watched the exchange while being guarded by the men from Patinas.

“Grandmamma broke her ankle — her right ankle.”

“It was she?” she asked as she finally released Marko. “Damn it, why is she taking that chance, what if Mikla had been shot?”

Everett was having a hard time following the harshly whispered conversation.

“My concern exactly. I need to know where Mikla is, and I need to know why Grandmamma summoned you home.”

“Mikla is—”

The bolt of an automatic weapon being thrown caught everyone’s attention. Everett looked up and saw seven men all standing in a semicircle around the group. Marko’s eyes narrowed when he saw the men all aiming weapons at them. He and his villagers had been taken unawares because of the happiness he had shown at seeing his sister.

“What is this?” Marko asked as he held his shotgun outward. He turned and gave Everett a menacing look. “I should have shot you immediately,” he said as he dropped the shotgun on the ground. His men did the same, but the looks they gave the intruders were far more murderous than Marko’s glare.

“They are not together,” Anya said as she saw a few of the same men that had been part of Ben-Nevin’s team of killers. “These men work for a ruthless bastard called Ben-Nevin, a colonel in the Israeli Mossad.”

“The Mossad?” Marko asked, finally turning away to face his sister.

“Where is the wolf?” one of the men asked as he pushed by one of the villagers. Anya saw that is was a brutish-looking man who handed over his automatic weapon and then slowly pulled a knife from a sheath just under his shirt.

“You men need to leave this place,” Marko said as he took a menacing step forward.

Anya saw the look in his eyes and feared for her brother. He took another step and that was when the man raised the knife and poked it into Marko’s belly, but the small Gypsy continued with another step that actually sent the blade a quarter inch into his stomach. Marko just smiled as he leaned forward placing more pressure onto the blade. Everett grimaced as he realized this man was trying to goad the intruder into action.

“Oh, this is not going to be good,” Charlie said as his eyes locked on something Everett couldn’t see. He turned and looked at Anya, who shook her head and then she blinked her eyes toward the ground with a nodding motion. Charlie’s eyes again widened when he realized what she was telling him.

At that exact moment Marko hit the ground. The move was so fast that the assassin’s blade had no time to cut before the Gypsy was hugging dirt and grass. By the time the man realized what was happening the giant black wolf was on him. One minute he was standing with his knife poised to do its skillful work and the next the man was just gone. They heard a brief scream and then the men around them started shooting into the trees. Anya, Marko, the villagers, Charlie, and Carl were on the ground.

Everett managed to keep his head up and his eyes widened when he saw the Golia spring from the trees again. This time it took a man by the throat and tore it free before springing back into the thick line of trees. The other five men tried to aim and fire and that was why they failed to notice Marko and the others reach for their dropped weapons. Soon shotgun blasts tore at the forest around them. There was no screaming, no shouts, and no warnings. The villagers ruthlessly took every man left standing. As for the wolf, there was no trace.

The small clearing was silent and smoke filled from all of the shooting. Charlie was shaking badly, but it wasn’t from the gunfire. He reached over and shook Carl’s arm.

“Did … did you see the size of that wolf? That wasn’t Mikla,” Ellenshaw said as his words ended in a high-pitched squeak.

Everett saw Anya stand and run toward Marko and help him up and then he turned away and looked around him at the dead men as the villagers walked from corpse to corpse checking on the dead and dying.

“Well, we didn’t need this,” Marko said, shaking his head. His eyes soon went to Everett and Charlie. His blackened pupils narrowed as he locked eyes with the larger, blond-haired American.

“They saw Stanus,” he said as he took a step toward them.

Anya saw the look in her brother’s eyes.

“Yes, and they also saw Mikla. And they saved your sister’s life just half an hour ago from these very same men.”

Everett finally realized just who it was he was looking at. Marko Korvesky, the Gypsy heir apparent.

Ben-Nevin waited patiently for the rest of his men. They had not answered the radios even when the reception was good. The iron ore inside the mountains wreaked havoc on all communication outside of a landline. The colonel looked at his watch as he spied three of the men he had sent searching for the others come from out of the tree line. They shook their heads when they saw the colonel looking their way.

“Well?” he asked, tossing the useless radio to his second in command.

“We found what amounted to a sea of blood, and this.” One of the men handed over an AK-47 assault rifle. The barrel was bent. Ben-Nevin examined the weapon and then handed it back with what amounted to distaste. “Our quarry has left the area and we haven’t enough men left to search.”

“How many men have we?” he asked.

“Counting us five, eighteen men remain.”

Ben-Nevin once more shook his head. He reached into his coat pocket and brought out the message sent from Tel Aviv and held it in his damaged hand.

“This message was to convey to me that Tel Aviv has no more personnel to send us.”

“So, what is your plan, Colonel?” the taller assistant asked as Ben-Nevin turned away and fixed his eyes on the resort sitting two miles distant.

“I plan on recovering the people’s treasure, and the only way we can do that is to secure the ally recommended to us by our friends in Tel Aviv. Our contacts say he would be receptive to adding to his collection, and if not he dearly loves money. In either case we have no choice, it’s the Russian or we go it alone.”

“What if this … this … casino owner already knows where the temple is, wouldn’t we be exposing ourselves if we brief him on what we are really after?”

Ben-Nevin had a smile on his face when he turned back to face his two men.

“What is life without a little danger and intrigue?”

“Colonel?” his man asked, confused.

Ben-Nevin wiped his face on a handkerchief and then removed his coat and brushed at the dust and pine needles that had become attached to the material.

“When you have nothing left to lose, danger becomes a moot point.” Ben-Nevin placed his coat back on and then turned and looked at the Edge of the World resort once more.

“I don’t follow, Colonel.”

“Tel Aviv is betting, and I concur with their assessment, that that stupid Russian has no idea the greatest treasure in the history of the world is but a few miles away sitting inside a mountain he only thinks is a nice place for gangsters and thieves to rest and relax.”

“Do you think he will assist?” the man persisted.

“Oh, yes, and he may also become a convenient scapegoat if things fall apart.” Ben-Nevin turned and opened the car’s front door and then they were on their way to meet a possible partner in the assault on the mountain and he knew that he had very little time before General Shamni in Tel Aviv decided to act.

Operation Ramesses would be launched and the mountain and the temple would be destroyed — not by God’s fire, but flames with the power of the sun.

Niles wanted the Group represented in the lead Humvee as they set out past the main road that led to the resort. Will Mendenhall was riding with the lead element of 82nd Airborne engineers as the two vehicles started out. They left five men at camp to hopefully wait for the soon to arrive Romanian army trucks with their Event Group equipment. As far as they knew, the trucks and their rather expensive satellite equipment and weapons were still on their way to the Danube.

Niles always heard about government-run operations outside of his Group as being sloppy at times, but this was the first time he had seen it happen in his department and it frustrated him no end. The perfectionist inside him made him realize just how hard his field teams had it at times and how fast they had to think on the fly.

Compton reached into his pocket and pulled out a weather sitrep supplied by the 82nd as they accidentally scanned a Romanian army alert that the storm had stalled in the south and that the weather system might miss them completely. And even the parts of the massive front that hit the Danube region had not been as severe as they first predicted. Compton reached over and handed the message to Alice, who was squeezed in between Denise Gilliam and a rather hefty engineer in desert camouflage. Alice read the note. She smiled and shook her head as she handed the message back to Compton.

“So our equipment is down south assisting a region where the massive storm never materialized, and the entire cover story and Romanian army fronting us hightailed it to that same region. Do you think that anyone will have enough common sense to send at least our equipment back? Or maybe even a few troops?”

Niles laughed, a short burst brimming with sarcasm.

“Yes I do, just as soon as we won’t need them anymore.”

“See,” Alice said smiling back at the director, “Jack’s field humor is starting to rub off on you.”

He looked at his old friend. “Honestly, I don’t know how that man and his field teams survive sometimes with the dumb, bad luck those boys run into on a daily basis.”

“Amen,” Alice said as the Airborne Humvees turned onto the road that paralleled the resort and led the way to Dracula’s Castle and then the pass beyond.

As they passed the main gates of the resort they saw the reporters and protesters standing by as the festivities at the exclusive resort continued into the second day of the private grand opening.

“I hope Jack and Sarah watch themselves in there.”

Niles didn’t comment on Alice’s worry; he was looking at the giant steel towers that were the first of many that supported the gilded cable car system. The skyway was operating at only half capacity bringing men and women to the top where they could tour the outside of Dracula’s Castle. After they toured they came down, as they were not being allowed to take a sneak peek inside the gaudy nightclub. The large cars moved simultaneously up and down the giant eight-line cable support.

“Now that is something you might see in Bavaria or someplace like that. Very impressive,” Denise Gilliam said as they watched the sixty-two-foot cars glide easily along their stretched cables.

“Yes, and we now know how at least part of that was financed,” Niles said as his eyes moved over to Alice. “Let’s not lose sight of that in the midst of werewolves and Lost Tribes of Israel, shall we. And I hope Jack watches his back inside that den of thieves.”

Alice knew Niles was right. Discoveries or not, there were still dangers to the game they were playing, the Russian mobster not being the least of them. As they made the turn onto the large and winding road, the Humvees suddenly came to a stop due to oncoming traffic. The column of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and broken and battered travel homes cut the corner sharply and headed in the direction they were currently going. The lead car was a battered and very old Citroën sedan. As Niles watched the cars stream past he saw that each vehicle was filled with women, children, and men. They were all dressed brightly and every dented and rusted-out car or truck had loud music blaring from open windows. Niles even saw a rather large pig riding shotgun inside an old Mercedes truck.

“What in the world?” Dr. Gilliam asked as they watched the Gypsy caravan move off ahead of them. They too were heading for the Patinas Pass.

“It seems the Gypsies are gathering,” Alice said as she leaned forward to examine the caravan more clearly. “I cannot believe we are seeing this.”

“What’s so special about a caravan of locals?” Denise asked.

“I could be wrong, and this is a rather large guess,” Alice said as her smile grew with every passing car or battered camper, “but I think Mr. Everett’s young and very former Mossad agent from Rome has arrived.”

“You mean they know about her and are coming back to greet her?” Denise asked, finally removing her eyes from the road where the last of the twenty-two vehicles slowly passed by.

“I believe so.” She looked at Denise and then slapped Niles on the knee as the Humvees fell into the back of the caravan’s long line of color and sound.

“What?” he asked.

“The Gathering?”

“What’s that?” Niles asked as the Humvee started up the long road toward the Pass.

“Gypsies hardly ever gather in one large group. These travelers are not just your typical Gypsy band. What we have here is the extended royal family if you will. They travel as a small family or as a caravan as they move safely together from one place to another. But they ordinarily never congregate at any location where they are exposed as a whole. The special ones — the Gypsies that are royalty, for the most part they never left Europe. They stayed and they separated and never do they come together as a people. Now here they are and there can only be one explanation for it,” she said as she reached for a small journal she kept in her jacket pocket. She thumbed through it until she found the entry she was searching for. “The family of man is getting ready to have a change of power. Someone is stepping down as the king, or the queen.” She smiled broadly. “I suspect that’s why they are gathering.”

As Alice began to believe in her dreams coming true, the two U.S. Army Humvees followed the motley group of Gypsy revelers as they climbed past Dracula’s Castle and the high mountain beyond.

12

After Collins had sent Ryan and Pete out to see if they could get a hint of where Captain Everett and Charlie Ellenshaw had disappeared to, he decided he and Sarah needed to start getting close to some of the seedier characters in the resort. Perhaps that way they could get a line on the antiquities that seemed to have flooded the world from this not so very sophisticated criminal, Dmitri Zallas.

He and Sarah had been studying the man’s dossier for the past two hours trying to find a common thread with any of the names of Jack’s security watch list for antiquities theft. Thus far they had discovered several very familiar faces in the milling crowds of gamblers and revelers. As the couple roamed the grounds freely they did spy several of Dmitri’s henchmen keeping a close eye on them.

As they strolled along the mud baths and steam rooms of the atrium they saw men and women used to the decadent way of life soaking in the hot mud and natural steam baths of the mountain. Zallas was placing no mind to the cost of this expensive weekend as every guest seemed to be attended by one or more of the hotel staff. They were approached no fewer than three times and offered drinks, towels, robes, and any other accouterment that comes along with the filthy rich and pampered in the short time they walked through the beautiful spa area.

“Do you think we could talk Niles into building one of these for the complex?” Sarah jokingly asked as she dipped her head at a rather large and bulbous-looking man with a beard as he slowly sank into the mud with an appreciative glance toward Sarah. Then as she watched the man’s face became a scowl as he quickly rose from the mud complaining about the excessive heat.

“You bet. I’m sure he can scrape together the extra $45 million in the budget somewhere.”

Sarah smiled and then just as quickly lost it when she saw Zallas with his ever-present group of men and women around him approach with a wide smile. Jack’s worst fears about a blown cover came readily to her mind.

“Tell me my friends, are you enjoying your stay at the Edge of the World?” he said with a smile that said he just ate the cat that ate the canary and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.

Jack and Sarah both knew the sole purpose of this little run-in was for Zallas to gauge who he was dealing with when it came to Americans. The colonel knew Zallas suspected, but for right now that was just about all. He would play his little hand to the end.

“One of the more hospitable resorts I have ever been to,” Jack said, even though he had never been to a resort in his life. “And also one of the more gracious hosts I have ever encountered.”

Zallas tilted his head and laughed as he held out his hand to Jack.

“I don’t believe I have had the pleasure, Mr. — ?”

Collins, as did Sarah, studied the man’s demeanor and they both knew at that exact moment that their fears were not unfounded. Zallas, while he may not know just who they were, suspected they could be some sort of law enforcement, and he was gauging the two to see what steps he would need to take to make sure his interest was protected.

“Collins, Jack Collins, Colonel, United States Army, and this is Lieutenant Sarah McIntire of the same organization.”

Zallas had a hard time not showing his surprise as he quickly and deftly bypassed Jack’s offered hand and instead took Sarah’s and harshly kissed it, making Sarah wince at the wetness of the action. Between Zallas kissing her hand and the utter shock she was feeling after Jack had suddenly blurted out exactly who they were, Sarah was flustered enough that she froze after Zallas kissed her hand and then finally reached for Jack’s.

“Now this is surprising. How does a soldier, and one so beautiful,” he said, shaking the colonel’s hand and then quickly looking at Sarah in her expensive pantsuit that no longer fit the cover they had blown, “find their way to my resort?”

“That’s easy enough, uh, Mr. Zallas is it?” Jack asked.

The Russian stepped back and smiled. He nodded his head and then fixed Collins with a look that bordered on distaste.

“Yes, Dmitri Zallas, I am the owner of the Edge of the World.”

“As I said, Mr. Zallas, there is a simple enough explanation. We were assigned to the NATO forces and had some time off. By a fluke we decided, what the hell, let’s see if we can get a reservation, and here we are. I admit to using absconded invitations but they can only kick us out, right?”

“Yes, but kick out is harsh term. I’m sure we could come up with something better than that.” Jack heard the veiled threat buried in the comment. “Strange though that our reservations center isn’t in operation yet and all of my guests and business acquaintances were all informed of the pre — grand opening by courier.”

“If that’s the strangest thing you run into all weekend, I’d call that pretty good,” Jack said as he returned the stare of Zallas.

The Russian raised a hand and gestured toward someone Jack couldn’t see. Soon enough Gina Louvinski strode up to the group.

“Yes, Mr. Zallas,” she said, nodding her head at Jack and Sarah, wishing they would have stayed clear of the mobster.

“This is our resort’s general manager, Ms. Louvinski,” Zallas said.

Jack and Sarah knew that the Russian had obviously been informed that they had exchanged words early this morning with Ryan and Pete in attendance.

“Yes, we met Ms. Louvinski this morning before breakfast.”

“Ms. Louvinski will make sure your time at my resort is an enjoyable one. Gina, please make sure the colonel and the lieutenant have passes for the show tomorrow night at Dracula’s Castle. Make sure their table is close to mine,” he said smiling as his eyes went to Collins. “Shall we also make arrangement for your two companions to join the fun?” he asked in almost passable English.

“The more the merrier,” Sarah said as Collins and Zallas continued to face off. Both men were smiling but neither was showing any mirth in their eyes. Finally Jack held out his hand to the Russian.

“My thoughts exactly,” Zallas said as he quickly brushed Jack’s hand with his own and then nodded his good-bye as he took Gina by the arm and he and his entourage moved away. Gina nodded her head at Jack and Sarah as she was pulled out.

Collins and McIntire watched the group leave. Zallas looked as if he wanted to kill the general manager right there in the spa. She was shaking her head and Jack knew the woman might pay for their subterfuge. Maybe he shouldn’t have told Zallas exactly who they were, that could only mean trouble for the Romanian woman.

“Jack, if I may ask, have you gone totally insane?” Sarah lost all pretense of being his subordinate and turned on him. “‘I’m Colonel Jack Collins and this is Lieutenant So-and-So of the United States Army.’ I ask again, have you lost your mind?”

“Look, he knows we are not his friends, and he knows we don’t do business with him, so it would have been foolish to keep up the facade. That man knows bad people and he would have seen us coming from five miles away. He knows for a fact that Ryan and Pete are with us, so why lie? If he was that worried about us he would do something about it. Since he didn’t we have bought some time while he tries to figure out what to do about us. Just maybe being that he’s Russian he would be hesitant about killing any NATO representatives.”

Sarah rolled her eyes at the colonel, letting him know in no uncertain terms what she thought of his exercise.

“Have you considered that maybe that man is just a nutcase and would order us killed anyway, just because he didn’t like or trust us? What makes you think he had the sophistication to think beyond the fact that some people tried to penetrate his security and did? And do you think he’s smart enough to order us buried someplace up there?” She gestured toward the mountain.

“That’s what I’m banking on.”

“He’s not Henri Farbeaux, Jack, this man has not one ounce of honor, he reacts, he doesn’t think.”

“Well, I hope you’re wrong.”

Zallas stopped admonishing Gina about the reservations deceit Collins had just told him about and then pushed her away to see to the guests.

“Those two, and their two companions?”

“Yes, Mr. Zallas?” the largest of the five bodyguards asked.

“They are never to leave this valley. U.S. Army my ass. If they’re not Interpol or American CIA, or FBI I will give Janos Vajic the deed to this resort.”

“Sir?”

“I want all four of their heads, hands, and teeth removed, and then buried amongst the rocks where the crows can’t even find them.”

Pete Golding and Jason Ryan were just two of the twenty guests of the resort who stood looking up at the majestic sight. The cable car wasn’t even a quarter full and that left plenty of viewing space for the men and women as they gasped at the setting high above them at Dracula’s Castle. While Pete marveled at the modern architectural materials used to create the illusion of age and strength and noting that the castle was something to behold, Jason was trying to figure out just how many of the men and women inside the car were actually there to view the castle, or who was there to keep their eyes on him and Pete. Thus far he had counted at least two of them as Zallas’s people. They just weren’t quick enough to look away when Jason turned toward them several times.

“Do you think the captain and Charlie came up here?” Pete asked.

“It’s a place to start.”

As the cable car rose to its optimal height on its way up the mountain, a hidden speaker system kept the guests informed as they studied the design of the castle. It was a recording by a very familiar Hollywood actor who seemed to narrate anything that came down the pike these days and it surprised Pete and Jason very much to hear his voice explaining the Vlad Tepes legend and the cross-reference to the Dracula tale, and all of this was done in English, Romanian, and French. As the castle grew larger the words of the narrator was starting to have its effect. As the voice explained why Vlad was deemed insane Jason and Pete felt the history of this mountain come alive.

The car climbed and Jason jabbed Pete on the side as he gestured out the window and down. Far below on the wide road parallel to the castle and winding upward to the pass high above, they saw a long line of over a hundred vehicles of every make and description. Jason nodded his head and suggested Pete look in the center of the long column. Pete nodded when he recognized the two Humvees that stood out like new cars at a wrecking yard.

“Well, at least someone is sticking to some form of the plan we had going in.”

Pete looked at Jason and nodded just as the car approached the large platform where the passengers would be discharged. There was a mild bump as the car gained the platform, which was built to look like large embedded stones and thick, fire-hardened wood. There were wrought iron torches lining the wall, and while they were gas fed and burned brightly, it was still an adequate effect. Pete was impressed. Jason was not as he saw the two men who had been eyeing them step off the car with the rest.

Ryan and Golding stepped from the car and watched as the two men hesitated and then when they knew they couldn’t stay behind the crowd without being noticed, moved off with the oohing and awing men and women as they examined the lobby of the giant nightclub.

The interior was done like a Hollywood movie set and even Ryan had to gasp at the decor. It was something right out of a Bram Stoker novel. The expense shown in decoration alone proved to Pete and Ryan once and for all that this place required inordinate amounts of cash.

The stage was enormous and rivaled anything seen in Las Vegas. A trapdoor system built along the lines of a Broadway stage for raising and lowering musical sets was in operation as they watched the final touches being put in place for the big grand opening tomorrow night.

“You would think this would be the place you would want to see in operation until you realize the possibility that stolen antiquities may have been the financing plan behind it.”

Ryan had to agree with Pete. This was a wad of money and to come up with that inside a country that was still trying to see if it was viable after the collapse of communism was nearly impossible. Not many banks are willing to loan money when their people are in danger of having no heating oil for the hard winters here. No, bad money was here and on display.

“Wow, I saw his show in Las Vegas!” Pete said as he walked up to the large cardboard cutout of Drake Andrews as he stood clad in a garish purple tuxedo and was crooning to an audience that rarely came to see his shows in the desert any longer.

Pete gave the cardboard cutout one last hug across the shoulders just as if he were a tourist getting his photo snapped with the legendary entertainer. He smiled at Ryan, who only stared at Golding.

“Sorry, it’s just that I’m like an oldies nut.”

“Believe me, between you, Doc Ellenshaw, and the colonel I can never take music seriously again.”

Pete shrugged his shoulders. “Where to now? I don’t see either the captain or Charlie.”

Ryan took a breath and looked around the large nightclub. He shook his head. “Yeah, this was a waste of time,” he looked back at Pete, “but at least we found out Drake Andrews will be here. Come on, we may have better luck outside,” Ryan said, making fun of Pete’s man-crush on the entertainer.

“Well, he used to be big.”

As Pete and Ryan turned to find an exit that led out onto the mountain, the two Zallas men followed them, brushing by the life-sized cardboard cutout of Drake Andrews, spinning it, and then knocking it to the floor where several men and women inadvertently stepped on it.

The Russian-made Mi-26 Halo is a twin-turbine heavy-lift helicopter. It is the world’s largest production helicopter and was a source of worry for NATO planners for years before the ancient helicopters fell into old age and disrepair and were shipped off to Russia’s satellite nations just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The amount of equipment and personnel it could transport is still a source of pride among its builders and designers. As it sat on the tarmac waiting for the last of the equipment and passengers to be loaded, the heavy engines vibrated and shook the old airframe as if it were in a blender.

As he sat in his seat toward the rear of the old aircraft, American singer Drake Andrews glanced over to his agent, who sat staring straight ahead, afraid to move as the ancient Russian helicopter shook, rattled, and rolled as it idled.

“Remind me to kill you when we get back to Vegas in fourteen months,” Andrews said as one of the turbine engines actually backfired, making both men in their expensive clothes jump and yelp.

“I’m not the one that got busted for tax evasion. It was either this or lose that menagerie you call a house in Vegas.”

“Yeah, well that two million bucks ain’t going to do diddly for me if we crash and burn in something the Wright Brothers wouldn’t have climbed into.”

“You should have finished school and not been a child star, Drake. The Wright Brothers built airplanes, this is a helicopter,” his agent said like he was explaining things to a child.

Edwards looked over at his agent and raised a brow. “Are you getting smart with me after dragging me to Romania of all places? That’s ballsy, I’ll tell ya.”

“Paternity suits, taxes, bar brawls, all because you’re mad at the world because it passed you and your show by. Let’s just collect your performance fee and get back to Vegas, okay, then you can fire me. Until then just shut up.”

“How many acts before me, and will they be in line with my program?” he asked as he closed his eyes.

“You have five acts before yours and they will be doing medley comps to set your show up. They’ll do songs from your era, and—”

Drake looked over sharply. “They won’t being covering any of my hits, will they?”

“No, Drake, they won’t, just hits from the sixties, seventies, and eighties, nothing newer than that and certainly not as old as your stuff,” the agent said with a satisfactory smile etched on his face as he too lay back. “As a matter of fact, here are your cover bands now,” he continued with an even larger smile.

As Drake looked up he saw the motliest group of men and women he had ever seen marching into the interior of the old helicopter. They had long hair and looked as if they fell right out of a Volkswagen microbus in 1967. There were sixteen of them and some were women who looked as if they took their clothing, hair, and nail advice from Alice Cooper. Suddenly one of the men broke free from the boisterous group and made his way to Drake Andrews with a killer grin on his face. The clothes the man wore were certifiably different from the $2,000 suit that Drake had on. The long-haired man started jabbering in what Drake could only assume to be Romanian or Russian, he wasn’t sure.

“Whoa, there, slow down, chief,” Drake said as he harshly nudged his agent.

“Drake Andrews, hey everyone, here is Drake!” the man screamed at the top of his lungs to be heard over the increasing engine noise of the vibrating helicopter. “Oh, we look forward to making everyone ready for the big Mr. Drake Andrews, you see, we make men and women hungry to hear you.” The man smiled and slapped Drake on the shoulder sending him into his agent next to him. The American watched the enthusiastic young man move forward toward his seat.

Andrews stared at the large group of men and women who were doing everything from wrestling in the aisles to pounding on the window glass to see if it would hold. His eyes widened when one of the Russian band members was escorted to his seat after offering the pilots a bottle of vodka.

“My God, I’ve died and this is hell. I just didn’t realize that hell would be 1967 Haight-Ashbury on an old and broken-down Russian helicopter.” He turned and looked at his smiling agent. “The guys warming up for my act are the Manson Family!”

His agent couldn’t help, after all the years of hell Drake Andrews had put him through he was finally getting some payback.

“Remind me when we get home to fire you, and then I’m going to kill you!”