Carpathian

13

The old and battered panel van traveled slowly up the road. Anya wanted them to stop at the small village before reaching Patinas so Mikla could be taken care of. Marko however wanted to get Mikla back to the pass as soon as possible. Not only to get him help, but to also keep Stanus at bay. The giant Golia had only been seen once since the encounter in the woods and that was but a brief moment when Marko observed the wolf watching them from a large crevasse in the mountain while blending in almost perfectly with the dark geologic makeup of the area.

With Mikla taking up most of the floor space in the van the crowding was nerve-wracking to say the least. Anytime someone would move inside the cargo compartment Mikla would raise its large head and growl with his eyes narrowing and his ears laid back. The sight was enough to make even Anya nervous at being closed in with the wounded Golia.

“Are you going to tell me about your American friends?” Marko asked as he rewrapped the bandage around Mikla’s ankle. His eyes never rose to meet his sister’s.

“This man saved my life in Rome.” Anya looked at Everett and then just as quickly her eyes moved away.

“So you bring him home like a stray cat?” Marko said as he tore the very end of the cloth wrapping and then tied it lightly around the wolf’s ankle. Mikla for his part only winced. “As you can see, little sister, we have more than enough stray animals running around.” He patted Mikla on the head as lightly as he could. “As for you, Mikla, I would advise you to stay clear of Stanus for a while.” Marko eased back when Mikla raised its brows and growled very deep in his chest.

Anya looked quickly at Carl and Charlie and wondered if she should broach family business in front of the two men. She then looked at Marko.

“Why did Grandmamma bring me home?” she asked as her eyes drilled into Marko’s.

“I can no longer answer for the reasons why our grandmother does anything. It may have something to do with my investments for our people.”

As her brother answered, a look of stunned surprise crossed Anya’s features. The emotion wasn’t lost on Carl.

“Investments?” Her eyes shot toward Everett, who sat and watched the exchange as the van hit a bump in the old dirt road that shook Mikla and made him whine. “Marko, the people need only themselves and the Golia. We lack for nothing.”

“We lack for nothing because we have never had anything. This will change. Grandmother’s ways are the old ways. And I will not discuss this in front of uninvited guests.” He looked at Everett alone and his brown eyes held no compassion for the American even though he had saved his sister’s life.

“Tell me, what has changed in three thousand years that would make your people start selling off a heritage you have been guarding since the time of Joshua?” Carl ventured just to see the look on Marko’s face.

Next to Everett, Charlie winced as he knew that information shouldn’t have been readily available for any American to just read in a history book. Either the captain knew what he was doing or Ellenshaw feared they may have invited this rather unpleasant man with the strange eyes to slide a knife across their throats — something he looked quite capable of doing.

Marko patted Mikla one last time and then straightened and sat leaning against the sidewall of the van. He took a deep breath and looked from Everett to his sister.

“And suddenly this man you just met knows all there is to know about the…” He smiled. “Our people.”

Anya didn’t hear what Marko said, her double-colored eyes of green and brown were on Carl and they didn’t move.

“Yes, suddenly he seems very informed.” Her left brow rose as she took in the large American. The silence was palpable.

“We try not to go into anything without first knowing the basics.” Everett said, allowing his own sight to adjust to Marko. The two men sized each other up and they both found they could not read the other’s ability.

The Gypsy raised his left brow and then he reached up and toyed with the hoop earring as he thought.

“We?” Marko asked as a smile seemed to break slowly across his lips. “By ‘we’ I take your meaning to encompass your four friends staying at the resort? Friends that have already stood out like coal on a snowy landscape, so much so that whoever you and your people are have brought the unwanted attention of a very unsavory man who just happens to own the resort.”

“And suddenly you know an awful lot about us, or at least enough to know what that unsavory character is doing. Or should I say, Dmitri Zallas — your business partner?”

Marko swallowed and then looked from the American to Anya. The sad look in her eyes told him that she saw what he was doing. Marko always dreamed of his people being normal. That they could also be human, live side by side with the rest of the world, and he always told his dreams to his baby sister, who used to be sympathetic to those dreams. But as he looked at her now he knew Anya was now just as his grandmother was—dedicated to keeping the old ways intact.

“Marko, what have you done?” Anya lowered her head, no longer able to look her brother in the eyes.

“I did what many leaders before me should have done. Why would these so-called leaders of a nation keep us in abject poverty while the rest of the world thrives? Our lives have never changed. We are still subservient.”

“And the Golia?” Anya asked.

Marko smiled for the first time and he placed a gentle hand on the back of the resting Mikla.

“They are strong once more. They do not need us to live. They are home, and they will remain. Now we shall join the world as a people and live the way we should have for these many years. We owe others nothing.”

“Let me tell you, my friend, as a man that has been in that real world you’re talking about, I’ll tell you this, it’s bleak at times and everyone, and I do mean everyone, fights for survival out there.” Everett pointed toward the wall of the step-van. “And from what I can see out there this is a real home — the only kind of home that ever made sense. Don’t just toss that away for a few of the finer things, because, buddy, the finer things are right in front of you.”

Ellenshaw was stunned to silence and looked away. Anya on the other hand was looking at Carl as if a light had been shone on his features for the first time. She tilted her head to the left and studied him until he looked her way and then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Marko glanced at his sister and didn’t care for the way she watched the American when the van came to a stop.

Anya looked up and knew she had finally returned home to Patinas. And as the doors of the van were thrown open the mountain came alive with the sound of the Golia as their howls rent the daytime skies of the Carpathians.

Jack watched Sarah on the grounds of the hotel just inside the sprawling pool area. The geologist had made sure she wasn’t being spied on by the one sunbather, obviously a woman not interested in the goings-on with the underworld inside the casino. Sarah bent at the waste and stuck a small thermometer attached to the thinnest of wires into the chlorinated water. She looked at the readout on her small watch. The expensive equipment was some of the only tools Jack and Sarah had left to them after their trucks had been diverted to the south.

“Well?” Jack asked.

“A one-degree rise since eight this morning.”

“Short stuff, they obviously had to have known this was a seismic area, or why in the hell would they build it here?”

Sarah slowly and expertly replaced the small probe and the wire spooled neatly into the watch base.

“The simplest and best explanation could be they just didn’t check. Remember, this area was under government control for close to two thousand years. I don’t imagine many seismologists or geophysicists have been nosing around this region.”

“You mean they just skipped over the land’s geologic appraisal?”

“Jack?”

“Yeah,” he said as he looked to the distant front gates at the milling news reporters and protesters who still remained despite the slowly moving black clouds coming their way.

“What do you think the cost of this resort is?” she asked as she looked around the vast property.

“Niles placed the estimate at somewhere in the two-and-a-half-billion-dollar range for the resort, the castle, and the property. Plus no telling how much was spent on bribes to get the land.” He turned away from his view of the far-off front gates and then faced Sarah. “Why do you ask?”

“Why would he built it here, it’s that simple, he had to have known this area was seismically active, he had to.”

“What in the hell are you getting at?” Jack finally asked.

“He could have bought property anywhere in Romania, and better, more access to the resort, why build in the middle of nowhere?”

“Because you said it yourself, the land was cheap.”

“No, Jack, the land wasn’t cheap. It’s all in the reports. Possible bribes to the interior minister, negotiating with the locals for use of the roads. No, Jack, he could have gotten by with half of his money spent. No, he bought here for a specific reason.”

Jack turned away and examined the men and women walking through the resort on the far side of the glass. His gaze wandered from the casino to the restaurant and then to the giant atrium.

“Do you think he knows about the Jeddah? Maybe not Alice’s wolves, but the Jeddah themselves?”

“Why would he care?” she asked.

“Remember what the reports said about the ancient tales of the Lost Tribes? The disgraced professor in Los Angeles said that one of these tribes was rumored to be carrying the vast treasures of countless campaigns from the Exodus. The biggest rumor was the one about the great temple being erected in a far-off place that housed the greatest treasures of not only Egypt, but of the ancient Hebrew people.”

“Jack, that’s stretching it somewhat, isn’t it?” Sarah said as she realized that not even she could fathom someone risking that much money over a rumor.

“What would the antiquities alone be worth?” he asked instead of answering her.

“Priceless. You couldn’t place a worth on something like that. The cultural and historical aspects alone are worth … worth…”

“Far more than two and a half billion dollars I would say.”

“Still too thin, Jack, so thin I could see through it. I mean two and a half billion dollars in the hand is worth far more than speculation of trillions in the bush.”

Jack looked down at Sarah and smiled as he shook his head. “Nice turn of phrase, short stuff.”

“I have my moments.”

“Still, things just don’t add up. This place will make money, there’s no doubt of that. But I just don’t see our Russian friend as a real hotel entrepreneur, do you?”

“No, Conrad Hilton he isn’t.”

“Then let’s hope Alice and Niles come up with more information when they hit the pass.” Jack shook his head and then walked away a few paces as the sun broke through a few of the clouds.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I was just wondering how far Zallas would go to see if the rumors of the treasure of the Lost Tribe are true. I mean we know he was being fed antiquities from someone, more than likely a Jeddah. Marko — maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we do know is that he has to believe that his supplier has access to a cache of treasure. Maybe it wasn’t in his original plan, but things may have changed. We know from the dates of the building permits that Dracula’s Castle was a last-minute expense. That could have been built far lower on the mountain for far less money.”

“Hey, it’s me; tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Just four or five trinkets from the Exodus may have earned this man close to a billion dollars, just think what avarice-filled dreams he has running through his head. Again I ask — how far would he go to get his hands on the treasure if he suspected it was real?”

“With his history, I shudder to speculate.”

“Well, let’s just hope he can never confirm where those antiquities are coming from.”

Dmitri Zallas was eating his lunch. His constant womanly companionship was missing as he always preferred to eat alone. That was the only time he had to think and he didn’t need inane conversation.

Zallas was small for a Russian mobster. Most men in his line of work got things done through sheer brute intimidation and usually they got this way because they were bigger and stronger than most. But Zallas had to do things differently. Because he was so short and stocky he had to think his way out of trouble. He had to plan accordingly and he gambled the same way. This was why he was in the Patinas region of Romania — speculation. Oh, the resort was a fantastic investment and he would make billions on it. That wasn’t what Dmitri really cared for, he wanted the risk — the problem solving that comes with the search. He knew his affliction wasn’t greed, it was power. Those antiquities gave him power; the power of knowledge.

He looked up and saw Gina Louvinski standing at the entrance to the restaurant watching him. He tilted his head and the general manager held up something and pointed at his table. Her clipboard was still pressed against her chest. Dmitri took a sip of coffee and then gestured for Gina to join him. He looked at his two bodyguards and they allowed the tall woman to pass. Zallas took his napkin and wiped his mouth and then tossed it on his still full plate.

“And what can I help you with, Ms. Louvinski?” he asked in a bored sort of way.

Gina held out a small card. Zallas looked at it and raised his brows. He didn’t reach for it.

“A rather dirty and unkempt man at the front gate gave your security detail this.”

Zallas looked at the business card but still didn’t reach for it.

The card didn’t waver as it was held firm in front of Zallas.

Zallas sipped more coffee and then placed the cup down and snatched the card from her grasp. When he looked it over he saw that it was plain white with no bordering or fancy lettering — white with black print.

“Avi Ben-Nevin,” he said as he read the card. He held it up and then looked at Gina with his brows raised once more — he was running short of patience.

“Read the back,” she said and then turned and left the restaurant.

The Russian watched her leave and then deftly flipped the card over.

“Colonel, Israeli Mossad.” The hastily scrawled note below it was written in Cyrillic — the Russian alphabet: “The Treasure of the Exodus — I know the location.”

For the first time that weekend, Dmitri Zallas and his smile were genuine.

“Yes,” he said to himself. “Real estate speculation could be very rewarding.”

The bright red Toyota Land Cruiser with the Edge of the World logo on both front doors pulled up to the hotel’s main entrance. Colonel Ben-Nevin wondered if the advice he had received from Tel Aviv was sending him to disaster instead of a possible ally.

Zallas was standing by the large one-hundred-foot glass window that looked out onto the pool area. He was speaking with one of his men and didn’t turn to see Ben-Nevin as he waited to be noticed. The Russian said something to the man and the bodyguard nodded and then walked away. With one last look at the couple standing by the swimming pool Zallas turned and faced the colonel. He wasn’t smiling but he was holding the business card. Zallas held the card in front of him and then snapped it twice with his fingers creating a popping sound. The Russian took a few steps toward the man in the dirty suit.

“I would usually tell a guest dressed such as you that we adhere to a strict dress code in certain areas of the resort.” Zallas looked around him at the guests passing through the front lobby. “And this is one of those areas.”

“Apologies,” Ben-Nevin said as he examined the bearded man in the white suit and red tie. The colonel knew the type of man this was before he even opened his mouth. As a Russian the colonel knew the man wasn’t fond of his ethnic background. The man’s dark little eyes washed over the Israeli with a look of distaste.

“You have an interesting way of introducing yourself, Colonel. One that would sway me to believe that you had this card printed — a lie perhaps,” he smiled for the first time, “to go with the meaningless phrase you have scrawled on the back.” Zallas popped the business card again.

Ben-Nevin felt the eyes of his bodyguards on him but he took another step forward, closing the space between him and the Russian. His smile matched his hosts.

“If I had the audacity to lie to a man with your reputation and resources on your property with no backup, I think I would listen to this audacious gentleman until you could decide for yourself if he is a liar.”

Zallas finally placed the card in his silk jacket pocket and then gestured for the colonel to join him at the window.

“All right, Colonel, let’s say you are this man and have earned this title for this particular organization, what can I do for you except to explain I am not a big follower of the Exodus. My knowledge is limited to that old American film I am afraid.”

Ben-Nevin could see immediately that the man was an expert liar. He could see the mind working inside his thick skull on how to get the information from him without giving away anything in return. The man was a moron who was as see-through as the glass they were looking out of.

“If I were a man in an intelligence position, I would undoubtedly have information on antiquities smuggling and the sale of same.” Ben-Nevin continued to look out of the window at the couple standing by the pool. They seemed engrossed in deep conversation, and for some reason they looked out of place to the trained eye of the colonel. He watched the couple as he spoke. “I know you have come in contact with certain items that I and many people are interested in. We are willing to offer compensation to the individual who assists my organization in this quest.”

“Treasure hunting in Romania?” Zallas turned and looked at Ben-Nevin, his eyes roaming over his dirty clothing. “I’m waiting with great expectation, Colonel.”

“You have never heard of the spoils of Egypt taken by the Hebrews during the Exodus? Vast amounts of gold, jewelry, and other finery — the spoils of countless battles and wars. A treasure so vast that no one can begin to speculate its true worth. And that is but the tip of the iceberg.” The colonel was speaking in passionate Russian. “The antiquities you have auctioned off to finance this … this … playground,” Ben-Nevin gestured around him, “were but a minuscule portion of what awaits inside the great temple of the Jeddah.”

Zallas turned fully on to face the Israeli. “Great temple?” he asked, not knowing Ben-Nevin had expertly drawn the shallow gangster out of his lie about not knowing anything.

“One so large it had to be hidden inside a mountain.”

“A mountain,” Zallas repeated as if he were almost dozing.

“A temple built by the great artisans of the Hebrew nation, and the engineers that once designed the great halls of Ramesses II.”

Zallas remained silent as he looked into the eyes of the colonel. Ben-Nevin saw a small twitch at the corner of his mouth and knew that at least he had the idiot’s attention. Finally he saw the small man smile and then shake his head.

“A nice fairy tale indeed, we have many like them stemming from the czars of lost treasures hidden by the despots of old.” He laughed. “I must ask where you came across such a story, and finally, how you may prove it really exists.”

This time Ben-Nevin was the one to smile as he finally removed his eyes from the couple by the pool.

“The proof you’re looking for is with the man you have relied on in the past to invest in your joint venture here.”

Zallas outright laughed. “My partner, you mean Mr. Vajic? I’m afraid you have failed to convince me, Colonel.”

“That is not the man I speak of. Your not so silent partner is in the capital and should arrive sometime tonight. Your real silent partner and the man that made all of this possible for you, lives up there.” Ben-Nevin turned and pointed north toward the pass. “His name is Marko Korvesky. You know this name, yes?” The smile remained on the colonel’s face. He knew his connections inside the Knesset had come through, as the Russian’s artificial-light-induced tan drained from his face and the smile vanished.

“And suddenly you know much about my business affairs, Jew.”

“Ah, that hurt.” Ben-Nevin also lost his smile. “But very much off the point, Mr. Zallas. The real edge of this sword is that your man Marko knows where the temple is. He was supplying you with antiquities that could not have come from anyplace else but the temple I have just described. And now I will let you in on a little bit of intelligence that may help you decide in a timely manner if you should assist me and my associates in this endeavor — or if you will bury me in those lonely mountains someplace and throw away a chance at immortality.”

“I’m listening,” the Russian said menacingly.

“Good, now that’s productive, Mr. Zallas.”

“You are beginning to irritate me, Jew Colonel.”

“Yes, I can see that. The temple has stood for three thousand years.” Ben-Nevin leaned in closer to Zallas. “And I can guarantee you that elements outside my control will be coming for what they consider their property in less than forty-eight hours.”

“And just who are these elements?”

“Members of my government you wouldn’t want visiting your resort, I assure you.”

The Russian turned and watched the two people by the pool walk away toward the entrance to the hotel. His eyes watched them with intent.

“Do you know this man and woman?” he asked, nodding toward the man and woman and also taking Ben-Nevin off guard with the sudden change of subject.

“No.” He hadn’t let on that he also thought the two by the pool looked out of place.

“They are American.” He turned and faced the Israeli. “I suspect law enforcement of some kind. American FBI, CIA, or perhaps Interpol.”

“That man is no policeman,” Ben-Nevin said as he watched the way the dark-haired visitor carried himself. “That gentleman is military.”

“Yes, that’s just what the American said. I don’t believe him.”

“Then by all means you must watch him.” Ben-Nevin finally turned away as the man and woman walked in through the entrance. “My tale, Mr. Zallas, does the recovery of the subject matter interest you?”

Dmitri Zallas turned and then gestured toward one of his men. The guard left the area and was back very quickly with Gina Louvinski in tow. She stepped up to Zallas and the man with the filthy suit.

“Yes, Mr. Zallas,” she said, trying to mask her irritation at having to jump every time the Russian commanded.

“Have our friend here see our medical staff for that hand and see to it that he has credit at our clothing shop and set aside a suite of rooms for him and his men on a vacant floor as I’m sure they also could use some cleaning up. I wish them to be kept away from my other guests, is that clear?”

“Yes, Mr. Zallas,” she answered blandly as she turned away toward the front desk.

“A wise decision,” the colonel said as he watched the American man and woman disappear into the hotel, “and one that should profit you to no end.”

“I always profit. I have a way of securing my investments.”

Ben-Nevin turned on Zallas and became deadly serious. “But I must warn you that we may be up against a considerable force of will when it comes to this Gypsy and his people. I hope you have sufficient numbers to take what it is we came for.” Ben-Nevin wasn’t even considering the human element in the equation, but he surely wasn’t about to mention the extremely large wolf that seemed to be protecting the Jeddah.

“Colonel, when you are at the front desk, ask to see the guest list, tell Ms. Louvinski you have my permission.”

“And why should I do that?”

“That, Colonel Jew, is my army.” He turned away and started for the casino. “That and a hundred armed men who will die on my command.”

Ben-Nevin watched the Russian walk away as if he were a god amongst mere mortals.

The colonel turned and walked into the hotel lobby. He immediately saw the same man and woman from outside as they strolled toward him and the elevators beyond. The dark-haired American never made eye contact with him although they came within a foot of touching.

Jack lowered his eyes as he placed an arm around Sarah and pulled her close as they walked.

“Oh, shit,” Collins hissed as they walked past the front desk.

“What?” Sarah said, avoiding the temptation to turn and look at what Jack had just spied.

“The hotel is filling up with the saltiest-looking people.”

“You mean the man in the dirty suit?” she said low enough that only Jack could hear.

“Yeah, that man just happens to be Colonel Avi Ben-Nevin, Israeli Mossad, the man that tried his best to kill Carl, Ryan, and our man at the Vatican. And a man I can only assume is on the run.”

“And now he’s here.”

“It just may turn out to be an explosive weekend.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We do our job and hope that Ryan and Pete find Everett.” Collins stopped and waited for the elevator but turned and faced Sarah.

“That may be hard to do with you telling Zallas who we are. But you’re right,” she said, easing her look toward the filthy man at the front desk and then just as quickly looking back at Jack. “This is trouble.”

Jack frowned as the elevator doors opened.

“That is an alliance we didn’t see coming.”

“Well, we’re not fortune-tellers and we’re sure as hell not Europa,” he said with a smile as they stepped into the elevator.

“Or Gypsies.”

Carl and Charlie had been unceremoniously pushed into what amounted to a small barn. The place smelled like goats or sheep, Everett couldn’t decide which, or if it even mattered. Anya, Marko, and quite a few of the men who had captured them had eased Mikla onto a makeshift stretcher made from the front door of a nearby house. The door was far too small to accommodate the size of the animal but the men managed to get him out of the stuffy van.

The strange thing was that when Mikla was exposed to the outside for the first time after being moved into the open air, the mountain around them came alive with noise and Everett and Charlie could swear they heard howling. Carl hoped it was his imagination because the sounds had to have been made by, many hundreds of wolves.

The captain watched the small house in the center of the town through a break in the wooden slats that made up the facade of the barn. Everett knew he could punch out one of the slats with ease, but he had decided to play this out and hope that the woman made someone listen to reason. He watched as even more of the villagers made their way to the house where Marko and Anya had vanished.

Ellenshaw tapped Carl on the shoulder.

“Look at this,” he said pointing out a small window on the south side of the barn.

The captain stepped to the small window and saw a hundred people on the road leading to Patinas. They were men, women, children and they had goats, a cow, a wagon with several pigs inside, and they were all smiling and looked as if they were on their way to a large picnic or small fair. The music they played as they walked along the road was festive and was made up of tambourines, violins, flutes, and horns. The music grew louder as they came upon the village.

“They must be from the nearby towns,” Everett said as he watched the progression of brightly dressed Gypsies.

“What are they here for?” Charlie asked as he strained to see over Carl’s shoulder.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”

Madam Korvesky held her granddaughter to her chest and cried. Marko, feeling uncomfortable at first, softened as he watched both women, his only true blood in the world sob over the years that had been lost.

Marko turned away and ran his hand through the thick black fur of Mikla. The wolf lay still and allowed Marko to stroke him. The beast closed its yellow glowing eyes and that was when he placed his hand on Mikla’s head and pressed ever so slightly as the animal dosed. Marko tilted his head as his hand moved by small increments around the beast’s skull. Mikla winced once in his sleep and then settled.

A fleeting vision of Anya came to his mind and then the face of a man he didn’t recognize. The tan face and thin build, the pencil-thin mustache, nothing was recognizable. Of course he knew he was seeing this vision through the muted gray-green spectrum of vision that the Golia used, but the vision was clear in Marko’s eyes. Mikla saw this man as a threat, one that meant harm to Anya, whom Mikla had been sent to protect. Words intruded into Marko’s thoughts and the spell was broken. He felt the small headache but it wasn’t as severe as the spell he would have normally used with Stanus, which would have drained his mind of all activity for hours. He felt a sharp but momentary pain in his right ankle and then he turned to face his grandmother.

“Marko, are you listening to me?”

He blinked and then smiled. “Yes,” he said simply and as matter-of-factly as he could after seeing the man that was trying to kill his sister far more distinctly than her mere description of him.

“Well, are you going to tell them that now is not the right time for song and dance? There will be ample time for them to celebrate after I have seen to Mikla.”

Finally Marko heard the cacophony coming from outside the village. The locals were starting to gather, something he had been fearful of ever since his grandmother had mentioned Anya was returning home. The music was loud and the people boisterous, which caused Marko a pang of jealousy and also of worry that there were now too many Jeddah eyes around Patinas for what was happening far below at the resort. The gathering was not wanted or needed at this time.

“I will see to it,” he said as he turned and patted Mikla one last time on the cheek. The wolf whined deep in its throat and then stilled again. Marko left without looking at either woman.

“Your brother has brought great trouble upon us I fear,” Madam Korvesky said as she watched her grandson leave. “He has done this for a cause that he sees as just, but I fear will bring the world down upon us.”

Anya wiped tears from her eyes as she stood and faced her grandmother.

“This is why I am to stay?”

Madam Korvesky smiled and then looked her grown granddaughter over as she held out a hand for assistance to stand from her large chair.

“No, your mission for the Jeddah is at an end. We have no more reason for eyes on the world, and especially eyes placed in Israel.”

“I do not understand,” Anya said as she helped her grandmother over to the door that had been placed between two large sawhorses from the barn. She watched as the old woman placed a weathered hand on Mikla’s shoulder, being sure to stay away from the animal’s head. She wanted him sleeping for what she had to do. She patted him easily and the wolf huffed and then went still.

“We are at a crossroads, my child. The world has started to gather more knowledge than we can suppress.” She turned and faced Anya with a sad look. “And I’m afraid your brother is the cause. He was blinded and now he is beginning to gather his wits about him and truly see that which he has set in motion.” Madam Korvesky looked down at Mikla and stroked his thick fur as he slept. She ran her hand easily down the full length of the beast, limping as she moved.

Anya stepped over to assist but the old woman shook her head as her hand came in contact with the break in the right hind ankle.

“He did this thinking he would make life easier for the Jeddah. And now the world has learned many things, and this knowledge cannot leave here.”

“Fool,” Anya said as she shook her head at the naïveté of her older brother. “What are we facing?” she asked, now afraid of the answer.

The old Gypsy queen stopped as she felt the small break in the bone. She tilted her head and closed her eyes. She was feeling her own touch in her swollen ankle and she knew it was comforting not only to herself but also to Mikla. She nodded her head and then took a deep breath.

“It’s not as bad as I thought,” she said as she smiled and then rubbed the muscled leg of the Golia. “We’ll have you fixed up in no time, you clumsy wolf,” she said laughing at her own words.

“Grandmother, what are we facing?” Anya insisted.

“Nothing but the total end of our way of life.” The old woman said it far too easily for Anya to be sure she heard the statement correctly.

“Surely things are not that—”

“And I’m not sure if that is a bad thing.”

Now Anya was totally stunned. She grasped the old wooden door to stabilize her wobbly legs as she felt her heart break at the thought of losing the mountain and what they have protected for thirty-five hundred years.

Before Anya could say anything the old woman held her hand up to still the questions she knew was coming.

“We can discuss this after we take care of Mikla. We must hurry him to the temple as soon as he is able. The other Golia may relax when he returns unharmed.”

Anya watched as her grandmother prepared for the healing spells that would not only make the pain easier to bear for Mikla but also herself. She stepped up and took hold of her by her elbows and helped her walk to her kitchen that was only a few paces away.

“And then we can discuss this rather large American stray you brought home.”

“He saved my—”

Again the smile and the hand stopped Anya from speaking.

“And you know how I feel about strays. You were always bringing home some animal for healing or for loving.” She turned with her smile still in place. “But I feel this particular stray means something a little more to my granddaughter.”

The hand again stopped Anya from speaking and she became frustrated as her grandmother started rummaging through her boxes and cabinets for the items needed for the healing spell.

“I’m a Gypsy, my dear, and some of the stories about us are true. I know you’ve been absent for a long while, so I’ll let you have your doubts. But I can feel this man has caught your heart.” She stopped rummaging and turned to face the young woman who looked just like her when she was at the same age. “Hear me, girl,” she said, losing the smile and becoming deadly serious. “Things are going to change, and now may not be the best time for such things as your American stray to be near the Jeddah.”

Anya didn’t want to go into any form of denial with her grandmother. She was old and she wasn’t reading things like she used to. But the news about her brother was now starting to weigh heavily on her. She smiled and then kissed her grandmother on the cheek.

“Your visionary aptitude has gone astray, Grandmamma, the American has no interest in a Gypsy from the mountains.”

The old woman chuckled.

“You have been gone far too long. I have missed your smile so much. And I won’t even say what a horrible liar you are.”

Her grandmother took Anya in her arms and hugged her as if for the last time.

From what Niles could tell, the five men in the Army Humvee liked being in the procession of cars, vans, and other old and rusted vehicles. They nodded and pointed at vehicles they recognized from bygone days. Everything from rusted-out Chevys to French-made Citroëns.

“This is amazing,” Alice said from the backseat of the hard-riding Humvee.

“That’s one word for it. I thought most of these cars and trucks would have been scrap sometime after the Kennedy assassination. What do you think is happening to draw so many Gypsies to the pass?”

“I’ve always heard about it, but no one I have ever spoken to has ever seen a Gathering.”

“It’s a gathering all right,” Niles said as he watched an old and battered Toyota pickup slide by them with ten children and several more adults in the back. They were jabbering away and laughing. Niles shook his head. “A gathering of what I don’t know. Look at their clothes, the styles they’re wearing, it’s like I’m looking back in time at several different ages. The sixties mostly, but maybe even as far back as the eighteen nineties. It’s amazing.”

“Gypsies,” Alice said beneath her breath.

“What was that?” Niles asked leaning closer to her.

“These are what the real Gypsies are like, Niles. This isn’t Hollywood or what others perceive them to be, these are the real thing.” She looked at Compton and smiled and he saw that she was loving every minute of what was happening. Alice was finally in her element. “These aren’t the Gypsies you find in Paris, London, or New York. No, these are the ones that stayed close to the mountains.”

Niles watched the motley group of Gypsies inside a truck as it went past.

“Are you saying that these people are—?”

“The Jeddah.”

Compton was about to respond when the driver of the Humvee gestured forward.

“We have a village here and it doesn’t look like the others below, this one seems a little crowded.”

As Niles and Alice strained to look out of the front windscreen, the multitude of men, women, and children could be seen crowding around the small village of Patinas. Many were lined in the roadway and many more in the trees surrounding the town. Many were playing and laughing as they waited, while others sat around and smoked pipes and cigars and discussed the year’s shearing and butchering that would be handled come fall. The women were gossiping about this and that and the children were watching the many entertainers winding their way through the crowd.

“I think this is about as far as we’re going to go, sir.”

Niles reached up and patted the driver on the back. “Okay, let’s go see what’s going on and ask if we can visit the higher reaches of the pass.”

As Alice stepped out of the vehicle she was amazed to see the friendly smiles and faces that greeted them. This was not at all like the closed society of Gypsy bands that roamed the Western world — these people were open and very much unsuspicious of others.

The men of the 82nd, along with Niles, Alice, Will Mendenhall, and Denise Gilliam, all watched jugglers and vendors, and then their eyes widened when a small brown bear with a collar around his neck and being led by a small Gypsy child with a gold shirt and black vest walked upright to many laughs from the children.

Denise had to smile when Mendenhall’s mouth came slightly agape at the sight. Even the engineers from the 82nd looked as if they were kids seeing a circus for the first time. One staff sergeant pulled on the sleeve of another and pointed to the two teenage girls dancing and swirling to the sound of a horn as they beat tambourines. The men were awestruck and Alice could do nothing but clap her hands together and smile. All the while Niles watched. It felt good to the director of Department 5656 to see her smile again. It had been a long haul since the senator’s death and she deserved this last Event call.

“What do you think, Alice?” Niles asked as he turned away and studied the milling crowd of happy Gypsies that must have traveled from every village and town from the Czech Republic and the Russian steppes to get here. As Alice said, these people were the real thing.

Alice smiled and looked around her and then up at the mountain peak. She was trying to envision the interior and spy the true and hidden secret of the Jeddah.

“This is a Gathering to announce something. Or maybe to welcome someone home,” she said looking over at Compton with a wink.

“You mean this could be for our missing Mossad agent?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean, and if I were to think clearly on this with her here and Captain Everett missing … well, there could be a connection.”

Niles got a worried look on his face as he glanced at the empty web belts of the 82nd Airborne engineers. It was what wasn’t on those belts that concerned him: They had no weapons of any kind.

“Well, shall we pay our respects?” he said instead of voicing any concerns about their vulnerability. He would allow Alice to ride the wave a little while longer.

“By all means, let’s.”

Alice and her Event Group walked three thousand years into history.

The sun was slowly sliding behind the mountains to the west bringing on a false evening that cooled the milling crowd of Gypsies outside the gate of the small house. Charlie Ellenshaw was studying the activity through the slats in the rickety old barn. He blinked when he thought he saw a familiar face in the crowd standing a head taller than the rest. Charlie removed his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes and then replaced them and looked again. A smile slowly crossed his lips.

Everett was examining the barn for weaknesses in case he decided not to play gentle captive any longer. Thus far he figured he could be out in about as long a time as it took to raise a boot and kick out one of the ancient slats that had seen far better days. They were open on three sides of the barn. The fourth and back side was butted right up against the mountain which served as its rear wall and which must have played hell during the rainy season. Carl looked up and saw that the hay loft reached all the way to the broken roof where he spied the craggy rocks as they climbed high above the barn.

“I’ll be damned, they made it to the village,” Ellenshaw said as he turned and got Everett’s attention.

“The director?” Carl asked as he stepped down from a small shattered corral gate. “Well, Will is out there anyway, and a couple of the Army guys.”

Everett walked to the wall while brushing remnants of hay and Lord knew what else from his blue denim shirt. He went to the widest crack and looked out. He saw Will standing among the large crowd of Gypsies. He smiled when he saw Alice and Niles wedged between the engineers of the 82nd.

“Come on, we’ll go out the south side, there are fewer people over there and the wall seems ready to fall down anyway.”

Everett turned to face the cracked and broken wall and started to raise his right leg and boot. That was when he froze. He slowly lowered the foot and his hands which had been spread for balance during his kick. The yellow eyes staring back at him made the blood freeze in his veins. Ellenshaw slowly turned to Carl with a smile after viewing their friends.

“I can’t wait to report what we’ve seen to Alice, she’s going to … oh, shit,” Charlie said when he saw what had frozen Everett in mid-kick. The wolf was actually standing on the far side of the wall and was looking in at them. To Charlie the operative word was standing.

“Don’t move, Doc,” Carl said as he never allowed his eyes to look away from the beast that was staring in with those menacing yellow eyes. Its ears were up and the size of the animal as it stood on two legs made the captain feel as if he were but a small child facing a Great Dane.

Before Carl could blink an eye the animal leapt up and away out of their view. Everett took a quick step back as he heard the wolf on the top of the barn. Dirt, leaves, pine needles, and other debris collected over time fell on them from the massive weight being applied to the old wood above them. Their eyes watched the giant animal move across the roof, each beam of wood shaking and then bending under the wolf’s massive weight.

“That’s the big one, isn’t it?” Charlie asked as he leaned further back against the wall he had just been looking through. “The one Marko and Anya called Stanus … I don’t think he’s very friendly.”

Carl didn’t voice it, but he had to agree with Ellenshaw. The animal that had come to their rescue earlier seemed to him to be the surly type. And it hadn’t been too pleased to see him and Charlie with Anya and Mikla. And now here it was paying the prisoners a visit. Carl winced as he heard nails being wrenched free from where they had been secured for a century or more. Then before either could move a muscle the beast jumped into the barn and landed in the shadows and light beams coming in from the outside. The black giant came to its full height after absorbing the impact of its landing from thirty-five feet up. They both heard the deep growl coming from the wolf’s throat. Everett allowed his eyes to cover the distance from the angry countenance of the beast to the long and very articulate fingers as they curled and uncurled at Stanus’s sides as the animal moved its weight from one foot to the other keeping a balance that had been practiced since birth.

“This is the most amazing thing I’ve—”

“Doc, now is not the time for a Carl Sagan narrative.”

Stanus stepped forward into a large sunbeam that was slowly starting to dim as the sun moved further behind the western mountains. The ears were up but the growling was intensifying. The large head swung from the more formidable Everett to that of Ellenshaw, who managed to hold his ground even though he was facing a thing he said could never exist.

Before Everett could react, the beast moved with lightning speed and took the captain by the neck and then raised the 235-pound man clear of the dirt floor. Carl took hold of the thick muscled arm to alleviate the stress on his neck as Charlie made a move to assist. Stanus simply leaned forward and growled, this time his long black ears laid flat against his skull, giving every indication that it was no longer tolerant of the men that didn’t belong. Stanus brought its ears up as Charlie took a step back against the far wall. The giant wolf that couldn’t possibly exist just two days ago finally brought its full attention back to Everett.

“Uh, can we talk about this?” Everett managed to squeeze the words out against the growing tightness constricting his breathing.

Stanus growled and then relaxed its hold on Everett’s throat as it leaned in and smelled the captain from the top of his blond hair to his neck. The intake of air was deep and slow as the Golia seemed to be deciding something as it breathed deeply. The mouth slowly opened and came forward. Everett was looking at the largest set of teeth he had ever seen. But yet the captain realized that the animal wasn’t threatening him, he was testing him to see if he would panic — at least he was hoping that was what the beast was doing. Everett opened his eyes and steeled himself to make the beast blink first. He was so intent on doing this that neither he nor Charlie heard the sound of the barn door being opened. Only Stanus allowed its eyes to flick in that direction as its large and sharply pointed brow rose as Carl seemed to have passed some sort of ritualistic test.

“Put the American down, Stanus.”

Everett, though he couldn’t breathe, recognized the voice that came from behind him.

Stanus turned its head to face the man Everett couldn’t see. The growl was deep and this time very menacing. The ears lay down once more and then Stanus unceremoniously allowed Carl to slide through its fingers until he landed on the dirt floor where the captain took a grateful breath as he leaned over massaging his neck.

“The mountain, Stanus, go home, you shouldn’t be down here, there are far too many who don’t know the Golia are here. Even amongst our own people there are eyes we would rather not behold the miracle. Go home, Stanus.”

Carl watched as Marko held his ground as Stanus took a menacing step toward the Gypsy. The arms were outstretched and the long claws were working to get at something. Everett could see Marko’s dark eyes looking at the moving claws. Then the confrontation seemed to end as Stanus stood straight and then the long, powerful arms relaxed as it took two tentative steps back into the shadows of the barn. It took two more. The yellow eyes going from Marko to Everett and then back again until the only thing they could discern in the darkness of the barn were the yellow eyes and then in a flash of black-on-black movement, Stanus vanished up and into the rafters and then they heard the weight of the beast as it crunched onto the wood of the old roof as it scrambled onto the mountain to vanish.

“Maybe a leash law would help,” Carl joked as he slowly picked himself up off the ground. He rubbed his neck and throat trying to ease the pain of having his larynx crushed.

Marko looked from Everett to a very scared Charlie, who moved quickly to assist the captain. The dark eyes roamed over both men.

“A leash, that’s very humorous. I think I would like to be the one to watch as you put that leash on Stanus, or any Golia you come across.” Marko turned and gestured for the front door.

“My sister insists that you be allowed to join your friends who have arrived from down below.” He turned and looked at Everett. “The man and woman I invited are not among them. I suspect your dark-haired friend scares the Russian at the resort.”

“And you know this because…?” Carl said as he went to a pail of water and splashed some of the stagnant liquid on his face.

“Because I am a Gypsy, and I know your friends mean Dmitri Zallas harm. For right now I cannot allow that. In later months, yes, maybe you can take him, but for now he is needed. So after tonight, collect your friends and leave this mountain. You do not belong here.”

“You’re not a very friendly fella, are you?” Carl said as he stepped up closer to the much smaller Gypsy. He swiped at the water still on his face.

“After tonight my word will be law. My plans for the betterment of my people will begin as soon as the power is mine to direct our new course.”

“And your sister, just what is her opinion on this new course for the Jeddah?”

Carl could see that knowing the information on the Jeddah was a little unnerving to the Gypsy prince. He could tell that he wasn’t used to an outsider that had so much accurate information on a legend that had been hidden successfully for thirty-five hundred years.

Marko made a face and smiled as if the question had been asked by a small child.

“My sister, what does that have to with my plans? She is an outsider now, maybe not trusted by her own people any longer. She is the younger and could never be crowned queen as long as I am alive.”

“Then all of these people are here to see you get your deserved reward?” Everett persisted as he noticed that Marko was losing a little of his cool demeanor when the subject of his sister came up.

“You may join your friends, but make no move to go into the pass. I think we can drop that ridiculous pretense.” Marko looked into the taller captain’s eyes. “NATO, it never ceased to amaze me how easily the Russian sold the Romanian government a bill of goods by getting NATO to cooperate in getting the land grant settled. And you’re supposed to be the light of the shining world? I think I would rather do business with the Slav.” Marko turned and left and they noticed the barn door was open.

“What a great guy,” Charlie said and then looked at the spot from where Stanus had vanished. Dirt was still falling from the damaged areas of the roof where the beast had walked. “It’s like that wolf and that young man have the same temper problem.”

“Yeah, well, here’s one for the books Doc,” Everett said as he finally faced Ellenshaw. “When that wolf had me by the short and curlies I had the distinct impression it was trying to see if I was a part of something it didn’t like very well, and as these thoughts struck I kept picturing the man who just left here.”

“So what are you saying?” Charlie asked as they started walking toward the barn door.

“What I’m saying, Doc, is that I don’t know if Stanus is very trusting of his friend Marko. It was smelling me and trying to decide which side of the line I would fall on.” He smiled and laughed. “Hell, I don’t know, but that wolf and Marko are connected somehow and it’s not in a very friendly way. Marko has lost something with that animal and Stanus feels lost. That’s what I felt, Doc, now call me crazy.”

“How can I do that, the name’s already been taken.”

Both Carl and crazy Charlie Ellenshaw laughed and made their way out of the barn and into one of the largest celebrations in Jeddah history.

The three Mercedes cars sped onto the old tarmac and vanished beyond the old hangar. Moments later the side doors opened and several black-clad security personnel entered the darkened structure. They saw the gray and white camouflaged men of the commando unit and studied each before they stepped aside. All eyes watched as the prime minister stepped over the threshold of the sliding door. He had his hands behind his back and his head was lowered in thought, just as every picture of the man ever taken seemed to show. He was dressed in a simple blue sweater that covered a white shirt. He had no tie and his gray hair was not covered in his customary black hat. The prime minister finally looked up from his thoughts. The eyes were sympathetic to the man as each soldier knew what a daunting task it had become to be the leader of a nation that had enemies on all sides. The commandos knew and respected the man even though he seemed to be far left of the political center — something the military of Israel had started to embrace.

The prime minister of the state of Israel moved silently toward the communications area of the hangar as each commando watched him. He looked up and nodded his head as the door was opened for him.

General Shamni moved in his sleep and then he opened his eyes when he felt the presence in the room. He looked over from the cot he was sleeping on and saw that the prime minister was sitting in a chair not three feet away. His glasses were perched on his forehead and he was leaning forward and smiling.

“May I ask what is so humorous?” the general asked as he slowly placed his feet on the floor and sat up. He rubbed his burning eyes and then tried his best to focus on his old friend.

“You sleep like a big child, do you know that?”

“Anyone below the age of eighty is a child to you,” Shamni said as he tried again to focus. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to tell you myself.”

“Oh, this is going to be good. If something were bad enough to take you away from your books to come all the way down here we must be at war or damn near it.”

The PM reached out and slapped the general on his knee. “It is good to see you can still be funny.” He lost his own smile. “Not war, but trouble is brewing in Romania.”

“You mean more trouble, don’t you?”

“Yes, more trouble. Our radical friends in the Knesset have been in contact with your Colonel Ben-Nevin. As far as your people know and mine, the bastard separatists have directed Ben-Nevin to make inroads to the owner of that cursed resort. This is a development that needs to be attended to.”

The general rubbed his hand over his face and then stood and walked over to the coffeepot. He slapped the radio operator on the shoulder and told him to excuse the PM and himself. The old man watched the commando leave and then watched as the general leaned over and turned up the volume on the long-range radio set that was being monitored.

“Going deaf, I’m afraid,” Shamni said as he smiled in embarrassment and then went and poured himself a cup of cold coffee.

“No word at all,” the PM asked as he turned in his chair to face Shamni.

“No, but that is expected. We won’t be contacted until the very end, when need outweighs common sense.”

“I am detecting quite a bit of animosity coming from you, old friend.”

“This should have been taken care of long before you and I took the seats we currently hold.” The general looked down at the cold coffee and made a face and then placed the cup on the desk he was sitting on. He looked at the silent radio and shook his head. He stood and walked to the window that looked into the hangar and the clean-looking lines of the Hercules C-130 as it sat waiting in alert status. “I don’t think the lives of one of those boys out there are worth one thing buried inside that damn mountain.”

“I agree, old friend, but send them into harm’s way is just what we will do. We cannot allow this discovery to give our radical friends the ammunition for separation from our neighbors, this has to end. If they get ahold of what’s there we will be fighting for a thousand more years, or until someone delivers a little atomic package on our doorstep.”

The general saw the worry in his friend’s face. The problems of the old world intruded on what they were trying to achieve in the region and they couldn’t have that. The beliefs of the tribes had mellowed over the years and now the extremists wanted the world to think that, indeed, they were the true chosen people. The PM and the general both knew that the old prejudices would begin anew if that mountain spilled out its secrets.

“If we don’t receive word by midnight tomorrow, we move with or without a signal from Patinas.”

The general nodded his head. “Will this never end?”

14

Sarah watched as the huge helicopter that had seen far better days as it touched down roughly on the lawn outside of the large pool area. Her eyes lingered a moment by the window and then she smiled as she recognized the brash — and broke — Las Vegas entertainer Drake Andrews as he stepped off the helicopter. It looked as if he were very irritated at everyone around him. She shook her head and then turned away from the window.

Sarah walked to the room’s dressing table and studied the experiment she had running. The tall glass of water sat motionless. Floating in the center of the glass was a golden aluminum candy wrapper shaped like a small cup. Attached to the floating foil was a small wire that Sarah had connected to her cell phone, which was open and broken into three distinct pieces on the table next to the glass. Next to the phone was what remained of the thermostat that controlled the temperature inside their room. The small vial of mercury sat in the bubble of the floating foil where Sarah had attached the leads from the cell phone. She concentrated on the digital readout on the screen. The application was for a musical tone graph used in many areas of downloading music for variance control and noise level.

“Well, Mr. Wizard?” Jack asked as he stepped out of the bathroom drying his hands on a towel.

Sarah held up her hand as she studied the makeshift seismograph she had constructed in place of her more expensive equipment accidentally absconded by the Romanian army. She shook her head as the numbers slowed down from their previous high.

“The movement has increased by point one since four o’clock.”

“I take it that’s bad?” he said as he tossed the towel onto a chair in the far corner. Jack then started putting on a button-down shirt as he stepped up to Sarah and watched her write down her current set of numbers.

“No, bad is the fact that I just saw Drake Edwards arrive and that means he’s the entertainment tomorrow night.” She looked up and smiled — Jack didn’t. “Okay, the readings are bad, but with no previous record to compare it to I have no way of knowing just how bad. But we have earth movement here and it’s due to the natural hot springs. We may not have a severe volcanic situation happening here but we do have a pressure buildup of some kind. I just wish I had the seismic history of the pass before I make any conclusions. I need Europa.”

“Well, you don’t have Europa or any more history than you already have, so I need a best guess from our resident geologist and I need it now. We have people up on that mountain and very little time to warn them if you think there’s trouble up there.”

Sarah bit her lower lip and turned her back on Jack. He shook his head and then reached out and zipped up the back of Sarah’s evening dress. They had received an invitation for dinner from the general manager as a thank-you for Ryan and Pete’s assistance the night before. They were to be joined by Dmitri Zallas’s partner, Janos Vajic. Jack figured they could try and get as much information as he could before he declared Zallas too hostile for him and Sarah to remain at the resort. Once her dress was zipped she turned and wrote down her final set of numbers.

“I just don’t know where this is headed, Jack. It could be just tremors we’re facing or it could be a disaster the size of Mount St. Helens. I really need to get into the Romanian Interior Ministry.”

“Believe me, we would like to get inside and find out how much cooperation Zallas really received from their interior minister. We give it tonight and then I figure it’s time we left the resort and find our people. I don’t think Zallas would try anything out in the open even with such a seedy guest list. But that doesn’t mean he won’t either. More than likely he would wait until after his nightclub opening tomorrow night, so if you don’t mind, short stuff, I would prefer not to be here for those festivities.”

Sarah slipped into a light satin shawl and then looked up at Jack, who was just sliding into a casual navy blue sport coat. His eyes found Sarah and he had to smile as he took her in. If this mission had taught Collins one thing it was the immutable fact that he loved the small woman standing in front of him like he had never loved anything in his life.

“Well, rock hound, would you like to go and show ourselves to the seedier side of the underworld and try to blend in? Let’s do what we came to do to and see if we can make a provenance claim on any antiquities there may be on the property. That would make our job of proving theft a lot simpler when we give the proof to Interpol. We may as well act like crooks after dinner and break into the big man’s office.”

Sarah laughed as she placed her arm around Collins.

“The strange thing is you seem to slide right into the category of crook rather seamlessly.”

“Yeah, I’m a regular Scarface.”

“More than you think, Colonel Darling.”

They were about to step out the door when Sarah froze and then her head perked up as she suddenly turned and ran for her notes on the table by the window. In her haste she bumped it and spilled the water that was still attached to her useless cell phone.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Jack asked as he took a quick look into the hallway and then eased the door closed.

“Jack, I’ve been looking at this thing from the wrong angle. The figure I’m seeing on earth movement is a constant and that is an impossibility. The power of an eruption or any sort of seismic event has to build up over a period of time. That’s why we get tremors and then suddenly the big one. But this, Jack,” she said as she reached for her notes and started jotting down a new formula, “this is too damn steady. It’s more like I’m calculating for a mud slide or something similar. It’s earth movement all right, but on a smaller scale. This is too localized, if it wasn’t close by we would have picked up on it all over the world from monitoring stations.”

“You have totally lost me.”

“Jack, this is like it’s man-made. It’s a constant and there are no constants in seismology.” Sarah ripped her notes free of the pad and then scanned them. “You’re right, Jack, we have to get into the office of Dmitri Zallas and while you look for your artifact thief I’ve got to get into the geology report on this resort.” Sarah stepped to the window and pulled back the multicolored drapes and looked up at the swirling blue and purple colors of Castle Dracula. “If the foundation of this building is shaking like this I need to know what’s happening up there. How in the hell was that thing built? Look, Jack, it clings to the side of the mountain like it’s glued on. I need to know how they set their anchor studs.”

“What are you saying? That the instability we’re feeling could be brought on by a shoddy geology workup?”

“The movement is less the further south we go on the property. It only stands to reason that the problem is north of our current location, and the only thing that has changed on this mountain in a few thousand years is—”

“The castle.”

“Right. We need to know if the construction up there has caused any environmental damage to the mountain it’s anchored to.”

“Sometimes you professors scare me. All you needed was a broken cell phone, a glass of water, and a few sheets of paper and you come up with this?” Jack said as he turned for the door.

“Yeah, now all I have to do is calculate how we find Carl and Charlie and warn everyone else about not to climb the mountain because it just may come tumbling down.”

Collins was silent as they stepped out into the hallway.

“What are you thinking?” Sarah asked as she linked her arm through Jack’s.

“I’m thinking we may have to get out of here in one hell of a hurry if this thing goes south on us. And that will entail finding Captain Everett, Alice, Niles, and the others, and we need Pete and Ryan for that.”

“Yeah, and just where in the hell are they?” Sarah asked as she nodded at a portly gentleman with a nineteen-year-old on his arm.

“Knowing Ryan’s work habits he’s probably lying by the pool.”

It seemed to Pete Golding that he had picked up every species of burr and sticker known to nature in the Romanian region. By the time they were allowed through the very much heightened security by having their IDs checked against their reservation and their invitations, Pete was about to die for a bottle of calamine lotion.

As they walked up the long circular drive they were both grateful the sun had slipped beneath the mountains and their fruitless day of searching the lower elevations for Captain Everett and Charlie Ellenshaw had come to an end. The only thing they may have possibly confirmed was that they were more than likely up in Patinas where the colonel had suspected they would be.

“I am tired and worn out and I think I have a burr in my sock about the size of a baseball bat.” Pete limped along as the hotel grew closer.

“All I want is a beer and cheeseburger, and then nothing more than sleep,” Ryan countered.

As they approached the hotel’s entrance they spied the troublemakers from the night before, only this time they had grown in number. Ryan nudged Pete to the left and headed for the pool entrance around the side of the hotel. As they made the turn Jason pulled up and placed his back against the building and made Pete do the same.

“This isn’t doing anything to relieve my legs of these naturally formed torture devices I have embedded in my socks. I thought—”

“Doc, be quiet and listen,” Ryan hissed as he took a fast peek around the corner of the building. He counted eight men and as he did a ninth walked up with his two bodyguards. Dmitri Zallas stood speaking in hushed tones with the brutes from the casino. As Ryan strained to hear, his eyes widened when another man approached the group. He was smoking one of the Russian’s larger-than-life cigars and he seemed very interested in the conversation between the gathered men.

“Regardless, we will manage to get him here. We will seal off the basement and work from there.”

“If this man is taken so easily, why don’t you have your men do it?” one of the large Romanian men asked Zallas. It was the same brute that had been molesting the waitress that had started all of the trouble the previous night.

“The man will be hesitant and extremely untrusting around me and my people. He will not see you or your men coming. Just get him here and my people will handle it from there. I want this business finished before the grand opening of the castle tomorrow night.” Zallas reached into his coat pocket and brought out a thick envelope. “Here is your advance payment and ten thousand dollars’ worth of gaming chips. Make sure when he arrives tomorrow that it’s done quietly. I don’t need this man’s people learning what happened to him.”

The Romanian criminal placed the envelope in his coat pocket and then the brutes left. Ryan watched the group of eight miscreants walk away, leaving only Zallas and his guest, whom Ryan recognized immediately.

“You must remember this must be done with the utmost secrecy and stealth. If Tel Aviv gets intelligence that we’re moving on the temple, they—”

“They will what? Drop in commandos from a stormy night sky into some of the most rugged terrain in all of Europe in pitch blackness? This is not 1976 Uganda, Colonel Jew, this is the twenty-first century and we have ways of dealing with arrogance brought on by military success.” Zallas turned and faced Ben-Nevin. “I and my men will have every ruble of treasure out of there and have the temple stripped long before your magical commandos hit the earth.”

“You seem to take the threat of military intervention lightly, Mr. Zallas,” Ben-Nevin said as he puffed on the horrible cigar, and with distaste forming on his features he tossed the offensive smoke into the grass. “If I were you I would not wait until tomorrow night. I would take this Gypsy this very evening and make him disclose the location of the temple. Move tonight, take everything before Tel Aviv has time to react.” He faced Zallas with a smile etching his mustache into a mocking thing that made the Russian want to backhand the intelligence officer. “Because, make no doubt, they will react, and react with swift — and deadly — force.”

Zallas smiled and looked the tall man over and then turned and faced the large Olympic-sized pool, which now sat empty with the arrival of night.

“The man will be busy tonight and hard to draw away from his village. Tomorrow is the only time we can act without alerting every Gypsy inside the valley as to our plan. If you wish you can gather your men and make the attempt yourself, this very night if you wish.”

Ben-Nevin held the Russian’s arrogant glare but at the same time realized there would be no way he would ever venture up that mountain in the dark, or even the daylight hours with those wolves up there. He thought about mentioning the animals to Zallas but had decided earlier why complicate the moron’s thinking process.

“Very well, I hope you have enough men because these Gypsies—”

“—Cannot stand up against my men. And I have more than two hundred men available to me.” He smiled and then started to walk past Ben-Nevin. “And they will die on my command, as I suspect many of them will.” He kept walking. “Shall we get a drink, Colonel?”

Colonel Avi Ben-Nevin had decided just two minutes after meeting the Russian mobster that he would not leave Patinas Pass without placing a bullet into the anti-Semitic head of the Russian mobster. The colonel smiled from his inner thoughts. Maybe two in the kneecaps before the bullet to the head.

The two men vanished around the corner and Ryan turned back to think about what he had just heard.

“Wow,” Pete said as he and Ryan finally stepped away from their hiding place. “Were they talking about us, the colonel, Alice, and them, or were they speaking about one of the Gypsies?” Pete asked.

“Well, our team’s not sure where any temple is, so we have to assume he was speaking about one of the locals, maybe this Marko guy the colonel briefed us on.”

“What do we do?” Pete asked as he turned and tried to catch up with Jason.

“We’re going to report to Colonel Collins and then we’re going to get that cheeseburger.”

“Maybe we can get the cheeseburger and calamine lotion first? I mean that damn temple has been here for over three thousand years.”

Carl and Charlie eased their way through the crowd as they followed Marko away from the barn. Everett would reach up to his neck every few minutes and rub the area that Stanus had assaulted. His throat was throbbing as he remembered the unnatural strength of the animal and that it had every opportunity to kill him if it had really wanted to.

Niles and Alice were watching the house just as were the thousand men, women, and children with them as they waited in anticipation for something Niles couldn’t wait to see. Alice tapped her toes nervously as they waited as Niles turned to see a smallish man in a black vest, bright red shirt, and black head scarf standing before them. He was flanked by two much larger Gypsies that had a menacing look about them.

“You are the Americans that have a man and woman staying at the resort, a Colonel Collins?” Marko asked with his dark eyes boring into Compton’s, who stood stunned that this man knew Jack’s real identity. “And you are Alice Hamilton? The colonel asked my permission last evening for you to join us here in the pass, and as a courtesy to our newest NATO ally, of which my people care very little for, I grudgingly gave permission for you to bear witness to my home of Patinas.”

“Thank you, we are grate—” Alice started to say but was cut short.

“I must insist however that you remain in the village and keep your other charges under control. And keep these two men away from my family,” Marko said as he stepped aside and allowed Carl and Charlie to squeeze through the crowd of humanity.

“Carl! Charlie!” Alice said as she placed her arms around Everett and then patted Charlie Ellenshaw on the chest. “We were so worried.” Alice let Everett go and then turned to face Marko but he and his two men had already left.

“That guy’s a piece of work,” Everett said as he smiled down at Alice and Niles. Charlie was gesturing wildly as he tried to explain all they had seen since they had been separated. His arms were going high into the air and then would form into the shape of claws as Will’s eyes grew larger as he listened to the professor’s latest exploits in the field.

Carl took Alice by the arms and looked her in the eyes as men and women bumped past them to get closer to the house they had surrounded. The music was almost deafening.

“We saw them, Alice,” he said as easily as he could. It was hard keeping the smile off of his face.

“Them?” Niles asked for her when she didn’t respond.

“The Golia, we’ve seen two of them, and one viewing was rather close and personal,” Carl said as he gingerly touched his reddened and extremely sore neck muscles.

Alice felt her legs go weaker as she reached out and took Everett’s arm. The question was in her eyes but the words could not be formed.

“Yes, everything you thought about them is true. The hands, the thumbs, the upright walking, the climbing, but most importantly, Alice, they’re smart. One saved our asses not long ago. But I can tell you this also, they are dangerous. I think it could have killed all of us and not really have given a damn one way or the other.”

“Oh, my,” was all she could say.

Carl was about to go on when the men and women around them started cheering for something they couldn’t see far ahead of them.

Then they saw Marko and his men standing close to the old front door of the cottage everyone was watching. He was looking at the gathered villages of the Patinas region. Niles watched as fathers placed children on their shoulders so their young could get a good look at the happenings. Suddenly the door opened up and two large men wearing head scarfs and large boots stepped out carrying a large chair between them. In that chair was an old woman. Her head scarf was a soft blue and her smile glowed as she was carried from the house. She waved and raised an old cane up in the air as the admiring crowd erupted at seeing Madam Korvesky.

Compton and Everett, along with Will and Charlie looked over at Alice Hamilton as the Gypsy queen was brought out to greet her people. They could see the smile that stretched from ear to ear. Alice was in what she considered heaven. All the years of research, of disappointment, all washed away in these final few moments of discovery.

The two men set the chair down on the small cobblestone walkway that led to the small house. Marko stepped up to the chair and then knelt before it. The old woman smiled and raised her hand into the air and then brought it down on Marko’s covered head. He dipped his head lower and then stood as the crowd erupted again. Marko looked taken aback as he momentarily thought the sudden crowd noise was for him. Then he slowly stood and saw why the people were cheering. His sister was standing inside the doorway and then the closest men and women saw her and started cheering.

The noise grew like a wave as Anya stood rooted in the doorway. Her grandmother gestured for her to come out into the open and she slowly and hesitantly responded. Finally Anya, cleaned and refreshed, walked out onto the walkway and then smiled at the people. The small village erupted in rapt admiration for the little sister that had been gone from home for so long. Anya turned her head away feeling embarrassed for doing nothing more than coming home.

Her eyes searched the crowd until they fell on the man she was looking for. Carl Everett stood far back and away from the small house but she could see his eyes boring into her own. She halfheartedly raised a hand into the air but before she could wave at Everett several of the larger men took Anya up and into their arms and held her high as the Jeddah people launched into a euphoric dance and applause as their Gypsy princess was finally home.

Everett watched Anya as she was paraded through the milling and cheering mass of modern-day Jeddah. He fought to keep his eyes on the beautiful woman, who was fighting to do the same. As Anya was twirled from strong hand to strong hand she fought to lay her eyes on the only man she had taken notice of in the past nine years. She finally spied Everett as he tentatively raised his hand as she was lifted high into the air by several of the farmers and sheep men.

Alice nudged Niles’s arm and nodded at Everett as he watched the girl being celebrated. Niles had never seen the captain this way. He was actually straining to see. As they watched a smile slowly crawled across Everett’s face as he finally locked eyes with Anya. This time he did raise his thick arm into the air as she was twirled and tossed by the people. Her smile grew as they looked at each other in the dying light of day.

Many hundreds of torches were soon lit and the food from many hearths started to be set upon long tables of wood. People broke off into smaller groups, mostly according to village. As preparations were made the Event Group personnel watched the old woman carried back inside and Anya was soon to follow after having to pull herself away from the adoring people.

Carl felt his heart hitch as his eyes watched the closed door to the small house whose windows were now glowing with the soft glow of electric light. He finally turned and looked at Alice and the others who were all looking at him. All he could do was mouth the word: What?

All around the Event Group, Patinas came alive with the smell of food and the sound of music and celebration, even as far below at the resort the extinction of the Jeddah had already been planned.

The old woman was placed on the floor by the table where Mikla was still resting. She placed a hand on the beast as the men left the room and Anya stepped inside. She watched her grandmother run her hand up and down Mikla’s large frame and then she turned and faced her granddaughter.

“Do you see the adoration of your people?” she said as she reached out and took Anya’s soft young hand into her own aged and aching ones.

“I was ordered home, Grandmamma, by you. It wasn’t my choice to rejoin the people. I believe I was being far more helpful in the position I was in than being here where we constantly play the king and queen game for a people that place far too much emphasis on that particular position.”

“You have learned the gift of talking without saying anything, child.” Her grandmother allowed Anya’s hand to fall free as she looked into her eyes. “Is my status but an empty position, young one?” The smile was still in place and that made Anya feel bad for the way she had just trivialized her grandmother’s entire life.

“You know I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m just tired and worried about Mikla. And Stanus, I have never seen him like this. He scares me and he’s never done that to me before. Even as a child Stanus could play rough but he could always be trusted not to be Golia when he was with us. Now he seems lost as to what’s happening around him.”

“When I was in the temple, every one of the adult male and female Golia were missing. I have never known them to leave their young completely alone before. Where they are I do not know. They vanish for hours at a time and Stanus is leading them. When they return from the caves and springs they are covered in mud and wet from their exertions.”

“If they are leaving the young undefended this means trouble, Grandmamma. What are they doing? Have you ever known them to be so secretive before?”

“No.” The old woman closed her eyes in thought as she tried to remember the Golia ever having behaved in such a manner. “Marko has done something to make them distrustful of us. I was only able to link with Mikla because of his closeness to you.” She looked at a far younger version of herself many years before. “Otherwise, Marko is the only Jeddah that has been able to cast the spell with them. And now I even suspect Marko has lost their trust. The Golia will not allow us to see what they are doing, and this is not natural to them. If we have lost the trust of the Golia, we are truly lost.”

“And this is why my cover in Rome was no longer viable.” She said it as a statement and not a question. “Why forewarn of trouble for our people if there is nothing to come home to? Is treasure being sold off as the Americans have said?”

The old woman took her granddaughter by the arm and squeezed. “Now is the time for us to move on. I need you here.”

“What is happening?” she persisted.

The old woman took a deep breath as she watched Mikla breathe.

“Why I brought you home is not really at the forefront of your thoughts, girl-child.” She again reached out and took her hand and this time she squeezed. Madam Korvesky tilted her head and then faced Anya and for the briefest of moments she felt her granddaughter. “Your thoughts are on the American.”

Anya pulled her hand free of the older woman’s grasp. “Don’t do that to me, you always promised you wouldn’t try to read me, ever. Now tell me what is wrong here.” Anya knew her grandmother was dodging the question, at least for the time being.

“Calm down, girl-child, I want to meet this man — this man from the sea.”

“What man, I don’t—”

“Oh, he’s right outside and his thoughts are near to battering down my already aged door.” She stopped talking and a funny look came over her features. It was if Anya was seeing her grandmother leaving her body for the briefest of moments. “Keeper of Secrets,” she said as her eyes opened and she smiled. She looked up at Anya with a curious arch to her brows. “Your man has come from America accompanied by the Keeper of Secrets.”

“What are you talking about?” Anya asked, worried that her grandmother had not only lost the ability to see into her mind accurately, but that maybe she was starting to lose it mentally as well.

“Bring them in, Anya. Marko, are you out there?” she called out, knowing he had been standing in the shadows listening to their conversation.

“Yes, you know I am,” he said as he stepped past his sister with a look that wasn’t pleasant.

“Get a large quilt from my room, no, make it two. Take one from the bed if you have to. Cover Mikla as best you can.” She smiled and gestured for Marko to hurry.

“Anya, I asked you to bring your man and his friends inside. Marko, when you are done make the soldiers that have accompanied Anya’s companions comfortable. Feed them and make sure they are watched. And it makes me wonder, Marko, why none of the adult Golia have ventured down to the house to see Mikla, this is most strange. Perhaps they are not inside the temple just as they have not been the past few months.”

Marko removed a quilt from the bed and stood before Madam Korvesky not answering her query. Then he tilted his head and leaned over and kissed his grandmother.

“The Golia have been vanishing for close to a year now,” Marko replied. “I have asked Stanus about it but he has become overly distrustful since the construction began at the castle. He has thus far kept his promise to me and not molested any more of the Romanian workers on their night crews. Stanus will have to change with the times just as we will. He must learn how to protect the Golia and still live among mankind. This is something he must do or the wolf-kind will perish.”

“I will not allow that to happen. You know this. We will speak with Stanus tonight and decide how best to proceed. Now, girl-child, bring me the visitors to Patinas. I will now speak with them and the Keeper of Secrets.”

Anya looked from her grandmother to Marko, who only shrugged his shoulders in just as much consternation as his sister as to their grandmother’s intent.

Marko spread the blankets over Mikla and then brother and sister left for their tasks.

As for Madam Korvesky, she sat in her chair and smiled at the memory of a long-ago night in Hong Kong harbor and the young American woman and the handsome one-eyed scoundrel she had met that seemingly ancient evening.

“Welcome to Patinas at long last, Keeper of Secrets.”

Stanus sat high on a ridge with his massive head on his front paws as his eyes scanned the scene below. The wolf had just recently settled on the ridge after investigating the two men held in the barn. From the scent of the two humans Stanus knew them not to be a part of the defilement of his valley. Still, his instincts told him the outsiders needed to be watched closely.

As Stanus studied the revelers below, another Golia, this one female and the mate of Stanus, lay down beside the giant alpha male. Stanus leaned over and sniffed her muzzle. The familiar smell was there and it was pleasing to Stanus. The beast allowed his eyes to roam to the small house where he knew Mikla lay in pain. The huge yellow eyes blinked twice and then the large male nuzzled up to his mate. He licked at her filthy paws as she lay against his thick, muscled body. The claws were ripped and torn and the pads were bloodied in a few places. Stanus licked the wounds and the female allowed him.

The adult Golia had been working at a task Stanus had set them to not long after he had figured out that Marko had lied to him. While connected mentally he had told Stanus that the construction was a benefit for the Golia and the Jeddah together. Against its instincts Stanus had allowed Marko to have his way and the resort had started going up. Stanus allowed this without fighting back. And then Stanus had realized that he had been deceived by Marko. The castle started going up and Stanus went on the attack. It wasn’t until Marko had convinced Stanus that would be the very last encroachment to the pass. The castle was the last insult they would have to endure and then their lives could settle back down to normal. Marko had assured Stanus mentally of this.

The one thing that Marko never figured on was the Stanus’s intellect. The Jeddah had always known the Golia to be the smartest animals ever created, but the one thing he didn’t know was that you could deceive a Golia, especially one such as Stanus, just once. After that he would never trust you again. Stanus had made a decision that went far beyond that of joint protection between the Golia and the Jeddah, because when it came down to it, Stanus would protect that which is most important to him — the Golia, nothing else in the world mattered, and that was what the alpha male’s role was. Not the protection of the Jeddah, but the right for the Golia to live on in this world of men.

Stanus was finished cleaning his mate’s paws when he held out his own outstretched fingers to allow the female to wrap her smaller, more feminine fingers over and around his. The two Golia sat like that for an hour watching the village below and the activity of the Jeddah as they celebrated the return of their princess. The female laid her head against the thick chest of Stanus. She breathed deeply as her mate watched the activity far below.

Alice, Niles, Charlie, Denise, Will Mendenhall, and Carl all stood watching the men and women around them they went into action. In a practiced act of precision the Jeddah had turned the small village of Patinas into any small county fair found anywhere in the world. Hundreds of torches lined the streets and the music was everywhere as people danced, ate, and talked about the return of the young princess to the mountain. It was as if everyone in Patinas knew that night that they would be safe for the next generation because now brother and sister were united as one and they would lead the Jeddah into their future. Charlie Ellenshaw jumped as a firecracker went off and several small boys went running by laughing as they were chased by an irate mother with a broom.

The door opened and Marko stepped out and was joined by his two companions and they quickly left. Anya then came out of the house and looked around and spied Niles and the others and then started walking toward them. She had to almost push her way through the adoring Jeddah to reach the Americans.

Marko watched the way the men and women of the Jeddah reached out to touch Anya. His eyes took in the fact that the people had missed her far more than he had ever realized. He never took into account the effect her return would have in vitalizing the way the people felt about their heritage and how much they would like to maintain that, even above Marko’s own grandiose plans for the tribe. He knew the people craved news of the outside and of Israel. But soon Marko had realized the people would be satisfied with a brief description of the outside world’s happenings and then they would return to their everyday routine and well-ordered lives.

As he watched the faces of the people as Anya passed by, the way their eyes followed her every movement, was a dagger into the heart of her older brother. He felt the gains he had made in supplying his people with the basic gifts of modern appliances and electronic devices that amazed the children were now lost among the euphoria of having their princess back among them.

Marko allowed his eyes to move to the tall blond American. He saw the way the man with the sharp blue eyes watched his sister. Could this be a way in which Marko solidified his power? He wondered as he watched the crowd part as Anya guided the Americans to their grandmother.

“She is far more popular among the people than we believed she would be,” the large man to Marko’s right commented as he too watched the adoring Jeddah fete Anya with praise and welcoming smiles and touches.

“Soon it will not matter. Anya is far too late to stop the Jeddah from moving out of the stone age. Even if my grandmother went mad and tried to name Anya queen over the leadership of the true heir, it is too late. Soon there won’t be a treasure to guard and thus no need of tribal leadership in that regard. The true leadership of the Jeddah will be established by the man that guides the Jeddah into the future to take our place among the people of the world. No more being the guardians of a culture that has long past slipped into history. No, she will not matter. The people will eventually see I mean to gain status for them after all of these years of servitude.”

“Are you capable of doing what needs to be done, Marko, if and when the need arises?” the man asked, watching the Gypsy prince closely for any deceit that may spring from his mouth.

“My sister will never be harmed. I don’t need to do that. I can see,” as his eyes continued to follow Anya as she squeezed past the crowd of adoring men and women, “that Anya has little interest in continuing with this ancient farce.” He turned and looked at all three of his companions as they stood near the gate. “Leadership will fall into my lap and then we can start using the proceeds from our tribal investment and move into a far brighter future than we have ever known on this mountain. The old days are done.”

The men watched as Marko looked back one last time at his sister and then turned and left, walking toward the temple entrance.

Anya finally made it to the front door. Niles leaned aside as one old woman reached out and touched Anya’s hair. The girl dipped her head and smiled but Niles could see that this situation of people admiring her didn’t make the young woman comfortable. She tried to smile and nod but the old woman continued to hold Anya’s long black hair in her hand. Finally it was Everett who stepped up and gently removed the woman’s hand and smiled down at her. Anya felt bad but she reached for the door latch and stepped inside. The others followed. Everett waited until everyone was in the house and then he let the woman’s hand slip free. For her part the old Jeddah grandmother was still watching the door with adoring eyes for Anya. Carl was amazed at what he was witnessing.

As Everett stepped into the semidark house he closed the door. Denise Gilliam, Charlie Ellenshaw, Niles, and Alice were standing just inside as they watched Anya as she leaned over and was hugging someone they couldn’t see. Anya finally stepped away and that was when they saw Madam Korvesky for the first time close up. The woman Alice was looking at was the same young girl she had met many years before in Hong Kong harbor aboard the yacht Golden Child. The woman had aged far more than Alice had. The years of worry and of protecting her people were etched in every deep-cut line and wrinkle in the woman’s face.

Madam Korvesky tilted her head as her eyes locked on Alice Hamilton. The two women were meeting across a vast crevasse of time and the reunion was one that made them both realize that time had not stood still for either of them.

“It has been many years, Mrs. Hamilton.”

Anya was the first person to register her surprise that her grandmother knew this American lady. She looked from face to face and was shocked that none of them was registering the same surprised expression that she was.

“Indeed, we were never really introduced before our evening was cut short … when you blew up the Golden Child right under our feet.”

Niles Compton allowed Alice to play this out her way. She was the closest to the investigation and knew what had to be said where this woman was concerned. He was still apprehensive because he didn’t know how the intrusion of his team would sit with the queen of all Gypsies.

“Actually, Mrs. Hamilton, I used far less explosive power than my great-grandmother wanted to use that night in Hong Kong. She had ordered no survivors.” The eyes were locked on to Alice’s own and they didn’t flinch.

“Well, if it’s any consolation my date that night took good advantage of your light batch of explosives and managed to get us out, as you well know.”

“Ah,” the old woman said as she used her cane to stand, shrugging off the helping hands of Anya. Alice looked down and saw the Eye of Ra emblazoned in gold on the handle. The same cane her great-grandmother had used that night on the Golden Child. “The Keeper of Secrets,” Madam Korvesky said as she reached out and took Alice by the hand.

“Yes, that’s what you called him that night: the Keeper of Secrets. But he wasn’t the only keeper of secrets aboard that yacht that night, was he, madam? I believe you tend toward keeping things rather tight to the vest yourself, correct?”

The old woman smiled and then looked over at Niles, ignoring the statement Alice had just made. Madam Korvesky released Alice and then reached for the hand of Niles Compton. Niles felt uncomfortable and he stepped from one boot to the other. Charlie Ellenshaw stood next to the director and was smiling from ear to ear as the old woman closed her eyes.

“The watcher. So much weariness, so much concern for those … for those…” She smiled and then opened her eyes. “No, you gather, guard … you are also a Keeper of Secrets.” She looked away at nothing and then back at Niles. “To have so much knowledge is not a comfort to you most times, is it?” she asked as Niles felt as if she not only read him perfectly, she felt the drag his position had on his thoughts, his personality, and the ever-present feeling of being overwhelmed by the massive responsibilities he carried with him on a daily basis. She patted his hand and then released it. “One comforting thought for you, Keeper, the job doesn’t get any easier and one day you will realize that it’s not the task, but the people who do the task that is what’s important. I learned that a very long time ago.” She patted Niles on the chest and then moved over to Denise Gilliam.

Denise for her part was not a big believer in any form of clairvoyance or prophecy. She was an old-school MD that knew what she could feel or see was the real version of life, not mysticism in any form.

“Ah, a healer…” Madam Korvesky smiled and then looked into the young doctor’s eyes. “But you’re here to watch … watch this one,” she said as she turned to face Alice with a smile. Alice looked at Niles and gave him a dirty look as she realized that Denise was babysitting her and it angered her to no end. “But I may have something you may very well be interested in, healer, something that will amaze and maybe even frighten you.”

“Does it matter that I’m already frightened to beat all hell,” Denise said as Madam Korvesky let her hand slip out of her own.

The old woman moved on to Charlie Ellenshaw. As she did, Anya took a quick look over toward Everett. Carl saw her and they looked at each other for the longest moment. Anya swallowed at the exact same moment as Everett did and then they both realized they were staring at one another and looked away.

“My gracious, funny-haired man, your head inside is a mess.”

Charlie looked confused at first and then glanced at Niles, who only shrugged his shoulders as if saying, I told you.

“Oh, here it is…” she said as she moved her hand to the front of Charlie’s head, just under a swatch of unruly white hair. “You are a man who is a believer in myth and legend.” She tilted her head and closed her eyes. “You believe when all others don’t see. You try to bring to light the unbelievable. Yes, a true mess inside there,” she said as she lowered a tired hand and touched Charlie’s smooth jawline. “But that’s the way you like it, isn’t that right?” She didn’t wait for Charlie’s embarrassed nodding of his head. She moved down the line until she finally stopped at Carl. The small woman looked up into Everett’s eyes and Madam Korvesky froze as she took him in.

Anya felt uncomfortable. It was if she were terrified of what Everett would reveal. Did the large American hate her for what happened in Rome? What were these men and women here to do? She moved from foot to foot as her grandmother confronted the American.

“The Man from the Sea,” she said as she again closed her eyes, only this time she took both of Carl’s hands into her own. The cane was held between both sets of hands and Everett could swear he felt the age of the wood thorough his skin. “Troubled. You are troubled by a friend, the loss of … of … confidence toward that friend … Jack. Yes, you are troubled by a friend named Jack who will not allow you inside…” Again she tilted her head. “He will not allow you to be too close for there is danger.”

Carl raised his brows as he watched the old woman standing before him. She opened her eyes and patted Carl on the chest as she had the others.

“How is that for Gypsy mysticism?” she asked smiling.

“Truly insightful,” Everett said as he looked over at Anya.

“Is that right, Man from the Sea? Well here is something that will really make your lantern burn brighter.” She once more looked up at Carl and then over at Anya. “You have to stay away from my granddaughter, Man from the Sea. There is nothing there for you.”

Anya was stunned. She allowed her jaw to drop as she took an involuntary step forward to try and silence her grandmother.

“She has many tasks to perform and she cannot be sidetracked. The time is not right for Anya.” She watched Carl for a reaction.

For Carl’s part he could see that the old woman didn’t like what she was saying as Madam Korvesky turned and faced Anya. “I’m sorry, girl-child, but things have changed and as you know a queen cannot take an outsider as a husband, or even as a mate.”

Anya was frozen to the spot where she stood. The words that had just been spoken aloud by her grandmother had made her heart stop.

“Have you gone crazy, Grandmother?” she said as she finally broke the spell she was under. She stepped up to Everett. “I am sorry, Captain I don’t know where this is coming from.” She turned and faced the old woman, who stood by motionless as she leaned on her cane. “And what do you mean, queen? There is no way I would ever do that. Marko is destined to lead our people and you know that. He’s my brother and I will not go against him.”

“You will do as your queen decides, young one, now lower your voice before—”

They all heard the breathing behind them. None of the Event Group personnel had ventured a look into the small room to their right as they had entered the cottage. Standing in the small doorway and leaning over so it could view the interior of the kitchen, Mikla stood with his arms outstretched and bracing himself against the pain in its ankle. It was on two legs with the right foot barely touching the floor. The beast was breathing in and out as it eyed the visitors.

“Oh,” was all Niles could get out of his mouth. Denise almost went to one knee as her legs could no longer support herself. Alice Hamilton smiled and looked from the impressive Mikla to Madam Korvesky. The old woman was not surprised that not one ounce of shock registered on Alice’s face. It was if she had expected to see Mikla at any moment.

“Golia,” Alice said beneath her breath.

“You seem to know much about us, Mrs. Hamilton. That is good, now I don’t have to explain why my orders must be obeyed as far as my granddaughter is concerned.”

The room was quiet as they all watched Mikla breathe in and out as it scanned the faces before it. The beast was weak and they could see its struggle to remain standing in the doorway.

“Alice, this is Mikla,” Carl said as he eased himself toward the giant Golia. The animal growled as Everett moved. The captain stopped and waited for Anya. He knew the beast was about to collapse.

“This was what I wanted you to see, healer,” the old woman said as she looked at Denise Gilliam. The Gypsy woman stepped forward and placed her small hand on Mikla as the beast wavered and almost fell. “Not all healing is done through potions and medicine. Sometimes a little something more is called for.”

“What is wrong with it?” Alice asked as she also took a tentative step forward to see the Golia better.

“If we don’t get his broken ankle set and spelled before too long Mikla will die,” Anya said as she stepped forward. Her eyes momentarily locked with Carl’s as if in apology for her grandmother’s words a moment before. She finally reached Mikla and the beast lowered its head in pain and frustration as it allowed Anya to take it back to the bedroom.

“We must get Mikla into the temple, the spell will have to be cast soon,” Madam Korvesky said. “Anya, we will discuss my words to your friend later,” she looked at Everett, “when we are alone. For right now I will take Mikla into the temple. You are to stay with the people and show yourself to them. They will be needed when the time comes to face your brother about my decisions.”

“This cannot be your decision, Grandmother. This is my life and I have done everything for the Jeddah that you have required and enough is enough. Marko is king and will lead the Jeddah forward. His offense cannot be as grievous a crime as you claim.”

“You will do as I say, Anya. This is why you have been brought home. Marko has the Golia so confused and angry that Stanus and the others cannot be trusted any longer to do right by the Jeddah. He has lied to them and they will not forgive. You are the only person that will correct the wrong that has been done to them by Marko.” She held up a hand when Anya stopped with Mikla hanging on to her to prevent the disagreement from becoming a full-blown argument between granddaughter and queen. “If our burden inside the mountain has come to light we will have to act, and Marko cannot be trusted to do this. His position with the Jeddah and their safety has been compromised.”

The door opened and several of the village men stepped in. Mikla growled as the men reached for him and the beast actually took a weakened swipe at the lead man, who easily dodged the long sharp claws. They were all lucky that Mikla was worn out and too drained of energy to defend itself. The Gypsy men took Mikla and placed him on the door that had been utilized as a bed and lifted the Golia for the trip into the temple where he would either be healed and live, or suffer a bad spell casting and die horribly. Mikla sensed this and was troubled.

“You will all come with me, Mrs. Hamilton; I will show you and your friends where real secrets are kept.”

“The temple of gold and Egyptian finery,” Alice said, repeating the legend of the Lost Tribe and its temple of riches.

The old woman smiled and then laughed aloud.

“Yes, exactly, Mrs. Hamilton, the treasure of the Exodus and the palace built to keep it safe, all wrapped up inside our most magic of mountains.”

Everett looked at Anya and found she could not look up and face him.

“Man from the Sea, stay and watch over my granddaughter. If you truly feel about her the way I know that you do you will make sure she is undeterred from what has to be done for her people.” She took a painful step in his direction by using the cane to lean on. “I assume you have the dignity to allow over three thousand years of history to play itself out without interference?”

“Madam Korvesky, I assure you—” Niles began to speak for Everett but she didn’t allow him to.

“The West has done quite enough interfering by allowing your NATO hooligans to sell my land to an outsider, a Russian outsider at that. No, you and your people have harmed mine enough, Man from the Sea. Amend some wrongs and keep Anya safe until I return. Now, go inside Anya’s marriage chest there,” she smiled when her granddaughter blushed, “and hand me a quilt, young man.”

Carl swallowed and then with a last look at Anya nodded his head as if he were afraid his voice would fail him at this most inopportune time. He walked a few steps toward the foot of the small bed and saw the large trunklike box. He did as he was asked and pulled an old comforter from the five-foot-by-four-foot-square box that had seen far better days.

As Carl lifted the blanket he saw something square wrapped in another old, moth-eaten quilt. He saw part of what looked like a headstone and before he closed the lid he looked at Anya and wondered just what kind of woman would keep a chunk of stone in her hope chest. Everett closed the top of the box and then attempted to slide the chest back against the bed. Whatever was inside wrapped in the old quilts was as heavy as a dozen gold bars. Carl again pushed it against the bed and this time the chest moved. He straightened with a curious look on his face and then placed the blanket in the old woman’s hands.

“Mrs. Hamilton, if you and the others will come with me I will take you to the place you came to see and the very special life that protects the heritage of the Jeddah.”

15

As Pete and Ryan walked through the connecting hallway leading to the hotel’s lobby, Jason spied Collins and McIntire as they stepped off the elevator. With a look at the way he was dressed and with mud covering half of his pants, Ryan decided that the information he had to pass to the colonel was far more important than his desire to impress.

“Come on, Pete, there’s the colonel and Sarah,” he said as he tugged on the computer genius’s elbow.

Pete lowered his glasses from where they had been perched on his forehead and squinted toward the elevator area. Pete shook his head.

“No way. I have to get to that restroom, Commander, or my legs will itch right off my body.”

Jason glanced down at Golding’s burr-encrusted pants and shook his head.

“Okay, Doc, you stay right in there and don’t go to the room until I’m finished telling the colonel why everyone is out to get rid of us.”

“Right,” Pete said in haste and then turned and practically ran toward the men’s restroom.

Ryan again shook his head in wonder at how uncomfortable these academic types became at the least little bit of irritation to their physical being.

He turned and made his way toward the restaurant.

Pete pushed the restroom door open and stepped inside not noticing or caring if anyone was present as he was in such a hurry to get into a stall. He immediately closed the door and sat upon the toilet and started removing his shoes and socks. As he pulled he felt the tearing of his skin as the burrs and foxtails slowly relinquished their hold on him. As the socks finally peeled away, relief flooded his system. He stood and raised the toilet seat and tossed the socks inside and then flushed. As he closed his eyes relishing the pain-free feeling, he became aware that something wasn’t right. He felt water rushing at his feet.

“Oh, crap,” he said when he saw that his socks had clogged the toilet and water was flooding from the top and splashing at his feet. “Damn!” Pete said as he reached inside with a grimace and fished around until he pulled first one and then finally the other sock from the clogged toilet. Pete felt the cold water still flowing around his feet as the bowl started to empty, but still he closed the lid and then hopped on the stool to get out of the rush of freezing water.

Pete cursed his luck as he watched the water finally stop flowing onto the tiled floor. He sat and felt like an idiot instead of a graduate from MIT and Stanford. He heard the bathroom door open and at least two men step into the restroom. He was about to call out a flood warning to the unsuspecting restroom users when a voice spoke up that he recognized immediately. It was the man from the night before and the same roguish gentleman that had received orders to keep him and Ryan under wraps not a half hour before. Pete froze when the men headed his way and stopped before the sinks on the opposite wall.

The men were speaking in Romanian and Pete was lost as to what it was they were talking about. He thought he was safe when the two men had finished washing their hands and sounded as if they were moving off when one of the men stopped talking. Pete heard some splashing and then silence filled the restroom. Golding squatted on the toilet lid as silently as he could. He felt his chest start to burn as he held his breath. He heard footsteps and his heart froze as he looked up and saw that he had not locked the stall door. As he reached for the slide lock, the door suddenly opened and the man he had confronted in the restaurant the night before was standing in front of him. A smile slowly creased the man’s bearded face.

“Ah, a little shithouse rat. Are we trying to hide among the overflowing toilets?”

Pete slowly lowered his legs and placed his feet in the cold water that was slow to drain from the floor. The large Romanian thug stepped back and held the stall door open.

“Running into you was fortunate — we don’t have to scour the hotel looking for you. Now we will find your little smart-ass friend, who I want to speak to very badly.” The man gestured for Pete to step out of the stall. “Come, I have instructions to take you to a place where you can do no more damage to Mr. Zallas’s hotel. Please come with us.”

“Pete didn’t know how the rest of the field teams did this without getting into as much trouble as he and Charlie Ellenshaw did the few times they had been allowed out of the complex. Now here he was being taken away by two very large Romanian men that looked as if they ate Ph.D.’s for breakfast, and on top of that he was now barefooted.

He knew Charlie would never let him live this down.

Jack and Sarah had just turned the corner of the lobby when they saw the person they needed desperately to speak to. She was the one employee who looked as if she wasn’t happy about Zallas and the way he ran things. As they didn’t know how close her operations partner, Janos Vajic, was with Zallas, they could only hope that the general manager of the resort, Gina Louvinski, would be approachable with their rather bizarre request.

Jack took Sarah by the arm and moved toward Gina, who was instructing one of her staff on something. She looked up and saw them approaching and hurried the employee off. The general manager looked around nervously for a moment and then smiled as Jack stepped up to her.

“Colonel, I would have thought that you and Miss McIntire would have found a safer holiday weekend somewhere else.” She looked around with the false smile still on her face. “I mean with the trouble from Mr. Ryan and all, I thought staying someplace else may have been preferable to … certain things.”

“You’re blathering, Ms. Louvinski. What made you think we would be leaving? Because of a small altercation? No, we have business here and we think you’re the only one that can help us.”

Gina looked around nervously. She nodded her head at Janos as he walked past on the far side of the hotel. He moved on without a second’s thought to the two people she was speaking to.

“Help you do what?” she asked without really moving her lips or breaking her fabricated smile.

“My friend here thinks your resort is going to blow up or something and she would like to look at your original geology reports on this land the resort sits on.”

Gina was shocked Jack had said all of that in one breath.

“I guess that took you a little off guard,” Jack said with a little smile. “But I had to get your attention. Ms. McIntire here needs to see the original geologist’s report on the valley.”

“Ms. Louvinski, the entire Patinas area is getting severe and continuous movement in an area not known for seismic activity,” Sarah said, cutting in. She quickly explained the situation.

The general manager was speechless. She looked from Sarah to Jack and that look was a lost one.

“Uh, uh, those plans and reports would be in Mr. Zallas’s engineering office adjacent to his own. He would never allow an outsider.” She thought for a second. “Not even me, anywhere near there.”

Jack smiled, taking Gina by the arm, and then he and Sarah walked her clear of a few of the guests as they made their way to the restaurant.

“Look, we can do this now and maybe stop something terrible from happening, or we can wait until we can contact NATO command in Germany and have this whole area sealed off, but that would take time, Ms. Louvinski, time we don’t have.” Jack looked around with the smile still on his face and then he looked back down at the general manager. “We have a selfish reason for asking this. We have friends lost on that mountain somewhere and we don’t know where they are or if they need help. We can’t look for them or help them with this seismic event hanging over our heads.”

Gina swallowed and looked around. The surroundings seemed unfamiliar as her heart raced. She knew these people were serious but she also knew that Zallas would kill her if she allowed them access to his office.

“I’m sure if you explain to Mr. Zallas your suspicions he would—”

“Your boss is a criminal and our original intent was to prove he is an antiquities thief and to discover where these artifacts were coming from. Now that has to take a backseat to what my geologist friend here has discovered.”

“You are police?” Gina said as she involuntarily took a step away from the two Americans.

“No, not exactly,” Sarah said as she closed the distance between herself and Gina. “My friend is telling the truth. We need to see the geology report and we need to see it soon. Mr. Zallas would not allow that, so you have to, or you will be just as responsible as your employer if what I’m sure is happening, happens.”

Sarah’s words hit home but Gina was still frozen because of her fear of Zallas. Without a word Gina turned and pushed her way past Jack and then brushed by an approaching Ryan without taking notice to him.

“Well, that didn’t go at all well,” Jack said.

“What did you expect,” Sarah said, “with that bare-my-soul tactic of yours? You could have been just a bit more subtle, GI Joe.”

“Well, we don’t have a lot of time here, we have to—”

“Boy, do I look and smell that bad, or did someone tell her I was a cad of the first order?” Ryan said as he glanced back at a very frightened Gina as she walked away.

“No, I’m the one that scared her off. We may have a bigger problem than antiquities theft on our hands here, Mr. Ryan.”

“Yeah, I think we may. I think the owner of this place wants us out of the way.”

“Any more good news?” Sarah asked Ryan as she angrily stepped between the two men.

“Well, until a second ago, no, but as of this very second, yes,” Ryan said as he pointed to his right in the direction he had come.

As they watched, Pete Golding was led out of the men’s restroom and herded toward the elevators. Jack lowered his eyes when he realized who was escorting the good doctor away. He could see the large Romanian smiling as they waited for the elevator and poor Pete Golding looked horrid with no shoes and filthy clothing.

Sarah looked at Jack and he shook his head in disgust at allowing the doc to be taken right under their noses.

“Commander, we have to get into the engineering area of Zallas’s office. Sarah thinks there’s a significant problem with the geologic makeup of the ground here.”

“Well, from what we overheard outside that may be hard to research if we’re dead and buried someplace. I don’t think our host is all too thrilled with us being around, it’s like he knows we’re not invited guests.”

“Boy, I wonder where he got that notion,” Sarah said, looking at Jack with a raised brow.

“This is certainly turning into a banner day,” Jack said as he started to move forward toward a shaken-looking Pete Golding but was stopped by an outstretched arm. Ryan shook his head at Collins.

“You and Sarah do what you have to do, Pete’s my responsibility. I’ll get him out of whatever trouble he’s in and meet you back at the rooms later.”

“And how do you plan on doing this, Mr. Ryan?”

Jason took a deep breath and then smiled. He then aimed himself at the bank of elevators.

“Like you, Colonel, I’m making this up as I go.”

As Jack’s eyes followed, Ryan made a beeline for the men waiting for the elevator to arrive. Collins shook his head and then took Sarah by the arm and they made their way to the main lobby.

“Well, I think now would be about the best time to head to the office area before we go into the restaurant.” Jack looked around and then nodded toward the front desk where a lone employee stood at a computer terminal. “I guess we can assume the managerial areas are back there.”

“What do we do, just stroll up to the front desk and ask for the key to Dmitri Zallas’s offices?”

“That wouldn’t be the best course of action in this case.”

Jack and Sarah turned and saw the resort’s general manager as she returned. Gina slowly removed her glasses and they could both see she was frightened by what she had been asked to do. Sarah saw the hand holding the glasses shaking almost uncontrollably.

“Mr. Zallas is out on the grounds and his goons are with him, with the exception of those two men there.” She nodded behind them. “I don’t know where Zallas is exactly and since he has scheduled dinner with you, you will only have a few minutes inside the offices. I suggest one of you do your artifacts search and the other take the engineering office for the geological report. If we are caught we can expect … well … I have heard stories about Zallas and his business practices.”

Jack looked at Gina and reached out, and with his own hand stilled her shaking one. “He’s the kind of man that promotes his own legend, it’s business, it’s meant to frighten. The man is a fool, but these sorts of men we have discovered are the most dangerous and unpredictable. He thinks we’re a part of NATO and that will make him a little less likely to off us while we’re here. You let us in and then disappear, go eat dinner, and we’ll be out before you know it.”

Without another word Gina gestured by nodding her head and then she walked toward the far end of the front desk and was through before Collins and McIntire could move. Gina turned and smiled in their direction and held her hand out toward the rear of the front desk area, as she attempted to act normal for the desk clerk’s benefit.

“Right this way and we’ll get you started looking at our honeymoon packages,” she said with her large and very false smile in place. Her eyes moved to the front desk clerk and she winked at the young man, who returned her smile and then turned back to his work.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Jack,” Sarah said as she haughtily walked past him to a waiting Gina Louvinski.

Jack’s eyes followed Sarah and he shook his head.

“Newlyweds,” he muttered as he followed the two women into the back offices where their burglary would commence against one of the more ruthless individuals in the world.

Anya was not happy about having to stay in the village and watch out for Marko. Her grandmother wanted him kept an eye on and she was it. As Madam Korvesky prepared to leave for the temple, she gathered the things she would need for the healing of Mikla, who had already been removed by several of the trusted Patinas men and taken to the temple. The Gypsy queen was using her cane more heavily than before. Dr. Gilliam had offered Madam Korvesky pain medication but it had been explained to the MD that any introduction of a toxicant or opiate right now would interfere with the spell casting to be done.

“Mr. Everett,” Niles said, “Charlie and Denise are insisting they join us inside this temple of Alice’s. I think it best you and Lieutenant Mendenhall stay here and see what you can find out about this Marko and what his plans truly are. If you’re thinking like me, his sister can tell us a lot about the power play going here.”

Everett nodded as Anya vanished into her grandmother’s room to dress and clean up.

Niles watched as Madam Korvesky was finally eased into a large chair and then four men raised it from the floor of the cottage. She smiled down at Alice, Denise, Charlie Ellenshaw, and Niles, and then gestured for the men to take her out.

Everett saw the bright red satin, lace-lined head scarf that was placed on the woman’s head. The garment was simple yet elegant. Its color matched that of her red dress and for the first time he could see the young Anya in the old face that looked down upon her people as she was carried from the house. The music became louder and the cheering of her people reverberated throughout the small house. Carl stepped to the doorway and saw the people reaching for Madam Korvesky as if she were Jesus entering Jerusalem. The men carrying her beamed at the honor of carrying the queen to the temple.

“We tend to overdo things here,” said a voice from behind him.

Everett turned and his eyes widened. Anya was dressed in a bright sky blue dress that went down to her mid-calf. It was made with a light weave of soft cotton. The blouse she wore was equally blue in color with red piping along the sleeves and a very low-cut collar. Anya had her jet black hair straight and brushed to a high sheen. The bright blue head scarf was covering just enough of her hair for Carl to feel disappointment. She wore rings he hadn’t seen before and her bracelets were many and bright on both arms and wrists. Her boots were the old-fashioned button-up kind with the spiked heel that was popular in the eighteen hundreds. The top of the boot was white and the bottom black.

“Well, does this meet with your expectations as to what a Gypsy girl looks like?” she asked with sarcasm lacing her voice.

Everett couldn’t help it and he smiled.

“Yes, it does,” he said as he kept his eyes on her dual-colored ones. “Only the Gypsy girls I’ve seen never looked like this.”

Anya looked taken off guard by Everett’s compliment. She was momentarily flustered and then shook her head negatively.

“Well, unfortunately, this is the way we dress, and don’t be a smart-ass about it, Captain.” She stepped around his large frame with a huff.

“Never,” he said as he turned to follow Anya from the house.

As several of the mothers and aunts and other admirers crowded around Anya, Carl finally spied Will Mendenhall and waved him over. As he waited he noticed that the 82nd men were being well treated by their hosts as they ate to their heart’s content. Will came near to saluting as he stepped up to the crowds and squeezed past them until he was next to the captain.

“Will, watch your fellow Army boys and make sure they don’t cause an international incident with the Jeddah,” Everett said as he saw Anya finally break free of the women and start away from the house.

“Yes, sir, do you want—” Will started to ask but Everett walked away as if he had been sleepwalking. “I guess not,” Mendenhall finished.

He found Anya as she was standing and watching the mountain above them. Several men and women walked past but left her alone as they knew she was getting reacquainted with her home. Carl stepped up to her and he also looked up.

“You know I was hoping for a little bit more of an explanation about just who in the hell you really are. I mean are you…” Carl looked around to make sure no one was listening in to his conversation — they weren’t. “Are you Jeddah or are you Jewish? I mean Mossad, that’s a strange place for a country girl like you to end up.”

Anya didn’t exactly face him nor did she look away either.

“I am not Jewish, well, not in the sense that you mean anyway,” she said as she nodded at several well-wishers and admirers as they streamed past and the large blond-haired American. “Captain, we really can’t even claim to be Jeddah any longer.” She finally looked fully at Carl as the large bonfire in the center of town reflected off his tanned skin. Men and women were dancing and playing music and the laughter of everyone put Everett ay ease more than anything had in years.

“I’m not following you,” Carl said as he saw the way the firelight played off her black hair.

“I am not as angry at my brother as my grandmother is. I see what Marko is doing and I want him to succeed, but not the way he has planned by bringing outsiders into it. The selling off of … certain things cannot be allowed to happen.” She gestured around her at the men and women as they danced around the fire pit. “We are not like we were once upon a time. Marko is right, these people deserve to serve themselves, not some ancient promise made to a people that has forgotten them as surely as if we never existed. Marko should have done it another way. Now all of this may vanish, my grandmother will see to that.”

Carl stepped closer to Anya as he realized she was telling him all as if she had to release the pent-up emotions of her past.

“I have been gone for so long I have become cynical of my own kind. And there is another problem. I haven’t told my grandmother yet that I believe certain people in Mossad, besides Colonel Ben-Nevin, have much more knowledge of the Jeddah and our mountain than we initially thought. Why the knee-jerk reaction to a simple report about an American spy inside the Vatican archives? Someone panicked when they saw what was sent in that message.”

“The wolf’s skull?” Carl asked.

“As you said, back in Rome, Captain, I’m not a big believer in coincidence in this business. And now I have all this information and something else is happening that has me so angry that I want to spit.” She accepted an offer of a large wax-lined sheepskin bag. She squeezed something red-colored into her mouth and then slammed the bag into Everett’s chest. Everett drank.

“You will have to spit if you keep drinking this stuff,” Carl said as he held the bag out and looked it over.

Anya turned on Everett as if he were the cause of all her pain.

“I cannot be queen. I am not in the direct line of succession after her and never have been. My grandmother will be breaking the law by appointing me heir to her throne.”

“Maybe you can do some good, where your grandmother thinks Marko can’t.”

“My brother is not as stupid as most would like to make out. He can lead the people into a new future and my grandmother has to realize this.”

“What’s your solution?”

Anya bit her lower lip. “I would ask Marko to cut ties with this resort and its ownership. Then we can move into that future with a clear conscience. The selling off of the assets in the mountain will only bring discovery of the Golia down on our heads. I hope to say these things to my brother.”

“Well, why don’t we go find him and ask him, it can’t hurt, can it?”

“Believe me, Captain, with Marko it can hurt when you least expect it.” Anya took Carl by the hand, which surprised him. He stepped close to her as she studied him. “I am more worried about the Golia.’

“I know what you mean, they worry me also.”

She smiled for the first time and that made Everett feel a hundred percent better. For some unknown reason he felt he needed to make her smile and laugh, as if she had been missing that small joy for some time.

“I guess an outsider would see them that way,” Anya said as her smile grew with the warm feeling of the wine in her belly. “All the Golia ever wanted was to just live, Captain, that’s all. They hunt what we supply them so they never have to leave their sanctuary. They have their families to care for and they felt safe here. But now Marko’s plan has Stanus and the others acting like I have never seen them before. Stanus read something in Marko when he cast the joining spell and the Golia took something away from that coupling and has resented Marko ever since.”

“First I think you better explain just what in the hell a joining is.”

Again Anya turned her head and nodded. “I keep forgetting you know absolutely nothing about us.”

At that moment a small man with a barrel chest and impressive handlebar mustache danced his way toward Anya. He was sliding a bow across a small violin and smiling to beat the band. He stopped playing long enough to take Anya by the arm and spin her toward the large fire pit, and the gathered revelers erupted with adulation that their long-lost daughter had joined them.

Carl watched Anya as she stopped and then slowly started to dance around the fire pit. Everett stepped lightly between two older men who stared and clapped with the others as Anya moved around the fire. Someone tossed her a tambourine and she started hitting it in accordance with an old-world-sounding European tune. Violins and flutes played as she danced and spun and banged on the tambourine in time as she twirled, sending her bright blue dress flaring wide as a flower would opening up to the morning sun. Many more men, women, and children were starting to drift over from other areas of the village as they all wanted to witness the return of the first daughter of Patinas.

Will Mendenhall and several of the engineers from the 82nd stepped up to Everett as he continued to be mesmerized by Anya and the seductive way she could move.

“Wow,” was all the young lieutenant could say, his mouth agape.

As Anya spun around the fire pit she came close to Everett on a turn and their eyes locked. She was sweating and her black hair was laid flat on her forehead as she came to a sudden stop as the music slowed. She continued to look at Carl as her chest heaved with the effort to catch her breath. Everett had never witnessed such an innocent dance become so incredibly erotic. It seemed they faced each other over the two feet that separated them for an hour as everything inside Patinas slowed to a crawl and time stood still. Carl could barely hear the cheers of the men and women around them. He didn’t even flinch when Anya was finally picked up and carried away by her many admirers.

“Now that was something I assumed only happened in the movies,” Mendenhall said as the engineers moved off back to the long tables brimming with food. Will smiled and then looked over at the captain. Carl just stood watching Anya.

Mendenhall shook his head as he realized that Carl had not heard one word he had said. His blue eyes reflected the firelight as they followed the throng of people around the fire. He was someplace other than here, Mendenhall thought.

As Everett watched, Anya was finally placed on the ground and she spied Carl looking at her. As she breathed in and out still exhausted from her dance, she realized that her grandmother had been hinting in the right direction. There was something about this American agent that stilled her heart every time she looked at him. It had been that way since the first moment she had laid eyes on the large Navy man.

Anya finally broke away from the crowd and walked over to Everett, who just stood watching her. Mendenhall, never one to be slow on the uptake since his time hanging out with Ryan on his runs into Las Vegas, knew when to exit stage left.

“I’ll be over here with the vampires and werewolves eating supper.” With one last look at Everett, Mendenhall put his hands in his pockets and strolled away.

“Vampires and werewolves, right,” Everett said, not even realizing what it was he had repeated.

The former Mossad agent stepped up to Carl and brushed some wet hair off her forehead and then reached out and took Everett by the hand. Shocking him, she then started running through the crowd as if she were starting to feel strangled in the midst of the adulation by the Jeddah.

She and Everett ran until they were through the front gate of Patinas.

Alice, Niles, Charlie, and Denise Gilliam were in a straight line as they followed the two Gypsy men as they carried Madam Korvesky up the small sheep trail that wound away from Patinas and into the pass. The trail looked old and the dirt they walked upon had been worn to the bare rock of the mountain. As they neared a large granite-faced rock they started to see small symbols etched into the stone. Niles looked at Alice questioningly as he held a small gas lantern close to one of the symbols.

“Hieroglyphs of some kind,” she said as she too was intrigued.

“That is the language of the Jeddah,” Madam Korvesky said as the men carried her in her chair up the steep incline.

“Why in hieroglyphs? Didn’t the Jeddah speak ancient Hebrew?” Alice asked as she realized for the first time that the real schooling about the Jeddah and the Golia was about to begin.

“The Jeddah, the warrior clan of the tribes of Israel, did not speak the language of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Joshua. We had our own tongue,” she said as she was moved past stone and bush on their way seemingly to nowhere. “We were always separated from the rest of the tribes by the elders. We were feared for no other reason than we were warriors not only for Israel, but for Ramesses II and his fathers before him, and many other fathers before that.”

“So you developed your own language?” Alice asked.

They heard Madam Korvesky laugh. “Well, we have to assume that. It has been a while and quite a few of the old tales have vanished from Jeddah memory.”

Alice was about to ask further questions on the origins of this language but was stopped when she looked up and saw that Madam Korvesky and the men carrying her had disappeared from the trail.

“Just walk up to the large boulder and step inside,” came the old woman’s voice seemingly from nowhere.

Niles held Alice back as he and Charlie Ellenshaw stepped past the two women and up to a large boulder that seemed to block the path. Then their eyes widened when they realized that the giant boulder was nothing more than a gate into the mountain. From the angle of the trail it looked as if the house-sized boulder was intact, but upon closer inspection they saw the archway that had been carved in the stone many thousands of years before they had arrived in Patinas.

“Now this is camouflage, Jack would love to see this,” Niles said as he ran his hand along the boulder as they passed through. “You could walk right up on it and not know it was there,” Niles said but realized that Charlie wasn’t beside him, nor were Alice and Denise. As Compton looked back he saw that all three had stopped and were staring at something beyond. As he turned and looked, Alice slowly raised a finger and pointed with her eyes wide. Charlie had a smile on his face as if he had just caught Santa Claus pilfering cookies and milk. The director froze as he saw a giant Golia standing in the archway, blocking his entrance. The beast was breathing hard and its fingers gripped either side of the entrance as its bright, nighttime glowing yellow eyes watched Niles. The dark silhouette was enough to make Compton freeze.

“I think we have run into one of the temple guards,” Charlie said as he went to one knee to get a better angle.

“Nadia, leave them be, they are friends!” the voice of Madam Korvesky was heard saying loudly from the far side of the entrance.

“Nadia?” Denise asked in a whisper. “That six-and-a-half-foot animal is a female?”

The eyes of the Golia narrowed and then its ears came up in a more relaxed posture. The beast awkwardly moved aside but did not leave as the others slowly squeezed past.

Alice swallowed as she came nearest to the Golia. She could feel the heat of the beast’s breath and the feel of its fiery eyes as she moved along the stone entranceway.

“Easy, Nadia is in heat and that is why she has been left at the temple. Nadia, go to the babies now.”

The beast leaned over and with one hand outstretched and long fingers splayed, it touched Charlie’s wire-rimmed glasses, once, twice, three times, until they fell from his face. The Golia’s eyes went so wide at the shock of seeing Ellenshaw lose his eyes that the giant bounded away and then using the strength of legs and arms scaled the rock walls and vanished.

“Left behind? What do you mean?” Alice asked as they entered what looked to be a huge gallery of open stone carved ages before. It was the size of a theater lobby and was lined with old wooden torches that burned brightly as they illuminated the hieroglyphs on the walls. They were Egyptian in context and construction and without closer inspection neither Niles nor Alice could decipher what they spelled out

“That seems to be the mystery of the day,” Madam Korvesky said as she sat and waited for the newcomers to join her. The two men waited patiently beside the chair. They watched the Americans as they examined every area of the gallery. “It seems all of our adult Golia have been vanishing at night and we don’t why or where. It has something to do with Marko, but for the life of me I don’t know where the wolves are going at night. Nadia because of her condition was tasked to watch the baby Golia.”

“I must admit I’m somewhat disappointed in the temple structure,” Ellenshaw commented. “I thought after so many thousands of years that it would have been larger, maybe with more than just this one room.”

Madam Korvesky laughed and shook her head at Charlie Ellenshaw’s naïveté.

“The temple, no,” she said, trying to still her laughing at the poor American scientist. “This is not the temple. The temple is hundreds of feet inside the mountain. This is just the gallery, of which we could fit over a million of these in the cave system we utilized to build the temple.”

The two men didn’t wait for orders, they took the large arms of her chair and once more lifted up the old woman and then started down the massive staircase that had been hidden behind the giant Golia. They were silent as they continued down. The heat was tremendous the deeper along the staircase they went.

The two men finally stopped at the edge of a great cliff and waited. The visiting Americans stepped up and then looked down into the most amazing sight any of them had ever seen. Stretching out before them was an entire city. Egyptian spires and columns. Smaller gods of the ancients were depicted in the most massive relief drawings they had ever seen. The human and animal hieroglyphs were at minimum a thousand feet in height and fifty in width. The pictographs ringed the giant city that was laid out before them like the city of Los Angeles. Buildings, many never before occupied, sat empty and dark. Small temples to God had been erected. Massive grain bins sat like beehives on the outskirts of the city. The dominant feature was the large pyramid at the center. The entire scene was illuminated by large fire pots on standards throughout the well-designed temple.

“My God,” Alice said as she stood on the edge of the six-hundred-foot cliff looking into the past of a people long thought to have vanished from the face of the earth.

The most amazing thing about the Egyptian-inspired architecture was that most of the city was built from the stone of the immense cave system. Pillars were hewn from solid rock with only their fronts exposed to the stone carver’s tool. The four small pyramids ringing the larger one were solidly built and stood against the far wall of the temple. There were giant stone statues of deities or ancient Hebrew tribesmen that Alice, Niles, Denise, or Charlie had not seen before. The giant statuary was arranged around the great gallery of the temple and all stared down at a central location in the center of the small stone city. The altar stone was mounted by four sets of stone steps and had been carved from an outcropping of lava that had sprung from the cave’s floor in the ancient past. Just behind the altar was the largest of the pyramids.

As the Americans gained the ground floor of the six-thousand-foot-deep excavation of a natural cave system, they examined the very special place of the Jeddah. But it was crazy Charlie Ellenshaw that noticed that something wasn’t quite right about the temple. As he examined the stone statues closer in the flickering light of a thousand torches he saw that the coloring used to paint the images was old, chipped, fading away to nothing. Most looked no better maintained than the current ruins at Luxor. Many of the statues were missing large and small pieces. Some of the temple housing had collapsed in on itself and the stalactites had oozed their way down onto the largest pyramid almost to the point of covering it whole. The great Eye of Ra that was etched into the flooring was covered in fecal matter that he imagined was deposited there by the Golia. Finally Charlie looked at Niles and Alice, who were conferring with Denise about something. Charlie tapped on Niles’s shoulder and pointed to the pyramid and the enormous stalactite that covered it. Niles nodded.

“We were just discussing that very thing. It seems the Jeddah have been negligent in the upkeep.”

“The Jeddah don’t come here often, do you?” Alice asked the old woman, who was looking up.

“No, this is the city of the Golia. This is their home.”

As the four Americans turned and looked high into the cave system they saw hundreds of Golia pups and innumerable little glowing dots of yellow that were the eyes of the young as they watched the intruders far below their perch. For the first time Alice realized that the Golia were alive and living well in the mountains of Romania.

Charlie looked up at the glowing dots of light looking at them from above. It seemed the young of the Golia had been taught that silence was to their benefit. They didn’t move, they just sat and watched. He was amazed when he saw from the great distance one of the small pups stand on its two hind legs and wobble a few steps before collapsing. Ellenshaw realized that he was looking at the ancestor of the very myth he as a cryptozoologist said could not possibly exist — he was watching what amounted to a baby werewolf taking its first steps.

“I present to you the city of Oraşul lui Moise.”

The Event Group looked down upon the City of Moses.

Jack waited just outside the office as Gina and Sarah made it look like they were just having small talk while Gina unlocked the outer door to the private suite of offices which were set well away from the regular offices of hotel management.

Gina turned the key and as it clicked it made her wince as if the entire resort could hear it. She gestured for the two to go in. She stood at the door.

“The office Zallas uses is right there, the one with the double doors,” she pointed with her manicured nail. “The engineer’s office is over there, both are unlocked.”

Collins nodded.

“I’ll be right out here keeping an eye on the desk.”

Again Jack and Sarah nodded that they understood. Gina eased the door closed and left.

“Okay, I’ll take El Creepo’s office and you take the engineer’s.”

Sarah moved off as she was in a hurry to see the geology report. Jack watched her leave and then turned for the large double doors that led into the office of Dmitri Zallas.

As Collins eased the door open he peered inside at the blackness. The only light came from a softly illuminated globe in the corner. Jack stepped in and closed the door. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small penlight. He clicked it on with one hand held over the top allowing just enough light to filter through his fingers to see. He smiled. Only Zallas could be this arrogant. Around the office on his desk, credenza, and other glass shelving specially built for them sat hundreds of little artifacts that could only have come from the heritage of the Jeddah.

Collins wanted to laugh at how easy proving provenance for theft was, it was as if Zallas dared the world to come and get him. Jack was used to dealing with antiquity thieves like the slickly professional Henri Farbeaux. Henri would never have anything that could connect him with theft inside his home or office.

As he moved over to a brightly polished credenza, Jack opened the topmost door and saw the most advanced shortwave radio system he had seen outside military circles. This setup had everything from radio to satellite transmission capabilities.

Well, at least the idiot set up for emergencies, this may come in handy, he thought as he checked to see if the equipment was operational.

As he closed the door to the credenza he heard the office door swing open and Jack turned and his world in that moment spun out of control.

Sarah was having a hard time in the architect’s drawers looking for the correct plans for the resort’s foundations. She had found the geology report almost immediately and also saw that the interior minister had signed off on the report. She raised her brow at discovering that it wasn’t a geological engineer that had signed off on the report, but the interior minister, that’s one powerful signature. And that signature had stated rather mundanely in geologist speak that the ground, the mountain, and the flatlands the resort was to be built upon were safe.

Sarah closed the drawer in frustration, and as she looked over the hotel’s foundation plan she saw that it was built at least fifty miles from the nearest abnormality in the strata. She picked up the thick file with the geology specs inside and then turned and looked at the architectural drawers again. Did she miss something? She again returned to the drawer and pulled it open. She rummaged through what seemed thousands of drawings and then she stopped as one heading caught her attention. Castle Dracula was one of the last sets of drawings as they were placed in the drawers. Sarah pulled the plans from the drawer and spread them out on the floor. She was looking at an amazing drawing of the castle. Every intricate detail of its construction was laid out before her. She shook her head at the cost of the structure.

It was on the third page of the bedsheet-sized drawings that Sarah raised her eyebrows. She ran her penlight up and down the engineer’s grandiose plans for the unique way the castle was to be built directly into the side the mountain. Sarah had been impressed earlier when she had examined the castle from their room. The way the structure was molded into the craggy sides of the mountain made it look as if it had been built directly from the stone. Now by studying the plans she knew how it had been achieved.

She turned the page and ran her hand along the inked representation of the sixteen giant, eight-foot-in-diameter, three-hundred-foot-long solid steel anchor pins that ran from the castle’s foundation, linking the structure with the mountain as the anchor pins had been sunk three hundred feet into the side of the Jeddah home. The anchor pins were what held the heavy castle in place, securing it to the mountainside.

“Amazing engineering,” she muttered as she noticed the small note paper-clipped to the top of the plans. As she pulled it free and opened it she saw that it was a drawing from the original engineering firm located in Moscow. She read the note and her eyes widened. She started racing through the plans until she found the one she wanted. Then she opened the geologist’s file and pulled a report that normally would have been mundane on its surface. She read the report and then looked at the placement of the anchor pins once more. Sarah grimaced and then turned the thick file folder over and spilled its contents on the carpeted floor. She rummaged through the papers until she found the one she had spied earlier that she hadn’t paid attention to. It was a report and drawing about a large fault found in the strata of the rock facing the mountain was built into. The crack, as it were, was stretched across the entire width of the facing. It ran two hundred feet into the mountain — and the anchor pins ran right through the fault. The pins were in essence holding the two halves of the mountain together, and one half included the castle that was built upon it.

“Son of a bitch,” she said as she found the original geology report and the engineer’s follow-up. Sarah slowly lowered her hands to her lap as she sat on her knees inside the Russian’s office.

The report had been doctored to show that the fault that sat behind the rear wall of the castle, and in basic engineering parlance, held it in place by the giant anchor pins, was not there. She looked at the engineering schematic once again and saw that the anchor pins did run right through the crack in the mountain. Zallas was sitting on a disaster waiting to happen. Sarah shook her head and started gathering her data. No matter what was to happen to their investigation, this report had to be brought to the attention of people that could shut that castle down before thousands of people were killed.

Sarah heard the door to the engineer’s office open. She excitedly stood with the castle’s drawings and the geology report.

“Jack, this place is in big trouble, they have—”

The words froze in her mouth as she saw Zallas standing in the office. He had two men beside him and Jack was behind them with three others. Gina was standing beside him and Sarah could see that she was scared witless. Sarah looked at the Russian, who in turn looked around and saw the engineering schematics spread on the floor.

“This place, as you put it, Ms. McIntire, is not the only thing in serious trouble.”

Sarah let the plans slip through her fingers as she felt her heart trying to keep the blood pumping through her system.

Zallas nodded for Sarah to join them in the common area of the office space.

“Yes, we seem to have quite a bit of trouble here tonight,” Zallas said as the door opened from the outer office. “And as you can see, more has just arrived.”

Standing in the doorway was the tall man Jack had recognized earlier. The newcomer smirked. It was Jack who said his name before Sarah.

“Colonel Ali Ben-Nevin.” Jack returned the arrogant smirk and then looked at Zallas as the men guarding him tensed with their guns pointed at his sides and chest as the man before them half bowed.

“I don’t know you,” Ben-Nevin finally said.

“No, but I know a man that has met you and would like to do so again.”

“Believe me, that is in the plan, my friend.”

Jack didn’t like the way Ben-Nevin smiled at all as he was unceremoniously pushed toward the rear entrance of the office area.

“There is good news, we have decided to upgrade your accommodations somewhat,” Zallas said. “You’ll be staying in the yet to be christened Vlad the Impaler Suite. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

As Niles, Alice, Denise, and Charlie were led down a carved stone ramp to the bottom of the temple, the heat had increased by at least fifty degrees, making it somewhere around 110 as near as Niles could estimate. As the men placed Madam Korvesky before the altar the Americans got a better look at the architecture of the city. Madam Korvesky raised her head, weary from the unsteady gait of the two men in their descent into the temple, and saw her guests’ confusion.

“The men who designed this place wanted the temple to last a thousand years. Well, it has lasted three and a half.” The old Gypsy looked around her at the decay of the temple. “We have been weary of the task for many generations. Losing life in its protection and in the pursuit of cover-up has gone on for too long, my grandson is correct in that.”

“I’m not following,” Alice said as she saw the old woman was on the brink of announcing something.

“Our tribe has spread like butter on far too much toast. We are speckled throughout the globe. We have become bastardized with the modern world. A sad thing but one that was inevitable, as you Americans can attest, like the destruction of your Indian tribes, it doesn’t really matter how and why, it just happened. For us our loss of faith was inevitable as our desire to eventually be free of ancient things. Like your American Indian we are fading from history, but unlike those noble people, we want that to happen. Maybe not this soon, but we do want it eventually. And now with my grandson’s arrogant actions it is coming to pass.”

“I don’t understand,” Alice said as she saw the tiredness of the woman before her, so very different from the vibrant hellcat that once upon a time blew up a very expensive yacht in Hong Kong harbor.

“I’m afraid Marko may have dealt with the devil and we are about to pay for that sin. I’m afraid he has allowed outsiders to learn of the temple, and that cannot stand.”

“The Russian?” Niles asked getting his hackles up.

“Yes,” the old woman said.

Alice could only nod her head.

Niles nudged Alice and turned as the two men, accompanied by six others, carried the old and cracked door inside the temple. On it was Mikla covered by the quilt. They placed the beast on the stone altar and then nodded and bowed toward the queen and moved away into the darkness of the city.

Mikla was breathing deeply. They all saw the quilt rise and fall. Each breath seemed a labor for the great animal.

“We have to act now and cast the spell before Mikla’s injury becomes gangrenous,” said Madam Korvesky.

Charlie elbowed Denise as he gestured with a nod of his head toward the high gallery of stone and a strange fluorescing mineral embedded in the rock. Denise could not help but gasp.

High above them the Golia young had started to howl. It was a pathetic attempt as far as the power of their parent’s call went, but they were trying nonetheless. Each pup was attempting to stand. Each fell in turn, and the ones that could stand pawed at the air as they sensed the sleeping Mikla far beneath them.

Madam Korvesky looked up and then closed her eyes.

“The power of the Golia will help us with Mikla. They feel his pain and will quiet and settle to assist me in what needs doing. We will become one and we will set right what has been done to Mikla.”

As they watched, the giant wolf clenched its muscles in a spasm of pain. The quilt slowly slid off the beast and they saw that the black fur was matted and crusted with sweat and dirt from its passage to Patinas.

Suddenly the gallery high above erupted with more howling from the pups and other young. This time they all managed to attain their mature voices and it sounded unlike anything the Americans from the Event Group had ever heard before. It sounded as if hundreds of children started crying and screaming at once.

“My God,” Denise Gilliam said as she thrust her hands over her ears as the cacophony assaulted them.

“They are receiving signals that Mikla is in serious trouble,” Madam Korvesky said as she slowly stroked the black fur of the injured wolf.

“Signals?” Niles asked as he grimaced at the wailing and mewling coming from the Golia young.

“They are all connected. Some can pick up emotions from other Golia as much as several hundred miles away.” She smiled and looked up, her small hand slowly wrapping into the black fur of the beast. “And soon you will see a far more substantial connection the Golia possess.” She looked away and gestured for the one remaining villager. She nodded that he could do as previously instructed. “Your Man from the Sea, your … I believe you call him Mr. Everett?”

“Carl?” Alice said, wondering where the old Gypsy was going with this.

“Yes. My granddaughter seems quite taken with him, and just two days ago they were in Rome with thoughts of killing each other. Life is strange, is it not, Keeper of Secrets?”

Alice looked from Niles to the hundreds of milling Golia offspring restlessly scurrying around above them and then he looked at the old woman.

“Your plan for Mr. Everett?” Niles asked.

“He is a very healthy man, he reminds me of your tall man in China,” she said, looking over at Alice. “The first Keeper of Secrets.”

“You’ll find that both men have a lot of the same qualities,” Alice said and then a knowing look came to her face as she looked at the Gypsy queen. “And a lot of the same flaws I’m afraid.”

“That is what makes them who they are, does it not, Mrs. Hamilton?”

Alice did not reply.

“In answer to your question, Mr. Compton, your friend is needed. Needed by your companions down at that stone monstrosity they call a resort.”

“What’s wrong with our companions?” Niles asked.

“It seems they have encountered the men that my grandson has been doing business with and I am sensing that they need assistance. I need your Mr. Everett to find out for me,” again the crooked smile, “and then you will see the very special power of the Golia, and why God placed them here. The one true link.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying — one true link?” Alice said.

“The true link Mr. Everett will have with him,” Madam Korvesky said as she glanced up into the high stone gallery that sat just beneath one of the three stone pyramids.

As they turned and looked up they saw the beast. It stood at least eight and a half feet tall. Its left arm was outstretched as the animal was leaning on a stone outcropping. The Golia stood on its two hind legs and the yellow eyes stood out in the darkness as the giant wolf stared down upon them.

“Oh,” was all Alice could say.

“Wow,” Charlie Ellenshaw said as he stepped forward to see the sight that stood high above them. Denise for her part decided that she was close enough and took three tentative steps back. Niles held his ground but like Charlie, Alice took steps to get closer to the far wall so they could look up at the legendary alpha male of the Golia.

Before anyone could move, Stanus leaped from his high perch and flew through the air until its large feet struck the stone flooring of the temple. Stanus went down to its knees, as the leap from the gallery was at least a hundred feet. The beast slowly started to straighten and as it did the massively long claws came free of the hands and the Americans could see that Stanus was anything but happy about them being inside the temple.

The four Americans stepped back as Stanus took first one, and then another step toward the dais and the spot where Mikla was lying. The eyes never left the Americans. Madam Korvesky was impressed because most would have seen Stanus and run just as their ancestors had done at the awesome sight.

Suddenly the Golia growled deep in its throat as it approached the old woman and Mikla. The beast looked from Niles, Alice, Charlie, and Denise as it raised its right hand and with outstretched fingers placed its claws into the fur at Mikla’s neck. Stanus’s ears slowly came up and they could hear the whining of the giant as its claws ran through Mikla’s dirty, wet fur.

Alice saw the humanity in the Golia’s touch. The eyes, made to cast fear into any beast that saw them, were slowly moving over Mikla as Stanus examined it. Finally the large hand made it down to the broken right ankle of Mikla. The ears lay down and then they heard the deep castings of the wolf’s growl. It was as if Stanus could sense, or even smell the infection that was starting to grow from Mikla’s injury. Madam Korvesky slowly and gently reached out and placed her much smaller hand on that of Stanus. She closed her eyes and the wolf quieted and became still. The yellow eyes seemed to roll up into the Golia’s head and the ears came up like a set of antennae. Then the eyes opened and with one last look at Mikla and then over at the visiting Americans, the alpha male turned, ran, and scrambled up the rocks to the gallery and then vanished.

“That was amazing,” Alice said as she stepped closer to the dais and then with a questioning look in her eyes at Madam Korvesky, silent permission was given and then she too laid her hand on Mikla’s heaving chest. She felt the heat of the animal and the infection was starting to smell bad.

“Can you do anything for him?” Niles asked as his mind shifted from the trouble that Jack and then others were facing and the immediate problem before them — the wounded Golia.

“Yes, we may very well have Mikla up and running by tomorrow. If not and he dies we may have a serious problem on our hands as Stanus would not take the death of his only remaining brother very well at all. The people that did this would never make it home. So I need your Mr. Everett. I need Stanus, his strength, his power, and his cunning. I need your friend because he can evaluate the situation where Stanus cannot.”

“I am not following you at all. I need to make sure my people are safe.” Niles looked at Alice. “We have to leave, we can’t take a chance that Jack and the others aren’t in some kind of trouble.”

“You will stay, Stanus will go and your Mr. Everett will go.”

“I will not place the captain close to that animal, that doesn’t seem like a smart thing to do,” Niles said, finally getting a little put off by the mysticism talk and the unscientific way this was unfolding.

“What are you planning?” Alice asked as Mikla whined in its sleep.

“While we help Mikla, your friend and Stanus will perform the miracle and discover what is really happening with your friends and our common enemy.”

Charlie Ellenshaw felt the flutter of his stomach as he realized what it was that Madam Korvesky was getting at.

“The miracle? The miracle is—”

“Tonight you will learn that there truly are monsters in the world of men.”

“Riddles are a hard way to discover the truth, madam,” Niles said as his anger was turning inward to the old Event Group failing — curiosity.

She smiled and then cocked her head as the offspring of the Golia started howling again in their small, screechy voices.

“Tonight you will see the transformation.”

“Transformation?” Denise asked, not liking the sound of that at all, especially being an MD.

“Yes, my dear, there is only one thing that can tell us what we want to know and has the stealth to get that information.”

“And that is?” Niles asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“The werewolf.” The smile was large as she took in the astonished faces around her.

“A were—”

“Yes, a lycanthrope,” she answered, cutting off Niles and his astonished reply, “and tonight the beast will run, and your Mr. Everett will run with it.”

“You don’t mean—?” Charlie started to ask, amazement lacing his words.

“The change will come upon your Man from the Sea and he will run with Stanus, becoming one with the beast, and the magic of the Golia will be shared.”

“You can’t mean that he will—” Alice said but stopped when the old woman laughed.

“Tonight, the most ancient of beings comes alive and the werewolf will walk the mountain once again.”

As they were escorted down the hallway Jack saw that the men watching them had no weapon of any kind, at least none that he could discern. With one man on the outside of Sarah, another on his left, and one behind and the follow-up element of Zallas and his new friend Ben-Nevin, he knew he could take the two men next to him and Sarah, but Ben-Nevin was no fool, he would have ample time to draw a weapon.

As they were led down the sixth-floor hallway, Sarah was relieved to see Pete Golding and Jason Ryan coming around the corner from the opposite direction. Sarah held up a hand to warn them that they weren’t alone when she saw the four men behind them. They were in as much trouble as themselves and they were being led to the same suite of rooms.

“Good job, Ryan, I see you got Pete out of trouble,” Jack said as they were made to stop before two double doors with the number 66-6.

“Yeah, these four armed men with very ugly automatic weapons dissuaded me from any inappropriate reactions where the rescue of the doc was concerned.” With that one of the small Uzis appeared and jabbed Ryan in the back.

“I see your point,” Jack said as Ryan was pushed forward.

“Jab me with that thing again and what I gave you last night inside the casino will seem like a kiss, dickhead,” Ryan hissed at the thug from the night before. The man smiled and was about to raise the small Uzi and pop Ryan again.

“Stop that,” Zallas said from behind them as he produced a keycard and then swiped it in the lock. Then as a second security procedure he entered a code on a keypad. “This is my private suite of rooms.” He smiled as he threw the door open. “I think you will be most comfortable here until the Romanian authorities arrive to take you into custody.”

“Into custody, you have got to be—”

Collins held out a hand and that stopped Sarah’s outrage.

“Yes, what did you think, I’d be foolish enough to kill three American soldiers and one,” he looked at Pete Golding, “whatever this is? Maybe you are with the NATO contingent, maybe you are not, but if you were it would be very stupid of me to kill four representatives of the organization that made the construction of all this possible. No, I don’t pick fights with NATO. You’ll be arrested for breaking and entering and then expelled from Romania. That may or may not sit well with your employers, whoever they are, but it should be enough to keep you quite busy explaining yourselves.”

A knock sounded as Jack stared at Zallas. He knew that the man, while brutish and a gangster, was smart enough to realize his limitations as far as attracting attention to himself. For a man that dodged the old KGB and the newer version of that organization, the NKVD, to escape Russia and then organize here, well, he knew Zallas was a man that wasn’t as dumb as many would believe.

One of the Romanian thugs opened the door and allowed the hotel’s other owner into the suite.

“What is this?” Janos Vajic asked as he saw the Americans in the center of the suite.

“These people have been caught breaking and entering into my and the engineer’s office. They will be arrested and then expelled from Romania after the weekend’s festivities are complete.”

“These guests do not seem the burglar type,” Janos said as he worried that Zallas was going too far.

“Mr. Janos,” Sarah said, “your partner has placed a death sentence on this resort. The whole thing can come crashing down at any time thanks to his bribery and faulty engineering.”

Janos looked from Sarah to Zallas, who was shaking his head.

“What is she talking about?” he asked.

“What I’m talking about is the fact that the castle up there is secured to the mountain facing by giant anchor bolts that pass right through a major fault that was uncovered and is in the original geology report from your Ministry of the Interior.”

“And that means?” Janos asked as his eyes stayed on Zallas.

“The construction of the castle has caused irreparable damage to the rock that makes up the face of the mountain. The face your new castle is anchored to.”

“I’m not following,” Vajic said as he finally looked away from Zallas.

“It means the situation is fast deteriorating and that castle could come tumbling down the mountain like Humpty Dumpty.”

Janos turned and looked Zallas. A light came on behind his eyes and he felt as if his blood had frozen in his veins.

“The Interior Ministry? Our partner, Kenly Václav, that is why you brought him in on the deal because you had to bribe him to keep the geology report away from the state,” he said as everything dawned brightly as if the sun sprang from the dark clouds. “Otherwise the deal with NATO never would have been approved and the valley never would have been opened up for lease.”

Zallas smiled and then looked over at their newest partner, Ben-Nevin, who was watching the turmoil with mild interest.

“Jesus, it took you long enough to grasp the reality of your partnerships, Janos.”

“Then it’s true?”

“The original report was, yes, but the updated report from a better engineering firm covered that which we needed covered.” Zallas took a few steps forward and then touched Sarah on the cheek, which brought Jack to full attention. “No, the castle will not fall. Even our engineers acknowledged that the pilings were driven through a fault, but they say the fault is strong and the anchors will secure the two halves and thus make the castle’s foundations as safe as if they had been grown into the mountain.”

“You idiot, that is what I’m saying, there is another element at work here, whether it’s a natural degradation of the anchor steel inside the mountain or the rock around the pins are loosening. — whatever the reason the entire facing of that mountain is loosening.”

“That is quite enough. The castle is on far safer earth than the ground down here. I have been assured of that,” Zallas said as he placed his arm around Janos and walked him to the door. “Now, I will worry about the mountain and the castle, and you worry about the resort.”

“Gina is missing and I don’t know where she is,” Janos blurted.

Zallas stopped as he opened the door. He placed his small girlish hand on Janos and then smiled.

“I am sure she is out and about, you’ll no doubt find her soon.”

With a worried look at the Americans, Janos Vajic left the suite. Zallas closed the door and then faced Jack, but it was Ryan who took a menacing step toward the Russian.

“If you hurt that girl, I’ll—”

One of his Romanian brutes cuffed Ryan in the back of the neck and the naval aviator went down to his knees. Jack swung out and caught the man’s hand in midair before he could bring down the weapon a second time onto Ryan’s head. Collins twisted the small Uzi from the thug’s hand and expertly ejected the ammunition clip, and then with one hand ejected the round that had been chambered and then tossed the weapon to Dmitri Zallas, who caught it with his eyes wide.

“Don’t ever touch one of my people again,” Jack said, not looking at the offender but instead straight at Zallas, who shook his head when the disarmed man turned to face Collins. The man backed away and then caught the Uzi as Zallas tossed it back to him.

“Next time, the colonel here has permission to rip out your throat.” Zallas took a menacing step toward the five Romanians. “Without any recriminations from me.”

“What did you do with Gina?” Ryan asked as he was helped to his feet by Jack and Pete and was vigorously rubbing his neck where the Uzi had connected solidly.

“Her employment was terminated.” Zallas smiled as he took in Collins. “After all, she is not NATO and will not be missed.”

“If you hurt her, I’ll—”

Zallas had already turned for the door as he waved his men out.

“Hurt? My young friend, she is very much dead. My mercy and understanding of the world clearly has its limits.” He turned and looked at Colonel Ben-Nevin.

Ben-Nevin caught the drift of the threat and knew when the time came Dmitri Zallas would have to be dealt with. But until that time he had to satisfy the Russian.

“I need to know what information these Americans have on the temple complex,” Zallas said. “If they know where it is, taking this Marko Korvesky would be a moot point, we wouldn’t need him to learn the location of the temple.” Zallas again looked at Ben-Nevin and shook his head.

“The people that live on that mountain are far more adaptive than you could know,” Ben-Nevin said. “I imagine since they have been defending this mountain for three thousand years they can do it rather efficiently if the need arose. Are you following?”

“They are nothing but peasants.”

“Yes, but then again it was nothing but peasants that fought off everyone from the Hittites, Visigoths, the Romans, and then finally Vlad the Impaler, not counting the entire Ottoman Empire, but yes, they are nothing but peasants,” Jack said, trying his best to irritate the two men.

Zallas and Ben-Nevin turned and looked at a smiling Collins.

“As a matter of fact, I would think it would be wise to stock up on silver bullets if you’re going up there.” His smile grew as he studied the two.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Zallas asked as he was confused by what Collins just said. He was hoping it wasn’t a reference to the nonexistent wolves of the mountain again.

“Mr. Zallas said we will have enough men and firepower to get anything off that mountain if we so choose. I don’t think old legends will frighten this man,” Ben-Nevin said with hope.

Zallas looked from Ben-Nevin to Collins and then shook his head.

“I will take your suggestion and think about it,” Zallas said, smiling wide at what he thought was an attempt by the American to get him to second-guess his action against the villagers. He opened the door to the suite.

“Wait!”

Zallas and his men, along with Ben-Nevin, turned and looked at Ryan, who was still in the process of rubbing the pain from where he had been struck on the neck.

“Out of professional courtesy, and for later reference, just who was it who killed Ms. Louvinski?” Ryan asked as he moved closer to the men and Jack allowed Jason to play out whatever he had in mind. He normally wouldn’t but he could see that the reported death of Gina Louvinski had affected the Navy man. And Zallas’s business associate was also stricken by the news.

“If you must know, little man, it was me,” said the big Romanian from the night before, the one who had manhandled Pete and the waitress. He stepped forward with a broad smile on his bearded face. Ryan allowed his eyes to flick toward Collins and he didn’t read any dissent there.

“Good, I thought it would have been you,” Ryan said as he moved so fast no one could stop him. The right hand went from the back of his neck and out to cross the bridge of the Romanian mobster’s nose. The hit was so hard that the man froze in place and his features went slack almost immediately. The palm of Ryan’s hand had hit the nose so hard that an explosive combination of bone and gristle was sent directly into the man’s brain pan. The mobster’s face turned white and then went slack. He went to both knees and then slowly fell forward onto his face — dead. Ryan rubbed his hand and waited for the bullet that would kill him. One of the Romanians saw his friend and raised an Uzi up but Zallas stayed the move.

Zallas looked down at his dead guest and again shook his head as he nodded to the gunman to collect his fallen leader.

“Now that was impressive,” he said and looked back at Ryan. “I will allow you that one.” He grinned. “But just that one.” He turned and left after demonstrating how cheaply he valued human life.

Ben-Nevin also shook his head as he stepped over the dead body as his friends were trying to lift him. The door closed and then Ryan turned to face Jack. He was still rubbing his hand from the trick of death that Jack had taught him more than five years before.

“I never killed a man like that,” Ryan said as his eyes never left the closed door.

“You don’t get used to it,” Jack said as he assisted Ryan over to the center of the large suite. “But if anyone here needed killing, it was him.”

“She didn’t deserve to be murdered,” Jason said as he finally sat down at the large table as Collins went back to the door and tried the lock. It wouldn’t move. Sarah for her part walked over and placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder.

“Calm down, Mr. Ryan,” Jack said. “It was me who got Ms. Louvinski in trouble, not you.” He turned and faced Jason. “I think we may want to find a way out of here. Zallas said he won’t kill us, he’s lying. We’re a backup plan if the questioning of Marko Korvesky doesn’t go as planned.”

“Plan for what?” Pete asked.

“I have a sneaking suspicion that they’re going to try to take the temple built inside the mountain.”

As Sarah turned and looked out the large plate glass window she saw the swirling colors of blue and purple as they played off the stone of Dracula’s Castle.

“Alice’s little adventure has suddenly taken a turn for the surreal,” Sarah said as she watched the swirling spotlights that illuminated the castle.

They all heard Ryan chuckle. It was almost a sad sound, especially coming from a man who never had a bad word to say about anyone.

“When has one of our missions not turned out to be surreal?”

Jack chuckled as well, a sound that made them all nervous.

“But then again, that’s what we do, people. Now let’s start thinking about how to get the hell out of here and up to that mountain.”

16

Carl sat with Will Mendenhall and Anya inside the relative calm of her grandmother’s front yard. The small picket fence wasn’t much of a defense against the onslaught of well-wishers and anyone else who just wanted to smile at Anya and say hello, but the villagers seemed to be respecting the separation of the small wooden pickets.

As the hour grew late the men and women of Patinas and the other six villages of the mountain started gathering their sleeping children, who were long since worn down from the excitement that so seldom came to Patinas. The children had gone to sleep knowing that things would be better now that brother and sister were together again.

Anya waved good night to several of the families and then smiled at Carl, who sat on the small one-step stoop of the cottage. A fire slowly burned behind them in the fireplace and warmed their backs. Mendenhall slowly stood and stretched and then nodded his head at Everett and then Anya.

“Well, we better get the shelter up or we’ll be swimming in dew by morning. I guess we’ll see if these Airborne boys know how to set up a camp.”

“I’ll be along as soon as the director and the others return,” Carl said as he stood.

“If you place your camp closest to the barn you will find that the morning sun will wake you.” Anya looked from Mendenhall to Everett and smiled. “One of the more pleasant experiences about living in Patinas.”

“Will do, ma’am, and good night, Captain.” Mendenhall gave Carl a two-fingered salute and slowly moved off while refusing more food from one of the older women who waited just outside the gate.

“You and he are close?” Anya asked as Carl watched Mendenhall smile, nod, and refuse yet more food from yet more women.

“Yes, the lieutenant and I are very close. That kid has worked his way out of some tough times to make something out of himself,” Everett said as he slowly sat back down on the small stoop next to Anya. Carl stretched his legs and then looked up at the stars that seemed far closer than he had ever seen them. “Talk about a place getting a bum rap from Hollywood, this is it. I’ve never seen such a beautiful spot.” He looked over at Anya, who watched Carl as he spoke.

“You are troubled about me,” Anya said, looking away as Everett turned again to face her as he realized it was a statement and not a question.

“From Patinas to the Mossad, that’s quite a stretch. And also quite industrious on your part, to spy on an organization that prides itself on never having an agent penetrate their organization.”

Anya shook her head. “My grandmother set me on my odyssey. She has not, and never will, tell me everything. I made connections inside the Mossad that I should not have been able to make. I was noticed in training by all the right people, chosen for just the right assignments to move up in rank. No, very little about my Mossad history was brought on by me. My grandmother needs to tell me the truth of what she is doing.”

“I don’t mind saying you have totally lost me,” Everett said, shaking his head and looking away.

Anya reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Everett felt her touch and for the first time in a while felt as if a flock of birds was let loose inside his stomach.

“May I see your hand?”

“Are you going to tell my fortune?” he asked and then immediately regretted it.

“That is not a politically correct thing to say.” She cocked her head to the right. “I believe you are laughing at us Gypsies, Captain,” she said as she pulled her hand away from Everett’s in a mockingly insulted way.

The blond American kept his hand in place. Anya again took his and turned the palm up.

“Besides, I don’t tell fortunes, Mr. Everett, that’s my grandmother.” She smiled and then closed Carl’s hand and wrapped her small fingers around his. “I will look into your past.”

“My past?” Everett said as he was tempted to pull his hand away.

“Yes, all of us Gypsies are strange like that.”

“You mean all you Jeddah?” Carl asked, watching her closely.

Instead of answering Anya closed her hand more tightly around Everett’s. “I don’t actually tell you anything about the past, you tell me and I don’t hear, I see. The mind is powerful as I am sure you have learned in your many travels. But two minds linked is something that is powerful beyond description.”

“I’m not a big believer in prophecy or the foretelling of bad things.”

“You Americans are always so narcissistic. You only believe in yourselves and in nothing else. The world has many things to offer, and the ancient world has even more than the heavens could ever supply in words and stories. I want to show you what the world, my world can offer you.”

Carl felt the heat of her touch and he closed his eyes as he kept her face etched in his mind. He felt Anya raise his closed fist to her lips and then he felt the warmth of her soft breath as she blew on his hand. He felt as if water was oozing though his clenched fingers and the sensation made him chill with excitement. He felt himself floating for a moment.

“Open your hand,” Anya said as she released him.

Everett opened his eyes and looked at the raven-haired beauty as she smiled at him. She was backlit by the fire and Carl could swear she was aglow with a heat that only he could feel. He lowered his eyes and then slowly opened his fist. He felt his mouth open as he gazed upon the image that seemed to be written in bloodred ink. It was an exact likeness of the woman he had been secretly engaged to seven years before. He had lost her in a desert mission that seemed long ago, but the memory of her death was as if it occurred only weeks before. The smiling face of Lisa Willing stared back at him from his own palm. Everett raised his other hand and rubbed at the image.

“Minuscule blood vessels have burst just under the epidural layer. The blood vessels were guided by your own brain power and memory. As I said, there are powers that the world has never understood.”

Again Everett rubbed at the image as if he could erase it.

Anya reached out and placed a hand on Everett’s cheek and he looked at her and she saw the pain at his loss from so long ago. She smiled softly and then pulled his hand to her mouth and once more enclosed Carl’s large hand and then kissed it. She shut her eyes and as she did Carl felt his heart flutter. He also shut his eyes as he felt his heart come into his throat. He felt Anya lower his hand and remove her own from his. He slowly opened his eyes and the image of Lisa was gone. The pain he had always felt and the sense of loss he had every day seemed to vanish from his mind and heart. He slowly stood from the stoop and walked into the small yard. He felt Anya watching him and so he turned to face her. She sat on the stoop and then raised her hands to her mouth as she seemed to come to a realization. She stood and waited.

Captain Carl Everett saw Anya Korvesky and nothing else.

Later that morning Carl stood with Anya just outside the gate to Patinas. He glanced up at the darkened mountain as he placed his arm around the woman he had been doing battle with not two days before in Rome. Everett didn’t try to analyze what it was he was feeling so he just attempted to let his mind and his heart wander free of his common sense. He turned and looked at her and was about to speak when she held a hand up and cocked her head.

“Someone is out there,” she said as she slid from Carl’s arm and looked into the woods and then up the side of the craggy mountain. They heard the snap of a twig and they both turned to see one of the village elders that had accompanied Madam Korvesky and the others into the temple. He stepped up to Carl and Anya, looking from the woman to the large American.

“Your grandmother wishes to see you inside the temple. You are to bring this man with you,” he said and then dipped his head and doffed the small black hat he wore and then moved off toward his home.

Anya watched him leave and then took Carl’s hand. She smiled up at him and that look told Everett all he needed to know about how she felt. It was the same gut-wrenching feeling he was having.

As she pulled Everett toward the trail and the temple higher up, she turned and looked into the woods knowing that the person that had been watching them was still there. She turned away and held Carl’s hand that much tighter.

Marko stepped out of the tree line and onto the trail as Anya vanished with the American naval officer around the bend in the trail. His eyes narrowed at the memory of his sister coming from his grandmother’s home with this man close beside her. He didn’t need his vivid imagination to know that his sister had been compromised by this man. Where that would lead him he knew not. But one thing he did know, he could never allow his little sister to control his people, which would only lead to more of the same for them.

For over three thousand years they had done the bidding of tribes they no longer knew nor loved. The days of slavery and bondage to Pharaoh had never really ended for the Jeddah; it had just changed from one cruel and uncaring hand to the next. The time for the Jeddah to break away clean had come and they would all reap the reward of thousands of years of bondage that was once called freedom, and what Marko and most Jeddah called the biggest lie. The treasure was there for them to use and the Jeddah would start to flood the world with their artifacts.

Carl could not believe what he was seeing as they descended the long and wide staircase that had been carved from solid rock 3,500 years before Everett was born. As he looked down he could see the worn areas that told a tale of millions of pairs of feet over the ages treading this way. As they entered the temple’s main gallery, Everett had to stop and take in the carved magnificence of the Temple of Moses.

“I don’t believe it, it’s actually here,” Carl said under his breath.

“Yes it is, but before you get to impressed just remember it took the Jeddah two thousand years to get this temple built, and all at, or just below your minimum wage,” she teased as she stepped past Carl and into the temple.

“I take it you’re not as impressed with your Jeddah’s achievements as outsiders are,” he said as he caught up with Anya. His eyes roamed to the three pyramids that made up the backdrop of the temple. The columns and the obelisks lined every nook and cranny of the magnificent structure.

“My people have been a slave to this menagerie for far too long, my brother is right about that. A palace built to honor the Exodus from Pharaoh, it is nothing but trouble and should have been buried long ago.” She looked around at the illuminated temple and sighed. “I’m as tired as the people are of maintaining this museum of our history and I just can’t do this anymore.” She looked at Carl. “I’m with Marko on that one point.”

“Why don’t you come over here and explain to me what you can and cannot do, granddaughter.”

Anya turned and saw her grandmother as she sat next to the dais where Mikla was still lying and breathing hard.

“I was explaining how a backward people need to embrace those that they fear the most.”

“As we are the backward people you speak of, the people we fear must mean the rest of the world, is that what I understand, girl-child?”

Carl saw the uncomfortable way that Anya shifted from foot to foot as she faced the queen of the Gypsies. He looked over at Niles and Alice, who were watching the small power play without comment. Charlie and Denise were there also but they had their attention on something behind Carl and Anya.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, child, you did mean. Marko has done a horrible thing and now it must be corrected, so I guess you will get your wish sooner rather than later. This life we have on the mountain is coming to an end. Just what that particular end will be for our people remains to be seen.” Madam Korvesky then nodded to a place behind the newly arrived pair.

Everett and Anya slowly turned. Sitting on his haunches and up about six wide steps from the temple floor was Stanus. The beast was growling and staring at Everett. The yellow eyes were intent and the captain could see the giant wolf curl a black lip over gleaming white teeth. Anya took Everett’s arm and then took a step in front of him.

“Grandmamma, why is Stanus here?” she said as she placed her back against Carl’s front and watched the dangerous beast before them.

“He awaits you and your Man from the Sea. I have a task for both.”

Carl managed to turn his eyes away from the giant sitting menacingly before them. He then noticed Niles standing not far away with the others. He only shrugged, indicating he had no idea what the old woman had planned.

“They have work to do just as you and I have with Mikla this night. We must work soon as the sun is only three hours distant.”

Anya swallowed and saw that Stanus was listening to every word that Madam Korvesky was saying. Its eyes would flick from the two in front of him to her grandmother, all the while the low growl emanating from his throat.

“The work with Mikla must be completed before the first birdsong of the new morning, or he will not survive.” Madam Korvesky laughed and patted Mikla’s sleeping form. “By the bones of Joseph, I may not survive it.” She waved Carl over to her side. Stanus continued to stare from his sitting position on the staircase, its glowing eyes following Everett’s every move. “Stanus isn’t going to care for this all that much,” she said as she took Everett’s large hand into her own.

“Grandmother, what are planning?” Anya asked, worried.

“Your Man from the Sea will walk with the werewolf tonight, and now you must prepare him for the journey.”

“You can’t, Stanus would kill him.” Anya turned and faced Carl. “He could never control him, the beast will out. You remember that saying, Grandmamma? The beast will out. The captain cannot control him.”

“He needs not control, just influence. I need to know the disposition of this man’s friends.”

The old woman smiled and then squeezed Carl’s hand tighter as she looked up and into his eyes.

“Move and prepare your Mr. Captain for his walk. Then we will send him and Stanus on their way and we can get down to the business of spelling Mikla.”

Anya Korvesky closed her eyes and then blindly held out a hand toward Carl, who broke his hold with Madam Korvesky and went to her. She linked her fingers through his.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen to you.”

“If it’s to help my friends down below at the resort, I don’t have a choice but to listen to your grandmother. Whatever it is she wants me to.”

“Didn’t you hear a word she said, you are to walk with Stanus tonight.”

Everett looked over at the spot where Stanus was sitting. The giant wolf never allowed its eyes to leave the form of the big American. It just sat and stared.

“Well, if I’m walking him, I hope you have one hell of a big damn leash.”

“She means something else, Carl,” Alice said as she pushed Charlie Ellenshaw toward the couple in order for him to assist Anya and Everett. Carl looked from Alice to Anya, who looked away and then pulled him toward a small stone enclosure that had no windows or openings save one. Charlie, with an uneasy yet excited look back at Niles, soon joined them.

As for Niles Compton, he and Alice turned away and watched as Madam Korvesky became still and silent. He watched her hand run through Mikla’s fur and the giant wolf whined in its uncomfortable sleep. Alice nudged Niles in the side and they both saw the Gypsy’s eyes rolling underneath the lids.

“It’s as if she’s in a deep sleep and rapid eye movement has started.”

“Look,” Niles said, pointing to Mikla. The wolf was still asleep, but its eyes were working rapidly underneath the lids. Mikla was also starting to dream.

Across the way Carl allowed Anya to pull him inside the small rock-hewn house.

“What does that mean?” Everett asked as Charlie Ellenshaw winced at the answer he knew was coming.

“She means you are to become one with Stanus. My grandmother obviously has a concern for your friends down below. I believe she thinks if anything happens to them even more attention will be cast toward the Jeddah. She can be very selfish.”

“And to become one with Stanus means?”

“Tonight you are going to learn what it’s like to be in an old horror movie.”

“And just what in the hell does that mean?” Everett asked as she took his hand and pulled him inside the torch lit room.

“Tonight you will become a werewolf.”

Inside the small stone-carved room Ellenshaw watched as Carl lay down upon an old Russian-made army cot. Charlie’s eyes roamed the room and that was when he saw the deeply gouged claw marks that were sunk deep into the stone walls. Large swipes had been battered through pure stone from something that looked as if it hadn’t liked being in here.

Carl lay staring up at the ceiling as the five torches inside the enclosed structure issued forth a smoky, dark visual of what Anya was doing. She stood next to a small table and was in the process of mixing a few herbs into a small clay bowl. She used a stone that was worn over the years until it fit perfectly into her small hand, or the hand of the necromancer, whoever was using it at the time. Anya was silent as she mixed her strange concoction.

“The spell will cause small stomach cramps at first and then they will settle as the poison is introduced to your system.”

“Poison?” Charlie asked.

“Yes, there is a small amount of mandrake and nightshade in the mix,” Anya said as she placed the bowl down and looked at nothing, keeping her back toward Carl and Charlie. “I would like to say that the experience is without pain, but that would be a lie. The first five minutes are excruciating as the minds join. Stanus will not like you in his head and you will most definitely not like Stanus in yours.”

“Sounds like some of the drugs working their way through Berkeley in 1969,” Charlie said, “and a lot of those people never came back.” They all looked at Ellenshaw and wondered if he had been one of those that were lost in 1969. “How does the joining, or this spell, work?” Charlie asked, as he knew Carl was thinking about the pain.

“The mixture,” she said as she turned with the small clay bowl placed firmly into her hands, “will open the captain’s mind. Free it if you will. He will feel like he has taken a mild hallucinogen at first, then he will sleep.”

“But how do the minds connect?” Charlie asked, ever the curious scientist. As for Everett he wasn’t sure he wanted to learn that little bit of information.

Anya gave Charlie a sad, knowing smile. “It’s in the hands of the Golia — quite literally. Stanus will join with the captain through touch, the special gift of the werewolf — the joining of two minds that are connected through a million years of evolutionary survival together. The symbiosis allows Carl to hitchhike on the mind of Stanus. He will feel the power of the wolf and also see what it sees. He will be the wolf and know the power of what it is to be feared.”

Anya placed her hands behind Carl’s head and raised it. She placed the small earthen bowl to his lips and tilted it until the dark, viscous liquid flowed into Everett’s mouth making him gag. He coughed and tried to swallow the horrible mixture. Finally he got it down and then he placed his head back on the old, rickety cot.

“Stanus will become Carl’s eyes and ears as he remains here with us. The captain will be able to assert some direction to Stanus, but never, ever depend on his following your every request. And he will not follow orders. As you can see by my grandmother’s ankle there are inherent dangers to the spell. You will receive the same wounds, the same pleasures, and the same pain the Golia will feel. And I must warn you, Carl, you will find the mind of the Golia vast and disturbing. The species has been mistreated since the dawn of time. Men have hunted them, driven them from the beautiful parts of the world until they have been pushed to the very edge of the map by mankind.”

Suddenly the doorway was filled. The light from the outside torches had been blocked off. Charlie and Carl turned their heads to see Stanus standing in the small doorway. It was so tall that it had to lean forward to see into the room. The beast growled and that sent cold chills down Charlie Ellenshaw’s back and arms. He took an involuntary step back.

“Don’t move, Professor, please,” Anya said as she placed the empty mixing bowl on the small wooden table. She turned and faced Stanus, who was breathing hard and looking at Everett.

“Do the Golia like being joined with men?” Charlie asked.

“They love it. Well … sometimes they love it, sometimes not.” Anya finally approached Stanus and then slowly raised a hand to its massively large head and rubbed. The beast leaned closer so Anya could scratch deeper. Then the wolf slowly slid down onto all fours as it entered the room, forcing Anya to step inside. “Stanus is allowing this only because he is curious about not only the captain and his intentions toward me and Grandmamma, but because it wants to know if you are here for the purposes of deceit. That would not be good. Your mind has to be open, Carl. Do not try to hide anything. Stanus will tear down any barrier you have to get at the information he wants. That was where I believe Marko made his mistake in his attempted fooling of Stanus and his lies about the encroachment of the Russian investor; the wolf knew it was being lied to.”

Charlie squeezed up against the rough wall as Stanus went to all four legs and then came into the room and filled it with its bulk. While on all fours it was still face-to-face with Ellenshaw as the beast sniffed and then huffed. Then Stanus moved on to Anya and sat before her. Anya without any extra movement placed the remaining potion from the bowl in front of the wolf. The beast lapped up the foul-tasting liquid.

Anya was breathing hard and wondering how Stanus would accept the stranger into its mind. The beast walked around the table on four legs as it continued to examine Carl. For Everett’s part he lay as still as he could as the fuzzy effects of the homemade hallucinogen took hold of his mind as the wolf stopped and then licked the remainder of the liquid from its muzzle using its wide tongue. Suddenly Stanus raised a right paw to the cot and used its anchored weight to lift itself from the floor until it was standing on two powerful legs as it looked down upon Carl. The ears lay down and then sprang back up as the beast was starting to get glimpses of the man’s mind.

Anya motioned for Charlie Ellenshaw to slowly back away from the scene played out before them. As he watched and slid down the wall at the same moment, Charlie saw the large hand with extended, claw-tipped fingers as it settled onto the head of the large Navy SEAL. The beast closed its eyes as he felt the pulse of Carl’s beating heart for the first time. Its breathing became steady and the grip on the captain’s head intensified, eliciting a small gasp from Everett, who now looked to be in a deep dream state.

Everett felt the beast inside him. He felt himself inside the beast. Carl was confused as he felt his eyes roam over his own prone body. He could actually feel the touch of his two-day-old beard as the hand of Stanus felt the minute pores and flaws of Carl’s skin. On several instances the hand would pause over a few of the deeper scars from his time as a SEAL. The beast would whine as the fingers felt the pain from Carl’s past. Then Stanus hit upon Everett’s sadness in regard to the loss of Lisa Willing, then the beast moved past that and into Carl’s present. It was if the animal were getting a feel for who and what Everett was. The hand would settle on a new spot on Carl’s skull, linger for a moment, and then move off to another spot. Finally the beast opened its eyes and then without warning it leaped over the cot and stood before Ellenshaw. Charlie felt his bladder partially let go. After all of the amazing things he had seen in his many years as a cryptozoologist he had never beheld a more frightening, purely beautiful sight as he was witnessing at that moment. The beast sniffed.

“Don’t be frightened,” Anya said. “I think that is the captain. Stanus is there but he is allowing Carl to take over for the moment. I think he wants you to know that he’s all right and inside Stanus.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Charlie said as he half turned away from Stanus as the muzzle of the animal came within inches of Ellenshaw’s face. The hot breath of the beast was washing over him as a waterfall would.

“Chaaaaarlllllieeeee,” the sound came out more as a jumbled cacophony of baritone mumbling, but the name was clearly understood.

“Now that is something, never has a Golia spoken before with a man they didn’t know. Stanus must feel comfortable with your Mr. Everett,” Anya said as she slowly and cautiously approached Stanus from behind. “Carl is exhibiting amazing strength in controlling him.”

Charlie’s eyes widened as the beast raised a large hand and with just the long claws turned Ellenshaw’s head toward its yellow eyes. Then the beast took Charlie by the collar and lifted him off the stone floor. Ellenshaw felt his feet dangling as the animal secured its viselike grip on Charlie’s throat.

“Oh, oh, that’s not the captain.” Anya moved quickly and placed both hands on the back of the giant wolf. She could feel the muscles underneath the black fur working as the beast was slowly getting its blood up. “Captain, if you can hear me reassert your influence and tell Stanus that Professor Ellenshaw is a friend, it hasn’t connected that part of your memory yet. He wrested control away from you when his part of the mind didn’t recognize your friend. Introduce them to each other.”

Suddenly the beast relaxed its grip, but the hand was still there around Charlie’s throat. The strange thing was Charlie wasn’t trying to breathe at all. Stanus sniffed Charlie once more. Then an amazing thing happened and Ellenshaw was lowered to the ground as Stanus lowered its large frame so it could look into Charlie’s eyes and then without warning he went to all fours and sprang not through the open doorway, but through one of the larger window openings and was gone. Charlie heard Dr. Denise Gilliam scream as Stanus leaped from the window.

Carl found out that he was just a passenger on the ride of his life. He could actually feel the earth beneath his paws as he ran. Stanus he found out had a favorite pastime and that was running. The Golia felt free when its legs were stretched to their limit. Stanus, Carl knew, hated the life he led with having to stay on the mountain and never venturing forth. But Everett also felt that the beast was content as long as its clan was safe. That was the foremost vibe Carl was picking up from Stanus.

Everett felt the beast stop and then rise to his hind legs as it gripped a large pine tree and examined the world around it. Carl could actually smell the odors of the woods and mountain. He could smell birds high up in their nesting places. He could see better in the dark than he could ever see in the daylight with his own eyes. Everything stood out in grays and green contrast and he could see anything that moved or broke its cover. And it seemed every animal that was lying in its burrow or nest knew that the werewolf was roaming the mountain this night. Everett had never felt the power he was feeling at that moment. And the amazing thing he felt was the fact that he knew Stanus was enjoying showing off.

Carl felt the attention of Stanus drawn to something below. As Everett focused his mind along with the mind of the wolf, he could see the swirling purples and blues of Castle Dracula.

Carl felt free and for the first time he felt Stanus grip the tree he was leaning against for support and then the howl let loose and it actually exhilarated Everett. It was like he was proclaiming to the world that something special was coming their way — one of God’s greatest creations was on the move.

Stanus lowered himself to all fours and with his fingers curled inward made his hands into the running pads of the animal. Stanus shot off down the mountain at a full run at breakneck speed. Carl felt as though Stanus was about to make an example of just how powerful the werewolf really was.

Its direction — Castle Dracula.

Will Mendenhall woke and was very confused regarding where he was. He had been far more exhausted than he had realized and went right to sleep after he had laid his head on the air mattress and sleeping bag supplied by the Airborne boys. He had been told they would only run a 10 percent watch of their small three-tent camp.

As he struggled in his sleep his eyes came wide and he realized finally where he was at and what had awakened him. It was no animal noise or strange bumps in the night for Mendenhall, it was his bladder. If he didn’t get up at that exact moment there would be incident he would never live down — especially from Ryan. Will thanked the heavens he had been too tired to even unlace his boots before he had zonked out. He stood and bounced off the air mattress and crawled and ran quickly through the tent flap barely missing the two men who were just changing watch.

“Hey, Lieutenant, it looks like the party settled down about an hour ago and we were—”

Will ran right past the two men, who watched him vanish into the small stand of trees beside the old barn and just below the craggy face of the mountain.

“Can’t talk now, emergency,” he said as he sped past.

Mendenhall finally made it into the trees and had his jeans already unzipped. He started to relieve himself against the lower, very rough face of the mountain. He closed his eyes and whistled.

“Lord Almighty!” he hissed, “that was close to—”

Will froze when he looked up after the initial relief of making it to the trees and saw the two yellow almond-shaped eyes as they gazed down at him. The beast was upside down and because of the darkness of the morning hours Will could not see anything else because of the black fur. He was looking at a perfectly camouflaged Golia. And he realized as his relief dried up on him that it was Stanus who had all four sets of claws buried into the rough rock wall of the mountain. Will realized he was seeing what the beast did best of all — it was a climber just as Alice had said these animals had developed into. Stanus was hanging upside down and Will saw the Golia slowly open its mouth and start to lean forward while the teeth grew ever closer.

Will thought he could at least swallow when the first attempt at screaming went afoul, but he couldn’t muster enough saliva for that. He felt the dryness of his throat as the beast was now only inches from Will’s upturned face. Suddenly Stanus released the hand closest to Will’s head and then the giant wolf slapped him playfully against the right side of his head, knocking him to the ground. When Mendenhall rolled over he saw that Stanus was gone. Will just lay there staring up at the now empty facing of the mountain as a breeze sprang up and moved the trees.

Inside the temple in a room that sat only twenty-five feet from the greatest rumored treasure in biblical history, Captain Carl Everett stunned Anya and Charlie by snickering in his sleep at something that happened with Stanus. His eyes were moving rapidly and they knew Carl had just enjoyed something in his very unusual ride.

Drake Andrews stood on the front section of the enormous stage and winced at the loudness of the sound system. He glanced at his agent and gave him a dirty look. The Russian musical troupe had all lined the front and back part of the stage just to witness Drake sing a few bars from an old standard of his for a sound check. Even with the deep booming sound system an engineer had managed a bad connection someplace and a piercing screech sounded through the nearly empty nightclub. Drake placed two hands to his ears and the Russians did the complete opposite, they actually clapped and cheered at just the opening refrain of a hit he had back in 1967.

Right at that moment several of the Dracula props they had arranged mechanically around the gothic-laced dressing of the stage popped free of their ancient-looking coffins and one even fell all the way forward and crashed into the front row of the arranged tables. The mechanical dummy hit the table, rolled off, and then something inside fizzled and smoke rose into the air. Again Drake looked at his agent and without a word, and as the Russian musicians were still applauding at three-thirty in the morning, Drake Andrews stormed off the stage and headed for the large stone balcony that looked up and onto the mountain. His agent followed as one more mechanical Dracula dummy half opened its casket door and an arm broke off and fell free much to the delight of the long-haired Russians.

The American entertainer looked out across the expansive outdoor patio and knew that this gig would be a disaster and once word of this got out he would be lucky to get Knott’s Berry Farm.

His eyes roamed to the mountain rising above the club. Well, at least if he was going out he would go out in relative obscurity, he thought. His anger spent at the screwups, he turned and bumped his face directly into a wall that hadn’t been there just a second before when he walked out onto the patio.

“What the—” His voice caught in his throat as he saw nothing but pure black, and his nose, although pressed against something warm, could smell a heavy animalistic musk. His eyes traveled upward and then widened as they saw the yellow glowing orbs with the ring of black around the pupils. Drake took a step back and his eyes grew even wider.

Stanus stood before the failed crooner and watched as if he was nothing more than a mild curiosity. The large head tilted first right, and then left as its ears stayed upright and long. The wolf stood over six and half feet and Drake had to strain his neck to get in the full extent of the creature before him.

“Whoa, now that’s better!” Drake exclaimed as he reached out and touched the thick black fur of Stanus, who took a precautionary step backward. “You really need to be in there instead of those mechanical monstrosities they have malfunctioning everywhere. This is impressive.”

Slowly the long silver-tipped ears of Stanus lowered until they were aligned with its skull and its muscles started to bunch up underneath the thick fur and skin. Then the beast just as quickly closed its eyes and the ears came back up. It was as if the animal were in conflict whether this man was a threat or a joke.

“Well, maybe a little tightening up of the suit here,” Andrews said as he pulled out an inch of skin and fur from the giant animal only a foot away. Stanus growled. “Yeah, other than that, the only thing I can see is to maybe tone down the headlights some.” Drake Andrews patted Stanus on the belly and then stepped around the agitated beast and yelled into the club, “Now this is a prop, and you guys have him stuck out here to scare the tourists, he should be in there!” He smiled as he turned back to his visitor. “Yeah, a little work and you can become pretty convincing…” The last words trailed off as Andrews realized that the actor in the smelly werewolf suit was gone.

The Las Vegas veteran ran to the parapet that surrounded the patio and looked out over the steep crevasse that the castle was built over — nothing. The man had just vanished.

“Figures, one class prop in this whole menagerie and he quits — just great.”

Stanus sprinted downhill after the brief confrontation with the human at the castle. The wolf had the initial impulse to do what it had done on his previous visits to Dracula’s Castle, and that was to rip the man’s throat free of his neck. It was the presence of the traveler that had stopped him from his bloody impulse. The large American inside its head, while it could not stop Stanus from doing what he wanted, could influence and sway him down another path. The Golia had always accepted the spell and the traveler that came with it because the beast had always yearned for more information from the Jeddah.

It had been Carl to ease the animalistic instincts of Stanus when the human had grabbed its fur, which did not hurt him in the least, it was the fact that the beast hated being touched by anything outside the Golia clan. Everett was reading this. In his sleep he felt the path that wound beneath his feet. He had felt the smoothness of the stone patio and even had the sensation of smell. There was one thing though, and Carl knew it could be a serious problem. He was feeling everything, even down to the smashing of pinecones underneath the Golia’s paws as it ran. The sharp pain Stanus didn’t seem to notice, but Carl did. To him that meant if he could feel the smallest thing, he could also feel when the animal was truly hurt or injured. He now knew why Madam Korvesky had a bruised and swollen ankle. It was broken when she had traveled with Mikla. He realized then that this little excursion to the resort could get a little dicey and he surely hoped he could control Stanus enough to avoid getting shot.

Everett had been amazed at how agile and precise Stanus was when he traveled. The beast was as expert at climbing as any ape species. The animal was blindingly fast and had such an efficiency of movement that his gait was like riding in a car with great suspension. The appeal to do this on a regular basis was at the forefront of the captain’s mind.

As Stanus bounded onto a tree the beast stopped and rested as it took in the large and imposing shape of the giant L-shaped hotel and casino. The beast sniffed and Carl then felt the strangest sensation. It was like the animal was reaching into his memories of something and then sniffing for those memories. The Golia grabbed the large tree and the claws went deeply into the wood producing a dark musky odor of pine sap. The deep breaths Stanus was taking brought in so much air that Carl thought the giant wolf would burst, and then when he thought it would, Stanus slowly allowed the air to escape its lungs. Everett was shocked when the eyes shot to the highest section of the hotel and the Golia didn’t move as its glare examined each and every window of the sixth floor.

Before Carl could even realize what was happening, Stanus broke from the tree line and made straight for the resort and the enemies of the Golia.

Madam Korvesky watched Alice for the longest time and she realized the concern the American woman had for the man that was traveling with Stanus. Soon her eyes moved over to Denise, Charlie, and Niles as they were busy examining one of the small pyramids that had been carved out of the stone. The temple had been everything Alice had ever dreamed it would be.

“This was not the time for you to come here, as bad things are about to happen, to this mountain, and possibly to my people.”

“What has changed for the Jeddah after all of these thousands of years, the encroaching world?”

Madam Korvesky laughed and squeezed her hands. “Not the world, it’s never been about the world, nor has it been about the treasure of the Exodus. Not about faith, not about God, not about Israel. No,” she looked up at the gallery high above them and the offspring as they played and fought amongst themselves, “it’s been about them. The protection of the Golia is our only concern, and I have used many despicable tricks in my time to do just that. We have great respect for what the Golia protects make no mistake about that, Mrs. Hamilton. But we will not sacrifice the Golia over what we have kept secret here — never.”

Alice felt the power and conviction of the old woman’s words and realized that indeed the Jeddah had come to a crossroads thanks to Marko drawing attention to the pass and what lies beneath.

“You expected temples of gold and columns made of granite and a gold treasure more vast than a thousand King Tut tombs, am I correct?”

“I rarely thought about the great treasure of the Exodus. And the only time I ever thought about that was when in search of you and them.” She indicated the gallery.

Madam Korvesky nodded her head and then released Alice’s hand. “The mountain belongs to the Golia now and I must see to it they are never, ever disturbed.”

“How do you plan to do that? Do you realize the political forces arrayed against the Jeddah and Golia? Do you know the power used to bring that resort into being? You are not used to modern politics. You now have NATO concerned about the pass. The Golia will have to find a new home eventually.”

A serious and deadly look came over the old woman’s features. “Not if the pass is no longer there to have to defend.”

Alice was about to ask for a clarification when Niles Compton and Denise Gilliam approached. Niles had worry written on his face as he pursed his lips.

“Dr. Gilliam is concerned about the symbiosis that Captain Everett is going through,” he said as he knelt down and examined Madam Korvesky’s ankle. He shook his head and made room for Denise to take a look. Niles stood and faced the Gypsy queen. “The exact same location and injury our very impressive friend Mikla has. You and he were injured in the same incident, weren’t you?” Niles asked as he kept his eyes on the Gypsy.

“Well, I don’t know how you’re coping with it,” Denise said, “but that ankle is broken in not just one, but three different places. How you can withstand the pain you must be experiencing is beyond me.” The doctor waited but there was no explanation forthcoming.

Alice Hamilton knew the answer but waited for Madam Korvesky to answer Dr. Gilliam’s inquiry.

“I put up with it because if I didn’t the infection inside Mikla’s ankle would have taken him to the precipice; I am currently taking the brunt of the infection into myself.”

Denise Gilliam shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest and paced a few steps away, not accepting such magic.

“We will discuss this at another time. Right now we have to see if we can save Mikla. Dr. Gilliam, will you assist me?” Madam Korvesky waited while the color slowly drained from Denise’s face. “The three of you also,” she said looking from Alice to Niles and Charlie Ellenshaw.

“All of us?” Alice asked, excitement lacing her words.

“Mikla is quite ill and will die within the hour if we don’t get in there and fix things.” She reached out and took Denise by the hand and pulled her closer to the dais. “This will be harder on you than anyone. Well,” she said with a sad shake of her head, “almost anybody. To be honest,” she said as she allowed the doctor’s hand to slide through her own, “I am very happy an American doctor is among us. Sometimes I think those old ladies in the village don’t care for me all that much, and I would rather have a steady hand helping me do what it is I have to do.”

Niles and Alice exchanged looks of discomfort and Denise Gilliam was flat-out white-faced as she realized what the plan was.

“And what is it you have to do to make Mikla better?” Alice asked.

Madam Korvesky gave Alice a sad smile in return and then stroked the black fur of the giant Golia once more.

“We will have to remove the offending break from Mikla’s leg. Dr. Gilliam will have to amputate.”

All eyes went to the wolf lying on the dais. Mikla was breathing harshly and his tongue was lying outside his mouth.

“Will he survive the procedure?” Charlie asked, genuinely concerned for Mikla.

“Mikla will survive,” she said as she looked down upon Mikla with tears in her old eyes. “But without a hind foot his life will be far shorter than the rest of the Golia. He will not be shunned by the other Golia, but Mikla would eventually wander away from the temple and die among the mountain. A Golia cannot survive without the ability to climb and run.”

Every face was saddened.

“Now I must prepare the spell and the potion, we have little time.”

“I had better get Mikla’s ankle cleaned up as much as possible so I can at least see what I’m doing,” Denise said as she nervously wrung her hands while looking at the great wolf before her.

“Mikla is fine, leave him be,” Madam Korvesky said as she started to stand with the aid of the cane. Niles and Charlie ran to her side and assisted her to her one good leg. She smiled and nodded her thanks at the two men. “It’s me you have to prepare for.”

“I don’t understand,” Denise said.

Niles and Alice figured it out first.

“Mikla would never be able to survive the surgery,” Madam Korvesky said as he looked at Denise. “There is too much damage and we were a little late getting to him. My injury is purely, although realistically, in my mind. I have no real physical damage to my ankle. Oh, it looks that way but my mind only made it seem so.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I felt the breaks in that leg.”

Madam Korvesky only smiled.

“Denise, she is saying that her wound is not actually infected and the break is only an illusion — a powerful one, but one that the brain can produce all on its own. Since Mikla’s damage is severe she is saying we will bypass repairing the damage done to Mikla and go to the safer route — thus maintaining the life expectancy of the wolf.”

“You have totally lost me,” Denise said. Even though she knew what Niles was talking about she wanted someone to come out and say it directly.

“Mikla’s is not the foot and ankle you’re amputating, Doctor,” Alice said as she took Madam Korvesky’s hand and along with Niles and Charlie moved off to the small hut where Carl was sleeping and being watched by Anya.

“It is mine you’re cutting off, Dr. Gilliam, not Mikla’s.”

Ryan ran his eyes over the double-paned glass and shook his head. He turned and faced Collins and Pete. Sarah was busy running her experiments on one of the expansive suite tables. Thus far they had only been checked on four times in the past three hours by Zallas and his men. Ryan walked up to Jack.

“Sealed. Hell, we would make so much noise they’d think the second invasion of Normandy was taking place in here if we tried to break through it.”

“The sun is starting to come up, maybe we should wait and try to find an opportunity when they feed us,” Sarah said as she jotted down some notes on the hotel’s stationery concerning the strange and growing vibrations coming from the ground and the mountain beyond. She shook her head and bit on her lower lip.

“Well, what good news have you got to share with us?” Jack asked as he finally turned away from trying to find some way out of the massive, well-appointed presidential suite where they were being held prisoner.

“We have an increase in vibratory influences raising at increments that leave little doubt that the earth movement is not only continuing but increasing.” She once more bit on her lower lip, a habit that Jack usually loved because it meant Sarah was in deep concentration and once that happened it was hard to get her to answer questions.

“And that means?” Collins asked, leaning over until his face was in line with her vision.

“Jack, all I can say is that something bad is going to happen. I suspect its origins are up there,” she pointed out of the giant ten-foot plate glass window that looked out onto the castle and the mountain high above the hotel, “or right here under our feet.”

“How long?” Pete asked, wishing he had access to Europa. She would make the guesstimates they were producing at the moment irrelevant and would provide the exact time and place of any seismic event. But Sarah knew her business and if she said there was going to be a problem, Pete believed there was going to be a problem.

“Who knows, I don’t know what the parameters here are without an extensive look at that geological report and the hydro-strata findings.” She looked at the others in the room one face at a time. “Look, guys, this place could fall into the bowels of the earth at any time. I mean anytime.”

“Jesus, suddenly this fun little excursion into Romania looking for fairy tales and antiquities thieves has become a little more serious than we realized.” Jack turned and looked out at the darkness of the predawn and shook his head. He and Ryan could just open the door to the suite and eliminate anyone who was in the hallway, but what good would that do? They had to wait and allow Alice and Niles to get what they needed at the mountain and then return and get them out of here, because right now they had absolutely zero options. Jack turned and looked at the others. “Recommendations?”

“We don’t have a choice but to allow Zallas to make the next move,” Ryan volunteered. “He and that asshole Colonel Ben-Nevin will eventually make a play for the temple, that much we know. But when will they make the attempt and then how do we warn the people up in the pass so they can defend against them?”

Jack knew Ryan voiced correctly the two serious questions facing them. He turned and paced away toward the large living room of the suite and then sat on the edge of the sofa and lowered his head in thought.

“Colonel?” came the voice of Pete Golding.

Jack didn’t respond at first. He kept his head lowered and was thinking of the most surefire way to get Niles and Alice, or at the very least Mr. Everett, word that the village and the pass at Patinas would be under serious threat in the next twenty-four hours.

“Colonel Collins?”

“Oh, shit!” came the startled voice of Ryan.

“Jack, I think the fairy-tale aspect of the mission you just mentioned just reared its ugly head,” Sarah said as the room became deathly still and quiet.

Colonel Jack Collins, United States Army and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, slowly stood, turned, and faced in the direction of Sarah, Pete, and Ryan as they stared at the large plate glass window. Suddenly all of the old wives’ tales and stories invented to scare the little children of the world was at the window and looking at them. For the first time in the storied career of Jack Collins he allowed his mouth to go slack and he felt his stomach do a back flip as his eyes met those of a true and very much real Golia.

“My God,” Sarah said as she wanted to move but felt her feet glued to the floor. It was if the giant beast was holding them in place with just a look.

The wolf was looking in through the left side of the large window and that told Jack and Ryan that the beast was hanging off the stone wall of the hotel with no handgrips other than the claws on its hands and feet. True mountain climbers, he thought. The animal watched them with its yellow, piercing eyes. The ears flicked once, twice, three times as it looked from face to face. The mouth came partially open and that was when Pete, who was standing closest to the window, saw the gleaming white teeth and impressive strength of the Golia’s jaw. He took an involuntary step away from the glass.

The beast growled and the four heard the deep and booming baritone as the glass shook. The animal looked again from face to face and then finally settled on Jack, who, unlike Pete, took a few tentative steps toward the window. This made the beast react even more as it released one of its handholds and then held the open palm toward the glass.

“I may be crazy, but I don’t think it wants you to get any closer,” Sarah said as she went back a full step.

Collins couldn’t help but smile as he examined the large digits of the animal. The claws were as long and as strong as any natural defense he had seen in nature. The fingers and thumb were articulate, and the hand, although humanlike, still held the wolf quality that had been shown in movies for more than a half century. He smiled even wider as he realized that everything that Alice had said about this beast was true. It was spectacular.

As they watched, Stanus reached out and placed his hand on the cold glass. With the double panes they saw the outer one bend in and at that time, and they would all report it later, the animal seemed to smile. The hand came away and then they all were shocked beyond words when the Golia, with the use of only one securing hand, swung away from the hotel and dangled in front of the large window. Jack and Ryan saw the bunched muscles and knew without further examination that this animal had to be one of the strongest land creatures in the world. Collins estimated the Golia to be no less than eight hundred pounds.

Suddenly the Golia spread the fingers of its right hand wide and held it to the glass and then that strange turn-up at the corners of the wolf’s mouth occurred again just as if the joke was on the people standing stunned inside the hotel suite. As they watched in shock the animal raised its hand and brought it up to its thick, curled brow and then the hand went up, paused as if it were shading its eyes, and then smiled even wider making Jack freeze. Then they all witnessed as the yellow glowing eyes dimmed for the briefest of moments, so minuscule was the change that they would all wonder later if it had happened at all. The yellow actually changed to blue, and then almost as quickly back to the yellow color of the blazing sun. The hand came to the window one last time and then one claw appeared and was placed against the outer pane of the weatherproof glass. The single claw and its sharpened tip scratched the window and before their astonished faces the number 6 appeared. Then the beast fell away.

The room was absolutely still and silent. Every face was turned to the window and the number 6 that had been scratched there. The personnel of the most secretive agency in the American government and members of teams that had countless excursions into the world’s most bizarre situations and members of a Group that found amazing elements about the real world and people that were hard to scare, continued to stand in shock. Pete leaned against the wall and then allowed his knees to buckle as he slid down into a sitting position.

“As much as I love Alice Hamilton, and as brilliant as I know she is, I really thought she was nuts on this one,” Pete said as his eyes went back to the now empty space at the window. “But that, boys and girls, was no wolf species that was ever found in the fossil record.”

“Why should it be,” Sarah said as she finally forced herself to turn away from the window. “It’s a Golia, just as Alice has said all along.”

Ryan slowly turned and was about to say something and then stopped. He instead went over to the large bar and poured himself a small shot of whiskey and then downed it. He was used to all sorts of danger, as most ex-fighter jocks were. But to face something like that with only a few millimeters of glass between you and a myth that could not possibly exist really placed a crimp in Ryan’s self-image of being unafraid of most things.

“What is it, Mr. Ryan?” Jack asked, knowing exactly what the naval aviator had seen. He had seen the same thing and was wondering if he was slowly losing his ability to interpret what he was seeing correctly.

Ryan slid the small shot glass so hard down the bar that it hit a bottle and nearly shattered it, bouncing off the bottle and onto the floor.

“You’ll think I’m nuts,” he said as he tried his best to avoid the eyes of Sarah and Jack. Pete was still ensconced in staring at the large window.

“Well, then we’re all heading for the insane asylum because I think I saw what you did,” Sarah said. “Jack?”

Collins smiled and then joined Ryan at the bar and figured he could allow himself one on-duty drink — after all, how many times do you actually see a werewolf at your window and know for a fact that it was real? He poured himself a shot and then quickly drank it. He set the glass down and smiled.

“You mean when the Big Bad Wolf changed its eye color to one that matched Captain Everett’s perfectly, or was it the fact that the damn thing saluted me?”

Pete Golding looked over at Jack, who poured himself a second shot and sipped at first, and then finished the whiskey.

“You mean the captain is—”

“Yes, I think that was Carl and he’s…” Collins laughed and then poured a third shot, thought a moment and then pushed it away shaking his head in wonder. Pete lowered his head and said the words that Collins couldn’t.

“He’s a werewolf?”

“Oh, man, this is way too much, way too fast. You mean this thing Alice has been talking about is actually real. I mean, a Lost Tribe of Israel, all right, yeah, sure, I can buy that, after everything we’ve seen the past few years, no problem. But the captain a werewolf? Okay, I have to really consider quitting this job.”

The mission was taking a turn they never really believed could happen.

“Well, it proves one thing,” Sarah said as she walked over and picked up the shot glass that Jack had sent flying off the bar and then placed it back near the colonel and placed a hand over the lip.

“And what’s that?” Jack asked eyeing the glass and the hand over it.

“Operation Grimm,” she said and then finally smirked and looked at Ryan, Pete, and then back at Collins. “Alice was damn near perfect in naming her Event, wasn’t she?”

The question went unanswered as the morning broke on the day of the grand opening of Dracula’s Castle, and the last night of the Jeddah.

17

Carl had felt the beast stiffen and fight against his suggestion of contact with Jack and the others. Everett had not known if the Golia would allow him to manipulate his body control long enough to give Collins the heads-up. He did manage to see the astonished faces of his friends through the double-paned window and knew that either they saw the signs he had given them or they had just been too shocked to see an actual Golia that they hadn’t registered anything from Stanus other than the enormous teeth and muscled body. But Carl knew the whole experience had been worth it when, for the first time in the many years he had known Colonel Jack Collins he saw the man actually take a step back from a situation and his eyes widening. It would make for great conversation in the complex mess hall.

Stanus was running at full speed up the side of the mountain, as if the large brain of the animal knew something was happening up at the pass and the Golia needed to be there. Carl was trying to see what the Golia was seeing but only succeeded in bringing the animal to a complete stop a mile past the castle. The sun was up and the morning rays were being diffused by the large storm slowly coming up from the south. Stanus shook his head while staying on all fours. Everett felt the animal start to fight him. The beast continued to shake its massive head hard enough that saliva was starting to fly from the growling mouth. Suddenly in his sleep state Carl felt his stomach heave, once, twice, and then a third time.

Stanus struggled to get to his hind legs, and using one of the large pine trees for support raised its muzzle to the morning sky and let loose a howl that frightened the man inside the head of the giant wolf. The large, thick, purple-colored claws dug into the bark and tore loose a four-foot section of the tree as Stanus struggled to get Everett out of its head. The beast hit the ground and rolled. The activity was forcing Carl to place every ounce of his sleeping mind into calming Stanus. Anya had said that a Golia can only be hitchhiked on for sometimes as little as five minutes before it will start to become uncooperative about hosting the traveler.

Carl felt the sensation of the animal’s being start to fade from his vision as Stanus not only hit the ground hard and rolled, but the animal was actually shaking its head as if that alone could shake loose the stranger that was inside it. Suddenly Everett felt the power of the Golia ebb into nothingness as his strength left his body. He no longer could feel Stanus around him. He could no longer feel the raw emotion of the animal and knew that the spell was done. His mind seemed to tumble as the power of the wolf left and did not return. His body was deflated, his mind now putting out useless information of confusing thoughts and animalistic rage.

Captain Carl Everett’s time as a werewolf was over.

Carl thrashed and rolled half on and half off the old Army cot. His arm flew off and hit the stone floor. Madam Korvesky had just been brought in and laid upon a hardwood bed that was higher than the cot Everett was on. The old woman reached out and took Anya by the hand and stilled her from going to Everett.

“No, girl-child, let him come to the surface on his own, do not interfere, you know better than that.”

“But Stanus has dislodged him completely; he’s never done that before.”

The old woman smiled and then lay back on the wooden table just as Niles and Charlie Ellenshaw walked inside. Niles held up the large black bag and showed it to a very nervous and angry Denise Gilliam. She nodded her head and then gestured for Niles and Charlie to enter.

“Stay close, I’m going to need you two.”

Ellenshaw exchanged an uneasy look with Niles Compton, who knew what the doctor was going to ask.

On the cot Everett finally vomited onto the floor of the small stone enclosure. The red substance spewed onto the stone blocks and then when he thought he had most of the souring potion out of his stomach it heaved once more and then the last of the poisonous fluid finally convulsed from his stomach. Anya wrested her hand from her grandmother’s and hurried to Carl’s side and with the aid of Niles and Charlie lifted Everett back to the cot.

“That is worse than waking up the morning after a Shanghai drinking binge,” Carl said as he squeezed his eyes closed against the flare of the several torches that lined the walls. He blinked and saw that an electric light had been strung into the small hut and was focused on the table next to his bed. Anya held Carl’s hand for the longest time as his mind attempted to come back fully into his head.

“Stanus has shown you the ability of the wolf, and now you will pay for that,” Anya said and placed a hand on his forehead and then wiped off the gleaming beads of sweat.

“Captain, did you find out the disposition of your people at the resort?” Madam Korvesky asked.

“I … think I did … hell, now I’m not too sure.”

Anya smiled as she looked down at him and then worried over his lack of color. The spell had taken far more out of Carl than she realized it would. She now knew that the strength Everett was using to hold the mental link with Stanus had proven far too much for the large American. He was now exhausted and there wasn’t anything he could do now but rest.

“What is happening here?”

They all turned to see Marko Korvesky standing in the doorway. Two large Gypsy men were on either side of the smaller Marko and all looked angry.

“Grandmother, you know bringing them in here is strictly forbidden by Jeddah law.”

The small laugh from the old woman made Marko cringe as he took in the face of his sister as she stood over the American.

“And it looks as if this man has been traveling.” He looked down at his grandmother with an angry expression. “Did you order this?”

“Yes, and now I have orders for you, man-child,” she said as Denise started prepping her swollen ankle and leg for the impromptu surgery. “A storm is coming,” she said, finally looking at Marko. “Tonight you will see your fondest wish fulfilled, my grandson: you will prove your worth and become king of the Gypsies, and join the long line of Jeddah going all the way back to Kale Al-Saul.”

Marko and Anya were both shocked at the statement.

“The future of our people and of the Golia will be in your hands, Marko, in the next few hours. Many Golia and Jeddah will not be seeing the dawn after this coming night.”

Marko looked back at Anya, who was watching the exchange while holding the American’s hand. It looked as if she were struggling with his grandmother’s decision.

“Do you plan on cutting off my grandmother’s ankle or Mikla’s?” he asked the doctor as she brushed past him with a pan of water that Ellenshaw had retrieved from the mineral hot springs that spewed forth the steamy liquid from deep beneath the mountain. She stopped and stared angrily at the arrogant man.

“Your grandmother needs to be in a hospital,” Denise said as she handed Niles Compton the bowl of water. “I don’t have the right equipment and the sanitary conditions are off the scale in here. I’ve got dust and dirt falling from a three-thousand-year-old ceiling and I’m performing major surgery on a woman in her eighties when her grandson could place her in one of those broken-down pieces of crap you people drive and get her to a real facility where they can treat her!”

Niles saw that Denise was close to losing it. He was asking too much of a medical doctor to suspend her belief long enough and actually cut off the old woman’s lower leg to save another that a scalpel would never touch. He stepped up to her and gestured outward by holding the pan of water. Denise nodded and understood that she had just lost it. She gestured for the director to place the water at the head of the table. Denise reached into her bag and brought out a small bottle of morphine and then looked at Madam Korvesky. Denise halfheartedly smiled, shook her head, and then started arranging her instruments.

“Do you think my grandmother would listen to me?” Marko asked. He sniffed and huffed. “If she is choosing Mikla over herself so be it. She hurt herself by being secretive about her plans when all of this could have been avoided by naming me the heir many years ago.” He stepped closer to the table and looked down upon the old woman. “Now we will do things my way,” he said and then shocked everyone by leaning over and kissing her on the forehead.

“You are not king yet, man-child, I have one last task for you.”

Denise slowly pushed a syringe into the small brown bottle and then looked at Niles and shook her head in anger. She knew the old woman could not survive the amputation, she was just too old and the infection had spread too far. Her fate would be the same as Mikla’s, only Mikla would die before the surgery was completed. Denise eased the needle into the old woman’s arm and then she locked eyes with Marko.

“Say your good-byes, because your grandmother has chosen suicide over common sense.” Denise angrily threw the needle against the far wall of the room. Charlie Ellenshaw eased over to the young doctor and placed his arm around her.

Marko ignored the indignant American doctor and returned his attention to Madam Korvesky as her eyes started to settle into a far more relaxed state.

“Go to your new friends at the resort and have them release the Americans.” The Gypsy queen ordered her grandson as she allowed her eyes to flutter shut as the morphine was starting to take effect. “Explain to your partner that if this is done, he will be rewarded in the ways of avarice. The trinkets you have delivered to him are nothing compared to what the Gypsy queen is prepared to give him for the favor of releasing the Americans.”

“I do not have to ask, I will order their release.” Marko once more leaned over and spoke directly into his grandmother’s ear. “After that, the Jeddah will begin a new life, one we deserve. Do you understand me, Grandmamma?”

She lightly patted his hand as she started to slide into unconsciousness. “You will be king so you will be able to do anything you want. Now go and free the Americans, they will not want to be at the resort after the day ends tomorrow night.”

The last words were nearly unintelligible as Marko allowed her to sleep. He closed his eyes and said a small prayer for the woman that raised him, one that he respected and loved like no other, but also one that he had always feared as being the one who would always make the hard choices and decisions. That was something Marko himself hoped he had inside of him.

Suddenly Marko’s demeanor changed completely. He turned to Anya and then looked down at the American.

“These people must be gone from Patinas tomorrow.” He looked from Niles to the faces of the others. He stopped at Denise and then said, “Please help my grandmother, I would not want to see her go out this way.”

“Listen to me, you little backwoods jerk, I’ll do what it is I—”

“Doctor!” Niles said louder than he had intended.

Denise cut off her angry reply and then just shook her head.

“I will gather my men and we will pay our partner a visit, have lunch, and wish him well on his grand opening of his ridiculous castle. Then I will order your friends released. Then you will leave Romania and never return. This mountain is not yours.”

They all watched Marko leave the room, quickly followed by the two large men, who hesitantly patted their friend on the back at his new honor.

“Well, we have little time, her fever is up to a hundred and five degrees. We have to remove that leg now.”

As Marko climbed the large staircase he stopped and looked back down to the four village women who stood silently around Mikla in the center of the temple. His eyes traveled up to the gallery high above and saw that every single one of the Golia young were lined up and watching Mikla. Marko then turned with a smile and started outside.

As one, the Golia started howling as Mikla yelped and started growling as the amputation had started.

With the pain-filled howl of the sleeping Golia echoing inside the lost Temple of Moses, the last twenty-four hours of the ancient tribe of Jeddah were about to begin.

Denise Gilliam fought for one solid hour to remove the shattered lower right leg of Madam Korvesky. The blood loss had been tremendous. Dr. Gilliam was amazed at how the old woman seemed to control not only the pain, but also the flow of her own blood. At first Denise was willing to chalk the strange ability up to a fluke, but she was now convinced that Madam Korvesky actually managed to control the speed at which her heart was operating. That told Denise that the Jeddah had more than just unusual control of their minds, but of their bodies as well. It would be later that Denise, Alice, Charlie, and Niles would conclude that the Jeddah had the ability to not only control the Golia to a point, but also the physical and metaphysical world around them. They thus came to the conclusion that the rumors of vampires, werewolves, and other strange in the Carpathians were the kind of stuff that made legend seem like fact.

As the surgery was taking place, Niles and Charlie Ellenshaw stayed as close to Mikla as they dared. Several of the village’s biggest men-folk had managed to slip restraining ropes around Mikla to hold him to the stone dais. The ropes had been passed around the eight-hundred-pound beast several times because the men of Patinas knew what it would take to restrain one of nature’s most tenacious killers.

Mikla had calmed down when Madam Korvesky was given the morphine injection by Dr. Gilliam. One minute Mikla was snapping and snarling at the men around it and the next the bright yellow eyes became dull and the great Golia listless. The men still kept their distance. It was crazy Charlie and later he would admit to being pressured by the bravery of Ellenshaw that pushed him to follow the nutty cryptozoologist toward the now still yet perceptive animal. Charlie’s eyes were fixed firmly on the dais and the ankle of the Golia. Compton wrung his hands together as he too watched the wolf for the reaction that they knew was coming.

“I’ve always heard of remote healing, Niles, but never remote healing with a pinch hitter before. I mean to take the leg of someone who wasn’t actually injured, only psychosomatically, and that removal of the offending limb is supposed to heal the actual injury that occurred to another entity — amazing.”

Niles looked at Ellenshaw, who was excited at what was happening since they entered the temple. Compton, as was his habit, always watched and then calculated his opinions. And thus far the director of Department 5656 wasn’t completely satisfied that Madam Korvesky could be trusted. Her sudden turnaround on the appointment of her grandson, Marko, spoke of a plan that Niles had yet to figure out. It was like the old woman had become tired of the struggle and surrendered the leadership of the tribe of Jeddah to Marko and not the better-equipped Anya.

Charlie looked from Mikla to Niles and then at the four men standing around but still far away from Mikla. Charlie gulped and then placed a hand near the break in the beast’s right lower leg. The wound was swollen and Ellenshaw could clearly see the break in the bone. One bend was larger than the others but he still counted three separate breaks. He shook his head as the odor hit him. He turned back to Compton with a sad shake to the head.

“Gangrene has set in; Mikla’s whole leg has gone bad.” Charlie removed his glasses and closed his eyes. “There is no way this wolf can survive. Even I cannot believe in this … this—”

“Magic?” Niles said, cutting off Ellenshaw’s logical conclusion.

“Okay, I’m glad you said and I didn’t. I would have—”

That was as far as Ellenshaw got in his explanation when Mikla suddenly strained at the offending restraining ropes. The beast thrashed and twisted, threatening to rip the thick ropes holding it down. The mouth opened and spittle flew and then the loudest howl any human had ever heard shattered the interior of the temple.

Compton and the men from Patinas saw them first. The adult Golia were everywhere. Whatever strange mission the adults had been on was clearly not a priority for them today as they were all streaming down the steep walls of the temple, coming from someplace only the Golia knew. They came down headfirst, sideways, and backward, each holding on to the rough-hewn walls of the temple. They were all coming to Mikla’s aid. The four men of Patinas knew it was time to leave. They sprinted from the center of the temple, leaving a startled Charlie and Niles to watch their retreating forms. Compton looked from the running men to the flailing body of Mikla thrashing on the stone table.

“I think we better follow suit and get the hell out of here,” Niles said as he grabbed Ellenshaw by the arm and started pulling him away from the injured wolf. Just as Charlie nodded that he thought Niles’s assessment of the situation was spot-on, they both turned and saw Stanus standing at the bottom of the stone steps leading to the outside. The Golia was standing with one arm raised and holding the wall for support. The claws had actually dug into the stone. The animal was breathing hard and staring at the two Americans.

“You know what, Mr. Director? I don’t think he looks all that happy and I suspect that the captain is no longer a passenger aboard that particular thrill ride.”

Niles couldn’t answer as he felt the other adult Golia start to settle onto the floor of the expansive temple complex. There were at least a thousand of the amazing wolves. The males ranged in weight from a few hundred pounds to close to a thousand as they walked on all fours toward the dais where Mikla was thrashing horribly. One by one the Golia took up station in a circle around the injured Mikla. For the moment Niles and Charlie were ignored, but Compton figured that would last only as long as Stanus allowed it to. Still, the alpha male watched. Its breathing was calming somewhat but the animal was still clearly angry at having been host to a stranger.

Suddenly Stanus strode with a purpose toward Niles and Ellenshaw. The beast came close to a large stone block and angrily swiped at the ten-by-ten slab. As they watched in amazement only feet from their own deaths, Compton and Ellenshaw saw a large chunk of the stone fly off and strike the wall. With a single blow the angry leader of the wolf pack had shattered solid stone. Compton was near to closing his eyes when Mikla let out a howl that sent shivers down the director’s spine. It even made him forget the immediate threat of Stanus and turn to look at Mikla. At the same moment Stanus stopped and stared as the other adult Golia, covered in mud and filth, started to repeat Mikla’s painful howl.

As they watched, the ankle of the great wolf popped and straightened. Mikla screamed in absolute pain. The center rope restraining him snapped with an audible twang as the two halves separated. The Golia thrashed and growled. Stanus raised his muzzle to the ceiling and let loose a blood-curdling howl that made Charlie cover his ears. At the same moment the other adult Golia and then the offspring high above started howling. The noise was deafening as the healing of Mikla continued. Compton could only wonder at what the old woman was enduring for the sake of the animal she had sent to protect Anya.

Before anything could be figured out by the two men from the Event Group, Mikla screamed in utter pain. The body stiffened and the animal rolled onto its back and the legs went straight into the air. The large mouth opened and they saw the amazing whiteness of the teeth as a howl of pain came through with not a sound. Then Mikla’s body went limp. Charlie winced as he realized the pain of the spell of healing had been just too much for Mikla, and Ellenshaw was starting to suspect that things didn’t go well inside for Madam Korvesky.

Stanus stood before the two men with its yellow eyes bearing down upon them.

With Niles and Charlie watching in stunned and terrified silence, Mikla suddenly tore free of the remaining ropes that held him down. He slashed with his claws and with his teeth until the ropes were in tatters around the dais. The giant wolf sprang from the table and landed on all fours. The rear right ankle looked as if it had never been injured. Charlie felt his will to advance science was at stake as he took a tentative step toward Mikla as it stood watching the men and shaking its head to clear it of the painkillers that had been given it by Dr. Gilliam. In response to Ellenshaw’s bravery, Mikla roared in anger and then stood on two legs. The right hand bunched into a fist and then it came down on the stone dais. The enormous block of stone cracked but stayed intact.

Stanus moved before either man could realize what was happening. The giant beast jumped over Niles and Charlie and stood between them and the newly revived Mikla. Then without another sound all the other Golia vanished up the walls. Mikla stayed behind as did Stanus. Then even Mikla, with a last look at the stone hut where the surgery was taking place, sprang away into the flickering light of the torches. Stanus stayed.

“Uh oh,” Ellenshaw said as Stanus looked directly at them. The claws of both hands were clicking together at the animal’s sides as it took a malice-filled step toward the two men.

“Stanus, that’s enough!”

The voice of Anya coming from behind froze the beast as it slowly turned its head to the woman who stopped its actions. Niles and Charlie could clearly see that Stanus was growing very tired of listening to orders. As the two men looked out the corners of their eyes they saw Anya standing in the doorway with Carl Everett beside her. He had an arm around the Gypsy princess and looked weaker than anyone could ever recall seeing him. He was haggard but his eyes still held the deep blue and they could see that he had survived the spell.

“Go with the babies, Stanus. Go!” Anya shouted angrily. The night and morning were taking a toll on her.

Stanus turned and walked with purpose toward Anya and Everett. Charlie took a step forward but Niles held him back. Whatever was going to happen to Anya and Carl there wasn’t anything either Niles or Ellenshaw could do about it. The beast tossed Anya aside and then snatched Everett off the floor until the large Navy man’s feet were dangling three feet off the stone.

“Stanus, no!” Anya shouted and as she did the ears of the beast lay down as it started to raise its right hand into the air for a decisive swipe into Everett’s tired and haggard face. Anya tried to seize the right leg of Stanus to get its attention away from Carl, but the beast ignored her.

“Stanus, come,” came a weak voice from the room. “Stanus, come to me.”

The Golia froze. The hand was still in the air and the sharpened claws were only a foot away from ending the captain’s life when the ears came up.

Niles felt he understood what was happening. The animal had been afraid that Madam Korvesky had died and that was why it was in a killing mood. That coupled with the betrayal felt by Stanus by Carl’s traveling with it, had made the animal barely controllable.

Stanus let Everett slide through its fingers as it turned and ran into the hut. Moments later the Golia stepped from the enclosure where Madam Korvesky was lying in a drug-induced weariness and looked at the two men and Anya. Everett was still on the ground looking up at the wolf he had been running within only recently. The beast suddenly reached down and snatched Everett off the floor and then brought him to its face. The beast sniffed, once, twice, and then a third time. It allowed Carl to slide through its fingers and then the Golia vanished just as the others had done. The temple was now as silent as a tomb.

Niles and Charlie ran to Carl and Anya and they assisted them to their feet. Carl was shaken and Anya was mad.

“The Golia are getting too hard to control. I’ve never seen Stanus and the others acting like this. Where are the adults disappearing to and why in the hell are they so filthy?” she asked herself out loud as she walked over and picked up one of the torn ropes and looked it over.

“How is your grandmother?” Niles asked as he finally got his shaking under control.

Anya looked at Compton and then tossed the frayed rope away as she helped Carl over to the dais where he leaned heavily against the stone.

“She will be dead by midnight. She gave her life for Mikla.”

Denise Gilliam walked out of the room and threw herself onto the stone floor and swiped at the sweat on her face and forehead. She was shaking her head. She looked up at Anya.

“She wouldn’t be so weak if we had gotten her to a hospital. Hell, we can still save her if we move now,” she said, pleading with Anya.

“My grandmother has made her choice. She will live until this is settled, and then she will go the way of Kale, of Joshua, and of Moses.”

“I cannot believe you, you are an educated woman. We can save her.”

“No, Doctor, we cannot. This night has been foretold since Joshua. It has been foretold since the time of the Exodus. We either live after tonight, or we go the way the Golia were always meant to go, to extinction. My grandmother’s life will ensure their survival.”

“You are all insane,” Denise said, standing and turning to check on her dying patient. “And you, Director Compton, are guilty of backward thinking just as much as the Jeddah.”

“We don’t have a right to interfere,” Niles started to explain but stopped. He lowered his head. “Tonight the Jeddah pass into history.”

Stanus allowed its anger to be placated by his claws sinking deeply into the stone wall of the temple as it leaped from the ground to the twenty-foot mark of the wall. It hesitated as its claws sought purchase in the porous rock. Small jets of steam escaped the stone where the deep, purple-hued daggers sank deeply. Stanus thrust forward with its hind legs, clearing the stone by inches as it leaped another thirty feet, and then the long, strong fingers and toes found purchase once again. Then it repeated the climbing maneuver until it sprang onto the gallery shelf where the young Golia crowded around the alpha male, who snapped, slapped, and pushed the smaller wolves away as it went to all fours after landing.

Stanus shook its head as its eyes looked around at the young. Their parents had vanished once more after their initial curiosity over the fate of Mikla had been satisfied. Stanus turned and looked down into the temple and saw the man being helped to the dais by Anya. The wolf was feeling more confused than ever at the appearance of the strangers. For a reason the beast could not fathom the Jeddah queen had taken them in and by the way her thoughts met his told it that she trusted these humans where the Golia feared them. Stanus had been confused by the man that had traveled with it. At first the Golia hated the intrusion of a mind it did not know. Nor could it ever fully understand the dimensions and deepness of the man that had been inside its head. The human was like Stanus himself and that was odd for an outsider. However, he had the feeling that the man and his companions were here to determine the fate of the Golia — and that was not understood. The difference between the spell making with Marko was the fact that although Stanus knew Marko, he never fully trusted the man prince. On a more unstable note to the Golia was the fact that the human tonight eased Stanus to the point where it allowed the traveler to see and feel it. This man was trusted among his own, and the difference between him and Marko was what was confusing Stanus.

The alpha male stood and slowly rose to both feet and then sniffed the air. It stopped and ran until it cleared the young and then went to all fours as it started to run even faster for the very highest point of the temple structure. The many holes that had been dug in the past year were evident throughout the upper reaches. Hundreds of holes the size of small doorways dotted the walls. The darkness in this area was as if bright daylight in the night vision of the Golia. Stanus pushed through one of these and ran down the length of a Golia-dug tunnel.

Stanus traveled the excavation for two miles until it reached a chamber where it opened wide enough for a thousand of the Golia. Stanus broke into the open and ran for a strange-looking object that ran the entire length of the chamber. Several more of the long, rounded objects protruded from the stone. The chamber was five hundred feet high and as many long. It had taken the wolves nearly a full year to reach the spot that Madam Korvesky had put into their minds almost eighteen months before.

Stanus was joined by Mikla. The once injured wolf sniffed Stanus up the length of his brother’s body. Stanus allowed this. Mikla was not much smaller than Stanus but the alpha weighed almost a quarter more than its little sibling. Once the greeting was done, Stanus and Mikla rose to their hind legs and then resumed their digging just as the other Golia adults were doing. Every once in a while growling was heard as the wolves struggled with the pile-driven steel.

The steel-reinforced anchor pins of Dracula’s Castle were now fully exposed and the anchors’ foundations was crumbling far faster than in previous days and months. The strange vibration Sarah was trying desperately to get a handle on was increasing as the enormous anchor pins started to give way.

Castle Dracula was being undermined from the mountain itself by the deteriorating hold that the anchor pins had on the cracked and worn rock it was attached to.

A thousand animals began to dig out from around the massive steel pins in their continued undermining of the engineered foundation.

The new and very much improved Castle Dracula was doomed long before the first guests hit the dance floor.

Madam Korvesky was lying on the cot after Denise had finished with the procedure. The morphine drip she managed to handle with her minimal equipment made Niles proud of the young MD as she went about the field amputation on the eighty-eight-year-old woman.

“Young miss, I would like to thank you for giving me the extra time I needed.”

Denise Gilliam threw down a bloodstained towel and then braced herself against the old and worn table her instruments had been placed on. She pushed the offending stainless steel utensils off the table where they crashed to the floor and then lowered her head as she cried. Without saying anything the very tired and angry doctor turned and left the enclosure.

Alice, who was sitting next to Madam Korvesky on a small stool, knew they had asked Denise to do too much. Doctors become angry when patients think they know more than they do. And Dr. Gilliam was angry knowing she had just killed an old woman for no other apparent reason than the belief she would save the injured wolf, even after Niles had explained that the strange trade-off had worked as Mikla had bounded away after being on death’s door.

“I must speak with you,” Madam Korvesky said as she raised her head off the makeshift pillow made up of two worn blankets, “and you, Keeper of Secrets,” she said first to Alice and then Niles, who walked over to the small cot.

“I do not expect you to understand the ways of the Jeddah and the Golia. To tell you the truth we have not understood ourselves for so long that we have become lost. Today you will learn the secret of the Jeddah tribe and why we settled here in these mountains and why our mission here thirty-five hundred years ago was one of survival. You will learn of the secret, but you will never leave here with it. It all ends here, tonight. If what I believe is going to happen, indeed comes to pass, this will all be gone by sunup tomorrow. You will take the truth to your place of secrets and there you will have the knowledge that we choose no longer to have.”

“We do not understand,” Alice said as she held the woman’s hand.

Madam Korvesky tried her best to laugh but the constant throb of her missing right foot and ankle kept her from it.

“The treasure of the Exodus will be the reason the Temple of Moses will fall by the hand of the unbeliever.”

“If we can get down to the resort we can get the authorities here,” Niles started to say.

Madam Korvesky held a hand up. “Bring in the Man from the Sea,” she asked Niles, who went to the door and vanished momentarily.

Two minutes later a weary Carl Everett stepped into the enclosure where he had been just five hours before. Alice smiled up at the captain and he nodded. Anya stepped in behind him and placed an arm around his waist and helped guide him into the room.

“Who can understand the ways of the ancient world better than the traveler who has experienced it?”

Carl was confused as he looked from the dying woman to her granddaughter.

“You have seen your companions?” she asked in an increasingly weary voice.

“Yes, I think they are being held against their will. I’m sure about that but … but…”

“What is it?” Alice asked when Everett became confused.

“It wasn’t I who sensed that Jack and the others were being held against their will, it was the wolf, Stanus, who knew for a fact they didn’t want to be in that room. He sensed it.” Carl shook his head as he never would be able to figure out the metaphysical properties of just what it was that happened to him that night.

The old Gypsy closed her eyes and everyone thought she had drifted off from the heavy influence of the drugs. Alice was getting ready to tell Anya to run and get Denise when the old woman looked up into the face of Alice Hamilton.

“You miss him?” she asked with a tired voice.

Without even thinking about it Alice knew exactly whom Madam Korvesky was talking about.

“I miss Garrison every minute of every day,” she said as she wiped away a small tear.

“Yes, I know you do. He was a good man. I knew it back in Hong Kong and I know it now. This, and only this, is why you are allowed to know about us, because soon we will not exist as a people any longer. The Jeddah will finally venture forth from this valley and experience the world for the first time.”

“I don’t under—”

Alice was stopped. “The young ones have never understood the stories of the old days — the old religions and even older leaders that fated them to a backward existence for three thousand years. Oh, the old will stay and struggle to exist and live among the Golia because that is all that they know to do. But the young,” she smiled and looked at her granddaughter and the man she was holding on to, “they have earned the right to join the human race. That is what I have always wanted since I was a girl, not running around the world trying to keep secret a lie that was perpetrated many thousands of years ago. No, they need to love, and live.” She squeezed Alice’s hand tighter.

“Tell me what your plan is,” Niles Compton said.

“They will be coming.”

“Who will be coming? I think I can pretty much guarantee that NATO will reevaluate their strategic plan for this valley and the pass. I do have a connection in government circles,” Niles said as even Carl had to shake his head at the way Compton alluded to the fact that he was best friends with the most powerful man in the world — the president of the United States.

“No, not soldiers — the Russian criminal below has learned our secret and will be coming with my granddaughter’s Hebrew Judas.”

“Ben-Nevin has allied himself with Dmitri Zallas?” Niles Compton asked.

“The colonel works for some very ruthless Jewish hard-liners that have infiltrated the Knesset. They are powerful and in their pursuit to prove that the Hebrew nation was the chosen people they are willing to sacrifice everything Israel has fought for nearly the past seventy years. They will once more alienate the Israeli nation over ancient history that never made any sense to begin with. This is not what Moses and Joshua had intended. Israel must be friends with their neighbors or the Exodus will never end. My ancestor the great Kale knew this thousands of years ago. Joshua eventually learned the truth and this is why the Jeddah were damned. Why a magnificent species of animal like the Golia has been relegated to securing the truth of a people long espoused to be the chosen. To hide from mankind and do the bidding of men that haven’t walked the earth for an age.”

Before Anya could finish her explanation there was a loud explosion of barking and growling coming from the interior of the temple. They heard Charlie outside yelling at someone, then Will Mendenhall’s scared voice coming from some distance away.

“Nice doggy,” came the frightened greeting.

“Miss Korvesky, uh, my friend needs a little help,” Charlie yelled as Anya and a very tired and bone-weary Everett went to see what was happening.

“Oh, God,” Anya said as she saw what Everett saw and they both tried to get close to the downed Will Mendenhall, who had at least six or seven young Golia the size of year-old German shepherds bouncing around him and licking him, one even pulling his boot free and running off with it.

“Help, I’m being mugged here,” Will called out as he rolled onto his belly to keep the cold tongues off his face

Anya placed her two small fingers in her mouth and then produced a loud whistle. The Golia pups stopped roughhousing with Mendenhall and their ears perked up. As a group the black-furred babies scrambled up the wall next to the staircase. Will rolled over onto his back and closed his eyes as he tried to get his racing heart under control. Charlie ran to the lieutenant and helped him to his one-booted foot.

“Well, at least they weren’t the size of the dog I saw earlier,” Will said as he brushed at his dusty clothes.

“Uh, those weren’t dogs, Will.”

Mendenhall stopped slapping at his clothes and then looked at Ellenshaw. “I’m not following, they were right there, you saw them, all the big dogs.”

“Not dogs, werewolves.”

Mendenhall smiled and then patted Charlie on the back. “I suppose they were Golia?”

Charlie waited until Will stopped chuckling and then tapped him on the back and pointed upward. Will’s eyes went where Ellenshaw was indicating and his mouth fell open. Mikla had returned and was standing at the top of the gallery and was looking down. It was on two legs and the arms were stretched out at its side as it watched the activity below in the temple. Mendenhall turned and faced Ellenshaw and a look came over his features as he realized he had not been playing with dogs, but baby werewolves. He closed his eyes and swallowed.

Suddenly a boot struck the stone flooring of the temple. Will looked up at Mikla.

“I guess he remembered you from yesterday and wanted to return your shoe,” Charlie said as he laughed and then walked away.

“Great!” Will said as he retrieved his boot and with one last look up at Mikla, who growled and then bounced away again, limped to the enclosure where Anya, Niles, and Carl waited.

“Why are you here, Lieutenant?” Everett asked as he placed his arm around Anya one more time.

“It took me over three hours to find the entrance here. The guys who designed that camouflaged doorway are better than anyone we have.”

“So what made you brave the pass?” Carl insisted.

“We got part of a radio message from the NATO force assisting in the flooding down south.”

Niles and Everett became instantly concerned.

“The storm has turned and is heading north. The local radio station is warning everyone that this has the potential to produce flash flooding all over the southern and central Carpathians.”

Everett voiced what everyone other than Anya was thinking.

“We have to get to Jack and get everyone the hell out of here.”

Before anyone could move several large pieces of stone fell from the ceiling of the immense cavern and smashed to the floor. Dust and dirt settled from high above after what seemed like a solid fifteen seconds of shaking.

“Tell me you get tremors from time to time?” Carl asked Anya as he examined the gallery where all of the Golia young had vanished.

“No, never. This region, outside of the thermal hot springs produced by a vent of very deep origins, has no seismic activity at all.”

Everett looked from Will Mendenhall to Niles Compton.

“I swear we must be bad luck, because every time we show up, a mission parameter or something else that has stood for thousands of years, is suddenly going to come down around our ears,” Mendenhall said in frustration.

“Well, this is what we do at the Group, young lieutenant,” Niles said as he turned and went back into the small enclosure.

“Next thing they’ll tell us we have to disarm a weapon of some kind,” Will said as he wandered away and then sat hard to replace his boot.

Charlie Ellenshaw knew what Will was thinking.

“I know exactly how these things turn out,” he finally finished.

18

It was past four in the afternoon and not one of the staff employees had seen Gina Louvinski since late the night before. Janos Vajic steeled himself for the worst as he went searching the hotel and casino grounds. He had heard a rumor that she vanished at the same time the Americans had but thus far he had been unable to find out any information and the hotel’s smooth functioning was starting to wane without her.

He spied Dmitri Zallas in the mud springs and spa area. He was wearing a white terry cloth robe and smoking a cigar as one of the spa employees massaged his small feet. Colonel Ben-Nevin was close by looking irritated as he waited for Zallas to finish his afternoon spa session. His bodyguard as always was nearby and tried to step in between Janos and his partner. The balding Vajic felt the heat of the spa start to penetrate his blue suit as he was escorted to where Zallas sat with mud rubbed on his face and wearing a set of dark sunning glasses. Ben-Nevin looked him over and then just as quickly dismissed the man as no threat to either himself or the Russian, whom he needed for the next twelve hours. After that he didn’t care what happened to the Slavic gangster.

“Janos, why are you not preparing for the festivities at the castle?” Zallas asked, not really caring about his answer.

“Gina is missing. Since last night I have been unable to locate her. The four Americans have also vanished.”

“Perhaps the Americans checked out, and Ms. Louvinski went with them. My men tell me she was rather intimate with that small and very arrogant American with the black hair.”

“Gina would never leave the resort, not with the grand opening tonight. I would think you would be a little bit more concerned since we desperately need her if tonight is to go off with minimal setbacks.”

Zallas finally lowered his cigar and then removed the dark glasses. His eyes went from Janos Vajic to the Israeli and then he smiled as his attention once again focused on his partner.

“Oh, I plan no setbacks for tonight. I expect everything to go off without a hitch as the Americans are fond of saying.”

“And the fifty new men who arrived by car this morning?”

“Nothing gets past you, Janos. Yes, this is why I expect little or no trouble tonight, as I have brought in extra security.”

“You mean more than the hundred men you already had here?”

“Yes, tonight is very important to me…” He looked back at Ben-Nevin, who remained unmoving and unsmiling. Zallas’s eyes never left Janos Vajic. “And many, many other new friends.”

Vajic knew Zallas was up to something and that something was what had changed the demeanor of the Russian in the past twenty-four hours, and the reason for that was the tall skinny man staring at him.

“And the television is saying that the storm that has devastated the south has taken a turn to the north and is coming straight for us. This does not bode well for your grand opening.”

“My guests are not afraid of a little weather, Janos. Now quit being a bitching little Romanian and get things ready.”

“No matter what, I will find Gina,” he said as he started to turn away.

“Janos?”

He stopped and without turning fully, waited. Ben-Nevin stepped up to Vajic and placed his hands on the smaller man’s shoulders and turned him to face Dmitri Zallas.

“Our friend would like your full attention,” he said and then stepped back as Janos stared at the man and his audacity.

“Look for the woman, but not to the detriment of my grand opening. You will have to be present around midnight as I have other business to attend to.” The look in the Russian’s eyes was frightening. “Do I make myself clear, Brother Janos?”

“Very,” he said and then with a last look at the Israeli left the spa to the smiles of the two men watching after him.

“It is too dangerous to keep him alive after tonight,” the Israeli said. “He has seen me and we don’t need outside influences muddying up the water.”

“Janos came to me after his investment group heard we were forming this limited partnership, he can be trusted. Anyway, as you can see, the man is terrified of me.”

Ben-Nevin watched the retreating back of the man he thought was familiar to him but he didn’t think the Romanian was not someone he had met before. Still, the man had something in his brown eyes that Ben-Nevin didn’t like at all. It was a look of silent confidence.

“Terrified is a word that I have not come across much in my business, and that man is hiding something.”

Janos Vajic knew it was time. The extra men Zallas had sent for coupled with the fact that the man who was now spending an inordinate amount of time with him was none other than Colonel Avi Ben-Nevin, a man he recognized after some raking of his memory. He had thought for a moment that Ben-Nevin had also recognized him, but he had relaxed when the suspicion in the Israeli’s eyes vanished. Now Vajic had no choice. Gina was gone and it was time for him to slip away as well. With a last look into the hotel lobby he stepped into the reception area in the back and made for Zallas’s office.

Janos glanced through the small partition and saw the two desk clerks looking bored as most of the guests were either getting an early dinner or playing craps before the time was right to get into the cable cars and make their way to Zallas’s precious grand opening. Once he saw their attention was elsewhere he used his special key that Zallas did not know he had and opened the door to the office. He froze in horror when he saw what was waiting.

“Gina!” he said, knowing he had spoken too loud.

Gina Louvinski was sitting in a chair. Her head was slumped forward on her chest and there was blood pooling around her feet. Janos swallowed when he saw that her wrists were cut. He closed his eyes as he slowly stepped into the office and then closed the door behind him. He lowered his head and then went to his partner. He gently lifted a wrist and checked the woman’s pulse. There was none. He saw that most of her fingers and expertly manicured nails had been broken. She had been held down as someone sliced her wrists.

Vajic slowly lowered her arm to the armrest and then he closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for his partner of the past five years. He was about to turn away when he heard a key sliding into the lock. He turned and silently and deftly stepped to the wall and waited.

One of Dmitri’s larger bodyguards opened the door and stuck his head inside. That was when Janos Vajic moved. He used both hands and took the man by the head and pulled him inside the office until his foot caught on a Persian rug and the man went sprawling only inches from the seated body of Gina Louvinski. Vajic very slowly closed the door and then threw the locking mechanism. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and pulled the garment from his body. He placed it on Zallas’s desk and then before the man on the floor could recover he kicked out viciously and caught the man in his stomach, which doubled him over into a tight fetal position. Vajic reached down and pulled the man’s weapon from his now exposed shoulder holster. He made sure the weapon was charged and then shoved the gun into his pants as he kicked out at the man once more.

“That’s to get your attention,” Janos said as he knelt beside the man, who was struggling to get air into his body. “You had a hand in this, yes?”

The bodyguard moaned and continued to roll back and forth in pain. The man could not believe the small Romanian nerd had crippled him like that.

Janos took a deep breath and then reached out and took the man’s right thumb and quickly snapped it in two. “Again, you had a hand in this woman’s death, yes?”

“No … I mean … we were following orders!” the man cried out in hopes that would be enough for the man kneeling over him.

“Ah, following orders,” Janos said with a sad smile. “Haven’t we all heard that one before?” He looked back down at the man and made a quick decision. “We no longer tolerate men and women who do things blindly and who just follow orders. This is no longer tolerable.” Janos reached out and took the man’s jaw and turned his head until could see into his brown eyes. “The men who arrived today, what does Zallas have planned for them? They are not added security. These men are too heavily armed.”

“I … don’t know … it has something to do with the mountain pass, that’s all I know. The regular bodyguards weren’t in on the meeting. I do know … it’s supposed to happen at midnight.”

“I want you to know that you have murdered the kindest and most professional agent I have ever had the honor to work with, and for her to die like this — for this nonsense? Well, I am a thousand miles from home and no one is here to give me a countermanding order, so…” Janos reached out and took the moaning bodyguard’s head and snapped his neck. He stood and with one last look at Gina went to the office of the Russian mobster.

It was time for Janos Vajic to end his partnership with Dmitri Zallas.

Mossad General Shamni was dozing on the cot as the radio operator placed his right headphone into his ear and pressed hard as the words he struggled to hear barely made sense.

“General, I have Demetrius; he’s coming through but very weakly. The storm is starting to play hell with the atmospherics in the Carpathians.”

The general shot to his feet and ran to the radio. He pulled hard on the operator’s headphone line until it popped free and then suddenly the far-off voice became clear as it wound its way through the speakers. The door opened and Major Donny Mendohlson popped his head in. The noise was loud and hard to understand.

“Demetrius, this is Duke, do you copy, over?”

There was an immense amount of static and the operator played with several knobs a moment and then they heard the voice of the Mossad agent eighteen hundred miles to the north.

“Duke … Demetrius … Forestall is dead, it looks … Czar is moving on the city, over.”

General Shamni lowered his head and then took out his cell phone at the mention of Dmitri Zallas and his code name, Czar. The number he punched in was as secure as a phone call could ever be in the Middle East.

“Hold on, Demetrius,” said the radio operator.

“Mr. Prime Minister, the Russian is moving on the City of Moses just as we suspected he might. Suggest we go to phase two immediately.”

General Shamni became silent as he listened to his old friend on the far end of his secure cell phone.

“Thank you, my friend, the best of luck to all of us.” The general shut the phone and then took up the microphone for the radio. Before he keyed the mic he looked at the Israeli commando, who was waiting expectantly. “You’re a go for immediate departure and insertion. Major, remember you’re a relief flight for the flooding, NATO-approved. Good luck, my boy.”

“Thank you, General.”

The major left the office and the general heard the hangar come to life as the turbine whine of the C-130 started to sound in the cavernous space. He shook his head as once more he was sending Israeli boys into harm’s way.

“Demetrius, this is Duke, over.”

“Duke, barely … hear you … atmospherics are getting—”

“Demetrius, Operation Ramesses is a go. I repeat, Operation Ramesses is a go. The strike initiates at 0215, HALO drop into the village below Patinas. Be there for extraction, at the conclusion of Ramesses, Duke out.”

The static-filled response came through the air and Shamni gave the mic back to the operator without caring what was said in response to the historic strike order.

He stepped to the window that looked into the hangar as the ear-piercing scream of the four Pratt & Whitney turbofans of the giant Hercules started spinning up to idling power as the C-130 started to raise its rear loading ramp. Major Donny Mendohlson bounded up the personnel ramp to the pilot’s door just aft of the cockpit. He turned and faced the general and then gave him a quick salute and a smile. He turned and entered the Hercules just as the giant hangar door started to rise.

General Shamni turned away as the Hercules started its roll out of the hangar for Israel’s part in the flood relief for southern Romania.

Mossad had long anticipated the building of the resort when Marko started selling off antiquities from the Exodus through the Russian’s contacts. Shamni knew the destruction of the temple was now of the utmost importance to the state of Israel.

Tonight the past would get buried forever and the one weapon that Will Mendenhall feared the most was now on its way to a country once called Transylvania.

General Shamni took one last look at the secure storage area that would pop open automatically at certain coordinates over Romania and then it would be jettisoned over Patinas where the device would be recovered by the Operation Ramesses forces and then placed into the Lost City of Moses.

That device was nuclear in nature.

The first of the rain started at sundown and the dark clouds bled the sun away early as the storm that initially had been forecast to miss the pass came directly toward it. The village of Patinas was unusually quiet as most of the farm-folk were settling down to a cold dinner. The apprehension felt by everyone in the small village was palpable as Niles Compton toured the single street that ran down the center of what would have been called a Romanian thoroughfare. Three of the 82nd Airborne combat engineers followed close behind. Niles removed his glasses and looked up at the black sky that was now hidden behind a roiling storm front. He refused one of the waterproof ponchos offered by the staff sergeant. Niles replaced his glasses and then looked at Will.

“You three, gather the rest of the men, we’ll stay here tonight, it may be a little drier than those tents,” Niles said, looking at the engineers. “Besides, I want us all in one place. Charlie will join us later. Alice and Denise insist on staying with Madam Korvesky.”

The three Airborne troops started to salute and then thought better of it and left the cottage as Will Mendenhall found the single light in the house and pushed hard on the old push-button switch. Nothing happened. He tried again and still nothing.

“Power’s out,” he said but then he saw the glow of Castle Dracula two miles down the mountainside through the opened window. “Huh, the castle looks like a Hollywood premiere is going on,” he said as he turned and looked at Niles, who was busy drying his glasses.

“Did you see the single phased power line running up the mountain? Well, you can bet your commission that it only runs here. The hotel and casino complex received all of the new stuff.”

Will understood now. “It must be nice being friends and limited partners with the interior minister.”

Niles nodded his head. “Something I plan to have changed as soon as I can get some reports filed. NATO and the president won’t be too happy to realize they became silent partners in an international land grab sponsored by antiquities thieves and mobsters. I think the new president of Romania may wish to speak to her interior minister.”

Mendenhall went to the open window and pulled closed the old wooden shutters and then slid down the even older lead glass four-paned window. He turned and looked at the director and hoped he was thinking the same as himself.

“What are we going to do about getting the colonel out of that resort?”

Niles put his glasses on and then walked over to the dead fireplace and started placing pieces of wood inside. He stopped and his shoulders slumped.

“It looks like for now we have to depend on that Marko character to help Jack, Sarah, Pete, and Mr. Ryan.” He shook his head and then angrily tossed the last piece of firewood into the dark hole.

“Yes, sir, but which side is he on exactly?” Mendenhall said as he only voiced the same doubt that Niles was thinking.

The lives of their friends depended on a band of Gypsies that should have died off over thirty-five hundred years before.

Dmitri Zallas stood on the sixth-floor expanse of the loading platform with his arm around a dark-haired woman who obediently nodded a greeting to every lowlife that came to ride the cable car to the castle. Zallas was dressed to the nines in a black tuxedo and was dazzling with a bright red scarf wrapped around his thick neck. His cigar was smoking and he was beaming. The man next to him was not however. Colonel Avi Ben-Nevin stood silently in the new suit that had been purchased, after he had signed for it of course, and waited for the last of the guests to leave the casino. The last sixteen laughing and now ready to party guests stepped onto the ornate car where drinks were already being mixed by the car’s bartenders. A man approached and looked around as the car was preparing to leave.

“He has arrived, Mr. Zallas,” the man said and then gestured out the large geodesic dome that housed the atrium and the cable car barn.

Zallas smiled when he saw the approach of the old cars from the north. They made their way through the falling rain with little trouble. The Russian then removed the cigar from his mouth and smiled at the dark-haired woman next to him.

“My dear, I will join you at the castle shortly, I have immediate business to attend to.”

The woman made a fake pouting face and then smiled and hopped onto the cable car, smashing the illusion that the girl had any class at all. Ben-Nevin shook his head as he waited. The doors slid closed and the car with its anticipatory guests started the long climb toward Dracula’s Castle.

“Come, let’s meet our royal highness,” Zallas said as he himself almost bounded down the escalator to the spa and garden area where they would confront Marko Korvesky.

The eyes watched from a hidden corner of the darkened casino. The man had just returned from making his covert radio call to Tel Aviv. He saw the cars approaching the resort and knew it was the Gypsy, Marko. The man had also seen the armed men just outside the patio area earlier loading automatic weapons. He had counted over 135 hardened mercenaries.

Mossad agent Janos Vajic was now officially running out of time.

Ryan stood at the door and listened. He half turned and held up his hand and then just as quickly lowered it. He shook his head.

“It’s no one. I thought I heard the keycard for a second.”

“Give up, we were hoping they would bring us food and then we found the fully stocked refrigerator so there went that plan. They don’t even need to check on us.”

Ryan straightened from the door and looked at Pete Golding, who withered from his glare.

“Doc, they know we’re something other than NATO inspectors, so they will be in to check on us just like the colonel said they would. Just be patient.”

Golding flinched and then nodded that he understood. He turned and looked at Jack and Sarah, who sat silently at the small table and waited.

As they watched the lights flickered once more. It was the same flicker they had been noticing for the past three hours. They had finally learned it was the giant cable cars stopping and starting from their large barn. Jack took the fork and made another mark on the cloth napkin. Thus far he had made over twenty-one hash marks.

“Well, it’s only a guess but the hotel should be near empty by now.”

Ryan looked at Collins and then walked to the large window, which still sported the wolf-etched number 6. The cable car was now visible as it cleared the sixth-floor barn. He could see the ornate lighting inside illuminating the partygoers as they anticipated a great night at the grand opening of Dracula’s Castle. Jason allowed his eyes to go to the swirling lights that came through clearly even on this stormy night. He turned and then walked back to the door.

“You think they’ve waited to do something about us until the hotel was empty of guests?” Sarah asked as she reached over and removed the fork Jack had been using to mark the number of times the northern-traveling cable car left the barn. She laid the fork down and took his hand.

“If not, this time will give us our best chance of busting out of this joint,” Jack said with a wink.

Pete nodded his head feeling better every time the colonel explained things. It was between those moments that doubts started to creep in.

Once more Jason held up his hand and the room went silent. This time Jack stood from the table as he had heard the same thing Ryan had. There had been a definite thump coming from the hallway. Collins reached over and took the small kitchen knife he had lifted from the fancy kitchenette. He walked to the door and waited with Ryan. Pete just stood rooted to the center of the room. Another bump sounded and then the door cracked open an inch. Jason prepared himself.

The door swung open and a man fell backward through the opening. Then another limp body was thrown in the room on top of the first. Ryan stood ready but then relaxed when he saw Janos Vajic step into the room and then close the door. He kicked at the legs of the last man he had thrown inside and then looked at the astonished faces around him.

“Colonel Collins, may I suggest you and your people leave this place immediately,” Vajic said as he quickly stepped to the double-paned window and looked out. He angrily shook his head as he looked around the suite.

“Mr. Vajic, do you mind telling us what is happening?” Sarah asked while Collins and Ryan looked out into the hallway before closing the door and facing the man that was not just a mere hotel owner.

The man they thought was Romanian walked over and took one of the suite’s Queen Anne chairs and walked back to the window. He took a deep breath and then looked at the two men who had inched closer to him as he was walking to the window. He finally smiled.

“Colonel Collins, suffice it to say that we in the Mossad are not fools. Just because we cannot find out your current assignment or duty station, do not think for a moment we believe you would be relegated to a NATO fact-finding mission. Not with your reputation and record of military service. We would have found you out even if you hadn’t told us your real name.”

“Mossad? Is everyone we meet here in Mossad?” Ryan asked, now not trusting the man at all, especially after the way he and Mr. Everett had been treated in Rome by that particular organization.

“How about it, Mr. Vajic?” Jack asked, keeping the small knife handy in his right hand, which was not lost on Janos Vajic.

“The name is Janos Schumann, Captain, Mossad,” he said as he kept his gaze on Jack’s right hand as he half bowed in military courtesy. “Colonel, you must leave this place, we would hate to have an American Medal of Honor recipient killed when we take down this mountain. That wouldn’t read too good in the newspapers.”

Before Jack could respond to the cryptic threat delivered by the Mossad deep cover agent, the Israeli raised the chair and smashed through the first pane of glass. The two Americans jumped back as he raised the chair again and brought it into the second, much thicker glass, smashing through it until the chair went flying. The Israeli captain then bent at the waist to catch his breath as rain and wind started pouring in through the smashed window.

“Take the small ledge to the cable car barn. It’s on the same floor. Then climb down and get out of here.”

“We can’t. We have people in the pass and we won’t leave without getting them out.”

“But you have to—”

“Save it, Captain, you heard what the colonel said, we’re not leaving without our people,” Ryan stated flatly as he confronted the Mossad agent.

Janos Schumann shook his head angrily and then wiped rainwater from his face. He came to a quick decision.

“You still have to go out this way, you have no choice,” he said as he relented and faced Collins. “The only way to get to the pass is on the cable cars. The weather is turning bad and walking or driving without knowing the road is too dangerous.”

“I would rather take my chances on the road,” Ryan said, looking from Janos to Collins.

“That won’t work. Zallas and Colonel Ben-Nevin have an army out there and throughout the hotel. They’ll catch you and that would be that. I don’t think they’ll leave anyone behind to tell the tale after they find out what they have sitting right under their feet.”

“You mean the treasure of the Exodus that sits inside the City of Moses?” Jack said before Janos could.

“Okay, Colonel, you seem to know a little more about my business than you should,” Janos said menacingly.

“Touché, Captain. Now what is Zallas planning and what is his manpower disposition?” Jack asked as he tried to ease the tension in the room.

“He has well over a hundred armed men.”

“Do you have a plan for that?”

“We have a strike team currently en route to Romania.”

“The Sayeret will be here in a matter of hours, won’t they?” Jack said as he remembered the alert Europa reported the Israeli army was under.

“Yes, they will bring down the temple and there will be nothing to stop them. They know they are expendable in pursuit of that goal.”

“They’re going to HALO jump through this storm?” Jack took another menacing step toward the man. He knew that if the Sayeret commandos were going to use a high altitude, low opening, or HALO, parachute jump, they meant some serious business. And Collins knew that business included his friends in the pass.

“Okay, we’ll go out the window. But make no mistake, Captain Schumann, we are going to get our people out of that pass, and if I have to go through you and the best fighting soldiers in the world to do it, I will.”

“And he can,” an angry Ryan said, stepping close to the Israeli.

Janos looked at the two Americans and knew immediately that if something happened to the people in the pass because of something his men did he would surely see the sharp end of a long knife as Collins would keep his promise. Yes, Janos had indeed heard of the reputation of U.S. Army Colonel Jack Collins.

“And you allowed Zallas to murder Ms. Louvinski so you could keep your cover?” Sarah ventured.

“Gina was not only my friend, she was my partner on this mission for the past five years. I would easily have given my life for hers.”

Ryan shook his head in wonder at the world he lived in. He now knew that no one was who they seemed.

“She was a good agent and I know she had wished to help you and your team, whoever you are. So, please, go get them out as we are fast running out of time.”

With that Jack turned to Sarah and held out his hand and then looked at a soaking wet Pete Golding.

“Come on, Doc, let’s go find out if Charlie is having as hard a time as we are with this crap,” Collins said as he slapped Ryan on the back and pushed him toward the window and the brightly illuminated castle far beyond.

The grand opening of Dracula’s Castle had started and Jack and the others wanted to be there.

Marko stood before Dmitri Zallas with his twelve burly men standing menacingly beside him. The Gypsies were dressed as they have been for the past two hundred years while living in the pass. The brightly colored clothes stood out starkly against the Russian’s black tie and tux.

“I have been expecting you since this morning, Marko, what took you so long?”

“I am not here to play games with you, Slav.”

At the word “Slav” Dmitri flinched but the smile remained. Ben-Nevin for his part smirked at the racial epithet thrown at the arrogant Russian by the Gypsy. The man at least had balls.

“I want the four Americans to be brought to me, my grandmother wishes for them to be her guests at the pass.”

Zallas smiled wider and then looked at Ben-Nevin. The Russian then turned back to face Marko.

“Of course, anything for your grandmother, you know that. I will release them as long as I have assurances the Americans will not be allowed back onto resort property. Fair?”

“I’m not here to discuss what is fair, Zallas, I am giving you an order,” Marko said and for emphasis his twelve men spread out just a little further while staring down Zallas and his men.

“An order promptly obeyed, old friend, I assure you,” Zallas answered as his smile continued to irk Marko no end. But one thing was for sure, the smile never reached the Russian’s eyes.

The appearance of twenty heavily armed men and then the loud report of a discharged weapon made Marko flinch. As he looked around one of his men was lying facedown in the mud pit where bathers had frolicked not three hours before. The man slowly sank into the hot surface and then vanished. Marko saw that he and his men were surrounded as he slowly turned back to face Zallas. The man was still smiling as Colonel Ben-Nevin had produced an old Colt .45 automatic. The gun was pointed at Marko’s belly.

“I’ll be the one giving the orders today,” Zallas said as his men came forward and started disarming Marko’s men of their small caliber guns and the obligatory arsenal of knives and other stabbing instruments Gypsies were fond of hiding on their person. One man struggled to get a man’s hand off him and Zallas nodded and that man was executed with a large caliber bullet to the back of the head. Marko didn’t turn to witness the murder as he was focused totally on Dmitri Zallas and Ben-Nevin. The dead man that had been used as an example was pushed off into the mud.

“Now what did you do that for?” Zallas said as he reached over and used a towel to wipe some imagined dirt from his hands. “You’ll just have to dig him out of the mud later, think gentlemen, think.” Zallas tossed the towel away, relit his cigar, and then looked at Marko Korvesky. “Now, as partners we must have a talk, Marko. It seems you have not been exactly forthcoming with me concerning the acquisition of the antiquities you have been delivering.”

Marko refused to believe he had been fooled by this man, this idiot gangster. His grandmother had been right. He had brought this evil to the pass by selling their heritage. He wanted to be sick as he heard his men being pushed and shoved and slapped toward the hotel area. The desk clerks saw what was happening and ducked out of sight.

Dmitri watched Marko and knew the man would never reveal the location of the hidden temple, but Zallas had ways around that. He started to place a hand on the shoulder of the Gypsy but when he saw the black eyes look up at him he thought better of it and lowered his manicured hand and instead gestured toward the hotel.

“Come, Marko, this shouldn’t take long. We just need to ask a few questions about the location of the treasure of the Exodus.”

Marko managed to move his eyes to the one who had obviously fed the Russian the temple information — the tall man with the pencil-thin mustache was the obvious choice, as he was smirking at Marko and still pointing the gun at him. Marko then looked back at Zallas.

“I will kill every one of you for this,” he said as he was pushed in the back toward the lobby.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you will, but you have some talking to do first.” This time Zallas did brave touching Marko on the shoulder as he was escorted out of the garden-spa area. “When I was a boy, it was explained to me by some very determined men of the Moscow police force the disadvantages of being a criminal in a closed society. I am a student of the techniques used back in the day and believe me, my friend, you and your men will end up telling us everything we want to know.” Zallas slapped Marko on the back and stopped and watched as the Gypsy leader was led through the lobby to the elevator that would take him and his men down into the cavernous basement of the hotel where the screaming of Marko and his men would be lost in the immense spaces below.

“I do not want the Gypsy hurt or killed at this time, we may have need of him after all of this is over,” he said without turning to face Ben-Nevin. “Are you sure you can break him your way?”

Zallas heard the chuckle of the Mossad agent but still didn’t turn to face him.

“I will be at the castle,” Zallas said as he adjusted the bright red silk scarf. “Assemble the men at midnight and we will then pay a visit to the pass.”

“Do you not think this is a priority over your Castle Dracula’s grand opening?” Ben-Nevin asked as Zallas moved off toward the escalator.

This time Zallas did stop and finally turn to face the Israeli.

“I have spent over $5 million on tonight just in entertainment and special effects for that club and I plan on bringing it in with what the Americans call a bang.”

As Zallas smiled and walked away, Ben-Nevin was thinking the same thing. He had yet to inform Zallas just who it was that would be coming after them. If the Russian knew that he wouldn’t be so cavalier about what was about to happen up in the pass. Ben-Nevin had no illusions that if somehow word got back to General Shamni that he was here, the Sayeret would explain it to Zallas and his men in no uncertain terms.

Ben-Nevin knew that Satan was in the air somewhere above the black storm clouds and he was coming their way.

Ryan was about to be the first to step out into the storm but Jack pulled on his arm until Jason was forced to hop from the sill of the large broken window.

“At ease, Mr. Ryan, I’ll be going out first. If I happen to fall take the interior route and get Sarah and the doc out as best you can.”

“I don’t mind saying, Colonel, that maybe Captain Everett has a point.”

“And what would that be, ol’ wise one?” Collins asked, knowing he was about to be slammed for privilege of command authority. He wasn’t disappointed.

“That maybe you should let us start sharing in these harebrained chances you seem to take.” Ryan looked at Collins and the normal, joking smile was absent this time. “With all due respect, of course.”

“Of course,” Collins confirmed. “Still, I’ll take this one. You go the way of our new Israeli Mossad agent friend and get these two the hell out of here. If not, join me on that three-inch ledge outside in a few minutes.” Collins raised his brows until Ryan couldn’t hold the colonel’s gaze any longer. He nodded that he understood. Jack slapped Ryan on the shoulder. “Please don’t be in a hurry to get killed, Mr. Ryan, there will be plenty of time for that in the near future, believe me.” Jack hopped up on the sill and then looked back at Sarah. “You be careful, short stuff, this wind will blow you right to Oz.”

“One fairy-tale land at a time, thank you,” Sarah said but Jack had already stepped out onto the ledge and into the driving rainstorm. “Ass, Colonel.” Sarah looked at Pete and stared him down until the computer expert looked away. Then she gestured to the doctor that perhaps he had better step out there and follow Jack.

Ryan watched as Jack stepped free of the room and started inching his way toward the distant cable car barn that looked like a domed stadium far ahead. He assisted Pete onto the slippery ledge and as Golding fought for a handhold against the falsity of the gray stone blocks, Ryan deftly reached out and slipped off Pete’s horn-rimmed glasses and then placed them in his shirt pocket.

“What you can’t see can’t hurt ya, Doc.”

Pete squeezed his eyes shut and then started inching his way along the three-inch ledge.

“After you, my dear,” Jason said, bowing at Sarah.

Just before Sarah stepped onto the sill she looked at Ryan, who wasn’t that much bigger than the diminutive lieutenant.

“You know, smart guy, since you’re trying your best to scare the doc, you know how far it is to the ground, and I believe some hotshot jet ace doesn’t have a parachute, does he?” she mocked and then deftly hopped onto the sill and started to walk along the ledge as she quickly caught up with a struggling Pete Golding.

Ryan had to smile at Sarah’s quick-wittedness. He stepped up to the sill and then took a cursory glance down to the now rain-washed grounds of the resort. He shook his head two times quickly as he realized McIntire was right — it was a long way down.

The jail break was on.

When Ryan finally made it to the corner of the hotel he saw Collins squatting just over one of the large square windows that made up the partial geodesic dome of the cable car barn. Sarah was sitting on the roof talking softly to Golding, who was still embarrassed at having slowed them down so much. Ryan bypassed the two and advanced to Jack’s location where he knelt beside the colonel.

“What have we got?” Ryan asked as he tried his best to turn his head away from the driving rain, which had threatened on more than one occasion to throw one of the four from the ledge on their trek across the sixth-floor ledge.

“We have one hell of a dandy-looking Russian getting ready to wow the world of entertainment.”

“What?”

Jack turned and faced Ryan. “The Russian is getting ready to join his guests up in the castle.”

“That means we have to wait until the castle car comes back?”

“We don’t have that luxury,” Jack said as he quickly came to a decision. “Well, we’re all wet anyway, a little more water won’t matter. Get the others and come on.”

Ryan gestured for Sarah and Pete to follow, but by the time he looked back Collins had already threaded his way through the mass of piping and other hazards as he made for the top of the cable car. He waited as the other three caught up.

“Jack, I think you’ve lost your mind,” Sarah said as she tried to catch her breath. Collins had to smile at the drowned rat look she was now sporting in her fancy dress. He shook his head at his private joke at McIntire’s expense. “We can’t ride the same car as Zallas!” she whispered with authority.

“I’m open to suggestions, people.”

Pete managed to rise up enough to see over Ryan and the cable car beyond.

“Excuse me, Colonel, but how do we get inside without that Russian guy seeing us?”

“Come on, Doc,” Ryan admonished just as Jack took off for the now moving car as it started its run for the castle. It had just cleared the interior area when Collins easily stepped onto the top. He turned and assisted Sarah on board and then at Ryan’s urging, Pete. Jason was the last one on.

“Boy, and I thought we would have it easier than Mendenhall down here at the resort. I was sorely mistaken.”

With Zallas below in warmth and comfort sipping champagne, the Event Group hitchhiked on top of the cable car with the lightning flashing around them.

Up ahead they saw the swirling spotlights that cast the castle in blue and purple through the driving rain.

They all realized at once the surreal situation they now found themselves in. Sarah smiled and looked at Jack, who was holding on to the cable pulley system that stood as high as a man. The wind picked up as the large car broke free of its enclosure and the four started getting pummeled by the storm.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Colonel?” Sarah said as she tried to shield her face from the raindrops.

“I think I do. Here we are riding a cable car toward Dracula’s Castle on a dark and stormy night in an attempt to save one of the Lost Tribes of Israel and a subspecies of wolf that had been mistaken for werewolves for three thousand years and then we have to pull our friends off a mountain that may or may not blow up in the next six hours. Did I leave anything out?” He grinned as the rain started becoming serious as they all hung on as the car swayed a bit.

“Yeah, you did leave something out,” Sarah corrected.

“What’s that?”

“That our duty, as the Event Group charter points out, is to discover just what in the hell is so important to the Jeddah and the Hebrews that they had to bury it two thousand miles away from their homeland, and whatever that is why are they are willing to destroy it so readily.”

Jack smiled and then leaned closer to Sarah.

“I didn’t want to use that many words.”

Sarah just stared at Jack as the cable car carrying Dmitri Zallas made its way to the nightmare scene far above as Castle Dracula waited.

The guests were seated for the most part as the wait staff filled glasses of complimentary champagne to the elite crowd of thieves and bankers, in this case the same profession. The waterfall curtain was a particular favorite as the crowd oohed and awed over the multicolored display of falling water drops that changed hue every few seconds to the sound of recorded rock music. It was now ten o’clock.

Backstage Drake Andrews sat in a chair as his manager went over his play list. His part of the show was still two hours off and Drake had sworn he wouldn’t step foot out on the stage until the last minute. He had never felt as humiliated as he did on this rainy night in Romania. He heard loud laughter and he stepped to the curtain and looked.

“They actually have a white man dressed as Stevie Wonder? Oh, God, I’m going to be ruined.”

As they watched the Russian group take their places, Drake felt a slight tremor under his fingers as he held on to the door jamb. He rolled his eyes at his warm-up band. The vibration started and then stopped. He looked at his hands and cursed his luck once more.

“The music hasn’t even started yet and we’re already getting the shakes out of this place.”

Niles had returned to the temple to retrieve Charlie Ellenshaw as he was sure the professor’s questions were driving Anya insane.

As he made his way down the torch-lit steps Niles thought he heard something behind him. He stopped and listened but nothing moved. He only heard the sizzle of the oil-encrusted torches. He turned away and started back down the steps but stopped once more as he realized this time he was not alone. As he slowly looked up the reason why he hadn’t seen anything behind him was due to the fact that the wolf was hanging upside down with its claws firmly dug into the rock stairwell. Mikla didn’t move as its nose twitched, smelling Niles.

Compton couldn’t help but moan under his breath. The Golia up close were the most frightening, most amazing creatures Compton had ever seen. If there was one thing that must come out of this unscathed it had to be these animals. In his opinion the Golia were the priority and once out of here he would try to make sure they always had a protected home — if he survived this current encounter that is.

Mikla whined deep in its throat and then released its right hand and brought it down to Niles’s head. The long, articulate singers and claws wrapped around his skull like a normal-sized man would hold an apple. The beast seemed amazed that Niles had no hair on the top of his head. The animal then clicked a claw up against his glasses, producing a clack. Then it hit the glasses again until they went askew on Compton’s face.

“Mikla, stop that! I swear your curiosity will get the best of you someday.”

Niles knew it was Anya but he refused to turn that way as Mikla quickly withdrew his hand. The Golia barked once, twice, and then hopped free of the wall and then Niles heard the popping hip joints and the way the Golia arranged its skeletal frame to accommodate its amazing ability to walk upright. The Golia stood before Niles and cocked its head. The beast sniffed at Compton one last time and then reached out and with one, long, sharpened claw clicked his glasses one last time until they were sitting straight on the director’s face and then the beast leaped to the wall and with the grace of a wall fly crawled up and into the darkness of the high reaches of the City of Moses.

“Thank you,” Niles said as he wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

“Mikla never means any harm. Unlike Stanus, Mikla has the ability to see things differently. He’s far more curious about humankind than is good for him. He has been the only Golia I have ever known to actually seek out a traveler.” Anya stepped into the torch light. Charlie Ellenshaw was with her and they both looked up and into the darkened upper reaches but Mikla was gone. “My grandmother wishes for you to join her. She says we have little time to explain our history so that the Keeper of Secrets can place it into proper historical perspective.”

“And just what does that mean?” Niles asked, looking up into the smiling face of Anya.

“She wants you to know why this place was selected by God for the Golia to live, and why this is the hiding place of the greatest discovery in the ancient world, and one that will vanish in just a few hours.”

Niles straightened and then fixed the young woman with a look that said he still didn’t fully understand.

“You will now see what it is you came here to see, Dr. Compton, and what it is that my grandmother and every ancestor of ours since the great Exodus has kept safe for over thirty-five hundred years here in these once forsaken mountains.”

“And that is?” Niles persisted.

“Have you not wondered why this temple is named the way it is named, doctor?”

“The City of Moses?”

“Exactly,” she said and then turned and went down into the bowels of the temple complex.

Niles looked at Charlie and then they both turned and followed in far more of a hurry than they intended.

The City of Moses was about to give up its ancient and devastating secret that some men in the world deemed important enough to kill an entire tribe over, and other men that were willing to destroy an entire historical heritage of that people for the mere threat of having their secret exposed to the world.

The Great Exodus was finally coming to a conclusion almost four thousand years after the fact.

The Hercules C-130 bumped and ground its way through roiling clouds that sparked brightly with electric streaks of lightning that came close to striking the airframe of the American-built heavy transport. The plane bounced and tossed the men around inside the cavernous belly of the aircraft, which elicited a loud yahoo from the commandos as they tried to shake off the nerves of the impending HALO jump from the ramp of the Hercules.

Major Donny Mendohlson sat at the small navigator’s table going over their flight path with the air force specialist. They had come to the conclusion that they couldn’t make the jump as high as they initially wanted because of the high altitude of the storm — they would land at least two miles downwind if they jumped at 32,000 feet. They would have to chance it at half that.

“Any contact from Demetrius?” Mendohlson asked as he placed his map into a plastic-lined cover and then put it in his jacket pocket. He and his men were dressed in black Nomex and were self-equipped to handle most anything thrown at them — if they all made it down through this backbreaking storm. It would be a first for all of them.

“There has been nothing coming from either the south or the north of Romania since the storm hit. The authorities are reporting that they are having a hard time evacuating the populace from the low-lying areas of the Danube.”

Major Mendohlson nodded his head as he zipped up his black body armor.

“Well, I guess they’ll be far too busy to be concerned about one small relief flight straying off course a little, especially in the storm of the century.”

“Get a flash priority one message off to Tel Aviv. Tell General Shamni that Operation Ramesses is a go.” The major looked at his black-painted watch and pushed the small timer. “We HALO in five to eight minutes.”

The call went out to Tel Aviv explaining that the world’s fiercest killers were about to jump headfirst into the cauldron of swirling blackness and exploding electrical strikes to finally end centuries of cover-up.

The black-painted C-130 made a final turn and headed for the far peaks of the Carpathians.

A futuristic form of Pharaoh’s once fierce and unbeatable chariots was heading the way of the Jeddah with the same intent as the once historical goal of the Egyptians — to make it all go away.

Everett slowly sat up in bed and watched as Madam Korvesky was given a large injection of painkiller from a protesting Denise Gilliam. Carl just sat and listened as just moments before the Gypsy queen had been dreaming and shouting about the Golia. It was unclear what she had been trying to say when her eyes had sprung open and she sat straight up on the rickety cot. She awoke as she slowly blinked her eyes wide. She looked at Denise and that had been when the argument had started about the amount of morphine Denise thought appropriate.

Now Everett waited and watched as the old woman seemed to be in a deep trance of some kind. His eyes went to the doorway when Anya, Niles, and Charlie stepped in.

“She’s been this way for the past five minutes,” Everett said as he tossed the old Army blanket aside and then placed his feet on the floor and then started pulling on his boots. He was feeling much better after the energy-sapping ride with Stanus eight hours before.

Anya stepped to her grandmother and looked at Alice, who was still holding the woman’s hand. Alice shook her head indicating that she didn’t know what was happening. Anya whispered her grandmother’s name and then ran a hand over her open eyes. They stayed staring straight ahead and never flinched.

“She’s somewhere other than here,” she said as she turned and watched Carl get dressed. “Are you rested enough to be getting up?”

“With the crap that’s getting ready to come down I think Doc Ellenshaw may need some help, what do you think?” he asked as he was quickly becoming agitated with everyone’s concern over his little trip with Stanus.

“I think so, yeah,” Charlie said as he looked from Carl to the director.

Madam Korvesky blinked and then turned her head and looked at Alice. “They are coming for the treasure. They are coming now. They have Marko, but Marko is brave and strong. He will resist, but the men he thought were as strong as he will betray him, and then the Russian and the Israeli will come.”

“They are coming to the City of Moses?” Anya asked as she tried to get her grandmother to lie back down but she resisted her efforts.

“We must gather the menfolk and hide the women and children, Pharaoh is upon us.”

“Now is not the time to prove you’re a mysterious Gypsy woman, Grandmother, tell us what’s happening,” Anya said as Everett had to smile at her modern way of getting to the point. The old woman blinked again and looked at the much younger twin of herself sixty-five years before.

“Marko’s men will break under the torture of an Israeli traitor.”

“That damn Ben-Nevin,” Anya hissed.

“Yes, that’s the name I get, Ben-Nevin, a weak sort of name if you ask me. I believe he is the son of a man I once knew many years ago.” The old woman tried to move her legs in order to stand up but Alice and Anya were much too fast and strong for her. They held her in place.

“Send the Keeper of Secrets to Patinas to rouse the men by ringing the village bell. Arm them, as we must hold the temple until help arrives.”

“What are you talking about? What help?” Anya asked as she held her grandmother at arm’s length and looked at her.

“A very old and dear friend is coming.” She finally looked at Anya and her smile grew and her features cleared up as if the drugs and the effects of her amputation had vanished. “You know deep down inside of whom I speak, don’t you, girl-child?” Madam Korvesky turned her smile on Alice. “And so do you, do you not, Keeper of Secrets?”

Alice looked up at Niles and was worried that the old Gypsy queen had finally lost it.

“Come now, or should I ask Dr. Compton to explain it to you? I think he understands the situation.”

All eyes turned to Niles, who had turned away and paced back to the doorway deep in thought.

“Mr. Director, you have something to say?” Everett asked as he struggled shakily to his feet tucking in his denim shirt.

“Yes, Alice should know whom she is referring to, as we have dealt with the man many times over the years; he just didn’t know who we were.” Niles turned and looked at the expectant eyes. “His name is General Addis Shamni, if I’m not mistaken.”

The old woman cackled a funny-sounding laugh and then lay back down. “Yes,” she said, “the Keeper of Secrets knows all.”

Niles Compton ignored the statement and then walked back into the stone-walled room.

“No, not all, but I’m beginning to understand. General Shamni is head of the Israeli Mossad.” He looked at Anya for confirmation, but her silence was enough for Compton. “He is responsible for young Anya here being husbanded through the system of Israeli intelligence until she was ready to assist in covering up all there was to know about the Jeddah. She was one of many such plants around the globe, I would suspect.”

“I’m not following,” Charlie said as he looked at the smiling old lady as she listened to Compton.

Niles fit one of the final pieces into place.

“What is the general to you?” he asked Madam Korvesky as Anya felt her heart go still at learning that her grandmother knew the general.

“He is my baby brother by twenty years,” she said as she placed a weary arm over her eyes as she silently sobbed. “I have not seen Addie since 1947.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” Niles said, looking over at Anya. “You were working for your great-uncle the entire time you were in the Mossad.” He turned back and looked at Madam Korvesky. “How long has the Israeli leadership known about the City of Moses and how long has a pact been in place to destroy what is here if discovered?”

Anya was so shaken that she stumbled and Carl reached out to steady her. She shook her head as she looked up into his face as if she was as lost as a small child.

“The home tribes have always known about the temple. Have since the time of Joshua. It was Joshua himself who sent us into the wilderness to hide what the world could never find. Men have searched and failed, sometimes they even made it to the mountain only to find the Golia there to greet them.”

“Marcus Paleternus Tapio,” Alice said as she looked over at Niles Compton as the old woman just confirmed that her research was spot-on.

“Yes, Mrs. Hamilton,” Madam Korvesky said as she went to a place in her mind none of the others could see. She slowly blinked and then she once more looked at Alice and squeezed her hand. “Not only Rome, dear Mrs. Hamilton, but Troy, the armies of Alexander, the brutes of Genghis Khan, even that little thug Hitler was trying to kill us all for the secret of the temple, but not knowing like the others that the secret lay with only a few of the true Jeddah, not our kind that broke from the tribe hundreds of years ago. No, many have searched and some have found, but none ever lived to tell the tale, as they say.” The smile was creepy to Charlie but he kept his mouth closed. The woman was enjoying laying her soul open for all to see.

“What are you protecting here?” Niles asked.

The old woman slowly sat up with the help of Denise and Alice.

“Girl-child, take them to the temple,” Madam Korvesky said as she reached up to her neck and then pulled sharply on something and then held it out to Anya. It was a small but thick five-starred medallion. She blindly reached down and felt for her came. Denise saw what she was reaching for and picked up and handed it to her. The old woman held both items out to Anya. “Take them so they shall know the truth.”

All four Americans exchanged apprehensive looks.

“Go, the truth awaits and shall explain all.”

The engineering section of the basement was large and very nearly empty as most of the supplies that maintenance would be using had yet to be delivered. The group of men stood in a circle around the central figure in the center of the room. The man was held up by a car winch and cable. His wrists were nearly severed due to the weight being placed upon the bone and sinew. Marko Korvesky was near death.

Colonel Ally Ben-Nevin used a small bottle of spring water and poured it into one hand and then tossed the empty plastic to one of Zallas’s men. The colonel began to rub his hands together, washing free the blood. He accepted an embroidered Edge of the World towel and dried his hands. He then walked up to a shirtless Marko and placed the towel around his neck and then held on to its ends as he spoke. The man’s long black hair was free and soaked through with perspiration. Nearly all of the Gypsy’s teeth had been knocked out.

“Now you see what unpleasantness could have been avoided if you had only listened to reason?” he asked as he leaned in close to the broken man while pulling on the towel. “The location of the temple had already been disclosed by one of your men more than an hour ago. But still you would not speak to me. Now look at you.”

Marko attempted to raise his head but his swollen eyes didn’t know exactly where the Israeli was. The last vision he had was of his men being piled into the far corner of the engineering spaces after being executed one by one until the last man, a farmer not from Patinas, broke and told the torturers exactly where to find the hidden entrance to the temple and the City of Moses that sat beyond.

“Ah, you wish to say something to me now?” Ben-Nevin asked.

Marko attempted a smile, showing his broken teeth as he did so. Blood poured from the broken lips and gums. With a mighty effort the new king of the Gypsies spit in the Mossad agent’s face. Ben-Nevin quickly stepped back and just as one of the Russian’s men raised his weapon to dispatch Marko, the colonel stayed the barrel of the gun and shook his head as he swiped at the towel around the Gypsy’s neck and wiped his face.

“Leave him to bleed out,” he said with a calmness that made the Russian thugs respect the man from Tel Aviv far more than they had. They watched as Ben-Nevin grabbed the Gypsy’s black hair and pulled him forward making the chains securing his wrists dig in that much deeper. “Be sure you hear this before you die, Gypsy — know that I will kill your entire family not because you insulted me, but because I was going to kill them and any Jeddah that get in my way anyway.” With a harsh shake of the dying man’s hair, Ben-Nevin turned and left the basement followed by all but one man.

Marko felt his head start to swim and the sounds he was hearing seemed distant and far off and that was when his addled brain realized that he was dying and this was what it felt like to do so. The scenario was not an unpleasant one for Marko because he had failed his people so miserably in trying to make their lives better than they had ever known. But now he knew he had been mistaken. The transformation should have been done over a period of years, not months. He knew he would never be able to tell his grandmother how wrong he had been.

The single thug left behind was whistling and for the oddest reason the whistling infuriated Marko. He tried to raise his head to see the man that was whistling and walking toward him but his swollen eyes refused to focus. Suddenly a loud bang sounded at the loading dock door. The sliding aluminum panel that made up the delivery entrance for engineering was fronted by a drive that actually sank into the ground whose road led to the loading dock that was hidden from view. It was this door that shook in its frame. The man, who was whistling and screwing a silencer onto a thirty-five-millimeter Glock pistol, stopped and looked at the still shaking door.

Marko Korvesky smiled a toothless grin as his head perked up at the sudden stillness of the man that had been left behind to ensure his last breaths were taken before dawn. The door was slammed again and a large dent appeared. Then again, and again. The man with the pistol stepped back and brought up the gun and aimed at the door. The sliding aluminum panel door didn’t move.

Marko managed a laugh through his pain that froze the large Romanian thug’s blood.

“The Big Bad Wolf is at the door, little piggy, oh, what to do?” He laughed again, this time louder as the man’s eyes grew wider as a large hand slipped under the door and he saw the very long, very sharp claws thrash at empty space for a moment and then the fingers wrapped around the rubber weather stripping of the bottom edge and started to pull up. The door was locked in place at both ends so the force being exerted brought the center of the door up like a window blind being raised but with the shearing and grinding of aluminum against the steel door frame. The eyes of the man widened further when he saw what was standing on the other side of that door.

Marko was laughing hysterically and coughing up blood at the same time.

Stanus stood breathing hard and staring with its yellow glowing eyes at the man standing before it. The wolf’s left arm was still holding the shattered door as it examined the men inside. The eyes moved from the frightened criminal to the chained and bleeding figure of Marko. The beast’s eyes narrowed as it took in the bloodied condition of the king of the Jeddah. The muzzle opened wide and all thought about holding the door up left the animal as it roared and came forward toward the man, its long fingers curling in and out of fists. Its gait was two-legged and long. The beast roared a second time as it closed the gap. The arms swung back and forth as it came on.

The man attempted to raise the gun and just managed to do so as he fired prematurely. The bullet pinged off the concrete floor just as Stanus reached the man. The Golia rose to its full height and then reached out with its right hand and grabbed the man by the throat and raised him off the floor. He was taken by surprise so badly that all thought of the weapon left his mind and hand as the Romanian tore at the claws and strong fingers now suffocating the life from him. Stanus shook the man once until he heard the snap of the neck. The alpha male brought the mercenary close to its large snout and the beast leaned over and sniffed. Satisfied the man was dead, the Golia threw him against the far wall as it reached for Marko. The man cried out in pain as Stanus tried to free him. The wolf stepped back and whined as it bent at the waist and came to eye level with the Gypsy. The wolf sniffed once more and then growled in anger as it knew, unlike any animal ever created in the natural world, that the man was doomed. Stanus shook its massive head and roared as it raised its muzzle to the rafters of the basement. The roar was so long that it eventually turned into a sorrowful howl. The animal finally stopped and then the distinctive pops were heard as the beast dislocated its hips and then brought the bones free of the frontal socket, and then snapped into place on the back ones. The beast then curled the articulated fingers under and they formed a paw as it went to all four legs. The animal silently curled up in front of the dying Gypsy.

Marko didn’t know how long he was out. When he opened his eyes he saw Stanus lying at his dangling feet, curled up and whining. It was the saddest sound Marko had ever heard and for the first time in his life he truly listened to the Golia. He realized then how much the two species — Jeddah and beast — meant to one another.

“No time for sadness, old friend,” Marko struggled to say through his broken mouth. “I have one more thing for you to do,” he said as blood continued to pour from his mouth. He knew his lungs were filling with blood ever as he spoke. “You must leave me now, brother,” Marko said as his head dipped even lower as his strength ebbed.

Stanus whined and started walking in a circle and the cries were emphatic as the wolf knew that it would never see Marko again. Even with the distrust the wolf had of the Gypsy, the man was still loved by all Golia.

“Stand up, brother wolf. Stand up and take me into you for the last time. No potion, no magic to be said. Take me fully and allow me to make right that which I have broken.”

The words trailed off as Stanus roared and shook his large head in anger. Then the beast hitched up and then stood in one smooth, very fast, and fluent motion. The alpha male was now face-to-face with Marko.

“One … last … time … old … friend … allow me … to run with … you.” The words were so weak that Stanus leaned in and its ears perked up. Then the beast slowly brought its right hand up and placed the long fingers over Marko’s head and the Golia pressed the claws into the thin skin. The pain was light and the connection was made for the last time, and for the only time in recent memory a Jeddah had chosen to die within the mind of a Golia.

Stanus soon released Marko and the beast staggered to the far wall as Marko’s head hung down to his chest. The heart had nearly stilled the moment Stanus had made the connection. Marko was gone and only his broken body remained.

Stanus became still as its eyes once more narrowed to bright yellow slits. The Golia suddenly turned toward the door and its roar shook the building as Marko made Stanus aware of all that was happening.

Stanus took three large strides back to the damaged door and then started smashing the aluminum in with both of it balled-up fists as it worked the anger from its system. The door was battered to pieces in his frenzy and anger. Finally Stanus stood in the open doorway.

The howl was heard as far away as the pass. Will Mendenhall and the rest of the Airborne engineers stood in the driving rain and looked to the south.

At the same moment Marko’s mind died inside of his battered and broken body, Madam Korvesky choked back a sob. It was a thick feeling around her heart and she couldn’t help but think about Marko as a small child. The way he used to play with the Golia pups, Stanus and Mikla among them. Now he was leaving them and she knew they would never see the man-child alive again. As hard as the old woman tried to keep her emotions in check her heart was breaking for the boy who only wanted a better life for his backward people.

Jason Ryan flinched and grit his teeth as the cable car rocked back and forth on the massive cables that hung four abreast over the heavy transport. The lightning was starting to make strikes along the ridge of mountaintop and every time one struck the earth Jason was amazed to see the night illuminated like day. The car slowly moved into the protection of the car barn that led to the old-fashioned-looking wooden dock. The car slowly pulled in and that was when they could all hear the thump of music coming from the club. The brightness of the heavy fluorescent lighting made Jack squint as he motioned for the others to follow him along the top of the car.

Collins soon spied the maintenance ladder and started to climb. The others quickly followed and not a moment too soon as the automatic doors on the cable car closed and then the car started moving backward to return to the hotel just as its twin started the opposite run to the castle. Pete came close to falling because of the heavy vibration of the pulley equipment and the electric motors driving the $27 million system. Pete steadied himself with a reassuring hand from Ryan, who was beneath him on the ladder and securing him with his strong right hand to Pete’s ass.

Jack finally made it to a small platform that led to a catwalk which looked as if it led inside the castle. Jack looked at Sarah and her soaking-wet clothes and at Ryan and Pete, who looked even worse. Outside the storm started in earnest.

“It looks like the only way off the upper floors is through that door and we don’t exactly know where that door leads or what’s behind it.”

“The way things are going and based on what sort of animals live around here, I’m betting that it’s nothing good,” Ryan said as he looked around to make sure they weren’t being observed, as it would be a little hard to explain why four people are hanging out where only bats fear to tread.

Jack ran his fingers through his hair to straighten it a little.

“Oh yeah, that’s much better, Jack,” Sarah said with her eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, well you’re no runway model at the moment either, missy,” he said as he squeezed past her and made his way down the high catwalk to the wide door.

Jack closed his eyes as he pressed his ear to the door and listened. He heard the loud music but that was all. With a shake of his head he tried the steel door’s knob. He was afraid it wasn’t turning but realized that his hands were wet so he gripped harder and the knob turned and cracked open and Collins and the others stepped through.

As the door hissed closed on its hydraulic spring, a large hand shot out and caught the heavy gauge steel door before it closed. The black wolf wedged its fingers in the frame and kept the door from closing as it hopped down from the upper reaches of the catwalk cage. It had ripped a man-sized hole in the steel mesh screen and waited for Jack and the others to pass by. They were the same humans Stanus had seen earlier at the resort. The beast was curious as it took station in front of the door while standing on its hind legs.

Stanus flicked its large ears when the music assaulted him. The beast slowly opened the door and stepped through into Dracula’s Castle, right behind an unsuspecting Jack, Sarah, Pete, and Ryan just as the large audience broke out in applause deep inside the nightclub.

Dmitri Zallas had arrived and Castle Dracula was truly getting ready to rock ’n’ roll.

Niles had called in Will Mendenhall and equipped him with the only weapon they had available and that was one of the small Uzis that had been taken from one of Anya’s assailants. The other two were useless, as the only rounds they had left in their clip Everett had ordered placed into one weapon. The storm was getting worse by the minute and Will had reported that the villagers were starting to gather at the large abandoned barn that sat in the lee of the mountain for the small protection it afforded from the driving rain and smashing thunder.

As the group followed Anya away from the center of the stone temple, Niles saw that Carl was slowly regaining the strength he had lost during his spell with Stanus. He was now walking without the aid of Anya, who walked beside him anyway. Director Niles Compton had never seen the captain so comfortable around any woman other than the friends he worked with. He knew it had been a bad stretch for Carl over the past seven years since the loss of his fiancée, Lisa, and he knew Mr. Everett deserved to enjoy the friendship of a woman once more.

Niles waited for Charlie Ellenshaw, who was looking around like a schoolboy inside a circus tent. He marveled at the designs carved into the solid rock of the mountain. Beside Charlie was Alice, who had her arm through the crook of Ellenshaw’s and they looked as if they were just a couple on a stroll through the most amazing park in the world. Niles saw the justification on Alice’s face and he was happy for her. This one last chance to prove a theory had been a godsend and he was happy to have had Jack talk him into the Event—If they made it out of there, he thought. Denise Gilliam was in the stone enclosure looking after a weakening Madam Korvesky, who had seemed to wither away faster than before right in front of their eyes after crying for no reason that Anya or the others could see.

Anya walked past the twenty-five-foot-high double wooden doors that were set deep into the stone wall of the largest chamber. Niles had thought that was the area she had been taking them to but saw now that their destination was far beyond what was visible inside the temple. He watched as Anya walked up to a seemingly impenetrable stone wall. She reached over and dislodged a torch that had seen better days. She held the weak flame to the wall to allow her visitors to see the design that had been carved by one of the master stonecutters of the ancient world. It was a beveled, deep-cut image of the Eye of Ra. Anya lowered the torch and raised the five-pointed star that was still attached to her grandmother’s chain and then placed it against the image of the most famous eye in the history of deities. The bronze five-pointed star was pressed into its twin facsimile in the stone. A depression formed and then Anya turned the star until there was an audible click that echoed in the small enclosed area of the temple.

“A key,” Will Mendenhall said when he turned to see what the Gypsy woman was doing. He had been watching the area above them where he kept hearing the rustling of something running around.

“Yes, part of one anyway,” Anya said as she raised her grandmother’s cane and then deftly snapped the handle free of the old wood. “Sorry, Grandmamma, I don’t have the time to be gentle,” she said as she placed the handle with the image of the eye molded in its center against the stone and again pressed until the handle turned and sank into the stone. Anya turned the handle with her hand to the right and then released it and stepped back. “Watch out, this may not have been opened in a while and I don’t know how much thermal pressure has built up.”

Before Niles and Charlie had a chance to ask, a wide seam opened up in the stone as a false facing of solid rock separated from the wall. The square was about twenty feet by twenty feet and now stood separate from the wall by five inches. Steam escaped from the precise cut of the hidden doorway. The hissing continued and steadily grew louder until the Americans had to cover their ears from the piercing noise. A loud crack sounded and steam blasted from the cuts in the stone and then du amazing thing happened: the wall rolled forward and then swung open with a blast of vented steam. Beyond the darkened doorway it was dark and hot.

“That is the most amazing piece of engineering I have ever seen in my life,” Niles said as he examined the technology necessary to get such a precise cut in the stone so as to seal it against pressurized steam. He shook his head in wonder.

“Yes, the Jeddah had the best master builders Ramesses could supply. One of the spoils of Egypt so many have talked about,” Anya said as she took the torch and with her arm through Mr. Everett’s she stepped through the doorway and into the darkness beyond. “Please come through but be careful not to step any further than the torch light can reach.”

Niles and the others stepped through the barrier of heat and rising steam. The temperature had to be hovering above 120 degrees. When Anya could see everyone in the weak light of the torch she lay the burning wood against a wall trough filled with kerosene. The flame caught and traveled the two square miles of hidden points where a large flame caught and illuminated the interior. As the view below them came into stark reality, Anya tossed the dying torch away and stepped to the ledge. She smiled and gestured for them to see what it was they came to Romania to see.

As they stepped cautiously to the ledge, Alice took in a sharp intake of air as the view came into focus. Stretched out before them was a city the likes of which no one had seen since the time of the Pharaohs. These were not carved replicas like the ones inside the temple, the buildings were stone blocks and the statues real. The colors caught them off guard. The monuments were painted in bright whites and stark reds and blues. The reptiles that stretched above and wrapped around the city must have taken a hundred years to carve. The pyramids were not like the small ones in the temple. The three stone structures were three hundred feet high and looked out of the small city like sentinels watching their young.

“My God,” Niles said as Carl Everett whistled.

The city was an exact replica in every detail of an Egyptian city. The buildings were not the same in number as a larger population would have, but they were exact and they had been built by the very same hands that had constructed the ancient Egyptian cities of Thebes, Memphis, Ra-Ramesses, and Luxor.

There were six giant stone lions with the heads of bearded men that guarded the largest structure other than the three pyramids. The depictions were a cross between an Egyptian sphinx and a Hebrew with a long and curling beard.

The columned building was built into the far end of the mountain and had fifteen large stone steps leading through the hundred columns. The giant statue of Anubis stood guard in front of the lions, only this time the Event Group had no illusions as to what the giant black statue represented — the Golia. The wolf head topped a headdress of red and blue and green and other colors that were so bright as to be celebratory. The gasps that came from the astonished Americans were just as Anya expected.

“Welcome to the real City of Moses, the Law Giver.”

Jack Collins was stumped as how to get to the lower levels of the castle without being observed. They had to find a back way out to get to the road that traveled along the mountain. They needed to get to Patinas and get Niles and their people the hell out of there. He knew he was pressing and not thinking clearly in his anxiety to get out. They were on a main catwalk that supported the lighting system for the club. Sarah, Pete, and Ryan were staying as low as they could, expecting a lighting technician to come upon them at any moment. Pete was listening to the music below and nodding his head.

“These guys aren’t that bad,” Pete said as he heard the refrains of “Mustang Sally” coming from the stage.

“I hate to agree with the doc, but he’s right, they are good,” Ryan said, looking at Sarah, who was shaking her head.

“If you two fans of the truly weird are done, I think this is the way out.”

Ryan frowned as he hadn’t realized Collins could hear his opinion.

As they moved they were amazed at the decor even in the uppermost sections of the castle. There was everything from shields of old to long wooden banquet tables filled with exotic food lined the club. The expense of building and outfitting the castle had to have been tremendous.

Jack saw what he had spied a moment ago. It was a small vent exposed to the fresh air outside. Jack saw that the fan that would be placed over the vent for exhaust purposes had yet to be installed and that would be their exit point. As he moved he saw that the catwalk ended and the top floor opened up into a medieval balcony. Collins hadn’t seen the gap earlier. He shook his head as he saw no one near so he stepped off the catwalk and onto the rug that ran the length of the balcony. The others eased themselves down and followed Collins to the vent. Jack immediately went to prying it open. He finally managed to free it from its frame and they were all immediately hit by rain as it pummeled them through the opening. Jack nodded his head.

“Well, we were soaked anyway, let’s go.”

As they stepped free of the castle they realized they were on the north wall and it was only a short step down onto the rocks that led to the trail below.

“That was just a little too easy,” Ryan said.

“Look,” Pete said as he was pointing down onto the road they were soon to be upon.

As they looked a line of vehicles wound its way past the castle and then continued toward the north. The drivers didn’t seem to fear the massive streams of water that was now washing out the very edges of the dirt road. The sixteen four-wheel-drive vehicles moved steadily toward the pass.

“Damn it, they’re not wasting any time. That’s Colonel Ben-Nevin and his assault force,” Jack said as he wiped at the rain running down his face. Lightning rent the night sky and Sarah saw the look of near defeat in Jack’s eyes. It only became worse from there.

“Move and that will be the last thing you ever do,” came the heavily accented English voice. The sound was emanating from the mouth of one of Dmitri Zallas’s personal bodyguards.

Jack turned and saw that they were surrounded by ten men in heavy weather gear.

“Mr. Zallas expected you would be along sometime tonight. Only he expected you to make a little better time.” The men laughed as they kept their weapons pointed.

“Yeah, well, you try riding on top of that cable car and see how fleet of foot you are after braving that storm, asshole,” Ryan said as he recognized that one of the men was the very same thug he and Pete had the run-in with.

“Yes, I’m sure it is a thrilling ride. Unfortunately the situation here in Patinas has changed and Mr. Zallas can no longer guarantee your safety because of the severity of the storm,” the man said as he smiled and gestured with the gun for them to move back into the castle. “We cannot have NATO representatives sliding off one of our more rugged roads and dying in a most horrible accident.”

“Yeah, that would be a tragedy especially with our bodies riddled with bullets,” Jack said just as he realized they could not be taken back inside. He was going to have to do something stupid so the others could have a chance.

Jack turned around just before he came to the steel door and that was when he saw the wolf jump from the top of one of the castle’s parapets. The leap was a good thirty feet and the beast landed with a heavy thud, which got the attention of their captors; only it was far too late for them to react as Stanus waded into the men tearing and slashing at skin and bone. It was like the beast was possessed as it killed every man that stood on the castle wall. The Golia roared in triumph as the last man fell to the stone floor as rain washed the blood and gore quickly away. Stanus looked from the slaughtered men strewn about like so much roadkill and then focused its attention on Jack and the others, who stood frozen in shock at the sudden turn of events.

“Oh, shit, that thing does not look happy,” Jason said as he took a step back from the heavily breathing animal. His eyes traveled to the curved claws that moved as the animal clicked them together. None of them could look away from the blood as it slowly dripped from the purplish-looking eight-inch claws.

Jack eased toward the far wall and the trail just below it but Stanus growled and stepped forward to block his move. Ryan tried the same maneuver but the beast growled again and then moved to block him.

“I don’t think it wants us going that way,” Sarah said as she watched Stanus narrow its yellow glowing eyes.

Finally Stanus growled loud and jumped to the opposite wall and then, with one last look back at Collins, leaped over the stone parapet. Jack and the others ran to the wall and saw that there was another smaller trail on that side and it led to the mountain and then vanished into nothing.

“Look!” Pete said pointing through the rain.

As everyone turned their eyes toward where Pete was pointing, a large bolt of lightning streaked across the blackened sky. As the ground illuminated into a bizarre landscape of shadows and things that were blacker than evil itself, they saw Stanus vanish into a large fissure in the side of the mountain. They watched and waited but the wolf never returned.

“Well, I guess we’ll go with the Golia’s plan,” Jack said as he eased himself over the wall and then started to follow Stanus into the heart of the mountain.

“I never thought I would be taking orders from a large dog,” Ryan said as he leaped to the top of the wall and looked down and then smiled and looked at Sarah McIntire. “But I’ve woken up with a few,” he laughed and then disappeared over the side.

The C-130 Hercules transport circled on station alternately climbing to 28,000 feet to raise and lower the aircraft over the roughest of the storm front. Thus far they had done everything but declare an emergency in order to be able to hold station as close to the HALO point as possible.

“Otopeni Tower, this is Israeli Civilian Heavy 262, our inertial navigation system is still a little screwy, we’ll need another few minutes to get it straightened out before we turn for the south, over.”

Israeli Army Major Donny Mendohlson stood between the pilot’s and copilot’s seats and listened. He adjusted the headphones so he could hear the irritated response of the Romanian air traffic controller from Bucharest.

“Israeli 262 Heavy, continue orbiting at current altitude and speed, report any change in situation, and remain off the air until a disposition of your emergency can be determined. Over.”

“Thank you, Otopeni Tower, this is Israeli 262 Heavy, out.” The air force pilot half turned and looked at the major. “They don’t seem too happy, but we should have a few extra minutes, as they’re in no hurry to deal with us. At the moment they have over two hundred commercial flights and then the extra flights added on for the flood relief effort. But soon enough someone’s going to get suspicious in Bucharest and then we may get a close-up of those brand-new F-16 Falcons the Romanians just bought from the Yanks.”

“What do you figure?” Mendohlson asked.

“Maybe thirty minutes before we have those all-weather fighters on our asses, no more. After that we have to head south or risk a Sidewinder up our tail ramp.”

The major patted the pilot on the shoulder. “That will have to do. We go in no more than thirty.”

As the major made his way below he saw his sixty-two men of the elite force. They were busy checking the three-minute oxygen supply it would take for the jump. Two of those minutes were added for security reasons, but the air should be sufficient to get them to the ground, in what kind of shape after a HALO jump in what amounted to hurricane force winds no one could say. He knew this jump would kill some of his men and he knew that was what was expected of them.

In less than thirty minutes the far-off land of Transylvania was about to be invaded by the new and vastly improved Hebrew army.

The expanse of the City of Moses was the most impressive sight any of them had ever laid eyes on. As they examined the city they saw the young Golia playing in the massive temple structure that was the actual vault of secrets for the Hebrew tribe. Golia were everywhere and they cared not one ounce that the City of Moses had come alive with light and the strange voices of men.

Anya took Carl’s hand and started down the steep ramp that led into the city. Everywhere they looked steam vents of massive proportions were spread throughout the buildings. Everett squeezed Anya’s hand as they neared the bottom of the ramp and for the first time the Americans stepped out and back into history. The city could have been a miniature version of Luxor. The lions with the heads of long-lost bearded men and the statues of Anubis that they now knew had nothing at all to do with the furry little creatures thought to have been Jackals — they now knew they were the Golia. And everywhere there were the Golia pups. Everett lost track at trying to count them.

As they approached the many columned temple Alice realized that the first temple was nothing more than a ruse to keep trespassers at bay just in case someone found their way in. Security for the complex was as straightforward as a sword point. They knew who kept watch on this place and they were running and playing around them right at that moment. Anya started to climb the stone steps.

Niles walked next to Alice, who was in between him and Charlie. Will Mendenhall brought up the back and kept his eyes on the ramp behind them. Will was starting to feel that something wasn’t right.

“Wait, stop!” Mendenhall said as he raised a hand and then looked around him. “Do you feel that?” he asked as his hand and arm slowly lowered.

They all did. As they walked the steps leading to the temple the entire city wavered and shook. The sensation of movement ceased but it worried them nonetheless.

“I have never felt that before,” Anya said as she squeezed Everett’s hand tighter. She shook her head and then smiled at Carl, who could not take his eyes off the woman with the raven hair and the blue head scarf. She finally turned and walked to the giant bronze doors and stood waiting.

Alice was in her element. After all the years of waiting, searching, and arguing with Garrison Lee over the temple and the very tribe’s existence was almost too much for her. She was nearly stomping her feet in her effort to see the actual treasure of the Exodus spread out before her eyes.

“King Tut ain’t got nothin’ on this,” Charlie said as the double bronze doors were opened wide.

“The true treasure of the Exodus,” Anya said as she stepped aside and allowed the Americans to pass into history.

The sight that met them was one they would never forget.

The fissure in the mountain wall behind Dracula’s Castle was a tight fit, but Jack thought if the wolf could make it through they could too. A mile in he thought he had figured wrong.

“Jack, this crack in the world is a little too straight to be a natural phenomenon. It’s tight, but look at its lines. This fissure was excavated.”

The fit was so tight Collins couldn’t turn his body to respond.

“Your point, Lieutenant?” he asked in frustration.

Before he could get an answer in the darkness around them he felt the grip as it wrapped around his throat and he was pulled forward and thrown into open space.

“Colonel?” he heard Ryan say as if from a great distance.

Collins shook his head as something heavy landed next to him. He felt around and then discovered someone had thrown an unlit torch onto the floor. He heard the others as they squeezed through the last large crack and into the open space. A hard breeze took Sarah’s hair and pulled it back toward the tunnel.

“There’s quite a draft in here,” she said as she placed her arms out in front of her to keep from bashing into a wall.

“No one move — not one inch,” they heard Collins say as a brilliant flash of light illuminated the small cave they were in. The torch caught and then Jack fanned out the entire book of matches he had used to start the flame burning. As he brought the torch around it almost came into contact with a solid object that stood directly in front of him.

“Oh, crap, he’s big,” Ryan said in amazement.

Stanus stood in front of Jack and the giant Golia was sniffing at him as if the smell of Jack was a reminder to the beast that the man he had traveling with him earlier was close to this human. It sniffed the air and Stanus knew this to be true about all four of the humans inside the cavern. The animal went to all fours with an audible adjustment to its skeletal frame and confidently strolled over to Ellenshaw, Sarah, and Ryan. The beast was eye-level with the Navy man and taller than Sarah. Charlie was the only one tall enough to see over the wolf’s shoulders. Sarah slowly brought her hand up so Stanus could sniff her. Jack froze, wondering if she had lost her mind.

Instead of sniffing at Sarah’s hand, Stanus sat hard on his haunches and then brought his right front paw up and then the fingers unfolded before her eyes. The fingers reached out and the large humanlike hand stroked Sarah’s face as gently as any lover could have. Then the Golia blinked and walked to something the torchlight had failed to show them a moment before. Stanus jumped eight feet from his sitting position and landed on something round and black. Jack’s eyes widened as he stepped forward with the torch flickering and sputtering.

“Oh, my God,” Sarah said as she recognized what it was that Stanus was pacing alongside of as the Golia watched the four humans below. The earth had been taken from around the structure leaving it totally exposed to the air. The giant steel anchor pin was one of sixteen that secured the foundation of the castle to the rock strata of the mountain. The giant anchor pin ended with a drill bit that had dug its way into the almost solid stone of the pass. Steam vents had weakened the area around the pin and it had been easy to dig out the rest.

“What is it?” Pete asked as he placed his hand on the cold steel.

“It’s one of the sixteen anchor pins used to secure the castle to the mountain. If the other fifteen are like this we have just discovered where that strange vibration was coming from. It’s not the steam or the natural hot springs bringing this seismic activity, it’s them,” she said as she pointed upward in the darkness.

Above them and joining Stanus on the top of the steel anchor pin was the remainder of the Golia adults. Even Mikla was there sitting on his haunches looking at the visitors.

“I think this big guy is trying to tell us something,” Jack said as he placed the torch next to the area of the cave where the pin had penetrated. “Look at this, short stuff; it’s just like you described when you saw the engineering specs and the geology report.”

Sarah placed a hand on the pin and felt it not only moving up and down but it actually felt as if the steel was attempting to back out of the hole that it had forced open in the mountain like a knife wound.

“These thermal vents have weakened the strata of the mountain, making it almost porous. Thus it’s very weak and any geologist worth his salt would have seen that on his initial survey.”

“Unless that geologist had access to Zallas and his millions.”

Sarah had to admit that Jack was right. Through bribery this mad Russian had doomed at least part of the mountain, namely the pass at Patinas.

“I’m not following,” Pete said as he too saw the giant cracks in the rock as the pin passed through.

“Look, Pete,” Sarah started to explain as she removed the torch from Jack’s hand and then placed it by the pin and lowered it to the bottom where fresh dirt had been piled along the fissures floor. “The pin has nothing to bind itself to. It’s like shoving a sharpened knife through a cracker, no matter how sharp that knife is it will eventually compromise that cracker and it will break. The same thing here,” she said as she ran the torch along the lines of the pin. “The constant pressure of the castle being secured by these pins to the facing of the mountain wall is bringing too much pressure to bear on the sixteen anchor pins holding the building in place. And now our little amazing animals here have been undermining the locations where the pins were most secure.”

“What are you saying?” Pete asked as his mind started to grasp what the Golia’s plan was.

“They’re bringing Dracula’s Castle down, and possibly the entire resort below it.”

“No animal could possibly figure out the displacement dynamics involved,” Pete said, envious of the computing power that the brain that thought that scenario up had inside. He shook his head in wonder.

“Maybe for the Golia alone, but I suspect that the first strike of the wolves against their intruders to the mountain was thought up by something other than a smart wolf.”

“Madam Korvesky?” Sarah asked.

“That would be my guess, as I don’t think that Marko character had it in him to think this up.”

“On the other hand, I never thought it took too much explanation for the reasons why a dog digs,” Ryan said as the simple truth of the matter always hit him in the most easily describable ways. “Maybe the Golia just didn’t like these ugly steel pins in their mountain and they are trying to dig them out. I would rather believe that than think that a rather large timber wolf could outthink me on a battlefield.”

Jack smiled and looked at the young Navy man. “From what I’ve heard from Alice, these damn wolves seemed to have amassed a reputation for being just that, great warriors and tacticians. I’m leaning toward collaboration between the Jeddah and the Golia to stop this encroachment by destroying the only thing they can.”

“But an engineering failure on that scale would bring far too much attention to this area of the world for the Jeddah to cover up,” Sarah reminded Jack.

“Not if their plan was to destroy the entire pass,” Jack said as he realized the Jeddah and the Golia may be giving up their home of over thirty-five hundred years. The end for both may be near.

Above them they heard the Golia move off with the clicking of their claws on the steel pin. Jack took the torch from Sarah and then pointed it down the long anchor pin and saw that the dirt and rocks had been moved away from the steel by at least five feet in all directions. The anchor pin was basically suspended in midair with no support. And as they watched, the massive steel pin moved up and then down a good five feet. The movement of the pin was getting worse and to Jack’s horror he saw that the pin had backed out of the mountain by at least three inches since they had been standing there.

“Let’s get to Patinas and get everyone the hell off this mountain.”

They all followed Jack as he squeezed past the opening between the exposed anchor pin and the side of the mountain. Now it was a long clear run to the pass.

As they ran the mountain shook beneath them as the anchor pin in another area slid further away from its support. The mountain was now dying from a knife wound through its heart.

Sergeant Jimmy Forester watched the line of vehicles approaching and was wondering what fools would brave that horrible dirt track at night and in the middle of the storm of the century. He leaned forward and pushed open the wooden shutters of Madam Korvesky’s house. As he watched the line of cars approach the village he was wondering where the Army officer was. For whatever reason the engineer felt better when the officer was giving orders. And that was hard to admit for an Airborne soldier such as himself. But still, this mountain was not conducive to positive thinking.

Suddenly bells were heard clanging from every corner of Patinas. Lights were coming on in every home as doors flew open and men, women, and children started streaming forth in various stages of undress. Men were carrying shotguns and the women their children. They were running toward the gate and the mountain beyond. The sergeant ran to the door and opened it just as one of the Patinas village elders stepped onto the small porch.

“We must go to the temple, immediately, bring what weapons you have and that shotgun over the mantel. I believe the queen has shells in her kitchen,” the white-bearded man said as he pulled on the camouflage jacket of the American. “Bring your people, now!” the man said in very bad English as he turned and ran.

“Jeez, I don’t know about you, Sarge, but when the local populace starts heading for the hills and until we know who these assholes are it might be wise to do the same. From the frightened looks on the faces of those men and women I would bet they’re not very welcome here, whoever they are.”

The sergeant knew his man was right. He looked down at the two nearly empty Uzis and knew they had not much firepower to make a stand there.

“Right, let’s boogie,” the sergeant said as the sixteen men of the 82nd gathered up their equipment. The lone shotgun and its shells was packed and even a large meat cleaver and butcher knife from the old Gypsy’s kitchen. The men retreated from the shelter of the small cottage and joined the exodus out of Patinas just as the first cars made the village.

Colonel Ally Ben-Nevin stepped from the large Toyota four-by-four and examined the small village of Patinas. He watched as his men fanned out around the town. The men were each heavily armed with a brand-new AK-47 supplied by Zallas and his people in Bucharest where the men were hired.

“Check every house. Bring along whoever you find. They may make our task easier if we have them.”

He looked up at the swirling night sky and the almost constant streaks of lightning that crisscrossed the heavens. He was feeling better than he had at any time in the past few years. The storm was so bad not even the great General Shamni could get a relief force in here. He knew he would have the run of the mountain for the next few critical hours until he gathered the proof his superiors needed for their fundamentalist movement. No, there would be no cavalry riding over the hill to save the day. Not this time.

“That’s it, Major, we’ve been made,” the pilot said as he struggled with the yoke as the Hercules jumped a hundred feet into the roiling storm.

“What’s up?” Major Donny Mendohlson asked as he came forward.

“We have two F-16s out of the Ploesti region and they are heading right for us. They’re not buying the navigation screwup any longer. We have to exit out of Romanian airspace ASAP before they get a visual on us. They won’t take too kindly at seeing an Israeli air force Hercules instead of the Airbus they were expecting.”

“Yeah, I can see where that would be kind of bad.”

The major turned and went to the communication shack just aft of the cockpit. He nodded at the operator as he gestured down to his men by waving his right hand in a circular motion. The silent team of professionals went about finalizing their jump preparations. The radio operator, who also served as their jump master, handed Mendohlson a pair of earphones.

“The signal is secure through our satellite,” the operator said as the major nodded.

“Seti, this is Broadsword, do you read? Over.”

“Broadsword, this is Seti the Great, read you five by five,” came the clear and encrypted voice of General Shamni.

“Seti, it is time to play or get out of the park, some rather nasty-looking local bullies have arrived by air,” the major said as he told Shamni that the Romanian air force had decided to pay them a visit. He spoke cryptically out of habit and he knew the general would do the same. Nothing is ever secure enough for the elite forces of the state.

The general knew that no matter what occurred down in Patinas he had to have eyes on the ground and a decision had to be made whether to jump. To him that was the simplest thing in the world and an order he wanted to give since learning about this nightmare as a child.

“Understood, Broadsword, you are clear to commence Operation Ramesses, I repeat, you are clear to launch operation Ramesses. Over.”

Mendohlson swallowed and then without turning from the radio raised his right arm into the air and his thumb went high. The men below moved like lightning as the go order was now official.

“Roger, Seti the Great, Broadsword confirms, Operation Ramesses is a go.”

“Good luck, Broadsword, end this thing,” came the weary voice of General Shamni.

Sounding through the cavernous aircraft was a loud warning bell and the lights inside switched to dull red in preparation of the ramp being opened to the harsh elements outside. Each man had a full face mask and supply of oxygen. Each was also equipped with 190 pounds of extra gear, but mostly killing tools of the trade. They never jumped into a situation they felt they had no hope of escaping, it may be delusional but psychologically it was helpful.

In exactly two minutes the sovereign state of Romania, America’s newest NATO partner, was about to be invaded by a friendly nation and they were coming to kill a legend.

The ancient City of Moses had an hour to live.

The giant room that was illuminated with a thousand oil lamps was brightly inlaid with gold leaf on the walls instead of the normal paint used on most of the statuary. The ancient story the hieroglyphs told was related in stark gold relief and the highlights trimmed in emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. The depictions of the Exodus were there.

The treasure room was just that. It was what Alice Hamilton always envisioned. With one altering factor — there was no treasure. The room was completely empty with the only exception being three wooden boxes the size of coffins that sat on carved stone pedestals.

Niles looked at Alice, who had a look of confusion on her face. She looked at Anya, who was whispering something to Carl Everett.

“Anya said she is ashamed and embarrassed. She knew you would be disappointed,” Carl said for the woman who had wandered away and sat next to the center stone. She took a deep breath and waited for the laughter at what a foolish people she lived among.

“Disappointed?” Alice asked. She separated herself from Niles and walked up to Anya and stood before her. “My dear, what in the world do you think we came to see? We’re here because of the mystery of your people and a story that must be documented, but written so the truth of your kind can be placed beside those of the rest of civilization. Not for any treasure.”

“I don’t mean to be the material one here, but just out of curiosity, there is gold and jewels all over this chamber, so where is the rest of it?” Will Mendenhall asked as his fingers slid lightly over a diamond the size of a dove’s egg that had been expertly embedded into the wall.

Anya finally laughed out loud and only Carl smiled with her.

“This is the treasure of the Exodus, Lieutenant. All the spoils of Egypt.”

Carl laughed as did Niles and Alice. Charlie looked from face to face and joined in the laughter simply because he was amused to see them all actually lose it. Only Mendenhall looked distressed.

“The real spoils of war were farming tools, animals; mundane things that we think were everyday items but that they thought of as riches. Grain, water, food — all of the things of normal life were the real spoils — the reward for hundreds of years of near servitude. These small things were all that there was of any avarice from the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt.”

“I suspect the real treasure and the need for secrecy is right there, isn’t it?” Alice said as she placed a hand on the first ancient wooden box and ran her fingers along its worn top.

“My grandmother told me the story of your meeting, Mrs. Hamilton; she said she believed you to be the rare woman to understand what the Jeddah were about, and all from that one brief meeting in Hong Kong.”

“Your grandmother wasn’t only beautiful, but perceptive, young lady,” Alice said in appreciation.

Anya smiled in return and then allowed Everett to assist her to her feet. She locked eyes with Alice and then hugged her. “Now you will know why the world and especially our own people in Israel can never know about this place,” she whispered into Alice’s ear.

Mendenhall, Charlie, Niles, and even Everett jumped when Anya suddenly and unexpectedly slid the top of the box off until it crashed to the floor. Without looking inside Anya walked away into the shadows cast by the flickering torches.

Alice watched the young woman leave and then her eyes went to the contents of the box and then she gasped. She had expected to see something of immense religious value, perhaps even the lost Ark of the Covenant, but what she saw amazed and frightened her. It was a mummified corpse. The wrappings were rotted and most had peeled away thousands of years before, exposing leathery remains that had petrified due to the conditions inside the buried temple.

As the others stepped up to view the mummy inside, Anya turned suddenly and walked to the left-side box and pushed that cover away until it hit the stone flooring. Then she repeated it with the third box and then, looking tired, Anya went toward the far wall and waited for the questions that would follow.

Alice looked toward the high ceiling of ornate wood and stone and went deep into thought.

“What is it, Alice?” Niles asked but it was Charlie who smiled and knew what she was going to say.

“Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There God showed him the whole land and said unto Moses, ‘This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, “I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes, Moses, but you will not cross over into it.” And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab.’”

“The Book of Moses?” Niles asked, lacking a little in his Bible studies of late.

“Deuteronomy,” Alice said as she stared into the center-most wooden box. “It also says in the Bible that Moses was buried by the Lord and the place of his burial was kept secret from all men. After the death of Moses, his body became the focus of a battle between Michael the Archangel and the devil but that’s all mired in controversy, isn’t it, Anya?”

“Yes, the legend states that at some point Moses was resurrected by the Lord of Hosts and brought to heaven. That was what all of Israel was told by Joshua. His divinity was intact even after death. It was the first of many—”

“Cover-ups,” Alice finished for her.

“I understand you Americans are uncommonly attached to that word, but maybe fudging the truth is a better phrase.”

“Wait, I’m not getting this. If there’s no treasure, why build all of this?” Will Mendenhall asked.

“To house the body of the greatest Hebrew of all time, and also a man that served the court of Ramesses II,” Alice said as her eyes went to the center-most mummy with the simple cloth blanket of reds and blacks lying across the bulk of it. “Anya, he’s your direct ancestor, would you explain to Lieutenant Mendenhall who this is?”

Anya walked up to Will and then smiled at his naïveté.

“The Egyptian name of this man was Munius, which the Torah translates into Hebrew as Moshe. But he was also known by no fewer than ten other names in his time of power, both Egyptian might and Hebrew might. He could be called Yered, Avigdor, Chever, and seven other names that are as equally unpronounceable.”

Alice smiled and then put an arm around Mendenhall.

“Hard to take it all in isn’t it, Will?” she asked.

“You mean to say that this is—”

Anya cut him off by standing and talking as she stood by the second wooden box.

“And this is the body of Joseph, the man responsible for Israel’s bondage into Egypt.” She walked past the second box to the third. “This is Joshua, whose body my ancestor Kale stole from the people not long after his death to be hidden with his brother and mentor.”

Will Mendenhall just realized what it was they were saying to him as he looked back into the box with the small five-foot mummy lying inside. Alice chuckled and looked at the stunned lieutenant.

“Say hello to the Prophet Moses, Will.”

Crazy Charlie Ellenshaw placed the U.C. Berkeley 1969 stamp of approval on the discovery.

“Now that is far out!”

Colonel Ben-Nevin watched as the men completed the sweep of the village and he saw that not one of the locals had been found. This was a little unnerving as he would have thought to catch them unawares at this time of night. He gestured angrily for the men to move toward the gate and the mountain that sat waiting for them to rape it. He was about to move when a pair of headlights crossed the path of his men. He squinted into the bright lights made far eerier because of the sideways rain that pelted them. He cursed when he saw it was a black Mercedes SUV and then the man that was being assisted out of the backseat became recognizable. The man was wearing a full-length wool overcoat and was dressed in a black tuxedo. The cigar was blazing as Zallas stepped into the raging storm. Ben-Nevin angrily approached.

“I thought we had agreed to allow me to recover the treasure. You were not to be here.”

Zallas removed the cigar from his mouth and saw that the rain had killed it cold and then angrily tossed it into the flowing water that was quickly becoming a lake.

“Yes, plans change. I was content to sit it out and wait for my reward, but that luxury changed when ten of my men were slaughtered down at the castle while trying to detain the not so innocent Americans. It was a god-awful mess and an insult to me personally and I’m here to see that the people responsible for it pay dearly, NATO be damned.” Zallas flinched and ducked when a close strike of lightning sent a small tingle of electricity through their shoes.

Ben-Nevin saw that it would be no use in arguing with the idiot so instead he turned and made for the hidden passage to the City of Moses and its treasure rooms.

19

The first gunshots echoed off the stone walls of the large staircase. The first few rounds were fired blindly at the fleeing villagers as they scrambled down the stairs in a mad flight to escape the unknown attackers. Two of the 82nd Airborne sergeants and three of the locals took up station at the first large bend in the staircase.

The two Uzis in the hands of the engineers would be useless in just twelve shots apiece. Besides, combat engineers were excellent shots with a regular M-16 or 14, but an Uzi? They fully expected to be wiped out in a matter of seconds. The sergeants both looked at the ancient long doubled-barreled nine-gauge shotguns held by the three bearded Gypsy farmers and then they looked away, not very confident of their rearguard action to protect the villagers. The Americans figured since they didn’t know who was who in this case they would stick with the families that had fed and sheltered them. Besides they actually liked the Gypsy clan for no other reason than they treated them as family. Yes, when in doubt just be a good guy.

The first man to breach the wide corner was startled to see the bearded men along with two uniformed men waiting for them. His eyes widened in startled wakefulness as the first Gypsy standing over one over the sergeants fired not just one, but both barrels into the man’s chest sending him flying backward into the stone wall where blood and gore splattered in a wide arch.

The Gypsy cackled as he broke the nine-gauge open and tossed the still smoking shells onto the floor and then easily pushed in two more.

“I think you enjoyed that too much, cowboy,” the sergeant said as another blast of the shotgun silenced him.

One more man went down as the second Gypsy in line had opened up on the intruders.

The second sergeant fired the Uzi and bullets sprayed everywhere but where he had aimed.

“Damn it!” the man shouted at his poor accuracy.

The third Gypsy farmer said something loudly as he stepped around the sergeant, obviously cursing his poor aim, and fired his shotgun. The pellets struck another of Ben-Nevin’s men, spinning him backward. Then the old man suddenly grabbed his face and went down. The bullet hole was clean and precisely in the center of his head.

The first sheep man checked his friend and then angrily stood and discharged both barrels into the stairwell. Then he yelled something Romanian and turned to the Americans.

“We run now,” he said and then took off. The Americans exchanged startled looks and then followed suit, running as fast as their feet could carry them down the long flight of stairs.

Jack heard the gunfire coming from somewhere ahead. In the darkness of the trench that had been dug by the Golia he could barely discern the walls much less the end of the excavation. The walls had closed in so tight he had been forced to extinguish the torch, as it was in danger of choking them all to death.

“Uh, oh, it sounds like someone may have company,” Ryan said from his position at the rear of the line.

“Damn it, Jack, Alice and Niles are in there!” Sarah said as she inadvertently tried to push Jack faster than was able to go.

“Hey, hey, if you push any more we’re going to get ourselves wedged in here,” Collins said as he tried to move faster

Suddenly he broke into an open space and he saw a light in the distance. As he stepped forward in the darkness he just hoped he wasn’t heading for a precipice he couldn’t see.

“Colonel, I don’t think we’re alone in here,” said Pete Golding as he too stepped into the open space.

“Yeah, well let’s not wait around until we get surprised by something else that comes straight from a nightmare,” Jack said as he grabbed Sarah’s hand and moved down the passage toward the light.

As Jack neared the light he saw that it was just a round hole and it looked recently dug. He smelled the ripe richness of the dirt and knew that the Golia had been hard at work in the temple. Collins eased his head out and saw that he was in a large room with three boxes and golden depictions of Egyptian or some other deities in relief on the walls. Jack eased out of the hole and then helped Sarah. Outside the enclosure the gunfire continued, sporadically at first and then a thunderous exchange. Collins released Sarah’s hand and then pulled the stolen nine-millimeter from his wet and muddy pants. He waited for Ryan and Pete to do the same.

“You have the extra weapons we took off those wonderful people?” he asked as he handed one of the Glocks to Sarah, who charged the weapon and then looked at the colonel.

Ryan took the lead as was fast becoming his custom under Jack’s training. The gunfire started again and then the sound of men shouting in Romanian and then in another unknown language. Ryan peeked out of the column doorway just as several women and children broke from a large empty stairwell toward a city the likes of which Ryan had never imagined was possible to build. As they all watched the small group was covered from a location they couldn’t see from their vantage point. The group of villagers made it to cover as one last running circle of men broke from the high stairwell and headed down a ramp toward the strange city below. Ryan and Jack saw three other men break into the open and they were firing down at the running men before them.

Jack looked to the right at whoever had been covering the women and children, but whoever that was was not covering this group. Perhaps they were out of ammunition.

“Cover fire, Mr. Ryan,” he said calmly as he trained the front sight of his nine-millimeter on the second group and fired. Ryan opened up at the same time. Bullets struck the three men almost simultaneously and they went down, one even sliding on the ramp so far that he went right off the edge two hundred feet down to the stone floor. The first three men made it to the bottom of the ramp and then broke through the opening and into the city, running for the far cover where the others had vanished.

“Let’s go,” Jack said as he headed to the right taking cover as far as he could along the columned temple. He made it to the end and then saw the huddled masses of the villagers and then he saw Niles, Mendenhall, Everett, and Charlie Ellenshaw as they hunkered low along the trim lines of the smallest of the three pyramids. It looked as though they had empty weapons lying beside them and were now holding the most ancient shotguns he had ever seen. He shook his head and broke cover.

Collins didn’t make it three steps with the others close behind when the entire upper gallery above them came alive with gunfire. Bullets struck every inch of the city as close to 120 automatic weapons opened up at once. Jack waited and then pushed the others ahead of them until they had cover behind the first pyramid.

“That was close,” Jason said as he ejected the clip of his Glock and made sure there were still rounds inside before slipping it back in. “But I have to admit to not minding shooting those bastards for what they did to Gina.”

“Yeah, I reckon they have some killing coming their way for that,” Jack said as he straightened and looked around as the gunfire eased off to nothing. He then sprinted to the next pyramid and then finally to the third where he slid in next to Captain Everett. Ryan and Pete hurried and took up position next to Will and Charlie Ellenshaw.

“Have a good time at the resort?” Carl asked Jack as he broke open an ancient-looking cardboard box of shotgun shells and spread them on the ground for easy access.

Collins shook his head. “You bet, we were just in the mud spa as you can see,” Jack said as he tossed Everett one of the extra Glocks.

“Liar, I know for a fact that you were locked up inside a rather nice hotel room with hot food and a wet bar. What was that room, the Dr. Frankenstein Suite?”

“I think you’re going have to explain to me how you pulled that one off, Captain,” Jack said as the truth of what they saw at the hotel was just confirmed by Everett himself.

“Nah, it’s a SEAL thing, Jack,” Carl said and then raised the Glock to take aim at the men who were again starting to filter out onto the gallery ledge.

Charlie Ellenshaw was sitting and making sure the assailants weren’t getting ready to charge the city when he turned away from his view of the gallery long enough to look at Pete Golding.

“So you’re all done partying at the resort and thought you would finally go to work?” he asked in a nonjoking manner.

“If you knew what we have been through, Charles, you would not be looking so smug. Do you know there are werewolves out there?”

“Really, just wait until you see what’s in here, I fairly think that you will shit yourself, Dr. Golding.”

Stanus was the last of the Golia to leave the temple. The young were all safe and secure five miles from the pass and well out of harm’s way. Stanus had even snarled and bit until every adult was safe and well away from the temple on this night of nights. The long-laid plans of the Jeddah and Golia were now coming to fruition and although the great animal could not connect the intricacies of the scheme, it knew that Madam Korvesky’s plan was the only hope for the wolf-kind. Now remained only Mikla, the younger sibling of Stanus, who was the last to enter the cave system that the Golia had discovered many centuries before and kept the location secret even from the Gypsy queen.

Mikla was on all fours as it would have been considered a challenge if Mikla confronted Stanus on two legs. Mikla was paying his brother the respect due, but he was refusing to join the other Golia in hiding inside the caves. Mikla whined and then took a tentative step toward Stanus, who held his ground but made no aggressive move to stop the now fully healed and rested Mikla. Soon the two giant wolves were nose-to-nose and it was Stanus who moved his yellow eyes to his brother and then for the first time in both the Golia’s long lives they connected as leaders of the pack. Stanus was letting Mikla know that he respected the way Mikla had traveled with the old one, and for saving the life of the young princess. Stanus snorted and then dipped his head and playfully slapped its near twin along the jawline. Mikla jumped up and then brought both paws down onto the back of Stanus and then the two wolves rolled on the floor as other Golia watched the strange exhibition between the brothers from the safety of the cave.

Stanus stopped playing in the mud and rain and then the large alpha slowly untwined himself from his younger brother. With one last look back at the caves where the clan of Golia was now hidden, Stanus and Mikla broke away at full speed toward the temple shaking the ground as their eight-hundred-pound bodies came into contact with the earth.

The hour of the werewolf was close at hand.

Outside on the main road a lone figure stepped into the falling rain and ventured a look up into the swirling storm. Janos Vajic was dressed in black Nomex and carried a submachine gun strapped across his back. He saw that no one was near the village of Patinas and just hoped the wind and the rain allowed the drop to happen without getting anyone killed. He quickly set up the tripod that had been strapped to his back and then placed a small black box in a slot at the top. He raised a small compartment lid and dialed in a series of coordinates. Soon a bright green laser light shot straight into the sky and then the beam adjusted itself as it vanished into the clouds. As he watched, the laser beam started to move back and forth at ever increasing speed. It formed a fanlike illusion as it vanished into the storm. The laser was creating a cone for the HALO jumpers to follow if and when the beam broke free of the swirling mass of clouds.

The laser system was only the backup for their GPS system each man carried on his arm as he flew at breakneck speed through the air toward the ground at over four hundred miles per hour.

As Janos watched he heard a pop that sounded loud even over the crash of thunder. Then he saw the first chute as it broke clear of the clouds only two hundred feet above his head. The man braced himself and then slammed into the road and then rolled as he tried to break his momentum. Then he slipped and fell facefirst into the mud.

“That was bloody graceful,” cursed the first man down as Janos ran to assist him with his chute and harness. As he did the now familiar loud pops of deploying canopies sounded overhead as the rest of the Ramesses strike team made it through the storm.

Major Donny Mendohlson shrugged out of the heavy gear and then tossed his oxygen system on the discarded equipment.

“Sergeant Major, gather the gear and destroy it, please,” he said as he made sure his weapon was ready to fire. He looked up when Janos Vajic stepped up to him and nodded.

“I take it you’re Demetrius?” the major asked as he waved his men into position making sure that light discipline was maintained.

“Actually I’m Captain—”

“Please, let’s keep this on a first-name basis, my first name is ‘don’t ask.’ That way,” he looked over at Janos and smiled widely, “we can remain friends.”

“Did you bring everything?” Janos asked.

The young major quickly looked at his watch and then replaced his gloves.

“If the air force is worth a damn at navigation we should be getting a letter from home right about now,” he said as he pointed toward the sky.

Janos looked from the raging storm to the young commando. Then he heard the last loud pop of the night and saw the small bright red parachute as it broke cloud cover and landed squarely in the center of town where it was quickly wrestled into submission before the storm could snatch the parachute away. Lord only knew what route it took to get here from the C-130 and then because of all of the GPS math involved in figuring air currents and wind shear he was amazed the package had arrived at all.

The major shrugged his shoulders.

“Air force navigation is great, their timing is for shit,” he quipped, embarrassed.

Vajic watched as the commando moved quickly to get his men into the temple complex.

Operation Ramesses was on the ground and hell itself had landed just a few seconds after.

Jack knew it was going to end fast. He was down to four rounds and they had managed to knock off less than 10 percent of the attacking force. The men Zallas had may have been thugs and brutes but either they were some of the bravest men he had ever seen or it was due to the fact that they were all terrified of facing Zallas.

“We just may be in some serious trouble here, Jack,” Everett said as he ejected his last full clip.

“You are the master of understatement, Captain. And why do you keep looking back at that girl, you and she have another gunfight or something?” Jack asked as he took aim and fired. He nodded his head, satisfied when he heard one of the thugs yelp and then fall.

“Or something,” Carl said with a smile that Jack didn’t miss. He tilted his head and then returned to his work.

Madam Korvesky was feeling no pain as Denise had loaded her up on morphine when the men from the village had broken in and taken her, table and all, away into the City of Moses.

Alice Hamilton was still at her side as the firefight raged around them. Bullets pinged and ricocheted off the stone monuments and the noise made the children scream as they huddled around their mothers as their fathers and older brothers and sisters battled the men from the world. The men were fighting with everything they had. The women fought also with shotguns and slingshots and not a few thrown rocks from the teenage Gypsy clan of Jeddah. Alice watched as the history of these people unfolded before her. Like the American Indian of the past they were now fighting for existence. She was actually proud as they came together as one and fought. She knew that Madam Korvesky had ordered Stanus not to take part. That he should lead his clan to his safe place and not return to the valley — ever.

“It looks like the men are running out of ammunition,” Alice said and then was shocked when she saw a smiling Madam Korvesky holding a good-sized meat cleaver in her right hand that she had hidden under the blanket she was covered in.

“I’ll hold them off until help arrives, as the old films say.” She laughed and then looked at Alice and her eyes were so dilated that Alice was worried Denise had been so angry at the amputation that she intentionally overdosed the ornery and very perceptive Gypsy queen. Alice reached out and lowered the cleaver but didn’t try to take it from her. After all, she may need it. “I’m glad you chose to join us here on our little mountain, Mrs. Hamilton.” Madam Korvesky slowly deflated. “You did see the magnificence of the Golia, didn’t you, Mrs. Hamilton?” she asked as her eyes seemed to plead with Alice to understand the thing she had done by sending the Golia away from here forever.

“They, like the Jeddah, will always live, I swear to you that I’ll use all of my considerable influence to see that this comes to pass as a gift from me to you, just a thank-you for protecting such a species and guiding them through history until they could live amongst themselves and be free of all men. No, old friend, it was time to call it a day.”

“Yes, we will call it a day.” Madam Korvesky closed her eyes and as she went under knew that at least one person understood what it was she had done.

A shot hit one of the lower blocks that made up the smaller left pyramid and then slammed into the left dress shoe of Jason Ryan. The bullet had hit so close that it tore the rubber heel from the low-cut designer shoe.

“Damn it, I signed for these shoes!” Ryan said and then fired two quick shots in the direction of his shoe assassin.

Mendenhall rolled over and lay in the prone position next to Jason and then fired two rounds of his own into the upper entrance to the city, once more knocking not just one but two of the attackers down onto the ramp.

“Kind of like ducks in a shooting gallery, huh?” Will quipped just as five large-caliber rounds struck the large blocks of stone, forcing Mendenhall to curl up into a fetal position.

“Yeah, only these ducks shoot back in case you haven’t noticed,” Ryan answered, loving the fact that their attackers’ timing could not have been better to silence the cocky Mendenhall.

“Yeah, well, that pair of shoes you have to pay for serves you right for getting the cushy job at the resort while we’re roughing it out here in the damn wilderness being attacked and chased by everything from wolves to Hansel and Gretel.”

“I hate to break this up, but how many rounds do you girls have left?” Jack asked as he flung away the last empty clip. Will reached into his pocket and tossed Collins his last clip of ammunition. “Now if you ladies care to stop your bickering for a few minutes I have an idea. By the way, did you see that ass Ben-Nevin after the fighting started?”

Both Ryan and Mendenhall shook their heads as Jack slid by the two and made his way toward the back of the city wall that encompassed the entire area. As he passed, Will gave Ryan a dirty look and then both men followed the colonel.

As the Sayeret paused just outside the area the map told the major the entrance would be, he still placed his men until the entrance could be confirmed. The emptiness of Patinas had foretold danger ahead. Major Mendohlson pulled the waterproof card from his pocket and then a compass. The tritium-faced dial told him he was right in front of the giant rock screen that camouflaged the entrance.

“Okay, from here on out your fire is free, let’s move, gentlemen, and—”

That was as far as the major got in ordering his advance into the temple. It seemed the entire facing of the mountain erupted in fire as the ambush was set loose upon them. Major Mendohlson could not believe he had walked blindly into an unknown force and been caught off guard. His arrogance had proved disastrous.

His men took cover and started to return fire. From here on out his men would need no direction from the major or even their team leaders as each man knew his job and each also knew what was expected of him.

Major Mendohlson lowered himself to the muddy road and then crawled to a ditch that lined it. He tried to raise his head to see through his night-vision goggles what they were facing but a streak of lightning hit close by and forced the commando to jerk the night-vision glass from his head.

“Damn,” he hissed and then brought his scoped M-14 carbine up to his eye and quickly scanned the area before him hoping to see what they were up against in the muzzle flares of the weapons arrayed against his team. Lightning helped at the last second and the view made Mendohlson roll onto his back and curse. He had counted at least fifty or sixty weapons up ahead at the entrance to the temple. He closed his eyes and let the rain wash over his face as he desperately tried to think.

Before he could throw his arm over his eyes a bright flash of an aerial flare burst overhead and Mendohlson again rolled over onto his stomach to take advantage of the illumination. The light cast shadows that moved everything in front of them as if all bushes and trees were attacking enemy.

“Cease fire … cease fire!” came a voice through a bullhorn.

Major Mendohlson scanned the area but saw no one. He waited.

“I am now speaking with the leader of the Sayeret strike team currently breaking Israeli law by attacking a foreign nation,” the voice said in English, so only the major could understand the lie.

“Oh, man, that’s good,” the major said as he waited.

“I am now speaking on behalf of the Israeli Knesset; you have been ordered here illegally and must cease this unlawful incursion. Lay down your arms and the Romanian authorities will take you and your men into custody for return to Israel. You will not be harmed.”

The unit’s sergeant major slid to a stop beside Donny Mendohlson.

“Whoever that is up there has the gift of bullshit,” he said as he waited for his commander to say something.

“I think I know who’s delivering that bullshit,” the major said as he leaned forward and then eased his head up hoping the rain kept him hidden well enough from the inevitable snipers he knew to be out there. “We came for the grand opening of the resort.”

“I know you are Sayeret. I’ve seen your alert orders. This operation is illegal and will bring the most dire of—”

Mendohlson opened up on full automatic, sending twenty rounds of heavy-caliber slugs into the facing of the giant rock screen. He looked over at his sergeant and then smiled.

“That is one irritating voice,” he said and then rose up again and fired until he was empty. His men took the cue and a raucous fire erupted that slammed the mountain and created bright flashes as bullets bounced from stone and tree.

Jack stopped his trek long enough to explain to Everett and Anya what he was thinking. Anya thought he was on to something. Then something caught everyone’s attention. There was additional gunfire coming from outside the city. The firefight was distant and only a military-trained ear could discern the gunfire through the thunder that shook the entire mountain.

“I think the bad guys have company,” Jack said as his eyes locked with Anya’s. Carl looked at her also with a raised brow.

“Something you might want to share?” he asked, knowing the look she was wearing was one that said indeed she knew something.

“I think my grandmother and my former employer may have some hard explaining to do,” she said as she raised her head to see what was happening but the ramp leading to the outer temple was too far away and the entrance even further.

“Try again, Ms. Korvesky,” Jack insisted. “We’re all ears.”

“I think the Mossad has sent us help, well, maybe help, or maybe someone else who will try to destroy the temple complex, and maybe kill us also. With General Shamni and his friend the prime minister you never know. Those men may be the Sayeret.”

“That’s what I thought,” Collins said as he lowered his silhouette and then thought. “We had a report from the CIA that the Sayeret had been placed on alert, now I guess we know why.”

“They’re not here to rescue anyone, are they?” Everett asked, hoping Anya would tell them the truth.

“No, they are here to destroy the mine. But I didn’t know for sure until tonight. It was my grandmother and General Shamni, my boss in Mossad. The time has come that Israel will no longer tolerate those bodies being there. They must vanish forever.”

“But why?” Carl asked, not understanding her at all.

“Because the fundamentalist movement taking root inside Israel could possibly upset the peace process that is now gaining momentum, isn’t that right, Anya?” Alice Hamilton put in as she and Niles lowered themselves next to the three. The gunfire was starting to pick up once more.

“Explain,” Jack asked Alice as she smiled at Anya, indicating that what was happening was understood, at least by Alice and Niles Compton.

“The prime minister,” Alice explained, “does not need a civil war over whose religion is the right one. Those bodies, if proven to be who the Jeddah say they are, would ignite a fundamentalist war against the men and women who want this hostility stopped, not reignited over ancient history. All because Moses was nothing but a man and that makes the cover-up of three and a half thousand years ago a major problem for religion in general when all anyone has to see is the fact that no matter how you look at Moses he had divine help. The Golia? Indeed. God — well, who created the Golia but nature and that has always been God. But that explanation is never simple enough. Moses was a man who spoke with God and now a man that became a myth that we have to hide simply because people cannot grasp the simple fact that the story of the Exodus while true has many more complicated facets than meets the eye, or even the biblical text.”

“Yes,” Anya said as he smiled and nodded at Alice. “Mrs. Hamilton is exactly right.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Charlie Ellenshaw said.

“The temple and the City of Moses will cease to exist after tonight.”

Jack shook his head. “Not if what we’re hearing outside is that relief force you’re talking about, because it sounds like they ran into an ambush,” Collins said as he saw more and more men easing themselves down the ramp and the villagers and Americans had little or no ammunition left. “There has to be another way out of here,” Jack said as he looked around him at the frightened faces of the women and children as their menfolk started filtering back after their meager defense had failed. The men tried to comfort the children as best they could. Collins could see that most of the men had abandoned their empty shotguns for large knives and pitchforks. Collins shook his head, knowing what he was seeing was insane. He couldn’t allow these people to be hurt because someone thought there was a vast treasure inside.

“Hey, remember this afternoon, Captain?” Ellenshaw said as he took Carl by the arm. “The barn, Stanus?”

“How do the Golia get into the village — is there an unseen entrance to the temple above the barn?” Everett asked Anya.

“I don’t know. Was Stanus above the barn?”

“He could have only have come from the mountain, the village was so full of revelers trying to see you that a wolf that size could come close to the barn only one way.”

“From the mountain,” Anya confirmed.

“We have to find that exit, it’s going to be the only way out of here.” Jack turned and suggested heading south behind the giant stone lions with the heads of bearded men. “That’s the only way it could be,” Collins said as he waited for confirmation that his guess was best.

“I have never seen the Golia back there.”

“From what I understand the Golia have been doing a lot of things lately the Jeddah know nothing of.” Sarah reminded everyone of the anchor pins they had been undermining for the past year.

“Okay, gather the families and keep them tight. Get some men and get Madam Korvesky moving. We go until the temple won’t let us travel anymore.” Jack looked at Will and Jason. Before he could say anything Charlie and Pete stepped up and squatted next to Ryan and Mendenhall as if to tell Jack that their orders were their own. Ryan was proud of the two super-nerds but this was no place for the two professors.

“You two give us as long as you can. Then get the hell out, don’t be heroes and die here,” Jack said as he looked at Ellenshaw and Golding. “They only have two weapons with ammunition, so get moving and help with those kids and older people.”

“But, Colonel, we can—” Pete started to say.

“Did you men hear the colonel?” Everett nearly shouted to scare them into listening. “Obey orders and get these people out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” both men said and then hurried in a crouch to assist the women and children as the entire village of Patinas started to move away into the darkness.

“Good luck, you two,” Jack said as he moved off. Everett nodded his head at Ryan and Mendenhall and Anya smiled. Alice Hamilton hurriedly kissed both men on the cheek and then Niles Compton tilted his head and shook it as if to say he’d skip the kiss on the cheek. Instead he nodded and then left. He knew his people realized he cared for each and every man and woman inside his complex — but kissing them good-bye was a line drawn in the sand.

The newest exodus of the Lost Tribe of Israel known as the Jeddah was off in search of a safe haven once more.

Major Donny Mendohlson knew he would have to take a chance as he saw several of the ambushers move away from the camouflaged opening to the temple and disappear to their rear somewhere.

“Do you see what I see?” the sergeant major asked as he squinted through his scope.

“Yes, they’ve been moving off in twos and threes for the past five minutes. They’re weakening their core defense by trying to flank us. That has to be a Mossad agent leading these idiots.”

The sergeant major laughed at the running joke that the Sayeret had with their intelligence service, just as American soldiers usually had very little good to say about the CIA.

“Okay, you and I are it. We have to get into that temple and place this bad boy,” he said as his gloved hand tapped the aluminum case that housed a small piece of the sun. The rain was still coming down in torrents as the major signaled for the remainder of his men to give them covering fire to the left of the entrance as they would try and flank the right and enter the temple complex on their own.

“And what do we do after we get inside and find out we’re outnumbered a hundred to one?” the sergeant major asked.

“Well, with our bodies riddled with foreign bullets we will do our duty and kill them all, or blow up the temple around us and them.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” said the old veteran of almost every conflict Israel had been involved in the past ten years, “except for the part where we die.”

“Goes with the territory, Sergeant Major, it goes with the territory.”

The hand signal was given and every weapon they had opened up on full automatic.

The final assault on the City of Moses had started.

Colonel Ben-Nevin ducked just as the fusillade of bullets struck the outcroppings of rock near him. He tried to rise to see what was happening but the incoming fire was so intense that he couldn’t move. He looked to his left and saw that most of the Russian’s men had started to try to flank the men to their front. Ben-Nevin knew the tactic was foolhardy and told the men so, but being like Zallas himself they ignored the warning and moved off in force. Now the colonel found he was in command of only twenty of the original seventy-five he was using for the ambush.

The colonel needed to move the remainder of his men to the entrance to ensure no one got by them. Ben-Nevin’s only salvation was to get into the temple and recover at least part of the lie Israel was covering up. That alone would satisfy his superiors and get him that nice retirement villa along with a hefty piece of the spoils. He started to shout his new orders over the force of the driving rain and wind when something bounced off the stone screen that guarded the entrance to the temple. Ben-Nevin wondered if the Sayeret had been reduced to throwing rocks when he saw what had been tossed it his way. A grenade came to rest only three feet from him. The colonel didn’t hesitate as he threw himself behind the stone screen just as the grenade went off. The explosion rocked Ben-Nevin. He shook his head just as another grenade sailed over the berm and then clanked off the stone screen. This time the colonel turned and ran for the temple entrance as he realized he didn’t have enough men to cover the assault that was about to happen.

The intense burst of fire that slammed any defender brave enough to pop their heads up had succeeded in opening up the front door long enough for the two men to stealthily run into the temple. Together they carried the one weapon that rivaled the power of God himself.

Major Donny Mendohlson was the very first Israeli soldier to carry a weapon that Israel has always insisted they didn’t have in their arsenal — a 1.2 kiloton tactical nuclear weapon.

Jack took point and Sarah was right behind him. The rest of the village was spread out for close to half a mile as the refugees from Patinas made their way along the ancient excavation that had long been forgotten by the Jeddah. Only the Golia knew the temple complex better than any living thing on earth. Jack could see the weariness of the villagers as fathers who were not used to anything more exciting in Patinas than that year’s wool harvest or the number of calves a certain herd had produced over the winter tried to keep their children calm as the explosions and bullets ripped the air around them. As they moved along the back wall of the City of Moses Collins felt the heat from the natural steam vents getting hotter.

Sarah tugged on Jack’s sleeve and with her eyes indicated that he should look up. He did and that was when he saw Stanus and Mikla. The two brother wolves as giant as they were had been nimble enough to maneuver the large frames into the tight spaces on boulders and outcroppings above their heads. Soon they were joined by Anya and Carl. Everett seemed to be animated about something. Collins stopped and waited as Anya and Everett made their way through the mass of scared children and frightened women and farmers and sheep men who didn’t understand why the outside world was trying to destroy their way of life. Carl winced as he heard the rearguard action formed by Jason Ryan and Will Mendenhall start in earnest. They were out of time. Ryan and Mendenhall, great shots though they were, would still be out of ammunition and still have over a hundred criminals to deal with.

“Colonel, the captain is saying he’s picking up Stanus’s thoughts … and also that of my brother,” Anya said, not understanding the dual aspect to what Carl’s mind was receiving stemming from Stanus as the beast watched the progress of the village as they moved out of the City of Moses.

“Now you’ve really lost me,” Jack said as he turned his head and scanned the rocks above him looking for any opening that could lead to the outside.

“The captain wants to ask Stanus for help, but every time he attempts a connection Marko is there in the Golia’s mind, it’s as if—”

“Your brother is dead, Anya.”

As they all turned and looked they saw three men from Patinas, one holding a sputtering torch and the other two had Madam Korvesky in a chair and they were carrying her. Alice saw this and became furious at the men.

“Put her down before you drop her,” Alice said as she moved past Niles.

“I am not leaving the temple. I will remain.” She looked at her stunned granddaughter. “Marko was killed earlier tonight by his new friends.”

Carl watched as the true feelings Anya had about her brother came through. She was in shock and angry that this was happening. She shook her head and placed it against Everett’s chest and then took a deep breath. She looked up at Carl and then made a decision.

“What is left of my grandson now inhabits Stanus,” Madam Korevsky said. “Soon the alpha will shrug off the memories of Marko and the man-child will be absorbed completely by the wolf, and this is how the Golia maintains its intelligence.”

Everett looked at Anya and she nodded her head and explained, “Each of us will bond with a Golia upon the arrival of death. Our bodies will become part of nature and join the earth, but our soul, our memories, and our love of the wolf and of the people will be taken into the memories of the Golia, thus we live on in a far simpler form, one that does not have the travails of man to contend with — the Golia are us and we are them.”

“Now, Captain, would you ask my grandson if he would help your colonel in leading my people from this mountain, for tonight God ends all here in this place,” Madam Korvesky said as her pulse was being taken by Denise Gilliam, who ordered the men to put her on the ground and place the torch closer so she could see. Niles Compton watched and knew for all intents and purposes that the old woman was already dead and it was just her tenacity that was keeping her motor functions operating.

Jack and Sarah looked at Everett, who shrugged his shoulders that he didn’t understand, but he would try. Anya took his elbow and stopped him.

“Carl, if Marko’s mind is traveling with Stanus I don’t know how my brother will react to you. Stanus will accept you into his head, but Marko may create a conflict. I don’t know if he suspected anything about … well, about my having any feelings for you, but you have to be careful. Stanus could rip you apart and not understand why he’s tearing your arms off, not knowing Marko has a great deal of influence on his thought process. If my brother hated you because of me he could kill you.”

Jack, Sarah, Niles, and Alice saw the small smirk on Everett’s face.

“What would Marko have suspected about us?” Carl asked, not caring who was watching or listening as Carl slipped off his long-sleeve shirt in his preparation to climb the sheer walls and speak with Stanus and then possibly be killed by a mind hiding inside the wolf, all pretty straightforward stuff to the captain’s way of thinking. Meantime the gunfire from the city was starting to grow heavier; Jason and Will were now in serious trouble.

Anya looked embarrassed at the question. She looked from the stark blue eyes of the American and then found she couldn’t hold them. In that instant Carl realized that this woman had never even considered falling for a man. Everett smiled and then with a look at his friends who were watching with interest, Carl leaned down and kissed Anya firmly and deeply. He pulled back and the woman still had her eyes closed. Everett felt other eyes on him and he half turned and saw that Madam Korvesky was watching the two and the look on her face was not a pleasant one.

“Well then, maybe I better have a sit-down with brother Marko and straighten this out and explain that I plan on making an honest woman out of the Gypsy princess?”

Anya opened her eyes and then the smile she gave Everett made Sarah want to tear up as she took Jack’s arm.

“Until then, if I’m not back in twenty minutes,” he looked at Jack, “call the president,” he joked but before he could take his first handhold on the rough rock that led upward, Collins stopped him.

“Not this time, Jack.” Everett slapped Collins’s strong hand away and started climbing. “This one is mine, I have more at stake here,” he said and vanished into the darkness of the cave system. The colonel looked over at Anya and saw that her eyes were still locked on a form of a man that was no longer there. Anya slowly walked over to her grandmother and as the men placed her on the stone floor Anya sat beside her and then placed her head against the weak shoulder of the old woman. Madam Korvesky gently placed her arm around the girl-child and spoke with her softly about Marko.

The gunfire coming from the city a half mile distant slowly started to ease and Jack knew that Ryan and Mendenhall were now on the move trying to make for a harder target. Jack knew that the two professionals would hold them for as long as possible, they were that good at what they did. No, the two men would never give up to a bunch of gangsters.

“Think we should give up?” Will asked Ryan as he tossed the empty Glock away and then faced his friend.

“Nah, let’s hang out a little more,” Jason said as he squirreled his head around the corner of the foot of Anubis, or as they knew now, the statue of the Golia, and fired his last four shots and was rewarded with the cry and yelp of another criminal biting the dust. He looked at Mendenhall and raised his brows twice in appreciation of his own shooting prowess. Then the smile left when he noticed the Glock was frozen in the empty position. He frowned and tossed the gun away.

“Good, I just wanted to make sure the Navy wasn’t bailing out here,” Mendenhall said as he ventured a look over at the men streaming down the foot ramp from the outer temple. “One thing’s for sure, it’s getting a little crowded in here. May I suggest we take up station with Moses and Joshua, those doors seem a little more stronger than these toes of Anubis,” Will said as he burst from the hiding spot and ran for the columned temple of Moses.

Ryan watched his best friend run past him and then he sighed in relief when he saw that Will made it through the thick doors of the temple.

“You’re right about one thing, buddy, the Navy is going to bail out of this jerkwater place,” Ryan said and then with a burst of speed ran across the last hundred feet and then into the temple.

As Ryan and Mendenhall started bracing for the assault they knew would come quickly, the ground beneath their feet shook and then stilled. They exchanged looks and knew their situation was about to go from bad to worse.

The anchor pins holding Dracula’s Castle to the side of the mountain slipped three feet to the south.

The expansive engineered castle leaned forward far enough that drinks on tables shook, settled, and then if one looked and was paying attention, anyone could see the un-level surface of those drinks. The castle was now leaning forward by eighteen inches from where the building had started out earlier that evening.

The mountain was beginning to shed the shame of Dracula’s Castle as the American entertainer Drake Andrews took the stage. His opening set was so loud that the vibrations were sent through the foundation to the compromised anchor pins buried inside the mountain. The decibel level blaring from Castle Dracula started to eat away at the remaining earth securing the pins to the mountain.

The castle was close to rocking and rolling itself down the mountainside.

Carl Everett paused on the way up the sheer wall and swiped the sweat from his brow. The temperature had risen by at least thirty degrees since he had started climbing. The captain was about to place his hand in a better and more secure location when his left hand slipped free of the rock securing him and that was when he knew he was going to fall a great distance and that would be that. Suddenly he was in midair as he fell backward. Just as his hand slipped from the rock he was grabbed hard enough that his wrist almost broke. He was yanked upward like he was nothing more than a child and then before he realized it he was dangling over the ledge with Stanus holding him and staring right into his face. The wolf seemed to be smiling as the corners of the mouth turned upward.

“Oh, hi,” Carl said, as it the only thing that came into his head.

Stanus lost the good-natured look on its fur-covered face and then pulled Everett up so hard that he felt his shoulder almost pop from its socket. He was unceremoniously tossed to the floor. The area was so black that the only thing the captain could make out clearly were the yellow glowing eyes of the Golia. Carl backpedaled a few feet until he bumped into something. He stopped and then leaned his head back and looked up. In the upside view of the dark world around him he saw another set of glowing eyes looking down at him.

“Mikla,” Carl said nervously, “I’m glad to see—” Mikla cut him off by reaching down and pulling the large American to his feet. Everett brushed himself off and then wiped sweat from his face. Carl chanced looking away from Mikla and then turned and looked at the larger Stanus as the beast stood on both hind legs and was placing weight from one large clawed foot to the other. The breathing was deep and steady and their ears, much to Everett’s comfort level, were straight up and not lying along the side of the skull in an aggressive stance. No, if Marko was in there someplace he wasn’t inclined to kill him right off the bat. He glanced back at Mikla, who went to all fours with the loud popping sound of the skeletal frame adjusting. “Uh, Anya says hello,” was all Carl could think to say.

Stanus didn’t move. The animal just stood and swayed as if it were listening to a tune only the Golia could hear.

“Look, bad men are here to destroy the Jeddah and take their heritage from them. They must be stopped.”

Stanus growled, as did Mikla behind him, which made Carl close his eyes in hopes he wasn’t about to be raked by Mikla’s claws straight down his back until his spinal cord was exposed. Still he tried again.

“We have to get the Jeddah to safety. We have to leave here, now,” Everett said as Stanus suddenly went to all four legs.

The great Golia slowly closed the distance between man and animal. The eyes remained locked on Carl as it approached. Stanus was as close to Carl as Anya had been only minutes before, only the captain did not feel the same emotions coming from the Golia leader as much as he had from Marko’s little sister. Stanus, although Everett knew it was really the curiosity of the traveler inside, Marko, sniffed the man up and down and then the yellow eyes settled on Mikla. There seemed to be a symbiosis of silent commands and then Mikla sprang from the ledge and vanished in the direction of the temple.

“No!” Everett shouted. “That’s the wrong way, the bad men are that way, we have to go to the barn, Stanus, the barn!”

The Golia tilted its head as it tried to understand. Then the wolf nudged Carl and then nudged him again, almost knocking him into the wall. Suddenly Carl knew this wasn’t about an escape route to Stanus, but of a more personal nature to the man inside, Marko Korvesky. The Golia reached out and took Everett by the neck and then squeezed. The whole time the animal remained on three legs and the reach was simple to accomplish, especially since the captain submitted to Marko.

“Go ahead, that won’t change a thing about my intentions, fella, my mind was made up the minute I met your sister in Rome,” he said, as the grip of Stanus, or as Carl knew it to really be, Marko, increased until the air was cut off from Everett’s lungs. Carl became angry and held his breath as the beast slowly applied pressure to the human. The captain saw his vision start to narrow and knew before too much longer he would be hanging like a damp washrag in Stanus’s grip.

The whine was loud enough that Carl’s eyes flew open as Stanus released him and allowed the large American to slide to the stone floor. In the dark Everett could see the golden glowing eyes blink in confusion as Stanus whined again and then turned and looked around as if he were lost.

“You want what’s best for your people? This all has to end tonight or the world will descend on the Golia and the Jeddah and the people of the world will not understand. Believe me, we all know how the mob reacts to things that scare them. That’s what we do, my friends and I, we protect the world from our own fear of the unknown. Let me help Marko save his people, Stanus. Let me inside, we have to find a way out of the temple and get the Jeddah to safety.”

Stanus growled deep inside and Carl thought he had pushed the wrong button. The Golia looked at Everett and then reached outward, but instead of Stanus grabbing Carl and finishing what it had started, the beast grabbed the rock wall and leveraged itself to a standing position. As Carl sat in wonder, the beast raised its muzzle to the ceiling and in the darkness at the edge of the City of Moses, Stanus roared until rocks fell from the ceiling.

From the City of Moses to the entrance to the first temple, the roar brought every man, woman, and child to stillness. Zallas, who was nearing the columned temple complex, stopped and looked at the men around him. The roar of the animal bounced from wall to monument, from pyramid to obelisk, until it finally faded to nothingness.

Major Donny Mendohlson and the sergeant major stopped their travel down the long staircase to the temple when the roar froze their blood.

“Do you think command authority forgot to mention something about this mission?” the sergeant major asked as they continued their flight into the first outer temple.

As for Carl, he watched as Stanus reached down and took him by the neck once more and instead of pinching his head off like a tick, Stanus threw Everett onto its back and started to climb.

This is what the Golia did, and did very well.

Zallas was standing behind one of the smaller statues of the Egyptian god of the underworld. Anubis posed in an imposing posture wielding an Egyptian battleax and was standing legs apart and ready for battle. As Zallas looked at the statue he ran his hand along the gold leaf that had been pounded into the stone over three thousand years before. He smiled as he realized if the ancients had placed this much gold on mere statue finery, what lay in wait in the temple. He motioned for his men to redouble their efforts at getting inside. The return fire has ceased more than two minutes before. Zallas saw Colonel Ben-Nevin running down the ramp from the upper temple. It looked as if the devil himself were chasing him.

The Russian was perplexed as he leaned out and watched the Israeli gather four men at the bottom of the ramp and placed them facing the top. He gestured wildly and then his eyes looked the Russian’s way. The colonel ran to Dmitri’s position.

“Your fool men need to learn how to follow orders. We had the Israeli assault element pinned down and then your idiotic men decided to take matters into their own hands and now we have commandos inside the temple,” Ben-Nevin said angrily into the face of Zallas, who looked at him with a blank expression. “They are here to blow it up, you idiot. You must get more men up here and take that unit out!”

“Israeli commandos?” Zallas asked with an astonished look on his face. “What in the hell have you done to me? First I am eliminating members of NATO and now I’m up against the Israelis?”

“You knew what was at stake, did you think the men and women that have secured this place for almost four thousand years were going to allow you, a moron, to just waltz in here and upset an apple cart that is teetering on the brink anyway? Get men up here or we will have nothing.” Ben-Nevin braved reaching out, and taking the Russian by his tuxedo collar said, “You will have nothing, not even your little casino, it will all be gone. You have killed NATO members, you idiot.” Ben-Nevin smirked. “Do you think that any legalities will be observed when some black operations type smashes through your bedroom door in the middle of the night and places an ice pick in your brainstem? You have no choice now but to see this thing through and gather as much treasure as you can.”

“What is your game?”

“All I need is the proof of what’s inside this mountain; I couldn’t care less in whose possession it’s in. My mission is to prove the existence of the City of Moses, that’s all. Men in power only seek the current government’s downfall before they give back everything Israel has earned through blood and death.”

“You are insane, and the men you work for are maniacs,” Zallas said, regretting ever having listened to the spy, a man that was more highly trained at deceit and maneuver even far better than he could ever have been. “But as you say, I may as well get something out of this.”

“Sensible. Our only break is the fact that the Sayeret were caught off guard and most of them will not make it out of the ambush. Unfortunately we cannot get them all, they are too good. So may I suggest we either kill the commandos inside the temple, or we get what we can and escape to the resort, the one place our highly secretive Sayeret cannot go.”

Zallas knew he had totally misjudged his opportunity with this man. But he also knew he had come too far to let the chance slip of recovering some of the antiquities the Gypsy was selling off. Even if the temple collapsed he would still own the lease on the land and he would recover anything the Israelis buried.

“Look, the men they left behind, they must be out of ammunition, tell your men to advance into the temple.”

The mobster braved a look and saw that it had only been two men defending the front of the temple and now they had abandoned the defense and were running it through the large doors. He shook his head in anger as he realized one of the men was the American from the resort. His suspicions on the NATO aspect of the Americans’ story were now confirmed. He stood up in anger once he realized his six-plus men had been pinned down by only two defenders and he gestured wildly for his men to advance into the temple. Zallas was tired of this and needed to be at the castle not here in the middle of a storm deep inside a mountain in a temple he hadn’t known existed twenty-four hours before.

“Kill those men, now!” he ordered. Zallas then looked over at Ben-Nevin and then used his eyes to signal one of his bodyguards. The man turned his AK-47 assault rifle on the Israeli. “Shall we see what the temple holds, Colonel?”

Ben-Nevin looked from the barrel of the weapon and then over to the Russian, who was busy brushing some dust off his expensive coat. He decided that just the antiquities in the hands of the Russian would be enough for him to complete his mission, as the proof that the treasure of the Exodus existed would be enough for the old legends to be proven as real, upsetting the lies of the left-wing government. Now he knew it wouldn’t matter if the Russian was dead when the authorities uncovered the antiquities. No, he thought, it wouldn’t matter at all.

“Yes, let us see what the Jeddah have hidden away for us.”

Jack called a halt as the air was becoming far too hot for the band of escaping Gypsies to breathe adequately to maintain the fast pace. Collins placed a small girl on the nearest outcropping and then raised the torch high and looked along the wall that was no longer hewn from the mountain, but this was virgin stone. They had left the temple complex and were now deep in the mountain inside a natural cave system. As he moved the torch around Jack could see the many thousands of footprints in the fine dirt of the worn train. He then understood that the path they were following was worn that way because this was the train of the Golia and how they traversed the mountain without being seen by the human inhabitants on and below the peaks.

“How are we doing, Colonel?”

Jack turned and saw Niles Compton with Sarah in tow. The lieutenant was carrying the twin girl of the child Collins had been carrying. She placed the girl down next to her sister and the two Gypsy children held each other as the American strangers discussed their options.

“If we don’t get these people out of here soon we’re going to have a mess on our hands as far as heat exhaustion is concerned.”

“We can’t go back and we can’t keep moving deeper into the mountain. Bullets or steam vents, not much of a choice,” Niles said as he cleaned his glasses the steam kept fogging.

“Jack, the shooting back in the temple has stopped,” Sarah said as she realized what that meant. Jason and Will were either dead or captured.

“I know,” Jack said worriedly. “Those two are on their own.” He looked at the worried faces of Sarah and Niles. “Don’t worry, they know the better part of valor when it’s called for. They’ll be all right,” Jack lied as best as he could for his benefit as much as for the others. It was Niles who voiced the far more immediate concern.

“Where is Mr. Everett?”

Alice watched the old woman sleep as she lightly dabbed at the sweat coming from Madam Korvesky’s brow. Anya held the old woman’s hand on the other side of the makeshift cot. Four of the village men were carrying a scythe, a long butcher knife, a large club, and of all things a wrist rocket slingshot. Alice could see that all were tiring. She was about to remove her hand when Madam Korvesky took hold of it and then turned her head to face Alice. Then she weakly turned and looked at Anya.

“Your hope chest,” she said in a barely audible whisper.

“What, Grandmamma?” Anya asked.

Before Madam Korvesky answered her granddaughter she turned and looked at Alice. “The chest in my home, it is Anya’s hope chest, it must be saved.”

“Grandmother, I don’t think we’ll be going back for my hope chest.”

Alice Hamilton listened to the exchange and remembered the heavy chest that Carl Everett had retrieved Madam Korvesky’s blanket from and how hard a time Carl had moving it.

“You must, and Mrs. Hamilton, the chest is yours, Keeper of Secrets,” she said as her voice was growing weaker by the minute.

“Grandmother, we cannot return to Patinas, it’s far too dangerous, Colonel Ben-Nevin and that Russian gangster have the town and the temple.”

“Mrs. Hamilton, promise me you will return to my home and take this gift I give you. Take it to your desert temple and place it among your greatest secrets. Hide well what it is you find.”

Alice looked from the closed eyes of Madam Korvesky to Anya, who looked as confused as herself.

“Promise me this, Mrs. Hamilton.”

“I promise,” Alice said knowing that Anya was right, there was no going back to Patinas. That way was forever blocked to the retreating Gypsies now. The only way was down the mountain, either through it or under it.

Alice looked down and Madam Korvesky had fallen asleep again. She watched as Denise Gilliam came over and checked her pulse and then felt the old woman’s forehead. She shook her head and then went to several old women who were holding children on their laps. She gave the adults salt pills for the heat and she handed out what little water they had to the smaller children. The long line of Patinas refugees stretched out for almost half a mile and only the flickering of a few torches announced they were hiding in the dark at all. The heat was growing the deeper they went.

Will tried to close the large double doors to the temple but they were too heavy and had not been closed in the past century. They creaked and groaned and then Ryan helped by throwing his weight against them. They finally managed to get them closed just as several large-caliber rounds struck the ancient wood.

“Jesus, I think we’re trapped,” Mendenhall said as he turned and faced the interior of the tomb. The three makeshift sarcophagi stood sentinel in the center of the large temple but other than that the room was bare of anything to fight with.

“Then may I ask why you led us in here?” Ryan asked as he ran to the far wall and started looking for an escape route.

“It was the only place I was familiar with.”

As they ran around looking for something to fight with, the double doors bent inward as the men outside started to force them open.

“Oops. I think they figured out we’re not shooting back anymore,” Ryan said as they both stopped and watched the doors slowly open.

“Gentlemen, you can still survive this night, we have no wish to kill Americans, so stand still with your hands where they can be observed, and we can end this.”

“Can I assume I am speaking with that traitorous little bastard, Colonel Ben-Nevin?” Will asked tauntingly as Ryan made the “what in the hell are you doing” face.

“You may assume. Now I am out of patience. We can just as easily bury your bodies up here among the rocks and the sheep, and believe me, my friends, no one will ever find you. You’ll be just another mysterious disappearance in the dark and dangerous Carpathian Mountains.”

Ryan looked at Will and shrugged his shoulders.

“Crap,” Mendenhall said as he realized the jig was up for him and his friend. “You know, this is your fault, I mean you could have come to the rescue with just a little more firepower,” Mendenhall said as he turned toward the double doors as they opened all the way and Colonel Ben-Nevin and sixty Romanian and Russian criminals rushed into the oldest vault in the history of the world.

“What we brought would have been enough if you ever learned to shoot straight, popping off rounds like we had a million of ’em,” Ryan shot back as he raised his hands into the air.

“Well at least I can say I didn’t spend my time getting mud baths while the rest of us—”

“Hands up,” one of the thugs said as he roughly shoved Will and turned him around.

Both Will and Jason looked at each other and each was far more worried about his friend than himself.

“This really sucks,” Jason said, resigned to the fact that he and Will were now out of the game.

As the men filled the room, Avi Ben-Nevin came through the door and Dmitri Zallas was close behind. The Russian stood in the doorway and lit a cigar and then looked at the two Americans. He shook his head and gestured to the Israeli to speak.

“Thank you, gentlemen, now we can conclude this business and be on our way,” Ben-Nevin said as the ground shook around them and dust filtered down from the stone cut ceiling. “Because one way or another, for some reason or other, I don’t think this mountain is entirely stable.”

Will and Jason looked around and then exchanged uneasy looks as the tremor was far longer than the last.

The colonel was right, the mountain was feeling its oats.

Jack knew he had to get the people up and moving. If Sarah was right he knew they were fast running out of time. If any kind of detonation in that temple were set off it would likely trigger a massive shift in the strata and that would result in the anchor pins holding the castle’s foundation to the mountain snapping off or pulling free of the mountain.

Sarah and Niles stood when they saw that Jack was about to order everyone forward once more. Sarah knew upon looking at the people they would never make it through the heat of the natural steam vents dotting the mountain.

“I know what you’re thinking, but we haven’t a choice, we have to keep moving and assume Mr. Everett has—”

The wall next to Jack and behind Niles Compton started to crumble as something was battering the stone and earth. The entire stone wall caved in and what was standing there froze everyone in place. Stanus roared and then stepped away from the hole it had made. The giant wolf vanished and then Carl Everett stepped through.

“This way to ladies’ linens, housewares, and ancient Egyptian passageways,” he said.

The line of displaced Gypsies erupted in cheering and crying as the cool air of the outside world started to flow into the mountain and cooled their heat-induced fear.

The second Exodus of the Jeddah had found a new route to salvation.

Major Donny Mendohlson could tell by the lessening volume of fire coming through the noise of the storm that his men were seizing control of the rabble that had held them at bay for far too long. He was angry that the intelligence on the part of the mission planners had failed to foresee an armed force of defenders. He was far angrier at himself for considering the HALO jump the most dangerous aspect of Operation Ramesses and not the actual demolition of the site.

“As far as I can tell we were singularly lucky these weren’t trained soldiers,” the sergeant major said as he aimed his weapon toward the entrance of the temple they had just entered.

Major Mendohlson heard the noise and then aimed his own weapon at the entrance where a bright flash of lightning illuminated the opening just as a man ran through. They were getting ready to shred the intruder to pieces when the major held up his right hand.

It was Janos Vajic. He was soaked and mud-covered and realized that he had about been shot to death. He shook his head.

“We have about fifty percent casualties. We are setting up a dry place for the wounded and your medic is working on them.”

The major held the Mossad agent’s gaze waiting for the other shoe to fall.

“Eleven of your men are dead, Major.”

Mendohlson had just been handed an indication of what the butcher’s bill would be for this little foray to destroy something that couldn’t even be explained to him and his men. And now he had the dead to prove just how messed up the world had become. He turned on Vajic.

“Who in the hell are we fighting and just who is leading the defense inside that mountain?” Mendohlson asked.

For the first time Janos Vajic heard the firefight going on far beneath them in the temple. He couldn’t imagine it was the villagers of Patinas putting up such a spirited fight.

“You’re up against a ruthless bastard who is one of the richest mobsters in Eastern Europe. The man will stop at nothing to get anything he already does not own.”

“And this man has sided with this Russian?” the major asked, waiting for the Mossad agent to tell him that they were facing not only the mobster but a well-trained agent as well. Now he understood why the ambush had been so complete, the son of bitch knew his team was coming. He wanted to backhand the agent in front of him for not seeing this coming. His men were always at the mercy of pencil-pusher agents in the field that didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. His complaint was the same as that of any black operations soldier in the world.

“Colonel Ben-Nevin is not to leave this place alive.”

“That I can pretty much guarantee, spook,” the major replied. “Now who is fighting him, it can’t be the locals, not shooting like that.”

“It must be the Americans. I saw their vehicles near the village. I helped them escape earlier and I knew they would come here to get their people. My partner died to assist them, so don’t give me that look, I’m going in with you.”

“What in the hell are the Americans doing here? Do they have to complicate everything in the world?”

“I thought they were the NATO contingent mapping the pass, but they’re far more than that.”

“Obviously, those aren’t engineers and surveyors in there.”

“Gentlemen, we’re about to have company,” the sergeant major said as he again raised his weapon and made ready to cover the opening. “May I suggest we make our delivery and get the hell out of here before the Chinese show up — I mean everyone else is here.”

“I hear that, let’s go. We place the weapon as deep into the temple system as we can get without getting our asses shot off.”

“And then?” Vajic asked as he chambered a round into his handgun.

“Then we get the hell back to the village and hope General Shamni can get us out of this Romanian nightmare.”

As the three men moved deeper into the upper staircase leading to the first temple, the mountain started to shake in earnest.

Pete was one of the last to step up to the hole and peer inside. He turned and faced the captain, who handed him a small boy, wide-eyed and frightened at the prospect of going into the darkened hole. And Pete sympathized with the child, as he was terrified himself. The long line was now being led by the engineers from the 82nd, their uniforms making the farmers, herdsmen, and womenfolk of Patinas feel safer. But Pete was feeling none of this at the moment.

“That wolf isn’t in there any longer, is he?”

“We don’t have a hell of a lot of time here, Doc,” Everett said as Charlie Ellenshaw finally stepped up and then looked at Pete.

“It’s okay, Pete, I’ll be right there with you.”

“Carl and Jack exchanged looks as they realized that Pete was actually fearful of the closed-in space far more than the wolves running around. They let Charlie handle the computer man. Soon the three eased off with Charlie speaking to Pete about all the magnificent discoveries they made.

Finally the four burly men of Patinas came up with Madam Korvesky on the makeshift cot. Alice was with her and then Anya was the last in the long line of refugees. Denise Gilliam walked with her low and Jack knew the old woman must have been on her last legs.

As Collins watched them ease the old Gypsy through the large hole he turned to Niles, Everett, and Anya. He nodded at Sarah for her to explain what was running through both their minds.

“I understand the dynamics of what’s happening here. The anchor pins will not hold. I suspected the vibration was getting worse and now I think I know why. The wolves are not digging any longer. Anya, you said the Golia have been hidden by Stanus and Mikla?”

“Yes, that is right. Stanus knows the mountain is unstable because that was what he and my grandmother had planned all along.”

“If they’ve stopped undermining the foundations of the castle why are the vibrations and the tremors getting worse?” Niles asked, hoping there would be some good news somewhere.

“The castle’s grand opening. They are playing live music in there and that cannot be helping the foundations. By the frequency of the tremors the face of that mountain is getting ready to let go.”

“What are you saying, Jack?” Carl asked as he wiped sweat from his brow.

Collins turned and faced Anya.

“Look, I don’t know how the Mossad plays it, but my people and I try not to kill innocents, and that even means people that thrive just below the what is the legal line.”

Anya suspected at what the American colonel was playing at but said nothing as long as Jack’s intense green eyes bore into her own. Carl watched the exchange with growing concern as he saw Jack’s demeanor change once the villagers were out.

“I’m saying those commandos are here to destroy the temple, but how are they going to do it?”

Anya looked uncomfortable because she knew the destruction of the City of Moses by the commandos was the only fallback position they had of assuring the destruction of their home in case the wolves failed at sabotaging the foundations of the castle.

“There are over four hundred people at the castle, Major. Now I don’t mean to be unsympathetic to your plight but your concern about the world knowing your secrets has to have boundaries. Now, what weapon is being used by your people?”

Anya looked from Collins and then found Carl. She wanted him to tell her, order her to disobey not only Mossad’s orders, but worse, her grandmother’s wishes. She swallowed and knew they were short of time as the mountain trembled again, this time it lasted ten seconds longer than any other shake to that point.

“A Forger,” she said ashamedly.

Jack closed his eyes and Everett shook his head. He reached out and placed a hand on Anya’s shoulder and squeezed. She felt deflated that their secret was out to the Americans.

“Get them out, Captain,” Jack said as he looked at Niles. “I’m going back to get those boys out of there and try and get some sense talked into anyone who will listen.”

“What is a Forger?” Niles asked, as he was unfamiliar with the term.

“It’s a weapon that’s going to turn the interior of the temple into a ten-thousand-degree inferno in just about a millisecond,” Sarah explained. “It’s also enough firepower to shear the entire facing of the mountain off from the major fissure point just a quarter mile from the castle. That means the castle with all of those men and women inside is going to tumble like a house of cards if we don’t stop her people from setting that thing off. If not, the vibrations will do it anyway, just a little slower.”

“And we need that extra time to get those guests out of there,” Jack concluded.

Carl stepped forward with the torch and was about to protest but then he saw Anya and knew he wanted her out of there. He nodded once at Collins and then held the torch toward the open maw of the black hole and Niles bobbed his head and entered and then Sarah placed a hand on Collins’s arm and smiled.

“Don’t be a dick and leave me outside all alone, you hear me?”

Jack winked and then pushed Sarah through the hole. He looked at Everett and Anya.

“Good luck, Jack, see you on the outside,” he said as he gestured into the hole with the torch for her to go. Anya looked at Jack and nodded.

“Cancellation code Matilda, 112, you have that? That will get the commander of the Sayeret to cancel Operation Ramesses, but once the sequence is initiated on the Forger apparatus there is no stopping it.”

“Someday I’m going to find the guy that designed those damn things and their safety systems and break both of his arms,” Jack said as he thanked her and then left the way the long line of refugees had just fled.

“I hope the commander of that unit listens to him, the Sayeret tend to make up their own rules.”

“Well, your man is about to meet the guy that doesn’t follow rules at all.”

Everett nodded for Anya to go and then he went after her.

Mikla was waiting for his brother, Stanus, just above the temple. Mikla had been getting visions that were coming from the sleeping mind of Madam Korvesky and he was feeling confused as Stanus ran up to him. Stanus suddenly started feeling the push also from the old Gypsy and Stanus himself started rolling on the hard rock floor of the Golia path just above the City of Moses. The last vestiges of Marko Korvesky tried in vain to sort out the confusing messages being sent by the Gypsy. There were flashes of many humans running, screaming, and dying under the stormy night sky. The wolves rolled on the ground as the horrible visions penetrated both of the Golia’s minds. They were being asked to sacrifice one last time for the Jeddah. Stanus was refusing, Mikla was not. The wolves wrestled and growled. They snipped at each other and then they both became still as the vision was completed. They saw the mountain come down around them and their young.

Three miles away three adult male Golia poked their snouts out of the cave system in which Stanus had placed the clan. They had picked up on the troubled mind of Madam Korvesky also. The babies inside the cave system started howling and crying and the females lent their voices to that of the young. Suddenly twenty of the largest males sprung from the cave and ran headlong into the raging storm. A flash of lightning gave a strobe effect the side of the mountain, which for the first time in centuries saw the Golia moving out in force.

If there had been witnesses they would have seen the wolves heading south, toward Dracula’s Castle and the unsuspecting revelers that would never realize that myth and legend were coming to visit.

The Temple of Moses was fronted by two great gates with two charioteers facing one another done in various paints that had faded over the centuries with age and dust. The giant wooden doors were seventy feet high and almost four feet thick. As Ryan and Mendenhall watched, Zallas and his men streamed through the opening. The bright handheld floodlights they used illuminated objects missed in the torchlight.

They watched as the Russian’s men fanned out inside and were eyeing the Americans, really not knowing what to do with them. Zallas made things a bit clearer.

“You and your people have cost me considerable time and trouble. I am afraid I was a bit too hospitable to you before. Now I’m afraid, what do you Americans say? Oh yes, you have truly worn out your welcome,” Zallas said, as if he were proud of his Americanism.

“Well, excuse us all to hell,” Ryan said, making Mendenhall wince and take a deep breath.

Colonel Ben-Nevin walked up to Ryan and backhanded him. Ryan spit out blood and then faced the colonel.

“Captain Everett said you hit like a pussy, now I see that he wasn’t lying.”

Ben-Nevin brought his hand down again but this time Dmitri Zallas caught it in midair.

“We do not have the time for your dramatics, Colonel; let’s get what we came for.”

Ben-Nevin gave Ryan a dirty look and Jason blew him a kiss. Then he and Zallas walked over to the far left of the three large containers. Zallas had to suppress a smile as he closed his eyes and envisioned the treasure to behold. He opened them and the smile quickly left his face. Ben-Nevin got a confused look as he took in the mummified remains in the hand-hewn box. Both men turned to the center box and studied the remains inside.

“What is this?” Zallas asked as his eyes never left the wrapped and disintegrating corpse of Moses the Law Giver.

“This isn’t right — where are the antiquities, the gold, this isn’t what’s supposed to be here?” Ben-Nevin went to the third box and then turned away, his face white with shock. He looked around at the men staring back at him. Then he ran to the far wall and started feeling around. “There have to be hidden storage areas.”

“Looks like the Jeddah spent a lot of money over the centuries, huh?” Ryan quipped, making Mendenhall flinch once more. He sensed Ryan was really trying to get them shot faster than would be normal.

Ben-Nevin stopped searching and then took five quick steps toward Ryan and then pulled his Walther automatic and placed it against Jason’s forehead and pulled back the hammer.

“Where is the treasure of the Exodus?” he asked as Ryan smiled.

“Right here in my left front pocket, dickhead,” he said just as the barrel of the gun whacked him on the side of the head. Will started forward but one of Zallas’s men pointed an AK-47 at him and stopped Will from helping his friend.

“Ow,” Ryan said as his knees buckled. “That hurt.”

“Where is it?” Ben-Nevin insisted.

“You are wasting your time, spymaster,” Zallas said. “The villagers of Patinas have obviously emptied the temple of anything valuable and left us nothing but these rotten corpses,” he said as he kicked out with his black Armani shoe and knocked the box containing the body of Joshua onto the floor. The mummy rolled out and then came to a rest. Ryan looked at the mummy and then slowly stood up and faced Ben-Nevin. Will had his brows raised as Zallas looked from each man.

“That probably wasn’t the best thing to do, my friend,” Ryan said. “That was a very important man to a few people a while back.”

“A stinking corpse,” was all Zallas said.

“Look, I’m not a big believer in biblical teachings, but one thing I’ve learned is that everything has a basis in fact, and that little fact you just kicked over scares the hell out of me. If I were you I would quit while I was ahead. Nothing good ever comes from desecrating something that can bite you in the ass.”

“You bore me with your old wives’ tales,” Zallas said. He turned to Ben-Nevin. “Finish your business here and let us see what the backward Gypsies took out of here. Come, they only have one direction to go, and we shall meet them there.”

Ben-Nevin smiled and then as Zallas and his men started to file out of the temple and head for the ramp, he stepped up to Ryan.

Mendenhall didn’t think the Israeli colonel was the type to get long-winded and tell Ryan how bad his killing was going to be and thus affording Will a chance to help Ryan out of that killing. No, Ben-Nevin raised the barrel of the gun and his smile widened and that was when the bullet hit.

Will was shocked when he saw the weapon fly from Ben-Nevin’s hand. The colonel turned and looked but saw no one. He started to run just as another round pinged off the stone flooring. This time the colonel sprinted for the door holding his injured right shoulder.

“Damn it. Clear?”

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

Mendenhall heard the all clear calls coming from to the left of the doorway. That meant while Zallas and his men’s attention was on Ryan getting questioned by the colonel, someone had entered the temple unseen and taken up station behind Zallas and his people and then lay in silence until the men had left and had only exposed themselves when they had a chance.

Will went to Jason and helped him up.

“You can get him talking by doing something other than insulting him, you know,” Will said to a bleeding Ryan.

“Yeah, but pissing him off was more fun,” he said as he staggered and then caught himself. They looked up when three men came down from the high wall just to the left of the large door frame.

“Sorry, sweat rolled into my eyes at the last second, and then I missed him again. I must be getting old.”

Will and Jason looked the three men over and then Ryan’s eyes widened when he saw that one of the men in the black Nomex was none other than Janos Vajic.

“The hotel owner?” Jason asked.

“What?” Will said.

“Sorry, as I said, just dumb luck I missed. I guess you were right, Sergeant Major, I should have let you take the shot, but I wanted that bastard.”

“Next time I shoot,” said the burly man as he slammed another magazine into Vajic’s appropriated AK-47 and then handed it back to him.

“Uh, who in the hell are you guys?” Mendenhall finally asked.

The small man in the front reached over to his left shoulder and then pulled up a Velcro patch. Underneath was a black and gray version of the Israeli six-pointed star and that was enough not said for the two Americans.

“They are Sayeret, Lieutenant, and they are not very friendly.”

All eyes turned to see Jack Collins hop down from the back wall of the temple where the villagers had vanished over an hour before. Jack walked up to Jason and lifted his chin.

“You okay, Commander?”

“Yeah, I’ll be better when we get after that asshole colonel.”

Collins patted Jason on the back and then turned to face the three men and one in particular.

“Who’s in command?” Jack asked as his eyes searched all three. The three remained quiet as the small standoff went on.

“Colonel … Collins, is it?” Janos Vajic said as he stepped between the American and the Israeli major. Jack said nothing, as he had fixed the smaller man holding his glare as the commander of the Sayeret strike team. He ignored Janos.

“My compliments on what had to be one scary HALO through that storm.” Jack tilted his head and studied the man a moment and then finished, “Is it major or captain?”

The smaller man held eye contact. “Major, and you’ll forgive me if I leave it at that.”

“Yes, I understand the game, Major, and how it’s played. And you, sir, are not playing the way you’re supposed to.”

Jason and Will saw the sergeant major tense and raise his weapon just an inch or two as he watched the colonel talk.

The smaller man looked at his watch and then looked at his sergeant major and the man lowered his weapon.

“I am here to do a job, Colonel. If you are who I think you are you can understand that.”

“In order to follow your orders, Major, you will have to kill over three hundred innocent people. If you blow that weapon this entire mountain comes down on that resort.”

“I am assured that the destructive power is only sufficient enough to bring the temple down and to incinerate everything inside.”

Jack could have leaned over and kissed the mountain at that precise moment as the entire temple shook harder than anytime previous.

“There have been elements at work here that have guaranteed the destruction of not only the Temple and City of Moses, but the entire resort down below in the valley.”

“Elements?” the young major asked.

“Yeah, elements the likes you would never believe,” Ryan said for the colonel.

“I have my orders, Colonel, please, you and your men must vacate the temple.”

“Yes, I understand what a stickler for following orders General Shamni can be.”

All three Israelis froze at the name.

“Yes, I know the general very well. We taught commando tactics together at Sandhurst in England for a semester. Now, cancellation code Matilda, 112. Abort Operation Ramesses, Major.”

The three men again exchanged looks of distrust. Never would they have given this man any credence until Shamni’s name was mentioned. Only the prime minister knew the name of the man that headed the top secret Mossad.

“I’m sorry, Colonel, no dice. You know I cannot accept anything from you. I would like to trust you but this mission must succeed.”

“Listen, your mission is guaranteed to succeed, you don’t need that damn weapon, now stand down, Major!” Jack said taking a menacing step toward the Israeli.

The Uzi came up and Jack stopped but didn’t flinch.

“As I said, Colonel, we must—”

Before the major could finish a roar filled the inside of the temple and reverberated off the stone walls. The three men flinched as something jumped down into their midst and grabbed the small aluminum box. Before a shot could be fired, Stanus had taken the small device and hopped to the wall holding the case by the strap. The beast roared as it stopped and looked down. The major quickly raised his weapon after his initial shock at seeing the animal and fired. The bullet hit Stanus in the lower back and Jack heard the giant wolf yelp in pain as it leapt clear of the wall and disappeared high above. Jack lowered his head and then shook it.

“Damn fool.”

“Just what in the hell was that?” the sergeant major asked.

“That was one of the elements that are going to bring the castle down and you idiots just shot him,” Mendenhall said as he realized he was now concerned for the injured Golia.

Jack wanted to take the young officer and shake him until he understood that every mission is never dependent on just one’s orders. You must evaluate as you go to make the right choice. Collins had done that a number of times and paid for it in the end, but it was better using common sense than being a nonthinking automaton.

The mountain shook as the echoes of Stanus’s pain-riddled yelp slowly echoed to nothing. The ground shook and this time the left-side wooden door broke free from its bronze hinges and then dangled a moment before it fell to the ground.

“What in God’s name was that?” Major Mendohlson asked wide-eyed.

“That’s a long story that your friend Mr. Vajic can answer at a later time.”

“Colonel, I don’t want to be considered the cowardly one here, but I would rather not wear this mountain as a hat,” Ryan said as he and Will were ready to go.

“Major, you and your team can stay and convince the wolf to give you back your weapon, or you can run like hell and help us save these people down at the castle.”

Ryan and Mendenhall started for the double doors.

“Hey, what castle?” Major Mendohlson called out as Jack turned and started after his two men.

“Dracula’s Castle,” Janos Vajic answered as he too turned and followed the Americans.

The major and sergeant major looked at each other and it was the older man that finally said it as he turned and started after the others.

“This I have got to see,” the sergeant major said excitedly after seeing the largest land animal he had ever laid eyes on.

Mendohlson watched the enthusiastic sergeant start following the Americans and Vajic.

“I think I’ve seen quite enough already.”

20

It had taken over an hour to get the villagers to safety through the animal paths inside the mountain. Stanus had made sure Everett knew the way back before the large wolf had vanished. The last of the women and children had been handed out through one of the ancient steam vents that dotted the mountainside by the menfolk of the village. Niles had been impressed by the movement of the entire village as not one child made a cry or complaint. The men had been silent also as they moved their families without complaint. These were hardy people that needed little help from Niles or his people. These men and women had courage in abundance. They and the Golia were the ultimate survivors.

One of the last to be moved from the inside of the mountain was Madam Korvesky, who had to leave the makeshift cot inside as it wouldn’t fit through the vent. Alice, Denise, and Sarah held a blanket up over the vent hole to protect the old woman from the slashing rain. Once the men were out Carl took notice on where they had come out. Niles called his team over to the side.

“Where are we?” he asked. “Best guess.”

“I would say we’re only a mile from the castle and a mile south of Patinas, and we better get moving before Zallas and his people return.”

Niles nodded as he turned to look for Alice. She was gone along with Sarah and Anya. He spun in a circle as he realized every one of the Gypsy villagers had vanished into the storm.

“Where did they go?” Pete asked as he and Charlie ran across the road to see if they had gone that way.

“They know this mountain better than anyone. I think they know where to go to be safe,” Everett said as his thoughts turned to Anya, Sarah, and Alice.

“But they’ll kill Madam Korvesky even faster, we must find them,” Denise said.

“For right now we have to get some help. Charlie, you and Pete get to the castle and do what you can to warn everyone. Smash dishes or faces, I don’t care, get them out. Captain, get back to Patinas, I don’t know why but I think that’s where they went. Madam Korvesky has something to do with it, I know it. Dr. Gilliam, you’ll come with me and set up a triage station at the resort in case we don’t get those people out in time. We’ll need a lot of medical help if the worst happens.”

“You?” Carl asked as he flinched when a flash of lightning streaked overhead.

“Jack says there’s a shortwave radio inside Zallas’s office. I think it’s time we call a friend for some help.”

As everyone broke up and went their different ways into the storm, Everett wondered just who in the hell can come and help them at a time like this.

But Niles Compton knew just whom to call.

Alice was barely able to climb the road back to Patinas. Her legs had given out three times and Sarah had to assist her back to her feet. Anya helped by taking Alice’s other arm and together they battled the raging wind and rain and barreled headfirst through the storm to Patinas. Finally the village came into view and Anya asked the obvious, as Alice had refused to tell them why she had to return to Patinas with the mountain getting ready to fall down around them.

“Why are you doing this? My grandmother was delirious, we cannot go back there, Zallas and his people are still there.”

Alice continued to struggle against the wind and then when she stopped it caught Sarah and Anya off guard — standing before them were twenty armed men in black clothing.

Anya feared this almost as much as running into the Russian and his men. They had run straight into the waiting arms of the killer elite of Israel.

“I am Major Mica Sorotzkin, you men are ordered to stand down.”

The men just looked on and said nothing. Anya could see that most of them were bloodied. The leader of the remaining commandos was about to step up and address the major but instead he ducked as automatic fire opened up behind them. Bullets hit everywhere as Alice, Sarah, and Anya dove into the rushing water and mud for cover. Sarah chanced a look up and above the village saw streaming out of the temple the Russian’s men making a mad rush for their waiting vehicles. The Israelis turned, hit the mud, and started to return fire, but not before three more of them had been hit. Bullets struck to the left and to the right as Alice suddenly stood up and started running. Sarah screamed for her to stop but she kept running through the blaze of gunfire. Sarah had no choice but to go after her and that spurred Anya into action to follow.

The first SUV tore out of the village and that was followed by others as the volume of fire became less and less and more of the men from the temple made it to their vehicles.

The man left in charge of the outside assault element was mentally kicking himself for not disabling the vehicles.

Alice tripped, stumbled, and then fell into the rushing water as she reached the front gate to the village. A large black SUV nearly missed her as she dove through the front gate of Patinas. Sarah was soon there as the last of the black SUVs tore down the mountain.

“Are you insane?” Sarah yelled as she helped Alice to her feet.

“Please, we have to get to Madam Korvesky’s cottage, now,” Alice said as Anya reached down and helped them both. In the falling rain she faced Alice and then shook her.

“My grandmother is wrong, what you’re going after isn’t worth it, believe me. It’s something she won’t share even with me,” she yelled as rain poured from her face and hair.

“She says it’s important,” Alice said as she struggled to get away from the hands holding her.

“Nothing here is that important, you saw what it was the Jeddah were protecting all these years, it’s nothing to die for. That is why we were going to destroy it. Please, let it go, Mrs. Hamilton.”

Alice twisted away and then ran for the cottage. Anya screamed in anger and then she and Sarah followed.

The front door was open and several men raised weapons and aimed them at Alice as she stumbled through the doorway. The men were all injured by either bullets or from the HALO jump.

“No!” Anya shouted at the men in English so they would understand without really thinking.

Alice ran past the men with Sarah’s help and stumbled into the bedroom and then practically fell onto the old hope chest. Anya came in after them with an oil lamp and waited for Alice to catch her breath. The ground was now in constant motion this high up.

“There is nothing in there but a bunch of shattered dreams my grandmother had for me at one time. There is nothing in there of value, Mrs. Hamilton, please, let us get these injured men off the mountain now.”

Alice threw open the top of the chest and then started tossing blankets, sheets, and other items that Anya once thought were important. Then Alice hit upon something metal and hard. She took a moment and studied what she had discovered. Anya got a strange look on her face, as she hadn’t known there was anything in the bottom of the chest. She held the lamp closer as Alice reached in and opened the steel box. Inside was an old burlap bag that was tied at one end with a length of rope. She slowly reached in and brought out the bag. It was heavy and felt as if it held nothing but rocks. Alice lifted it free of the chest and was about to open the rope end when several men came into the house. As Sarah looked up she was relieved to see Jack, Jason, and Will. They were soaked and Ryan was bleeding. Will looked scared half to death.

“Ladies, I believe I told you to get the hell off this mountain, what are you doing here,” Jack asked angrily.

“Collecting something Madam Korvesky wanted us to have. Now may I suggest we do as Jack here says, I think the mountain is falling down.”

With that they were all amazed when Alice bolted from the room and out the front door.

“I’ll tell you something, she cannot come on field operations anymore!”

As Pete and Doc Ellenshaw climbed the stairs to the cable car platform they turned left into the lobby area of the castle and Niles and Denise boarded the southbound car just as the doors started to slide closed. Compton looked at his watch and worried it had taken them too long to reach the castle.

Pete and Charlie heard and felt the music long before they breached the club. Drake Andrews could be heard belting out his most famous cover song, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Green River.” The crowd was raucous and the backup band blazing. Pete opened the door to step in and a rather large and brutish man placed a bear-sized palm on his chest and then gave the filthy computer genius a dirty look. He just shook his head when he saw the condition of his clothes and his person.

“Listen, you have to get all of these people out of here!” Pete said, trying to push past the doorman. The man wouldn’t budge.

As the music played even louder, Charlie looked over and saw the raging storm outside as the cables for the massive cars were swinging back and forth. He then felt the thick stone blocks beneath his feet shift. His eyes widened and then he started running and pushed past the large man at the door, knocking him and Pete to the floor.

“Everyone get out, get out now!” the crazy white-haired Charlie Ellenshaw screamed at the top of his lungs, but it was to no avail, as everyone was locked in on the famous American crooner gyrating on the stage. The backup band was having the experience of their lives playing with the once top star. “Stop, stop playing and get out of here,” but it was like Charlie was speaking into a vacuum.

The doorman was finally on his feet and had Charlie by the back of his filthy shirt and was in the process of pulling him back toward the cable car platform when he backed into something unmoving. The man turned and raised a hand to hit the other filthy man when his eyes looked straight into nothing but black hair. He saw the chest rise and fall and he heard the heavy breathing. His eyes slowly moved upward as his grip on Ellenshaw loosened and Charlie fell to the floor.

Mikla was standing on the platform and was looking down on the large doorman. The man was frozen in fear as the freshly healed Mikla leaned down and looked the man directly in the eyes and then the mouth opened to show the man the business end of Mikla’s touch.

The man felt his knees buckle as Mikla roared. The ears lay back and the hand came up but the doorman had already fallen to the floor.

“Good, Mikla, good!” Charlie said, not knowing how or why the Golia had saved them but wasn’t about to thumb his nose at the chance to get the people out as the castle really started to move under their feet.

The Golia seemed like it was a beast on a mission as it shook its massive head and with ears laid to the sides of that head started walking through the open doorway to Castle Dracula’s.

Drake Andrews was having the time of his professional life as he felt the subtle nuances of an audience that was lost in his music. He hadn’t felt the power of his music for almost a quarter of a century. It had become stale and predictable, even to the point where the MGM Grand and then the Mirage in that order canceled his upcoming gigs.

He was just finishing up when he heard a commotion in the upper reaches of the club. He glanced up at the balcony and heard several shouts, but the American figured they were just yelping for more. He turned to the band and said something and then the strains of the old rock ’n’ roll standard by Tommy James and the Shondells, “Mony, Mony,” began. As the heavy music started its heavy beat they heard another scream and then another and Drake smiled as he knew the song was getting their attention.

Andrews stepped up to the microphone and was just starting to open his mouth when he saw one of the club’s guests get onto the railing that ringed the upper balcony where the rich would sit and listen, drink, and do the kind of things you can’t do on the main floor. Drake saw the man and wondered just what he was up to when he suddenly jumped over the railing and fell the eighty feet to the tables below where he hit hard and then rolled to the floor amid screams of terror. Drake Andrews looked up still stunned when he saw the wolf from the night before jump up and then roar out over the crowd. Drake, instead of singing the first few refrains from “Mony, Mony,” watched as the crowd started cheering at what they thought was part of the show. Drake knew that if it was part of the club’s show that something pretty bad had just gone wrong.

The beast roared again as two more people jumped. The Golia roared for a third time until the band stopped playing and just stared up at the surreal scene above their heads. A man with crazy white hair stepped up next to the black, upright wolf that had everyone in the house amazed.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, this very big wolf wants all of you OUT OF HERE!” Charlie shouted at the top of his lungs just as Mikla roared and then jumped clear of the railing and onto a table, crushing it. The men and women sitting there just stared up at the amazing creature standing on the remains of the table and looking around curiously at the startled men and women. Mikla reached out and slapped at a frightened man in a tux, making sure his claws were retracted far enough that he didn’t decapitate him.

Some of the patrons of the grand opening became aware that this was not part of the show or a prank: there was a wolf standing in the middle of the club — and the wolf standing before them was as real as it gets. They panicked and started running in all directions screaming and yelling as Mikla added his voice to the confusion and started swiping at the passing stampede of humanity.

Charlie Ellenshaw looked down from the balcony as Pete joined him. They saw men and women running everywhere. They saw Drake Andrews try to help a lady who was attempting to get on the stage to escape the monster wolf that had just crushed her table, but her hand slipped out of Drake’s and she fell back into the maddened crowd. Andrews turned and started pushing the young Russian kids off the stage. As Charlie and Pete watched from above they exchanged looks and Charlie made a face. The panicked people below saw the first filtering of dust from the ceiling as it came down but no one inside Castle Dracula could care at the moment. Still the panicked guests streamed toward the stairs and the cable car platform seeking any way out of what had quickly become a nightmare.

“Wow, maybe you could have handled that just a little bit differently, Professor.”

The SUVs blasted down the slick, wet road as fast as they dared. Several of the all-terrain vehicles went flying off into the storm-driven night when they failed to take a corner at a reasonable speed, but each car was afraid of being the last to get to the castle. Dmitri Zallas was not feeling at festive as he had earlier that evening. In the first car was Zallas and Colonel Ben-Nevin, who was still holding his damaged shoulder from his near miss at the hands of the Israelis. The colonel sat in the backseat scowling, believing that no matter what happened from this point on his mission was a failure and now it wasn’t just his career that was over, but also his life, as the proof saying the City of Moses really existed had never been there in the first place. The legend was a lie, a falsity that held many of his people chained to the past, and one that he had come to despise above all else in Israel.

The black SUV swerved in the road as they came around the last bend. Zallas’s eyes widened when he saw the men and women running into the night. They were streaming down the staircases on the outside while many others were pushing and shoving to get inside one of the cable cars that had just arrived. He saw the heavily overloaded car sag on the large, thick, four-cable lines. He screamed in anger as the automatic doors on the car slid closed, surely injuring several of his guests. He watched all of this from far below as his four-wheel-drive pulled up to the first cable tower as the car high above them broke free from the car barn.

Zallas saw people streaming on and off the two small elevators and he decided to bypass them and run for the stairs. Rain made the going slippery as even more of his men pulled up and joined him in their run up to the club and possibly the escaping villagers of Patinas. Ben-Nevin joined him in the enclosed stairs thankful for being out of the storm with his arm throbbing because of the bullet having ripped into him from his own people … Well, what used to be his own people, he corrected himself. The Mossad colonel knew what they were doing now was a waste of time. It was just the Russian not wanting to be made a fool of. There were far worse things in the world than that, and a hanging rope for traitors was one of them.

The Russian stopped when they reached the top as his guests were screaming and yelling trying to get down the same stairwell. Zallas started angrily pushing them out of his way and as he crashed through the top floor door he even heard one of his men shoot someone below. Dmitri Zallas was now beyond caring about his guests. He wanted what was his and he wanted his resort protected, and right now neither was happening. He walked quickly to the entrance, pushing a dark-haired woman out of his way and then kicking at her angrily, and when her escort tried to stop Zallas, he pulled a handgun from his large coat and shot the man without a second thought. Several more shots were heard behind him when his men saw the example being set by their employer. With the rumors of a vast treasure lost, the men had become murderous.

Pete turned and saw Zallas just in time as the men walked into the club and onto the balcony section. Golding, with no warning at all, pushed Charlie over the railing and then he jumped after him. Ellenshaw struck the floor and felt his ankle bend in a manner that wasn’t conducive to walking upright. He rolled and yelled while grabbing for his injured leg.

Mikla was near the stage roaring angrily at the frightened people as they ran one way and then saw Mikla and then turned screaming running in the opposite direction. Drake Andrews and the terrified Russian band had abandoned everything and were battling to get through the wings just offstage, but every time they thought they found an exit they were stopped by the humanity trying to flee the now shaking castle. The American singer heard the roar of the animal and that turned into a long howl. He screamed for no other reason than he wanted to, as he and the others battled for their lives to get out. One second there was nothing but shouting and panic, and the next everyone went silent as they swore they could hear gunfire — quite a bit of it.

The only operational vehicles they could find were two very old cars used by the Gypsies to travel the lower valleys. One was a thirty-five-year-old Citroën and the other a beat-up, faded red 1962 Chevy Impala that came to Romania in God knows what manner or circumstance. Jack, Sarah, Anya, and Major Mendohlson were in the Chevy’s front seat with Mendenhall, Alice, her potato sack with her rocks, and sitting beside her was Ryan. Jack was cursing the slipping clutch as he downshifted the old standard transmission. Anya screamed next to him as someone ran into the road waving his arms.

“It’s Carl!” Anya shouted, happy to see him as he skidded to a stop beside the sliding Chevy. Major Mendohlson hoped the Citroën behind them didn’t slide into them as they waited for the American to get out of the storm. Carl quickly squeezed into the back by almost crushing the Israeli commando when he pushed the front seat up.

“Nice car, Jack,” Everett said as he pushed Mendenhall over.

“Yeah, I’m afraid shit red was all they had,” he said as he put the car back into gear and peeled out in the mud and running water.

Carl saw Anya turn her head and look at him, happy he was still alive and ashamed she had left with Alice and not said anything to him. He shook his head and then winked. She turned back with a smile on her muddy face. Only Jack noticed the look as he tried to keep the old Chevy on the road.

He couldn’t prove it, but Collins could swear the road was starting to move under the worn tires of the Chevy.

Two miles deep into the mountain the music of Drake Andrews and his new Russian backup band had finished the sabotage the Golia had started. The vibrations caused by the amazing sound system installed at Castle Dracula had started to shake away the last restraints holding the anchor pins in place. The six-foot-thick steel pins started to rotate as they lost their hold on the earth. As they turned, the heavy gauge steel snapped at several points along the two-mile anchorage. The next thing to tear loose was the foundation settings that connected the anchor pins to the castle’s main foundation. The castle slipped a foot away from the facing and tilted toward the resort far below, making the highest parapet shake and actually break into three separate sections that barely hung on.

The furthest, deepest anchor pin gave way with a totality that would have been heard in Bucharest if it hadn’t been buried deep in the mountain. After the steel broke in two, the whiplash fractured the remaining strata that kept the thermal vents intact. The underground geyser erupted into the cracks of the mountain where it built up enough pressure that the resulting explosion blew out the strong but now loose anchorage of the sixteen foundation pins. The force of the collapse pulled the top of the mountain toward the south, creating an avalanche of massive proportions. The rock fall started and continued rolling as it picked up speed and debris. The top of Patinas Pass turned to a viscous substance that resembled a wave as it collapsed, sending the pass into Patinas, burying the small village for all time.

The resulting release of energy had only one place to go, and that was through the area of least resistance and that meant through the thirty-five-hundred-year-old City of Moses. The explosion rocked the city, knocking over the wonderful obelisks and columns. The giant walled gate with the proud depictions of the Jeddah in their heyday of service to Pharaoh collapsed and then the stone carved ceiling came down upon three of the most famous men in the history of the world and crushed their remains to dust and buried them forever.

In just seconds the work of two thousand Jeddah and numerous engineers of Ramesses II came down, never again to see the light of day.

Pete Golding struggled to get Charlie Ellenshaw up and running when several people ran past with three of them stopping to help them up. Drake Andrews didn’t wait for a thank-you as he and the other Russian musicians fled as Mikla roared again right next to them. They hadn’t seen the wolf when they had stopped and didn’t look back now. Ellenshaw watched the panicked people for a moment and then shouted to Pete.

“I think that’s about enough, maybe we should split now, want do you think?”

Golding nodded that yes, he did think that was quite enough.

“Mikla, go!” Charlie shouted. “Run!”

The wolf suddenly went to all fours and looked around him as if he were confused. The Golia howled and then ran for the front with people screaming and jumping from the path of the giant.

Charlie saw Mikla jump onto the high stage and threaten several of the guests as they tried desperately to get away from what they thought was a Castle Dracula special effect gone awry. Ellenshaw saw two couples in the far darkened corner of the club still sitting, talking and drinking among the chaos. Ellenshaw hurriedly ran to their table tripping over several men as they tried to push themselves as far away from Mikla as they could get. The beast was standing upright, roaring and swiping at people as they ran by. Charlie was worried that instead of leaving, the giant Golia was starting to get its blood up and was becoming so excited that the claws would start slicing people in two soon if he and Pete didn’t get out of there.

The two men and two women finally looked up as they saw Ellenshaw with Pete close behind running and stumbling toward them. One man stood from the table and as he did three bullets stitched a line across his white tuxedo jacket sending the man slamming against the wall, spraying blood on his companions as he did. The women screamed and then two more rounds hit the tabletop shattering glasses and sending the remains of their cocktails flying. Charlie fell facefirst and then covered his head. Pete looked up and saw Zallas and his men standing at the railing of the balcony firing down. The bullets hitting the floor and walls around them were aimed at him and Charlie. Pete reached out and pulled Ellenshaw as close to the wall as he could for protection.

Mikla roared again as Drake Andrews with several of the young Russian musicians in tow had somehow not found their way out to the cable car platform where men and women were pushing and shoving to either get to the front of the line or they were slapping and shoving each other on the twin stairwells that wound down to the ground from the platform. Even these were causing more casualties among the guests than Mikla ever could as they were tumbling down the steel steps as if they were doing it intentionally, and it was one of these men that Jack nearly struck with the front bumper of the old Chevy as they skidded to a halt.

Even above the din of screaming guests and running feet, Jack could hear the sound of gunfire over the tremendous pounding of the door. Then they all heard the roar of a Golia and every man and woman inside the Chevy thought the worst — that one of the wolves was loose inside the club and was now in the process of killing everyone and that would not do for the secrecy needed for the species. Collins was thrown an Uzi without the silencer attachment as he, Carl, Mendohlson, Mendenhall, and Ryan all scrambled out of the car and into sheer madness as men and women in their finery splashed, screamed, fell, and rolled in the flooding mud caused by the raging storm.

As Collins hit the first step in the long stairwell to the top of the platform, the next cable car pulled in and Jack could hear the screaming, the jostling, and the cursing as men and women fought to be the first inside and away from the terrible things happening inside the club. As he hit the second platform of stairs on the way to the top with the others beating the steel stairs behind him, Jack flinched as first the body of a woman in an evening dress struck the side of the stairwell and spun off into the storm to strike the ground far below, then the body of a flailing man flew past striking the handrail on his way down.

As Sarah and Anya left Alice in the car with the smelly burlap bag, McIntire ran to the woman who fell to the ground. She checked for a pulse and in a flash of lightning Anya saw Sarah shake her head. Then she quickly checked the body that had landed only inches from his date. He too was broken and very much dead. Sarah knew if they didn’t get Zallas and his people under control soon they would have a disaster on their hands that would be capable of shining too much light on the Event Group. They had to save as many people as they possibly could and then get out of there without the Romanian authorities asking too many questions about the strange group of men and women that had attached itself to the NATO survey.

Another roar of the Golia sent Anya flying up the stairs as she realized one of the precious and irreplaceable beasts was actually inside the club and they were hearing a lot of gunfire.

Zallas stood next to the balcony railing and surveyed the disaster that his precious Castle Dracula had become. The Russian was so angry he failed to feel the massive stone blocks beneath his feet shift, and again most did not see that the liquid in the half-filled glasses was beginning to lean to the south with a prominent tilt.

Zallas turned and took the wounded Ben-Nevin by the coat collar to pull him to the railing and then shake him as he gestured at the catastrophe below.

“What have you done to my club?” he yelled as spittle flew from his mouth and into the Mossad agent’s face. “All of this and nothing from you!”

Ben-Nevin watched as the women and men continued to try to get out of the giant nightclub, most fearing the animal as it ran from spot to spot in a frenzy of excitement. His eyes widened at the familiar sight of Mikla, the beast that had rescued Anya on board the train just two nights before. Ben-Nevin slapped Zallas’s hand away from his coat collar and then pulled a nine-millimeter from his waistband. He took quick aim and fired into the crowd in an attempt to hit the wolf. Mikla went to all fours and practically flew up the wall and into a dark vestibule and vanished. Ben-Nevin then sighted a new target. The white-haired man and the strange fellow from the hotel were huddling in a far corner by the stage. It looked as if they were waiting to make a break for the rear door and the cable cars outside. Ben-Nevin took aim at the crazy-haired man.

Charlie Ellenshaw and Pete Golding had finally given up trying to separate the guests from the armed men that were in the mood to kill everyone in the confusion caused by Mikla. Charlie pulled Pete down closer to the floor when Ellenshaw had spotted the thirty or so men streaming into the club. They were Zallas’s as the automatic weapons attested. Charlie was getting ready to pull Pete to his feet when he was knocked down just as three bullets punctured the stone wall next to his head.

“Wow, man, I think that cat was trying to kill you!” Drake Andrews said as he rolled off of Ellenshaw. Charlie managed to look up and see the harried and now very much crumpled American entertainer. His black show jacket was covered in blood and the young people behind him didn’t look any better.

“Thanks,” was all Ellenshaw could say as more bullets struck the tables and the walls behind the group of frightened entertainers.

“Are you an American?” Andrews asked.

“Yeah, we’re Americans, but if we don’t get out of here we’ll never see the golden shores again,” Pete interjected.

A bullet pinged off the black wall behind them and one of the young Russian singers screamed in pain as she grabbed her arm. Drake pulled her closer to him and then covered her.

“We have to get these kids out of here,” Andrews said.

“Yeah, any suggestions?” Charlie asked. “If I’m not mistaken there seems to be a pretty angry Russian up there!”

Ben-Nevin had the white-haired man in his sights again and this time that American singer wouldn’t help him. Suddenly several angry hornets crossed in front of his face. He turned and looked and saw several men and to his surprise running along with them was Anya Korvesky, or as the colonel knew her, Major Mica Sorotzkin. She took cover quickly behind a large pedestal with a suit of armor on it. Zallas pushed Ben-Nevin away and then his men returned some of the fire directed at them by the Americans.

Zallas gestured for his remaining men to advance on the Americans and he didn’t care how many men he lost taking them out.

“Kill them all,” he screamed as he looked around at the shambles of his castle. He could not believe he had been talked into this by that Israeli traitor. He knew he always had to go for the brass ring even though he had enough money already to buy the factory that made the brass rings. He always had to have what others had, and now here he was. The castle was going to be a complete loss and now he had to make sure this disaster didn’t touch the much more valuable property below — the Edge of the World. That had to be saved after this fiasco. He looked at the cowardly Ben-Nevin and knew this man would die slowly in his hotel’s basement just as Marko Korvesky had earlier in the evening.

Jack chanced a look down over the railing and saw that the only guests left in the club were Charlie, Pete, and a group of terrified-looking young people huddling together by the stage. There was no way with the minimal firepower at hand they could extricate Ellenshaw and Golding.

“Jack!” Sarah shouted as she held the handgun out and pointed to the far wall closest to the cable car platform.

Collins looked to where Sarah was pointing and then he jabbed Mendohlson and then yelled for Carl. He pointed to the same spot as McIntire. Their eyes widened. As they watched, the rip in the stone blocks where they had been cemented together was separated by a good eight inches and the gap was widening. Sarah knew the castle was starting to separate from the mountain. The tremor hit and that made all the gunfire magically cease for the briefest of moments as everyone realized at the same moment that something was starting to go terribly wrong with Dracula’s Castle. Even Zallas remembered Sarah’s dire warnings about a catastrophe in the making. Now the Russian was starting to see — and feel — her point. He was thinking maybe it was time to leave and sort this out in a better location, like his offices.

“The doc is pinned down by the stage, it looks like they may be the last ones to get out, he and Pete are with a bunch of kids.”

“Kids? Here?” Carl said as he accepted another nine-millimeter clip from one of the Israeli commandos. Everett popped up and downed one of the mobster’s hired killers, who grabbed his face and then fell over the balcony and then his body smashed into a table in the center of the room. “If we have to do this one at a time we may be here when this damn castle falls down,” Everett finished and then fired one more round at the mass of killers fronting them.

“If you don’t mind me asking you gentlemen, just who in the hell are you?” Mendohlson asked.

“He’s Navy, I’m Army, and that really doesn’t matter at the moment, Major,” Jack said as he looked at the man. “What does matter is that I have two men down there protecting a bunch of kids. I have to get them out.”

“Well, we’re down to fifteen men. The rest are wounded or assisting the evacuation. We’re it.”

Jack grimaced.

“Here they come, Jack!” Everett said as he fired blindly into the men who were trying to make it to the cable car platform. “Damn!”

Bullets started slamming into the floor and the walls around them. The suit armor finally toppled over, narrowly missing a rolling Anya as it crashed to the floor. Collins saw that the Russian was done, he wanted out but they were in his way. Collins wasn’t about to raise his hands and give Zallas free passage to the cable car that was just pulling in. As Jack tried to get Ellenshaw’s attention below a bullet hit the colonel in the left shoulder and he felt the sting. Sarah saw him go down and there was nothing she could do about it.

Jack and his rescue team were about to be overrun.

Zallas knew he would make it with the human shield in front of him. He turned and grabbed Ben-Nevin once more and pulled him close.

“You will stay with me, my friend, until I have in my hands what I was promised. I want those men and I want what those Gypsies took from the temple!”

One of Zallas’s men fired a long burst from his AK-47 and the mobster looked up in time to see the dark-haired American go down. To the Russian that was a start. He had bad vibes ever since meeting the American with the intense green eyes. He smiled again as he shook Ben-Nevin and pointed. “Now you’ll see how we conduct business in Russia!” he said smiling maniacally.

Mikla was standing on the highest parapet on the east side of the castle. The giant Golia reached up and took hold of the ornate weather vane for balance and let loose a howl that was heard even over the building storm. Mikla was calling for help.

The mountain above the castle suddenly came alive with a black-on-black movement that looked as if ants were heading down the side of the mountain. The Golia had arrived to battle one last time against the forces of Pharaoh.

“That’s it, I’m out!” Sarah said as she looked around hoping that Mendohlson and his men had something extra to give. They did not. Their volume of fire diminished. They were done for.

Zallas was seen pulling the Israeli colonel around by the collar as his men kept up the withering fire as they worked their way to the platform. The cable car was there looking none too good after the wild ride down with screaming guests that had been terrified by what they still thought was a special effects show gone awry.

“You better pray that old Gypsy and her backward people are down below or you will never leave here, Jew Colonel,” Zallas said as his anti-Semitism came flowing from his mouth like corruption from a wound. “They better have what you have promised me.” He shook the colonel once more as he walked behind his curtain of men, dodging from fake castle appointment to potted plant. “Look at this, you are responsible for this!”

As Zallas looked around, his club was a shambles and as it stood he knew he would at least lose millions in a delayed opening. Dmitri Zallas was the type of man who never looked at the legal ramifications of anything he came across, he always had the fix in, just as he did at the moment with the interior minister. The damage could be controlled but that didn’t mean that the Jew had made a deal and he was going to stick to it if Zallas had to kill every last Gypsy inside Romania. And then he would start in the neighboring countries — nobody lied to Dmitri Zallas or ripped him off.

“Doc!”

Professor Ellenshaw heard the shout coming from behind. The din of battle from up top was starting to slacken as their rescuers ran low on ammunition. Charlie eased his head around the woman he was protecting with his body. He saw Jason Ryan and Will Mendenhall lying on the cold stone floor looking at them from a small cubbyhole at the end of the stage. It had taken them ten minutes to work their way outside and then to one of the ornate leaded glass windows where it took another three minutes to break through the lead that held most of the stained glass in place.

“Come on, Doc, we gotta split, man,” Ryan said, frantically waving Ellenshaw and his charges away from the main floor.

Ellenshaw started with the girl beneath him. It was the young woman dressed as Janis Joplin, and that made crazy Charlie give her a double take.

“Must have been one hell of a show,” he said as he pushed the young girl, who was still wearing her sunglasses, toward Ryan, who also gave Janis a second look.

Next Pete was pushing Jim Morrison, and holding on to his long fringe-lined vest were the three Supremes screaming as bullets stitched the thick brick walls. Each of the Russian performers, all dressed as past greats for Drake Andrews’s performance, was sent through the small opening to the rear of the stage and the false front of the castle beyond. Ryan and Will exchanged astonished looks as the evening just became far stranger.

“Okay, come on, Johnny, move it!” Ryan yelled out as the second to last performer, a kid dressed all in black like Johnny Cash, almost got stuck in the small opening.

“Wow!” Mendenhall said as the last man through was none other than Drake Andrews.

“Hey, dude, thanks a lot,” he said as he started crawling through the hole and into the small passageway.

“Come on, Doc!” Ryan said as he finally assisted Ellenshaw and Pete through the opening. “Good job getting those kids out of there,” Jason said to Ellenshaw and Pete as bullets slammed into the hole from upstairs.

“Where to now?” Pete asked as he waited for the others.

“The drawbridge in the front, it’s the only way out to get to the platform, we can’t take a chance getting to the stairs from the main room,” Mendenhall answered as he pushed Pete forward through the tunnel beside the stage.

“The drawbridge?”

Jack, Carl, Mendohlson, Sarah, Anya, Everett, and three of the Israeli commandos were forced to break off and make a run for the far corner away from the platform, as they could no longer stand and fight.

Before Jack realized what was happening he was taken off guard by the brass of the Russian, as he not only directed men to the cable car to hold it, he was actually sending twenty men after his small retreating unit. As he watched the men turn down the balcony hallway the castle gave a giant lurch as the concrete sealant around the foundation and stone block walls finally gave up its hold on the mountain. The castle slipped forward on its foundation by one and a half feet. This time the undermined anchor bolts twisted free of the earth until there was no longer anything holding the castle tight to the mountain. It was starting to come down and Jack knew it.

“To the roof, we’ll catch the cable car from there and hope Mr. Ryan finds a way up, let’s move, people,” he said as Major Mendohlson took the lead and rushed for the stairwell at the end of the hall and just hoped it went up at least one more floor to the castle’s promenade at the top.

Zallas and his men immediately realized the Americans had broken completely off. They made a mad dash for the giant cable car that had docked just moments before. It was still partially in motion as it swung into the loading area. Three of the Russian’s men ran to the ornate wooden door but the automatic system had failed and the double doors remained closed. The men batted on the clouded window but the doors remained closed. The first man tried to look inside and found the view obscured. He stepped back and that was when he noticed that every specially etched glass window was covered in a thin film of red. The man’s eyes widened when the doors suddenly hissed open and before he could stop the first two men they ran inside.

The Russian heard the screaming men just as they broke into the promenade for the cars. The men inside were screaming and the large, heavy car was rocking on its cables. As the remaining men stopped short of the car, Stanus broke free of the doors and stood silhouetted in the ornate lighting from the interior. The beast was in the standing position. Its black muzzle shining with the fresh blood of the two men that were now scattered all over the Queen Anne decor. Stanus was breathing heavy as it took in the startled men standing before it. The yellow eyes were now dulled by pain and its two bullet wounds were bleeding heavily, one from its upper right back and one in the back of the neck. Stanus shook its massive head back and forth sending saliva and blood flying in all directions and then it gathered its strength and raised its muzzle high and roared. The sound shook the platform and had the toughest men in Eastern Europe reversing as quickly as they could.

Ben-Nevin was the only one to react since he had become used to seeing these creatures. He allowed Zallas to step behind as he removed his nine-millimeter. Stanus lowered his head and fixed the colonel with his eyes as if daring the man to shoot.

Four more men turned and decided they would rather face this strange giant dog than face Zallas. They slowly brought up their AK-47s and took aim.

At that precise moment all the hell stored up in the history of the dark Carpathian Mountains broke free. The Golia struck the castle in force. Mikla was the first to jump from the top of the cable car where it had hidden amid the pulleys and platform cables and leaped onto the roof and then to the floor, crashing through the thin aluminum manufactured to resemble thick wooden beams. It was on all fours and was taking up station in front of his older brother, Stanus, growling and making the men hesitate just long enough for the rest of the male Golia to strike from the open sides of the promenade. They hit with such force that the men had no time to react. While backing away, Ben-Nevin fired blindly, missing Mikla by inches as the Golia moved and struck, barely missing the colonel as he turned and ran with Zallas and the last fifteen men.

The rest of his assassins were facing the wrath of the Golia and started losing very quickly as one man would go down and three of the giant wolves would strike as a team and the man was soon rendered in pieces. The frightening screams of the men covered up the sound and masked the movement of the castle as it broke completely free of the mountain, tearing the electrical conduits that snaked through the cement foundation, making the lights flicker and then go out completely.

In the sheer blackness in the few seconds it took for the emergency lighting to come on, Zallas heard his men being torn to pieces by something out of a nightmare. Suddenly Marko and his Gypsy band didn’t seem so foolish. Water mains ripped from the mountain added to the flood of rain from the pass above. The final collapse of the City of Moses shook the mountain one last time as if God were saying an end had come to all.

Zallas and his force of personal bodyguards knew they had only one way out of the frightening scene now visible in the weak emergency lighting. They had to get to the top of the castle and then work their way down and hope the Americans had decided to take another route. They ran for the stairwell that was well camouflaged as a thick wooden castle door. Ben-Nevin thought it best to stay with the only firepower left on the mountain and followed as the wolves of God finished off the evil that had invaded their lands.

Stanus collapsed inside the car and didn’t move. The push it had received from Madam Korvesky, who had vanished with the other Gypsies, had brought him to the cable car tower and that was where he climbed to the top and waited for the return car to the castle. The other Golia had met Mikla and joined him on the roof of the castle and had waited patiently to spring their trap, which they pulled off to perfection, just as it always had. Now Stanus was nearing the end as his blood flow was starting to ease for lack of pressure. On the roof Anya stopped and felt the sudden loss as Stanus started breathing heavy and as Mikla stood over his brother whining as it sniffed the giant Golia. Stanus raised his head, smelled Mikla, and then lay back. Mikla looked at the remaining male Golia and then it stepped from the car as the doors slid closed behind. The Golia used its special eyesight and saw the imprint the retreating men had left on the cobbled stone flooring. The prints stood out as a shade of gray brighter than their surroundings.

Mikla growled and then anger over the wounds to Stanus overcame the calmer of the two brothers and forced the shape shifting to begin. Mikla roared as it tried to stand and failed. Then it roared again as its hips finally popped free and the thigh bones fell free of their sockets, and Mikla, roaring in pain, finally gained his hind feet and then looked and lowered his large ears and howled. The other Golia stopped and then as one they tore through the cable car promenade heading for the stairwell door.

Jack was balanced on the outside wall on a small ledge that wrapped around the back. The cable car promenade was a hundred feet below and the only way they could reach the cars was to jump from the castle wall just below one of the massive parapets to the cable car roof and then down into the car. Jack wished they had the time to just run away on foot but knew that the flooding on the road prevented any foot traffic to the resort. They were now forced to brave the cable car. Sarah was behind him as she saw him stop and listen. The screams coming from inside the castle had startled even Collins. The Golia were inside and he didn’t know if once their blood was up they would differentiate good guy from bad. Luckily Anya was in front of Everett straddling the six-inch ledge.

“Anya, what is it?” Carl asked when he felt the woman hitch up and then almost fall from the wall. Everett quickly reached out and took her and held her. Mendohlson saw Everett’s struggle and assisted in holding the woman. She finally opened her eyes and then fixed them on Everett.

“Stanus is dying.”

Everett didn’t know what to say. He helped her straighten as Jack started moving again.

Collins was nearing the parapet rising high above them when the first shots struck the wall next to him, sending stone chips into his face.

“Damn!” he said as he almost lost his grip on the ledge. Sarah winced as she braved removing one hand from the mortar gaps and taking Jack by his belt. She closed her eyes not knowing for the briefest of moments if they both were going over into the chasm between the road and the castle. Jack finally caught his balance as more shots pinged off the stone facing around them. “Thanks, short stuff,” he said as he completed the ledge walk and made it to the open window of the parapet. He assisted Sarah inside and then the others. He chanced a look outside and saw Zallas and his men starting to step out onto the large ledge.

As they moved through the darkness they all lost their footing as they searched for a way out to the opposite ledge and then the short jump to the promenade roof as the castle broke into two distinct halves. The top half broke free from the foundation and came sliding five feet over the club below. It stopped just as the mountain quit convulsing. Jack got to his feet and felt the tilt of the castle. The movement was now constant as mortar and stone started splitting apart in unseen places, evidenced by the constant scraping they were now hearing.

“I do believe we are out of time, Jack!” Carl said as he finally sped to the door in the darkness.

Everett threw the door open and Mendohlson stepped through and vanished. Collins’s heart froze as he reached out and was barely able to take the Israeli commando’s sleeve preventing him from falling the four hundred feet to his death. Carl and Anya with Sarah holding Jack’s belt again pulled the major.

The entire wall of the west side tower was gone, leaving a gap of twenty feet to the promenade roof. Jack and the others finally managed to get the major back through the open doorway.

“Whoa, many thanks,” Mendohlson said as he tried to get his heart going again. One HALO jump in a year was enough, much less doing one without a chute.

“I think we have to find another way, the jump is too far,” Collins said as Everett looked out the doorway and confirmed what the colonel was saying.

“Where is Stanus when you need him,” Carl said as he put his head back in. “Jack, you know when those assholes get here they are going to place so many bullets into this room it’ll be like a shooting gallery with these stone walls. We have to go up even higher and try another way. We won’t have time to scale down from here.”

“You lead the way this time, swabby; I think I’ve lost my mountain goat skills.”

Carl nodded, took Anya’s hand, and then looked out the open doorway once more. He saw a small ladder just outside the door, what was left of one leading to one of the skylights now lying four hundred feet below in the gully. Everett leaned over and kissed Anya on the cheek and then reached out and took hold of the ladder that would lead them to the highest portion of Castle Dracula.

They were unaware that it was the portion now dangling over the remains of the club and teetering over the abyss.

Charlie, Ryan, Mendenhall, Pete, Drake Andrews, and the sixteen Russian musicians and performers had found getting to the promenade platform would be impossible so they took the only route available. The many stairwells leading to the base of the cable car tower had taken almost ten minutes to travel as they slipped and fell on the wet steel as the storm continued around the steel towers. Ryan could feel the short jolts of electricity flow through the handrails as lightning struck close by on several occasions. Finally they spied the bottom.

Pete was the first one to step out of the stairwell and into the inky blackness. He vanished as the water took him. The rainwater was now turning the roadway into a debris-swollen river. The collapse of the temple complex had opened up the pass sending a wave of mud cascading down the mountain. Now the raging river had Pete. Charlie had to be pulled back as he tried to leap into the water to save his friend.

“No, Doc!” Ryan shouted into the fierce mouth of the raging storm. “You’ve done enough, it’s my turn,” Jason said as he turned to Mendenhall. “Get them down the best you can, Will,” he said and then saluted him with a smile and without another word dove into the swirling water and was swept away.

Mendenhall and Ryan knew when playtime and the joking ceased and when it was time for the junior officer to take orders from a superior and this was one of those times as much as Will hated to admit it. He shook with anger that Ryan had gone without hesitation. He knew he had to move as the tower they had just climbed down was swaying the whole time they traversed the stairs.

Mendenhall moved his charges out of the tower to ease along the rim of the road, which was now only inches above the water. The first girl, the one dressed as Janis Joplin, slipped and nearly went in. Mendenhall and Ellenshaw caught her and pulled her back. The girl was shaking so badly Will knew he would never get her to attempt it again.

“Damn, Doc, we need a cab in the worst way!”

At that precise moment the dull red 1962 Chevy Impala bumped against the cable tower and careened into the stairwell doorway narrowly missing Mendenhall and Charlie. Will acted quickly, as he never looked a gift horse, or in this case, a gift boat, in the mouth. He reached out and used the door frame as leverage and jumped onto the hood of the car and then scrambled up the windshield and through the open window. Luckily the old and battered Chevy lodged momentarily against the cable tower, the bumper digging into the doorway. Mendenhall waved at Charlie, gesturing wildly for him to get all sixteen people into the car. It was going to be a tight squeeze but knew it was any boat in a storm. The Russians started jumping onto the car’s hood and top. The trunk sank in the water as even more jumped onto the car. Charlie was the last one on and got stuck on the top as he kicked out several times with the help of Drake Andrews until the Chevy dislodged from the tower.

Soon the Impala was moving rapidly down the most recent rapids to come into existence in the Eastern world — Dracula’s Wild Ride, Will would call it later when telling the tale.

The men and women of the Russian musical troupe, with Drake Andrews and Charlie Ellenshaw adding their weight, screamed as the car started twisting in the rapidly moving floodwaters as it rushed for a collision date with a doomed resort.

Zallas finally made it through the open window and it was another ten minutes of nearly falling ten times until they finally made it to the now silent promenade deck. Zallas took a head count and found he had only ten men left. He had lost another three in the harrowing climb down to the car. He gestured for his men to advance and make sure all of those insane dogs were gone.

As they approached the door it slid open automatically and then men jumped back with a start when they saw the prone body of Stanus. The giant wolf wasn’t moving as it lay on the Persian carpet of the car’s interior. Ben-Nevin, angry at seeing one of the animals that could no longer take his head off at the shoulders, stepped up and placed two bullets into the still animal’s back. The Golia didn’t move. Ben-Nevin gestured for them to get inside the car but had to brace himself as the castle shifted once more. It stilled but they all knew it wouldn’t stay that way as they all saw the very long, very deep crack in the cobbled flooring of the promenade.

“Come, you fools, get aboard, this castle is no longer destined to stay attached to this mountain.” He looked at Zallas as he stepped past the Israeli. “I guess the little American woman was right, you should have paid for a good engineer instead of the one you paid off.”

Zallas gave the colonel a filthy look as he stepped over the bleeding Golia. He should have noticed the large hitch in the beast’s chest as the automatic doors slid closed and the car started its slow push out from the covered promenade.

As the car below started to leave the barn, Jack knew they weren’t going to make it. It was too far down. They could possibly get Anya and Sarah and maybe the major on board the roof but that would be it. It was Anya and Mikla who settled it.

“You three go, Mikla will carry me, now move!” she shouted just as Mikla jumped onto the roof of the promenade. With another leap he easily managed to jump to the large window overlooking the moving car below. Without hesitation Mikla took a struggling Anya by the arm and tossed her roughly onto his back and then the Golia jumped free of the window and vanished.

“I guess he has his priorities,” Sarah said as she leaned out the large window and saw the Golia deposit an angry Anya on the cable car’s roof and then he started to climb again away from the frantically waving Gypsy and frustrated woman.

“I think maybe the wolf is coming back to—”

Sarah was unceremoniously yanked from the room by Mikla, who repeated the process until Sarah was standing next to Anya as they both looked up at the three men.

As they watched the wolf start its amazing climb once more, the floor cracked straight down the middle and this time the top half of the castle tilted to the far front and Jack felt it slipping free of the lower half.

“That’s it, out the window now!” he screamed as the tower started to crumble under their feet.

The three men scrambled out into the open storm as fast as they could but even as they gained purchase on the sloping wall they turned and saw the east parapet tilt. In the storm and lightning it was upright one moment and then during the next flash the tower was falling right past the man hanging on to the wall and just hoping the falling tower missed not only them but the entire cable car platform. It did as it went whooshing by them, splitting the rain and wind and creating its own storm as the large building blocks slammed into the club below. That force of impact finally sheared the foundation away from the mountain and the club went next, sliding and tumbling down the mountain heading straight for the resort far below.

Collins, Everett, and Mendohlson felt the wall they were holding on to ripple and start to give way.

“Well, it’s been one hell of a night, gentlemen, but it’s time to see if we can fly,” Mendohlson said as he leaped to the car now free of the barn and snagged a large cable. He was hanging on for dear life and then Jack and Carl breathed a sigh of relief as Mendohlson slowly made his way to the roof. Without comment, Jack, and then Everett, both let go of the wall as the same moment and snagged the same cable and went hand overhand to the car’s roof. Just as their feet touched down several bullets came smashing through the roof forcing the new passengers toward the centerline where the cables attached to the car and the huge pulley system. Jack looked down as the car went out over the abyss and their descent into the valley began.

Sarah and Anya were trying to see in the darkness just when the remains of the upper half of Dracula’s Castle would fall and crush them all to death when they saw in a flash of lightning the south parapet lean forward and then fall. It was like something out of a Hollywood movie about the wrath of God bringing down a stone monstrosity that dared rise against his mountain and his animals. The tower flew past the moving car and smashed into the main tower, shaking the cable and thus the car. It rocked back and forth with the force of the collision almost sending Jack and the others slinging off into the storm to their deaths. More bullets flew through the ornate wood ceiling as Zallas and his men continued to take potshots at them.

Suddenly in a bright flash the power lines exploded as part of the east parapet struck the second tower just as the cable car passed it, knocking free the power lines and shaking the car and the men inside enough that the intruders on the roof became a moot point as they all realized that the world was going to come crashing down upon them any second.

Finally the mountain gave one last tremendous shake and the remains of the castle, club and all, broke away, sending engineered stone blocks the size of houses and made in Hungary careening down the mountainside. The first twenty-two-ton block hit the first cable tower knocking it free of its cement base. The cables that ran through the pulley system on the tower unraveled sending the car plummeting to the road now three hundred feet down. Jack and the others barely held on to the heavy pulley block on the top of the car as they fell through the air. They waited for the crushing impact as they hit the bottom. They felt the tremendous jerk and then they all fell hard into the steel. The last cable had hung up on the next tower and the cable continued to play out. They were moving but no longer falling, but being lowered like a slow elevator as the cable hung on tight to the second tower. They were now only a hundred feet off the rushing waters below.

Finally it was the 800,000-ton foundation that came next. The anchor pins the Golia had painstakingly undermined for months came free of their pilot holes and the entire structure, foundation, and sixteen hundred-ton steel pins came free with it. Together they came down the side of the mountain like a runaway block of stone connected by giant lawnmower blades. Both slammed into the second tower hitting it with so much force that it not only knocked it from its base but bent it double. The next tower was even easier, as the agglomeration of Dracula’s Castle’s remains sent the cable car the last hundred feet into the swirling waters of the flood.

As Jack, Sarah, Anya, Mendohlson, and Everett hung on for dear life, the car turned in a large circle and sped down the ravine toward the hotel. They all wanted to scream when Mikla jumped onto the top of the car. Anya reached out and grabbed the wolf by the ears and pulled it closer to her. She thought they had lost Mikla when the castle came down, but he must have jumped from damaged area to damaged area until he had reached the third tower.

Together with the Russian and his men below in the darkened car and screaming like schoolgirls on an amusement park ride, the Event Group, Anya, and the Israeli commando held on tightly as the cable car shot down the growing rapids, careening from bank to bank as they rushed toward the Edge of the World — literally.

Will couldn’t believe he was actually trying to steer the car in the rising water as the Chevy flew down the flooded road. The car smashed into the right berm, and then spun in a circle and then struck the left side. The Chevy was dangerously close to being sunk by the mass of humanity inside and on top of the car. Drake Andrews saw disaster coming their way first and started pounding on the roof as if Mendenhall could actually do something about what he was panicking over.

“Whoa, whoa, look out!” Andrews yelled and then watched as several hundred-ton blocks of stone bounced past them on their way to crash into the hotel. Then Drake and Charlie both started pounding the car’s roof when they saw the next little fright headed their way.

“Will!” Charlie screamed from the roof, not knowing that Mendenhall was busy turning the wheel of a car that was now floating faster than it ever drove.

Mendenhall looked in the rearview mirror past all of the wet heads inside the car and took in a sight that froze his blood. The cable car was right behind them and was coming on fast. He could see people inside and outside on the top. He braced for the impact and it soon came.

The cable car smashed into the Chevy sending Ellenshaw, Andrews, and the girl dressed as Janis Joplin free of the car and into the water. The cable car’s rear end flew up and that was when Major Mendohlson lost his fight with centrifugal force and followed them into the rapids.

Jack and Sarah tried to hold on to Everett and Anya but they too went over the side and into the water and they were quickly followed by Mikla, who went after the Jeddah princess. Jack cursed and then held on to Sarah as the car went straight for the geodesic dome of the large spa and nature center.

Niles Compton and Alice Hamilton had finally made it to the hotel to warn everyone of the disaster but all they saw of the remnants of the grand opening at the castle was the screaming, bloody, terrified guests from Castle Dracula running through the hotel. The staff had evacuated with them. Everyone was gathering at the front gate and trying desperately to get as far away from the Edge of the World as they could.

Niles pulled on Alice’s hand knowing the older woman was near to collapse, but still she clung to the burlap sack containing whatever it was she had removed from Madam Korvesky’s home. It had taken Niles another five minutes to find the radio in the office of Dmitri Zallas.

“Yes, Virginia, I’m sure,” Niles radioed Virginia Pollack at the Event complex in Nevada, “if we do not get the emergency evac in the next hour we’ll have an international mess on our hands that won’t end. We have the proof of theft and we have evidence that supports the Event call. Yes, immediately, we have to—”

Niles felt the rumble just in time as Alice dropped the sack she was carrying and then pushed Compton out of the way as the first stone block from the falling parapet struck the hotel and veered into the casino, smashing through to the far side where it landed in the Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Niles looked up as he felt the rain on his face and the howling wind coming from the space where the outer wall used to be. He was still holding the microphone from the radio in his hand. The cord had been sheared off as the block not only took half the office away, but the radio also.

Alice quickly retrieved the bag and then helped Niles to his feet.

“I think we did what Jack wanted, maybe it’s time to beat that hasty retreat they always talk about,” Alice said as she gingerly eased herself over the remains of the office.

Alice and Niles Compton had made it clear of the hotel when the remains of the castle’s foundation smashed into the hotel. The top floor collapsed into the fifth until the combined weight of both floors created the pancaking effect seen in building collapses. The hotel came down and pulled the casino into the water with it.

The Edge of the World had slipped completely off the grid.

The Chevy, the cable car, and those who had managed to hang on during their harrowing ride down the mountain slid into the cornerstone of what was left of the casino. The men and women inside and outside the Chevy jumped free but quickly went for cover as gunfire erupted from inside the cable car. The bullets smashed windows as the doors opened and several men jumped out into the water wanting to make it to the remains of the casino. Then several more men jumped free. Mendenhall watched as Jack Collins and Sarah McIntire jumped into the water from the top of the car. He opened his door and then allowed himself to taken by rushing water. The Russian musicians soon joined Will in the water as the last of Zallas’s men made a break for safety.

Dmitri Zallas was fuming. Not only had he been as frightened as a child and demonstrated so on the way down the mountain, but his most trusted men deserted him. Only Colonel Ben-Nevin remained. He gestured for Ben-Nevin to give him his gun. The colonel only smiled and rubbed the wound on his shoulder. He raised the pistol and pushed the barrel against Zallas’s ample chest until the scowling Russian stepped aside. Ben-Nevin shook his head as he passed the stunned gangster.

“I’m afraid our deal is off,” he said as the gun never wavered from the Russian’s chest.

“You have failed at your mission, your future will be as bleak as my own,” Zallas hissed.

“Possibly, but I believe that we may have caused enough of a mess for the world to notice that the current Israeli soft-liners have sent an illegal force of Israeli soldiers into a friendly nation and killed Romanian nationals, so in the end my benefactors will come to power anyway, so at least I have a fighting chance. And you? I’m afraid you have nothing. Now, excuse me as I find a ride out of here.”

Zallas watched Ben-Nevin as he stepped off into the rushing water and was gone as the car started to fill with muddy, dank water.

“I will kill you!” Zallas screamed as he made for the door in the darkness.

As he readied to jump into the rushing torrent, his shoulder was grabbed from behind. The claws dug deeply into the Russian’s shoulder, sending the nails so deep that they struck the man’s collarbone. He screamed in pain as he was suddenly jerked around. Standing there bleeding and wet was Stanus. The beast was still alive and well enough to stand upright in the rising water of the flood. The Golia was breathing heavily, trying to force life-giving air into its collapsing lungs. The animal had actually lain there and accepted the two bullets from Ben-Nevin’s gun and not moved an inch. Zallas realized that this was no ordinary dog — it was not only the largest wolf he had ever seen in his life, but it was also the smartest creature he had even known, including most of his business associates. Then he looked into the yellow eyes.

Stanus leaned in so close to the Russian that its breath fouled the man’s breathing. Stanus was near death, he could see that, but he also knew the beast was staying alive long enough to corner him before he could escape. Then he saw it. The eyes first flashed to brown and then back to the glowing yellow. Then he saw Marko in the reflection cast upon him. The Gypsy was there, inside the wolf, and the Russian knew this as a fact just as surely as he knew this nightmare from his childhood was going to kill him. Zallas shook his head just as the beast slowly opened its mouth and bit.

The screaming stopped almost as soon as it started as the cable car broke free of the remnants of the hotel and then circled once near the pool and then slowly went under the water.

Stanus, the alpha male of the Golia, was gone.

Jack saw Ben-Nevin leave the car and had jumped into the water to follow. Of all the people in this nightmare he knew that this man was at the root of what happened here tonight. He had tried to kill his people and Jack would never let that go. Sarah yelled after him and then carefully jumped into the swirling mass and followed him and Ben-Nevin into what was left of the casino.

“Hold it!” Jack yelled as his feet hit dry carpeting for the first time in what seemed hours. Ben-Nevin turned and without aiming fired three times, taking Collins by surprise. Jack’s reactions were barely fast enough to move out of the way. Luckily the casino was dark with only a few of the emergency lamps still operational. “Missed, Colonel, typical spook shooting, not very good. I see the Mossad doesn’t train their agents any better than the CIA,” Jack yelled as he tried to get the desired effect. He did.

Ben-Nevin angrily fired off three more shots and then Collins heard a curse as the firing pin on the colonel’s handgun came down upon nothing. Jack stood from his cover and saw Ben-Nevin standing there. He was looking past Jack and at something over his shoulder. Collins slowly turned and saw Carl standing there with Anya. They were battered and bruised and covered in mud but very much alive. Then Jack’s eyes traveled to where Anya stood and saw in the weak battery-driven lights that Mikla was standing next to her. The wolf was only looking in one direction — straight at Ben-Nevin, the man Mikla had saved Anya from on the train, and the Golia had a very long memory.

“While taking our swim in the new river outside,” Jack said, “we came across Pete Golding and Ryan trying to break a swim record for speed. They’re outside with the remnants of a very strange group of funny-dressed Russians and Drake Andrews.”

Jack looked from Mikla to Carl and then back at Ben-Nevin.

“You have a lot to answer for, Colonel. I should probably let Ms. Korvesky return you to Israel, but that may cause some embarrassment for a few people, so it looks like things will be settled a little more quietly,” he said as he took a step forward.

“You may think you have stopped our faction for now, Major, but you have not. The truth of this place will come out. There is no stopping that now and then we will have the full power to bring the left-wing government down and replace it with those who know and understand the power of the past, and remember that we are God’s chosen ones.”

“I think you will find that scenario flawed somewhat,” Anya said. “And the name is Korvesky, and I am the queen of the Jeddah.”

Collins started forward but Carl reached out and took Collins’s shoulder and stilled him.

“Not this time, Jack. I insist on the honors, well, my friend here does at any rate.”

Ben-Nevin’s eyes went wide as Carl turned away with Jack and along with Anya left him alone with Mikla. The wolf didn’t move or make a sound. The beast suddenly stood on its hind feet and advanced in four long strides until its face was inches from Ben-Nevin. Mikla soon explained the real facts of life to the traitorous Ben-Nevin.

As Carl assisted Anya over the ruined casino wall he waited for Jack as the roar of Mikla was heard over the wind and thunder of the storm. Colonel Ben-Nevin had just learned the real magic of the Jeddah and why they had never been found — the Golia had always been there to protect them, just as Mikla was doing at that moment.

As Jack looked around him he saw what remained of his team and the night’s entertainment. They all turned when they heard someone splashing up behind them. Major Mendohlson was standing there as wet as everyone else and he wasn’t alone. The remnants of his team of fifty-six men were with him and Jack only counted thirty-two. Most were injured but at least they were alive. Collins nodded to his colleague and then watched as the Israeli approached. Anya and Carl joined them as the storm for the first time that night started to taper.

“Gentlemen, Major Korvesky,” Mendelsohn said, “as we have no way to get a dust-off from the area, I am placing me and my men into NATO protective custody until such time as we can be sent back to our country to face charges.”

Collins and Everett knew how the game was played. The Israeli government would never admit to authorizing the mission to destroy the City of Moses so they would have no choice but to hang the major and his team out to dry and call the action unauthorized.

Jack shook his head in understanding. “Major, we all may be headed for a Romanian jail, so why don’t we hang out a while and see what happens.”

“Yes, but if I may,” the major said and turned to face Sarah McIntire. “I overheard you earlier explaining the dynamics of the temple and the mountains and the castle’s engineering flaws. Can you assure me that whatever was buried inside that mountain is buried forever?”

Jack knew immediately what the major was referring to and decided to help Sarah.

“The last we saw, Stanus had the weapon, Major, what he did with it will be a mystery that went to the grave with him.”

“You mean that wolf?”

“Yeah, that guy,” Jack answered.

Carl took Anya by the hand and walked her a few steps away until they were well out from the rest of the survivors. They were now standing in the rain. Everett leaned over and kissed the new Gypsy queen and then just held her. As he did the thumping sound started from the sky and overrode the distant thunder. Carl looked up at the noise.

“What in the hell is that?” Mendenhall asked as he stopped applying the bandage to Ryan’s head.

“That’s the result of my phone call home. I see Virginia got through to the president, who in turn got the NATO commander in Cologne, Germany, to get us some transport in here. After all, we had a little problem with flooding ourselves.”

All eyes turned to a filthy Niles Compton and Alice Hamilton. They looked as if they had been through a blender. They heard the six Black Hawk helicopters of the 82nd Airborne Division as they made their way through the diminishing storm to what remained of the most expensive hotel and casino Eastern Europe had ever seen.

“And Mrs. Hamilton, I think I’ll sit out your next little foray into the world, this is rough,” Niles said as he sat hard on an overturned craps table and waited for the American Army to rescue them from what used to be known to the world as Transylvania. A place the Event Group would not soon forget.

The sun struggled to break through the early morning clouds as the first of the five Black Hawks lifted off carrying the more severely injured of the small group left near the hotel. With Dmitri Zallas missing the security element had deserted the property.

Jack was getting ready to send Mendohlson and his remaining Sayeret team to the next Black Hawk when they were approached by several men in the blue and black uniforms of the Romanian National Police. Collins exchanged looks with Everett when they saw that the police had come in force and most were already standing by two trucks that had been brought in to remove the major.

“I am Captain Ceustantz of the National Police, Major Mendohlson. I have been ordered to take you and your team into protective custody pending a hearing for illegally entering Romania to cause anarchy upon our citizens.”

Anya started to step forward to protest but Everett held her back with a shake of his head. It was no use getting herself arrested.

Mendohlson half bowed in compliance, letting the officer know that he would have no trouble with him or his men. He turned to face Anya and Everett and smiled.

“Major Korvesky, the best of luck to you in your new life. Captain,” Mendohlson held out his hand and Everett shook it. The major then turned to Jack and offered his hand. “Colonel, I recognized your name as soon as I heard it. I would someday like to see you in action against something other than creatures from a fairy tale and mobsters that fell out of a bad movie.”

“Someday soon, Major,” Jack said, taking the man’s hand and then shaking it. Collins watched the major leave and he was smiling as he wiped more mud from his face.

“What’s so funny, Colonel?” Mendenhall asked when he saw his boss looking at the two trucks and the policemen who assisted the major’s wounded and worn team into the back. The major turned and looked at Jack just as a large man with a barrel chest and police uniform stepped up to the major. They both were looking at the group of motley Americans. The big man smiled and waved as he helped the major into the back of the truck.

“I think we just saw Ms. Korvesky’s former boss,” Jack said as Anya stepped forward to view the scene better. Her mouth fell open as she was witnessing the impossible.

The second invasion of Romania was on as General Addy Shamni smiled and gave Anya a half salute. She saw a worn and weary Janos Vajic standing next to the general. And then to her shock she saw her grandmother’s body as it was loaded onto the truck. General Shamni walked toward the stunned group of Americans and up to Anya. He eyed Everett and gave him an appreciative nod of his head. The general then faced his former charge.

“Major, I am going home now and taking my sister with me. She can no longer remain here. She will be enshrined with every king and queen the Jeddah have ever known in Jerusalem with the rest of her kind. She will lie next to Kale, the Great One. She’s going home to a place denied to your tribe thirty-five hundred years ago. She’s coming home with me.” He leaned over and kissed Anya on the forehead. “Good-bye, niece.” General Shamni turned and walked out of the life of Anya Korvesky.

“I never knew before tonight,” she said as she watched the trucks with the counterfeit Romanian police drive away after rescuing their assault teams before the real police arrived.

“Well, it’s all over now,” Carl said as he knew his life was also never going to be the same after tonight.

Two hours later everyone was accounted for, including Denise Gilliam, who had ended up with the Israeli rescue force after Madam Korvesky died. She recounted how the old woman knew for a fact that her grandson was still inside Stanus. She then added what little she could to sustain the wolf’s life while he lay in wait inside the cable car. She was there just long enough for Marko, herself, and Stanus to send Dmitri Zallas off to the afterlife with an attitude adjustment.

The last of the Black Hawks started spooling up their twin turbo-driven engines. As the four-bladed rotors started to turn the Event Group loaded up.

Collins watched Charlie and Pete board after making sure Drake Andrews and his new band had made it safely aboard another Romanian helicopter. Jack then walked to the last Black Hawk where Sarah, Mendenhall, Niles, Alice, and Ryan were waiting with Denise Gilliam. Collins stepped aboard and then turned and waited for Carl. He was holding Anya and saying something to her, and then with a final kiss they parted. She never turned away from Everett’s back as he moved to join his friends. He made it to the doorway as the sharp whine of the Black Hawk’s twin engines started turning over. Carl stepped up to the doorway and looked at each face inside the chopper before his eyes settled on Jack and Sarah. He hesitated and then looked as if he wanted to say something.

“What are you doing, Captain?” Jack asked loudly as the engine noise built up to a deafening roar. Carl looked over at the colonel and they locked eyes. “Get the hell out of here.”

Everett looked from Jack to Niles, who nodded his head in understanding. Then he looked at a shocked Will Mendenhall and an even more stunned Jason Ryan. He smiled and then saluted his friends. He then saw Sarah, who was already tearing up and getting angry for doing so. He gave her a look that told her “thank you for everything.” All her hard work to get Carl back to living a real life again after the death of Lisa, his fiancée, had not been wasted. He kissed her. Then he leaned over and kissed Alice Hamilton on the cheek. He patted the burlap bag on the seat next to her and then winked. She smiled with tears in her eyes and found she couldn’t speak. Everett straightened and then held out his hand to Collins.

“Thanks, Jack, you’ll get my paperwork started, right?”

Jack Collins nodded that yes, he would get his retirement papers in order. He shook hands with his friend of eight years for the last time.

“Good luck, swabby, and take care of that girl. I understand she has some pretty rough in-laws that may not take to you.” He smiled and Everett followed suit. Their hands parted as the Black Hawk spun up in power and the wheels lifted free of the earth.

They all watched as Everett walked back and placed his arm around Anya as his friends flew away to the south over the remains of the Edge of the World.

Captain Carl Everett watched the U.S. Army Black Hawk until he couldn’t see it any longer. He then turned to Anya and together they walked away into their future.