Immortal

72

A superheated blast wave of shattered rocks and flame roared from the mouth of the cave, spitting a cloud of supersonic debris that radiated out across Misery Hole. The mercenaries besieging the cave hurled themselves aside as they were hammered by the deadly shrapnel, shielding their faces as they hit the ground. The infernal blast rolled and echoed through the cavern as a tumbling shower of dust, stone chips and shattered vegetation fell from around them. Ethan took his hands from over his head, wiping dust from his eyes as he looked back to see the mouth of Lechuguilla Cave now obscured by a mountain of shattered rocks still tumbling down to thump onto the ground nearby.

Lopez and Lillian Cruz lifted their faces from the dust, but Saffron remained motionless. Ethan struggled across to her side and gently rolled her over. Her face was pale and her eyes rolled up in their sockets, but she was conscious, groaning with the pain that was now beginning to seep like acid through her body as the contents of her stomach leaked into her bloodstream.

‘She needs a hospital, now,’ Cutler said, ‘or she won’t make it.’

Ethan was about to reply when some of the mercenaries began to recover themselves and leapt from cover, M-16s at the ready as they surrounded them, a tall man with pallid, pock-marked skin at their head. His red hair glistened in the sunlight above his paunchy face as he looked down at them.

‘At last,’ he said, lifting his rifle to point at Ethan, ‘it’s time to bring this to a close.’

Zamora, on his knees and with a rifle pointing at him, shook his head.

‘Don’t do this.’

The man ignored him and aimed his assault rifle, the ugly black barrel pointing straight between Ethan’s eyes, and then a deafening gunshot burst the air around Ethan’s head. He heard himself cry out and grab his face in shock, only to see the assault rifle aimed at him spin wildly away through the air. The pale-skinned man doubled over in shock as he stared at the ragged, bloody hole torn through his hand.

A barrage of voices shouted out, laden with fearsome rage as they raced closer, and as Ethan looked up through the shimmering beams of light sweeping down through the clouds of dust and smoke, he saw dozens of figures rappeling down toward him.

‘Put your weapons down! Down down down!’

Ethan, his eyes itching with grit, watched as United States Marines plunged into the cavern around them. Snipers enshrouded in bush camouflage popped up from the edge of the ridge a hundred feet above, weapons pointed unwaveringly at Hoffman and his men. The sudden sound of distant thunder became a deafening, hammering chorus as a pair of Bell-Boeing V22 Osprey aircraft roared past against the disc of blue sky above, escorted by two Apache Ah-64 gunships, the sound of their amassed rotors thundering down through the cavern like the footfalls of a charging army of giants.

‘That’ll be the cavalry,’ Lopez said as she lowered her pistol and spat dust from her mouth. She crawled to Ethan’s side and gently pressed her hand around the blade lodged in his side, trying to stem the bleeding.

Ethan saw Hoffman being forced to his knees by a Marine, blubbering like a child as he was cuffed and forced flat onto his stomach. Other Marines thundered down to surround them as Lopez called out.

‘Medic!’

Within moments a pair of medics were alongside them, dropping their Bergens and fishing out IV lines and saline bags with practiced efficiency. Ethan lay back, ignoring the line being inserted into his arm and watching as the other medic worked on Saffron Oppenheimer nearby. The man turned his head, holding a small microphone attached to his helmet as he spoke into it.

‘Delta-Four, CASEVAC, repeat, casualty evacuation immediate, stand-by.’

Ethan heard a warbled response through the medic’s earpiece, and then the noise from the approaching Ospreys became overpowering.

Cutler and Zamora appeared beside him, concerned looks on their faces, and then were pushed aside by four marines who surrounded him.

He lay back and looked up past the towering rocky walls of Misery Hole, saw swathes of golden desert dust sweeping across the sky as the two huge aircraft landed somewhere nearby. The four Marines lifted him onto a makeshift field stretcher, the medic carrying his saline bag as he was lofted upon their shoulders and attached to a winch lowered hastily by troops far above.

Ethan saw Lopez watching him with a furtive expression, her long black hair caked with dust, and then he was hoisted up and away from the floor of the cavern, spiraling slowly as he was pulled all the way to the lip of Misery Hole and then lifted clear of the chasm.

One of the Ospreys had landed ‘hot’ on a plateau a hundred yards away, the huge pivoting engines directing their immense thrust downward for vertical landing. The blades were kicking up a fearsome dust storm around the aircraft, but the medic carrying the saline bag shielded Ethan’s face with one hand as he was rushed aboard the aircraft. The Marines laid him down on a canvas bed that had been folded down from one side of the fuselage wall.

Ethan lay back, watching as Saffron was lifted aboard moments later and carried with reverential care by the battle-hardened Marines to lie nearby on another fold-down bed. The Marines rushed off the Osprey and moments later Ethan felt his stomach plunge as the aircraft’s engines roared even louder and it lifted off and accelerated into forward flight.

Medics fussed over Saffron’s inert form nearby, and Ethan watched with concern until a soldier carrying what looked like a laptop computer squatted beside him and rested the computer on his chest. A flickering image of Doug Jarvis offered him a brief smile from beneath a hastily bandaged and bloodied forehead.

‘Good morning.’

Ethan closed his eyes briefly before replying.

‘I wouldn’t call it good,’ he said, glancing again at Saffron. ‘Saffron’s been hit bad.’

Jarvis nodded.

‘Don’t worry, she’s in good hands now and will be in the best of care once you get back to Holloman. I’ve alerted their best people to take care of her once you arrive. I take it your meager flesh wounds won’t prevent you from attending a detailed debrief once we’re there?’

Ethan sighed.

‘Sure. What’s a few inches of Toledo steel between friends? Where the hell are you? And what happened to your face?’

Jarvis grimaced.

‘New York, and if you think I look bad, you should see Donald Wolfe. Get some down time, Ethan. I’ve already got the DIA on the case.’

‘How did you know where to find us?’ he asked.

‘Lopez sent me a text,’ Jarvis said. ‘An IP address for a GPS tracker. I’d only just got out of the UN building, but we managed to figure out what she’d done. I dispatched the Marines right after.’

‘She lied to me, Doug,’ Ethan said with a sigh.

‘She got the job done,’ Jarvis countered. ‘Anyway, don’t worry about the details — my teams are already on their way to clear up, and by lunchtime none of this will ever have happened.’

Ethan rested his head against his pillow, staring up at the ceiling of the Osprey.

‘I doubt that,’ he said quietly.

‘Why?’ Jarvis asked. ‘Jeb Oppenheimer suffered a tragic accident this morning and will be buried in a private ceremony — he didn’t have any friends to speak of so no need for a public funeral. His mercenaries will be tried by military court and convicted of conspiracy to murder DIA agents. Donald Wolfe effectively confessed to conspiracy to murder Tyler Willis and for the homicide of an unknown male in Alaska in front of the entire United Nations before he shot himself. I take it that Lillian Cruz has been liberated and will no doubt testify as and when required regarding her abduction. And as for the soldiers you located out here…’

Ethan nodded slowly.

‘They’re all dead,’ he guessed. ‘Have been for decades.’

‘Longer,’ Jarvis said, and his voice became somber. ‘The Marines found one of them in the hands of Oppenheimer’s mercenaries. He wasn’t alive.’

‘Kip Wren,’ Ethan identified him. ‘A very brave man. They all were.’

Jarvis nodded.

‘Their remains will be allowed to decay as appears to be the norm and then be retrieved from the caves for further study. Butch Cutler and Lieutenant Zamora will be signing non-disclosure forms within the hour. The chamber within Lechuguilla Cave will be sealed and its location removed from any public forum. Best that we keep whatever’s in there under lock and key, for obvious reasons.’

‘What about Saffron?’ Ethan asked.

‘Tricky,’ Jarvis said. ‘For whatever reason, she developed a conscience and handed herself in to state police, told them everything. I’d have sent people in to retrieve the incriminating evidence on her behalf, but the police are already there and apparently have recovered video tapes that implicate her in an unsolved homicide some four years ago.’

Ethan sighed heavily.

‘The circumstances were different to how they appear on the images, apparently,’ Ethan said. ‘After all this, they’ll use everything they can to send her down for life. You need to do something to help her, Doug, she doesn’t deserve this.’

Jarvis shrugged on the screen.

‘What can I do? This case is resolved and everything the DIA needs is now in their hands, including Kip Wren’s body and the site itself. They’re not going to let me interfere in a civil case.’

Ethan looked at him seriously.

‘They might have to,’ he said. ‘Because it’s not over.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jarvis asked. ‘There’s nobody left.’

‘Yes, there is,’ Ethan explained. ‘There were eight of them, not seven, because someone was holding the camera when that photograph was taken in 1862.’

Jarvis’s features creased as a realization dawned in his eyes.

‘The subject is still alive?’ he asked.

‘Very much so,’ Ethan said. ‘Protect Saffron and I’ll help figure out who it is. Let her go down, and the DIA can go to hell for its information.’