The Cup

CHAPTER 53

Darraya at night from a thousand feet looked like a vision from Dante's Inferno. Fires smoldered in dozens of places, casting a reddish gloom over the doomed city. The smell of smoke and decay drifted in the air. Shattered buildings rose like broken teeth along the desolate streets.

Bright rows of tracers arced through the night below, an eerily beautiful shower of death. Nick had told her there were nine rounds you didn't see for every one you did. An occasional flash from Assad's artillery on the edge of the city was followed by a burst of light somewhere in the ruins.

They landed two blocks away from their target. At the last possible instant, Selena just missed impaling herself on jagged pieces of steel rebar sticking out of the rubble. Nick felt the shock of the landing in his back. As long as he kept moving it wouldn't stiffen up on him, but he knew he'd pay for it later.

They pulled in the chutes, balled them up and dumped them behind a broken wall. Then they stripped off the insulating clothing and broke the containers open for their weapons and supplies.

For this mission, Nick had picked MP7s as their primary weapon. The 4.6 X 30mm ammo fired by the H-K could punch through any body armor made, along with the person wearing it. Each of the guns was fitted with a suppressor and a thirty round magazine. They all had a pistol strapped to their chests and a knife on the thigh.

"Weapons free," Nick said.

They charged their weapons.

Monocular night vision units cut through the darkness and turned the grim landscape into a bizarre painting in green and black. They took some getting used to but Nick preferred them, because they preserved normal vision in one eye. It was too easy to become temporarily blinded by sudden light when both eyes were looking through a unit.

Each carried a radio, survival pack with food and a medical combat pack. They'd brought C4 and detonators and extra loaded magazines for the MP 7s. They had plenty of ammunition if they needed it. They had stun grenades, regular grenades and smoke.

Each was equipped with a personal satellite communication system that let them talk with each other and with Stephanie back in Virginia. Hood was monitoring the mission at Langley. If needed, he could break in. If he did, it meant trouble was on the way.

They tossed the empty containers and high-altitude clothing over the wall to join the chutes. Nick consulted his GPS.

"This way." He gestured.

They moved in single file. By now, Selena had learned the tricks taught by the experience of combat. Her eyes were constantly moving, sorting out images from the night vision unit from her normal vision. At first it was disorienting to see differently through each eye, but it wasn't the first time she'd used the device. It didn't take long to adapt. She was aware of her breath, the sound her boots made on the broken rubble under her feet, the rhythmic pounding of her heart. She could smell herself, a sour odor of sweat, adrenaline and stress.

A stream of tracers shot by overhead, streaks of fire in the night.

Stealing through the ravaged streets of Darraya, she had never felt so alive in her life.

They reached the Syriac church. It had been a large building, almost a cathedral. Part of the roof still stood. The front wall and most of one side wall were gone. The interior of the church was a jumble of broken debris. Pieces of stone and concrete were piled along what had been the front of the building.

"Now what?" Ronnie said.

His voice was quiet. The comm system was sensitive enough to pick up a whisper.

"Adam said there's a trap door somewhere in there. People are using it, so they'll have made some kind of path. No one's going to climb over this wall to read a book. Let's check the side."

They moved down the alley between the church and the building next to it and found an open door. The path was obvious, once you looked for it. They reached the trap door. It was open, thrown back against the rubble.

"Would they leave it open like that?" Selena asked. "That doesn't seem right."

Nick glanced over the edge and saw the stairs leading down.

"There's a light showing down there. It's steep, we'll have to go down single file and the passage is narrow. Pull the night vision once you get close."

Lamont looked over the edge of the opening. "I don't like it. We're sitting ducks for anyone down there."

"We don't have much choice."

"How about we toss a stun grenade in, just to be sure?"

"That's a plan. Reminds me of the bad old days in Iraq."

He took a stun grenade from a pouch on his belt.

"It's probably just civilians in there," Selena said.

"We can't take the chance," Nick said. "If there are civilians, they'll get over it."

When he reached the foot of the stairs, Nick pulled the pin on the stun grenade and tossed it into the room. The sound of the grenade was enormous in the confined space. Selena's ears were ringing even though she'd covered them. Her eyes had been shut tight, but the bright blast of light given off by the grenade sent spots dancing across them.

Nick was into the room in a second, weapon held to his cheek and shoulder. The others were right behind him.

"Place has been torn apart." Lamont kicked at a book on the floor.

Nick bent over the bodies on the floor. He touched one of the men.

"Still warm. These two have been shot. They don't look like combatants."

They looked at the passage in the wall and the broken bricks in front of it.

"This was sealed up," Nick said.

"Someone's looking for the Grail," Selena said. "It can't be anything else."

"He might still be here," Lamont said. "Down that tunnel."

"Only one way to find out," Nick said.

He stood to the side of the entrance and glanced in.

"I can see a wall little farther on. Follow me in. No lights."

He turned off his flash and pulled the night vision unit down over his left eye. The others followed him in.