The Vengeance of the Tau

Chapter 1

The president’s limousine swung off Eighteenth Street and turned toward the entrance of the Crystal Gateway Marriott. Abu Al-Akir turned away from the television broadcasting the limousine’s arrival over CNN and brought the rifle back to his eye. Getting used to the heft of the Weatherby, the way it felt against his shoulder, was crucial. Since there had been no opportunity to test-fire the weapon, he would have to rely on feel and instinct to provide the mandated minute adjustments. He had killed many men in his time, but the kill he was going to attempt today was by far the most challenging. He would be firing a blind shot through a mezzanine window ten stories below at a target speaking in a room off the lobby yet another floor down.

Well, not quite blind …

The president would be addressing a crowd of chamber of commerce representatives from all over the country in the Marriott’s Lee Room. The only question now was whether the door to the room would be open or closed; his choice of bullets depended on what CNN showed him.

The sole bit of furniture in this twelfth-floor apartment that had been rented for him weeks before within Crystal Towers was a television perched upon a stand. It was set against the wall in a way that required him to turn his head only slightly to watch the screen. In a few minutes CNN would be carrying the president’s speech live. Al-Akir cringed at the memory of how the preliminary team had forgotten to have the apartment’s cable switched on, not realizing that the all-news network couldn’t be picked up otherwise. Al-Akir himself had uncovered the oversight and the activation had been completed only yesterday.

The remainder of the logistics had proven brilliant in every respect. The preliminary team had cut a hole in the bedroom window just large enough to accommodate the very tip of his sniper’s rifle. With the president’s guards concentrating their efforts inside and around the Marriott, there was no way they could possibly notice such a slight anomaly. Beyond that, it was extremely unlikely that anyone could have foreseen the type of shot Al-Akir was going to attempt.

He had practiced it a thousand times on a replica of these conditions with a twin of this Weatherby .460 Magnum, chosen for its legendary flat trajectory, which was a prime requisite today. Of course, precise weather could not be factored in, but today’s air was cool; low humidity and very little wind. In other words, perfect. He would be firing the bullet through the glass of a Marriott mezzanine window on a downward trajectory for the Lee Room and the president’s head, timed off with the help of the CNN broadcast five feet to his right. The logistics were stored in his memory. Minor alterations would be programmed into his computerlike mind. Both varieties of his custom-made bullets accounted for a pair of twelve-shot clips. Guided by the CNN picture, Al-Akir guessed he could squeeze off a minimum of seven and still avoid capture.

On the screen, the president was shown being ushered through the Marriott lobby for a speech that he was now fifteen minutes late for.

Al-Akir lowered his Weatherby back to the floor. He had picked up the rifle only that morning, the final safeguard of the plan. Al-Akir knew the Americans were looking for him, and one man in particular. The trick was never to wander into their, or especially his, grasp. Never surface to make a drop or a pickup. Everything was conducted through intermediaries, a long chain that, if broken, would mean the cessation of his mission. Al-Akir took chances, but very few risks.

Along with Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal, he was one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. While these others had grown fat living off their reputations, Al-Akir had stayed sharp, never straying from his deadly trade. The order to kill the American president came from high up in the movement, but it was only part of the reason why he was in the country. From here he would travel to San Francisco on the most crucial mission of his life. The Arab people were about to seize their own destiny. The means were at last at hand. The death of the president would mark Day One in a new and fateful calendar.

Al-Akir turned his attention back to the television. He had already turned the volume off so that it would not distract him. Seconds later he watched the president enter the Lee Room and shake an army of hands en route to the lectern. He took his place behind it and waited for the applause to die down. Al-Akir waited for CNN to cut to a camera angle that included the door.

Initially he had been worried that the bullet’s path would be distorted by the thick glass of the mezzanine’s window, not to mention the inch and a half of wood forming the Lee Room door. As difficult as it appeared, though, Al-Akir had managed it in practice on a replica ninety-two of his last hundred attempts on the first try.

On the television screen, CNN had cut to a side angle of the president that pictured a pair of Secret Service agents standing in the open doorway of the Lee Room.

Al-Akir reached into his pocket for the proper clip: it contained long-grain platinum tips, instead of the full metal jackets he would have needed for better penetration. He snapped the magazine home, returned the rifle to his shoulder, and pushed his eye against the sight. The night before, another of the team members had marked the precise spot he was shooting for on the Marriott’s mezzanine glass with a marker visible only to the kind of infrared sight he was using. It resembled the variety devised for night shooting.

The assassin turned his head ever so slightly toward the television picture. The president was standing directly behind the lectern, and Al-Akir adjusted his rifle accordingly. Once he fired, he would turn instantly back to the television to guide his next shots if they were necessary. If not, he would be gone from the area before the Crystal Towers were even sealed off. His primary escape route actually would take him through the huge underground shopping mall that began beneath the Marriott. He had learned long ago that escape was best managed by fleeing toward the point of attack where the chaos was greatest. “Follow the bullet” was the common way of putting it.

Al-Akir pawed the trigger. There was no reason to wait any longer. He slowed his breathing by taking several large breaths, then exhaled slowly and deeply, his right eye cocked toward the television set.

The president was smiling. He had just made a joke.

Al-Akir returned to the sight and pulled the trigger between heartbeats.

His last thought was that the recoil was greater than it should have been — far greater indeed, since the entire weapon had exploded with the pulling of the trigger. The blast shattered the weapon’s stock and turned the splinters into deadly projectiles rocketing backward. Al-Akir’s head was sliced jaggedly off at the neck and, thanks to the angle it had been cocked at, it slammed into the television screen that he had been watching just an instant before. The glass shattered in a spiderweb pattern. Al-Akir’s head bounced once on the floor and came to a halt still staring at the remnants of the screen.

Fazil was right on schedule. The escape route Al-Akir had worked out was intricate, and his was the first and most important step. The car was hidden in the garage halfway down this alley in the Anacostia section of Washington, and Fazil arrived at the exact time Al-Akir had specified.

He checked his watch. By now the president of the United States would be dead. The greatest holy war of all time would have begun.

Of course, if all Al-Akir needed was a vehicle, Fazil’s presence would be superfluous; he had a much more important role to play at this point. Fearing capture, Al-Akir had given him an envelope, with specific instructions where to take it if he did not arrive as planned. Fazil had no idea what the envelope contained; he knew only that the means to continue the holy war were inside.

Fazil entered the alley with the envelope tucked in his pocket. The alley at first glance looked deserted.

“A hundred bottles of beer on the wall, a hundred bottles of beer …”

At the sound of the slurred voice, Fazil’s spine tensed. His hand dipped for the pistol wedged in his belt. The homeless were everywhere in this part of Washington, which accounted for Al-Akir’s choosing it.

“You take one down, pass it around, ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall …”

The bearded bum sat on the stoop of a long-abandoned building the garage had once been a part of.

“Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of—” The bum suddenly noticed Fazil. “Hey, ’the fuck you doing in my alley?”

Fazil was reassured by the man’s beery voice. He reached for his knife. No need for the gun with this one.

“Hey,” the bum said, the knife out and swooping down. “Hey!”

Fazil drove the blade forward. But the bum was gone, just air in the spot where he had been. Fazil saw the blur of a shape whirl before him, and suddenly his wrist wasn’t his own anymore. His frame followed it sideways and then over, as the bones snapped with a grinding whap! Fazil gasped and tried to cry out, but a steellike hand slammed into his throat and choked off his breath.

“Been a long time, Fazil,” Blaine McCracken said.

Twelve years before, McCracken had been working with the British Special Air Service when a plane was commandeered at Heathrow Airport. The bureaucracy had taken hold, and a hundred and fifty passengers had ended up losing their lives. To show his displeasure, Blaine had gone promptly to Parliament Square and machine-gunned the groin area of Churchill’s statue there. The incident had earned him the now infamous nickname “McCrackenballs” and a banishment from the intelligence community. Subsequent investigations conducted over the years, though, had revealed that the perpetrator of the Heathrow hijacking was none other than Abu Al-Akir, whom McCracken had been pursuing off and on ever since. So when word reached him that the terrorist assassin was in-country, Blaine went right to work.

The calling in of countless favors and grilling of a number of Arab informants revealed the monstrous scope of Al-Akir’s mission. Ultimately, Blaine was able to tap into the killer’s network. But this meant little, since Al-Akir was never anywhere long enough to be caught. No one ever saw him. If they waited around, he wouldn’t show up. He always worked alone.

From his inside sources, McCracken learned the drop point for Al-Akir’s rifle and ammunition. If he had merely intercepted and retrieved them, however, the terrorist would have disappeared once again. Blaine calculated that, all things considered, this would be the best chance he would ever get to dispose of Al-Akir once and for all. And once he devised the technological specifics of the plan, McCracken was certain that the president would never be at risk. Pretty simple stuff actually. Inlay some plastic explosives through the rifle’s butt and stock and then rig all of the bullets in both clips, on the chance Al-Akir reordered them, to backfire.

Word of Al-Akir’s demise had reached him only minutes before Fazil’s arrival in the alley. It was time to finish this chapter of his life once and for all. Johnny Wareagle was always saying life was a circle. Well, maybe this proved it.

“McCracken!” the terrorist uttered, struggling feebly. His eyes darted toward the head of the alley.

“Al-Akir’s not coming,” McCracken said. He had tousled his close-trimmed beard and oiled his wavy hair to better look the part of a wino. The scar through his left eyebrow caused by a bullet’s graze twenty years before further added to the disguise. “You helped him with Heathrow, Fazil. It’s only fair you join him now. In hell.”

The terrorist gasped again as Blaine readied the quick twist that would snap his neck.

“Wait,” Fazil managed to utter.

“Sorry. No can do.” But he had let up the pressure.

“I want to deal!”

“You have nothing to deal with.”

“No! Please! Listen!”

Fazil grabbed as much breath as he could. McCracken’s hold had slackened enough for him to peer backward. He looked into Blaine’s eyes and nothing but black looked back; the whites of them appeared to have been swallowed. McCracken’s complexion was ruddy. His beard showed some gray, but Fazil didn’t know if this was part of his disguise or not.

“In my jacket pocket, there’s an envelope,” he continued.

“So?”

“Inside it is something to do with the most crucial element of the holy war.”

“Which has been going on futilely for two thousand years.”

“It is different this time: we have found it.”

“Found what?” Blaine asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

“A gift from Allah — that is what Al-Akir called it. A force that will allow us to destroy our enemies at last. A force that makes whoever holds it invincible.”

Force …

The word stuck in Blaine’s head. Not a weapon.

A force …

He spun Fazil around and slammed him against the building. The terrorist’s one-hundred-and-eighty-pound frame was like a playtoy in McCracken’s hands. He was still pleading when Blaine yanked the envelope from his pocket.

“Take it. Just let me live.”

“I could take it and still kill you.”

“But you won’t. I know how you work.”

“You were to give this to Al-Akir.”

“I was holding it for him. It tells where he was to go next.”

“Better place than where he is now, I’d wager.”

“Let me go. I’ll run. I’ll disappear.”

McCracken was still holding him. “Good idea, because I’m going to put word of our little meeting out. Only I think I’ll make it known that you were the one who gave Al-Akir up. His friends will want you dead, Fazil. Matter of fact, I’d say the next time you lay eyes on any of them, it’ll be the last thing you’ll see.”

Blaine hoisted him from the wall and tossed him effortlessly to the pavement.

“Get out of my sight, Fazil.”

The terrorist scampered down the alley, looking back until he was halfway to the street. McCracken checked the envelope for explosives and then opened it cautiously. Inside was what appeared to be a jagged piece of ancient parchment, the Arabic symbols too faded to be read. Along with this was a business card for an antique store in San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square.

A force that makes whoever holds it invincible.

Whatever that might mean, it was what Al-Akir had been pursuing, and thus what McCracken would now pursue in his place.

Starting in San Francisco.

Chapter 2

“It might help, Sayin Winchester, if you told me exactly what we are looking for.”

Alan Winchester redoubled his handkerchief and dabbed the sweat from his forehead. “We’ll know if we find it,” he told Kamir, the Turkish work foreman who had been with him through the entire four-month duration of this dig.

Winchester’s was one of seven teams that Professor Benson Hazelhurst had dispatched throughout the Middle East. Each had one of seven different maps that all reportedly led to the same destination. Besides his team, two were operating in Israel, two in Egypt, and one each in Iraq and Syria. Only one map, of course, could lead to the find, if in fact the find existed. More likely, in Winchester’s mind, this entire business was a hoax that the brilliant Hazelhurst had fallen for in his old age.

Winchester’s map had brought him to Ephesus, one of the world’s richest sites for unearthing archaeological treasures. Located on the Aegean coast in southwestern Turkey, the rolling, fertile plains and hills of Ephesus had previously yielded such finds as the Citadel and Basilica of St. John, the Library of Celsus, and the purported final resting place of the Virgin Mary. It had always been rich in the tradition of religious mysticism.

But the site Winchester’s map had directed him to was located in the middle of the area’s arid bushy lowlands, miles from any other reported find. Upon arriving, he had arranged, through the foreman Kamir, for aerial photography of the general area to pin down the specific find. The plane flew over the area several times at both dawn and dusk, when the shadows were longest, searching for indications of disturbed earth that would reveal signs of an earlier excavation. The results, though not conclusive, had proven indicative enough to give Winchester at least a starting point.

If he himself had believed in what they were seeking, Winchester might have confided in Kamir, whom he had come to trust during their four months of fruitless searching. Benson Hazelhurst might be the foremost archaeologist alive today, but this time the old man seemed way off base. Winchester’s team had now dug down twenty feet in a roughly thirty-foot-square area without unearthing a single thing. Each time Hazelhurst visited the site, his only instructions were to keep going. These instructions belied the fact that twenty feet meant upward of three thousand years of layered history. With no firm indications of earlier civilizations and nothing discovered down to this depth, there seemed little point in continuing. But Hazelhurst insisted that this was exactly what he had expected.

Not that it mattered to Winchester. The mere thought that this find could exist was extremely unnerving to him. Better off if—

“Bir sey bulduk! Bir sey bulduk!”

The excited shout came from down in the rectangular pit that had so far yielded nothing. Winchester got up from beneath his shaded lean-to and met Kamir at the rim.

“Iste! Cabuk!” one of the workmen shouted up at them. “Sanlrlm, aradiglmlzl bulduk! Cabuk!”

“He says that—”

“He found something that meets the description,” Winchester completed for his foreman, who was already lowering himself into the excavation. Keeping his excitement and uneasiness down, he began to descend the rope ladder after Kamir.

“Cabuk! Cabuk!” the workman was shouting excitedly from the center of the excavation, urging him to hurry up.

When he dropped off the rope ladder, Winchester could see that the man’s face was encrusted with chalk-white dust and yellowed dirt. But his eyes were alive with excitement as he tapped his shovel against the object of his enthusiasm.

ping … ping … ping …

Whatever lay beneath it was hard and thick — at least eight feet in length, Winchester calculated. He moved quickly in Kamir’s wake and joined the foreman on his knees over what had been unearthed. Winchester withdrew what looked like a whisk broom from his pocket and began clearing away debris from the object’s top. Barely a minute’s labor revealed an eight-by-six-foot slab of stone, its surface like none Winchester had ever felt before. Neat impressions and carvings were chiseled into it, slowly gaining shape as the archaeologist brushed the dust and debris clear of them. He could make out drawings now as well, but the language was utterly unfamiliar to him.

One of the workmen was gazing over his shoulder, trying to read along. As Winchester swept away the last of the dirt, exposing the outlines of the largest recessed figures, the man gasped and shrank back.

“O ne?” Winchester asked him in Turkish. “Ne goruyorsun? … “What do you see?”

“Hayir! Olamaz!”

“What can’t be?” Winchester demanded. He swung toward Kamir. “Ask him what’s wrong! Ask him what he saw!”

Kamir translated the questions. The workman shook his head determinedly, needed more prodding before he spoke quickly in a panicked tone.

“He says it is a warning, Sayin Winchester. He says we should go no farther.”

The workman was talking again, Kamir preparing to translate.

“He says—”

“I know what he said. He wants me to bury this find so no one will ever come upon it again.”

Kamir nodded his acknowledgment, but Winchester had already gone back to work clearing the message chiseled into the stone tablet. The rest of the dig team was hovering behind him, trying to see the results of his labor for themselves. When his work with the whisk broom was completed, Winchester went through the arduous process of laying strips of onionskin parchment over the figures and tracing out the message revealed. He numbered and dated each sheet and stowed them in an environment-proof plastic pack. To supplement these efforts, he snapped off a full two rolls of film with two different cameras to record the markings on the tablet. In archaeology, redundancy was a fact of life.

“Have we found what you are after, Sayin Winchester?” Kamir asked when Winchester was at last finished.

“I won’t know that until we open it.” Winchester stopped and held his foreman’s stare. “Order the men to remove the tablet.”

Kamir, a veteran of dozens of digs, gazed at him incredulously. “Did you say remove it?”

“I did.”

“Please, Sayin, you know better than I that proper procedure dictates—”

“Now.”

It took an additional four hours to fully unearth the stone slab. It was twelve inches thick, an unheard-of bulk, meaning that its total weight was likely in excess of a ton. Whoever had sealed what lay beneath it almost three thousand years before certainly had meant for the contents never to be uncovered again. In the sky the sun had turned red, with the last of the afternoon fleeing like the loser from a dogfight.

“We should wait until morning to proceed,” Kamir cautioned.

“I want it lifted off,” Winchester insisted.

“The light, Sayin …”

“Will do just fine.”

It was another forty minutes before the dig team managed to free the slab, then twenty more before they could budge it. At last the workmen found the proper leverage, and it slid a foot back from its perch.

The smell flooded out in a violent gush of air, a rancid stench worse than death itself. But even Winchester would have conceded it was more than just a smell that escaped. Something seemed to brush him aside, something like talons formed of hot steel slicing him in the chest on their way by. Winchester looked down at his shirt, expecting to see a neat gash with blood streaming from it.

He shook himself alert as the Turkish workmen staggered backward, falling to a position of prayer. Trembling himself, Winchester was conscious of some of the workmen’s pleas and prayers.

“They say it is an entrance,” Kamir translated fearfully, “an entrance to—”

“We go no farther tonight,” Winchester interrupted, composing himself. “We go no farther until Hazelhurst arrives.”

Hazelhurst was at one of the dig sites in Israel. He could be here as early as tomorrow afternoon, depending on when the message reached him.

“Find me a man to take a message into Izmir,” Winchester ordered Kamir.

Then he yanked his notepad from his pocket and began writing as fast as he could:

Chapter 3

“Car Fifteen, do you copy?”

Detective Sergeant Joseph Rainwater pulled the headset off his ears and lifted the microphone up to his lips. “Copy, Twelve.”

“How’s it hanging, Injun Joe?”

“Not bad for a fucking stakeout. You got a reason for calling, Hal?”

“Figured I’d cheer you up, pal. ’Sides, me and the boys are ordering out and I wanted to see if you wanted anything. We’re going with your native stuff tonight. You know, that new Indian place? Bearded maître d’ walks around with a turban on his head?”

“You’re a fucking riot, Hal. Hope you get the runs.”

“Love you too, Sarge.”

Joe Rainwater smiled in spite of himself as he returned the microphone to its clasp. The companionship, distant and garbled as it was, was greatly appreciated. He’d been pulling twelve-hour shifts on this stakeout for weeks now. Putting the headset back into place, he let himself wonder if Captain Eberling hadn’t been right when he’d pulled the plug on this part of the machine. Trying to nail Ruben Oliveras, the big fucking cheese of the whole Chicago drug business, had become an obsession for Injun Joe. Too often he’d seen the results of Oliveras’s work, and so he was only too glad to accept the special assignment. Then, when the bugs they’d managed to plant throughout the drug lord’s mansion turned up zilch, Rainwater found he couldn’t let go. It was just him and one other cop pulling shifts now, and before much longer they’d be yanked, too.

Injun Joe changed the channels on his receiver to check out the sounds in the wired rooms of Oliveras’s mansion. In the automatic mode, it would lock on the room with the most auditory activity. Not that they ever could have wired all the rooms, not in the former Japanese consulate building that Oliveras had snatched up as soon as it came on the market. Son of a bitch just couldn’t resist that three-story red-brick mansion on Forest Avenue in Evanston, with Lake Michigan in its backyard. Bought and paid for with drug money.

Injun Joe was parked just over a block away on a circular drive between a small neighborhood park and the beach. Best entertainment on these spring nights was watching the Northwestern kids strolling along. He’d made a game out of trying to guess when the couples were going to kiss, but it didn’t help much. The nights were getting longer, and the black coffee was beginning to chew a hole in his gut. What Injun Joe should do, he should go up to the door and just blow Oliveras’s brains out.

Fat chance, since Oliveras had bodyguards coming out his keister. A dozen guys with Uzis and .44 Magnums around him twenty-four hours a day to protect against attacks from his enemies. Enemies? What a crock. The only attack Oliveras had to worry about was one from his conscience, since he controlled every major dealer in the whole city. A fucking monopoly to rival the old AT&T and no one was taking him to court on it.

Joe Rainwater started flipping through the channels of his receiver like it was a cable TV control. Eight bugs had been placed throughout the mansion and at night all of them would be silent for long periods. It was starting to get to him, every bit of it. Two months ago his wife walked out, and now he’s spending his nights parked in view of one of suburban Chicago’s most glamorous neighborhoods. Check out the houses in it and maybe dream a little when there wasn’t something buzzing in his ear.

It was a far cry from the Comanche reservation where Rainwater had grown up. He had come back from Vietnam the most heavily decorated Indian vet of the war and a hero to his people. He still spent holidays and some weekends in his boyhood home, would probably spend more there now that Sarah had left him. In any case, the council of elders wouldn’t be able to warn him anymore about bringing mixed children into the world. No problem there, since he and Sarah never even tried, never even—

A garbled rasp like feedback filled his ears. A bolt of pain seared his eardrums behind it. He was about to yank the headset off when he heard the first scream, a wail of agony that froze his blood. Suddenly gunshots rang out, and the rat-tat-tat of automatic submachine-gun fire became a constant din over shouts of men that gave way quickly to more anguished shrieks.

“What the fuck …”

Injun Joe had the microphone back at his lips in the next instant, not bothering to remove his headset this time as he spoke.

“Central, this is Fifteen.”

“Go ahead, Fifteen.”

“I have shots fired — repeat, shots fired — at the Oliveras residence! 1112 Forest Avenue. Request backup!” More screams filled his ears. “Jesus Christ, lots of backup!”

“Roger, Fifteen. Backup is rolling.”

“So am I.”

The big car lurched forward as Rainwater jammed the pedal and shifted into drive at the same time. The tires spun madly before finding the road surface, startling several of the college couples strolling nearby.

The screams were still reverberating in Injun Joe’s ears when the big car bore down on one of those couples as they crossed the street with twin Walkmans donned.

“Shit!” Rainwater bellowed, as he turned the wheel to avoid them.

The car wavered out of control and sideswiped a tree. Injun Joe braked and composed himself, giving the big car gas slower the last stretch to Forest Avenue. Once on Forest, though, he floored the pedal. The engine’s roar almost drowned out the torturous sounds still raging in his ears.

Then suddenly, just like that, the sounds ceased. A few stray gunshots lingered before silence took over. Where chaos and death had run rampant less than two minutes before, there was, simply, nothing.

Joe Rainwater drove straight up to the main gate of the estate and lunged out of his car. The gate was locked, but the brick fence was only five feet high. He scaled it and dropped to the mansion’s sprawling front lawn. His 9mm Glock pistol palmed, Injun Joe advanced warily toward the house.

He came upon the first body ten feet in, at least what was left of it. Cooling blood and entrails steamed upward into the night. The smell made him gag. The guard’s midsection had been shredded. He had been virtually disemboweled. His face was frozen in agony.

Rainwater came upon the remains of two additional men before he reached the mansion’s entrance. There might have been more, but for the last stretch his attention was focused on the empty hole where the front door used to be. Wooden shards of it lay all over the porch. Injun Joe had to step over larger fragments as he crossed the threshold. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of gunpowder. Its telltale smoke still hung in the air. Around him bullets had shattered virtually every visible window — bullets fired from the inside by Oliveras’s guards toward whatever was killing them.

Another trio of bodies lay at absurd angles at various levels of the curving staircase. The blood of the lowermost one oozed to the marble foyer and formed a pool. Injun Joe did his best to avoid it as he mounted the spiraling steps toward the mansion’s second floor.

Jesus Christ …

Like the guards outside and on the stairs, the men on the second floor had been torn apart. Two lay facedown at the head of the hallway in widening pools of their own blood. Rainwater could hear the wail of approaching sirens now and debated whether to go on alone. The chance that whoever had done all this was still within the mansion was quite real, and the thought of facing them with only the Glock did not strike Rainwater’s fancy. Then again, he was a cop who was looking at the upshot of eight months’ work that might have cost him a marriage. The cop in him made a mental note that the walls on this floor, like those of the first, had been peppered by bullets. Oliveras’s guards hadn’t gone without a fight, then, but there was no evidence that they had scored a single hit on whatever had killed them.

The sirens were really screaming now, and Rainwater proceeded on down the second-floor hallway. He took a long step across one body lying crosswise in the hall and leapt over a second that had been turned into little more than butcher meat. A third corpse’s eyes were cocked right on him as he skirted it and headed toward Oliveras’s bedroom.

The drug lord’s door resembled the front one downstairs except that there was even less remaining. Part of it still stood attached by the hinges, but the result was almost comic. The inside of Oliveras’s bedchamber was anything but.

Joe Rainwater tried to tell himself it was for the best, that justice had been served perversely, though appropriately. But there was nothing even remotely pleasing about the coppery, musty smell or the sight of red splashed across the floor and walls. Only a single reading lamp was on, and the lack of light spared Rainwater the full brunt of the sight. In three tours in ’Nam and fifteen years on the force, Injun Joe had never seen anything like this.

The remains of Ruben Oliveras were … everywhere!

He could hear the police cars rolling onto the property now, more sirens already blazing in their wake, as he backed out of Oliveras’s bedroom. Outside in the hallway Injun Joe leaned over and inspected the guns of the nearest corpses. The clips of two automatic weapons had been nearly drained. A pump-action shotgun had been emptied of all six shells. Again, though, there was no evidence to suggest that they had hit a damn thing. A dozen heavily armed men, professional men, plus Oliveras, cut down in two minutes tops without taking one of the attackers with them.

Joe Rainwater gazed one more time at the impossible and then headed for the stairs to greet the arriving officers.

Chapter 4

“May i help you, sir?”

“Yes, I think you can,” Blaine McCracken said to the proprietor of Collectibles, who was standing near a display of smoked glass.

Collectibles was located in Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco’s answer to Boston’s Faneuil Hall or New York City’s South Street Seaport. Ghirardelli took its name from the chocolate factory that had once occupied the red-brick structure now housing dozens of stores ranging from trendy knickknack shops to upscale boutiques. There were actually six separate buildings with as few as two and as many as five levels. The buildings enclosed an outdoor courtyard, lined with benches and small tables that provided the square with a parklike atmosphere.

McCracken had strolled purposefully about this courtyard for nearly a half hour before making his way to the first of the Clock Tower Building’s two floors where Collectibles was located. He wanted to make sure he had not picked up any unwelcome escorts on his way to the antiques store that the business card in the envelope had directed him to. It was warm for April, with only a slight breeze. So the lunchtime rush had seen the courtyard grow more crowded by the minute and McCracken became more edgy. He took no comfort in a crowd that would allow a potential enemy to easily become lost.

Cursing his own timing, Blaine had moved on to Collectibles and let the jingling door bells announce his arrival to the proprietor.

“I believe you have something for me,” McCracken continued, handing over his jagged piece of parchment.

The proprietor took it and stepped behind the counter, eyes reluctant to leave McCracken. He was a tall, lean man, floral shirt worn over baggy pants dominated by pleats. His skin and eyes were dark. He might have been Arab, but not necessarily. Blaine tensed as the proprietor’s hand dropped beneath the counter and then came up fast. He relaxed when he saw it was holding a second piece of torn parchment. The man fit the two fragments together. The jagged edges filled in against each other. The match was perfect. The proprietor gazed again at McCracken.

“I have what you have come for in the back. If you’ll give me just a minute …”

Without waiting for a reply, the proprietor disappeared through a bead curtain behind his counter. No further discussion was either required or expected. The fact that an elaborate signaling procedure had been set in place indicated to McCracken that the proprietor had no idea who would be coming to make the pickup. He was simply a go-between.

The man reemerged wordlessly through the curtain, leaving the beads to clack against each other in his wake. Without comment, he handed Blaine a simple manila envelope that had packing tape wrapped around its top so that the metal clasp was obscured. McCracken folded the envelope in two, pocketed it, and turned back for the door. Simple as that. Playing a role, about to find out what Al-Akir had so desperately sought.

“A gift from Allah — that is what Al-Akir called it. A force that will allow us to destroy our enemies at last. A force that makes whoever holds it invincible.”

Blaine found that the Arab Fazil’s words were far less unnerving now that the envelope was in his possession.

He stepped out of the shop and headed back for the courtyard. Around him Ghirardelli Square was even more crowded with lunchtime shoppers and strollers, many wishing to partake of the various eateries and stands. Any one of the dozens of people could have been watching him, and McCracken was sensitive to the feeling of eyes cast his way. He took his time making his exit, emerging finally on Beach Street, the same route by which he had entered.

Beach Street runs parallel to the bay, and is flat as a result. It is the only street adjacent to Ghirardelli, and having its own red-brick storefronts built into the square’s side resulted in an outdoor mall-like strip made up of the same type of shops as those found within. Beach was open to traffic, but cars had to inch their way forward against the frequent clutter of shoppers spilling out into the street before them.

The beautiful spring afternoon did nothing to make McCracken relax. Around him San Francisco breathed like no other American city. Young men buzzed the streets on Rollerblades. Couples of both the mixed and single-sex varieties strolled arm-in-arm without hesitation or reservation. McCracken fell in behind a youngish pair of men sporting identical ponytails.

“I told him no way I’d pay that kind of rent,” McCracken heard a high-pitched voice saying, directly to his rear. “I mean, can you believe it? I mean, have you ever?”

McCracken kept walking. Before him, a pair of balding men in dark suits slid in behind the young ponytailed couple. Something about the motion disturbed Blaine. He started to slow, considered veering off, and moved his hand ever so slightly for the SIG-Sauer 9mm pistol holstered on his hip.

“Keep walking, sweetie,” the already-familiar high-pitched voice ordered from a yard back. “And please, please, don’t reach for the gun.”

Blaine let his hand dangle back by his side.

“That’s better, sweetie. Keep walking now.”

McCracken’s eyes cheated about him. He’d been boxed in; that much was clear. What remained to be determined was exactly how many were enclosing him. There were four at least, two in front of him and two behind, and four could be handled.

“My,” the high voice started, “you’re a big one, aren’t you? Know what I’d like you to do now? Just whip out that oh-so-big weapon of yours and hold it by the barrel. Play any games and I’ll have to shoot you, and wouldn’t that be a waste?”

McCracken’s hand slid up the nylon of his holster. He could take out the pair of balding men before him without bothering to draw the SIG, but that would still leave the two behind him, including the speaker. Obnoxiously high voice or not, the leader had played this game before and knew what he was doing. At the very least Blaine needed the gun free before he acted. He slid it from the holster, holding it along the top halfway down the barrel. Then he started to ease it out from beneath his jacket. A simple matter now to have it palmed and ready to fire.

McCracken heard the grinding of wheels an instant before one of the young men on Rollerblades sped close. Before he could respond, the SIG was torn from his hand and the young man was gone.

A high, piercing laugh invaded his ears. “Weren’t expecting that, were you, sweetie?”

“Can’t say that I was.”

“He speaks! Oh my, I’m in heaven. I always did want to meet you, Blaine McCracken. We were expecting someone else entirely. An Arab, and I do detest them so.” The laugh again, slightly embarrassed. “I have your picture.”

“Don’t tell me, you want my autograph.”

“No, sweetie, what I want is for you to keep walking to that van parked up there on our right with its rear doors open.”

McCracken had picked out the van in question several seconds before. Chancing a move now unarmed, with no clear picture on the enemy’s strength, was suicide. He had no choice other than to cooperate until he could make a more defined assessment.

Rollerbladers … What was next?

“I like your beard, so scruffy and ruffled-looking. Makes you look strong. Tell me, do you lift weights?”

McCracken twisted his head backward in order to glimpse the high-voiced speaker. The man was short and frail looking with close-cropped hair over a balding dome and baby-perfect skin. His teeth looked like something ordered out of a catalog.

“Do I please you? Think hard now. Your fate rests in my hands.”

“My fate … Could be worse, I guess.”

The little man’s expression stiffened. “The van’s just up ahead, sweetie. No tricks or you’ll have to be hurt.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. I would.”

McCracken returned all of his attention to the van, now only twenty feet away. Heavyset men in workmen’s overalls stood on either side of the open rear doors. The Rollerbladers were coasting about the front. The little man had been waiting for Al-Akir, obviously to keep him from retaining the manila envelope and to ensure that he would never pursue it again. So somebody else knew about the prize the Arabs were seeking, somebody whom the little man was working for.

“Slide to your left now, sweetie.”

Blaine knew that once he was inside the van, it was over. If he was going to make a move, it had to be outside. It had to be now.

“Looks like you’ve finally met your match, sweetie. This is one for the record books. I can’t wait to tell my friends.”

Almost to the van now, Blaine knew he would have to try something desperate and hope for the best.

“Be a good boy, sweetie.”

McCracken had tensed his fingers for action when he saw the group of seven Chinese teenagers swaggering down the sidewalk in the van’s direction twirling nunchaku and clubs about in their hands. He figured they were the little man’s final bit of insurance, until he sensed behind him that the dandy had tensed slightly. The boys were wearing matching black vinyl jackets with red Chinese writing stitched across both sides of the chest. The lead ones slid close, and Blaine saw the fire-breathing dragons embroidered on their jackets’ rears.

McCracken halted a mere six feet from the van.

“Hey—” the little man started, reaching to push him on.

But Blaine had other ideas. “Fuck the Dragons,” he said loudly to the group just passing.

The boys swung on their heels and turned his way in unison, showing their weapons.

“What’d you say, man?” said the one in the front menacingly.

“Wasn’t me,” McCracken told the kid. “It was him!”

As he spoke the final word, Blaine grabbed one of the pair of balding men and flung him toward the gang members. A club swished through the air and cracked the man’s skull. The gang members stormed forward with weapons swinging. Blaine stepped into the confusion, grabbed a boy who was wielding a set of nunchaku, and tossed him into the little man, who had just managed to free his gun. The little man’s face exploded in rage, the soft flesh seeming to tighten and tear.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” he screamed, and fired off a trio of shots into the Chinese boy’s belly and then shoved him aside. “Get him!”

But McCracken was already sprinting down Beach Street through the crowd of stunned bystanders, many of whom were ducking for cover. He had glanced back at the sound of gunfire and was revolted by the little man’s excessive response, blaming himself for involving the gang in the first place. But he’d have to save the lamenting for later. The little man had steadied his pistol Blaine’s way when another of the gang members slammed into him. A club smacked against his wrist, and the dandy’s gun went flying. McCracken had gazed back over his shoulder just in time to see the little man twist from the next blow and launch a deft flurry of fists and kicks. With the rest of the boys converging on him, he became a whirling dervish wielding a vicious round of blows from the center, no longer the feathery dandy taunting Blaine from the rear.

McCracken moved faster, catching only glimpses of the rest of the gang members falling or fleeing.

“Get him!” the little man’s still-high voice repeated.

A series of gunshots thundered Blaine’s way and chewed red brick from the storefronts around him. Another now-familiar sound reached him from behind.

The pair of Rollerbladers in their fluorescent spandex rolled down the sidewalk in his wake, scattering pedestrians in all directions. Cars braked and swerved to avoid them as they darted into the street in frenzied pursuit. Blaine heard metal crunching, glass breaking.

And bullets slamming all around.

A quick glance to his rear was all Blaine needed to show him the submachine guns in both the riders’ hands. They were gaining steadily and were already drawing a bead on him. He came to the intersection where a left off Beach led to a steep climb up Polk Street. Blaine saw a cabbie just coming back to his car with a grinder in one hand and a Pepsi in the other. The man squeezed the soda can to his chest and had his hand on the door when Blaine tossed him backward and ripped the keys from his grasp.

“Sorry,” McCracken said.

He gunned the engine and tore off up Polk’s steep grade.

Blaine was able to breathe easy only until he caught a glimpse of a bus turning up Polk behind him. Holding on to either side of its rear were the Rollerbladers, machine guns dangling from shoulder-slung straps. When McCracken avoided a traffic snarl by swinging right onto the level North Point Street, another quick gaze into the rearview mirror showed the young men disengaging themselves from the bus. They kept up with the traffic, weaving their way between and around cars when the flow allowed.

Closing the gap.

Before him the traffic light turned yellow and then red. McCracken jammed the cab’s brakes abruptly. Three cars lay between him and the intersection with Van Ness, which provided another steep grade for his pursuers to manage. He drew his eyes to the rearview mirror and saw the Rollerbladers only a dozen cars back now. Well behind them, the familiar blue van had just turned onto North Point.

The Rollerbladers were bringing their submachine guns up once more.

McCracken twisted the taxi’s wheel to the left and lurched onto North Point’s left-hand side against the flow of traffic. A car that had just swung onto the street clipped his fender, but Blaine kept right on going. He swung left onto Van Ness and gunned the engine to speed his climb. Order had barely been restored when the van smashed its way through a narrow opening toward the Rollerbladers.

To McCracken, escape seemed as close as Lombard Street and the curvy one-and-a-half-mile jaunt to the Golden Gate Bridge that it offered. He turned onto it with the rearview mirror clear.

The first stretch of Lombard is formed of nonstop tight curves and tough corners. Blaine took them at dangerously high speeds. The taxi’s suspension system squealed in protest. The road began to level off after a steep decline, the Golden Gate coming into clear view. The rearview mirror remained clear, but once over the bridge he’d be able to lose his pursuit for good. He had just caught sight of the bridge toll plaza a hundred yards ahead when a sudden snarl of traffic forced him to a screeching stop. At first he thought it was the routine delay caused by the collections process. Then he saw that construction had shut down one lane of the Golden Gate in both directions, accounting for a backlog of traffic that would linger through the entire day.

McCracken’s eyes locked on the rearview mirror. He caught first sight of the Rollerbladers when they emerged between a pair of tractor-trailers fifty yards behind him. He could no longer see the van they must have ridden up Van Ness holding on to, but they posed enough of a threat all by themselves. Watching them weave their way forward through the stuck traffic, Blaine resolved that he had no choice but to abandon the cab and continue on foot.

He threw open the door and stuck his hand under the seat. Cabbies often stowed weapons there, and the operator of this taxi was no exception. McCracken’s fingers closed on a tire iron. He slammed the door behind him and rushed down the last stretch of Lombard Street, Route 101 now, leading onto the bridge.

The Rollerbladers continued to close on him, not rushing to use their machine guns since they believed they had him trapped. McCracken kept his body low as he ran to utilize the frames of the stalled cars for cover. He moved in an erratic zigzagging motion, anything to confuse the aim of the spandex-clad young men.

Just fifty feet away, the Rollerbladers sped toward Blaine in single file down a narrow channel between the stopped cars. He turned to face them, the tire iron gripped low by his side. The lead skater brought his submachine gun up. McCracken tossed the tire iron, not high for the obvious head strike, but low at ankle level.

The tire iron crashed into the wheels on the lead Rollerblader’s skates. He was tossed airborne instantly, landing hard on the hood of a car. He bounced once and then crashed to the road directly in the path of the other skater, who spun out of control trying to avoid him. But the second Rollerblader recovered his balance quickly after bouncing off a trio of cars and surged forward, machine gun leveled once again.

McCracken seized the momentary advantage he’d gained by continuing with his original plan, albeit on foot instead of behind the wheel. There was no other option at this point.

The Golden Gate Bridge offered his only chance for escape.

Chapter 5

Blaine reached the start of the bridge and rushed down the wide right-hand sidewalk toward the sounds of a jackhammer chewing up asphalt. As he closed on the roped-off construction area, he saw that a man in an orange vest was waving his flag frantically in an effort to make him veer away.

“Get down!” Blaine screamed as he dove past the man.

Too late. The fresh barrage from the final Rollerblader’s submachine gun slammed into the man’s midsection and blew him backward. McCracken was reaching for him when he saw that just beyond the spot where the flagger had dropped, the entire roadbed was missing — eaten partially away by the elements and then jackhammered into oblivion to make way for new asphalt. This hole that dropped straight to the waters of the bay below lay between a circle of sawhorses.

Bullets clanged off the steel support rails of the bridge. Construction workers scattered in all directions. Frustrated drivers ducked low beneath their dashboards. Blaine heard screaming coming from every direction. Daring the spray of automatic fire, he darted outward and tossed the sawhorses enclosing the missing chunk of roadway aside so he could feign taking cover behind them. Before him the Rollerblader snapped home a fresh clip and picked up speed before opening fire anew.

McCracken felt the heat of the rounds surge by him. From any distance beyond thirty feet, the Uzi was a weapon of chance for all but the most experienced in handling it, especially when on the move. That provided his hope.

The Rollerblader’s single-minded vision provided the rest. Gun aimed high and straight from chest level, he didn’t see the hole in the roadbed until it was too late. He managed to twist his blades sideways, but couldn’t slow himself fast enough. His hands flailed out for something to grab and then disappeared along with the rest of him through the gap.

His drop might have allowed McCracken to relax, if it hadn’t been for the sight of the blue van streaking down the sidewalk in the Rollerblader’s wake. The sidewalk was barely wide enough to accommodate its width, forcing it to hug the steel guardrail for much of the ride. Sparks leapt into the air. The bridge had erupted into total chaos. Drivers and passengers alike abandoned vehicles and fled to escape the battle.

The van’s driver was tilting a machine gun Blaine’s way now. Fresh bullets split the air, and McCracken saw his luck running out in a pained instant. A previous glimpse over the side rail had shown him the scaffolding that bridge workers had used to access the roadbed’s underside. It was suspended halfway between the asphalt surface of the bridge and the steel superstructure beneath it. Blaine vaulted over the side rail and pitched down onto the scaffolding.

A sitting duck if he remained in this position, he located the control panel and lowered the scaffolding platform enough to gain access to the superstructure. He climbed halfway out and then smiled. With his weight shifted almost entirely onto the superstructure, Blaine pulled the cotter pin from the platform’s right-side cable lock.

He reached the heavy steel superstructure just as the van screeched to a halt above him, directly in front of the hole the second Rollerblader had plunged through. Around him, McCracken could see evidence of the workers who had been here until just minutes ago. Their abandoned equipment included thick hoses coiled like snakes about the superstructure.

Blast hoses. Used for stripping old paint and rust from the steel components of the bridge, the hoses pushed coarse black sand made from iron-mill slag called Black Beauty out at incredible pressure. McCracken figured this black sand would be the number forty-five size. With the air pressure set at 175 pounds and pushing 365 cubic feet of sand per minute, the hose could slice through granite blocks, never mind flesh and bone.

“Get him! Get him!” shouted the high-pitched nasal voice of the dandy.

Two 9mm pistols poked through the opening, followed by a pair of balding heads Blaine recognized from back in Ghirardelli Square. McCracken grabbed one of the blast hoses and aimed it their way. He squeezed the deadman switch, and a dark blanket roared out in direct line with the faces of the balding members of the assault team.

McCracken could not recall ever hearing screams worse than the ones that followed. He abandoned the hose and swung to the left at the sound of a thump. One of the big men in overalls he had glimpsed standing at the van’s rear back on Beach Street had dropped down onto the scaffolding platform from the rail above.

“Kill him!” the dandy screamed.

Before the big man could carry out the order, the cable with the missing cotter pin let go, dropping the platform and sending the man tumbling. He managed to grasp a rail at the last and hung there with legs dangling desperately four hundred feet above San Francisco Bay.

“Fuck!” the high, nasal voice wailed.

McCracken had already rushed off toward the labyrinth of catwalks and beams that formed the superstructure. If the roadway above was the Golden Gate’s heart, then this was its soul: ten million square feet of steel layered in all directions, spanning the entire scope of the bridge.

Blaine eased himself from the yard-wide catwalk onto a narrow steel rail to quicken his escape. He walked down the rail gingerly, holding fast to thick support beams whenever possible. In the near distance, he heard sirens screaming.

A pitter-pattery sound behind him made Blaine swing round.

“Aye-yahhhhh!”

The martial arts kiai preceded the dandy’s kick by an instant, long enough for Blaine to move his head out of its direct path, but not enough to avoid the strike entirely. The kick smacked his temple and drove him backward against a support beam. The dandy stalked forward with light, graceful steps, never even looking down. He moved from one rail to the next with a hop step and came straight at McCracken.

“What’s the matter, sweetie, don’t want to take your medicine?”

Blaine lunged forward with a kick of his own. But the dandy blocked it effortlessly. At the same instant, he slammed his other hand into the inside of McCracken’s thigh, narrowly missing his scrotum. Again Blaine reeled backward, just managing to catch his balance before the edge came up.

“Yeah, you’re strong all right, sweetie, but it’s not gonna help you. Not against me. Come on, show me what you’ve got!”

McCracken jumped up and grabbed hold of a steel crossbeam. He swung forward and dropped down on an adjacent catwalk to buy space and time. Four feet separated him from his toying adversary now, the dandy not looking too concerned.

“You can do better than that, sweetie.”

Blaine again leapt for hold on a neighboring crossbeam. Only this time he threw his whole body forward with legs lashing outward. The move seemed to fail when the dandy grabbed his outstretched ankles and held them in place.

“I had expected so much more from a man who calls himself McCrackenballs,” the dandy taunted, in total control.

“Really?”

His position solidified, Blaine snaked his legs up across the too-soft face before him and trapped the man’s thin neck between his knees. The dandy’s face reddened. He fought to break the hold, but leverage was against him now. McCracken jerked him forward and the dandy pitched forward off the rail. His legs kicked at the air, as he grabbed on tight to Blaine’s knees. With the little man’s features purpling, McCracken knew he could either let him drop to his death or strangle the life out of him. Considering the dandy’s death grip on his legs, Blaine opted for the latter.

He thought it was over when the little man let go with one of his hands. But then he noticed the life rope dangling thirty feet down from the girder directly overhead. The dandy caught it with his free hand and twisted abruptly out of Blaine’s leg hold. Swinging on the rope, he propelled himself up to the catwalk McCracken was standing on.

The dandy’s face was still purple, though with rage now. He stormed forward, launching a blinding flurry of blows Blaine’s way. McCracken managed to block or deflect all of them, his defensive posture precluding any opportunity to launch any decent strikes of his own in response. His back pressed up against the outermost support beam on the bridge’s superstructure. Then the momentum of a furious kick from the dandy drove both of them backward onto another motorized scaffolding platform.

Blaine nearly tripped on the high-pressure painting equipment that had been left upon it. He drove himself upward, pushing off a control panel that sent the platform climbing high for the Golden Gate’s center span. He managed to right himself, but the little man drove a knee square into his groin. McCracken pounded the man’s face with a trio of hard blows. The dandy deflected the fourth, then came up and under Blaine’s outstretched arms.

Before McCracken could respond, the dandy was behind him, grabbing his head and neck in a death hold. Blaine heard him scream triumphantly before he felt his air seize up en route to the brain. His limbs became feathery and numb. He could feel his legs starting to give way.

As the platform continued rising, Blaine cast his eyes about for a weapon of some kind. The only thing he could see was one of the high-powered bridge-painting devices lying just beyond his grasp. McCracken willed the feeling back into his left hand. Breath bottlenecked in his throat, and his oxygen-starved brain denied him focus. He grappled desperately for the nozzle, but it remained barely out of reach.

With loss of consciousness only moments away, and the dandy’s grip forcing his head downward, Blaine now saw that the control box for the ascending platform was just beside his left foot. He kicked out toward it, aiming as best he could. The OFF button depressed beneath the pressure of his shoe, and the platform jolted to a halt, left to the whims of the wind.

The abrupt stop loosened the dandy’s grip enough to allow McCracken to sweep down and out with his hand. He located the paint hose and closed his hand on the control nozzle.

The dandy screamed again and wrenched Blaine’s neck to secure the last of his lock.

“What do you see, sweetie? Look at death and tell me what you see….”

All in the same motion, McCracken got the nozzle up behind him and activated it. Orange paint flew out and swallowed the little man’s eyes, particles of it splashing back against Blaine’s shirt. The dandy released his grip and wailed horribly, hands flailing about his face.

“Why don’t you tell me what it looks like?” Blaine asked. Then, as oxygen flowed back into his lungs, he smashed his adversary twice in the stomach and once in the face.

The little man launched a wild blow in response. When Blaine ducked under it, the blow’s momentum carried the dandy’s upper body over the safety rail that rimmed the platform. McCracken threw himself at the little man with all his force and power, angling his thrust upward. The impact pitched the dandy headlong over the rail, still flailing for something to grasp when McCracken tossed him forward with a final burst of strength.

“Have a nice flight,” Blaine said as the little man’s snarling face disappeared toward the blue waters below.

McCracken saw him hit with a spraying splash and nothing more. Still, he stayed on the platform for a brief time, as if expecting the dandy to rise. When he didn’t, McCracken moved off, anxious to open the manila envelope that was still in his pocket and learn what inside it could have caused all this.

McCracken waited until he reached San Francisco International Airport before calling Sal Belamo from a private room in the American Airlines Admiral’s Club.

“Why do I always hate hearing from you?” the pug-nosed ex-boxer greeted him.

They had worked together on several occasions, although not so much recently since Sal had been appointed chief troubleshooter of the Gap, the organization Blaine had recently helped throw into a shambles. Belamo looked more like a cheap thug than the sharp operative he was, courtesy of an undistinguished boxing career that had left his face looking the worse for wear.

“Because you’re jealous of my charm and good looks.”

“You ask me, we spent too much time at the same salon, the both of us. What’s up?”

“Need you to check on someone for me. Hired hand. Little guy with lots of martial arts in his background….” McCracken provided as complete a description of the dandy as he could manage.

“Don’t have to go to the computer for that one, McBalls. Guy’s name is Billy Griggs, alias Billy Boy. One deadly son of a bitch. Hand specialist in more ways than one.”

“So I gathered.”

“Yeah, Billy Boy’s ’bout as queer as a three-dollar bill plus change. You whack him?”

“Sent him for a swim.”

“Your sake, I hope he doesn’t come up for air.”

“Five-hundred-foot dive off the Golden Gate.”

“You ask me, don’t count him out until the fish eat his eyeballs. Like to hear what he did in ’Nam?”

“Not really.”

“Dressed himself up as a gook, little shit that he was, and took Charlie out from the inside that way. Got himself transferred to Special Forces and even they couldn’t deal with him. What I hear, he went home and accepted his medal in gook makeup and black pajamas … you make of that.”

“Sorry I iced a war hero.”

“Don’t cry yourself to sleep. Griggs’s nickname over there was ‘Charlie Cat’ on account of he had so many lives. Plenty have tried to put him down before. None been very successful.” Belamo paused. “So what’s next?”

“You have someone meet me at Kennedy Airport with a passport complete with entry visa for Turkey.”

“Turkey?”

“Night flight to Istanbul, Sal.”

McCracken had inspected the contents of the manila envelope in the backseat of the cab that had taken him to the airport. Just a single sheet of paper, obviously a photocopy of something larger that had been reduced to a more manageable size.

It was a map, of all things!

Judging by the poor print quality, the original must have been old and tattered. The photocopy included handwritten instructions in German scrawled in the blank space near the bottom to further supplement the map’s directions. The site was Turkey, specifically the southwestern part near the Aegean Sea known to be rich in archaeological treasures:

Ephesus.

Chapter 6

Benson Hazelhurst’s jeep had threatened to give out on at least three occasions and had finally quit two miles from the find.

“Try it now, Daddy,” his daughter urged, pinching something with a pliers underneath the raised hood.

Hazelhurst turned the key, and the jeep’s engine grumbled, then shook to life.

“That’s got it,” Melissa said. She pulled out from under the hood and slammed it back into place.

“What would I do without you, Daughter?”

“Die of heat exposure, for starters. Want me to drive?”

“No need. We’re almost there. Driving will occupy my mind. I don’t think I could endure this last stretch without something else to concentrate on.”

Melissa Hazelhurst closed the passenger door behind her and frowned.

“Speak your mind, Melly,” her father urged.

Benson Hazelhurst was almost seventy years old now, but he still had most of his hair and much of the muscle of his youth. Hazelhurst had married a much younger woman thirty years back, and they had wasted no time conceiving their only child. Melissa had inherited her father’s greenish-blue eyes, and her auburn hair was the same shade his had once been. She was tall enough to have been taken for a model on numerous occasions and in good enough shape to have been mistaken for a professional swimmer and runner. Melissa’s mother had died when she was four and she had been paired with her father ever since.

“I think you’re getting your hopes up,” she warned. “That’s all.”

Hazelhurst pulled back onto the road. “I’ve seen that frown before. You don’t believe it exists, do you?”

“No,” Melissa admitted.

“I see,” her father returned, obviously hurt.

“I want to,” she tried to explain. “I mean, I’ve tried. But every time I start to believe, something pulls me back.”

“Reason, perhaps?”

“Yes, reason.”

“Then what about the claims of the Phoenicians, the ancient Egyptians, the Persians, and the old priests? Different cultures that all described virtually the same thing, all searching for it at different times through history.”

“And never finding it.”

“Not to our knowledge, anyway.”

Melissa slid her arm to her father’s shoulder. He stiffened slightly at the touch. “Father, I’ve never questioned or doubted you before. I’m not sure I am now. It’s just that, well, I know how much this means to you and I don’t want to see you disappointed.”

“Winchester’s message left little reason to expect I will be.”

“He’s not an expert.”

Hazelhurst chuckled humorlessly. “He was the best student I ever had. Doesn’t say much for me as a teacher, does it?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!”

His hand touched the one of hers still resting on his shoulder. “Of course. I’m sorry. You’ve been good to have humored me for so long. Lord knows you had no reason to before I located those maps.”

Melissa eased her hand away. “You never told me where they came from.”

“Yes, I did. The museum.”

She hesitated. “No. I checked.”

“Through the museum, then. At least that was how the contact was made.”

“What contact?”

“The possessor of recently discovered archives in Germany that the museum knew I would have interest in.”

“Germany?”

“The archives contained materials from World War II, my dear. They belonged to the Nazis.”

Melissa was shocked.

“Makes perfect sense,” Hazelhurst continued. “Think of your history, Melissa. Hitler was obsessed with the mystical: astrology, the power of ancient artifacts, the occult. He had scores of archaeological teams scouring areas all over the Mideast in search of any object even remotely thought to possess some sort of spiritual or supernatural power.”

“Which led them here.”

“But the war ended before they had a chance to determine whether their findings were correct. The maps were stowed away and hidden, in all probability by parties already planning for the Fourth Reich.”

Melissa stared at her father for a long moment. “And now we’re picking up right where they left off.”

Benson Hazelhurst kept driving.

The drive took another ten minutes, their jeep bouncing and tilting along the uneven terrain. Winchester’s dig site was located in a secluded valley protected by small hills playing the role of time’s centurions. The area near Ephesus was for the most part composed of lush, fertile plains. But here there was barely any trace of green, as if all the flora had browned and died. Dirt and chalk dust blew about in the afternoon sun.

As the jeep drew closer, Winchester’s dig took shape in the form of layered piles of neatly excavated stone and dirt. The only vehicle present was a four-wheel-drive parked just beyond the heaps. The dust thickened against the windshield of the Hazelhursts’ jeep and, as if in a final act of protest, the engine sputtered and died a good hundred yards from the other vehicle. Melissa climbed out with canteens in hand and waited for her father.

“I don’t see anyone,” she said, stiffening.

“They could be, should be, down inside the excavation.”

“Winchester knew we were coming. He would have had someone waiting. And, besides, someone would’ve heard us coming.”

Hazelhurst rewrapped his bandanna over his brow to add protection for his eyes. “This wind can steal the voice of the man next to you, never mind a raspy engine. And I never advised Winchester of our plans.”

To reinforce his assertion, Hazelhurst plodded forward toward the site. Melissa lingered slightly behind him. She squinted her eyes against the flying dust, the leather of her well-worn boots chipped by the onslaught of the unforgiving ground.

“Damn,” she muttered.

“Shield your eyes,” her father called back to her.

She had been on digs before, but had never experienced anything quite like this. It was almost as if there was some sort of force intent on keeping them beyond the piles of excavated rubble. Hazelhurst reached the stationary four-wheel-drive vehicle and leaned against it for protection from the wind. Melissa nestled near him. One of her hands slid onto the hood.

“It’s still warm, Father. Winchester or someone in his party must have returned within the last hour.”

Hazelhurst turned away from the vehicle and headed for the excavation.

“Dad!” Melissa called after him, trying to keep pace.

Hazelhurst reached the rim and peered down.

“Good lord,” he rasped.

Melissa saw the body an instant after her father did. It lay facedown not far from a yard-square rectangular opening in the ground, created when what looked like a massive stone tablet had been slid backward. The dust and dirt had already showered the body, soon to render it invisible.

“Is that—”

Melissa interrupted her question when she saw her father locate the rope ladder and begin to climb down. It wobbled, and the old man clutched a rung for dear life, his bones brittle from decades of exposure to the calcium of limestone.

“Hold it steady, child.”

“Let me go first.”

“Do as I say!”

She obliged and then followed her father down, joining him near the body he had just flipped over.

“Winchester,” Benson Hazelhurst muttered, kneeling over his ex-student, who stared up at him now with eyes glazed over by death.

In the center of Winchester’s forehead was a small black hole. It was jagged, as if someone had jammed in a thick Phillips-head screwdriver and twisted it around a bit. Beside the bullet hole’s dried edges, there was no blood.

Hazelhurst’s eyes wandered about. “There should be workers here. Winchester hired over a dozen, perhaps more by the look of things.”

His gaze fell on the rectangular opening that accepted the blowing dust and dirt like a vacuum. The thick stone tablet had obviously been parted from the slot it must have occupied for centuries.

A shuffling from above made Hazelhurst break off his thinking. He grasped Melissa and drew her behind him as he gazed upward into the sun and blowing dirt. A figure was standing at the rim above, directly over the rope ladder.

“Who are you?” Hazelhurst screamed up, while behind him Melissa cursed herself for not bringing a rifle with them from the jeep. “What do you want?”

“Professor Hazelhurst?” the confused reply followed in English.

“Yes,” he yelled, his own echo blown back at him. “Who are you?”

“I am the foreman — Kamir. What has happened?”

Hazelhurst felt himself relax. “You’d better come down here.”

“Sayin Winchester sent me to Izmir for more men and—”

“Come down here,” Hazelhurst repeated, “but leave the men up there.”

Kamir said a brief prayer over the body.

“Who did this to him?” he asked, looking up at Hazelhurst and Melissa.

“I thought it might have been you.”

Kamir’s eyes bulged indignantly. “No, Sayin Hazelhurst. I left Sayin Winchester here and went to hire new workmen after the others fled this morning.”

“Fled? Why?”

Kamir gestured toward the massive tablet. “The work frightened them. The warning …”

Hazelhurst exchanged glances with Melissa and then moved toward the tablet. With his hand he brushed away the dust and dirt that had collected atop it and traced the carvings with his fingers as well as his eyes.

“I’ve seen this before — only a few times, but I recognize it. Dates back to an ancient religion that predates Christianity by over a thousand years.”

“One of the men who fled insisted the words were a warning, that we had already gone too far and must turn back before it was too late.”

“And then they fled.”

Kamir’s eyes darted briefly to the rectangular opening. “But not before Sayin Winchester ordered us to move the tablet. They were gone in the morning.” His eyes grew fearful. “I do not blame them.”

“Why, Kamir?”

“It, it is difficult to explain, Sayin.”

“Just out with it, then.”

Kamir’s lips trembled. “When the tablet was moved, I … felt something.”

“Felt what?”

He shrugged. “I … do not know. It brushed by me, icy and hot at the same time.”

Hazelhurst looked at the guide very closely. “Did you share this with Winchester?”

Kamir shrugged. “I did not have to, Sayin Hazelhurst — he felt it, too.”

“And then?”

“This morning Sayin Winchester sent me to get new workers.” Kamir’s voice lowered. “I left him here alone. If I had stayed …”

“You drove off in one of the vehicles.”

Kamir looked confused. “We’ve only had the one truck, since the other broke down last week.”

A chill swept through Hazelhurst. “That jeep not far from the rim …”

“I thought it was yours, Sayin.”

Hazelhurst turned to Melissa, his eyes speaking for him.

“Sayin Hazelhurst, what is it? You must tell me.”

“Winchester’s killers must have come here in it,” Hazelhurst said to his daughter.

Kamir felt for the sheathed knife wedged through his belt. “Then where are they, Sayin Hazelhurst?”

The old man’s eyes moved to the opening in the earth that Winchester seemed to have been clutching for as he died.

“Let’s get the equipment,” he said to Melissa.

“Dad, you’re not going to—”

“Yes, Daughter,” he interrupted, still peering downward. “I am.”

Chapter 7

“Now, daughter,” Benson Hazelhurst said two hours later, “you’re quite sure you don’t want me to strap a ray gun onto my side?”

“What I want,” Melissa Hazelhurst told her father, “is for you not to go down there at all. If you’re right about what this place is, you can’t go down until you’ve had time to take precautions, obtain the proper equipment.”

Hazelhurst couldn’t believe his ears. “More equipment than we have already? What more could we need?”

“Please, not another speech about finding the treasures of Tunis with a pickax and a chisel.”

“As I recall, it was a hammer.”

“You know what I mean.”

“What I know is that a dozen workmen ran away from here this morning, which means that the truth of this find will be all over Turkey by tomorrow at the latest. This place will be swarming with curiosity seekers and tourists mucking about. I can’t have that. I’ve worked too long to take that risk.”

“The biggest risk lies in going down there.”

The old man’s face softened. “My last dig, Melly. Let me retire to the drudgery of academia with memories of my own choosing. Now, are you ready yet or not?”

Melissa was too busy checking the volume meters on her recording equipment to pay his remark any heed. She slid the headphones briefly off her ears.

“Would you mind repeating that, Father?”

Benson Hazelhurst merely raised his eyebrows in response. He knew he must look as absurd as he felt, far more like an astronaut than a sixty-nine-year-old professor of archaeology. The white suit covering him from neck to foot was thermally warmed and cooled, adjusted automatically by body temperature. An oxygen tank with a twenty-minute supply was strapped to his back. The hose running from it snaked up over his shoulder and finished in a mask attached to his equipment vest at lapel level. The vest was equipped with special pockets that held two flashlights angled downward to provide as good a view of his descent as possible without tying up his hands. He would need them to steady himself and feel his way in the darkness for walls and corners, Melissa knew.

Her father’s helmet, meanwhile, looked at first glance like a motorcyclist’s. Actually, though, it was equipped with an infrared visor to maximize vision. And built into its crown was a miniature video camera that, over a limited range, would beam pictures of everything he saw up to a recorder at ground level. This would allow her to monitor his progress, as well as preserve the step-by-step process of whatever he uncovered.

His gloves were reinforced with Kevlar to prevent scrapes to his hands. His shoes were fitted with special rubberized soles that prevented slipping when the total weight of the wearer was brought to bear. A microphone and receiver were built into his helmet.

“I feel like a fool.” Hazelhurst sighed.

“A safe fool.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t forget, I’m bringing you up at the first sign of trouble.”

“Then you’re still expecting some.”

“Whoever killed Winchester must have run into it.”

Her father seemed maddeningly unmoved. “Perhaps.”

“Knowledge won’t protect you, Father.”

“Ignorance couldn’t have helped those who descended before me.”

“Turn around,” Melissa ordered.

As he crouched at the edge of the chasm, she fastened the winch holds into the two slots in her father’s vest, which was tailored for them. The winch apparatus would serve as Hazelhurst’s express elevator up when it came time for his return, or in the event of trouble. It would also lower him at a slow, careful pace that he could control with a remote transistor box. Additionally, the mechanism was fitted with mercury switches that snapped the line taut in the event of a sudden drop, responding much faster than the reflexes of any standard line bearers could ever hope to.

“I think I’m ready, then,” Hazelhurst said, and pushed the helmet tight over his head.

With his visor still raised, he swung round and eased his legs into the chasm ahead of him. Melissa touched him on the cheek and lowered his visor.

“Keep in touch,” she said.

“I suspect you’ll be sick and tired of my voice before this day is over,” Hazelhurst answered, and then lowered himself into the darkness.

Melissa returned to her machines instantly, searching out the comfort and security they provided. Throughout the two hours of setup and preparation, she had been haunted by memories of childhood nightmares of monsters with spade-claw hands. She was only three, almost four, when they started. Night after night she would wake up screaming. Her mother would come into the room and still her trembling. In between the tears, Melissa would tell her about the monsters. They weren’t real, her mother would say. They were just the product of dreams.

Dream Dragons.

And one night when the nightmares came, she didn’t cry out to her mother. Another night, she woke up without screaming. Then, finally, the nightmares stopped altogether.

But today, strangely, the memory of them had returned.

“Can you hear me, Daddy?”

“Not so loud, Daughter, please. And don’t call me ‘Daddy’ on a tape with historic implications.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m kidding. How’s the picture coming through?”

“Darker than expected. I can hardly see.”

“Can’t you do something?”

“To view a finished tape, yes, but not while monitoring.”

“Oh,” Benson Hazelhurst said.

Before her, the red level indicator on her sound meter dipped and darted with the sounds of her father chuckling. All her machines, in fact, were working, but Melissa nonetheless sat amidst them feeling helpless. The workmen continued to stand guard on the ground above, all too happy to remain as far away from the find as possible. Only the two Kamir trusted the most and Kamir himself were down here with her, on the chance that the winch needed to be operated manually.

“How far down am I?” her father wanted to know.

A counter with an LED readout rigged to the winch was there to tell her. “Fifteen feet. My screen is just about black. What do you see?”

“Dead space. Wide open. Nothing to the sides or below I can make anything out of, except for the fact …”

Melissa’s heart skipped a beat. “What was that? You broke up.”

“No, I just stopped talking.” Her father’s rapid breathing filled her ears. This was taking far too great a strain on him. “Wanted to make sure of myself before I spoke. I’m sure now. This cavern is perfectly rectangular, as I suspected. Twenty feet by fifteen would be a fair estimation. The wall I’m up against has a hewn feel to it. Aren’t you getting any of this?”

Melissa slid closer to the screen and squinted. “Not enough,” she replied. “Did you say hewn?”

Again his rapid breathing preceded his sharp retort. “Where’s your textbook knowledge, Daughter? This must be some sort of overchamber carved out by those who years ago sought the same thing we do. We’re not the first ones who have been here.”

“Your theories …”

“Fits right into them. The actual doorway was discovered and barricaded thousands of years ago.”

There was a brief thud over the monitoring equipment as he at last struck bottom. Melissa caught a brief glimpse of the floor as her father gazed down at it, before his helmet-mounted camera came up again.

“Strange,” he said.

“What?” Melissa followed into her headpiece.

“I’m inspecting the walls. God, I wish you could see this more clearly. Everything’s been filed too clean, too neat. The walls are perfectly symmetrical, right down to the grooves.”

“Impossible!”

“Unless we’ve got our dating wrong.”

Melissa swallowed hard. “Any sign of Winchester’s killers?”

“Nothing. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Why?”

“Think, Daughter. We know they didn’t leave the site in their vehicle, which means they could only have ventured down here. But since there’s no trace of them …”

“They must have found the passage to the next level down,” Melissa completed.

“No wonder you were the finest student I ever had.”

“I thought Winchester was.”

Benson Hazelhurst’s reply was to begin a careful, systematic check of the walls and floors in search of the entrance to the next level. Melissa followed his progress as best she could, finding herself increasingly anxious over the lack of a decent picture. Next time, she would have to come up with a way to create a wider beam of focused light….

“Wait a minute,” Melissa heard her father say, “I found something.”

“What?”

“Piece of clothing. From a jacket, I think. Or a vest like mine.”

“One of Winchester’s killers?”

“I’m in the far southwest corner. Walls feel the same as they did on the other side.”

“Yes. That much I can see. If you could just—”

The picture blurred, faded, sharpened briefly again.

“I’m going at them with my file. The finish isn’t as gritty or chalky, and it feels damper. I’m going to try something.”

“What, Father? What are you going to try?”

“Hush, Daughter. I’m not so old that I can’t exert a little pressure.”

The sound of his labored breathing filled her ears, followed by soft, shallow grunts. Then there was a rumbling, like the sound of heavy furniture being dragged over a floor. On the screen before her, Melissa could make out a segment of the wall shifting inward.

“That’s got it!” Hazelhurst’s tired voice beamed.

Melissa squinted again, fighting to see what he saw. “The passageway to the next level,” she realized.

“There are stairs,” her father said. “I’ll keep my eyes steady for a time so you can see for yourself. The staircase is very narrow. I can’t see the bottom. I’m going to take the first step down.”

“No!” The urgency in Melissa’s voice made Kamir swing toward her.

“Easy, Daughter. I’ve waited my whole life to find what may be at the bottom of this stairway.”

“Then you can wait a little longer. Please. Just until we can get better equipment.”

The screen before her showed the blurred shape of the stairs as her father took them.

“Three steps down now. The steps feel …”

“Damn!” Melissa muttered, as the picture wobbled and started to break up.

“… like they were chiseled at the same time as the walls and floor above. You know what that means, of course.”

“No! No, I don’t….”

The sounds of Hazelhurst’s breath intermixed with the rustling noises of his descent. “Think, Daughter! Whoever built this chamber over the actual doorway wasn’t trying to entomb it; they only wanted to conceal it. Everything in the construction points to the fact that regular forays were made down here by the overchamber’s builders.” More rustling noises. “Difficult to date the work. Early Phoenician or even — That’s it! This reminds me of the way the Egyptian pyramids were constructed. That might give us more of a clue as to the dating. The steps are narrowly spaced. Don’t you understand what this means?”

“Any sign of Winchester’s killers?” Melissa could see virtually nothing now, the dim light giving little back to the camera.

Hazelhurst answered his own question when she failed to. “The builders of the overchamber didn’t construct these steps; they merely discovered the entrance to them, then sought to conceal and guard them. The steps were waiting when they came, waiting for who knows how long.” The old man’s voice turned reflective. “I wonder how far down they got. I wonder how far …”

Melissa estimated that her father had covered forty to forty-five steps now.

“There’s something down here,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“Just a glimpse. I caught a glimpse. I think I’m almost to the bottom. It must lead into another chamber.”

“Stay where you are. Let me try and get a look….”

“I’m starting to make sense of this construction now. If I’m right — Oh my God….”

“Father, what is it? What do you see?”

“No! No!”

Melissa squeezed close enough to the screen to draw static. “What’s going on? I can’t see anything!”

The camera wobbled, as her father took three rapid steps down.

“Daddy, get out of there!”

“Yes, I’m sure now,” Benson Hazelhurst’s slightly panicked voice returned. “At the bottom of the stairs, I can see … bodies. Aren’t you getting this?”

“Daddy, just get out of there.”

They must be the men who killed Winchester. But what hap—”

There was a sudden flash, and then the picture scrambled into oblivion.

“Daddy!”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! …”

Her father’s high-pitched screech froze Melissa’s insides. Her breath left her in a rush, barely enough retained for another desperate cry.

“Daddy! …”

His scream gave way to a wet, slurping sound. What might have been grinding and tearing, or … chewing followed. The screen continued to show nothing. Melissa pounded its top in frustration.

“Get him up!” she yelled at Kamir.

Instantly he moved to the winch and reversed its pull. The steel lifeline grew taut, wouldn’t give. Kamir looked over at Melissa helplessly.

“By hand, then! By hand!”

The two other workers joined Kamir reluctantly and began to hoist on the line. It resisted at first and then started to rise. Melissa watched them from the midst of a nightmare.

“Daddy, can you hear me?” she said into her headpiece.

Nothing.

“Daddy, can you hear me?”

Not even static.

“Oh, God …”

Lips trembling and breath heaving, Melissa tore her headphones off and rose to her feet. Kamir and the two workmen had the cable coming up very fast now; too fast, as if her father had grown somehow weightless. No, he had fallen and somehow snapped the cable line in the process. His communication equipment had shattered and that was why he had not been able to reply to her calls. That was it; that had to be it. And as soon as Kamir retrieved all of the cable, she would suit up herself and rescue her father. She would—

“Tanrl yardimcimiz olsun!”

One of the workmen had plunged to his knees in a position of prayer. The other ran screaming for the rope ladder that would lift him free of the excavation. Only Kamir remained to pull the rest of the cable up. He backpedaled, staggering, then leaned over and retched. Melissa came forward on feet that seemed made of steel. Kamir’s position blocked her from sight of whatever had been lifted from the chasm.

“No, miss, don’t.”

It was too late. Melissa had drawn up even with him. She looked down. Her world wavered. She threw her head back for a scream that never came. It seemed to her that her breath had been torn away. She sank to her knees, gasping.

Before her, the remains of her father lay on the rim of the rectangular entryway. She recognized his shredded safety vest, now drenched in blood. The upper part of his torso was still tucked within the vest, though it, too, had been badly torn. The right half of his stomach was there as well, along with his neck and a portion of one of his arms.

The rest was … gone.

No legs, no head. Sinewy entrails and intestines hung down from the torso, dripping blood and gore.

The Dream Dragons, Melissa thought as she sank to her knees.

Dream Dragons …

But this time they hadn’t come from nightmares at all. This time they were real.

And they were still down there.