Black Order (31 page)

Gray waved Fiona and Ryan to follow. Monk rolled his eyes at Gray as he passed. “Spooky castle…time to go…”

Gray understood Monk’s itchiness to leave. He felt it, too. First the false alarm with the Mercedes, then the blackout. But nothing untoward had happened. And Gray hated to pass up a chance to learn more about the Bible’s rune and its history here.

Ulmstrom’s voice carried up to Gray. The others had reached the landing below. “This chamber lies immediately below the
Obergruppenführersaal.
”

Gray joined them while the curator unlocked a matching door to the one above, also barred and sealed with thick glass. He held it open for them, then stepped in after them.

Beyond lay another circular chamber. This one windowless, lit gloomily by a few wall sconces. Twelve granite columns circled the space, holding up a domed roof. In the center of the ceiling, a twisted swastika symbol had been painted.

“This is the castle’s crypt,” Ulmstrom said. “Note the well in the center of the room. It is where the coat of arms of fallen SS officers would be burned ceremonially.”

Gray had already spotted the stone well, directly below the swastika in the ceiling.

“If you stand near the well, and look at the walls, you’ll see the
Mensch
runes depicted here.”

Gray stepped closer and followed his directions. At the cardinal points, the runes had been engraved in the stone walls. Now Gray understood Ulmstrom’s remark.
The rune’s presence only makes sense considering…

The
Mensch
runes were all upside down.

Toten-runes
.

Death runes.

A loud clang, a match to the one a moment ago, resounded across the chamber. Only this time there had been no blackout. Gray swung around, realizing his mistake. Curiosity had lessened his guard. Dr. Ulmstrom had never moved far from the door.

The curator now stood outside it, clicking the lock.

He called through the thick glass, doubtless bulletproof. “Now you’ll understand the true meaning of the
toten-rune
.”

A loud pop sounded next. All the lamps went dark. With no windows, the chamber sank into complete darkness.

In the shocked silence, a new sound intruded: a fierce hissing.

But it came from no snake or serpent.

Gray tasted it on the back of his tongue.

Gas.

1:49
P.M
.
HIMALAYAS

The trio of helicopters fanned out for an attack run.

Painter studied the approach of the choppers through a set of binoculars. He had unbelted and crawled into the copilot seat. He recognized the enemy crafts: Eurocopter Tigers, medium-weight, outfitted with air-to-air gun pods and missiles.

“Do you have any weapons equipped on the helo?” Painter asked Gunther.

He shook his head.
“Nein.”

Gunther worked the rudder pedals to bring them around, swinging away from their adversaries. Pitching the helo forward, he accelerated away. It was their only real countermeasure: speed.

The A-Star, lighter and unburdened of armaments, was quicker and more maneuverable. But even that advantage had its limitations.

Painter knew the direction in which Gunther was headed now, forced by the others. Painter had thoroughly studied the region’s terrain maps. The Chinese border lay only thirty miles away.

If the attack choppers didn’t eliminate them, invading Chinese airspace would. And with the current tensions between the Nepalese government and the Maoist rebels, the border was closely watched. They were literally between a rock and a hard place.

Anna yelled from the backseat, head craned to watch their rear. “Missile launch!”

Even before her warning ended, a screaming streak of smoke and fire shot past their port side, missing by mere yards. The missile slammed into the ice-encrusted ridgeline ahead. Fire and rock shot high. A large chunk of cliff broke off and slid away, like a glacier calving.

Gunther tipped their helo on its side and sped clear of the rain of debris.

He darted their craft down and raced between two ridges of rock. They were temporarily out of the direct line of fire.

“If we put down,” Anna said. “Fast. Flee on foot.”

Painter shook his head, shouting to be heard above the engine. “I know these Tigers. They have infrared. Our heat signatures would just give us away. Then there’d be no escaping their guns or rockets.”

“Then what do we do?”

Painter’s head still spasmed with white-hot bursts. His vision had constricted to a laser focus.

Lisa answered, leaning forward from the backseat, her eyes on the compass. “Everest,” she said.

“What?”

She nodded to the compass. “We’re heading right toward Everest. What if we landed over there, got lost in the mass of climbers.”

Painter considered her plan.
To hide in plain sight
.

“The storm’s backlogged the mountain,” she continued loudly. “Some two hundred people were waiting to ascend when I left. Including some Nepalese soldiers. Might even be more after the monastery burned down.”

Lisa glanced over to Anna. Painter read her expression. They were fighting for their lives alongside the very enemy who had burned down that monastery. But a greater adversary threatened all. While Anna had made brutal, unforgivable choices, this other faction had triggered the necessity for her actions, setting in motion the chain of events that led them all here.

And Painter knew it wouldn’t stop here. This was just the beginning, a feint meant to misdirect. Something monstrous was afoot. Anna’s words echoed in his pounding head.

We must stop them
.

Lisa finished, “With so many satellite phones and video feeds broadcasting from Base Camp, they’d dare not attack.”

“Or so we hope,” Painter said. “If they don’t back off, we’d be jeopardizing many lives.”

Lisa leaned back, digesting his words. Painter knew her brother was among those at Base Camp. She met his eyes.

“It’s too important,” she said, coming to the same conclusion he had a moment ago. “We have to risk it. Word must get out!”

Painter glanced around the cabin.

Anna said, “It will be shorter to go
over
the shoulder of Everest to get to the other side, rather than taking the longer route
around
.” She pointed to the wall of mountain ahead of them.

“So we head for the Base Camp?” Painter said.

They were all in agreement.

Others were not.

A helicopter roared over the ridgeline, its skids passing directly over their rotors. The intruder seemed startled to come across them. The Tiger twisted and climbed in a surprised pirouette.

But they’d been found.

Painter prayed the others were spread out in a wide search pattern—then again, one Tiger was enough.

Their unarmed A-Star shot out of the trough into a wider couloir, a bowl-shaped gully full of snow and ice. No cover. The Tiger’s pilot responded quickly, plunging toward them.

Gunther throttled up the engine speed and increased the blade pitch, attempting a full-out sprint. They might outrun the heavier Tiger, but not its missiles.

To punctuate this, the diving Tiger opened fire with its gun pods, spitting flames, and chewing through the snow.

“Forget outrunning the bastard!” Painter yelled and jerked his thumb straight up. “Take the race that way.”

Gunther glanced at him, heavy brows knit tight.

“He’s heavier,” Painter explained, motioning with his hands. “We can climb to a higher elevation. Where he can’t follow.”

Gunther nodded and pulled back on the collective, turning forward motion into vertical. Like riding an express elevator, the helo shot upward.

The Tiger was taken aback by the sudden change of direction and took an extra moment to follow, spiraling up after them.

Painter watched the altimeter. The world record for elevation reached by a helicopter had been set by a stripped-down A-Star. It had landed on the summit of Everest. They didn’t need to climb that far. The armament-heavy Tiger was already petering out as they went above the twenty-two-thousand-foot mark, its rotors churning uselessly in the rarefied air, making it difficult to maintain yaw and roll, confounding an attack pitch in which to employ its missiles.

For now, their craft continued to sail upward into safety.

But they could not stay up here forever.

What went up eventually had to come down.

And like a circling shark, the attack helicopter waited below. All it had to do was track them. Painter spotted the two other Tigers winging in their direction, called into the hunt, a pack closing in on its wounded prey.

“Get above the chopper,” Painter said, pantomiming with one palm over the other.

Gunther’s frown never wavered, but he obeyed.

Painter twisted around to Anna and Lisa. “Both of you, look out your side windows. Let me know when that Tiger is directly below us.”

Nods answered him.

Painter turned his attention to the lever in front of him.

“Just about there!” Lisa called from her side.

“Now!” Anna responded a second later.

Painter yanked on the lever. It controlled the winch assembly on the undercarriage of the chopper. The rope and harness had lowered Painter earlier when he’d been pursuing the assassin. But he wasn’t lowering the harness now. The emergency lever he gripped was used to jettison the assembly if it should be jammed. He cranked it fully back and felt the
pop
of the release.

Painter pressed his face to the window.

Gunther banked them around, pitching for a better view.

The winch assembly tumbled end over end, unreeling its harness in a wide tangled mess.

It struck the Tiger below, smashing into its rotors. The effect was as destructive as any depth charge. The blades tore apart, flying in all directions. The chopper itself twisted like a spun top, flipping sideways and falling away.

With no time to spare, Painter pointed toward their only neighbor at this elevation. The white summit of Everest rose ahead, shrouded in clouds.

They had to reach Base Camp on its lower slopes—but below, the skies were not safe.

Two more helicopters, angry as hornets, raced toward them.

And Painter was out of winches.

Lisa watched the other helicopters swoop toward them, growing from gnats to hawks. It was now a race.

Pitching the chopper steeply, Gunther dove out of the rarefied ether. He aimed for the gap between Mount Everest and its sister peak, Mount Lhotse. A shouldered ridgeline—the famous south col—connected Lhotse to Everest. They needed to get over its edge and put the mountain between them and the others. On the far side, Base Camp lay at the foot of the col.

If they could reach it…

She pictured her brother, his goofy smile, the cowlick at the back of his head that he was perpetually trying to smooth down. What were they thinking, bringing this war to Base Camp, to her brother?

In front of her, Painter was bent with Gunther. The engine’s roar ate their words. She had to place her trust in Painter. He would not jeopardize anyone’s life needlessly.

The col rose toward them. The world expanded outward as they dove toward the mountain pass. Everest filled the starboard side, a plume of snow blowing from its tip. Lhotse, the fourth highest peak in the world, was a wall to the left.

Gunther steepened their angle. Lisa clutched her seat harness. She felt like she might tumble out the front windshield. The world ahead became a sheet of ice and snow.

A whistling scream cut through the roar.

“Missile!” Anna screamed.

Gunther yanked on the stick. The nose of the chopper shot up and yawed to the right. The missile sailed under their skids and streaked into the eastern ridge of the col. Fire blasted upward. Gunther banked them clear of the eruption, dipping the nose down again.

Pressing her cheek against the side window, Lisa glanced to the rear. The two choppers had closed the distance, angling toward them. Then a wall of ice cut off the view.

“We’re over the ridge!” Painter yelled. “Hang tight!”

Lisa swung back around. The helicopter plunged down the vertiginous slope of the south col. Snow and ice raced under them. Ahead, a darker scar appeared. Base Camp.

They aimed for it, as if intending to crash headlong into the tent city.

The camp swelled below them, growing with each second, prayer flags flapping, individual tents discernable now.

“We’re going to land hard!” Painter yelled.

Gunther didn’t slow.

Lisa found a prayer rising to her lips or maybe a mantra. “Oh God…oh God…oh God…”

At the last moment, Gunther pulled up, fighting the controls. Winds fought him. The helicopter continued falling, rotors now shrieking.

The world beyond was a Tilt-A-Whirl.

Thrown about, Lisa clenched the armrests.

Then the skids slammed hard to the ground, slightly nose down, throwing Lisa forward. The seat harness held her. Rotor wash churned up snow in a flurried burst, but the chopper rocked back onto its skids, level and even.

“Everybody out!” Painter yelled as Gunther throttled down.

Hatches popped, and they tumbled out.

Painter appeared at Lisa’s side, taking her arm in his. Anna and Gunther followed. A mass of people converged toward them. Lisa glanced up to the ridge. Smoke rose behind the col from the missile attack. Everyone at camp must have heard it, emptying tents.

Voices in a slur of languages assaulted them.

Lisa, half-deafened by the helicopter, felt distant from it all.

Then one voice reached her.

“Lisa!”

She turned. A familiar shape in black snowpants and a gray thermal shirt shoved through the crowd, elbowing and pushing.

“Josh!”

Painter allowed her to divert the group in his direction. Then Lisa was in her brother’s arms, hugging tight. He smelled vaguely of yaks. She had never smelled anything better.