Carpathian (33 page)

Alice reached over and patted Jack’s knee and then leaned back in her chair with a sigh and closed her eyes.

“Jack, the one mistake Garrison Lee ever made was never explaining his feelings to anyone, including yours truly, almost until it was too late to do so.” She opened her eyes and looked at the man sitting across from her. “It’s not that you have not included your friends in your quest, Jack. It’s that you haven’t explained adequately enough on why.” She smiled and held his blue eyes with her own. “You must allow Carl into your world because you made it his world when you arrived. You know after he lost Lisa in Arizona during the Matchstick Event, he would have resigned if you hadn’t been in command at the time. You kept him going because no matter what,
you
kept going, even after all of the blood and heartache of your previous commands. The example was set and now you refuse to include the man who most admires you. That means that Lynn was his sister as much as yours. He admires you and looks to you as a big brother, and that, Jack, is all that man has.”

Alice had hit him with her revelations about Carl and the blow landed somewhat below the belt. Jack never realized how badly hurt Everett had been at the loss of his fiancée, because even the stoic Jack Collins was engrossed in his sorrowful feelings for himself for being shunned by the Army after Afghanistan. Jack looked at Alice and then leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

“How in the hell did the senator put up with you all those years?” he asked as he stayed close to her.

“Because he was always afraid I would murder him in his sleep.” She batted her eyes once more and then stood up and patted Jack on the shoulder and turned to leave with a yawn. “And don’t forget about Sarah, Jack—quit being an idiot about that goddamn Frenchman.” She turned and faced Jack just before she arrived at the spiral staircase. “She could never feel the same about any man as she does you. Even if you do what you have to do, she deserves every minute you’ve got left.” She turned away and started down the steps. “Or I just may have to give Lieutenant McIntire ideas about murdering some dumb bastard in his sleep—I mean it worked for me.”

Collins watched Alice start slowly back down the staircase to her bunk. Jack smiled at the wit of the woman and how she could weave logic into any scenario.

Jack’s thoughts turned inward as he examined the shaky-looking weather report coming from the Adriatic. It seemed the Carpathian region could be in for some serious rainfall. As he examined the swirl of black clouds closing on the resort and its mysterious inhabitants of Patinas, the 747 made a slow turn to the east as it started its run toward the Adriatic Sea and the night-shrouded mountains of Romania to the east.

PALMACHIM AIR FORCE BASE, TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

The air base sat on the coast just south of the capital and away from the prying eyes of the press and the public. The command center housed the Special Operations dispatch and security for the base and at the moment was the new home of Mossad Lieutenant General Addis Shamni. He had been at the base since early morning and now watched as the sun set on the day.

“No word yet, General?” a voice asked from behind the burly ex-army soldier.

“None.” The general turned and faced the muscled man in the green T-shirt and desert camouflage pants. “There’s been no communication from either agent. Colonel Ben-Nevin, well, he wouldn’t contact us, would he? As for Major Sorotzkin.” The general shook his head. “Well, she may be just as lost to us as that traitorous bastard Ben-Nevin.”

The general paced to the coffee machine and poured another cup and then walked over to the window where he saw the Special Operations team rolling a giant Lockheed C-130 Hercules backward into a secure hangar area. Inside the darkened space waited the specialized equipment used by the strike team of twenty-three Sayeret commandos. The general knew for a fact that the men he was watching work silently inside the well-guarded hangar, ranked behind no organization in the world as far as skill in the art of death.

“I hope your men are patient, Captain.” Shamni turned from the window. “It could be a while until we get the go order. Circumstances and timing will dictate when your team will go in.”

“Yes, sir, we’ll find things to occupy our time,” the muscled captain said as he turned for the door. “We’re used to waiting.”

“The special explosives are secured?”

The bald-headed captain of the most elite fighting men in the world turned before opening the door. “Yes, it’s under the watchful eyes of your Mossad agents.”

“Do I detect some sort of disdain for my men and their capabilities, Captain?” the general asked with his coffee cup poised halfway to his mouth.

“Not at all, General Shamni, I mean it was your two people that have us sitting here at Palmachim awaiting the chance to invade a friendly country because they went bad on you. Disdain, General? Maybe that’s not the proper word here,” the captain said but left the rest of the sentence unvoiced as he left the office area.

“Yes, Captain, I can think of a few words myself that far exceed disdain.”

The general’s anger was directed at Ben-Nevin and not Major Sorotzkin. His thoughts about her were but flashes of worry in his mind. He could only hope the major made it home in one piece

Outside in the hangar a well-guarded fourteen-by-six-foot aluminum box was placed into the secured belly of the C-130 Hercules and lashed down tightly. That task completed, the men looked at the case with trepidation because for the first time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, a nuclear weapon had been placed aboard an Israeli warplane and it and the Israeli elite commandos, the Sayeret, were ready for their flight to the great north where a legendary tribe of their own people vanished 3,500 years before and had never been seen again.

PATINAS, CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS, ROMANIA

Marko Korvesky sat in a large wooden chair near the dying fire as the embers burned down to near nothing. The woman next to him on the floor sat with her arm propped against his leg and watched the last of the flames they vanish. She wore nothing other than the gold earrings and necklace Marko had just given her this evening as a gift—which he was about to take back.

“The sun will be up in a few hours, you must not be seen leaving here.” Marko leaned over and kissed the top of the girl’s head and then smoothly removed the earrings and gold necklace with the unique inset that the young girl so loved. “And most assuredly not to be seen wearing these.” He tossed the relics into the air and then closed his large fist around them. “Go now.”

The girl whined and whimpered about having to leave her gifts here in Marko’s house, but she did as she was told and slowly dressed as Marko stood and poked at the embers of the dying fire. She waited for the dark-haired Gypsy to say something as she stood by the door with her hands on her hips. Her red dress and blue blouse clashed with everything inside the cluttered house. When she saw Marko just continuing to poke at the fire she puffed out her ample chest in hurt anger and then left.

Marko put down the poker and then opened his left hand to look at the earrings and the necklace. The earrings were nothing unique, except for the fact that they were over three thousand years old. The necklace was a favorite of his and he thought the young girl would be impressed. The Eye of Ra was the same design as his grandmother’s gold inlaid cane. The center pupil of the eye was a quarter-inch green stone that Marko had never seen before. But the artwork of the eye itself was something he couldn’t get enough of viewing.

He held the Egyptian jewelry in the palm of his hand and then turned away from the fireplace. His eyes widened when he saw the Golia staring at him through his open shutters.

“God be with you my old friend, where have—”

Stanus vanished from the open window in a blur of black-on-black motion.

Marko lowered his head. Had the giant beast seen the artifacts he had removed from the temple? Had he known of the other thefts of the people’s heritage? He shook his head but didn’t open his hand again. He jammed the necklace and earrings into his red shirt. He looked toward the window once more but saw no sign of Stanus. If the Golia thought it had been lied to about the strange people far below Marko didn’t know what Stanus would do. He thought he could eventually get the Golia to stay in the mountain and only come out when it was time to feed on their sheep and goats, but Marko also knew that he may have to do the unthinkable when it came to Stanus. The Golia was just too clever. And the same went for Mikla if the damn animal would ever show back up. Each of the two largest Golia disliked the other immensely. But the love they had for the rest of the beasts was unquestioned.

*   *   *

Stanus flew down the mountain at breakneck speed. The giant wolf was nothing but a black streak that could not be discerned as anything living as it made its way to the castle. If it had been seen as some of the Golia in the past had, the vision would have been spoken of as it were just another ghost that inhabited the Carpathians. Many rumors were started by the mere glimpse of a beast that was never really seen at all, and stories came and went of the unnatural things that roam the highlands of ancient and modern Walachia and Transylvania.

The Golia was on all fours as it neared the stone base of the castle. The back of the foundation was anchored to the rock wall of the mountain by three-foot-thick steel pylons. As Stanus came close to the edge of the castle where the side met the road which led to the villages below, the beast jumped and snagged one of the massive support braces that held the castle’s foundation pinned to the mountain. It used its large hand to grasp the steel and allow its momentum to swing it to the next support beam, and then again to the next highest. Finally the giant reached the very highest parapet of the man-made copy of Dracula’s Castle. Once braced it reached up and took hold of a facsimile of a steel weather vane that sat atop the parapet and watched the activity far below at the resort. The beast laid its ears back and growled low in its still heaving chest.

Suddenly the morning calm was broken by the thumping of a NATO Black Hawk helicopter as it flew low over the resort below.

Stanus watched the strange machine until it vanished beyond his sight to the right of the castle, which now blocked its view of the NATO encampment twenty miles away. The Golia shook its massive head in anger and then from side to side as the memory of the gold in Marko’s hand came into its large brain.

For the second time in as many minutes the dark morning peace was shattered by a sound that woke many of the men and women as they slept far below. Workers who were now spending their last night at the resort heard the sound they had been hearing off and on for the better part of the three years it had taken to build the Edge of the World.

The ear-shattering howl Stanus unleashed from his lungs was a cry of anguish at the possible betrayal of its onetime friend—Marko Korvesky, the Gypsy crown prince and the inheritor of the tribal standard of the Jeddah.

Stanus became more confused, which allowed the beast to revert to an age when the Golia had no masters, a creature that had become a legend over the years that would not die in the Carpathian Mountains and in most of Eastern Europe—the mythical beast called the werewolf.

SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

As the 747-200 made a slow sweeping turn over the mountains of Bosnia the personnel on board were fully awake and doing their final prep work for the two Event teams. Niles and his people were poring over geological data supplied by Sarah McIntire, who explained to them just how amazing a geological mystery the Carpathians, and in particular the Patinas Pass, really was. There shouldn’t be volcanic activity in the area and hadn’t been in several thousand years, thus there was no real logical explanation for the hot springs and geysers that are known to exist there.

“Can this anomaly pose a danger to the people of the valleys above and below the pass?” Niles Compton asked, looking strange in his Group-issued khaki work clothes.

“If it poses a threat to them they are either oblivious to the danger or are not concerned. I suspect the latter because you cannot live near that pass or the village it’s named for and not know that the mountain you are sitting on is like a bad molar in a mouth full of dead or dormant teeth. There is a connection with the hot springs and the mountain and it cannot be a good one.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Has the Romanian government released any information about Patinas being seismically active?”

“With the land being privatized they now have a chance to get some geologists up there to see. They may not like what they find.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant, you can join your team. If need be we will get you up to Patinas in the next day or so. You just may be the first geologist into the pass.”

“Yes, sir,” Sarah said, and then nodded at Alice, who sat beside Niles and Captain Everett. Will Mendenhall, fresh from the shower, stepped aside so Sarah could pass in the tight space.

“Lieutenant Mendenhall, you’re late to my meeting. Are you pretty much up to speed on the people of the Patinas region and their customs?”

“All I know is that’s where Dracula is from,” Mendenhall said in all seriousness.

“Not exactly. You’ve been watching too many movies. Alice, explain to young Mr. Mendenhall the difference between legend and fact.”

Mendenhall sat down and then waited as Alice pulled out her notes.

“Prince Vlad Dracul, or Vlad Tepes if you prefer, was born in the south of what used to be known as Walachia, or Transylvania, which encompassed the region from the east and surrounded what is now known as the Carpathian Mountains, the history of which is far more documented than one would believe. And nothing has ever dispelled the rumors that something was wrong in the high mountains of that warring state.”

“For instance?” Will inquired, actually getting interested in what Alice was saying.

“For instance, in years 101 thru 102, and 105 to 106, Roman armies under the Emperor Trajan fought a series of military campaigns to subjugate the wealthy Dacian kingdom. By 106, under Trajan they succeeded in subduing the southern and central regions of Dacia but left one area of the very rich kingdom alone—Patinas. One of the most important passes in the entire country and the most experienced Roman commander under Trajan left it unguarded and undefended. No military commander would have left an avenue of attack that glaringly obvious to an enemy force without a garrison being stationed there.”