Carpathian (44 page)

“First, where is Mikla?” Marko asked as his demeanor changed faster than even Anya realized. “How badly is he injured?”

“How did you know he was hurt?” Anya asked as her eyes went to Everett as he watched the exchange while being guarded by the men from Patinas.

“Grandmamma broke her ankle—her right ankle.”

“It was she?” she asked as she finally released Marko. “Damn it, why is she taking that chance, what if Mikla had been shot?”

Everett was having a hard time following the harshly whispered conversation.

“My concern exactly. I need to know where Mikla is, and I need to know why Grandmamma summoned you home.”

“Mikla is—”

The bolt of an automatic weapon being thrown caught everyone’s attention. Everett looked up and saw seven men all standing in a semicircle around the group. Marko’s eyes narrowed when he saw the men all aiming weapons at them. He and his villagers had been taken unawares because of the happiness he had shown at seeing his sister.

“What is this?” Marko asked as he held his shotgun outward. He turned and gave Everett a menacing look. “I should have shot you immediately,” he said as he dropped the shotgun on the ground. His men did the same, but the looks they gave the intruders were far more murderous than Marko’s glare.

“They are not together,” Anya said as she saw a few of the same men that had been part of Ben-Nevin’s team of killers. “These men work for a ruthless bastard called Ben-Nevin, a colonel in the Israeli Mossad.”

“The Mossad?” Marko asked, finally turning away to face his sister.

“Where is the wolf?” one of the men asked as he pushed by one of the villagers. Anya saw that is was a brutish-looking man who handed over his automatic weapon and then slowly pulled a knife from a sheath just under his shirt.

“You men need to leave this place,” Marko said as he took a menacing step forward.

Anya saw the look in his eyes and feared for her brother. He took another step and that was when the man raised the knife and poked it into Marko’s belly, but the small Gypsy continued with another step that actually sent the blade a quarter inch into his stomach. Marko just smiled as he leaned forward placing more pressure onto the blade. Everett grimaced as he realized this man was trying to goad the intruder into action.

“Oh, this is not going to be good,” Charlie said as his eyes locked on something Everett couldn’t see. He turned and looked at Anya, who shook her head and then she blinked her eyes toward the ground with a nodding motion. Charlie’s eyes again widened when he realized what she was telling him.

At that exact moment Marko hit the ground. The move was so fast that the assassin’s blade had no time to cut before the Gypsy was hugging dirt and grass. By the time the man realized what was happening the giant black wolf was on him. One minute he was standing with his knife poised to do its skillful work and the next the man was just gone. They heard a brief scream and then the men around them started shooting into the trees. Anya, Marko, the villagers, Charlie, and Carl were on the ground.

Everett managed to keep his head up and his eyes widened when he saw the Golia spring from the trees again. This time it took a man by the throat and tore it free before springing back into the thick line of trees. The other five men tried to aim and fire and that was why they failed to notice Marko and the others reach for their dropped weapons. Soon shotgun blasts tore at the forest around them. There was no screaming, no shouts, and no warnings. The villagers ruthlessly took every man left standing. As for the wolf, there was no trace.

The small clearing was silent and smoke filled from all of the shooting. Charlie was shaking badly, but it wasn’t from the gunfire. He reached over and shook Carl’s arm.

“Did … did you see the size of that wolf? That wasn’t Mikla,” Ellenshaw said as his words ended in a high-pitched squeak.

Everett saw Anya stand and run toward Marko and help him up and then he turned away and looked around him at the dead men as the villagers walked from corpse to corpse checking on the dead and dying.

“Well, we didn’t need this,” Marko said, shaking his head. His eyes soon went to Everett and Charlie. His blackened pupils narrowed as he locked eyes with the larger, blond-haired American.

“They saw Stanus,” he said as he took a step toward them.

Anya saw the look in her brother’s eyes.

“Yes, and they also saw Mikla. And they saved your sister’s life just half an hour ago from these very same men.”

Everett finally realized just who it was he was looking at. Marko Korvesky, the Gypsy heir apparent.

*   *   *

Ben-Nevin waited patiently for the rest of his men. They had not answered the radios even when the reception was good. The iron ore inside the mountains wreaked havoc on all communication outside of a landline. The colonel looked at his watch as he spied three of the men he had sent searching for the others come from out of the tree line. They shook their heads when they saw the colonel looking their way.

“Well?” he asked, tossing the useless radio to his second in command.

“We found what amounted to a sea of blood, and this.” One of the men handed over an AK-47 assault rifle. The barrel was bent. Ben-Nevin examined the weapon and then handed it back with what amounted to distaste. “Our quarry has left the area and we haven’t enough men left to search.”

“How many men have we?” he asked.

“Counting us five, eighteen men remain.”

Ben-Nevin once more shook his head. He reached into his coat pocket and brought out the message sent from Tel Aviv and held it in his damaged hand.

“This message was to convey to me that Tel Aviv has no more personnel to send us.”

“So, what is your plan, Colonel?” the taller assistant asked as Ben-Nevin turned away and fixed his eyes on the resort sitting two miles distant.

“I plan on recovering the people’s treasure, and the only way we can do that is to secure the ally recommended to us by our friends in Tel Aviv. Our contacts say he would be receptive to adding to his collection, and if not he dearly loves money. In either case we have no choice, it’s the Russian or we go it alone.”

“What if this … this … casino owner already knows where the temple is, wouldn’t we be exposing ourselves if we brief him on what we are really after?”

Ben-Nevin had a smile on his face when he turned back to face his two men.

“What is life without a little danger and intrigue?”

“Colonel?” his man asked, confused.

Ben-Nevin wiped his face on a handkerchief and then removed his coat and brushed at the dust and pine needles that had become attached to the material.

“When you have nothing left to lose, danger becomes a moot point.” Ben-Nevin placed his coat back on and then turned and looked at the Edge of the World resort once more.

“I don’t follow, Colonel.”

“Tel Aviv is betting, and I concur with their assessment, that that stupid Russian has no idea the greatest treasure in the history of the world is but a few miles away sitting inside a mountain he only thinks is a nice place for gangsters and thieves to rest and relax.”

“Do you think he will assist?” the man persisted.

“Oh, yes, and he may also become a convenient scapegoat if things fall apart.” Ben-Nevin turned and opened the car’s front door and then they were on their way to meet a possible partner in the assault on the mountain and he knew that he had very little time before General Shamni in Tel Aviv decided to act.

Operation Ramesses would be launched and the mountain and the temple would be destroyed—not by God’s fire, but flames with the power of the sun.

*   *   *

Niles wanted the Group represented in the lead Humvee as they set out past the main road that led to the resort. Will Mendenhall was riding with the lead element of 82nd Airborne engineers as the two vehicles started out. They left five men at camp to hopefully wait for the soon to arrive Romanian army trucks with their Event Group equipment. As far as they knew, the trucks and their rather expensive satellite equipment and weapons were still on their way to the Danube.

Niles always heard about government-run operations outside of his Group as being sloppy at times, but this was the first time he had seen it happen in his department and it frustrated him no end. The perfectionist inside him made him realize just how hard his field teams had it at times and how fast they had to think on the fly.

Compton reached into his pocket and pulled out a weather sitrep supplied by the 82nd as they accidentally scanned a Romanian army alert that the storm had stalled in the south and that the weather system might miss them completely. And even the parts of the massive front that hit the Danube region had not been as severe as they first predicted. Compton reached over and handed the message to Alice, who was squeezed in between Denise Gilliam and a rather hefty engineer in desert camouflage. Alice read the note. She smiled and shook her head as she handed the message back to Compton.

“So our equipment is down south assisting a region where the massive storm never materialized, and the entire cover story and Romanian army fronting us hightailed it to that same region. Do you think that anyone will have enough common sense to send at least our equipment back? Or maybe even a few troops?”

Niles laughed, a short burst brimming with sarcasm.

“Yes I do, just as soon as we won’t need them anymore.”

“See,” Alice said smiling back at the director, “Jack’s field humor is starting to rub off on you.”

He looked at his old friend. “Honestly, I don’t know how that man and his field teams survive sometimes with the dumb, bad luck those boys run into on a daily basis.”

“Amen,” Alice said as the Airborne Humvees turned onto the road that paralleled the resort and led the way to Dracula’s Castle and then the pass beyond.

As they passed the main gates of the resort they saw the reporters and protesters standing by as the festivities at the exclusive resort continued into the second day of the private grand opening.

“I hope Jack and Sarah watch themselves in there.”

Niles didn’t comment on Alice’s worry; he was looking at the giant steel towers that were the first of many that supported the gilded cable car system. The skyway was operating at only half capacity bringing men and women to the top where they could tour the outside of Dracula’s Castle. After they toured they came down, as they were not being allowed to take a sneak peek inside the gaudy nightclub. The large cars moved simultaneously up and down the giant eight-line cable support.

“Now that is something you might see in Bavaria or someplace like that. Very impressive,” Denise Gilliam said as they watched the sixty-two-foot cars glide easily along their stretched cables.

“Yes, and we now know how at least part of that was financed,” Niles said as his eyes moved over to Alice. “Let’s not lose sight of that in the midst of werewolves and Lost Tribes of Israel, shall we. And I hope Jack watches his back inside that den of thieves.”

Alice knew Niles was right. Discoveries or not, there were still dangers to the game they were playing, the Russian mobster not being the least of them. As they made the turn onto the large and winding road, the Humvees suddenly came to a stop due to oncoming traffic. The column of cars, trucks, motorcycles, and broken and battered travel homes cut the corner sharply and headed in the direction they were currently going. The lead car was a battered and very old Citroën sedan. As Niles watched the cars stream past he saw that each vehicle was filled with women, children, and men. They were all dressed brightly and every dented and rusted-out car or truck had loud music blaring from open windows. Niles even saw a rather large pig riding shotgun inside an old Mercedes truck.

“What in the world?” Dr. Gilliam asked as they watched the Gypsy caravan move off ahead of them. They too were heading for the Patinas Pass.

“It seems the Gypsies are gathering,” Alice said as she leaned forward to examine the caravan more clearly. “I cannot believe we are seeing this.”

“What’s so special about a caravan of locals?” Denise asked.

“I could be wrong, and this is a rather large guess,” Alice said as her smile grew with every passing car or battered camper, “but I think Mr. Everett’s young and very former Mossad agent from Rome has arrived.”

“You mean they know about her and are coming back to greet her?” Denise asked, finally removing her eyes from the road where the last of the twenty-two vehicles slowly passed by.

“I believe so.” She looked at Denise and then slapped Niles on the knee as the Humvees fell into the back of the caravan’s long line of color and sound.

“What?” he asked.

“The Gathering?”

“What’s that?” Niles asked as the Humvee started up the long road toward the Pass.

“Gypsies hardly ever gather in one large group. These travelers are not just your typical Gypsy band. What we have here is the extended royal family if you will. They travel as a small family or as a caravan as they move safely together from one place to another. But they ordinarily never congregate at any location where they are exposed as a whole. The special ones—the Gypsies that are royalty, for the most part they never left Europe. They stayed and they separated and never do they come together as a people. Now here they are and there can only be one explanation for it,” she said as she reached for a small journal she kept in her jacket pocket. She thumbed through it until she found the entry she was searching for. “The family of man is getting ready to have a change of power. Someone is stepping down as the king, or the queen.” She smiled broadly. “I suspect that’s why they are gathering.”

As Alice began to believe in her dreams coming true, the two U.S. Army Humvees followed the motley group of Gypsy revelers as they climbed past Dracula’s Castle and the high mountain beyond.

12

After Collins had sent Ryan and Pete out to see if they could get a hint of where Captain Everett and Charlie Ellenshaw had disappeared to, he decided he and Sarah needed to start getting close to some of the seedier characters in the resort. Perhaps that way they could get a line on the antiquities that seemed to have flooded the world from this not so very sophisticated criminal, Dmitri Zallas.