The Eye of God (23 page)

Where are you
,
Seichan?

9:24
P
.
M
.

Seichan leaped headlong toward the cover of the closest barrack, taking advantage of the momentary shock of the North Korean troops. She twisted in midair and aimed her pistol back at the jeep. She squeezed the trigger over and over again, taking out one headlamp and driving the troops to cover.

As she hit the ground, momentum rolled her between the stilts of the closest barrack and into darkness. Gunfire peppered the dirt behind her.

She kept going, spinning under the planks and through the muck to the other side. Without pausing, she dove for the next row, rolling again under the barrack.

All the while, she tracked the troops. The jeep sped past her original position, fishtailing around the end of the row, intending to circle around and trap her. Closer at hand, the twin rows of soldiers split apart, running between the barracks, flanking wide to prevent her escape.

Her flight had bought her only a minute or two of freedom at best. The wave of soldiers would eventually overwhelm her. And with only
one
bullet left in her pistol, she could never fight her way to freedom.

She needed another way.

9:25
P
.
M
.

Over the rumble of his motorcycle, Gray heard gunfire erupt to his left, along with shouts and hollered orders. He headed for the commotion, hoping for the best.

As he raced between a narrow squeeze of barracks, a figure popped into view ahead of him, wearing a muddy set of prison garb. It took him an extra breath to recognize Seichan.

Thank God . . .

Relief flooded through him, along with something deeper that warmed his heart.

She lifted her arm toward him, as if beckoning him to her side.

Only then did he see the pistol in her hand.

She centered her aim and fired.

9:26
P
.
M
.

Seichan needed that motorcycle.

A second ago, she had heard the throaty whine of its engine and headed toward it, knowing it could be her only means of escape. With one bullet left in her pistol, she dared not fail. As she stepped into the open, she aimed for a center-mass shot and pulled the trigger.

The rider flew backward with the impact, spinning off the bike.

The motorcycle twisted and crashed into the side of a barrack. Tossing her pistol aside, she sprinted to the bike. She hauled it off the ground, mounted it, and kicked the stalled engine into roaring glory. With a goose of power, she spun the bike around.

The rider rose to an elbow and reached for his assault rifle.

I could use that
,
too,
she realized.

She gunned forward, leaning her arm out, ready to scoop the weapon off the ground.

The rider lifted his pained face toward her.

She gasped with recognition, blinded to everything but those storm-blue eyes.

Gray . . .

She braked hard as she reached him, skidding sideways.

He stood, with a hand pressed to his bloody shoulder. “You really have to stop shooting me,” he mumbled, retrieving the rifle with his good arm. “A simple hello will do next time.”

She pulled him to her and kissed his lips.

“Okay, that’s a little better . . . but we’ll have to practice it some more.”

She heard the growl of the jeep stalking along a neighboring row.

Shouts closed in behind her.

“Hop on!” she urged.

Despite the pain, Gray quickly swung a leg over. He circled her waist with one arm, while firing behind her with the other.

In the rearview mirror, she watched soldiers scatter out of view.

“Go!” he said.

She gunned the engine, and the bike took off like a jackrabbit.

Gray tightened his arm around her.

She didn’t know if they would make it to freedom, but she knew one thing for sure. She never wanted him to let go.

9:28
P
.
M
.

Gray’s shoulder burned with each bump. Blood flowed in hot streams across his chest. If he hadn’t shifted to the side at the last moment after seeing Seichan’s pistol, she would have struck him square in the chest.

He clung to her with his bad arm, twisted half around, his rifle gripped one-handed. He took potshots whenever he spotted anyone in a North Korean uniform.

Then thirty yards back, a jeep skidded into view, its one remaining headlamp shining toward them. A soldier on the passenger side was on his feet, leveling a rifle on the frame of the windshield.

Gray strafed the front of the jeep, taking out the other headlamp.

The impact swerved the vehicle, ruining the soldier’s aim. Rounds tore into the wooden stairs of a barrack to the left. Screams of panic echoed from inside.

“Veer right!” he hollered to Seichan.

She juked the bike in that direction, so fast that he almost lost his grip on her. With his thighs clenched to the seat, he leaned out and returned fire, concentrating on the jeep’s right front tire, unloading a full spray, tearing apart the rubber.

“Left!” he yelled.

The bike swung to the other side, as rounds blasted past his ear. Aiming at the left front tire, he fired another burst, shredding it to black confetti.

The trajectory of the jeep, already shaky after losing the first tire, became unruly as the rims drilled into the mud, miring the front end.

As the jeep slowed to a crawl behind them, Seichan sped away, aiming for the gates a hundred yards ahead. Gray kept his rifle pointed back, plinking a few shots to discourage any retaliation.

Suddenly Seichan hit the brakes hard, nosing the bike up on one wheel.

Gray swung around in time to see a tank burst into view ahead of them, treads churning mud in a fast turn toward the prison entrance. It was a forty-ton Chonma-ho battle tank. The behemoth filled the road ahead of them, trundling between a row of barracks and a line of cement-block administration buildings.

The monster ignored them or maybe assumed they were allies. Either way, its long 115 mm gun was pointed toward the gate, ready to put an end to their brief insurgency.

“Get around it!” Gray yelled in Seichan’s ear.

Their only hope of escape was to outrace that beast of steel and fire, to reach that main gate ahead of the tank and get everyone moving.

Seichan bent low over the bike’s handles and took the first left turn into the narrow space between the barracks. With a scream of the engine, she slipped past the first barrack and skidded into the smaller lane that paralleled the main road. Opening the throttle, they flew down this new track.

Gray stared to the right as barracks flashed past, catching glimpses of the tank churning up the neighboring road.

We’ll never make it.

Even if the tank didn’t fire its big gun, they would be hard-pressed to clear the gate ahead of that trundling Goliath.

That is, until David appeared.

A smaller shape shot out of the smoke by the gate and raced toward the tank. It was Kowalski on his bike. Gray had radioed his partner earlier to pull back after he found Seichan. The big man must have reached the gates ahead of them—and plainly had his own solution to the problem of the battle tank.

Letting go of his motorcycle’s handlebars, Kowalski lifted his RPG-29 launcher to his shoulder and fired. The rocket flew the remaining distance and struck the tank head-on.

The explosion sounded like the earth cracking, accompanied by fire, smoke, and a rain of scorched steel.

Kowalski lost control of his bike, dropped it on its side, and skidded toward the burning tank, which continued to roll forward on its own, about to crush him.

Pushing the bike harder, Seichan got ahead of the slowing tank, turned at the next barrack, and swept to the main road. She plainly meant to go to Kowalski’s aid, but as their bike shot through a wall of smoke, they found the big man already on his feet, sprinting for the gate.

The guy was indestructible.

A glance back showed the front of the tank, blast charred and smoking. It was no longer a threat, but they were far from safe.

They reached the gates only slightly ahead of Kowalski.

He huffed and puffed, pointing to Gray, then to Seichan, catching his breath. “Next time . . . don’t be so goddamned late.”

The rest of the strike team prepped to leave, ready to scramble.

And for good reason.

Out across the prison, the headlights of jeeps and armored personnel carriers converged toward them.

“Time to go,” Gray said, staying seated on the bike with Seichan.

One of the Triad members rolled a new motorcycle up to Kowalski and patted his broad shoulder in appreciation.

From here, the plan was for the truck to make a run for Pyongyang, where the vehicle would be ditched and the team would scatter into the city, reaching various prestaged safe houses where new Chinese papers would get them back across the border.

Gray and company would be going a different route on the bikes, away from Pyongyang.

But they wouldn’t be going alone.

Guan-yin limped forward, favoring her right leg. Zhuang had an arm around her waist, his sword in the other.

Seichan tensed upon seeing her mother, but now was not the time for a happy family reunion. A resurgence of gunfire made this plain. Still, daughter and mother shared a glance through the smoke, awkward and uncomfortable, obviously needing time to process it all.

Even before the pair could reach them, a bike was brought before the Triad’s leaders. Zhuang slipped his sword into the sheath across his back and took the front. Guan-yin climbed behind him, never taking her eyes off Seichan.

The remaining members of the strike team gathered back at the truck.

With a final shout, the heavy vehicle trundled through the blasted gates, drawing the three bikes in its wake. Once beyond the prison, the group quickly picked up speed. A quarter mile later, a small river road branched off from the main highway.

Seichan swung the bike onto it, followed by the other two.

As the truck continued on toward Pyongyang, the three motorcycles swept through the marshlands bordering the Taedong River. Lit by bright stars and the blaze of a comet, the river flowed all the way to the Yellow Sea, only thirty miles away.

As they sped along, Gray noted Seichan glancing frequently into the rearview mirror. He knew she was studying her mother, but Seichan never slowed, keeping her bike ahead of the others, as if being chased by a ghost through the marshes.

And maybe she was.

The ghost of her mother . . . an apparition now given flesh and form.

But any reconciliation of past and present must come later.

Gray kept his gaze ahead, knowing what they still faced, and it was no simple task. Though they had escaped the prison . . . they still had to escape North Korea.

12

November 18, 7:22
P
.
M
. QYZT

The Aral Sea, Kazakhstan

“I want to test something,” Jada said.

For the first time, she wondered if this side excursion to this desolate landscape of blowing sand and landlocked rusted ships might be of value. Normally history held little interest for her, especially all this talk of Attila the Hun and the relics of Genghis Khan. But this mention of an ancient cross carved out of meteoric metal—
that
piqued her interest.

“According to everything you’ve told us,” she said, waving a hand to Father Josip, “the cross is the key to averting a disaster that is supposed to occur on the date inscribed on the skull.”

He nodded, glancing at a faded celestial calendar on the wall. It looked like it might have come from the time of Copernicus, with stylized constellations and astronomical notations.

“Roughly three days from now,” he confirmed.

“Right.” She glanced to Monk. “And we have confirmation from another source that also suggests a disaster on that date. One connected to the comet in the sky.”

Vigor and Rachel turned to Monk, clearly wanting to know what that confirmation was, but he simply crossed his arms.

The monsignor sighed, obviously irked at the secrecy. “Go on,” he encouraged her. “You said you might know how this cross could save the world.”

“Only a conjecture,” she warned. “But first I want to try something.”

She turned to Duncan.

All other eyes swung toward him too. He straightened from a slouch, his expression wary with surprise and confusion. “What?”

“Could you please unwrap the skull and the book?” she asked. “Place them on the table.”

She waited until he had done so, noting the distaste in his pinched lips as he handled the relics.

“You still feel an energy signature emanating from the objects, yes?”

“It’s there.” He rubbed his fingertips on his pants, as if trying to remove the sensation.

She faced the two priests. “If Genghis found this cross in Attila’s tomb, might he have carried it on his person? Kept it as some talisman on his body.”

Vigor shrugged. “After he read Ildiko’s account of its importance, I think that’s highly likely.”

“Genghis would consider it his duty,” Josip agreed, “to protect it during his life.”

“And maybe afterward,” Vigor added, motioning to the skull and book. He eyed her more closely. “Are you suggesting the cross somehow contaminated his bodily tissues, as if it were radioactive?”

“I don’t think it’s radioactive,” she said, though her hands itched to confirm that by examining the skull with the instruments she had left aboard the helicopter. “But I think the cross was giving off some sort of energy that left its trace on his body, altering his tissues perhaps at the quantum level.”