The Hunt for Atlantis (10 page)

Chase reached into one of his pockets and took out a small steel mirror, angling it so that he could see the far end of the passageway. As he’d expected, the movement attracted a couple of shots, but in the brief moment before pulling his hand back he saw all he needed. “One guy, last compartment, crouched low.” He nodded at Castille. “You up for it?”

“I’ll take the far side.”

“Uh-uh. You got the last bad guy for me. I’ll take the far side.” Chase prepared to jump out and take up a firing position against the outer wall of the corridor. It would give him a better shooting angle—but he would also be more exposed.

“My reverse psychology works again,” said Castille. He raised his rifle. “Ready?”

Chase did the same. “Fight to the end.”

“Fight to the end,” Castille echoed.

Chase reached up and yanked the communication cord.

The entire train shook violently as the emergency brakes slammed on, the wheels squealing over the track. Bracing himself, Chase waited for it to come to a standstill…

“And, go!”

Castille leaned around the corner and took aim. The soldier, still recovering from the sudden deceleration, saw him and emerged from his cover to take a shot. At the same moment, Chase sprang out and slammed against the opposite wall, dividing his quarry’s attention.

The rifles of both the former commandos barked at once. Before he even had a chance to fire, the soldier was dead, flung back into the compartment like a rag doll.

Chase heard Nina shriek in fright. “Come on!” he ordered, racing down the corridor. Castille followed.

The compartment door was jammed open by the soldier’s body. Chase didn’t stop running, instead diving forward just before he reached the door and landing in a perfect roll on the far side. A pistol shot punched a hole through the window inches behind him.

He’d glimpsed the compartment’s interior as he dived past, and signaled silently with one hand to Castille as he regained his footing. One hostage, one bad guy, standing. Go in three, two, one—

Both men whipped around the door, rifles snapping onto their target.

Mahjad stood with Nina in front of him, left arm wrapped around her waist, his army pistol pointed awkwardly at the door. His right hand held Chase’s Wildey, the muzzle pressed against her temple.

Nina was shaking. “Eddie!”

“Drop your guns!” Mahjad yelled. “I’ll count to three. If you don’t drop your guns by then, I’ll—”

Chase and Castille exchanged lightning-fast glances. “Three!” Chase snapped.

The two bullets hit Mahjad’s forehead barely a centimeter apart. The back of his skull blew out, the light in the room instantly taking on a scarlet tinge as the window behind him was splattered with gore. His body dropped to its knees, then slumped backwards and hit the wall with a sticky thud.

“Only amateurs talk,” Chase said to a nod of agreement from Castille, before turning his attention to Nina. Worryingly, she hadn’t responded in any way to the shooting, simply standing there. “Dr. Wilde?” She stared blankly at him. “Nina!”

She blinked. “What?”

“Nina,” he repeated, “keep your eyes on me, okay? Just keep looking at me, and take a step forward.”

“Okay…” she replied numbly, taking the step. Emotion began to return to her face—but not fear or shock. Instead, it was almost bafflement. “Why do I have to look at you?”

“Why, what’s wrong with looking at me?”

She took another step. “Well, er …”

Chase pouted. “Aw, thanks!”

“Nothing! No, there’s nothing wrong with your face!”

She waved her hands in frantic apology. “I just wanted to know why you want me to keep looking at you.”

He took hold of her hands, then quickly whisked her out of the compartment, stepping over the body of the soldier. “I just didn’t want you to see the guy with half his head missing, that’s all!”

She glanced down at the soldier, whose leg was sticking out into the corridor. “What, as opposed to the guy with the sucking chest wounds who just got blown away right in front of me?”

Chase shook his head. “Can’t please some people …”

“Oh my God!” she suddenly shrieked, the full impact of what had just happened finally hitting her. “You shot him while he had a gun to my head! What if his finger had twitched or something? He could have killed me!”

Castille emerged from the compartment, handing Chase his Wildey before using the key to unlock Nina’s handcuffs. “Actually, that hardly ever happens.”

“Not if you get ’em in the head,” Chase added. “Hit them in the body, that’s a different story. Hydrostatic shock, muscle spasms … But a clean head shot, almost never. He wouldn’t—”

Bang!

Nina shrieked.

“Ah,” said Castille apologetically, looking back into the compartment to see smoke rising from the barrel of Mahjad’s pistol, “he was a twitcher. I should have taken his other gun as well, n’est-ce pas?”

Nina glared at Chase. “I said almost never,” he complained as he checked his gun, then slid it back into its holster beneath his jacket. “Anyway, the trigger pull on a Wildey’s a lot more than that crappy little Chinese pistol he had … and why are we even talking about this? We need to get out of here!”

“How?” Nina demanded as she rubbed her sore wrists. “We’re still stuck in the middle of Iran! And what about Kari?”

“I’m working on that.” Chase glanced down at the dead soldier. “Is he the guy who had all our stuff?”

Castille nodded, pulling a satchel from the body. “Here.”

Chase quickly rummaged through it, taking out a mobile phone. “Here we go! Just hope I remembered to charge the battery.”

“What are you going to do?” Nina asked.

He smiled. “I’m going to phone a friend.”

Kari paced across the tiny room. Hajjar’s home, she’d seen from the helicopter, was no mere house in the country. Perched on a crag in the Zagros mountains, it was a mixture of palace and fortress, accessible only by air or along a single winding road.

And like any self-respecting fortress, it had its own dungeons.

No dank medieval cells here, though. The building’s overwrought architecture told Kari that it had been constructed some three decades earlier, bankrolled by somebody with lots of money, no taste and a domineering ego. That suggested the former shah of Iran. Some kind of retreat, a fortified Camp David with high walls and ridiculously ostentatious design.

Whatever its original purpose, it was now Hajjar’s domain, and Kari got the feeling she and Yuri Volgan were far from the first occupants of the dungeons.

Volgan, in the next cell, was being little help. Hajjar’s betrayal had sent him into a state of shock, and the mere mention of Qobras caused him to panic.

She turned her mind to Hajjar. He was playing an extremely dangerous game by trying to ransom her, almost certainly unaware of just how dangerous. Her father would move heaven and earth to get her back safely … but there was no way he would let the matter end there once she had been returned.

And nor would she.

She wondered how long it would be before Hajjar summoned them. Presumably he was trying to contact Qobras and her father, to make his financial demands of them both.

She had to use that time to attempt an escape.

“Excuse me,” she said, walking to the cell door and addressing the guard sitting outside. “I need some help.”

The guard frowned. “What?”

“I need to … you know.” She wriggled her hips, hands still cuffed behind her back. “Go.”

“And?”

“And, I was hoping you could take me.” The guard walked to the door, running his gaze over her figure. Kari gave him a look of innocent pleading. “Please?”

The heavyset, bearded man smirked. “Let me guess. You’ll ask me to open your coat for you, and then help you with those tight leather trousers, and I’ll get all hot and excited because I’m a repressed Iranian man faced with a beautiful blond woman, and then you’ll ask me to take off your handcuffs, and I’ll do it because I’m thinking with my dick, and then you’ll do some fancy martial arts to knock me out and escape. Is that about right?”

Kari shot him a sour glare. “You could have just said no.”

The guard laughed and returned to his seat. “I don’t get paid all this money to be an idiot. Nice try, though.”

Annoyed, Kari turned her back on him. Now all she could think about was what to do when she needed to use the toilet for real.

With Chase and Castille carrying the wounded Hafez, his leg hurriedly bandaged, they made their escape from the train.

Nina had no idea where they were going, or what Chase planned to do when they got there. His phone conversation had been entirely in Arabic, and in his rush to get away from the train before Iranian forces arrived he hadn’t been forthcoming with additional information.

The terrain was less severe than the area where they had met Hajjar, but it was still slow going, especially with an injured man. Fortunately, there was also more vegetation, and by the time Nina heard the first buzz of an approaching helicopter, they were in the cover of a wood half a mile from the railway line.

“So where are we going?” she asked. “Who’s this friend that you called? And how’s he going to find us? We’re in the middle of nowhere!”

Despite his pain, Hafez managed a smile. “Eddie has many friends,” he said. “All over the world.”

Nina looked across at Chase. “Even in Iran, where you’ve supposedly never been before?”

“Hey, I’m a popular guy,” he said with a shrug.

“His reputation precedes him,” added Castille.

“I’m sure it does. But if I can butt into your mutual admiration society, how about letting me in on your plan?”

“Well,” said Chase, “first thing is to get a lift out of here. There’s a road about a mile to the south. Some one’s going to pick us up.”

Nina surveyed the unfamiliar landscape. “How’s your friend going to find us? You don’t even know where we are!”

“I just described the landmarks. Easy enough to find ’em on a map.”

“Really?”

“It’s not hard; basic stuff. Then … we go and get Ms. Frost.”

“You know where she is?” Castille asked.

“Hajjar’s got a little country cottage about thirty miles from here. We’ll drop in and say hello.”

“I’ve heard about it,” warned Hafez. “Not an easy place to get into.”

“We’ve gotten into worse,” Castille remarked cheerily. “Like that time in the Congo—”

“Hugo,” Chase said, waving a finger. Castille made an “oh, right” noise and stopped talking.

“Let me guess,” said Nina. “Another country where you’ve never officially been?”

Chase cocked a conspiratorial eyebrow. “Something like that.”

They continued through the woods. The trees eventually thinned out, revealing a dirt road ahead. “Is this it?” asked Nina.

Chase scanned the area. “Should be. We need to look out for a stream running down from …” He pointed up at a nearby hill. “Down from there. That’s where she said she’d meet us.”

“She, huh?” Nina asked.

“What’s the matter, Doc?” Chase replied. “Jealous?”

“Oh, totally,” she replied, clapping a theatrical hand to her heart. Castille and Hafez chuckled. Chase snorted and led them down the road.

After another few minutes, they saw a vehicle ahead, a battered old van. Chase directed everyone back into the cover of the trees. “Wait here,” he said.

Nina watched as he slipped through the woods, moving with a lightness and agility that was almost comically at odds with his stocky build. The closer he got to the van, the lower he crouched, to the point where she practically lost sight of him. He paused ten yards from his target, then rushed over, disappearing behind it.

She realized Castille had drawn his gun, and even Hafez had armed himself with one of the rifles they’d taken from the train. “Just in case,” the Belgian assured her.

No sign of movement. They waited anxiously as the seconds ticked by … then Chase reappeared and waved.

“It’s safe,” Castille said, putting away his gun.

“What if somebody’s got him at gunpoint?” asked Nina.

“He would have held his thumb against his hand.”

“You guys love your little tricks and codes, don’t you?” she said, amused.

“It keeps us alive.” He lifted Hafez, Nina helping to support him as they started towards the van.

When they reached it, Chase was talking to someone inside the cab. “Everyone,” he announced, “I’d like you to meet a very good friend of mine who’s going to help us get our arses out of here. This is Shala Yazid.”

A young woman of about twenty-five stepped down from the van. She was extremely attractive—and also extremely pregnant.

“Oh my,” said Castille, unable to hold in a smirk. “This, I was not expecting. Something you forgot to tell us about your last visit, Edward?”

“You probably remember Hugo Castille,” Chase said, annoyed. “He was that very stupid Belgian with no manners.”

Shala smiled. “Of course I remember him. Although you had a …” She tapped her upper lip. “A mustache?”

“Yeah, and we’re all glad that’s gone.”

“Bonjour,” said Castille, with a half-bow. “And congratulations! I take it you married since I saw you last?”

“To a wonderful man,” she answered, beaming.

To Nina, Chase seemed momentarily put out, before recovering and introducing the others. “This is Hafez,” he said, “who’s been in better nick—”

“It is only a scratch!” Hafez insisted.

“—and the most important woman in my life right now, Dr. Nina Wilde.”

Shala gave Chase a look of delight. “You are married?”

“No!” Nina gasped.

“Bloody hell, could you say that any quicker?” Chase said with mock offense before turning back to Shala. “No, I’m her bodyguard. And God, her body needs a lot of guarding.”

“And you want to take her to Failak Hajjar?” asked Shala. “It will need even more.”

“I don’t want to take her to him, we only just escaped from the bugger’s mates. But he’s kidnapped my boss. We need to rescue her.”

“It will take an hour to get there,” Shala said. “Perhaps longer. I have a radio scanner in the van; there is a lot of police and military activity. Your doing?”

“Uh, yeah.” Chase rubbed his neck. “I sort of… crashed a train. Or two.”

“Oh, Eddie!” She batted a fist against his arm. “You are a wonderful man, and I appreciate everything you have done for my family—but do you have to destroy huge parts of my country every time you come here?”

“Hey, no civvies got hurt!” he protested. “Probably. I’m pretty sure the other driver bailed out okay …”

Shala shook her head in irritation, then looked at Nina. “Everything he touches is destroyed! He is ten years older than me, and he behaves like my little brother with his toys!”

“Mm-hmm,” Nina replied, nodding in agreement. Her tone became mischievous. “So how do you know Eddie? He keeps claiming that he’s never been to Iran. Officially, that is.”

“My family is, shall we say, no friend of the current regime,” Shala answered. “So we have provided help to undercover operations carried out by …” she smiled at Chase and Castille, “certain gentlemen.”

“Such as sabotaging the heavy water plant at Arak,” said Castille, smiling back.

Chase let out a series of loud fake coughs. “Classified!” he hacked. Castille’s smile became a sheepish grin. “Anyway,” Chase said impatiently, “we need to get moving. Hugo, you and the doc put Hafez in the back of the van. Did you bring the medical kit?” Shala nodded. “Great. We’ll patch him up on the move. Don’t suppose you’re the medical kind of doc, Doc?”

“No, and please stop calling me that.”

“Whatever you say, Dr. Wilde.”

“Better.”

“If you two are not married … you should be,” Shala said with a smile, stunning them both into silence as Castille and Hafez burst out laughing.

Kari looked up as another guard, armed with an MP-5 submachine gun, arrived. “Hajjar wants them.”

The bearded guard grinned at Kari through the bars. “If you’re lucky, maybe Hajjar will let you go to the toilet. I’m sure he’d love to help you with your clothes!”

She didn’t deign to respond, waiting impassively as they unlocked the door.

Shala pulled the van over at the side of a mountain road. “There,” she said, pointing.

Chase craned his neck to look. “Wow. That’s not what I expected.”

Nina followed his gaze. Up on the top of a steep rocky slope was a very incongruous building. “God, who designed that? Walt Disney?”

“The shah had it built,” said Shala. “It was one of his summer palaces, but he only visited it a few times before the revolution. After that, the mullahs used it as a retreat, until Hajjar bought it from the government.”

“It looks like a cartoon,” Nina observed. The building was practically a parody of a Persian palace, its upper levels crammed with minarets and domes. “I guess the shah didn’t have much taste.”

“I was going to say I thought it looked cool,” Chase remarked, “but I won’t bother now.” He surveyed the fortress through binoculars. “How do you get up to it?”

“From the outside, you can only get there up the access road or by helicopter,” said Shala. Castille let out a muted groan at the last word.

“No cable car?” asked Chase.

“No.”

“Shame. I always wanted to re-create Where Eagles Dare.”

“The access road is guarded, I assume,” Castille said.

Shala nodded. “Yes. There is a gate at the bottom, and there are television cameras along the road with another gate at the top. We have been watching Hajjar for some time; he usually has at least four men on guard. There is also an electric fence.”

Chase turned the binoculars to the surrounding hills. “Don’t suppose we could just blow up a power line and cut off the electricity, could we?”

“There you go again! And no, the fortress has its own generators.”

“Thought it might.” He lowered the binoculars, thinking. “You said from outside there’s only those two ways in. There’s something inside?”

“There is another way, yes.” Shala looked over her shoulder. “Dr. Wilde, please can you pass me the blue rucksack?” Nina complied, pulling it from among the other bundles in the van’s rear bed. Shala rifled through its contents, taking out a set of architectural blueprints. “My father obtained these before the revolution. He hoped to use them to get into the fortress and assassinate the shah, but unfortunately the revolution happened first.”

Nina frowned, confused. “Wasn’t the revolution supposed to get rid of the shah?”

“Different revolutionaries,” said Chase enigmatically.

“He decided to keep them in case the ayatollah stayed here, but he never did. Maybe they can help you, though.” Shala tapped a fingernail on the blueprint’s bottom corner. “There is a shaft up to the service basement level of the fortress. It was built for access to the sewage outflow that leads to the river.”

Nina wrinkled her nose. “Ew. They just pump it right into the river?”

“Literally crapping on the people,” said Chase. “But this shaft, we can get to it from the outflow pipe?”

“Yes. But there is one problem …”

Castille clapped a hand to his forehead. “Ah, of course there is.”

“The pipe,” said Shala, “it is … quite small. Too small for you to fit into, Eddie. And you too, Hugo, I am afraid.”

“No need to apologize,” Castille replied. “Crawling through a pipe full of merde? I have, as the saying goes, been there, done that… ruined the T-shirt.”

“So, too small for me and Hugo, eh?” said Chase. “Hafez isn’t in any state for it either, and we can’t exactly send you and the sprog …” A sly grin slowly appeared on his face. “Dr. Wilde …”

“Yes?” It struck Nina a moment too late exactly why he was smiling. Everyone looked expectantly back at her. “No!”

The upper levels of Hajjar’s home were as ostentatious and overblown as its exterior, Kari saw as she and Volgan were brought from the cells. The illicit trade in ancient Persian treasures had clearly been a highly profitable one, and it appeared Hajjar spent a good proportion of his profits on decorations and fittings made of gold. Unlike her own family, in this case wealth did not denote taste.