The Lucifer Sanction (25 page)

Neuberg placed a placed a hand onto his sheathed
dagger and made a desperate attempt to lunge at Hunter, but
the lunge only served to drive the lower arrow completely
through his abdomen, forcing it through the rear of his
chain-mail. The painful groan returned – an out of control
mix of nasal exhalation and low level laughter, as though
Neuberg was capitalizing on his dying breath. He moved a
hand inside of his chain-mail.

Bell leaned forward, suspecting Neuberg was
merely easing his discomfort. Dal stepped away and
pointed the Sig at the German’s forehead. Neuberg let out
a sick chuckle and Dal hesitated, lowered the handgun.

Bell allowed her feminine virtues to overcome her.
“If you’re not gonna put him out of his misery, least we can
do is make him a bit more comfortable.”

Dal tipped his head to one side. “You’re joking,
right Patrice?”
Neuberg let out a timely groan. Blake kicked at the
mud, reached a hand to Dal and said in annoyance, “Gimme
the fuckin’ gun. I’ll do it.”
Neuberg eyed Dal. The German groaned, “Why did
you stop?”
Dal glanced at Blake and back to Neuberg. “You’re
one crazy fuck, you know that?”
“A crazy fuck - yes, I am a crazy fuck,” Neuberg
groaned, his icy German eyes cutting into Dal, “but you
should have killed me.”
The broadsword lay by his side, out of view of the
three Americans. Neuberg held Dal’s stare as the fingers
of his right hand discretely manipulated the pommel. Dal,
Blake and Hunter had mutual respect for the man’s work
ethic, for his skill, his sharpshooting, for his professional
killing ability. They were one and the same – extremely
proficient killers sharing a mutual respect.
The German couldn’t quite pull the pommel from
the sword. He strained, dragged the sword across his chest
and passed it toward Dal. Hunter reached across as Neuberg
croaked, “Here, take care of this.”
As Hunter accepted the sword, the pommel detached
and a cylindrical devise rolled into Neuberg’s hand.
Hunter watched as Neuberg raised the odd cylinder.
His left arm was immobile, he couldn’t unscrew the cap. He
placed one end between his teeth, bit down hard and turned
the devise anticlockwise, grimacing as he simultaneously
removed a return disk from inside his surcoat. In an instant
he pressed the disk against his clenched teeth with sufficient
pressure to activate the digital readout. His eyes dropped to
the numbers flickering across the display. Eight, seven, six,
five, his face stretched, contorted. His breastplate emitted
short bursts of static electricity, like mini lightning bolts.
Hunter sensed panic in Neuberg’s eyes as the German
fumbled the devise. It began giving off a clicking sound
and Neuberg relaxed, satisfied he’d accomplished whatever
he’d set out to achieve. A slight buzzing aura glowed
around him. Dal, Blake and Hunter quickly backed away
and Bellinger shielded her eyes as she stumbled and fell
across the legs of a French bowman.
The glow came to an abrupt stop as though all
power had been shut down. Hunter cautiously returned to
Neuberg’s side.
Hunter asked, “What the fuck have you done,
man?”
“You should have . . .”
“What . . . what’ve you done?” He stared at the
object gripped in the German’s hand.
Again, the clicking.
Neuberg gave a half nod at the devise. “You should
have . . . killed me.”
Hunter placed a hand back of Neuberg. Felt the tip
of the arrow, felt the warm blood dripping through the man’s
chain-mail. He lowered his ear to Neuberg’s mouth. “I have
. . . I have . . .” Neuberg froze, coughed as blood splattered
from his mouth and sprayed Hunter’s face. Hunter backed
away, wiped his cheek. Neuberg increased his pressure on
the devise. Then with a look of shock: “Ah Scheiße! I have
reset incorrectly. I am going to . . .”
“Great,” Hunter said, “that’s just fuckin’ great. So
where are you goin’?”
“To the wrong year . . . the wrong . . .”
“To another place?” Hunter pried, “to the wrong
fuckin’ what?”
Neuberg rolled his eyes and Hunter shouted, “Hey!
Hey! Stay with us! Neuberg! Neuberg?” He grabbed hold
of the German’s shoulders, rolled him to one side. The
Iron Cross swung loose from its chain and tumbled to the
ground alongside Neuberg’s breastplate. Blake reached for
it, placed a hand on the Cross. Neuberg opened his hand
and revealed the three red ampoules. Blake paused, then
reached for them.
Get the ampoules, activate the discs
and we’re outa this fuckin’ hell and back to Zurich,
Blake
thought. He was just inches from Neuberg’s palm, from the
Lucifer ampoules. There was a blinding explosion of light
and Blake felt the charge shoot through him,
stun-gun
. A
moment later he squinted, thought
stun gun
and re-focused
on Neuberg but Neuberg wasn’t there. Neuberg had left the
year 1356.
Dal mumbled, “Fuck-up,” as he squatted alongside
Blake. “Zurich, huh?”
“Yeah, gotta be. Who else? They pulled him back
somehow. Dunno.”
Hunter asked, “So uh . . . wha’d’we do now?”
“We go home,” Blake groaned. “No ampoules –
mission’s done. We’ve gotta activate and get on back.”

Libra Facility
Zurich
April 3, 2015

Paul Danzig sat alone at the central control panel. A
steady bleep, bleep, bleep indicated Neuberg’s transmission,
and a series of wiggles and lines danced across a monitor
forming troughs and peaks. Beckman had a sense of
urgency in his step as he entered from the adjoining control
room. He reached for a hand piece and began mumbling
cryptically in German, “What is going on?”

“Are you sure?” Bosch shouted as he hurried into
the room. “Are you certain?”
Beckman punched in a sequence of coordinates.
Looked gloomy. He ran the sequence several more times
as all three hypnotically awaited the result. The monitor
blinked and numbers, dates, and coordinates began scrolling
down the screen.
Beckman sank back in his chair. Bosch lost control
of his bladder and Danzig seeing the pee pooling at Hans
Bosch’s feet took three quick steps away.
“Neuberg has activated the devise prematurely,”
Beckman groaned in a shaky voice. “He has incorrect
coordinates. Something is terribly wrong here.”
The information on the monitor was in source code.
Danzig pointed at the screen and asked, “What does that
mean?”
“A computer malfunction,” Beckman said. “I need
to gather the information required for configuration. I need
to reinstall the cache engine.” He switched to an alternate
system, checked the monitor, enabled the cache support
in the router and found the cache engine installation to
be corrupt. “I do not understand,” Beckman groaned in a
quivering confused voice, sweat dripping from his nose
splashing onto the keyboard. “The problem does not
appear to originate from Neuberg’s end. Someone has
tampered with our configurations . . . someone within
this facility.”
“But this is impossible,” Bosch snapped. “The
Frenchman, where is le Blanc?” He looked about and
shouted, “Where is that fucking Frenchman!”
His shout echoed through the corridors of Libra.
But the Frenchman was moving with stealth, down one
flight of steps, into another, scrambling, bumping the
walls, descending. He slammed through the storage room
doorway, startling d’Artagnan as he attached a transmitter
to a red collar. He jumped back, dropped the collar as le
Blanc buckled and began vomiting. He tried to speak, but
wasn’t able to perform both functions simultaneously.
“It is done, but . . . but . . .” and he eventually panted,
“Il est activé.”
“Neuberg?” d’Artagnan said with a questioning
look.
The Frenchman was momentarily incoherent. “Yes.
Yes. Oh my God. Yes, but the date. The date...”

Danzig, Bosch and Beckman stared at the monitor
in disbelief, each fixated on the reprogrammed detonation
date.

The coordinates: Forty-six degrees, thirty-seven
feet north, eight degrees, thirty-six feet east.
The city: Andermatt, Switzerland.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
September 20, 1356
Leap of Faith

The six riders dashed toward the nearest opening as
the French cavalry gained ground. Sir Nicholas removed
his breast plate and clumsily flung it aside, barely missing
Denis Campion whose mount flinched at the passing armor
and jarred its head sideways.

Blake shouted from behind, “What the fuck are
you doing?” His horse strained as it thundered through the
dust created by those ahead of him. Bell dropped back fifty
yards as she brought up the rear.

Sir Nicholas turned and bellowed, “Remove your
weight! It is no good to you where we are going!” His
voice was difficult to comprehend as he bounced about in
the saddle like a cowboy hanging on for dear life while bull
riding.

Dal discarded his helm and broadsword and booted
his warhorse alongside Hunter, their remaining armor
rattling about as each horse careened forward. Dal strained
to be heard above the sound of rattling armor. He shouted
back at Gardner Hunter, “Where the fuck are we going?”

“Look behind you,” Hunter shouted. “Those fuckers
are closing in too fast!”
“Get your discs out!” Blake shouted. “We’re gonna
activate . . . now!”
Bell finally threw off the last of her armor and was
down to hose, chain-mail, and a tunic. She shook her hair
free.
“You guys, your discs, activate them!” Blake
screamed.
All four pressed the edge of their green discs.
Nothing. They exchanged anxious glances.
Beyond the precipice the Dordogne River snaked
its way through fertile farmlands. Sir Nicholas reached
the edge ahead of the other riders, barely coming to a halt
before the fatal plunge of three hundred feet. Within seconds
Blake, Dal, Hunter, Bell and Campion joined him at the
edge. Nicholas dismounted and quickly shed his armor.
Hunter reared his horse. He shouted, “What’s with
these fuckin’ discs? What are we doin’ wrong?”
Bell gave Blake a questioning look and pressed
more firmly on the activation edge. But again – they were
still on the edge of the escarpment.
Sir Nicholas shouted, “I believe our only way to
survive is to throw ourselves at the mercy of the French!
They are not always merciless pigs!”
Hunter peered at the knight who had stripped down
to his surcoat and hose and was waving at the approaching
horsemen.
Blake grabbed a hold of Bell’s reins as she maneuvered her skittish mount a little nearer the edge.
“I’m not feeling good about this,” Bell shouted.
“Our discs, what’s wrong with them?”
Blake tugged at her reins, looked into her eyes, saw
the fear. Saw the tears beginning to swell. He’d never seen
her cry.
Dal yelled across to Blake, “These discs are fucked.
Aren’t we supposed to get back home alive? What happened
to ‘you’re here aren’t you’?”
Denis Campion tilted forward, the ride had opened
his wound and any further hard riding would end his life.
Blake leaned toward Campion, propped him upright and
shouted, “You okay, man? Don’t leave us now, we have to
go. They’re gonna bring us back to Zurich; we’re gonna
wake up back at Libra. Hang on, any second now. Keep
pressing your disc.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Campion called, mustering enough
energy for a half-nod. “I’m hurting something fierce. Those
guys at Libra, they . . . they better do it soon.”
Dal shouted at Blake, “I thought we had a guaranteed
round trip!”
“Yeah I remember,” Blake shouted back. “But
Moreau, he ain’t gonna go back!”
Campion turned to Dal and shook his head, not a
gesture Dal needed to see. The ginger bearded man threw
up a voluminous amount of blood, wiped the back of his
hand across chaffed cracked lips, tilted his head toward
Blake and grinned as his eyes rolled back in his head. Blake
shouted across the rump of Dal’s rearing mount, “Stay with
us! Hang in there Campion. We’re gonna go home!”
The ginger bearded man held the grin, then belched
another pint of near purple blood. He swayed and with one
hand firmly grasping the pommel, and steadied himself.
Campion slowly turned his mount, dug both spurs deep
into its flank and bolted the short distance toward the
precipice.
Sir Nicholas scurried back to his charger, remounted,
gave a short look to Bellinger, smiled and nodded, suggesting
he was always aware of her disguise. Within five seconds
he was at full gallop toward the nearest of the French. He
shouted a war-cry and waved his sword above his mount’s
ears. He severed the first Frenchman’s arm with one quick
blow, turned to Blake as the next two riders swooped upon
him. Nicholas ducked, swerved the first blows, swords
bouncing off his shoulder armor. Exhausted he succumbed
to the volley of blows, his smile dissipating as blood ran
from his lips. He looked back at the group hovering on
the edge of the precipice, and mouthed the words, “I’m
sorry.”
Blake was in a quandary, torn between watching
Campion’s charge over the cliff and Sir Nicholas’s charge
into the French. Hunter savagely wheeled his mount about,
gave Blake a look of
what the fuck do we do.
He gestured
to Sir Nicholas and shouted to Blake, “We can’t just leave
him!”
But it was too late. The French were too close – just
two hundred yards off.
Gardner Hunter felt Bell’s eyes, he didn’t want to
turn, tried to retain a confident demeanor.
Patrice Bellinger closed her eyes and was in his
arms, back in Burma, back in China, back anyplace but
France, anyplace other than this hellish era. Hunter took a
firm hold of her reins, held her mount steady. It twitched,
sensing the approaching charge. As his mount pranced
about, he saw the fear in Bell’s eyes.
Tears flowed freely as Hunter reached across and
gave her a final hug. He turned away and raised a sword .
. . made a saluting gesture to Blake. Again they attempted
disc activation, attempted transportation. Nothing.
The French riders drew nearer, massive chargers
with necks outstretched and nostrils flaring, their riders
anticipating the bloodbath.
French colors flapped furiously in the wind of the
charge, pennants held high by some, while others carried
outstretched lances and waved broadswords, lusting to
slash into the group ahead. Hunter recalled Sir Nicholas’s
words
the French are not always merciless.
He pondered
the idea of dismounting, of pleading for mercy, considered
it, thought of what they’d do with Bell. The consideration
lasted a few seconds, long enough to blink, to shake off the
foolishness. With the idiocy gone he wheeled Bell’s mount
about and Blake snapped out a shout, “Try the fuckin’ discs
again. What the fuck! Jesus Christ! Go! Go! Go!”
The French cavalry were now less than one hundred
yards off.
Fifty yards separated them from the edge of the
world as they spurred their mounts at full gallop in the
direction Campion had headed. Fully stretched and with
every fiber of sinew straining to clear a nonexistent hedge,
their skyward leap began. The four appeared to sprout wings
and leap away from land. But there was ho hedge. There
was no solid ground... and they tumbled. They were falling
uncontrollably. Three horses tumbling, tumbling, riders
shouting as though pleading with their mounts to secure
firm footing. Each rider entered into a crazed free fall as
they became dislodged from their saddles, one bumping
against the other, flailing legs being bumped by the weight
of frenzied, wide eyed horses. Hunter caught a glimpse of
Blake spinning about alongside of him. Spinning. Shouting.
What were seconds seemed an eternity. They had no safety
net, no padded landing.
The Dordogne River lay three hundred feet below.
”Your discs,” Blake shouted, “activate your discs,
try them again . . .”
And in the warmth of that humid French evening,
their echoed screams would come to an abrupt end in the
raging waters of the Dordogne.
Blackness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Dig Site
Andermatt, Switzerland
January 4, 2044
11:08 A: M
The Note