The Monarch (35 page)

The vent was welded shut. He kicked at it a few times, but did little more than dent it. Spotting a fire extinguisher on the far wall, he grabbed it and then used it as a battering ram against the perforated metal. On about the twentieth bash, the seal finally let go on one edge. A few minutes later he'd managed to bend the edges back far enough to allow him to squeeze through.

He heard a tearing sound as he pulled his legs out and realized he'd ripped his duster. Again. Or so he presumed, since he couldn't see anything. The room he'd entered was darker than the tunnels, but thankfully it was cool and relatively quiet. His teeth still buzzed from the pound of the generators.

He flipped open his cell phone and used the glowing display as a dim flashlight. He made his way around the edge of the room, seeing what looked like empty display cases every few feet. Following a bend in the wall, his extended hand slipped across something cool and metallic. He felt around and realized they were elevator doors. But better than that, he found light switches on the other side of the elevator. He flipped them on and squinted against the glare until his eyes adjusted to the brightness. When they did, he couldn't believe it. He was in Kring's private vault. Of all the places to end up! The irony annoyed him.

Lew looked for the button to summon the elevator, but couldn't find it. The only thing near the door besides the light switch was a numeric keypad.

“Seriously?” Lew said, looking back up at the door. He wasn't going anywhere.

“D
AD!”
N
ATALIE RUSHED
into the elevator under the guns Jonathan was holding and hugged him. He put the guns away, dropped to one knee, and squeezed her. Then he pushed her back so he could look at her, while Emily held the elevator door open.

“Did they hurt you? Are you all right?” Jonathan asked, checking her for wounds.

“I'm fine. Sophia saved me!” Jonathan stood up and looked at Sophia, who appeared to be heading out for a camping trip.

“Is that true?” When the elevator door had opened, all Jonathan had seen was someone standing there, so he'd instinctively stepped in front of Emily and pointed his guns. Sophia, seeing the guns, didn't cower or run. Instead, she'd shielded Natalie from the sudden threat with her body.

“I didn't do anything,” Sophia said, looking at Emily.

“Oh, Emily, this is Sophia. Sophia, Emily,” Jonathan said introducing them. “And I somehow doubt that.”

“We need to get out of here,” Emily said, looking at her watch. They had minutes, at best. And no idea where Lew was.

“What about Lew?” Emily said, as if reading his mind. Jonathan looked at the two women and his daughter and was suddenly very aware he was the only one with a weapon. Then he made a hard choice.

“Emily, we have to go. Our time is up,” Jonathan said. Emily looked at him and then down at Natalie. She finally let go of the door and they stepped into the elevator, heading up to the surface.

“Thomas flew you here?” Sophia said when Jonathan explained how they'd gotten there. She was standing with her back to the elevator door as the car slowly crawled up. “And he's going to fly you out of here?”

“That's the plan,” Jonathan said. The elevator dinged that they'd reached the main floor.

“Where's your sister?” Emily asked Sophia.

“I have no—­”

“
Down!
” Jonathan shouted as the elevator doors opened. Lara stood twenty feet away, a gun leveled at them. He wanted to pull his weapons and shoot, but his first reflex was to protect Natalie. He grabbed both Natalie and Emily and pushed them against the side wall, gunshots already echoing. Jonathan looked up and realized Sophia was still standing there with her back to the door, looking at them without understanding what was happening.

The first three shots slammed into the back of the elevator, chips of Formica and aluminum ricocheting around the elevator car. The last three hit their mark, the slugs thunking into Sophia's backpack. She grunted as she was smacked against the back of the elevator before she collapsed to the floor. Natalie screamed.

Jonathan went to pull his guns, but he realized one was missing. Emily had already grabbed one and was firing wildly out of the elevator. He grabbed his remaining weapon and came around the edge of the elevator door firing. The sound in the confined space was excruciatingly loud, but their shots were in vain. Lara had already run out the complex's front door into the courtyard. After exchanging an incredulous glance with Emily, Jonathan checked on Sophia, while Emily kept her weapon pointed out the elevator door. Blood on the back of the elevator wall told him at least one of the bullets had found its mark.

He unhooked her backpack and tossed it away so Sophia could lie flat. The pack's interior had captured two of the slugs, but one had passed through into Sophia's shoulder. The shot looked through-­and-­through, but she was bleeding a lot. Jonathan wanted to help her but precious seconds were ticking away.

“Put pressure on her wounds. I'll be right back,” Jonathan said, running to the courtyard door and pressing himself against the wall. Something bumped him and he realized Emily had come with him and was pressed against the wall beside him.
Lew, I hope you're okay because this is a match made in heaven.

“Wait here,” Jonathan said before he jumped out, ready to fire. But there was no danger in the courtyard. No Lara. No Nathan. But it wasn't completely empty; Thomas lay on the ground at the far edge, a knife sticking out of his back. Jonathan looked around to be sure he wasn't walking into a trap, and then made his way around the perimeter of the courtyard. His cell phone rang when he was halfway. He answered it as he continued to walk, scanning the area for attackers.

“Where the hell are you? We've got trouble up here. I need your help,” Jonathan said, a strange buzzing coming from the phone.

“Yeah, that's going to be a problem,” Lew said.

Jonathan reached Thomas's body and knelt beside him. He put two fingers on his neck.

“Looks like there's no rush,” Jonathan said, standing up. “We just lost our ticket out of here. Thomas is dead.”

“What? Who killed him?”

“I didn't see it, but my money's on his psycho girlfriend,” Jonathan said, realizing the buzzing wasn't coming from the phone. It was above him. He eased back toward the complex, scanning the skies, until he found the source of the sound banking toward them from the east. It looked like a small airplane but before he could identify it, the craft seemed to buck up in the sky as something fell away from it.

“What the hell?” Jonathan said.

Then the missile's engine ignited. It screamed across the sky, leaving a vapor trail behind it. And it was headed right for them.

“
Jesus!
”

Jonathan jumped up and ran straight inside the complex, not caring if someone was watching or not. The three girls were just outside the elevator where they'd dragged Sophia, a bloody trail smeared across the floor. A bag was open beside her and Emily was wrapping gauze around Sophia's shoulder.

“We've got to go! Now!” Jonathan yelled, shoving the phone and gun into his pockets. He ran over to them and moved to pick Natalie up. She pushed his hands away.

“No, Dad. Help Sophia,” Natalie said.

Jonathan could still hear Lew shouting from his phone but he couldn't stop to explain. An explosion reverberated from outside. The complex hadn't been the target. At least not the primary target.

“What the bloody hell was that?” Emily asked.

“Our luck running out,” Jonathan said, picking Sophia up. Her blood-­soaked shirt was gone and she was wearing just a black sports bra. He noticed that Emily's field dressing was almost textbook. Not bad for a writer.

“My . . . bag,” Sophia said, wincing.

“Got it!” Natalie said. Jonathan was shocked and proud at his daughter's behavior, but he didn't have time to tell her.

“Let's go!” Jonathan said, running out of the complex with Sophia in his arms, Emily and Natalie behind them.

Thick, black smoke rose up over the hill, just about where the landing strip was. Suddenly not having a pilot didn't matter. Apparently the attack's first strike was to destroy the target's egress. The plane was gone. As he ran toward the edge of the courtyard, Jonathan heard the drone's engine again. Up to the right, he saw
two
rocket engines ignite.

“Faster!”

They reached the edge of the courtyard just as missiles slammed simultaneously into one of the outbuildings and the main complex. The blast wave knocked everyone into the jungle like paper dolls in a wind.

Jonathan's head rang and it took him a second to realize someone was yelling at him. Slowly the ringing faded and the world swam back into focus.

“Dad, you're hurting me!” Natalie said in his grasp. He didn't even remember grabbing her.

“Sorry, honey,” Jonathan said, releasing his grip. Sophia was in the vegetation a few feet away looking no worse than she had. Even her bandage had held. Emily was on her feet, leaning against a tree, shaking her head. At first he thought she was trying to clear the ringing in her ears, but then he saw she was crying and her head shaking was from despair, not physical pain. She was looking behind him.

Jonathan turned and saw what was affecting her. The smoke was still clearing, but they could see the flattened complex now. He felt like he'd been kicked in the gut. He fumbled the phone out of his pocket.

“Lew!
Lew!
”

The line was dead.

Jonathan looked up at the carnage again. Chances were the levels had pancaked all the way down to the vault. It was a miracle the natural gas holding tanks down there hadn't ignited. Even unignited, they had probably been breached. If Lew had survived, his good fortune would be short-­lived. And the attack wasn't over. He tried to call Lew back, but there was no answer.

“Where's Uncle Lew? Was he in there?” Natalie asked.

“I . . . I don't know, baby,” Jonathan said, fighting to keep any quavers out of his voice. Then, over all the mayhem, he heard the buzzing again. He pushed up to his feet. If they were lucky, they had a few minutes while the drone reconnoitered the damage. The hangar and one of the outbuildings were still intact.

“Sophia,” he said, helping her sit up. “Is there a boat or any other way off the island?”

“There's no boat, but there's a helicopter about a kilometer to the east,” she said. She rooted through her bag and then gave herself an injection. “For the pain,” she said when she saw Jonathan watching her.

“You wouldn't happen to have a pilot in that bag, would you?” he said.

“I can fly it, if it's still there,” she said.

“Is it out in the open?” Jonathan asked, wondering why there hadn't been an attack down there.

“It's stored under some camouflage netting,” she said. They still had a chance. But was she in any shape to fly? Then he thought of something that put a pit in his belly.

“Can your sister fly it?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. She started to get up and almost fell back down. Jonathan caught her and helped her up to her feet.

“Do you think that's where your father and Lara are headed?” Jonathan asked.

“There's nowhere else to go, especially with that thing flying around,” Sophia said. “If he's alive he's headed there and he'd need Lara to fly him out. I'd say it's a safe bet.” Jonathan nodded, noticing Sophia's lack of concern about whether her father was alive or not. He turned his attention to Natalie.

“We've got to go, baby. Emily, are you going to be all right?” Jonathan asked. He was trying not to think about what was devastating her. The only thing that mattered now was getting Natalie off this island before the drone fired its remaining missiles.

Emily took a deep breath and managed a nod. She was far from all right, but she knew the situation they were in. Jonathan wanted to try to call Lew again, but he was afraid of what the act would do to Emily. Maybe the vault's reinforced walls . . . but that was just wishful thinking. And it was distracting. He needed to focus.

“Let's go,” Jonathan said. The foursome skirted the edge of the courtyard and then headed up the road that led to the chopper pad, Jonathan with his arm around Sophia in the lead, Natalie and Emily trudging behind them.

High overhead, he could still hear the buzzing, but he ignored it. Looking would serve no purpose. From what he could tell, the drone had launched three of its
smaller
missiles. His military knowledge was pretty rusty, but they looked like Hellcats. And it still had one left. A direct hit would be deadly, but what concerned him more were the two larger tubes hanging under the bird. Hellcats were twenty-­pound firecrackers compared to what looked like five-­hundred pound bombs. Just
one
of those would give the entire island a very bad day.

As they walked, he tried not to think about Lew. But it was impossible. Lew was more than a friend. He'd lost a brother.

“W
HAT DO YOU
mean, you killed her?” Nathan said as he motored his way up the road in his wheelchair with Lara trotting beside him. Lara felt the electronic question as if it were a slap in the face, blinking and rocking her head back. “You idiot.”

She was sure it was the disease slipping through. After receiving a look that had approached pride when she'd killed Thomas, Lara had expected more of the same or congratulations for killing her disloyal “sister.” He had to hate her as much as she did. Even so, she'd had more than her limit, money or no.

Over the past few days, Lara had done things—­incredible things—­she would never have thought she was capable of. She felt accomplished, significant, and dangerous. Her father should be treating her as such.