Threshold (19 page)

“Bastard is lucky to still be alive,” QP-Two said.

Queen took aim and shot him in the chest. The old man’s eyes launched open, wrinkling the flat, leathery brown skin of his forehead. He stood, saw their black masks and night vision goggles, and before he had time to fully register what he’d seen, fell face forward into Queen’s arms. She handed him to QP-One and -Two, who carried him outside and down the steps to where the others still waited.

As Queen walked down the steps, she activated her throat microphone and spoke. “Queen here. Edmundo Forero is ours. En route to second target.”

“Copy that, Queen,” came the voice of Dominick Boucher, who was sitting in for Deep Blue until he was able to free himself from the media shit storm.

“Out,” she said before disconnecting. With a quick hand signal she motioned for the team to move and they were off again, working their way through the town with Edmundo in tow. As hoped, the old man’s light frame combined with the downward climb allowed them to move just as quickly.

Reaching the bottom of the hill, they stopped at the edge of the main street. Tavio’s home, and their LZ, lay on the other side. But before they could make a move, a loud car engine roared at the top of the street. It was followed by the squeal of braking tires and the shouts of men. While the team fell back, Queen chanced a look up the mountain road and saw three jeeps, large machine guns mounted on each, and fifteen armed men flooding into Edmundo’s home.

Ducking into the shadows, she activated her throat mic again. “Mission has been compromised. Local authorities were tipped off.”

She didn’t wait for a reply before switching off and prepping her UMP submachine gun. She suspected they wouldn’t escape without a fight. A second set of engines, coming from below, confirmed her fears. She turned to the Delta team behind her and pointed to Edmundo. “Leave him and be ready to haul ass.”

The old man was placed on the ground were he would sleep peacefully through the chaos that would soon add more scars to the town.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Rome, Italy

THREE MISSISSIPPI!

Pierce stood, bolted out and around the debris they’d been hiding behind, raised his fist, aimed, and threw the only punch he was sure he’d get to make. Aiming was difficult in the darkness, but he saw the silhouette of a head and tried to direct his fist just below. Strike the throat … strike the throat … strike the—contact.

The impact was solid, knuckles on bone.

Not a soft throat.

And it took all of Pierce’s self-control to not shout out in pain. His fist ached and his arm tingled. But he had made contact.

A dull thud sounded as the attackee collapsed at his feet.

Pierce’s adrenaline surged as he realized he’d taken the guard out with a single punch to the head. For a moment he understood the rush King must feel when on a mission. Then King’s flashlight clicked on revealing the man he had attacked.

He was young and unconscious, dressed in a pink dress shirt, holding a black dress coat in his flaccid arms.

Not
a guard.

The light drifted toward the body at Pierce’s feet. When he saw the face, he stepped back with a hand to his mouth. “Oh God.”

King moved to the pretty young woman and checked her pulse. She was alive, which was good for her and his friend’s psyche. “She’s alive,” he said, then took her by the arms. “Get the guy.”

They dragged the couple who’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time behind the remains of the temple’s interior walls. King could see Pierce was distracted over hitting the woman. “It had to be done,” King said. “If you didn’t do it, I would have.”

“So this was a ‘can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs’ situation?”

King nodded. “Sometimes you have to be a bad parent to be a good parent.”

Pierce let out a quiet “Huh” as a memory of King’s sister returned. “Julie used to say that.”

With a grin, King said, “So did my dad.”

Pierce looked at his fist with a grin. “It was a good punch.”

King clapped him on the shoulder. “Would have made Jules proud.”

They both fought against laughing. They both knew that Julie had been a strident feminist who believed men and women should be treated equally in every way, including combat. Which is why she worked so hard to defy the system and become a fighter pilot. She really would have been proud.

King led him back to the northwest corner of the temple. To the north and east they could see the security guards closing in on their location—flashlights giving away their positions. King knelt down and motioned to where they’d hid the bodies. “They’re here for them.”

“You’re sure?”

“Well, maybe not exactly them, but they’re probably expecting to find drunk socialites pissing on a column, not…” King held up his weapon, letting it finish the sentence for him. “Let’s go.”

The series of foundation stones remaining within the long rectangular ruins of the Basilica Julia hid the pair as they snuck around the guards. They stopped directly across from the Lacus Curtius and looked to the right. The two guards, walking away from them toward the temple of Castor and Pollux were oblivious to their presence. But the guards approaching from the other side were now facing them, albeit from more than one hundred feet away. King quickly judged the distance and the intensity of the flashlight beams and decided it was too risky.

Then he saw all four flashlights turn toward the temple of Castor and Pollux. He grabbed Pierce’s shirt and pulled him up. “Let’s go!”

They hopped the small black fence and crouch-ran across the footpath. The ruins on the other side, along with a short, low-hanging tree, provided ample cover. Concealed again, they headed for the ancient pit long since covered. King was surprised to find the structure built over the pit to be constructed of metal poles and beams. The thing was solid and held a large flat roof at an angle to divert rainfall. They crawled beneath the low roof and inspected the site.

Aged rectangular blocks of white marble were laid out in grids on either side of a circular, layered pit. Two layers led down, like steps, to a flat, stone base. A stone on the top of the pit’s far side had been moved out of alignment with the rest, ruining the circle.

It was, in every way, unremarkable. Despite its mysterious origins, King could see nothing that made this site worthwhile … or worthy of a rain guard when the rest of the far more extravagant forum was left to brave the elements. “Why is this covered?” he asked.

Pierce scratched his head. “I’ve heard that before it was covered rain would collect there—” He pointed to the small basin. “And would leak through to whatever is beyond. They feared erosion would undermine the stability of the site and possibly the surrounding sites as well, so they covered it up. Why do you ask?”

“Just seems odd. What do you think is down there?”

“Aside from a chasm created by Zeus’s lightning bolt? The entire area surrounding this hill was a swamp before Rome was built. Today it would have been a protected wetland. They drained the swamps and built the city. Best guess is it’s an underground lake. This whole area of the city is probably full of underground rivers, too. Without the swamps, the whole system might be dry now, but really, who knows.”

King sighed. None of this was helpful. He stood to get a better look at the pit and hit his head on the low-hanging ceiling. The metal sheet sounded out like a gong. “Shit,” he whispered, knowing the guards would soon be upon them.

Ignoring the panicked whispers of Pierce and the distant voices of the guards, King focused his attention on the pit. Once again, there were no markers of any kind. Then he looked up at the ceiling. Its plain surface held no clues, either, but the two I-beams supporting the ceiling did. They were separated by five feet, each crossing over the circle of stones. He mentally stripped the ceiling away and pictured the I-beams over the circular pit.

King jumped into the pit, scouring every surface for something more.

“Did you find something?” Pierce asked, joining him at the bottom of the two-foot-deep depression. “The guards will be here any second!”

“The I-beams,” King said. “From above, they cross over the circle.”

Pierce saw the image in his mind. The symbol of the Herculean Society. But not quite. The circle was broken. “Help me move this,” Pierce said, taking hold of the misaligned stone. “Pull it back into the circle!”

The guards’ voices grew louder. Commanding. They’d found the bodies and discovered they hadn’t passed out, but had been knocked out. The squeal of distant sirens—police and medical—converged on the forum, which would soon be an inescapable quagmire of men in uniform.

And the stone wasn’t budging.

“We’re trying to force it,” Pierce said. “Maybe it’s a more complicated lever.” He placed his hands on top of the stone like he was about to do CPR chest compressions. “You pull. I’ll push.”

As the legs and feet of the approaching guards came into view, King nodded.

Pierce put his weight onto the stone and felt it drop a fraction of an inch. King pulled and the stone shifted easily, completing the circle and the Herculean Society’s symbol. They let go and moved back. The stone began shifting back into its previously unaligned position. It clicked into place as a flashlight cast it in yellow light.

The first guard to arrive drew his weapon and pointed it beneath the low ceiling where he thought he’d seen moving shadows. But the pit was empty and looked untouched. He stood and scanned the area, finding no one but his partner. If someone had been there, they were gone now.

TWENTY-NINE

Washington, D.C.

DOMINICK BOUCHER HAD
been wrong.

Not only had Marrs not backed down, but he’d responded to the vulture comment like something out of a Tazmanian Devil cartoon, spinning madly from rally to news station to rally again. With a beet-red face, he shouted at the media. At crowds. At the television audience. And despite the flying spittle and shaking jowls, people were listening.

He turned the self-serving vulture comment around on Duncan. “If one senator keeping the president accountable is enough to make him crack, how is he going to lead the nation?” he had said.

When the media picked up on the fact that Marrs was also responding in anger, he spun the story. “I’m responding to a man who has failed this nation several times. A man who’s inaction has led to the deaths of our children. I should be angry. Every good citizen of this nation should be angry. At Duncan for not preventing the attacks and at the people who perpetrated them. But who is our president angry at? Me! The office needs transparency. It needs accountability. If he can’t handle it, well…” With that he threw up his hands.