Treasure of Babylon, page 15
part #2 of Avalon Adventure Series
“Where did they go?” Riley asked.
“They have a boat on the fjord,” Selena said. “It’s his escape pod in case of the police raiding the place.”
“Don’t fjords freeze?” Charlie said
“They’re full of water from the ocean,” Riley said. “So that means higher salt content and a warmer temperature, so not usually no.”
“I had no idea you were so knowledgeable,” Diana said.
“Thank Sergeant Farrell and his Arctic warfare training.”
“We’ll do career history later,” Decker said, loading his gun. “Right now, we’ve got to stop Hagen before they get away.”
25
Selena stared out across the water. Hagen’s fjord yacht was disappearing into the growing snowfall now swirling all around them. “I see them!” she yelled. “At least I think I do.”
“Where?” Decker said.
“There, to the right.”
He strained to see through the snow. It was hard to make out, but he thought he could just about see the white-painted stern of the yacht as it vanished into the snowstorm. He could just about hear the sound of what sounded like a five horsepower outboard motor coming from where he had seen the ghost ship. “That’s them all right, but we’ve got to hurry. If we lose them in these conditions we might never find them, or Atticus, again.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Riley asked.
Karin said, “Maybe we should wait for the police back-up? They said they’re nearly here.”
The Australian twisted his lips. “Nah, sorry Karin, but that’s not exactly blowing my skirt up, I gotta tell ya.”
“Huh?”
“He means he doesn’t like it,” Decker said. “And I’m with him. I say we jump in this tender and get after them ourselves.”
They jumped into the tender and Karin fired up the motor. “Is everyone in safely?”
“Gotta love Norwegians,” Riley muttered.
“Sure, we’re all in safe,” Decker said.
She lowered the midsection into the cold water and when the propeller broke the surface the streamlined tender lurched forward into the water. Selena watched the small jetty become rapidly enveloped in the blizzard and then they were in a world of white. They were totally isolated now, just a few people in a small boat in the middle of a fjord in a snowstorm. She’d had better days.
“Where are they?” Riley said.
Decker pointed off their port side. “They’re over there now.”
“Eh?”
“Looks like they’re turning,” Karin said. “He’s trying to leave the fjord and head out to the coast.”
“Makes sense,” Riley said. “It’s an ocean-going yacht after all. He knows the only way we could chase him is in this tender, and this thing ain’t making it in the Norwegian Sea, you can bet the farm.”
“We still have the advantage,” Decker said. “I heard the motor and no way is it any more powerful than five horsepower. It’s a thirty foot yacht designed to sail so that’s not going to do much to get them out of this fjord. We’re much smaller so we can make better speed, but we have to find them first.”
“And then we have to get on board,” Selena said. “He’s hardly going to stand around doing nothing while we climb up the ladder and board his floating palace.”
“Just leave that to me,” Riley said.
“No,” Karin said. “Leave it to me. We’re still in Norway and I have jurisdiction.”
Decker turned to the stern and looked at her. “I’m not convinced he respects Norwegian law, Karin.”
“Damn right, he doesn’t,” Riley said. “He wants to settle things the hard way, so the hard way he gets.” He unclipped the magazine from his Glock and counted the remaining rounds. Smacking it back into the grip, he stuffed it into the belt of his jeans and wiped the mist from his face. “Fucker.”
Karin sighed. “At least let me try and arrest him… read him his rights.”
“Fine,” Decker said. “You read him his rights and we’ll find Atticus.”
The mist was mow turning into a sea fog and it was now almost impossible not only to see Hagen’s yacht, but even just a few meters ahead of them. “This is getting very dangerous,” Karin said warily. “We could run into anything and capsize. If that happens we don’t stand a chance out here in this storm.”
“We keep going,” Decker said. “I didn’t give up a perfectly good cargo business to roll over at the first sign of trouble.”
Riley patted him on the back and laughed. “Thanks mate, I needed that.”
Decker looked confused. “What did I say?”
“There!” Selena said. “I see them over there on our right.”
“Starboard,” Decker mumbled.
The sea fog was lifting and they had moved into a patch of clearer visibility. There, on their starboard side less than one hundred meters off their bow they saw the yacht. It was heading out to sea just as Karin had predicted.
Riley turned to the Israeli at the back of the boat. “Are you giving it all she’s got, Moshe?”
“Everything.”
“It’s taking forever!” Riley said. “They’ll be out at sea before too long and then we’re buggered. We don’t have the fuel and we’re not big enough to handle the conditions out there.”
“Take it easy, Riley,” Decker said. “We’re getting there – just another few minutes. We’re faster, remember.”
Drawing closer to the yacht now, Golan gripped the tiller and fought against the wake of the giant boat to keep the tender as steady as he could while the others got ready to board.
Decker shielded his eyes from the sea spray and held onto the rail as the tender struck the side of the yacht and nearly knocked him overboard. “Dammit Moshe!”
“This isn’t easy, you know!”
When Golan had brought the tender back under control, Riley saw the first opportunity to board the yacht and reached out for one of the ladders toward the stern, but then they saw men running through the mist.
“Bugger it,” Selena said. “They must have heard us hit the side of the boat.”
Without hesitation, Riley jumped up into the yacht and fired on the men who were making their way through the sea spray along the port side of the super yacht. He hit the first man in the chest and blasted him over the rail into the fjord, but the second took evasive action and found some cover in a doorway.
Riley fired on the man’s location. He knew he couldn’t hit him, but he had to keep him pinned down inside the yacht to give the others time to get on board.
Selena scrambled up next and slammed down next to him on the deck and then Decker joined them at the rear. Golan dropped back away from the yacht but stayed in sight. If their plan was going to work the tender was the only way back to shore, but they had to rescue Atticus first.
“Fight first, ask questions later,” Riley said with a mischievous smirk. He raised his gun and fired on the men standing above them on the mid-deck. They returned fire and raked the lower deck with rounds but it just charged the Aussie SAS man up more than ever. “Come on! Let’s give them hell!”
*
Charlie Valentine raised his gun and pushed open the door of the room marked KORHONEN LAB 1. He and Diana were expecting something from their worst nightmares, but when they got into the room they found only a series of empty cages and the door at the far end of the lab swinging shut.
“What the hell is this place?” Diana said.
Charlie scanned inside the cages. “Looks like Korhonen’s little Bed and Breakfast, where he kept his freaks fed and watered while he experimented on them.”
Chains that had once held the superhumans in place now hung loosely down from their wall fittings. Beds and tables were upturned, and Charlie noticed a gun cabinet on the wall in what looked like an office. It was empty, and several empty boxes were strewn in the floor.
He stooped to pick one up.
“What are they?” Diana asked.
“Elephant tranquilizers,” he said quietly. “Not digging this, I can tell you.”
“Me neither. What the hell kind of person needs elephant tranquilizers to subdue them?”
“Whatever the hell was going on in here, and whoever was doing it, it’s not happening now. They must have activated some sort of escape protocol.”
“Charlie, look!”
“What is it?”
Diana was standing at the office window and pointing outside. “They’re down there!”
Charlie looked and saw what had happened. A fire door from the lab led down directly to an inner courtyard, and now a man in a white lab coat was closing up the back of a transport truck and running around to the driver’s door.
“Dammit! We’re too late.”
The man he presumed was Mikko Korhonen had escaped with the subject of his experiments and was now pulling out of the compound and driving down toward the main road. He was already half a mile away, and slowly he vanished into the swirling snowstorm.
*
Selena hit the deck and crawled around the starboard side of the pool as she made her way to Riley. He was taking cover in the aft door to the engine room. Decker bobbed up from behind the fuel store hatch and fired on the men again, giving Selena the cover she needed to make it to the Australian without getting shot.
When she was safely in the cover of the engine room door, Decker broke cover and darted around the side of the pool. Bloch and Kurz fired on him aggressively, their bullets chasing him and drilling into the deck a few inches from his feet until he dived into the cover beneath the overhanging deck and joined the others.
“I think we can get to the bridge this way,” Riley said.
“How do you know that?” Selena asked.
“This,” he said with a grin, and pointed to a deck plan of the yacht fitted into the back of the engine room door. “According to this, there’s a pantry just forward of the engine room, and then there’s a spiral staircase leading up to the main cabins. From there it’s just a leisurely jog along another corridor to the main lounge and then another staircase until we’re at the bridge.”
“We have no idea they’re holding Atticus on the bridge,” Decker said.
“When you storm a ship, mate, you take the bridge first. When we have control of that, we’ll find old Atticus.”
Getting to the bridge was easier than they thought. “This place is like a ghost ship,” Riley said as he looked over the control panel.
Decker frowned. “They’re up to something.”
Then they heard the sound of a chopper over their heads.
“They have a helicopter?” Selena said. “I never saw that.”
“Must have been concealed in the top deck,” said Decker.
They sprinted up a flight of steel steps on the port side and reached the top deck where the rotors of a Bell Jet Ranger were now almost at full speed. Lechner was dragging Atticus across the deck toward the chopper, but when Riley opened fire Kurz and Bloch returned fire with a vengeance, forcing them into cover.
Decker fired back, striking Lechner in the shoulder. The pain forced him to release Atticus as he crawled up into the chopper and the old man staggered over to where his daughter and her friends were taking cover.
The mighty machine lifted up into the air above the yacht. Hagen was at the controls, Moser beside him and in the back they caught a glimpse of Marchand as well. Hagen now gave them a mocking salute as he turned the helicopter in the air and flew away into the mist.
Atticus finally reached them, full of apologies.
“Forget about it,” Decker said. “At least you’re safe.”
Riley turned and watched the cliffs as they raced toward the yacht. “Am I imaging it, or are we about to smash into those cliffs?”
“Shit!” Decker said, and they sprinted back down to the bridge as Golan pulled in closer to the yacht.
“Get the wheel!” Riley said.
Selena snatched hold of the enormous wheel and pulled it to the left with all her strength. “Riley! Mitch! Someone please tell me just where the brakes are!”
Despite her best efforts to turn the enormous vessel, the super yacht was still speeding toward the rocky cliffs of the fjord’s northern shore. “It’s a boat, Lena,” Decker called out. “Like a plane, it doesn’t have brakes.”
“Ah…”
“Just throw the engines into reverse!”
“And where would I find those?” Selena said.
Decker scanned the control panel as fast as he could, locating the throttles to the right of the wheel. He reached out for them and pulled them back into reverse as fast as possible. The engines roared in response, sending a deep, vibrating growl through every fiber of the luxury yacht.
Decker was now at the wheel, holding it hard as the boat grumbled to a stop in the water, which it did with just a few inches to spare. As the tip of the bow gently scraped along the cliff face, they all breathed a sigh of relief.
“Pardon my Castilian,” Atticus said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and mopping his brow. “But that was too fucking close for me, old chap.”
“We have to get after that chopper!” Riley said. “Redirect the cops or something!”
“No,” Atticus said calmly. “No, we don’t. They don’t have what they need. All he has is Babylon and the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and Marchand. I don’t rate his chances.”
“Babylon?” Decker said.
As he spoke, Golan stepped up into the bridge. “Tender’s on the stern. Someone say something about Babylon?”
“Sure,” Decker said. “Atticus here was just explaining that the symbols on the key inside the Angel of God give the location of the Ark as Babylon.”
“But that’s not even fucking there anymore,” Golan said. “I don’t understand.”
Atticus explained. “The symbols say the Ark of the Covenant was stolen by the Babylonians when they raided the Holy Lands.”
“The Babylonians? You’re sure?”
Atticus nodded. “Yes, they took the Ark back to the heart of their empire and it became just another part of the famous Treasure of Babylon.”
“So where does that leave us?” Decker asked. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but like Moshe just said, Babylon doesn’t even exist anymore! If the Ark was transported to Babylon after the invasion and as neither Babylon nor the palace exist anymore, is this not what you call a dead end?”
“Yes, if you’re Tor Hagen, but no, if you’re me.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I’ve already told you that the Treasure of Babylon was stored in the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, old boy.”
“But you also said that doesn’t exist either!”
Selena said, “Exactly.”
“Then, still not getting it.”
“It’s simple,” Atticus said. “The Treasure of Babylon was stolen a second time in history, by the invading armies of Alexander the Great, who actually died in the palace. It just so happens that one of his key generals, Antipater was known to keep very good records of all the various spoils of war they accumulated on their conquests.”
“Still. Not. Getting. It,” Riley said.
Atticus sighed. “Soldiers…a recent excavation in Iran has revealed what we’re certain is the residence of Antipater, where he lived after the king’s death. The dig itself is still very hush hush, but there is talk of the great general’s tomb being nearby. If that’s not the best place to look for the Ark, then I don’t know where is.”
A smile lit up Selena’s face. “And without the knowledge about the excavation, Hagen’s screwed.”
“Right,” Atticus said. “There are many competing theories as to where the Ark was taken after it was stolen – Babylon is one of many. The symbols on the key make it clear it was stolen during the Siege of Jerusalem and taken back to the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar. That gives us a distinct advantage over the piece of human garbage that is Tor Hagen.”
“But if the dig is so hush hush, then how do you know about it?” Decker asked.
“It was done by an old friend of mine.”
“I think we need to see this friend,” Decker said. “Don’t you?”
Atticus grinned. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
26
Iran
The following day Selena was waking up over the vineyards and rice paddies of Zanjan Province. A few hours in Bucharest had enabled everyone on board to stretch their legs wile Decker refuelled the Avalon and continued never-ending maintenance on the vintage aircraft.
Counting both legs, they had been in the air for nearly twenty-four hours now, and she felt a strange blend of exhaustion on the one hand and a compulsion to reach the tomb before Hagen on the other. She had tried to sleep, but her mind was buzzing with the thought of finding the Ark to such a degree that any rest was impossible, and the only cure was to finish the mission.
Like everyone else, she was pleased they had finally given Hagen the slip and had a solid clue as to the location of the Ark, but the fact he and Moser were still out there worried her. They were the type to hold a serious grudge, plus the sobering news of what Charlie and Diana had described when Korhonon escaped from the lab had also put them all on edge.
Yawning and stretching her arms, she unbuckled her belt and pulled herself out of the old leather seat and made her way to the drinks cabinet. It was a work in progress she had insisted on as part of the deal when Decker joined the LMA. Her head had been turned at the idea of having her own private aircraft, and as soon as the American had signed up she started renovating the old plane.
What had been a battered, dented old cargo plane when she first saw it was now almost up to her standards. More seats and bunks had been fitted into the cavernous cargo area at the rear, and a seating area had been installed up front behind the cockpit.
It was up here where she had fallen asleep, and here too where the portside wall was now complemented by an art deco drinks cabinet of polished walnut. She’d bought it online and had it professionally fitted. Throw in a few scatter cushions on the leather couch and maybe tweak the lighting a little and it could almost be a miniature luxury hotel with wings.
