Crown of Souls, page 37
With one hand he swung the stick aside and lifted the other to strike. And stopped short, realizing he was attacking a mop that reeked of antiseptic. Bent and startled, the janitor cringed—cowered.
Ram waved him past.
Hurrying, the janitor wheeled a mop bucket out the door, mumbling an apology.
Grunting his frustration, Ram scanned the room. “Close it,” he muttered to Maangi, who secured the door.
Rows of tables straddled the long, narrow room, and the walls were the dark gray of bullet- and fire-proof vaults. Each held an artifact, preserved and protected from the elements. Only the last table was lit, a black box waiting ominously. As Ram swept toward it, he plucked cotton gloves from a box on the wall and pulled them on. Everything here was about preserving the past, protecting the artifacts.
Pointing to the box, Maangi huffed. “There’s a lock.” He stuffed his fingers into a pair of gloves.
Ram carefully gripped the top of the box and nudged. It opened without complication. Smiling that the contact had done his job, he leaned over the preservation box.
Black velvet stared back. He lifted the thin scrap of fabric. Only more black. His heart jolted. It wasn’t here. But the contact wouldn’t have acknowledged him, confirmed the package without the amulet.
“Where is it?” Maangi asked. “What—”
Mind springing backward— “The janitor.” Ram threw himself toward the door, yanked it open. Nearly cursed when he saw the mop bucket abandoned in the hallway.
Through the window in the secure door, he spotted the janitor at the end of the corridor. “Hey!” Drawing his weapon, Ram lunged at the door.
Locked.
He aimed and fired twice at the lock. It crackled and popped, smoke rising from the mechanism. He drove his heel against the jamb. It surrendered. He plunged through and sprinted down the hall.
A man stepped out of his office. “Hey, what’s—”
“Move!” Ram shoved him aside and kept running. Momentum flung him wide around the corner. Thirty meters ahead, the janitor headed for an exit.
Ram snapped up his weapon and fired two shots.
The janitor slammed into the door, his right shoulder hitting hard. He fell against it, clearly having taken a bullet, but kept moving.
So did Ram. He dove for the door, but it clapped shut. Blood smeared the steel barrier. Ram crashed through it, weapon sweeping right and left. The silence of the empty foyer stunned him. The receptionist looked on the verge of a heart attack.
Behind him, Maangi trotted up. “Where’d he go?”
“Where is he?” Ram demanded of the receptionist.
Hand shaking, she pointed at an exit to the right.
Ram pitched himself at it and barreled into a narrow hall. His shoulders thumped the walls as he ran. Broke out into a side alley. Shadows and stench lurked in the darkened space between the museum and the parking garage.
And there, on the side of the dumpster, spray paint still wet and bleeding red down the steel container: Alec King’s symbol.
36
— DAY 28 —
NIMRUD, IRAQ
As they neared the tunnel opening, Tox noticed a shadow shift ahead. He slowed, raising his weapon as the shape came into view.
Shrouded in shadows, Thor stood a half dozen feet from the base of the ladder with his weapon aimed at them. “Glad you’re alive,” he muttered as he swung his sights back up the ladder. “Lost you on comms.”
“I think they failed.”
“Negative—been talking to Cell.”
Tox yanked out his piece and checked it. “Mine’s dead. Let me borrow yours.”
Thor removed the wire and earpiece, then handed them over.
“And our phones are dead,” Tzivia added.
Wiring up, Tox jutted his jaw toward the entrance. “What’s happening?”
“Guards went ape. Started running east. Cell said to get down, that they were shooting.” He pointed his muzzle at the ladder. “Fish in a barrel.”
Tox nodded. “Smart.” He eyed the opening. “Cell, you there?”
“’Bout freakin’ time!”
“Is it clear?”
“Copy that. Guards are huddled, but the shooting stopped.”
“We’re coming up.” Tox drew his Glock 22, very much wishing for his M4, but they’d come in light, wanting to appear friendly so they could gain access. “Ready?”
“Anytime, anywhere,” Thor said.
Tox nodded for the others to stay, then reached for the ladder. Weapon aimed up, he began to climb. Even though Cell said it was clear, Tox wasn’t taking a chance. No sense playing whack-a-mole with his own head.
Barely clearing the hole, he swiveled around, checking for threats. He spotted the distracted guards in the distance and drew himself out. He crouch-ran to a nearby boulder. “Clear,” Tox called.
It took two minutes for the others to climb out. Tox had point, Thor took rear, and they trekked back in the direction they’d last seen Cell. They rounded a corner and spotted him, squatting in front of his gear.
“Cell.”
Weapon in hand, he rotated toward them. Then sagged as they grouped up around him. “Dude.” He shook his head and turned back to his equipment.
“What’s going on?”
Cell shifted, his face chalky. “This is muffed up.”
“Everything is muffed up when you’re involved,” Thor said lazily, his gaze scanning the site.
“No,” Tzivia said, wrapping her arms around herself, “I’ve got a weird feeling here, too.”
Irritation scraped Tox’s spine. “Cell.”
Static crackled through their comms. “Wraith Actual, this is Wraith Five. Come in.”
Tox turned away from the others, relieved to hear Ram’s voice. “This is Actual. Go ahead, Five.”
“Bird’s inbound. You still on-site?”
“Roger, on-site.”
“Coming your way in three mikes.”
“Negative.”
“Come again?”
“Possible hostile situation. Rendezvous at Stryker in two hours.”
“You need backup?”
“Negative. Packing up now.”
“Copy that.”
“Did he get the medallion?” Tzivia asked.
“Unknown.” Tox jutted his jaw toward the guard hut. He looked at Cell. “What were you saying?”
“Just remember”—he wagged a finger at them—“I said it’s muffed up. And I have to say, I’m freaked because . . .” He swallowed. “King has figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
“That we’re tracking him, in a sense, through this.”
Tox cocked his head. “The RFB?”
A scowling Thor shouldered in. “How’s that possible, that he knows we’re trying to find him? Nobody knows but SAARC and DoD.”
“And that’s about fifty too many hands in the pot,” Cell groused. “Who knows how he figured it out, but he not only knows we’re detecting him, he knows how.”
What little Tox had eaten that morning began to sour in his gut. He took a step back and glanced away. They were close. They needed to be close. The danger of Alec committing some large-scale murder hovered like a sandstorm.
“So someone’s feeding him information,” Haven said.
“That’s the only answer,” Tox said. “After the puzzle box down there—”
Cell frowned. “Puzzle box?”
“Never mind.” Even as a hot breeze dragged its annoying fingers across the back of his neck, dumping buckets of sweat down his shirt, Tox saw the way Cell shifted. Kept looking at the box. He hadn’t told them everything. “You have something?”
Again, Cell swallowed. “Yeah. A message—from King.”
“What do you mean, a message?” Tox’s gut twisted. “You know what? Never mind—were you recording?”
“From the second I powered up.”
“Then let’s pack up and head back. Play it back at Stryker. I want out of this place.”
FOB STRYKER, IRAQ
“Play it.” Tox nodded to Cell as they gathered in the conference room back at the base.
Cell’s gaze flipped to Haven, then back. “I just . . . maybe it’s . . . sensitive.”
“Everyone here has clearance,” Ram said.
“No, not sensitive like that.” Cell cowered beneath whatever secret he protected. And somehow, Tox had a feeling this secret was connected to himself. His gaze hit the box. What could Alec have possibly done? “I don’t get it. How’d he send a personal message? I thought ghost skips were trapped radio signals.”
“They are. But this isn’t. It’s different from the RFB of the crown, but I don’t exactly know how, just that it is.”
“I thought you were the comms expert,” Thor taunted.
“I’m a communications specialist, not an expert. And this is a lot of pressure, right here.” Cell scratched his head. “Look, his guys shot up the place, so maybe he was nearby, transmitting. I don’t know.”
Maangi shifted. “King was on-site?”
Cell grunted. “All I have are guesses.” He glanced at the machine. “And the recording.”
“Play it. We’re all adults here,” Ram said.
But Tox wasn’t so sure.
And neither was Cell. He eyed Tox, hesitating. Hiding would only make matters worse, whatever it was. He gave a curt nod.
With a long intake of breath, Cell dialed in and flicked a knob.
Static squawked. Squealed.
“It’s on a loop. Keeps playing,” Cell explained. “He sent this deliberately, knowing we’d look for the crown’s frequency and find this.”
“ . . . loyal will they be once they know everything? Keep a watchful eye out, brother, because this is far from over. Count their lives. Count the minutes. Because their clocks are ticking down.”
Static crackled. Hissed.
Cell held up a hand. “There’s more—that’s just where I picked it up.”
“Once we know what?” Maangi asked, angling closer to the box.
“Wait, is this guy threatening us?” Thor demanded.
“Of course he is,” Ram bit out.
“His brain’s fried, remember?” Cell added.
Tox didn’t want to hear more. That first line kept repeating in his head, gnawing at him. Once they knew everything? He knew what secret Alec was about to splay open. And these men? They’d be gone.
This couldn’t happen. Not right before they took down Alec.
That’s his plan. Destroy the team. Destroy our chance to stop him.
Which meant Alec was probably pulling out the stops. But what did he have on Tox? There was no way he could know about al-Homsi. About Brooke. His gaze fell to the floor. Could he know? But . . . how?
Someone had put Alec onto the team, told him how they were monitoring him. And that someone had to be high enough up within SAARC, DoD, or the CIA to have access . . .
Oh no. Crap.
“ . . . No man left behind,” blared through the speaker.
“Turn it up.”
“Turn it off.” Tox’s command competed with Ram’s. His heart beat faster as Ram’s gaze struck his. And Tox saw it—the desire to know what had happened.
“That’s what they tell you,” Alec’s voice droned. “They hammer that into us as brothers-in-arms. We go out, and no man gets left behind. It’s a code cemented with blood, sweat, and tears. Trial after trial. Attack after attack. Until we trust no one but the ones wearing the same uniform. We trust each other that we won’t get left behind. We won’t be abandoned. But it’s a code you seem to have forgotten, Tox.”
His ears rang with the words—words that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“One I had been so sure you were not just following but leading with. But I finally see it—you actually think you’re better than me. You think you know more. That you’re smarter. You put trust in men we both know are not worthy of that trust. Yet you handed it to them. For what? For what, Tox?”
“Wait—how are we not worthy?” Thor balked.
Each beat of his heart felt like the thwump of rotors. His hearing grew hollow. His fears screaming. He knows. Somehow, Alec knows.
It took everything in Tox not to back up. Not to react. React, and he’d look guilty. Stand firm, and you defend your actions.
But should he? Could he?
“The men surrounding you now, the men whose hands you put your life in, how likely are they to keep that code once they know the truth? And that lovely blonde you’ve gotten a taste of—what if she knew about her sister, Tox? How loyal would she be then? And your men, when they know what you did, the blood you spilled to buy their cooperation? Or your country—when they find out about al-Homsi? How loyal will they be once they know everything? Keep a watchful eye out, brother, because this is far from over. Count their lives. Count the minutes. Because their clocks are ticking down.”
There it was.
Tox straightened—but his legs swayed. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling. Ignored the silence that dropped with nuclear force.
Alec had just dumped a crapload of trouble on him, but Tox had to know—“Can you track the message?”
Complexion pale even though he’d had more time than the rest to process the words, Cell nodded. “It’s the best signal we’ve had, but it’s not the crown’s signal. That was there, too, and strong. But that message was a recording.” A shrug. “But yeah. King was here. And within the last twenty-four. We’re catching up.”
“So that’s it?” Ram demanded. His words pulsed with as much uncertainty as Haven felt in her spinning head.
She tried to look at Cole, but her gaze defied her. Never made it past his chest. What did Alec King mean about Brooke? And what was with Cole, his rigid avoidance? His quieted voice? His shaken demeanor?
Alec knew something. Something terrible supposedly committed by Cole.
And Cole must have done it—it couldn’t be false accusation, because he wasn’t arguing. He wasn’t angry. He was . . . accepting, in an avoidant, noncommittal way.
“What did he mean about Brooke?” she asked.
Cole stilled, staring at the floor. His gaze slid to the side, but not to her. “Not now.”
“No, I think now is the perfect time,” Ram said. “What’d he mean about al-Homsi?”
“That’s the hot-shot senator who got blown up,” Runt said.
“We know who he was,” Ram sniped, turning his attention back to Cole. “But what did you have to do with it?”
The sigh Cole hefted seemed to bear the weight of a megaton bomb. “I’m not supposed to talk about this—”
“Hey, if King’s lording it over us, we need to get it out there, get answers.”
“Do we?” Haven hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud until the guys turned to her with uniform scowls. “Think about it—if Cole could tell us openly and without hesitation, don’t you think he would have?” She felt the tremble in her words, because she wasn’t even sure of that answer. “Just because we want answers doesn’t mean we have a right to them.” And she definitely wanted answers.
“So just because the sarge has it bad for you makes it okay to side with him?” Thor asked.
“Hey,” Cole and Ram barked.
Thor wasn’t deterred. “Doesn’t it bother you? This involves your sister!”
“Hey!” Ram snapped again, louder, but the damage was done.
Haven hesitated, sliding a look to Cole, who had his head down, shoulders sagging.
A ringtone split the silence. Cole straightened and pulled his phone from his pocket. “It’s him, Alec.”
Ram strode toward him, nodding to the team. “Speaker. For everyone.”
“Is that smart?” Haven wasn’t sure she could take any more of Alec’s revelations.
Cole nodded at Ram, and held up the phone. “Russell.”
“I take it you found my message, thanks to your clever little comms specialist.”
“Trying to divide my team. Clever tactic.” Irritation and anger pounded Cole’s words as he speared Thor with a glare, as if to make the point.
“I thought you should know there’s a price for those in your path, Tox. A steep, lethal price.”
Jaw set, nostrils flared, Cole said nothing. Waited.
“Speechless, are we?” Alec said with a chuckle. “Well, the truth remains—innocents will suffer. When you kick the hornet’s nest, there’s a price to pay. Perhaps, say, children who play soccer with American soldiers?”
It took the space of a heartbeat for the words and threat to register. “Alec—”
“Kharouf!” Thor lunged at the phone. “You piece of—” Spinning away, he hurled a flurry of curses at the non-present Alec, kicking a chair across the room. Spun toward Cole. “We have to go! He’s going to kill that boy!”
37
— DAY 28 —
OUTSKIRTS OF MOSUL, IRAQ
The past was roaring back with a vengeance.
The rotors of the Black Hawk thumped hard, hammering Tox’s conscience as they raced back to the village where Thor had played soccer with a preteen boy. The big guy pounded the hull of the chopper, his anxiety fever pitched.
A boy could die because of Tox. He turned his attention to the warbling heat waves riding the surface of the Iraqi plains.
“Two mikes,” the pilot called on the comms.
Double-checking his weapons, Tox peered south, where the city seemed to grow as they raced to the village just outside it. Like ghosts of the past, the war-chewed buildings grew on the horizon. Rubble. Debris. And amid it all, normalcy. Cars. People. Beside him, Ram snatched up his handgun. Racked back the slide for a press check, verifying a round in the chamber. Then he lifted his M4 and expelled the mag into his hand. He glanced at it, popped it in, then drew back the charging handle. A second later, he dropped the mag again and glanced at it before slapping it back into place. He repeated the same process for Tox’s rifle and declared it ready. Thor, Cell, and Maangi were prepping their weapons, too.
Thor slapped the pilot’s shoulder and pointed to a cluster of buildings to aim for. But it was too tight. They’d have to get dropped farther out. Frustration roiled across Thor’s face.
