CHAPTER 137
David watched the two Nazi soldiers wander deeper into the tombs, gawking at the tubes. They wore thick sweaters and no helmets: they were clearly Nazi marines. They would be very well-skilled at hand-to-hand combat in close quarters. Surprise was imperative for David and Patrick to take them down. David raised a hand to make signs, but Patrick was already signing to him: wait until they pass.
David tried to squat lower, but his leg burned. That he could squat at all was a miracle. The goo really worked. The goo — would they smell it? Patrick crouched beside him, between two other tubes in the banana cluster closest to the meandering soldiers. Two seconds.
One man stopped. Did he smell it?
Above David and Patrick’s hiding position, a burst of white fog spewed from the tubes, drawing the soldier’s attention. They swung their submachine guns off their backs and raised them, but David and Patrick were already up and on them, springing like snakes out of the tall grass onto their prey.
The force of David’s lunge took his target to the ground, and David slammed the heel of his hand into the man’s forehead. The soldier’s head hit the iron floor with a crack, and a pool of blood spread out around it.
Four feet away, Patrick was struggling with the other solider. The young soldier was on top of him. The Nazi had a knife and was pressing it into Patrick’s chest. David jumped on the man, and pulled him off of Patrick. David knocked the knife out of the soldier’s hand and pinned him to the ground. Patrick was there, beside him, holding the knife to the man’s throat. The Nazi stopped struggling in a silent surrender, but David still held his arms to the floor.
David didn’t speak German, but before he could open his mouth, Patrick began interrogating the man in German. “Wieviele m?nner?”
“Vier.”
Patrick tore the knife from his neck and dug it into the man’s left index finger.
“Zw?lf,” the man cried.
“Herr Kane?”
The soldier nodded. He was sweating profusely now. “T?ten Sie mich schnell,” he said.
Patrick questioned him a little more while David pinned him to the floor.
“Schnell,” the man pleaded.
Patrick drew the knife across his neck and the flow of blood and death followed in rapid succession after.
Patrick dropped the knife beside the man and collapsed onto the floor. Blood dripped from his own chest wound.
David crawled over the dead man and gathered the remains of the black goo from his own mostly-healed chest and shoulder wounds. He wiped the paste into Patrick’s wound, and the older man grimaced as it made contact.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be good as new within a few hours.” David grinned. “Maybe sooner.”
Patrick sat up. “If we have that long.” He motioned to a door in the direction the soldiers had come from. “There’s no question now, we’re in Antarctica.” He drew a few quick breaths.
“How many are there?”
Patrick looked at the dead soldiers. “Twelve. Ten now. Kane is with them. If they get in this chamber, it will be genocide, and after that, maybe… it will be… very bad news for the human race.”
David began scavenging the men’s bodies, gathering weapons and anything that might be useful. “Did they say anything else?”
Patrick looked at him, confused.
“Have they seen anyone else?” David said hopefully.
Patrick caught his meaning. “No. They haven’t seen anyone. They’ve been here for almost three months, which makes sense if they arrived around 1938. A year per day, a month for every two hours. They said they just found this chamber and a man had gone back to report it.”
David handed Patrick one of the machine guns and held his arm out to help Patrick up. “We should hurry then.”
Patrick grabbed David’s arm and struggled to his feet. He glanced back at the dead soldier who had overpowered him. “Look Vale, I haven’t been a soldier in 25 years—”
“We’ll be just fine,” David said.
CHAPTER 138
Dorian held the children by the shoulders as he marched behind his father.
This was the way of the world: life could turn on a dime. He and his father, reunited, on their way to finish their great work: to save the human race. All his sacrifices, all his decisions… He had been right.
Ahead of them, gunshots rang out.
CHAPTER 139
David dropped the two guards standing at the doors to the tombs before either could get a shot off. To his left, another guard rounded the corner and sprayed bullets into the iron wall beside him, but Patrick caught the soldier full in the chest with three quick shots, sending him quickly to the floor.
David swept the other way in the corridor. Clear. He turned and jogged to catch up with Patrick, who was inching around the corner from which the third soldier had emerged.
“I’ll take point,” David said. He peeked his head around and— a gunshot whizzed past his head.
“I’ll cover you,” Patrick said as he extended his handgun around the corner and fired several shots.
David stepped into the corridor and closed on the man who was pressing against the adjacent wall. David hit him with two shots in a tight grouping on his chest. Four down. Five plus Kane left. Still not great odds. And they’d lost the element of surprise. One step at a time.
Patrick was beside him, and both men eyed the double doors the soldier must have come from. They took up positions on each side of the door, and Patrick worked the glass panel until the doors parted, revealing a room with twelve glass tubes holding… ape-men?
David had to focus. Patrick seemed less fazed. He stepped quickly into the room, sweeping his gun from side to side. David followed. The room was empty.
Then, from behind him, David sensed someone closing on them. He spun around and raised the machine gun to fire—
Kate. She had been hiding behind the control station.
He jerked his finger off the trigger and dropped the gun to his side. He moved toward her, ready to sweep her up. Just as he reached her, Kate’s eyes met Patrick’s. She turned from David. “Dad?”
The old man stood there, a look somewhere between remorse and disbelief on his face. “Katherine…”
A tear dropped from Kate’s eye as she walked to him and embraced him. He grunted as he hugged her back. She pushed back. “You’re alive.” She wrinkled her nose. “And you’re hurt, and what, is, that sme—”
“I’m ok, Katherine. I. Oh, God, you look so much like her.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I was so worried, but I know you… it’s… for me, only a few weeks have passed…”
Kate nodded. She seemed to have already put it together. David marveled at her as he stood there, a little awkwardly. She held her arm out, and he walked over and hugged her, pressing his face into the side of her head.
She released them and said, “How did you—”
“Gibraltar,” her father said. “A door in the chamber I found — it was a portal to Antarctica, to this larger structure. There are more men. We need to—”
“Yes,” Kate said. “They have the children. Dorian is making them carry backpacks with nuclear bombs.”
David looked around, thinking, and then said, “There’s a chamber with tubes; it goes on for miles. I bet that’s where they’re going. You stay—”
Kate shook her head. “No.” She walked to the dead man who had run out of her room and picked up his machine gun. She deadpanned at David. “I’m coming. And I get a gun this time. I’m not asking.”
David exhaled.
Patrick looked from Kate to David. “I take it this has been a recurring discussion?”
“Yeah, it’s uh, been a weird week.” David walked over to Kate and handed her a pistol. “The Luger is less likely to jam. It’s loaded and ready to go. Just point and shoot. It’s got eight rounds in it, you’ll have plenty. Stay behind us.”
CHAPTER 140
Dorian held a hand up for the five soldiers behind him to halt. He peeked around the corner. Two dead soldiers, one on each side of the door. Had they come out or gone in? Out hopefully. He stuck his head out again. Another dead body, at the corner of the hall — he was running toward them. They had come out.
“Clear.” He called and the men and his father spread out in the hall, checking the dead men.
Dorian bent down to the kids. “Ok, oh,” he corralled them toward him, away from the dead men. “Don’t pay attention to them, they’re just playing dead. It’s another game. Now it’s time for the race. Remember, run as fast as you can. The first one to the end of this room gets a huge prize!”
His father worked the glass panel beside the giant double doors. They spread open silently, and Dorian shoved the children through just as the first shots rang out. Two of their five men fell instantly. Dorian lunged and covered his father, but he was too late. The bullet struck Konrad’s arm, spun him around, and threw him into the wall.
Dorian pulled his father back behind the door as the remaining three soldiers scampered behind the other side of the door frame. Dorian tore the shirt sleeve and inspected the wound quickly. The older man pushed his hands away. “It’s a flesh wound, Dieter. Don’t be emotional. Stay focused.” He drew his pistol and peered around the door frame. Shots scraped the iron above his head.
Dorian pressed him to the wall. “Papa, go out the way I came. One of us must get out. I will cover you.”
“We must stay—”
Dorian pulled his father to his feet. “I will finish them and then follow you.” He shoved him into the hall and fired four rapid-fire blasts from the submachine gun until it clicked empty.
His father had cleared the corridor. Dorian had saved him.
He slumped back into the iron wall. A smile spread across his face.
CHAPTER 141
David looked back at Patrick. “We have to go around. We can’t make an assault on their position at the entrance — not without superior numbers or explosives.”
“This corridor must connect with where we entered the tombs; it’s not far away. All these corridors feed into the tombs. Let’s keep moving. The kids were running. Maybe we can catch them,” Patrick said.
David looked around, as if searching for another way. “Agree. You two go. I’ll keep Sloane and his men here.”
Kate poked her head between them. “David, no.”
“This is what we’re doing, Kate,” David’s voice was flat, cold, final.
She stared him in the eyes for a long moment, then looked away. “What about the bombs?”
David nodded knowingly toward Patrick. “Your dad has a plan for that.”
Comprehension broke over Patrick’s face as Kate turned to him and said, “You do?”
“Yes, I do. Now let’s move.”
CHAPTER 142
Kate followed her father through another entrance to the tombs just as the children crossed the aisle ahead of them.
“Adi! Surya!” Kate screamed.
The boys stopped their sprint, almost falling over. She ran to them and looked at the time on the pack. 00:32:01. 00:32:00. 00:31:59.
“How are you going to disable—”
“Trust me, Katherine,” her father said. He tugged at her arm, and they ran out of the tombs, back into the long corridor.
From the direction they had come, Kate heard the sound of automatic gunfire. David. Fighting the rest of them — alone. She wanted so much to go back, but the children, the bombs. Her father was tugging at her arm again, and she found herself putting one foot in front of the other, marching quickly away from the gunfire.