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.
CHAPTER 143
David heard Kate shout for the children. He chanced a look around the corner. Had the Nazis heard it, too? The soldiers at the door were taking off into the massive chamber. He couldn’t let them reach Kate. He stepped toward the doors and fired— empty. He dropped the gun and grabbed the last submachine gun from the fallen Nazi, firing at the two running men, mowing them down. One plus Dorian left.
The last soldier peeked around the corner, and David nailed him with a blast of shots that caught him in the head. It had been a trap. The runners were the bait; they had hoped David would panic and run quickly into the Tombs after them — giving the sniper an easy shot.
One left. Dorian. David didn’t hear any footsteps. Somewhere deep in the Tombs, a set of doors slammed shut. Kate, Patrick, and the children were out. He should back away, follow them. He stopped, just before the door. He would have to run to catch up to them. But he stood there. 9/11 was a long time ago. He had Kate. And he had the Immari to fight. The outbreak.
Where would Sloane be? Somewhere deep in the Tombs, hiding, waiting, watching the entrance. David could wait him out a bit. Or… He shook his head as if shaking off the thought.
He took a couple of steps back, still holding the submachine gun at the ready, and when no one emerged, he turned from the door and started down the corridor at full speed.
The first shots tore through David’s back and exited through his chest, hurling him into the wall and then onto the floor face first. More bullets hit his limp body on the floor, raking over his legs.
Footfalls. A hand, turning him over.
David pulled the trigger of the pistol twice. The bullets ripped through the jeer on Dorian’s face, blowing brain and bone out of the back of his head, painting the ceiling red and gray.
A bittersweet smile crossed David’s lips as he blew out his last breath.
CHAPTER 144
Konrad latched the helmet on the suit and waited for the portal to open. The metal doors parted open with a loud boom, revealing a massive ice cathedral very similar to the one he had crossed almost three months ago — for him, 75 years ago out here. If this entrance was the same, there would be a Bell hanging just outside, above the entrance. The Bell on the other side of the structure had been turned off when Konrad had crossed — it hadn’t so much as flickered as he and his men marched under it and into the Tombs. But they had turned that Bell on from inside; he knew that now.
The control systems inside the structure were complex, and he and his men had tried to access a system they thought was hibernation control. It turned out to be the controls for a weather satellite. Kane had actually downed the satellite, somewhere in America, he believed, possibly in New Mexico. Whatever he did triggered some sort of anti-intrusion routine. It locked them out of the computers and activated the Bell, killing the men on his sub.