Jack Du Brul - Pandora's curse

Mercer knew from his tour of the facility a couple years ago that this was the only way in or out of the complex. As long as he could disable the van, the Pandora box was trapped. He dove back into the Volvo, willed the transmission into gear and tore after the fleeing vehicle. Ira jammed a fresh magazine into Mercer’s MP-5. The van continued past the turnoff for the power station and drove toward the newly constructed Blue Lagoon spa. The Hughs 500 flashed over the car, nose down and menacing.

The spa’s modern glass-and-steel building was set back from the empty parking lot. It was reached by a meandering foot path cut into the lava, a narrow trail flanked by ten-foot walls of tortured stone. Dieter careened through the lot and shot down the footpath, sparks flying whenever the fenders scraped rock. With Mercer still several hundred yards behind them and unable to communicate with the chopper, the maneuver bought them a few minutes to hustle their hostages from the van. They had no choice but to leave the golden box in the rear.

One of Rath’s gunmen waited in the van, his machine pistol able to cover the entire trail. When they followed, Mercer and his men would run headlong into a scathing ambush.

Rath blew apart one of the spa’s glass doors with his pistol and rushed in, confident that his men had Peretti, Farquar, and the Dalai Lama well covered. Ahead was a cavernous room bisected by a reception counter. Beyond was a waiting area with a twenty-foot glass wall overlooking the steaming waters of the artificial lagoon. In the weak light of the encroaching dawn, the water had a peculiar shade of milky blue, a combination of silica and bacteria that gave it curative powers and the unholy stench of sulfur.

With an eye for urban street fighting, Rath positioned his men to best cover the entrance in case Mercer’s team made it past the gunner in the van. He also scouted out his escape route for when Mercer was dead. The building echoed with the reverberations of chopper blades just a few feet above the roof.

When he reached the parking lot and saw the spa’s canyon-like entry path, Mercer instinctively knew where Rath had gone. He braked hard at the beginning of the trail, blocking it with the body of the Volvo to trap the van. Hyped on adrenaline until his veins burned, he never considered waiting for reinforcements from the military base at Keflavik.

“They’ll be waiting for us to follow,” Ira said.

“We’ll flank ’em,” Mercer grunted. “You two climb up the left side of the path, and I’ll go right. We’ll stop when we’re above the van.”

The lava on this part of the Reykjanes Peninsula had been laid down in A.D. 1226, and despite Iceland’s scouring winds it had not yet succumbed to the polishing effects of erosion. Clambering up the wall on one side of the path was like climbing a mound of broken glass. A mistimed lunge for a knuckle of stone resulted in a bleeding gash on Mercer’s knee and what felt like four fingerprints being abraded off his left hand. Slowed by his injuries, he made his ascent and started off for the building he could see nestled in an excavated bowl of rock. The lagoon behind it simmered like an aquamarine cauldron. Watching for a guard atop the lava and keeping one eye out for anyone lurking in the shadowy trail below, Mercer scrambled along the rim of the path until the van was directly below him. He looked through the multiple windows fronting the spa but saw nothing in the darkness within. The helicopter’s downblast blew a freezing gale across his naked scalp.

Once Ira and Raeder were across from him and had the building covered, Mercer raised himself slightly to zero in on the rear of the white van and gave the H amp;K’s trigger a long squeeze. He emptied a clip, careful to direct his fire away from where he thought the van’s fuel tank would be. The crashing shots deafened him, so he didn’t hear the rear door unlatch, but he saw it swing outward. A man in a black Geo-Research jumpsuit oozed slowly to the ground, small eruptions in his uniform leaking blood.

Gunfire burst from one of the windows a story above his position. Ira and Raeder’s returned fire had no effect on the sniper. A steady stream of rounds continued to explode around Mercer. He had a small measure of shelter behind an outcropping of lava, but the 9mm rounds were quickly eating away at the volcanic stone. He slapped in another clip. Then, rather than run away, as the gunman anticipated, Mercer charged the spa, firing a short burst.

The gap between Mercer’s hill and the building’s second story was eight feet across, and in the instant before he jumped down, he saw another gunman lurking below him. Unable to stop, Mercer angled slightly and leapt instead for an office window, snapping off a couple rounds at the black glass as he flew. The window was just starting to come apart as he burst through in a shower of glass. He landed atop a cluttered desk, scattering papers and knocking a computer to the floor. He levered himself back to the window, ready to fire at the guard he’d glimpsed below, but the man had vanished.

He saw Ira and Raeder moving out to find their own access to the building. Mercer took a deep breath, prepared for the lancing pain of a broken rib or two, but other than the dull ache from his impact with the desk, he was all right. He eased out of the office after recharging his half-depleted clip with bullets from a pair of pistol magazines. The interior of the spa was murky and indistinct, filled with shadows that shifted as the sun rose higher.

At the end of the corridor was a bridge that overlooked the entry foyer and waiting area. Dozens of chairs and tables had been hastily stacked in one corner about halfway across the room. A shape moved behind them. Mercer sighted in and fired off a three-round burst. A hail of return fire pinned him to the bridge. Its glass railings disintegrated in a rain of shards. He had a sudden inspiration. When the autofire ceased, he rolled and fired above the hidden gunman’s redoubt. The twenty-foot wall of glass was divided into huge sections by a steel lattice. He concentrated his aim on the top section above the neo-Nazi and held steady. The inch-thick plate splintered and came crashing down, hundreds of pounds of glass falling to the stone floor, the table, and the gunman. It was Dieter. Caught in the avalanche he had just started to dive out from under the onslaught when a fifty-pound piece of window caught him on the shoulder and severed his arm from his body. Mercer cut off his scream with a shot to the head.

Movement caught his attention, and he raised his weapon, holding his fire when he recognized Ira and Raeder approaching from the other side of the bridge.

“Stay down!” Mercer shouted too late.

The shots came from behind and below them, near the spa’s gift shop. Ira’s quick dive wasn’t enough. His body jerked as two bullets found their mark. The remainder of the short blast pinged off the structural steel in the ceiling. As Raeder provided cover fire, Mercer grabbed Ira’s collar and dragged him to the safety of the corridor. A snaking trail of blood was smeared into the carpet behind him. Mercer rolled him on his back and Ira’s brow beaded with sweat. He’d gone completely white and his breath came in short, choppy slurps. Blood bloomed across his abdomen and looked like a black slick on the inside of one thigh.

“How bad?” Mercer asked, gently pulling up Ira’s shirt.

“How the hell should I know?” the agent gasped. “I’m not a doctor.”

Mercer used his sleeve to clear away blood and laughed. The bullet pierced the small flap of skin on Ira’s waist, a clean in and out that left puckered holes but no lasting damage. “Had your wife been a better cook, it would have been worse.”

The wound in the leg was much more serious. It hadn’t cut the femoral artery, but the gushes of blood that poured from it indicated some other major vessels had been torn. Klaus exchanged more shots with the gunman in the gift shop.