Andy McDermott - The Hunt For Atlantis

Each heavy switch made a loud chung! noise as Nina moved it. “Okay, now what?”

“That’s it. You’re done. Find somewhere to hide and we’ll see you in five minutes.” The radio sent a crunch of static into her ear, then fell silent.

“Wait, Eddie- Eddie!”

Kari stared in disbelief at Volgan’s body. Even the guards seemed shocked by the suddenness of the killing. “My God!”

On the screen, Qobras reacted to her voice with wary surprise. “Hajjar! Who else is with you?”

Hajjar turned away from the bleeding body to face the screen. “I have a… rival of yours, you could say. Kari Frost.”

Qobras was stunned. “Kari Frost? Let me see!”

Chase and Castille quickly scaled the slope leading up from the river. Chase tested the fence by tossing a pair of wirecutters against it. No sparks, no shorting. It was dead.

“Go!” he ordered. Castille quickly used the wirecutters to snip the bottom of the fence. Chase pulled up the loose section like a flap, creating a gap just large enough for them to fit beneath.

On the other side, they jumped to their feet and looked up at the fortress. The rocky slope led up to the twisting access road, and the main entrance of the building itself. There were no guards in sight, but from what Shala had said, they would be there somewhere.

As well as his own gun, Castille still had one of the G3 rifles taken from Mahjad’s soldiers. Chase had his Wildey, and a weatherbeaten Uzi provided by Shala. He checked both guns. Ready for action.

“Okay,” he said, “time to be heroes.”

They set off at a run.

Nina decided that the server room was as good a hiding place as any. It also let her have another look at the computer.

It only took a moment to expand the window of the videoconference call the PC was relaying, and a little longer to increase the volume. Hajjar and the other man were talking about…

Kari!

Not only that, but now she appeared behind Hajjar, pushed into the frame by one of his men.

“What is she doing there?” Qobras demanded.

“I have some business with her father,” said Hajjar. “It is not your concern.”

“It is very much my concern!” Qobras almost shouted. “Kill her.”

Hajjar gaped at the screen. “What?”

“Kill her! Now!”

Cold fear clenched Kari’s stomach. The gun was still in Hajjar’s hand. If he obeyed Qobras’s order, she could be dead in moments.

“Are you mad?” Hajjar exclaimed. “She is worth ten million dollars to me! Her father has already agreed to pay the ransom!”

“Listen to me,” said Qobras, leaning forward until his face filled the screen, “you have no idea how dangerous she is. She and her father are attempting to find what the Brotherhood has been fighting to keep hidden for centuries! If they do-”

Hajjar waved his hands. “I don’t care! All I care about is the ten million dollars for returning her to her father!”

Something approaching desperation crept into Qobras’s voice. “Hajjar, I will pay you twelve million dollars if you kill her.”

“You are out of your-”

“Fifteen million! Hajjar, I will pay any price you want! But only if you kill Kari Frost, right now!”

Nina stared at the monitor, shocked. Whomever the other man was, he was serious about wanting Kari dead. And from what she had already seen of Hajjar, his greed would soon force him to cave in and accept the blood money.

And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Unless…

“Two guards at the lower gate,” said Castille as he and Chase ran up the rocky slope.

“I see ’em,” Chase replied. “They’ll take a couple of minutes to get up here. Sod ’em for now. What about the top?”

“They must be inside the gate. What’s our best tactic? Something subtle?”

Chase raised his Uzi. “Subtle suits me.”

Hajjar was torn, looking between the other people in the room-even Kari-as if hoping for guidance. “Fifteen million?” he said at last. “Why? Why is it so important to you that she dies?”

“Twenty million!” shouted Qobras. “Twenty million dollars to kill her, now! Don’t ask questions, just-”

The screen went dark.

As did the entire room-the lights, Hajjar’s computer, everything. The only illumination came from the narrow stained-glass windows.

Hajjar and his guards were caught unawares, held in bewildered surprise.

Kari moved-

Nina had spotted the large red switches at the bottom of the control panels when she switched off the electric fence. She didn’t need fluency in Farsi or an electrician’s training to work out what they did.

She pushed them all. Everything went black.

Switching on the flashlight, she hurried from the room. Somebody was certain to investigate. As she ran down the darkened corridor, she pulled her belt around to bring the holster within easy reach.

The main gate was a huge archway running through the thick southern wall. Chase used his steel mirror to peek around the corner.

“Two guys in a little gatehouse at the far end, left,” he told Castille, “about fifteen feet. Doesn’t look like they’re on the ball.”

Castille brought up his rifle. “Still subtle?”

Chase nodded, watching the gatehouse in the mirror. “Let’s-”

The lights in the gatehouse went out, as did the CCTV monitors. The guards reacted with confusion.

“Oh bollocks!” Chase hissed. “She’s turned off the rest of the power!” The voices of the guards echoed down the passage, one of them using a walkie-talkie.

Castille made a face. “Subtle is out, then.”

“Fight to the end?”

“Fight to the end.”

A nod, then both men charged into the gateway, guns roaring as they blasted the gatehouse and its occupants apart.

Kari whipped around with the effortless grace of a ballerina, pivoting on one foot as she dropped to a crouch. At the same time, her other leg lanced out and scythed into her guard’s ankles from behind. He fell backwards, his head cracking against the hard marble.

She leapt up, pulling her knees high to curl herself into a ball, and bringing her cuffed wrists beneath her tucked feet.

Her heels hit the floor with a clack as she raised her hands in front of her. Somewhere outside, she heard the rattle of automatic weapons.

Chase.

In the low light, she saw Hajjar still sitting behind his desk, facing the dead plasma screen. The other guard fumbled with his MP-5.

The man at her feet had a gun, but it was still in its holster. The door was too far away.

Which left-

She vaulted onto Hajjar’s desk and slid across the gleaming surface on her butt just as he turned his chair around. Her feet smashed into the Iranian’s face, driving him back into the padded leather as she continued her slide right over the desk to land in his lap. The swivel chair spun around with the impact, its high back blocking both Kari and Hajjar from the guard’s view for a moment.