Clive Cussler: The Kingdom

Russell was standing in the corridor. Sam raised his gun, took aim. Russell took a step and disappeared. Sam took two large strides forward and, gun leading the way, sidestepped into the corridor.

He found himself standing face-to-face with Russell.

Sam knew that Russell was younger and stronger than him, and the King boy was also lightning fast. Before Sam could squeeze the trigger, Russell swung the butt of his machine gun upward, the stock arcing toward Sam’s chin. Sam jerked backward. The butt struck a glancing blow. Sam’s eyesight flashed red. On instinct, he charged forward, engulfing Russell in a bear hug that pinned his arms to his side. They stumbled backward. Russell planted his back foot and spun his body, taking Sam along with him. Sam found his footing again, drew his knee back, and slammed it forward into Russell’s groin. Russell grunted. Sam kneed him again, then again. Russell’s legs buckled, but he managed to stay upright.

Wrapped up, they stumbled into the next room, bounced off a wall, and then lurched into yet another room. Russell reared his head back, tucked his chin. Sam thought, Head butt, and tried to turn away from it, but it was too late. The top of Russell’s forehead slammed into Sam’s eyebrow. His eyesight flashed red again, then blackness began creeping in from the sides. Sam exhaled hard, drew in a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and held on. His vision cleared slightly. He drew his own head back, but the height difference made a face strike impossible. Sam chose instead Russell’s collarbone. This time, Russell let out a yelp of pain. Sam head-butted again, then again. Russell’s machine gun hit the ground.

They spun again, Russell trying to use his superior strength to either dislodge Sam or slam him against a wall.

Suddenly Sam felt Russell’s balance change; he was backpedaling quicker than his feet could keep up. Sam’s judo training took hold. He would capitalize on Russell’s imbalance. Sam put everything he had into his legs and charged forward. Feet scrabbling over the vines and roots, he bulldozed Russell backward, picking up speed. They bounced through an arch, and then they were back in the corridor. Sam kept pushing.

And then they were stumbling, Russell’s balance having given out. They were enveloped by a curtain of foliage. Sam heard and felt vines snapping around them. Over Russell’s shoulder he saw daylight. Sam released his death grip on Russell and snapped his head forward, catching him in the sternum. Russell disappeared through the curtain. Sam, trying to arrest his own momentum, pitched through the opening and into space.

Sam’s vision was filled with sky, granite walls, a churning river far below-

He slammed to a stop. The impact knocked the wind out of him. He sucked in a couple lungfuls of air. All he saw was a black steel cylinder.

Gun, he thought numbly. He was still clutching his pistol.

He was lying, belly first, in the crook of a moss-covered tree. He looked around and pieced together what he was seeing. They’d fallen from a temple window. The tree, having grown half embedded in the temple’s exterior wall, was rooted in a tiny patch of earth at the edge of the plateau. Over the edge was a thousand-foot drop into the Tsangpo Gorge.

Sam heard a groan below him. He craned his neck down and spotted Russell lying on his back next to the tree. His eyes were open and staring directly into Sam’s.

His face twisted in pain, Russell sat up. His right hand slid down his pant leg and jerked it up his calf. Strapped to his boot was a holster. Russell grabbed the butt of the revolver.

“Don’t, Russell,” Sam said.

“Go to hell.”

Sam extended his arm and laid the .38’s front sight over Russell’s chest. “Don’t,” he warned again.

Russell unbuckled the holster and slid out the revolver.

“Last chance,” Sam said.

Russell’s hand began to rise.

Sam shot him in the chest. He let out a gasp, then fell backward, lifeless eyes staring at the sky.

Led by her wildly dancing headlamp, Remi charged through the archway. Bullets thunked into the stone around her. Remi spun, blindly fired two shots back the way she had come, then turned and kept running.

She stumbled back into the corridor. The pit was up the slope to her left. Remi turned right and continued on, half limping, half sprinting. Ahead, her headlamp flicked over a dark circle in the floor. It was another shaft. In pain, and with her injured ankle quickly failing her, Remi tried to swerve around the shaft but slipped and tumbled through the opening.

The fall was mercifully short, perhaps half the depth of the first pit. Remi landed hard on her butt. This time, the pain was too intense to contain. She screamed. She rolled over, looking for her gun. It was gone. She needed something . . . anything. Marjorie was coming.

Remi’s headlamp came to rest next to a wooden object. Even before her conscious mind had told her what the object was, her senses were processing it: dark wood, thick black lacquer, no visible seams . . .

She reached out, snagged the edge of the box with her fingertips, and rolled it toward her. In the bright cone of light from her headlamp, Remi saw four symbols, four Lowa characters, in a grid pattern.

“Gotcha!”

Marjorie dropped from the opening above and landed like a cat at Remi’s feet. Marjorie, having slung the machine gun across her back for the jump, now reached back and grabbed the stock. She brought it around toward Remi.

“Not today!” Remi shouted.

She grabbed the Theurang box with both hands, raised it over her head, then bolted upright and slammed it into Marjorie’s forehead.

Pinned by Remi’s headlamp beam, Marjorie’s face went slack. With blood streaming down her forehead, her eyes rolled upward. She fell backward and went still.

Stunned, Remi scooted backward until she was pressed against solid stone. She closed her eyes.

Some time later, a sound penetrated her half-conscious mind.

“Remi? Remi?”

Sam. ”I’m here!” she shouted. “Down here!”

Thirty seconds later Sam’s face appeared at the top of the shaft. “Are you okay?”

“I may need a little checkup, but I’m alive.”

“Is that what I think it is?”

Remi patted the Theurang box beside her. “I just happened upon it. Pure dumb luck.”

“Is Marjorie dead?”

“I don’t think so, but I hit her pretty hard. She may never be the same again.”

“An improvement, then. Are you ready to come up?”

Sam, now armed with Russell’s machine gun, had made his way back to the main tunnel. Unsure of Zhilan’s location, he simply grabbed his backpack and found his way to the second pit and Remi.

Thirty minutes later they were both back in the Great Room. Together, they reeled Marjorie’s limp body up the shaft. Sam handed Remi the machine gun, then scooped up Marjorie and folded her across his shoulder.

“Keep an eye out for the Dragon Lady,” he told Remi. “If you see her, shoot first and forget the questions.”

As they neared the tunnel exit, Remi stopped. “Do you hear that?”

“Yes . . . Someone’s whistling.” A smile spread across Sam’s face. “It’s ‘Rule, Britannia!’”

Cautiously, Sam and Remi stepped out of the tunnel.

Sitting twenty feet away, his back against a boulder, was Jack Karna. He spotted them and stopped whistling. He gave them a cheery wave.

“Tallyho, Fargos. Oh, wait, that rhymes. How clever of me.”

Dumbfounded, Sam and Remi walked toward him. As they drew nearer they could see tufts of white emergency dressing jutting from a scarf tied around Karna’s neck. He was cradling Ajay’s Beretta in his lap.

A few feet away, Zhilan Hsu lay flat on her back, her head propped up by Ajay’s balled-up parka. Wrapped around the midpoint of each of her thighs was a bloody field dressing. Zhilan was awake. She glared at them but said nothing.