David Sakmyster - The Mongol Objective

Another scream. Alexander cringed. That sounded like Nina.

She’s been hit!

“Stay low,” Montross said as he pulled free, stood and withdrew the Ruger from his waist. He aimed and fired at the one soldier in view, taking him down. Then he turned and froze in the beams of light immediately brought to his location.

“Drop it!” someone yelled with a thick Chinese accent.

And Alexander could see the lights blasting into Montross’s eyes, blinding him. He lifted his gun and his other hand to ward off the light.

And then someone was climbing, rustling up the steps behind him, standing over him and snatching the gun from Montross in one quick movement. Then Montross was grabbed and hurled to the mausoleum floor.

A woman wearing a thick black vest and a shiny gold badge turned to Alexander, where he was still locked in a death-embrace with the great Mongolian conqueror.

“Oh, Caleb!” she called over her shoulder. “We’ve found your boy.”

Caleb ran out into the mausoleum, stepping around the soldiers lying in bloody piles, their skulls expertly perforated. He turned to the sound of Renee’s voice and ran to Alexander, scooping him up before the boy even took the last step down from the crypt.

“Dad!” Alexander leapt into his father’s embrace and clutched him tight.

Caleb hugged him tighter and made room for Phoebe, who had run behind him and added her arms to their reunion hug.

“And this,” said Renee, standing over a kneeling man, “must be Xavier Montross.” She pointed the. 45 at the center of his forehead. “Now, give me what you took from him.”

Montross ignored her, instead smiling over to Caleb. His white teeth glittered in the light from Chang’s flashlight. His red hair had fallen, sweaty, over his left eye.

“Hello, brother.”

Nina heard them talking, barely, over the pulse thundering in her ears. She lay perfectly still, her limbs splayed, her neck and shoulders supported by the wall. She had done her part the best she could. Leaving a lone flashlight against the wall ten feet away, then firing from a distance using the night-vision scope, she had taken out seven of them. All but two, and the woman who had emerged last. The FBI agent had seen the light finally, after all the chaos, and fired at it repeatedly. Nina let out a shrill scream, and let herself tumble that way. Hoping it would fool them.

She was aware of two lights falling on her, dancing across her face, her body. If they don’t see enough blood, I may draw some more fire. But then Montross, God bless him, had drawn their attention away, shooting one of them. Nina hoped it was that bitch, but soon enough she heard the woman’s voice.

They had captured Montross and Alexander.

But in another moment, still playing dead, she had to stifle a smile when she heard another voice. Caleb Crowe. Still alive.

Good, she thought. We still have a score to settle.

Brother? Caleb gaped at him. Then turned to Alexander, pulled away and looked at him, then Phoebe.

“It’s true,” Alexander said. “I saw it. Grandpa and another woman. Before grandma.”

“One big happy reunion,” Montross said, grinning. “I told you, didn’t I? That we’d see each other again, at the Mausoleum?”

Phoebe choked on a breath. “Then you’re also my-”

Montross nodded. “Hi, sis.”

Caleb turned to him. “A brother you might be,”-he clenched his fists, approaching-“but you’re still a killer.”

“Back off,” said Renee. “As interesting as all this is, let’s first relieve Mr. Montross of this.” She snatched the necklace from his neck, then struck him across the face with the butt of her gun. He moaned and opened his right hand.

“And these,” Renee continued, grabbing the two glowing triangular pieces from his palm. Chang emerged behind her, stepping down from the crypt. He held the Emerald Tablet in his hands like it was a piece of expensive glass.

“Put it in its case,” she whispered, hungrily eying the artifact.

Chang nodded and opened the pack over his shoulder, retrieving a stainless steel briefcase. He popped open the lid, revealing a black foam interior with one large rectangular indentation and custom slots for three smaller objects.

“So that’s it?” Orlando asked. “We come all this way. You cause all these deaths. We find him, and that’s it? You take the keys?” He looked over his shoulder, shining the light on the armor-clad, silk-covered Mongol corpse. “What now?”

Chang offered Renee the open case, where the Emerald Tablet pulsed intently as if aware of its impending confinement and uncertain use. Keeping the gun pointed at Montross, Renee set the stones inside the case and then had him close it and set it by her side.

“What now?” she said, repeating Orlando’s question. “What now, is

Something creaked, and a gasping sound echoed in the room.

Genghis Khan shifted. Phoebe screamed and Alexander jumped back, clutching at her. The corpse turned to them and Chang’s flashlight, which he had desperately snatched back up, caught the mummified face-the hollow eyes, the grinning mouth-as it descended, slowly. Reclining again. Depressing the lever.

“Uh oh,” Montross said through a mouthful of blood, grinning. “Here comes trouble.”

Caleb turned to the new sound of moving blocks grinding against the floor. And then a rushing, bubbling noise. He aimed his light and saw the source. About a foot off the ground, the gap left by a single missing block, too small for anyone to squeeze through, had opened in the wall. Eight other holes also appeared, one in each wall, simultaneously and were now letting in the water.

Letting it in, and filling up the mausoleum.

“No problem,” Orlando said, heading for the door in the tower. “Just back into here before it might happen to close again.”

“Wait!” Renee backed away from Montross, heading for the door.

Caleb looked between them, seeing something out of place: a body crumpled against the far wall. In the shadows, he couldn’t tell, but it looked familiar.

Nina?

He closed his eyes for a moment, not sure why he felt what he did. After all, she had tried to kill them. He wasn’t sure, but he felt remorse. And a little curiosity. But Montross didn’t seem worried. He checked him out, his new brother, and saw the red-haired man still kneeling there, apparently at ease.

He knows something.

“Nobody moves,” Renee ordered as she scooped up the briefcase. “And now, Commander, the detonator for the C4, if you please.”

Chang handed the small remote to her, somewhat reluctantly, searching her eyes. “It’s all set below, activated by that trigger. What are you doing?”

She motioned to Montross. “Tying up loose ends. No need for further bloodshed when the water can cleanse this situation for us.”

Chang nodded, seeing the wisdom in that.

“But maybe,” said Renee, “we should pay Mr. Montross back for his attack on your men. Go ahead, Commander.”

“With much pleasure.” Chang approached the kneeling man and lifted his gun.

“No,” Alexander cried, and Caleb stepped forward as Chang aimed. As much as he’d dreamt of revenge, his visions-his only visions in the last two days-had been of Lydia. Of her calling out to him, not for retribution, but for understanding.

He was about to call out to Renee to stop when he noticed that Montross still seemed unconcerned, a smile even tugging at his lips as Chang leveled the weapon at him. A slight movement caught his eye, and Caleb realized Renee had just shifted her aim.

A gunshot.

Caleb lurched backward, out of the way of the Chinese commander Renee had just shot in the back of the head. Chang fell face-first into three inches of rising water and lay still.