David Sakmyster - The Mongol Objective

The commander tumbled, fell and slid on his stomach. He screamed, tried to roll once more, but the two-foot-wide door came crashing down on him, crunching through muscle and bone, flattening his pelvis, his ribcage and his skull in an instant. One leg on each side continued twitching as his arms flailed for a couple seconds, then lay still.

Nina ran to the door and pounded at it. Screaming, yelling, trying to send her voice to the other side.

But it was too thick to be heard.

But she did a hear a voice. Distant, questioning.

The satellite phone, still in Marco’s lifeless hand. She snatched it up, and before the dumbstruck guards could react, she grabbed the spare gun from Marco’s belt. In one quick motion she brought around her arm and fired twice, dropping both men with clean headshots. As they fell, she darted to the side of the entrance. Two more men came running down, guns drawn.

She shot them both.

Sensing there were more at the top of the stairs, she waited with her back to the wall, then put the phone to her ear.

“Hello, Calderon? Nina here again.”

“ Nina? What’s going on? Did Alexander open the box?”

“I don’t know that, sir. All I know is the door came down again. Caleb, Montross and the boy are all trapped inside.”

“ Damn! And Marco?”

“Crushed.”

“ What was that shooting?”

“Just me. Cleaning up.” She peeked around the corner and saw a black helmet duck out of sight at the top of the stairs.

“ Nina, be reasonable. Wait there. I need to come to you now.”

“I know that.”

“ With your boys.”

“Of course. Someone needs to get that door open again. And fast. I’m surprised you didn’t bring them here for the opening.” It had been bothering her for the past few minutes. “Why not?”

“ Because they were needed here. Because there’s something else that they need to find first.”

“And have they found it?”

“ Not yet. We’re having some difficulty. I know it’s here, but.. Well, perhaps we can try later with Alexander’s help. We’re coming now. Give this phone to one of the other soldiers, and then you can stop killing people. I’ll tell them you’re in charge now. Guard the door until we arrive.”

“But Alexander, and his father-”

“ They’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m not so sure. I remember Montross speaking of an underground complex, a labyrinth built ages ago, before the pyramids even.”

“ I doubt that.” He didn’t sound sincere. “But even if you’re right, they can’t hide from us.”

Nina paused. “What do you plan to do with the contents of the box?” She had never gotten an answer out of Montross, what he would do with it. Only that it was vital to his survival. That, and the fact that she owed him her life was all she required. But now the stakes had changed. She had children. Two boys. Kept from her for more than ten years. So much missed time. Despite her deeds of late, despite who she was, this changed everything. “I want to know.”

“ When the time is right, I’ll tell you. For now, if you want to see your children, do as I say. We’ll be there soon.”

“Wait! What is at the Statue of Liberty? What are you looking for?”

“ See you soon, Nina. Now, give me to one of the men.”

She glared at the phone, then yelled up the stairs, “Hold your fire!” She stepped into the hall, hands raised, and let the men rush down to her, weapons drawn. She handed one of them the phone, and then turned and regarded the silent, black and unyielding door.

“So now we’re trapped,” Alexander said, looking about the room. In the dark, Montross had managed to find a flashlight on Marco’s right side, clipped to his utility belt. It was small, but more than sufficient to probe the room’s meager dimensions.

“No,” said Caleb, taking the light from Montross and aiming it into the far left corner. “I saw something in my last vision. When this room was designed and furnished. The man, almost familiar, in a blue robe, with a staff as he ordered the box sealed. There’s another exit.”

“It can wait,” said Montross.

“What?”

“They’re not getting back in here any time soon. So we have time. Time to open this box, time to get the books inside. Time to talk.” The light hit his face and he squinted, turning away.

“Yes. Let’s talk.”

“Talk about what?” Alexander asked. “How we’re going to get out of here?”

“No,” Caleb replied. “We need to talk about what Montross has seen, and what I saw. Compare our versions. And I need to understand how much is fact, and what’s merely imagination playing with myth.”

“Can’t it all be fact?” Montross asked.

Caleb held his head, then massaged his temples. “I don’t know if I can believe what I’ve seen. It’s too much to contemplate.”

“Well, let’s start with what we know to be true.”

Caleb aimed the light down at their feet. He took slow breaths, not knowing if the air down here was circulating somehow. It tasted stale, but yet still pure as if its isolation through the millennia had protected it from outside contamination. “So here’s what I know. Robert Gregory believed the Emerald Tablet possessed the power of the universe: a concept similar to the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian Epic of Creation. We know he somehow allied himself with the cult of Marduk, whose members seem bent on reacquiring what the god Anu took from Marduk and delivered to Enki, better known as Thoth, for safekeeping, thousands of years ago.”

“But why?” Montross guided him. “What was the supreme honcho worried Marduk might do with it?”

Alexander scratched the back of his head. “Make a mess of the universe?”

“Precisely,” Montross said, smiling as the flashlight beam drew away from his face and settled on the enigmatic iron chest. “You asked about my dreams? What I’ve seen to make me plan that assault on your team, on your home? And cause such regrettable loss.”

“Yeah,” Alexander said, finding himself choking up again. “Why?”

Montross hung his head. He scratched over his shoulder, where the backpack would have been, the one confiscated in the helicopter, the one with his sketchbook.

He closed his eyes, and when he spoke, the descriptions echoed the visions he had suffered. Dreams pervading into his every waking thought, nightmares parading about his nocturnal slumber; images that never relented, despite every attempt to thwart the final assault on his mortality. Visions that never, ever let up.

All his life.

He stands in the shadow of an immense statue, a figure whose crown blots out the sun, and whose upstretched arm has served as a beacon to millions of hopeful voyagers.

He stands with his arms out, ready to embrace what he knows is coming.

What he has failed to prevent. What he can never prevent.

At least, not alone.

His face turns to the heavens, but first settles on the face of the Lady high above, on her sad, impassioned eyes that seem to cry for him.

For the world.

The ground trembles.

In the harbor, the water boils.

Something crashes beside him, shatters into thousands of pieces, none of which hit him.

Her arm.

The torch bounces, rolls, then falls into the seething water where boats are capsizing, tankers exploding. The air sizzles. Beyond the statue, the city’s skyline erupts from an invisible wave that crashes through the buildings, exploding glass and concrete as if they’re mere castles of sand. But the debris-instead of falling, seems to suck back, vacuumed to the west, along with huge chunks of earth. Central Park’s trees are uprooted, skyscrapers topple, then shatter, collapsing and hurtling away.