But there had to be a way.
Something sparked in her brain.
The micro-jet engines!
Groping with her right hand, she ran her finger over the electronic starter and pressed the b.u.t.ton.
An instant later she felt the surge of power from the four kerosene engines at her feet. The flying wing zoomed forward, then flipped, rolling, buffeted by the wind. She fought the controls. In her ears she could hear Flinders" m.u.f.fled screams coming through the helmet. With a great lurch, the wingpack seemed to stall in the air, then it wallowed, trying to stabilize its fall.
April regained control. She zoomed toward Skarda, using the hand controls to throttle up her speed, plunging down beneath his tumbling body.
But now he had his arms and legs outthrust, flattening out his profile against the wind to slow his descent. She saw him move his arm up and down, signaling that he"d seen her.
Manipulating the jets, she soared up alongside him, slowly maneuvering the wingpack closer to his position, matching his speed, until they were flying in tandem.
With a lunge, Skarda reached out and grabbed the top side of the port wing. Then he dragged himself toward the center above April, throwing his arms around her neck and hooking his feet under the trailing edge of the wing.
Feeding fuel into the engines, April grinned and headed for the ground.
___.
When the whirling blade buzzsawed through the cabin Tomilin leapt from his seat, diving for the protection of the built-in bar. The sound of tearing aluminum shrieked in his ears, drowning out Charbonnet"s frantic yells.
Wind blasted through the cabin, the blasts snapping like gunshots, s.n.a.t.c.hing up papers and gla.s.sware and hurling them out the open wounds in the jet"s skin.
Then the tail a.s.sembly cracked, splitting apart, and suddenly the aft of the plane was an open hole, screaming with wind. Tomilin knew the cabin wasn"t pressurized at this height, so he wouldn"t be sucked out into open air, but the fierce gale still dragged at him with the force of a tornado.
Hauling himself to his feet, he clutched at anything that was left intact, making his way to the c.o.c.kpit. With a lurch, he dumped himself into the copilot"s chair and strapped himself in.
"We have to go back!" Charbonnet yelled over the wind.
"No!" Tomilin"s face was set grim and hard.
"I can"t control this plane! It"s either we turn around or we die!"
For a few harsh seconds, Tomilin let his eyes close.
Then slowly he nodded. "Do it."
"The rudder"s out," Charbonnet explained, "so I"m going to have to try to thrust vector the engine and force it to yaw around."
But Tomilin wasn"t listening.
His mind was already planning out his next move.
___.
Gulf of Mexico Candy Man glowered at the monitor, silently commanding it to submit to his will. He"d shut down three of the satellites, but now he needed the firing codes for the bird over the Black Sea.
And the cracking program was still running through billions of possibilities.
___.
Mount Tavrida Wrenching his head around, Skarda watched the big jet bank eastward in an erratic circle, its nose tilted earthward as it fought to overcome to pull of gravity, its anti-collision strobe light flashing in pulsing white blinks. The wreckage of the Chinook still maintained its death grip on the aft of the jet.
The landing gear lowered as the s.p.a.ce between the Challenger and the landing strip narrowed.
He thought about the Stealth wedged in the porthole, sending out its message to Candy Man over and over.
Was it even still there after the crash?
___.
Gulf of Mexico Candy Man swore at the screen. In his left hand he had two Hershey bars sandwiched together.
Then a new window popped up: "KEY FOUND."
With a whoop he bit off a mouth-sized chunk of chocolate and typed in the code.
Mount Tavrida Skarda turned his head skyward. The high clouds had an odd look to them, suffused with an unnatural pinkish glow- Then a shaft of searingly bright red light lanced down from the sky.
Skarda grinned. His message had gotten through to Candy Man!
With an audible popping noise the hundred-thousand-watt laser beam found its target, slicing through the Chinook. Cut in half, the fuselage broke free of the aircraft, tumbling away into the darkness.
The beam bored through the clouds again, tracing a path along the starboard curve of the jet"s flank.
___.
Trapped in his seat, Tomilin jerked his head around, staring in horror as a two-foot-in-diameter beam of red light carved an inexorable path toward the c.o.c.kpit with the sound of frying metal.
He barely had enough time to scream before a lightning bolt of pain shot through his nervous system and the beam sliced his left leg off at the hip, ripping through the control panel and the nose of the plane.
___.
Skarda watched in horrible fascination as the jet separated into two halves as if dissected by a giant scalpel, each section plummeting away toward the mountainside where they crashed and exploded in twin gouts of flame.
Again the huge beam lanced down, this time carving across the mountaintop and the fortress, splitting open a huge fissure that sliced through the ma.s.sive limestone walls like a knife.
Time seemed to stop.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the top of the mountain erupted in a roaring volcano of white heat, a t.i.tanic sheet of flame that instantly melted millions of tons of stone into liquid slag and sent it fountaining hundreds of feet straight up into the night sky, as if the gates of h.e.l.l itself had burst wide open. An eerie light flashed across the clouds, the eye-searing explosion turning night into day as the entire mountain vaporized in a matter of seconds until only a smoking crater was left on the plain far below.
A thought raced through Skarda"s brain. The Atlanteans must have brought Thoth"s Pillars to the fortress from Siwa! And the laser beam had set off their cores of orichalc.u.m!
"Hang on!" April yelled. Punching fuel into the rockets, she plunged the flying wing into a steep dive.
Above their heads, a shockwave of displaced air roared overhead with the sound of a thousand freight trains.
Skarda turned to look down, seeing deep fissures and lava streams radiating out in all directions from the crater.
Firing up the rockets, April let the wingpack even out into a steady glide toward the plain far below.
SIXTY-NINE.
Bavarian Alps SLIDING behind the wheel of the BMW, Belisarius smiled to himself as the keyless starter fired up the engine. Then he shot out of the garage and headed down the twisting drive to the main road. By now he"d a.s.sumed that the Atlanteans" plan had failed. But no matter. He"d come back to the castle to secure the Tablet and gold in his vault, where the treasures would be safe until he set up his new life in Costa Rica.
He glanced at the rearview mirror, glimpsing the ugly, ruined skin on his face. Soon it would be gone. He"d already lined up the best plastic surgeon in Colombia. With another new ident.i.ty, his appearance changed, and insulated by his wealth, the Atlanteans would never find him.
In Costa Rica the women were young and plentiful and cheap, and it would cost him pennies to have them cater to his slightest whim.
The thought twisted his mouth in a l.u.s.ty grin.
The road corkscrewed in a tight switchback. Traveling fast past a stand of dark conifers, he stood on the brakes to sweep around the turn.
Then his foot mashed the pedal completely to the floor. A black limousine sat parked broadside across the narrow road, blocking it. In front of it, leaning against the front and rear b.u.mpers, Manucharov and Chekhol stood with rifles aimed directly at him.
The BMW"s tires screeched as the car shuddered to a halt. Immediately, Belisarius yanked the shift into reverse and stomped on the accelerator. The car shot backward, tires smoking.
The rifles spat fire. The BMW"s front tires exploded into rags. Smoke poured out from under the hood.
Spinning around in a half circle, the car stopped dead.
A cry of anguish burst from Belisarius" mouth. Yanking open the door, he threw himself from the front seat, landing on his hands and knees. Then he hit the hillside running. Dirt and loose stones cascaded in his wake as his shoes dug into the snow-covered ground. His breath shot out in great ragged gasps.
A hand grabbed the collar of his coat. Stumbling, he fell to his knees with a heavy thud, trying to shake it off, but the hand kept its grip.
He turned, slowly, already knowing exactly who he"d see.
General Saltykov stood over him, his face a grim block of stone, his eyes like dead holes in his skull.
A minute later Belisarius was sitting inside the limo between the two Russian gunmen, glaring at the general with an expression of arrogant hostility. And at the man beside him, a towering mountain of flesh that seemed to fill up the entire interior. The giant was in his sixties, with buzz-cut hair shot with gray and hands like the roots of oak trees.
The general"s lips curved in a tight-lipped smile. "As I"m sure you already know, the coordinates you gave us were wrong."
Belisarius said nothing. He just stared at the man with hatred and contempt.
Again the Russian smiled. "If you"ll remember, I told you that there are areas of the Lubyanka prison that are closed off to the public. But still quite operational."
He gestured at the gigantic man. "Meet Mr. Dyuzhev. In the glory days of the KGB, he was in charge of extricating information from the guests of our famous prison. I can a.s.sure you, he is very, very good at his job."
The giant grinned, showing a mouth full of misshapen, jagged teeth.
Cold fear clenched Belisarius" stomach, but not a shred of the emotion reached his face. "I can give you the correct coordinates now."
With the flip of the general"s hand the limo backed around onto the road and sped off. "Oh, you will, Mr. Belisarius. You can be sure of that."
EPILOGUE.
St. Marks"s Basilica CARRYING an English bridle leather attache case, Skarda entered the presbytery, where a crew of craftsman worked on restoring the floor. He glanced up at the ceiling. The hole blown in the Ascension Dome had been temporarily patched, awaiting full repair.
At the altar, a middle-aged priest moved past St. Mark"s sarcophagus, now covered with a white linen cloth. Turning at Skarda"s approach, he glanced quizzically at the case.
Skarda stepped up to him, handing it over. "For the restoration," he said.
The priest shook his head with an apologetic smile. "No English."
Skarda smiled. Setting down the case, he popped the latches open, then swung back the lid, pointing at the hole in the floor and the roof and then at what lay inside.
The priest"s eyes went wide.
The interior of the case was stacked with gold bars, gleaming with soft highlights in the candlelight.
After spending several days in a private hospital, Skarda, April, and Flinders had shipped Flinders" mother"s body back to Chicago for cremation. Then they"d blown the door to Belisarius" vault, cleaning out the gold. The stolen paintings would be shipped back to their home museums, and the rest of the gold would be distributed to charities in Rachel"s name.
Along with the papyrus, the Emerald Tablet would be on permanent exhibition at the Luxor Museum, dedicated to Stephen Cowell"s memory.
The priest nodded and smiled. "Dio ti benedice."
Turning away from the altar, Skarda saw Flinders standing at the entrance to the iconostasis, waiting for him. He walked to her side and looked at her with his intense gaze.
"Well..." she said.
He could see emotions in her eyes, unspoken. Then she rushed at him, pushing herself up against him and kissing him hard on the mouth. She threw her arms around him in a hug.
He hugged her back.
Emotions raced across his face, too, but she couldn"t see them. "At a different time-" he started.
But she pulled herself away and cut him off, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. "I know. You"re not ready." A warm smile touched her lips.
He smiled back at her. "For what it"s worth, you"ve helped me. You"ve helped me a lot."
For a few seconds she stared at him in silence as if she were memorizing the lines of his face. Then she said, "Like I said, you can"t save the world, Park."
He nodded, but his eyes were miles away. From his pocket he took out an envelope with her name written across the front. He handed it to her.