When Poli stopped, Mercer collapsed again. The big assassin went to a pile of swords leaning against a stack of sandalwood boxes. He came back, testing the edge, and showed Mercer the bloody line it left on his thumb.
“How do you think you’ll look without skin?”
Mercer could just lie there and stare up at him. Poli set the weapon down and forced him onto his feet again, saying, “I thought you were tough. The least you could do is make this interesting.” Holding one of Mercer’s arms Poli spun in place like a discus thrower and tossed him across the room. Mercer smashed into one of the chariots, almost flipping over its side. He couldn’t straighten himself by the time Poli grabbed him and threw him again. This time he crashed into the long wooden skiff Alexander was to use on the rivers of the underworld.
Poli reached for him again and just as his hands clamped on the back of Mercer’s neck, Mercer turned and rammed the butt end of a skinny oar into the giant’s eye.
Poli Feines roared in pain as blood and clear ocular fluid sprayed from the wound. Mercer took a painful step forward and rammed the oar deeper into the eye socket. Poli’s screams turned shrill.
Mercer reached out and yanked the oar from Poli’s eye and the merciless killer fell to the ground, clutching at his ruined face. “You’ve blinded me.”
Mercer grabbed a nearby lance to help keep him on his feet. “Not exactly an eye for an eye, you sadistic son of a bitch, but I think you get the point.”
Dawn was just brushing the eastern horizon when Cali Stowe brought the big Riva close to shore, where Booker Sykes and Devrin Egemen were waving her in. Behind them the camp was still, littered with the corpses of fifty terrorists. The Janissaries had won but at what cost? She scanned the beach for Mercer but there was no sign of him.
“He’s not dead,” she whispered as tears formed in her eyes. “He’s only a little wounded. He’s okay.”
As soon as she was in earshot she shouted, “Where’s Mercer? He’s not dead. He can’t be.”
Booker and Devrin looked at her stonily. She dropped the anchor and raced for the stern dive platform. She didn’t even kick off her shoes before jumping into the cool lake and stroking for the shore.
She scrambled to her feet as soon as it was shallow enough and charged out of the water, practically colliding with Booker. “Where’s Mercer?” she screamed.
There was blood on Booker’s uniform and his eyes were glassy with exhaustion. He could barely stay on his feet. Devrin was in even worse shape. His pants leg was sodden where he’d taken a bullet.
“He was underground when Professor Ahmad blew up the entrance to the tomb,” the young Turk said.
Cali fell to the ground and started to sob. “Was there anybody else down there?” When no one answered her Cali knew the worst. “How many?”
“Four, including Poli Feines,” Booker said.
“He might already be dead.” Her sobs turned into choking gasps as the enormity hit her. Mercer was dead. “Oh God, oh God.”
Booker hunkered down next to her. “We don’t know that for sure. He’s one tough piece of work. We’ll dig him out. We just need to get people here with heavy equipment.”
“That will take days. What if he’s injured? He could be bleeding to death right now.”
“Honey, there’s nothing we can do,” Booker soothed. “The quicker we get going the quicker we can come back. We’ll call Admiral Lasko and he’ll get the ball rolling. We have to go. Devrin needs to show that leg to a sawbones.”
“But…” Her voice trailed off.
“Cali, I know you think you should stay but sitting here watching a pile of dirt isn’t going to help him. We can be back here first thing tomorrow with a chopper and enough people to get him out.”
“I just can’t. I mean he’s…”
“I can’t believe it either but this is the only thing we can do. Come on.”
Cali let Booker draw her to her feet. They used the terrorists’ speedboat to motor out to the Riva. Booker and Cali had to carry the injured Janissary onto the luxury yacht. The scholar was going into shock from exhaustion and loss of blood. They set him in Cali’s cabin and they tucked blankets around his shivering body after Booker had redressed his wound. Booker asked Cali to stay with Devrin until he fell asleep, and then climbed up to the cockpit. Cali stroked Devrin’s feverish forehead, carefully brushing back his hair, her emotions in such turmoil that she could focus on nothing but the simple gesture.
The big engines rumbled to life and the Riva started to pull away from shore. Cali left Devrin and made her way to the stern window. The camp was quickly receding behind them as Booker brought the boat onto plane, a fat white wake forming a V that spread across the whole width of this narrow part of the bay.
She was about to turn away when she spotted something else marring the flat surface of the water. She almost dismissed it as a rogue wave but something piqued her curiosity, a vague sense of something she knew was caused by grief. Still, she ran out into the open dive platform. Unable to make out what had caught her interest she launched herself up the stairs to the top deck for a better vantage.
“Book,” she screamed, and when he didn’t hear her over the rumbling diesels, she ran up and smacked him on the shoulder. “Go back. Go back. There’s someone in the water.”
“What?”
“There’s someone in the water. Turn around.”
Booker shot her a dubious look but cranked the wheel over anyway. They backtracked fifty yards, keeping the engines at low RPMs, both of them scanning the water but unable to see anything except their own wake.
“You sure you saw something?”
Doubt crept into Cali’s eyes. “I thought I did.”
“Come on, we’ve got to get Devrin to a hospital.” He had cranked the wheel again and eased up the throttles when Cali shouted and pointed. On the crest of their fading wake a man was lying facedown in the water. Booker changed direction and gunned the engines. In seconds they were gliding by the pitiable figure.
“I don’t believe it.”
Cali grabbed a life ring and jumped over the side of the boat. The ring was torn from her hands when she hit the water and was driven deep but she found it when she resurfaced. She began to paddle wildly, pushing the ring ahead of her. It hit the man and turned him over. One arm came out of the water and draped over the flotation device. Mercer lifted his head from the water with a rakish grin on his battered but still handsome face. “I never figured Booker would try to steal my girl.”
Cali kissed him hungrily but Mercer had to push her back. His mouth was a bloody mess. “How?” she asked as they bobbed in the water.
“The tunnel was only partially collapsed,” Mercer panted. “I used Poli’s scuba gear to swim down until I found a place where the earthquake had opened up the ceiling enough for me to fit through. I let buoyancy do the rest.”
Arlington, Virginia
“Hi, Harry. I’m home,” Mercer called as he stepped through the doorway, feeling like a suburban husband from a fifties TV show.
Harry must have gotten the same feeling because he growled down from the upstairs bar, “I’m not getting your pipe and slippers.”
“What about mine?” Cali asked with a smile.
“Pipes are unladylike and I’ve got a foot fetish so I’d rather see you without slippers.” Harry’s tone then darkened. “Can you guys come up here? There’s something you have to listen to.”
Mercer was on crutches because of his bad knee and it took him a few moments to negotiate the curving staircase. Harry got up from his bar stool when they entered. He looked at the crutches and scoffed. “I lost my leg fifty odd years ago and only just started using a cane, while you get a little boo-boo on your knee and you’re on crutches.”