Pierce felt his reaction to that was appropriate. “He’s killing her. We have to do something.”
Lazarus just repeated the single word. “Wait.”
A moment later, Tyndareus released Gallo. She was still alive and conscious, but it was impossible to tell how badly she had been injured.
“I’ll kill him,” Pierce growled.
“Yes. But wait.”
They were less than a hundred yards from the edge of the ravine, and maybe another fifty to the far end, where the drama was unfolding. Pierce knew he could cover that distance in thirty seconds. And then what? Kill more than a dozen armed men, including one who’s a walking tank, all without hitting Gallo or Fiona? Lazarus was right.
On the screen, Gallo sat up and began crawling closer to Fiona. “That bastard, Kenner. I knew we couldn’t trust him.”
“How do we know he’s not just playing?” Carter asked. Her dubious tone suggested she was only bringing up the possibility just to cover their bases.
“It doesn’t matter,” Pierce said. “Plan B is a go.” He turned to Lazarus. “Ready?”
Lazarus nodded and turned to Carter. “You?”
She nodded.
He continued to stare at her. “Felice, you know what might—”
“I know,” she said. “I can handle it.”
Pierce focused his attention on the video feed. Fiona had turned her back to the rest of the group and had her hands placed against the wall as if she was trying to push the slab or rock away, or perhaps…
“Shit,” Pierce said. “She’s trying to open it.”
Lazarus and Carter looked over Pierce’s shoulder at the screen.
“Open?” Carter asked. “How?”
“She’s using the Mother Tongue. I thought there would be a cave entrance or something like that. This explains that inscription on the map. It’s the same as the one we found in the Labyrinth.” In response to Carter’s blank look, he added, “It’s like ‘Open Sesame.’ Makes it possible to walk through walls. The rest is a long story.” He jerked a thumb at Lazarus. “He can tell you all about it.”
“What happens when she succeeds?”
“It’s a doorway to Hell. Short answer, nothing good.” Pierce shoved the phone in his pocket and gripped his MP5K with both hands. “We’ve got to do this. Now.”
“Can she do it?” Lazarus asked. “It’s been years since she learned, and forgot, those few phrases of the Mother Tongue.”
“She’s a fast learner,” Pierce said, followed by, “Cintia, start the countdown. Let’s move.”
Pierce heard Dourado’s voice in his Bluetooth earpiece. “Countdown started. You’ve got thirty seconds.”
Lazarus led the way, staying low but running at a near-sprint. The ravine hid them from Tyndareus’s men, but if any scouts ventured out of the depression, they would be exposed and the element of surprise lost. But with the clock ticking, the most important thing was to be in position when the fireworks started. Pierce tried to count down the passing seconds, but when Dourado spoke again, informing them that they had twenty seconds, he realized he was counting too fast.
Of course, none of that would matter if Fiona succeeded in opening the door before they got there.
They ran parallel to the ravine, following a circuitous route toward Fiona and Gallo. That meant cutting across the blighted landscape and dodging fumaroles. With each step, the ground might give way beneath their feet, dropping them into hidden, superheated pools of water to be boiled like Maine lobsters. It also meant that, if they survived the approach, they would have to fight their way past all of Tyndareus’s men before escaping the ravine.
One thing at a time.
“Ten seconds,” Dourado said. “Hard left, now!”
Lazarus adjusted course, pouring on the speed. Their objective, the far end of the ravine, lay straight ahead, hidden by the terrain. If all went according to plan, they would arrive directly above where Fiona now stood, attempting to unlock a portal to the Underworld.
“Five…four…three…two…one…”
There was a flash on the western horizon. A pillar of dust and smoke arose to mark the spot, and an instant later, Pierce both heard and felt the shock wave of the improvised explosive device Lazarus had placed two hundred yards away from the entrance to the ravine.
“That got their attention,” Dourado said.
Lazarus stopped short and motioned for Pierce and Carter to get down, then began belly-crawling across the hot ground toward the edge of the drop. Pierce hit the dirt, getting a face-full of sulfur dust in the process. Blinking the stinging substance away, he crawled alongside Lazarus and got his first look at the mayhem unfolding fifty feet below.
Some of Tyndareus’s men had taken the bait, though not enough for Pierce’s liking. Eight of them were moving away, toward the site of the explosion, their assault rifles shouldered. The others had pulled back to form a defensive perimeter around Tyndareus. Pierce picked out Rohn in the latter group, shouting orders and waving to his men. Tyndareus, safely inside his armored suit, paid little heed to the disturbance, keeping his attention fixed on Fiona.
“Cintia,” Lazarus said, his voice taut but strangely calm given the circumstances. “Now.”
“They aren’t in range—”
“Do it.”
There was another flash, closer this time. The noise of the explosion was incredibly loud as it was funneled down the ravine. Lazarus had placed the second IED as close to the mouth of the depression as he dared get. The advancing front of Tyndareus’s men fell down like bowling pins, but none were within the explosion’s kill radius.
Then something extraordinary happened. The ground all around the explosion split apart like thin ice on a lake. Jagged cracks, spewing steam, radiated out from beneath the debris cloud. Three of the stunned gunmen vanished, as the earth upon which they lay collapsed and transformed into liquid. The others scrambled to their feet, retreating from the roiling wave of steam and destruction. Not all of them made it.
Although he had been primed to charge into battle only a moment before, Pierce was frozen in place by the spectacle. “Did you know that would happen?”
“No,” Lazarus admitted, sounding a little awed. “Sometimes, you just get lucky. Let’s go.”
The big man sprang to his feet and hurtled over the edge, bounding down the side of the ravine toward Tyndareus and the remainder of his forces. Pierce followed with Carter.
Instead of trying to run down the steep incline, he fell against the slope and slid on his backside, dragging his feet in front of him to slow his descent, even as he tried to acquire a target in the mayhem below. He managed to squeeze off a few shots, though it was impossible to tell whether he was hitting anything. He was still sliding when the earth beside him erupted from the impact of high-velocity rounds, and he heard the harsh reports from enemy rifles.
Shit!
Remembering Lazarus’s common sense advice—‘don’t make it easy for them to shoot you’—Pierce rolled to the right, heaving himself out of the path of another fusillade, then launched himself the rest of the way down the slope.
In the instant before he landed, he saw Gallo, huddled into a protective ball less than thirty feet away. Just past her, Fiona stood, her back turned to the chaos, her hands still pressed against the wall.
“Fiona! Don’t—”
She recoiled as if from an electric shock, and for a fleeting instant, Pierce dared to believe that his shout had reached her through the din. Then he saw the look of elation on her face, and he knew that his warning had come too late.