Fiona laughed. “Dewey invented that in 1876. I’m sure the librarians of Alamut had their own method. Once I figure it out, I’ll be able to narrow it down. Thanks to Findlay, were already days ahead of schedule.”
Hurricane drew close to Dodge and in a whisper, said: “What’s our play, here?”
Dodge shook his head uncertainly. “It’s obvious that the Doc isn’t being forced to help. We’ve only got Anya’s word that Barron is up to no good.”
Both men glanced over to the corner where the tall blonde woman stood, arms folded casually. She didn’t seem particularly upset at the turn of events, but then she had never been easy to read.
“We need more information. I say we help her find the map and then figure out the rest once we’re somewhere far away from here.”
“Unless you gentleman can read Classic Persian,” Fiona called from across the room, “then I’m afraid you won’t be much help.”
“She heard that?” Hurricane whispered, unnecessarily it seemed.
“I will help,” Rahman said. “What are you looking for?”
Fiona smiled at the expediter then rattled something off in Farsi. He replied in kind and then went to a different section of the room and began checking the copper tags.
“Well, that’s that,” Hurricane declared. “We’re just takin’ up space down here.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“I’ll climb up and then pull the rest of you, if need be.” The big man reached up and wrapped his hands around the rope, then caught a loop of it between his boots. Before ascending, he leaned over and whispered: “It might be a good idea to hang onto that rifle.”
Dodge nodded, but recalling Hurricane’s earlier premonition of danger, found the admonition more than a little disconcerting.
As soon as the big man was off the rope, he signaled his readiness to begin pulling the rest of the group up. Dodge turned to Nora. “Ladies first.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice.” She scampered onto the sand heap, wrapped herself around the rope, and almost immediately was drawn into the air by Hurricane’s powerful arms. Anya went up next, approaching the rope as casually as if escaping from an underground pit was a common occurrence in her life.
Dodge kept a watchful eye on the rope, ready to take action in the event of a problem, but his thoughts were on Fiona’s ongoing search of the collection. After so much effort to reach the library ahead of Barron, he was now giving tacit support to his rival. He just hoped that, when Fiona finally found the jar with the map, it would not prove to be a Pandora’s Box.
He turned to Newcombe. “You’re not doing much good here, Doc. Want to head topside and catch up a bit?”
“Oh, I…” The scientist glanced at Fiona. Dodge noted the look of disappointment, and understood. Newcombe was smitten with the female archaeologist; was that clouding his judgment about this whole affair?
“Go on, Findlay,” Fiona called, not looking up from her search, and once more evincing an almost preternatural awareness of what was going on around her. “No sense in mucking about down here. You should probably get your machine ready for transport back to Majestic.”
Newcombe’s expression did not change appreciably, but he shuffled toward the rope. “Yes. Of course. I should take care of that.”
He was about halfway up when Dodge heard the first gunshot.
“Hang on!” Hurricane shouted. Newcombe shot up like a rocket as the big man intensified his efforts.
“What’s happened?” Dodge received no answer, other than the slack rope falling back down into the hole. With the captured rifle slung over one shoulder, he took the rope in hand and started shinnying up unaided, even as the sound of more gunfire reached his ears. The distinctive roar of Hurricane’s semi-automatics had joined the cacophony.
Despite the unknown threat above, Dodge could not help but notice the smooth surface of the stone that Newcombe’s — or rather Barron’s — device had cut through. It reminded him an enormous concrete pipe, perfectly round, and for some reason, that triggered a memory of something he had seen in the secret valley. He filed it away and continued scooting up the rope.
At the top, he peeked up just for a moment, and got a snapshot image of what was happening. He saw Hurricane, hunkered down behind a low stone wall, reloading his pistols. Just beside him, Newcombe and Nora were huddled together in the cover of the same barrier. Dodge saw several men in blue uniforms, likewise ducking for cover throughout the ruins of Alamut, and then he noticed two of the uniformed men simply sprawled out on the ground, unmoving.
Fiona appeared below, a ceramic jar in hand. “Found it! What’s going on up there?”
“We’re under attack. Stay put.”
Dodge heaved himself over the lip of the opening and scrambled to Hurricane’s side, unlimbering the rifle as he moved.
“Glad you made it,” Hurricane said, his voice filled with a note of confidence that was undermined by his next statement. “I’m down to my last two magazines.”
Dodge fired over the ruined wall. He didn’t have time to scan for a target; he mostly just wanted to remind the attackers that the defenders of Alamut were armed too. He saw the flash and smoke as someone returned fire, and ducked back down just as the bullet chipped the wall a few feet away.
“How many are there?”
“I saw about a dozen,” Hurricane replied. “Maybe nine, now. They rushed us en masse, but then high-tailed it when I started shooting back. But they’re bound to figure out that we ain’t got much more to throw back at ‘em. What I can’t figure is how they knew we’d find a way back to the surface.”
“Maybe they didn’t come for us.” Dodge gestured to the bodies of the uniformed men. “Those have to be Barron’s crew, so it doesn’t make sense that he’s the foreigner Dariush talked about.”
Hurricane pondered this for a moment, then rose up and took two quick shots. “Make that ‘eight’ now. If I can make every shot count, we might have a chance. So if not Barron, who?”
“Who else wants the death ray?” Dodge thought he already knew the answer to that.
Newcombe unexpectedly jumped into the conversation. “I keep telling you, it’s not a death ray.”
“Wait a sec. It’s here isn’t it? The… what did you call it? Some kind of wave machine? You used it to tunnel into the library, right?”
“Yes. That’s it.” The scientist pointed to a contraption mounted on a wheeled platform near the opening. “Why… oh, no you can’t be thinking of using it for that. It’s a tool, not a weapon.”
“Doc, a shovel’s a tool too,” Hurricane said. “But when you’ve got nothing else, you make do.”
“What kind of range does it have?”
Newcombe’s mouth worked, betraying his inner struggle. Before he could answer, Hurricane and Dodge both snapped off a shot apiece to buy them a few more seconds.
“The closer the better,” Newcombe said, finally. “The waves propagate better in a solid or liquid medium. Air just isn’t dense enough—”
“Close then,” Hurricane announced, sparing them the technical lecture. “We need to funnel them into a choke point.”
“At best that will just drive them off again,” Dodge pointed out. “We need a way off this rock. Who flew those autogyros down here?”
“Fiona flew one.” Newcombe glanced at the remaining crewmen, then at the bodies of the fallen, and his face fell. “The other pilot is… he’s—”
“Then we’ve got one pilot,” Dodge said. “Let’s get her up here. She can fly Nora and…” He paused and looked around. Anya was nowhere in sight.
“What about the rest of us?” Newcombe asked.
“We’ll hold them off as long we can,” Dodge said, with far more confidence than her felt.
“Toss me that rifle,” Hurricane called. “I’ll keep ‘em busy until you can get the lady up, and that thingamajig in position.”