Knight’s Barrett boomed, the muzzle brake throwing up a huge cloud of dirt as it vented the hot sulfurous gases that propelled a .50 BMG round with lethal accuracy into one of the monsters.
The sniper rifle thundered again, but without the same effect; the frankensteins were moving too fast for him to sight them in.
Queen and Rook were only a few seconds from reaching them, and their pursuers were just a few more.
“Knight! Let’s go!” Bishop shouted.
“Where?” Knight must have intended it to be a rhetorical question, because he didn’t look up from his grim but futile task.
A good question. King had gone into the rock, but they couldn’t follow…
There was another way. He remembered the door they had passed when moving up on Rainer and his men; a door that led straight into the cliff, and to some old cave beyond. If they could get inside, that door would become a kill zone where they could repel almost any attack, even from the prodigiously strong frankensteins.
There was no time to explain all of this to Knight, so he simply reached down and plucked the smaller man up and threw him over one shoulder. The abrupt action startled Knight, but instead of struggling, he clutched at the rifle.
“This way!” Bishop shouted as he started running along the base of the cliff. He didn’t look back to see if Queen and Rook were following.
The door seemed further away than he remembered — probably a trick of his battle-heightened perceptions.
Knight had stopped struggling against him almost immediately, but he didn’t speak until Bishop reached his goal. “Put me down,” he said calmly. “I’ll hold them off while you get the door open.”
Bishop complied without comment, letting his teammate slip to the ground. Queen and Rook reached them at almost the same moment. Four of the frankensteins were about a hundred feet behind them.
“Keep moving!” Queen was breathing so hard, she could barely get the words out.
Bishop shook his head. “We can make our stand here…inside.”
“You got the key big guy?” panted Rook.
Bishop raised one foot and slammed it against the door, just below the U-shaped handle. The door buckled, practically folding in half around his boot, as it swung inward, revealing the darkness beyond.
“I guess you could knock,” Rook said.
A piercing shriek filled the air as the cave’s intruder alarm activated.
“Or ring the bell.”
Bishop swept them all through the opening with one mighty arm; with his other hand, he fired his carbine into the approaching enemy. He didn’t wait to see if his shots had any effect. He whirled and plunged headlong into the cave behind his teammates.
A narrow passage lay just beyond the door, and Bishop was forced to squirm through the tight throat of stone. Then, without warning, he was birthed into a great black void.
The oppressive darkness lasted only a few seconds. One by one, the tactical flashlights mounted to their carbines flared to life. Rays of tightly focused brilliance stabbed through the still air without really illuminating anything, but Bishop got the sense of being in an enormous enclosure, as big as an aircraft hanger. The floor alternated between loose chips of rock and a smooth surface that looked almost polished, but riding above both was a narrow bridge of steel plate — part of the conservation effort designed to minimize impact on the cave. The sweep of the lights revealed other discrete details: pillars of limestone and other minerals that stretched from floor to ceiling; stalagmites that seemed to be erupting from the floor like milky white mushroom clouds. One of the lights revealed something else, something that at first glance appeared to be moving, but was in reality an image painted on one wall — a buffalo or bison that appeared almost to be running. The illusion was gone even before Bishop could register it; the lights were sweeping back the way they’d come, shining on the narrow slit leading to the doorway.
Something was moving there.
Rook fired his pistol. The entire cavern rang with the noise of the discharge, and the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder obliterated the earthy odor of ancient stone. The shape in the entry twitched grotesquely with the impact, but then the figure began moving forward once more.
Rook fired again, and this time the damage was unmistakable; the bullet cratered the frankenstein’s forehead.
Impossibly, it kept advancing.
Rook fired out the last of his magazine, but the monstrosity just seemed to absorb each hit as if it was impervious.
There was an ear-splitting report as Knight fired the Barrett straight into the thing’s chest, nearly tearing it in half. This time it went down permanently, as did the frankenstein right behind it. But even before the bodies hit the steel decking, a third creature rushed forward and lifted the fallen body, holding it between itself and the Chess Team like a shield.
Bishop realized now why the first frankenstein had seemed invincible; it had been dead all along, and its body had sheltered the advance of its brothers through the chokepoint of the cave entrance.
Rook and Knight hastened to reload, while Bishop and Queen kept up a withering barrage of fire from their carbines, but the invading force just shrugged off the damage as they poured unhindered through the gap.
FIFTY-THREE
The darkness surrounding King was becoming substantial. At first, he attributed this to some lingering vestige of claustrophobia, but as the air became viscous, like syrup clinging to his limbs, he realized that it was the literal truth. The strange effect that had opened this passageway into the Earth — science or magic, or maybe a little of both — was receding; the stone was returning to its solid state.
The realization triggered a surge of panic, and he started clawing his way forward, swimming as much as running. Abruptly, the resistance vanished. He stumbled forward, sprawling face down on hard stone.
What just happened?
He knew the answer. The rational part of his brain stodgily refused to embrace the reality of the experience, but what other explanation could there be?
Understanding the Voynich manuscript and securing the Prime had never been his highest priority, but he had been paying attention when Parker and Sasha had told their tale of medieval scientists discovering the secret source of life and using music to change the very nature of the physical world. If even a little bit of what they had told him was true…
I just walked through a solid rock wall!
There was a faint glow directly ahead, and King heard raised voices, conversing heatedly just a few yards in front of him.
“You have to let me do this,” Sasha urged.
“And you can,” Parker said. “Once Jack has secured the area.”
“And what if he can’t? What if Rainer kills him? Kills them all?”
Frowning, King got to his feet, and with his hands extended ahead, probing the darkness, he moved toward them. He could see their silhouettes now, lit by the glow of Sasha’s computer.
He brought his carbine around and switched on the attached light. The high-intensity LED bulb revealed a tunnel, cut and smoothed by the passage of some ancient subterranean river long since diverted, sloping gently downward, and standing partway down the slope were two human shapes.
Parker threw up a hand to shade his eyes, but Sasha seized on the moment to break free of his restraining hand. She charged ahead, deeper into the passage.
“Stop her, Danno!”
Parker was already moving. He caught her by the shoulder and spun her around. King could see the desperation in her eyes. She struggled in his grasp, her efforts becoming more frantic as King drew near.