“You played well, Nick Baron,” he said with a gracious smile. “But you played exactly as I steered you.” He raised his eyebrows. “Did you really think that you would outsmart me by not going to Cairo? I didn’t want you there. I wanted you here, with me at the very end. And here you are.” He spread his arms — gun, remote nuclear trigger, and all — and bowed.
“If you wanted me here,” said Nick, stalling for time, “then why did your men try to kill me in London?”
“Kill you?” Kattan rocked back with laughter. “To steal a line from Hollywood, if I had wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. Those little distractions were just meant to keep you in the game, and they did, at least until a few minutes ago.” He shook the gun at Nick with his severed arm. “You are a poor sport. Like a petulant child upending the board, you refused to make your last move in our little game.”
“I was never in this for the game.”
“Liar!” shouted Kattan, his voice echoing beneath the dome. “I have seen your life, Nick Baron! I have studied you for years! Whether by guns or planes or little wooden pieces, you live to play the game, and I kept you in it! I allowed you to survive this long and you repaid me by quitting the board.” He turned the machine gun toward Nick’s dad. “I sent you a move a few minutes ago after my man killed your partner. Pull out your phone, now. Make your countermove. Finish the game.”
“No. This is absurd.”
Nick’s response infuriated the terrorist. He shoved the machine gun into Kurt’s chest. “Do it!”
“Okay, okay.” Nick held out his hands to settle Kattan down. “Take it easy.” He pulled out his phone and opened the chess app. Kattan had only left him one move to get out of check, taking a rook with his king, exposing his own bishop. He pressed enter and then pocketed his phone once more.
They stared at each other in silence for several seconds, Kattan’s weapon still pressed into Kurt’s chest, until a chime sounded from the terrorist’s pocket. The move had been received. He did not bother to pull out the phone. He lifted his eyes blissfully to the ceiling and quietly breathed, “Thank you,” and then pulled the machine gun’s trigger.
Nick’s dad grunted through his gag and dropped to his knees.
“Dad!” In a rage, Nick drew the Sig from behind his back, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, but Kattan pivoted and fired again. One bullet seared Nick’s finger below the trigger guard. Another sparked off the suppressor, knocking the weapon away. It clumped onto the floor behind him. Nick growled and pulled his stinging hand to his chest.
“The same abilities that allow me to dominate you on the chess board also give me superior reflexes, Nick. It’s all part of the same package. You cannot outthink me, and you cannot outshoot me. Stand down.”
The natural light in the lattice windows was almost gone. Kattan looked up at the dome, watching the shadow inside it grow. “I will let you observe your father’s final moments. More courtesy than I was given. Then you and I will complete our game. We will die together on this sacrificial stone, and the apocalypse that rises from it will heal the world of the ills your kind and my father’s kind created.”
CHAPTER 77
Kurt’s eyes pleaded with his son as he collapsed onto his side next to the dead Hashashin. He had taken three rounds to the right side of his chest. Blood soaked his shirt and trickled down onto the Foundation Stone.
“At least let me go to him,” said Nick, taking a step forward.
Kattan thrust his gun out. “Ah, ah, ah. I have been more than generous already. Stay where you are.”
Nick kept his distance, but he circled, looking for an opportunity. “You have your revenge. You can kill us and walk away. Why DC? Why Jerusalem? You’re not one of these Hashashin fanatics.”
“Hashashin fanatics? Really?” Kattan chuckled. “You are the one racing around the world, killing, destroying lives, all in the name of a fallen power that still believes it governs the world by divine right. Who are you to call them fanatics?”
“A hundred thousand Israelis and tourists, ten thousand Americans,” said Nick, still circling. He shot a glance at his dad. Kurt was propped up on his left elbow, following his son with his eyes, but they were losing focus. He was fading. His pooling blood mixed with the blood of the Hashashin to form a dark red river that snaked through the contours of the Foundation Stone. Nick looked back up at Kattan. “Do you really believe that killing them and blowing up that rock you’re standing on will bring your Mahdi and some kind of paradise?”
“Stop!” shouted Kattan, raising the remote trigger.
Nick froze.
The terrorist’s voice calmed again and he tilted his head. “Pardon the outburst, but your attempt to off-balance me is both obvious and annoying. I bid you stand still.”
Nick nodded slowly and lifted his hands again.
“Messiah, Mahdi, they are all the same,” continued the terrorist. “Archaic nonsense that has cost the lives of millions and plagued our world with constant conflict. Don’t you see, Nick? There is no God, no paradise.” He stamped the sacred stone with his boot. “This is just a rock. But the world… wants… Armageddon.” He shook the bomb trigger to emphasize each word and then dropped it to his side and looked up into the dome. “I will give it to them. And when the smoke clears and the sun emerges from the shadow of the black moon, you and I and a hundred thousand others will be dead, and then what?” He shrugged. “The world will go on. But they will go on in the realization that Armageddon has passed and no messiah and no Mahdi came to save them from their miserable existence.”
Kattan took a deep breath through his nostrils and smiled as if the air were suddenly clean. “The delusions that pollute this world will collapse and all will see that every religion is false. The crusades and the jihads will finally end.”
Nick shook his head. “When the smoke clears, the world will rebuild their churches. The masses will keep watching for the messiah. You can’t destroy faith that easily.”
Kurt moaned and Nick’s eyes dropped to his father in time to watch his head droop back. His elbow slipped from under him and he collapsed onto the Foundation Stone. Nick rushed forward but Kattan stamped his foot again, shouting, “No! I already told you, no!”
Nick stopped, closer than before but still too far to strike.
“Let me explain how the endgame has gone,” said Kattan, calming himself. “Your last knight is dead, taken by my man in the mosque, and your final move exposed your last bishop.” He viciously kicked Kurt’s unmoving form. “And so, I have taken him too.”
Nick’s phone gave its dreadful chime, announcing its receipt of the final move of the game.
Above them, the last trace of sunlight vanished from the lattice windows. Kattan looked up and nodded his approval at the completeness of the shadow that filled the dome. He smiled down at Nick. “You have a message. Go ahead. See what it says.”
As Nick pulled out his device and tilted up the screen, the terrorist raised the remote above his head. He wrapped his index finger around its red trigger. “Our game is over, Nick Baron. Checkmate.”
CHAPTER 78
The instant that Kattan said checkmate, four of the windows encircling the dome exploded inward, showering the inner mosque with splintered latticework and tinted glass. The SWARM crashed its way into the chamber and hovered over the terrorist in a tight formation.