Montross had a moment of fear as something hissed and huge metal bolts pulled backwards from holding the great silver vault door in place. The door opened. Reflexively, he held back an arm to shield Alexander in case something deadly came flying out of the darkness. Shame, he thought, actually starting to like the kid.
A moment later, the door opened all the way. Motionless now, Montross took a deep breath. “Inside,” he whispered, nudging the boy forward into the darkness that glimmered as oil lamps around a circular room ignited, triggered by the door’s opening.
“You first,” Alexander said, trying to twist away but held fast. He stumbled forward into the vault — at last! He was finally here, inside after all that time, wondering and dreaming about it. Reading, studying, listening to his father’s stories.
He was here.
But then he froze, staring first at the beautiful zodiac images painted on the ceiling, and then at the lone pedestal basking in the glow of four lamps, and the single object resting at its apex:
The Emerald Tablet.
“There’s a note beside it,” Alexander said, his voice cracking.
“A note?” Montross took another step in, hesitantly still, as if expecting a rack of stainless steel, poisoned-tip spikes to come plunging down through the ceiling and skewer him at any moment. “I didn’t see a note.”
“Maybe,” said Alexander, picking up the loose-leaf piece of white paper with a jagged left edge, “Dad only left it for me recently.”
“What does it say?” He glanced at the paper, frowned, then checked out the ceiling. “Looks Greek to me.”
“It is Greek.” Alexander read the words and translated to himself: Son, this is your legacy now, and that means it’s yours to protect. If you’ve been forced here against your will, and if you have the chance, tap the pedestal twice, and then…
He lowered the paper, dropped it, then inched his fingers toward the wooden outer frame. In another second, Montross had his back to him and Alexander seized the opportunity. He pressed the pedestal once, then again, and heard a click. And then he did just what the note told him to:
He ran.
Bolted straight for the door—
— just as another door, a door made of vertical steel bars, came grinding out of a slot in the ceiling, crashing down.
Alexander dropped and rolled under it into the sub-basement. The grate slammed onto the concrete floor with a force that echoed in his ears like a thunderclap.
He turned, about to try to push the outer vault door shut, when he saw Montross standing there, gripping the bars like a prisoner in a cell.
“Caught you,” Alexander said triumphantly.
Montross released the bars and stepped back as the vault door drifted nearly shut. Breathing deeply, calming himself, he turned and scrutinized the room, seeing now the grate opening in the ceiling, the notches he should have noticed in his visions.
The boy continued talking through the gap in the outer door. “Guess you didn’t see that coming, did you?”
Montross stopped, lowered his head and gave the kid a stare, considering all this. Then he pointed through the crack. “There’s my sketch book. Look at the last page.” He turned back and approached the Emerald Tablet, saw it shimmering, giving off a surprising bit of heat, its strange symbols appearing not only three-dimensional, but multi-dimensional. Layers upon layers, hundreds of levels deep.
His head spun and his stomach felt tingly, a little nauseous.
“Oh crap,” he heard the boy say, the words so distant. “You did draw it — this exact scene.” Then he looked through the window, gathered his courage and yelled, “But you’re still trapped in there!”
Montross returned, pressed his face against the thick glass porthole, let his lips pull away into a smile; and before heading back for the tablet, he said, loud enough for Alexander to hear:
“Oh, I’m not trapped.”
6
The air transport left within the hour, Caleb, Phoebe and Orlando sitting in the back with fifteen empty seats, painfully aware of the loss of two of their members, including one traitor. Wiped out again, Caleb thought, holding his head as if he could still hear their screams.
“I was responsible,” he said somberly, staring out the window at the dawn rising over the vast horizon of blue ahead of them. “We need to bring them back, their bodies. Notify Ben’s family, tell them… I don’t know.”
“It’s not your fault,” Phoebe said as Orlando worked on his iPad.
“I feel as callous as Waxman,” Caleb said as he crossed his arms over his bruised ribs, “and as selfish. But we need to get back.”
“We’ve called the police; they’re on their way to our house.”
“It’s probably already too late.”
“Hopefully you were seeing the future,” offered Orlando.
Caleb shook his head. “My visions are usually firmly rooted in the past. Can we connect with the police?”
“Trying,” said Orlando, using the VOIP voice connection on the laptop. “But they keep putting me on hold.” He looked up, and his voice trembled. “I think they’ve got a problem.”
The first officer barely got out of the cruiser before he was shot through the heart. The round had punched through the driver’s side window as he was opening the door, and he’d only had a moment to guess where the gunshot had come from before he fell back, sliding along the car and down. His partner, instead of ducking and radioing for backup, pushed his way out the passenger side, and drew his weapon.
He turned, stood up and opened fire at the front of the house, having seen movement in that direction. His bullets strafed the door, shattered four windows and exploded an outdoor light. For a brief second he allowed himself a measure of satisfaction. That got those bastards.
But then the door kicked open and a man in a ski mask, limping on his right leg, swung an HK MP5 submachine gun in his direction and let loose a hail of metallic death.
Lydia hit the deck as soon as the first man aimed out the window. “Robert, down!” she yelled as a barrage of gunfire burst through the house. Glass shattered, wood screamed, and one of the masked guards spun around, half his face a bloody mess.
Cavalry’s here, she thought, as Robert dropped beside her. Then she saw the other guard kick open the door and return fire.
“Robert.” She shook her brother. “Come on, now’s our chance. We can turn them in, and I promise, I’ll confront Caleb, get him to release the tablet, we’ll—”
Robert turned with her touch, rolled onto his back. Mouth open, blood bubbling up from his lips. A red stain spreading on his right breast.
“No…” Lydia grabbed his tie, and not knowing what else to do, fit the edge in the bullet hole, trying to stop the blood flow. “No, no, no.”
“Cops are dead,” came the voice at the door. “But we have to move, we—”
Lydia looked up and saw the man staring at his dead partner. The MP5 wavered. And then Lydia saw the outline of the gun holstered against her brother’s side. Before she knew what she was doing, she had the gun free and was standing, pointing it at the masked man.
He looked up from his partner, saw her and raised the gun, but she shot him first — a direct hit despite the recoil that knocked her back a yard. The man went down. His legs twitched once, twice, then lay still.