The obsidian vault was empty. They found nothing. But maybe her attackers still didn’t know that. Or maybe they needed her grandfather’s journal. She shook her head. None of that mattered right now. What she needed was a way off the damned mountain. Then she could set about working out what this was all about.
She tried to shuffle slightly further forward. Maybe she should fire a burst at him. She might get lucky. It was unlikely, but what other choice did she have? Billie carefully lined up her attacker through the fine cross-hairs, and carefully prepared to make the shot. She’d been to a shooting range only a couple of times in her life, and tried all the tips her instructor had given her. She settled into a comfortable shooting position. Took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Her right trigger-finger gently squeezed on the trigger, but she didn’t take the shot.
Falling snow tumbled onto her back. She quickly glanced upward. At least thirty people, covered in snow-camouflage worn by the military were abseiling toward her. That’s why the sniper hadn’t taken another shot. His purpose was to stop her from retreating. They needed her alive. She stood up and turned to run toward the entrance to the Temple of Illumination.
She heard the roar of the machine gun start to fire, but none of the bullets struck her. She raced all the way back to the entrance of the temple forgetting about any caution over the life-ending drop to her left. She reached the opening and backed into the tunnel. Billie checked the Uzi’s magazine. It had less than ten rounds. Even if she made every shot count, her attackers still outnumbered her.
Her mind raced to find a solution. She considered the dark chasm that ripped its way through the middle of the obsidian vault. Could she hide inside? She recalled the bullet-holes where her grandfather had been killed taking the same sort of refuge. It certainly wasn’t her first choice, but what other one did she have?
She slid back down the tunnel and stopped. Set against the back of the rock above the iron doors was a bomb. Its digital timer showed a few seconds under five minutes. She tried to move it. The back of the device had been drilled into the volcanic rock-face, and glued in position with a rock-hard climbing adhesive. Ahmet must have fixed it there while she was down the crevasse. Jeremy had said that some people would kill to make certain that some truths remained hidden.
Billie was confronted with the impossible decision of choosing between hiding and possibly becoming entombed after the explosion, or taking her chances on the outside of the mountain. It wasn’t a choice. And it wasn’t like she had long to consider her options.
She climbed back out of the tunnel and into the open again and turned right. She knew her options had run out and her only option was to gamble big. She ran along the narrow ledge. Below her, the heavy roar of rotary blades whined. They were close to fourteen thousand feet. Few helicopters were capable of reaching such heights. Whoever was after her, wasn’t taking any chances — they had spent a fortune to capture her.
Behind her, the small group of soldiers was now on the narrow ledge and approaching fast. The clock was ticking on the timer, and the bomb would explode at any moment. She ran fast. No longer interested in looking back at her pursuers, her only chance was to get past the final edge by the time the explosion destroyed the entrance to the temple. If she got really lucky, she might just escape in the pandemonium.
The sound of the helicopter’s turbojets screamed and the ground began to vibrate. She heard the sound of multiple automatic weapons firing. Billie kept running. A stray bullet was the least of her problems now. She glanced at her wristwatch. One minute and forty seconds to go. She was three hundred feet from the end of the ledge, and then she saw it — an entirely black helicopter.
It rose quickly and hovered less than twenty feet above her. She knew little about helicopters, but this one was clearly special. Even just to fly at this altitude placed it among some of the most advanced in the world. This one was entirely matt-black, and covered in strange, angular, radar absorbing materials, like those on stealth planes seen in movies. It was a deadly predatory machine, probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Nowhere were there any lights, colors, or identifying markings to be seen aboard the aircraft.
And it was after her.
Her eyes darted to the men behind her and back to the helicopter. Above her, more pursuers were descending diagonally. It made her run faster, as though she could outpace the helicopter. The strange predator continued to follow her, matching her speed closely.
She heard more weapons fire, but the bullets scattered nowhere near her. The helicopter suddenly banked heavily to the left and dipped suddenly, disappearing below the height of the ledge. She ran along the edge of the mountain, looking for any means of escape.
Billie suddenly reached the end of the ledge. She glanced at her watch. Forty seconds to go. She looked at the drop below her, and wondered if she could ever survive it if she just let herself go? There had been many stories over the years of climbers surviving hundred plus foot falls as a result of continuing to slide. Her pursuers were close — less than fifty feet behind her and she had nowhere else to go. She closed her eyes and glanced at the snowy slope hundreds of feet below. It would take a miracle to survive the fall, but it was the last option she had left.
On the count of three…
She braced herself to jump, and breathed in deeply.
Two…
She forced herself to breathe out.
One…
She stepped forward and stopped. The helicopter’s rotors whined sharply as the predator turned and rose from beneath the ledge until it was facing directly at her, about three feet above her head. The windshield was covered in some sort of pitch dark tinting that made it impossible to see the pilot inside.
Billie watched the twin rockets ignite from its fuselage, sending powerful missiles screaming past her. She dived onto the ground and covered her head. The missiles hadn’t even exploded before the helicopter’s Gatling-style heavy machine gun started to rotate, sending hundreds of large caliber bullets skyrocketing past her.
She closed her eyes and heard the massive dual explosions as the missiles struck their targets. She heard the screams of the few attackers still alive. When she opened her eyes the helicopter was right above her. The downward pressure of its rotor blades sent a torrent of air down on her. A small opening appeared in its undercarriage and a man in a completely black flight suit stared out at her.
“Doctor Swan?” A man’s voice asked, through a loud speaker.
“Yes?” she nodded.
“You better come with us.”
She looked at the snowy slope hundreds of feet below and the dozen or more men who were pursuing her in the distance. It was probably a trap, but she’d run out of any other options. She nodded, and the man reached down with one hand.
Billie reached out and gripped his hand. It was firm and locked with hers in a grip that reassured her she would be safe. She saw the brief flash of tracer rounds as the helicopter banked to the north, swinging her violently, to avoid the shots from below.