Genevieve turned and opened up return fire.
Tom turned the butt of his Heckler and Koch upward and struck the ceiling. The outer layer of obsidian fractured under the force, splintering into multiple pieces and falling through to the ground nearly fifty feet below.
Genevieve tilted her head upward.
An internal ladder was carved into the stone.
“Go!” she shouted. “I’m right behind you.”
Tom nodded and disappeared into the void above.
She emptied the last of her rounds into the tunnel below and then followed Tom into the escape passage.
Climbing hand over hand, she made her way quickly to the top of the narrow chimney. It opened into a concealed vestibule of the stone cathedral.
A monk glanced at them, recognition and fear displayed across his face in abject horror at the location from which they had come.
Regaining his composure, the monk looked at them, and said, “What have you done?”
They pushed past him, running out through the nave into an under-cover passageway.
Behind them, she heard the monk shout, “Quick! They’re getting away.”
Genevieve imagined her pursuers climbing the secret passage. They would be swarming out of the cathedral any minute.
She and Tom reached a conflux of three separate hallways.
“Which way?” Tom asked.
“Go left!”
They ran through the refectory and into the open courtyard.
Up ahead, someone had had the good sense to close the gates.
Shots fired from behind them.
Tom returned fire with a couple short bursts.
Genevieve started to climb the bell tower. At thirty feet, she jumped across to the fortified masonry wall that surrounded the monastery.
Tom was racing up the tower behind her.
She loaded her last magazine into her submachinegun and provided him with cover fire. A monk ordered them to stop. But both sides kept firing.
Genevieve ran along the top of the masonry wall.
At the end of the western wall stood the guard tower, where a monk had triumphantly closed the gate. Already, he was now in the process of trying to open it again.
Genevieve pointed her MP5 at him and shouted in Russian, “Don’t you dare!”
The monk put his hands skyward in supplication.
She grabbed the rope used to raise and lower the gate. Tom pushed past the monk, who quickly moved out of his way.
A group of monks armed with rudimentary weapons, interspersed with the remaining mercenaries, were now racing toward them.
Tom gripped the rope with one arm.
Shots raked the rampart, sending medieval masonry splintering into a torrent of shards. Genevieve grabbed the rope just below Tom’s hand and they simultaneously swung over the thirty-three-foot fortified buttress.
Reaching the muddy ground below, they ran toward the Beriev Be-103 Bekas amphibious seaplane. It must have been how the mercenaries got to the island.
The cockpit door was open and the pilot was having a smoke at the end of the jetty. He turned around, took one look at Genevieve and Tom and dived into the icy water.
Genevieve climbed into the cockpit through the raised bifold winged doors. Tom untied the aircraft from the jetty and gave it a gentle push off as he climbed in, pulling the hatches shut behind him.
She shoved the red fuel mixture throttle to full, switched the master electrics to on, gave the primer three quick depressions, and flicked the ignition key. The twin propellers started to spin. She glanced at her position in relation to the jetty. Already the current had pulled her out.
With her right hand on the throttle, she eased it all the way forward until the twin engines whined with joy.
She turned out to sea and the little seaplane picked up speed.
Behind them she heard the steady staccato of UZIs being fired, but already, the aircraft was increasing the distance between them.
The fuselage hydroplaned, skipping enthusiastically across Prosperity Bay.
Genevieve pulled the wheel firmly toward her chest and the aircraft took off into the air. She brought the aircraft round in a large circuit, being sure to keep enough space between the monastery and them.
She expelled a deep breath of air. They had made it.
That’s where the reprieve ended, because Tom picked up his satellite phone and reminded her that all their troubles were only just starting.
And her mind returned to their earlier discovery…
They needed Sam to know Ben Gellie was the host of the Phoenix Plague.
Chapter Forty
The freight train cruised at nearly eighty miles per hour along the class five railway tracks.
Inside his opulent shipping container, Sam Reilly heard his Nokia 3110C start to ring. He rolled off the couch, unsure what time it was, and answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Sam!” It was Tom’s voice, and he could hear the relief behind the gravel.
“You okay, Tom?”
“Sure. I’m just a bit relieved to know that you’re alive. Are you all right?”
Sam glanced out through the digital window, where Lake Superior could be seen in the distance. He smiled. “Never better.”
“Good. Are you…” the phone started to break up.
Sam moved to the other side of the shipping container, as though that might improve his chance of getting some decent reception.
“You there, Tom?” he asked.
“Ben’s not…”
“I can’t hear you, Tom. What did you find at Bolshoi Zayatsky Island?”
Through the garbled hiss of his outdated cell phone he heard the words, “…Phoenix Plague.”
“What the hell’s the Phoenix Plague?”
“Did you hear me, Sam?”
“No. I’m having trouble getting reception. Look if I cut out, I’ll call you from North Dakota…”
He glanced at his phone.
It had stopped working altogether. He looked at the screen. It was dark. The damned thing had run out of batteries. He didn’t even have a charger for it. It was another twenty dollars, and he didn’t have the money to buy one at the general store at Harpers Ferry. He cursed himself for not getting Elise to supply him with a modern smartphone.
Ben looked at him. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah. That was my friend. He’s just been to Bolshoi Zayatsky Island.”
Ben’s eyes widened. “Did he find anything?”
“I don’t know. My cell phone died before he could finish telling me about it.”
“What did he say?”
“Something about the Phoenix Plague.”
Ben’s lips curled into a wry smile. “Is that all?”
“Yeah. Ever heard of the Phoenix Plague?”
Ben shook his head. “No. But it can’t be good.”
Chapter Forty-One
“We just found him!” Ryan Devereaux said.
The man at the check-in table handed him his boarding pass. “I’m sorry sir, you’re going to need to turn that off before you board.”
Ryan looked up and stopped. He was the last one to board his flight. Once on board there was nothing he could do to manage the arrest. He held his cell phone to his ear and met the steward’s eye defiantly. “I said, just a minute.”
On the other end of the line, the Secretary of Defense asked, “Where?”
He lowered his voice. “In a shipping container on his way to Minot, North Dakota!”
“How’d you work that one out?”
“Tom just changed his flight plan on his route back from Russia. He’s now heading direct to North Dakota. Also, we hacked his computer, and found him checking a third party dummy company — most likely owned by Sam Reilly — which purchased a readymade shipping-container-come-tiny home in Frederick and had it shipped to North Dakota.”