“Baltazar’s dangerous. He’s not going to let anyone get in the way of his family destiny. He’ll kill Carina before anyone can get to him. Have your guys track him down and move in only if they have to. I’ll see if I can commandeer a NUMA plane in the meantime. I’ll only be a few hours behind him.” Austin shook his head. “Unfortunately, he can cause a lot of trouble in that time.”
“That’s why I was thinking you might get there ahead of him.”
Austin was in no mood for jokes. “I didn’t know the CIA had mastered teleportation.”
“Nothing that sophisticated. I was thinking of the Blackbird.”
Austin was well acquainted from his CIA days with the avian nickname for the SR-71, a high-speed, high-altitude aircraft that had flown secret reconnaissance missions for the CIA before it was succeeded by drone aircraft and satellites in the late 1990s. The legendary plane could make a transatlantic crossing in two hours.
“I thought they retired the whole flock of Blackbirds,” he said.
“That’s the cover story,” Flagg said. “We kept one to transport personnel in emergencies.”
“I’d say this qualifies as an emergency,” Austin said.
“Great minds think alike,” Flagg said. He flipped open his cell phone. He worked his way through the bureaucracy, and was still talking when the whup-whup of helicopter rotors could be heard.
Austin went to the balcony and saw two helicopters flying in low circles over the mansion.
“The cavalry has arrived,” Austin said.
Flagg tucked the phone in his pocket. “I always cheered for the Indians, but I’ll make an exception because I’m in a good mood. Just spoke to a mucky-muck. It wasn’t easy, but you’ve got a first-class ticket on the Blackbird.”
Flagg’s news was good, but Austin was a realist. He was facing long odds.
His eyes hardened. If Carina were harmed, Austin would devote every sinew and synapse in his body to a single goal.
And that was to send Baltazar to hell.
Chapter 51
FRED TURNER WAS DOWN on his knees behind the bar, stacking beer mugs. He heard the door open and close. A frown came to his ruddy face. Probably a regular customer looking to start his happy hour early.
“We’re closed,” Turner growled.
No one answered. Turner stood up and saw a large man in the doorway. The stranger’s round features were soft and childlike. Turner was a retired policeman, and his cop’s instincts sensed an unspoken menace behind the unthreatening façade. He stepped closer to the shotgun he kept near the cash register.
The stranger simply looked around and said:
“Where did the name of this place come from?”
Bender chuckled at the unexpected question. “People think I named it after an Old West saloon. But when I bought the place, I remembered reading that there were gold mines around here in the old days.”
“What happened to the mines?”
“Closed them years ago. Didn’t find enough gold to keep them open.”
After a moment in thought, the man said, “Thank you,” and left without further comment. Turner went back to stacking glasses, muttering to himself about the odd people who come into bars.
Adriano sat in his car in the parking lot and reread the directions and map Austin had jotted down on the sheet of notepaper. He gazed up with a bland expression on his face at the neon sign on the flat roof of the low-slung building: GOLD MINE CAFÉ. Then he ripped the paper to shreds, started the car, and drove out of the parking lot onto the Maryland back road.
After leaving Baltazar’s jousting contest, Adriano had driven from Upstate New York to New Jersey and then to Maryland. Austin’s directions had directed him to a rural area not far from Chesapeake Bay and taken him down a series of back roads that had ended in the Gold Mine Café.
He picked up his telephone and called on the direct line that connected him to Baltazar.
“Well?” His employer’s voice came on the phone.
Adriano told Baltazar about the Gold Mine Café. “Too bad Austin is dead,” Adriano said. “I would have made him tell us what we want to know.”
“Too late,” Baltazar snapped. “He escaped. We had to leave the estate. Don’t go back there.”
“And the woman?”
“I have her. We’ll deal with Austin later. I want to see his face when I tell him what I did with his lovely friend.”
Adriano had hoped he would be the last to talk to the woman, but he kept the disappointment out of his voice.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’ll be back in a few days. Go to ground in the meantime. I’ll call you when I return. You’ll have much work to do. I want NUMA and anyone associated with it destroyed. You’ll have every resource you’ll need.”
Adriano was smiling when he hung up. He had never attempted large-scale killing and looked forward to the challenge mass murder offered.
Life was good, he thought. Death is even better.
Chapter 52
THE BOEING 737 MARKED with a bull’s-head logo on its fuselage touched down at LarnacaInternationalAirport and taxied to an area reserved for private corporate jets. The mechanics who normally worked on the planes had gone home for the night. Baltazar had planned his arrival with great care, and it was unlikely anyone would have had more than mild curiosity at the figure being carried down the steps of the plane in a stretcher.
Bandages covered the person’s face except for the eyes and nose. Men in white medical jackets loaded the stretcher into a waiting helicopter. Seconds later, Baltazar descended to the tarmac and got into the helicopter. The helicopter lifted into the air moments later and headed west.
The aircraft landed in a small airport near the coastal city of Paphos. A waiting ambulance drove off as soon as the stretcher was loaded aboard. Baltazar and his men followed in a Mercedes sedan.
The two-vehicle convoy skirted the edge of the city and turned onto a main highway. Eventually, it left the highway for an ascending mountain road. The road narrowed to two lanes, as it traversed a series of switchbacks, passing through quiet mountain villages and past derelict hotels that had once been fashionable summer resorts before people started to spend more time at the seashore.
The countryside grew more rugged and less populated the higher the ambulance and its companion climbed. Dark piney woods crowded in on both sides. With the Mercedes close behind, the ambulance turned onto a dirt lane that was almost hidden by overgrowth.
The vehicles lurched along the cratered road for about a half mile. The road came to an abrupt end without warning. Silhouetted against the starry sky was a squat two-story structure. Baltazar got out of the Mercedes and breathed in the cool night air. The only sound was the moaning of the wind through empty rooms of the old Crusader castle. Baltazar soaked in its ancient aura, gaining strength by his proximity to the ruin that had housed his forebears.
The government had once tried to acquire the historic structure and turn it into a tourist attraction. The plan disintegrated after supporters received death threats, which was just as well for those who knew the fearsome history of the place. The locals still whispered about the unspeakable horrors associated with the moldering ruin.
Baltazar hadn’t visited the castle since the last offering to Ba’al. He remembered the stark defensive architecture of the building. It was built as a fortress originally. The roof was crenellated to provide shelter for defenders. The only openings in the otherwise blank façade were arrow slits for archers. But mostly, he remembered the Room.
He climbed a short set of stairs to the entrance. Using an antique key, he unlocked the door, which swung open with a mournful creak. The empty rooms were like refrigerators that kept out the heat of the day and preserved the cold. Baltazar called out to his men to bring the stretcher in and to place it in front of a fireplace big enough for a man to stand in.