Текст книги "The Doomsday Key"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

The stone lid crashed and shattered against them.

Behind Gray, the floor continued to tip, going vertical, trying to dump everyone below.

Wallace and Rachel had managed to get behind the sarcophagus and brace themselves. The coffin remained in place, anchored to the floor. Seichan couldn't reach the refuge in time. She went sliding toward the pit.

Rachel lunged out with an arm and caught the back of her jacket as she slid past. She pulled Seichan close enough so the woman could grab the edge of the sarcophagus.

Rachel continued to hold her. At the precarious moment, each woman depended on the other for her life.

As the floor tilted to full vertical, Seichan hung like Gray.

But Gray had no one holding him.

His fingers slipped, and he plummeted toward the spikes.

Chapter 22

October 13, 1:13 P.M.

Svalbard, Norway

The warhead detonated on schedule.

Even hidden behind two steel doors and walls of bedrock, Painter felt the blast as if a giant had his hands over his ears, trying to crush his skull. And yet he still heard the other two seed banks' air locks blow. From the concussive sound of it, the same giant had stamped his foot and crushed the other chambers flat.

Crouched beside their air lock, Painter heard the outer door give way and slam into the inner one with a resounding clang. But the last door held. The overpressure in the air lock had been enough to hold off the sudden blast wave.

Painter touched the steel door with relief. Its surface was warm, heated by the thermobaric's secondary flash fire.

The lights had also been snuffed out by the blast. But the group had prepared for that. Flashlights had been passed out, and they flickered on across the chamber like candles in the dark.

"We made it," Senator Gorman said at his side.

His voice sounded tinny to Painter's strained ears. The others began picking themselves up off the floor. Cries of relief, even a few nervous laughs, spread through the assembled guests and workers.

Painter hated to be the bearer of the bad news, but they had no time for false hope.

He stood up and lifted his arm. "Quiet!" he called out and gained everyone's attention. "We're not out of here yet! We still don't know if the explosion was enough to break through the wall of ice trapping us down here. If we're still stuck, rescue could take days."

Painter motioned to the vault's maintenance engineer for confirmation. He lived up here. He knew the terrain and the archipelago's resources.

"It could take well over a week," he said. "And that's if the road is still open."

That was doubtful, considering the missile barrage Painter had heard. But he kept that to himself. The news was bad enough already. And he had more to deliver.

Painter pointed to the door. "The firestorm will have burned away most of the available oxygen and turned the air toxic out there. Even if the exit is open, these lower levels will still be choked with bad air. We're in the only safe pocket down here. But it will only last for a couple of days, maybe three."

The engineer looked like he was going to shorten that projection, but Painter stemmed that with a hand on his arm. Painter also avoided telling the group the real reason for his haste.

Whoever attacked could come back.

The crowd had gone completely quiet as the sobering news sank in.

Karlsen finally spoke from the edge of the crowd. These were mostly his guests. "So what do we do?"

"Someone has to go out there. To check the door. If it's open, they're going to have to make a long run through a toxic soup. Someone needs to get out and bring back help. The rest will stay here where it's safe for the moment."

"Who's going to go out there?" Senator Gorman asked.

Painter lifted his hand. "I am."

Karlsen stepped forward. "Not alone you're not. I'll go with you. You may need an extra pair of hands."

He was right. Painter didn't know what he might encounter out there. There could be a partial cave-in, a tangle of damaged equipment. It might take a couple of people to move an obstacle. But he eyed Karlsen with skepticism. He was not a young man.

Karlsen read the doubt in his face. "I ran a half marathon two months ago. I jog daily. I won't hold you back."

The senator joined him. "Then I'm going, too."

Clearly Gorman was not letting the murderer of his son out of his sight. And truth be told, Painter didn't want to either. He had a slew of questions for the man, questions that might prove vital to avoiding an ecological disaster.

Still, he preferred both men to stay here.

But Karlsen raised a point that Painter couldn't counter. He gestured toward the door. "It's not up for debate. Whether you like it or not, you can't stop me from following you. I'm going."

Gorman stood shoulder to shoulder with the man on this matter. "We're both going."

Painter didn't have time to argue. He had no authority to have Karlsen handcuffed to one of the racks. In fact, Karlsen had more supporters here than Painter did.

"Then let's go." Painter took one of the flashlights. He used a canteen to wet some scarves and wrap their lower faces, covering mouths and noses. "Try to hold your breath as much as possible."

They nodded.

The engineer had also secured sets of safety goggles to protect their eyes from the sting of the heated, smoky air.

They were as prepared as they could be.

Once ready, Painter stood by the door. He left the maintenance engineer in charge. If they failed, the man had the knowledge to keep the others safe for as long as possible.

"When I open the door, the pressure is now higher in here than out there. It will suck away some of the oxygen. So close this as soon as we leave and don't open it unless we come knocking. If the way is blocked, we'll be right back. If not, pray for the best."

"I've not stopped praying since I saw that bomb," the engineer said with a weak grin.

Painter clapped him on the shoulder and turned to Gorman and Karlsen. "Ready?" he asked.

He got two nods.

Painter turned to the engineer. "Open it." Then to his two companions. "Take a deep breath."

The door cracked open with a disturbing hissing of escaping air and a wash of incredible heat. Painter dashed through it and into the dark tunnel. It was like diving into a sauna. But this steam burned the skin with more than just heat. Painter felt the chemical sting. The air out here was worse than he had imagined.

He heard the other men pounding behind him.

Once Painter rounded out of the seed bank passageway and into the main tunnel, he flicked off his flashlight. He held his breath both literally and figuratively.

Had the entrance been blown open?

He stared ahead into the pitch-black tunnel. He saw no evidence of any light shining back. The tunnel was a straight run. If the way was open, even a little light should stand out like a beacon.

His feet began to slow.

It hadn't worked. They were still trapped in this poisonous well.

But after a few more blind steps, his eyes adjusted more fully to the darkness as the flashlight's dazzle faded. It wasn't much, but far up the tunnel a meager glow shone back through the smoky darkness.

He let slip a small sigh of relief, allowing precious air to escape his lungs.

As hope ignited inside him, he flicked on his light and ran faster. He didn't know if Gorman or Karlsen had seen the promising glow, but they knew the plan. If there hadn't been any sign of light, they were supposed to head back. Since Painter continued, they knew what that meant.

They all sped faster, running through the ruined catering area. Tables were overturned and slammed into the tunnel's end. Anything plastic had melted. The line of ice sculptures had been vaporized. Anything combustible had been set on fire, but the consumption of oxygen by the thermobaric charge had just as quickly smothered the fires.

Residual smoke still hung dead in the air, but the farther they ran, the less dense it grew. A fine black powder covered everything, a by-product of the flash of fluorinated aluminum.

They ran onward.

Painter was forced to take his first breath. He pressed the damp scarf to his nose and sucked in a gulp of air. It stank of burned rubber and stung like acid. He didn't know how much oxygen was still in the air, but he kept running. The higher he got, the cleaner the air would be-especially with the ice plug broken away.

He reached about the halfway point, only another seventy-five yards to go. He could now see a faint glow even with his flashlight on. It drew him forward. But the more he was forced to breathe, the more the tunnel began to waver, shimmering a bit before his watering eyes. His lungs burned. His skin itched all over.

Still he did not slow.

He glanced behind him and saw the other two men falling behind. Senator Gorman looked the worst, weaving on his feet. Karlsen had a grip on his elbow and kept him steady, propelling the senator along.

Painter slowed to help. He needed both men alive.

But Karlsen waved an arm angrily at him, his command clear.

Keep going.

Painter realized he was right. He had to get out of this toxic soup, clear his head. If necessary, he could come back for them. With no other choice, he sped toward the glow and the promise of fresh air.

Finally the blast door appeared, bathed in a bluish glow. A few brighter spots stung Painter's eyes. But as he ran forward, his heart sank.

It can't be...

The door was still blocked.

The glow was only daylight diffusing through the ice. The blast had failed to free them. Painter ran toward the exit anyway. There was nowhere else to go. As he drew closer, he realized that some of the brighter spots in the wall were chinks in the blockage.

Hope surged again and was enough to propel him to the doorway. He crossed to one of those chinks, pressed his face against it, and sucked in air. If nothing else, it was deliciously cool. He took several breaths. His head immediately began clearing, the fogginess shredding away.

He turned and saw Karlsen and Gorman about fifteen yards away. Karlsen was now half-carrying the senator. Painter shoved off the wall of ice and hurried back. He supported Gorman's other side.

Together, they hobbled the rest of the way to the door. Painter got both men breathing through cracks in the wall, then found a third spot higher up. As he sucked air, he realized that the ice wall wasn't covered in black soot. This was new ice. The blast must have unplugged the entrance-but a secondary avalanche had tumbled back over it, resealing them in.

But the ice wouldn't be as thick.

Painter put an eye to the crack. He could see out.

Near the top of the door, the blockage was less than two feet thick, made up of a jumble of blocks. They were large, but with time, they might be able to dig themselves out.

Still, Painter sensed they didn't have much time. No telling when another avalanche might surge down from above and seal them in tighter.

As if hearing this thought, Painter heard a rumble.

He felt the ice shiver under his cheek.

Oh, no...

1:20 P.M.

From across the valley, Monk had watched the explosion. The noise was like a thunderclap inside his head. Startled, deafened, he was knocked on his butt in the snow.

Creed and the two Norwegians fared no better.

A massive eruption of ice and flames had burst out of the buried seed vault. An oily blackness roiled up into the sky.

As if offended, the storm clouds suddenly opened. Snow fell thickly. One second it wasn't snowing, the next, heavy windblown flakes filled the air. It worsened to a whiteout condition in a matter of half a minute. But before the curtain dropped, Monk saw that the explosion had exposed the concrete bunker-at least for a few seconds. A moment later, a second avalanche had slid and tumbled over the entrance.

Was anyone still alive in there?

A pair of gunshots echoed, coming from the lower mountain. Monk could no longer see the trundling force of mercenaries, but they were still coming, still cleaning house.

If anyone had survived that underground blast, they wouldn't be alive for long.

Monk had only one choice.

It took Creed's help, but he finally convinced the Norwegians.

1:21 P.M.

As the rumble grew and the ice shook, Painter prayed the avalanche wouldn't be a large one. But the rumbling grew in volume.

Then, out of the blanket of snow and wind, a Sno-Cat shot into view, rising up from below. It did not slow and sped straight at them.

"Get back!" Painter yelled.

He shoved Gorman away from the doorway, then grabbed Karlsen by the hood of his parka and flung them both bodily away from the wall of ice.

And not a second too soon.

The heavy vehicle struck the blocked doorway. Its front treads rode up the ice wall. The bumper cracked into the top half of the doorway. Ice blocks shattered into the tunnel and slid away.

The Sno-Cat backed up, likely readying itself for a second run.

Painter dashed forward. The bumper had broken a hole large enough for Painter to slide his body through. Diving into the jagged gap, he clawed and elbowed his way through the door.

The Sno-Cat suddenly halted its retreat.

The passenger door popped open. A familiar figure leaned out.

"Director Crowe?" Monk said, his face raw with relief.

"Monk...you are a sight for sore eyes." And Painter's eyes were sore-bloodshot and inflamed.

"I get that a lot," Monk said. "But we should get moving."

Painter turned. Karlsen clambered out of the hole, followed by the senator. "There are more people locked up down below."

"And that's where they should stay." Monk hopped out, reached back inside, and came out with an armload of rifles. "Can you shoot?" he asked the other two men.

Both Gorman and Karlsen nodded.

"Good, because we need as much firepower as we can muster."

"Why?" Painter asked.

Before Monk could answer, the distant grumble of a heavy engine echoed out of the storm.

"We've got company coming."

Painter joined Monk over at the Sno-Cat and took a rifle. He noted that the vehicle held only one man, a Norwegian soldier. He searched around.

"Where's Creed?" Painter asked.

"Left with this soldier's buddy on our snowmobiles. They've gone for help."

Painter hoped they made it back in time with the cavalry. He assessed the group left to defend the fort.

One vehicle and four men.

The Alamo had better odds...and look how that turned out.

Chapter 23

October 13, 1:32 P.M.

Bardsey Island, Wales

Rachel almost dropped Seichan when she saw Gray fall from his perch. He slid down the face of the cross and caught himself on the tri-spiral bas-relief that decorated the lower leg of the cross.

He scrambled for a moment, then laced his fingers over the top of the symbol sticking out. Would it hold his weight or break away?

The same worry must have crossed his mind. He kept his body from moving too much. His boots hung over a twenty-foot drop into a pit lined by spikes.

But Gray wasn't the only one threatened.

Rachel slid across the upended side of the sarcophagus. "Hold my legs!" she shouted back to Wallace.

The professor shared her perch on the stone coffin. He clung as precariously as she did. He grabbed her ankles and helped stabilize her.

It gave Rachel some slight reassurance but not much.

She hung over the side of the sarcophagus. She had a grip on Seichan's jacket. The woman who poisoned her clung with only her fingertips to the edge of the coffin.

Neither of them could hold out much longer.

A small quake shuddered through the chamber. The apparatus was ancient. Triggering it must have upset whatever fragile balance had been established over the centuries. She pictured the ruins of the tower above. It might all come down.

Another shake rattled through the tilted floor. From inside the sarcophagus, Malachy's Bible tumbled out. It fell into the pit and was speared through the middle, impaled on one of the spikes.

Wallace groaned at the loss, but they had more immediate concerns.

Bobbled by the quaking, Seichan lost her grip. She fell without making a sound, as if she expected it, deserved it. One of Rachel's hands lost its grip, but her other fist remained twisted in Seichan's coat.

She stopped the woman's plunge with a wrench of her shoulder. But the weight dragged her over the edge of the sarcophagus. Only Wallace's grip on her ankles stopped them both from a deadly plunge.

Rachel's upper body hung upside down, her hips and legs remaining atop the coffin, pinned by Wallace. It was hard to breathe. Seichan dangled below, hanging from her coat. Her only sign of fear was how tightly she clutched that coat to her neck with both hands.

Rachel wanted to let her go, but the woman was her only lifeline.

The floor shook again. A piece of the cavern roof broke away. A large slab dropped, and shattered against the spikes.

She closed her eyes and prayed for some way out.

Her angelic answer came from the most unlikely of sources.

"What the fuck!"

The shout came from the other side of the tilted floor, where the tunnel led up to Lord Newborough's crypt.

It was Kowalski. He must have come down either out of impatience or because he had heard the booby trap being sprung.

"Help!" Rachel yelled, but with her chest stretched and her belly squeezed, it came out as a squeak.

"Hello!" Kowalski called. Plainly he hadn't heard her.

Gray bellowed as he hung. "Kowalski!"

"Pierce? Where are you? All I see is a pit and a blank wall. How did you all get across?"

From Kowalski's vantage point in the tunnel, all he must see was the underside of the fake floor-and the pit.

Gray yelled again. "Go back and pull the bar!"

"Pull my what?" He sounded offended.

"The lever! Up the tunnel!"

"Oh, okay! Hang on!"

Rachel stared down at Seichan, then over to Gray. Hang on. That's all they could do.

"Hurry!" Gray called out. He had begun to slip again.

Kowalski's voice came back fainter. "Quit nagging me!"

Rachel clung as tightly as she could. She closed her eyes and pictured the bar sticking out of the floor. She had spotted it earlier. It made sense that there would be a reset button for this trap. While the mechanism might kill any thieves who stumbled down here, the engineers of the trap would have needed a way to reset it. Otherwise, they'd be cut off from the key, too. Some sort of reset had to lie outside the chamber.

But was it the lever?

She prayed Gray's intuition was right.

She had her answer a moment later.

The entire floor suddenly vibrated. A great grinding of gears shook through the room. The floor began to tilt again-but the wrong way. It started to rotate upside down. Rachel dared not even scream as her body began to slip across the stone. They were going to flip over.

Then something caught. The floor stopped with a stomach-jarring jolt. With a harsher grinding of gears, the floor slowly reversed itself. It swung back in the proper direction.

Rachel clung hard, her lips moving as she said the Lord's Prayer.

She watched the floor's edge rise under Gray's toes and push him back up. She rolled off the side of the sarcophagus and onto the leveling floor. They all lay flat, breathing hard. Even Gray slumped to his rear beside the cross.

Kowalski came back with a flashlight. "If you're done playing down here..."

Rachel glared in his direction.

"I came to tell you that the storm's getting fierce. Lyle says we better move it if we want to get off this godforsaken island."

Before anyone could move or respond, another section of the roof crashed down, striking the floor like a bomb. Water and a flow of bricks came next. The tower was coming down on top of them.

"Out!" Gray yelled.

They all shot to their feet and ran for the exit. A resounding snap jolted the entire floor. It began to wobble, teeter-tottering as something broke in the ancient mechanism.

Off balance, Rachel tumbled to the side, but Gray caught her around the waist and rushed with her toward the tunnel. They all flew into it as more of the cavern imploded.

A last glance showed the floor tilted askew as a waterfall of bricks and rain flooded into the room. Then she was too far up the tunnel to see any more. A moment later, an earthshaking crash chased them. A flume of rock dust rolled up the tunnel and over them.

Coughing, they reached the exit and climbed up, one after the other, back into the storm. Up top, a stunned Lyle offered them umbrellas.

Rachel took one, but she kept her face turned up toward the sky. She let rainwater wash over her.

We made it, Rachel thought.

1:42 P.M.

Gray stared over at the wreckage of the abbey tower. It was now only a tumbled pile of rubble sunk halfway into the ground. Water had already begun to pool around it.

The cavern was surely gone.

A roar rose behind him as Lyle started the tractor. The storm wailed-the winds had picked up while they'd been down there. Rain pelted out of the sky, whipping horizontal at times as the winds swept off the Irish Sea and across the island. Even the lightning had grown more subdued, as if cowed by the growing intensity of the storm.

They loaded up into the trailer for the ride back over the hill to the harbor. Lyle hunched in his seat and pushed the tractor into gear. The trailer lurched as it began to move.

They all crouched low, trying to keep out of the rain and the wind.

Wallace gazed back at the fallen ruins of Saint Mary's Abbey. "First rule of archaeology," he said, then glanced sidelong at Gray. "Don't touch anything."

Gray did not blame the professor for scolding him. He had acted without properly considering the dangers. He had been so shocked to discover that the cross predated Christianity, that the wheel component actually turned. He leaped before looking. Unlike Father Giovanni. Judging by all the priest's calculations, he had gone after the puzzle in a systematic and studied way.

But then again, the priest had been trained as an archaeologist. And Father Giovanni didn't have a woman's life hanging in the balance.

His group had only another two days to solve this mystery. Gray wouldn't apologize for pushing their investigation hard, for taking chances, for eschewing caution to get results.

Still, as he pictured the painstaking notations and calculations done by Father Giovanni, he knew there was something he was still missing. The more he tried to pin it down, the more it slipped away.

Wallace shook his head. "Just think what we might have learned if we'd had more time with that cross..."

Gray heard the accusation behind his words. The man's usual joviality had been worn away by exhaustion, terror, and not a small amount of disappointment. With one mistake, they'd destroyed a priceless illuminated treasure and lost access to whatever the cross had kept hidden.

"What if the key is still down there?" Wallace asked pointedly.

Gray had had enough. "You don't believe that. And neither do I." The words came out more harshly than he intended, but he was tired, too.

"How can you be so sure?" Wallace asked.

"Because Father Giovanni left. He continued his search. I think he solved the riddle of the cross, found an empty vault that once held the key, then moved on, taking the one object he needed to continue his search."

"The relic from the grave," Rachel said.

Gray stared out into the storm. "The key is still out there. I don't think the cross offered Father Giovanni that much help. So he moved on, just as we must."

"But where?" Wallace asked. "Where do we even begin to look? We're right back where we started."

"No, we're not," Gray said.

"How can you say that?"

He ignored the professor's question and turned to Rachel. "How did you know so much about Saint Malachy?"

She shifted on the floorboards, clearly caught by surprise. "It was Uncle Vigor. The prophecies intrigued him. He could talk for hours about Saint Malachy."

Gray had suspected as much. Monsignor Verona had always been passionate about the mysteries of the early Church, seeking truths behind miracles. Such a figure as Malachy would have captured both his attention and his imagination.

"That's why Father Giovanni sought out your uncle," Gray said. "He knew the key to solving this mystery lay in the life of that saint. So Giovanni went to the best source he knew."

"Vigor Verona." Wallace sat straighter, ignoring the wind and rain.

"Maybe Marco knew about the plot by Viatus, or maybe he just had an inkling. But I suspect that the further he delved into this matter of curses and miracles, the more he knew he was in over his head. That he needed the expertise and protection of the Church behind him."

Seichan added her own bleak viewpoint from the back of the trailer. "But he sought them out too late. Someone knew of his plan."

Gray nodded. "If we're going to discover where the Doomsday key was hidden, we're going to need an expert on Saint Malachy."

"But Verona is still in a coma," Wallace said.

"It doesn't matter. We have someone who knows just as much." He turned to Rachel.

"Me?"

"You're going to have to help us from here."

"How?"

"Because I know where the key is hidden."

Wallace looked hard at him. "What?...Where?"

"Malachy's Bible was left in that sarcophagus for a reason. More than just to sanctify a relic. It was left behind as a symbol, a bread crumb to lead to the key's new resting place. Prior to the coming of the Romans, the key and the grave of this ancient royal were always kept together. They were bound together. And in the sarcophagus, we discovered Malachy's Bible binding a relic of this ancient person, binding it to him."

"So what are you saying?" Wallace pressed him.

"I think Saint Malachy has taken the place of this ancient. That he's become the proverbial keeper of the key."

Wallace's eyes grew wide. "If you're right, then the key..."

"It's in Saint Malachy's tomb."

Kowalski groaned and picked at a fingernail with a piece of straw. "Of course it is. But I'm telling you flat out, I'm not going in there."

Before they could discuss it further, the trailer jerked to a stop. Gray was surprised to see that they'd already reached the harbor.

Lyle hopped down and waved them out. "You can hole up in the old harbor house. Get yourselves out of the rain, right enough. I'll fetch my da."

As Gray hurried down the path toward the stone house, he stared out to sea. The waters rolled with frothing whitecaps. Closer at hand, the ferry rocked and teetered in its slip, even sheltered within the harbor's breakwater. It was going to be a hellish ride back over to the mainland.

But for now, the windows of the harbor house glowed and flickered with the promise of a crackling fire. They all piled through the door, shutting out the storm behind them. The room was paneled in raw pine, with heavy exposed beams. The floor creaked underfoot. The place smelled of wood smoke and pipe tobacco. Candles lit a few tables. But it was the fire that drew them all deeper inside. They gladly shed their coats over a few chairs.

Gray stood with his back to the fire, appreciating the heat from his heels to the top of his head. The warmth and the cheery dance of flames went a long way to beat back the hopelessness that had begun to settle over them.

But now they had a course of action.

A place to look next.

The door slammed open as the wind ripped the knob from Owen Bryce's fingers. He caught it again and forced it closed. Drenched, he stomped and shook off the worst of the rainwater.

"It's parky weather out, that's for sure," the boatman said with a crooked grin at his understatement. "And I'm afraid I have some good news and some bad."

Such a preamble never boded well.

Gray stepped away from the fire.

"The bad news is that we won't be able to make the crossing today. The storm has blown the seas into a treacherous state. If'n you didn't know, the Welsh name for the island is Ynys Enlli, which means 'island of bad currents.' And that's on a sunny day."

"So what's the good news?" Kowalski asked.

"I've checked and I can get you rooms here for the night at half off. Good for the entire week."

Gray felt his stomach sink. "How soon do you expect we can make it off the island?"

He shrugged. "Hard to say. Electricity and phones are down all over the island. We have to get the all-clear from the harbormaster in Aberdaron before we can even think of throwing off our ties here."

"Your best estimate?"

"We had some tourists here last year that got stranded for seventeen days due to storms."

Gray waited for the answer to his question. He looked sternly at the man.

Owen finally relented, running a hand over the top of his head. "I'm sure we can get you back to Aberdaron in two days. Three days tops."

Off to the side, Rachel sank into one of the chairs.

She didn't have that many days.

Chapter 24

October 13, 1:35 P.M.

Svalbard, Norway

Monk lay flat across the roof of the Sno-Cat as it trundled through the snowstorm. Painter shared his perch. They were both tethered to the roof rack like luggage. The harder gusts of wind continually fought to rip them from the roof. Snow frosted them like icing on a cake.

Each man had an assault rifle snugged to his shoulder, and the Norwegian soldier had supplied them both with one additional piece of gear, essential for cold-weather fighting.

Monk adjusted the infrared goggles on his face. They darkened the view ahead. Not that it mattered-the blizzard's whiteout conditions had lowered visibility to mere yards. But the scopes built into the eyepieces captured any ambient heat signatures and brought them into focus. Below their perch, the hot engine of their Sno-Cat glowed a soft orange.

Out in the storm, their targets came into view. Seven or eight snowmobiles crisscrossed up from the lower mountain slopes, glowing a soft amber through the scopes. The vehicles were just now cresting into the upper valley where Monk had spent much of his time spying on the Svalbard seed vault.

It was here that Monk and the others would make their stand, using every resource available to them.

Monk patted a hand on the rocket-propelled grenade launcher next to him. Before setting out, they had scoured the avalanche's path for additional weapons and found the launcher. Along with a wooden box of ammunition.

Below, the senator and the CEO shared the cab with the Norwegian soldier, manning rifles. One pointed out the passenger side, the other out the rear.