Spartan Gold - Clive Cussler

“It’s probably a digital image,” Remi said, studying the monitor. “See the edge there, on the left? It looks color enhanced.”

“As much as I’d like to get the bottle away from Bondaruk, this might be all we need. See if you can print—” Sam stopped talking and cocked his head. “You hear that . . . ? Oh, crap.” He pointed.

In the corner, partially hidden from view by a cabinet, was a wall-mounted video camera. It stopped panning, the lens aimed directly at them.

“Company’s coming,” Remi said.

“Quick, check the keyboard, see if you can print us a screen capture of the label!”

As Remi started tapping on the keyboard, Sam sprinted to the corner, grabbed the feed wire beneath the camera, and jerked it loose. Next he ran to the door, flipped off the lights, and returned to Remi, who said, “Got it!” and tapped a key. The laser printer’s lights blinked green and it hummed to life.

From the control room they heard a door bang open, then shut, then open again. Footsteps clicked on linoleum, then went silent.

“Down,” Sam whispered, then dropped onto his belly and pulled Remi with him. “Stay here and grab that printout.” He crawled down the short side of the table and peeked his head out.

At the door, the knob was slowly turning. He extended the Glock and took aim.

The laser printer started rhythmically humming.

“Printing,” Remi whispered.

The door burst open, revealing a figure silhouetted by the control room’s LCD monitors. Sam fired once. The bullet struck the man in the calf just below the knee. He screamed and toppled forward. His weapon—a compact Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun—bounced across the rubber floor and landed a few feet from Sam. In the control room he heard a hushed voice bark something—a curse, Sam assumed from the tone—in Russian. The man Sam shot was whimpering and crawling back toward the door.

“Got it!” Remi called. “Detail’s perfect. We can use it.”

“Come around,” Sam whispered. She crawled around the corner and tapped his ankle. “Here.” Sam turned, handed her the Glock, and said, “When I say go, fire three shots through the door. Aim for the glass wall.”

“Okay.”

Sam got to his knees, took a breath. “Go!”

Remi popped up and started firing. Glass began shattering. Sam somersaulted out from behind the table, veered left, grabbed the MP5, then scuttled back to cover.

“What’re they waiting for?” Remi asked.

“Reinforcements or better weaponry would be my guess. We need to get out of here before either arrives.”

As if on cue, a hand appeared around the edge of the door and hurled something. The object bounced off the side of the table, hit the rubber floor, then came to a spinning rest.

“Down, Remi!” Sam shouted.

Moving on instinct and on the faith that he’d correctly identified the thrown object, Sam stood up, took a bounding leap, and soccer-kicked the object back toward the door. As it reached the threshold it exploded. Blinding white light and a deafening boom filled the lab. Sam stumbled backward and collapsed behind the table.

“What in God’s name was that?” Remi said, shaking her head to clear it.

“Flash-bang grenade. Special forces and SWAT teams use them to distract the bad guys. A lot of sound and light, but no shrapnel.”

“How did you know?”

“Discovery Channel. At least now we know one thing—they’re trying to avoid any shooting in here.”

“How about a little distraction of our own?” Remi said, pointing with the Glock.

Sam looked. On the wall opposite the panic button was a paperback-sized Plexiglas box housing a yellow mushroom bearing a pictograph of a water droplet. “That’ll do.”

“Two shots, if you will.”

“Ready.”

“Go.”

Remi popped up and opened fire. Sam charged to the wall and slammed the butt of the MP5 sideways into the Plexiglas box, ripping it from the wall. He jerked the lever down. From unseen loudspeakers a computer-generated female voice made an announcement first in Russian, and then in English:

“Warning. Fire suppression system activated. Evacuate area

immediately. Warning. Fire suppression system activated.”

Sam rushed back behind the table. “Rain’s coming, Remi. Protect that printout!”

“Already tucked away.”

“Cleavage?”

“Safer. Found a ziplock Baggie.”

To the right, in the corner of his eye, Sam saw movement in the doorway. He spun, let loose a quick three-round burst. A monitor in the control room exploded in a shower of sparks, then started smoking. He dove behind the table again.

With a whir, silver nozzles descended from the ceiling. There was a one-second delay followed by a pop-hiss. The nozzles exploded into cones of water.

Sam peeked his head around the corner of the table in time to see a figure run through the alcove and disappear through the door.

“Let’s go before the cavalry arrives,” Sam rasped over the rush of water.

“Wait, I’m checking my ammunition. . . . I’ve got nine shots left. Ready when you are.”

“When I go, put three more shots through the doorway, then follow me. Stay directly behind me, got it?”

“Yep.”

“Go!”

Sam got up and charged. As he passed the end of the table, he reached out with his right hand and snagged one of the rolling stools. Ten feet from the door, he pushed it ahead of him, then gave it a kick. At that moment a figure appeared in the doorway. The stool, already tipping over and spinning, crashed into the man’s legs. Arms flailing, he stumbled backward into the still smoking computer monitor. Sam was through the door in three more paces. He reversed the MP5 across his body and slammed it squarely into the center of the man’s face. With a sickening crunch his nose shattered. He went limp and slid off the table, legs still entangled in the stool.

Sam picked up the fallen man’s MP5 and handed it to Remi.

“What now?” she asked, flipping her sopping hair away from her face.

“Nothing complicated. We run for our lives.”

They went through the first door, into the alcove, then through the card-reader door and into the corridor beyond, where the trapped water had risen to ankle depth. The overhead fluorescent lights had gone dark.

Remi asked, “You have a plan, right?”

“Wouldn’t call it a plan. A sketch, maybe.”

“Good enough for me.”

He turned to her and took her free hand in his own. “Are you ready for this? You may have to do something you don’t want to do.”

Remi smiled. Water ran down her cheeks and over her lips in rivulets. “Like shoot someone? No worries; they started it.”

“That’s my girl. Okay, we go on three. Stay low and head left for cover. If it moves, shoot it.”

“Gladly.”

Sam grabbed the knob. “One . . . two . . .”

CHAPTER 41

. . . Three!”

Crouched down, Sam threw open the door.

Except for moonlight filtering through the ceiling, the conservatory was dark and, separated as it was from the lab area, not raining. Water from the corridor gushed out and began spreading across the floor.

Sam and Remi waited, watching. Silence. Nothing moved.

Remi whispered, “Where are they—”

A flash-bang thunked into the wall beside the door and landed at their feet. Sam kicked it away with his heel and slammed the door shut. From the other side came a bang; white light flashed through the cracks.

Sam opened the door an inch and was this time greeted by the sound of pounding footsteps and the sight of flashlights jostling their way toward them across the conservatory.

“Mind if I borrow that?” Sam asked and took Remi’s MP5. “When I start shooting, you head right. Take out a window and go for the patio.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to bring down the house. Go!”

Sam pushed the door open, angled both MP5s at the ceiling, and opened fire. Hunched over, Remi charged toward the patio, the barrel of her Glock flashing orange and bucking in her hand.

Knowing the glass itself was probably reinforced, Sam aimed for the support joints near the peak. With a reverberating, elongated cracking sound, the joints gave way. The first plate of glass collapsed inward and tumbled downward, followed by another, then another, crashing through the palm trees and cleaving trellis walls as they went. Voices started shouting in Russian, but almost immediately changed to screams as the first pane struck the floor. Shards of glass shot across the conservatory like shrapnel, ripping through foliage and peppering the walls.

Sam, already moving, saw all this out of the corner of his eye. Remi’s shots had struck true, shattering one of the wall panes. She was already crouched on the patio, waving for him to hurry. He felt a pluck at his sleeve, then a trio of stings on his face. He put his head down and his arms up, kept running, and leaped through Remi’s opening.

“You’re bleeding,” Remi said.

“Maybe I’ll end up with a dueling scar. Come on!”

He handed her back one MP5, then turned and ran for the hedges. Arms held before him like a wedge, he bulldozed through the tangle of branches into open air, then reached back in and pulled Remi through. On the other side of the hedge they could hear the shattering of glass every few seconds as the remainder of the conservatory roof continued to collapse. Voices, some in English and some in Russian, called to one another. Similarly, from the main house and what Sam and Remi guessed was the party area, came a cacophony of voices from Bondaruk’s guests.

Sam and Remi crouched down in the grass to catch their breath and get their bearings. To their right, fifty yards away, was the estate’s cliff-side wall; behind them lay the west wing, the main part of the mansion, and the east wings; directly ahead, a hundred feet away, stood a line of closely set pine trees fronted by barberry bushes.

Sam checked his watch: four A.M. A few hours before dawn.

“Let’s steal one of the cars,” Remi said, taking off her shoes, snapping off their high heels, then settling them back on her feet. “We drive like hell for Sevastopol and find someplace with lots of people. Bondaruk wouldn’t dare do anything in public.”

“Don’t count on it. Besides, that’s too obvious. By now they’ve got the perimeter locked down. Don’t forget: The only way he’ll know it’s us is from the camera footage or by putting our pictures in front of the guy back in the lab. Right now all he knows is all hell is breaking loose. Better we maintain that mystery.”

“How?”

“Retrace our steps. The last place they’ll check is the way we came in.”

“Back through the tunnel? And then what, swim for the boat?”

Sam shrugged. “I hadn’t gotten to that part yet. Still, I think it’s our best chance.”

Remi gave it five seconds of thought, then said, “Smuggler’s tunnel it is—unless we spot a helicopter or a tank somewhere along the way.”

“You find me a tank, Remi Fargo, and I’ll never drive over the speed limit again.”

“Promises, promises.”

Of all the unknowns about Bondaruk’s estate, two were of the greatest concern to Sam and Remi: One, did Bondaruk have guard dogs? Two, how many gunmen did he have, either on the property or in reserve, ready to come when called? Though they didn’t know the answer to either of these questions, they decided to assume the worst and get out while confusion still reigned and before their host had a chance to muster whatever hounds—human or canine—he had at his disposal.

Hunched over, they sprinted in bursts to the end of the hedges, paused to make sure the way was clear, then dashed across an open patch of lawn to the line of barberry bushes. Sam took off his tuxedo jacket and gave it to Remi, then dropped to his belly and wriggled through the thorny branches and onto the narrow strip of grass before the pine grove. Remi joined him a few moments later and started to take off his jacket.

“Keep it,” he said. “Temperature’s dropping.”

She smiled. “Always the gentleman—Sam, your arms.”

He looked down. The barberry thorns had shredded his shirt-sleeves; the white material was streaked and dotted with blood. “Looks worse than it is, but this shirt is going to get us caught.”

They crawled a few feet into the pine trees. Sam dug into the earth, grabbed a handful of dirt, and began rubbing it over his shirtfront, sleeves, and face. Remi did his back, then her own arms and face. Sam couldn’t help but smile. “Looks like we’ve been to the cocktail party from hell.”

“Not far off. Look . . . there.”

A hundred yards east across the lawn they saw a trio of flashlights appear around the corner of the house and begin moving along the wall toward them.

“Hear any dogs?” Sam asked.

“No.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way. Come on.”

They moved deeper into the trees, ducking under and sidestepping low-hanging branches until they came across a narrow, north-south game trail. They took it, heading north toward the stables. The pine grove was untouched old-growth, a hundred or more years old, which was both a curse and a blessing: While the intertwined boughs frequently forced them to crawl and crab-walk, it also provided perfect cover. Several times as they stopped to catch their breath they watched as guards moved along the other side of the tree line not thirty feet away, but so dense was the foliage that their flashlight beams penetrated only a few feet.

“Eventually they’ll send someone in,” Sam whispered, “but with luck we’ll be long gone before that.”

“How far to the stables?”

“On a straight line, a quarter mile, but this grove zigzags, so it’s probably double that. Ready?”

“Whenever you are.”

For the next twenty minutes they picked their way along the game trail, pausing every dozen paces to look and listen. Frequently they saw flashlights or shadowed figures moving around the estate grounds, sometimes hundreds of yards away, sometimes so close that Sam and Remi had to lie flat, not daring to breathe or move as the guards scanned the trees before moving on.

Finally the grove began to thin around them and soon the game trail opened into a clearing of grass across which they could see the south wall of the stables. Sam wriggled ahead, did a quick reconnaissance, then returned to Remi. “The party lawn is off to our right. The guests are gone but all the cars are still in the parking lot.”

“Bondaruk’s probably got them inside, lined up for interrogation,” Remi muttered.

“Wouldn’t be surprised. I didn’t see any posted guards—except for one, and as bad luck would have it he’s standing at the corner of the stables right beside the entrance.”