promontory several hundred feet high, a spur that thrust out at right angles from Thunder Mountain. The spur was Sky Mount’s northern border; on its far side lay the estate. Mansion and grounds stood at the base of the spur’s south face.
The spur was a rock curtain cutting off all sight and sound of the estate; not even the glow of the mansion’s lights could be seen in the night sky above it. It effectually isolated Sky Mount from Winnetou, ensuring that neither the camp’s hooded lights nor the sound of the gun battle earlier could be discerned by those on the estate.
The corner pocket where the spur met Thunder Mountain’s east face was blanketed with inky darkness. The path began to rise slightly as it neared the base of the spur. Pettibone stumbled, almost falling.
He said, “I can’t walk with my hands cuffed behind me.”
Griff said, “Yeah? At least you’re still upright.” He prodded Pettibone with the tip of the machine pistol. “Keep moving if you want to stay that way.”
Pettibone lurched forward, staggering onward. A short low rise of loose dirt and rocks now came underfoot, the talus skirting the slope’s base. Their goal lay at the top of it. They paused, Jack and Griff’s flashlight beams picking out their destination.
A hole gaped in the solid rock wall, a massive door or portal jutting out from it at right angles. Rowdy said, “Damn!”
Griff said, “We know that Mr. Bones here was telling the truth about this one thing, anyhow.”
Jack set his SMG and flashlight down on top of a waist-high boulder and took his cell phone out of his pocket. Griff said, “What’re you doing?”
Jack said, “Calling for reinforcements, if I can get through.”
“You wouldn’t be planning on pulling a cross, would you, dude?” Griff’s voice took on that too-casual tone that Jack recognized as a harbinger of potential violence.
Jack said, “I’m standing right here, you can listen in. Like I said before, this is no game of cops and robbers, this is national security business. This is the connection that’ll get us all off the hook on that Mountain Lake job.”
“I was born paranoid, Jack. But you’ve been righteous so far so I’m willing to play out the string. Go ahead.”
Jack saw that Ryan Chappelle had left him another stack of voice mail messages. His mouth took on a wry twist as he ignored them and pressed the speed dial for Orlando Garcia’s personal number.
He didn’t know whether the cell would work here but he thought it might because he and the Pine Ridge command post were both on the same eastern side of the mountain range, unlike Shadow Valley farther to the west where the intervening peaks had effectively blocked off the signal. His cell had a scrambler to screen against electronic eavesdroppers so the communication would be secure — if it got through.
The call was answered on the third ring. Garcia said without preamble, “I’d just about written you off.” The signal was mushy but audible. “Where are you? What’s—”
Jack cut across the other’s words, “No time for that now. There’s a strike planned against Sky Mount and I’m going to stop it if I can. Have a tac squad waiting outside the estate but don’t go in before you hear from me. Otherwise you might trigger the massacre we’re trying to prevent. Did you get all that?”
“Now hold on a damned minute— ”
“Did you get that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. If you don’t hear from me by two o’clock— that’s zero two hundred hours, repeat, zero two hundred hours — I didn’t make it and you can start evacuating Sky Mount. You read me?”
“Yes, damn it, but—”
“Zero two hundred hours and then move. Not before.”
“Wait—!” Jack broke the connection and switched off the
cell. It was the trust factor all over again. Brad Oliver had been warned in advance that he was going to be apprehended. The word could only have come from someone high up in CTU/L.A. or CTU/DENV. Was it Garcia? Jack didn’t know. He wasn’t going to tip his hand until he did know one way or the other. He’d told Garcia just enough to salvage the situation at Sky Mount should Jack fail to accomplish his mission but not so much that Garcia could thwart him if he turned out to be working for the other side.
He pocketed the cell and picked up his weapon and flashlight. He said, “Pettibone will go first. If there’s any booby traps along the way he’ll get it first.”
Pettibone said, “There ain’t.”
“You’ll go first anyway.”
They went up the slope in single file, Pettibone first, followed by Jack, Griff, and Rowdy. They paused at the lip of the entrance, Jack and Griff shining their flashlights on the portal.
A flat-topped summit, about six feet wide, aproned the hole in the wall. The hole was the mouth of a tunnel that stretched deep into the spur. It had been drilled through rock and lined with poured concrete. Cool, dry air wafted out of it. The night air was already cool but the tunnel was colder.
It was dark, pitch- black, not a glimmer of light showing within. Its rounded archway was seven feet tall and five feet wide. The concrete had been poured so the floor was flat. The door, or hatch, was a massive construction of milled steel three feet thick. A pair of curved hinges of corresponding size secured it to the tunnel. The hinges emerged from slots set in the inside of the frame at the head of the portal. The hatch would fit flush with the frame when it was closed.
Its exterior was faced with rock paneling that blended in with its surroundings. In the years— decades — that it had been in place, it had become overgrown with moss and lichens of the same type as those that clung to the natural rock walls.
The inside center of the hatch featured an oversized spoked metal wheel the size of a big-rig truck’s steering wheel. Its hub was mounted on a short, squat column fitted inside a cylindrical shaft set deep in the metal mounting. It could be used to open the hatch or dog it closed. The mechanism could only be operated from the inside.
Rowdy said, “It’s like a bank vault door…”
Griff said, “With a fifty-thousand- dollar payoff inside. And it’s already open. All we got to do is take Reb’s head to collect.”
“And not get killed.”
“Yeah, that, too.”
Pettibone hung back at the threshold. Jack prodded him with the tip of the SMG, said, “Move. And quit dragging your feet. We don’t want to be late for the party.”
Pettibone started forward, Jack following him inside, the bikers trailing him. The concrete lining was cracked and stained but the excavation was far more stable and solidly built than that of the Silver-top mine. The mine had been damp and clammy but this tunnel was dry and dusty.
Twin flashlight beams reached around Pettibone’s skeletal form to probe deep into the tunnel’s vitals but not deep enough to reach its end. The floor had a slight incline with a grade of less than five degrees. The group trudged silently upward along it.
The tunnel was stark, functional, utilitarian. The outside world might as well have ceased to exist for all the effect it had here. Its influence was nil. The concrete lining had an absorbent quality that muffled ambient sound. The footfalls of the intruders were whispered rustlings on the treadmill of a seemingly endless trek.
Jack herded Pettibone along, poking him with the SMG on the ever more frequent occasions that he halted his progress. Jack read that as a good sign. It meant they were nearing their goal at the end of the tunnel, a destination Pettibone had no desire to reach.
The tunnel ceased its incline and now began to run level. The flashlight beams all at once encountered something instead of being swallowed up by nothingness. They bounced off a distant shape, an unrecognizable blur.
Jack whispered over his shoulder to the bikers, “Heads up and stand by for action.” A lot of ground remained to be covered but the transit was more endurable now that the end was in sight.
Jack tilted his flashlight beam to one side. A fuzzy patch of brightness swam at the end of a long stretch. He touched the tip of the silencer to the back of Pettibone’s head where it met the top of his neck, a gentle reminder of the facts of life and death.
