20

PATINAS PASS

It had taken over an hour to get the villagers to safety through the animal paths inside the mountain. Stanus had made sure Everett knew the way back before the large wolf had vanished. The last of the women and children had been handed out through one of the ancient steam vents that dotted the mountainside by the menfolk of the village. Niles had been impressed by the movement of the entire village as not one child made a cry or complaint. The men had been silent also as they moved their families without complaint. These were hardy people that needed little help from Niles or his people. These men and women had courage in abundance. They and the Golia were the ultimate survivors.

One of the last to be moved from the inside of the mountain was Madam Korvesky, who had to leave the makeshift cot inside as it wouldn’t fit through the vent. Alice, Denise, and Sarah held a blanket up over the vent hole to protect the old woman from the slashing rain. Once the men were out Carl took notice on where they had come out. Niles called his team over to the side.

“Where are we?” he asked. “Best guess.”

“I would say we’re only a mile from the castle and a mile south of Patinas, and we better get moving before Zallas and his people return.”

Niles nodded as he turned to look for Alice. She was gone along with Sarah and Anya. He spun in a circle as he realized every one of the Gypsy villagers had vanished into the storm.

“Where did they go?” Pete asked as he and Charlie ran across the road to see if they had gone that way.

“They know this mountain better than anyone. I think they know where to go to be safe,” Everett said as his thoughts turned to Anya, Sarah, and Alice.

“But they’ll kill Madam Korvesky even faster, we must find them,” Denise said.

“For right now we have to get some help. Charlie, you and Pete get to the castle and do what you can to warn everyone. Smash dishes or faces, I don’t care, get them out. Captain, get back to Patinas, I don’t know why but I think that’s where they went. Madam Korvesky has something to do with it, I know it. Dr. Gilliam, you’ll come with me and set up a triage station at the resort in case we don’t get those people out in time. We’ll need a lot of medical help if the worst happens.”

“You?” Carl asked as he flinched when a flash of lightning streaked overhead.

“Jack says there’s a shortwave radio inside Zallas’s office. I think it’s time we call a friend for some help.”

As everyone broke up and went their different ways into the storm, Everett wondered just who in the hell can come and help them at a time like this.

But Niles Compton knew just whom to call.

*   *   *

Alice was barely able to climb the road back to Patinas. Her legs had given out three times and Sarah had to assist her back to her feet. Anya helped by taking Alice’s other arm and together they battled the raging wind and rain and barreled headfirst through the storm to Patinas. Finally the village came into view and Anya asked the obvious, as Alice had refused to tell them why she had to return to Patinas with the mountain getting ready to fall down around them.

“Why are you doing this? My grandmother was delirious, we cannot go back there, Zallas and his people are still there.”

Alice continued to struggle against the wind and then when she stopped it caught Sarah and Anya off guard—standing before them were twenty armed men in black clothing.

Anya feared this almost as much as running into the Russian and his men. They had run straight into the waiting arms of the killer elite of Israel.

“I am Major Mica Sorotzkin, you men are ordered to stand down.”

The men just looked on and said nothing. Anya could see that most of them were bloodied. The leader of the remaining commandos was about to step up and address the major but instead he ducked as automatic fire opened up behind them. Bullets hit everywhere as Alice, Sarah, and Anya dove into the rushing water and mud for cover. Sarah chanced a look up and above the village saw streaming out of the temple the Russian’s men making a mad rush for their waiting vehicles. The Israelis turned, hit the mud, and started to return fire, but not before three more of them had been hit. Bullets struck to the left and to the right as Alice suddenly stood up and started running. Sarah screamed for her to stop but she kept running through the blaze of gunfire. Sarah had no choice but to go after her and that spurred Anya into action to follow.

The first SUV tore out of the village and that was followed by others as the volume of fire became less and less and more of the men from the temple made it to their vehicles.

The man left in charge of the outside assault element was mentally kicking himself for not disabling the vehicles.

Alice tripped, stumbled, and then fell into the rushing water as she reached the front gate to the village. A large black SUV nearly missed her as she dove through the front gate of Patinas. Sarah was soon there as the last of the black SUVs tore down the mountain.

“Are you insane?” Sarah yelled as she helped Alice to her feet.

“Please, we have to get to Madam Korvesky’s cottage, now,” Alice said as Anya reached down and helped them both. In the falling rain she faced Alice and then shook her.

“My grandmother is wrong, what you’re going after isn’t worth it, believe me. It’s something she won’t share even with me,” she yelled as rain poured from her face and hair.

“She says it’s important,” Alice said as she struggled to get away from the hands holding her.

“Nothing here is that important, you saw what it was the Jeddah were protecting all these years, it’s nothing to die for. That is why we were going to destroy it. Please, let it go, Mrs. Hamilton.”

Alice twisted away and then ran for the cottage. Anya screamed in anger and then she and Sarah followed.

The front door was open and several men raised weapons and aimed them at Alice as she stumbled through the doorway. The men were all injured by either bullets or from the HALO jump.

“No!” Anya shouted at the men in English so they would understand without really thinking.

Alice ran past the men with Sarah’s help and stumbled into the bedroom and then practically fell onto the old hope chest. Anya came in after them with an oil lamp and waited for Alice to catch her breath. The ground was now in constant motion this high up.

“There is nothing in there but a bunch of shattered dreams my grandmother had for me at one time. There is nothing in there of value, Mrs. Hamilton, please, let us get these injured men off the mountain now.”

Alice threw open the top of the chest and then started tossing blankets, sheets, and other items that Anya once thought were important. Then Alice hit upon something metal and hard. She took a moment and studied what she had discovered. Anya got a strange look on her face, as she hadn’t known there was anything in the bottom of the chest. She held the lamp closer as Alice reached in and opened the steel box. Inside was an old burlap bag that was tied at one end with a length of rope. She slowly reached in and brought out the bag. It was heavy and felt as if it held nothing but rocks. Alice lifted it free of the chest and was about to open the rope end when several men came into the house. As Sarah looked up she was relieved to see Jack, Jason, and Will. They were soaked and Ryan was bleeding. Will looked scared half to death.

“Ladies, I believe I told you to get the hell off this mountain, what are you doing here,” Jack asked angrily.

“Collecting something Madam Korvesky wanted us to have. Now may I suggest we do as Jack here says, I think the mountain is falling down.”

With that they were all amazed when Alice bolted from the room and out the front door.

“I’ll tell you something, she cannot come on field operations anymore!”

*   *   *

As Pete and Doc Ellenshaw climbed the stairs to the cable car platform they turned left into the lobby area of the castle and Niles and Denise boarded the southbound car just as the doors started to slide closed. Compton looked at his watch and worried it had taken them too long to reach the castle.

Pete and Charlie heard and felt the music long before they breached the club. Drake Andrews could be heard belting out his most famous cover song, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Green River.” The crowd was raucous and the backup band blazing. Pete opened the door to step in and a rather large and brutish man placed a bear-sized palm on his chest and then gave the filthy computer genius a dirty look. He just shook his head when he saw the condition of his clothes and his person.

“Listen, you have to get all of these people out of here!” Pete said, trying to push past the doorman. The man wouldn’t budge.

As the music played even louder, Charlie looked over and saw the raging storm outside as the cables for the massive cars were swinging back and forth. He then felt the thick stone blocks beneath his feet shift. His eyes widened and then he started running and pushed past the large man at the door, knocking him and Pete to the floor.

“Everyone get out, get out now!” the crazy white-haired Charlie Ellenshaw screamed at the top of his lungs, but it was to no avail, as everyone was locked in on the famous American crooner gyrating on the stage. The backup band was having the experience of their lives playing with the once top star. “Stop, stop playing and get out of here,” but it was like Charlie was speaking into a vacuum.

The doorman was finally on his feet and had Charlie by the back of his filthy shirt and was in the process of pulling him back toward the cable car platform when he backed into something unmoving. The man turned and raised a hand to hit the other filthy man when his eyes looked straight into nothing but black hair. He saw the chest rise and fall and he heard the heavy breathing. His eyes slowly moved upward as his grip on Ellenshaw loosened and Charlie fell to the floor.

Mikla was standing on the platform and was looking down on the large doorman. The man was frozen in fear as the freshly healed Mikla leaned down and looked the man directly in the eyes and then the mouth opened to show the man the business end of Mikla’s touch.

The man felt his knees buckle as Mikla roared. The ears lay back and the hand came up but the doorman had already fallen to the floor.

“Good, Mikla, good!” Charlie said, not knowing how or why the Golia had saved them but wasn’t about to thumb his nose at the chance to get the people out as the castle really started to move under their feet.

The Golia seemed like it was a beast on a mission as it shook its massive head and with ears laid to the sides of that head started walking through the open doorway to Castle Dracula’s.

*   *   *

Drake Andrews was having the time of his professional life as he felt the subtle nuances of an audience that was lost in his music. He hadn’t felt the power of his music for almost a quarter of a century. It had become stale and predictable, even to the point where the MGM Grand and then the Mirage in that order canceled his upcoming gigs.

He was just finishing up when he heard a commotion in the upper reaches of the club. He glanced up at the balcony and heard several shouts, but the American figured they were just yelping for more. He turned to the band and said something and then the strains of the old rock ’n’ roll standard by Tommy James and the Shondells, “Mony, Mony,” began. As the heavy music started its heavy beat they heard another scream and then another and Drake smiled as he knew the song was getting their attention.

Andrews stepped up to the microphone and was just starting to open his mouth when he saw one of the club’s guests get onto the railing that ringed the upper balcony where the rich would sit and listen, drink, and do the kind of things you can’t do on the main floor. Drake saw the man and wondered just what he was up to when he suddenly jumped over the railing and fell the eighty feet to the tables below where he hit hard and then rolled to the floor amid screams of terror. Drake Andrews looked up still stunned when he saw the wolf from the night before jump up and then roar out over the crowd. Drake, instead of singing the first few refrains from “Mony, Mony,” watched as the crowd started cheering at what they thought was part of the show. Drake knew that if it was part of the club’s show that something pretty bad had just gone wrong.

The beast roared again as two more people jumped. The Golia roared for a third time until the band stopped playing and just stared up at the surreal scene above their heads. A man with crazy white hair stepped up next to the black, upright wolf that had everyone in the house amazed.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, this very big wolf wants all of you OUT OF HERE!” Charlie shouted at the top of his lungs just as Mikla roared and then jumped clear of the railing and onto a table, crushing it. The men and women sitting there just stared up at the amazing creature standing on the remains of the table and looking around curiously at the startled men and women. Mikla reached out and slapped at a frightened man in a tux, making sure his claws were retracted far enough that he didn’t decapitate him.

Some of the patrons of the grand opening became aware that this was not part of the show or a prank: there was a wolf standing in the middle of the club—and the wolf standing before them was as real as it gets. They panicked and started running in all directions screaming and yelling as Mikla added his voice to the confusion and started swiping at the passing stampede of humanity.

Charlie Ellenshaw looked down from the balcony as Pete joined him. They saw men and women running everywhere. They saw Drake Andrews try to help a lady who was attempting to get on the stage to escape the monster wolf that had just crushed her table, but her hand slipped out of Drake’s and she fell back into the maddened crowd. Andrews turned and started pushing the young Russian kids off the stage. As Charlie and Pete watched from above they exchanged looks and Charlie made a face. The panicked people below saw the first filtering of dust from the ceiling as it came down but no one inside Castle Dracula could care at the moment. Still the panicked guests streamed toward the stairs and the cable car platform seeking any way out of what had quickly become a nightmare.

“Wow, maybe you could have handled that just a little bit differently, Professor.”

*   *   *

The SUVs blasted down the slick, wet road as fast as they dared. Several of the all-terrain vehicles went flying off into the storm-driven night when they failed to take a corner at a reasonable speed, but each car was afraid of being the last to get to the castle. Dmitri Zallas was not feeling at festive as he had earlier that evening. In the first car was Zallas and Colonel Ben-Nevin, who was still holding his damaged shoulder from his near miss at the hands of the Israelis. The colonel sat in the backseat scowling, believing that no matter what happened from this point on his mission was a failure and now it wasn’t just his career that was over, but also his life, as the proof saying the City of Moses really existed had never been there in the first place. The legend was a lie, a falsity that held many of his people chained to the past, and one that he had come to despise above all else in Israel.

The black SUV swerved in the road as they came around the last bend. Zallas’s eyes widened when he saw the men and women running into the night. They were streaming down the staircases on the outside while many others were pushing and shoving to get inside one of the cable cars that had just arrived. He saw the heavily overloaded car sag on the large, thick, four-cable lines. He screamed in anger as the automatic doors on the car slid closed, surely injuring several of his guests. He watched all of this from far below as his four-wheel-drive pulled up to the first cable tower as the car high above them broke free from the car barn.

Zallas saw people streaming on and off the two small elevators and he decided to bypass them and run for the stairs. Rain made the going slippery as even more of his men pulled up and joined him in their run up to the club and possibly the escaping villagers of Patinas. Ben-Nevin joined him in the enclosed stairs thankful for being out of the storm with his arm throbbing because of the bullet having ripped into him from his own people … Well, what used to be his own people, he corrected himself. The Mossad colonel knew what they were doing now was a waste of time. It was just the Russian not wanting to be made a fool of. There were far worse things in the world than that, and a hanging rope for traitors was one of them.

The Russian stopped when they reached the top as his guests were screaming and yelling trying to get down the same stairwell. Zallas started angrily pushing them out of his way and as he crashed through the top floor door he even heard one of his men shoot someone below. Dmitri Zallas was now beyond caring about his guests. He wanted what was his and he wanted his resort protected, and right now neither was happening. He walked quickly to the entrance, pushing a dark-haired woman out of his way and then kicking at her angrily, and when her escort tried to stop Zallas, he pulled a handgun from his large coat and shot the man without a second thought. Several more shots were heard behind him when his men saw the example being set by their employer. With the rumors of a vast treasure lost, the men had become murderous.

Pete turned and saw Zallas just in time as the men walked into the club and onto the balcony section. Golding, with no warning at all, pushed Charlie over the railing and then he jumped after him. Ellenshaw struck the floor and felt his ankle bend in a manner that wasn’t conducive to walking upright. He rolled and yelled while grabbing for his injured leg.

Mikla was near the stage roaring angrily at the frightened people as they ran one way and then saw Mikla and then turned screaming running in the opposite direction. Drake Andrews and the terrified Russian band had abandoned everything and were battling to get through the wings just offstage, but every time they thought they found an exit they were stopped by the humanity trying to flee the now shaking castle. The American singer heard the roar of the animal and that turned into a long howl. He screamed for no other reason than he wanted to, as he and the others battled for their lives to get out. One second there was nothing but shouting and panic, and the next everyone went silent as they swore they could hear gunfire—quite a bit of it.

*   *   *

The only operational vehicles they could find were two very old cars used by the Gypsies to travel the lower valleys. One was a thirty-five-year-old Citroën and the other a beat-up, faded red 1962 Chevy Impala that came to Romania in God knows what manner or circumstance. Jack, Sarah, Anya, and Major Mendohlson were in the Chevy’s front seat with Mendenhall, Alice, her potato sack with her rocks, and sitting beside her was Ryan. Jack was cursing the slipping clutch as he downshifted the old standard transmission. Anya screamed next to him as someone ran into the road waving his arms.

“It’s Carl!” Anya shouted, happy to see him as he skidded to a stop beside the sliding Chevy. Major Mendohlson hoped the Citroën behind them didn’t slide into them as they waited for the American to get out of the storm. Carl quickly squeezed into the back by almost crushing the Israeli commando when he pushed the front seat up.

“Nice car, Jack,” Everett said as he pushed Mendenhall over.

“Yeah, I’m afraid shit red was all they had,” he said as he put the car back into gear and peeled out in the mud and running water.

Carl saw Anya turn her head and look at him, happy he was still alive and ashamed she had left with Alice and not said anything to him. He shook his head and then winked. She turned back with a smile on her muddy face. Only Jack noticed the look as he tried to keep the old Chevy on the road.

He couldn’t prove it, but Collins could swear the road was starting to move under the worn tires of the Chevy.

*   *   *

Two miles deep into the mountain the music of Drake Andrews and his new Russian backup band had finished the sabotage the Golia had started. The vibrations caused by the amazing sound system installed at Castle Dracula had started to shake away the last restraints holding the anchor pins in place. The six-foot-thick steel pins started to rotate as they lost their hold on the earth. As they turned, the heavy gauge steel snapped at several points along the two-mile anchorage. The next thing to tear loose was the foundation settings that connected the anchor pins to the castle’s main foundation. The castle slipped a foot away from the facing and tilted toward the resort far below, making the highest parapet shake and actually break into three separate sections that barely hung on.

The furthest, deepest anchor pin gave way with a totality that would have been heard in Bucharest if it hadn’t been buried deep in the mountain. After the steel broke in two, the whiplash fractured the remaining strata that kept the thermal vents intact. The underground geyser erupted into the cracks of the mountain where it built up enough pressure that the resulting explosion blew out the strong but now loose anchorage of the sixteen foundation pins. The force of the collapse pulled the top of the mountain toward the south, creating an avalanche of massive proportions. The rock fall started and continued rolling as it picked up speed and debris. The top of Patinas Pass turned to a viscous substance that resembled a wave as it collapsed, sending the pass into Patinas, burying the small village for all time.

The resulting release of energy had only one place to go, and that was through the area of least resistance and that meant through the thirty-five-hundred-year-old City of Moses. The explosion rocked the city, knocking over the wonderful obelisks and columns. The giant walled gate with the proud depictions of the Jeddah in their heyday of service to Pharaoh collapsed and then the stone carved ceiling came down upon three of the most famous men in the history of the world and crushed their remains to dust and buried them forever.

In just seconds the work of two thousand Jeddah and numerous engineers of Ramesses II came down, never again to see the light of day.

*   *   *

Pete Golding struggled to get Charlie Ellenshaw up and running when several people ran past with three of them stopping to help them up. Drake Andrews didn’t wait for a thank-you as he and the other Russian musicians fled as Mikla roared again right next to them. They hadn’t seen the wolf when they had stopped and didn’t look back now. Ellenshaw watched the panicked people for a moment and then shouted to Pete.

“I think that’s about enough, maybe we should split now, want do you think?”

Golding nodded that yes, he did think that was quite enough.

“Mikla, go!” Charlie shouted. “Run!”

The wolf suddenly went to all fours and looked around him as if he were confused. The Golia howled and then ran for the front with people screaming and jumping from the path of the giant.

Charlie saw Mikla jump onto the high stage and threaten several of the guests as they tried desperately to get away from what they thought was a Castle Dracula special effect gone awry. Ellenshaw saw two couples in the far darkened corner of the club still sitting, talking and drinking among the chaos. Ellenshaw hurriedly ran to their table tripping over several men as they tried to push themselves as far away from Mikla as they could get. The beast was standing upright, roaring and swiping at people as they ran by. Charlie was worried that instead of leaving, the giant Golia was starting to get its blood up and was becoming so excited that the claws would start slicing people in two soon if he and Pete didn’t get out of there.

The two men and two women finally looked up as they saw Ellenshaw with Pete close behind running and stumbling toward them. One man stood from the table and as he did three bullets stitched a line across his white tuxedo jacket sending the man slamming against the wall, spraying blood on his companions as he did. The women screamed and then two more rounds hit the tabletop shattering glasses and sending the remains of their cocktails flying. Charlie fell facefirst and then covered his head. Pete looked up and saw Zallas and his men standing at the railing of the balcony firing down. The bullets hitting the floor and walls around them were aimed at him and Charlie. Pete reached out and pulled Ellenshaw as close to the wall as he could for protection.

Mikla roared again as Drake Andrews with several of the young Russian musicians in tow had somehow not found their way out to the cable car platform where men and women were pushing and shoving to either get to the front of the line or they were slapping and shoving each other on the twin stairwells that wound down to the ground from the platform. Even these were causing more casualties among the guests than Mikla ever could as they were tumbling down the steel steps as if they were doing it intentionally, and it was one of these men that Jack nearly struck with the front bumper of the old Chevy as they skidded to a halt.

Even above the din of screaming guests and running feet, Jack could hear the sound of gunfire over the tremendous pounding of the door. Then they all heard the roar of a Golia and every man and woman inside the Chevy thought the worst—that one of the wolves was loose inside the club and was now in the process of killing everyone and that would not do for the secrecy needed for the species. Collins was thrown an Uzi without the silencer attachment as he, Carl, Mendohlson, Mendenhall, and Ryan all scrambled out of the car and into sheer madness as men and women in their finery splashed, screamed, fell, and rolled in the flooding mud caused by the raging storm.

As Collins hit the first step in the long stairwell to the top of the platform, the next cable car pulled in and Jack could hear the screaming, the jostling, and the cursing as men and women fought to be the first inside and away from the terrible things happening inside the club. As he hit the second platform of stairs on the way to the top with the others beating the steel stairs behind him, Jack flinched as first the body of a woman in an evening dress struck the side of the stairwell and spun off into the storm to strike the ground far below, then the body of a flailing man flew past striking the handrail on his way down.

As Sarah and Anya left Alice in the car with the smelly burlap bag, McIntire ran to the woman who fell to the ground. She checked for a pulse and in a flash of lightning Anya saw Sarah shake her head. Then she quickly checked the body that had landed only inches from his date. He too was broken and very much dead. Sarah knew if they didn’t get Zallas and his people under control soon they would have a disaster on their hands that would be capable of shining too much light on the Event Group. They had to save as many people as they possibly could and then get out of there without the Romanian authorities asking too many questions about the strange group of men and women that had attached itself to the NATO survey.

Another roar of the Golia sent Anya flying up the stairs as she realized one of the precious and irreplaceable beasts was actually inside the club and they were hearing a lot of gunfire.

*   *   *

Zallas stood next to the balcony railing and surveyed the disaster that his precious Castle Dracula had become. The Russian was so angry he failed to feel the massive stone blocks beneath his feet shift, and again most did not see that the liquid in the half-filled glasses was beginning to lean to the south with a prominent tilt.

Zallas turned and took the wounded Ben-Nevin by the coat collar to pull him to the railing and then shake him as he gestured at the catastrophe below.

“What have you done to my club?” he yelled as spittle flew from his mouth and into the Mossad agent’s face. “All of this and nothing from you!”

Ben-Nevin watched as the women and men continued to try to get out of the giant nightclub, most fearing the animal as it ran from spot to spot in a frenzy of excitement. His eyes widened at the familiar sight of Mikla, the beast that had rescued Anya on board the train just two nights before. Ben-Nevin slapped Zallas’s hand away from his coat collar and then pulled a nine-millimeter from his waistband. He took quick aim and fired into the crowd in an attempt to hit the wolf. Mikla went to all fours and practically flew up the wall and into a dark vestibule and vanished. Ben-Nevin then sighted a new target. The white-haired man and the strange fellow from the hotel were huddling in a far corner by the stage. It looked as if they were waiting to make a break for the rear door and the cable cars outside. Ben-Nevin took aim at the crazy-haired man.

*   *   *

Charlie Ellenshaw and Pete Golding had finally given up trying to separate the guests from the armed men that were in the mood to kill everyone in the confusion caused by Mikla. Charlie pulled Pete down closer to the floor when Ellenshaw had spotted the thirty or so men streaming into the club. They were Zallas’s as the automatic weapons attested. Charlie was getting ready to pull Pete to his feet when he was knocked down just as three bullets punctured the stone wall next to his head.

“Wow, man, I think that cat was trying to kill you!” Drake Andrews said as he rolled off of Ellenshaw. Charlie managed to look up and see the harried and now very much crumpled American entertainer. His black show jacket was covered in blood and the young people behind him didn’t look any better.

“Thanks,” was all Ellenshaw could say as more bullets struck the tables and the walls behind the group of frightened entertainers.

“Are you an American?” Andrews asked.

“Yeah, we’re Americans, but if we don’t get out of here we’ll never see the golden shores again,” Pete interjected.

A bullet pinged off the black wall behind them and one of the young Russian singers screamed in pain as she grabbed her arm. Drake pulled her closer to him and then covered her.

“We have to get these kids out of here,” Andrews said.

“Yeah, any suggestions?” Charlie asked. “If I’m not mistaken there seems to be a pretty angry Russian up there!”

*   *   *

Ben-Nevin had the white-haired man in his sights again and this time that American singer wouldn’t help him. Suddenly several angry hornets crossed in front of his face. He turned and looked and saw several men and to his surprise running along with them was Anya Korvesky, or as the colonel knew her, Major Mica Sorotzkin. She took cover quickly behind a large pedestal with a suit of armor on it. Zallas pushed Ben-Nevin away and then his men returned some of the fire directed at them by the Americans.

Zallas gestured for his remaining men to advance on the Americans and he didn’t care how many men he lost taking them out.

“Kill them all,” he screamed as he looked around at the shambles of his castle. He could not believe he had been talked into this by that Israeli traitor. He knew he always had to go for the brass ring even though he had enough money already to buy the factory that made the brass rings. He always had to have what others had, and now here he was. The castle was going to be a complete loss and now he had to make sure this disaster didn’t touch the much more valuable property below—the Edge of the World. That had to be saved after this fiasco. He looked at the cowardly Ben-Nevin and knew this man would die slowly in his hotel’s basement just as Marko Korvesky had earlier in the evening.

Jack chanced a look down over the railing and saw that the only guests left in the club were Charlie, Pete, and a group of terrified-looking young people huddling together by the stage. There was no way with the minimal firepower at hand they could extricate Ellenshaw and Golding.

“Jack!” Sarah shouted as she held the handgun out and pointed to the far wall closest to the cable car platform.

Collins looked to where Sarah was pointing and then he jabbed Mendohlson and then yelled for Carl. He pointed to the same spot as McIntire. Their eyes widened. As they watched, the rip in the stone blocks where they had been cemented together was separated by a good eight inches and the gap was widening. Sarah knew the castle was starting to separate from the mountain. The tremor hit and that made all the gunfire magically cease for the briefest of moments as everyone realized at the same moment that something was starting to go terribly wrong with Dracula’s Castle. Even Zallas remembered Sarah’s dire warnings about a catastrophe in the making. Now the Russian was starting to see—and feel—her point. He was thinking maybe it was time to leave and sort this out in a better location, like his offices.

“The doc is pinned down by the stage, it looks like they may be the last ones to get out, he and Pete are with a bunch of kids.”

“Kids? Here?” Carl said as he accepted another nine-millimeter clip from one of the Israeli commandos. Everett popped up and downed one of the mobster’s hired killers, who grabbed his face and then fell over the balcony and then his body smashed into a table in the center of the room. “If we have to do this one at a time we may be here when this damn castle falls down,” Everett finished and then fired one more round at the mass of killers fronting them.

“If you don’t mind me asking you gentlemen, just who in the hell are you?” Mendohlson asked.

“He’s Navy, I’m Army, and that really doesn’t matter at the moment, Major,” Jack said as he looked at the man. “What does matter is that I have two men down there protecting a bunch of kids. I have to get them out.”

“Well, we’re down to fifteen men. The rest are wounded or assisting the evacuation. We’re it.”

Jack grimaced.

“Here they come, Jack!” Everett said as he fired blindly into the men who were trying to make it to the cable car platform. “Damn!”

Bullets started slamming into the floor and the walls around them. The suit armor finally toppled over, narrowly missing a rolling Anya as it crashed to the floor. Collins saw that the Russian was done, he wanted out but they were in his way. Collins wasn’t about to raise his hands and give Zallas free passage to the cable car that was just pulling in. As Jack tried to get Ellenshaw’s attention below a bullet hit the colonel in the left shoulder and he felt the sting. Sarah saw him go down and there was nothing she could do about it.

Jack and his rescue team were about to be overrun.

Zallas knew he would make it with the human shield in front of him. He turned and grabbed Ben-Nevin once more and pulled him close.

“You will stay with me, my friend, until I have in my hands what I was promised. I want those men and I want what those Gypsies took from the temple!”

One of Zallas’s men fired a long burst from his AK-47 and the mobster looked up in time to see the dark-haired American go down. To the Russian that was a start. He had bad vibes ever since meeting the American with the intense green eyes. He smiled again as he shook Ben-Nevin and pointed. “Now you’ll see how we conduct business in Russia!” he said smiling maniacally.

*   *   *

Mikla was standing on the highest parapet on the east side of the castle. The giant Golia reached up and took hold of the ornate weather vane for balance and let loose a howl that was heard even over the building storm. Mikla was calling for help.

The mountain above the castle suddenly came alive with a black-on-black movement that looked as if ants were heading down the side of the mountain. The Golia had arrived to battle one last time against the forces of Pharaoh.

*   *   *

“That’s it, I’m out!” Sarah said as she looked around hoping that Mendohlson and his men had something extra to give. They did not. Their volume of fire diminished. They were done for.

Zallas was seen pulling the Israeli colonel around by the collar as his men kept up the withering fire as they worked their way to the platform. The cable car was there looking none too good after the wild ride down with screaming guests that had been terrified by what they still thought was a special effects show gone awry.

*   *   *

“You better pray that old Gypsy and her backward people are down below or you will never leave here, Jew Colonel,” Zallas said as his anti-Semitism came flowing from his mouth like corruption from a wound. “They better have what you have promised me.” He shook the colonel once more as he walked behind his curtain of men, dodging from fake castle appointment to potted plant. “Look at this, you are responsible for this!”

As Zallas looked around, his club was a shambles and as it stood he knew he would at least lose millions in a delayed opening. Dmitri Zallas was the type of man who never looked at the legal ramifications of anything he came across, he always had the fix in, just as he did at the moment with the interior minister. The damage could be controlled but that didn’t mean that the Jew had made a deal and he was going to stick to it if Zallas had to kill every last Gypsy inside Romania. And then he would start in the neighboring countries—nobody lied to Dmitri Zallas or ripped him off.

*   *   *

“Doc!”

Professor Ellenshaw heard the shout coming from behind. The din of battle from up top was starting to slacken as their rescuers ran low on ammunition. Charlie eased his head around the woman he was protecting with his body. He saw Jason Ryan and Will Mendenhall lying on the cold stone floor looking at them from a small cubbyhole at the end of the stage. It had taken them ten minutes to work their way outside and then to one of the ornate leaded glass windows where it took another three minutes to break through the lead that held most of the stained glass in place.

“Come on, Doc, we gotta split, man,” Ryan said, frantically waving Ellenshaw and his charges away from the main floor.

Ellenshaw started with the girl beneath him. It was the young woman dressed as Janis Joplin, and that made crazy Charlie give her a double take.

“Must have been one hell of a show,” he said as he pushed the young girl, who was still wearing her sunglasses, toward Ryan, who also gave Janis a second look.

Next Pete was pushing Jim Morrison, and holding on to his long fringe-lined vest were the three Supremes screaming as bullets stitched the thick brick walls. Each of the Russian performers, all dressed as past greats for Drake Andrews’s performance, was sent through the small opening to the rear of the stage and the false front of the castle beyond. Ryan and Will exchanged astonished looks as the evening just became far stranger.

“Okay, come on, Johnny, move it!” Ryan yelled out as the second to last performer, a kid dressed all in black like Johnny Cash, almost got stuck in the small opening.

“Wow!” Mendenhall said as the last man through was none other than Drake Andrews.

“Hey, dude, thanks a lot,” he said as he started crawling through the hole and into the small passageway.

“Come on, Doc!” Ryan said as he finally assisted Ellenshaw and Pete through the opening. “Good job getting those kids out of there,” Jason said to Ellenshaw and Pete as bullets slammed into the hole from upstairs.

“Where to now?” Pete asked as he waited for the others.

“The drawbridge in the front, it’s the only way out to get to the platform, we can’t take a chance getting to the stairs from the main room,” Mendenhall answered as he pushed Pete forward through the tunnel beside the stage.

“The drawbridge?”

*   *   *

Jack, Carl, Mendohlson, Sarah, Anya, Everett, and three of the Israeli commandos were forced to break off and make a run for the far corner away from the platform, as they could no longer stand and fight.

Before Jack realized what was happening he was taken off guard by the brass of the Russian, as he not only directed men to the cable car to hold it, he was actually sending twenty men after his small retreating unit. As he watched the men turn down the balcony hallway the castle gave a giant lurch as the concrete sealant around the foundation and stone block walls finally gave up its hold on the mountain. The castle slipped forward on its foundation by one and a half feet. This time the undermined anchor bolts twisted free of the earth until there was no longer anything holding the castle tight to the mountain. It was starting to come down and Jack knew it.

“To the roof, we’ll catch the cable car from there and hope Mr. Ryan finds a way up, let’s move, people,” he said as Major Mendohlson took the lead and rushed for the stairwell at the end of the hall and just hoped it went up at least one more floor to the castle’s promenade at the top.

*   *   *

Zallas and his men immediately realized the Americans had broken completely off. They made a mad dash for the giant cable car that had docked just moments before. It was still partially in motion as it swung into the loading area. Three of the Russian’s men ran to the ornate wooden door but the automatic system had failed and the double doors remained closed. The men batted on the clouded window but the doors remained closed. The first man tried to look inside and found the view obscured. He stepped back and that was when he noticed that every specially etched glass window was covered in a thin film of red. The man’s eyes widened when the doors suddenly hissed open and before he could stop the first two men they ran inside.

The Russian heard the screaming men just as they broke into the promenade for the cars. The men inside were screaming and the large, heavy car was rocking on its cables. As the remaining men stopped short of the car, Stanus broke free of the doors and stood silhouetted in the ornate lighting from the interior. The beast was in the standing position. Its black muzzle shining with the fresh blood of the two men that were now scattered all over the Queen Anne decor. Stanus was breathing heavy as it took in the startled men standing before it. The yellow eyes were now dulled by pain and its two bullet wounds were bleeding heavily, one from its upper right back and one in the back of the neck. Stanus shook its massive head back and forth sending saliva and blood flying in all directions and then it gathered its strength and raised its muzzle high and roared. The sound shook the platform and had the toughest men in Eastern Europe reversing as quickly as they could.

Ben-Nevin was the only one to react since he had become used to seeing these creatures. He allowed Zallas to step behind as he removed his nine-millimeter. Stanus lowered his head and fixed the colonel with his eyes as if daring the man to shoot.

Four more men turned and decided they would rather face this strange giant dog than face Zallas. They slowly brought up their AK-47s and took aim.

At that precise moment all the hell stored up in the history of the dark Carpathian Mountains broke free. The Golia struck the castle in force. Mikla was the first to jump from the top of the cable car where it had hidden amid the pulleys and platform cables and leaped onto the roof and then to the floor, crashing through the thin aluminum manufactured to resemble thick wooden beams. It was on all fours and was taking up station in front of his older brother, Stanus, growling and making the men hesitate just long enough for the rest of the male Golia to strike from the open sides of the promenade. They hit with such force that the men had no time to react. While backing away, Ben-Nevin fired blindly, missing Mikla by inches as the Golia moved and struck, barely missing the colonel as he turned and ran with Zallas and the last fifteen men.

The rest of his assassins were facing the wrath of the Golia and started losing very quickly as one man would go down and three of the giant wolves would strike as a team and the man was soon rendered in pieces. The frightening screams of the men covered up the sound and masked the movement of the castle as it broke completely free of the mountain, tearing the electrical conduits that snaked through the cement foundation, making the lights flicker and then go out completely.

In the sheer blackness in the few seconds it took for the emergency lighting to come on, Zallas heard his men being torn to pieces by something out of a nightmare. Suddenly Marko and his Gypsy band didn’t seem so foolish. Water mains ripped from the mountain added to the flood of rain from the pass above. The final collapse of the City of Moses shook the mountain one last time as if God were saying an end had come to all.

Zallas and his force of personal bodyguards knew they had only one way out of the frightening scene now visible in the weak emergency lighting. They had to get to the top of the castle and then work their way down and hope the Americans had decided to take another route. They ran for the stairwell that was well camouflaged as a thick wooden castle door. Ben-Nevin thought it best to stay with the only firepower left on the mountain and followed as the wolves of God finished off the evil that had invaded their lands.

*   *   *

Stanus collapsed inside the car and didn’t move. The push it had received from Madam Korvesky, who had vanished with the other Gypsies, had brought him to the cable car tower and that was where he climbed to the top and waited for the return car to the castle. The other Golia had met Mikla and joined him on the roof of the castle and had waited patiently to spring their trap, which they pulled off to perfection, just as it always had. Now Stanus was nearing the end as his blood flow was starting to ease for lack of pressure. On the roof Anya stopped and felt the sudden loss as Stanus started breathing heavy and as Mikla stood over his brother whining as it sniffed the giant Golia. Stanus raised his head, smelled Mikla, and then lay back. Mikla looked at the remaining male Golia and then it stepped from the car as the doors slid closed behind. The Golia used its special eyesight and saw the imprint the retreating men had left on the cobbled stone flooring. The prints stood out as a shade of gray brighter than their surroundings.

Mikla growled and then anger over the wounds to Stanus overcame the calmer of the two brothers and forced the shape shifting to begin. Mikla roared as it tried to stand and failed. Then it roared again as its hips finally popped free and the thigh bones fell free of their sockets, and Mikla, roaring in pain, finally gained his hind feet and then looked and lowered his large ears and howled. The other Golia stopped and then as one they tore through the cable car promenade heading for the stairwell door.

*   *   *

Jack was balanced on the outside wall on a small ledge that wrapped around the back. The cable car promenade was a hundred feet below and the only way they could reach the cars was to jump from the castle wall just below one of the massive parapets to the cable car roof and then down into the car. Jack wished they had the time to just run away on foot but knew that the flooding on the road prevented any foot traffic to the resort. They were now forced to brave the cable car. Sarah was behind him as she saw him stop and listen. The screams coming from inside the castle had startled even Collins. The Golia were inside and he didn’t know if once their blood was up they would differentiate good guy from bad. Luckily Anya was in front of Everett straddling the six-inch ledge.

“Anya, what is it?” Carl asked when he felt the woman hitch up and then almost fall from the wall. Everett quickly reached out and took her and held her. Mendohlson saw Everett’s struggle and assisted in holding the woman. She finally opened her eyes and then fixed them on Everett.

“Stanus is dying.”

Everett didn’t know what to say. He helped her straighten as Jack started moving again.

Collins was nearing the parapet rising high above them when the first shots struck the wall next to him, sending stone chips into his face.

“Damn!” he said as he almost lost his grip on the ledge. Sarah winced as she braved removing one hand from the mortar gaps and taking Jack by his belt. She closed her eyes not knowing for the briefest of moments if they both were going over into the chasm between the road and the castle. Jack finally caught his balance as more shots pinged off the stone facing around them. “Thanks, short stuff,” he said as he completed the ledge walk and made it to the open window of the parapet. He assisted Sarah inside and then the others. He chanced a look outside and saw Zallas and his men starting to step out onto the large ledge.

As they moved through the darkness they all lost their footing as they searched for a way out to the opposite ledge and then the short jump to the promenade roof as the castle broke into two distinct halves. The top half broke free from the foundation and came sliding five feet over the club below. It stopped just as the mountain quit convulsing. Jack got to his feet and felt the tilt of the castle. The movement was now constant as mortar and stone started splitting apart in unseen places, evidenced by the constant scraping they were now hearing.

“I do believe we are out of time, Jack!” Carl said as he finally sped to the door in the darkness.

Everett threw the door open and Mendohlson stepped through and vanished. Collins’s heart froze as he reached out and was barely able to take the Israeli commando’s sleeve preventing him from falling the four hundred feet to his death. Carl and Anya with Sarah holding Jack’s belt again pulled the major.

The entire wall of the west side tower was gone, leaving a gap of twenty feet to the promenade roof. Jack and the others finally managed to get the major back through the open doorway.

“Whoa, many thanks,” Mendohlson said as he tried to get his heart going again. One HALO jump in a year was enough, much less doing one without a chute.

“I think we have to find another way, the jump is too far,” Collins said as Everett looked out the doorway and confirmed what the colonel was saying.

“Where is Stanus when you need him,” Carl said as he put his head back in. “Jack, you know when those assholes get here they are going to place so many bullets into this room it’ll be like a shooting gallery with these stone walls. We have to go up even higher and try another way. We won’t have time to scale down from here.”

“You lead the way this time, swabby; I think I’ve lost my mountain goat skills.”

Carl nodded, took Anya’s hand, and then looked out the open doorway once more. He saw a small ladder just outside the door, what was left of one leading to one of the skylights now lying four hundred feet below in the gully. Everett leaned over and kissed Anya on the cheek and then reached out and took hold of the ladder that would lead them to the highest portion of Castle Dracula.

They were unaware that it was the portion now dangling over the remains of the club and teetering over the abyss.

*   *   *

Charlie, Ryan, Mendenhall, Pete, Drake Andrews, and the sixteen Russian musicians and performers had found getting to the promenade platform would be impossible so they took the only route available. The many stairwells leading to the base of the cable car tower had taken almost ten minutes to travel as they slipped and fell on the wet steel as the storm continued around the steel towers. Ryan could feel the short jolts of electricity flow through the handrails as lightning struck close by on several occasions. Finally they spied the bottom.

Pete was the first one to step out of the stairwell and into the inky blackness. He vanished as the water took him. The rainwater was now turning the roadway into a debris-swollen river. The collapse of the temple complex had opened up the pass sending a wave of mud cascading down the mountain. Now the raging river had Pete. Charlie had to be pulled back as he tried to leap into the water to save his friend.

“No, Doc!” Ryan shouted into the fierce mouth of the raging storm. “You’ve done enough, it’s my turn,” Jason said as he turned to Mendenhall. “Get them down the best you can, Will,” he said and then saluted him with a smile and without another word dove into the swirling water and was swept away.

Mendenhall and Ryan knew when playtime and the joking ceased and when it was time for the junior officer to take orders from a superior and this was one of those times as much as Will hated to admit it. He shook with anger that Ryan had gone without hesitation. He knew he had to move as the tower they had just climbed down was swaying the whole time they traversed the stairs.

Mendenhall moved his charges out of the tower to ease along the rim of the road, which was now only inches above the water. The first girl, the one dressed as Janis Joplin, slipped and nearly went in. Mendenhall and Ellenshaw caught her and pulled her back. The girl was shaking so badly Will knew he would never get her to attempt it again.

“Damn, Doc, we need a cab in the worst way!”

At that precise moment the dull red 1962 Chevy Impala bumped against the cable tower and careened into the stairwell doorway narrowly missing Mendenhall and Charlie. Will acted quickly, as he never looked a gift horse, or in this case, a gift boat, in the mouth. He reached out and used the door frame as leverage and jumped onto the hood of the car and then scrambled up the windshield and through the open window. Luckily the old and battered Chevy lodged momentarily against the cable tower, the bumper digging into the doorway. Mendenhall waved at Charlie, gesturing wildly for him to get all sixteen people into the car. It was going to be a tight squeeze but knew it was any boat in a storm. The Russians started jumping onto the car’s hood and top. The trunk sank in the water as even more jumped onto the car. Charlie was the last one on and got stuck on the top as he kicked out several times with the help of Drake Andrews until the Chevy dislodged from the tower.

Soon the Impala was moving rapidly down the most recent rapids to come into existence in the Eastern world—Dracula’s Wild Ride, Will would call it later when telling the tale.

The men and women of the Russian musical troupe, with Drake Andrews and Charlie Ellenshaw adding their weight, screamed as the car started twisting in the rapidly moving floodwaters as it rushed for a collision date with a doomed resort.

*   *   *

Zallas finally made it through the open window and it was another ten minutes of nearly falling ten times until they finally made it to the now silent promenade deck. Zallas took a head count and found he had only ten men left. He had lost another three in the harrowing climb down to the car. He gestured for his men to advance and make sure all of those insane dogs were gone.

As they approached the door it slid open automatically and then men jumped back with a start when they saw the prone body of Stanus. The giant wolf wasn’t moving as it lay on the Persian carpet of the car’s interior. Ben-Nevin, angry at seeing one of the animals that could no longer take his head off at the shoulders, stepped up and placed two bullets into the still animal’s back. The Golia didn’t move. Ben-Nevin gestured for them to get inside the car but had to brace himself as the castle shifted once more. It stilled but they all knew it wouldn’t stay that way as they all saw the very long, very deep crack in the cobbled flooring of the promenade.

“Come, you fools, get aboard, this castle is no longer destined to stay attached to this mountain.” He looked at Zallas as he stepped past the Israeli. “I guess the little American woman was right, you should have paid for a good engineer instead of the one you paid off.”

Zallas gave the colonel a filthy look as he stepped over the bleeding Golia. He should have noticed the large hitch in the beast’s chest as the automatic doors slid closed and the car started its slow push out from the covered promenade.

*   *   *

As the car below started to leave the barn, Jack knew they weren’t going to make it. It was too far down. They could possibly get Anya and Sarah and maybe the major on board the roof but that would be it. It was Anya and Mikla who settled it.

“You three go, Mikla will carry me, now move!” she shouted just as Mikla jumped onto the roof of the promenade. With another leap he easily managed to jump to the large window overlooking the moving car below. Without hesitation Mikla took a struggling Anya by the arm and tossed her roughly onto his back and then the Golia jumped free of the window and vanished.

“I guess he has his priorities,” Sarah said as she leaned out the large window and saw the Golia deposit an angry Anya on the cable car’s roof and then he started to climb again away from the frantically waving Gypsy and frustrated woman.

“I think maybe the wolf is coming back to—”

Sarah was unceremoniously yanked from the room by Mikla, who repeated the process until Sarah was standing next to Anya as they both looked up at the three men.

As they watched the wolf start its amazing climb once more, the floor cracked straight down the middle and this time the top half of the castle tilted to the far front and Jack felt it slipping free of the lower half.

“That’s it, out the window now!” he screamed as the tower started to crumble under their feet.

The three men scrambled out into the open storm as fast as they could but even as they gained purchase on the sloping wall they turned and saw the east parapet tilt. In the storm and lightning it was upright one moment and then during the next flash the tower was falling right past the man hanging on to the wall and just hoping the falling tower missed not only them but the entire cable car platform. It did as it went whooshing by them, splitting the rain and wind and creating its own storm as the large building blocks slammed into the club below. That force of impact finally sheared the foundation away from the mountain and the club went next, sliding and tumbling down the mountain heading straight for the resort far below.

Collins, Everett, and Mendohlson felt the wall they were holding on to ripple and start to give way.

“Well, it’s been one hell of a night, gentlemen, but it’s time to see if we can fly,” Mendohlson said as he leaped to the car now free of the barn and snagged a large cable. He was hanging on for dear life and then Jack and Carl breathed a sigh of relief as Mendohlson slowly made his way to the roof. Without comment, Jack, and then Everett, both let go of the wall as the same moment and snagged the same cable and went hand overhand to the car’s roof. Just as their feet touched down several bullets came smashing through the roof forcing the new passengers toward the centerline where the cables attached to the car and the huge pulley system. Jack looked down as the car went out over the abyss and their descent into the valley began.

Sarah and Anya were trying to see in the darkness just when the remains of the upper half of Dracula’s Castle would fall and crush them all to death when they saw in a flash of lightning the south parapet lean forward and then fall. It was like something out of a Hollywood movie about the wrath of God bringing down a stone monstrosity that dared rise against his mountain and his animals. The tower flew past the moving car and smashed into the main tower, shaking the cable and thus the car. It rocked back and forth with the force of the collision almost sending Jack and the others slinging off into the storm to their deaths. More bullets flew through the ornate wood ceiling as Zallas and his men continued to take potshots at them.

Suddenly in a bright flash the power lines exploded as part of the east parapet struck the second tower just as the cable car passed it, knocking free the power lines and shaking the car and the men inside enough that the intruders on the roof became a moot point as they all realized that the world was going to come crashing down upon them any second.

Finally the mountain gave one last tremendous shake and the remains of the castle, club and all, broke away, sending engineered stone blocks the size of houses and made in Hungary careening down the mountainside. The first twenty-two-ton block hit the first cable tower knocking it free of its cement base. The cables that ran through the pulley system on the tower unraveled sending the car plummeting to the road now three hundred feet down. Jack and the others barely held on to the heavy pulley block on the top of the car as they fell through the air. They waited for the crushing impact as they hit the bottom. They felt the tremendous jerk and then they all fell hard into the steel. The last cable had hung up on the next tower and the cable continued to play out. They were moving but no longer falling, but being lowered like a slow elevator as the cable hung on tight to the second tower. They were now only a hundred feet off the rushing waters below.

Finally it was the 800,000-ton foundation that came next. The anchor pins the Golia had painstakingly undermined for months came free of their pilot holes and the entire structure, foundation, and sixteen hundred-ton steel pins came free with it. Together they came down the side of the mountain like a runaway block of stone connected by giant lawnmower blades. Both slammed into the second tower hitting it with so much force that it not only knocked it from its base but bent it double. The next tower was even easier, as the agglomeration of Dracula’s Castle’s remains sent the cable car the last hundred feet into the swirling waters of the flood.

As Jack, Sarah, Anya, Mendohlson, and Everett hung on for dear life, the car turned in a large circle and sped down the ravine toward the hotel. They all wanted to scream when Mikla jumped onto the top of the car. Anya reached out and grabbed the wolf by the ears and pulled it closer to her. She thought they had lost Mikla when the castle came down, but he must have jumped from damaged area to damaged area until he had reached the third tower.

Together with the Russian and his men below in the darkened car and screaming like schoolgirls on an amusement park ride, the Event Group, Anya, and the Israeli commando held on tightly as the cable car shot down the growing rapids, careening from bank to bank as they rushed toward the Edge of the World—literally.

*   *   *

Will couldn’t believe he was actually trying to steer the car in the rising water as the Chevy flew down the flooded road. The car smashed into the right berm, and then spun in a circle and then struck the left side. The Chevy was dangerously close to being sunk by the mass of humanity inside and on top of the car. Drake Andrews saw disaster coming their way first and started pounding on the roof as if Mendenhall could actually do something about what he was panicking over.

“Whoa, whoa, look out!” Andrews yelled and then watched as several hundred-ton blocks of stone bounced past them on their way to crash into the hotel. Then Drake and Charlie both started pounding the car’s roof when they saw the next little fright headed their way.

“Will!” Charlie screamed from the roof, not knowing that Mendenhall was busy turning the wheel of a car that was now floating faster than it ever drove.

Mendenhall looked in the rearview mirror past all of the wet heads inside the car and took in a sight that froze his blood. The cable car was right behind them and was coming on fast. He could see people inside and outside on the top. He braced for the impact and it soon came.

The cable car smashed into the Chevy sending Ellenshaw, Andrews, and the girl dressed as Janis Joplin free of the car and into the water. The cable car’s rear end flew up and that was when Major Mendohlson lost his fight with centrifugal force and followed them into the rapids.

Jack and Sarah tried to hold on to Everett and Anya but they too went over the side and into the water and they were quickly followed by Mikla, who went after the Jeddah princess. Jack cursed and then held on to Sarah as the car went straight for the geodesic dome of the large spa and nature center.

*   *   *

Niles Compton and Alice Hamilton had finally made it to the hotel to warn everyone of the disaster but all they saw of the remnants of the grand opening at the castle was the screaming, bloody, terrified guests from Castle Dracula running through the hotel. The staff had evacuated with them. Everyone was gathering at the front gate and trying desperately to get as far away from the Edge of the World as they could.

Niles pulled on Alice’s hand knowing the older woman was near to collapse, but still she clung to the burlap sack containing whatever it was she had removed from Madam Korvesky’s home. It had taken Niles another five minutes to find the radio in the office of Dmitri Zallas.

“Yes, Virginia, I’m sure,” Niles radioed Virginia Pollack at the Event complex in Nevada, “if we do not get the emergency evac in the next hour we’ll have an international mess on our hands that won’t end. We have the proof of theft and we have evidence that supports the Event call. Yes, immediately, we have to—”

Niles felt the rumble just in time as Alice dropped the sack she was carrying and then pushed Compton out of the way as the first stone block from the falling parapet struck the hotel and veered into the casino, smashing through to the far side where it landed in the Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Niles looked up as he felt the rain on his face and the howling wind coming from the space where the outer wall used to be. He was still holding the microphone from the radio in his hand. The cord had been sheared off as the block not only took half the office away, but the radio also.

Alice quickly retrieved the bag and then helped Niles to his feet.

“I think we did what Jack wanted, maybe it’s time to beat that hasty retreat they always talk about,” Alice said as she gingerly eased herself over the remains of the office.

Alice and Niles Compton had made it clear of the hotel when the remains of the castle’s foundation smashed into the hotel. The top floor collapsed into the fifth until the combined weight of both floors created the pancaking effect seen in building collapses. The hotel came down and pulled the casino into the water with it.

The Edge of the World had slipped completely off the grid.

*   *   *

The Chevy, the cable car, and those who had managed to hang on during their harrowing ride down the mountain slid into the cornerstone of what was left of the casino. The men and women inside and outside the Chevy jumped free but quickly went for cover as gunfire erupted from inside the cable car. The bullets smashed windows as the doors opened and several men jumped out into the water wanting to make it to the remains of the casino. Then several more men jumped free. Mendenhall watched as Jack Collins and Sarah McIntire jumped into the water from the top of the car. He opened his door and then allowed himself to taken by rushing water. The Russian musicians soon joined Will in the water as the last of Zallas’s men made a break for safety.

Dmitri Zallas was fuming. Not only had he been as frightened as a child and demonstrated so on the way down the mountain, but his most trusted men deserted him. Only Colonel Ben-Nevin remained. He gestured for Ben-Nevin to give him his gun. The colonel only smiled and rubbed the wound on his shoulder. He raised the pistol and pushed the barrel against Zallas’s ample chest until the scowling Russian stepped aside. Ben-Nevin shook his head as he passed the stunned gangster.

“I’m afraid our deal is off,” he said as the gun never wavered from the Russian’s chest.

“You have failed at your mission, your future will be as bleak as my own,” Zallas hissed.

“Possibly, but I believe that we may have caused enough of a mess for the world to notice that the current Israeli soft-liners have sent an illegal force of Israeli soldiers into a friendly nation and killed Romanian nationals, so in the end my benefactors will come to power anyway, so at least I have a fighting chance. And you? I’m afraid you have nothing. Now, excuse me as I find a ride out of here.”

Zallas watched Ben-Nevin as he stepped off into the rushing water and was gone as the car started to fill with muddy, dank water.

“I will kill you!” Zallas screamed as he made for the door in the darkness.

As he readied to jump into the rushing torrent, his shoulder was grabbed from behind. The claws dug deeply into the Russian’s shoulder, sending the nails so deep that they struck the man’s collarbone. He screamed in pain as he was suddenly jerked around. Standing there bleeding and wet was Stanus. The beast was still alive and well enough to stand upright in the rising water of the flood. The Golia was breathing heavily, trying to force life-giving air into its collapsing lungs. The animal had actually lain there and accepted the two bullets from Ben-Nevin’s gun and not moved an inch. Zallas realized that this was no ordinary dog—it was not only the largest wolf he had ever seen in his life, but it was also the smartest creature he had even known, including most of his business associates. Then he looked into the yellow eyes.

Stanus leaned in so close to the Russian that its breath fouled the man’s breathing. Stanus was near death, he could see that, but he also knew the beast was staying alive long enough to corner him before he could escape. Then he saw it. The eyes first flashed to brown and then back to the glowing yellow. Then he saw Marko in the reflection cast upon him. The Gypsy was there, inside the wolf, and the Russian knew this as a fact just as surely as he knew this nightmare from his childhood was going to kill him. Zallas shook his head just as the beast slowly opened its mouth and bit.

The screaming stopped almost as soon as it started as the cable car broke free of the remnants of the hotel and then circled once near the pool and then slowly went under the water.

Stanus, the alpha male of the Golia, was gone.

*   *   *

Jack saw Ben-Nevin leave the car and had jumped into the water to follow. Of all the people in this nightmare he knew that this man was at the root of what happened here tonight. He had tried to kill his people and Jack would never let that go. Sarah yelled after him and then carefully jumped into the swirling mass and followed him and Ben-Nevin into what was left of the casino.

“Hold it!” Jack yelled as his feet hit dry carpeting for the first time in what seemed hours. Ben-Nevin turned and without aiming fired three times, taking Collins by surprise. Jack’s reactions were barely fast enough to move out of the way. Luckily the casino was dark with only a few of the emergency lamps still operational. “Missed, Colonel, typical spook shooting, not very good. I see the Mossad doesn’t train their agents any better than the CIA,” Jack yelled as he tried to get the desired effect. He did.

Ben-Nevin angrily fired off three more shots and then Collins heard a curse as the firing pin on the colonel’s handgun came down upon nothing. Jack stood from his cover and saw Ben-Nevin standing there. He was looking past Jack and at something over his shoulder. Collins slowly turned and saw Carl standing there with Anya. They were battered and bruised and covered in mud but very much alive. Then Jack’s eyes traveled to where Anya stood and saw in the weak battery-driven lights that Mikla was standing next to her. The wolf was only looking in one direction—straight at Ben-Nevin, the man Mikla had saved Anya from on the train, and the Golia had a very long memory.

“While taking our swim in the new river outside,” Jack said, “we came across Pete Golding and Ryan trying to break a swim record for speed. They’re outside with the remnants of a very strange group of funny-dressed Russians and Drake Andrews.”

Jack looked from Mikla to Carl and then back at Ben-Nevin.

“You have a lot to answer for, Colonel. I should probably let Ms. Korvesky return you to Israel, but that may cause some embarrassment for a few people, so it looks like things will be settled a little more quietly,” he said as he took a step forward.

“You may think you have stopped our faction for now, Major, but you have not. The truth of this place will come out. There is no stopping that now and then we will have the full power to bring the left-wing government down and replace it with those who know and understand the power of the past, and remember that we are God’s chosen ones.”

“I think you will find that scenario flawed somewhat,” Anya said. “And the name is Korvesky, and I am the queen of the Jeddah.”

Collins started forward but Carl reached out and took Collins’s shoulder and stilled him.

“Not this time, Jack. I insist on the honors, well, my friend here does at any rate.”

Ben-Nevin’s eyes went wide as Carl turned away with Jack and along with Anya left him alone with Mikla. The wolf didn’t move or make a sound. The beast suddenly stood on its hind feet and advanced in four long strides until its face was inches from Ben-Nevin. Mikla soon explained the real facts of life to the traitorous Ben-Nevin.

*   *   *

As Carl assisted Anya over the ruined casino wall he waited for Jack as the roar of Mikla was heard over the wind and thunder of the storm. Colonel Ben-Nevin had just learned the real magic of the Jeddah and why they had never been found—the Golia had always been there to protect them, just as Mikla was doing at that moment.

As Jack looked around him he saw what remained of his team and the night’s entertainment. They all turned when they heard someone splashing up behind them. Major Mendohlson was standing there as wet as everyone else and he wasn’t alone. The remnants of his team of fifty-six men were with him and Jack only counted thirty-two. Most were injured but at least they were alive. Collins nodded to his colleague and then watched as the Israeli approached. Anya and Carl joined them as the storm for the first time that night started to taper.

“Gentlemen, Major Korvesky,” Mendelsohn said, “as we have no way to get a dust-off from the area, I am placing me and my men into NATO protective custody until such time as we can be sent back to our country to face charges.”

Collins and Everett knew how the game was played. The Israeli government would never admit to authorizing the mission to destroy the City of Moses so they would have no choice but to hang the major and his team out to dry and call the action unauthorized.

Jack shook his head in understanding. “Major, we all may be headed for a Romanian jail, so why don’t we hang out a while and see what happens.”

“Yes, but if I may,” the major said and turned to face Sarah McIntire. “I overheard you earlier explaining the dynamics of the temple and the mountains and the castle’s engineering flaws. Can you assure me that whatever was buried inside that mountain is buried forever?”

Jack knew immediately what the major was referring to and decided to help Sarah.

“The last we saw, Stanus had the weapon, Major, what he did with it will be a mystery that went to the grave with him.”

“You mean that wolf?”

“Yeah, that guy,” Jack answered.

Carl took Anya by the hand and walked her a few steps away until they were well out from the rest of the survivors. They were now standing in the rain. Everett leaned over and kissed the new Gypsy queen and then just held her. As he did the thumping sound started from the sky and overrode the distant thunder. Carl looked up at the noise.

“What in the hell is that?” Mendenhall asked as he stopped applying the bandage to Ryan’s head.

“That’s the result of my phone call home. I see Virginia got through to the president, who in turn got the NATO commander in Cologne, Germany, to get us some transport in here. After all, we had a little problem with flooding ourselves.”

All eyes turned to a filthy Niles Compton and Alice Hamilton. They looked as if they had been through a blender. They heard the six Black Hawk helicopters of the 82nd Airborne Division as they made their way through the diminishing storm to what remained of the most expensive hotel and casino Eastern Europe had ever seen.

“And Mrs. Hamilton, I think I’ll sit out your next little foray into the world, this is rough,” Niles said as he sat hard on an overturned craps table and waited for the American Army to rescue them from what used to be known to the world as Transylvania. A place the Event Group would not soon forget.

*   *   *

The sun struggled to break through the early morning clouds as the first of the five Black Hawks lifted off carrying the more severely injured of the small group left near the hotel. With Dmitri Zallas missing the security element had deserted the property.

Jack was getting ready to send Mendohlson and his remaining Sayeret team to the next Black Hawk when they were approached by several men in the blue and black uniforms of the Romanian National Police. Collins exchanged looks with Everett when they saw that the police had come in force and most were already standing by two trucks that had been brought in to remove the major.

“I am Captain Ceustantz of the National Police, Major Mendohlson. I have been ordered to take you and your team into protective custody pending a hearing for illegally entering Romania to cause anarchy upon our citizens.”

Anya started to step forward to protest but Everett held her back with a shake of his head. It was no use getting herself arrested.

Mendohlson half bowed in compliance, letting the officer know that he would have no trouble with him or his men. He turned to face Anya and Everett and smiled.

“Major Korvesky, the best of luck to you in your new life. Captain,” Mendohlson held out his hand and Everett shook it. The major then turned to Jack and offered his hand. “Colonel, I recognized your name as soon as I heard it. I would someday like to see you in action against something other than creatures from a fairy tale and mobsters that fell out of a bad movie.”

“Someday soon, Major,” Jack said, taking the man’s hand and then shaking it. Collins watched the major leave and he was smiling as he wiped more mud from his face.

“What’s so funny, Colonel?” Mendenhall asked when he saw his boss looking at the two trucks and the policemen who assisted the major’s wounded and worn team into the back. The major turned and looked at Jack just as a large man with a barrel chest and police uniform stepped up to the major. They both were looking at the group of motley Americans. The big man smiled and waved as he helped the major into the back of the truck.

“I think we just saw Ms. Korvesky’s former boss,” Jack said as Anya stepped forward to view the scene better. Her mouth fell open as she was witnessing the impossible.

The second invasion of Romania was on as General Addy Shamni smiled and gave Anya a half salute. She saw a worn and weary Janos Vajic standing next to the general. And then to her shock she saw her grandmother’s body as it was loaded onto the truck. General Shamni walked toward the stunned group of Americans and up to Anya. He eyed Everett and gave him an appreciative nod of his head. The general then faced his former charge.

“Major, I am going home now and taking my sister with me. She can no longer remain here. She will be enshrined with every king and queen the Jeddah have ever known in Jerusalem with the rest of her kind. She will lie next to Kale, the Great One. She’s going home to a place denied to your tribe thirty-five hundred years ago. She’s coming home with me.” He leaned over and kissed Anya on the forehead. “Good-bye, niece.” General Shamni turned and walked out of the life of Anya Korvesky.

“I never knew before tonight,” she said as she watched the trucks with the counterfeit Romanian police drive away after rescuing their assault teams before the real police arrived.

“Well, it’s all over now,” Carl said as he knew his life was also never going to be the same after tonight.

*   *   *

Two hours later everyone was accounted for, including Denise Gilliam, who had ended up with the Israeli rescue force after Madam Korvesky died. She recounted how the old woman knew for a fact that her grandson was still inside Stanus. She then added what little she could to sustain the wolf’s life while he lay in wait inside the cable car. She was there just long enough for Marko, herself, and Stanus to send Dmitri Zallas off to the afterlife with an attitude adjustment.

The last of the Black Hawks started spooling up their twin turbo-driven engines. As the four-bladed rotors started to turn the Event Group loaded up.

Collins watched Charlie and Pete board after making sure Drake Andrews and his new band had made it safely aboard another Romanian helicopter. Jack then walked to the last Black Hawk where Sarah, Mendenhall, Niles, Alice, and Ryan were waiting with Denise Gilliam. Collins stepped aboard and then turned and waited for Carl. He was holding Anya and saying something to her, and then with a final kiss they parted. She never turned away from Everett’s back as he moved to join his friends. He made it to the doorway as the sharp whine of the Black Hawk’s twin engines started turning over. Carl stepped up to the doorway and looked at each face inside the chopper before his eyes settled on Jack and Sarah. He hesitated and then looked as if he wanted to say something.

“What are you doing, Captain?” Jack asked loudly as the engine noise built up to a deafening roar. Carl looked over at the colonel and they locked eyes. “Get the hell out of here.”

Everett looked from Jack to Niles, who nodded his head in understanding. Then he looked at a shocked Will Mendenhall and an even more stunned Jason Ryan. He smiled and then saluted his friends. He then saw Sarah, who was already tearing up and getting angry for doing so. He gave her a look that told her “thank you for everything.” All her hard work to get Carl back to living a real life again after the death of Lisa, his fiancée, had not been wasted. He kissed her. Then he leaned over and kissed Alice Hamilton on the cheek. He patted the burlap bag on the seat next to her and then winked. She smiled with tears in her eyes and found she couldn’t speak. Everett straightened and then held out his hand to Collins.

“Thanks, Jack, you’ll get my paperwork started, right?”

Jack Collins nodded that yes, he would get his retirement papers in order. He shook hands with his friend of eight years for the last time.

“Good luck, swabby, and take care of that girl. I understand she has some pretty rough in-laws that may not take to you.” He smiled and Everett followed suit. Their hands parted as the Black Hawk spun up in power and the wheels lifted free of the earth.

They all watched as Everett walked back and placed his arm around Anya as his friends flew away to the south over the remains of the Edge of the World.

Captain Carl Everett watched the U.S. Army Black Hawk until he couldn’t see it any longer. He then turned to Anya and together they walked away into their future.