8

DRACULA’S CASTLE, PATINAS PASS, ROMANIA

The view was spectacular in the late afternoon light. As Dmitri Zallas watched the preparations far below at the resort, workers behind him were putting the final touches on Dracula’s Castle, the nightclub to top all nightclubs. Zallas turned from the false parapet that was actually a ten-foot-by-eight-foot plate glass window and saw the stand-up cardboard cutout of the famous American crooner and onetime child recording star Drake Andrews, fresh from a ten-year run at the Las Vegas Hilton. He would be the first star to open at the resort and was booked for the next fourteen months. Zallas smiled at the lobby cutout of the famous star and lightly tapped the lifelike appearance.

“You have as much soul as that piece of cardboard, Zallas.”

The Russian looked up and his smile vanished as if it had never been there. He released his hold on the smiling Drake Andrews and looked around quickly to make sure his bodyguards were paying attention—they were. There were four large men in black jackets that stood at various locations throughout the interior of the falsified medieval castle. He also had over a hundred workers blowing fake cobwebs and setting up the last of the mood lighting that would illuminate the outside of the castle. The crazy Gypsy wouldn’t dare start trouble here.

Marko Korvesky stood defiant in the middle of the dance floor, forcing the workers to walk around him. The head scarf he wore was satin black and matched the all-black-leather clothes he wore with the exception of the bright purple shirt under his vest.

“You should not be here,” Zallas said as he stepped up to the edge of the dance floor waiting for the Gypsy to come to him. He didn’t.

“This mockery of our heritage should not be here, Slav.”

“I told you not to call me that,” Zallas hissed and then stepped onto the broad wooden dance floor in one wide and menacing step.

Marko smiled as he saw Zallas stop a few feet from him, well out of reach.

“You’re not a Slav?”

“I don’t like the word, that’s all I have to say on the subject.”

“I understand. Let us try another.” Marko placed his hands on his hips. “How about this for a name, Russian, just pick one—liar, cheat, gangster? I can go on.”

This time Zallas looked at his men and they stepped forward in a grouped warning toward the Gypsy.

“I had to build this. Just look at it, this is a moneymaker.” He gestured around him at the manufactured blocks of stone and plastic and Fiberglas that made up the castle. “It’s just one little change to our agreement.” He became serious as he looked back at the Gypsy and his enthusiasm was instantly absent from his features and voice. “A change that did not dictate your murdering my workers over.”

This time it was Marko who smiled. “Certain factions around these mountains didn’t take your intrusion above the castle all that well. It took some convincing to make them see things differently, which will cost you far more than you realize at the moment.” He paused while his eyes moved toward his bodyguards and then back at the Russian. “Now we hear and see soldiers in our valley. We hear the sounds of helicopters as they fly low over the pass. We see more soldiers coming from south of the Danube and beyond. Yes, Zallas, there will be more owed to us than our original agreement called for. The initial investment money we gave you with our artifacts has a very steep percentage rate. You see I am more of a businessman than you thought,” his smile returned, “or hoped for.”

“You’re worth millions upon millions right now, what more do you want?”

“Nothing. The money I received will ensure that my people are not without as they have been for so many years. No more sheep, no more cows and chickens. We deserve better and now we are going to live the way we were always meant to live.” Marko took a menacing step toward the Russian mobster, making the bodyguards move toward him. But a hand held high by Zallas stopped them. “If you go north of this toy castle I will not be able to control … control some of my friends.”

Dmitri Zallas saw Marko turn and start to walk away and then stop and face the Russian once more.

“You also need to have these fools of yours,” he gestured to the armed men in black coats, “looking for a woman with black hair in the company of a small boy. She will be coming your way on her trek to the pass. It would be to your benefit to have this woman held and then brought to me. She is not to be harmed in any way.”

“Ahhhh, now I see, the little sister returns to the fold. I can see why you’re so hard to deal with lately, my friend. Not to worry, she cannot get through my men. They are the best there is. The resort is the most guarded property this side of the Kremlin, I assure you.”

Marko laughed and then turned away but the laughter remained.

Zallas watched the Gypsy leave and then he snorted and pulled up his pants. He looked at his guards until they all turned away. He walked back to the window looking down upon the cable car lines and the resort far below. He swallowed and then closed his eyes blocking out the visage of Marko Korvesky, the bearded man who was the only person in the world that frightened Dmitri Zallas.

He soon gestured toward the larger of the bodyguards. The man was a Spetsnaz commando from the former Soviet Union and was linked to Zallas by pure meanness.

“Yes, Mr. Zallas?”

“Are we ready for Saturday night?”

“That Gypsy will lead us to it and there will not be anything this side of hell that can stop us from getting the information you seek from him.”

Zallas nodded just once as he turned to the opposite window and watched Marko walking the trail that led to the mountain above. He was there with his ever-present guard of four of the burliest-looking Gypsies Zallas had ever seen. They walked slowly and then disappeared into the trees. He turned and faced his man once more.

“If what I think is true, our limited partner has a secret that may make this resort’s worth pale in comparison. Yes, our Gypsy friend will let us in on that secret very soon and then I suspect we will discover where all of this ancient finery is coming from.” He smiled. “Have your former friends from your formative days been alerted that we move on Patinas on Saturday night at the latest?”

“They have arrived on the property and are awaiting your orders.”

“And they will have no problem doing the tasks I have set for them?”

“They will wipe out every man, woman, and child in that village if the need arises.”

Zallas turned away and watched the spot where the Gypsy had vanished into the tree line.

“For what he has hidden up there, believe me, the need will more than likely arise.”

As he watched the tree line he saw the shadows of the afternoon play against the gentle sway of the thin pines that made up the woods in the area. He could swear the shadows shifted shape against the force of the wind. He shook his head and sent the thought of things that go bump in the night out of his head.

As Zallas turned away from the window he failed to see the giant wolf as it slowly slid onto the crag on the side of the mountain beside the castle only ten feet away from the window where he had just been standing.

*   *   *

It was three hours later that Marko saw Stanus sitting beneath his grandmother’s window. The beast did not see the man’s approach, which was strange as nothing escaped the notice of the alpha.

Marko stopped twenty feet from the small cottage and the spot where the giant Golia lay on its stomach with its muzzle pointing up near the open window of his grandmother’s bedroom. He looked around and saw that most of the men of the village had not yet returned from the high pastures of the pass and the womenfolk were busy with chores and preparations for the evening meal.

Marko watched Stanus as the muzzle lifted once more and the Golia sniffed the air. Then the head of the alpha turned to the human. Stanus stood up so fast that Marko flinched, which was never a good idea when startling a Golia. The beast growled. It was not loud and not even menacing. It was the alpha letting Marko be aware of the power that stood not twenty feet from him.

“Is Mikla home?” Marko asked. The dimmed yellow eyes took in Marko and that, in and of itself, was unsettling. “Stanus, is Mikla back home at the temple?”

The Golia stared at Marko and then its ears lay back and the giant beast yawned. Stanus shook its head as if it was just waking up from a long sleep, and then without another gesture of any kind the Golia stood on its hind legs. Marko heard the distinctive resetting of the hip and pelvic bones as they slid into their secondary sockets and joints. Marko was like anyone who ever witnessed the change. He never ceased to wonder over the Golia’s ability to physically alter its shape. He watched in amazement as the right paw lifted and the fingers came free of the folded fistlike appendage. The clawed digits and thumb grasped the windowsill of his grandmother’s room and then using the sill as leverage pushed itself up and over the back wall and then disappeared into the rocks lining the village.

Marko was confused as to the way Stanus was acting ever since Mikla vanished. Then Stanus went out of control with the workers at the castle and killed three of them because of what the Golia perceived as an invasion of their land. It had taken Marko over fifteen hours of hard mental contact to get the great wolf to understand that the change was necessary and that killing these men could only bring more men to the pass.

Marko walked to the front of the small cottage and then stopped at the wooden front door. He reached out after taking a deep breath and lifted the iron latch and stepped into a darkened house.

“Grandmamma?” he called out as he looked at the cold stove. Not even her ever-present teapot was warm. He quickly went to the only other room in the cottage, her bedroom. He saw her lying on her small bed. She was holding the blankets up close to her chin and she was shaking. “Grandmamma, what have you done now?” he asked as he rushed to her side.

He saw her ankle placed on the bed outside the blanket. His eyes widened when he saw the purple and black swelling. The ankle was cocked off to one side and she moaned with pain in her sleep.

Marko shook his head. He knew she had somehow broken the ankle and now she might get gangrene from the injury if not set by one of the women in the village very soon. As he started to sit on the bed to rewrap her ankle he heard his grandmother call out in her sleep.

“Mikla, hold still, you must hold still!”

Marko’s eyes widened and he stood from the bed, stirring the old Gypsy queen to wakefulness. She looked around, wincing at the pain in her leg. Her eyes settled on Marko.

“Talking in my sleep was I?” the Gypsy queen asked as she lay her head back on the thin pillow that was made up of old clothes and a flour sack.

“You really did it, didn’t you?” he asked. “Where is Mikla? Is he with my sister?”

“You leave them be, Marko.”

“You cannot do this. You are too old to be making the spell. Look at what it has cost you, old woman. We will have to take that leg off if you do not get better. Sever your link with Mikla now because you will not survive the amputation of your leg with only half your brain working to fight the infection. Let Mikla go so you can heal.”

“Would that not be a benefit for the man-child? Would not my death bring you the power you seek among the people, maybe even the Golia?”

“You talk with a feverish mind,” Marko said as he calmed and then sat on the edge of the bed once again, lifting her swollen leg to his lap. “You know that no one person has ever controlled the Golia. They walk their own path,” he said as he shook his head and examined the damage she had done through her link with Mikla, the large male wolf that was missing from the den and the temple.

“Yes, they do walk their own path. My grandson should take that to heart.” She tried to sit up but couldn’t. She took several deep breaths and then lay back down. “They also do not take deceit the same way as a human may. They cannot understand what a lie is. What cost comes with betrayal? These things they cannot comprehend unless they have the Jeddah spell cast upon them and then they see.” She managed finally to raise her head enough to see Marko’s eyes. “They see a great many things, even that which is hidden deep within your mind. They see, they understand, and they react like an animal would—to protect itself and those it loves. Not that much different from ourselves, wouldn’t you say, grandson?”

“So you are helping sister find her way back home?” he said as he started wrapping the ankle.

“She will be here,” the old woman said as she finally lay back down and closed her eyes. “There are a great many tasks for her to do.”

Marko’s eyes grew dark as he finished off the wrapping. He gently lay down his grandmother’s ankle and then covered her with the blanket. He leaned over and kissed her forehead and then turned for the kitchen.

“I’ll make you some bitterroot tea and then we shall await sister’s arrival.” He turned and looked at the woman lying in the bed in severe pain and then he tossed a match into the woodstove. “I even think Stanus and a few of the other Golia will be interested as well.”

“And why is that, man-child?” she said as she started to drift off.

“Because Stanus just discovered you are responsible for Mikla being gone, and possibly even dead. You know Stanus may not like Mikla, but the animal is one of his Golia, and he takes their loss very personally.”

As Marko delivered the threat, or warning, he turned to fill the teapot with water from the pump when he thought he heard his grandmother say one last thing. Then he shook his head knowing he must have heard wrong.

He gave the handle a few angry pumps and then stopped and looked back into the bedroom. He tried to think of what she had just said but knew he didn’t hear it right.

“None of this will matter in two days?” he said to himself when he realized what the old woman had said in her sleep.

He turned back to the pump and filled the teapot with cold well water.

“What in the hell won’t matter in two days?”

DANUBE RIVER DELTA, ONE HUNDRED MILES SOUTH OF PATINAS PASS, ROMANIA

The dark-haired woman lay with her head on Mikla’s heaving chest. She heard the whining coming from deep inside the Golia’s chest. For the first time in several hours the giant wolf lay still and was not attending to his broken hind ankle. The right rear paw and ankle was swollen to three times its normal size and walking on it the past night and day had only worsened a now critical condition.

Anya Korvesky used her Mossad field training to keep the injury as tight as possible and then releasing the pressure every ten minutes so the ankle could get its necessary blood flow. As it stood she was thinking that Mikla, a Golia she had known all her life, was critically injured and it was only the animal’s raw strength that kept it going. If a Golia lost the use of one of its limbs it became a danger to all of its kind—for a Golia that could not climb the steep rocks of the Carpathian Mountains a broken ankle was like a blind man in a gun battle, all of the power was taken from it. The Golia had survived by not allowing humans to see it in its natural element. Discovery would be the death knell of a race of beings that had been living next to civilization since the small mammals known as men crawled from the rocks somewhere in Africa.

Anya eased the boy’s head from her lap where he lay sleeping. They had traveled all night and were now just sixty miles from home.

During the daylight hours Anya was picking up vibes from Mikla. Random thoughts of the animal invaded her mind with a clouded picture of what was happening at Patinas Pass. She knew the animals were at once becoming divided, and then again together in a common goal, and Anya could not figure out the confusing picture she was getting. But the one thought she picked up from Mikla was the fact that Stanus, a beast Anya herself had never been close to, was the center of the troubles at home. Her brother, Marko, came and went in these thoughts, but she could not tell what his role was.

Mikla whined while deep in sleep and Anya placed her small hand on the animal and felt its intake of breath. She was tempted to slide her hand up and make the spell connection that came so easily to her kind. The one thing that linked the Jeddah with the Golia was the ability to become as one body and mind on a base level with one of God’s greatest creations. Her hand hovered over the white-tipped ears of Mikla. She closed her hand into a fist as she decided that she couldn’t afford to link wth the giant animal while it was hurt because it would incapacitate her to the same degree for as long as the link lasted. As she looked out from the stand of trees by the river she knew that losing control now could get her caught and the Golia killed, something she could never allow.

The hypnotic flow of the Danube seemed to calm the beast as it slept. This was the first time since the train that Mikla had rested without waking from the pain of its broken ankle. She decided it was time to wake and start the final run for home. She stood and looked down at the boy and the wolf. She nodded and then moved off to the river.

As she bent over to splash water in her face she thought about the general and the Mossad he ran. She couldn’t help but have the feeling that it wasn’t she who had betrayed the Israeli cause because she had been involved in something that was larger than the task and the road her grandmother had set her upon nine years earlier. She had not only lied to the Mossad, they had lied to her and knew far more than they should have about things involving the Golia and the cursed treasure wagons taken from the land of Egypt more than three thousand years before. She had many questions for her grandmother that would come after she warned her of Ben-Nevin—the colonel was closing in on her and she feared she was leading him right to the Patinas Pass.

She felt the presence behind her as her thoughts had betrayed her and allowed someone to come upon her without notice. She slowly turned and faced the intruder.

“Identification, please,” said a man dressed in the gray and black uniform of the Poliţia, the local law enforcement. The policeman was accompanied by another who sat in the passenger seat of a small, white-painted patrol car parked by the river. Anya had walked right past them without realizing it. She tried to smile but she knew her appearance was a major concern to the policeman.

“I’ve lost all of my identification,” she said trying to disarm the young man with her warm smile.

“Lost, huh?” The officer pulled out his notebook and rummaged through the pages as he searched for something. He stopped and read what it was he had written and then looked at the woman. He looked back to his notepad and then closed the book and fixed Anya with a stern look as his partner joined them at the river’s edge. The sun slowly went below the horizon to the west. “You fit the discription of a woman who caused several thousand leus in damage to a train car.”

Anya wanted to curse her luck.

“It happened on the Sarajevo limited from Bosnia. Have you recently been to Bosnia-Herzegovina, young lady?”

“No, I travel north. My home is there,” she said hoping that their conversation didn’t awaken Mikla and her nephew.

“And where is that?” The policeman continued the questioning as his partner moved to the side and then slowly started to get behind Anya.

She knew she was between the proverbial rock and hard place and also knew it would be far better, at least for these two innocent policemen, for her to be taken into custody. The alternative for the two law enforcement officials was not to be contemplated.

“We will have to take you in until we can be sure you are not the woman we seek.” The first man held his ground while the second uniformed officer went behind her. Anya was going to allow them to cuff her and take her in because she was out to save the lives of these two innocents who didn’t deserve to die for doing their jobs. She swallowed and waited.

Suddenly and without warning Mikla was there. The beast had jumped clear of the stand of trees they were hiding in and landed between Anya and the man in front of her. The action had been so fast and so unexpected that the second officer fell backward toward the flowing Danube. Mikla, his right rear foot and leg holding steady off the ground, bared its six-and-a-half-inch fangs at the men and then dipped its front half as it lowered its large frame closer to the ground. Anya knew Mikla was about to spring.

“No, Mikla!” she called out but it was too late as the beast jumped over the first policeman and then Anya herself and landed in front of the second stunned officer, who was still on his back trying to scramble away from the monstrous scene before him. As Mikla landed on the riverbank Anya heard the giant beast yelp as its injured leg came down hard after the leap. As she watched, Mikla quickly recovered and started limping toward the frightened man. The young policemen tried desperately as did the first to reach his holstered sidearm. Anya could only deal with one man at a time. Again she told Mikla to stop and then she spun and deftly removed the handgun that had just cleared the holster of the policeman that had questioned her. The man’s eyes widened at the speed at which he had been disarmed. Anya then reached out and hit the policeman with the edge of her right hand, sending the young man to his knees grasping his throat. Fighting for a breath would incapacitate him for the time she needed to bring Mikla back under control.

She moved quickly as the great Golia forgot all about its own injury and started to slowly walk toward the man on his back. Anya saw the policeman finally clear his weapon from its flapped holster and bring it up.

“No!” she shouted and was raising the pistol before she realized she had been about to shoot an innocent over her stupidity at getting caught before she reached home.

Mikla reacted so fast that the man saw his empty hand before he realized the gun was being held by the animal’s long and articulate fingers. The beast had narrowed its yellow eyes and was just holding the pistol in front of the man, who could not fathom what it was he was seeing—a giant wolf with the hands of a man? No, the policeman thought he may as well check out of this nightmare right now. He closed his eyes.

“Mikla, come now, we must leave,” Anya called out.

The great Golia, its hind leg and paw still a foot off the ground, turned to face Anya. The yellow eyes narrowed at her. She could see Mikla was having none of it. The wolf again lowered its white-tipped ears and then tossed the weapon into the river. As the beast was preoccupied with trying to decide if it should obey the order it had been given by Anya, the second policeman gained his feet at the same moment the first recovered from the blow to his throat. Both men stumbled, fell, and stumbled again to get back to their small Audi police car. Mikla turned and growled. The Golia jumped once more toward the police car as the two men managed to scramble inside with shouts of fear, joy, and terror all mixed together.

“Let them go, Mikla!” Anya shouted but knew the beast had its hackles up and there would be no calming it. She knew how wonderfully wild the Golia were and how uncontrollable the entire family could be when confronted with danger. The two men would suffer for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Her nephew came out of the stand of trees with tears streaming down his face as the boy realized just what it was he was about to witness—the dismembering of two human beings. Anya tossed the pistol she had taken from the first officer toward the riverbank and watched as Mikla covered the thirty feet to the patrol car in one long leap. The animal landed on the hood of the small white Audi, crushing the metal into the engine compartment and sealing the two policemen’s fate. As the front tires of the car exploded under the tremendous force of the animal’s landing on the car, Anya could hear the terrified screams of the men inside.

“Mikla, leave them alone,” she shouted, but the Golia was now frenzied through its pain and confusion at having awakened to find Anya gone and then finding out that two humans had successfully penetrated the animal’s perimeter without it being aware of it. That told the Golia it was dying, something the Golia clan had learned as man had, that they, above all animals of the world, knew they would someday die.

Anya tried with all of her ability to link with Mikla but the distance was too great without the use of touch. It was enough to get the animal to spin on the hood of the crushed patrol car in confusion as its thoughts were invaded. It suddenly stopped and then faced Anya and growled knowing it was she that was intruding on its thoughts. Anya swallowed and tried her best to get the beast to respond.

Mikla stopped its agitation momentarily as Anya’s thoughts entered its angered mind. The beast shook its head and then turned on Anya once more and this time the roar was something she had never heard in all her time with the Golia. Mikla was close to jumping from the car and killing her. He thought this was a betrayal. She made his mind see the men as they were. She forced the Golia to see that the men were not evil, but just men that meant them no real harm.

Mikla stopped moving in a circle and then jumped free of the hood as the men inside screamed again at the sudden departure of the wolflike creature. Mikla then used the crushed hood of the Audi and its humanlike hands to gain leverage and stood on both hind legs still favoring the broken ankle. Mikla towered over the crushed Audi.

“Mikla, let’s go home,” she said as calmly as she could and allowed her thoughts to change to the temple buried deep within the mountain. She projected thoughts of Patinas and the pass above it. Mikla seemed to calm with visions of home running through its thoughts.

When it looked as if Mikla had spent the anger and animal savagery it was feeling, the men inside the car made a horrible mistake. The first officer removed a shotgun from its bracket in the center console and when he charged a single round of double-ought buckshot into the chamber Mikla suddenly turned its attention back to the car. This time Anya couldn’t control the Golia as it reached out with both hands and took hold of the Audi’s bumper, lifting the front end of the car four feet off the ground and sending another wave of screams from the throats of the two policemen. Limping horribly on its broken ankle, Mikla roared again and this time used its massive weight advantage and spun the car up and over onto its top. The Golia roared as it limped back toward the upside-down Audi. Then with one last act of defiance the beast went to all fours and started ramming the smashed vehicle with the shocked and stunned policemen inside. The battering was horrendous as Mikla slammed into the patrol car again and again. Finally at the edge of the Danube the car slid into the river.

Anya saw the great Golia fall to the ground with an earth-moving crash and then lay still. Its energy was spent and it was in a total state of exhaustion. In the river the two policemen were still screaming as the white Audi started its run down the river.

Anya ran to Mikla and knelt beside the animal but before she could place a hand on its neck to soothe it, the right hand of the beast came up and took hold of her wrist, stopping her from making contact. The animal slowly let go and Anya withdrew her hand.

“Thank you. We cannot kill innocents; otherwise what good are we, Mikla? You’re not Stanus, nor am I my brother. We are not like them.”

“What is wrong with Mikla?” her nephew asked.

Anya stood up and watched as the sun vanished behind the mountains of Sarajevo to the west. She reached out and took her nephew and brought him to her and hugged the boy as she watched Mikla. Then she looked up and watched the police car vanish around the bend in the Danube with the shocked men still inside.

“He wants to go home,” she said hugging the boy closer. “He just wants to go home and not die out here in the flatlands.”

Mikla raised his head as Anya’s thought struck its mind. It whimpered and then lay still for a moment and then just as suddenly it stood, still favoring its leg, which had swollen two times larger than it had been before the confrontation. The beast looked toward the distant mountains and then shook its massive head as it tried to clear it of the residue of thought emanating from Anya. The Golia eased into the Danube and started swimming across.

Anya and Mikla were only twelve hours away from seeing a home she had not laid eyes on in nine years.

EVENT GROUP 747-C 200, 650 MILES OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

The 747-C conversion was broken into four distinct parts. The forward section housed communications, meeting rooms, and a research area. The center section was more of the same with small well-equipped laboratories complete with the latest carbon-dating equipment delivered special to the Group from the Sperry-Rand Corporation, and also a complete world library and hostile computer penetration expert thanks to the presence of Europa in the computer center at the top of the spiral staircase. The third area was for dining and the kitchen module. Complete showers and restrooms were next, followed by the sleeping area that could accommodate well over a hundred people in stacked and curtained private bunks. The bottom cargo area held everything from weapons hidden in the main and stern bulkheads and a complete document forgery section also run by the criminal mastermind Europa.

The soothing drone of the four General Electric engines had hypnotized most of the teams and they slept soundly in their bunks. The Air Force pilots attached to the Group had two full crews to man the giant jumbo jet on its long haul across the Atlantic and then over the boot of Italy to the eastern mountains called Carpathian.

Jack was sitting upstairs on the second deck reading a classified report that Niles had managed to get ahold of for him. They were national security briefing minutes from the White House. Collins sat and wondered as he read the report if the minutes to the national security meetings about the inclusion of Romania into NATO were offered voluntarily by the president or were they absconded by Niles, Pete, and Ma Barker—Europa? Jack was beginning to think the supercomputer was starting to like the criminal life, she was that good at it.

Jack heard someone coming up the spiral staircase to the second deck and he looked up from the small table that lined the communications center. It was Jack’s watch in operations and he thought everyone with the exception of the Air Force flight crew was asleep. He lowered the report on the NATO concerns about the inclusion of Romania when he saw it was Alice slowly making her way to him.

“Well, company at last,” Jack said as he tossed the highly classified report on the small desk in front of him. “Can’t sleep?”

Alice looked around and decided to sit at the computer station. She turned the chair and then smiled at Jack. She said nothing as she studied him.

“You remind me so much of that old bastard, Garrison,” she finally said as she looked away for the briefest of moments and then back at Collins. “You have the very same traits.”

“Well, I think I’m quite a bit behind the senator in most departments,” Jack said, embarrassed that she would compare him to Lee. “I think—”

“He was an ass at times also,” Alice said with her smile still in place. “As a matter of fact, Jack, he was a real dick when he wanted to be.” Alice batted her eyes at the colonel. “Just like you.”

Collins was taken aback by the sweet and innocent Shirley Temple approach used by Alice to get his attention with false flattery. He smiled and wanted to laugh at the innocent way she looked at that very moment.

“Now wait, Alice, I have explained my reasoning to everyone concerned when it comes to my sister’s murder. Everyone here knows what’s going to happen and I will not drag them into it. I have an expendable asset and source that will be used to find her killer and that’s it. None of my friends are going to get involved.” He paused and then leaned forward in his chair to make sure Alice saw him and heard his words. “And that goes double for Carl. I have reasons beyond which you cannot imagine. No, I’ll do it my way.”

Alice reached over and patted Jack’s knee and then leaned back in her chair with a sigh and closed her eyes.

“Jack, the one mistake Garrison Lee ever made was never explaining his feelings to anyone, including yours truly, almost until it was too late to do so.” She opened her eyes and looked at the man sitting across from her. “It’s not that you have not included your friends in your quest, Jack. It’s that you haven’t explained adequately enough on why.” She smiled and held his blue eyes with her own. “You must allow Carl into your world because you made it his world when you arrived. You know after he lost Lisa in Arizona during the Matchstick Event, he would have resigned if you hadn’t been in command at the time. You kept him going because no matter what, you kept going, even after all of the blood and heartache of your previous commands. The example was set and now you refuse to include the man who most admires you. That means that Lynn was his sister as much as yours. He admires you and looks to you as a big brother, and that, Jack, is all that man has.”

Alice had hit him with her revelations about Carl and the blow landed somewhat below the belt. Jack never realized how badly hurt Everett had been at the loss of his fiancée, because even the stoic Jack Collins was engrossed in his sorrowful feelings for himself for being shunned by the Army after Afghanistan. Jack looked at Alice and then leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

“How in the hell did the senator put up with you all those years?” he asked as he stayed close to her.

“Because he was always afraid I would murder him in his sleep.” She batted her eyes once more and then stood up and patted Jack on the shoulder and turned to leave with a yawn. “And don’t forget about Sarah, Jack—quit being an idiot about that goddamn Frenchman.” She turned and faced Jack just before she arrived at the spiral staircase. “She could never feel the same about any man as she does you. Even if you do what you have to do, she deserves every minute you’ve got left.” She turned away and started down the steps. “Or I just may have to give Lieutenant McIntire ideas about murdering some dumb bastard in his sleep—I mean it worked for me.”

Collins watched Alice start slowly back down the staircase to her bunk. Jack smiled at the wit of the woman and how she could weave logic into any scenario.

Jack’s thoughts turned inward as he examined the shaky-looking weather report coming from the Adriatic. It seemed the Carpathian region could be in for some serious rainfall. As he examined the swirl of black clouds closing on the resort and its mysterious inhabitants of Patinas, the 747 made a slow turn to the east as it started its run toward the Adriatic Sea and the night-shrouded mountains of Romania to the east.

PALMACHIM AIR FORCE BASE, TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

The air base sat on the coast just south of the capital and away from the prying eyes of the press and the public. The command center housed the Special Operations dispatch and security for the base and at the moment was the new home of Mossad Lieutenant General Addis Shamni. He had been at the base since early morning and now watched as the sun set on the day.

“No word yet, General?” a voice asked from behind the burly ex-army soldier.

“None.” The general turned and faced the muscled man in the green T-shirt and desert camouflage pants. “There’s been no communication from either agent. Colonel Ben-Nevin, well, he wouldn’t contact us, would he? As for Major Sorotzkin.” The general shook his head. “Well, she may be just as lost to us as that traitorous bastard Ben-Nevin.”

The general paced to the coffee machine and poured another cup and then walked over to the window where he saw the Special Operations team rolling a giant Lockheed C-130 Hercules backward into a secure hangar area. Inside the darkened space waited the specialized equipment used by the strike team of twenty-three Sayeret commandos. The general knew for a fact that the men he was watching work silently inside the well-guarded hangar, ranked behind no organization in the world as far as skill in the art of death.

“I hope your men are patient, Captain.” Shamni turned from the window. “It could be a while until we get the go order. Circumstances and timing will dictate when your team will go in.”

“Yes, sir, we’ll find things to occupy our time,” the muscled captain said as he turned for the door. “We’re used to waiting.”

“The special explosives are secured?”

The bald-headed captain of the most elite fighting men in the world turned before opening the door. “Yes, it’s under the watchful eyes of your Mossad agents.”

“Do I detect some sort of disdain for my men and their capabilities, Captain?” the general asked with his coffee cup poised halfway to his mouth.

“Not at all, General Shamni, I mean it was your two people that have us sitting here at Palmachim awaiting the chance to invade a friendly country because they went bad on you. Disdain, General? Maybe that’s not the proper word here,” the captain said but left the rest of the sentence unvoiced as he left the office area.

“Yes, Captain, I can think of a few words myself that far exceed disdain.”

The general’s anger was directed at Ben-Nevin and not Major Sorotzkin. His thoughts about her were but flashes of worry in his mind. He could only hope the major made it home in one piece

Outside in the hangar a well-guarded fourteen-by-six-foot aluminum box was placed into the secured belly of the C-130 Hercules and lashed down tightly. That task completed, the men looked at the case with trepidation because for the first time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, a nuclear weapon had been placed aboard an Israeli warplane and it and the Israeli elite commandos, the Sayeret, were ready for their flight to the great north where a legendary tribe of their own people vanished 3,500 years before and had never been seen again.

PATINAS, CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS, ROMANIA

Marko Korvesky sat in a large wooden chair near the dying fire as the embers burned down to near nothing. The woman next to him on the floor sat with her arm propped against his leg and watched the last of the flames they vanish. She wore nothing other than the gold earrings and necklace Marko had just given her this evening as a gift—which he was about to take back.

“The sun will be up in a few hours, you must not be seen leaving here.” Marko leaned over and kissed the top of the girl’s head and then smoothly removed the earrings and gold necklace with the unique inset that the young girl so loved. “And most assuredly not to be seen wearing these.” He tossed the relics into the air and then closed his large fist around them. “Go now.”

The girl whined and whimpered about having to leave her gifts here in Marko’s house, but she did as she was told and slowly dressed as Marko stood and poked at the embers of the dying fire. She waited for the dark-haired Gypsy to say something as she stood by the door with her hands on her hips. Her red dress and blue blouse clashed with everything inside the cluttered house. When she saw Marko just continuing to poke at the fire she puffed out her ample chest in hurt anger and then left.

Marko put down the poker and then opened his left hand to look at the earrings and the necklace. The earrings were nothing unique, except for the fact that they were over three thousand years old. The necklace was a favorite of his and he thought the young girl would be impressed. The Eye of Ra was the same design as his grandmother’s gold inlaid cane. The center pupil of the eye was a quarter-inch green stone that Marko had never seen before. But the artwork of the eye itself was something he couldn’t get enough of viewing.

He held the Egyptian jewelry in the palm of his hand and then turned away from the fireplace. His eyes widened when he saw the Golia staring at him through his open shutters.

“God be with you my old friend, where have—”

Stanus vanished from the open window in a blur of black-on-black motion.

Marko lowered his head. Had the giant beast seen the artifacts he had removed from the temple? Had he known of the other thefts of the people’s heritage? He shook his head but didn’t open his hand again. He jammed the necklace and earrings into his red shirt. He looked toward the window once more but saw no sign of Stanus. If the Golia thought it had been lied to about the strange people far below Marko didn’t know what Stanus would do. He thought he could eventually get the Golia to stay in the mountain and only come out when it was time to feed on their sheep and goats, but Marko also knew that he may have to do the unthinkable when it came to Stanus. The Golia was just too clever. And the same went for Mikla if the damn animal would ever show back up. Each of the two largest Golia disliked the other immensely. But the love they had for the rest of the beasts was unquestioned.

*   *   *

Stanus flew down the mountain at breakneck speed. The giant wolf was nothing but a black streak that could not be discerned as anything living as it made its way to the castle. If it had been seen as some of the Golia in the past had, the vision would have been spoken of as it were just another ghost that inhabited the Carpathians. Many rumors were started by the mere glimpse of a beast that was never really seen at all, and stories came and went of the unnatural things that roam the highlands of ancient and modern Walachia and Transylvania.

The Golia was on all fours as it neared the stone base of the castle. The back of the foundation was anchored to the rock wall of the mountain by three-foot-thick steel pylons. As Stanus came close to the edge of the castle where the side met the road which led to the villages below, the beast jumped and snagged one of the massive support braces that held the castle’s foundation pinned to the mountain. It used its large hand to grasp the steel and allow its momentum to swing it to the next support beam, and then again to the next highest. Finally the giant reached the very highest parapet of the man-made copy of Dracula’s Castle. Once braced it reached up and took hold of a facsimile of a steel weather vane that sat atop the parapet and watched the activity far below at the resort. The beast laid its ears back and growled low in its still heaving chest.

Suddenly the morning calm was broken by the thumping of a NATO Black Hawk helicopter as it flew low over the resort below.

Stanus watched the strange machine until it vanished beyond his sight to the right of the castle, which now blocked its view of the NATO encampment twenty miles away. The Golia shook its massive head in anger and then from side to side as the memory of the gold in Marko’s hand came into its large brain.

For the second time in as many minutes the dark morning peace was shattered by a sound that woke many of the men and women as they slept far below. Workers who were now spending their last night at the resort heard the sound they had been hearing off and on for the better part of the three years it had taken to build the Edge of the World.

The ear-shattering howl Stanus unleashed from his lungs was a cry of anguish at the possible betrayal of its onetime friend—Marko Korvesky, the Gypsy crown prince and the inheritor of the tribal standard of the Jeddah.

Stanus became more confused, which allowed the beast to revert to an age when the Golia had no masters, a creature that had become a legend over the years that would not die in the Carpathian Mountains and in most of Eastern Europe—the mythical beast called the werewolf.

SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

As the 747-200 made a slow sweeping turn over the mountains of Bosnia the personnel on board were fully awake and doing their final prep work for the two Event teams. Niles and his people were poring over geological data supplied by Sarah McIntire, who explained to them just how amazing a geological mystery the Carpathians, and in particular the Patinas Pass, really was. There shouldn’t be volcanic activity in the area and hadn’t been in several thousand years, thus there was no real logical explanation for the hot springs and geysers that are known to exist there.

“Can this anomaly pose a danger to the people of the valleys above and below the pass?” Niles Compton asked, looking strange in his Group-issued khaki work clothes.

“If it poses a threat to them they are either oblivious to the danger or are not concerned. I suspect the latter because you cannot live near that pass or the village it’s named for and not know that the mountain you are sitting on is like a bad molar in a mouth full of dead or dormant teeth. There is a connection with the hot springs and the mountain and it cannot be a good one.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Has the Romanian government released any information about Patinas being seismically active?”

“With the land being privatized they now have a chance to get some geologists up there to see. They may not like what they find.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant, you can join your team. If need be we will get you up to Patinas in the next day or so. You just may be the first geologist into the pass.”

“Yes, sir,” Sarah said, and then nodded at Alice, who sat beside Niles and Captain Everett. Will Mendenhall, fresh from the shower, stepped aside so Sarah could pass in the tight space.

“Lieutenant Mendenhall, you’re late to my meeting. Are you pretty much up to speed on the people of the Patinas region and their customs?”

“All I know is that’s where Dracula is from,” Mendenhall said in all seriousness.

“Not exactly. You’ve been watching too many movies. Alice, explain to young Mr. Mendenhall the difference between legend and fact.”

Mendenhall sat down and then waited as Alice pulled out her notes.

“Prince Vlad Dracul, or Vlad Tepes if you prefer, was born in the south of what used to be known as Walachia, or Transylvania, which encompassed the region from the east and surrounded what is now known as the Carpathian Mountains, the history of which is far more documented than one would believe. And nothing has ever dispelled the rumors that something was wrong in the high mountains of that warring state.”

“For instance?” Will inquired, actually getting interested in what Alice was saying.

“For instance, in years 101 thru 102, and 105 to 106, Roman armies under the Emperor Trajan fought a series of military campaigns to subjugate the wealthy Dacian kingdom. By 106, under Trajan they succeeded in subduing the southern and central regions of Dacia but left one area of the very rich kingdom alone—Patinas. One of the most important passes in the entire country and the most experienced Roman commander under Trajan left it unguarded and undefended. No military commander would have left an avenue of attack that glaringly obvious to an enemy force without a garrison being stationed there.”

“The Romans, Lieutenant, placed men in any area where they thought an attack could originate, and Patinas was one of those areas.” Niles gestured for Alice to continue.

“After the Romans it was the Visigoths and Carpians, and after them Attila the Hun. But the one thing none of these invading and experienced war commanders ever occupied was the Patinas Pass. A Boy Scout could see the pass as an invasion route.” Alice lifted her file and then rummaged through it until she found the report she had been looking for.

“What about Dracula?” Will asked with raised brows and a hint of a smile.

“In 1241 thru 1242 during the Mongol invasion of Europe, Transylvania was among the territories devastated by the Golden Horde. A large portion of the population perished, but one thing remained constant: Genghis Khan, the ablest general ever to invade Transylvania, never took the Patinas Pass and there was never anything written in history about the khan to explain why he didn’t take and hold it. Something is not right on that mountain. It has remained inaccessible to invading armies since the dawn of written history. From Rome to the Habsburgs, the region was left alone for no apparent reason. Finally, after assisting Vlad the Impaler in his war with the Ottoman Empire and the invading Turkish armies, Prince Vlad,” she looked directly at Mendenhall, “or Dracula if you insist, deeded the land as a protected area after the war was finally won. The mountain with no name officially began its protected status. An explanation was never given forth by the prince even until the day he was executed.”

Will looked at the large satellite recon photo of the pass and saw that the winding road through the small village disappeared many times underneath massive ledges of rock and earth. He counted a hundred good ambush points for defending troops, and with the harsh terrain surrounding the Patinas Pass he could also see how rumors and legends of dark things roaming the Carpathians came about.

“As we deal with historical truth we must disallow any suggestion of the supernatural to enter the equation. Whatever is up there, and I believe my wolves are, they are not a legend or a myth, but something capable of scaring three of the most brutal men the world had ever seen, the Emperor Trajan, Genghis Khan, and finally, Vlad Dracul. I won’t even mention the German army in 1943. All of these men feared something in those mountains. These facts are not in dispute, Will, nor is the fact that historically speaking we have ventured into a world we know nothing of, and there just may be monsters in the rocks. No, Will, no myths, no legends of vampires and werewolves, cold, hard, historical data tell no lies. And this is when we learn that superstition and science can be one and the same.”

“I apologize for making light of it, I’m sorry,” Mendenhall said when he saw that his banter had brought the academic wrath of Alice down around his ears and she responded as any good schoolteacher would: she backhanded him with fact.

Alice relaxed and then smiled at Will and stood and patted his chest as the meeting slowly came to a close. The 747 had started its descent into Bucharest.

The Event Group had arrived on station to confront the inhabitants of a mountain pass that has frightened the most prolific killers in European history, from Rome to the Waffen SS of the German war machine. As the 747 touched down all thoughts turned to an Event that was as unorthodox as any the department had ever been sent on.

Operation Grimm had officially been activated and the Event Group was now on the clock.