* * *

• • •

Court and Zoya had each fired at one target. Zoya hit a man in the thigh who disappeared behind a group of hostages, and Court hit a man in the lower abdomen, but he was on the ground, out of view behind a table, and possibly still in the fight.

Zoya had seen Hines and a group of armed men racing through the side door, and she leapt to her feet, launched off the stage, and went in pursuit of him.

Court climbed to his knees, still engaging targets in the room, but he shouted to her. “No! Wait!”

She did not listen, just kept running through the crowd as everyone began to climb to their feet and stampede for the center exit. Court leapt off the stage, picking off gunmen one by one, who were all struggling to orient themselves to the many angles of this small but disciplined attacking force.

* * *

• • •

   The great hall cleared out in under one minute, save for the American operators, the wounded, and the dead. Jenner was in the latter category, shot through the mouth, and Greer had taken a subgun round through the right biceps that had him on the floor while he tied it off with a compression bandage, using his left hand and his teeth.

By now Travers had lost enough blood out of the wound in his right leg that his fight was over, as he could barely stand, and though Lorenzi had shot three Russians grouped closely together, he took a bullet through his right shin and his left foot in the process.

Zack Hightower had killed five men in the last minute, all with a single magazine. He reloaded his rifle now, ready to head towards the doorway where Hines and some other men had disappeared. But he heard a voice behind him that spun him around.

It was Hanley. He held the shotgun in his hand. “Where’s Zakharov?”

“What the hell are you doing here, sir?”

He saw Brewer behind Hanley now, a terrified look on her face. What a shit show, he thought. All the smart suits were running away, and these two nitwits were running in.

“I’m helping you,” Hanley said. “Brewer will help, too.” Brewer seemed to Zack like she had no interest in helping anyone but herself, but she was here, a pistol held low in her hand.

Zack sighed. “They went into that stairwell. It seems to lead down to the basement.”

Hanley started moving for it. “Let’s go.”

“Wait. Violator and Anthem have already—”

“Let’s go!” Hanley shouted, and he headed through the doorway.

Zack ran after the two of them, overtaking them and making it into the stairs before them. With his weapon light shining he led the way down.

* * *

• • •

Court and Zoya arrived at the first subterranean layer without seeing or hearing anyone. Both wondered where the hell the squirters thought they were going down here, unless their plan was to use some other staircase to make their way back up to ground level.

This was the dungeon level; it was a poorly lit warren of rooms, formerly cells, common spaces, and barracks for the guards, now mostly used for storage. There were dozens of rooms where people could hide. Heavy metal gates hung in archways, held up by thick rope; a wine cellar had been built where prisoners once had been stockaded; and the entire area smelled to Court like it was right on Loch Ness and not 150 feet above it.

The two of them moved together for a while, until they reached a circular room with three archways leading out of it. Zoya touched Court on his shoulder. “We have to split up.”

Court was afraid of this. Tactically, it made sense; there was too much area to cover to find anyone hiding down here before they could escape. But he could only now pray that he was the one who came across her father first.

He reached out with his good hand and took her head in it, drew her to him. Softly he said, “Be careful,” and he kissed her.

“You, too,” she said, and then, “My father. He’s mine.”

She turned away and disappeared in the dark to the right.

Court chose the left-side passage. He transmitted this decision over his mic, but he didn’t think anyone still alive upstairs could have possibly heard him down here belowground.

* * *

• • •

Hightower, Brewer, and Hanley heard the garbled transmission, and they pieced it together. Anthem, right. Violator, left. The three moved slowly and quietly out of the dim stairwell and into the dungeon area. They arrived at the circular room one minute after receiving Violator’s call, and they continued forward, under the middle arch.

* * *

• • •

Feodor Zakharov followed behind the two sleepers still alive as they pushed on through the dungeon towards the secret door that led down to Loch Ness. They knew the way, but they had a stop to make along the way first. Also, they were slowed somewhat scanning with their flashlights, checking the placement of the daisy chain of explosives that had been attached around the dungeon level. Zakharov had sent Fox and Hines off in another direction to check the explosives there. The wires were supposed to be out of the pathways, running instead along the walls, but the men who wired the subterranean level had a lot of ground to cover and little time, so it was an obvious rush job. Everyone knew that accidentally kicking a wire would set off the cigarette-pack-sized amount of C-4 the wire had been attached to, and this would kill anyone ten yards in any direction, so they did what they could to avoid this eventuality.

The Russian mercenaries hadn’t brought enough C-4 to drop the entire castle, not by a long shot. But a timer had been attached to one of the devices, and all the devices were wired together. It was set for ten minutes, but now Zakharov wanted to find the device with the timer on it and speed the countdown to five minutes before getting into the passageway to the water, detonating thirty small but powerful charges down here in the lower levels to eliminate any pursuers.

Behind him he heard a distant, echoing voice. “Papa? Papa, I’m coming for you!”

Zakharov felt the twinge of fear run down his back now as he kept moving forward with the others.

CHAPTER 66

   Court moved quickly up a hallway, checking each dungeon cell with a flash from the light hanging on his rifle. Some rooms were storage now, others empty, and some rooms in this subterranean warren seemed to serve no purpose but to lead to more rooms. He flashed his weapon light on, then back off, moved forward a few feet to cover, and did it again. Over and over. It was not the fastest way to move, but it did expose him to the least amount of danger.

Or so he thought.

He knelt down behind a row of old, steel box fans in the arched stone corridor, held his rifle up, and flashed the light. Just past an archway with a massive steel gate above it suspended there by thick rope tied to a metal hook in the floor, he saw a large room and, from the quick look he gave it when the light was on, he could tell there were several mirrors in there, because of the flash reflected back on him. He was distracted by the bright light in his face for a few seconds, rubbed his eyes, and then squinted. Flashing again but towards the floor to avoid the reflections, this time he could see movement in the room, a shadow streaking right to left in the dim.