Still, the impact of those massive slugs hammered the beast in place and gave Mac a chance to reach the open door. He set his shoulder against it and shoved it closed. John joined him and grabbed the brass bar they had set outside. Together they jammed the brace between the door and floor planks.
Inside, the bull thrashed and roared, but the confined space gave it little room to maneuver or get up a head of steam to smash out.
Or so we better hope.
“Go!” Mac yelled.
The two of them splashed their way out of the ship. They clambered to the rocky shore and sprinted through the maze of boulders and bergs. It quickly became too dark to see as they left the flaming pools of the lake behind them.
“Nuka!” Mac shouted. “Get those lamps back on!”
Lights flared in the distance.
Then a huge crack of timbers exploded behind them. Mac glanced back to see the bull burst through the side of the hull. It bounded high, lit by angry flames. It landed with a skid of sparks and thundered toward them, cloaked in fire and smoke.
“Haul ass,” Mac urged John.
Together they ran for the cascading water. Upon reaching it, they scrambled up the wet rock toward the lighted tunnel. Inside, he spotted two figures crowded together a short way up.
“Keep going!” he yelled to them.
The heavy tread of the bull closed in behind them. It shattered through ice and bounced off boulders in its haste to run down its prey.
Mac pushed John into the tunnel, then crowded in behind him.
Nuka slid back and passed an ice ax to Mac. He pantomimed hacking into the ice. “Dig and move!”
Got it.
John managed to scale the slick tunnel with a skill ingrained into his DNA. Mac followed, clawing at the ice with the ax and dragging himself up. It was slow going. The others were leaving him behind.
Not going to make it.
He was right.
The bull reached the tunnel and slammed headlong into it. Jammed there, it roared at Mac, sending gouts of flame at him. Its jagged maw snapped at his scrambling feet.
Panicked, he let his ax slip. He belly-flopped into the current and washed back toward the bull.
“Stay down!” Nuka hollered.
Twin blasts deafened him. He felt the passage of the shotgun slugs over his head. The rounds struck the bull between the horns and punched it back into the tunnel, buying Mac enough time to plant his ice ax again and regain his footing.
He set off quickly, knowing the bull would be back.
It roared behind him.
A woman shouted to him, “We’re almost to the ropes!”
Mac didn’t know who this lady was, but he obeyed. He set a harder pace. By the time he reached the others, Nuka and the stranger had secured their hip harnesses to belaying devices.
Nuka pointed to the back of their two harnesses. “Grab hold.”
John latched on to the woman’s harness; Mac locked his fingers on to Nuka’s.
“Hold tight,” the lady warned. “It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”
1:42 P.M.
Maria pressed the radio to her lips. “Now . . . as fast as you can!”
She stared up the dark throat of the moulin. She clutched the rope with both hands. A slight vibration was the only warning. The slack in the line snapped taut—and the four of them were jerked forward and dragged bodily up the slick chute.
Earlier, while waiting tensely, Maria had radioed topside, letting them know they would need an immediate evacuation. With their two ropes secured to the tow hitch of a snowmobile, she saw no reason to climb on their own when they had the horsepower to be pulled up.
An angry bellow chased them.
Maria glanced back. Even now, the fiery creature tried to force its way after them.
“Screw you,” MacNab called back.
Maria let out a sigh of relief—until the tunnel began to cave in. Whether from the thrashing of the beast or the concussions of the shotgun blasts, something finally gave way. The tunnel below cracked, and the chute imploded with an explosive clap of ice.
The roaring finally ended.
The continuing collapse chased them up the moulin. She stared ahead and sent a silent prayer to those above.
Don’t spare those horses.
After a few more breaths, they reached the wider vertical shaft. The snap of the line tossed them hard against the wall. With the impact, the Inuit elder lost his handhold on her belt. He swung wildly by one arm. Secure in her harness, she let go of the rope and grabbed his hide jacket with both hands.
“I got you.”
She clutched with all her strength until iron arms hooked around her waist and hauled her and Nuka’s grandfather free of the moulin.
She let the elder go and lay on her back.
Joe’s windburned face stared down at her. “What did I tell you about not playing hero?”
She shrugged. “I think I was only a supporting character here.”
Joe helped her sit up. The others were safely out, too. She stared over at the red-bearded climatologist.
“Mind telling me what that was all about?” she asked.
“I will. Over a beer. Lots of beer.”
Joe nodded at this wisdom. “Best plan I heard in a long time.”
Maria held up a hand, knowing this could not wait. “First, what about Elena? Do you know who took her?”
“Dr. Cargill? She’s still alive?”
“As far as we know. I’ll fill you in on the details over those beers. But do you know who took her and what they wanted?”
“I have no idea who they were. But they’re definitely not from around here. They were speaking Arabic.”
Arabic?
“As to what they wanted, I’m not entirely sure. Definitely wanted the gold map. They called it the Storm Atlas, as if they already knew what it was.”
Maria frowned. A Storm Atlas?
“Oh.” He reached to a pocket and removed a softball-sized silver sphere. It looked to be inscribed and covered with complicated-looking dials and compasses. “They also wanted this.”
Second
The Daedalus Key
Quod est ante pedes nemo spectat, caeli scrutantur plagas.
No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars.
—IPHIGENIA, A TRAGEDY BY QUINTUS ENNIUS (239–169 B.C.)
8
June 22, 8:59 A.M. EDT
Takoma Park, Maryland
Commander Grayson Pierce had survived countless brushes with death, but nothing had prepared him for fatherhood—especially living with a tiger mom.
“It’s not going to happen,” he warned from the living room’s sofa.
“It will.”
Seichan sat cross-legged on the Persian rug, like some Eurasian queen. She had pushed the coffee table aside and held their baby boy under his arms. She did her best to get the child to balance on legs made of Jell-O. Jackson Randall Pierce wasn’t cooperating. He cooed and babbled and tried to reach his toes.
Gray tapped the well-thumbed book on the end table. “Says here not to expect a baby to walk until nine months to a year. Maybe longer.”
“That’s only an average.” She pointed her chin toward a stack of printouts. “Look. There are many articles about babies who started walking by six months. It’s rare but not unheard-of.”
“Jack is only five months old. In two days.”