“Yes. There was another woman who came through: Kate Warner. She is Patrick Pierce’s daughter. I was afraid she would get to them. But it doesn’t matter now. We’re almost out of time.”
Konrad checked the back of the pack. “Less than two hours. Warner did find them, but we have her. We’ll put them in the tombs. We’ll return if we need to finish the job.”
“We should leave soon after; it’s a thirty-minute walk from here to the portal door.” Dorian bent down to the children and spoke in English. “Hello again. I told you Kate would be down here. Did you enjoy the first game?”
The boys simply looked at him. They were as dumb as door nails, Dorian thought. “We’re going to play a new game. Would you like that?” Dorian waited, but the boys said nothing. “Ok… I’ll take that as a yes. This game is a race. Are you fast runners?”
The boys nodded.
CHAPTER 137
David watched the two Nazi soldiers wander deeper into the tombs, gawking at the tubes. They wore thick sweaters and no helmets: they were clearly Nazi marines. They would be very well-skilled at hand-to-hand combat in close quarters. Surprise was imperative for David and Patrick to take them down. David raised a hand to make signs, but Patrick was already signing to him: wait until they pass.
David tried to squat lower, but his leg burned. That he could squat at all was a miracle. The goo really worked. The goo — would they smell it? Patrick crouched beside him, between two other tubes in the banana cluster closest to the meandering soldiers. Two seconds.
One man stopped. Did he smell it?
Above David and Patrick’s hiding position, a burst of white fog spewed from the tubes, drawing the soldier’s attention. They swung their submachine guns off their backs and raised them, but David and Patrick were already up and on them, springing like snakes out of the tall grass onto their prey.
The force of David’s lunge took his target to the ground, and David slammed the heel of his hand into the man’s forehead. The soldier’s head hit the iron floor with a crack, and a pool of blood spread out around it.
Four feet away, Patrick was struggling with the other solider. The young soldier was on top of him. The Nazi had a knife and was pressing it into Patrick’s chest. David jumped on the man, and pulled him off of Patrick. David knocked the knife out of the soldier’s hand and pinned him to the ground. Patrick was there, beside him, holding the knife to the man’s throat. The Nazi stopped struggling in a silent surrender, but David still held his arms to the floor.
David didn’t speak German, but before he could open his mouth, Patrick began interrogating the man in German. “Wieviele m?nner?”
“Vier.”
Patrick tore the knife from his neck and dug it into the man’s left index finger.
“Zw?lf,” the man cried.
“Herr Kane?”
The soldier nodded. He was sweating profusely now. “T?ten Sie mich schnell,” he said.
Patrick questioned him a little more while David pinned him to the floor.
“Schnell,” the man pleaded.
Patrick drew the knife across his neck and the flow of blood and death followed in rapid succession after.
Patrick dropped the knife beside the man and collapsed onto the floor. Blood dripped from his own chest wound.
David crawled over the dead man and gathered the remains of the black goo from his own mostly-healed chest and shoulder wounds. He wiped the paste into Patrick’s wound, and the older man grimaced as it made contact.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be good as new within a few hours.” David grinned. “Maybe sooner.”
Patrick sat up. “If we have that long.” He motioned to a door in the direction the soldiers had come from. “There’s no question now, we’re in Antarctica.” He drew a few quick breaths.
“How many are there?”
Patrick looked at the dead soldiers. “Twelve. Ten now. Kane is with them. If they get in this chamber, it will be genocide, and after that, maybe… it will be… very bad news for the human race.”
David began scavenging the men’s bodies, gathering weapons and anything that might be useful. “Did they say anything else?”
Patrick looked at him, confused.
“Have they seen anyone else?” David said hopefully.
Patrick caught his meaning. “No. They haven’t seen anyone. They’ve been here for almost three months, which makes sense if they arrived around 1938. A year per day, a month for every two hours. They said they just found this chamber and a man had gone back to report it.”
David handed Patrick one of the machine guns and held his arm out to help Patrick up. “We should hurry then.”
Patrick grabbed David’s arm and struggled to his feet. He glanced back at the dead soldier who had overpowered him. “Look Vale, I haven’t been a soldier in 25 years—”
“We’ll be just fine,” David said.
CHAPTER 138
Dorian held the children by the shoulders as he marched behind his father.