The Demon Crown: A Sigma Force Novel Read online

  Unfortunately, her gaze lingered on them a fraction too long.

  Stupid.

  The motorcycle engine screamed and shot forward. She went for her holstered sidearm. Monk noted her motion and twisted sideways, grabbing at his own weapon.

  They were both too slow.

  The cycle reached them. The driver snapped a kick into Monk, slamming him into a wall. Kat freed her weapon, but the riders were already atop them. Without the bike slowing, the passenger in back lunged out. He hooked Elena around the waist, threw her across his lap, and jabbed her neck with a syringe.

  Tires burned rubber on cobbles and spun away.

  Kat lifted her freed weapon, but the cycle was already deep in the crowd. She didn’t have a clear shot. Still, she ran to where the bike turned into a pedestrian alley.

  The cycle zigged and zagged through shoppers, al fresco diners, and street musicians. Confounding the matter, the alley was lined on one side by shops, all covered from the sun by awnings, creating a dark tunnel under them.

  She immediately lost sight of the kidnappers.

  Monk ran up to her.

  She turned and pointed. “Boost me up.”

  He knew better than to question her. He dropped to one knee and offered her the other. She vaulted atop it and leaped. Monk’s hand on her buttock propelled her higher. She landed on her belly atop the nearest awning and used the spring of the taut fabric to gain her feet.

  Then ran.

  She fled across the continuous spread of stall canopies, leaping the occasional gap. By racing above the crowds, she avoided the congestion below. She prayed for the motorcycle to be bogged down by the pedestrians, enough for her to catch up.

  She kept her ear tuned for the whine of the two-stroke engine.

  Then heard it.

  Up ahead, maybe another twenty yards.

  She sprinted, doing her best to close the gap.

  Unfortunately, the end of the alleyway appeared ahead, marked by a tile-roofed bridge arching from one side to the other. It was the gate through the medieval city wall. Once the kidnappers left Old Town, the streets would open up for them, and she’d lose them forever.

  She ran faster—but quickly saw a problem.

  A small square opened before the foot of the gate. The row of canopies ended short of the plaza. Her flight was about to run out of runway.

  Still, she didn’t slow.

  As she neared the end, she caught sight of the motorcycle. It shot into the square, scattering pedestrians. One of the festival’s many stilt-walkers—a fellow in motley costume on a pair of two-story-high poles—could not get out of the way in time and got sideswiped. One stilt was knocked loose.

  Kat thanked this small bit of luck and shoved her weapon into her belt.

  She reached the last awning and leaped headlong over the crowd. She caught the loose stilt as it toppled and used her momentum to turn it into a pole-vaulter’s stick. Grasping hard, she levered her body, kicking out with her legs—and sailed high across the square.

  She hurdled over the motorcycle as it was forced to slow at the gate’s bottleneck. She rolled in midair. People scattered in a panic, allowing her to land in a crouch, absorbing the impact with her legs, facing the bike.

  The motorcycle shot straight at her.

  She grabbed her pistol from her belt, pointed one arm, and fired.

  The round shattered the helmet’s visor.

  The cycle toppled, skidding on its side across the cobbles, passing her on the left.

  The rider in back leaped at the last moment and rolled safely away. She leveled her weapon as he rose, but he twisted around and fled into the stunned onlookers.

  Kat rushed forward.

  Elena had been knocked free of the cycle when her kidnapper had leaped off the backseat. Elena tried to sit up, but she was clearly dazed—whether from the crash or from whatever was loaded in the syringe.

  Likely a sedative to subdue their target.

  Kat helped her sit. “Are you okay?”

  Elena looked at her limbs, then at the gawking crowd. “I . . . I think so.”

  Loud honking drew both their attentions back to the alleyway. A small electric-green Mini Cooper jammed into the square. The already panicky crowd fled out of its way.

  Kat guarded over Elena and lifted her SIG Sauer—then lowered her weapon when she spotted Monk behind the wheel. He must have commandeered or carjacked the vehicle.

  He sped up alongside them and braked hard. Before coming fully to a stop, he yelled out the open window. “Get inside!”

  Sam popped the rear door.

  Kat hauled Elena up and toppled with her into the backseat. She reached back and yanked the door closed behind her. “Go!”

  Monk gunned the engine and set off for the gate. In moments, the small car raced under the arched bridge and out of Old Town.

  Kat climbed into the front seat, leaving Sam with Elena.

  Monk turned and asked the question plaguing her since the attack. “How did they know we were here?”

  Kat had already come to only one conclusion. Besides a handful of people at Sigma, the only others who knew of this planned trip were Japanese intelligence.

  And among them, one suspect stood out.

  Aiko Higashi.

  She reached to her jacket for her sat-phone. “I need to reach Painter.”

  “Why?”

  “To get him to warn Gray.”

  “About what?”

  Kat stared worriedly at Monk. “I think he’s about to walk into a trap.”

  21

  May 8, 1:34 A.M. SST

  Ikikauō Atoll

  Geared up, Gray waded into the brackish water.

  It had taken the team twenty long minutes to hike through the densely forested hills to reach the eastern shore of the flat lake at the island’s center. They were forced to move slowly, using night-vision scopes to see, careful not to disturb the flocks of nesting birds. Under the dark canopy, bats had swooped at them.

  As he entered the lake now, he hoped the bats were the only ones to note their progress. Ahead of him, Make Luawai stretched a quarter-mile wide and twice that in length. The air above the lake stank of brine, while a pall of tiny biting flies and noisome gnats hung heavily over the dark surface. Still, there was life below, evident from the occasional flop of a fish darting up at the clinging cloud of insects.

  “Watch your step,” Gray warned, as he headed out into the lake. “The bank drops away steeply.”

  He found himself neck-deep after only two meters. Even through the wetsuit, the lake felt distinctly warmer than the surrounding ocean. Still, it wasn’t pleasant, more like wading into lukewarm soup. The strangeness was amplified by the lake’s hypersalinity. With a salt content three times higher than the sea, the water buoyed his body unnaturally.

  Before ducking below, Gray searched the opposite shore one last time. His night-vision goggles discerned a vague glow rising beyond the fringe of hills on that side, marking the site of the old Coast Guard installation.

  All remained quiet over there.

  Satisfied, he slipped underwater. Once everyone joined him, he quickly got the group moving. They swam fifty yards out, then returned to gliding through the water, propelled by the muffled hum of their ScubaJets. Only this time he kept their flight path shallower in the water, sticking to a depth of ten feet. At this level, starlight still filtered down, enough for their night-vision goggles to pick up.

  Not that Gray needed even that meager illumination. He could’ve made this swim naked with only his compass, gauging the distance by the count of his blind kicks. But he had to accommodate the civilians in their party. The little bit of illumination should allow them to keep within sight of one another, which would hopefully lessen any chance of panic.

  Unfortunately, such a precaution wasn’t only for the benefit of the civilians.

  As Gray glided, he glanced over his shoulder. During the overland trek, Seichan had tried to mask the pain she was in, but
Gray had read the sheen of her skin, the faltering to her sure footing, the heavier panting to her breath. The discomfort seemed to be growing steadily worse. By the time they reached the lake, her jaw muscles had stood out as she clenched her teeth against the visceral pain.

  He grew more worried when he couldn’t spot her now. He knew she was at the back of the group with Palu, but apparently she had fallen even farther behind.

  He felt a pang of regret.

  I should’ve been firmer with her before, insisted she remain on Maui.

  Still, knowing her, she would’ve found a way to follow them. Back in Hana, he had recognized the stubborn set to her stony face. He had seen that look often enough in the past. But in this case, he had also sensed a deeper well to her determination, one possibly due to the extra life she now guarded.

  Trusting she would fight to her last breath, he faced forward again—and came within a breath of running his face into a wall. He canted to the side at the last moment. The obstruction was an upended wing of an old plane. As he shot past the wreck, the ScubaJet on his chest brushed the metal, scraping away a layer of algal growth.

  Once clear, he switched off the jet and twisted around. The others noted his near collision. Ken and Aiko swept wide to either side. Gray immediately lost them in the murk as their ScubaJets sped them away.

  Swearing under his breath, he signaled Kowalski by pushing his body in Aiko’s direction and pointing, then he swam after Ken. He trusted he could outkick the man’s jet, but as an extra measure, he also clicked on his UV light, using it like a lamp in the dark.

  Ken appeared ahead. The man had the wherewithal to switch off his ScubaJet’s engine and spotted the light. Gray swam up to him, offered a questioning okay sign, and got a thumbs-up from the man. Still, Ken’s eyes were huge behind his mask.

  Together, they headed toward where Aiko and Kowalski had vanished. Gray proceeded with caution as the UV light revealed the sprawl of a graveyard around them. The sphere of his glow swept over the tangled wrecks of four or five planes. Pieces were strewn far and wide. Half of a propeller stuck up out of the sand, looking all too appropriately like a cross in a cemetery. Fuselages lay cracked open below. Broken wings pointed crookedly in every direction or were pancaked into the silt.

  All the wreckage was coated and draped with mats of algae.

  Still, Gray recognized the planes’ design, mostly from the prominent circle visible on one wing and the nose of a black torpedo poking out from under a plane. The wrecks were a squadron of World War II Japanese torpedo bombers—Nakajima B5Ns—usually launched from nearby aircraft carriers.

  Gray pictured what must have been a pitched aerial battle over this island, part of the four-day-long Battle of Midway. The decisive naval fight dealt a crippling blow to the Japanese Imperial fleet, one from which they would never fully recover.

  As he stared across the graveyard, dark shapes appeared out of the gloom.

  One small, the other large.

  Aiko and Kowalski.

  The pair headed for the beacon of Gray’s light.

  As they closed in, Gray swung in a complete circle.

  So where were Seichan and Palu?

  In the tumult, Gray had lost track of the two. Were they still behind the rest of the team? Or had they missed the commotion and obliviously sped past this location already?

  He had no way of knowing, but the contingency plan in case anyone got separated was to meet at the predetermined coordinates along the western shore, or if compromised, to retreat to the shelter cave.

  With no other choice, Gray signaled for his group to continue onward. Still, as an additional precaution, he had them all stick closer together now. He didn’t intend to lose anyone else.

  As they left the wreckage behind, the lake bottom fell away again, dropping precipitously into a darkness that extended beyond the reach of his glow. It was as if the group were sailing into a vast void.

  Feeling exposed as they glided out into that abyss, he doused his light, but not before pointing his beam behind the team, hoping it might act as a last beacon for Seichan and Palu.

  That is, if they’re even back there.

  He finally relented and thumbed his light off.

  As if upon this signal, the void below exploded with a dazzling brilliance. Shocked, he flipped his night-vision goggles off his mask. Still, his overwhelmed retinas remained blinded. It took him two full breaths for the flare of the flash to die down enough for him to see.

  Far below, a large complex now glowed across the lake bottom. It had the appearance of a giant circuit board, one that had suddenly sprung to life. He could make out interconnecting clear tunnels that linked an array of glass-domed chambers, creating a multilevel maze. Other darker spots marked the location of steel-walled rooms.

  Gray understood what he was seeing.

  An underwater lab.

  He could also guess its purpose: What better way to safeguard and quarantine any work done on a dangerous organism?

  Still, the glowing lab was not the major source of the blinding radiance. That came from the nose of a submersible shooting upward toward the trapped group, blazing a cone of brilliance before it.

  With no way to outrun such a swift craft, Gray gathered the others. They were in varying degrees of shock and panic—or, in Kowalski’s case, sullen resignation.

  Gray motioned for the group to head to the surface.

  Pools of light shone up there, too, closing in from the western shore. The muffled rumble of motors reverberated through the water.

  Boats . . .

  His team was being squeezed, from top and bottom.

  As Gray reached the surface, he stripped off his swim mask. The others followed suit. A trio of pontoon boats aimed for them. Assault rifles bristled from the shadowy figures aboard.

  Gray took a small amount of consolation that they weren’t immediately fired upon, but he was not surprised. He expected the island’s owners would want to interrogate the trespassers.

  But apparently others weren’t needed for questioning.

  A loud explosion echoed to the southeast.

  They all turned and watched a fireball roll into the dark sky.

  Kowalski scowled darkly at the sight, knowing as well as Gray the likely source of the explosion.

  The catamaran.

  Gray was glad Palu was not here to see this. He stared across the dark lake, again wondering where the other two had vanished. While their absence had concerned him earlier, now it gave him hope.

  At least they aren’t caught in this snare.

  Motion drew his attention down into the water.

  Meters below, an arrow of brilliance angled away from their bobbing group, marking the passage of the submersible. But rather than descending back to its watery berth, it sped off toward the graveyard of the Japanese planes, sweeping right and left, clearly searching.

  Gray prayed the others were safe and well hidden.

  Especially with a glowing shark now patrolling these dark waters.

  1:52 A.M.

  Seichan braced her arms and legs against the fuselage walls, pinning herself within the plane’s wreckage. The Japanese bomber had cracked upon impact, splitting the hull in two. She kept her back to the cockpit, where the collapsed skeleton of the pilot still hung in a knot of moldering belts.

  The name of the lake—Deadly Well—proved all too true for that airman.

  Let’s hope it’s not the case with us.

  She stared across the two-meter gap of open water that separated her from the aft end of the aircraft. Palu had crammed his shadowy bulk into that half. It was a tight fit. Due to the dark depths, she could only imagine the strained expression behind his mask.

  Moments ago, the two of them had entered the fringes of this sunken graveyard. They had lagged behind the rest of the team—or rather, she had. Palu had kept at her side, likely upon Gray’s orders.

  She had been having difficulty with her ScubaJet. It refused to click into its hi
ghest gear, forcing her to compensate with kicks to keep her moving as fast as the others.

  Normally it wouldn’t have been an issue.

  But her current situation was far from normal.

  Even now, sharp knives of pain carved through her muscles. Her arms trembled as she pressed her palms against the inner hull. Every fiber in her back burned, sculpting her spine with fire.

  She took a moment to lean on her Guild training. She quieted her mind, shuttering away the discomfort behind cold walls. She drew deeply upon the oxygen in her tank. She had been taught that pain was the body’s early-warning system. It did not necessarily equate to damage or disability, which seemed to be the case here. While everything ached or burned, she sensed her overall strength remained.

  For now.

  And now was all that mattered.

  Gray and the others were in trouble.

  As she and Palu had traversed the graveyard, the world ahead had exploded with a silent mushroom cloud of brilliance. The algae-coated debris field stood out starkly against that flare. Her mask’s goggles amplified the blaze, burning a temporary hole in her vision.

  Still, she had left the night-vision gear in place and instinctively moved into the shadows—where she had lived most of her life. She scouted for shelter, drawing Palu with her, until she came upon the broken plane on the lake’s bottom.

  They were lucky to have found it so quickly.

  As she reached the hiding place, a two-man submersible had risen out of the depths. In the blaze of its lamps, she made out dark motes rising toward the surface.

  Gray and the others.

  Soon thereafter, bright boats appeared, skating across the roof of this watery world. With their quarry trapped, the submersible swung its nose toward the graveyard and headed this way. Its light swept back and forth.

  Does it know we’re here or is this search merely precautionary?

  Either way, she could not outrun it.

  As it entered the graveyard, she studied her adversary. The submersible was really a two-man sled, what was known as a wet sub, with its riders outfitted in full scuba gear. A Lexan glass hood covered the bow end but was open to the water at the back. Under the hood, a pilot sat behind the wheel, while a passenger crouched behind. The rider had his legs bunched under him. His hands clutched grips on the bottom of the sled to hold him in place. With his head ducked low, the hood protected the bulk of his body from the sub’s draft through the water.