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He came down on his knees beside her. “Don’t move or it’ll be worse.” And he rammed the needle into her arm and pressed the plunger. She was unconscious in under three seconds.
She didn’t hear Cassandra say, “On second thought, bring the man, too. We may need him for leverage.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Nicholas and Mike hiked in silence until the sun was down, the sky a faint pink. Mike turned and caught a glimpse of the lake below among the thick olive trees, the water now a deep purple. She heard crickets singing, saw a few bats swooping overhead.
“There,” Mike said quietly, and touched Nicholas’s shoulder lightly. “There’s the entrance.” A guard was standing in front of the orange tape. “Is that an L85 he’s carrying?”
Nicholas pulled out a monocular. “Good eye, Mike, yes, it is. New model, too. Cassandra and Ajax are quick, aren’t they? And he’s another Brit, I’d wager—the L85 is the favored assault model for our Special Forces. They aren’t messing around, not that I ever thought they would. But still, it’s only one guard.”
“Does he have night vision?”
“Maybe, though he doesn’t have his goggles out right now or we would have a serious problem. Sloppy of him.”
Mike readied her Glock. “You want me to take him, or will you?”
He stashed the monocular. “You don’t have a suppresser and we don’t want the noise. We don’t want him to have a chance to get on his radio. Give me time to get around to the other side, then distract him, let him see you.” He grabbed her arms. “Do not get shot, do you understand me? Just get in his line of vision, give him a glimpse, and I’ll take him from behind.”
“That goes for you, too.”
Their steps were silent, cushioned by the new growth of buttercups edging the grove. Branches of flowering borage and the deepening darkness gave them cover. They moved to within twenty feet of the entrance, then Nicholas signaled for her to get ready and started tracking off to the east to circle around.
Mike had counted to twenty when Nicholas hit his comms, gave her a tap in the ear. She shook an olive branch beside her, darted away, quick as a rabbit, twenty feet to another small grove.
The guard immediately went on alert, walked ten steps from the tunnel entrance toward her. He didn’t call out or get on his radio because it was dark and he knew there was a good chance he’d heard an animal prowling around. But his finger was on the trigger guard.
Mike moved again, drawing the guard’s attention to the right, Nicholas came silently around the edge of the tunnel entrance and hit the guard on the head with a rock. He went down without a sound and lay unmoving on his side, the rock, smeared with blood, beside him.
“Is he dead?”
“Nah.” Nicholas pulled rope from his backpack, tied the guard’s hands and feet, gagged him. Then he dragged him into the grove, covered him with branches of borage.
Without another word, they entered the tunnel. The lights from their flashlights barely cut through the darkness. Mike shivered.
Nicholas whispered, “I see the light fixtures, but the lights aren’t on and why not? The power came back on over an hour ago. Maybe they don’t use the lights unless needed.”
“I’m going to vote for unused. Nicholas, look. You can see two sets of footprints in the dust—one small going in, one large heading out. Kitsune and the guard are the only people who’ve been in this tunnel recently.”
She touched his sleeve. “This worries me. Why would the Kohaths allow such easy access to their house? They’re so security-conscious, it seems odd they’d leave a perfect tunnel in place for someone to waltz through the back door. And only one guard.”
“Think back, Mike, isn’t this how the Knights Templar would have gotten out when there was trouble? Don’t forget, not many people have access to the detailed plans Adam was able to find, plus it is private property. Watch your step there, we’re heading uphill.”
He grabbed her by the waist and swung her over a stake in the ground. He stopped and aimed his light on it. It was a piece of branch, sharpened to a point. “Kitsune’s trail of bread crumbs?”
Mike knelt down, examined the branch. “I’m thinking it’s a weapon she made if she had to get out quickly and needed something fast.” She stood, wiped her hands on her pants. “Whatever, she didn’t have a chance to use it. They got her farther up the tunnel.”
“Kitsune is very skilled, very dangerous. Do you think she allowed herself to get taken?”
Mike shook her head. “I honestly think she wanted to get in, rescue her husband, and get out as quietly as possible. From the noises I heard, someone bigger and faster surprised her and beat her. She was unconscious when I saw the guard walk by with her thrown over his shoulder, and I doubt she allowed that to happen. I only got a glimpse of him, but I think it was Harry. Oh, now what? This is all we need—the tunnel splits ahead.”
They pulled up short. Nicholas ran his Maglite over four different tunnel branches. “From the plans, we know to go north. That way.” He pointed to the center tunnel.
“What are they doing down here? This looks modern and we know the Etruscan excavations ended years ago.”
“Ben sent me a theory from St. Germaine’s first book on Appleton Kohath. One of the Ark legends has the Templars guarding the Ark for the Church. In the pages he sent, he pointed out the nearby church, San Bevignate, that temporarily housed the Templars on the orders of Pope Gregory. Maybe they stashed their treasure here instead of burying it under the church, thinking it safer to have it farther away. And the Kohaths came across that information.”
Nicholas said, “So Pope Gregory somehow got his hands on the Ark and gave it over to the Knights Templar to protect? Well, this is a seriously out-of-the-way place, but maybe that would be the pope’s reasoning. Safer in an unknown location than where his knights were housed.”
