She remembered the horrors depicted in the Third Adage. Skinned and dissected bodies, cruel experimentations. It was a depravity of science. Even the skull that graced its title page was like a warning to those who dared delve deeper into the book.
She would not make that mistake.
She lifted the book—still loose and open after unlocking the secret door—and thrust it into the menorah’s flames.
Cries rose behind her.
From Tissot, from Julian, even from Laurent.
The book’s pages burst into fiery glory, as if waiting for this moment over centuries. She turned and held the book aloft, like a torch for all to see. Rifles leveled at her, but no one knew quite what to do at this moment.
The searing heat burned to her fingertips. The flames splayed the book wider, a fiery bible now. She cast it away, sending it spinning across the floor and behind the neighboring gold table.
“You fool!” Julian bellowed and yanked the impaled knife out of his hand.
The man thrust to his feet, gasping both from her kick and from the horror of her fiery act. In a stumbling run, he tried to reach the table and the flaming book, clearly in the desperate hope of snuffing out the flames and salvaging what he could.
Sharyn simply fell to her knees and stared behind the gold table, toward the burning pyre, recognizing she had made the right choice.
The book needed to be destroyed.
Julian continued his run. Others stirred behind him, unsure what to do.
But another had also come to a decision.
69
2:18 p.m.
Using this confusion, Duncan shoved to his feet. He turned his back to the soldiers, who continued to rustle and look for instructions. He stared up at the flaming menorah, as if casting a prayer, trying his best not to look like a threat.
Instead, he planned to follow Sharyn’s example.
He had already silently shown her his intent, getting a nod from her and a whispered, “Wait for my signal.”
Surely burning the book was that, a distraction if ever there was one.
From inside his half-zipped parka, torn and ripped by the rocket blast, he tugged up the yellow tube of the avalanche charge. The last of Russo’s supply. He silently thanked the biologist for this hope, for this chance.
Earlier, he had tucked the tube into his parka when he had climbed up the tower to his sniper’s roost. It was hislast resort, his final means of defending the castle. He had intended to light its fuse and drop the kilo of TNT on top of the soldiers clearing the cliffside trail—if they ever got too close.
And they’re bloody well too close now.
Keeping as hidden as possible, but moving quickly, he pulled the charge higher and wiggled its fuse up to the menorah’s lowest branch. The incendiary cord burst into a fiery eye that quickly began eating down the line to its explosive core.
He spun back, knowing this threat would quickly be recognized.
In that fleeting moment, with adrenaline sharpening his focus, he took in the room.
—Archie gaped wide-eyed at him.
—Laurent still held Russo’s body, as if disbelieving she was dead. Still, he stared to where Sharyn knelt, her gaze fixed to the flaming book behind the table.
—Julian ran toward her, close to reaching her, but Laurent thrust out a leg as the man passed and sent him sprawling.
Duncan yanked his arm back. With all the strength left to him, he threw the charge. A gunshot—coming from Captain Ferhat’s pistol—struck his wrist, shattering bone. The charge flew wildly, making it only halfway across the chamber, landing some distance from the spread of soldiers.
Once again, his Hail Mary pass had failed.
