Mystic Warrior. Alex Archer

way. The dead man behind him had been caught unaware. De Cerceau didn’t intend for that to happen to him. He took the stairs two at a time, his forefinger resting on his weapon’s trigger.

      * * *

      AS SOON AS he stepped through the stairwell doorway, Krauzer took off down the hallway to the left. The lights came on just behind him as the automatic systems cut in, making him look as if he was leading the charge against the darkness.

      Annja kept pace with Orta. “What rooms are this way?” She slid a fresh magazine into the machine pistol.

      “Classrooms.” Orta sounded out of breath. He was in good shape, but adrenaline had to be wreaking havoc on him. “Alcoves for the graduate assistants. A research archive. The graduate dean’s office.”

      “The research archive sounds big enough to hide in.” She matched Orta stride for stride as they followed Krauzer down the hallway. Glancing at the windows, she realized that the lights reflected from the large windows along the hallway made seeing outside difficult.

      Still, she was able to spot the helicopter’s red running lights as it dropped to hover just outside the building. Shoving a leg out, Annja tripped Orta and grabbed his shirtsleeve, pulling him to the ground hard and falling on top of him. As they skidded along the marble tiles, a burst of heavy machine-gun fire chewed through the windows in a ragged line.

      Annja threw her arm over her head to protect herself. The helicopter’s whirling rotor noise suddenly rose to a deafening roar inside the hallway.

      “Stay down,” she told Orta as she slithered along the hallway through the spray of broken glass. Once she was past the line of destruction, she rose to her knees, pointed the machine pistol at the helicopter’s nose and pulled the trigger.

      Bullets tore through the window, blowing shards outside the building. The light made it impossible for her to see where the rounds struck the helicopter, but she thought she saw a jagged line stitched along the pilot’s door.

      The helicopter fell away, dodging to put distance between itself and the building. The machine gunner in the cargo area fired, trying to vector in on Annja’s position, but the helicopter’s sudden movement jerked the gunman’s aim off and tracers stabbed into the night.

      Shaking the broken glass from her clothes as best as she could, Annja rose to a crouched position and returned to Orta’s side. “Let’s go.”

      He pushed himself up on trembling arms and looked at her.

      “The archives,” Annja reminded him. “Let’s go there.”

      Numbly, Orta nodded, pointed down the hallway and stumbled in that direction.

      Annja followed him and only then realized she’d lost track of Krauzer. She struggled to make sense of the sheer magnitude of the assault made by their attackers and what they thought they had to gain by their efforts. She had no answers.

      * * *

      SABRE STARED UP at the two helicopters circling the USC campus like buzzards eyeing roadkill. “Are those birds ours?”

      “Negative.” Gerard pulled on the wheel and guided them over the low curb separating the parking area from the street. The Mercedes’s large wheels climbed the curb easily and the high-tuned suspension smoothed out the bump.

      Green machine-gun tracers flitted from the helicopter closest to the building while the second craft circled at a wider radius.

      “Who are these people?” Sabre asked.

      “Professionals.” Gerard scowled through the windshield. “Messy professionals. This isn’t how you contain a situation. Law enforcement agencies are going to be all over this. The clock’s working against us now.”

      Sabre silently agreed but knew that was both a positive and a negative. Police were doubtless on their way now, which took away time from whoever was after Krauzer, but that knowledge was going to make those men tracking Krauzer take even bigger risks.

      “Police.” Dyson leaned forward and pointed to the right. “On our two o’clock.”

      Glancing to the right, Sabre watched as a black-and-white patrol car, light bar flashing red and blue, pulled into the campus parking area. While it was still in motion, a rocket streaked across seventy yards and impacted against the patrol car’s grille.

      The warhead exploded and knocked the patrol car’s front end up like a boxer taking an uppercut to the chin. The engine hood sprang open and a ball of fire engulfed the vehicle, spreading quickly.

      Sabre doubted the driver had survived the immediate detonation, and when the flames leaped into the patrol car’s interior and the officer didn’t try to escape, he was certain of it.

      Meszoly cursed and launched into evasive action, yanking on the steering wheel, almost avoiding the second rocket that sped toward them. Instead of catching the SUV dead center as the shooter had intended, the warhead slammed into the Mercedes’s right rear quarter panel.

      Flames wreathed the rear of the SUV and the force knocked the vehicle over onto its left side. Heat filled the interior at once as Sabre jerked helplessly in the five-contact seat belt harness. The air bag blew out and slammed into his chest like a giant fist. The stench of cordite filled the air, and the detonation rang against his ears and stole part of his hearing. He tasted blood in his mouth.

      “This is Black Legion One,” Sabre called over his headset. “We need assistance. Our vehicle has been disabled.” He slipped a combat knife from his vest, flicked the blade open and sawed through the seat belt. “Does anyone copy?”

      “Copy, Black Legion One. Ten is on your six.”

      Through the cracked windshield, Sabre watched as another SUV pulled in front of the one he was in, providing partial cover. The men in that vehicle deployed in two two-man groups and laid down suppressive fire.

      Sabre gave up on trying to open his door. He drew his pistol and slammed the butt into the window, shattering the safety glass so he could pull it out. “Do you see the shooters?”

      The radio crackled in response. “We have the shooters, One. Two of them at eleven o’clock. One of them is down. The other is running.”

      “Get me some ID on these people if you can.”

      “Roger.”

      “These people are in heavier than expected.” Sabre pulled himself through the window and crouched, leathering his weapon and then extending his hand down to Meszoly. “Watch yourselves.”

      “Copy that.”

      Meszoly grabbed Sabre’s hand and allowed himself to be helped as he clambered up from the overturned vehicle. “This can’t be about Krauzer,” he said, then wiped blood from his split lips with the back of his hand. “That man is more self-indulgent than important. This is about something else.”

      The Merovingian kings, Sabre thought. That’s what this is about. Still, so many years had passed since those days and the time of Matthias Corvinus. Something that had been lost for so long couldn’t just reappear. And who would be so interested in finding it?

      Dyson broke through the rear passenger window as the heat of the burning vehicle swirled over them. Blood ran from two cuts on the side of his face and dripped from his chin. Still, he seemed steady enough as he reached back inside the SUV and hauled out the man he’d been seated with. Sabre helped Dyson because the other man was unconscious. Together, they hauled the man’s deadweight from the stricken vehicle just before the gas tank exploded and knocked them to the ground.

      Rising again, Sabre told Dyson to stay with the unconscious man. Then he and Meszoly headed toward the target building, taking cover where they could. One of the men who’d wielded a rocket launcher lay bleeding on the ground and managed to pull his sidearm. Sabre shot the man in the face and leaped over the corpse. Behind him, two other police cars pulled into the parking lot, sirens howling. They rolled to a stop on either side of the burning patrol car.