Celtic Empire (Dirk Pitt 25)

As Loren fired the pistol, not at Pitt but at Irene, the receptionist had an instant to react. She lunged across Pitt with her hand still clutching the stun gun, hoping to knock away the pistol. She overreached and struck Loren in the back of the hand as the flintlock fired.

Lying beneath the action, Pitt saw the purple light of the stun gun crackle against Loren’s wrist as a cloud of white smoke from the flintlock erupted over him. Both women then vanished in the haze.

To Pitt’s left, Loren spiraled to the floor, falling unconscious from the combined effect of the electrical shock and the injected drugs. To his right, Irene staggered back from the table. She clutched her midsection, her eyes bulging with terror. As the smoke cleared, Pitt saw a splotch of blood soaking the clothes beneath her fingers where the lead ball had struck just beneath the sternum.

Irene tried to speak, the words didn’t come. Then she tried to step away, and her legs failed her, too. She knocked over the tray table as she fell back against Abigail Brown, then sunk to the floor. Sprawling upright, she clutched her stomach and moaned softly.

To Pitt, the whole scene was surreal. Loren lay drugged and unconscious on one side, Irene dying on the other. The former Australian prime minister remained oblivious in her virtual world. Trapped in the middle of it all lay Pitt. But Loren had left him a way out. When shocked by Irene, she had dropped the flintlock and it fell at Pitt’s side.

He twisted and slid his body, forcing the weapon toward his left hand. His fingertips grazed the barrel, and he pulled the pistol close until he could wrap his palm around its stock.

It wasn’t the gun he was interested in, it was its bayonet blade. He twisted the gun and applied the steel edge against the strap that held his wrist. The ancient blade was dull, but it still had enough of an edge to fray the leather binding. He sawed at it for a few minutes until it gave way with a strong thrust from his arm. With his left hand free, he unbuckled the strap across his chest and a binding on his right wrist, then freed his legs.

He rushed to Loren, picked her up, and lay her on the

table. Her eyes fluttered open as she regained consciousness. She focused her eyes on Pitt and gave him a wary look that softened into a broad smile. “Did I do okay?” she whispered.

Pitt nodded and kissed her.

“I didn’t drink their coffee or tea, only pretended to,” she said in a slurred voice. “It was drugged, like you said. I could see the effects on Abigail.” She glanced toward the Aussie, then saw Irene sitting lifeless in a pool of blood.

“I had a very bad dream when she poked me with the needle, though.” Her eyes closed for a minute, then she came around again. “You need to help Abigail.”

Pitt stepped to the Australian woman and removed her earphones and virtual reality headset. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She stared back in an unblinking daze, not comprehending the difference between the virtual world and the basement of McKee Manor.

Pitt tried to break her drug-induced stupor. “What do you say we go for a walk and get some fresh air?”

He removed her restraints and guided her to a stairwell, keeping Abigail turned so she wouldn’t see the body of Irene. He returned for Loren, who rose unsteadily, but regained her strength with each footstep.

Pitt aided the women up the stairs, exiting through a hidden door into the dining hall. They made their way to the rotunda and out the front door without seeing anyone.

As they descended the steps, a pair of Inverness police cars rushed through the front gate with lights flashing. Giordino jumped out of one of the cars and rushed over to Pitt and the women.

“I see you brought the cavalry,” Pitt said.

“Thanks to a nice lady at the marina who remembered you. She happens to be married to the local chief inspector.” Giordino looked at Loren. “Is she okay?”

“Better than she was. The police will want to check the basement. Somebody was playing with an antique firearm and got hurt.”

“McKee?”

Pitt shook his head. “She’s gone. Might have returned to the lab.”

A private jet, just departed from Inverness Regional Airport, screamed low overhead. It skimmed past the manor, then ascended and turned south, proving Pitt wrong in the process.

58

Cold water flooded onto Dirk’s face, and he instinctively groped for the power window switch. The rental car’s electronics had yet to short out, and the window slid closed, lessening the deluge. He pushed away the airbag that had inflated in his face and tried to get his bearings in the dark interior.

His neck, back, and knees ached from the rearward plunge off the bridge, and a gash on the side of his head throbbed. But the rental car’s high-backed seats had held firm, cushioning against major injury. He felt his body’s weight straining against his shoulder belt, and the water that was still accumulating around his head jarred his shaken senses to the fact the car was inverted. He felt the vehicle wallow a moment before striking the river bottom with a muffled crunch.

He reached to a headliner console and flicked on the switch to a map light. It cast a dull glow through a layer of murky liquid, enough to illuminate Summer sitting beside him. He noticed a dark splotch of blood on her shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked, struggling to release his seat belt.

“Yeah,” came a weak and unconvincing reply. Dirk could see her dangling hair was soaked from the rising water.