Shadow Tyrants (Oregon Files 13)

Torkan looked around in confusion, then at the distant fortress. “Here? I thought the entrance was some kind of secret door in the fortress wall that we’d take a boat to. We’re not even close to the wall yet.”

“It wouldn’t be well hidden if was easy to find.”

Torkan again looked at the pillar. “Then that has to be the door knocker.”

“In a way. Press the swastika. You’ll need to push hard.”

Torkan shoved his fist against the symbol. It sank into the pillar, and the four lion heads rose six inches from the top.

Torkan turned to Mallik with a puzzled expression when nothing happened. “Now what?”

“Turn the lion heads a quarter turn clockwise.”

Torkan did as instructed. When they reached a quarter rotation, there was an audible click, and they sank back into the pillar.

At the same time, the water in front of the path began to recede. In a few seconds, waterfalls were cascading over the top of two parallel stone walls that rose from the bottom, four feet apart on either side of the path. An unseen hole was draining the trench between the temporary dams. It looked as if the Red Sea were parting.

Soon it was clear that the path didn’t continue to the opposite bank. Instead, it led down to stairs that disappeared into a tunnel.

“Come on,” Mallik said as he stepped onto the wet stairway. “We’ll only have a minute when the water is completely drained. A float causes the outlet to be plugged again, and the water flowing over the dams will refill the opening quickly.”

He continued down the steps, followed by Torkan, until he reached the bottom level twenty feet below. They walked through a small foyer and then back up a few stairs to a corridor where a stone barrier was rising at the same rate as the water was filling the foyer. Soon the barrier would dovetail into a groove in the ceiling and seal off the corridor. A pillar identical to the one outside stood next to the moving wall.

“Is this how all the entrances work?” Torkan asked as the light from the exterior began to dim.

“I don’t know,” Mallik replied, activating the light on his cell phone to use as a flashlight. “In all my years as a member of the Nine, I’ve never been through another entrance.”

Torkan lit up his own phone, illuminating thousands of years of torch smoke caked on the ceiling, and they walked down the silent tunnel that seemed to stretch into infinity.

It took ten minutes before they saw a faint light that intensified until they reached a well-lit metal gate. A guard carrying an assault rifle was standing on the other side. No ID was requested. The guard recognized Mallik immediately and ordered the gate raised.

Mallik knew every inch of the fort’s interior and led Torkan through

a confusing series of corridors until they arrived at an archway decorated with another swastika. Two armed guards stood outside at attention.

Mallik and Torkan entered the center chamber of the fort directly under the domed stupa. A circular mahogany table sat in the middle. All but one of the nine seats were already occupied, and Mallik took the empty one. A single person stood behind every one of the Nine, since each could bring a lone companion into the Library with them.

Jason Wakefield was seated on one side of Mallik, and Lionel Gupta on the other. Wakefield, who seemed fully recovered from the fake kidnapping attempt that Mallik had set up, shook his hand, then nodded at Torkan. Gupta, on the other hand, didn’t even turn to greet him.

Xavier Carlton, who was sitting on the other side of the table with his assistant, Natalie Taylor, behind him, said, “Romir, good to see you.”

Mallik looked around the room, surprised to see that he was the last to arrive. He patted his pocket to reconfirm that the glass vial was still there. “Am I late?”

“Not at all. We just sat down. I was just introducing our newest member to the rest of the Nine.”

Carlton nodded at Pedro Neves, a Brazilian whose father had passed away six months ago. His family had been gifted with the scroll on diseases and now owned one of the biggest biotech companies in the world.

“Pedro, this is Romir Mallik,” Carlton said. “Bestowed with the cosmogony scroll and now heavily involved in the space industry. And you already know Gupta and Wakefield, who received the alchemy and communication scrolls, respectively.”

Carlton continued with the introductions. Boris Volanski was a Russian who’d inherited the physiology scroll, which had been the basis for the development of martial arts. Volanski now headed a military contracting firm in Moscow.

The last three of the Nine were Daniel Saidon, a Malaysian whose family had built Saidon Heavy Industries, based on the gravity scroll, and owned the Moretti Navi shipyard, where the Colossus ships were built; Melissa Valentine, an American who was the only woman in the Nine and CEO of an internet search firm developed after her ancestors had been given the scroll on the mysteries of light; and Hans Schultz, a banker from Switzerland, who held the scroll on sociology.

“Now that the pleasantries are concluded,” Carlton said, “I have a distinctly unpleasant matter to bring up.”

Mallik’s hand went to the vial again. Something was definitely wrong here. He could sense Torkan tensing behind him.

“As you all know, except perhaps Pedro, our colleague Boris Volanski is quite involved in the Russian arms and mercenary business and provides all of the security for the Colossus Project. In speaking with him earlier today, he gave me some disturbing information. Boris?”