The Covenant Of The Flame

He reached beneath his sport coat, pulled out a pistol, and aimed toward Craig.

Tess fired sooner, stitching Fulano's chest with bullets. The direct descendant of the leader of the heretics jerked repeatedly, staggered, and toppled over the side of the pen, lying on the corpse of the great white bull.

But again Tess hadn't been able to control her weapon's recoil. Its barrel heaved upward. Her finger – still on the trigger -reflexively kept squeezing. Propelled, she twisted, and suddenly Gerrard was in her line of fire.

The vice president wailed, holding up his arms as if to shield his chest, but the bullets struck higher, blasting holes across his handsome face, blowing apart his gray eyes. Viscous matter spurted. His head appeared to explode.

Then actual explosions threw Tess on the rocky floor, grenades detonating fiercely at the rear of the chapel. She fought to stand, knowing that there'd be more explosions, and that they wouldn't be in the chapel. They'd be closer. They'd-! She saw a grenade arc through the entrance to the cavern.

Abruptly she felt the breath knocked out of her, a figure hurtling against her, Craig who tackled her and dropped with her, and the next thing, Tess struck the steps to the pit and tumbled down them, Craig twisting over her. She walloped her knees, her back, her skull, and hit the dark bottom, stu

Immediately, as she regained sufficient presence of mind to clamp her blood-smeared hands against her ears, feeling Craig raise his arms and do the same, the grenade erupted with a stu

Immersed in blood, Tess raised her dripping head and listened to the burp of automatic weapons strafe the cavern. Above, there was only darkness, the grenade's rush of air having extinguished the torches.

'I think we finished them,' a husky voice said.

'Make sure,' another voice said.

Tess recognized its deep-throated resonance.

Father Baldwin. We're safe! she thought. She raised her face higher, about to shout to him, when Craig clamped a hand across her mouth and pressed her head down. Her instincts made her want to scream. But her love for Craig made her comply. She understood. He was trying to tell her something.

More important, he was trying to protect her. She acquiesced, slackened her muscles, quit struggling, and nodded. For whatever reason, his motives – however puzzling – were in her best interests.

Heavy footsteps entered the cavern.

'No sign of survivors,' a taut voice said. 'Those that weren't shot or killed by grenades were crushed by rubble.'

'Keep checking!' Father Baldwin ordered.

The Inquisitor's voice was so muffled that Tess realized, her arms around Craig, that slabs of rock had fallen over the bull and Fulano's corpse and had fallen as well over the entrance to the steps that led to the pit.

'Complete kill,' the taut voice said.

A rock toppled.

'But this ceiling's about to collapse.'

'Rig the charges,' Father Baldwin said. 'Everywhere.'

'I've already started.'

'The statue's my priority. I'll set a bomb and blow it to hell. Thank God, at last we found the central nest. There'll be other nests, but this one's the most important.'

'What about the woman and the detective? I still haven't found them.'

'Probably buried beneath the rubble. They might even still be breathing. Five minutes from now, it won't matter,' Father Baldwin said. 'If they're somehow still alive, they'll die when the explosions bring down the ceiling. We owe them a debt. But they can't be allowed to know our secrets. Their reward for their service will be in Heaven. The charges?'

'I just finished.'

'And I just finished planting a bomb at the foot of the statue. Like it, the bodies of the vermin will be blown to hell.'

'Let's go.' The taut-voiced man lunged from the cavern into the chapel.

Other footsteps scurried.

The rest of the charges?' Father Baldwin demanded, his voice receding.

'Ready. We'll need five minutes to get out of the cave. That's how long I've set the timers.'

'Hurry,' Father Baldwin again demanded, his voice even farther away. 'Set more charges as we leave. I want these caverns completely destroyed.'

'No problem. We'll be able to see the fireworks from the bottom of the outside slope.'

A final far-away scurry of footsteps.

Craig removed his hand from Tess's mouth. Their clothing soaked with blood, they squirmed up the steps and reached a slab of rock that lay across the exit. Groping, Craig found a gap and squeezed through, followed by Tess, who scraped her back on the rock. Although the chamber was dark, flames from burning oil in the chapel provided sufficient reflected light for them to be able to make their way through the rubble. Their wet clothes caused them to shiver.

'We have to get out of here,' Craig said.

'How?' Tess hugged her gore-drenched chest. 'Even if we reach the exit before the bombs go off, Father Baldwin's men will shoot us.'

'We can try to dismantle the bombs.'

'No. We'd never find them all.'

'But we can't just stay here and wait to die,' Craig said. There has to be a way to-'

'I just thought of something.' Tess gripped his arm. 'Remember when we entered the cave and Fulano locked the doors. He left three guards outside.'

Craig nodded. 'And if the guards were overpowered, if they didn't respond to a message from a walkie-talkie' – his voice quickened – 'Fulano said we could use another exit. There's another way out of here!'

'And it has to be close!' Tess said, heart pounding.

Craig sank against a rock.

'What's wrong?'

'In the dark, we'll never find the exit.' He suddenly straightened. 'Just a minute. I think I can get us some light. Stay here.'

Desperate, confused, Tess watched him climb over rubble, searching. 'What are you looking for?'

'A body. My clothes are too soaked,with blood. My jacket won't burn.'

'I don't understand.'

'You will. Here. I found a…" Yanking a jacket off a corpse, Craig left the cavern and reached the flames in the chapel. There, he touched one of the jacket's sleeves to a blaze, igniting it. Hurrying, he returned, the fire spreading up the sleeve of the jacket. The grenades knocked over the torches back here and extinguished the flames. But there has to be oil all over the floor. I can smell it.' He dragged the burning sleeve across the floor, trying various places among the rubble, and suddenly flames grew, oil igniting among the fallen rocks.

The flames spread. Tess and Craig backed away. The chamber became illuminated.

'Over there. On the left.' Craig pointed. 'A tu

As the ceiling groaned and more rocks fell, Tess scrambled over the rubble, frantic to reach the tu

'Go slower,' Craig said. 'If you break an ankle…'

'I'm more worried about the bombs.' A section of roof collapsed, its impact thunderous. 'And being crushed.'

They came to the tu

'This is probably where Kelly and his men brought the bull in,' Craig said. The entrance from the chapel is too narrow for the animal to have gotten through. And the bull would have been so difficult to handle that whoever designed this tu

Craig was right. The fire from the oil in the cavern reflected into the tu

The damned thing's locked.' Angry, exhausted, Craig leaned against a wall, blood dripping from his clothes. 'We wasted our time. There's so little left.'