Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [105]
Stretch said softly, ‘Lily, you have to understand. I didn’t—’
Avenger grinned. ‘What is this? "Stretch"? Have you been renamed, Cohen? How positively sweet.’
He turned to Pooh Bear.’Alas, everything you say is true, Arab.The last available Piece is to be ours, one Piece of the Capstone that will give Israel all the leverage it needs over the United States of America. Now, Captain West, if you would be so kind. Lead the way. Take us to this Piece. You work for Israel now.’
But no sooner had these words come out of his mouth than there was a great explosion from somewhere outside.
Everyone spun.
West swapped a glance with Pooh Bear.
They all listened for a moment.
Nothing.
Silence.
And then West realised: silence was the problem. He could no longer hear the constant shhh of the waterfall up at the entrance to the tunnel system.
The shooshing had stopped.
And the realisation hit.
Judah had just used explosives to divert the waterfall—the entire waterfall! He was opening up the entrance for a mass forced entry.
In fact, even in his wildest dreams, West still hadn’t fully imagined the scene outside.
The waterfall had indeed been diverted, by a series of expertly-laid demolition charges in the river above it. Now its triple-tiered rockface, criss-crossed with paths, lay bare and dry, in full view of the world.
But it was the immense military force massing around the base of the dry waterfall that defied imagining.
A multitude of platoons converged on the now tranquil pool at the base of the triple-tiered cliff-face. Tanks and Humvees circled behind them, while Apache and Super Stallion choppers buzzed overhead.
And commanding it all from a mobile command vehicle was Marshall Judah.
He sent his first team in from the air—they went in fast, ziplining down drop-ropes suspended from a hovering Super Stallion direct to the top tier of the dry falls, by-passing the paths.
Guns up and pumped up, they charged inside.
From their position at the far end of the quicksand cavern, West and his new group saw the Americans’ red laser-sighting beams lancing out from the entry tunnel, accompanied by fast footsteps.
‘American pigs,’ Zaeed hissed.
But then suddenly—whump—the Americans’ footfalls were drowned out by a much louder sound: the deep ominous grinding of a third sliding stone!
Gunfire. The Americans were firing their guns at the sliding stone!
Shouts.
Then running—frantic running.
Seconds later, the first desperate American trooper appeared on the ledge on his side of the cube-shaped cavern.
He peered around desperately—looking left and right, up and down—and he saw the quicksand floor far below; then he saw the handrungs in the ceiling. He leapt for them—swung from the first one to the second, grabbed the third—
—which fell out of its recess and sent the hapless commando plummeting ten storeys straight down.
The man screamed all the way until—splat!—he landed in the gelatinous floor . . . at which point he starting screaming in a whole new way.
The screams of a man caught in the grip of a force he cannot resist, a man who knows he is going to die.
His five team-mates arrived at the tunnel’s edge just in time to see him get sucked under, his mouth filling with liquid sand. Now trapped on the ledge, they glanced from the deadly handrungs back to the sliding stone, then down to the quicksand.
Two tried the handrungs.
The first man reached the sixth rung—which felled him. The second man just slipped and fell all on his own.
The other three were beaten by the sliding stone.
It burst out of the tunnel behind them like a runaway train and collected them on the way—hurling them all out into the air, sending them sailing in a high curving arc ten storeys down before they all landed together with simultaneous sandy splashes.
As the massive stone itself landed, it smacked one of the American soldiers straight under the surface. The other two bobbed on the gluggy surface for a few seconds before they too were sucked under by the hungry liquid floor.
West and his group saw it all happen.
‘That won