Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [114]
As for himself, West could hang from his mechanical arm longer—but not forever.
‘The Israelis?’ Pooh Bear asked.
‘They destroyed the catwalk. Took the Piece and Lily. We’re stranded.’
‘If I ever catch him, I’ll throttle Stretch,’ Pooh Bear said. ‘You know, for a moment there I actually thought he might have become one of us. But I was wrong. Dirty betrayer.’
‘Pooh, right now, I’d just be happy to get out of here alive.’
The Israeli team charged back down the stalactite, with Lily and the Piece in their possession.
As they reached the tip of the great stalactite, they saw their two rear-guards come running into the supercavern.
‘Sir! The Americans have breached the Giant Stairway! Repeat: the Americans have breached the Giant Stairway! We couldn’t hold them off any longer!’
‘You held them off long enough! We have the girl and we have the Piece,’ Avenger replied, grinning. ‘Meet us at the ziggurat and proceed to the other side. We’re going out that way!’
Stretch ran behind Avenger, saying nothing, his teeth clenched, his eyes vacant and distant, lost in thought.
The Israeli team reached the bottom of the stalactite—just in time to see Zaeed disappear down the square shaft in the top of the ziggurat: the Priests’ Entrance.
Avenger didn’t care.
Although killing the terrorist would have brought him much kudos back home, Zaeed wasn’t his concern here.
He had to get out.
Only then, as he clambered down the A-frame ladder at the base of the stalactite and stepped down onto the ziggurat, he saw the Americans enter the supercavern.
They came rushing in from the Giant Stairway entrance. But it wasn’t the superlarge force of men he was expecting, it was just ten men.
And oddly, they didn’t venture out across the quicksand lake.
No.
Rather, this small group started free-climbing up the sheer wall above that entrance, the wall that had filled in the old Grand Archway.
And there they—
‘Oh, no. . . ’ Avenger breathed.
—started planting explosives, heavy-duty Tritonal 80/20 demolition charges.
The Americans worked fast, laying their charges and then getting the hell out of the way.
The result when it came was as spectacular as it was destructive.
With a colossal series of booms, the demolition charges went off.
The rockwall filling up the Grand Archway of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was ripped apart by twenty simultaneous blasts. Great starbursts of rock sprayed out from it.
But the charges had been directional, forcing the bulk of the debris to be flung toward the outside world. Only a few smaller boulders landed in the quicksand lake.
Giant holes were opened in the rockwall.
Shafts of sunshine blazed in through them.
And daylight flooded into the supercavern for the first time in 2,000 years, illuminating it gloriously—and in the brilliant light of day, the Gardens took on a whole new level of splendour.
Then these many holes collapsed, forming one great 50-metrewide hole and through this opening, following hard on the heels of the sunlight, came the American helicopters, roaring into the supercavern with a fury.
West couldn’t believe what was happening.
First, he’d been left for dead up in the recess by Avenger.
And now he could only watch in stunned awe as the entire cavern beneath him was flooded with light.
Six, then seven, then eight American choppers—Black Hawks and Apaches—banked and buzzed around the immense cavern, hovering above the ancient ziggurat, rising alongside the great stalactite, searching for the enemy, searching for the Piece.
The roar of their rotors in the cavern was deafening, the wind that they generated, swirling.
Then West saw one of the Black Hawks rise up directly beneath him, saw the circular speed-blur of its rotors, and he thought, If I fell now, at least death would be quick.
But the Black Hawk hadn’t seen him and Pooh Bear—it was peering at the stalactite, searching. . .