Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [116]
‘They’re firing at the Hanging Gardens of Babylon!’ Pooh Bear exclaimed. ‘Have Americans no respect for history!’
Moments later, they emerged from the same bore-hole at the lowermost tip of the stalactite, having slid all the way down it with their hands and feet braced against its walls.
West jumped down onto the peak of the ziggurat, snapped round to check on the progress of Avenger’s fleeing Israeli team.
‘Jesus, no. . . ’ he breathed.
He spied Avenger and four of his men just as they disappeared through an exit tunnel at the far end of the supercavern, having navigated the quicksand lake and the well on that side.
Stretch wasn’t with them.
Nor was Lily.
And then West saw the well.
Peering under its canopied stone roof, he could see that the hexagonal well was just then overflowing with quicksand— completely filled.
‘Oh, no. No. . . ’ West stared at the scene in horror.
Worse still, at that very moment, two American Black Hawk helicopters were landing on the star-shaped paths surrounding the well.
Troops charged out from the choppers, converging on the well from opposite sides.
Marshall Judah himself stepped out of one of the choppers, directing the operation.
‘Oh, Lily. . . ’ West breathed, frozen, stunned.
At the hexagonal well, a CIEF trooper called to Judah: ‘Sir, you better come and see this.’
Judah strode to the edge of the well.
And he was surprised by what he saw.
There, pressed right up against the roof-bars of the cage inside the well—her face upturned, with only her mouth and nose and eyes protruding above the surface of the quicksand pool that now filled the well, breathing shallowly and desperately, her lips puckered, was Lily.
Judah wondered how on God’s Earth she had got into this lifesaving position.
The cage—and the well—must have been at least twelve feet deep. Caught in the grip of the sand, she could never have reached up and grabbed the cage’s roof-bars and lifted herself out—
There must be someone else in there, he figured. Holding her up.
Then Judah saw it.
But only barely, it was so small.
He saw the tip of a gunbarrel protruding a centimetre above the surface of the quicksand pool right next to Lily’s upturned face. It was the tip of a sniper rifle’s gunbarrel—an ultralong Barrett M82A1A sniper rifle.
Only this gunbarrel was not being used for its original purpose.
It was being used as a snorkel by whoever was holding Lily up from below!
It wasn’t until he had the well-trap reset and drained of quicksand that Judah fully appreciated the scene underneath Lily.
As the quicksand drained away, he beheld Stretch, standing on top of the statue of the winged lion that itself stood in the centre of the well, his own face upturned, breathing through the barrel of his disassembled Barrett sniper rifle, with Lily balancing on his shoulders in a perfect ballet toe-pose!
Stretch had indeed made his decision.
It would turn out to be a very good one, but for another reason entirely: for Judah would take him and Lily away alive.
Avenger and his team of Israeli commandos would not be so lucky.
For at the secret rear entrance to the Hanging Gardens, an American CIEF squad led by Cal Kallis was waiting for them.
And Kallis had strict orders not to be merciful.
Avenger and his Israelis—thinking they had got away with the Piece—emerged from the underground tunnel system to see their extraction helicopter lying nearby, charred and smoking, destroyed, its pilots shot dead.
They also found themselves surrounded by Kallis’s team.
The Israelis were quickly disarmed. Then, slowly and deliberately, Cal Kallis executed them all himself—one by one, shooting each man in the head, killing Avenger last of all, smiling meanly the whole time. This was the kind of thing Kallis enjoyed.
Then he took the Piece from their dead hands and flew away, leaving the corpses for the desert birds to feast upon.
And so West watched, helpless, as Lily and Stretch