Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [117]
—at which moment, a wave of gunfire smacked down all around him, from two Apache attack choppers that appeared suddenly from behind the stalactite.
Horus squawked.
West moved too late.
But Pooh Bear didn’t.
And he saved West’s life—yanking him out of the line of fire and down into the square-shaped well-shaft of the ziggurat.
Down on the floor of the supercavern, Judah snapped round to see the cause of the commotion.
He glimpsed the two tiny figures of Pooh Bear and West up on the peak of the ziggurat—saw Pooh pull West down into the well-shaft that descended into the ziggurat, the shaft known as the Priests’ Entrance.
‘Jack. . . ’ Judah whispered. ‘Alas, you’ve served your purpose. You’re no longer a protected species. Time for you to die.’
Judah returned to his heavily-armed Black Hawk, with Stretch and Lily as his captives. The chopper lifted off and zoomed out of the cavern.
It was quickly followed by the other choppers: the Apaches and the Black Hawks. The American troops covering the liquid floor of the cavern also pulled out, exiting through the blasted-open Great Arch.
Once all his people were out, Judah—still eyeing the top of the ziggurat, the last place he had seen West alive—gave his final order.
‘Fire into the stalactite. Bring it down on that ziggurat.’
His pilot hesitated. ‘But sir . . . this place is histori—’
‘Fire into the stalactite now or I will have you thrown out of this
helicopter.’ The pilot complied.
Moments later, three Hellfire missiles lanced out from the missile pod of the Black Hawk, their three matching smoketrails spiralling in toward the giant rock formation. . .
. . . and they hit.
Shuddering explosions. Starbursts of rock and foliage.
And then, a momentous groaning sound as—
—the great stalactite slowly peeled off the ceiling of the supercavern, tilting precariously before . . . it fell away from the ceiling.
It sounded like the end of humanity. The sound was deafening.
Great chunks of rock were ripped away from the ceiling as the upside-down mountain fell away from it and crashed down onto the ziggurat.
The tip of the stalactite slammed down against the peak of the ziggurat and the ziggurat—itself the size of a fifteen-storey building —was just crushed like an aluminium can, compressed horribly downwards, totally destroyed.
Then the great rock formation tipped sideways like a slow-falling tree and splashed down into the quicksand lake on the inner side of the supercavern.
The stalactite hitting the lake had the impact of an aircraft carrier being dropped from a great height into the ocean. An enormous wave of rolling quicksand fanned out from the impact zone, slapping hard against every wall of the supercavern.
Then slowly, very slowly, the stalactite—the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon—came to rest, on its side, half-submerged in the wide quicksand lake, just another broken rock formation in a world of broken things.
Thus, the American force left the foothills of the Zagros Mountains with everything they had come for in their grasp: Lily and the Piece.
And somewhere underneath all the wreckage and destruction they left behind—with no possible chance of survival—were Jack West Jr and Pooh Bear.
FRANKFURT, GERMANY
LUXOR, EGYPT
19 MARCH, 2006
THE DAY BEFORE TARTARUS
MESSE TOWER
FRANKFURT, GERMANY
19 MARCH, 2006, 1500 HOURS
1 DAY BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS
At the same time as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were crashing into oblivion, Wizard, Zoe and Fuzzy were being transported via limousine—under armed guard—from the airfield at Frankfurt Military Base into the city of Frankfurt.
After they’d been captured in Rome, Wizard and his team had been taken by Lear jet to Germany. Having been held overnight at the base on the outskirts of Frankfurt, they were now being taken to the headquarters of the European coalition: the Messe Tower in central Frankfurt.
The Messe Tower is one of the tallest skyscrapers in Europe. It stands fifty storeys high and is known for one singular feature: its peak is a magnificent