Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly [58]
Suddenly, his earpiece roared to life:
‘Jack! Zoe!’ Wizard’s voice called. ‘You have to hide! Judah’s going to be there any moment now—’
West spun, just as a bullet sizzled out of the entry tunnel behind him and whizzed over his head, missing his scalp by centimetres.
‘You two, that way!’ he ordered Zoe and Lily to the left side of the doorway, while he himself scampered to the right of the stone doorframe, peered back, and saw dark shadows rising up the tunnel, approaching fast.
Decision time.
There was no way he could get to the podium containing the Lighthouse’s Mirror and the Mausoleum’s Pillar before Judah’s force arrived. No way to allow Lily to glimpse their carved incantations.
His eyes scanned the chamber for an escape.
There was some open space on the far side of the island, but it offered no escape: only the wide granite dam that held back the pool of superhot mud lay over there—presumably waiting to be set off by the trigger-stone steps.
And in an instant, it all made sense: the rising tunnel with the clumps of dried mud at its edges, the guttered path in the hall below and the similarly gutter-lined stairs down at the Great Arch: this molten mud, when released from its dam, would flow around the raised island containing the Mirror and Pillar and then down through the Refuge, all the way to the water in the chasm, killing any crypt-raiders in the process and protecting the two Pieces.
The half-bodied Nazi skeletons, melted at the waist, now also made sense: they’d been killed trying to outrun the mud. Hessler himself must have been trapped atop the podium as it had been surrounded by the stuff. He had then died in perhaps the worst way of all—of starvation, in the dark, alone. His buddy, Koenig, must have escaped somehow and trekked across the desert to Tobruk.
Among the many statue alcoves that lined the circular wall of the chamber, West also saw two smaller openings on either side of the main entry doorway.
They were low arched tunnels, maybe a metre high—and elevated slightly above the floor of the chamber by about 2 feet.
West didn’t know what they were, and right now he didn’t care.
‘Zoe! That little tunnel! Get Lily out of here!’
Zoe swept Lily into the low arched tunnel on their side of the doorway, while West himself charged over to the right-hand one and peered down it.
The low tunnel disappeared downwards in a long dead-straight line.
‘No choice,’ he said aloud.
He ducked inside the little arched tunnel—just as Zoe and Lily did the same on the other side of the chamber—a bare second before Judah’s force swept into the holy chamber.
At that exact same moment, four tiny figures were hustling across the superhigh aqueduct bridge that spanned the left arm of the Y-junction.
Led by the frumpy but determined Pooh Bear they looked like a team of tightrope walkers. But they made it across and disappeared into the small metre-high arched tunnel on the far side.
Marshall Judah stepped into the domed chamber and gazed up at the Mirror and the Pillar.
He grinned, satisfied.
His eyes searched the area for West—scanning the many alcoves, nooks and crannies.
No sign of him. Yet.
He called: ‘I know you’re in here, Jack! My, my, twice in two days. Looks like you’ve failed again. . . ’
His men fanned out, searching the chamber, guns up.
West backed down his little arched tunnel, praying that the darkness concealed him.
As he moved, he drew his H&K pistol from his thigh holster and aimed it up the tunnel—when with startling suddenness, a CIEF trooper appeared at the top of the tunnel, gun up!
West’s finger balanced on his trigger—firing might save him momentarily, but it would also give away his position. . .
But the trooper didn’t fire.
He just peered down the tunnel, squinting, searching.
He couldn’t see West . . .
But then the CIEF trooper reached for the pair of night-vision goggles hanging from his belt.
At the same time, in the