The Messiah Secret - James Becker [126]
‘Your lives are irrelevant,’ Killian shouted. ‘What you’re trying to do here could damn your immortal soul for all eternity.’
‘That’s the kind of thing I mean,’ Masters said mildly. ‘Definitely Old Testament.’ He turned to Cross. ‘If that idiot says anything else, put a round through his stomach then throw him outside. He’s starting to give me a headache.’
‘Pleasure,’ Cross murmured. He swept Killian’s legs from under him and aimed his pistol downwards. ‘Just give me a reason,’ he said.
‘We think it slides,’ Angela said. She gave Killian a withering glare, then walked across to stand beside Masters. ‘Chris found grooves cut in the floor and ceiling.’ She pointed towards the edge of the stone wall.
‘Got it,’ Masters said. ‘So we need to lever on the left-hand side, I guess, to start it moving.’
‘There’s a crowbar on the floor by the wall,’ Bronson said, not loosening his grip on Donovan’s collar. ‘And if you look in my rucksack, Angela, you’ll find a couple of big screwdrivers as well.’
‘I like a man who comes prepared,’ Masters said, as Angela handed him the bag.
‘We were expecting some kind of tomb,’ she said, ‘not a wall made of solid stone. I don’t know if a crowbar’s going to be enough to shift that.’
‘They must have mounted it on rollers,’ Bronson said. ‘Nothing else makes sense. Once it’s started moving, it should be fairly easy to shift.’
‘Yeah, the trick is gonna be gettin’ it started.’ Masters gestured to Cross. ‘Here, John. You’re stronger than I am. I’ll watch the priest. You wanna try gettin’ this sucker open?’
As Cross picked up the crowbar and started tapping the stone wall, working out where to insert the end of the tool, Bronson looked at the expressions on the faces of the people in the cave. Donovan was quivering with what he guessed was a mixture of fury and anticipation, while Killian glowered with impotent anger against the far wall. Between them, Masters and Angela stood together, studying the stone wall with cool appraisal.
‘There’s a kind of notch just here,’ Cross said. ‘Reckon I can just about get the end of the wrecking bar into it.’
There was a metallic scraping sound as he rammed the end of the crowbar into the narrow gap he’d found in the rock, then a deep grunt as he heaved on the end of the tool.
‘Nothing,’ Cross said. ‘No movement at all. You sure there’s no lock or anything, nothing jamming it?’
‘There were some stones wedged under the right-hand side,’ Bronson offered, ‘but I thought I’d shifted all of them.’
Masters turned to look at Bronson. ‘Keep that pistol, but I think you might as well turn Donovan loose. He won’t cause you any trouble.’
Bronson released his grip gratefully, flexed his fingers and stood up. He tucked the pistol into the waistband of his trousers, then moved forward to stand beside Angela.
‘Just thinking about it from a mechanical point of view,’ he said, ‘it would make sense if they had done something else to lock the door in place. The last thing they would want would be for an earthquake to shake it open.’
He leaned forward and spent a few minutes running the tips of his fingers over the old stone. On the right-hand side of the door he felt something, and stepped back to see it from a distance.
‘Yes, that could be it,’ he murmured, pointing at a roughly oval-shaped mark on the stone about six feet off the ground. ‘That could be the end of a stone wedge, driven right through the door and then trimmed off flat on this side. It seems to be made of the same stone as the door itself, but the grain, or whatever the correct term is for the marks inside rock, goes the wrong way.’
He picked up the hammer and chisel, strode across to the stone wall, placed the end of the chisel against the oval mark and smashed the hammer on