The Messiah Secret - James Becker [132]
In the cave’s inner chamber, Donovan kicked Killian’s unconscious body to one side and dived across the stone floor. Somebody was in front of him, trying to wriggle through the remaining gap. Donovan reached out, grabbed the man’s leg and pulled as hard as he could.
Bronson felt the tug on his leg and looked back. He could see Donovan right behind him, doing his best to drag him back into the inner chamber, and kicked out. The sole of his foot connected with Donovan’s face, and he lurched backwards, blood streaming from his broken nose, his grip on Bronson’s leg instantly loosening.
Bronson made a final effort and pulled himself through the gap, rolling across the floor of the cave to clear the opening as quickly as possible.
On the other side of the moving door, Donovan thrust himself forward, diving headlong into the narrow space.
‘Nick, help me!’ he shouted as he started to force his way through the gap.
Masters stepped forward and reached down to grab Donovan’s out-stretched arm.
Then the stone door gave a sudden lurch and Masters looked up. The crowbar was starting to bend under the enormous pressure of the moving slab of stone. He grabbed Donovan’s hand and started to pull, but even as he did so he knew it was too late.
Donovan felt an enormous, intolerable pressure on his chest as the stone door started moving again, started closing the gap. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
He felt a snap as the first of his ribs broke, then his chest caved in, a sudden excruciating shaft of agony that seared through his very being. And then he felt nothing at all as the crowbar snapped and the stone slab finally slammed into place, the ancient stone rollers crumbling to dust with the impact, jamming the door closed for another eternity.
70
‘We’re out of here,’ Masters said, as they stepped outside the mouth of the cave. ‘The Indian Army or Air Force are going to be swarming all over this valley lookin’ for whoever blew their shiny Hind gunship out of the sky, so we need to be history before they get here. You gonna be OK?’
‘Thanks,’ Bronson said, shaking the American’s hand. ‘Our truck’s parked down at the bottom of the valley, but I suppose you knew that already.’
Masters nodded and grinned, then turned, his mind already on his exit strategy as he selected a number on his sat-phone.
In the open space outside the cave, Bronson took Angela in his arms and for a few seconds just held her tight.
‘I thought that was it,’ Angela murmured, her cheeks damp from tears of relief. ‘I really thought you’d be crushed by that stone door closing. What do you think happened?’ She turned back to look through the dark mouth of the cave.
‘A clever booby-trap is how I see it,’ Bronson said. ‘When we pushed the slab all the way over to the right, the top of it was resting against another lump of stone. Somehow that must have tripped a trigger of some kind, because that second slab then started moving down, pushing against the first one. That was the noise we heard – the second slab starting to move.’
Before he’d left the cave he’d looked over the right-hand side of the slab. On the far side of the stone door was another rough-cut lump of stone which had clearly forced the slab closed as it pivoted downwards.
‘That’s just like some of the pyramids,’ Angela said. ‘An anti-theft mechanism. Open the first door and something triggers the mechanism. Then gravity does the rest.’
‘I wonder why Yus Asaph’s followers didn’t trigger it themselves, and seal the door using the second slab when they hid the body here?’ Bronson asked.
‘Maybe it would have made it too obvious that something was hidden in the inner chamber. If you knew that there was a secret room in there, you could hack your way through the stone door.’ Angela shuddered against Bronson’s body. ‘Let’s get out of here, Chris. Let’s go home.’
Bronson took her hand, and together they started picking their way over the rutted boulder-strewn surface of the valley down to where they’d left their jeep. Night had fallen, and above them the sky was a black