The Sacred Vault_ A Novel - Andy McDermott [177]
‘You do the honours, love,’ Eddie told her. She glanced at the guard for any signs of treachery, but the only thought in his head appeared to be the very real concern that a bullet might go through it. Shrugging, she pushed the button.
Yellow warning lights flashed, and a low mechanical drone filled the corridor. With surprising speed for its size, the door smoothly swung outwards, revealing that it was over two feet thick. Beyond it, oddly, was darkness: Nina had expected to see some sort of control room. ‘That was . . . kinda easy.’
‘It’s a bunker, not a bank vault,’ Eddie replied. ‘You don’t want to wait five minutes to get inside while there’s a nuclear missile on its way.’
‘Good point.’ She looked at the guard. ‘What about him?’
Eddie cracked him sharply on the forehead with his gun. The man slumped to the floor. ‘What about him?’
‘The subtlety phase was pretty short-lived, I see.’ She stepped through the door into the chamber beyond.
Even without lights, she could tell it was large, her footfalls soaked up by the space. A small bulb beside the doorway illuminated another control panel. A bank of what looked like light switches was topped by a button marked Main L; she pushed it. With a clack, the overhead lights came on. She turned . . .
Her assumption that the Khoils were using the Cold War bunker as an operations centre had been wrong. They had found a more spectacular use for it - the chamber had been turned into their own personal museum, a display of some of the world’s greatest treasures. Eddie moved past her to investigate some doors in the far wall, but Nina’s eyes were only on its contents.
The statue of David dominated, but the marble figure was surrounded by other artefacts of equal - perhaps even greater - value. A quartet of terracotta warriors stood guard on each side, stolen from the vast archaeological dig at the tomb of the First Emperor in Xi’an. Before them, mounted on a stand, was a sculpted piece of polished silver standing roughly four feet high. At its centre, an oval orifice contained a large piece of what appeared to be dark glass. The Black Stone, the sacred Muslim artefact set into place in Mecca by Muhammad himself.
She recognised numerous other treasures as she entered the bunker. The Standard and Mantle of Muhammad stolen from Topkapi Palace in Turkey, the Antikythera mechanism from Athens . . . There were even artefacts she didn’t recognise, which the Khoils had presumably decided met their personal criteria for ‘protection’ - a painting on silk of a woman in feudal Japanese dress; some kind of stone altar carved with an unfamiliar script—
‘Holy shit!’ she gasped.
Eddie returned from his explorations, having found extensive living quarters beyond one of the doors. He regarded the incredible collection. ‘Took the words right out of my mouth. Not a bad lot at all.’
‘No, I mean - look at this,’ she said, hurrying to one item on the periphery of the display. A crude figurine, carved from an odd purple stone . . .
‘They nicked Prince out of your office?’ asked Eddie. ‘Cheeky bastards!’
‘It’s not the same one,’ Nina said. The figure was in a different pose from the primitive sculpture discovered in the Pyramid of Osiris. There was nothing to indicate why the Khoils considered it important enough to steal, or even from where it had been taken. It seemed as out of place amongst the incredible treasures around it as its near-twin had in the Egyptian god-king’s tomb . . . but the mere fact of its presence suggested there was more to the figurine - to both figurines - than met the eye.
But it was clear which treasure the Khoils thought most valuable. The centrepiece of the fantastic display was the chest from the Vault of Shiva. It was closed, but Nina found when she lifted the lid that all the stone tablets were still inside. No doubt the ancient texts had already been scanned, translated and analysed by Qexia. The Khoils had what they needed to spread their own warped interpretation of their god’s word.
She backed away. ‘We found everything - so now