Mac pointed at the wall. “But what the captain wrote there at the end? What was that all about?”
Gray stared up at the inscription. “It sounds like Hunayn rigged some sort of failsafe into the city’s systems. Not only to shut it down, but to destroy it entirely, if anyone dares trespass here again.”
Kowalski pointed back to the tunnel. “Then let’s not do that.”
Gray tamped down his burning curiosity and agreed. “We should head back.”
With a relieved exhalation, Kowalski scowled at the dark city. “Let’s hope we’re not already too late.”
37
June 26, 6:15 P.M. WEST
High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
Elena was imprisoned on yet another boat.
She stood in the little cabin of an aluminum cruiser beached at the side of a shallow river. She shared the space with another captive, the riverboat’s captain, a young woman in coveralls and a cowboy hat. The stranger kept her arms crossed and a deep scowl fixed on her face.
They were both guarded by Kadir, who stood outside the door at the stern. He was dressed in black Kevlar armor, including a helmet, and carried a massive assault rifle, a weapon equipped with an under-barrel grenade launcher. He also had a machete strapped to his back.
In addition, another two soldiers of Mūsā—a Son and a Daughter—flanked the boat’s bow at the water’s edge, armed with submachine guns. Those two mostly kept watch on the nearby cliff, likely disappointed to be left behind during the coming assault.
Elena stared through the cabin’s front window, watching Nehir lead twenty or more soldiers toward the cliff, her entire battalion—except for those left to guard the prisoners.
And one other.
Monsignor Roe stood in the cabin doorway. He clutched the keys to the riverboat in one hand, which the other captive—a woman named Charlie Izem—kept a close eye on. Roe ignored the captain’s attention, his gaze focused on the cliff face. He was likely frustrated to be stuck in the rear, having to wait to see what was discovered.
Elena glared over at him, wanting an answer. “How did you know the others were here? Who signaled you?”
Roe sighed and faced the cabin. “Actually, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you, Dr. Cargill.”
“Me?”
“You helped Joseph Kowalski escape.”
“I don’t understand, what does—?”
“A tracker was secretly implanted in his leg, when the medical crew tended to the burn in his thigh.” Roe gingerly touched the bandage under his thin shirt. “Trust me, with all that pain, he would not have noticed the injection of the implant. Probably thought it was antibiotics or pain relievers.”
Elena pictured the bandage around Joe’s thigh. She had thought herself so clever to hide the bronze rods in the folds of his wrap. But apparently, she wasn’t the only one who thought to use his injury to their secret benefit.
“We lost track of Mr. Kowalski when he ended up in the water, blocking the implant’s transmission. After that, he managed to flee beyond the tracker’s range. So, we temporarily lost him.” Roe turned again toward the cliffs. “Until now.”
Elena sank back against the bridge of the cabin.
If Joe hadn’t escaped . . .
Charlie filled the silence, “You are a priest, non,” she said. “Why is it you help these bâtards?”
Roe frowned at her, casting his gaze up and down, trying to judge if she was worthy of an answer. “I am not merely a priest, as you say. I serve the Thomas Church. We are those among the faithful who adhere to the adage seek and ye shall find. Which means we refuse to sit passively by. Instead, our members actively seek the path that God has chosen for us, as I did.”
“To end the world,” Elena said.
“To lay the fiery foundation for Christ’s return,” Roe corrected. “I have seen the atrocities man commits. To each other. To this planet. For decades, as an archaeologist, as a historian, as a prefect of the Church’s most secret library, I have observed and recorded mankind’s decline. I’ve watched it grow worse. The end is near. Can’t you feel it? The madness, the cruelties. I refuse to sit idly by and wait. I intend to live long enough to see Christ’s righteous return, when the world will be cleansed of impurity and depravity.”
Charlie crossed her arms, “Ah, oui, so you are impatient then. That is your answer.”
Elena had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing. She enjoyed the look of dismay on the monsignor’s face, which quickly grew to anger, forcing Roe to turn away with a huff.
Charlie mumbled under her breath. “It seems better to fight for humankind than to lie down and wait for God to save us.” She glanced to Elena. “N’est-ce pas?”
Elena nodded. That’s indeed so.
But others did not agree with this assessment.
Elena turned toward the cliff, noting small black figures ascending it. She prayed Joe and his friends found somewhere to hide, even if it meant venturing beyond the gates of Hell.
Because she knew one thing for certain.
They’re out of time.
6:18 P.M.
Seichan crouched low by one of the bronze doors, near the paw of a giant sculpted dog. Out in the cave, the altar’s basin had faded from a brilliant fiery rose to a dull bruise. Still, the gateway into Tartarus refused to budge. Earlier, she had tried forcing them closed, but the doors were locked down by hidden gears.
Alerted by the scrape of boots on rock, she knew she would have to make a last stand here. If nothing else, she would buy the others as much time as possible to get somewhere safe once the firefight commenced.
And at least I’m not alone.
Strong, thin arms strangled her throat. Aggie remained perched on her shoulder, sensing the danger, or at least, Seichan’s anxiety. Her heart hammered, and fine sweat covered her skin. A minute ago, she had tried to get the monkey to head down the tunnel, but he kept bounding back, sticking close to her.
So be it.
With her eyes adjusted to the dim cave, the sunlight streaming through the stack of boulders was stingingly bright. She spotted a shadow pass through that radiance, heading toward the larger gap.
Then another.
Here we go.
She shifted her pistol higher, leaning her shoulder against the bronze gate to steady her aim. Then she felt a rumble pass through her body, radiating outward from the door. The gun vibrated in her grip.
She straightened, pushing away from the gate.
The pair of doors began to move with a groan of gears.
Finally . . .
She backed up but quickly noted that the gates were closing far too slowly. The others would soon be inside and through the doors if she abandoned her post. She held her ground and pointed her pistol. As soon as the creeping shadows reached the gap in the boulder pile, she fired.
A single round.
But not at the opening.
She hit one of the pots full of Medea’s Oil. The loud gunshot succeeded in driving the intruders away from the cave opening. Unfortunately—as much as she had hoped—the round failed to ignite the explosive load stored in those jars. The pot simply shattered into pieces, dumping a spill of faintly glowing oil across the cave floor.
So, plan B.
Aggie clung even tighter, making it hard to breathe. Seichan retreated deeper into the tunnel to avoid being crushed by the closing doors—which meant she lost her sight line on the cave entrance.
Someone strafed wildly into the space, the rounds ringing off the bronze and ricocheting all around. Seichan ducked low. She blindly returned fire, squeezing her trigger twice, just to keep the others on their toes.
She waited for as long as possible. The two doors were still ten yards apart and closing with an infuriating deliberateness.
C’mon.
Then two dark figures rolled across her view, trying to reach the far side of the cave, planning to set up a crossfire, leaving her nowhere to hide. She didn’t bother firing at them. Instead she grabbed her wat
er bottle, used her teeth to unplug the stopper, and lobbed it like a grenade past the doors and out into the cavern. It tumbled end over end—toward the middle of the glowing pool of Medea’s Oil.
As it flew, she turned, grabbed Aggie to her chest, and sprinted down the tunnel.
The world exploded behind her in a flash of golden fire.
A blast of superheated air slammed into her back and sent her flying headlong. In midair, she scooped Aggie tighter and twisted to the side. She hit the ground with her shoulder and rolled, protecting the monkey with her body.
When she finally stopped tumbling, she spun around.
The gate remained open, framed by a roaring blaze of golden flames and black smoke. But as she watched, the gap between the doors inexorably closed, pinching narrower and narrower, squeezing the flames.
Still, too slowly.
6:24 P.M.
Nehir crouched on a lip of stratified rock, gasping for air that wasn’t on fire. Flames raged in the cave overhead. A boulder tipped over the edge and crashed down the cliff face, coming within a foot of striking her. Stone shards pelted her face as they passed by. The boulder slammed into the other rocks that had been blasted out of the cave in a massive gout of flame and smoke.
Below, four teammates lay crushed and broken beneath the pile. Another three had been inside at the time of the explosion and were surely dead.
She stared up.
Already the worst of the flames had subsided.
Anger—hotter than the fires above—drove her upward. She reached the ledge and peeked into the cave. The heat seared her eyeballs. The hot breath of a dragon, smelling of burnt flesh and oil, swept over her.
Across the cave, lit by multiple flaming pools, movement drew her tortured gaze.
A pair of doors squeezed together at the back.
Then sealed.
She ducked from the heat and pressed her cheek against the cooler stone. So close. She choked down a scream and took four deep breaths. She then shifted her helmet’s radio closer to her lips. She pictured what she needed, crated in the back of the transport helicopter.
“Send over the rocket launcher.”
38
June 26, 6:33 P.M. WEST
High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
On the dark terrace, Gray gave Seichan a brief relieved hug. “You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded and adjusted the monkey clinging to her shoulder. “We both are.”
The others crowded close around them.
A few minutes ago, they had all heard the gunfire. At the first shot, Gray had ordered everyone to stick to the terrace and arm themselves. Gray had immediately taken off down the tunnel as more gunfire erupted. Then a huge fiery explosion brightened the curve of the tunnel, followed by a superheated blast of air. With his heart pounding in panic, he had continued around the bend in the passageway. In the distance, he had spotted a thin line of flaming brightness marking the closing gates into the city. As he ran toward them, they sealed, and darkness fell.
At that moment, despair had struck him like a hammer to the heart, stumbling him to a stop. Then a flashlight had blinked on, revealing a small figure rising from the floor.
Thank god.
On the terrace, he took Seichan’s hand and faced the group. On the way back to the dark city, she had already explained what had happened, what she’d done.
“What now?” Mac asked, cradling a SIG P320 in both his hands.
The others were similarly armed, except for Kowalski. He had their ammunition duffel over one shoulder, but in his arms he carried an AA-12, an Auto Assault combat shotgun. The weapon’s large drum magazine held thirty-two shells, all British FRAG-12s, highly explosive antipersonnel and armor-piercing slugs.
Kowalski had certainly come to play.
Gray motioned back toward the tunnel. “With the gates closed, Seichan has bought us a little time. But we don’t know how much. We need to use that time to search for another way out of here, some back door.”
Bailey nodded. “The Phaeacians would be too smart to trap themselves inside here if their main gates were compromised. There must be another way out.”
“But where?” Maria asked. She waved an arm to encompass the breadth of the dark city. “Who knows how far this place honeycombs out from here? It could be for miles.”
Gray shook his head. “No. If there’s another way out, it’ll be over there.” He pointed across the cavern to the towering palace. “The royalty here would’ve had their own way out of here, somewhere close to them.”
Mac grimaced but agreed. “Sounds about right. And didn’t Hunayn write that the city’s fail-safe system was over there, too?”
“Beyond the palace, where the fires of Hades burn and Titans loom,” Bailey quoted.
Only Kowalski voiced a dissent. “C’mon, guys. Does that really sound like a place we want to go?”
Gray ignored him and got everyone moving off the terrace and down the ramp to the city’s topmost tier. A sprawl of bronze structures at this height created a maze of crooked alleys and narrow, winding streets. But one of the city’s main stairways cut down through the levels and lay only a short distance from the bottom of the ramp.
Gray rushed the others to it.
He pointed down the limestone steps and over to where the gold doors of the palace lay midway up the other side. “Down and up again,” he said. “Maybe half a mile. But we’ll have to move fast.”
“What if we can’t get into the palace?” Mac asked, noting the tunnel at the back of the stairs, sealed tight with a bronze door. “What if it’s all locked up like this?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Gray said. “Let’s go.”
Flashlight in hand, he led the others down the dark steps. The stairway appeared to be a twenty-yard-wide promenade, similar to the other four that divided the city into larger sections. From the shallow ruts worn into the limestone underfoot, the Phaeacians must have traversed these stairs for centuries, their sandals slowly buffing away the rock.
Gray tried to imagine this city alive and bustling with people. Children running up and down these steps. Shopkeepers hawking their wares. Laughing sailors returning after a long voyage, happy to be home.
But Bailey reminded him of a darker side to the city. “Look at all these statues.”
The priest shone his light along the row of shadowy bronze sculptures lining both sides of the steps. Each was twice Gray’s height or more. Focused on the task of reaching the palace, he had given the behemoths little attention.
Bailey splashed the beam of his flashlight across one. It was a figure of a man, down on one knee, leaning on a bronze club. When Gray drew abreast of it, he stared up at the figure’s face. One bronze eye stared back, with a large black gem for a pupil.
“A Cyclops,” Bailey said breathlessly. “And look over there.”
His light shifted to the other side, revealing a hulking bare-chested man with thick legs ending in hooves and the horned head of a bull.
“A minotaur,” Gray acknowledged.
Mac groaned and gave that statue a wide berth, obviously recalling his encounter with something similar back in Greenland.
“It’s like a pantheon of Greek and Roman myths,” Bailey said, hurrying along, noting each as they passed. “That massive bronze eagle could be representative of the bird Zeus sent to torture Prometheus. And look at that huge maiden hugging a jar. Maybe Pandora herself. And that pair of hunting dogs crouched as if in mid-lunge. I bet they’re supposed to be the hounds that Hephaestus forged for King Minos.”
Seichan cradled little Aggie on her shoulder and nudged Gray. She pointed her flashlight at a pair of true giants, twice the size of the other statues. They flanked the steps, each holding bronze boulders in their massive hands. As the two of them passed under their cold gazes, Gray noted the perfect concentric circles of their eyes, the high crown of their head. They had seen those bronze countenances before—only made of stone.
The S
ardinian giants of Mont’e Prama.
Kowalski also seemed to recall them. He whispered as he passed between them, “Elena mentioned Hephaestus making a boulder-throwing giant. One that also burned people alive.”
Bailey drew closer. “You’re talking about Talos. The guardian of the island of Crete.”
Kowalski shrugged. “Sounds right.”
Bailey continued: “Talos was eventually defeated by the sorceress Medea, who used her potions to end his fiery protection of the island.” The priest searched all around, his gaze traveling to the other stairways around the city, all lined by more statues. “It’s as if Greek history has come to life in here.”
Kowalski growled at the priest, “Let’s hope not, Padre. I think we should take that Arab captain at his word and not wake this place up.”
6:48 P.M.
Maria stayed close to Joe’s side as they continued down the stone stairs. “Do you think that’s possible?” she asked the others. “That the Phaeacians were able to craft all of this on their own?”
Gray looked skeptical.
But Bailey’s face shone with little doubt. “I’ve read deeply into the history of ancient automatons and mechanical devices. The Hellenistic era was full of stories of such artificial creations. Built by Hephaestus, designed by Daedalus.”
“But aren’t those just myths?” she asked.
“Most of them, of course. But there were also many historical accounts. Of Greek artisans, engineers, and mathematicians devising incredible self-moving machines. Not just Heron of Alexandria with his magical temple doors, but countless other men and women. Some known, others lost to history. Philo of Byzantia built his own serving maids. Another constructed a mechanical horse that would drink. Even the gates of the ancient Olympic stadium were said to open on their own, with a bronze eagle shooting high into the air and a bronze dolphin diving low.”
Gray still looked unconvinced.
Bailey pressed his case: “The Greeks were far more advanced than most imagine. These were people who were masters of hydraulics, of pneumatics. They invented calipers and cranes, complicated gears and winches, gimbals and pumps. So perhaps the Phaeacians, these seafaring people, gathered such knowledge and built upon it here in safe isolation, these farthermost of men. I could imagine them tinkering, experimenting, building, testing. And if they eventually discovered—by accident or design—a potent fiery fuel source, perhaps it gave them the push to make a technological leap forward.”
The Last Odyssey: A Thriller Page 32
