by Rob Jones
“Mate!”
“Ry!” Lea said.
“Still alive and kicking,” Ryan said, trying to smile.
The Oracle placed the muzzle of his handgun on the back of Ryan’s skull. “Hand your guns over, or I’ll put a bullet through his head within three seconds.”
Giving his friends an apologetic look, Hawke’s shoulders visibly slumped. “I’m sorry, but we have no choice.”
“A heartfelt apology, I’m sure,” cackled the Oracle.
Massively outgunned, he ordered the team to surrender their weapons. Seeing Nikolai, he wandered over to him and cursed. “The filthy traitor from the monastery.”
“Go to hell, Wolff.”
“No, you’re the one going to hell. I will kill you personally on the Citadel’s altar. My first sacrifice to the gods in their very own temple.”
“I bet you don’t get bored at weekends,” Scarlet said.
“Silence!” he yelled, and then to everyone’s horror he turned to Ali and Mohamed. “My thanks to you both for providing the images of the rings.”
Hawke looked at Ali with disgust. “What?”
An expression of realization spread on Ryan’s face. “I knew it! So they’re the traitors.”
“I don’t understand,” Lea said.
“I do,” Hawke said bluntly. “Back when we packed the gear into the trucks at the chopper landing site. They took the rings away to admire for a few minutes and that’s when they must have taken the pictures.”
“And that’s not all,” the Oracle said, beaming with pride at the deception. “Ali here also told me about the location of Mokrani’s yacht as well. He has been a good servant.”
“I’m so sorry, Joe,” Ali said.
“But why?” Hawke demanded.
“The money. I have massive gambling debts.”
“But we’re paying you a million dollars!”
“And he’s paying me ten million,” Ali said.
“Wrong,” the Oracle said. “I am paying you something much more valuable than a mere ten million dollars. I am paying for your journey into the afterlife.”
He raised his submachine gun and aimed it at the two brothers.
“No!” Lea screamed.
It was too late. The rounds raked through Ali and Mohamed as if they were made of butter, and dropped both their corpses to the floor, dead on arrival.
“My God!” Zeke said.
The Oracle smiled. “They betrayed you. They were scum. Now, you take us through that door to the three gates,” the Oracle said, his voice calm and in command. “And when we get there, you will pass through them first in order to ensure they are safe. Then, I will take what has been rightfully mine for several thousand years.”
*
Passing through the temple’s other door, they entered another world of twisting tunnels and caves. Stalagmites and stalactites turned harmless caverns into snapping jaws, and the drip-drip-dripping of underground water reminded them of a ticking clock, counting away the last few moments of their lives.
The tunnel took them into the center of the mountain, and the walk was long and arduous. Winding tunnels, narrow ledges giving way to bottomless chasms and eerie underground lakes became their universe for the next hour. Exhausted and almost broken by the mission, Ryan tripped and slumped down against the side of a boulder, his legs collapsing beneath him. He searched through his bag for his water and took a long drink. “I’m about ready to drop.”
“You just did drop,” Scarlet said, glancing over her shoulder at their captors.
“Why is my pack getting heavier?” Lexi sighed and dropped her bag to the sandy ground before collapsing beside Ryan. She snatched his water and took a drink.
“Hey!”
“Mine ran out back there, boy.”
“That’s my nickname for him,” Scarlet said, grabbing the same water bottle from Lexi’s hands and finishing it off. “Anyone else using it is just taking the piss as far as I’m concerned, right boy?”
“I’m too tired to argue.”
Absalom walked over and kicked Ryan’s legs hard. “Get up.”
Hawke pushed the Athanatoi monk away, but his show of resistance was met by the sound of multiple cocking handles and the sight of half a dozen submachine gun muzzles. “Back up!”
He followed the orders, hauling Ryan up as he went. Lexi staggered up after him. Hawke never said it, but he was concerned by what the trek had taken out of the team. As a former SBS man, he knew that the most common end result to a long, forced-march through tough terrain was usually a bloody gun battle, or even a hand-to-hand, close-quarter knife fight, but Ryan looked like he was just about ready for bed. When it was time to take out the Athanatoi things were going to get nasty. Was his team up to it?
“Move on!” Ignatius yelled.
Another lengthy march down the sloping incline as they moved deeper inside the range, all the time covered by the small arsenal in the hands of the Athanatoi at their backs.
“Wait!” Ryan called out. “I see something up ahead.”
“He’s right,” said Qasim. “It’s another giant tablet.”
They approached the ancient warning.
“What does it say?” Lea asked.
Ryan stepped forward, Qasim a step to his right.
“It’s describing the three challenges, but the word they’re using literally translates as gates, as Qasim here read earlier.”
“Challenges?”
“Three trials that must be navigated successfully before we can access what they’re calling the Way of the Gods. The first of the three gates is called the Heart of the Gods, the second is called the Mind of the Gods and third is called the Eye of the Gods.”
“This is getting too real for me,” Zeke said. “What the hell are we doing in this place? We have no idea what we are doing, or what we’re going to find inside this mountain!”
The Oracle stepped forward, scowling. “What do we have to do, Bale?”
“Drop dead,” the young man said.
Absalom delivered a solid back-slap and knocked him off his feet.
“Bastards!” Lea said.
Ryan crawled back up. Hawke clamped a hand down on Ryan’s shoulder. “What does the first one say, mate?”
With a look of hatred at the Oracle, Ryan and Qasim began translating the second tablet in the ghostly light of the glowsticks and flashlights. Beside it, three narrow stone archways led to nothing but darkness.
“The first gate is the Heart of the Gods,” Ryan said at last, looking at Qasim for conformation. The Iraqi archaeologist nodded hurriedly, and Ryan carried on as he walked closer to the archways. Pointing to the carved symbols above each one, he said, “The symbol above this archway means something similar to library, the one above this one means temple, and the one above this one means school.”
“What else?”
“There’s a riddle here,” Qasim said. “It says something like, There is a room which you enter blind and leave with sight. What is it?”
“We want the temple,” Ignatius said curtly. “You go into a temple seeking enlightenment from the gods, and you get that through prayer.” Pushing Ryan out of the way, he stepped through the archway and turned to call the others to follow him. “This way!”
“No!” Ryan yelled, but it was too late.
A trapdoor covered in dust and dirt, impossible to see before, now gave way and sent the Athanatoi cultist tumbling down into a pit of such blackness, none of them had ever seen anything like it before.
The Oracle and the rest of his acolytes started with a jolt and readied their weapons. “What the hell just happened?”
“Your man tried to go to the temple,” Lea said. “And it didn’t work out too well.”
His screams were still audible. “Mon Dieu,” Reaper said. “He has been falling for ten seconds and we can still hear his terror. That pit must be hundreds of feet deep.”
“And completely impossible to go around as well,” Hawke said.
> “We don’t want to go around it,” Ryan said. “This riddle gives us the answer, and it’s not a temple.”
“What is it, mate?” Hawke said with a grin.
“School.”
The Oracle peered down into the pit. “And you’re certain?”
“Yes, because it’s an old Sumerian riddle, am I right, Qasim?”
The Iraqi grinned. “Yes, you are. I recognized it too. Not surprising considering that we now know the Sumerian civilization inherited everything they knew from this one.”
“If you’re so sure,” the Oracle said. “You go first. Seems to me that a library is also a room that can enlighten you.”
“I said it’s school,” Ryan said angrily.
The Oracle lifted his gun. “Then, time to go to class.”
Ryan took a deep breath and walked to the arch marked school.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
As soon as Brandon McGee regained consciousness, he knew one of his ribs was broken. His years as a wingback back in college football meant he was no stranger to the pain now radiating through his abdomen, only this time there would be no coach rushing to his aid with a stretcher to fix his broken bones. Instead, he received another hefty kick in his stomach, delivered by a steel toecap boot on the end of an unknown thug’s leg.
He held the grunt in as much as possible. No sense letting these bastards know they could hurt you. Somewhere to his right he heard Alex gasp in pain and scream let go of me! He heard the sound of struggling and kicking, and then another scream. Alex’s voice again. Then the sound of an engine starting up. Sounded like they were in the back of some kind of SUV. Probably a Cadillac Escalade, he thought. They had knocked him out back at the White House so he had no idea of his exact location.
He called out in the darkness. “Are you okay, Alex?”
“Where are you taking me?” She sounded frightened, and who could blame her?
“Shut your mouths!”
Chaos reigned inside the back of the SUV. Like he guessed everyone else was experiencing, the nylon sack over McGee’s head was blinding him to movements of the enemy. Now, heard a muffled punch and then Alex’s voice a third time as she cried out in pain.
“You sick son of a bitch!” he called out. “You hit a woman with a bag over her head?”
“Not just women,” the low voice grizzled. McGee felt a solid punch pile drive into his stomach and he grunted in pain as he slumped to the floor.
“Jesus, we’re in trouble…” he mumbled.
“Where’s my father?!” Alex said.
“I told you to keep it down!” a voice said.
“This is treason!” McGee called out.
“No, President Brooke is the traitor.”
McGee kept his mouth shut. No point giving men like this an excuse to beat you, because they would beat you hard and have no problem sleeping at night. He didn’t recognize any of the voices now, so they weren’t Secret Service personnel. He guessed soldiers from the rougher neck of the woods, maybe some sort of Special Ops guys Muston had dug up from a black project somewhere.
Either way, his job was still clear: protect the First Daughter at all costs, and if he got shot and killed there was no way he could do that. Keep it zipped, stay calm, remember your training and wait for the right moment, because sooner or later these guys would slip up and give him a chance.
Bide your time, Brandon.
Bide your time.
*
Alex heard the men piling into Brandon McGee and screamed for them to stop. They did, but so did her friend. He’d been silent for a long time and she was worried they’d knocked him out or even killed him. No way to tell under the nylon hood, she gently called out to him but there was no response.
The SUV turned corners, accelerated and slowed. She was on the floor of the vehicle, and no sign of her chair anywhere. She felt vulnerable and cared. No way to know where they were going either, and no way to know if her father was still alive. Surely they wouldn’t murder the President? Her mind pulsed with fear as she struggled to cope with the events of the day. -How had any of this happened?
*
A few meters ahead of Alex and McGee, Jack Brooke was also in the back of an Escalade with a bag over his head and his hands cuffed behind his back. His mind raced. What had happened today was almost impossible to believe. Davis Faulkner, the man he had chosen to run as his Vice President and the man he had trusted as a safe pair of hands in the White House if something had ever happened to him had betrayed him in the worst possible way. He had effected a coup d’état against his administration and seized power. He had stormed into the Oval Office with a dozen heavily armed goons at his back and arrested him on trumped up charges of treason.
It was ridiculous, but worse than any of that was Alex.
That son of a bitch Faulkner had threatened the life of his daughter and scared the hell out of her as he hunted her around the Residence. For the coup, he would pay with his freedom, but for what he did to his daughter he would pay with his life.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Ryan had never felt so nervous in his life, but when he passed under the ancient stone archway he knew at once in his heart he had made the right decision. The ground was solid with no trapdoors in sight and when the Oracle was also sure, he had the rest of the ECHO team march beneath the arch just to make sure.
Another lengthy trudge through a tunnel with their heads full of thoughts of escape, and they reached a spiral staircase built into the rock, twisting down into the darkness until the stone steps eventually vanished from view. They looked heavy and solid, but where they led was another question. The thought of stumbling and falling over the edge into the abyss made Hawke and the others debate the sanity of not finding another route.
“There’s no other way,” Ryan said. “This is it. This is the pathway to the second gate. The tablet was clear.”
Hawke pulled a glow stick from his pack. He bent it in the middle, cracking the vial inside and mixing the hydrogen peroxide and diphenyl oxalate until a warm amber light began to glow. He dropped it down into the void, and watched with the rest of his team as it fell through the air and disappeared. “Anyone hear it hit the bottom?”
“Not me,” Lea said.
“Nor me,” said Ryan.
“Then it’s a drop of literally hundreds of meters!” Lexi said.
“We’ve been through worse,” said Reaper.
“Yeah, think of all those hours trapped in a pressurized aircraft cabin with Ryan,” Scarlet said, this time offering the young hacker a wink.
He returned the favor by blowing her a kiss. “Thanks, darling.”
“Hey, that’s my line!”
“Enough talking!” Absalom said. “And more walking. Get going down the steps, now!” He slid the bolt on his compact machine pistol and raised it until it was pointing at Hawke’s face. “You go first, hero.”
Hawke lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, take it easy, mate. I can take a hint just like anyone else.”
With the rest of ECHO behind him, plus Qasim at the back, he started down the steps, acutely aware of the lack of any rail or rope, carefully selecting his footing before moving onto the next step. One slip and it was all over, and he hadn’t come this far to die on the final furlong.
With only the artificial lights from their flashlights and glow sticks, they moved carefully in the darkness as they followed the curving steps down into the depths of the earth. After a few minutes of walking in circles down the spiral steps, Hawke called out from the front of the line. “I see the glow stick now – it’s faint but definitely there.”
Lea peered down over the steps and squinted. “Why is it so pale?”
“Probably under water,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.”
They reached the bottom another quarter of an hour later. Hawke had been right – there was a pool of water around the bottom of the steps and the glow stick was at the bottom now, covered in silt.
“Look!” Rya
n pointed into the dark, sweeping his flashlight across another chamber, much bigger than the first. This time there were seven archways, each adorned with its own intricately carved symbol on the keystone.
“It’s the second gate,” Ryan said. “Another tablet and another riddle.”
The Oracle shoved him closer to the wall with the stock of his weapon. “Read it.”
Ryan closed his eyes and counted his rage away before turning his attention to the next tablet. “It’s similar to the first, but harder… much harder.”
“What is it?”
“It’s mathematical, I think. Do you agree Professor?”
Qasim leaned in and peered at the carvings. “I think so, yes. These are numerals, and that means this is out of my field.”
Lea looked at Ryan, her eyes heavy with hope. “But not out of your field, right Ry?”
Ryan scratched his chin, before he could reply. The Oracle walked forward again, flanked by his Athanatoi guards. “You had better hope not, Bale.”
“I can do it, I think,” he said with a heavy sigh. “But it’s not going not be easy. “I think we’re looking at something to do with ring theory.”
Lexi laughed bitterly. “What is it with these guys and damned rings?”
Hawke rubbed his eyes and stared at Ryan in the gloom. “Ring theory, mate?”
He nodded. “In maths we have something called algebraic structures.”
“And here we go again,” Scarlet said, turning to Salazar. “Got a cigarette?”
“Shut your mouth.”
“Fair enough.”
“Algebraic structures?’ Hawke asked.
“It’s hard to explain to…” he changed tack when he saw the look on Scarlet’s face. “It’s a tricky subject. Let’s just say that there are various structures such as lattices, fields, groups and rings. It gets more complex still with vector spaces but we don’t have to go there now.”
Scarlet sighed in mock disappointment. “Damn it.”
