The Six Sacred Stones

by Matthew Reilly

  Pooh and Astro were pushed up next, then Zoe and last of all, Jack, keeping a watchful eye on the crocs—but thankfully, most of them were preoccupied with eating the corpse of their nowheadless comrade.

  Jack lay on the island, sucking in great heaving breaths.

  “How did—how did you get out?” Alby gasped.

  “There were crocs in the entry tunnel,” Jack said. “They’d got in by another entrance on the other side, a small cleft in the rock that was probably created by a tremor sometime.

  We came out through there.”

  Then Jack propped himself up on his elbow and looked back out over the lake. “Did they head back for Abu Simbel?”

  “Yeah,” Alby said.

  “They took Lily?”

  “And Wizard. Are you angry, Mr. West?”

  West clenched his teeth. “Alby, angry doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling right now.” He keyed his radio. “Vulture! Scimitar! You copy?”

  His radio remained silent. No reply.

  “I say again! Vulture, Scimitar! You guys still at the dock?”

  Again there was no reply. Just silence on the airwaves.

  Jack swore. “Where the hell have they got to?”

  AT THE SAME TIME this was happening, Lieutenant Colin Ashmont’s stolen Zodiac was arriving back at the docks not far from the great statues of Abu Simbel, flanked by two smaller inflatable speedboats—which had been inflated out on the lake and were now filled with the other eleven members of his squad of Royal Marines.

  The first convoy of tourist coaches was just now arriving in a parking lot not far from the docks.

  Tourists of all nationalities piled out of the buses—German, American, Chinese, Japanese—and they variously stretched their legs and yawned.

  Ashmont shoved Lily and Wizard out of the Zodiac, pushing them toward a couple of white Suburbans with tinted windows parked nearby. Iolanthe led the way, striding quickly, all business, carrying West’s rucksack with the Pillar inside it.

  As Lily and Wizard were guided toward the two British Suburbans, some of the tourists from the nearest bus came closer.

  They were classic Japanese tourists—four older men with Nikon cameras slung from their necks and wearing bulky camera vests and sandals with white socks.

  One of the Japanese called to Ashmont: “Halloo, sir! Excuse me! Where statues?”

  Ashmont, now wearing a Tshirt over his wet suit, ignored the man and walked right past him.

  Lily wanted to shout to the Japanese men, to scream—

  —but then she saw the first Japanese man’s eyes follow Ashmont, glinting with purpose, and she suddenly realized that something was very, very wrong here.

  The four old Japanese tourists were arrayed around Ashmont’s cars and team in a perfect semicircle.

  Heart thumping, Lily scanned their faces, and saw only steely eyes and grim expressions.

  And then, fleetingly, she saw the forearm of one of the Japanese men…and beheld atattoo on it, a tattoo she had seen before, a tattoo of the Japanese flag with a symbol behind it.

  “Tank…” she said aloud. “Oh, no. Oh,no …Wizard! Get down!”

  She threw herself into the bewildered old professor, tackling him around the legs, felling him just as the Japanese “tourist” nearest to Ashmont opened his photographer’s vest to reveal six wads of C4 strapped to his chest. Then the kindlylooking little old man thumbed a switch in his palm and he exploded.

  FOUR SHOCKINGLY violent blasts ripped through the air as all four of the Japanese suicide bombers justdisappeared in identical outward sprays of smoke, fire, and body parts.

  The windows of every car in a sixtyfoot radius blew out simultaneously, showering the area with glass.

  Ashmont was hit hardest by the blast. He was flung into the side of his Suburban with terrible force and dropped to the ground like a rag doll.

  Three of his men, those closest to the Japanese suicide bombers, were killed instantly. All the others were hurled every which way.

  Iolanthe was farther away and thus more sheltered from the blast—she was only thrown back fifteen feet by the concussion wave, where she hit the ground hard, banging her head, knocked out cold.

  Tumbling to the ground on top of Wizard, Lily felt a wave of searing heat hit the back of her body—like a slap to her bare skin—then she smelled something burning, but the sensation didn’t last long, because an instant later, she blacked out.

  In fact, the only person to survive the attack completely unscathed had been Wizard—

  thanks to Lily’s lastsecond tackle—which put him below the blast zone.

  His ears ringing, he raised his head, to see Lily lying on top of him, her shirt on fire!

  He wriggled out from under her and quickly used his jacket to extinguish her flaming shirt. Then he picked her up—unconscious and limp—and stood there openmouthed amid the carnage: smoke, the damaged cars, and the bloody remains of Ashmont’s Royal Marines.

  There came a shrill scream, and Wizard spun.

  Thereal tourists in thereal buses nearby had seen the horrific blasts and, fearing a terrorist incident like the one that had occurred at Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple in 1997, stampeded back into their coaches.

  Wizard’s eyes swept the area and landed on Iolanthe and the rucksack on the ground beside her.

  Carrying Lily on his hip, Wizard raced over to Iolanthe’s body and scooped up the rucksack with the Pillar inside it. Then he swung into one of Ashmont’s Suburbans, gunned the engine, and sped out of the lot.

  “Sky Monster! Sky Monster!” Wizard yelled into his radio as he sped away from Abu Simbel, heading south. He had a clear signal. Ashmont’s jamming device must have been destroyed in the suicide blasts.

  “Wizard! Where’ve you been! I’ve been trying to contact you guys for the last twenty min—”

  “Sky Monster, it’s all gone sour!” Wizard blurted. “The British blindsided us and then got blindsided themselves! Now Lily’s out cold and Jack was sealed inside the shrine and Alby, Pooh Bear, and Astro were left to die in the lake with the crocodiles! Oh, Alby—”

  “Alby’s fine,”another voice came in over the airwaves.

  Jack’s voice.

  Jack was walking quickly around the far side of the pyramidal island, skirting its lower edge, followed by the others.

  “He’s with me. So are Pooh, Astro, and Zoe. We’re all safe. What happened, Wizard?”

  Wizard’s voice said,“Four men, Japanese, just blew themselves up near Ashmont’s escape cars at the dock. It was an ambush. They were waiting. It was like they wanted to destroy the Pillar. I’m in one of the British escape cars now, heading south, away from the town.”

  “What about Iolanthe and the Pillar?”

  “She was knocked to the ground, so I took the Pillar. Not sure if she’s dead or not.”

  “OK,” Jack said. “I want you to get as far away from there as you can, to a spot where Sky Monster can grab you. Sky Monster, Stretch: we need you to give us a boatdrop so we can get back to the shore and catch up with Wizard—”

  Sky Monster’s voice came in.“Er, Huntsman, I don’t think that’s going to be possible—”

  Circling in the sky high above Abu Simbel, Sky Monster peered down at the vast body of Lake Nasser and the highway leading into the town from the north. Stretch sat in the copilot’s seat beside him, also gazing down at the landscape.

  “—This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Sky Monster said. “It’s why I’ve been trying to get in contact. Thatsecond convoy we saw earlier is now only about three miles out from the town, approaching fast from the north and it’snot just comprised of tourist coaches. The coaches are cover. It’s a military convoy: rapidstrike cars, armored jeeps, Humvees, and troop trucks. My guess, it’s the Egyptian Army—tipped off by someone.

  They’re gonna hit your town in about four minutes.”

  Sky Monster and Stretch looked down at the highway coming from the north, a thin ribbo
n of black overlaid upon the dull yellow of the desert.

  There they saw the convoy speeding along it.

  Tourist coaches led the way, kicking up a tail cloud of dust behind them as they hit the shoulder of the highway, a cloud that concealed dozens of military vehicles: trucks, Humvees, and machinegunmounted jeeps. All up, the convoy looked like it possessed about fifty vehicles and maybe three hundred men.

  “This is seriously deep shit,” Sky Monster breathed.

  JACK SAID,“OK then. The plan stays the same. Wizard, you run: get out of there; take the highway and head south for the Sudanese border. Sky Monster can scoop you up somewhere down there. We’ll follow as best we can and try to catch up.”

  “Okay…”Wizard said doubtfully.

  Sky Monster said,“Huntsman, standby. I’m sending you two packages. Couple of early Christmas presents.”

  From his rocky island, Jack looked up to see the dark shape of theHalicarnassus bank around in the dawn sky.

  Then he saw the big 747 swing low, barely a hundred feet above the lake, and as it roared by something dropped from its rear loading ramp—something with a parachute attached to it, arresting its fall. Perfectly released, the speeding object landed with a great splash about fifty yards out from Jack’s rocky island.

  As soon as it hit the water, the object sloughed its outer casing and inflated rapidly—

  revealing itself to be a brandnew Zodiac complete with outboard engine.

  “Merry Christmas,” Jack said.

  Minutes later, he and the others were skimming across the surface of Lake Nasser, heading back for the western shore.

  They hit land a few miles south of the massive statues of Abu Simbel, at a remote fishermen’s dock.

  No sooner had the Zodiac slid to a halt on the decrepit boat ramp than a second parachute

  equipped pallet from theHalicarnassus landed lightly on the desert floor a few hundred yards in front of them.

  Sitting on the pallet was a compact Land Rover Freelander fourwheel drive—donated to the Halicarnassus by the British at Mortimer Island—stripped and modified for military work.

  And sitting at the wheel was Stretch.

  “Need a ride?” he asked.

  The Freelander’s tires squealed as the little fourwheel drive shot off the mark.

  Jack sat in the passenger seat while Stretch drove. Piled into the back were Astro, Alby, Pooh Bear, and Zoe—nestled amid a pile of guns and Predator rocket launchers that Stretch had brought along.

  Jack tried his radio again, “Scimitar! Vulture! Come in!” No reply. They were meant to be covering the dock, Jack thought, but Wizard had made no mention of them in his report of the suicide attack. Scimitar and Vulture were suspiciously absent without leave.

  The little Freelander sped across the desert, kicking up a dust cloud behind it, heading for the blacktop highway leading south.

  On that highway, Jack and the others could see the chase at hand: Wizard’s lone white Suburban out in front of the convoy of Egyptian Army coaches, jeeps, trucks, and Humvees.

  “If nothing else,” Jack said to Stretch, “we have to get that charged Pillar out of here safely. The knowledge on it is priceless.”

  “What about gettingus out of here safely?” Stretch asked.

  “Only Lily matters. The rest of us are secondary. If we can’t get out ourselves, we have to get her away. She’s more important than any of us.” He offered Stretch a wry look.

  “Sorry, buddy.”

  “Nice to know where I stand in the scheme of things.”

  Jack nodded at the scene ahead of them: “See that last bus in the convoy, the one trailing behind all the others.”

  “Yeah…”

  “I want it.”

  Wizard drove frantically.

  He gripped the steering wheel of his stolen Suburban with white knuckles, anxiously swinging his eyes between three sources: the road in front of him, the convoy of pursuers behind him, and the passenger seat next to him—in which Lily lolled lifelessly, swaying with every bump in the road, her eyes closed, bloody scratches on her face.

  The chase cars were catching up, filling his rearview mirror. Two fearsomelooking Humvees with gun turrets on their backs were about to pull up on either side of his Suburban.

  “Sky Monster!” he yelled. “Where are you!”

  “Here!”

  Voooooom!

  Without warning, the enormous black underbelly of theHalicarnassus thundered low over the top of Wizard’s car and landed on the highway in front of him, its rear loading ramp folding open as it did so…right in front of Wizard’s speeding car.

  “OK! I’ll slow a little! Bring yourself on board!”Sky Monster’s voice called.

  The big black 747 rolled along the desert blacktop at a cool 80 mph, its wings stretched out over the dusty shoulder, speeding out in front of the collection of cars on the roadway.

  Wizard floored the Suburban.

  It leaped forward, heading directly for the yawning rear ramp of the jumbo.

  At which point, the two Humvees behind it opened fire.

  Bullet sparks exploded all over the Suburban and the plane, even in the hold up inside the loading ramp.

  The rear and side windows of the Suburban shattered. Wizard ducked, shielding his face.

  But he remained focused on the ramp of theHalicarnassus.

  The Suburban began to wobble and slide, but he held her tight and with a final thrust on the gas pedal, he took the plunge and lunged at the ramp…and hit it perfectly…and swooped up into the rear hold of theHali where he slammed full tilt into the forward wall!

  The Suburban jolted to a halt, safely inside.

  “Oh my goodness, I did it…” Wizard exclaimed.

  “Jesus, Wizard, you did it!”Sky Monster said.“Man, I thought you were going to miss by a yard! Nice driving, Fangio…”

  Wizard turned to check on Lily, and he saw her eyes open weakly.

  “Hi there. Nice to see you awak—”

  He was cut off as their car was jolted violently, hit from behind by one of the Egyptian Humvees that had itself charged up the loading ramp after them!

  Wizard was thrown forward, then he snapped round and saw the intruder.

  Instinct kicked in.

  He jammed the Suburban into reverse and hit the gas.

  The Suburban lurched backward and slammed into the unsuspecting Humvee, shunting itback down the ramp and out of the plane, back into the sunshine, where the hapless Humvee hit the road and, its brakes locking, jackknifed sideways and tumbled into a roll.

  Two chase cars managed to avoid it before a third car—a big troop truck—hit it square in the side and finished both of them off.

  “Sky Monster!” Wizard called from the hold. “Pull up that ramp and go!”

  “On it, Wiz!”

  TheHali ’s engines roared louder, firing up for takeoff. At the same time, the loading ramp came up and through the slowly closing aperture, Wizard saw the chase convoy—an angry body of heavily armed vehicles.

  But then just as the ramp was about halfway closed, he saw the convoy split in the middle and allow a Humvee to come to the front: a Humvee with a rocketlauncher pod mounted on its back.

  The Humvee fired—a single lethal rocket streaking out of its pod, and Wizard’s eyes boggled at the thought that the rocket might shoot inside the hold and go off, but instead the missile banked away to the side, darting out of Wizard’s sight.

  He sighed with relief. A miss.

  Only to realize a sickening moment later that it wasn’t a miss at all.

  For right then he heard one of theHali ’s two starboard engines get hit.

  IT WAS A DIRECT HIT—the missile slammed into theHalicarnassus ’s outer starboard engine, causing it to blast out in a thousand pieces and spew a thick horizontal column of black smoke.

  “Fuck me sideways!”Sky Monster yelled, flicking switches, dumping fuel that could be ignited by the exploded engine and cutting all excess lines
so that the fire didn’t spread to the tanks inside the wing.

  He looked out his starboard cockpit window. The engine was a tangled mess of twisted metal and smoke. He’d have to jettison it. Takeoff was still possible, but with only three engines it would be a whole lot harder: they’d need a longer runway.

  The damage had been done.

  The plane slowed.

  And the chase convoy pounced.

  It was an incredible sight.

  A 747 jumbo jet racing down a vast desert highway, pursued by a horde of military vehicles—Humvees, jeeps, trucks, and coaches—all of them rushing along at well over sixty miles an hour, like a pack of hyenas chasing down a wounded water buffalo.

  When they got in range, the chase convoy attacked.

  Naturally, their first strategy was to fire at theHali ’s tires, but the big plane had a set of Kevlar guards shielding them and the bullets just pinged away.

  So the chasers adopted a second, more ruthless option.

  The first chase truck rushed forward and swung in under the lefthand wing of theHali, where it threw off its canvas roof to reveal a platoon of fully armed Egyptian special forces troops.

  They wasted no time employing a standard planestorming technique—they danced up onto their truck’s driver’s cabin and from there leaped up onto the wing at its lowest point, at the spot where it met theHalicarnassus ’s fuselage.

  Sky Monster watched helplessly from the cockpit. “Oh, damn, damn, damn.”

  He went to the window on the other side and sawan entire bus of soldiers swing in under the armpit of the starboard wing with more men climbing up through a hatch onto its roof, readying themselves to storm that wing.

  “Shit, shit, shit…”

  Wizard arrived in the cockpit with Lily. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve lost engine four and now they’re boarding us via the wings!” Sky Monster said.