Berk opened a set of double doors. Beyond was another lounge, this one with a high ceiling and an upper-floor balcony overlooking the cavernous space. A large fireplace dominated one wall, leather sofas arranged in a semicircle before it.
‘This is it,’ said the Turk, going to the fireplace. ‘This is what we found.’
At first Nina didn’t see what he meant – then she gasped in horror as she realised that the mantel, a large stone slab protruding from the wall, bore inscriptions in a language she knew all too well. ‘That – that’s Atlantean text!’ she cried.
‘We did not know what it was,’ Elmas said, unconvincingly.
‘You knew enough not to tell anybody in case it got confiscated! My God! You’ve destroyed an Atlantean site for this monstrosity of a house – and you’ve turned the one thing that survived into a goddam conversation piece!’
Elmas pursed her lips, insulted. ‘My house is not a monstrosity!’
Lobato held up a placating hand. ‘Was this all that you found?’
‘This was the biggest,’ Berk told him. ‘There were others, but they were broken. They did not have writing on them, though,’ he added hastily.
‘What does this say, love?’ Eddie asked, indicating the ancient writing.
Still angry at the couple, Nina read the text. Some of the characters were chipped and cracked, but she was able to garner its meaning. ‘It’s definitely connected to the vault,’ she announced. ‘It says it marks the entrance – although it was buried, so . . .’ She looked back at Berk and Elmas. ‘How deep down did you find it?’
Berk thought for a moment. ‘A metre and a half, maybe. It was covered in dirt.’
‘Eleven thousand years on a windy hillside’ll do that. It was probably just beneath the surface originally. So the vault would be behind it . . . Where did you find it? Exactly?’
‘I will show you,’ said Berk.
Everyone followed him back through the house, entering the main hall. ‘Excuse, please,’ said Maximov. ‘Where is toilet?’
Berk stopped and gestured uncertainly up the sweeping staircase, unwilling to give him the freedom of the house but also not daring to deny it. ‘Upstairs and down the hall. On the right.’ Maximov clomped upwards. Elmas watched the Russian go with extreme disapproval.
Her husband took their guests through a door and down a wide hallway. ‘This place is huge,’ Ana said quietly. ‘My whole house in Brazil had only three rooms!’
A large dining room, dominated by a long table of heavy dark wood, had French windows leading to a patio. Beyond was the unfinished swimming pool, the hilltop rising beyond it. Berk opened the doors. ‘We found the big stone here,’ he said, pointing into the pool. ‘About halfway along.’
Nina dropped into it. ‘Show me where – and tell me which direction it was lying.’
‘There,’ Berk called. She stopped about ten feet from the far end. He clambered down to join her. ‘It was like this.’ He held out his arms to show the stone’s orientation.
It had been roughly perpendicular to the pool’s length. Nina looked up towards the summit. The very top was some hundred feet away, about thirty feet higher. Subtract a metre and a half, five feet, to give her the topography in the Atlantean era . . . ‘There’s room for something to have been buried under the hilltop,’ she told the others. ‘If the stone marked its entrance, the way in would have been . . . here.’
She walked to the pool’s end. A raw concrete wall cut into the dusty soil, the unfinished tiling reaching a third of the way up. ‘When you dug the pool out, was there any sign of a tunnel?’
‘Not a tunnel,’ Berk answered, ‘but the builders did not take as long to dig as I expected. As if it was easy.’
‘The tunnel might have collapsed,’ said Nina. She climbed out and went to the edge of the excavated area, prodding at the dusty soil. It was loosely packed, slipping free with little effort. ‘It could be right under here! We need to check.’
‘How will you do that?’ demanded Elmas. ‘It is behind the pool.’
‘Then we need to move the pool.’ Nina pointed at the little excavator. ‘You’ve got a digger, right there.’
‘What?’ gasped Berk. ‘You cannot dig it up! It is almost finished!’
‘Well, it’ll give you a chance to rethink your tile choices,’ said Eddie. ‘That blue’s a bit eye-poking.’
‘The way I see it, you’ve got two options,’ Nina said firmly. ‘Either we dig up the pool and see what’s under there . . . or I get the Turkish government involved and tell them you’ve kept quiet about finding an Atlantean archaeological site. And I can assure you, the Ministry of Culture will know who I am. You think a handshake with the president will be enough to keep them from taking your land?’
Berk looked stricken, while Elmas’s expression was one of barely contained fury. ‘You are trying to blackmail us?’ she hissed.
‘I’m trying to save you,’ Nina shot back. ‘Your house is on top of something that could explode without warning – and it won’t only kill you. It’ll take out Sanliurfa too. And I told you, we’re not the only people trying to find it. The others won’t ask politely to dig up your property. They’ll do it at gunpoint – assuming they don’t shoot you the moment you open the door.’
‘She is telling the truth,’ said Lobato. ‘It is very important that we find it before anyone else.’
The couple held another emotional exchange. Finally Elmas spoke to Nina. ‘Okay . . . you can dig up the pool. But if there is nothing there, you will pay for the repairs!’
‘If there’s nothing there, I’ll be happy to,’ Nina replied.
Berk glanced towards the garage. ‘We should stay in town while they are working.’
‘I am not leaving my home,’ his wife insisted.
‘But if—’
‘I am not leaving my home!’ She glared back at Maximov as he emerged from the French windows. ‘Do you want them treating it like their own?’
‘We will stay,’ Berk quickly agreed.
Nina shrugged. ‘Up to you. Just give us the keys to the digger and we’ll get started.’
Maximov reached them. ‘Sorry, took wrong turn,’ he said. ‘Had to come down different stairs back there, house is like maze. You should give guests map!’ He belatedly registered the frosty atmosphere. ‘What did I miss?’
31
Both Eddie and Maximov had experience operating tracked vehicles and earth-movers from their military careers. However, the Englishman carried out the bulk of the work for one simple reason – the Russian was too big to fit in the little excavator’s cab. He instead ended up acting as practically a second earth-mover himself, dragging chunks of broken concrete clear as Eddie used the machine’s hydraulic arm and bucket to smash the pool’s end wall apart. Each impact made Berk grimace and Elmas clench her jaw ever tighter, until finally the couple retreated into the house to save her teeth from shattering under the pressure.
Nina divided her time between observing the dig and watching the track to the house. There had as yet been no sign of anyone approaching the Onans’ property; as much as she hoped that would remain the case, she was growing increasingly concerned about unwelcome visitors. Her notes had contained enough information for others to follow the same path.
‘It is possible,’ remarked Lobato, to whom she had voiced her worries, ‘that al-Asim and his men have simply been unable to comprehend your work. Being members of an intelligence agency does not by definition make them intelligent. I found them quite thuggish.’
‘Maybe, but I bet you thought the same about Eddie, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘I’d rather not take that chance.’
Both turned back to the pool at the loud bang of collapsing concrete. ‘We’ve got something!’ Eddie yelled over the excavator’s roar as he reversed.
Maximov hauled another piece of smashed wall aside as Nina hurried to see what they had found. Where the poolside had been demolished, she saw dark earth containing hunks of stonework, voids bene
ath some of them. Holes in the soil. There had once been a tunnel there, but it had collapsed. Earthquakes were the most likely cause – this was a volcanic region.
She reached into the largest hole for the better part of a foot before her fingertips touched rubble. The stone felt smooth, carved. ‘It’s definitely man-made,’ she said, withdrawing. ‘I think this was once the way to the vault.’
Eddie left the excavator to see. ‘The ground’s pretty soft,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t take too long to dig it out.’
‘If there is anything still left to find,’ Ana said, handing the grateful Maximov a bottle of water.
‘There has to be,’ Nina insisted. ‘The inscriptions on the slab in the house said the vault was here.’ She checked the time. ‘Okay, it’s after three o’clock. We should have a quick break to eat, then get back to work and do as much as we can before it gets dark.’ She regarded the hollows in the soil. ‘Then we’ll see what’s hiding down here.’
The Onans were far from enthused about feeding their guests. However, while Elmas was a study in resentment, she nevertheless felt compelled to act as a good hostess and provide a meal of grilled aubergines and couscous salad, if only to retain Lobato’s favour.
Eddie wolfed down his late lunch and returned to the pool, Nina going with him. ‘Lobato said you were worried about the Emir’s guys turning up,’ he said.
‘You aren’t?’ she replied.
‘Yeah, but they had a head start, and they’re still not here. Maybe they haven’t worked out where to look yet. Maybe they won’t ever.’
‘That’s very optimistic of you. Especially based on past experience.’
‘Thought I’d try being positive for a change.’ They shared a smile. ‘I’m also hoping no arseholes turn up looking for trouble, ’cause we haven’t got any guns.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not like you.’
‘I didn’t want Jared or Max to bring any to Venice, because I didn’t want ’em around Macy. I could have asked Alderley to send something to Sanliurfa, but after what you said about not trusting governments with the spearhead, I didn’t want to tell him what we were doing.’
‘Probably for the best, yeah. I trust Peter, but considering what some people in MI6 were willing to do to their own country to get hold of the Shamir, letting them know we’ve found an antimatter bomb might not be the best move.’
‘That’s if we have found it.’ He climbed into the excavator and restarted the engine. ‘Only one way to find out!’
Nina stepped back as he drove the machine over the broken rubble and scooped out more volcanic earth. Lobato, Ana and Maximov joined them, the Russian hopping down to help clear more debris.
With the concrete now broken open, the excavation proceeded relatively quickly. Nina occasionally cringed as the bucket’s steel teeth ground against buried stonework, but this was an occasion when speed trumped archaeological reverence.
Nevertheless, the work still went on for another couple of hours, the sun lowering, until there was a sudden breakthrough – literally. ‘Ay up,’ Eddie announced, quickly withdrawing the scoop. ‘Think we’ve found it!’
Nina rushed to look. A crooked hole had opened up. She peered inside. ‘It’s definitely a tunnel,’ she said, seeing the dim outlines of ceiling cross-beams receding into the blackness. ‘Eddie, Oleg, widen it. I’ll get my gear.’
She went to the SUVs, collecting a backpack. It contained equipment from the list she had given Lobato, but right now, there was only one thing she needed: a flashlight. She hurried back to the pool. Eddie and Maximov had by now widened the hole enough for her to fit through, so she shone the powerful torch inside.
The beam revealed a narrow tunnel, trapezoidal in cross-section, with slanted stone pillars supporting the ceiling slabs. The walls were lined with wooden slats, but many were broken, earth spilling through the gaps. The passage extended around thirty feet to a rectangular opening, beyond which was a larger space that contained . . .
She couldn’t tell what it contained at first glance. Something metal, the glint reflecting back at her, but she had no idea what it might be. It seemed spherical, but if that were the case, it was big. At least twenty feet in diameter, maybe more. The reddish-gold tint suggested it was made from orichalcum. Definitely Atlantean. Could it be the vault?
Eddie returned from backing the excavator out of the pool and peered over her shoulder. ‘Wow. Took long enough, but I knew that sooner or later we’d find a UFO!’
‘It’s not a UFO,’ she insisted – but on this occasion, there was at least a glimmer of uncertainty. The mysterious object certainly looked the part, the gleaming metal seemingly cast as a single seamless piece. She had seen Atlantean statues of similar size, but they had been made near their final locations. How this huge object had been brought across rough terrain over a hundred miles from the nearest coast – in a region under the control of an adversary – without being discovered was a mystery.
There were far more urgent questions, though. First and foremost: was the spearhead here?
She swept the beam over the ceiling before turning it to the floor. ‘The roof looks intact,’ she said. ‘I can’t see any cracks or fallen soil from above.’
‘Is that the vault?’ asked Lobato, gazing down the tunnel.
‘If it’s not, we’ve found one hell of a Kinder Egg,’ the Yorkshireman replied.
Nina was more serious. ‘It must be. It’s been buried here for eleven thousand years . . . and it’s still intact. So the spearhead must be inside.’
Lobato moved as if to push past her, but Eddie held out an arm. ‘Hang on there, Sheldon. Let’s let someone who knows what she’s doing go first, eh?’
‘Nothing I like more than being the first person to walk up to a bomb,’ his wife quipped as she stepped through the opening. The tunnel smelled stale and damp, but did not appear to have suffered any recent flooding that might have left it unstable.
A bigger concern was booby traps. She had encountered too many in the past; the Atlanteans liked to protect their treasures with lethal force. But the light revealed no tripwires or lurking mechanisms – just stone and dirt.
And the vault itself. She moved closer, stopping when Eddie came through the hole. ‘Here,’ she said, taking another flashlight from the pack and switching it on. ‘Let’s make sure we can all see what we’re doing.’
She passed the torch to Eddie, who moved up alongside her. Behind him, Lobato entered. ‘Wait, wait,’ Nina told him, but the billionaire was already inside, brushing distastefully at earth smeared on his white sleeve. ‘Okay, Gideon,’ she said with a sigh. ‘This is my game, so here are my rules. One: do what I tell you. Two: don’t touch anything. Three: if you’re that dirt-phobic, maybe don’t come into an underground tunnel?’
Lobato was not amused. ‘I will defer to your experience,’ he said, fingers still fidgeting.
‘Good. So wait there until I’ve checked things out, okay?’
‘Don’t suppose I can stay back here too?’ Eddie asked hopefully.
‘Yeah, right. Get your butt over here, mister.’
He chuckled and followed her down the passage.
The rectangular opening was bounded by hefty stone pillars. Nina saw familiar angular characters upon them. ‘Atlantean text . . .’
‘What does it say?’
She paused to translate, then let out a half-laugh. ‘Basically, “this is the spearhead’s vault”. It’s just a sign to tell the emissary from Atlantis that they’re in the right place.’
‘Yeah, ’cause I’m sure every hilltop in southern Turkey’s got a random tunnel dug into it.’
She smiled, then entered the chamber proper. The object at its heart was indeed spherical, or nearly so; it was slightly flattened, roughly twenty-five feet across. The stone-walled room matched its shape, large enough to allow people to walk around its centrepiece.
The light from outside dimmed as Ana and Maximov looked through the hole. ‘Is it safe?’ the Ru
ssian asked.
‘Seems to be,’ Nina called back, ‘but let’s not take any chances. Eddie? You go around it clockwise – carefully. I’ll go the other way.’
‘Okay.’ Eddie cautiously went left as she headed right around the golden artefact. He offered a running commentary. ‘Floor’s clear, walls and ceiling are intact, not seeing anything on the UFO . . .’
‘It’s not a UFO!’ Her own exploration also revealed nothing – until she reached the far side. ‘Wait, there’s something here.’
She brought her flashlight closer. A thin line was cut into the smooth metal surface, forming a rectangular shape.
A door.
‘It’s a way in,’ she gasped. ‘It is the vault, and we just found its entrance!’
Eddie reached her and raised his own light. ‘So how do we open it?’
‘I’ll take a wild guess and say that has something to do with it.’ She illuminated an indentation at the door’s exact centre, in the shape of a splayed hand.
‘Palm-print reader?’ said Eddie. ‘Bit high-tech, surely. Unless—’
‘Not aliens.’ She examined it more closely. Inset at the open palm’s centre was a circle of polished stone . . .
‘We’ve seen something like this before,’ she said, suddenly on alert. Her warning tone prompted Eddie to rapidly check his surroundings for threats. ‘In Ethiopia, the Temple of the Gods. The Atlanteans put a handprint just like this at the entrance.’
‘Yeah – and it was a trap, remember?’ He looked up at the ceiling. On their previous encounter with such a device, it had turned out to be a decoy, the real entrance hidden nearby. Anyone who put their hand into the indentation hoping to open the door would be crushed. ‘Not seeing any giant hammers here, though.’
‘There wouldn’t be room to fit one, not this close to the hilltop. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any other deathtraps.’ She turned, examining the walls and ceiling. In their starkness they were typically Atlantean, but there didn’t seem to be any way an unwelcome surprise could pop out, stab up or swing down. ‘Can’t see anything,’ she said. ‘This place was well hidden – they might have thought security through obscurity was enough.’
The Spear of Atlantis (Wilde/Chase 14) Page 31
