The Two Lost Mountains - Jack West Jr Series 06 (2020)

by Reilly, Matthew

  It boils down to this equation:

  Eu = mcc

  This equation modifies my other equation. It represents a signal—or, more precisely, the energy of a signal: Eu—that must be sent out from the Earth at the requisite time. (The energy of this signal is beyond enormous: ‘c’ is the speed of light, a huge number; in this equation, it is multiplied to the power of itself, which creates a number of astonishing size.)

  I call this signal the quantum pulse. Somehow, when a certain ceremony is performed in an ancient maze, this signal, this pulse, will be sent out into the cosmos at extraordinary speed to stave off the contraction of the universe and save our planet.

  Alby sat bolt upright.

  Einstein was describing—in scientific terms, not those of a historian or mythic storyteller—what would happen in the Supreme Labyrinth.

  A quantum pulse.

  A signal that shot across the universe at superluminal speed to tell the—what?—the intelligence at the centre of the universe—that sentient life still existed on Earth.

  The Navy must have thought Einstein had lost his mind, thus the many stamps screaming DO NOT SEND.

  Except Einstein had not lost his mind at all.

  Einstein may not have been aware of the Great Games, the Three Secret Cities, the Five Iron Mountains or a throne at the centre of the Supreme Labyrinth, but he had discovered the essence of the Omega Event and the quantum mechanics behind how to stop it.

  ‘Awesome . . .’ Alby breathed.

  Easton returned from the lake house. ‘All boxes in storage basement,’ he said.

  ‘Nice work,’ Alby said. ‘Those things’ll come in handy, I’m sure.’

  And then, as the clock struck eleven, some images started coming in from Mae in Rome.

  Minutes later, their radio started pinging as the two teams called in.

  ‘Folks, are you there?’ Jack’s voice came in over the speaker.

  Alby leapt to the microphone. ‘I’m here, Jack.’

  Zoe’s voice came in a second later. ‘We’re here, too.’

  ‘What did you find in Rome?’ Jack asked.

  Zoe said, ‘Jack, your mother was taken—alive—by a new player, a guy named Rastor. We also had to leave without Agnes. I don’t know if she’s alive or not. Rastor shot her up pretty bad.’

  ‘Rastor?’ Jack said.

  ‘He was a brilliant general who served the four kingdoms, but then fell out of favour,’ Lynda explained. ‘He is formidable and ruthless. Your mother will be safe, at least for a time, because he will want to hold her as leverage against you. Agnes will have no such value to him. If she’s not already dead, I fear for her.’

  Silence.

  Jack said, ‘Tell us about Rome.’

  Zoe said, ‘Like Moscow, the whole city is asleep. We discovered that the Pope ordered an assassination attempt on the expert on the bells, the ex-nun Dr Tracy Smith, but it failed. We also bumped into some Omega monks and met the aforementioned asshole named General Rastor.

  ‘Rastor has his own V-88 Condor and is more than happy to use it. He blew away the dome of St Peter’s with it before he annihilated the Omega monks. He also mentioned that the monks might be getting assistance from Catholic soldiers in the Romanian military, which is a little unsettling. Then he took your mother. Long story short, he’s a big shot from the shadow royal world who’s returned to make his play.’

  Jack said, ‘Tell us what you learned about the mountains.’

  Lynda said, ‘Before Rastor took her, Mae sent through some photos of the documents we saw in the Vatican Secret Archives: photos of the Great Sphinx at Giza and letters from Francis Xavier to the Pope of his day.’

  ‘Give us the executive summary,’ Jack said.

  ‘Okay. The second mountain is Mont Blanc. The third is in Lhasa, Tibet. Your mother and I are convinced it’s under Potala Palace. The Church thinks the fourth mountain is somewhere in Italy, along the strip of locations known as the Sword of St Michael, but that’s not certain. We need to study that some more.’

  ‘And the fifth mountain?’ Alby asked as he scanned the photos that Mae had sent from the Secret Archives.

  ‘Sorry, we didn’t find anything about that one,’ Lynda said.

  Zoe said, ‘What about you, Jack? How did it go at Mont Saint-Michel?’

  ‘It was bad,’ Jack said. ‘Sphinx did the Fall and then had Hades killed. Sphinx is on his way to the Supreme Labyrinth now, with some guide notes about it written by Imhotep the Great—’

  ‘Wait,’ Alby interjected. ‘Those notes by Imhotep. Were they the actual notes or a copy?’

  Jack said, ‘Uh, a copy, I think. Sphinx or Mendoza said they were the Church’s copy of Imhotep’s notes. Why?’

  Alby said, ‘I’ve been doing some research into the originals. Imhotep knew all about the Labyrinth, including something called the Emperor’s Route through it. Lynda? Any idea what that is?’

  Lynda said, ‘The Labyrinth is famously large and complex, but it has a single straight route that runs directly to its holy centre. This is the Emperor’s Route. It’s designed for the King of Kings. It makes his passage through the Labyrinth easy and simple, a mere procession. This is the route Zeus took, because he went to the Labyrinth as the unchallenged King of Kings or Emperor. But, if an Emperor is challenged, things are very different. If someone else does a Fall and enters the Labyrinth via one of its other four gates, then the Emperor’s Route will be closed off and it becomes a race through the vast maze to the throne, a race that must be completed before the Omega Event occurs on December 29th.’

  Jack said, ‘Which is why we desperately need to do a Fall ourselves at one of the other iron mountains, then get to the Labyrinth to stop Sphinx.’

  ‘We’re a long way behind, Jack,’ Alby said.

  ‘While we’re still breathing, we keep chasing.’

  Alby looked at Easton. ‘Oh, Jack. Easton finished his task. The boxes are in the storage basement under the lake house, should you need them.’

  ‘Thanks, Easton,’ Jack said. ‘I know that wasn’t easy. Okay, folks, here’s what we’re gonna do. I’ll take Nobody, Iolanthe and our new friend, Bertie, to Mont Blanc, the second mountain. Zoe, Rufus and Lynda, I want you to go to the third one underneath Potala—’

  ‘Attention, Jack West. Attention people of the world,’ another voice came over the line, cutting Jack off.

  Alby’s blood went ice cold.

  It was Sphinx’s voice.

  But the voice hadn’t come from the radio. It had come from the bank of TVs behind Alby . . .

  . . . every TV.

  Every television had cut to an emergency broadcast screen and Sphinx’s voice was coming from all of them.

  Just as the Knights of the Golden Eight had done a few weeks ago, Sphinx was taking over the airwaves of every commercial radio and television signal in the world.

  He sounded like God himself.

  ‘People of the world, by now you know about Moscow and Rome. Resist me and you will suffer the same fate. Or, if I feel so disposed, you might suffer this.’

  All the TV screens cut to a shot of a low dusty city nestled among some brown snow-capped mountains.

  Alby recognised the mountain city instantly, seeing the imposing white-and-red palace perched atop a hill in its centre.

  It was Lhasa, Tibet, and the palace was Potala Palace.

  Then, with shocking suddenness, a missile lanced down from the sky, slammed into the massive palace in the middle of the city and detonated.

  A colossal nuclear explosion followed.

  It rippled across the city with astounding force, flattening buildings and shaking the ground, until finally, as the camera was struck by the expanding concussion wave, the image cut to hash.

  Sphinx’s voice returned. ‘People of the world, a new dawn awaits y
ou. My name is Hardin Lancaster the Twelfth. The Sphinx. Soon, most of you will fall into a peaceful slumber. When you wake, you will wake in a new world. For now, just wait while those of us with the requisite knowledge perform the requisite deeds on your behalf. One must earn the right to rule and that is what I must do now.

  ‘Oh, and if you should see this man, Captain Jack West Jr’—a picture of Jack appeared on all the televisions—‘kill him. Anyone who kills Captain West and brings me his corpse will be rewarded with riches beyond measure in my new world order.’

  Jack said to the group, ‘Everyone, quick. Switch all comms to this roaming frequency.’ He picked one at random on his radio. ‘We can’t have him or his people listening in on us.’

  Sphinx wasn’t finished.

  ‘You cannot beat me, Captain. You can chase me, but you chase in vain. I know more than you do, both about the mountains and the Labyrinth. I also know where you’ve been hiding. In the late Lord Hades’s estate in eastern France.’

  The signal clicked off a moment later.

  Alby never saw it.

  Never saw all the TVs resume their regular programming.

  Because he was already running out of the radio room, yelling to Easton to grab the rolling beds of Lily, Aloysius Knight and Stretch and get them downstairs.

  As he ran past a window he saw them—saw them emerging from the tree line of the forest surrounding the lush estate: one hundred bronzemen led by Yago DeSaxe.

  Coming for him and his friends.

  Coming to kill them.

  Deep below the main house of Hades’s estate was a large World War II–era loading dock, part of the ouvrage from the Maginot Line that lay under the property.

  Almost everything in the dock was made of faded grey concrete: the walls, floor, ceiling . . . and the train platform.

  In the midst of all this decaying ninety-year-old concrete was a very 21st-century vehicle.

  A little train: an engine car and one carriage.

  It sat beside the platform on shiny railway tracks that disappeared into an old tunnel that itself led to the maze-like subway system of the Maginot Line.

  Alby burst out of the elevator, frantically pushing two wheeled hospital beds containing the immobile figures of Lily and Stretch. Also on the beds were some of his laptops and documents.

  Easton came next, pushing the gurney with Aloysius Knight’s sleeping body on it.

  Jack’s falcon, Horus, sat perched on Lily’s headboard while his two dogs—the feisty black poodle Roxy and the more placid labrador Ash—chased after them.

  Alby thrust his two beds into the carriage and then raced forward to the engine car to start it up.

  Easton had just pushed Aloysius’s bed onto the carriage when an explosion rang out from somewhere above them—they couldn’t see it from down here, but the Knights had fired a missile at Hades’s beautiful mansion and blown it into a million pieces.

  The whole loading dock shook violently and two beams of concrete dropped away from the ceiling and came crashing down between the train carriage and the two dogs.

  Roxy, smaller and nimbler than Ash, just dodged out of the way, hurdled the obstacle and leapt into the train.

  But Ash was cornered, fenced in by the fallen concrete, and freaking out. She whimpered as she searched desperately for a way over it.

  Standing at the doorway of the carriage, Easton saw her, trapped and helpless—

  —just as the elevator beyond her opened—

  —to reveal six bronzemen and a Knight of the Golden Eight standing in it.

  ‘Doggy . . .’ he breathed.

  ‘Easton! We gotta go!’ Alby shouted from the engine car. ‘Are we all aboard?’

  Easton stared in horror at Ash. Her eyes were wide and panicked, fearful of being left behind by her pack.

  Easton wasn’t going to let that happen.

  ‘No!’ he called back to Alby. ‘Get train going! We catch up!’

  And then he bolted off the train, side-jumped over one of the concrete beams and lifted Ash into his arms.

  The train started moving.

  The bronzemen swept out of the elevator, charging after it.

  Easton was only a short distance ahead of them, struggling as he ran with the ungainly mass of the yellow labrador in his arms.

  He arrived beside the rear door of the moving carriage and tossed Ash into it. She landed clumsily with her paws splayed wide, but she was okay.

  Easton was running full speed now alongside the accelerating train and he crouched to jump for the doorway—

  —at the exact moment that the Knight fired his Steyr AUG assault rifle and hit Easton in the right calf.

  Looking back from the engine car, Alby saw Easton’s leg collapse beneath him and the Neanderthal fell, inches from the open door of the carriage.

  Easton went sprawling onto the platform, crying out in pain, while the train shot off into the tunnel, disappearing into the underground darkness.

  Alby could only peer back in dismay, knowing that he’d had no choice.

  ‘Oh, Easton, I’m so sorry,’ he said as he turned from the sight and drove the train away.

  Airspace above eastern France

  24 December, 0300 hours

  A few hours later, Easton sat glumly in the enormous cargo hold of one of Sphinx’s C-5M Super Galaxy military aeroplanes.

  His hands were cuffed behind his back and he was alone . . .

  . . . except for the sixty bronzemen standing to attention in twelve rows of five down the length of the hold.

  They did not move.

  They did not make a sound.

  The Lockheed Martin C-5M Super Galaxy is the largest plane in the U.S. Air Force’s inventory.

  It is not so much a plane as a flying warehouse. Designed to convey heavy payloads around the world without stopping, its dimensions are staggering.

  At 250 feet long with a wingspan of 222 feet, it is propelled by four enormous General Electric TF39 turbofan jet engines. For something so large, it is also quite elegant: it looks like a big grey windowless 747 with an oversized jaw.

  Having said that, the Super Galaxy’s greatest asset is its cargo hold. There is nothing like it in the world. It is immense.

  It could carry—if required—five double-decker London buses parked end-to-end; an entire Chinook helicopter; or the fuselage of a C-130 Hercules cargo plane.

  Adding to its sheer size is its accessibility: the Super Galaxy has both a rear loading ramp and a huge hinged nose assembly that can be raised for loading and unloading from the front.

  Easton didn’t care.

  He sat slumped in his chair in the vast hold, a prisoner.

  The commander of the plane came down from the upper deck.

  He was a tall man, barrel-chested and imposing. Easton had heard one of the crew members address him as ‘Lord Yago’.

  Yago stood over Easton, glaring down at him with disgust. He said nothing.

  Then Yago’s radio squawked.

  ‘What did you find in the ruins of Hades’s secret estate?’ a voice said over the line.

  ‘A single pathetic minotaur,’ Yago said. ‘The others fled through the Maginot tunnels. I am sorry, Hardin.’

  ‘A shame,’ the voice said. ‘I was hoping you might acquire some individuals we could use to torment Captain West. I can’t imagine he would care for a lowly minotaur.’

  Easton said, ‘Captain Jack is my friend. He will come for me.’

  Yago snorted.

  So did the voice on the other end of the radio. ‘What is your designation number, minotaur?’

  ‘My name is Easton,’ Easton replied proudly. ‘It is the name I chose myself—’

  Yago guffawed. ‘A minotaur with a name. What is the world coming to?’

  ‘I am a friend of Cap
tain Jack. He will rescue me,’ Easton said defiantly.

  Yago said, ‘Minotaur, what can you possibly mean to West? You are nothing. You are one of thousands of nameless grunts from the Underworld. Why would he expend even a scintilla of effort saving you?’

  Easton hesitated, doubt creeping into his voice. ‘Because—I—I am . . . his friend.’

  Yago said into the radio: ‘Sire, you said to take all captives alive. What do you want me to do with this one?’

  There was a brief pause.

  ‘I have a half a mind to keep him as a hostage. West is prone to caring about such individuals. But no. Throw him out of the plane. I have to go. We are arriving at the Labyrinth.’

  The radio clicked off.

  Yago shrugged to Easton. ‘Sorry, minotaur.’

  He held up his hand, indicating the thick signet ring on it.

  ‘See this ring? Sphinx gave it to me. While I wear it, I command these bronzemen. They will do whatever I say. Whatever I say. Allow me to demonstrate.’

  He turned to the nearest pair of bronzemen. ‘You two! Come here.’

  The two bronzemen took three sharp steps forward and stood to attention before Yago.

  ‘A minotaur with a name . . .’ Yago said again, shaking his head. ‘Bronzemen. Hold this man.’

  The two bronzemen grasped Easton firmly by his arms, lifting him to his feet.

  Yago calmly stepped over to the side door of the hold and opened it. Wind rushed into the cabin from outside.

  Horror shot through Easton. He started struggling desperately, but it was no use. They were far too strong.

  ‘Now walk out this door with him.’

  The two faceless bronzemen lifted Easton off the ground and began moving toward the open door—

  —when abruptly the plane rocked wildly.

  A sickening, sudden lurch.

  Both Yago and the two bronzemen were jolted off their feet, so unexpected was the move.

  Easton fell to the floor, released.

  ‘Sir!’ a voice came over the C-5’s internal speakers. ‘This is the flight deck! We have a problem! Someone’s hacking the plane!’