A noise behind them. She looked around in alarm – was it Nephilim survivors, or the Chinese special forces team? But relief flooded through her when she saw Eddie lumbering across the bridge, a sub-machine gun with a tactical light held awkwardly in one hand as he carried a heavy barrel-like object in both arms. ‘Eddie! Oh thank God, you’re okay!’
He carefully put down the cylinder and hurried to his family. ‘Been better. Jesus, though – so have you!’ he added on seeing her leg wound. ‘Macy, put pressure on it, both sides. Try to stop the bleeding.’
Macy did so, though she still had time for sarcasm. ‘Hi, Dad.’
A faint smile. ‘Sorry, love. Been a bit busy. Are you okay?’ His face grew grim. ‘I’m guessing you didn’t find Barney.’
‘No . . . Gadreel caught me.’ She didn’t need to say more to explain the Australian’s fate.
Eddie muttered a curse. ‘Where is Gadreel – and where’s Cheng? What happened?’
‘Cheng’s . . . in there,’ said Nina, gesturing at the now-sealed door. ‘I don’t know if he’s alive or not – and it might be another hundred thousand years before anyone finds out. Gadreel’s dead, though.’ She pointed down the shaft. ‘So’s Zan. Well, they might not be – I don’t know if they’ve hit bottom yet.’
‘The deeper it is, the better,’ he rumbled.
‘What do you mean?’
He quickly returned to his erstwhile cargo. ‘Major Wu brought the Nephilim a little present to celebrate getting out of prison – a nuke.’
Nina’s eyes popped wide. ‘What?’
‘It’s on a timer, and it’s got . . . buggeration, two minutes left!’
‘Can’t you defuse it?’
‘I tried. Didn’t go well – it should have had twenty-two.’
‘Oh, that’s just super-fine! So now what do we do?’
He strained to lift the heavy bomb again. ‘Chuck it down the hole and run like fuck! Sorry, Macy,’ he added.
‘Totally forgiven,’ his suddenly pale-faced daughter assured him.
‘What do you mean, chuck it down the hole?’ said Nina. ‘It’ll still blow up! And even if I could run, which I can’t, we can’t outrun a nuclear explosion!’
‘We’ll have a couple of miles’ head start by the look of it,’ he replied, peering down to the great glowing pillar’s vanishing point far below. ‘And if we’re lucky, the thing’ll smash to bits when it hits the bottom!’ He swung the nuke around – and before Nina or Macy could protest further, heaved it over the edge.
Nina stared after it in stunned dismay. ‘I’m glad you’re so confident about that.’
Macy was equally appalled, but for different reasons. ‘Dad, you . . . you just threw a nuke into the middle of Uluru! It’s a sacred site! The bomb’ll have radioactive stuff in it – you’ll poison the whole desert!’
‘It’d be a lot more poisoned if it went off here rather than all the way down there,’ Eddie pointed out. ‘And since it’s a sacred site, maybe the local spirits’ll be good to us. But we don’t have time to stand around arguing about it. We need to move.’
He returned to Nina and picked her up. She moaned as Macy released her hold on the wound. Eddie gave it a quick but practised look. ‘The jeep should have a first-aid kit. I’ll be able to patch it up until we can get you to a hospital.’
‘If we can get to the jeep,’ she countered.
‘We’ll know in about a minute and a half! Macy, come on.’
They started across the bridge as quickly as they could. Nina looked back as they reached the archway. The stunning secret of Uluru lay behind them: an enormous crystal pillar acting as a focal point for the earth’s mysterious energy field, containing the last of a long-lost race, the fallen angels of biblical myth, trapped in suspended animation. They had survived undisturbed for hundreds of millennia; if the bomb did not destroy them, they might continue for at least as long again, perhaps one day awakening into a world she couldn’t even imagine.
And now there would be a human with them, an unexpected hitchhiker on their journey through the ages. Based on Homo sapiens’ seemingly relentless race towards self-destruction, she couldn’t help feeling he would also be the last human – though at the same time she refused to be so pessimistic as to believe Cheng was already dead. She had to give him a chance, even if only in her mind. ‘Goodbye, Cheng,’ she whispered. ‘A-plus from me, no question.’
Eddie entered the steep tunnel, blocking her view of the hidden wonder. She looked ahead as he used the gun’s light to illuminate their way. ‘How long have we got?’
He checked his watch. ‘About forty seconds.’ A pause, then he continued, with uncharacteristically exposed emotion: ‘If it goes off, we . . . we won’t have too long to worry about it. But I want you both to know, well . . .’ A crooked grin at Nina. ‘Ever since I first met you, all those years back? You’ve caused nowt but trouble.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ But she knew he was joking. Her eyes started to well with tears.
‘You changed my life,’ he went on. ‘For the better. I’ve seen things nobody ever imagined, done things I never dreamed of doing – saved the world a few times an’ all. I couldn’t have done it without you. And I wouldn’t have had the most amazing daughter in history either.’
‘Aw, Dad,’ said Macy, blushing despite the tension.
‘Well, yeah, I kind of had to be involved in that part,’ Nina said, smiling. ‘And y’know, you changed my life too. If I hadn’t met you – well, I’d have died seventeen years ago, so there’s that! But . . .’ She looked him in the eye, pulling herself a little closer. ‘I don’t need to tell you how I feel about you, do I? You already know.’
His own smile widened. ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Plus,’ she went on, more quickly, ‘there’s a limit to how many times I can say “I love you” in the next ten seconds!’ She turned towards her daughter. ‘But Macy, however long I had, I couldn’t say it often enough. So just once’ll have to do. I love you. I love you both, so much.’
Macy halted, grabbing them in as big an embrace as she could manage. ‘I love you both too!’ She squeezed her face against them, muttering under her breath, ‘We’re not gonna die, we’re not gonna die, we’re not . . .’
Eddie kissed Nina, the couple in a moment reliving every other they had ever shared. Then they closed their eyes, holding their daughter to them—
Nothing happened.
Seconds passed. Eddie cautiously opened an eye and peered at his watch. ‘We’re five seconds past . . . ten seconds . . .’ He looked back, listening for any sounds echoing up the tunnel. Only silence reached his ears. ‘The conventional explosives didn’t go off . . .’
Macy nervously detached herself from her parents. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Nukes use normal explosives to trigger the main bomb. If they’d blown up, we would have heard it – which means the bomb really did smash to bits.’ He sighed in relief.
‘So . . . we’re safe?’ Nina asked.
‘From getting blown up, yeah. We still need to get you to hospital, though. Actually, I think we all need to get to hospital!’ He set off again, bearing his wounded wife up the long tunnel with their daughter beside them.
They were roughly halfway back to the surface when Macy gave Nina a sly smile that again reminded her of Eddie. ‘So, Mom . . . I was right, wasn’t I?’
‘About what, honey?’
‘About the trikan. Back on the ship, three years ago – I told you I could steer it just by thinking about it! You didn’t believe me, but I was right!’
‘Yes,’ Nina told her through a wide fake smile. ‘You were.’
Eddie chuckled.
‘And I was right about the skull on the side of Uluru. I bet all those other things I told you about that you said were garbage are true as well—’
‘Okay, yes, you win,
I suck at archaeology!’ said Nina, exasperated.
Her husband laughed. ‘Never thought I’d hear you say that.’
‘It’s poetic justice, I’m sure. I spent my whole career showing the archaeological establishment they were wrong by proving that ancient legends were real, and now my little girl’s doing the same thing to me. Damn, I must have been insufferable.’
Eddie smirked. ‘I’m saying nothing.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t make me regret saying that I love you. Now, can we go home?’
His only reply was another laugh.
They continued up the steep slope. After what seemed like an age, a faint sheen of daylight became discernible ahead. ‘Finally,’ muttered Eddie. ‘Just a bit further, and we’re done.’
‘Not quite,’ said his wife. ‘There’s one more thing we need to do.’
‘What?’ Macy asked.
‘We’re now the only people in the world who know what’s hidden inside Uluru. I think it should stay that way. Once we’re outside, we need to close the entrance. Nobody should ever find the Nephilim again – so they won’t try to wipe us out, and we won’t try to wipe them out. Let them sleep. Maybe their time will come in another hundred millennia.’
‘Bit hard on Sandra and Barney’s families,’ said Eddie. ‘We can’t tell them what happened.’
‘I know. But . . . what’s the alternative?’
He sighed. ‘No. You’re right. But we’ll have to come up with some way of explaining it to them.’
‘We’ll have to explain a lot of things, I suspect. But let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s just get out of here.’
‘Yeah, totally,’ Macy agreed vigorously.
They finally emerged into daylight. The sun was by now low on the horizon, long shadows stretching across the rust-red desert. Nobody was in sight, the Land Cruiser parked a short distance away. Nina looked up at the little crack concealing the crystal lock. ‘Let’s close it.’
‘How’re you going to reach it?’ Eddie asked as he tossed the gun back through the opening. ‘You can’t stand up, not on that leg.’
‘Macy’ll have to do it.’
‘Me?’ said Macy, surprised.
‘You’re my daughter,’ Nina said, ‘which means you’re a descendant of the Atlanteans – and apparently the Nephilim too – just like me. So when it comes to earth energy, you can do anything I can. Probably more. I can’t do your yo-yo tricks, for a start!’
Eddie peered at the recess. ‘Think you can reach it if you stand on my shoulders, love?’
‘Uh . . . I guess.’ Macy sounded less than confident. ‘You will hold on tight, won’t you?’
He smiled. ‘I won’t let go of you, don’t worry. Not ever.’ She smiled back.
Eddie took Nina to the car and carefully lowered her into the front passenger seat, finding the first-aid kit and bandaging her leg, then returned to the cave with Macy. He picked her up and helped her stand on his shoulders.
‘Okay,’ Nina called. ‘You can do it, Macy.’
‘I can do it,’ Macy echoed, stretching up as far as she could. Her fingertips brushed the red rock, straining to make contact – then Eddie hoisted her up off his shoulders and her probing finger found the crystal inside the gap. She yelped as a snap of energy made her flinch, but her father managed to keep her upright. She quickly jumped back down to the sand.
Behind them, the hidden door ground shut, closing off the tunnel into the heart of Uluru, and sealed with a final, decisive boom.
Nina stared at it for a long moment, wondering if it would ever be opened again . . . before deciding she did not want to know the answer. Her gaze went to Eddie and Macy. There were more important things in life.
‘Come on, then,’ she said as her family approached the truck. ‘We’re done. Let’s go home.’
Eddie gave her a smile as he got into the driving seat, Macy climbing in behind him. ‘We need a break. Couple of years sound good?’
Nina smiled back, unfastening her ponytail and letting her hair fall loose. ‘At least!’
They all laughed, and he started the engine. Safely reunited at last, they drove off into the sunset.
We hope you enjoyed reading The Resurrection Key. Discover more exhilarating novels in the Wilde and Chase adventure series . . .
Available to download now
Wilde and Chase are back in a quest to find a legendary weapon lost since the fall of Atlantis . . .
World-famous archaeologist Nina Wilde and her husband, ex-SAS bodyguard Eddie Chase, believe their days of danger are behind them. But when Nina is framed for the theft of a priceless artefact in a daring raid on a luxury cruise ship, she has no choice but to flee.
On the run, Nina discovers that a shadowy group is searching for an ancient Atlantean weapon with destructive power beyond comprehension. Eddie – helped by a multi-talented team of friends – must risk his own life to learn who is pulling the strings.
In a continent-crossing race against time, hunted by enemies with deadly ambitions, only Nina and Eddie can unearth the truth before a devastating force is unleashed on the world . . .
The Resurrection Key Page 54
