Ryder

by Nick Pengelley

  The firing seemed to go on forever, although it could only have been seconds. Ayesha counted in her head—as best she could, given the crescendo of sound that enveloped her—knowing how long it would take for Longo, or whoever was firing, to expend the clip.

  The burst ended. Ayesha sprang up. She squeezed off three shots in rapid succession in the direction of the staircase. She dropped back behind the tomb. Then she darted a look from the side to see what reaction there might be to her fusillade.

  “What—” Niobe had her hands clapped tight to her ears. Whatever the archaeologist was going to say was cut off when a hand flashed into view at the bottom of the staircase once more. The hand tossed a small black object into the crypt. It bounced off a tomb just yards from where Ayedsha and Niobe crouched.

  “Down!” Ayesha screamed. A split second before the grenade exploded.

  Chapter 39

  Ayesha passed in and out of consciousness. Although consciousness was relative. The drugs saw to that.

  She was crazy, they said. Not that they used that word. Psychotic break. Other terms she didn’t understand. She’d had a breakdown. That much she understood, although she had trouble forming the words in her head. Thinking hurt. Her rape and torture. The death of her comrades. The murder of her mother. Her father’s breakdown. It was all cumulative, the things that had brought her to this…place. This asylum. In Gaza.

  Not that anyone in the civilized West would have thought of it as any kind of asylum. Peeling paint. Backed-up drains and toilets. Sagging, urine-stained mattresses. Food a dog would have rejected. Eighteenth-century inmates of Bedlam, London’s infamous asylum, would have felt at home here. Ayesha could not. The only way to survive was to retreat inside herself. That she could do.

  Keys clashed in the lock to her cell door. The orderlies didn’t call it that, but Ayesha did. It opened. Someone entered.

  Ayesha squinted, trying to make out who it was who stood in the doorway. A lightbulb flickered in the corridor outside her cell. It was a woman, she could tell that much from the silhouetted thrust of her breasts. She couldn’t see her face.

  Ayesha wished the woman would go away. She wanted to sleep. “What do you want?” she croaked.

  “Do you know who I am, Ayesha?” her visitor whispered.

  “No.”

  “It’s me. Your sister.”

  “Fuck off! My sister’s dead.”

  The woman came closer. Stood over her. Touched her hair.

  “It’s really me.”

  Something about the woman pierced Ayesha’s drug-dulled brain. She seemed…familiar. That wasn’t possible. She made out the woman’s eyes; brown flecked with gray. “Ghayda?”

  “Yes, Ayesha. It’s me.”

  “Why?”

  Ghayda. The blood pulsed in Ayesha’s ears. The sound drowned out everything else. She opened her eyes. She stared at the rough-hewn rock that arched over her head. Images of her dead sister receded, the ghosts of the past with them. She forced herself to understand what had happened.

  She was lying at the bottom of the steps that led down from the fake tomb, where they met the underground passage. Light filtered down from the crypt. The grenade. “Fuck!” Niobe!

  The archaeologist was sprawled against the tunnel wall. Ayesha’s heart lurched at the sight of her. Then Niobe moaned, rolled over, and staggered to her feet.

  Ayesha stood, too. A wave of dizziness washed over her. She braced herself against the wall until it receded. Then she touched her head. Her face. Then her body. She had a cut above her left eye, which had left a trickle of blood down the side of her face and neck. And a long tear in the cloth of her pants, along her right calf, exposing the skin and a ragged gash that oozed blood. Multiple throbs told of bruises to come. Nothing serious. She picked up her gun, which had fallen next to her.

  “You okay?” she asked Niobe. The archaeologist’s T-shirt was almost ripped in two down the front. A nasty-looking abrasion bisected her taut stomach muscles; otherwise she seemed unhurt.

  Niobe zipped up her leather jacket. “Shaken but not stirred,” she replied, with a faint grin.

  “We’ve got to move.” Ayesha jerked the flashlight from her pocket. She clicked it on, mentally crossing her fingers that it still worked. It did. Shining its light ahead, she jogged into the passage, increasing her speed where it was wide enough and she could be sure of her footing. Now that the pounding in her ears had subsided, she could hear Niobe’s footsteps keeping pace behind her. When they lurched into the cavern that held Harold’s tomb, both of them collapsed, panting, against his open sarcophagus. Recovering quickly, Ayesha cocked her head. “They’re coming.”

  “Let’s hope Joram’s got that gate open.” Niobe pushed herself upright and made for the passage on the far side of the cave.

  Ayesha took two steps in the archaeologist’s wake. A thought struck her; she turned back. As Niobe watched impatiently, Ayesha reached into the tomb. When she straightened up, she held Harold’s sword in both hands. An electric thrill surged through her as she felt its weight. Its perfect balance.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Niobe’s voice throbbed with anger.

  “We need all the weapons we can get.” Ayesha ran a finger along the edge of the blade. “It’s still sharp.”

  “Do you even know how to use that thing?”

  “Yes.” That wasn’t strictly true, but Ayesha had wielded a variety of blades during her apprenticeship with the Palestinian fedayeen. The sword was much heavier than anything she’d used in the past, but it was perfectly balanced.

  The last tunnel seemed to go on forever. Ayesha’s head pounded and every muscle ached. The journey was made more difficult because of the heavy burden she carried—psychologically as much as physically. Harold’s sword was part of England’s heritage. Whatever happened, she vowed she would wield it with honor.

  Chapter 40

  “Thank God!” Caroline Frost exclaimed, when Ayesha and Niobe burst into the gate room. The vicar’s eyes widened at the sight of the blood on Ayesha’s forehead, and her leg. And at what she was carrying. Her mouth formed words, but Ayesha cut her off. She had eyes only for the man crouched by the barred gate, working on the lock.

  “Joram?”

  For answer, the librarian rose and pulled on the gate. It swung inward to the gate room with a groan of ancient hinges. He made her an elegant bow.

  The gesture was lost on Ayesha. “Quick!” she snapped. “They’re right behind us!” Ayesha had thought they would have more time; that it would take longer for their pursuers to find the concealed exit from the cave that held Harold’s tomb. Luck had not been with them.

  Niobe looked as if she was going to renew taking Ayesha to task over her theft of Harold’s sword. Instead, she took the vicar by the arm and hustled her through the now-open gateway to the passage on the other side. Ayesha went next.

  “We found something while you were gone.” Caroline pointed to the wall. Just within reach was another of the Templar badges.

  Joram stepped through the gateway and swung the gate shut with a clang.

  “Can you lock it again?” Ayesha demanded.

  Barely had Joram crouched by the gate when booted footsteps pounded in the passageway on the other side of the gate room.

  Time to go. Ayesha started down the passage, beaming her flashlight before her. After less than ten yards, the passage doglegged. And ended. Disbelieving, Ayesha ran her hand over the solid wall of rock. There was no opening. Nowhere to go but back the way they’d come. Only they couldn’t.

  She ran back to the gate, where Joram still worked on the lock, and almost knocked over the vicar in her haste. Ayesha’s desperate gaze locked on the Templar device. It was the twin of the one in the crypt. One horse. Two knightly riders. If one device operated a doorway, might not this one, too? She grabbed Niobe by the arm. “What do you think?”

  The archaeologist probed the edges of the seal with her fingers. She gave it an experimental push. Immediat
ely, she snatched back her hand.

  “Well?” Ayesha demanded.

  A burst of gunfire echoed from the passageway beyond the gate room. Bullets spattered on the rock walls with odd, smacking sounds. Others ricocheted with a high-pitched whine, like demented wasps.

  Ayesha raised Joram’s gun. She squeezed off a quick shot through the bars of the gate, past his shoulder. She didn’t see anyone, but hoped the shots might slow down the enemy. “Now or never! Go on, Niobe!”

  The archaeologist pushed hard on the Templar seal. It sank into the wall. Immediately a low rumble came from beneath their feet. The ground vibrated, as if something were moving on giant rollers.

  Joram lost his balance and fell forward against the gate. It swung open and he tumbled through it, sprawling full length on the stone-flagged floor of the gate room. Ayesha thrust the gun into the top of her pants, tossed Harold’s sword to Niobe, and darted after him.

  She reached the librarian as he struggled to his feet. Before she could take his hand, the floor of the chamber heaved and shifted violently; a spiderweb of cracks splintered its formerly smooth surface. Ayesha fell to her hands and knees. The rumbling sound grew louder. Earthquake? Her heart hammering, she rose to a half crouch. The stone floor trembled violently. She fell again, heavily. An explosive crack, like a pistol shot at close quarters, shocked her reeling senses. A jagged fissure split open across the middle of the gate room floor.

  Ayesha, disbelieving, stunned at the violence erupting around her, rolled over and scrambled toward the gate. Joram reached back to help her. Beyond him, Niobe and the vicar stood in the gateway. Ayesha saw their eyes widen. She turned her head to follow their gaze. Two figures clad in military fatigues had emerged from the passage. One was Longo. The other was a woman.

  Bebe Daniels! What was Susannah Armstrong’s private secretary doing here, in a secret cave below an English castle? Holding a gun. Not that it was raised. Nor was Longo’s. The pair had eyes only for the fissure that had opened across the floor of the chamber.

  Suddenly the fissure grew wider. In seconds it was a chasm. Fear and adrenaline spurred Ayesha into a desperate attempt to reach the safety of the gate. With less than two feet to go, Joram, his face etched with horror, grabbed her arm and hauled her roughly toward him. Too late. The stone floor gave way beneath her and she dropped into the void. I’m dead, she thought. How pointless.

  Chapter 41

  Bebe Daniels reeled backward from the gate room. She dropped to her hands and knees in the passage, covering her eyes and mouth, choking and coughing on dust and dirt. She felt, rather than saw, Longo put his arm around her. Roughly, she brushed him off. She tried to comprehend what had happened.

  Bebe had been like a cat playing with a mouse, ever since she’d spotted Ryder from the Zeppelin, racing across the churchyard below. They’d nearly caught her in the crypt, although Bebe had been furious with Longo for the grenade; she didn’t want Ryder blown to bits. Yet. During the chase through the tunnels, she’d felt on fire, charged with the nearness of the kill.

  Then it had all fallen apart. The gate room floor had split asunder, riven by some hellish cataclysm beyond her comprehension. She’d watched Ryder scramble toward the open gateway on the other side. The librarian, Tate, had tried to help her.

  Then the floor had fallen. It just vanished. Ryder went with it.

  Bebe couldn’t believe it. Ryder was dead. Really dead. Bebe had her revenge. But she felt cheated. She’d wanted to look into Ryder’s eyes as the light failed. Tell her…secrets. See the realization dawn. Then she’d kill her. With her bare hands. Or a knife. It would be personal. This…this was nothing. After so long she felt…bereft.

  That wasn’t all. She’d failed in her mission. She’d seen Harold’s body in its sarcophagus. There was no sword. But there was the impression of one. Then she’d seen Ryder with it. Seen her throw it to the other woman. As if it were a toy.

  Bebe spat dirt from her mouth. She thought about the long walk back. She thought about her Master. He’d be furious. She shifted. Maybe he’d still punish her. She deserved to be punished.

  Chapter 42

  Ayesha dangled over the void where the floor of the gate room had been. Only Joram’s grip on her right arm prevented her from plummeting after it to her death.

  Willing herself to the effort, she stretched up with her left hand. Her fingertips caught the lip, every nerve and sinew trembling with the strain. Her feet scrabbled for purchase against the sheer rock wall. Suddenly, an earth-shattering, rolling crash sounded from below. It seemed to go on forever, the reverberations shaking the cliff edge from which Ayesha hung, threatening to tear her from her remaining grasp on life. With the single-minded tenacity that had kept her alive since she joined the Palestinian fedayeen as a young teen, she clung on with every ounce of determination she possessed. The seconds passed; the tremors subsided. Then, just as she thought she could breathe again, a titanic dust cloud mushroomed from the depths, obliterating everything.

  Blinded. Coughing. Her fingertips giving way. On the verge of falling, Ayesha’s left hand was seized in an iron grip. With a strength such as she’d never felt, she was hauled violently, bodily, over the edge of the chasm. Her whole body shaking, she lay on the ground, buried her head in her arms, and fought to breathe. Through a paroxysm of coughing, she remembered the silk bandanna knotted at her neck. She pulled it up over her nose and mouth. It helped, a little.

  Minutes passed—she could not tell how many—before she felt that the dust was settling; that breathing was easier. She wiped away the dirt that caked her eyelids and squinted into the gloom. Pools of light stood out. Their flashlights, which lay on the floor of the passage where they’d fallen, or had been dropped.

  Details emerged. Niobe and the vicar were huddled together. Handkerchiefs, jackets, and other items of clothing were pressed to their faces.

  Ayesha scooped up the nearest flashlight and beamed it over the shape beside her. “Joram?”

  He blinked at her through red-rimmed eyes.

  “Thank you,” she croaked. She looked past him, through the gate. Nothing was visible. The gate room, or whatever was left of it, was an impenetrable wall of fog. She felt for the gun, which she’d thrust into the top of her pants. It was gone, buried under tons of rock at the bottom of the chasm. Chagrinned at the loss, she groped on the ground, looking for anything valuable they might have dropped. Her hand touched something long and sharp. Harold’s sword. Niobe must have dropped it. Ayesha held it up, wiped the blade on her sleeve. It seemed undamaged.

  “We need to move away from here.” Joram staggered to his feet. He made ineffective attempts to dust himself off. “The air’s bound to get better once we’re away from the gate.”

  Ayesha scowled. Then she remembered Joram didn’t know that the passage they were in was a dead end. Unless. She turned and groped her way along the passage, to where she’d encountered the rock wall. If it was still there…

  The rock wall was still there. Only it wasn’t. Ayesha gasped with relief. She stepped close to examine it. The rock wall was fake. So simple, she thought, shaking her head at the ancient skill, and patience, that had contrived such an illusion. She ran a hand over the pieces of rock and stone that, sometime in the distant past, had been affixed to a wooden door, which now stood ajar. The same Templar device that had brought down the gate room floor must have opened the door.

  The passage that continued on the far side of the camouflaged door no longer sloped downward. If anything there was a slight uphill incline. After they had walked for three or four minutes, the passage veered sharply to the left. Suddenly they were in the clear. All vestiges of the dust cloud that had enveloped them after the fall of the gate room floor, had vanished. In unspoken mutual consent, they stopped and took stock.

  “Ayesha?” Joram touched her on the arm. Concern showed in his blue eyes.

  “What?”

  “Your leg.”

  She looked down. The rent in her jeans w
as now the length of her right thigh and most of her calf; blood dripped from multiple lacerations. “I’m fine.” She ripped off the hanging flap of material and used it to bandage her thigh, covering the worst gashes.

  “What happened?” Caroline Frost seemed dazed. Ayesha thought the vicar might be in shock. She raised her own hands. Not so much as a tremor. Why doesn’t that surprise me?

  Joram looked at Niobe. “It was you that pressed the Templar device, wasn’t it?”

  “I wasn’t expecting a cave-in.” The archaeologist’s tone was defensive.

  “The whole floor went. It sounded like a long drop. Our friends won’t be coming after us anytime soon.”

  “Which is all very lovely. But we’re stuck on the wrong side with no way out.”

  “You’re forgetting the castle,” the vicar reminded them. “This tunnel is bound to go all the way.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Joram said. “Anyway, we’ve no choice in the matter. I suggest we push on and find out.”

  As they were moving off, Niobe stopped Ayesha. “Harold’s sword.”

  “I know the responsibility. I won’t rest until I replace it in the king’s hands.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to live with that.” Suddenly, Niobe grinned. “I’m not bad with a sword myself. See if you can find me one.”

  Chapter 43

  Ayesha stopped in her tracks. Joram, right behind her, jumped sideways to avoid a collision.

  “Niobe?” Ayesha spoke quietly.

  “Ohmigod!” The archaeologist ran a hand over the smooth, polished surface of the massive wooden cross that obstructed their way. Its arms spanned the entire height and width of the tunnel.