Carefully, they inched their way forward. Tension made their shoulders go rigid and their nerves begin to fray. Drake felt a thin sliver of sweat slide the length of his spine, itching all the way down. Every set of eyes in the company flicked around and searched every shadow, every nook and cranny, until Ben finally found his voice.
“Wait,” he said faintly, then cleared his throat and shouted, “Wait.”
“What is it?” Drake froze with a foot still in the air.
“We should check Cook’s logs first, just in case.”
“You pick your bloody times.”
Karin spoke up. “They called this one Greed, the second deadly sin. The demon associated with greed is Mammon, one of the seven princes of hell. He was referred to in Milton’s Paradise Lost, and has even been called Hell’s Ambassador to England.”
Drake stared at her. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s not meant to be. It’s something I once read and retained. The only clue Hawksworth gives here is the sentence: Opposite Greed sits Charity. Let the next man have what you desire.”
Drake considered the cold, damp cavern. “There’s not much I desire in here, ‘cept a Krispy Kremes maybe.”
“It’s a straight run to the exit.” Komodo stopped one of his men from pushing by. “Nothing’s ever that easy. Hey! What the fuck, man—”
Drake turned to see the Delta man push Komodo aside and walk right past his commanding officer.
“Wallis! Get your ass in line, soldier.”
Drake noticed the man’s eyes as he approached. Glazed. Fixed on a point off to the right. Drake followed his gaze.
And saw the niches immediately. Funny how he hadn’t noticed them before. At the end of the right-hand tine, where it ended against the cavern wall, Drake now saw three deep niches had been carved into the black rock. Inside each niche something sparkled. Something precious made of gold and sapphires and emeralds. The object caught the weak and diffused light that flickered about the cavern and returned it tenfold. It was like staring into the heart of a shiny disco-ball made of ten-carat diamonds.
Karin whispered, “There’s an empty one on the other side.”
Drake felt the pull of the promised wealth. The harder he looked, the clearer the objects became and the more he wanted them. It took a moment for Karin’s comment to sink in, but when it did, he beheld the empty niche with both jealousy and trepidation. Had some fortunate soul dared the ledge and walked away with a prize? Or had he been clutching it when he plunged screaming into the incalculable depths below?
One way to find out.
Drake put one foot in front of the other and then stopped himself. Damn. The lure across the ledges was strong. But his pursuit of Kovalenko held a stronger attraction. He snapped back to reality, wondering how a set of lights could be so mesmerizing. At that moment, Komodo jogged past him and Drake reached out to stop him.
But the Delta team commander just fell on his own colleague and wrestled him to the ground. Drake turned to see the rest of the team on their knees, rubbing their eyes or generally avoiding the enticements. Ben and Karin stood spellbound, but Karin’s quick brain soon wrenched itself free.
She turned quickly to her brother. “You okay? Ben?”
Drake considered the young lad’s eyes. “We could be in trouble. It’s the same glazed look he gets when Taylor Momsen walks on stage.”
Karin shook her head. “Boys,” she muttered and slapped her brother hard.
Ben blinked and brought a hand up to his cheek. “Ow!”
“Are you okay?”
“No I’m bloody not! You just nearly broke my jaw.”
“Stop being a pussy. Tell Mum and Dad next time they call.”
“Too damn right I will. Why the hell did you hit me anyway?”
Drake shook his shoulder as Komodo lifted his man bodily off the floor and hurled him back into line. “Rookie.”
Karin watched admiringly.
Drake said, “Don’t you remember? The pretty lights? They almost had you, mate.”
“I remember…” Ben’s eyes suddenly snapped back to the rock wall and its cunning niches. “Oh, wow, what a rush. Gold and diamonds and riches. I remember that.”
Drake saw the sparkling objects begin to reassert their pull. “Let’s move,” he said. “Double time. I see what this cave does, and the faster we get through it, the better.”
He moved off at pace, keeping an arm around Ben’s shoulder and nodding at Karin. Komodo followed soundlessly, watching his men closely as they passed close by the ledges that stretched out to either side.
As they passed closer to the niches, Drake risked a quick look. A small chalice-shaped object stood in each niche, its surface encrusted with precious stones. But that alone wasn’t enough to make the spectacular light show that so drew the eye. Behind each chalice the rough walls of the niches themselves had been lined with row upon row of rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds and countless other gemstones and jewels.
The chalices might be worth a fortune, but the niches themselves were of inestimable value.
Drake paused as he neared the exit archway. Cold breezes tugged at him from left and right. The whole place reeked of ancient mystery and hidden secrets. Water trickled somewhere, just a small stream, but enough to augment the immensity of the cavern system they were exploring.
Drake gave everyone the once over. The trap had been overcome. He turned to walk through the exit archway.
And a voice yelled, “Stop!”
Instantly, he froze. His faith in the shout and his instinct born of old SAS training saved his life. His right foot barely touched the thin wire, but any more pressure would release the booby trap.
This time Kovalenko hadn’t left a sniper. He’d judged correctly that the group behind him would be hauling ass through the chamber of Greed. The trip wire led to a concealed M18 Claymore Mine, the one that bore the famous legend Front Toward Enemy.
The front was aimed toward Drake and would’ve blasted him apart with steel ball bearings along with Ben and Karin if Komodo hadn’t shouted the warning.
Drake dropped and quickly disarmed the device. He passed it along to Komodo. “Many thanks, mate. Keep it handy and we’ll shove it up Kovalenko’s arse later.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The next passage was short and descended rapidly downhill. Drake and the others had to walk on their heels with their bodies’ angled backward to stay upright. At any moment, Drake thought he might slip and slide helplessly down to God only knew what dreadful fate waited below.
But in only a few minutes, they spied the now-familiar archway. Drake readied a glow stick and paused at the entrance. Mindful of snipers, he quickly ducked his head in and out.
“Oh, balls,” he breathed to himself. “It gets worse.”
“Don’t tell me,” Ben said. “There’s a giant concrete ball poised over our heads.”
Drake stared at him. “Life’s not a movie, Blakey. God, you’re a geek.”
He took a deep breath and led them into the third gargantuan cavern. The awesome site they beheld stopped every one of them in their tracks. Mouths fell open. If the Blood King could have chosen any point in their journey so far to lay a trap, this was it, Drake thought a few minutes later, the perfect chance. But, luckily for the good guys, nothing lie in wait. Maybe there was a good reason for that. . .
Even Komodo gawped in awe and disbelief, but he did manage to croak out a few words. “I guess this one’s lust then.”
Coughs and grunts were his only response.
The path before them ran in a single straight line to the exit archway. The hindrance was the path was lined on both sides by short pedestals topped with statues, and by high pedestals topped with paintings. Every statue and every painting presented several erotic forms, ranging from the surprisingly tasteful to the downright obscene. Beyond that, cave-drawings filled every available inch of the cavern walls, but not the primitive depictions normally found in ancient caves—
these were stunning representations, easily the equal of any renaissance or modern-day artist.
The subject matter was shocking in another way. The images portrayed one mass orgy, every man and woman drawn in excruciating detail, committing every lustful sin known to man… and many more.
All in all, it was a stunning blow to the senses, a blow that didn’t let up as more and more dramatic pictures unfolded to strike the human eye and mind.
Drake almost shed a crocodile tear for his old pal Wells. That old perv would be in his element down here. Especially if he’d discovered it with Mai.
The thought of Mai, his oldest living friend, helped divert his mind from the pornographic sensory overload all around. He glanced back at the group.
“Guys. Guys! This can’t be everything. There has to be some kind of trap system here. Keep your eyes peeled.” He coughed. “And I mean for traps.”
The path ran on ahead. Drake now noticed that even staring at the ground wouldn’t help you. Exquisitely detailed figures writhed there too. But it was all surely a diversion.
Drake took a deep breath and stepped forward. He noticed that, to either side of the pathway, a four-inch raised edging ran for about a hundred yards.
Komodo spoke up at the same time. “See that, Drake? Could be nothing.”
“Or everything.” Drake placed one foot gingerly in front of the other. Ben followed a step behind, then a couple of soldiers and then Karin, watched carefully by Komodo. Drake heard the big, tough Komodo whisper a quiet apology to Karin for the insolent images and the rudeness of his gawping men, and stifled a smile.
At that moment, as his lead foot touched the ground at the start of the raised edgings, the air filled with a deep, rumbling sound. Immediately before him, the floor began to move.
“Ay up.” His broad Yorkshire came out in times of stress. “Wait, folks.”
The path was divided into a series of wide, horizontal stone shelves. Slowly, each shelf began to move sideways so that anyone standing on it would fall off if they didn’t step onto the next. The sequence was quite slow, but Drake guessed they had now found the reason for the chambers audacious distractions.
“Step carefully,” he said. “In pairs. And keep your minds off the filth and on the way ahead, ’less you wanna try that new sport ‘abyss-diving.’”
Ben joined him on the first moving shelf. “It’s so hard to concentrate,” he moaned.
“Think of Hayden,” Drake told him. “That’ll get you through.”
“I am thinking of Hayden.” Ben blinked at the nearest statue, a writhing threesome of tangled heads, arms and legs. “That’s the problem.”
“With me.” Drake stepped warily onto the second sliding shelf, already gauging the movement of the third and fourth. “You know, I’m so glad I spent all those hours playing Tomb Raider after all.”
“Never thought I’d end up being the sprite in the game though,” Ben muttered back and then thought of Mai. Most of the Japanese intelligence community likened her to a character in a video game. “Hey, Matt, ya’ don’t think we’re really asleep, do ya? And this is all a dream?”
Drake watched his friend tread carefully onto the third shelf. “I never had a dream this vivid.” He didn’t need to nod at their surroundings to make his point.
Now, behind them, a second and third group of men had started their painstaking journey. Drake counted twenty shelves before he reached the end and jumped off, thankfully, onto solid ground. Thank God, his pounding heart could take a breather. He watched the exit archway for a minute then, satisfied they were alone, he turned back to check the others’ progress.
Just in time to see one of the Delta men wrench his gaze away from the gaudily painted ceiling—
And miss the shelf he was about to step on to. He was gone in a split second, the only reminder that he’d ever been there was the terrified shriek that followed his fall.
The entire company stopped and the air trembled with shock and fear. Komodo gave them all a moment and then urged them on. They all knew how to survive this. The fallen soldier had been a fool to himself.
Again, and more warily now, they all started to move. Drake fancied for a moment that he could still hear the soldiers scream, falling forever into that limitless chasm, but shrugged it away as hallucination. He focused on the men once more just in time to see the big Komodo take the same fall.
There was one desperate moment of flailing, one angry, regretful cry about his terrible lapse of concentration and the big Delta team leader slipped over the edge of the shelf. Drake cried out, almost ready to leap to his aid but woefully sure he couldn’t possibly make it in time. Ben screamed like a girl—
But this was because Karin simply dived after the big man!
Without hesitation, Karin Blake left all the highly-trained Delta team staring in her wake and leapt headlong at Komodo. She had been in front of him, so her momentum should help push him back onto the concrete slab. But Komodo was a big man, and heavy, and Karin’s point-blank leap barely moved his bulk.
But she did move him slightly. And that was enough to help. Komodo managed to turn, as Karin gave him an extra two seconds of air-time, and clamp hold of the edge of the concrete with vice-like fingers. He clung, desperate, unable to haul himself up.
And the sliding shelf moved agonizingly slow toward its left-hand perimeter, at which point it would disappear, taking the Delta team leader with it.
Karin took firm hold of Komodo’s left wrist. At last, the other members of his team responded and grabbed his other arm. With a huge effort, they hauled him up and over the slab just as it disappeared into its hidden runner.
Komodo shook his head into the dusty concrete. “Karin,” he said. “I will never look at another woman again.”
The blond ex-student dropout genius grinned. “You guys with your straying eyes, you will never learn.”
And cutting through Drake’s admiration came the realization that this third level of ‘hell,’ this chamber called lust, was nothing more than a depiction of man’s age-old affliction with the wandering eye. The cliché that if a man was sitting in a café with his wife or girlfriend, and another pair of pretty legs walked by—he would almost certainly look.
Except down here, if he looked he died.
Some women would have no problem with that, Drake mused. And not unreasonably, either. But Karin had saved Komodo and now the pair were even. It took another five minutes of anxious waiting, but at last the remainder of the team made it across the sliding shelves.
They all took a breather. Every man in the company made a point of shaking Karin’s hand and commending her bravery. Even Ben.
Then a shot rang out. One of the Delta soldiers fell to his knees, clutching his stomach. All of a sudden, they were under attack. Half a dozen of the Blood King’s men poured out of the archway, guns blazing. Bullets fizzed through the air.
Already on their knees, Drake and his team hit the deck, reaching for weapons. The man who had been hit stayed kneeling and took another four rounds to the chest and head. In less than two seconds he was dead, another victim to the Blood King’s cause.
Drake dragged his loaned M16 assault rifle up and fired. To his right one of the statues was riddled with lead, alabaster chips sent zipping through the air. Drake ducked.
Another bullet whistled past his head.
The entire team was prone, calm, and able to take careful aim with their rifles balanced on the ground. When they opened fire it was a massacre, dozens of bullets riddling Kovalenko’s running men and making them dance like bloodied marionettes. One man bulldozed his way through, miraculously unharmed, until he met Matt Drake.
The ex-SAS man leapt to meet him head-on, leading with a devastating head-butt and a quick series of knife-strikes to the ribs. The last of Kovalenko’s men slipped into that place all evil men ended up.
Hell.
Drake motioned them on, sparing a regretful look for the fallen Delta team member. They would collect his bo
dy on the way back.
“We must be catching the bastard up.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Hayden faced off against Ed Boudreau and the world melted away.
“Pleased to kill you,” Boudreau repeated the words he’d said to her once before. “Again.”
“You failed last time, psycho. You’ll fail again.”
Boudreau flicked a glance down to her leg. “How’s the thigh?”
“All better.” Hayden stayed on the balls of her feet, expecting the lightning attack. She tried to steer the American so his ass was against the barn wall, but he was too wily for that.
“You’re blood.” Boudreau mimed licking his knife. “Tasted good. I think my baby here wants more.”
“Unlike your sister,” Hayden growled. “She really couldn’t take any more.”
Boudreau exploded toward her. Hayden had been expecting it and sidestepped neatly, leaving her blade for his cheek to run into. “First blood,” she said.
“Foreplay.” Boudreau lunged and retreated, then came at her with several short slices. Hayden parried them all and finished with a palm strike to his nose. Boudreau staggered, tears coming to his eyes.
Hayden instantly pressed the advantage, thrusting and slicing with her knife. She backed Boudreau up against the wall, then retreated for one beat—
Boudreau lunged.
Hayden ducked under and jabbed the knife into his thigh. She withdrew as he screamed, unable to keep the sly grin from creeping into her eyes.
“Ya feel that, fuckstick?”
“Bitch!” Boudreau went crazy. But it was the crazy of a fighter, of a thinker, of a seasoned warrior. He drove her back with thrust after thrust, taking crazy chances, but retaining just enough power and speed to make her think twice about stepping in. And now, as they ploughed backward, they collided with other knots of fighting men and Hayden lost her balance.
She fell, scrambling across a fallen man’s knee, rolled and came up, knife ready.
The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3) Page 16
