The Iron Tomb

by Peter Vegas

  This will be the end. The thought came to him as clear as day. If he let panic take over, he would die there, and it all would have been for nothing.

  Sam closed his eyes, knowing it was pointless, given there was absolutely no difference between having them open or shut, but as he lay there and breathed slowly, he felt better. The panic didn’t dissolve to nothing, just faded to a dull throb far enough away to let Sam think.

  The roof was intact. The extra sand wasn’t the result of a cave-in. What did he know about the tunnel? Jason Verulam had finished it himself, swapping between digging and clearing. In his last entry he had started the shaft, but he had never finished the journal. Why not? Had he given up on clearing the sand? Simply pushed it behind him in his last frantic attempt to get free?

  Sam rolled onto his side and began to carefully sweep the sand down past him. His movements were slow and gentle, the way he had seen his uncle uncovering remains in the desert. But the stakes were far higher here. One rough move and the roof would violently end its seventy-three-year run.

  Once again it was Sam’s hands that told him what was happening. The gap in front was getting bigger. Soon there was enough room for Sam to edge forward without touching the roof. He swept more sand back and slid forward inch by inch until his hand hit rock.

  Sam raised his right arm off the floor. It got to the point where the roof should have been, but his hand kept rising. Soon Sam’s arm was pointing straight up, as if he were asking a question in class.

  He’d made it to the shaft.

  * * *

  THE SURFACE OF THE ROCK was uneven. Sam could imagine Mary’s grandfather groping blindly, finding footholds and handholds and climbing up its face. Sam worked that out by touch, but there was no way of knowing how high the climb would be. He reassured himself that it would be as easy as scaling the climbing wall in the school gym, except blindfolded.

  Thankfully, it was a short climb. The shaft was only the height of two tall men, but as he followed in Jason Verulam’s footsteps, Sam couldn’t help but reflect on how terrifying it must have been for the man as he dug for his life. Jason had had to drag boards through the tunnel to shore up the vertical shaft; Sam only had to climb.

  When Sam’s head hit wood, the collision brought down a light dusting of sand.

  It had to be the lid Jason had written about.

  Sam gave it a push, but he could tell it was pointless. So he tried the opposite. Wedging his fingers between two of the planks of wood, Sam pulled. A gap opened, and he was rewarded with a mouthful of sand for his troubles. He turned away in surprise. A lucky move, because the lid over the tunnel turned out to be as tired as the rest of the construction.

  There was a loud woompf as seven or eight pieces of wood, and what felt like just as many tons of sand, plunged behind Sam down the shaft. If he hadn’t had his head down, trying to spit out the mouthful of sand he had just swallowed, it would have taken him with it.

  Sam looked up. The view was exactly the same. Black. But slowly it began to change. As a gentle breeze wafted across his face, tiny pinpricks of light began to spoil the flat monotone color he had gotten so used to.

  * * *

  IT WAS AN UNDIGNIFIED EXIT. Sam slithered rather than climbed out of the shaft into the small crater that had been created by the opening of the tunnel. As he lay there, the elation at having escaped was dulled by the complete and utter exhaustion that had seeped into every corner of his body. He breathed deeply, keeping his eyes wide open. He knew if he shut them now, he’d be out like a light, and he couldn’t afford for that to happen. He had to keep going. He had to get help for his uncle, and fast.

  Thanks to Sam’s weakened state, there was a time lag between his decision to get to his feet and his body making it happen. In those few seconds the voices reached his ears. Two men arguing.

  Sam slid up to the edge of the crater. A few hundred feet away the huge hulk of a giant helicopter was squatting on the sand, pointing directly at Sam’s hiding place. The eerie red glow in the cockpit gave away the presence of a pilot busily flicking switches. But the voices belonged to the two men standing beside the helicopter’s open side door. It was the Short-Haired Man and his partner with the beard, who had tried to grab Sam at his uncle’s apartment.

  While his distance from the men gave him some comfort, Sam couldn’t help but wish he were close enough to hear what they were arguing about. The man with the beard was doing most of the talking, along with a lot of arm waving and finger pointing. He was worked up about something, and Sam got the impression that the Short-Haired Man was getting a real telling off.

  The voices died as another figure loomed out of the darkness from behind the chopper. It was Hadi. There was no sign of the Ark. Sam guessed it had already been loaded, because the bearded man suddenly leapt on board, and the engines roared to life.

  The rotors began to spin, and two spotlights above the cockpit cast a road-sized band of light out in front of the helicopter. Sam realized that it was going to head straight for him the moment it left the ground. He shuffled back from the edge of the crater and reached into the shaft for the canvas he had seen stuck to the rim. Jason Verulam had placed it over the wood to stop the sand from seeping in, but now it would have to make do as instant camouflage.

  The engines screamed like beasts demanding to be let off their leads. The rotors reached their top speed, sending clouds of sand over the crater. Sam dragged the canvas over him and waited.

  The racket grew louder still and it felt like the helicopter, rather than taking off, was simply rolling across the sand toward Sam. Then the chaos passed, the wind dropped, and the roar of the engines began to soften. Sam looked up to see the red flashes of the helicopter’s taillights as it cruised out over the desert in a wide arc that brought it back over its landing spot. The spotlights lit up the Short-Haired Man and Hadi sitting next to a small fire that had been blocked from Sam’s view when the chopper was on the ground. The lights revealed one more secret lurking out in the darkness: a quad bike.

  As the sounds of the helicopter faded away, Sam made plans for his own departure.

  25

  THE END OF THE ROAD

  THE FIRE’S ORANGE GLOW SILHOUETTED Hadi and the Short-Haired Man. Calm had returned to the desert, but with the Ark safely dispatched, there was nothing to hold them there. They seemed involved in a discussion, but it was only a matter of time before they would head for the quad. Sam had to get there first.

  Like the chopper, he moved out in a wide arc that kept him as far from the fire as possible. Sam waited until he had the bike between him and the fire before he zeroed in on its parking spot on a low ridge. Thankfully, the key was in it. Mounting it silently, Sam made sure the headlights were off before he turned it on. Just one click, to light up the instrument panel. The bike was in neutral. Another piece of luck.

  As Sam pushed the bike down the slope to make his getaway, a commotion at the fire caught his attention.

  The Short-Haired Man leapt up. Sam panicked, thinking he’d been spotted, but there was a cry from Hadi as he was hauled to his feet by his collar.

  “Up. Get up!” said the Short-Haired Man, loudly enough for Sam to hear.

  Hadi sobbed as he rose. “Please, why? What have I done?”

  The Short-Haired Man didn’t reply. He tossed a small foldable spade at the terrified Egyptian. “Over there,” he said, pointing a few feet from the fire. “Start digging.”

  Hadi stumbled to the spot and began to shovel. “Please, mister . . . I will not tell a soul of what I have seen.”

  The Short-Haired Man didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled a gun from his belt and motioned for Hadi to continue digging. After a few minutes he stepped forward to inspect the work.

  “This is nothing personal, boy. People have died for knowing far less than you do.” He knocked the shovel from Hadi’s hand. “Get in the hole.”

  It was more of a shallow trench than a hole, and Hadi latched on to this. “No, wait!”
he pleaded, scrambling for the shovel. “I can dig more.” It was a last desperate attempt to prolong his life.

  “Enough!” the Short-Haired Man yelled. His voice echoed out into the desert, reducing Hadi to stifled sobs. “Get down on your knees. I’ll make this quick for you.”

  With a metallic click the Short-Haired Man cocked his weapon. He straightened his arm and took aim at the back of Hadi’s head. The boy’s whimpering died away, but just as his finger tightened on the trigger, the Short-Haired Man was distracted by the sound of his quad bike starting. He looked up the rise, to the spot where he’d parked it. By the time he realized the noise hadn’t come from there, it was too late. He spun back toward the fire as Sam roared out of the darkness behind it. Another second and he might have had a chance to get a shot off, but the quad was coming on too fast.

  Showers of sparks and embers erupted from both sides of the bike as it crossed the fire and plowed on, and at the very last second Sam adjusted his course by a fraction.

  One of the chunky tires clipped the Short-Haired Man, sending him flying back.

  Sam skidded to a stop next to Hadi, who was still kneeling in the trench. “Get on now,” he said.

  Eyes wide with surprise, Hadi leapt out of the trench and onto the bike. Sam kicked it into gear, and they tore off into the night.

  “You saved me! You saved me!” shouted Hadi as they sped through the dark. He sounded surprised, and Sam was too. His escape had been assured. With the Short-Haired Man watching Hadi dig his trench, Sam could have raced off into the desert. But once he saw what was going on, he knew he had to act.

  It wasn’t as if he owed Hadi any favors, but Sam couldn’t live with the idea of someone losing his life because he hadn’t done anything to help.

  Their getaway was interrupted as two quick shots rang out.

  Sam felt Hadi tense up and thought the Egyptian had been hit, but the bike was the victim. The engine spluttered and died, and the quad began to lose speed. Before it came to a stop, Hadi leapt from the back.

  “Wait! Don’t run!” Sam yelled.

  Hadi wasn’t listening. “Come, come,” he urged, moving farther away. “We must go.”

  Sam slipped off the bike and crouched behind it. Half his brain was screaming, Run! The other half said, Stay put. Another shot rang out, and Hadi came scuttling back to the bike.

  “Get around here,” hissed Sam.

  The boy slumped down next to him, his head falling on Sam’s shoulder. The action seemed out of place till Sam heard the labored breathing.

  “Hadi, are you okay?” Sam tried to push him upright, and his hand got covered in something warm and sticky. “What’s wrong?” It was a stupid question. Sam knew the answer. He’d been shot.

  Hadi’s head fell back onto Sam again as he let out a weak groan.

  “He should have listened to you, Sam.” The voice, mixed with the gentle scuffing of boots on sand, drifted out of the blackness. A few seconds later the slim silhouette of the Short-Haired Man appeared behind the quad, but the night-vision unit covering his face gave his head a bulky inhuman look.

  “He’s dying. He needs help!” Sam screamed.

  “What do you care? He betrayed you.”

  “He doesn’t deserve to die.”

  “He was a sewer rat working for money,” the Short-Haired Man fired back. “And happy to leave you to die in that ship.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” said Sam. “That was your idea.”

  The Short-Haired Man conceded the point with a shrug of his shoulders. “No matter. Now I have a job for you.” He pulled a slim flashlight out of his pocket, and Sam recoiled in horror as its beam lit up Hadi. A red stain covered his entire right shoulder, and it grew as Sam watched.

  There was no reaction from the Short-Haired Man. “Bring the boy,” he said. He walked off, holding the tiny flashlight behind him like a theater usher. It was a deliberate act, a sign of contempt. His way of showing Sam he didn’t see the boy as a threat.

  Hadi let out another weak groan as Sam hooked his arms under the boy’s shoulders and dragged him away from the bike. Sam’s head was spinning from a toxic mix of shock and exhaustion. He knew every step he took was one closer to their deaths, but his mind was blank. He was out of ideas. Out of hope. So he dragged Hadi through the sand one step at a time.

  26

  FALL GUY

  THE MINIATURE BALL OF LIGHT looked like a yellow star sitting low on the horizon. Each time Sam turned to make sure he was on course, it was hovering there in the distance.

  If the Short-Haired Man was getting impatient, he didn’t show it, remaining silent until Sam reached him. “You know, Sam, when you appeared across the fire on the motorbike, I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.”

  His tone betrayed something approaching admiration, but Sam didn’t care. As he gently lowered Hadi’s body to the ground, he was past caring about anything.

  “I will admit,” continued the Short-Haired Man, “I was a little confused. I mean, how had you escaped? And then, on my walk from the fire to the bike, I spotted this.” Sam followed the beam of the penlight to the small crater surrounding the tunnel opening. He had been vaguely aware that it was off to his left as he and Hadi had raced away from the fire, but he hadn’t been sure of the exact location. Then again, he hadn’t had the advantage of night-vision goggles.

  “Obviously, you didn’t have time to dig this yourself, but the fact that you found it and managed to get out so fast—quite impressive. And now, lucky for you, I think,” he added.

  “Why?” asked Sam.

  “Because the two of you would not have fit in the grave the boy dug.” The Short-Haired Man laughed at his own sick joke. “You know, Sam, while I applaud your escape attempt, the pity is, if you had stayed where you were, you might have lived.”

  Sam couldn’t help himself. “What are you talking about?”

  “You saw the helicopter, yes?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “I also saw your boss chewing you out.” Sam couldn’t see the Short-Haired Man’s face, but he sensed a scowl.

  “He is not my boss,” he insisted. “We were forced to work together on this mission. It was my employer’s wish. Not mine.”

  “Whatever. Looked like you were getting a lecture to me.”

  The conversation was pointless; it wouldn’t affect how things turned out. But there was a small dose of satisfaction, knowing he’d gotten under his executioner’s skin.

  “A lecture, you say?” The word was delivered awkwardly. “Actually, no, the discussion was about whether you and your uncle should live or die.”

  Sam didn’t respond, but he was listening intently, and the Short-Haired Man knew it. “That’s right, Sam. My partner”—he emphasized the word—“insisted that you should both live. He told me he intended to radio in your location to the authorities once I had departed. So you see, if you hadn’t tried quite so hard, you would have lived.”

  “Would have?”

  “That’s right. You’ve given me the chance to finish this job the way I wanted to. Now get up and dump the boy down the shaft.”

  The conversation was over. Sam saw the Short-Haired Man glance at his watch, and as he did, he realized that the darkness was abating. The world was still black, but the shade had lightened just a fraction.

  “Why?” asked Sam.

  “Why what?” the Short-Haired Man asked impatiently.

  “Why did your boss”—Sam emphasized the word—“care if we lived or died?”

  “Your parents.”

  “What about them?”

  “He said he was doing it for them.”

  “My parents are dead,” said Sam.

  “Not according to him.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, remembering what Jasper had said.

  “I mean, your parents are alive. Now get on with it, or I’ll make your death more painful than you can possibly imagine.”

  Sam didn’t hear the Short-Haired Man’s threat. His mind
was spinning out of control. Could his parents really be alive? As he allowed the thought to linger, he felt a spark deep down inside him. The Short-Haired Man said something else, but Sam was lost in a growing surge of emotion. Finally, the man’s raging words sank in.

  “Did you hear me?” he roared, his face reddening, a combination of the strain and frustration. Even now, all Sam could manage was a blank stare as the thoughts flooding his mind overpowered his ability to focus on anything else.

  The Short-Haired Man grabbed Sam’s arm and shoved him toward Hadi’s body. The physical contact snapped Sam out of his trance. He looked at the man waving the gun in front of him, then looked down at the boy’s body, and he understood. He was useful only for as long as it took to toss Hadi down the shaft. He would be next. Despite the horror of the situation the spark inside him began to glow brighter and warmer. His parents were alive.

  He knelt by the body, fumbling awkwardly, as if he were trying to work out how to pick it up.

  “You need to use both hands,” growled the Short-Haired Man. But Sam couldn’t, because he had one hand behind him.

  The chunky brass weapon had been tucked into the back of his pants since he’d found it next to the skeleton. It had left deep grooves in his skin, but he didn’t feel a thing as he got to his feet and aimed it.

  “A flare gun? Really, Sam?”

  The Short-Haired Man was so unimpressed by Sam’s last roll of the dice, he didn’t even bother to raise his own gun. Instead, he laughed. “Let me guess. You found that in the ship and thought you would use it on me when I least expected it?” He shook his head slowly. “It looks old, Sam. And dirty. Think it still works?”

  Sam had no idea.

  “Pull the trigger. Find out.” The Short-Haired Man saw the hesitation in Sam’s eyes. “Go on,” he screamed. “Do it! It’s your last chance, Sam. Pull the trigger!”