PLAZA

by Shane M Brown

  The tongue smacked Rourke's left thigh. The impact punched his feet away. Rourke collapsed. For a second he disappeared behind the plinth, but then the chameleon hauled in its prey. The tongue dragged Rourke on his back towards the archway. Ethan glimpsed dark, bloody patches along its length. Whatever damaged the creature’s neck had likewise affected its tongue.

  Nevertheless, the horrible appendage hauled in Rourke like a whaler's harpoon.

  Ethan was already moving. His gamble worked, but he couldn't waste a second. He dropped to his knees beside Spader. When they first found the gold, Spader used something that caught Ethan's attention. Afterwards, Ethan was so preoccupied with translating the gold, he'd hardly noticed what Spader had done with the item. The first pocket turned out empty.

  Ethan heard Rourke shrieking from the archway. Rourke lay fully in the animal's mouth now. Massively powerful jaws engulfed his right thigh and hip. Swinging its head violently sideways, the chameleon tried to smash Rourke into an immobilized stupor. The one-sided battle looked totally predetermined. Rourke's sophistication as a human was being stripped away. He was helpless prey.

  Shoving his hand into Spader's last pocket, Ethan's fingers closed on something the correct size and shape.

  He yanked the bottle free. This is it!

  Urgently unscrewing the cap from the concentrated acid, Ethan withdrew the glass applicator and hesitated a moment. He needed to avoid the windpipe and vulnerable arteries. Spader's neck was a swollen discolored mess. Ethan chose a spot, turned Spader's head, then squirted a stream of concentrated acid into the fleshy channel circling Spader's neck. Skin melted instantly, but the melting flesh channeled the acid onto the plastic cable-tie. Ethan winced as Spader's skin bubbled, but he caught the caustic whiff of dissolving plastic. Once he smelled the burning plastic, Ethan scrambled over to the plinth. He carefully set down the bottle and then cupped together a double handful of the powder from the drilled limestone.

  As he dashed back to Spader, Rourke started firing his pistol.

  Ethan ignored the conflict unfolding just meters away. He crouched back over Spader, holding his cupped hands above Spader's still blistering neck.

  The cable-tie sprung open, eaten through by the acid, and Ethan dumped the lime powder straight on Spader's wounds, rubbing the powder into the raw flesh and at the same time feeling Spader take his first shuddering breath.

  He's alive.

  In his wildest dreams, Spader couldn't have known the acid he carried to test precious metals would save his life. Not his weapons. Not his team. Not his first-aid kit. Just basic high-school chemistry. The alkaline limestone powder was neutralizing the acid. Ethan avoided disturbing the nasty poultice of blood and lime powder.

  Instead, he looked towards Rourke. Slumped beside Rourke, the giant animal lay dead. Ethan couldn't see any additional wounds. Rourke had scored a lucky shot, or perhaps the wounded animal was already near death. It didn't matter. It had served its purpose. Before it died, the animal had torn Rourke's right leg off above the knee. His leg hung limply from the animal’s mouth. Rourke's left arm had an extra bend between the wrist and elbow, so using his right arm, Rourke was struggling to tourniquet the stump of his right thigh with a cable-tie. He didn't have the strength. He needed two hands to thread the cable-tie into a loop. He lay back and tried to use his teeth to thread the plastic eyelet. After a moment, with a harsh cry of pain, he threw the cable-tie, unable to stem the bleeding.

  Ethan felt nothing at the sight of Rourke’s grisly wounds. He had brought it on himself. Ethan's watch started beeping. It was time. The core chamber was about to open. Ethan didn't know what to expect, but whatever it was, it was going to happen now.

  Rourke was lucid enough to speak.

  'You'll never get out,' he moaned through the pain. 'You're all dead. I made sure of that.'

  Ethan didn't even look at Rourke. He crossed to the barrier blocking access to the core chamber. The last three beeps sounded on his watch. 'Maybe. But I'll live long enough to get my answers. You won't. Look where you're lying, Rourke. Look what's above you.'

  Rourke looked up. 'Oh, God no....'

  The barriers changed, including the archway Rourke's head rested under.

  Rourke turned his face away from the incoming slab of stone that pushed his head across the floor and, without stopping, pulverized his skull and brain into a wet mash that was swept away into the wall.

  Before Ethan, the last barrier to the core chamber swung open.

  Ethan picked up the lamp and walked inside.

  Chapter 19

  'Now what?' asked Dale breathlessly. 'That helicopter’s not giving up.'

  He and Merc were sheltering inside the cyclops. Gordon has christened the structure the 'cyclops'. From the air, the discoloration on the roof resembled a single giant eye. Two small entrance structures resembled ears. Internal stone steps led to the exposed roof.

  It was the best cover they could find.

  Three times the chopper had blitzed the cyclops with gunfire. Merc and Dale had to keep moving around the single large chamber, listening to keep the chopper at a safe angle. The chamber was an obstacle course. Stored equipment was stacked and scattered everywhere.

  'Do you really think that raft can take us all?' asked Dale.

  'I don't know. But I'm sure our plane won't.' Merc kicked through the piles of equipment stacked around the chamber. Ropes, plastic bins, old tents, empty gas bottles - he found nothing that could damage a helicopter.

  'There's nothing here!'

  'What did you expect?’ asked Dale.

  'Something. Anything. Just some way to force it down for a minute.'

  Dale took a chance and peered out the east exit. He spotted the balloon-raft. 'She made it. Libby got the raft down. They're climbing in!'

  Merc knew what would happen next. Once the pilot noticed the women on the raft, he'd cut them down with the chopper's guns. Vulnerable on the raft, Claire and Libby didn't stand a chance. Merc was powerless to stop it. He didn't have even a shred of a plan.

  Dale's next outburst confirmed Merc's fears. 'The chopper's turning towards the raft. They're going to shoot!’

  Pure desperation made Merc act. He ran for the steps, snatching Dale's pistol on the way past.

  'Hey - wait,' yelled Dale. 'That won't do anything!'

  But Merc was already halfway up the stairs. He burst out onto the roof and took aim on the chopper. Dale was right. The pistol had no chance of damaging the helicopter. At best, his shots might distract the pilot long enough for Claire and Libby to escape the raft. Merc fired. His first two shots missed, but his next two raised sparks on the chopper's fuselage. The next round seemed to hit the chopper's windscreen, because the pilot suddenly reacted. The chopper swung away from the raft and back towards Merc.

  Merc braced his wrist and aimed. He had one shot left, but before he pulled the trigger an earthquake erupted. The entire cyclops shook under Merc's feet.

  What the...?

  No, not an earthquake. An explosion. To the east. A thick cloud of soil erupted into the air. As Merc tracked the black cloud of approaching air-born debris, he identified the source. The silt wall. Someone had demolished the silt wall with explosives.

  'Look!' yelled Merc, tracking with his finger where several pieces of embankment the size of oil drums came spinning through the air, shedding clods like a comet's tail.

  The helicopter pilot saw them too. He tried to bank away, but the soil was flying faster than the helicopter ever could. One clod smacked the chopper's tail rotor. The soily explosion completely obscured the helicopter. Next, Merc saw it spinning out of control. The impact had ripped the rotor clean off. The pilot couldn’t recover. The helicopter slammed down onto the middle tier, less than twenty-five meters from Merc. The still-rotating propeller flipped the chopper into a careening roll down the middle tier’s stairs.

  Amazed by the spectacle, Merc barely registered Dale's insistent shoving. Open-mouthed and speechless, Dale
grabbed Merc by the shoulder and spun him around, pointing towards the silt wall. Rourke's plan became terrifyingly obvious.

  Rourke was flooding the Plaza.

  The entire Plaza lay below ground level. The silt wall had been a dam. Now the dam had burst. Water came pounding into the Plaza like someone opened the flood-gates. Rourke's security tent stood first in the flood's path. Stone stood no better than canvas. Both smashed down as though made from cardboard. Tents and scaffolding, motorbikes and camp-beds, the water swept everything along. Folding tables and generators, chemical toilets and showers, pumps and ladders - the whole lot surged directly towards Merc and Dale.

  The water hit the cyclops, shaking the structure beneath them.

  'We're screwed,' said Merc. It didn't matter the helicopter was gone. The destructive water pounding through the Plaza was a hundred times as dangerous.

  'We need to reach Libby's balloon!' yelled Dale. Merc could barely hear Dale's voice over the raging torrent swelling around them.

  'There's no way,' Merc yelled back, but Dale was gone. 'Dale - wait!'

  Dale had disappeared back down the stairs into the cyclops.

  What the hell's he doing? thought Merc. He can't mean to shelter down there from the water. This entire place is going under.

  Merc took a few steps down. Flood waters already three-quarters filled the chamber. Dale was nowhere to be seen. The water's entire surface was awash with bobbing objects. Merc yelled into the mess, 'Dale! Dale!'

  Dale's head emerged near Merc's boots. He'd been underwater retrieving something.

  'Help me with this,' said Dale, dragging a rope up the steps.

  Merc helped Dale to the roof. 'What can you do with this?'

  'It's not for me,' puffed Dale, tying one end of the rope around his waist. 'It's for you. Tie it on yourself.'

  'I'll just drag you down,' Merc objected.

  Dale started hunting in his cargo pants pocket. 'This is going to burn OK? But it's better than drowning.'

  'What will burn - whoa, wait, wait!'

  Dale had the can of expanding foam. They'd used the foam earlier to encase the artifacts for safe travel. Dale was shaking the can and eyeing Merc's shirt. 'I'll spray it under your shirt to make a life-jacket. It will mold to your body and make a perfect fit.'

  Merc didn’t let himself think about it. Dale was right. It was better than drowning. 'Do it.’

  Dale pushed his arm down Merc's shirt and sprayed the foam. The foam expanded under Merc's armpit and puffed out his shirt front and back. For a moment Merc only felt the foam cooling his skin, but then the burning started. 'Christ - that burns like fire!'

  Dale winked at Merc, opened his collar, and then sprayed the foam down his own shirt. His eyes bulged as the burning took effect.

  Merc tried to shut out the pain. He still couldn't see Dale's plan. If they didn't drown, they'd be pulverized among the churning debris. Whatever Dale's plan, they had just seconds to act. The flood was transforming the eastern side of the Plaza into a tremendous three-tiered waterfall. The cyclops’s roof was the last dry outcrop. Even now water began topping the cyclops. Merc felt the water find his boots. Any moment, both men would be swept off the roof and into churning, debris-filled white water.

  'Dale, what are you planning?'

  'Don't you see it?' Dale sounded exhilarated, hysterical almost.

  'I don't see anything, Dale.' Merc hated the hopelessness in his own voice.

  Dale checked the rope around his and Merc's waists. 'Then let me show you.'

  With that, Dale sprinted across the top of the cyclops and dived into the water. Merc dashed to the spot through the ankle-deep water already trying to peel him from the roof. Dale was swimming. Merc lifted the rope above his head to reduce the drag. He lent into the rising water, watching Dale and dreading the moment when something large swept between the two men, snagging the rope and dragging Dale under. It looked inevitable. Any second now.

  Merc drew his knife. Dale couldn't drag him through the water. Whatever Dale was planning, it wouldn't work. Dale had no chance tethered to Merc. There was no sense in them both dying.

  That kid deserves better than this.

  Merc looped the rope around the blade and looked once more towards Dale.

  At that moment, he saw Dale’s plan.

  Merc lowered the blade from the loop, leaving the rope intact.

  Where Merc saw a jumble of chaotic swirling debris, Dale saw opportunity. Like two upside-down canoes, Spader's overturned seaplane came careening through the debris. Dale was swimming madly to intercept it.

  #

  Claire leapt into the raft away from the water.

  She could hardly believe the unfolding mayhem. First the helicopter was going to shoot the raft. Then it was going to shoot Merc. Then it was ripped from the sky by a ball of flying dirt! It happened so quickly, Claire took stunned seconds to realize the fountaining eruption of dirt was actually the silt wall.

  Looking towards Merc when the wall exploded, she’d seen everything. Huge chunks of soil came raining down over the site. She hadn't realized how big the pieces were until the first one hit the helicopter. The back end of the aircraft had torn right off.

  Then came the water.

  Water like a tidal wave focused on the Plaza. The explosion had breached the silt wall, had been intended to breach the silt wall, and now the entire silt lake was emptying into the Plaza. The white water smashed through the Plaza's eastern structures. Claire saw everything being swept towards her and Libby. Everything came down with the flood. Tents, scaffolding, light towers, the demolished comm-tower - everything came rolling down towards their raft.

  'Libby - we need this thing in the air right now!'

  Claire saw the tents the raft had landed on start washing away.

  'It's lifting. It's lifting!' yelled Libby over the roaring water. 'Quick, Claire, get up this end!'

  Claire didn't know what Libby planned, but Libby understood the raft better than anyone. As water smashed over the tents behind her, Claire scrambled over the trampoline netting towards Libby's end of the raft.

  As she grabbed the webbing, the wave's full force struck, pitching the raft's lighter end upwards. The extra push worked as Libby planned. Claire felt the raft clear the water and gain altitude. The water rose, but the raft rose quicker, and Claire suddenly realized they were doing it. They were beating the water. She remembered Merc and Dale. Where last she'd spotted the two men was now awash with white water.

  'What about the others?' yelled Claire. 'Did you see them?'

  'Dale dived in with a rope,' Libby yelled back. 'There's a ladder in that box. Get it ready in case we see them.'

  Claire ripped open the plastic box and withdrew the rolled safety ladder. She searched over the side of the raft. The rising maelstrom churned just five meters below. Debris jostled and heaved everywhere. At least the debris might give them something to hold onto. Panning her eyes over a larger and larger area, she saw no sign of them.

  She saw someone else.

  There. On the middle tier. Climbing up a tower. Chased by the water cascading over the tier in a long unbroken waterfall.

  It wasn't Merc. It wasn't Dale.

  It was Kline.

  Their eyes met.

  Kline raised his arm. He pointed something at the balloon. His arm jolted. Claire barely heard the crack of a gunshot over the roaring water. She ducked, yelling at Libby, but immediately realized Kline wasn't shooting at her.

  'A hole!' yelled Libby. 'He shot a hole in the balloon.'

  Claire knew they were falling fast. She dropped the safety line and grabbed the webbing. Down, down, down - wump - they hit the water's surface. Current instantly spun the raft. The current was different now. With the bottom tier now completely filled, the water circled the middle tier clockwise like a giant draining bathtub.

  Ethan.

  The Gallery was three-quarters underwater.

  The tower Kline had climbed was gone, washed
away. She couldn't see Kline. He was no doubt caught up in the same current as themselves.

  'Help me!' Libby called. 'The balloon is pulling us under.'

  Claire was up to her knees in water. The trampoline base let water through. Only the raft's inflated edges kept them buoyant. Countering this buoyancy, the balloon had crumpled into the water behind them and was starting to pull them under. Claire scrambled around raft, unclipping the lines that tethered the balloon. Working together, both women got the job done seconds before the current pulled them under. With the balloon's dragging weight gone, the raft rode higher.

  Claire saw they had made nearly a quarter lap around the Gallery now. She was orientating herself with the tree line when someone called her name. She spotted two people kneeling precariously on debris.

  Dale and Merc.

  They had reached what resembled two overturned canoes. No, not canoes. They were the landing pontoons of an overturned seaplane. The plane was moving slower than the raft. It seemed to be turning in small circles of its own. The raft would pass the plane, but not close enough for the men to jump. They looked exhausted. Neither looked capable of the swim, or of even clinging to the pontoons for much longer.

  Claire hunted around in the water at her feet. She found the safety rope. She clipped one end to the raft, coiled the rest in her hand, and then hurled the rope towards Dale as they drew even.

  Her throw was good. Dale snatched the rope from the air and hooked his end onto something below the water.

  Claire started pulling, but Dale called out, 'Don't pull. The plane is turning. It will pull us in by itself.'

  He was right. The turning plane wrapped the rope around itself, pulling them all together.

  #

  Ethan entered the core chamber.

  The chamber was five meters across. A perfect cube. Open archways stood on either side.

  Heart thumping, he held up the fluorescent lamp. Stone carvings covered every inch of the walls. His shaking hand made the intricate carvings squirm in the lantern light. At first glance, he couldn't read any of them. He inferred no sense from the clamoring hieroglyphs. The pictograms shouted at his eyes, jostling to be read first, but their order looked all askew.