The Six Sacred Stones jw-2

by Matthew Reilly

  The British frogmen clambered up into the Zodiacs, their black wet suits dripping, their guns glistening.

  Pooh Bear instinctively pushed Lily and Alby behind him.

  The lead frogman went to Iolanthe, removed his mask and rebreather. He was young, square-jawed, with a pockmarked face. “Lieutenant Colin Ashmont, ma’am. Royal Marines. We’ve been waiting for you. And, as ordered, monitoring Captain West’s radio signals till we heard the Pillar had been placed.”

  “Good work, Lieutenant,” Iolanthe said, striding over to stand with the British frogmen. “West is down there with two others. The old man, whom we need, and the woman, whom we don’t.”

  She handed Ashmont her headset mike, just as he switched off the jamming device on his hip.

  He spoke into the mike. “Captain Jack West. This is the Royal Marines. You have no escape. You know it and we know it. Bring out the Pillar.”

  “Go fuck yourself,”came the reply from the radio.

  Ashmont smiled. Then he looked at Lily and Alby as he spoke again: “Bring out the Pillar, Captain, or I start killing the children. The boy first.”

  “OK. We’re coming.”

  Minutes later, Iolanthe, Ashmont, and three of his men stood inside the docking unit suctioned to the base of the rocky island, staring down the pipelike tunnel filled with Nile crocodiles.

  At the other end of the tunnel stood Jack, Zoe, and Wizard.

  “Send the old man out with the Pillar!” Ashmont called.

  “What’s your name, soldier?” Jack said evenly.

  “Ashmont. Lieutenant. Fifth Regiment, Her Majesty’s Marines.”

  “You threatened my little girl and her friend, Lieutenant Ashmont. I’m gonna make sure you diehard for that.”

  “You don’t scare me, Captain West,” Ashmont replied haughtily. “I’ve heard of you, and I know your kind. Some may think you’re good, but to me you’re loose, undisciplined, reckless. Just another wild animal from a colony that should be kept on a tighter leash. I’ve a mind to kill the boy just on principle. Now send the old man through with the Pillar or I give the order.”

  Jack handed his rucksack to Wizard, who then proceeded to shimmy down the crocodile-infested tunnel for the second time that morning.

  Again, the big crocs grunted in protest, but they did not attack.

  As Wizard crawled down the tunnel, Jack called, “Iolanthe. I’m disappointed.”

  “Sorry, Huntsman,” she replied. “Blood is thicker than water, especially royal blood.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  At length, Wizard emerged from the hole at the end of the tunnel and stepped out in front of the three gun-toting Royal Marines.

  Ashmont snatched the rucksack from him, saw the glowing Pillar within it, handed it to Iolanthe.

  “Up, old man.” He jerked his chin at the ladder leading back up to the boats.

  Wizard protested: “But—”

  “Move!”

  Reluctantly, Wizard ascended the ladder.

  Standing at the tunnel’s entrance, Iolanthe gazed down it, seeing West and Zoe at the far end. She held the Pillar in her hands, brushing the new pyramid-shaped hollow in one end of it with her fingers.

  “Enjoy your tomb, Captain,” she said.

  Then she pressed the solid end of the glowing Pillar into the rolled-back symbol of the Machine at the entrance and immediately the manhole-sized symbol rolled back into place, sealing the ancient tunnel with a resoundingboom, locking Jack and Zoe inside.

  IOLANTHE, Ashmont, and the other Royal Marines climbed back up into the Zodiacs.

  Once they were all up, Ashmont broke the seal on the docking unit, and it instantly flooded, covering the entrance to the subterranean system with water again.

  Then he pushed Lily and Wizard onto the first Zodiac, leaving Alby, Pooh Bear, and the American, Astro, on the second one.

  The British lieutenant deferred to Iolanthe. “What about them?”

  “We keep the girl and the old man. The others we don’t need.”

  “So be it,” Ashmont growled. Then he promptly cuffed Pooh, Astro,and Alby to their Zodiac, cut the ropes anchoring their boat to his and to the island, and then—blam!-blam!-blam!—fired three shots into its rubber sides.

  Lily screamed at the gunshots.

  The second Zodiac instantly began to deflate…and sink…with Pooh Bear, Astro, and Alby handcuffed to it!

  The many crocodiles that had lurked in wait in a wide circle around the two boats now began to stir. Unlike the ones inside the cool interior of the island, these crocs were alert, awake, and mobile.

  “Perhaps you’ll be lucky and drown before the crocs take you,” Ashmont said. “Otherwise, I hope your death is not too frightening.”

  “When it comes, I certainly hope yours is,” Pooh Bear retorted. “Bastard.”

  “Alby!” Lily screamed, her eyes filling with tears.

  Alby himself was petrified, turning this way and that, looking from his sinking boat to the wide circle of crocs.

  “Farewell,” Ashmont said.

  Then he gunned the engine of his Zodiac and sped off into the dawn across Lake Nasser, heading back for the docks at Abu Simbel, leaving Pooh Bear, Alby, and Astro to their fate.

  Water began to dribble in over the sides of the sinking Zodiac.

  Standing on the sinking boat, cuffed to it, Alby felt like a passenger on the Titanic : unable to stop his craft’s inexorable sinking and destined to die on it very soon.

  “OK,” Pooh Bear said between anxious breaths. “What would Huntsman do? He’d have some kind of extra oxygen tank hidden on his belt, right? Or a blowtorch to cut through these cuffs.”

  “We’re out of both,” Astro said drily.

  Pooh thought of the small amount of C-2 plastic explosive he kept concealed in his beard ring, but no, it was too powerful for his handcuffs. It’d blow his hand off in the process.

  A large croc splashed nearby, whip-cracking its tail.

  “How you doing, kid?” Astro said to Alby.

  “Scared out of my mind.”

  “Yeah, I’m feeling about the same,” Astro replied.

  Water began to gush in over the edges of the deflating boat,pouring in, and the whole boat began to sink faster.

  The water came up to Alby’s knees, then his thighs.

  They would go under any moment now.

  A sudden splashing nearby made Alby spin and he turned round in time to see a huge crocodile come launching out of the water at his face, jaws wide, making a lunge for him—only for a booming gunshot to ring out and the croc fell in midlunge, lashing and spasming, shot in the eye by Astro.

  “Holy shit …” Alby breathed. “Oh my God, oh my God…”

  The water level was at his waist now.

  The boat was nearly fully under, tilting dramatically in the water.

  Pooh Bear came alongside Alby. He ripped off his face mask and handed it to Alby, despite the fact it had no oxygen tank attached to it. “Here, put this on. It might give you more time. I’m sorry, lad. I’m sorry we couldn’t do more for you.”

  Then, with a final inward rush, the crippled Zodiac filled fully with water and went under…

  …taking Pooh Bear, Astro, and Alby down with it.

  UNDERWATER.

  Holding his breath, Alby felt the Zodiac pulling him downward by the wrist. As he fell through the murky haze, he could just make out the wall of the rocky island nearby.

  Crocodiles lurked at the perimeter of his vision, hovering in the void, just watching the Zodiac’s slow freefall.

  Then in ultraslow motion the Zodiac hit the bottom, kicking up silt, and one of the crocs moved in.

  It glided through the water, propelled by its thick tail, zeroing in on Alby, jaws opening as it approached, and Alby screamed a soundless underwater scream as it rushed at him and—

  —stopped.

  Stopped dead, three inches from Alby’s face.

  Its snarling teeth were halted righ
t in front of Alby’s bulging eyes, and it was only then that Alby saw the great big Ka-Bar knife—Pooh Bear’s knife—that had been lodged up into the soft underside of the crocodile’s lower jaw.

  Pooh Bear had reached over with his free hand and stabbed it up through the creature’s jaw, just in time.

  But then Alby saw the big man’s eyes—they were wide open and bloodshot, running out of air. That lunge, it appeared, had been Pooh Bear’s last act on this Earth. He visibly sagged.

  Then a second croc advanced from the other side, again coming for Alby, the smallest prey, and this time Alby knew there was no escape. Pooh was done. Astro was too far away.

  The crocodile zoomed in toward him, jaws opening, charging.

  Running out of air and now totally out of heroes, Alby shut his eyes and waited for the end.

  BUT THE END didn’t come.

  There was no explosion of pain or slashing of teeth.

  Alby opened his eyes—to see Jack West, wearing scuba gear, wrestling with the gigantic crocodile, rolling and struggling; the croc bucking and snapping.

  And then suddenly someone jammed a scuba regulator to his mouth and Alby sucked in glorious air. Zoe hovered beside him in the water, also scuba-equipped.

  Then she dashed to the limp Pooh Bear’s side and inserted the regulator into his mouth. He came to life instantly. She moved on to Astro.

  As for the fight between Jack and the crocodile, it was now a rolling struggle, hidden amid a cloud of roiling bubbles.

  Then all of a sudden, Alby saw the croc bite down hard on Jack’s left hand—only to see, two seconds later, Jackextract his hand from the great beast’s jaws!

  And just as Alby recalled that Jack’s left hand was made of metal, he saw the crocodile’s head explode underwater and spontaneously become a cloud of red. As it bit him, Jack must have left a grenade in its mouth.

  At that moment, Zoe fired a shot through Alby’s handcuff and did likewise with Pooh’s and Astro’s bonds and then Jack was right beside him, sharing his regulator, and Alby found himself being guided to the surface, somehow alive.

  They broke the surface together and swam for the rocky island, where Jack pushed Alby up the slope, clear of the waterline, until he could lie safely on the less-steep upper surface.

  Pooh and Astro were pushed up next, then Zoe and last of all, Jack, keeping a watchful eye on the crocs—but thankfully, most of them were preoccupied with eating the corpse of their now-headless comrade.

  Jack lay on the island, sucking in great heaving breaths.

  “How did—how did you get out?” Alby gasped.

  “There were crocs in the entry tunnel,” Jack said. “They’d got in by another entrance on the other side, a small cleft in the rock that was probably created by a tremor sometime. We came out through there.”

  Then Jack propped himself up on his elbow and looked back out over the lake. “Did they head back for Abu Simbel?”

  “Yeah,” Alby said.

  “They took Lily?”

  “And Wizard. Are you angry, Mr. West?”

  West clenched his teeth. “Alby, angry doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling right now.” He keyed his radio. “Vulture! Scimitar! You copy?”

  His radio remained silent. No reply.

  “I say again! Vulture, Scimitar! You guys still at the dock?”

  Again there was no reply. Just silence on the airwaves.

  Jack swore. “Where the hell have they got to?”

  AT THE SAME TIME this was happening, Lieutenant Colin Ashmont’s stolen Zodiac was arriving back at the docks not far from the great statues of Abu Simbel, flanked by two smaller inflatable speedboats—which had been inflated out on the lake and were now filled with the other eleven members of his squad of Royal Marines.

  The first convoy of tourist coaches was just now arriving in a parking lot not far from the docks.

  Tourists of all nationalities piled out of the buses—German, American, Chinese, Japanese—and they variously stretched their legs and yawned.

  Ashmont shoved Lily and Wizard out of the Zodiac, pushing them toward a couple of white Suburbans with tinted windows parked nearby. Iolanthe led the way, striding quickly, all business, carrying West’s rucksack with the Pillar inside it.

  As Lily and Wizard were guided toward the two British Suburbans, some of the tourists from the nearest bus came closer.

  They were classic Japanese tourists—four older men with Nikon cameras slung from their necks and wearing bulky camera vests and sandals with white socks.

  One of the Japanese called to Ashmont: “Halloo, sir! Excuse me! Where statues?”

  Ashmont, now wearing a T-shirt over his wet suit, ignored the man and walked right past him.

  Lily wanted to shout to the Japanese men, to scream—

  —but then she saw the first Japanese man’s eyes follow Ashmont, glinting with purpose, and she suddenly realized that something was very, very wrong here.

  The four old Japanese tourists were arrayed around Ashmont’s cars and team in a perfect semicircle.

  Heart thumping, Lily scanned their faces, and saw only steely eyes and grim expressions.

  And then, fleetingly, she saw the forearm of one of the Japanese men…and beheld a tattoo on it, a tattoo she had seen before, a tattoo of the Japanese flag with a symbol behind it.

  “Tank…” she said aloud. “Oh, no. Oh,no …Wizard! Get down!”

  She threw herself into the bewildered old professor, tackling him around the legs, felling him just as the Japanese “tourist” nearest to Ashmont opened his photographer’s vest to reveal six wads of C-4 strapped to his chest. Then the kindly-looking little old man thumbed a switch in his palm and he exploded.

  FOUR SHOCKINGLY violent blasts ripped through the air as all four of the Japanese suicide bombers just disappeared in identical outward sprays of smoke, fire, and body parts.

  The windows of every car in a sixty-foot radius blew out simultaneously, showering the area with glass.

  Ashmont was hit hardest by the blast. He was flung into the side of his Suburban with terrible force and dropped to the ground like a rag doll.

  Three of his men, those closest to the Japanese suicide bombers, were killed instantly. All the others were hurled every which way.

  Iolanthe was farther away and thus more sheltered from the blast—she was only thrown back fifteen feet by the concussion wave, where she hit the ground hard, banging her head, knocked out cold.

  Tumbling to the ground on top of Wizard, Lily felt a wave of searing heat hit the back of her body—like a slap to her bare skin—then she smelled something burning, but the sensation didn’t last long, because an instant later, she blacked out.

  In fact, the only person to survive the attack completely unscathed had been Wizard—thanks to Lily’s last-second tackle—which put him below the blast zone.

  His ears ringing, he raised his head, to see Lily lying on top of him, her shirt on fire!

  He wriggled out from under her and quickly used his jacket to extinguish her flaming shirt. Then he picked her up—unconscious and limp—and stood there openmouthed amid the carnage: smoke, the damaged cars, and the bloody remains of Ashmont’s Royal Marines.

  There came a shrill scream, and Wizard spun.

  The real tourists in the real buses nearby had seen the horrific blasts and, fearing a terrorist incident like the one that had occurred at Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple in 1997, stampeded back into their coaches.

  Wizard’s eyes swept the area and landed on Iolanthe and the rucksack on the ground beside her.

  Carrying Lily on his hip, Wizard raced over to Iolanthe’s body and scooped up the rucksack with the Pillar inside it. Then he swung into one of Ashmont’s Suburbans, gunned the engine, and sped out of the lot.

  “Sky Monster! Sky Monster!” Wizard yelled into his radio as he sped away from Abu Simbel, heading south. He had a clear signal. Ashmont’s jamming device must have been destroyed in the suicide blasts.
>
  “Wizard! Where’ve you been! I’ve been trying to contact you guys for the last twenty min—”

  “Sky Monster, it’s all gone sour!” Wizard blurted. “The British blindsided us and then got blindsided themselves! Now Lily’s out cold and Jack was sealed inside the shrine and Alby, Pooh Bear, and Astro were left to die in the lake with the crocodiles! Oh, Alby—”