As the SAS man lost his voice, the gigantic head stopped turning.
Then it opened its eyes, and the screaming began.
Hardened men of war started shouting in the gallery below. They ran for the door, gripped by fear. No amount of training could prepare a soldier for such a sight, and no amount of money could provide that much courage. The enormous statue peered through the aquarium wall, raw unbridled anger filling its solid eyes. Immense eyebrows furrowed and frown lines appeared at the mouth, which was larger than the upper office in which Rook and his three captors stood.
Rook turned to look back at the men by the office door. They had each let the barrels of their respective weapons droop, as they stared at the huge moving head with slack jaws.
“I’m guessing you boys weren’t in on Ridley’s plan. We’re all gonna be chopped sushi.”
Bubbles exploded from the ocean floor surrounding the statue. Silt and sand billowed in massive clouds as the statue pulled away from its long-time resting place and began to sit up. Its huge arm twisted toward the wall. Each fingernail was larger than a man. The face turned to a vicious scowl, and the tips of its stone fingers touched the Plexiglas.
“Sweet mother of God…” the man with the leg bandanas said, as his bladder let go and a puddle of acrid beer-smelling urine stained his pants.
Rook brought his raised hands together, fingers resting on his wristwatch. The remaining mercenaries still weren’t looking at him as he slipped one battle-armored leg through the metal railing of the balcony and held on tight. He took one last look at the rising stone monstrosity beyond the viewing window and then leaned toward the metal control panel on the wall. Moving slowly, he bumped the light switch with his shoulder. The office went dark, but the giant statue awakening from the sea bed remained illuminated like a Neptune-themed Christmas tree.
“What the—” the SAS man started, but never finished as Rook depressed the radio trigger on his wristwatch.
The block of C4, still hidden under the metal door on the floor of the gallery, exploded. The door spun through the gallery, but posed no real threat. That came next. The immensely thick aquarium wall shattered right up the center with a hideous shriek. The crack spider-webbed faster than a sneeze, and the wall gave way. The Gulf of Tunis—just a small portion of the mighty Mediterranean Sea—gushed through the now nearly 300-foot long open window into the subterranean base. The pressure-driven salt water instantly filled the gallery, blasting down the Sub Level 3 corridor. A tidal wave of white frothing fury swept over the balcony rail, and a second after Rook grasped the rail with both hands, it hit.
The impact was like getting punched in the face and chest by a gaggle of heavyweight fighters, but Rook clung to the rail, his armored legs firmly locked in place around the metal. The tsunami of water plowed through the office space, crushing furniture across the room, and slamming the three mercenaries into the wall, pinning and drowning the shocked men.
Rook had taken a huge breath before he detonated the C4, and he had closed his eyes against the wall of water, but the second he felt the initial surge of terrifying pressure leave his face, he couldn’t help but open his eyes to take in the sight.
He wished he hadn’t.
The Colossus was rising.
FORTY-FIVE
Sub Level 1, Manifold Omega Facility, 2013
Knight was about to die. The man pointing an AK-47 at his heart had a long handlebars mustache under his Vietnam era helmet and a look in his eyes that said he was going to enjoy what came next.
Suddenly, the man’s chest ripped apart, small bursts of flesh and fabric spraying upward from the man’s chest. The sight was coupled by the staccato clap of an MP-5 being drained of its ammo. Bullets ripped into the man until he fell over backward.
Knight turned his head down and saw that Asya had slipped down between his splayed legs and fired her MP-5 upward from the floor—missing his crotch by inches—to fill the mercenary full of bullets and death.
She slid gracefully out from between his legs, popped to her feet, replaced her spent magazine and then checked both ways down the hallway of Sub Level 1’s laboratories.
“Thanks,” Knight said and walked out into the hallway, gingerly stepping over the dead man. A pile of bodies covered the floor at the southern end of the hall. He distantly recalled hearing gunfire, but thought it had been on a different level.
Then they heard yet another explosion, deep in the depths of the facility—but this one was stronger. The air in the hallway started rushing past him.
His mind didn’t have time to process what he was experiencing before his instincts took over. He grabbed Asya’s hand and dragged her toward the Microbiology Lab and its secret tunnel to the surface. Asya asked no questions, but simply ran with him. As they rounded the doorway into the lab, water began spraying out of the bottom and sides of the stairwell door.
Knight ran faster.
They reached the janitorial closet and found the secret door wide open. More bodies covered the floor on the other side. Knight heard the stairwell door blow up behind him. Rupture, was the word that swept through his mind. Water rushed into the hallway behind him with mad intensity, the wave crashing into the lab, upturning tables and equipment like a rampaging monster.
“Go!” Knight yelled.
They ran as fast as they could, but the water was faster.
The wave of water blasted into them from behind, knocking them down and launching them toward the tunnel’s end. Knight managed to shut his mouth just in time. He hoped Asya had done the same.
The salt water stung his eyes when he tried to look for her, so he snapped them shut again, and reached out with his hand, hoping he would be able to grasp the staircase railing.
But he didn’t have to. His body was tossed up and out of the water and onto the floor of the tunnel. The water sloshed around him, and then began to recede back into the tunnel. Knight raised his head and saw Asya a few feet in front of him. Her long hair was down in front of her face. After a moment’s stillness, she coughed the water from her lungs.
Knight heaved in a deep breath, then saw that the stairs were nearby—only they didn’t look right. He staggered to his feet and looked back the way they had come. They had been swept right past the amphitheater stairs and into the next tunnel. He didn’t know where these stairs led, but they went up. It would be an improvement over the flooded subterranean base.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I think I swallowed most of Mediterranean,” Asya said between coughs.
“Let’s get out of here,” Knight said, taking the stairs and trusting that if Asya could joke, she’d be fine.
They ascended the stairs to another tunnel, and then found a door that led to a huge underground parking lot with concrete support columns, and a nearby vehicle tunnel leading down.
Not what I want.
Knight looked across the vast lot, but couldn’t find another exit.
“Come, this way. Entrance from fountain is near mosque.” Asya led the way across the garage.
Knight followed, looking for CCTV cameras or men taking cover behind the pillars, but once he was convinced they were alone in the echoing space, he began jogging faster. Then he spotted a black metal ladder on the far wall, and two dead bodies at the foot of it.
“No shortage of dead men here,” Asya said.
She climbed the ladder and opened the hatch at the top.
They climbed out of the fountain and into a small park. They were alone.
“Almost dawn. Mosque worshipers will arrive soon.” The sky was a pale blue, the sun just below the horizon.
“Can’t be helped,” Knight said. Then he keyed his microphone.
“Queen, you read?”
“Knight! Get your ass to the shore on the far side of the Baths. The shit is getting deep.” Queen’s voice sounded frantic. Then he heard distant gunfire.
He started to run toward the looming mosque, and the ruins just beyond it. Asya stayed right
by his side. They raced through the concrete and manicured shrubs of the park to the road. Traffic was trickling through already, and several cars honked at them as they sprinted across the asphalt. Knight was drenched with sweat and sea water. The battle armor wasn’t helping. They angled across the road to a triangular parking lot where early arriving worshipers were already parking their cars. Knight paid them no heed as he made for the relative privacy of the trees beyond, which created a natural boundary between the mosque and amphitheater ruins.
When they reached a stand of trees and were free from the confused looks of the devout, he paused to catch his breath.
“Help me out of this crap,” Knight said, unbuckling one of the battle armor forearm plates. Asya stepped up and helped him unbuckle all the armor. Each new piece removed made him feel lighter and cooler. Even after the recent swim, he felt over-heated, and realized it had been hours since he’d had a drink of anything. With the armor off, he bounced on his feet twice, refreshed slightly by the feeling of lightness, and said, “Let’s go,” before tearing off again, much faster than before.
On the far side of the trees, they found a small path and a concrete bench. Next to it was a closed up and boarded food cart, with a hand-painted wooden board listing the food options in Arabic. He wanted to stop, break in and guzzle some water, but he’d trained to operate for days on minimal food and water. He could drink when the fighting was done.
His soaked BDU pants clung to him as he ran, but his synthetic t-shirt had nearly dried—damp only at the armpits and neck. He looked over at Asya as they ran through more trees right next to the concrete wall of a house. She glistened with seawater and sweat, but ran with the same look of determination he’d seen in King. The Sigler family had a lot in common.
Then he was on the ground, and Asya was shouting. His left arm burned with pain. He looked at it and saw blood. Gunfire rattled through the trees above him. He couldn’t move his head far enough to see what had happened to Asya.
Then he saw a man emerge from the trees. His scarred bald head gleamed in the first rays of the sun. The side of his face was horribly disfigured, and he smiled a huge leering grin. Then he took three running steps forward and kicked his boot into Knight’s stomach. The air left Knight’s body at the same speed the consciousness left his confused mind.
FORTY-SIX
Sub Level 3, Manifold Omega Facility, 2013
Rook was nearly out of breath as he left the balcony rail. The oncoming rush of water subsided, but the room was completely submerged. He could feel the pressure of the deep mashing against his ears. It wasn’t easy to swim over the rail with the added weight of the impact armor plates and foam still attached to his legs, but he didn’t think he had time to take them off. The combat boots weren’t helping either.
Salt water stung his eyes as he stroked over the gallery toward where the Plexiglas wall had been. He thought his only chance would be swimming for the surface instead of trying to navigate up underwater stairwells and hallways. He didn’t know how far up the water went, but if the whole second level was under water, chances were good the entire complex was drowned.
His lungs burned as he stroked with his arms, hoping that outside the flooded gallery would be a clear shot to the surface—and not some underwater cavern with no air waiting for him.
The klieg lights in the water lit up the sandy bottom, from which the enormous statue was still rising. It had turned its head away from the exploded Plexiglas wall, and was now using its hands to push itself up. Rook couldn’t see the size of the gigantic thing—he was too close to it. What he could see were the enormous spikes on the crown, and the huge shoulders of the creature, as it started to rise up in the water.
He clawed for the surface, fighting the swirling waters created by the giant’s rising. He kicked and struggled, but as he rose, a sinking feeling began to grow in his heart.
He wasn’t going to make it.
He could see the glowing sky above. Layers of darting fish above showed him just how far below the surface he was. He just wasn’t moving fast enough. He lost some of his air in an involuntary exhale, then reached for his nose with one hand and clamped his mouth shut with his jaw. His lungs sucked hard at the scant air in his mouth, and he could feel the depth still trying to force its way into his ears.
His eyes moved to his left to where the stone behemoth was still in slow motion.
Bastard.
Then he had an idea. He used the rest of his strength to stroke madly with his arms, exhaling the last of his air and kicking wildly. As long as the giant didn’t spot him, he might have a chance.
But the monstrous statue started to turn its head again. Rook quickly shifted his direction, to stay behind the creature’s head as it rose, but the head was faster. One of the long spikes on its crown careened into him from behind, lifting him through the water faster. He twisted and tried to push off the spike, but it was too late. Rather than fight, Rook spun around and clung to the crown’s barnacle-covered spike.
A moment later, his head broke the surface. He took in a huge gulp of the sweet morning air. Then he started coughing and spluttering, drawing in deep drafts of air in between each fit. He fell from the crown and landed on the ground, hugging it as he coughed.
Then sense returned.
This isn’t the ground.
Rook had only intended to catch a lift to the surface of the water on the express train that was the rising statue. But his desperation for air had cost him. He was now lying face down and hugging the top of the giant’s crown. He leaned over the side and looked down to the water some fifty feet below him and receding.
The creature was standing up. It rolled over onto its hands and knees, then raised its waist. Rook clung on for dear life as he rose one hundred feet above the water, then two hundred, then more. When the gigantic statue was fully erect, only its lower legs were still submerged under the water—what Rook had judged to be fifty feet or more of salty brine.
“Well ain’t you the biggest fucking golem in the history of the world,” Rook said, and for the first time he realized what this statue was—the Colossus of Rhodes.
The statue took a step toward the shore and shallower water. Rook was at the back of the head, facing out to sea. He struggled to turn around so he could see where they were headed. He crawled across the head, hands and knees splayed wide like a water bug. The statue took another huge step, shaking its frame when it contacted the ground. Rook slid over the curved head and shouted as he saw the world ahead come into view. He slammed into the edge of the raised crown and clung on.
The head was enormous. Rook judged it to be forty or fifty feet in diameter inside the ring of the crown. He leaned back, inside the crown’s lip, and felt safer once he couldn’t see the immense drop. Inside the ring of the crown was like a balcony; the crown itself surrounding the top of the skull like a low wall. Rook slowly stood, wary of the next jolting step, and once again looked at the world before and below him.
The view was amazing.
Dawn had fully struck. The land was bathed in sunlight—except for a long stretch in front of the giant, where its shadow left a swath of ground in night. Rook was 300 feet up, and the few people he could see on the shore looked more like specks of ground-up pepper than ants. He knew how high he was. He knew what he was riding on. As a part of Chess Team homework, he’d had to study the ancient world, and the starting place had been the Seven Wonders: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Halicarnassus mausoleum, the lighthouse at Alexandria.
And the Colossus of Rhodes.
He didn’t know how or why it was underwater off the coast of Tunisia, but he knew he was standing on its skull 300 feet in the air. And as it took its first step out of the sea onto the dry land of the Carthage ruins, crushing ancient stone under foot, he knew if Chess Team couldn’t find a way to stop it, or stop Ridley, the Colossus would grind half of North Africa under its heels b
efore enough military might could be on hand to destroy it.
FORTY-SEVEN
Under the Mountain of the Roman Rock, Lake Bracciano, 780 BC
King lost count of how many times he had died.
The wraiths kept coming, and their embrace was deadly. Every time King awoke, the battle began anew. He punched, kicked and head-butted until he was overwhelmed again. Then they would suck him dry, leaving his withered corpse on the floor.
And then...he would come back.
The cycle repeated for what felt like a lifetime.
But that was about to change. King was pissed. Instead of punching and kicking, he started eye gouging, and tearing out throats. He bit and growled and roared and slammed the full weight of his body behind every blow, knowing that any self-sustained injury would be healed by the time he struck again. At times, the crushing throng of Forgotten fell back, recoiling at his rage and ferocity. He stopped going for body shots and focused solely on heads.
This time he was alive long enough to see past the writhing, swarming bodies to Alexander.
The man was a whirlwind of rage and action. Wraiths were flying everywhere as Alexander hurled them and batted them away as if they were paper dolls. But still they came. King couldn’t understand how there could be so many of them, unless Alexander had gotten the date wrong.
They’re supposed to be locked up.
Then an idea grew with each strike, as he felt the energy leaving his limbs from every touch of a wraith. Tiny tendrils on the creature’s palms latched onto his skin, like a million tiny leeches. With just a glancing blow, they could suck a patch of flesh dry. When the idea finally resolved in his mind, King felt a burst of energy and began plowing through the wraith bodies around him, making his way for Alexander.
“You said they were locked up!”
Alexander flexed his brawn, sending half a dozen crouched creatures flying off his chest and back.
Omega: A Jack Sigler Thriller Page 21
