Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2)

by Robert Storey

  ‘The lost race created strange and wonderful things,’ Avery said. ‘These are representations, no more, no less.’

  ‘You’ve had time to stow your equipment and give the dig site a preliminary recce,’ Major Lanter said. ‘You’ll start a full-scale investigation of the site at first light.’

  ‘Anything you find on the site that’s unusual, you’ll bring immediately to our attention,’ Avery said. ‘Miss Morgan is our resident expert and will oversee your search. If she wants you to do something, you do it, understand?’

  Chen gave Sarah a sidelong look and bit another chunk out of her energy bar.

  ‘Any questions?’ Avery said.

  ‘All I want to know is,’ said one of the explorers, ‘do we get to keep what we find?’ He pointed at the frieze projected onto the tent’s wall. ‘Like those diamonds, for instance?’

  ‘If you find what we’re after, you can keep everything else,’ Avery said.

  Sarah frowned. That didn’t sound like the Vatican at all. They wanted anything Anakim-related. Why would they just give it away?

  Chen raised her hand. ‘You do realise, the faster you want results, the more likely we are to damage any artefacts we find?’

  ‘Results are what we’re after, Ms Chen; speed is of the essence, as we’ve said before.’

  ‘Except you haven’t told us why,’ Chen said. ‘What’s the rush?’

  ‘Do you want paying or not?’ Zinetti said, intervening. ‘As I’m sure any one of your team will happily take your place, and your pay packet along with it, if you don’t.’

  Chen held up her hands. ‘Fine, have it your way. If you don’t want to tell us anything, that’s up to you, but we’ll find out eventually. It’s what we do.’

  ‘Not this time, Ms Chen,’ Zinetti said, ominously.

  After Major Lanter had shown them the rest of the slides, which outlined the site’s major works, the meeting ended and everyone filed out towards their respective tents.

  Sarah was one of the last to leave and as she emerged into the freezing night she gazed up at the clearest night sky she’d ever seen. With not a cloud in sight, the stars shone brightly through the icy atmosphere.

  ‘It’s quite the sight, isn’t it?’ Avery said, coming to stand by her side.

  ‘They should have stayed at the base camp,’ Sarah said.

  ‘That’s what should have happened,’ Avery said, ‘but your friends are resilient, they’ll pull through wherever they are, you’ll see.’

  Sarah hoped he was right. ‘Has there been any news?’

  Avery shook his head. ‘Major Lanter’s drones have found nothing yet. We’ll run them through the night. If we find anything, you’ll be the first to know.’

  Sarah nodded; there wasn’t much else to say.

  ‘Sleep well, Sarah.’ Avery handed her a flashlight and he and Ruben left her standing alone in the dark.

  She suddenly felt very exposed. The Swiss Guard may have been surveilling the area, but whoever had taken Trish and Jason was still out there, somewhere in the dark. And one thing was for certain: if it was Konstantin and his men, they’d be back.

  She clicked on the flashlight and shivered. The temperature continued to plummet. Night had fallen, her friends were missing, and she was in the middle of nowhere, with no contact with the outside world, being chaperoned by people working for one of the most secretive organisations on Earth. Sarah gave a wry grimace and thought, what else could possibly go wrong?

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Five

  Sarah lay awake on her collapsible bed, watching her breath as it expelled into the freezing air. She rolled onto her side, causing the springs to creak and groan under her weight. It was no use; she wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon. As soon as she closed her eyes, images of Trish and Jason swam before her vision.

  She sat up and pulled her sleeping bag up around her. The tent was tiny and the interior was slowly warming up, being equipped as it was with a delayed trickle of solar heating, plus her own body heat.

  It didn’t help that her tremors had started again, and even now the familiar sense of nausea attacked her senses. She fumbled with the dial on the small nightlight that hung from the tent’s roof. The previous occupant had kept things shipshape, which was a small mercy. Reaching into her coat, she withdrew the drugs pouch and held up the final vial of bright blue liquid. Last one, she thought, feeling anxious. Ruben has more, she told herself. Why wait? The pain will only get worse. She rubbed the front of her head, where a dull ache throbbed through her eyes. She prepared the syringe, clenched her fist and tapped her vein to bring it to the surface. Soon after, she relaxed down onto her bed, not even bothering to cover up her bare shoulder, which prickled with goosebumps in the cold.

  She thought back to the meeting, and Trish and Jason’s disappearance.

  Something was niggling at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t place what it was. All she knew was, she had the distinct impression Chen and her team weren’t the only ones being left in the dark. They were hiding something from her, as well, and Sarah wanted to know what it was. Why the secrecy, why the rush, why now? So many questions. So few answers. If Sarah wanted to find her friends that had to change, and soon. Lives could be in the balance, and not just Trish and Jason’s, but Sarah’s, and that of everyone who now called the remote dig site home.

  Sarah made a decision. She threw off her covers and quickly dressed, but before she pulled on her coat, she paused as she laid eyes on her Deep Reach jacket. Even just looking at the logos filled her with belief and when she slipped on the familiar garment, that belief doubled. She pulled up the zip and felt a thrill of power as she smoothed down its creases. She was not going cold tonight. With a new sense of purpose, her Deep Reach jacket, and a drug-fuelled system, she felt ready for anything. She felt in control for the first time in a long time; it was a fantastic feeling and one she had feared was gone for good.

  ‘If they’re not going to tell me what is going on,’ she said to herself, ‘I’ll just have to find out for myself.’

  She picked up her flashlight. And I’m sure as hell not going to let the search for Trish and Jason be left up to the Swiss Guard. Avery she could trust – up to a point, anyway. Zinetti and Lanter, however, were an entirely different matter.

  She unzipped the flap on her tent and stepped out into the night. The previous expedition might have done a lot of the excavations, but now it was time for Sarah to do some digging of her own.

  ♦

  Sarah dimmed her flashlight and then switched it off altogether. The sky remained so clear, the moon’s crescentic sliver enough to see by. It seemed the drugs didn’t only make her feel better; they were starting to supercharge her senses, as well. Everything felt heightened; her touch, hearing, eyesight, sense of smell, her mind was razor-sharp. The drugs were her vehicle, finding Trish and Jason her salvation.

  She looked around to see if any of the red-clad soldiers were in the vicinity. A dark shadow made her pause. It stood to attention at the edge of the camp and, further along, stood another. Major Lanter was as good as his word: his men protected the camp. At least they did from what might be outside, which allowed Sarah to move around the interior with impunity.

  Having made her way back to the main tent, Sarah opened the flimsy door and slipped inside.

  A light shone in her face, blinding her. She stifled a yelp.

  ‘Had the same idea, eh?’ Chen said, dimming the light to a glow.

  Sarah considered Chen for a moment before saying, ‘What have you found?’

  Chen smiled and held up a tablet device. ‘I take it you saw Cardinal Zinetti ferret this away when no one was looking, too?’

  Sarah didn’t want to admit she hadn’t, so just nodded.

  ‘Unfortunately for him, he didn’t count on me having a universal key.’ Chen shut the drawer to a small cabinet and the digital lock buzzed as it reactivated.

  She placed the tablet down on a desk, unfurled its large screen and
searched through the file system.

  ‘It’s a log from the site,’ Sarah said, as Chen opened up one of the entries. ‘By Dr Nicola Dowling. She must have been the expedition’s leader.’

  ‘Or he.’ Chen expanded the document. ‘Day Twenty-eight,’ she said, reading the random entry. ‘The excavation hit a roadblock today; the Holy See has requested we speed up our work. I’m not sure why things are so urgent, but it’s typical of non-academics to assume we’re willing to cut corners. If they understood archaeology at all, they’d know some things can’t be rushed.’

  Chen closed the file and opened another. ‘Day three hundred and eleven. It’s been almost a year since we started the dig and what we’ve found so far is nothing short of astounding. The scale of the dwellings is beyond anything we could have anticipated, which makes one wonder how high these buildings reached. The foundations, an unusual design, are akin to modern architectural processes, rather than anything seen in antiquity. Of course, human antiquity is far more recent than the Anakim’s, and considering what we’ve managed to find out about Sanctuary, the results, while intriguing, are not as sensational as we first believed. Rather, it has been the fossilised remains of the giants themselves that have been nothing short of a revelation.’ Chen stopped reading and looked at Sarah. ‘Giants?’

  Sarah gave a shrug. It wasn’t news to her.

  Chen glanced down at Sarah’s Deep Reach jacket. ‘Sanctuary Exploration Division,’ she said. She looked up at Sarah and frowned. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Someone who’s seen things you can only dream of.’

  Chen stared at her, her expression unreadable, until Sarah nudged her. ‘Keep reading.’

  Chen gave a shake of her head and turned her attention back to the device. She navigated to the final entry. ‘Day three hundred and thirty-two.’

  ‘That’s last month,’ Sarah said, pointing at the date.

  ‘Day three hundred and thirty-two.’ Chen said again. ‘Time is running out. If we don’t find something soon I fear we’ll be replaced. So far, five more of our team have fallen ill, on top of the disappearances. I’m beginning to wonder if the rumours are true. Have we found something that was never meant to be disturbed? I can only pray what we’ve found isn’t some kind of dormant biohazard. All scans and quarantine procedures have failed to contain it. Whatever it is, it seems to be transmitted by contact with the artefacts themselves. If true, it’s only a matter of time before we’re all exhibiting the symptoms. If only I’d listened to David’s advice, this might never have happened. It seems he was right all along ...’

  ‘Right about what?’ Sarah said.

  ‘That’s it, there are no other pages.’

  ‘Transmitted by touching the artefacts,’ Sarah said. She thought back to the Vatican vault and the Anakim frieze. What had Zinetti said? His words welled up from her past. ‘Her skin’s touching it, get her out!’

  Sarah tried to calm herself. Why would they expose me to something? she thought. I could give it to them. Not if it can only be transmitted by touching the artefacts, she told herself.

  Chen opened a previous entry and scanned through, before starting to read aloud again. ‘We received a new batch of medicine today. It’s been able to slow down the symptoms, but yesterday we lost David. I won’t go into details of how he died in case his family ever gets hold of this record; needless to say, he suffered a long and painful end.

  ‘Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the delirium is the propensity of those affected – infected? – to quote Biblical passages. At first, I thought nothing of it. The majority of our team are of our denomination. However, two of those who’ve since died were atheists and I know for a fact neither of them had ever studied the Bible, let alone memorised its words in the Hebrew tongue. I don’t want to get into any conjecture, but I’ve translated what they said, and while most of it was word for word what was written, two of the passages don’t appear in any Bible, anywhere. I checked. Mainly, I don’t want to sound like – I mean, I know what people might think – that I’ve been affected, too. But this passage, everyone who’s become ill has said it. I went back over the records; we started recording what they said, as per our orders, and they were all the same.’

  ‘Go on,’ Sarah said, when Chen failed to continue. ‘What did they say?’

  ‘Only in God’s light,’ Chen said, ‘is our path unbroken.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Sarah said, disappointed. ‘What about the other passage?’

  ‘Only in God’s word is Heaven’s Gate opened.’

  Sarah felt her heart quicken. Heaven’s Gate, the same words she’d somehow been able to read on the Anakim frieze.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Chen said.

  Sarah touched the device. ‘I don’t know.’ What she did know was that the term meant more to the Vatican than they’d previously let on.

  ‘You obviously know more than me.’ Chen shook her head and looked at Sarah. ‘Giants? Is it true?’

  ‘They are the lost race,’ Sarah said, reading over the entry Chen had just read out.

  ‘Transmitted by contact with the artefacts themselves.’ The Australian cursed under her breath. ‘No wonder they wanted us to take the lead. They don’t want to get their hands dirty, literally.’

  Sarah thought back once more to her time in the vault, when Avery had provided her with gloves and overshoes so she could touch the artefact. He was trying to protect me, she realised. Unlike Zinetti, who was only concerned about his own safety.

  ‘It should be okay, if we use gloves,’ Sarah said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Trust me,’ Sarah said, ‘I know.’

  Chen seemed to accept her advice, but it didn’t improve Sarah’s position. She’d touched the artefact; were her symptoms the same as those experienced by the archaeologists at the site? If so, why hadn’t Avery warned her? I was already getting symptoms before I touched the artefact, Sarah thought. And I touched loads of artefacts in Sanctuary – so did many others, and they didn’t exhibit symptoms. But, she reasoned, no one had touched an artefact from this site. So, the question remained, were her symptoms brought on by her time in Sanctuary, or the first signs of a delirium that would end in her death?

  Either way, I need those drugs, Sarah thought, and then murmured, ‘I need to find Avery.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Chen said, thinking Sarah was talking to her. The Australian explorer returned the tablet to the drawer. ‘I know which tent they’re in, the Cardinal and his monk. We can go take a listen, see what we can overhear.’

  Sarah didn’t have any better ideas and so she followed Chen back outside into the icy night.

  ‘This way,’ Chen said, her breath lingering in the air.

  Sarah crept along between a row of tents and onto a path made out of well-worn planks of wood.

  Chen slowed her advance and hunkered down into a small ditch. She pointed to a medium-sized tent, from which emanated a glow of light. Outside the entrance an armed Swiss guard kept watch, his composite panels reflecting the night sky above like a galactic suit of armour fit for the gods.

  ‘I’ll draw him away,’ Chen whispered.

  Before Sarah could argue, the Australian had slipped away into the dark.

  Sarah waited in the freezing cold, wondering if Chen was taking her for a ride, until a distant noise brought the soldier alert. He pressed a button on his helmet and spoke into his radio, before heading towards the location of the noise.

  Not knowing how long he’d be gone for, Sarah took her chance and made for the tent.

  She approached the rear panel and lay down on the hard earth to avoid being seen. She could already hear talking coming from inside and she crawled closer to listen.

  ‘—the chances of them finding it are slim to none,’ someone said.

  Sarah recognised the speaker as Zinetti, his Italian accent unmistakable.

  ‘If anyone can find Agartha, Sarah can,’ Avery said, his Irish lilt as easily discernible as h
is fellow cardinal’s.

  ‘You sound like you admire her,’ Zinetti said, sounding annoyed.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Zinetti said something Sarah didn’t quite catch, but whatever it was it didn’t sound complimentary.

  ‘If Konstantin is close, there’s no knowing what he’ll try next,’ Avery said. ‘We must not linger here.’

  ‘Do you think he knows what we’ve found?’

  ‘I don’t think so. If he did, he’d throw his full force down upon us.’

  ‘Morgan is more concerned about her missing friends than she is about helping us,’ Zinetti said. ‘She may need to be forced.’

  ‘You will not force her to do anything she doesn’t want to,’ Avery said. ‘Do you hear me? I didn’t go to all the trouble of curing her ills for you to alienate her. Sometimes I wonder if I was right about where your loyalties lie; our faith, or with those that wish to end us.’

  ‘It is always the faith,’ Zinetti said, ‘always.’

  ‘It had better be. I’m watching you,’ Avery said, his tone fierce. ‘Sarah is under my protection. I will not let any harm come to her, do you hear me? Not to a single hair on her head.’

  Zinetti muttered something.

  A noise from behind made Sarah glance round to see Chen crawling up alongside her. The Australian waggled her eyebrows in greeting and gave Sarah a wink. Sarah gave her a nod and put a finger to her lips for her to keep quiet. Chen nodded and settled down to listen. Sarah was beginning to like this woman, despite her previous comments. She was fearless and, like Sarah, she wanted to know what was going on and wasn’t going to hang about until it jumped up and bit her in the arse.

  The rustle of movement came from within the tent and shadows moved as two people stood up. Angry words were exchanged in Latin and soon after she heard a zip opening, then closing again moments later.