Seven Ancient Wonders (38 page)

West smiled at the carved image. ‘We’re here.’

As West and the others evaluated the tunnel entrance, Pooh Bear followed a short horizontal section of the path that led to the edge of the waterfall.

Leaning out, he peered around the edge of the flowing body of water, looking out at the vast sandplain behind them.

What he saw made his eyes boggle.

He saw the two American convoys—now merged to become one mega-convoy—thundering across the plain, kicking up an immense dustcloud behind them. Choppers hovered above the great column of vehicles, with one dark-painted Black Hawk out in front.

Ten thousand men,
coming right for them
.

‘By Allah,’ he breathed. ‘Er, Huntsman. . . ’

West joined him, saw the immense American force, and particularly eyed the dark Black Hawk leading the way.

He frowned.

That chopper actually didn’t look
. . .

He pursed his lips in thought.

The world was closing in on him, and he was fast running out of options.

‘Come on, Pooh,’ he said. ‘We can’t stop now.’

They rejoined the others at the tunnel entrance, where Stretch said, ‘If this trap system is anything like the others, there’s no way we can get in and out before the Americans arrive.’

‘If I may be so bold,’ Zaeed said slyly from behind them. ‘There
might
in fact be a way . . .’

‘What way?’ Stretch said suspiciously.

‘The Priests’ Entrance. The Nazi’s diary mentions it, and I have come across this phrase in my own research. Such an entrance is usually a small one, unadorned, used by the priests of a temple to tend to its shrines even after that temple has been closed off. As a royal retreat, the Gardens almost certainly contained temples in need of tending.’

‘A back door,’ West said.

‘Yes. Which means we can enter through this door and exit out the other end, via the Priests’ Entrance.’

‘
If
we can find it,’ Stretch said.

‘If we don’t get this Piece,’ West said, ‘Doris and Big Ears and Noddy will have died for nothing. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m getting this Piece or I’m going to die trying.’

And with that he turned, and gripping Lily’s hand, he started for the tunnel behind the waterfall.

Pooh Bear fell into step close beside him, and stole a whisper: ‘Huntsman. That lead chopper, the dark Black Hawk out in front of the convoy, did you see it?’

‘Yes,’ West’s eyes remained fixed forward.

‘That wasn’t an American chopper.’

‘I know.’

‘Did you recognise the markings? It was—’

‘Yes,’ West whispered, glancing back at Stretch. ‘It was an Israeli chopper. Somehow the Israelis knew our location, and I think I know how. Thing is, it looks like they’re trying to get here
ahead
of the Americans.’ He threw another deadly look at Stretch. ‘Israel always looks after Israel. Come on.’

And with those words, they entered the trap system that guarded the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Entry Tunnel and the Sand Cavern

The flashlight on West’s fireman’s helmet carved a sabre-like beam through the darkness of the tunnel.

His team followed him, silhouetted by the daylight that penetrated the waterfall behind them. They also wore helmet-lights. Horus flew out in front.

The tunnel was perfectly square in shape, its walls hard, carved from solid rock. And it sloped steadily downward, away from the daylight. Shadowy square recesses were cut into its ceiling, concealing God-only-knew-what. The waterfall behind them roared loudly, a constant
shhh
—

The first trap struck.

With a heart-stopping
boom
, an enormous five-ton dropstone fell out of a recess in the ceiling—just inside the entrance—blocking out the sunlight, filling the entire tunnel!

Then, to their horror, the gradient of the tunnel gave the massive block life.

It immediately started sliding
down
the slope—toward them— forcing West’s team forward and downward.

‘Move!’ West called.

They all started running down the tunnel, away from the great sliding stone, side-stepping warily around all the ceiling holes they had to pass under.

The great stone slid quickly forward, chasing after them, an unstoppable pursuer, driving them toward—

A cliff edge.

Thirty metres down the slope, the tunnel simply ended at a gaping black abyss. The tunnel did not seem to continue in any way beyond this dark void. This, it appeared, was the absolute end of the tunnel.

The stone kept rumbling down the tunnel behind them.

West fired a flare into the dark void—

—to reveal that they were standing at one end of a gigantic subterranean cavern shaped like a giant cube, easily fifty metres long and at least ten storeys high.

Their problem: their tunnel opened onto this cavern right up near the
ceiling.

The sliding stone kept coming.

Then, by the glow of the hovering flare, West saw
the floor
of the great cavern thirty metres below him.

It was flat and bare, made of sand.

But there was something wrong about it—it was
too
flat,
too
bare.

West kicked a nearby stone off the edge and watched it sail down to the floor of the cavern.

The stone hit the floor.

It didn’t bounce.

It just landed with a splonk,
embedding
itself in the goopy sand-like surface. And then it went under, seemingly
swallowed
by the semi-liquid surface.

‘Ah-ha, quicksand,’ Zaeed said, impressed. ‘The
entire
floor is quicksand. . . ’

‘God, you’re just like Max,’ West said, snapping round to check
on the fast-moving stone behind them—ten metres away and about to force them into the quicksand-filled chamber.

‘This trap system doesn’t waste any time, does it?’

But then, turning back to the massive square cavern, he saw the answer—a long line of handbars had been dug into its ceiling; a line that ended at a matching tunnel at the opposite end of the cavern, fifty metres away.

Of course, more dark and deadly trap-holes were interspersed between and above the handbars.

‘Lily, here. Jump onto my chest, put your hands around my neck,’ West said. ‘Zaeed. You got any intel on these handbars?’

Zaeed peered back at the sliding stone: ‘I found a reference once to something called the High Ceiling of the Sand Cavern. It said, “Walk with your hands but in deference to he who built it, avoid those of its Creator.” Imhotep III built this system, so I’d avoid every third handgrip.’

‘Good theory,’ West said, ‘but since I don’t trust you, why don’t you go first and test it out. Now
move
.’

Zaeed leapt out onto the handrungs, swinging himself along them, avoiding every third one.

Once he’d survived the first few metres, West scooped up Lily. ‘Everybody, follow us.’

And so with Lily gripping him around the neck, West reached up and grabbed the first handbar. . . 

. . . and swung out over the ten-storey drop to the quicksand floor.

It was an incredible sight: five tiny figures, moving in single-file, all hanging from their hands, swinging fist-over-fist across the ceiling of the immense cube-shaped cavern, their feet dangling ten storeys above the floor.

The last in the line was Pooh Bear, who leapt off the doorway-ledge a bare moment before the five-ton sliding stone came bursting out of the tunnel, filling the entire passage before falling clear out of it!

The huge square stone thundered off the edge . . . and tipped . . . and went sailing down the sheer wall of the cavern before it splashed into the quicksand with a great goopy splat.

Then the stone settled in the quagmire and sank below the surface—grimly, slowly—never to be seen again.

West gripped each handbar firmly, swinging himself and Lily down the length of the cavern. Horus flew alongside them, hovering nearby—seemingly amused at their difficult method of travel.

Following Zaeed, West avoided every third handbar, which was just as well. Zaeed had been right. West tested the ninth handbar and it just fell from its recess, dropping all the way to the deadly floor.

He was halfway across when he heard the voices. Shouts. Coming from the entry tunnel.

The first chopper—the Israeli Black Hawk—must have dropped its men directly onto the path at the top of the falls.

West reasoned that they were probably commandos from the Sayaret Matkal, the very best of Israel’s elite ‘Sayaret’ or ‘reconnaissance’ units. The Matkal were crack assassins—ruthlessly efficient killers who, among other things, were widely acknowledged as the best snipers in the world. Stretch’s old unit.

Now they were coming in.

Fast.

‘Everybody!’ West called. ‘Get a move on! We’re about to have some really nasty company!’

He started double-timing it across the handbars—swinging like a monkey hand-over-hand—high above the deadly floor.

Then suddenly from the entry tunnel there came the familiar heavy
whump
of a sliding stone dropping from the ceiling— followed by shouts and the sound of rapidly running feet.

The Israelis had set off a second sliding stone.

West kept moving across the high cavern, swinging with his hands.

Out in front, Zaeed reached the mouth of the opposite tunnel, swung into it. West followed seconds later, swinging his feet onto solid ground. He turned to help the others—

—only to see a red laser dot appear on his nose . . . a dot that belonged to a sniper rifle in the opposite tunnel, a sniper rifle held by one of the Israeli commandos, bent on one knee.

A voice came over West’s radio frequency: ‘
Stay right where you are, Captain West. Don’t move a muscle
.’

West was hardly going to obey—but then, as if it could read his thoughts, the dot shifted slightly. . . 

. . . so that it now rested on the back of Lily’s head.

‘
I know what you’re thinking, Captain. Don’t. Or she dies. Cohen! These handrungs. The safe sequence.
’

Right then Stretch landed on the ground beside West. Pooh Bear was still huffing and puffing behind him, crossing the handrungs with difficulty.

Stretch glanced sideways at West as he spoke into his mike: ‘Avoid every third rung, Major.’

The Israelis moved quickly, leaping out from the entry tunnel, grasping the handbars, moving across the high ceiling of the cavern.

There were six of them, and they all emerged from the entry tunnel ahead of the sliding stone—it just rumbled out of the tunnel harmlessly behind them, dropping into the quicksand pool.

But they also moved in a brilliantly co-ordinated fashion—so that at any moment, one of them hung one-handed and always had his gun aimed at Lily.

Within a few minutes, they were across the cavern and surrounding West’s little team.

The Israeli leader eyed West menacingly.

Stretch made the introductions. ‘Captain Jack West Jr . . . this is Major Itzak Meir of the Sayaret Matkal, call-sign:
Avenger.’

Avenger was a tall man, broadchested, with hard green eyes that were entirely lacking in nuance. For him, black was black, white was white, and Israel always came first.

‘The famous Captain West.’ Avenger stepped forward, relieving West of his holstered pistol. ‘I’ve never heard of a soldier enduring so much failure, and yet still you keep picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and coming back for more.’

‘It’s never over till it’s over,’ West said.

Avenger turned to Stretch. ‘Captain Cohen, congratulations. You have done a fine job on an unusually long mission. Your work has been noted at the highest levels. I apologise for surprising you in this way.’

Stretch said nothing, just bowed his head.

Pooh Bear, however, was livid.

He glared at Stretch. ‘Accept my congratulations, too, Israeli. You performed your mission to the letter. You led them to us and you
sold us out
just in time to hand them the last available Piece. I hope you’re satisfied.’