The Lost Temple (3 page)

For a moment there was silence, while the German waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness and Grant crouched behind the wall. He tried to peer out, but the fat-bellied jar in the next bay blocked his view completely.

“
Rudi
,” he heard the soldier call. “
Komm. Ich habe ihn.
”

There was no reply. That was good, thought Grant. Better still, the voice had sounded uncertain. He didn’t know where Grant was and he didn’t want to find out on his own. That was very good.

Quiet as a cat, Grant eased himself over the low wall and
dropped down into the bay on the other side, behind one of the massive jars. Thumbing back the hammer on the revolver, he leaned round, feeling the clay coarse and cold against his bare arm. Where was the German?

His gun came out from behind the jar and a beam of light from the door caught its barrel. Only for a second, but it was all the nervous paratrooper needed. A burst of gunfire raked the room and thick lumps of clay flew off the jar. One struck Grant’s right hand; before he knew it his fingers had sprung open and dropped the revolver. It fell to the ground and another layer of sound joined the cacophony in the chamber as the shock of the impact triggered the firing mechanism.

Grant dived back behind the jar. Thank Christ the Minoans had built it to last: the bullets had cracked it but not broken it. Meanwhile, the shot from the Webley seemed to have given the German pause for thought. He had stopped shooting—perhaps he was waiting for his comrade to join him. Peering underneath the jar, Grant could just see a pair of polished black boots standing to the right of the door.

Now he knew where the German was, but he had no way of getting him. The Webley lay on the sandy floor, almost close enough for him to stretch out his arm to grab it, just far enough that he would certainly die if he tried. He had the knife in his boot, but he’d never get sufficiently near to use it. That left . . .

Grant looked down at the two stick grenades tucked into his belt. He thought of the poor archaeologist, the horror on his face when Grant had taken them from the dead German.

“Sorry, old man,” he whispered. Then he unscrewed the cap in the grenade’s handle, felt for the cord inside and gave it a sharp tug.
One
. . .
two
. . . He stood, bent his arm and lobbed the grenade toward the far end of the passage.
Three
. . . It spun through the air and vanished out of sight.
Four
. . . A knock as it struck the rim of the jar next to the soldier, then a hollow thud as it dropped inside.
Five
. . .

A cloud of clay shards enveloped the German as the jar disintegrated. Grant didn’t hesitate. He threw himself into the passageway and grabbed the revolver, rolled into a crouch
and squeezed off three quick shots almost before he stopped moving. The second two were unnecessary. The paratrooper slumped to the ground among the pulverized remains of the jar. His face had been mashed into a bloody mess and blood trickled from the small hole just below the eagle insignia on his left breast. He didn’t move.

Grant looked down at the pile of clay and dust, unrecognizable as the great artifact it had been.
That’ll give the archaeologists something to piece together
, he thought.

And that was when he heard the shot.

John Pemberton was terrified. Not since Passchendaele had he felt dread like this—and at least then, for all the horror, he had had his men around him. Now he was alone. From somewhere nearby, maybe just the other side of the wall, he heard a furious fusillade of gunfire, a pause, then a deep booming explosion that seemed to shake the palace to its foundations. Had the bombers come back? Echoes from the blast lapped around the stone shaft; he didn’t hear the shots that followed—nor the footsteps creeping quietly down the stairs.

The first bullet caught Pemberton in the shoulder, spinning him round so viciously that the second missed completely. The third tore through his shoulder blades and erupted from his chest. He fell forward, then rolled over on to his back. A dark mist clouded his eyes. At the bottom of the steps he could dimly see a snarling monster advancing toward him. In the strange criss-cross shadows of the hall, it almost looked as if horns had sprouted from the rimless helmet he wore.

Even in his dying moments Pemberton only had one thought.
The book
. He reached for the knapsack—but it was not there. He’d dropped it when the first bullet struck. Squinting through the blood-soaked haze, he saw the bag lying beside the pillar. He turned on to his side and stretched toward it.

A heavy boot came down hard on his hand. He barely felt the pain, but the sickly sound of fingers cracking made him scream aloud. The monster laughed, enjoying his agony.

“
Wünschst du dieses?
” The voice was harsh and indistinct,
the bovine mockery evident. Keeping his rifle trained on Pemberton, the monster reached down and picked up the knapsack, dangling it just out of Pemberton’s grasp. Pemberton flailed, but could not touch it. His lungs were racked with pain now, each breath barely worth the effort, and a pool of blood was spreading around him. The monster had unlatched the bag and was rooting inside it: he pulled out the torch, the penknife, two bars of chocolate—and then the notebook.

Pemberton groaned with despair. The monster laughed—a horrid, snorting sound that turned to uncomprehending snuffles as he pawed through the pages.

“
Was ist das?
”

“Go to hell.”

It took all of Pemberton’s energy just to say it—but it enraged the monster. Rearing up, he threw the book aside and upended his rifle like a club. Pemberton didn’t even have the strength to flinch. Over the monster’s shoulder he saw a dim shadow moving behind the columns on the stairs like the flicker of a flame. But of course there had not been a fire in here for three thousand years.

Behind the column, Grant couldn’t see the German, but he saw the black shadow looming across the dying archaeologist. Forgetting his pistol, he pulled the knife from his boot and vaulted down from the open stair. Two silent bounds took him across the chamber. The German began to turn, but too late: Grant crooked his left arm round the German’s throat, pulled him back and plunged the knife hilt-deep into his neck. For a second the man’s head tipped back and he bellowed with agony. Then, with a twist, Grant pulled the knife clear. Blood sprayed from the wound, soaking Grant’s face, and the German went limp. Grant shoved him aside and looked down.

One glance told him that Pemberton would not leave that room alive. His cheeks and lips were white, his body drained. But there were still a few drops of life in him. He raised a trembling arm and pointed to something behind Grant. His
mouth stretched and puckered in a succession of grimaces, trying to force out a few last words. Grant knelt beside him, putting his ear to Pemberton’s lips while his eyes followed the outstretched arm. There, in the corner, a small brown notebook lay splayed open on the floor.

“Arch . . .”

Pemberton broke off in a fit of choking. Grant cradled his head against his chest. He wanted to tell him not to speak, to save his strength, but he knew there was no point. Whatever the old man had to say, he might as well get it out.

White hands, suddenly strong again, clutched the collar of Grant’s shirt. Dull eyes sparked into life and fixed on him. “Archanes,” he whispered. “The house with the apricot trees. Take it to her.”

Then the hands went limp, the eyes closed and Grant smelled the familiar, lavatorial stench of death.

He carried the archaeologist’s body outside and laid it in the palace’s open foundations, covering the corpse with rubble to protect it from scavengers. One of the stones had a strange mark cut into it, a three-pronged design like a pitchfork or a trident, and he used that as a headstone. He took what he could from the dead paratroopers and reloaded the Webley. Then, like the heroes of old, he went in search of battle.

Oxford, March 1947

Rage
. The first word ever written in Western literature, it sets the theme for all that follows.”

The undergraduate glanced up from his essay, obviously hoping for a reaction. Opposite, a pair of pale-blue eyes stared steadily over his shoulder and examined the smear of ice that clouded the window. A coal fire hissed and spluttered in the grate, but it stood little chance against the freeze, which had gripped all England since January. Least of all in the drafty medieval rooms of an Oxford college, whose stones stored five hundred years of accumulated damp and chill.

The undergraduate cleared his throat and continued. “All the characters in the
Iliad
are defined by rage. Some think they can manipulate it; others are overwhelmed by it. Mostly, they die because of it, which explains why the story has such resonance almost three thousand years after Homer wrote it. As recent history shows, rage and violence continue to be the dominant passions of the world. The
Iliad
is not a story about the past; it is the story of the present. We can only hope that we, like Achilles, will eventually allow humanity to master our rage and pride and build a better, more just future.”

A pause. Across the book-lined room, Arthur Reed, Professor of Classical Philology, was frowning.

“Did I say something wrong?”

The blue eyes drifted down from the window and settled on the undergraduate. “A poem.”

The student blinked. “Sorry?”

“It’s a poem. Not a story.”

The undergraduate scowled, but swallowed whatever he wanted to say and stared at his essay. “Shall I go on?”

Reed settled back in his chair and sighed. The war had changed everything. In the thirties the undergraduates had been a callow bunch, eager to please and easily awed. This new generation were different. What could he, who had spent the war behind a desk, teach them about heroes?

A soft tap at the door interrupted the tutorial. A porter appeared and bobbed his head, studiously ignoring the undergraduate. “Beg your pardon, Professor. A Mr. Muir in the lodge to see you.”

Wrapped in his wing-back chair, with a blanket over his legs and a thickly wound scarf almost swallowing his head, Reed was all but invisible to the porter in the corridor. But the undergraduate opposite could see him well enough—and saw the strange look that crossed his face, as if he’d bitten into a sour apple.

“Tell him I’ll come down when I’ve finished.”

“He was awful insistent, sir.”

“So am I, Mr. Gordon.” Reed took off his glasses and began polishing them on the tail of his scarf—a sure sign, to those who knew him, that the discussion was over. With another bob of his head the porter disappeared.

Reed stared at the ash-white coals in the grate, so long that the undergraduate wondered if he’d been completely forgotten. Then, with a strained smile and obvious effort, Reed forced his gaze back to his student. “Where were we?”

An hour later, with the undergraduate slightly older but—Reed feared—little wiser, the porter returned. He had hardly opened the door before the visitor pushed past. He was a slim man, wiry and taut, who didn’t so much move as bristle. His ginger hair was cropped close as a scouring brush. Without taking off his coat he strode across the small room and dropped
into the threadbare sofa opposite Reed. The aging cushions sagged underneath him, doubling him up in an awkward, angular sort of crouch. Leaning forward, his legs spread apart, he gave the unsettling impression of a leopard poised to pounce. He rubbed his hands together.

“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting,” said Reed mildly.

“You damn well should be. I’m a busy man.”

“But you came all the way out to Oxford to see me. You could have phoned.”

“I did. Five times—yesterday—and twice the day before that.”

“Ah, well, I dare say the porter lost the messages. Anyway, you’re here now. How can I oblige?”

Muir pulled a cigarette from an ivory case and struck a match. He didn’t offer one to Reed. When the tip was glowing, he reached inside his pocket and extracted a stiff brown envelope which he tossed on to the coffee table between them. “What do you make of this?”

Reed took the envelope. Inside was a single photograph printed on heavy paper. He squinted at it, then unfolded himself from his chair and crossed to the desk against the wall. He took a thick magnifying glass from a drawer and held it above the image. “A clay tablet—or part of one. There’s a black band across the bottom of the picture that makes it rather difficult to see. There seems to be some sort of inscription on the tablet, though the picture’s too blurred to make it out clearly. Nothing else, except a wristwatch laid flat beside it.” Reed put down the magnifying glass. “Did John Pemberton take this?”

Muir stiffened. “Why do you ask that?”

“Did he?”

“Maybe. Why?”

Reed tapped the photograph. “The watch. Pemberton always used it for scale when he was photographing artifacts. Rest his soul.” He peered at the photograph again, then at Muir. “You’ve obviously heard of him? I hadn’t imagined you as an enthusiast for archaeology.”

“When he wasn’t digging up lost civilizations, Pemberton
worked for us.” The cigarette had already all but vanished; Muir took the butt and flicked it into the fireplace. It raised a few forlorn sparks.

“
Us?
” Reed queried.

“Military Intelligence. We recruited him before the war—asked him to keep an eye on things in case Hitler set his sights on Crete.” Another cigarette was already shrinking visibly in Muir’s mouth—at least he was doing something to heat the room, Reed thought. “This is all confidential, of course.”

“Of course.”

“We used Pemberton to liaise with the locals, establish contacts, that sort of thing. As an archaeologist he could wander pretty much anywhere and no one took any notice. It was a damn shame when he died on the first day of the invasion—set us back six months.”

“A terrible pity,” agreed Reed, shooting Muir an oblique glance from under his snowy eyebrows. “And now you’re looking through his snapshots?”