The Tomb Of Hercules

4 New York City

Half a world away, Nina sat back and rubbed her eyes, frustrated but unwilling to admit defeat. She had arrived at the anonymous Art Deco office building a few blocks from City Hall just after six in the morning, excitement blowing away any tiredness, eager to see the ancient parchments with her own eyes. Met in the lobby by an unsmiling-and almost certainly armed-man, she was taken to the fifth floor to meet Popadopoulos.

There was a second man with him, another well-dressed but grim-faced guy with the build and pug features of a boxer. He too was armed; Nina was now familiar enough with concealed weapons to spot the telltale bulge beneath his tailored Italian jacket. He carried a black leather case, which at first glance Nina took to be chained to a steel cuff around his wrist. On closer examination, she realized that the wrist chain actually disappeared into the case, attached to something within.

“Good morning, Dr. Wilde,” said Popadopoulos.

“Mr. Popadopoulos.” Practice had made perfect. “What is this place?”

“One of the Brotherhood’s properties-a safe house, you could say. We have a number of them around the city.”

Nina regarded him coldly. “Like the place where Jason Starkman planned on killing me a year and a half ago?”

Popadopoulos shifted uncomfortably. “I never met Mr. Starkman. My role within the Brotherhood is concerned only with the archives. Now, come, come, you wanted to see something, no? Well, I have brought it. At considerable inconvenience, I might add.” The other man placed the case on the large old oak desk in the center of the room and opened it. Popadopoulos carefully lifted out the object inside.

It was a book, in dimensions an inch or two larger than a sheet of typing paper, but as thick as a dictionary. The cover was bound in dark red leather and reinforced by a brass frame, held shut by a heavy clasp. The “pages” were also framed in metal, each about half a centimeter thick. The whole thing seemed extremely heavy.

Popadopoulos spoke in Italian, and the other man took out a key and unlocked the cuff linking him to the book. To Nina’s surprise, Popadopoulos then fastened it around his own bony wrist. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I told you that I will remain with the text at all times,” he said, sitting at the desk. The chain connecting him to the book was about eighteen inches long.

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“People have stolen items from the Brotherhood before. I know you met Yuri Volgan, for one.”

“You think I’m going to steal it? Oh, come on!” She tipped her head towards the other man. “You’ve got Rocky here and God knows how many other guys guarding the building, and we’re five stories up! I’m hardly going to jump out the window with it.”

“That is the arrangement you agreed to, Dr. Wilde,” Popadopoulos said curtly. “Accept it, or leave.”

Annoyed, she sat opposite the historian and brought out her laptop and notepad. The other man left the room, taking up a position outside the door.

Popadopoulos unfastened the clasp. “So, Dr. Wilde,” he said as he opened the book, “here is the original text of Hermocrates.”

Despite having seen many photographs of the parchments, Nina couldn’t help but be awed at the sight of the real thing. Each page of the ancient work was pressed between two sheets of glass. The parchments were discolored and mottled, but they were still far more intact than any other documents from the same era that she had ever seen. The Brotherhood clearly took great care even of items it had stolen.

She looked more closely at the first page. The handwriting stood out clearly, the ink mostly a reddish brown but with darker impurities mixed in. There were even mistakes: inkblots, scratches, words crossed out. In a couple of places another hand had added annotations. Her heart beat faster. Plato had disapproved of written text, preferring the oral tradition of rote memorization… but that didn’t mean he never used it. Were these the notes of the great philosopher himself, passing comment on the students who transcribed his words?

Popadopoulos coughed slightly. Nina looked up at him, belatedly becoming aware that she was grinning like a fool. “You are impressed, Dr. Wilde?”

“Oh, God, yes!” she replied, nodding. For a moment, Popadopoulos looked amused rather than irate. “This is incredible! You’ve actually had these for over two thousand years?”

“In different locations, preserved in different ways, but yes. This book was bound in the nineteenth century. You are the first person from outside the Brotherhood ever to see it.”

“I’m honored,” she said, meaning it. Popadopoulos nodded.

“But,” he said, “I still do not believe you will find anything in person that you could not have got from photographs, no, no. There is nothing more to discover.”

Nina turned the page, finding with surprise that the back of the parchment was blank. “I disagree-I’ve already discovered something I didn’t know.” She tapped the glass. “The photos never suggested that only one side of the page had been written on. Parchment was expensive-it’s kind of unusual not to use both sides, don’t you think?”

“Unusual, yes, but not unknown,” Popadopoulos said dismissively. “I assure you, you will find nothing else.”

Nina gave him a crooked grin. “I like a challenge. Okay-let’s get started.”

But three hours later, reluctant as she was to admit it, Popadopoulos was right. Having already read the text from photographs and in translations many times over the past months, Nina was able to work through it quickly, turning each heavy page with the hope of discovering something new… and always being disappointed.

There were no hidden clues to the location of the Tomb of Hercules, no additional paragraphs completing the tale. Plenty about Atlantis, yes, and about the wars between the Atlanteans and the ancient Greeks, a splendid treasure trove of knowledge for historians… but nothing new about her current obsession.

“Dammit,” she muttered, defeated.

Popadopoulos sounded almost sympathetic. “As I told you, Dr. Wilde, there is nothing. Either the text was never fully transcribed, or Plato had no more knowledge of the Tomb.”

“He wouldn’t have brought it up in the first place if he didn’t mean to discuss it,” Nina objected. “Critias says he’ll tell Hermocrates and the others where it is, how he was told its location by Solon, who got it from the records of the Egyptian priests. Just like Atlantis. There are phrases in the text that seem to be clues, like this one-’For even a man who cannot see may know the path when he turns his empty face to the warmth of the sun.’ It doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the dialogue around it.” She turned back through the pages, their frames clanking against each other. “There has to be something more.”

Popadopoulos stood. “It will have to wait. Now would be a good time to take a break, no?”

“I don’t need a break,” said Nina impatiently.

“But I do! I am an old man, and I had a very large meal last night.” He clucked disapprovingly. “American food, such huge portions. No wonder you are all so fat.”

“Wait, I know I agreed that I could only see it for a limited time,” protested Nina, ignoring the crack at her countrymen, “but now you’re going to take it away while you go to the john?” An idea came to her.

“Look, handcuff it to me if you’re worried. I can hardly just stroll out with it without anyone noticing, especially with a guy right outside the door. It must weigh twenty pounds, at least! And I’m not going to damage it-I want to preserve it every bit as much as you do.”

Popadopoulos narrowed his eyes behind his glasses, considering it. “I… suppose that could be done. But…” He unlocked the cuff, then looped the chain around one leg of the heavy table, making a steel knot.

“Are you serious?” Nina asked.

“I will not be gone long, perhaps twenty minutes.”

“Wow, I guess you really did have a big meal.”

He scowled. “This is my condition, Dr. Wilde. Either accept it, or I will take the text away with me.”

Nina relented. It was only for a short while, after all… “Oh…okay.” Popadopoulos held up the cuff. “But on my left hand. I want to be able to take notes.” She pulled her chair to the end of the table.

The handcuff closed around her wrist, the steel teeth clicking ominously. Nina felt a chill. The last time she’d been handcuffed, she’d been a prisoner, on her way to be executed. She raised her arm. With the chain wound around the table’s thick leg, it only had a few inches of movement.

“I will return soon,” Popadopoulos assured her as he went to the door.

She jangled the chain. “Well, I’m not going anywhere.”

The member of the Brotherhood keeping watch in the lobby looked up as a stranger entered. Instantly alert, he surreptitiously brought his hand closer to his concealed gun. “Can I help you?”

The unexpected visitor appeared to be Chinese, a gray-haired, bull-shouldered man in his fifties with a long ponytail swinging behind him. He walked with a black cane, tapping the metal tip on the tiles. “I hope so,” he said in a throaty voice as he stopped, both hands resting on the cane. “My name is Fang. I’m looking for the offices of Curtis and Tom?”

The guard frowned. That was one of the Brotherhood’s shell companies, ostensibly headquartered in the building, but as far as he knew the law firm never did any actual business. “This is the right place,” he began, “but-”

Fang’s right hand flashed upwards with lightning speed, a thin line of silver trailing it. The guard shuddered, then collapsed to his knees, his clothes sliced cleanly open from crotch to neck-as were the skin and organs beneath. Blood and entrails gushed from the wound.

In a single smooth movement, Fang returned his blade to its sheath inside the cane, the sword making a metallic ringing sound as pure as a musical note. “Thank you,” he said to the dying guard. He took a gun from inside his long black coat, a compact Heckler & Koch MP-7 machine pistol with a fat silencer attached to the barrel. Three more men entered, all Chinese, drawing identical weapons.

“Find her,” Fang ordered, heading for the stairs.

Nina was already regretting her decision. Every time she tried to turn a page of the ancient text, she instinctively reached out with her left hand-only to have it jerked to a stop by the chain. She wondered about lifting the desk to pull the chain out from under the leg, but after an experimental shove decided against it. The table was every bit as heavy as it looked.

Chase would have been able to lift it easily, she thought-and her anger at him, forgotten in her concentration upon the Hermocrates text, flooded back. She still couldn’t believe what he’d done. Storming out was one thing, but storming out to China…

She hadn’t believed a word of his story, but when she’d called Amoros to demand answers he’d told her the same thing-it was an IHA security issue. She didn’t need to know.

Which, of course, had only made her angrier.

Fuming, she rapped her manicured fingernails on the desk, now unable to focus on the text-or anything except the idea of strangling Chase when he finally returned.

A bell suddenly rang, making her jump.

Was it a fire alarm? Worried, she made another attempt to lift the desk. She managed to slide it a little across the floor, but actually raising the unyielding leg high enough to pull the chain free proved more difficult. “Hey! Rocky! I could use some help here!”

No reply. But she heard shouting elsewhere in the building. She pulled at the chain again. Maybe if she put the book on the floor to give herself more slack-

A noise, closer than the shout. She froze.

It sounded familiar. Frighteningly familiar. Like a bullet smashing into a wall.

But it couldn’t be! There had been no gunshots…

Another shout from nearby. Only it wasn’t a shout, it was a scream-cut off abruptly by more of the flat cracks of bullets against wood and stone.

Popadopoulos sat in the lavatory, waiting for nature to run its course as he read his newspaper. There was no point trying to rush things, he’d long since learned. Things would take as long as they would take…

He raised his head at an odd noise, like rapid hammering. As he listened, he became aware of another sound at the limits of his hearing. Higher pitched-a bell?

The noise suddenly became louder as someone opened the door of the men’s room. It was definitely a bell…

His attention distracted, he lost his grip on a couple of pages and they slipped to the floor. Annoyed, Popadopoulos bent down to retrieve them-

The wooden door of the stall burst into splinters just above his head as a stream of bullets ripped through it, tiles on the back wall shattering and covering him with porcelain fragments.

Popadopoulos decided to keep his head down for a while longer. But at least now he didn’t need to wait for nature.

“Shit! Shit!” Nina threw herself against the table, trying to move it to block the door.

Someone was outside. The door handle turned…

With a final desperate effort, she forced the desk against the door, slamming it shut. Instinctively she ducked below the tabletop, pulling the book down with her-

The door erupted with ragged holes as whoever was on the other side blazed away at it with a silenced machine gun. Nina shrieked, throwing herself to one side. Bullets tore into the desk, blasting holes through the solid wood.

Armor piercers!

The desk wouldn’t provide her with any cover, and neither would anything else in the room-even if she could reach it.

The shooting stopped. The man outside shouted, calling others to him.

She wedged her shoulder under the edge of the table and pushed upwards, straining her muscles to their limits-

The leg lifted. Barely a centimeter-but it was enough.

Nina yanked the chain clear and grabbed the book, hunting for a way out or somewhere to hide. There was neither. She ran to the window and looked out. There was an alley behind the building, but it was five floors down and with no fire escape in sight.

There was a loud bang as someone barged against the door. The desk jolted. More blows, and the door began to open, a little at a time.

If she tried to push the desk back, they could shoot her straight through the door.

The book was like a lead weight in her arms. She’d underestimated how heavy it was; it felt more like thirty pounds than twenty, glass and brass and sheets of metal under the leather combining to turn the thing into her own personal anchor.

But on the other hand, it was solid…

Closing its clasp, Nina rammed one end of the book against the window, shattering the glass. She knocked out the largest shards and looked back. The door was open wide enough for her to see a man with Asian features on the other side peering through at her. His lips curled in expectant triumph as their eyes met and he read her trapped expression. He tried to squeeze a gun through the gap-

Nina scrambled through the window.

There was a very narrow ledge outside, a Deco demarcation of floor level, but it was barely wider than her foot. And apart from the window frame, there was nothing to hold on to. There was no way she could reach another window.

But there was a telephone line, a thick trunk cable serving the whole building, running down from her building across the alley…

Behind her, the banging started up again. The desk scraped across the floor as the door was forced open.

She was over forty feet up, and if she fell she would almost certainly die.

Not that she had a choice.

“Oh, crap…” Nina gasped as she hoisted the book over the phone line, then grabbed the chain as tightly as she could-

And stepped off the ledge.

She dropped almost two feet before the drooping cable snapped taut. Fire seared through her left wrist as the cuff ground against it.

Nina hung on as she slithered down the line. The alley whirled below. She was too scared to scream, watching helplessly as the wall of the building opposite rushed at her-

She pulled up her feet just before impact. The heel of her left shoe broke with a loud crack as it slammed into the brickwork, the jolt driving a hot spike of pain into her knee. The book was jarred from her grip and shot upwards, the chain rasping over the phone line. She fell with a shriek until the book slammed against the cable. The cuff bit into her wrist.

Dangling, Nina kicked off the ruined shoe and took in her surroundings. She was closer to the ground than before, but still two stories up. Dumpsters lined the side of the alley below. Twisting around, she looked back up the phone line to see a face at the broken window-a ponytailed man. He seemed as surprised as she was that she’d made it.

But he still had a gun…

She swatted at the book, trying to flip it back over the top of the cable. It refused to budge. Her own weight was pinning it in place.

“Come on!” she hissed, slapping at the book. It went higher with each blow, but still not enough. “Come on!”

She looked around again. He was taking aim-

The phone line abruptly ripped free of the wall.

Nina screamed as she fell-landing with a wet thump inside an open Dumpster, plastic sacks of trash exploding beneath her. Garbage sprayed everywhere. She sat up, blinking in confusion before shock passed and sensation returned.

Smell, in particular.

“Oh, eurgh!” she wailed, sheer revulsion overcoming all other feelings. But the weight of the book still chained to her wrist rapidly reminded her of her priorities. Struggling to find support on the squishy sacks, she peered nervously over the brim of the Dumpster.

The phone line dangled slackly from beside the empty window. Her attacker had gone.

Her moment of relief was immediately stamped flat. That meant he was coming after her!

She forced herself upright, the contents of the Dumpster squashing revoltingly under her bare foot, and climbed painfully over the side. Kicking off her other shoe, she worked out her location. If the main entrance to the Brotherhood’s “safe” house was to her left…

She went right, cradling the book in her arms. A lifelong Manhattan resident, she only needed a moment to figure out where she was. Police Plaza-headquarters of the NYPD-was just a few blocks away. She would be safe there.

If she could reach it.

Nina emerged from the alley onto a street and searched for help. Not a cop in sight, of course. But there was a guy strolling towards her, sharp suit and slick hair and Bluetooth headset as he chatted to someone on his phone.

He did a double take as she ran to him, weighing her disheveled appearance against the Armani suit beneath the slime and rotting vegetables. “Looks like you need help, babe,” he finally said.

“Oh, ya think?” Nina shrilled. “Call the police, now!”

He gave her a smarmy grin and spoke into his headset. “Have to call you back, bud, it’s Good Samaritan time. Got a real-life damsel in distress. Ciao.”

Nina glanced back up the alley as he ended the call. Four men charged around the far end, guns in their hands. “Shit!”

“Hey, calm down,” said the guy, leisurely tapping the buttons on his phone. “I’m here now, I’ll look after you-”

A chunk of wall by his head was shattered by a bullet.

He let out a girlish shriek. “Second thought, screw this!” he yelled as he ran away.

“Son of a bitch!” Nina shouted at his rapidly retreating back. She sprinted in the opposite direction, heading for Police Plaza. Her pursuers had reached the alley much sooner than she’d expected-there was no way she could stay ahead of them for long, especially with the weight of the book slowing her down…

But maybe there was another way she could lose them.

A subway entrance at the end of the street led down to Brooklyn Bridge station. She ran for it, already short of breath. Shouts of alarm rose behind her as other people on the street saw the armed men.

Nina hurried down into the station concourse. The directions to the nearest platform were marked with green-the 6 Train on the IRT line. She followed the signs, racing barefoot through the crowd.

There was no time to buy a ticket, but like any self-respecting New Yorker Nina knew how to jump the turnstiles, even hampered by her priceless cargo. A ticket inspector bellowed after her, but he stopped abruptly at sounds of panic from the concourse. The gunmen were making no attempt to conceal their weapons.

There was a train at the platform. If she could get aboard…

Its doors started to close.

She ran faster, feet slapping on the concrete as she sprinted for the narrowing gap.

The grubby stainless steel doors slammed shut. Nina reached the train just a moment later, banging on the windows, but she knew the driver wouldn’t open the doors again. Brakes released with a clunk, and the train set off, motors whining.

The platform was empty, nobody to help her. Brooklyn Bridge was the terminus of the 6 Train, everyone having just boarded the departing northbound train.

More shouts and screams came from the turnstiles.

There was only one direction she could go.

Nina ran along the platform towards the mouth of the tunnel at its southern end, then leaped, landing on the track bed just inches from one of the rails. She flinched away from it. How many thousands of volts ran through it she had no idea, and had no intention of finding out firsthand.

The surface of the track bed was treacherous, filthy and slick with oily grime. Sharp edges hurt her feet. But she forced herself to keeping running into the darkness.

The tunnel curved, the gleaming rails disappearing around a corner. Feeble, widely spaced bulbs on the walls were the only source of light ahead of her. She looked back.

Two of her pursuers emerged on the platform from the entrance she had used, looking around before spotting her. A moment later, the other two gunmen appeared from a more distant opening. They’d split up to surround her, not thinking that she would risk going into the tunnels.

They jumped down onto the track after her.

Nina kept running, the dull lights flicking past as she followed the curve of the track. She chanced another look back. One of the two closer men was much faster than his companion, quickly catching up.

Too quickly. She knew where she was, what was down the tunnel, but he would reach her before she could get to it.

She could hear his rapid breathing, right behind her-

He snatched at the collar of her jacket. Nina wrenched herself free. But he was already trying again, this time getting a firmer grip on the material.

With a yell as much of anger as of fear, Nina spun around and smashed the sharp corner of the weighty book into the man’s face.

Even in the low light, she saw that she had drawn blood, a large gash across his cheek and top lip. He reeled, the toe of his boot catching a bolt and pitching him over-

Across the tracks.

Nina jumped back as fat sparks briefly lit up the tunnel. The man convulsed, smoke sizzling from his body where it touched the rails and created a circuit. He was being fried alive, cooked as the full power of the subway’s electric current ran through him.

She turned and kept running. The second man was gaining. She hoped he would be dumb enough to try to pull his friend clear, which would electrocute him as well-

He wasn’t. There was a brief pause in his footsteps as he vaulted over the rapidly charring corpse, then he carried on as if nothing had happened. Catching up fast.

Nina became aware of two things at once. Both of them bad.

The sides of the tunnel were lined with red and white stripes. Signs for maintenance workers, warning that there was not enough room to stand between the tunnel wall and a passing train.

Which had suddenly become a life-threatening issue, as she felt wind against her face-

A train was coming!

The tunnel formed a loop, where trains arriving at Brooklyn Bridge could circle around to begin their journey back north. And one was doing exactly that right now.

The glow from the train’s headlights rose as it approached. Metal screeched against metal, the rumble of its wheels becoming a roar.

Nina kept running, trapped between two dangers. She desperately scanned the walls for any kind of exit or alcove, but the warning stripes continued as far as she could see.

The noise was almost unbearable. Light flared ahead, the flat front of the train coming into view around the curve and still nowhere to hide-

Except between the tracks.

A trench, maintenance access for cables running under the track. No more than six inches deep, but it was all she had.

Nina dived into the filthy channel with the book held out in front of her, the driver reacting with shock as she flashed through his headlights. Sparks spat from the train’s underside. The front coupler whooshed over her, catching her hair and tearing out a clump. She screamed, barely hearing herself over the noise of the train as its wheels pounded over joints in the line like colossal hammers.

Then she heard another scream, abruptly cut off by a crunch of breaking bones as her pursuer was hit by the train even as he tried to flatten himself against the tunnel wall.

The driver slammed on the emergency brakes. Nina screamed again, pressing her hands against her ears in a futile attempt to block out the noise. Carriage after carriage shrieked overhead, more sparks spraying out from the wheels, scorching her…

The train stopped. Silence suddenly descended. Nina wasn’t sure whether it was because the train had shut off its motors or she had gone deaf. Cringing, she opened her eyes.

The last car hung over her like a black shroud. Lights inside the carriages illuminated the tunnel. Shaking, taking enormous care not to touch the rails, she lifted herself out from beneath the train. Looking back, she saw a huge splatter of blood along the wall, a ragged smear of red trailing away like a stroke of paint from a giant brush.

Hearing began to return, sounds fading in. The grumble of the train at idle, creaks and moans of metal still swaying from the emergency stop…

And voices.

The second pair of men, temporarily stopped by the train blocking the narrow section of the tunnel, but it wouldn’t take them long to bypass it.

Nina crawled along the side of the track, ducking under the train’s overhanging tail end, then jumped to her feet and ran again. The tunnel opened out ahead, lightbulbs and even a faint sheen of daylight gleaming on ornate patterns of tiles in cream and olive green and brick red…

City Hall subway station.

Nina had been here before, with her parents as a child. The family’s interest in history wasn’t limited to the ancient; New York itself had its own lost treasures. Built as a showpiece for the Interborough subway line, the station had suffered from low passenger traffic compared to its close neighbors, and its sharply curved platform made it impractical to extend when the length of trains was increased. As a result it was closed in 1945, forgotten and unseen by all except a handful of curious visitors on the rare occasions when it was opened to the public.

She had been one of those visitors. And she remembered the layout. Steps from the single platform led to a mezzanine, stairs from there emerging on each side of Murray Street just a short distance from City Hall.

Where there would be cops.

Frosted glass skylights in the vaulted ceiling let in enough illumination for her to see the elaborately tiled walls, but Nina couldn’t spare even a moment to appreciate the sight as she clambered up onto the platform and looked back. The rear lights of the train stared at her like demonic eyes. Somewhere beyond them she could hear her remaining pursuers coming after her, scrambling under the carriages.

She gripped the book to her chest and ran up the stairs into the mezzanine. The staircase to her right would emerge closest to City Hall-

Shit!

Nina stopped, cursing her own stupidity. The station was closed-and so were its entrances. There was no daylight visible at the top of either flight of stairs. They had been sealed off.

No way out.

Noises from the platform below. She couldn’t go back into the tunnel-

She spotted a space in one wall, an alcove where there had once been a ticket booth.

And a hatch set into it…

Nina ran to it, having no other options. There was a handle-and a small lock.

She tugged the handle. It didn’t move. Running feet on the platform.

She slammed the end of the book hard against the panel, once, twice. Glass cracked, but she didn’t care as she drove it against the closed hatch like a battering ram one last time-

The lock broke, pieces of metal popping free.

Nina threw the hatch open, not caring what was beyond as she climbed through and pulled it shut behind her. Low ceiling, a short passage leading to a vertical shaft.

Which only went down.

She looked over the edge. There was a very faint light below, a lone bulb at the bottom. The shaft went down deeper than the subway tunnel. She had no idea where it led.

Not that she had a choice. The running men were drawing closer.

Struggling to support the book in the crook of her elbow, Nina hurriedly descended the ladder.