Seven Ancient Wonders

He probably could have blasted through the eight metres of sand and granite with conventional explosives, but using explosives was risky when you did not know what lay beneath you—it could close off tunnels or passageways in the system below; it could even bring down the entire structure, and West's team didn't have the time or the manpower to sift through thousands of tons of rubble for months.

West now aimed Wizard's sonic-resonance imager at the vertical cliff-face in front of him.

Ping-ping-ping-pitig-ping-ping . . .

Once again the imager's pinging went wild.

The display read:

TOTAL THICKNESS: 4.1 m.

SUBSTANCE ANALYSIS: SANDSTONE OVERLAY 1.6 m;

GRANITE UNDERLAY 2.5 m.

West gazed at the cliff-face in wonder. It looked exactly like the rest of the coastline: same colour, same texture; rough and weatherworn.

But it was a hoax, a ruse, an entirely artificial cliff.

A false wall.

West smiled, called up. it's a false wall! Only four metres thick. Granite, with a sandstone outer layer.'

'So where is the entranced Zoe asked over his radio.

West gazed straight down the sheer cliff-face—at the waves crashing at its base.

'Imhotep VI reconfigured this one. Remember what I said before: he was known for his concealed underwater entrances. Haul me up and prep the scuba gear.'

Minutes later, West again hung suspended from the Land Rover's superlong winch cable, only now he had been lowered all the way down the false cliff-face. He dangled just a few metres above the waves crashing at its base.

He was wearing a wetsuit, full face-mask, and a lightweight scuba tank on his back. His caving gear—fireman's helmet, X-bars, flares, ropes, rockscrew drill and guns—hung from his belt.

'Okay! Lower me in, and do it fast!' he called into his throat-mike.

The others obeyed and released the cable's spooler, lowering West into the churning sea at the base of the cliff.

West plunged underwater—

—and he saw it immediately.

The vertical cliff continued under the surface, but about 6 metres below the surface it stopped at a distinctly man-made opening: an enormous square doorway. It was huge. With its bricked frame, the doorway looked like a great aeroplane hangar door carved into the submerged rockface.

And engraved in its upper lintel was a familiar symbol:

West spoke into his face-mask's radio. 'Folks. I've found an opening. I'm going in to see what's on the other side.'

Guided by his Princeton-Tec underwater flashlight, West swam through the doorway and into an underwater passage that was bounded by walls of granite bricks.

It was a short swim.

About ten metres in, he emerged into a much wider area—and instantly felt the tug of unusually strong tidal motion.

He surfaced in darkness.

While he couldn't see beyond the range of his flashlight, he sensed that he was at one end of a vast internal space.

He swam to the left, across the swirling tide, to a small stone ledge. Once he was out of the water and on the ledge, he fired a flare into the air.

The dazzling incandescent flare shot high into the air, higher and higher and higher, until it hovered nearly 250 feet above him and illuminated the great space.

'Mother of God . . .' he breathed.

At that very same moment, the others were peering down the cliff-face outside, waiting for word from West.

Suddenly, his crackly voice came in over their radios: 'Guys. I'm in. Come on down and prepare to be amazed.'

'Copy that, Huntsman,' Zoe said. 'We're on our way'

Lily stood a short distance from the group, staring inland, out across the plain.

As the others started shouldering into their scuba gear, she said, 'What's that?'

They all turned—

—in time to see a C-130 Hercules cargo plane bank lazily around in the sky high above them, and release about a dozen small objects from its rear.

The objects sailed down through the air in co-ordinated spiralling motions.

Parachutes. Soldiers on parachutes.

Heading straight for their position on the cliff-top!

The Hercules continued on, touching down on the plain several klicks to the east, stopping near one of the larger meteorite craters.

Wizard whipped a pair of high-powered binoculars to his eyes— zoomed in on the plane.

'American markings. Oh, Christ! It's Judah!'

Then he tilted his binoculars upward to see the incoming strike team directly above him.

He didn't need much zoom to see the Colt Commando assault rifles held across their chests, and the black hockey helmets they wore on their heads.

'It's Kallis and his CIEF team! I can't imagine how, but the Americans have found us! Everybody, move! Down the cable! Into the cave! Now!'

Exactly six minutes later, a pair of American combat boots stomped onto the spot where Wizard had just been standing.

Cal Kallis.

In front of him stood the abandoned Land Rover with its winch cable stretched out over the edge of the cliff-face and down to the waves 400 feet below.

Kallis looked out over the edge just in time to see the last two members of West's team vanish under the waves with scuba gear on.

He keyed his radio mike. 'Colonel Judah, this is Kallis. We've just missed them at the sea entrance. Immediate pursuit is a viable option. Repeat, immediate pursuit is viable. Instructions?'

'Engage in pursuit,' the cold voice at the other end said. 'Instructions are as before: you may kill any of the others, but not West or the girl. Go. We'll enter via the second entrance.'

West's team surfaced inside the dark cave behind the false cliff.

As soon as his head broke the surface, Wizard called, 'Jack! We've got trouble! The Americans are right behind us!'

One by one, West hauled the others out of the water and onto the small stone ledge to the left.

'How?' he said to Wizard.

'I don't know. I just don't know.'

West scowled. 'We'll figure it out later. Come on. I hate having to rush through uncharted trap systems and now we've got to. Get a look at this place.'

Wizard looked up at the cavern around them.

'Oh my . . .' he gasped.

Wizard stared in wonder at the sight. So did the others.

Through sheer force of will, Imhotep VI had indeed constructed a ceiling over the natural inlet—turning it into a most unique cavern.

It wasn't wide, maybe twenty metres on average, fifty at the widest. But it was long, superlong. Now lit by many flares, it was revealed to be a narrow twisting chasm that stretched away into darkness for several hundred metres.

Its side walls were sheer and vertical, plunging into the water. Spanning the upper heights of these walls, however, were massive beams of granite—each the size of a California Redwood—laid horizontally side-by-side across the width of the inlet, resting in perfectly fitted notches dug just below ground level.

At some time in the distant past, this granite ceiling had been covered over with sand, concealing the entire inlet.

Behind West's team stood the great wall that sealed the inlet off from the sea. Four hundred feet tall, it was a colossal structure, strong and proud, and on this side its giant granite bricks had not been camouflaged to match the coastline. It looked like a massive brick wall.

Of immediate importance to West and his team, however, was what lay behind this wall.

The roofed chasm.

Cut into the sheer cliffs on either side of the chasm's central waterway were a pair of narrow ledge-like paths.

The two paths ran in identical manner on either side of the twisting, bending chasm—perfect mirror images of each other. They variously rose to dizzying heights as long bending stairways or

descended below the waterline; they even delved momentarily into the walls themselves before emerging again further on. At many points along the way, the paths and staircases had crumbled, leaving voids to be jumped.

The waterway itself was also deadly. Fed by the surging tide outside, small whirlpools dotted its length, ready to suck down the unwary adventurer who fell in, while two lines of tooth-like boulders blocked the way for any kind of boat.

Spanning the watercourse was a beautiful multi-arched aqueduct bridge built in the Carthaginian style, but sadly it was horribly broken in the middle.

As a final touch, vents in the walls spewed forth plumes of steam, casting an ominous haze over the entire scene.

Wizard raised a pair of night-vision binoculars to his eyes and peered down the length of the great chasm.

The world went luminescent green.

In deep shadow at the far end of the cavern, only partially visible beyond its twists and turns, he saw a structure. It was clearly huge, a fortress of some kind, with two high-spired towers and a great arched entrance, but because of the bends in the chasm and the haze, he couldn't see it in its entirety.

'Hamilcar's Refuge,' he breathed. 'Untouched for over 2,000 years.'

'Maybe not,' West said. 'Look over there.'

Wizard did, and his jaw dropped.

'My goodness . . .'

There, wrecked against some rocks in the middle of the waterway, lying half-in half-out of the water, was the great rusted hulk of a World War II-era submarine.

Emblazoned on its conning tower, corroded by time and salt, were the Nazi swastika and the gigantic number: ⁱU-342\

'It's a Nazi U-boat. . .' Big Ears breathed.

Zoe said, 'Hessler and Koenig . . .'

'Probably,' Wizard agreed.

'Who?' Big Ears asked.

'The famous Nazi archaeological team: Herman Hessler and Hans Koenig. They were experts on the Capstone, and also founding members of the Nazi Party, so they were buddies of Hitler himself. In fact, with Hitler's blessing, they commanded a top secret scientific expedition to North Africa in 1941, accompanied by Rommel's Afrika Korps.'

Big Ears said, 'Let me guess, they were after the Capstone, they disappeared and were never heard from again?'

'Yes and no,' Zoe answered. 'Yes, they were after the Capstone, and yes, Hessler never returned, but Koenig did, only to be caught by the British when he arrived, on foot, in Tobruk, staggering out of the desert, starving and almost dead from thirst. I believe he was ultimately handed over to the Americans, who asked to interrogate him. Koenig would ultimately be taken back to the States with a bunch of other German scientists, where I believe he still lives.'

West turned to Wizard. 'How far behind us is Kallis?'

'Five minutes at the most,' Wizard said. 'Probably less.'

'Then we have to get cracking. Sorry, Zoe, but you'll have to continue the history lesson on the way. Come on, people. Dump your bigger scuba tanks, but keep your pony bottles and your masks—we might need them.' A pony bottle was a small handheld scuba tank with a mouthpiece. 'Wizard, fire up a Warbler or two.'

The First Staircase (Ascending)

West and his team took the left-hand cliff-path.

It quickly became a staircase that rose and twisted up the left-hand wall like a slithering snake. After a minute of climbing, West was 80 feet above the swirling waterway below.

At two points along the ascending stone staircase there were four-foot gaps that preceded stepping-stone-like ledges.

And facing onto those ledges were wall-holes just like the one that Fuzzy had neutralised at the base of the quarry in Sudan.

West didn't know what deadly fluid these wall-holes spewed forth, for the Nazis had—very conveniently—neutralised them long ago, riveting sheets of plate steel over the holes, then laying steel catwalk-gangways over the gaps in the stairs.

West danced across the first catwalk-bridge and past the sealed wall-hole.

Whump!

A great weight of some unseen liquid banged against the other side of the steel plate, trying to burst its way through. But the plate held and West and his team ran by it.

No sooner were they past the second plugged-up wall-hole than—

Zing-smack!

A bullet sizzled past their heads and ricocheted off the wall above them.

Everyone spun.

To see a member of Kallis's CIEF team hovering in the water at the base of the great wall, his Colt rifle raised and aimed.

The CIEF man let fly with a spray on full auto.

But Wizard had initiated a Warbler in Big Ears's backpack and the bullets fanned outward, away from the fleeing group.

More CIEF men surfaced at the base of the false wall—until there were three, six, ten, twelve of them gathered there.

West saw them.

And once all his people were past the two gaps in the rising

staircase, he jimmied the two Nazi gangways free, sending them free-falling into the water 80 feet below. Then he used his X-bar like a crowbar to prise off the Nazi plate covering the second wall-hole. The plate came free, exposing the hole. Then West took off after the others.

The Crucifixes

Up they ran, following the narrow winding staircase that hugged the left-hand cliff.

About 150 feet up, they came to a wider void in the stairs, about

twenty feet across.

Some handholds had been gouged out of the cliff-face, allowing one to climb sideways across the void, resting one's feet on a two-inch-wide mini-ledge.

Strange X-shaped hollows—each the size of a man—lined the wall of the void, curiously in sync with the handholds.

'Crucifixes,' Wizard said as West caught up. 'Nasty. Another of Imhotep VI's favourites.'

'No choice then. I'll go up and over,' West said.

Within seconds, he was free-climbing up the cliff-face, gripping cracks in its surface with only his fingertips, crossing it sideways above the trap-laden void.

As he climbed, Wizard peered anxiously at the pursuing CIEF force. They were themselves trying to negotiate the two stepping-stone ledges fifty yards below.

West landed on the other side, and quickly strung a rope—with a flying fox attached to it—across the void.

The CIEF team got past the first stepping-stone ledge.

West pulled the others across the void on the flying fox. First Lily, then Zoe, Big Ears and Wizard.

One of the Delta men leapt onto the second stepping-stone ledge—and a gush of superheated mud came blasting out of the now-exposed wall-hole there and enveloped him.

The mud was a deep dark brown, thick, viscous and heavy. It was volcanic mud. It seared the skin from the man's body in an instant before its immense weight hurled him down to the water 80 feet below.

Wizard's eyes boggled. 'Oh my . . .'

The remaining CIEF men were more cautious, and they skirted the wall-hole carefully.

In the meantime, Stretch and—last of all—Pooh Bear were hauled across the wider void on the flying fox.

No sooner had Pooh Bear's feet touched solid ground than the first member of the pursuing CIEF team arrived at the other side of the void, only twenty feet away!

West immediately cut his team's rope, letting it fall into the abyss, and took off around the next bend.

The first CIEF man, energised by how close he was to his enemy, immediately set about using the handholds gouged into the wall of the void.

It happened when his hands hit the second and third handholds.

Like slithering tentacles, two bronze manacles came springing out of the wall and clasped tightly around his wrists.

Then, a great man-sized bronze cross fell out of the X-shaped recess in the wall, right in front of the hapless CIEF man.

And the operation of the crucifix trap suddenly became apparent to the CIEF trooper: the manacles were attached to the big heavy cross and he was now held tight by them.

He shrieked as the cross tipped out of its recess and fell 150 feet straight down the sheer cliff-face, plunging into the water at the bottom with a gigantic splash . . .

. . . where it sank, taking the CIEF man with it.

He screamed the whole time, right up to the point where the weight of the cross took him under.

West and his team ran.

The Sinkhole Cave

It was probably the first time in history someone could claim to have been helped by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, but it was largely the Nazis' bridge-building efforts from 60 years previously that kept West and his team ahead of Kallis's men.

At the next bend in the chasm, halfway up the high vertical wall, the ledge-path bored into the cliff-face, cutting the corner.

The short tunnel there took them to a square diorite-walled sinkhole cave, 20 feet across and 30 feet deep. Steaming, bubbling volcanic mud—heated by a subterranean thermal source—filled the entire base of the sinkhole. The tunnel continued on the opposite side of the cave.

But the Nazis had once again bridged this gap—so West's crew ran across the bridge, then promptly kicked it into the sinkhole behind them.

The Second Staircase (Descending)

They emerged on the other side of the bend—where they fired some new flares—and beheld a steep staircase that plunged down the curving wall of the chasm before them, hugging it all the way down to the water at its base.

Indeed, the staircase seemed to continue into the water . . . right into the mouth of a swirling whirlpool.

But yet again, the Nazis had bridged this peril with a gangway.

West flew down the stairs—running beneath a large and rather ominous wall-hole mounted above the tunnel's doorway.

'Jack!' Wizard called. 'Trigger stones! Find them and point them out for the rest of us, will you!'

West did so, avoiding any step that was askew or suspicious, and identifying it for the next person in their line.

Their progress was slowed at two places along the staircase— where the stairs had decayed and fallen away, meaning they had to make precarious jumps over the voids.

It was just as the last man in their line—Pooh Bear—was leaping over the second void that another CIEF trooper appeared at the top of the staircase!

Pooh Bear jumped.

The CIEF man charged.

And in his hurry, Pooh Bear landed awkwardly . . . and slipped . . . and fell, dropping clumsily onto his butt, and landing squarely on a trigger stone.

'Blast!' Pooh Bear swore.

Everyone froze, and turned.

'You stupid, stupid Arab . . .' Stretch muttered.

'Stretch . . . not now,' West snapped.

An ominous rumbling came from the wall-hole at the top of the long curving staircase.

'Let me guess,' Stretch said. 'A big round boulder is going to roll out of that hole and chase us down the stairs, just like in Raiders of the Lost Ark.'

Not exactly.

Three wooden boulders, all a metre in diameter and clearly heavy, came rushing out of the hole in quick succession—and each was fitted with hundreds of outward-pointing bronze nails.

They must have weighed 100 kilograms each and they bounded down the stairway, booming with every impact, bearing down on the team.

West scooped up Lily. 'Go! Go! Go!'

The team bolted down the stairs, chased by the nail-ridden boulders.

So did the lone CIEF trooper.

West came to the base of the stairs, to the Nazi gangway balanced across the whirlpool there at an odd angle.

He sprang across it, leading Lily by the hand, followed by Zoe and Big Ears, then Wizard and Stretch.

But the CIEF man was also fleet-footed and, chased by the nail-boulders, he hurdled the two voids easily and almost caught up with Pooh Bear, running last of all, red-faced and breathless.

But at the final moment, Pooh dived forwards, leaping full-stretch onto the gangway. The CIEF man did the same, but in the instant he leapt into the air, the first of the nail-boulders slammed into him, piercing his body with at least twenty jagged nails, and swept him into the whirlpool at the base of the stairs, closely followed by the other two boulders, which bounced off the gangway's handrails and away into the water.

'Ouch . . .' said Pooh Bear, lying on the gangway.

'Come on, Pooh!' West called. 'No time for resting now.'

'Resting? Resting! Pity those of us who don't have your energy, Captain West.' And so with a groan, Pooh Bear hauled himself up and took off after the others.

The Drowning Cage

Crossing the Nazi gangway, they arrived at a sizeable stone platform separated from the next large stepping-stone by a five-foot-wide gap of water.

A further five feet beyond that stepping-stone was another staircase, going upwards. However, this staircase was difficult to access—its first step lay seven feet above the swirling water, an impossible leap.

The biggest problem, however, lay above the stepping-stone itself.

A great cube-shaped cage was suspended above it, ready to drop the moment someone landed on it.

'It's a drowning cage,' Wizard said. 'We jump onto the stepping-stone and the cage traps us. Then the whole platform lowers into the water, cage and all, drowning us.'

'But it's the only way across . . .' Zoe said.

Stretch was covering the rear. 'Figure something out, people. Because Kallis is here!'

West spun—

—to see Kallis emerge from the sinkhole cave at the top of the staircase behind them.

'What do you think, Jack?' Wizard asked.

West bit his lip. 'Hmmm. Can't swim around it because of the whirlpools. And we can't climb up and around it: the wall here is polished smooth. There just doesn't seem to be any way to avoid it . . .'

Then West looked over at the ascending staircase beyond the drowning cage's stepping-stone.

Three Nazi skeletons lay on it—all headless. But beyond them, he saw something else:

A square doorway sunk into the wall, covered in cobwebs.

'There is no way to avoid it,' he said aloud, 'so don't avoid it. Wizard. The Templar Pit in Malta. Where we found the Museion scrolls. It's just like that. You have to enter the trap in order to pass it.'

Stretch urged, 'Some action, people. Kallis is halfway down the stairs . . .'

Zoe said to West: 'Enter the trap in order to pass it? What do you mean?'

'Hurry up, people . . .' Stretch said. 'Warblers don't work at point-blank range.'

West spun to see Kallis gaining on them, still with nine more men, only thirty yards away and closing.

'Okay, everyone,' he said, 'you have to trust me on this one. No time to go in groups, we have to do this together.'

'A bit all or nothing, isn't it, Jack?' Zoe said.

'No other choice. People, get your pony bottles ready. Then we all jump onto that stepping-stone. Ready . . . go!'

And they all jumped together.

The seven of them landed as one on the wide stepping-stone—

—and immediately, the great cage above it dropped, clanging down around them like a giant mousetrap, trapping them under its immense weight—

—and the entire ten-foot-wide stepping-stone began to sink into the swirling depths of the waterway!

'I hope you're right, Jack!' Zoe yelled. She grabbed her pony bottle from her belt, put its mouthpiece to her mouth. You breathe from a pony bottle just like you do from a regular scuba tank, but it only has enough air for about three minutes.

The cage went knee-deep in water.

West didn't answer her, just waded over to the wall-side of the cage and checked its great bronze bars.

And there he found it—a small archway cut into the cage's wall-side bars, maybe three feet high, large enough for a man to crawl through.

But the stone wall abutting that side of the cage was solid rock. The little arch led nowhere . . .

The cage sank further into the swirling water and the little arch went under.

Waist-deep.

Big Ears lifted Lily into his arms, above the swirling waterline.

On the stairway behind them, Cal Kallis paused, grinned at their predicament.

'Jack . . .' Zoe called, concerned.

'Jack . . .' Wizard called, concerned.

'It has to come,' West whispered to himself, it has to—'

The cage went two-thirds under, and as it did so, West cracked a glowstick, put his pony bottle to his mouth, and ducked under the choppy surface.

Underwater.

By the light of his glowstick, West watched the cage's bars slide past the stone wall . . .

Solid rock.

Nothing but solid rock flanked the cage on that side.

It can't be, his mind screamed. There has to be something down here!

But there wasn't.

There wasn't anything down there.

West's heart began to beat faster. He had just made the biggest mistake of his life, a mistake that would kill them all.

He resurfaced inside the swirling cage.

The water was chest-deep now, the cage three-quarters under.

'Anything down there!' Zoe called.

West frowned, stumped. 'No . . . but there should be.'

Stretch shouted, 'You've killed us all!'

Neck-deep.

'Just grab your pony bottles,' West said grimly. He looked to Lily, held high in Big Ears's arms. 'Hey, kiddo. You still with me?'

She nodded vigorously—scared out of her wits. 'Uh-huh.'

'Just breathe through your pony bottle like we practised at home,' he said gently, 'and you'll be all right.'

'Did you mess up?' she whispered.

i might have,' he said.

As he did so, he locked eyes with Wizard. The old man just nodded: 'Hold your nerve, Jack. I trust you.'

'Good, because right now I don't,' West said.

And with that, the great bronze cage, with its seven trapped occupants, went completely under.

With a muffled clunk, the cage came to a halt, its barred ceiling stopping exactly three feet below the surface.

The underwater currents were extremely strong. On the cage's outermost side, the silhouette of a whirlpool could be seen: a huge inverted cone of downward-spiralling liquid.

Pony bottle to his mouth, West swam down to check the little arch one final time . . .

. . . where he found something startling.

The little arch had stopped perfectly in line with a small dark opening in the stone wall.

Shape for shape, the arch matched the opening exactly, so that if you crawled through the arch, you escaped into the submerged wall.

West's eyes came alive.

He spun to face the others, all trapped in the submerged cage with pony bottles held to their mouths, even Lily.

He signalled with his hands:

Wizard would go first.

Then Big Ears with Lily. Zoe, Stretch, Pooh Bear, and West last

of all.

Wizard swam through the arch, holding a glowstick in front of him, and disappeared into the dark opening in the wall.

West signalled for Big Ears to wait—wait for Wizard to give

them the all-clear.

A moment later, Wizard reappeared and gave an enthusiastic

'OK' sign.

So through the little arch they went, out of the cage and into the wall, until finally only Jack West Jr remained in the cage.

No-one saw the relief on his face. He'd made the call, and almost killed them all. But he'd been right.

Kicking hard, he swam out of the cage, his boots disappearing into the tiny opening.

The opening in the wall quickly turned upwards, becoming a vertical shaft, complete with ladder handholds.

This shaft rose up and out of the sloshing water before opening onto a horizontal passage that led back to the main chasm, emerging—unsurprisingly—at the cobweb-covered doorway a few steps up the ascending staircase, the same doorway West had observed earlier.

As they stepped out from the passage, West saw Kallis and his men arriving at the base of the previous staircase, stopped there by the now-resetting cage.

Lying on the steps in front of West were the three headless Nazi skeletons he had spied before.

Wizard said, 'Headless bodies at the bottom of a stairway mean only one thing: blades at the top somewhere. Be careful.'

Retaking the lead, West gazed up this new stairway. 'Whoa. Would you look at that. . .'

At the top of the stairs was a truly impressive structure: a great fortified guard tower, leaning out from the vertical cliff 200 feet above the watery chasm.

The ancient guard tower was strategically positioned on the main bend of the chasm. Directly opposite it, on the other side of the roofed chasm, was its identical twin, another guard tower, also jutting out from its wall, and also possessing a stairway rising up from a drowning cage down at water-level.

West had taken one step up this stairway when—

'Is that you, Jack!' a voice called.

West spun.

It hadn't come from Kallis.

It had come from further away.

From the other side of the chasm.

West snapped round.

And saw a second American special forces team standing on the path on the other side of the chasm, on the platform preceding the drowning cage on that side.

They had emerged from a side doorway in the rockwall over there, twenty-four men in total.

At their head stood a man of about 50, with steely black eyes and, gruesomely, no nose. It had been cut off sometime in the distant past, leaving this fellow with a grotesque misshapen stump where his nose should have been.

Yet even with this glaring facial disfigurement, it was the man's clothing that was his most striking feature right now.

He wore steel-soled boots just like West did.

He wore a canvas jacket just like West did.

He wore a belt equipped with pony bottles, pitons and X-bars, just like West did.

The only difference was his helmet—he wore a lightweight caver's helmet, as opposed to West's fireman's helmet.

He was also older than West, calmer, more confident. His small black eyes radiated experience.

He was the one man West feared more than any other on Earth. The man who had been West's last field commander in the military. The man who had once left West for dead on the plains outside Basra in Iraq.

He was a former commander of Delta Team Six, the best within Delta, but was now the commanding officer of the CIEF, the very best special forces unit in the world.

He was Colonel Marshall Judah.

In their current positions, West and his team were marginally ahead

ofJudah.

Given that the paths running on either side of the chasm were

identical, West's team was one trap ahead. Judah had yet to pass

the drowning cage on his side, and had just stepped out onto the

base of the descending stairway over there, in doing so setting off—

—three nail-studded boulders.

The three boulders tumbled down the stairway toward Judah and his men.

Judah couldn't have cared less.

He just nodded to three of his men, who quickly and competently erected a sturdy tripod-like barricade between their team and the oncoming nail-boulders.

The titanium-alloy barricade blocked the entire width of the stairway and the boulders slammed into it one after the other, each one being deflected by the sturdy barricade and bouncing harmlessly away into the water.

Judah never took his eyes off West.

'How are those dreams going, Jack? Still trapped in that volcano?' he called. 'Still haunted by the chants and the drums?'

On his side of the chasm, West was stunned. How could Judah know that. . . ?

It was exactly the response Judah had wanted. He smiled a thin, cold smile. 'I know even more than that, Jack! More than you can possibly suspect.'

West was rattled—but he tried not to show it.

It didn't work.

Judah nodded at the fireman's helmet now back on West's head. 'Still using that fireman's hat, Jack? You know I never agreed with that. Too cumbersome in tight places. It always pains a teacher to see a talented student employing foolish methods.'

West couldn't help himself—he glanced up at his helmet.

Judah followed through, driving home his edge. 'Looks like we've got something of a race on our hands here, Jack. Think you can outrun me? Do you seriously think you can outrun meV

'Everybody,' West said quietly to his people, not taking his eyes off Judah. 'We have to run. Fast. Now. Go!'

West's team bolted up the stairs, heading for the guard tower at their peak.

Judah just nodded calmly to his men, who immediately began erecting a long gangway to bypass their drowning cage and reach the ascending stairway on their side of the chasm.

The race was on.

The Guard Tower and the Gorge

West and his team ran up their stairway.

Just before the guard tower, a narrow gorge cut across their path. It was maybe fifteen feet across, with sheer vertical sides. This little gorge actually sliced all the way across the main chasm, and as such, had a twin over on the other side.

And once again, the Nazis had been helpful. It seemed that the ancient Carthaginians had built a complex chain-lowered drawbridge to span this gorge—a drawbridge that the Nazis had managed to lower into place, spanning the void.

Taking any luck they could get, West and his team sprinted across the ancient drawbridge, and arrived at the guard tower high up on the next bend in the chasm.

There was a ladder hewn into the guard tower's curved flank, a ladder that wound around the outside of the structure, meaning they had to free-climb 200 feet above nothing but the swirling waters below.

Two head-chopping blades sprang out from slits in the wall-ladder, but West neutralised them with sticky foam and his team, roped together, successfully climbed around the gravity-defying guard tower.

On the other side of the chasm, Judah's long lightweight bridge fell into place and his men ran across it, completely avoiding their drowning cage, reaching the base of their ascending staircase.

The wall-ladder on the outside of West's guard tower brought his team up onto its balcony.

A tight tunnel in the back of the balcony delved into the chasm-wall itself and emerged on the other side of the bend, where West fired off three self-hovering flares . . .

... to gloriously reveal the far end of the chasm and their goal.

'Holy shit. . .' Big Ears gasped.

'Swear jar,' Lily said instantly.

Standing there before them in all its splendour, towering above the waterway, lording over it, easily fifteen storeys tall and jutting out from the far facing rockwall, was a gigantic ancient fortress.

The steaming vents of the chasm gave the fortress a grim haunting look.

A super-solid square-shaped keep formed the core of the structure, with a giant gaping archway in its exact centre. This central section was flanked by two soaring defensive towers, high-spired pinnacles in the darkness. The style of these towers matched that of the guard tower that West had just passed through—only these were taller, stretching all the way up from the water.

Stretching downward from the Great Arch in the centre of the keep was a wide guttered rampway that lanced all the way down to the waterway, ending at a flat stone jetty. At least forty metres in length, with stairs nestled in its centre, the rampway resembled the step-ramps on Hatshepsut's mortuary temple near the Valley of the Kings.

Never finished and never used for its intended purpose—and long since concealed by an ingenious Egyptian architect—this was Hamilcar's Refuge.

West snatched his printout from his pouch, examined it:

Just like on the ancient drawing, the chasm before him ended at a Y-junction, splitting into two diverging channels. The Refuge sat nestled in the V at the top of the Y, facing the long upright 'stem'.

Two more spire-like 'sentry towers' sat on either side of the stem, facing the two towers of the Refuge itself.

As if all this weren't colossal enough, the Refuge featured two more soaring aqueduct bridges to add to the broken one in the main chasm—200 feet high and made of many bricked arches.

These two new bridges spanned the Y-channels of the waterway, but unlike the one crossing the main chasm, they were whole and intact.

It was Zoe who noticed the rockwall behind the Refuge. 'It slopes backward,' she said. 'Like the cone of a—' 'Come on, we don't have time,' West urged them on. The final stretch of the chasm featured a descending stairway

followed by an ascending ramp. The ramp slithered up the left-hand wall of the chasm, bending with every curve. Curiously, it bore a low upraised gutter on its outer edge, the purpose of which was not readily apparent.

Of course, this stairway-ramp combination was mirrored on Judah's side of the chasm.

West and his team charged down their descending stairway, avoiding a couple of blasting steam vents on the way.

In the meantime, Judah's team had just crossed their little gorge and arrived at their guard tower.

They started climbing around it.

The Ascending Ramp

An unusually high stepping-stone separated the base of the descending stairway from the base of the ascending ramp. It jutted out from the wall about thirty feet above the waterway.

The guttered ascending ramp rose above West and his team, stretching upward for maybe 100 metres, ending at the left-hand sentry tower. It was maybe four feet wide, enough for single-file only, and a sheer drop to the right of it fell away to the swirling waters below.

The ramp featured two openings along its length: one two-thirds of the way up that looked like a doorway; the second all the way at the very top of the ramp, that looked more like a pipe.

Ominously, a wispy thread of steam issued out from the pipe, dissipating as it spread into the chasm.

Wizard was enthralled. 'Ooh, it's a single-exit convergence trap . . .'

'A what?' Pooh Bear said.

West said, 'He means it's a race between us and whatever liquid comes out of that pipe. We have to get to the doorway before the liquid does. I assume the high stepping-stone triggers the contest.'

'What kind of liquid?' Big Ears asked.

Wizard said, 'I've seen crude-oil versions. Heated quicksand. Liquid tar . . .'

As Wizard spoke, West stole a glance back at Judah's men.

They were climbing around the outside of their guard tower,

high above the waterway, moving in a highly co-ordinated way— far faster than his team had.

The first CIEF man climbed over the balcony and disappeared

inside the tower.

'No time to ponder the issue,' he said. 'Let's take the challenge.' And with that he jumped onto the stepping-stone and bounced

over onto the ascending ramp.

No sooner had his foot hit the stepping-stone than a blast of super-hot volcanic mud vomited out from the pipe at the top of the ramp. Black and thick, the mud was so hot it bore thin streaks of golden-red magma in its oozing mass.

The ramp's gutter instantly came into effect.

It funnelled the fast-oozing body of superheated mud down the ramp, towards West's team!

'This is why we train every day,' West said. 'Run!'

Up the ramp the seven of them ran.

Down the ramp the red-hot mud flowed.

It was going to be close—the ramp was obviously constructed in

favour of the mud.

But West and his team were fit, prepared. They bounded up the slope, heaving with every stride, and they came to the doorway set into the wall just as the mud did and they charged in through it one after the other, West shepherding them through, diving in himself just as the volcanic mud slid by him, pouring down the ramp, where it ultimately tipped into the waterway at the bottom, sending up a great hissing plume of steam.

Judah's team, close behind West's, handled their ramp in a different

way.

They sent only one man up it: a specialist wearing a large silver canister on his back and holding a device that looked like a big-barrelled leafblower.

The specialist raced up the ramp and beat the flowing mud to his doorway, where, instead of disappearing inside, he fired his big 'leafblower' at the ramp.

Only instead of hot air, the device he held spewed forth a billowing cloud of supercooled liquid nitrogen, which instantly turned the leading edge of the mudflow into a solid crust that acted like a dam of sorts, funnelling the rest of the oncoming mud off and over the outer edge of the ramp!

This allowed Judah and his team to just stride up their ramp in complete safety, heading for the sentry tower on their side—moving ever forwards.

In stark contrast, West and his team arrived in their sentry tower breathless and on the run.

'Even if we get this Piece of the Capstone,' Stretch said, 'how can we possibly get it out? How can we get it past the Americans? And if it's a large Piece, it'll be nine feet square of near-solid gold-'

Pooh Bear scowled. 'Always argue the negative, don't you, Israeli. Sometimes I wonder why you even bothered to come on this mission.'

'I came to keep an eye on all of you,' Stretch retorted.

Wizard said, 'If we can't get the Piece, we at least need to see the Piece. Lily has to see the positive incantation carved into its upper side.'

West ignored them all.

He just peered out from the balcony of the sentry tower, down at the Great Arch of the Refuge.

He eyed the jetty at the bottom end of the guttered rampway stretching down from the Great Arch. The jetty stood at a point exactly halfway between the two sentry towers and it was covered by a small four-pillared marble gazebo. The vertical distance from West's balcony to the little gazebo: maybe 50 metres.

'Big Ears. I need a flying fox to that gazebo.'

'Got it.'

Big Ears whipped out his M-16, loaded a grappling hook into its underslung grenade launcher, aimed and fired.

The hook whizzed out across the chasm, arcing high through the air, its rope wobbling behind it. Then it shot downward,

toward the marble gazebo on the jetty, until—thwack!—the hook whiplashed around one of the gazebo's pillars and took hold.

'Nice shot, brother,' Zoe said, genuinely impressed.

Big Ears looped his end of the hook's rope around a pillar in the sentry tower's window and the rope went taut—creating a long steep zipline that stretched down and across the chasm, from the high sentry tower down to the low jetty.

'Lily,' West said, 'you're with me from here. Grab on. We go first.'

Lily leapt into West's arms, wrapped her hands around his neck. West then slung a compact handlebar-like flying fox over the rope and pushed off—

—and the two of them sailed out over the immense chasm, across the face of Hamilcar's Refuge, tiny dots against the great ancient fortress—

—before they slid to a perfect halt on the surface of the little jetty that lay before the dark looming structure.

'Okay, Zoe, come on down,' West said into his radio.

Zoe whizzed down the rope on her own flying fox, landing deftly next to West and Lily.

'Wizard, you're nex—' West said.

Bam!

Gunshot.

It echoed loudly across the great chasm.

West spun, saw one of Judah's snipers aiming a long-barrelled Barrett rifle out from their sentry tower's balcony . . . and suddenly realised that he was no longer within the protective range of the Warbler.

But strangely no bullet-impact hit near him, Zoe or Lily.

And then the realisation hit West.

The sniper wasn't aiming for them.

He was aiming at the—

'Damn it, no . . .'

Bam!

Another shot.

Ping! Shwack!

The flying fox's rope was severed right in its middle and went instantly slack, cut clean in two. It dropped, limp, into the water.

And suddenly West, Zoe and Lily were out on the jetty, all on their own, completely separated from the rest of their team.

'No choice now,' West said grimly. Then, into his radio: 'Big Ears, Pooh Bear, Stretch. Give us some cover fire. Because in four seconds we're gonna need it!'

Exactly four seconds later, right on cue, a withering barrage of gunfire blazed out from Judah's sentry tower.

A wave of bullets hammered the marble gazebo where West, Zoe and Lily were taking cover.

Impact-sparks exploded all around them.

But then the reply came from West's team, on their tower: roaring fire, aimed at the opposite sentry tower.

Bullets zinged back and forth across the main chasm, between the two towers.

The cover fire had its intended effect: it forced Judah's men to cease firing briefly and thus gave West the opening he needed.

'Okay, now!' he yelled to Zoe and Lily.

Out of the gazebo they ran, up the wide guttered rampway that gave access to the fortress, tiny figures before the enormous ancient citadel.

They flew up the stairs and, to the sound of gunfire outside, disappeared inside the dark yawning entrance to Hamilcar Barca's long-abandoned Refuge.

They entered a high-ceilinged many-pillared hall. The pillars ran in long sideways lines, so that the hall was exceedingly wide but not very deep.

It was absolutely beautiful—every column was ornately decorated, every ghost-like statue perfectly cut. It was also curiously Roman in its styling—the heavy-trading Carthaginians had been incredibly similar to their Roman rivals. Perhaps that was why they had been such bitter enemies over three bloody Punic Wars.

But this hall was long-deserted. Its floor lay bare, covered in a layer of grey ash.

It had also been modified by the Ptolemaic Egyptian engineers.

A wide ascending tunnel bored into the earth behind the fortress, continuing in a straight line from the Great Arch's entry rampway. Indeed, this tunnel and the rampway were connected by a flat path that crossed the pillared hall and also featured raised gutters on its edges.

Zoe said, 'Looks like these gutters are designed to funnel some kind of liquid that flows out from the tunnel's core, through this hall, and down the front ramp.'

'No time to stop and stare,' West said. 'Keep moving.'

They ran across the stupendous hall, dwarfed by its immense pillars, and entered the gently-sloping tunnel sunk into its innermost wall.

At the same time, outside in the chasm, Big Ears, Stretch, Wizard and Pooh Bear were engaged in their fierce gunbattle with the CIEF force over in the other sentry tower.

'Keep firing!' Wizard yelled above the din. 'Every moment we keep Judah pinned down is another moment Huntsman has inside the Refuge—'

He was abruptly cut off as, all of a sudden, the entire chasm shook and shuddered.

For a moment, he and the others stopped firing.

So did Judah's men—in fact, they suddenly started to abandon their position on their sentry tower.

'What is this . . . ?' Big Ears eyed the cavern around him.

'It feels like an earthquake . . .' Pooh Bear said.

'It's not an earthquake,' Wizard said, realising.

The next instant, the source of the great rumbling burst out of the wall at the base of Judah's sentry tower, just above the water-line of the main chasm itself.

It was an M-113 TBV-MV (Tunnel-Boring Vehicle, Medium Volume). The military equivalent of a commercial tunnel-boring engine, it was in truth an M-113A2 bridge-laying vehicle that had been adapted for tunnel-making.

The size of a tank, it had a huge pointed nose that whizzed around and around, screw-like, obliterating everything in its path. Chewed-up rock and dirt were 'digested' through the centre of the vehicle and disposed out the rear. It also bore on its roof a foldable mechanical bridge.

The tunnel-boring vehicle poked out through the wall at the base of the sentry tower and stopped, its drill-bit still spinning, only twenty horizontal metres from the jetty that West had ziplined down to.

'They drilled through the filled-in excavation tunnel . . .' Wizard breathed in awe. 'How clever. It wouldn't have given a modern tunnel-borer much resistance.'

'It helps if you have the logistics,' Stretch said.

'Which they do,' Pooh Bear said.

At that moment, the tunnel-boring vehicle engaged its internal engines to fold forwards the steel bridge on its roof. The mechanical bridge unfolded slowly, stretching out in front of the tunnel-borer

until it was fully flat and extended. At which point, it touched down lightly against the jetty twenty metres away.

The American tunnel and the jetty were now connected.

'Man, they're good . . .' Big Ears said.

A second later, Judah's team rushed across the bridge, guns up, having raced down the internal stairs of their sentry tower.

They fired up at Wizard's men as they crossed the metal bridge.

Big Ears and the others tried to halt them with more cover fire, but it was no use.

Judah's men were across the waterway and racing up the ramp-way into Hamilcar's Refuge.

They were going in, only a minute behind West, Zoe and Lily.

West, Zoe and Lily raced up the ascending tunnel behind the fortress, guided by glowsticks.

As he ran, West noticed large clumps of dried solidified mud clinging to the edges of the rampway. He frowned inwardly. Dried mud? How had it come to be here?

'Jack! Zoe!' Wizard's voice called in their earpieces. 'Judah's crossed over the waterway! I repeat, Judah has crossed the waterway! He's right behind you!''

After about a hundred metres of dead-straight, steadily-rising tunnel, they emerged in a high dome-ceilinged chamber—

—and froze.

'What the—' Zoe breathed. 'There are two of them . . .'

The chamber was perfectly circular and it reeked of gaseous sulphur, the smell of volcanoes. It was also distinctly holy, reverential, a shrine.

Alcoves lined its curved walls—housing broken and decayed Carthaginian statues—while on the chamber's far side rose a wide granite dam, behind which simmered a wide pool of bubbling volcanic mud, the source of the foul sulphurous odour.

And lying on the floor before West, Lily and Zoe were six skeletons of long-dead Nazi soldiers. All were hideously deformed: the bottom half of each man was missing, their legs simply gone. Indeed, the lower ends of their spinal columns seemed to have melted . . .

Beyond the grisly skeletons, however, was the main feature of the

holy chamber.

Rising up in the chamber's exact centre, 10 feet above the floor

of the perfectly round room, was an elevated platform, fitted with a single flight of wide rising steps, and on it—to West's surprise— lay not one but two Ancient Wonders.

Mounted atop the island-like platform, aimed upwards like a satellite dish, stood the fabled Mirror of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

It was completely covered in grey volcanic ash, but its outline was unmistakable. With its wide 15-foot dish, it was simply astonishing in its beauty.

West's eyes, however, fell immediately to its base.

Its solid trapezoidal base, also covered in a layer of grey ash.

Suddenly something made sense: the continual use of the word 'base' in the texts he had followed to get here. He recalled the original clue to the location of the Pharos Piece:

Look for the base that was once the peak of the Great Tower

And Euclid's Instructions:

Base removed before the Roman invasion, Taken to Hamilcar's Forgotten Refuge.

The Mirror of the Lighthouse was a wonder unto itself, but its base—its plain trapezoidal base—was of immensely greater value. Its base was the Seventh Piece of the Golden Capstone.

But there was a second monument standing proudly atop the platform—next to the Mirror, on the right-hand side.

It was a huge octagonal marble pillar, standing upright, perhaps eight feet in height and seven feet in circumference. Its upper portions had long since been hacked away, but its lower section was perfectly intact.

And just like the Mirror, its base was trapezoidal.

It was another Piece of the Capstone.

'Oversized octagonal pillar . . .' Zoe said, her mind racing. 'Only one ancient structure was known to possess oversized octagonal pillars—'

'The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus,' West said. 'Lily hasn't been able to read its entry yet, but I bet when she does, the Callimachus Text will say that its Piece is with the Pharos Piece. When you find one, you find the other. Zoe, we just hit the jackpot. We just found two Pieces of the Capstone.'

'We have to do something!' Pooh Bear growled.

'What can we do?' Stretch sighed. 'They're done for. This mission is over. I say we save ourselves.'

They were still in their sentry tower, having watched Judah's force enter the Refuge.

'Typical of you, Israeli,' Pooh said. 'Your first instinct is always self-preservation. I don't give up so easily, or give up on my friends so easi—'

'Then what do you suggest, you stupid stubborn Arab?'

But Pooh Bear had gone silent.

He was staring out to the left of the fortress, out towards the high multi-arched aqueduct that spanned the channel on that side of the Y-junction.

'We cross that,' he said determinedly.

In the holy chamber, West approached the central island.

In addition to the two priceless treasures standing on it, one other thing was visible atop the raised island: a seventh Nazi skeleton, lying all on its own, curled in the foetal position on the topmost step.

Unlike the others, this skeleton was not deformed in any way. It was whole and intact, still wearing its black SS uniform. Indeed, its bones were still covered in decaying flesh.

West approached the island and its flight of steps cautiously— the whole flight was probably just one great big trigger stone.

He scanned the skeleton.

Saw a pair of spindly wire-framed glasses still sitting on its nose, saw the red swastika armband, saw the purple amethyst ring on its bony right hand, the ring of a Nazi Party founding member.

'Hessler . . .' he gasped in recognition. It was Hermann Hessler, the Nazi archaeologist, one-half of the famed Hessler-Koenig team.

Oddly, the skeleton's right hand was outstretched, seemingly reaching down the steps, as if it had been Hessler's last earthly movement, grasping for . . .

... a battered leatherbound notebook that lay on the bottom step.

West grabbed the notebook, flipped it open.

Pages of diagrams, lists, and drawings of each of the Ancient Wonders stared back at him, interspersed with German notes written in Hermann Hessler's neat handwriting.

Suddenly, his earpiece roared to life:

'Jack! Zoe.^rWizard's voice called. 'You have to hide! Judah's going to be there any moment now—'

West spun, just as a bullet sizzled out of the entry tunnel behind him and whizzed over his head, missing his scalp by centimetres.

'You two, that way!' he ordered Zoe and Lily to the left side of the doorway, while he himself scampered to the right of the stone doorframe, peered back, and saw dark shadows rising up the tunnel, approaching fast.

Decision time.

There was no way he could get to the podium containing the Lighthouse's Mirror and the Mausoleum's Pillar before Judah's force arrived. No way to allow Lily to glimpse their carved incantations.

His eyes scanned the chamber for an escape.

There was some open space on the far side of the island, but it offered no escape: only the wide granite dam that held back the pool of superhot mud lay over there—presumably waiting to be set off by the trigger-stone steps.

And in an instant, it all made sense: the rising tunnel with the clumps of dried mud at its edges, the guttered path in the hall below

and the similarly gutter-lined stairs down at the Great Arch: this molten mud, when released from its dam, would flow around the raised island containing the Mirror and Pillar and then down through the Refuge, all the way to the water in the chasm, killing any crypt-raiders in the process and protecting the two Pieces.

The half-bodied Nazi skeletons, melted at the waist, now also made sense: they'd been killed trying to outrun the mud. Hessler himself must have been trapped atop the podium as it had been surrounded by the stuff. He had then died in perhaps the worst way of all—of starvation, in the dark, alone. His buddy, Koenig, must have escaped somehow and trekked across the desert to Tobruk.

Among the many statue alcoves that lined the circular wall of the chamber, West also saw two smaller openings on either side of the main entry doorway.

They were low arched tunnels, maybe a metre high—and elevated slightly above the floor of the chamber by about 2 feet.

West didn't know what they were, and right now he didn't care.

'Zoe! That little tunnel! Get Lily out of here!'

Zoe swept Lily into the low arched tunnel on their side of the doorway, while West himself charged over to the right-hand one and peered down it.

The low tunnel disappeared downwards in a long dead-straight line.

'No choice,' he said aloud.

He ducked inside the little arched tunnel—just as Zoe and Lily did the same on the other side of the chamber—a bare second before Judah's force swept into the holy chamber.

At that exact same moment, four tiny figures were hustling across the superhigh aqueduct bridge that spanned the left arm of the Y-j unction.

Led by the frumpy but determined Pooh Bear they looked like a team of tightrope walkers. But they made it across and disappeared into the small metre-high arched tunnel on the far side.

Marshall Judah stepped into the domed chamber and gazed up at the Mirror and the Pillar.

He grinned, satisfied.

His eyes searched the area for West—scanning the many alcoves, nooks and crannies.

No sign of him. Yet.

He called: 'I know you're in here, Jack! My, my, twice in two days. Looks like you've failed again . . .'

His men fanned out, searching the chamber, guns up.

West backed down his little arched tunnel, praying that the darkness concealed him.

As he moved, he drew his H&K pistol from his thigh holster and aimed it up the tunnel—when with startling suddenness, a CIEF trooper appeared at the top of the tunnel, gun up!

West's finger balanced on his trigger—firing might save him momentarily, but it would also give away his position . . .

But the trooper didn't fire.

He just peered down the tunnel, squinting, searching.

He couldn't see West. . .

But then the CIEF trooper reached for the pair of night-vision goggles hanging from his belt.

At the same time, in the domed chamber itself, Marshall Judah was evaluating the podium-island in the middle of the room with a

portable X-ray scanner.

The staircase giving access to the island was indeed one great big trigger stone. And the domed roof was solid diorite—offering no purchase for drilled handholds.

The situation was clear, and typical of Imhotep VI: to get onto the raised island, you had to trigger the trap.

Which meant Judah and his men would have to be quick.

'Gentlemen,' he said. 'It is an Imhotep VI, Type 4 trap. Time will be short. Prepare the rollers. I want an eight-man lifting team for the Mirror Piece, and a four-man team for the Pillar Piece.'

'Do you want us to take the Mirror and the Pillar themselves?' one lieutenant asked.

'I don't give a shit about the Mirror and the Pillar. All I want are the Pieces,' Judah snapped.

The CIEF men got into position.

They brought forwards two six-wheeled 'roller units'—to convey the heavy Pieces out.

'Okay, here we go,' Judah said.

And with those words, he trod on the first step of the staircase, setting off the deadly trap mechanism.

At that moment, several things happened.

The trooper who had been peering down West's tunnel placed his night-vision goggles to his eyes—and immediately saw West, crouched in the tunnel like a trapped animal.

The trooper whipped up his Colt Commando—

Bam!

Gunshot.

From West.

The trooper dropped dead, hit right between the eyes.

In the chamber, three other CIEF men saw their comrade go down and they charged for the right-hand arched tunnel, leading with their guns.

But at the exact moment the CIEF trooper fell, Judah had

stepped on the stairway, setting off its trap mechanism.

And the mighty nature of that trap meant he didn't see the CIEF trooper behind him fall.

For as Judah stepped onto the trigger stone, the great granite dam at the far end of the chamber instantly began to lower, releasing the pool of boiling volcanic mud behind it into the chamber!

With a titanic whoosh, the foul stinking body of mud oozed over the lowering dam and began to fan out slowly into the round chamber.

Judah's men rushed forwards, clambering up onto the central island, where they pushed the Mirror and Pillar from their bases.

The spreading body of mud split into two fat fingers that oozed around both sides of the island . . .

A quick wipe to each base revealed its glittering golden surface beneath the layer of ash.

Then the CIEF teams grabbed the two bases, moving fast.

The fingers of mud were two-thirds of the way around the island now and moving quickly, ready to devour anything that lay in their paths . . .

Leaving the Pharos's Mirror and the Mausoleum's Pillar lying pathetically on their sides on the island, Judah's team bounded off the raised platform, returning to the chamber's main doorway just as the two creeping fingers of molten mud enveloped the base of the island and touched, surrounding the island completely, sealing it off.

But the mud continued to flow, spreading ever outward . . .

Judah's eight-man A-team loaded the Mirror's base onto one of the six-wheeled rollers—a couple of them noting that unlike the other Piece, the Pharos Piece had a human-shaped indentation carved into its underside. Curious. But they didn't have time to examine it now.

The B-team loaded the Mausoleum Piece onto their roller.

And then they were off, led by Judah, racing back down the entry tunnel with the two large golden trapezoids in their midst.

By this time, the three CIEF men who had seen West's victim fall arrived at the right-hand arched tunnel—but with the spreading mud closing in behind them.

Guns up, they peered down the tunnel and saw West, trapped, dead to rights . . .

... a moment before they were all assailed by a withering volley of gunfire from somewhere behind them.

The three CIEF men convulsed in grotesque spasms, erupting in a thousand blood-spurts, peppered by automatic gunfire.

This volley of gunfire had come from the left-hand arched tunnel, on the other side of the main entrance, where Pooh Bear and Big Ears now stood, their Steyr-AUG and MP-7 sub-machine guns still smoking!

Guided only by Wizard's incomplete sketch of the Refuge, they had guessed—correctly—that their aqueduct's tunnel led to the same place as the fortress's main ascending tunnel.

West ran to the top of his tunnel, peered out, saw his lifesaving team-mates on the other side of the lava-filled chamber—saw Lily and Zoe safely in their midst.

He would have yelled his thanks, but he arrived there just in time to see the spreading body of mud reach his tunnel's raised entrance and swallow the corpses of the four CIEF men as it went by.

The molten mud just seared right through their bodies, liquefying them in an instant, before oozing over them, absorbing them into its mass.

It was the same on the other side of the chamber—the creeping body of mud had just flowed across the entrance to Pooh Bear's little tunnel and was now heading quickly towards the main doorway of the domed chamber.

The effect was simple.

West was now cut off from both his comrades on the far side of the chamber and from the main entrance.

And the level of the flowing mud river was rising.

Any second now, it would rise up over the lips of the two arched aqueduct tunnels . . . and flow down them!

From the look on his face, Pooh Bear had seen this, too.

'Pooh Bear! Get out of here!' West called.

'What about you!' Pooh yelled back.

West nodded back down his aqueduct tunnel. 'No other option! I have to go this way!'

'Jack!' Wizard called.

'What!'

'Judah used a tunnel-boring vehicle to drill through the old filled-in excavation tunnel! They must be planning to take the Pieces out that way! Check your sketch! You may still be able to get a look at the Pieces! All may not be lost!'

'I'll do my best!' West nodded at the expanding mud pool. 'Now get out of here! Call Sky Monster! Get to the Halicarnassusl I'll catch up somehow!'

And with that, West's team split, went their separate ways, disappearing into the two arched tunnels on either side of the domed chamber—the chamber whose perfectly round floor was now little more than a lake of stinking dark mud, a lake that surrounded a raised island containing the only existing remains of two Ancient Wonders, now lying discarded and broken on their sides.

West bolted down his aqueduct tunnel as fast as his legs could carry him. It was long and tight and dead-straight.

In the main tunnel of the fortress, Marshall Judah and his two teams were also hustling, pushing their six-wheeled rollers—bearing the two Pieces of the Capstone—down the slope.

They rushed through the many-pillared hall of the fortress before they emerged in the chasm and raced down the guttered rampway that stretched down from the front of the Refuge.

While in the left-hand aqueduct tunnel, Pooh Bear, Big Ears, Stretch, Wizard, Zoe and Lily also rushed headlong through their own tight dark passageway.

All three groups ran for good reason—for in the domed chamber high behind them, the radially-expanding mud lake finally reached the edge of the round room and began to rise up and over the lips of the three tunnels . . .

... at which point it flooded rapidly down each of them!

Three surging fingers of mud roared down the three sloping tunnels.

Since they were tight and small, the two rivers of mud flowing down the aqueduct tunnels moved faster than the one flowing down the wider main tunnel.

As he ran, West turned to see the boiling hot liquid pouring down the tunnel behind him. It moved powerfully, relentlessly, as if it had a will of its own, a will bent on destroying any living thing in its path.

Then, abruptly, West burst out into open space—and found

himself standing on the high aqueduct bridge that spanned the right-hand arm of the Y-junction.

The bridge was very high—at least 200 feet—long, and very narrow, barely wide enough for one person to stand on. For it was not made for human crossing. Its surface wasn't even flat; rather, it contained a sunken 2-foot-wide channel for mud to flow across.

'Oh man . . .' he breathed.

He stepped out onto the high aqueduct bridge, and suddenly saw Judah's men appear on the jetty far below him, pushing their pair of six-wheeled rollers across their fold-out metal bridge. In the recently-bored tunnel on the other side of their bridge, the big tunnel-boring vehicle's front screw was now folded open, waiting to be loaded. Judah was going to use the tunnel-boring vehicle to carry the Pieces out of here.

West remembered Wizard's newsflash from before.

'Check the sketch . . .' he'd said.

With a glance back at the oncoming mud, he snatched his printout of the ancient sketch:

Okay, I'm here, he saw the right-hand aqueduct, labelled Aqueduct 2.

Max was right. This aqueduct bridge linked up with the excavation tunnel—the same tunnel that Judah had reopened with his tunnel-borer and which he was now using to get the Pieces out.

West looked up.

If he hurried, he might be able to . . .

He bolted, raced out across the high aqueduct bridge—while far below him, Judah's CIEF team loaded their tunnel-boring vehicle with the two golden trapezoids.

On the other side of the Y-junction, Pooh Bear emerged from his aqueduct tunnel—just in time to see the aqueduct bridge in front of him get hit, spectacularly, by a rocket-propelled grenade . . . right in the middle!

One of Judah's men had been waiting for them, keeping an eye on the bridge through the crosshairs of an RPG launcher.

The RPG hit the multi-arched bridge in the exact centre. A huge explosion billowed outwards, hurling bricks and blasted rock in every direction. When the cloud dissipated it revealed that the aqueduct bridge was now in two pieces, with a gaping void in its middle.

Pooh Bear spun—saw the long finger of dark mud stretching down the tunnel behind him, coming inexorably closer.

And now he and his team had nowhere to go, no bridge to escape across!

'This is terrible,' he breathed.

West dashed across his aqueduct bridge unseen, but still pursued by the elongated finger of mud behind him.

He reached the little tunnel on the other side of the chasm and disappeared into it at speed—just as Judah's people clamped shut the folding front section of their M-113 tunnel-borer and withdrew the temporary bridge.

Judah shouted, 'CIEF units, fall in! We're leaving!'

The tunnel-boring vehicle was like a tank, with great tracked wheels and a box-shaped armoured body. The main hold of this body was hollow and it usually held troops. When used as a tunnel-borer, however, it conveyed crushed rock through its body and disposed of it out the rear, laying it against the walls of the tunnel as hard-packed dirt.

Now that the tunnel had been bored, the hold of the M-113 was being used to house the two Pieces of the Capstone.

Four armed CIEF men sat in there with them, guarding them.

The rest of Judah's force leapt into four cage-framed Light Strike Vehicles—dune buggies essentially—to escort their prize out of the excavation tunnel.

By this time, Cal Kallis and his team, who had been on West's side of the main chasm, had crossed the main chasm via the broken aqueduct and joined Judah.

'Mr Kallis,' Judah said, pointing up at Pooh Bear's team, trapped up on the partially-destroyed left-hand aqueduct. 'West's people do not leave this place alive. I want snipers taking them down one at a time if necessary. Join us when you're done.'

Then Judah turned and jumped into one of the chase cars.

The CIEF convoy fired up their engines and moved off into the tunnel—two of the small LSVs in front, followed by the big M-113 tunnel-borer, then the other two LSVs behind.

They left Cal Kallis and his men at the mouth of the tunnel, standing at the waterline—eyeing Pooh Bear's trapped team.

Pooh Bear spun to check the mud behind him. It was close now— only ten metres away and approaching fast.

The aqueduct bridge before him now offered no escape.

But about twenty metres across the cliff-face from him was one of the Refuge's high-spired towers—and it was connected to Pooh Bear's bridge by an inch-thin ledge.

'This way!' he ordered the others.

And so they edged out across the ledge, standing on their tiptoes, Wizard, Zoe and Lily, Stretch and Big Ears, and finally Pooh Bear, who stepped off the remains of the aqueduct bridge a bare second before the stream of mud shot past him, flowed out over the bridge, and fell—gloriously, as a waterfall of thick dark mud—off the newly-formed void in its middle, down to the waterway 200 feet below.

Moments later, an even larger body of mud came roaring out of the main entry of Hamilcar's Refuge. It moved fast, pouring down the rampway and out over the jetty, before it tipped out into the waterway, kicking up a hissing geyser of steam.

The huge geyser shot up into the air, its cloudy haze positioned directly in between Pooh Bear and Kallis, giving Pooh Bear several valuable seconds of movement.

But then the haze from the geyser began to dissipate and Kallis's snipers opened fire with a vengeance.

West ran through darkness. Alone.

Guided only by the light of a single glowstick.

His little tunnel was tight, only big enough for him to run through bent-over.

After about a hundred metres, however, he heard engine noises up ahead and suddenly—

—he burst out into a wider tunnel, with hard-packed walls of dirt and wide enough for a tank to pass through. Low mounds of dirt lay at regular intervals along the centre of the roadway— mounds left behind by the tunnel-borer. A long line of fading American glowsticks had been left along its length to illuminate the way back.

It was the excavation tunnel.

The engine noises came from his right, from over a crest in the sloping roadway—the sound of light car engines and the deep-throated diesel roar of the tunnel-boring vehicle.

Judah and his CIEF team.

Approaching fast.

West chucked his glowstick and, thinking fast, quickly rolled out onto the roadway.

He rolled into the middle of the tunnel, lying lengthways in a dark shadowy spot, pressing himself close to one of the dirt-mounds in the centre of the road, half-burying himself in the dirt.

Judah's convoy rose above the crest, headlights blazing.

The lead light strike cars whizzed by West on either side, avoiding the dirt-mound by inches, before . . .

. . . the great M-113 tunnel-boring vehicle thundered over the crest and rumbled right over the top of West, its huge tracked wheels clanking by on either side of his body!

No sooner was it over him than West quickly whipped out his MP-7 sub-machine gun and, using its grip as a hook, latched it over a pipe on the underbody of the TBV—and suddenly he was swept along with it, hanging from the huge vehicle's underbelly!

He had to work fast.

He guessed that he had about thirty seconds till they came to the

gorge—the narrow gorge that cut across the excavation tunnel: his escape route.

Vastly outnumbered and outgunned, he could never hope to beat all of Judah's CIEF force and take the Pieces. Working alone, there was no way he could carry the two huge Pieces anyway.

The thing was, he didn't want to carry them—he just needed to see them and take a couple of quick photos of the carvings on their upper sides.

West clambered forwards along the underside of the moving tunnel-borer, pulling himself forwards hand-over-hand, until he came to the front of the great lumbering vehicle—where he climbed up and over its bow and commenced his one-man war against the CIEF.

Marshall Judah sat in the passenger seat of one of the rear LSVs, keeping an eye on his tunnel-borer up ahead.

He never saw West disappear under it—nor did he see West climb forwards along its underbelly to its front bumper—nor did he see West shoot its driver right between the eyes and leap inside the driver's hatch.

No, all Judah saw was several sudden lightning-flashes of gunfire flaring within the big tunnel-borer—before he saw it veer out of control to the left and grind horribly against the left-hand wall of the tunnel!

The big vehicle crunched against the wall, still moving forwards but losing speed, and as it did so, more flashes could be seen flaring within it—only these weren't muzzle flashes from guns, they were different, almost like . . . camera flashes.

Then the big tunnel-borer regained its alignment and pulled away from the wall, continuing on down the tunnel, where it rumbled across a sturdy ancient stone bridge that spanned a thirty-foot-wide cross-gorge. The drop to the watery floor of the gorge was about eighty feet.

Judah couldn't be sure, but as he watched the tunnel-borer race across the bridge, he could have sworn he saw a figure leap off its

roof and drop into the narrow black gorge, splashing into the water below.

Either way, as soon as it was across the ancient bridge, the tunnel-borer again lurched leftward, crunching against the wall, before grinding to a slow laboured halt about 80 metres down the tunnel.

The escort cars converged on it, unloaded their men, guns up)—

—and found the two golden Pieces still in it, safe and sound.

The driver of the M-113 and the four CIEF guards in it were all dead, shot to bits. Their blood covered the walls of the hold. All had got their guns out—but not a single one of them had got a round off.

Judah just gazed at the human wreckage inside the tunnel-boring vehicle, the work of Jack West Jr.

'West, West, West. . .' he said to the air. 'You always were good. Perhaps the best pupil I ever had.'

Then he reorganised his men and the convoy shot off down the tunnel again, safe and away.

Sniper rounds slammed into the cliff all around Pooh Bear's team as they tip-toed across the cliff-face to the fortress's left-hand tower.

The Warbler in Big Ears's backpack was working admirably— bending the bullets away—and one by one, Pooh's team made it to the high-spired tower attached to the fortress.

Far below them, mud continued to flow out of the mouth of the great citadel, while above them, the dark ceiling of the chasm was close now, barely twenty feet above the peak of their tower.

Then abruptly Kallis's men stopped firing.

Pooh Bear exchanged a worried look with Wizard.

Change of tactics.

A brutal change of tactics.

Frustrated by the electromagnetic field of the Warbler, Kallis and his team started firing RPGs at the tower.

It looked like a fireworks display: long hyper-extending fingers

of smoke lanced upward from their tunnel, streaking up toward the mighty ancient citadel.

'Oh my Lord,' Wizard breathed. 'The Warbler won't work against RPGs! RPGs are too heavy to divert magnetically! Somebody do something—'

It was Stretch who came up with the answer.

Quick as a flash, he unslung his sniper rifle, aimed and fired it at the first oncoming RPG!

The bullet hit the RPG a bare thirty feet from the tower and the RPG detonated in mid-flight, exploding just out of reach of the tower.

It was an incredible shot. A single shot, fired under pressure, hitting a high-velocity target in mid-fligbt\

Even Pooh Bear was impressed. 'Nice shot, Israeli. How many times can you do that?'

'As long as it takes for you to figure out a way out of here, Arab,' Stretch said, eyeing a second incoming RPG through his sights.

Pooh Bear evaluated their position. Their aqueduct was shattered, uncrossable. The main entrance to the fortress was filled with flowing mud. No dice there. And the main chasm, with its traps and deadly whirlpools, was guarded by Kallis's CIEF team.

'Trapped,' he said, grimacing in thought.

'Isn't there any way out of here?' Big Ears asked.

'This place was sealed long ago,' Wizard said.

They all stood in silence.

'Why not go up?' a small voice suggested.

Everyone turned.

It was Lily.

She shrugged, pointed at the 'planked' granite ceiling not far above the pinnacle of their tower. 'Can't we go out that way? Maybe with one of Pooh Bear's demolition charges?'

Pooh Bear's frown became a grin. 'Young lady, I like your style.'

A minute later, as Stretch kept the incoming RPGs at bay, Pooh Bear fired a grappling hook up at the high ceiling of the chasm, almost directly above his tower.

The hook he fired was a rock-penetrating climbing hook—but instead of rope, attached to it was a Semtex-IV demolition charge.

The climbing hook slammed into the granite ceiling, embedded itself in it.

One, one-thousand.

Two, one-thousand.

Three—

The Semtex charge went off.

Fireball. Explosion. Dustcloud.

And then, with an almighty craaaack! one of the granite planks that formed the chasm's ceiling broke in two, and fell from its place, tumbling out of the ceiling formation. It was easily as big as a California Redwood tree, and the great granite plank created a huge splash as it hit the waterway far below.

A cascade of sand streamed in through the newly-formed rectangular opening in the ceiling, followed by a blazing beam of sunlight that illuminated the tower and lit up the chasm in an entirely new way.

Pooh Bear and the others had completely lost track of time, of how long they'd been in the chasm system. It was actually just after noon.

Kallis's men were still firing RPGs. And Stretch was still picking them off, shot for shot.

Once the Semtex charge had created its opening in the ceiling, Big Ears fired a second grappling hook—only this one did have a rope attached to it.

The hook flew up through the big rectangular hole in the ceiling, disappearing up into the daylight, where it landed and caught hold of something.

'Up we go!' Pooh Bear called. 'Big Ears. You first. Stretch, you're last.'

'As always . . .' Stretch muttered.

'Wizard, call the Halicarnassus, send them a pick-up signal.'

'What about Huntsman?' Lily asked.

'77/ catch up with you all later,'' a voice said in their earpieces.

West's voice.

'I've got pictures of the Pieces,' he said. 'But I can't get back to you guys at the fortress. I'll have to get out another way. I'll call you later.'

And so up the rope they went, climbing up into the blinding daylight, all the while protected by Stretch's incredible sniping skills.

When at last Stretch himself had to go, he bolted for the rope, latched onto it and started climbing.

Almost immediately, an RPG slammed into the tower beneath him and with an awesome booooom, the left-hand tower of Hamilcar's Refuge burst outward in a star-shaped spray of giant bricks and shattered rock—bricks and rock that sailed way out into the chasm before plunging down into the waterway below.

And when the smoke cleared, the tower stood deprived of its pinnacle, its upper reaches charred and broken, its high-spired balcony simply gone. The great tower had been decapitated.

All that remained in its place was a rectangular hole in the ceiling, through which glorious sunshine now streamed.

Pooh Bear and his team had escaped.

The Halicarnassus would pick them up ten minutes later, swooping down to the desert plain for a rapid extraction.

There was, however, no further word from West.

Indeed, as the Halicarnassus soared away from the American forces massed around a crater two miles west of the covered Refuge, all contact with West appeared lost.

For the remainder of that day, no-one would hear a word from Jack West Jr.

At 2:55 a.m. the next morning, West finally sent a pick-up signal— from a position one hundred kilometres north of the concealed inlet that housed Hamilcar's Refuge, a position that put him out in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea!

It was a small Italian resort island, conveniently possessing its own airstrip.

The staff at the resort would long recall the night a dark 747 jumbo jet touched down unannounced on their airstrip and performed a brilliant short-runway landing procedure.

They didn't know what the plane was, or why it had landed briefly on their island.

Two days later, one of their diving expeditions would find a sixty-year-old World War H-era Nazi U-boat lying aground on a rocky reef just off the southern tip of the island, a submarine that had not been there two days previously.

Its conning tower blazed with the number ^lU-342\

It would become one of the resort's favourite dive spots from then on.

His face dark and grim, West strode into the Halicarnassus's main cabin and without stopping or speaking to any of the assembled team—including Lily—he grabbed Wizard by the arm and hauled him into the back office of the plane with the words: 'You. Me. Office. Now.'

West slammed the door and whirled around.

'Wizard. We've got a mole in our team.'

'What?'

'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,' West said. 'Twice now Judah and his Americans have arrived at our location only hours after we got there. The Sudan wasn't conclusive, since they could have tracked the Europeans there. But Tunisia was different. First, the Europeans weren't in Tunisia. Second, even if Judah has a copy of the Callimachus Text, he couldn't have found Hamilcar's Refuge. He needed Euclid's Instructions to find it and we have the only copy in existence. They followed us there. Someone on our team led them there. Sent up a tracing signal, or somehow got a message out to Judah.'

Wizard's face fell. The thought of a rat in their ranks actually pained him—he felt like they had all become something of a family. 'Jack, we've been working with these people for ten years. How could any of them undermine our mission now?'

'Stretch hasn't been with us for ten years. He's only been with us for three. And he wasn't a part of the original team. He crashed the party, remember. And he represents Israel, not the coalition of the minnows.'

Wizard said, 'But he's really become a part of the team. I know he and Pooh Bear have Arab-Israeli issues, but I'd say he's blended in rather well.'

'And if he hasn't been making secret reports to the Mossad, I'll eat my own helmet,' West said.

'Hmmm, true.'

West threw out another option: 'Pooh Bear? The Arab world is five hundred years behind the West. They'd love to get their hands on the Capstone, and Pooh's father, the Sheik, was unusually keen for the United Arab Emirates to be involved in this mission.'

'Come on, Jack, Pooh Bear would step in front of a runaway bus to save Lily. Next theory.'

'Big Ears trained with Judah at Coronado in the States a few months before our mission began—'

'Freight train,' Wizard said simply.

'What does that mean?'

'If Pooh Bear would step in front of a bus to protect Lily, then Big Ears would step in front of a freight train to save her. And as I recall, you yourself also once went to a US-sponsored training course at Coronado Naval Base in the States, a course conducted by Marshall Judah and the CIEF. That's not even mentioning your mysterious work with him in Desert Storm.'

West slumped back in his chair, thought about it all.

The problem with a multinational team like this was the motivations of its members—you just never knew if they had the team's interests at heart or their own.

'Max. This is not what we need. We're going up against the two biggest fish in the world and getting our asses kicked. We're hanging on by our fingertips.'

He took a deep breath.

'I can't believe I'm going to do this: conduct surveillance on my own team. Max, set up a microwave communications net around this plane. A net that will catch all incoming and outgoing signals. If someone's communicating with the outside world, I want to know about it when it happens. We gotta plug this leak. Can you do that?'

'I will.'

'We keep this to ourselves for the time being, and we watch everyone.'

Wizard nodded. 'I've got another issue for you.'

West rubbed his brow. 'Yes?'

'While you were getting away from Tunisia on that U-boat, I set Lily to work on the Callimachus Text again. It's odd, she says that the language of the Text gets more and more difficult. But at the same time she herself is progressing in skill: sections that she couldn't read yesterday, she can suddenly comprehend today. It's as if the very language of the Text is determining the order in which we can find the Pieces.'

'Uh-huh. And . ..'

'She's read the next three entries—the Mausoleum one came next and it just said, "I lie with the Pharos". The next two entries concern the Statue of Zeus at Olympia and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

'Following on from the ones we've already translated, these new entries confirm a curious pattern: the Text is guiding us through the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World from the youngest Wonder to the oldest. The Colossus, the most recently built, came first, then the Pharos, then the Mausoleum. The next two, those of the Statue of Zeus and the Temple of Artemis, are the next oldest Wonders in the progression.'

'The Middle Wonders,' West said, nodding. 'And you say Lily has now read the entries for them?'

'Yes. And in doing so, she has revealed some very serious problems.'

Wizard told West the situation.

After he'd done so, West sat back in his chair and frowned, deep in thought.

'Damn . . .' he said. Then he looked up. 'Assemble everyone in the main cabin. It's time to make a tough decision.'

The entire team gathered in the main cabin of the Halicarnassus.

They sat in a wide circle, variously sitting on couches or at the desk-like consoles that lined the walls. Even Sky Monster was there, leaving the plane to fly on autopilot for a while.

West spoke.

'Okay, here's the state of play. We're 0-for-2 after two efforts at the plate. In those two missions, three Pieces of the Capstone have been unearthed and we have none of them.

'But we're not completely dead yet. We may not have got any of the Pieces, but so long as we keep seeing the Pieces and accumulating the lines of the positive incantation carved into them, we still have a chance, albeit a very slim one.'

'Very, very slim,' Stretch said.

West threw Stretch a look that would've frozen water. Stretch retreated immediately. 'Sorry. Go on.'

West did. 'So far the Callimachus Text has been an excellent guide. It has led us accurately to the Colossus and to the Pharos Pieces, and the Mausoleum Piece.

'But now,' West said seriously, 'now Lily has managed to translate the next two entries, and we have a problem.'

He flicked a switch, projecting Lily's translations of the next two entries of the Callimachus Text onto a pull-down screen. They read:

The Statue of cuckolded Zeus,

Cronos's Son, the false deity.

While his statue was immense, his power was illusory.

No thunderbolts did he wield, no wrath did he bear,

No victory did he achieve.

Indeed, it was only the Victory in his right hand that made him

great,

Oh winged woman, whither didst thou fly?

The Temple of the Huntress,

In heavenly Ephesus.

The sister of Apollo, Ra's charioteer,

Has never let go of her Piece,

Even when her Temple burned on the night of Iskender's birth.

Through the exertions of our brave brothers,

It has never left the possession of our Order.

Nay, it is worshipped every day in our highest temple.

Zoe saw the first problem immediately. 'There are no clues in these verses . . .' she said with dismay.

'There's nothing for us to go on,' Fuzzy said.

'More than that,' Stretch said, 'the writers of the first verse didn't even know where the Statue of Zeus went. This is a total dead-end.'

'You do always argue the negative, don't you, Israeli?' Pooh Bear scowled. 'After all they've done, have you no faith in Wizard and Huntsman?'

'I believe in what is achievable,' Stretch shot back.

'Gentlemen. Please,' Wizard cut in. He turned to Stretch. 'It's not a total dead-end, Benjamin. Close, but not total. The Zeus verse is indeed disappointing, as it offers no clues at all to the location of its Piece.

'But the verse about the Temple of Artemis—the goddess of the hunt and, in Greek lore, Apollo's sister—is actually quite clear about the location of its Piece of the Capstone.

'It states that, through the efforts of its priests over the ages, the Artemis Piece has never left the possession of the Cult of Amun-Ra. It even gives us an exact location: the highest temple of the Cult of Amun-Ra. Unfortunately, this means that the Piece is almost certainly already in the hands of our European competitors.'

'What do you mean?' Sky Monster asked. 'I didn't realise that the Cult of Amun-Ra was still around. I thought it died out. What is it and where is its "highest temple"?'

'Why, Sky Monster,' Wizard said, 'the Cult of Amun-Ra is most certainly alive and well. Indeed, it is one of the most widespread religions in the world today.'

'A religion?' Big Ears asked. 'Which one?'

Wizard said simply: 'The Cult of Amun-Ra, my friend, is the Roman Catholic Church.'

'Are you saying that the Catholic Church—my Catholic Church, the church I have attended all my life—is a Sun-cultV Big Ears asked in disbelief.

Very Irish and hence very Catholic, he spun to face West—who just nodded silently, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

'Come on,' Big Ears said. 'I read The Da Vinci Code, too. It was a fun book and it had a great conspiracy theory, but this is something else.'

Wizard shrugged. 'Although its everyday followers don't know it, the Catholic Church is indeed a thinly veiled reincarnation of a very ancient Sun-cult.'

Wizard counted the points off his fingers:

'The virgin birth of the Christ character is a direct retelling of the Egyptian legend of Horus—only the names have been changed. Look at the vestments Catholic priests wear: emblazoned with the Coptic Cross. But 2,000 years before that symbol was the Coptic Cross, it was the Egyptian symbol, ankh, meaning life. Look at the Eucharistic chamber on any altar: it is in the shape of a dazzling golden Sun. And what is a halo? A Sun-disc.

'Go to Rome and look around. Look at all the obelisks—the ultimate symbols of Sun worship, pointing up at their deity. They are all genuine Egyptian obelisks, transported from Egypt to Rome by Pope Sixtus V and erected in front of every major church in the city, including St Peter's Basilica. There are more obelisks in Rome than any other city in the world, including any Egyptian city! Why, Liam, you tell me, what word do you say at the end of every single Catholic prayer you utter?'

'Amen,' Big Ears said.

'The Ancient Egyptians had no vowels in their writing. Amen is simply another way of spelling Antun. Every time you pray, Liam, you intone the most powerful god of ancient Egypt: Amun.'

Big Ears's eyes went wide. 'No way . . .'

Zoe brought the conversation back to the point: 'But the Artemis verse says that its Piece is worshipped every day in the Cult of Amun-Ra's highest temple. If what you say is true, then the highest temple of the Roman Catholic Church would be St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican in Rome.'

'That is my conclusion too,' Wizard said.

'Welcome to Problem No. 1,' West said. 'If the Artemis Piece is in St Peter's Basilica, it could be anywhere in there. The cathedral itself is a behemoth, the size of about seven football fields, and beneath it is a labyrinth of tombs, crypts, chambers and tunnels. For all we know, it could be on display in a crypt, worshipped every day by only the most senior cardinals, or it could be embedded in the floor of the main cathedral, twenty feet underground. Searching for a golden trapezoid in there would be like searching for a needle in a mountain of haystacks. It could take years, and we don't have years.'

'And Problem No. 2?' Zoe asked.

Wizard said, 'The Zeus piece. As you said before, this verse gives us absolutely nothing. Beyond the usual legends we have no way of knowing where it is.'

A silence fell on the room. This situation had not been anticipated. The Callimachus Text had served them so well so far, none of them had thought that it would completely fail them on the later Pieces.

'So what do we do?' Zoe asked.

'There is one option,' West said solemnly. 'But it's not one that I'd take lightly.'

'And that is . . . ?'

'We get outside help,' West said. 'Help from an expert on the Capstone, perhaps the greatest living expert on it. A man who has

devoted his life to pursuing it. A man who knows more about the Seven Ancient Wonders than anyone else alive.'

'Sounds like a guy we should have consulted 10 years ago,' Fuzzy said.

'We would have if we could have,' Wizard said, 'but this man is . . . elusive. He is also psychotic, clinically insane, in fact.'

'Who is he?' Sky Monster asked.

'His name is Mullah Mustapha Zaeed . . .' West said.

'Oh no, this is outrageous—' Stretch sat upright.

'The Black Priest of Kabul—' Pooh Bear breathed.

West explained for the others.

'Zaeed is Saudi by birth, but he's been linked to dozens of Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups as far afield as Pakistan, Sudan, and Afghanistan, where he was sheltered by the Taliban until September 11, 2001. A qualified mullah, he's a teacher of fundamentalist Islam—'

'He's an assassin,' Stretch spat, 'responsible for the deaths of at least twelve Mossad agents. Zaeed's been on the Red List for fifteen years.' The Mossad Red List was a list of terrorists whom any Mossad agent was permitted to shoot on sight anywhere around the world.

'If the Mossad can't find him, how on Earth are we going to find him at such short notice?' Zoe asked.

West looked to Stretch as he spoke: 'Oh, the Mossad knows where he is, they just can't get to him.'

The tight-lipped expression on Stretch's face said this was true.

'So where is he then?' Pooh Bear asked.

West turned to Stretch.

Stretch practically growled as he spoke. 'Mustapha Zaeed was picked up by US forces during Operation Enduring Freedom, the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, the one that toppled the Taliban regime. In early 2002, Mustapha Zaeed was taken to Camp X-Ray, the temporary terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He's been there ever since.'

'Guantanamo Bay,' Zoe repeated. 'Cuba. The most heavily

guarded, most secure military compound in the world. And what— we're just going to stroll in there and walk out with a known terrorist?'

West said, 'Naval Station Guantanamo Bay is designed for two things: to keep the Cubans from retaking it, and to keep prisoners in. Its guns are pointed landward and inward. That leaves us one open flank—the sea side.'

Zoe said, 'I'm sorry, but are you seriously thinking of sneaking into Guantanamo Bay and busting out one of its inmates?'

'No,' West said, standing. 'I'm not planning on sneaking in at all. No, I suggest we do the one thing the Americans least expect. I suggest we launch a frontal assault on Guantanamo Bay.'

NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY

SOUTH-EASTERN CUBA

17 MARCH, 2006, 3:35 A.M.

3 DAYS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS

Naval Station Guantanamo Bay is a true historical oddity.

Born out of two treaties between the United States and Cuba made in the early 20th century—when the US had Cuba over a barrel—Cuba essentially leases a small chunk of its south-eastern coast to America at the obscenely low rent of US$4,085 a year (the actual price mentioned in the treaty is '$2,000 in gold per year').

Since the treaty can only be terminated by the agreement of both parties—and since the US has no intention of agreeing to such a termination—what it amounts to is a permanent US military outpost on Cuban soil.

The Bay itself is situated at the extreme southern tip of Cuba, opening onto the Caribbean Sea, facing away from America. Occupying both of its promontories is the US base, and it is very very small—maybe six kilometres deep by ten kilometres long, its twisting and turning landside fenceline barely 25 kilometres in length.

After all that, its most well-known feature (apart from appearing in the Tom Cruise movie A Few Good Men) is its status in International Law: for as far as International Law is concerned, Guantanamo Bay does not exist. It floats in a kind of legal limbo, free of the constraints of the Geneva Conventions and other troublesome treaties.

Which was exactly why the United States chose it as a prison for the 700 'stateless combatants' that it captured in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.

The Bay itself bends northward like a fat slithering snake, bounded by dozens of inlets and marshy coves. Its western side is known as Leeward, and it contains little of interest except for the base's airstrip, Leeward Point Field.

It is on the eastern side of the Bay—Windward—where all the real activity takes place. This is where the various Marine barracks and prison complexes are situated. An inactive airfield, McCalla Field, occupies the eastern side of the harbour entrance. Further inland, there are administrative buildings, a school, shops and a housing estate for the Marines who live on base.

Further inland still, at Radio Range, in the dead heart of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, you will find Camp Delta. (Camp X-Ray, with its notorious open-air chain-link cages, was always intended to be temporary. In April 2002, all of its detainees were shipped to the newly constructed Camp Delta, a more permanent complex.)

Camp Delta is made up of six detention camps: Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, Echo and Iguana. Camp 3 is the 'SuperMax' facility. Only the most dangerous prisoners live in Camp 3.

Prisoners like Mullah Mustapha Zaeed.

In short, Camp Delta, nestled in the centre of the world's most heavily fortified base, is a maze of cinder-block buildings and chain-link fences, all topped with razor-wire and guarded by stony-faced US Army Military Police.

It is a forbidding installation, one of the bleakest places on Earth.

And yet after all that, only 500 metres from the Camp's outermost razor-wire fence is something you would find only in an American military base: a golf course.

With two heavily defended airfields to choose from, naturally West aimed for the golf course.

'I know Gitmo . . .' he said, standing in the cockpit of the Halicarnassus as it roared down through the night sky, descending on Guantanamo Bay.

After a quick refuelling in friendly Spain, they had soared off over the Atlantic, commencing the five-hour flight to Cuba.

'. . . I went there once, after some wargames my country did with the CIEF. Believe it or not, I actually played on the golf course— Christ, a golf course in a military base. Thing is, there aren't many trees and the last few holes—the 16th, 17th and 18th—run end-on-end, separated by only low bushes. They're wide and straight and long, about 450 metres each. About runway length. What do you say, Sky Monster? Think you can do it?'

'Can I?' Sky Monster scoffed. 'My friend, give me something harder next time!'

'Great.' West made to leave the cockpit. 'See you down on the ground.'

Ten minutes later, West strode into the lower hold of the Halicarnassus, dressed entirely in black and wearing his back-mounted carbon-fibre wings.

Zoe was waiting for him, also dressed in black, also wearing a wing-set. The tight form-fitting bodysuit brought out the best in her slender figure. Lean and shapely, Zoe Kissane was beautiful and fit.

'I hope you're right about this,' she said.

'Surprise is the key. Their guns are pointed at the Cubans and at their 700 prisoners. The Americans don't think anyone is stupid enough to take Guantanamo Bay head-on.'

'Nope. Only us,' Zoe said.

'Have you checked out Stretch's satellite image of Camp Delta?'

'Three times,' Zoe said. 'The intel from Mossad says that Zaeed is in hut C-12 of Camp 3, solitary confinement. Hope we can spot it in the dark. Is there anything Mossad doesn't know?'

'Mossad knows what my Aunt Judy eats for breakfast.' West checked his watch. 'We're eight minutes out. Time to fly.'

Moments later, the rear ramp of the 747 rumbled open and they leapt out of it together, disappearing into the night sky.

Inside the Halicarnassus itself, every battle station was manned.

Big Ears, Fuzzy, Pooh Bear and Stretch all sat in the great black plane's four gun turrets—Big Ears and Pooh Bear on the wing-mounted turrets, Fuzzy on the underbelly, and Stretch up on the 747's domed roof.

Their six-barrelled miniguns were currently loaded with super-lethal 7.62 mm armour-piercing tracer rounds—but they had special instructions from West as to what to use later, when the battle got really hot.

Wizard, Lily and Horus had been dropped off at a safe island location nearby—it was far too dangerous to bring Lily on this mission.

The Halicarnassus thundered through the night sky.

It flew without lights, so it was little more than a dark shadow against the clouds; and it had long ago been stripped of its transponder—so it gave off no electronic signature.

And its black radar-absorbent paint, the same as that used on the B-2 Stealth Bomber, deflected any radar scans the Americans projected from Gitmo.

It was a ghost.

A ghost the American forces at Guantanamo Bay would not know existed until it was right on top of them.

In the end, it was a pair of night sentries who saw it—or, rather, heard it—first. They were posted on one of the most far-flung sentry towers on the base, on a remote headland overlooking the ocean about two klicks east of Windward Point, near the Cuzco Hills.

They saw the huge black shadow come roaring in low over their heads, zooming in from the south, from over the Caribbean Sea. They called it in immediately.

And so the alert went out, and the 3,000-strong American force at Guantanamo Bay declared war on Jack West Jr and his team.

The Halicarnassus shot low over the Cuzco Hills, bearing down on the rumpled moonlit landscape of Guantanamo Bay. It was 3:45 in the morning.

Then the big 747 banked sharply to the left and disappeared below the treeline . . .

. . . landing right on the fairway of the 16th hole of the Guantanamo Bay Golf Course, its winglights blazing to life as it did so!

The plane's massive tyres ripped up the pristine fairway, churning up great ragged chunks of grass, its glaring winglights lighting the way. It romped down the 16th hole, rumbled onto the 17th.

The stand of bushes separating the 17th from the 18th hole loomed in front of it and Sky Monster just smashed straight through them, crunching over them in an instant, and the rampaging Halicarnassus rumbled down the 18th fairway.

Klaxons and alarms wailed all over Guantanamo Bay. Flashing lights erupted everywhere.

Marines leapt out of their beds.

Guard-tower sentries scanned the perimeter down the barrels of their M-16s.

Spotlights searched the sky for more aircraft.

The word went out: they were being attacked . . . from the golf course!

Two crack teams of Recon Marines were dispatched to the golf course, while Black Hawk helicopters and a much larger force were assembled to follow up behind them.

And every single jail on the base was instantly placed into lock-down—every gate was double-locked via computer, every guard-post sentry team was doubled.

It was chaos.

Pandemonium.

And in all the chaos and confusion that had followed the Halicarnassus's spectacular landing on the golf course, no-one noticed the two black-winged figures that descended over Gitmo with graceful silent swoops, landing lightly and silently on the flat concrete roof of hut C-12 in Camp 3 of Camp Delta.

West detonated a Semtex charge on the roof of the cinder-block cabin, blasting a hole in it big enough for him to fit through. He jumped down through the hole—

—and landed in darkness on the roof of a cube-shaped wire-mesh cage. A blowtorch made short work of the cage's roof and West leapt down into it—

—to see a skeletal wraith-like figure come rushing out of the darkness at him, arms outstretched!

West pivoted quickly and sent Zaeed thudding into the wall, where he pinioned the terrorist and shone his barrel-mounted flashlight right into the man's eyes.

By the light of the flashlight, Zaeed looked positively scary.

The terrorist's beard and hair had been shaved off, leaving him with a crude stubble on both his angular chin and his scalp. He was thin, malnourished. And his eyes—those eyes—they were hollow, sunken into his skull, accentuating his overall appearance of a living skeleton. They blazed with madness.

'Mustapha Zaeed?'

'Ye-yes . . .'

'My name is West. Jack West Jr. I'm here to offer you a one-time deal. We get you out of here, and you help us find the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and from them, the Golden Capstone of the Great Pyramid. What do you say?'

Any resistance Zaeed still harboured disappeared in an instant at the mention of the Wonders. In his wild eyes, West saw several things at once: recognition, comprehension and naked ravenous ambition.

'I will go with you,' Zaeed said.

'Then let's move—'

'Wait!' Zaeed shouted. 'They implanted a microchip in my neck! A locater! You have to extract it, or they'll know where you've taken me!'

'We'll do it on the plane! Come on, we've got to run!' West called above the sirens. 'Zoe! Rope!'

A rope was hurled into the hut from the hole in the roof, and together West and Mustapha Zaeed scrambled up it, out of the cell.

Over at the golf course, the two teams of Recon Marines arrived to behold the Halicarnassus standing on the ruins of the shed that had once been their clubhouse, illuminating the area for a full 500 yards with a dozen outward-pointed floodlights.

Blinded by the dazzling lights, the Marines spread out around the big black 747, raised their guns—

—just as a withering volley of gunfire erupted from the Halicarnassus's four revolving gun turrets.

The volley of bullets slammed into the Recon Marines, sent them flying backwards through the air, slamming them into trees and vehicles.

But they weren't dead.

The bullets were rubber bullets, like those West and his team had used in the quarry in Sudan.

West's instructions to his team had been simple: you only kill someone who wants to kill you. You never ever kill men who are just doing their job.

And as far as West was concerned, he had no quarrel with the Marine guards at Guantanamo Bay—only with their government and its backers.

The rubber bullets, however, had another effect on the Recon Marines—it made them think this was an exercise, an elaborate surprise in the dead of night designed by their superiors to test their response.

And so they actually became less lethal. They concentrated on surrounding and containing the plane, rather than destroying it.

But then, to their surprise, the big black 747 started moving again, rolling around in a tight circle until it was pointed back up the 18th fairway of the golf course.

Then with its guns still blazing, the big plane's engines fired up. The roar they made was absolutely deafening in the night.

Then the great plane started rumbling back up the fairway, having unloaded not a single trooper, having done—seemingly— absolutely nothing.

But then came the most amazing sight.

Two winged figures came shooting over the treetops from behind the Recon Marines—black-clad figures wearing carbon-fibre wing-sets—chasing after the fleeing 747, firing compressed air thrusters on their backs. They flew in a series of long swoops, like hang-gliders powered by the odd thrust of compressed air.

And as the Marines saw the winged figures more closely, their hearts sank for they now understood that this hadn't been an exercise at all.

For one of the low-flying winged intruders carried a man harnessed to his chest: a shaven-headed man still dressed in the bright orange coveralls of a Camp 3 detainee.

This was a jailbreak . . .

The two winged figures swooped in low over the right-hand wing of the rolling Halicarnassus, where they landed deftly and ran inside an emergency door which swung shut behind them.

Then the Halicarnassus picked up speed and thundered down the two fairways and just before it hit the woods at the far end, it lifted off, taking to the air.

Three Black Hawk choppers followed for a short while, firing after it in vain, but they could never hope to keep up with the fleeing 747.

A couple of F-15 strike fighters would be dispatched 10 minutes later, but by the time they were in the air and on the right heading, the ghostly 747—defying their radar scans and transponder searches—was gone.

It was last seen heading south, disappearing somewhere over Cuba's nearest neighbour in that direction.

Jamaica.

An hour later, in another part of the world, a digital teleprinter printed out an intercepted radio transmission:

TRANS INTERCEPT:

SAT BT-1009/03.17.06-1399

A40-TEXT TRANSMISSION

FROM: USAF SECURE FREQUENCY, ASWAN MILITARY

AIRFIELD (EGYPT) TO: UNSPECIFIED DESTINATION, MARYLAND (USA)

VOICE 1 (USA): The President is becoming increasingly anxious, Colonel. And his mood was not lifted by a report that just came in from Gitmo: someone broke a terrorist out of Camp Delta, a Saudi named Zaeed who we've discovered has connections with the Capstone project.

VOICE 2 (EGYPT): It was West. He's bold, I'll give him that. He must have hit a snag and decided he needed Zaeed.

VOICE 1 (USA): Does he? Do we need this Zaeed?

VOICE 2 (EGYPT): No. We got all we needed from Mustapha Zaeed while he was under.

[LONG PAUSE]

VOICE 1 (USA): Colonel Judah, should we be nervous? The President has ordered that a draft 'Address to the Nation' be written, concerning the evacuation of the coastal cities, just in case you don't succeed.

VOICE 2 (EGYPT) : Tell him we will succeed. To date, everything has gone according to plan. West is containable at any time we choose, but it's also very useful to have him running around. And the Europeans have acted just as we anticipated. Tell the President to go ahead and write his speech, but he'll never have to use it. Judah, out.

VICTORIA STATION SOUTHERN KENYA 2003-2006

Throughout the team's time in Kenya, a large glass jar sat on top of the kitchen bench.

It was the 'Swear Jar'. Every time a member of the team was caught swearing or cursing in front of Lily, they had to put a dollar in it.

And since they were soldiers, it was nearly always full. The proceeds of the Swear Jar went toward toys or books or ballet clothes for Lily.

Naturally, since it was she who would ultimately benefit from their indiscretion, Lily loved catching team-members swearing. It became commonplace for any curse heard around the station to be followed by her voice chiming: 'Swear Jar!'

She was also given pocket money in return for doing chores around the farm.

It was West and Wizard's idea. They wanted her upbringing— already highly unusual—to appear, at least to her, as normal as possible. Doing chores with the other team-members—gathering wood with Big Ears; helping Pooh Bear clean his tools; and on a very momentous occasion, feeding Horus for West—made her feel like she was contributing; made her feel like she was part of a family. It also just made her a nice kid.

As she grew older, however, she grew increasingly curious, and she began to learn more about the team around her.

She learned, for example, that Pooh Bear was the second son of the most powerful sheik in the United Arab Emirates.

And that Wizard had once studied to be a Catholic priest but never went through with it.

She also discovered that Zoe had once been reassigned from the armed forces to study archaeology under Wizard at Trinity College, Dublin.

Apparently, Jack West had studied there with her—having also been sent by his home country to learn from the Canadian professor.

West's home country.

Lily was ever curious about Australia. It was indeed a curiosity, full of contradictions. Eighty per cent of its enormous landmass was made up of desert, yet it also possessed supermodern cities like Sydney, famous beaches like Bells and Bondi, and superb natural formations like Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef, which—she discovered—had been named as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.

Over time, Lily developed more sophisticated questions about Australia, including its place in international relations. Australia only had a population of 20 million people, so despite its physical size, globally speaking it was a small country.

And yet while its military was equally small, one particular aspect of it was world-renowned: Australia was the home of what was widely acknowledged to be the best special forces unit in the world, the SAS—West's former regiment.

Another thing piqued her interest: during the 20th century, Australia had been one of America's closest and most loyal allies. In World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Australia had always been the first country to stand beside the United States.

And yet not now.

This perplexed Lily, so she decided to ask West about it.

One rainy day, she went into his study, and found him working

in darkness and silence (with Horus perched on his chair-back) staring at his computer screen, chewing on a pen, deep in thought.

Lily strolled around his office, idly touching the books on the shelves. She saw his whiteboard with the words '4 missing days of my life—coronado?' still written on it. She also noticed that the sealed glass jar with the rusty-red dirt in it had been removed.

He didn't acknowledge her presence, kept staring at his computer monitor.

She came round behind him, saw the image on his screen. It was a digital photo of some giant hieroglyphics carved into a wall somewhere. Lily translated them quickly in her head:

ENTER THE EMBRACE OF ANUBIS WILLINGLY, AND YOU SHALL

LIVE BEYOND THE COMING OF RA.

ENTER AGAINST YOUR WILL, AND YOUR PEOPLE SHALL RULE FOR

BUT ONE EON, BUT YOU SHALL LIVE NO MORE.

ENTER NOT AT ALL, AND THE WORLD SHALL BE NO MORE.

'What do you reckon?' West asked suddenly, not turning to face her.

Lily froze, put on the spot. 'I ... I don't know . . .'

West swivelled. 'I'm thinking it's about death and the afterlife, in the form of an address from Amun to the Jesus-like character, Horus. "The embrace of Anubis" is death. If Horus accepts his death willingly, he will rise again and confer a benefit on his people. A bit like Christ dying on the cross. But enough of that. What brings you here today, kiddo?'

A vigorous discussion followed about Australian-American relations, about the rise of America as a sole superpower, and the concerns of Australia that its friend was becoming something of a global bully. 'Sometimes a good friend,' West said, 'has to show tough love. It's also much better to get taught a difficult lesson from your friend than from your enemy.'

West then abruptly changed the subject. 'Lily, there's something I have to tell you. When all this comes to a head, if it turns out as I

hope it will, I'm probably going to have to go away for a while—'

'Go away?' Lily said, alarmed.

'Yes. Lie low. Go someplace where no-one can find me. Disappear.'

'Disappear . . .' Lily gulped.

'But I want you to be able to find me, Lily,' West said, smiling. 'Now, I can't tell you where I'm going, but I can point you in the right direction. If you can solve this riddle, you'll find me.'

He handed her a slip of paper, on which was written:

My new home is home to both tigers and crocodiles.

To find it, pay the boatman, take your chances and journey

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell.

There you will find me, protected by a great villain.

'And that, kiddo, is all I'll say. Now scram.' Lily scampered out of the study, gripping the slip of paper. She would pore over West's riddle for months—even going so far as to punch every word of it into Google—trying to figure it out.

She had other questions, however, which were answered.

Such as where West had acquired Horus.

'Horus's former owner was once Huntsman's teacher,' Wizard said, as the two of them sat outside in the brilliant African sunshine.

'He was a nasty man named Marshall Judah. Judah was an American colonel who taught Jack how to be a better soldier at a place called Coronado.

'Judah would walk around the Coronado base with Horus on his shoulder, yelling at the troops. And as an example to them, he would beat Horus if she didn't perform as she had been trained. He would say, "The only way to get obedience is through discipline and brute force!"

'Huntsman didn't like this. Didn't like seeing Judah being so cruel to the falcon. So when West left Coronado, he stole the bird

from her cage in Judah's office. Ever since, Jack has treated Horus with kindness and love, and she returns his affection tenfold.

'Lily, as you grow up, you'll find that some people in this world are not very nice at all. They favour cruelty over kindness, power over sharing, anger over understanding.

'These people think only of themselves. They seek to rule over others, not for others' sakes, but for their own desire for power. Lily, one day you are going to be very powerful—very powerful— and I hope that if you learn nothing else from us here, you learn that the truly great people think of others first and themselves last.

'For an example of this, look no further than Huntsman and Horus. A beaten bird will obey a cruel master out of fear. But a kind master it will die for.'

One day, Lily was helping Wizard organise some of his ancient scrolls.

She loved all his old stuff—the parchments, the tablets. To her, they held within them all the mysteries of ancient faraway times.

On that particular day Wizard was collating everything he had on a series of Egyptian architects all named Imhotep.

Lily noticed some design plans for a quarry-mine in a place called Nubia, with four rising levels and lots of water-driven booby traps. Marked on the plans were descriptions of all the traps, and in the case of a set of concealed stepping-stones, five numbers written in Egyptian hieroglyphics: 1-3-4-1-4. Wizard placed those plans in a file marked 'Imhotep V.

She also saw a really old drawing that looked like an ancient game of Snakes and Ladders. It was titled: ' Waterfall Entrance— Refortification by Imhotep III in the time of Ptolemy Soter' and it looked like this: .__ —.

Wizard noticed Lily's interest and so he taught her things about the various Imhoteps.

Imhotep III, for instance, lived during the time of Alexander the Great and his friend, Ptolemy I, and he was called 'the Master Moat Builder'—he had been known to divert entire rivers in order to provide his structures with uncrossable moats.

'This waterfall entrance,' Wizard said, 'must have been a beautiful decorative cascade at a palace in ancient Babylon, near modern-day Baghdad in Iraq. The lines dictate the course of the flowing water. Sadly, in all the excavations of Babylon over the years, it has never been found. Such a shame.'

Lily spent the rest of that day curled up behind some boxes in the corner of Wizard's study, reading all manner of parchments, absolutely rapt.

She hardly even noticed when Zoe came in and started chatting with Wizard. It was only when West's name came up that she started listening more closely.

Zoe said, 'It's been good to see him again. Although he seems to have changed since we studied together in Dublin. He's become even quieter than he already was. I also hear he's quit the Army.'

Lily listened, although she never looked up from the parchment she appeared to be reading.

Wizard leaned back. 'Gosh, Dublin. When was that—1989? You two were so young. Jack's been down a long road since then.'

'Tell me.'

'He quit the Army soon after Desert Storm. But to understand why, you have to understand why he joined the Army in the first place: to both please and spite his father.

'Jack's father was a great soldier in his time, but Jack was better. His father had wanted him to join the military straight after high school, but Jack wanted to study, to go to university. But he acquiesced to his father's wishes . . . and quickly became a much more formidable soldier than his father had ever been.

'Jack rose through the ranks, was fast-tracked to the SAS Regiment. He particularly excelled at desert missions; he even set a

new record on the desert survival course, lasting 44 days without being captured.

'But unlike his father, Jack didn't like what they were turning him into: a killing machine, an exceptionally good killing machine. His superiors knew this, and they were worried that he'd quit—that was when they sent him to study with me in Dublin. They hoped it would satisfy his intellectual needs for the time being, and then he'd stay on with the Regiment. And I suppose it did satisfy him, for a time.'

'Hold on a minute,' Zoe said. 'I need to backtrack for a moment. Jack told me once that his father was American. But he joined the Australian Army?'

'That's right,' Wizard said. 'Thing is, Jack's mother is not American. To please his father, he joined the military, but to spite his father, he joined the military of his mother's birth-nation: Australia.'

'Ah . . .' Zoe said. 'Go on.'

Wizard said, 'Anyway, as you know, Jack's always had a sharp mind, and he started to look at Army life critically. Personally, I believe he just enjoyed studying ancient history and archaeology more.

'In any case, things started to go downhill when Jack's superiors sent him to a series of multinational special forces exercises at Coronado in 1990—exercises hosted by the Americans at their SEAL base, where they invited crack teams from all their allies to partake in high-end wargames. It's a huge opportunity for smaller nations, so the Australians sent West. In 1990, the exercises were hosted by none other than Marshall Judah, who instantly saw Jack's potential.

'But something happened at Coronado that I don't know about fully. Jack was injured in a helicopter accident and lay unconscious in the base hospital for four days. The four missing days of Jack West's life. When he woke up, he was sent back home, no serious damage done, and after a few months, he was back on active duty—just in time for Desert Storm in 1991.

'Jack West was one of the first men on the ground in Iraq in

1991, blowing up communications towers. After two weeks, however, he found himself serving under Judah. Seems Judah had personally asked the Pentagon to request that Jack be reassigned to him. Australia—ever loyal to the Americans—complied.

'And so Jack West Jr made his name in Desert Storm. Did some incredible things deep behind enemy lines, including that miraculous escape from the SCUD base in Basra—where, it should be said, Judah and the Americans had left him for dead.

'But when it was all over and he was back home, he walked into the office of his commanding officer, Lieutenant General Peter Cosgrove, and informed him that he would not be renewing his contract with the Regiment.

'Now Cosgrove and I have known each other for a long time. He's a very clever fellow and, through me, he was aware of this upcoming mission and he thought fast, and came up with a way of keeping West happy but also keeping him in the fold: he assigned West to me, as part of a long-term open-ended mission, to take part in archaeological research connected to the discovery of the Capstone.

'That was how West and I came to work together again. That was how we came to be the ones who found the scrolls from the Alexandria Library and, ultimately, Lily and her ill-fated mother. And that's why West is here on this mission.'

After discussing a few more unrelated topics, Zoe left.

Wizard returned to his work ... at which moment, he seemed to remember that Lily was still in the corner, behind the boxes. He turned to face her.

'Why, little one, I'd clean forgotten you were here. You've been as quiet as a mouse over there. I don't know if you heard any of that, but if you did, excellent. It's important that you know about our friend, Huntsman, because he's a good fellow, a very good fellow. And although he doesn't say it, he's incredibly fond of you—in fact, he has been since the moment he first held you in his arms inside that volcano. He cares about you more than anything else in the world.'

That had been a big learning day for Lily.

Infinitely more fun, however, was the day she learned about the origins of West's plane.

The Halicarnassus had long been a source of curiosity to her. From the moment she'd been old enough to comprehend jumbo jets—and how much they cost—it struck her as exceedingly odd that one man could own his very own 747.

'Where did you get your plane?' she asked him at breakfast once.

Others around the table at the time suppressed laughs: Zoe, Stretch and Wizard.

West actually looked a little sheepish. 'Don't tell anyone, but I stole it.'

'You stole it? You stole an entire aeroplane! Isn't it wrong to steal?'

'Yes, it is wrong,' Zoe said. 'But Huntsman stole the Halicarnassus from a very bad man.'

'Who?'

'A man by the name of Saddam Hussein,' Wizard said. 'The former president of Iraq, a very horrible individual. Huntsman stole it from him back in 1991.'

'Why did you steal Mr Hussein's plane?' Lily asked.

West paused before answering, as if he was choosing his words carefully.

'I was near a place called Basra, and I was in a lot of trouble. And Mr Hussein's plane was the only way for me to get out alive. He kept it there in case it ever became necessary for him to escape his country.' West winked. 'I also knew that he had a lot of other planes scattered all over Iraq for the very same purpose, so I didn't think he'd miss this one.'

'Why do you call it the Halicarnassus} Is it named after the Mausoleum that was at Halicarnassus?'

West smiled at her easy grasp of the ancient names. 'I'm not sure, but I think it is. Mr Hussein called it the Halicarnassus and I just kept the name because I liked it. I'm not sure why he called it that, but Mr Hussein was a guy who liked to think he was a great

Persian ruler, like Mausolus or Nebuchadnezzar. Only he wasn't like them at all. He was just a big bully.'

West turned to Wizard. 'Hey, speaking of the Halicarnassus, that reminds me: How is the refit going? Have you attached those Mark 3 retrogrades yet?'

'Almost done,' Wizard answered. 'We've got her weight down by a third, and all eight external retrograde thrusters have been attached and are testing well. As for the Mark 3s, they fit the 747's existing engines beautifully—the balance on the Boeing is really quite exceptional, great for VTOL, if you have the fuel. Sky Monster and I will be doing some testing this Saturday, so wear your earplugs.'

'Will do. Keep me informed.'

Lily didn't know what they were talking about.

Oh, and Lily's interest in ballet continued.

She put on many shows—shows that took place on a little stage with drawable curtains. Each performance was greeted with great applause by the whole team.

At one such show, Lily announced with a flourish that she would attempt to hold a difficult tip-toe pose for a whole minute. She made it to 45 seconds, and was bitterly disappointed.

Everyone applauded anyway.

As families do.

THE BLACK PRIEST OF KABUL

AIRSPACE ABOVE THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

17 MARCH,2006

3 DAYS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS

Twelve hours after its brazen assault on Guantanamo Bay, after lying low in a remote Jamaican Air Force hangar outside Kingston— where it had picked up Wizard, Lily and Horus—the Halicarnassus, now refuelled and replenished, soared once again over the Atlantic, heading back toward Europe and Africa, back into the fray.

Once again, everyone sat in the main cabin, arrayed in a wide circle.

The focal point of the circle: Mullah Mustapha Zaeed, the Black Priest of Kabul.

Immediately after their escape from Guantanamo Bay, West had grabbed an AXS-9 digital spectrum analyser—a wand-like device used to sweep a room for bugs—and waved it over Zaeed's body.

Sure enough, at the terrorist's neck, the wand had gone berserk, beeping wildly, indicating that there was indeed a GPS locater microchip buried under Zaeed's skin.

Surgery wasn't necessary. West was able to neutralise the chip with an electromagnetic pulse from a disabling gun, turning the locater chip into a dead piece of plastic.

And so now Zaeed was here, in the main cabin—and while everyone gazed warily at the terrorist, he just stared straight at Lily.

He eyed her the way a hyena eyes an injured baby deer—with hunger, desire, and a kind of stunned disbelief that such a delightful meal could be right here in front of him.

His general appearance was frightening—despite the fact that he had been bathed and was now dressed in clean clothes.

With his shaved head, sharp stubble-covered chin, hollow eyes and wiry physique, he seemed more ghost than man, a walking skeleton. Three years of solitary confinement at Camp Delta will do that to you.

And in the clear light of the cabin, a peculiar feature became apparent: half of Zaeed's left ear, the whole bottom half, the entire lobe, had been cut off.

The spell broke, and he scanned West's multinational team.

'Mmm. How interesting, how very interesting,' he said. 'The mice are roaring. Taking on the two lions of the world: Europe and America.'

He looked at Wizard. 'I see Canada. And Ireland,' he nodded at Zoe. 'Fellow scholars of the ancient texts.'

His voice went low as he saw Stretch: 'And I see Israel. Why Katsa Cohen, the master sniper, nice to see you again. The last time we met was in Kandahar, at 2,000 yards. And it was a rare miss on your part.'

Stretch scowled, showing his extreme distaste for Mustapha Zaeed.

Zaeed pointed at his half-ear. 'You were a few inches wide.'

'I won't be next time,' Stretch growled.

'Now, now, Katsa. I am your guest, and a valuable one at that. After all the trouble you went to to get me, Jew'—Zaeed's eyes turned to ice—'you should be more courteous.'

He spun, aiming his wild eyes at Pooh Bear.

'Ah, a good Muslim. You are Sheik Anzar Abbas's son, are you not? The great Captain Rashid Abbas, commander of the elite UAE First Commando Regiment. . .'

'I fear I am not,' Pooh Bear replied. 'Rashid Abbas is my brother. I am Zahir Abbas, a humble sergeant and the Sheik's second son.'

'The Sheik is a noble servant of Allah,' Zaeed bowed respectfully. 'I honour you as his kin.'

Finally, Zaeed rounded on West, who sat with Horus on his shoulder.

'And you. John West Jr. Captain John West Jr of the Australian SAS. The Huntsman. A name that floats around the Middle East like a wraith. Your feats have become the stuff of legend: your escape from Basra angered Hussein for years, you know. Till the day he was captured, he wanted that plane back. But then you vanished for a very long time. Disappeared off the face of the Earth. Most unusual—'

'Enough,' West said. 'The Wonders: Zeus and Artemis. Where are they?'

'Oh, yes, I am sorry. The Wonders. And Tartarus approaches, too. Mmmm. Forgive me, Captain West, but I haven't yet grasped the basis of your belief that I will even want to help you in this cause.'

'The United States of America already has three pieces of the Capstone,' West said simply. 'They are well-equipped and well-informed, and well on their way to securing the entire Capstone. How's that?'

'Good enough,' Zaeed said. 'Who leads the US force? Marshall Judah?'

'Yes.'

'A formidable foe. Clever and cunning. And murderous. Although did you know he has a curious weakness?'

'What?'

'A fear of heights. But I digress. Brief me on your progress so far. You are using the Callimachus Text, I presume. Which means you found the Colossus first? Was it the rightmost pendant?'

'Yes ... it was,' West said, surprised.

'Mmmm. And then came the Pieces from the Pharos and the Mausoleum, no?'

'How did you know they'd be found in that order?'

Zaeed sighed dramatically. 'This is elementary. The Callimachus Text is written in the Word of Thoth—a most ancient and complicated language. The language itself contains within it seven levels

of increasing complexity, dialects, if you will. Your young reader here'—he indicated Lily—'can only read one entry at a time, can't she? This is because each entry in the Callimachus Text is written in an increasingly difficult dialect of the Word of Thoth. The Colossus entry is written in "Thoth I", the easiest dialect of the Word of Thoth. The Pharos Piece is in "Thoth II", slightly harder. The Oracle will ultimately be able to read all seven dialects, but not instantly.'

'You can read the Word of Thoth?' Wizard asked, incredulous.

'I can decipher its first four dialects, yes.'

'But how?'

'I taught myself,' Zaeed said. 'With discipline and patience. Oh, I forget, in the decadent West, discipline and patience are no longer talents that warrant respect.'

'How did you know the Mausoleum Piece would be entombed with the Pharos Piece?' Zoe asked.

'I have spent the last 30 years acquiring every scroll, carving and document relating to the Benben that I could find. Some are famous, like the Callimachus Text, of which I possess a 9th-century copy, others less so—written by humble men who merely wanted to record the marvellous deeds they had done, like constructing great roofs over entire ocean inlets, or carrying marble pillars into the hearts of dormant volcanoes. My collection is vast.'

'The Callimachus Text is unhelpful on the Zeus and Artemis Pieces,' West said. 'Zeus is lost. And we believe Artemis is somewhere in St Peter's Basilica, but we don't know exactly where. Do you know where they are?'

Zaeed's eyes narrowed. 'The passage of time and many wars have scattered these two Pieces, but yes, I believe I do know their resting places.'

Pooh Bear leaned forwards. 'If you know so much, why have you yourself not gone in search of these Pieces before?'

i would have if only I had been able, my Muslim friend,' Zaeed said smoothly. 'But I fear I was not as nimble then as I am now.' As he said this, Zaeed rolled up his right pants-leg, to reveal hideous scarring and fire-melted skin on his lower leg.

'A Soviet fragmentation grenade in Afghanistan in 1987. For many years, I was unable to even walk on it. And a man with limited movement is useless in trap-laden quarries and inlets. While I retrained my withered muscles throughout the '90s, building them up again, I researched all I could about the Capstone. I was actually grooming a team of mujahideen in Afghanistan at the time of the attacks on New York and Washington DC to hunt for the Pieces. But then the September 11 attacks happened and Afghanistan was plunged into chaos. And I was captured by the Americans. But now my leg is strong.'

'The Zeus and Artemis Pieces,' West repeated. 'Where are they?'

Zaeed grinned a sly smile. 'Interestingly, these two Pieces that defy your search are neither hidden nor concealed. Both exist in plain sight—if only one knows where to look. The Artemis Piece, yes, it is indeed in St Peter's in Rome, in no less than the most holy place of the Cult of Amun-Ra. As for the Zeus Piece . . .'

Zaeed leaned back in his chair, recited the appropriate verse from memory:

'No thunderbolts did he wield, no wrath did he bear, No victory did he achieve.

Indeed, it was only the Victory in his right hand that made him

great,

Oh, winged woman, whither didst thou fly?'

Zaeed looked at West. 'It was only the Victory in his right hand that made him great.'

West followed his line of reasoning. 'The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was said to hold in his right hand a smaller statue of "Winged Victory": the Greek goddess Nike, a woman with wings coming out of her back, like an angel or the figurehead on the prow of a ship. And since the figure of Zeus was so immense, its statue of Winged Victory was said to be life-sized.'

Zaeed said, 'Correct. And if it was Victory who made him great, we must look not for Zeus's statue, but the statue of Victory. Thus the verse asks: whither did she fly?

'Now, as I'm sure you know, many life-sized statues of Winged Victory have been found around the ancient Greek world. But after a comprehensive study of the works of Pheidias, the sculptor of the statue of Zeus, I have found only one statue of Victory that possesses the features of his superior level of artistry: fine lines, perfect form, and the rare ability to reproduce the appearance of wet garments in marble.

'The specimen I have found is the greatest surviving example of Greek sculpture in the world today, yet ironically, Western scholars still assign its construction to an unknown artist. It was found in 1863 by a French archaeologist, Charles Champoiseau—'

'Oh, no way . . .' Wizard gasped in understanding. 'It's not. . .'

Zaeed nodded. 'The very same. Champoiseau found it on the Greek island of Samothrace, and thus the statue now bears that island's name: the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

'It was taken back to France, where its genius was quickly appreciated, whence it was taken to the Louvre. There it has sat to this very day in pride of place on a great landing at the top of the Daru Staircase, underneath a high domed ceiling in the Denon Wing of the Louvre in Paris.'

The Halicarnassus sped towards Europe.

It was decided that the team would split into two.

West would lead one sub-team to Paris to go after the Zeus Piece, while Wizard would lead a smaller team to Rome, to chase the Artemis Piece. As for Zaeed, he would stay with Sky Monster on the Halicarnassus, bound and secured.

Everyone scattered around the plane, some to rest, others to research, others to just prepare for the missions ahead.

It happened that Pooh Bear found himself preparing his guns near Mustapha Zaeed, still handcuffed to his chair.

'Hello, my brother,' Zaeed whispered. 'May Allah bless and keep you.'

'And you,' Pooh Bear replied, more out of religious habit than because he meant it.

'Your father, the sheik, is a great man,' Zaeed said. 'And a fine Muslim.'

'What do you want?'

'The presence of the Jew concerns me,' Zaeed said simply, nodding at Stretch over on the far side of the main cabin. 'I can understand your father aligning himself with these Westerners for convenience, but I cannot believe he would ally himself with the Jewish State.'

Pooh Bear said, 'The Israelis were not invited to join this mission. They discovered us somehow—and threatened to reveal our mission unless we allowed them to join it.'

'Is that so? How typical,' Zaeed hissed. 'Then I am doubly glad that you are here, my friend. The second assembling of the

Capstone will be one of the greatest moments in all of human history. Before the end, all will show their true colours. When the time comes, Allah's brethren should stand together.' Pooh Bear just kept his eyes downcast.

In West's office in the rear of the plane, West, Wizard, Zoe and Big Ears were gazing at the brown leatherbound diary West had found inside Hamilcar's Refuge: Hermann Hessler's notebook detailing his search for the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World during World War II.

Translating it from the German, they found several references that they understood:

WORD OF THOTH—MULTIPLE DIALECTS OF INCREASING DIFFICULTY . . . NEED TO LOCATE THE ORACLE FOR PRECISE TRANSLATION . . .

CATHOLIC CHURCH = CULT OF AMUN-RA.

COLOSSUS: THIRD NECKPIECE.

MYSTERIOUS BUILDING EXPEDITION IN 85 BC.

• IMHOTEP VI + 10,000 WORKERS;

• ALL MARCHED WEST TO SECRET LOCATION ON COAST NEAR CARTHAGE;

• A WORKER'S PAPYRUS FOUND AT ROSETTA MENTIONS THE MAN'S PARTICIPATION IN AN EXTRAORDINARY CONSTRUCTION PROJECT: THE COVERING OF AN ENTIRE COASTAL INLET AND THE FABRICATION OF A SECTION OF COAST.

• THE MEN WHO PLACED TWO COVERED TREASURES IN THE INNERMOST HOLY CHAMBER WERE ALL EXECUTED.

• PHAROS AMD MAUSOLEUM PILCES???

Accompanying these last entries was a teletyped order from Heinrich Himmler himself authorising Hessler to use a U-boat to trawl the entire North African coast of the Mediterranean for the false section of coastline.

There were also some hand-drawn hieroglyphics that Wizard translated aloud:

'THE CHOICE OF MAN

ONLY ONE OF THE TWO RITUALS MAY BE CHOSEN.

ONE BEGETS PEACE,

THE OTHER POWER.

ON THE FINAL DAY,

A CHOICE MUST BE MADE,

A CHOICE MADE IN THE PRESENCE OF RA HIMSELF

THAT WILL DETERMINE THE VERY FATE OF MEN.'

Wizard leaned back. 'It's a reference to the two incantations— the rituals. But only one of them can be performed when the Capstone is placed atop the Great Pyramid.'

They found other references, however, that they did not understand. Like these rather ominous inscriptions:

1ST INSCRIPTION FROM THE TOMB OF IMHOTEP III:

WHAT AN INCREDIBLE STRUCTURE IT WAS,

CONSTRUCTED AS A MIRROR IMAGE,

WHERE BOTH ENTRANCE AND EXIT WERE ALIKE.

IT PAINED ME THAT MY TASK—WHAT WOULD BECOME MY LIFE'S

MASTERWORK—WAS TO CONCEAL SO MAGNIFICENT A STRUCTURE.

BUT I DID MY DUTY.

WE SEALED THE GREAT ARCHWAY WITH A LANDSLIDE.

AS INSTRUCTED, THE PRIESTS' ENTRANCE REMAINS OPEN SO THEY

MAY TEND THE SHRINES INSIDE—THE PRIESTS HAVE BEEN

INFORMED OF THE ORDER OF THE SNARES.

2ND INSCRIPTION FROM THE TOMB OF IMHOTEP III:

ONLY THE BRAVEST OF SOULS

SHALL PASS THE WELLS OF THE WINGED LIONS.

BUT BEWARE THE PIT OF NINGIZZIDA.

TO THOSE WHO ENTER THE SERPENT-LORD'S PIT,

I OFFER NO ADVICE BUT THIS:

ABANDON ALL HOPE,

FOR THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THERE.

WINGED LIOMS. COMMON ASSYRIAN STATUE FOUND IN

PERSIA/MESOPOTAMIA.

NINGIZZIDA: ASSYRIAN GOD OF SERPENTS & SNAKES.

POSSIBLE REF TO THE HG OF BABYLON???

A few pages later there was a pair of scribbled pictures, simply titled 'Safe Routes':

After this there was another translation, which caused Wizard to say, 'Ooh, it's a reference to one of the rituals that must be performed on the final day.'

It read:

THE RITUAL OF POWER

AT THE HIGH ALTAR OF RA,

UNDER THE HEART OF THE SACRIFICIAL ONE

WHO LIES IN THE ARMS OF VENGEFUL ANUBIS,

POUR INTO THE DEATH GOD'S HEART

ONE DEBEN OF YOUR HOMELAND

UTTER THOSE ANCIENT EVIL WORDS

AND ALL EARTHLY POWER SHALL BE YOURS

FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

'"One deben of your homeland"?' Big Ears frowned. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

Zoe began, 'A deben was an ancient Egyptian unit of measurement: about 100 grams. I imagine it means—'

But suddenly Wizard jumped up and gasped, seeing the next entry. It read:

FROM THE SECRET GOSPEL OF ST MARK

AT DAWN ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT,

THAT FINAL HORRIBLE DAY,

AT THE ONLY TEMPLE THAT BEARS BOTH THEIR NAMES,

THREAD THE POWER OF RA THROUGH THE EYES OF

GREAT RAMESES'S TOWERING NEEDLES,

FROM THE SECOND OWL ON THE FIRST

TO THE THIRD ON THE SECOND . . .

. . . WHEREBY THE TOMB OF ISKENDER WILL BE REVEALED.

THERE YOU WILL FIND THE FIRST PIECE.

Beneath this entry, Hessler had scrawled:

THE TOMB OF ISKENDER—THE BURIAL PLACE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT. ALEXANDER WAS BURIED WITH THE FIRST PIECE!

Wizard leaned back, his eyes wide.

'The Secret Gospel of St Mark.' Zoe exchanged a look with West. 'The Heretical Gospel.'

'Explain,' Big Ears said.

West said, 'It's not widely known, but St Mark actually wrote two gospels while he was in Egypt. The first gospel is the one we all know, the one in the Bible. The second gospel, however, caused an incredible stir when he produced it, so much so that nearly every copy of it was burned by the early Christian movement. And Mark himself was almost stoned for it.'

'Why?'

Zoe said, 'Because this secret gospel recounted several other things Jesus did during his life. Rituals. Incantations. Bizarre episodes. The most infamous of which was the so-called homosexual incident.'

'The what!' Big Ears said.

Zoe said, 'An episode in which Jesus went away with a young man and, according to Mark, initiated the young man into "the ancient ways". Some sensationalist writers have interpreted this to have been a homosexual experience. Most scholars, however, believe it was a ritual of the Cult of Amun-Ra, which has subsequently been adopted as the initiation rite of the Freemasons, another Sun-worshipping faith to have emerged from ancient Egypt.'

West said, 'Now do you understand why it's called the Heretical Gospel?'

'Yuh-huh,' Big Ears said. 'But wait, the Freemasons. I thought they were anti-Catholic.'

'They are,' Zoe said. 'But the Freemasons hate the Catholic Church as only siblings can hate each other. They are like rival brothers, religions born from the same source. Just as Jerusalem is holy to both Judaism and Islam, so too do Catholicism and Freemasonry share a common source. They are simply two faiths born out of the one Mother Faith—Egyptian Sun-worship. They just diverged in their interpretations of this Mother Faith somewhere along the way.'

West patted Big Ears on the shoulder. 'It's complicated, buddy. Think of it this way: America is a Masonic State; Europe is a Catholic State. And now they're both fighting for the greatest prize of their two faiths: the Capstone.'

Big Ears said, 'You say America is a Masonic State. I thought it was overwhelmingly Christian. The Bible Belt and all that.'

Zoe said, 'Just because the population is Christian, doesn't mean the country is. What is a country anyway? A group of people with a common heritage who band together for reasons of mutual prosperity and security. And that's the key word: security. You see, countries have armies; religions don't. And who commands the armed forces of the entity we call "the United States"?'

'The elected president and his advisers.'

'Exactly. So, America's people are indeed honest Christians; but America's leaders since George Washington have almost exclusively been Freemasons. Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, the Bushes. For over 200 years, the Freemasons have used the armed forces of "the United States of America" as their own personal army for their own personal purposes. Hey presto, a religion got itself an army, and the population never even knew.'

West said, 'You can see Masonic worship of the Capstone everywhere in America. Why, over the years, American Freemasons have built replicas of each of the Seven Ancient Wonders.'

'No way . . .'

West counted them off on his fingers: 'The Statue of Liberty, built by the leading French Freemason, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, replicates the Colossus of Rhodes almost exactly—she even holds a torch aloft just as the original statue did. The Woolworth Building in New York is disturbingly similar to the Pharos. Fort Knox is built according to the floorplan of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The Statue of Zeus, a great figure seated on a throne, is the Lincoln Memorial. The Temple of Artemis: the Supreme Court.

'The Hanging Gardens of Babylon couldn't be exactly replicated, since no-one knows what they looked like, so a special rambling garden was built and tended in their honour at the White House,

first by George Washington, then Thomas Jefferson and later, Franklin Roosevelt. The Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, tried to rip the garden up, but he never managed it entirely. And while he didn't survive, the garden did. It's had many names over the years, but we now call it the Rose Garden.'

Big Ears folded his arms. 'What about the Great Pyramid, then? I don't know of any monumental pyramids in the US.'

'That's true,' West said, 'there are no giant pyramids in America. But when the Egyptians stopped building pyramids, do you know what they started building instead?'

'What?'

'Obelisks. The obelisk became the ultimate symbol of Sun-worship. And America does indeed possess one colossal obelisk: the Washington Monument. Interestingly, it is 555 feet tall. The Great Pyramid is 469 feet tall, 86 feet shorter. But when you take into account the height of the Giza Plateau at the point where the Great Pyramid stands—86 feet—you will discover that the peaks of both structures sit at the exact same height above sea-level.'

While this conversation was going on, Wizard was gazing at the text in the notebook.

'The only temple that bears both their names . . .' he mused. Then his eyes lit up. 'It's Luxor. The Temple at Luxor.'

'Oh, yes. Good thinking, Max. Good thinking!' Zoe clapped him on the shoulder.

'It would certainly fit . . .' West said.

'What would fit?' Big Ears asked, again not understanding this code they were using.

'The Temple of Amun at Luxor in southern Egypt, more commonly known as the Temple at Luxor,' Zoe said. 'It's one of the biggest tourist attractions in Egypt. The famous one with the giant pylon gateway, the two colossal seated statues of Rameses II, and the lone obelisk out the front. It stands on the east bank of the Nile in Luxor, or—as it used to be called—Thebes.

'The Luxor Temple was built by several older pharaohs, but Rameses II comprehensively rebuilt it and so claimed it as his own. It was also augmented, however, by none other than Alexander the Great. Which is why—'

'—it's the only temple in all of Egypt in which Alexander the Great is recorded as a pharaoh,' Wizard said. 'At Luxor alone, Alexander's name is carved in hieroglyphics and enclosed in a ringlike cartouche. The only temple that bears both their names: the Luxor Temple is indeed the only temple that bears both the names of Rameses II and Alexander.'

Big Ears said, 'So what about threading the power of Ra through the eyes of Great Rameses's towering needles}'

West said, 'Towering needles are usually obelisks. The power of Ra, I'm guessing, is sunlight. Dawn sunlight on Judgement Day: the day of the Tartarus Rotation. This verse is telling us that on the day of the Rotation, the morning Sun will shine through two matching holes in the obelisks to reveal the location of the tomb.'

Big Ears turned to Zoe. 'But I thought you said there's only one obelisk still standing at Luxor.'

Zoe nodded. 'That's right.'

'So we're screwed. Without the two obelisks, we can't see how the Sun shines through them, so we'll never be able to find Alexander's Tomb.'

'Not exactly,' Wizard said, his eyes gleaming at West and Zoe.

They both smiled back at him.

Only Big Ears didn't get it.

'What? Whatr

Wizard said, 'The second obelisk from the Temple at Luxor still exists, Big Ears, just not in its original location.'

'So where is it?'

Wizard answered him. 'Like many of the obelisks of ancient Egypt, it was given to a Western nation. Thirteen obelisks went to Rome, taken by the Sun-worshipping Catholic Church. Two went to London and New York—the pair of obelisks known as Cleopatra's Needles. The second obelisk from the Temple of Luxor,

however, was given to the French in 1836. It now stands in pride of place in the Place de la Concorde, in the very heart of Paris, about 800 metres from the Louvre.'

'The Zeus Piece and the obelisk,' Zoe said. 'Looks like it's going to be double-trouble in Paris.'

West leaned back in his seat.

'Paris,' he said, 'isn't going to know what's hit her.'

THE CHAMPS-ELYSEES

PARIS, FRANCE

18 MARCH, 2006, 11:00 A.M.

2 DAYS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS

Jack West Jr sped around the huge multi-laned roundabout that encircled the Arc de Triomphe, whipping through traffic in a rented four-wheel drive SUV.

Lily sat in the passenger seat, while in the back were Pooh Bear, Stretch and Big Ears.

They all sat in tense silence, as one does before an outrageously daring mission deep inside enemy territory.

The heart of Paris is shaped like a Christian cross.

The longer beam of this giant cross is the Champs-Elysees, which travels all the way from the Arc de Triomphe to the Palais du Louvre. The short horizontal transept of the cross ends with the National Assembly at one end and the stunning Church of St Mary Magdalene at the other.

Most important of all is what lies at the junction of these two

axes.

There one will find the Place de la Concorde.

Made famous in the French Revolution as the venue for the executions of hundreds of noblemen and women, the Place de la Concorde was the bloody home of the guillotine.

Now, however, in the exact centre of this plaza, in the exact

centre of Paris—the very focal point of Paris—stands a towering Egyptian obelisk.

The second obelisk from the Temple of Luxor.

Of all the obelisks in the world—whether still in Egypt or not—the Paris Obelisk is unique in one important respect:

The pyramidion at its peak is coated in gold.

Historians love this, because this was how obelisks appeared in ancient Egyptian times: the tiny pyramids on their peaks were coated with electrum, a rare alloy of silver and gold.

Interestingly, however, the golden pyramidion on the Paris Obelisk is only a very recent addition—it was added to the great stone needle in 1998.

'Pooh,' West said as he drove, 'you checked the catacombs?'

'I did. They're clear. The entry gate is under the Charles de Gaulle Bridge and the tunnel runs all the way under the Boulevard Diderot. Lock has been disabled.'

'Stretch. The train?'

'TGV service. Platform 23. Leaves at 12:44 p.m. First stop Dijon.'

'Good.'

As West drove down the Champs-Elysees, he eyed the wide boulevard ahead and beheld the Paris Obelisk, rising above the traffic, easily six storeys tall.

He had climbing gear in his car—ropes, hooks, pitons, cara-biners—ready to scale the great needle and examine its upper reaches. He figured he'd look like just another reckless thrill-seeker and if he was fast enough, he'd be gone before the police arrived. After that, his team would proceed to the Louvre, for the larger, more dangerous mission.

Only then, as he drove closer, the traffic parted—

'Oh, no . . .' West breathed.

The entire lower half of the Obelisk was concealed by scaffolding. There were three storeys of it, plank-like levels shrouded with netting, like the scaffolding on a construction site.

And at the base of this temporary scaffold structure, guarding its only entrance, were six security guards.

A large sign in French and English apologised for the inconvenience as the Obelisk was covered for 'essential cleaning work'.

'They're cleaning it,' Stretch scoffed. 'A little convenient, don't you think? Our European rivals are onto this lead.'

'The Heretical Gospel of St Mark is notorious. There are other copies of it around the world,' West said. 'Del Piero would surely have one. He must have already checked and measured the Obelisk and since he can't remove it from here, he's sealed it off, stopping us from doing the same. Which means—damn it—del Piero is one step short of locating Alexander's Tomb and getting the topmost Piece . . .'

West gazed at the scaffolding-enclosed Obelisk, re-thinking, re-planning, adapting.

'This changes things. Everyone. Switch of plans. We're not going to do the Obelisk first anymore. We're going to take the Louvre first, in the way we planned. Then we'll grab a look at the Obelisk on the way out.'

'You have got to be kidding,' Stretch said. 'We're going to be running for our lives. Half the gendarmerie will be on our asses by then.'

'Confronting the Europeans at the Obelisk now will attract too much attention, Stretch,' West said. 'I was hoping to climb up and down it unnoticed. I can't do that now. But after we do what we plan to do at the Louvre, Paris is going to be in uproar—a state of chaos that'll give us the cover we need to get past those guards at the Obelisk. And now that I think about it, our intended escape vehicle will also come in handy.'

'I don't know about this . . .' Stretch said.

Pooh Bear said, 'What you know or don't know is irrelevant, Israeli. Honestly, your constant doubting grates on me. You'll do as Huntsman says. He is in command here.'

Stretch locked eyes with Pooh Bear, biting his tongue. 'Very well then. I will obey.'

West said, 'Good. The Louvre plan remains the same. Big Ears: you're with Lily and me; we're going in. Pooh, Stretch: get the escape vehicle and make sure you're in position when we jump.'

'Will do, Huntsman,' Pooh Bear nodded.

Twenty minutes later, West, Lily and Big Ears—gunless—strode through the metal detectors at the entrance to the Louvre.

The building's famous glass pyramid soared high above them, bathing the great museum's atrium in brilliant sunshine.

'I think I'm having another Dan Brown moment,' Big Ears said, gazing up at the glass pyramid.

'They didn't do what we're going to do in The Da Vinci Code,' West said ominously.

Lily provided the perfect cover; after all, how many snatch-and-grab teams enter a building holding the hand of a small child?

West's cell phone rang.

It was Pooh Bear. ^lWe have the exit vehicle. Ready when you

are.'

'Give us ten minutes,' West said and hung up.

Eight minutes after that, West and Big Ears were both dressed in the white coveralls of the Louvre's maintenance crew—taken from two unfortunate workers who now lay unconscious in a storeroom in the depths of the museum.

They entered the Denon Wing and ascended the impressive Daru Staircase. The staircase wound back and forth in wide sweeping flights, disappearing and reappearing behind soaring arches, before it revealed, standing proudly on a wide landing . . .

... the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

She was, quite simply, breathtaking.

The goddess stood with her chest thrust forward into the wind, her magnificent wings splayed out behind her, her wet tunic pressed against her body, perfectly realised in marble.

Six feet tall and standing on a five-foot-high marble mounting, she towered above the tourists milling around her.

Had her head not been missing, Winged Victory would almost certainly have been as famous as the Venus de Milo—also a resident of the Louvre—for by any measure, the artistry of her carving easily outdid that of the Venus.

The management of the Louvre seemed to recognise this, even if the public did not: Winged Victory stood high up in the building, proudly displayed up on the First Floor, not far from the Mona Lisa, while the Venus stood in confined clutter on an underground level.

The marble mounting on which the great statue stood resembled the pointed prow of a ship, but this had never been a ship.

It had been the armrest of Zeus's throne, the broken-off tip of the armrest.

If you looked closely, you could see Zeus's gigantic marble thumb beneath Winged Victory.

The natural conclusion was mind-blowing: if Victory was this big, then the Statue of Zeus—the actual Wonder itself, now vanished from history—must have been absolutely gigantic.

Victory's position on the First Floor of the Denon Wing, however, created a problem for West.

As with the other key exhibits in the Louvre, all items on the First Floor were laser-protected: as soon as a painting or sculpture was moved, it triggered an invisible laser, and steel grilles would descend at every nearby doorway, sealing in the thieves.

On the First Floor, however, there was an extra precaution: the Daru Staircase, with all its twists and bends, could be easily sealed off, trapping any would-be thief up on the First Floor. You could disturb Victory, but you could never take her anywhere.

Dressed in their maintenance coveralls, West and Big Ears strode up onto the landing and stood before the high statue of Victory.

They proceeded to move some potted trees arrayed around the landing, unnoticed by the light weekday crowd strolling past the statue.

West placed a couple of trees slightly to the left of Victory, while Big Ears placed two of the big pots far out of the way, over by the doorway that led south, toward the side of the Louvre that overlooked the River Seine. Lily stood by this doorway.

No-one noticed them.

They were just workmen going about some unknown but presumably authorised task.

Then West grabbed a rolling 'Repair Work in Progress' screen from a nearby storeroom and placed it in front of Victory, blocking her from view.

He looked at Big Ears, who nodded.

Then Jack West Jr swallowed.

He couldn't believe what he was about to do.

With a deep breath, he stepped up onto the marble podium that was Zeus's armrest and pushed the Winged Victory of Samothrace— a priceless marble carving 2,200 years old—off its mount, to the floor.

No sooner had Victory tilted an inch off her mount than sirens started blaring and red lights started flashing.

Great steel grilles came thundering down in every doorway— baml-baml-baml-baml—sealing off the stairwell and the landing.

All except one doorway.

The southern doorway.

Its grille whizzed down on its runners—

—only to bang to a halt two feet off the ground, stopped by the two solid treepots that Big Ears had placed beneath it moments earlier.

The getaway route.

Victory herself landed in the two potted trees that West had placed to her left, her fall cushioned by them.

West rushed to the upturned statue, and examined her feet, or rather the small cube-shaped marble pedestal on which her feet stood.

He pulled out a big wrench he'd taken from the maintenance room.

'May every archaeologist in the world forgive me,' he whispered as he swung down hard with the wrench.

Crack. Crack. Craaaack.

The tourists on the landing didn't know what was going on. A couple of men stepped forwards to investigate the activity behind the screen, but Big Ears blocked their way with a fierce glare.

After West's three heavy blows, the little marble pedestal was no more—but revealed within it was a perfect trapezoid of solid gold, maybe eighteen inches to a side.

The Third Piece of the Capstone.

It had been embedded in Victory's marble pedestal.

'Lily!' West called. 'Get a look at this thing! In case we lose it later!'

Lily came over, gazed at the lustrous golden trapezoid, at the mysterious symbols carved into its top side.

'More lines of the two incantations,' she said.

'Good. Now let's go,' West said.

The Piece went into Big Ears's sturdy backpack and, with Lily running in the lead, suddenly they were off, sliding under the propped-open grille that led south.

No sooner were they through than West and Big Ears kicked the pot plants free and the grille slammed fully shut behind them.

Running flat out down a long long corridor, legs pumping, hearts pounding.

Shouts came from behind them—shouts in French, from the museum guards giving chase.

West spoke into his radio mike: 'Pooh Bear! Are you out there?'

'We're waiting! I hope you use the right window!''

'We'll find out soon enough!'

The corridor West was running down ended at a dramatic right-hand corner. This corner opened onto a superlong hallway that was actually the extreme southern flank of the Louvre. The hallway's entire left-hand wall was filled with masterpieces and the occasional high French window looking out over the Seine.

And right then, a second team of armed museum guards were running down it, shouting.

West hurled his huge wrench at the first French window in the hallway, shattering it. Glass sprayed everywhere.

He peered out the window.

To see Pooh Bear staring back at him, level with him, only a few feet away . . .

. . . standing on the open top deck of a double-decker bus!

Only one thing stands between the Louvre and the River Seine: a thin strip of road called the Quai des Tuileries. It is a long riverside roadway that follows the course of the river, variously rising and falling—rising up to bridges and dipping down into tunnels and underpasses.

It was on this road that Pooh Bear's recently-stolen double-decker bus now stood, parked alongside the Palais du Louvre. It was one of those bright red open-topped double-deckers that drive tourists around Paris, London and New York, allowing them to look up and around with ease.

'Well! What are you waiting for!' Pooh Bear yelled. 'Come on!'

'Right!'

West threw Lily across first, then pushed Big Ears with the Piece in his backpack, before finally jumping from the First Floor window onto the double-decker bus—just as the onrushing guards in

the hallway started firing at him.

A second after his feet hit the open top deck of the bus, Stretch, in the driver's seat, hit the gas and the bus took off and the chase began.

The big red double-decker bus rocked precariously as Stretch threw it through the midday Paris traffic at speeds it was never meant to reach.

Police sirens could be heard in the distance.

'Go left and left again!' West yelled down. 'Back around the Louvre! Back to the Obelisk!'

The bus took the bends fast, and West came down to look over Stretch's shoulder.

'When we get there, what then?' Stretch asked.

West peered forward—and saw the Obelisk appear beyond the rushing line of trees to their left, its base still shrouded by scaffolding.

'I want you to ram into the scaffolding.'

The double-decker bus screamed onto the Place de la Concorde, almost tipping over with its speed.

The guards at the scaffolding surrounding the Obelisk realised just in time what it was going to do and leapt out of the way, diving clear a moment before the bus slammed into the near corner of the scaffold structure and obliterated a whole chunk of it.

The bus shuddered to a halt—

—and the tiny figure of Jack West could be seen leaping from its open top deck onto the second level of the scaffolding with some rope looped over his shoulder and climbing gear in his hands.

Up the scaffolding West ran, until he came to the topmost level and saw the Obelisk itself.

The size of a bell tower, it was totally covered in deeply-engraved hieroglyphics. It soared into the sky high above him.

The hieroglyphs were large and carved in horizontal lines— approximately three glyphs to a line, depicting pharaonic cartouches, images of Osiris, and animals: falcons, wasps and in the second line from the very top, owls.

Using the deeply-carved hieroglyphs as hand- and footholds, West clambered up the ancient Obelisk like a child scampering up a tall tree.

Stretch's voice exploded through his earpiece. 'West! I've got a visual on six police cars approaching fast along the Champs-Elysees!'

'How far away?'

'About 90 seconds, if that. . .'

'Keep me posted. Although somehow I think we're going to have more to worry about than the Paris cops.'

West scaled the great stone needle quickly, climbing higher and higher, until even the big red bus looked tiny beneath him.

He came to the top, more than seventy feet above the ground. The Sun reflecting off the golden pyramidion at its peak was blinding.

He recalled the quote from Hessler's notebook:

THREAD THE POWER OF RA THROUGH THE EYES OF

GREAT RAMESES'S TOWERING NEEDLES,

FROM THE SECOND OWL ON THE FIRST

TO THE THIRD ON THE SECOND . . .

. . . WHEREBY ISKENDER'S FINAL RESTING PLACE WILL BE REVEALED.

'The third owl on the second obelisk,' he said aloud.

Sure enough, on the second line of this obelisk—the second obelisk from Luxor—there were three carved owls standing side-by-side.

And near the head of the third one was a small circle depicting the Sun.

He imagined that very few people in history had actually seen

this carving up close, since it was designed to sit so high above the populace—but up close, the carved image of the disc-like Sun looked odd, as if it were not a carved image but rather . . . well . . . a plug in the stone.

West grabbed the plug and pulled it free—

—to reveal a horizontal cavity roughly two fingers wide and perfectly round in shape, that bored right through the Obelisk.

Like a kid scaling a coconut tree, West clambered around the other side of the Obelisk's peak, where he found and extracted a second matching plug and suddenly, looking through the bore-hole, he could see right through the ancient Obelisk!

'West! Hurry! The cops are almost here

West ignored him, yanked from his jacket two high-tech devices: a laser altimeter, to measure the exact height of the bore-hole, and a digital surveyor's inclinometer, to measure the exact angle of the bore-hole, both vertically and laterally.

With these measurements, he could then go to Luxor in Egypt and recreate this obelisk 'virtually', and thus deduce the location of Alexander the Great's Tomb.

His altimeter beeped. Got the height.

He aimed his inclinometer through the bore-hole. It beeped. Got the angles.

Go!

And he was away, sliding down the Obelisk with his feet splayed wide, like a fireman shooting down a ladder.

His feet hit the scaffolding just as six cop cars screeched to a halt around the perimeter of the Place de la Concorde and disgorged a dozen cap-wearing Parisian cops.

'Stretch! Fire her up! Get moving,' West called as he ran across the top level of the three-storey scaffold structure. 'I'll get there the short way!'

The bus reversed out of the scaffolding, then Stretch grinded the gears and the big red bus lurched forwards, just as Jack West took a flying leap off the top level and sailed down through the air . . .

. . . landing with a thump on the top deck of the bus, a second before it sped away toward the River Seine.

From the moment of their daring heist at the Louvre, other forces had been launched into action.

As one would expect, a theft from the Louvre instantly shot across the Paris police airwaves—airwaves that were monitored by other forces of the state.

What Stretch didn't know was that the Paris police had been outranked at the highest levels and taken off this pursuit.

The chase would be carried out by the French Army.

Just as West had anticipated.

And so, as the big red double-decker bus shot away from the Obelisk and its wrecked outer structure, the Parisian police didn't follow. They just maintained their positions around the perimeter of the Place de la Concorde.

Moments later, five green-painted heavily-armed fast-attack reconnaissance vehicles whooshed past the cop cars and shot off after the great ungainly bus.

Horns honked and sirens blared as the double-decker bus roared down the Quai des Tuileries on the edge of the River Seine for the second time that day—weaving between the thin daytime traffic, blasting through red lights, causing all manner of havoc.

Behind it were the five French Army recon vehicles.

Each was a compact three-man scout car known as a Panhard VBL. Fitted with a turbo-charged four-wheel-drive diesel engine and a sleek arrow-shaped body, the Panhard was a swift and nimble all-terrain vehicle that looked like an armour-plated version of a sports 4x4.

The Panhards chasing West were fitted with every variety of gun turret: some had long-barrelled 12.7 mm machine guns, others had fearsome-looking TOW missile launchers.

Within moments of the chase beginning, they were all over the speeding bus.

They opened fire, shattering every window on the bus's left-hand side—a second before the bus roared into a tunnel, blocking their angle of fire.

Two of the Army Panhards tried to squeeze past the bus inside the tunnel, but Stretch swerved toward them, ramming them into the wall of the tunnel, grinding them against it.

With nowhere to go, both Panhards skidded and flipped . . . and rolled . . . tumbling end over end until they crashed to twin halts on their roofs.

On the upper deck, Pooh Bear and West rocked with every swerve, tried to return fire. Pooh spied one of the TOW missile launchers on one Panhard.

'They've got missiles!' he yelled.

West called, 'They won't use them! They can't risk destroying the Piece!'

'West!' Stretch's voice came over their radios. 'It's only a matter of time before they barricade off this road! What do we do?'

'We drive faster!' West replied. 'We have to get to the Charles de Gaulle Bridge—'

Shoom—/

—they blasted out of the tunnel, back into sunlight, just in time to see two French Army helicopters sweep into positions above them.

They were two very different types of chopper: one was a small Gazelle gunship, sleek and fast and bristling with guns and missile pods.

The other was bigger and much scarier: it was a Super Puma troop carrier, the French equivalent of the American Super Stallion. Big and tough, a Super Puma could carry twenty-five fully armed troops.

Which was exactly what this chopper was carrying.

As it flew low over the top of the speeding double-decker bus, along the rising-and-falling roadway on the north bank of the Seine, its side door slid open and drop-ropes were flung from within it—and the French plan became clear.

They were going to storm the bus—the moving bus!

At the same moment, three of the pursuing Panhards swept up alongside the bus, surrounding it.

'I think we're screwed already,' Stretch said flatly.

But he yanked on his steering anyway—ramming hard into the Panhard to his right, forcing it clear off the roadway, right through the low guard-rail fence . . . where it shot high into the air, wheels spinning, and went crashing down into the river with a gigantic splash.

Up on the top deck, West tried to fire at the hovering Super Puma above him, but a withering volley from the Gazelle gunship forced

him to dive for the floor. Every single passenger seat on the top deck of the bus was ripped to shreds by the barrage of bullets.

'Stretch! More swerving, please!' he yelled, but it was too late.

The first two daredevil French paratroopers from the Super Puma landed with twin thumps on the open top deck of the moving double-decker bus only a few feet in front of him.

They saw West instantly, lying in the aisle between the seats: exposed, done for. They whipped up their guns and pulled the

trigg—

—just as the floor beneath them erupted with holes, bullet holes from a shocking burst of fire from somewhere underneath them.

The two French troopers fell, dead, and a moment later, Pooh Bear's head popped up from the stairwell.

'Did I get them? Did I get them? Are you okay?' he said to West.

'I'm all right,' West said, hurrying down the stairs to the lower deck. 'Come on, we've gotta get to the Charles de Gaulle Bridge before this bus falls apart!'

The rising-and-falling riverside drive that they were speeding along would normally have been a tourist's delight: after leaving the Louvre behind, the roadway swooped by the first of the two islands that lie in the middle of the Seine, the He de la Cite. Numerous bridges spanning the river rushed by on the right, giving access to the island.

If West's team continued along the riverside road, they would soon arrive at the Arsenal precinct—the area where the Bastille once stood.

After that came two bridges: the Pont d'Austerlitz and the Pont Charles de Gaulle, the latter of which sat beside the very modern headquarters of the Ministry of Economics, Finances and Industry, which itself sat next-door to the Gare de Lyon, the large train station that serviced south-eastern France with high-speed trains.

The big red tourist bus whipped along the riverside road, weaving through traffic, ramming the pursuing Army cars with wild abandon.

It shot underneath several overpasses and over some raised intersections. At one stage the spectacular Notre Dame Cathedral whizzed by on the right, but this was perhaps the only tourist bus in the world that didn't care for the sight.

As soon as West had abandoned the upper deck of the bus, the French troops on the Super Puma above him went for it in earnest—despite Stretch's best efforts at evasive weaving.

And within a minute, they took it.

First, two troopers landed on the open top deck, whizzing down

the drop-ropes suspended from the chopper. They were quickly followed by two more, two more and two more.

The eight French troopers now moved to the rear stairwell of the bus, guns up, preparing to storm the lower deck . . .

. . . just as, downstairs, West called: 'Stretch! They're crawling all over the roof! See that exit ramp up ahead! Roll us over it!'

Immediately ahead of them was another overpass, with an exit ramp rising to meet it on the right-hand side of the riverside drive. A low concrete guard-rail fence separated this ramp from the roadway which continued on underneath the overpass as a tunnel.

'What?' Stretch shouted back.

'Just do it!' West yelled. 'Everybody, grab onto something! Hang on!'

They hit the exit ramp at speed, and rose up it briefly—

—at which moment Stretch yanked left on the steering wheel, and the bus lurched leftward, hitting the concrete guard-rail and . . .

. . . tipped over it!

The double-decker bus overbalanced shockingly and rolled over the concrete fence, using the fence as a fulcrum. As such, the entire double-decker bus rolled, going fully upside-down—off the exi ramp, back down onto the roadway proper—where it slamme down onto its open-topped roof . . .

. . . crushing all eight of the French troops on it!

But it wasn't done yet.

Since it had tipped over the dividing rail from a considerable height, it still had a lot of sideways momentum.

So the big bus continued to roll, bouncing off its now-crushed roof and coming upright once again, commencing on a second roll—only to bang hard against the far wall of the sunken roadway, which had the incredible effect of righting the bus and plonking it back on its own wheels, so that now it was travelling once again on the riverside drive and heading into the tunnel having just performed a full 360-degree roll!

Inside the bus, the world rotated crazily, 360 degrees, hurling West's team—Lily included—all around the cabin.

They tumbled and rolled, but they all survived the desperate move.

Indeed, they were all still lying on the floor when West scrambled to his feet and launched into action.

He took the wheel from Stretch as their mangled and dented bus swept out of the tunnel and into the Arsenal district. Having seen what West was prepared to do to anyone who tried to storm his bus from above, the Super Puma just flanked them now, swooping low over the river parallel to the speeding bus.

And just then, the modern glass-and-steel towers of the Economics Ministry came into view up ahead.

'That bridge up ahead is the Pont d'Austerlitz,' Pooh Bear said, peering over West's shoulder. 'The Charles de Gaulle Bridge is the one after it!'

'Gotcha,' West said. 'Tell everybody to get their pony bottles and masks ready, and then get to the doors. Go!'

Pooh Bear gathered everyone together—Lily, Stretch and Big Ears—and they all clambered to the side and rear doors of the bus.

The bus swept past the Pont d'Austerlitz, roaring towards the next bridge: the Pont Charles de Gaulle. Like the Austerlitz before it, the Charles de Gaulle Bridge branched out to the right, stretching over the river; beyond it, the glass towers of the Economics Ministry stabbed into the sky.

The riverside drive rose to meet the Charles de Gaulle Bridge, providing West with a ramp of sorts.

And while every other car in Paris would have slowed as they climbed this exit ramp, West accelerated.

As such, he hit the Charles de Gaulle Bridge at phenomenal speed, whereupon the great battered double-decker tourist bus performed its last earthly feat.

It exploded through the low pedestrian fence on the far side of the bridge and shot out into the air above the Seine, flying in a

spectacular parabolic arc, its great rectangular mass soaring through the sky, before its nose tipped and it began to fall, and West bailed out of the driver's compartment and the others leapt from the side and rear doors and the big bus slammed into the

river.

As the bus hit the surface of the Seine, the four people on its doors went flying to the side of it, also crashing into the water, albeit with smaller splashes.

But to the shock of those in the two pursuing French helicopters, they never surfaced.

Underwater, however, things were happening.

Everyone had survived the deliberate crash, and they regrouped with West, all of them now wearing divers' masks and breathing from pony bottles.

They swam through the murky brown water of the river, converging on the cobblestoned northern wall of the Seine, underneath the Charles de Gaulle Bridge.

Here, embedded in the medieval wall, under the surface of the river, was a rusty old gate that dated back to the 1600s.

The padlock sealing it was new and strong, but a visit earlier that morning by Pooh Bear with a boltcutter had altered it slightly. The padlock hung in place and, to the casual observer, it would have looked intact. But Pooh Bear had cut it cleanly on the rear side, so that now he just pulled it off the rusty gate by hand.

Beyond the gate, a brick-walled passageway disappeared into the murky gloom. The team swam into the passageway—with the last person in the line, Big Ears, closing the underwater gate behind them and snapping a brand-new padlock on it, identical to the one that had been sealing it before.

After about twenty yards, the underwater passageway rose into a tight sewer-like tunnel.

They all stood in the sewer-tunnel, knee-deep in foul-smelling water.

'How very Gothic,' Stretch said, deadpan.

'Christian catacombs from the 17th century,' Pooh Bear said. 'They're all over Paris, over 270 kilometres of tunnels and catacombs. This set of tunnels runs all the way along the Boulevard Diderot. They'll take us past the Economics Ministry, right to the Gare de Lyon.'

West checked his watch.

It was 12:35 p.m.

'Come on,' he said. 'We've got a train to catch.'

The three remaining French Army Panhards descended on the Charles de Gaulle Bridge, disgorging men. The big red bus was still actually half-afloat, but in the process of sinking.

The two choppers patrolled the air above the crash-site, searching, prowling.

Curious Parisians gathered on the bridge to watch.

Extra commando teams were sent into the Ministry complex and also into the Gare d'Austerlitz, the large train station that lay directly across the Charles de Gaulle Bridge, on the southern side of the Seine.

Every train that hadn't yet departed from it was barred from leaving. As a precaution, trains from the Gare de Lyon—further away to the north, but still a possibility—were also grounded.

Indeed, the last train to depart the Gare de Lyon that day would be the 12:44 TGV express service from Paris to Geneva, first stop Dijon.

An hour later, and now dressed in dry clothes, West and his team disembarked from the train in Dijon, smiling, grinning, elated.

There they boarded a charter flight to Spain, where they would rendezvous with Sky Monster and the Halicarnassus and commence their journey back to Kenya.

But their smiles and grins said it all.

After two failed attempts—or three if you counted the Mausoleum Piece—they had finally obtained a Piece of the Capstone.

They were now in a position to bargain.

They were now well and truly in the game.

ST PETER'S BASILICA

VATICAN CITY, ROME

18 MARCH, 2006, 12:45 P.M.

2 DAYS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS

At the same time, 2,000 kilometres away in Rome, a long-bearded man wearing the all-black robes of a Catholic priest strode across the wide square in front of St Peter's Basilica, the magnificent domed cathedral designed by Michelangelo, the most holy place of worship in the Roman Catholic Church.