The King's Tomb

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hawke took in the darkness of the National Museum of China’s enormous main entrance hall. The size of the place was breathtaking. Its smooth marble floors stretched out like a football pitch and its glass and steel windows towered a hundred feet up to the ceiling. He estimated it was easily big enough to accommodate a full-size passenger jetliner.

Breaking in through a skylight had been easy enough, but they all knew it only got harder from here. In the darkness, they crossed the expansive floor and headed toward a series of shallow marble steps leading up to three colossal double door arches. Sixteen Chinese characters on a bright red sign hung above the door. Hawke nor anyone else could read them but they knew from the schematics it was the entrance to the museum’s Level 1.

“That’s right, yeah?”

Alex’s voice crackled over the comms in everyone’s ears. “Sure is, Joe. I’ll make a linguist of you yet.”

He smiled. “That’s more Ryan’s field of expertise.”

“Wonder how the boy’s getting on?” Scarlet said, her boots clipping on the polished marble steps.

“They haven’t called in yet,” Alex said.

“Are we worried?” Reaper said.

“Not yet,” Hawke said. “They know what they’re doing.”

They moved through the doors and stepped inside the Ancient China section on Level 1. A special exhibition on the Silk Road had been attracting a large crowd of interested people and a series of stone sculptures from the Song Dynasty also seemed to be a big hit, but tonight all was silent and dark. And he was interested in only one thing — finding the access point to the utility tunnel Alex Reeve had located on the museum’s schematics.

As he scanned the space for the fire door, he felt good, but anxious. Earlier that morning he’d gone for a long run around the eastern shore of Kunming Lake. It was a good way to burn off some adrenaline and stay calm before an op like the one they were going to execute tonight.

It had been busier than he’d expected, with people everywhere he looked. Some were Beijingers, walking dogs or jogging or just making their way to the office. Others were tourists greedily snapping pictures of the Summer Palace which rose majestically above the northern edge of the lake.

He’d beaten his personal best and returned to the hotel feeling pretty good about himself. After a shower and something to eat during their briefing they’d stepped out onto Chang’an Avenue and made the short walk from the hotel to the museum.

They slipped through a fire door and found themselves behind the scenes of the giant museum. “It should be down here.”

“I think that’s it,” Reaper said.

On the door was a warning in Mandarin. Scarlet looked on her phone at an image Alex had sent her. They corresponded. “This is it.”

The door was locked, but not for long. Reaper’s delivery of a hefty riot boot almost smashed it off its hinges and then they were in.

The utilidor was a long passage constructed deep beneath the museum whose main function was to accommodate the vast building’s utility lines. These included electrical cables, steam pipes and fiber optics among others. It was an eerie world of damp walls and echoes and smaller conduits receding away into total darkness.

Reaper gave the place an unforgiving glance. “At least it’s not a sewer pipe, hein?”

“That fun comes later,” Scarlet said.

“Alex said it was disused,” said Hawke.

They followed the corridor for several hundred meters until they reached a maintenance office. The door was locked, but Reaper’s famous shoulder-barge soon had it on the deck and then they were in. Stepping inside, they found themselves in a small room full of clutter and junk.

Hawke saw it first. “I’m looking at the floor, Alex. I see the disused sewage pipe you’re talking about and it’s got a steel grate fixed on it just as you said.”

“Which is what the C4 is for,” Scarlet said.

“Right,” Alex said, “but don’t use all the explosives. You’ll need some at the other end when you reach the Torture House.”

Hawke packed a small quantity of explosives around the grate. “All right, we’re go,” he said at last.

Reaper detonated the C4 and blew the ironwork clean off the pipe’s entrance. The explosion was small and contained and thanks to their underground location it went totally unnoticed. When the smoke cleared, they left their cover and made their way over to the hole in the floor.

“So we’re really going inside that horrible little sewage pipe?” Devlin said.

“Look on the bright side,” Scarlet said.

“There’s a bright side?”

“Of course not,” she said deadpan. “Get in the fucking pipe.”

“Once again, it’s disused, Danny,” Hawke said.

They lowered their packs inside the pipe and jumped down after them, crouching down on all fours and crawling into the gloom.

Hawke led the way, his head-mounted torchlight shining a beam down into the pitch-black darkness. The concrete-lined pipe offered no surprises, except for the occasional dead rat and was precisely as their planning had shown them it would be. He pushed on, crawling on his hands and knees with his team behind him.

“That’s not smelling so great,” Devlin said.

“Please stop whining,” Scarlet said.

They made their way along the pipe, lighting the total darkness with their flashlights as they drew nearer to the section beneath the notorious Zodiac Torture House.

“Can’t say we lead a boring life,” said Devlin.

“There,” Hawke said. “Up ahead I see the wall Alex described from the schematics.”

They reached the wall and the pipe opened out into a space large enough to stand in. The wall was made of breeze blocks and totally blocked them from going any further.

“This is Act Two for the C4,” Hawke said.

Devlin ran his hand over the wall. “Are we sure we know what’s behind it? For all we know the entire PLA could be waiting for us!”

Scarlet smiled at him. “Not scared, are you?”

“Just sayin’.”

She got right up in his face. “Hey Danny, what’s big, brown, seriously unpleasant and behind this wall?”

“I don’t think I want to know,” Devlin said.

Scarlet fixed two deadly serious eyes on the Irishman. “Humpty’s Dump.”

He burst out laughing. “Oh, man… you’ve got one fucking great sense of humor, Cairo Sloane.”

“Just ask her boyfriends,” Hawke mumbled. “The line of broken men stretches around the equator.”

Scarlet regarded him with contempt. “That kind of talk’s not pretty, Josiah. Especially considering you’re in that line.”

“Ouch,” Devlin said.

Reaper laughed and handed Hawke his bag. “This has to hurt, non?”

Hawke said nothing. He pulled another quantity of C4 from the bag and placed it on the wall’s weakest sections. “All right, get back down the tunnel.”

Pig pushed the nose of the pliers deep under the fingernail on Lexi’s left forefinger and squeezed down on the handles until the grip was solid and unbreakable. He had already torn out her thumbnail and she had passed out in agony. After a long wait for her to regain consciousness she had finally woken and he was keen to do more damage. He turned and nodded at Zhou. “Ready.”

“This is your last chance, Agent Dragonfly. You have already lost one nail. Why suffer more than you have to?”

“I had my last chance a long time ago.”

“I am impressed by your courage. I would expect nothing less from someone with your training and experience. However, you must realize there is a fine line between courage and stupidity.”

“Not such a fine line in your case.”

“When I give Pig the sign — a simple nod of my head — he will tear out another fingernail, the one he is now gripping with the pliers. As with your thumb, he will do it slowly. It will not break off, but he will instead extract the entire nail including the matrix. As you now know, this is more pain than most people can possibly imagine. After another extraction you will be screaming and pleading for mercy and yet there are eighteen more nails on your body. I want you to think very carefully before answering my next question.”

“You sure do talk a lot, Zhou.”

The man in the black suit kept his calm. He knew what she was doing and it wasn’t going to work on him. “I want to know how much information has been lost to the enemy. When did you defect to the other side? When did you step over into the ECHO camp?”

“You will never know.”

Zhou nodded at Pig without warning and the Zodiac assassin pulled the nail from her finger. Unlike the thumbnail, it did not come easy at first and he was forced to dig the pliers in harder, pushing the pointed ends beneath the nail.

Lexi screamed so hard she went hoarse. She had promised herself she would show no weakness, but when the pain came all over again, it came even harder than before. It felt like someone was pushing the nail in, not pulling it out. She’d had the same sensation when a dentist extracted a tooth in her childhood, only this was a thousand times worse. She had passed out early on with the thumbnail, but this time she was wide awake.

Eventually, whatever was causing the resistance gave way and Pig wrenched the nail from her finger. Blood spurted out behind it and sprayed up his shirt and face, but his only response was a low, sick laugh as he watched her struggle and squeal.

She felt her heart thumping and pain streaked from her pulsing, burning hand to her head.

Zhou stepped forward, hands in pockets and voice soft and calm.

“When did you cross over to the other side, Agent Dragonfly?”

The rage rose inside her like a tsunami. “Go… to…hell, Zhou!”

Zhou gave a weary sigh, glanced at his watch and indicated to Pig. “Move on to the next nail.”