The Minoan Cipher

CHAPTER EIGHTY

Those in the courtyard heard the explosion as a muffled whump coming from below the Tripartite Shrine. The ground shook. A couple of sacral horn decorations fell off the roof. A metal support holding the camouflage canopy buckled. The covering over the shrine listed at an odd angle.

Salazar realized what had happened. He raised his rifle to shoot Chad, but stopped with his finger on the trigger. From the corner of his eye he had seen two gray blurs racing toward him across the courtyard. He reached instinctively for the double-axe medallion that normally hung around his neck, and realized he had given it to Chad to wear. He swiveled and let off a burst of gunfire. The fusillade missed the speeding Daemons by yards.

Salazar threw his weapon at the creatures in a failed attempt to divert them and began to run for the helicopter. He had only gone a dozen feet when the first Daemon bowled him over like a ten-pin and brought its massive jaws down on his throat. The second monster dove in, fighting to be in on the feast.

The monsters were half-mad from the stinging gas when they saw the group standing near the shrine. They had been trained to focus on those not wearing a medallion, carrying a weapon or on the run, and Salazar qualified as a target.

Hawkins looked away from the disgusting sight and loped for the helicopter with Calvin by his side. Chad, who had retrieved his weapon, again took up the rear. They made it to the helicopter. Calvin got in and leaned out to pull Kalliste through the door.

“Climb in and we’ll be on our way,” he said.

“We can’t go yet.” Hawkins told Calvin what Salazar had said about the automatic launch of the drone.

“No problem,” Calvin said. “I brought some bug spray.”

He slipped the gear bag off his shoulder and extracted the Spike missile and its launcher which he aimed at the metal insect sitting on its staging. There was a whoosh as the missile flew from the launcher and the drone exploded in a ball of yellow and red flames. He threw the launcher away and climbed into the helicopter.

Startled by the explosion, the Demons turned away from their feast and ran back into the shrine.

“I thought that was gator repellent,” Hawkins said.

“Pest’s a pest.”

His hands went to the controls. Within seconds, they were airborne. Calvin flew the chopper straight up, and when he had gained a few hundred feet of altitude, he hovered over the canopy.

Another support had buckled, and the camouflage cover had split apart, producing an odd optical illusion. Where only the courtyard had been visible before, there were now glimpses of the shrine’s towers. Smoke bellowed from the entrance.

“That slimy bastard,” Chad fumed. “The damned thing was a bomb.”

“What are you talking about?” Hawkins said.

“It was a jug shaped like the head of a bull. Salazar called it a rhyton but it was full of explosives. He ordered me to carry it into the sanctuary. Gave me a remote that I was supposed to press when the ceremony began. He said it would send a signal to break up the ceremony, but what he really wanted was to blow me and everybody else up.”

Hawkins went to reply, but he stopped to stare at the Tripartite Shrine. The towers had collapsed and were disappearing into the earth. He remembered the foundation cracks he had seen throughout the Maze. The columns supporting the roof must have crumbled from the force of the explosion. The weight of the shrine was too much for the ceiling to bear. The remnants of the shrine would plunge to the deepest depths of the Labyrinth.

“Like I told Salazar,” he said, “I’ve seen all I want to see. Let’s go home.”

Calvin nodded and put the helicopter on a course away from the castle.

Abby was sitting in the cockpit waiting for Matt to call in on the radio when she saw the helicopter approaching. She had disobeyed his orders to leave if he and Calvin didn’t call in. The deadline was an hour past, and the radio had been silent. Something had happened. That could only mean one thing. Matt was dead.

Tears welled in her eyes. It was probably too late to escape the oncoming aircraft, but she didn’t care. She grabbed a spare CAR-15, stepped out of the cockpit and aimed, thinking that it was funny that the aircraft running lights were on and that it was turning side-to, offering an easy target.

Screw it, she thought. She was about to set her sights on the Auroch bull horns logo on the fuselage of the chopper, now only a couple of hundred feet away, when an arm waved at her from the helicopter window. A familiar voice came over the radio.

“Hoo-yah, Abby.”

She lowered the weapon, and with the widest smile possible on her face, waved back at Hawkins.