The Orpheus Legacy

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When Ryan, Scarlet and Zeke returned, Hawke felt a wave of relief. He had played his fears down in front of the team but the prospect of the sniper being out there was very real. The road from Mount Ida to Chania was long and deserted and offered endless possibilities to anyone with a high-powered rifle and a job to do. Scarlet was the most experienced on the team and a former SAS officer, and while his insistence she should accompany Ryan and Zeke had made him feel better, he was still glad to see their safe return.

“You get the stuff?” he asked.

Ryan waved a chunky insulated container in the air. “All present and correct. We were as quick as possible to stop it sublimating.”

Zeke looked apologetic. “I literally begged him to say melting.”

Ryan huffed out a sigh. “How many more times must I say it? Dry ice is frozen gas, and gas can’t melt. It can only…”

Zeke’s heavy Texan drawl drowned him out. “It can only sublimate. I get it. I feel like I could write a physics paper.”

“Good,” Ryan said. “And of course, you mean a chemistry paper.”

Behind his back, Zeke raised his hands in the air and pretended to strangle the young man, while Scarlet snatched the container from him. “You get some idea of the journey back.”

Lea covered her mouth and suppressed a pity laugh as Hawke took the container from Scarlet and walked it over to the water’s edge.

“You’ll have to work fast,” Ryan said. “The dry ice is still in the cold bag. When you get underwater, push the chunks inside the bottles and let some water go in too, then screw them up tight and put them into position. Given the temperature of the water here I’d say you’ll have a minute or two before they explode. That’s why they’re in the insulated container.”

“Thanks, mate. I’ll swim down, stuff the bottles in the fissure and then take cover. After I’ve taken a quick look-see to see the damage I’ll be back.”

Wading out into the pool, he slung the container over his shoulder. “Wish me luck.”

“And be quick!” Lea called out with a sideways glance at Ryan. “Before it melts.”

“I’m not even going to bother responding,” Ryan said.

Lea didn’t hear him. She was too busy watching the last sight of Hawke as he disappeared beneath the black water, leaving nothing behind but a streak of tiny bubbles. Looking at her watch, she checked the time. “Okay, he can hold his breath for six minutes.”

“How the hell does she know that?” Zeke asked.

Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “Use your imagination, darling.”

The Texan took a step back. “Really?”

With the banter going on behind her, Lea watched two minutes tick away and then she felt it. They all did. A deep, bass thump under their feet and then a series of ripples spreading out across the rockpool’s surface. “He did it.”

“What now?” Kamala asked.

Nikolai looked unsettled. “Now we wait, right?”

Reaper gave a shallow nod. “Oui.”

“Sure,” Lea said. “Now we wait.”

One minute later, Hawke emerged and walked out of the pool until the water was waist-high. “As you probably heard, the rock is no longer blocking the tunnel, and after a short underwater swim you come up again in another rock pool. There’s a breathable atmosphere and what looks like a sealed archway on one of the rock walls. Looks like we found it.”

After a round of whoops and high-fives, he ordered them to bring the rest of the caving equipment and swim down behind him.

“But you’ll need to hold your breath for three minutes.”

“Count me out,” Nikolai said. “I hate swimming.”

“Okay,” Lea said. “We need some people to stay up here and keep a look out anyway. Maybe Kolya and…”

“I’ll do it,” Camacho said. “I’m a good swimmer so if we get any trouble I can swim down and tell you.”

Hawke smacked his hands together and waded back out into the gloom. “Looks like we’re set, and still no sign of Kashala.”

“Yeah,” Zeke said. “What a slouch.”

Hawke spearheaded the team as they swam through the newly blasted hole and into another rockpool on the other side of the cave wall. The underwater tunnel declined steadily by another twenty feet until he saw the surface of the pool, and then angled up to reach it.

When all of them had climbed out of the pool and assembled on the sandy shore, they opened their equipment bags and started work on the sealed archway. After half an hour, they all realized that the job was harder than they had anticipated. Chipping, hacking and brushing, each inch they made was hard won.

“Isn’t there some sort of magic lever somewhere?” Scarlet asked.

Reaper chuckled and Zeke gave her a sideways glance. “Huh?”

“The usual routine is we find an ancient portal and the boy here translates a riddle and then we’re in. If it’s going to be like this from now on, I want a raise.”

“Cut the whining and keep digging, Cairo,” Lea said. “We’re not doing so bad.”

Hawke wasn’t so sure. He felt the sweat drying on his back as he hacked at the rock with the mattock. The work was slow and monotonous but there was no other way to reach the other side. His arm swung into the sandstone yet again and blasted another shower of slivers and powdery dust out of the rockface.

He shielded his eyes as he continued to chip away at the wall and his mind drifted to what Ryan had briefed him about Orpheus and Hades. Considering the existence of hell itself was not a pleasant pastime, but even worse was wondering what Dimitrov and Kashala wanted with the place. The Congolese mercenary king would follow the money to the end of the earth and turn around as soon as it ran out. That was his motivation, but why was Dimitrov funding such an expensive operation? What did he know about the Underworld that no one else did? He put the thought out of his mind and swung the steel head of the pick mattock into the sandstone one more time.

This time it broke through, and the sharp adze split a neat crack in the rock.

“About time.”

Working a large hole from the crack, they wrenched a number of loose stones out of the way and created a space large enough to crawl through. Hawke peered inside with his Maglite and swept the beam up a long dark tunnel.

“What do you see?” Ryan asked.

“Funnily enough, a Greek bistro specializing in Mussels Saganaki.”

Zeke’s eyebrows rose an inch. “No kidding?”

“Sorry.” Hawke emerged from the hole. “It’s just a dark tunnel covered in cobwebs.”

Zeke waggled his finger in his face. “I thought as much, you old kidder.”

“What are you waiting for, you big girls?”

Hawke turned to see Lea already halfway through the hole. “You heard the lady. Will all big girls please step this way.”

“After you, boy,” Scarlet said with a smirk.

“Thanks, C.”

“Cheeky bastard.”

The dry and dusty tunnel descended deep inside the heart of the mountain. Narrow and oppressive, small holes carved into the stone walls at head-height had held candles to light the way in busier times. Today they were empty and the team used their flashlights to see through the dark.

The tunnel soon levelled out and they found themselves standing in a small antechamber. With a roll-up cigarette hanging off his lip, tip smouldering in the darkness, Reaper raised his glowstick and lit the chamber’s rough rocky walls a warm amber color. “No doors.”

The others joined him, sweeping flashlights over the walls, ceiling and floor in search of some kind of exit to the next level. Hawke saw a frieze running around the top of the chamber full of tiny, intricate hieroglyphics and what looked like a long crack running down the center of the ceiling.

Looking over at Reaper, he gave his old friend a desolate smile. “No doors.”

Lea pursed her lips and checked her watch. “Dimitrov and his men won’t be much longer before they’re down here. I hope Jack and Kolya are all right.”

“They’ll be fine,” Hawke said. “And we need to get on. Time’s running out.”

He walked over to the corner where the crack was at its widest and shone his flashlight beam into it. Any hopes he’d held that it might reveal a mysterious source of light or a trace of some water were quickly dashed. “Nothing.”

Behind him, Ryan had dropped to his knees and was sweeping dust and dirt away from the floor tiles with the heels of his hands. “Maybe one of these tiles is loose.”

Hawke crouched down and followed suit. “Come on everyone, get digging.”

Fighting to be the first to make the discovery, the team dug quickly, running their fingertips around the edges of the tiles and searching for any sign of a loose tile. Lexi won the race when she called out from the south end of the antechamber.

“I’m through!”

Before the others could walk over to her, she had already pulled the tile from the floor and was peering down inside the hole. When she pulled herself back up, she was smiling from ear to ear. “Looks like I found the tomb, bitches.”