The Tomb of Eternity

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The Athanatoi gathered in solemn silence and waited for the Oracle to speak. Athanatoi, as the great Oracle told all new initiates, was the Greek word for immortals, and was originally used to describe the elite military unit of the Byzantine Empire over a thousand years old. Today, they were a much smaller but far more dangerous elite — a secret society of men and women who had learned to harness the power of eternal life.

The Oracle knew the import of his decision today and chose to contemplate the matter for another few minutes as he stared out of the room’s vast window. Outside, the snows of late winter were still blowing, far away from the steamy tropics of Africa where the fight for their precious secret was currently being played out.

He turned to the man beside him and spoke. His words were ice-cold and echoed in the silent space of the ancient chamber.

“And you’re absolutely certain they’re in the tomb right now?”

The man spoke nervously. “Yes, sir.”

“Then bring me the sphere.”

A ripple of discontent crossed the room, followed by a long silence as the Oracle considered the implications of what he was ordering. It would mean the destruction of the Tomb of Eternity. This was not the first time they had come under attack, neither was it the first time their secret had almost been discovered — extreme curiosity could drive the most determined of men almost anywhere — but it was the first time anyone had ever got this close to the truth.

And it had to be stopped.

“Perhaps there is another way?” a woman asked.

His expression was grim. “No. We have no choice. We must activate the sphere.”

Another collective gasp of horror went around the assembled elite as the implications of the Oracle’s words sunk in. A moment later a man in robes brought a strange chest to the Oracle and opened it. Inside was a kind of dome covered in a black velvet cloth.

“But this will destroy the tomb, sir,” said one man.

“We will be weakened,” said another.

“This is unprecedented,” said a third. “In all of our ancient history nothing like this has ever been ordered.”

The Oracle glared the man. “In all of our history we have never faced a threat like this.”

The man looked away in fear. It was never wise to argue with the Oracle, or question his decisions.

“Besides,” continued their leader, “the other two sources are safe.”

“But for how long?” the woman said coolly. “We all have a lot to lose.”

“We have everything to lose,” said another man. He looked like he was going to be sick and another murmur of anxiety rippled over the room.

Yes, for how long, indeed, the Oracle considered. The Athanatoi had protected the sources since the beginning of almost everything, and now one of them had finally been uncovered. He would have to work hard to prove he could safeguard the remaining two sources.

“I have made my decision. May the Gods have mercy on me.”

Another gasp.

“Activate the sphere.”

The man beside him opened the dome to reveal a smooth, glass sphere. A faint blue glow emanated from beneath it.

The Oracle ordered the man to lift it. “Proceed with the activation,” he said calmly.

The man turned the upper half of the sphere and the neon blue grew brighter, eerily under-lighting the faces of those present.

“It is done,” the man said.

The Oracle’s face was frozen in a rictus of fear. He nodded his head slowly and spoke, raising his voice for all to hear. “It is done, and cannot be undone. Return this to the other spheres.”

The man walked away with the chest, now re-cloaked in the strange velvet cover.

Half a world away in Ethiopia, a mountain was about to fall apart.

Hawke kept his eyes fixed firmly on Maxim Vetrov as he moved gradually closer to the fountain. His eyes were wide, staring saucers as he drew closer to the sparkling water, protected in his oblivious state by Kodiak and the men at his rear who were covering everyone with their submachine guns.

“And you can forget about Koura and his cavalry. They are all dead, as is Dr Mazzarro.” Vetrov gestured toward the silenced submachine guns in their hands. “It wasn’t even a challenge.”

The Russian billionaire stepped over the low wall and walked slowly across the tiled courtyard. Clearly apprehensive now, he slowed as he drew ever closer to the ornate fountain where the magical water tumbled in a stream from the mouth of the carved god none of them could name.

As the Russian began to get closer, he began muttering to himself about how finally he had met his destiny. He plunged his hands into the stream of cool, silvery water and scooped it up to his face, drinking greedily. It dribbled out of his mouth and ran down his chin on to his shirt.

“It tastes like nothing on earth!” he gasped, obviously exhilarated by the moment. He plunged his hands in a second time and guzzled more of the gold-silver water. “Nothing has ever tasted like this before…nothing!”

“He’s obviously never had Vimto,” Lea whispered to Hawke.

Hawke rolled his eyes and gave her a look.

“What?” she said. “Not the right time for jokes?”

“Vimto? What the hell made you think of that?”

Kodiak took a step toward them and aimed the Vityaz at them. “Silence, you scum, or I rake you with this!”

“Not an unreasonable request under the circumstances,” Hawke said.

“I mean it, you English vermin!” Kodiak came closer and pushed the cold steel muzzle of the submachine gun in his stomach. “Say one more thing, and I fire.”

Hawke knew the others were all looking at him, pleading with him to keep his mouth shut and right now it was the right play. There was nothing he could do but comply with his orders and shut his mouth, inwardly vowing revenge on the Russian hit-man.

Across the chamber, beside the fountain, Vetrov finished guzzling the water and turned to face them. His chest heaved up and down as the excitement of the moment coursed through his veins like fire. His arms and legs began to shake almost immediately.

Hawke took a step back and gave the others a look to do the same thing. He was starting to have grave concerns about the future of Maxim Vetrov, and it wasn’t that the Russian billionaire was about to turn into a living god and live forever.

“Ha!” Vetrov screamed, the veins bulging in his neck. “Ha! I am electric!”

“If you say so, matey-lad,” Hawke said.

Kodiak’s eyes widened and he too began to move away from Vetrov and the fountain. On seeing the former Spetsnaz sniper shying away from their boss, the rest of Vetrov’s goons followed suit and shuffled back toward the rear wall of the chamber.

“Behold as I become a god..!” Vetrov began to hyperventilate and Hawke saw his eyes were turning red. “Where countless others failed, I have succeeded. I have turned myself into a god!”

“A god-forsaken mess, I think is what you mean,” Hawke said.

Vetrov laughed maniacally and turned to stare at Hawke and the others. “When you are nothing but ashes I will rule the entire world. I am your god! I will live for…”

He stopped talking, a look of strained terror spreading across his face.

Hawke watched as he dropped to his knees and clutched at his throat.

“I…I…am your god…”

Vetrov’s eyes were now dark red with blood, and the veins in his neck and temples were bulging hideously and throbbing with the beat of his racing heart. He began screaming and tearing at his throat, his fingernails clawing into his own flesh and making it bleed.

“Help me! Kamchatka, help me..!”

Kodiak took another step back.

“Maybe a Panadol might help, mate?” Hawke said.

They watched in horror as Vetrov’s skin began to turn a pallid color like clay and drop from his face in dry peels. His hoarse, terrified screams filled the chamber as the realization of his true destiny dawned on him.

“Bloody hell,” Ryan said. “His eye just exploded!”

Vetrov fell to the floor now and began rolling around in the dirt, screaming and clawing at the ground, his agonized death throes convulsing his broken, decaying body.

“Looks like someone put a set of jumper cables on him,” Hawke said. “Which is funny because…”

His sentence was cut off by a deep, low rumble echoing inside the tomb. Seconds later it reached the inner chamber and sent chunks of rock from the ceiling crashing to the floor. A stalactite broke lose and skewered one of Vetrov’s men, and two more ran from the chamber in terror.

“Time to go, I think,” Kodiak said, watching his boss as he squirmed on the ground in agony. “But not for you, English vermin.”

He raised the Vityaz and fired at Hawke.

“No!” Lea screamed as she pushed Hawke aside, but she was too slow.

One of the bullets tore through her chest and she dropped to the floor of the chamber just a few yards from the convulsing Vetrov, who was now more a skeleton than a man, and yet still writhing in the dirt.

“Lea!” Hawke screamed. He dropped to his knees to help her while Scarlet took advantage of the confusion of the earthquake and gave Kodiak the benefit of a well-aimed and lightning fast Krav Maga slap kick. Her heel struck him like a sledgehammer and tore into his flesh.

He staggered back, dazed and bleeding, randomly firing off the Vityaz at the ceiling as he went, but before he could get his balance back, she planted a second slap kick on him, and Lexi did the same to the remaining goon, who hit the floor before scrambling away like a frightened crab.

Scarlet gripped Kodiak between her thighs in a scissor hold, and slowly his face began to turn purple.

“Shoot my friends and I have a tendency to lose my temper,” she said. “And you won’t like my temper very much, you little worm.”

She squeezed her thighs and further constricted his windpipe.

All around them the tomb was shaking.

“What the hell is going on?” Snowcat asked Ryan.

Ryan, who had joined Hawke at Lea’s side turned to face her in the confusion.

“Some kind of earthquake, I guess,” he said. “But a bloody big one. We have to get out of here, Joe!”

Hawke nodded and hoisted an unconscious Lea over his shoulder.

In the corner, Scarlet was literally squeezing the last breath of life out of Kodiak when Hawke screamed at her to move out. She stepped over his limp body, snatching up his Vityaz as she went. “Been waiting to do that since Berlin.”

“What about him?” Lexi said, pointing at Vetrov, who was now croaking on the floor and heaving hoarse breaths into his crumbling lungs.

“What about it, you mean,” Scarlet said, and fired a burst of rounds into Vetrov’s head, blasting pieces of the desiccated skull all over the fountain. “That’s you sorted then, you tit.”

A foot-wide split appeared in the roof of the chamber and cracked its way down the wall behind the fountain and started to snake along the floor.

“The whole place is breaking in two!” Ryan shouted, peering into the newly formed gap. He shook his head in awe. “It just goes on forever.”

“Right, everyone out…now!” Scarlet shouted.

They sprinted out the chamber and along the tunnel which led to the entrance, seeing daylight after what felt like the longest race of their lives. As they ran they saw the corpses of Koura and his men lining the tunnel, lying dead where Vetrov’s men had killed them. Finally they saw Mazzarro’s dead body with a single bullet hole in his forehead.

As they sprinted toward the light, the tunnel behind them began to collapse and they only just got to the entrance before the whole thing began to crush in on itself and spew a great plume of dust and ash out into the jungle — the last dying breath of the ancient tomb.

“When that thing collapses no one’s ever getting back in there, that’s for damned sure,” Scarlet said.

While the shockwave slowly dissipated, Hawke laid Lea down on the soft leaves of the rainforest floor. A few seconds later the final part of the tunnel shaft crumbled into itself as the weight of the mountainside pushed down onto it and sealed it forever.

Hawke looked down at Lea, dying in his arms. The race to escape the collapse of the tomb had knocked her from unconsciousness for a few short moments.

“You’re going to make it, right?” he said, tearing off her t-shirt to see the wound. There was a small bloody hole an inch above her heart.

She tried to smile at him as he studied the wound. “You better not fuck this up, Joe Hawke…” her words were faint now, and drifting into the steamy air of the jungle. All around them the cacophony of cicadas echoed off the trunks of the myrrh trees and from somewhere in the thick canopy above their heads they heard the calming call of a lone greenshank as it returned to the trees after the mysterious earthquake.

“So what is it then?” Lea asked, barely able to ask the question as the blood filled her lungs.

Hawke choked back the tears. “What’s what?”

“Your name. You told me back in Switzerland that I’d never find out, but I’d like to know.”

Hawke clenched his jaw and held her tighter. It was all coming back again, the unassailable terror of his wife’s brutal murder — the way he’d held her that terrible day in Vietnam in the heat and humidity, the way she’d looked up at him with her dying eyes while the pedestrians scattered in fear of more bullets. Now, he was being forced to relive the same dreadful moment all over again, only this time they had slain Lea, and right in front of him, just like before.

“My name?”

“Sure, ya eejit.” More coughing. The light in her eyes started to fade.

This can’t be happening again, he thought. She doesn’t deserve this… He held her tighter and looked into her eyes.

“Josiah.”

She tried to smile, but the pain was too much. “Josiah Hawke. I like that.” This time she managed a smile, and reached out to stroke his face.

And then she was gone.