The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Demetriou stepped swiftly away from Hawke, covering him with the Uzi at all times, and moved over to where Zaugg was rejoining Grobel. Baumann was nursing his broken nose.

“You filthy traitor!” Lea said.

Demetriou shrugged his shoulders. “I have been working with Zaugg for many weeks. He promises me all the funding I need for my researches. When your team arrived at my office I knew all I had to do was play along and I could deliver you to him as easy as one, two, three.”

“Are you insane, professor?” Hawke said. “You can’t trust a man like Hugo Zaugg.”

“Well, I…” Demetriou began. Hawke wondered if he was thinking about the dead man on the spear further back in the complex — Zaugg’s canary in the coalmine. “I…”

Zaugg’s hoarse cackle filled the cavern. “This is actually most fortuitous,” he said, cutting off Demetriou’s reply. “I find myself wondering what terrors might lurk in this watery hole and then you turn up, the perennial bad penny.”

He pointed at the pool with the Uzi. “And I also wonder who among us has demonstrated an amusingly entertaining capacity to hold his breath for extended periods of time.”

Hawke knew where this was going.

“Mr Hawke — I desire of you that you climb into that pool and swim to wherever it leads and return with the news of your discovery. If you do not return, I will kill your friends. If you try and double-cross me, I will kill your friends. If you are not climbing into the hole in ten seconds I will kill your friends.”

For added effect, Zaugg cocked the Uzi and pointed it at Lea’s face. “I will start with this one.”

Hawke knew he had no choice, and watching the smug realization of his victory dawn on Zaugg’s face was almost more than he could bear. He moved forward slowly, silently mouthing the words “I’m sorry” to Lea as he passed her, and climbed down into the rock pool.

“Grobel!” snapped Zaugg. “You will go with him, and take this.” He handed Grobel the golden key. “If we have the right place then you will need it. If you too think about double-crossing me, simply remember that I know where your family lives.”

Zaugg tossed Hawke a dive-light from the pile of equipment at the side of the pool, and Grobel climbed down beside him, clutching the tiny golden disc in his hand. Before he went under the surface Zaugg handed him one of the harpoons from the equipment box.

Hawke dived into the black water, shining the light ahead of him. Behind him, Grobel tried to keep up, harpoon in one hand and disc in the other. The tunnel stretched ahead, narrow at first but gradually turning into a much wider space. After swimming for a minute or two it twisted upwards and Hawke realized they were at a dead end.

He turned in the tunnel and made a signal with his hands to indicate to Grobel that there was nowhere else to go, but then he noticed a small carving in the rock, lit for just a second as his light passed over it in the cold, watery darkness. He returned the light to it and saw it was the same shape and size as the disc.

Grobel swam forward and pushed the disc into the slot, twisting it to the left and then to the right. There was a judder almost like an earthquake and the end of the tunnel began to shift to the side.

It was a door fashioned from a massive boulder. They swam through the new aperture and Hawke saw a strange kind of mechanism was built into the rock. It looked like it was using gravity to slide the boulder downwards and to the side when the key released a metal bar from behind it.

Inside, Hawke saw the familiar sight of surface water above him. He swam up toward it and surfaced to see he was in another huge underground cave. He shone the torch into the blackness and was almost blinded by the flash of gold reflecting back at him.

It was an enormous pile of gold bigger then he could possibly have imagined before setting his eyes upon such a thing. In the distance was a heavy-looking stone monument covered in ornate carvings and the same strange, ancient inscriptions he recognized from the golden key — something told him it could only be the sarcophagus.

He had found the Vault of Poseidon.

Swimming back through the underwater tunnel, Hawke considered taking Grobel out and snatching the harpoon. It would be easy enough, he considered, but where would it get him?

He would have to emerge in the rock pool surrounded by Zaugg’s men. He would do anything to protect the others now, even Ryan who had saved his life back in the sea. He couldn’t risk their lives in some crazy attempt to play the hero.

He ruled out attacking Grobel and emerged in the other cave, crawling out of the rock pool soaking wet.

Zaugg was overcome with excitement when Hawke and Grobel gave their report. He had his team set up a pump connected to a generator and began to suck the water from the underground tunnel. His destiny was almost upon him.

Hawke joined the others while Zaugg oversaw his men as they put down a line of pipes and connected them to the generator set up in the bigger cave behind them. Its tinny engine roared in the enclosed space and started to fill it with fumes. They watched as the water was slowly removed from the tunnel and pumped into the larger cave. It spilled out and began to form an enormous pool.

Lea sidled up to Hawke in the semi-darkness. “If this is your idea of a date, Joe Hawke,” she said, “You’re not even getting to first base, never mind second.”

“Are you warming to me, Miss Donovan?”

“I could get a guy like you if I clicked my fingers,” she said, smiling, embarrassed by her words the moment they left her lips.

“Oh, you think so, do you?”

“Listen, Joe,” her words were quiet now, and vaguely hesitant. She looked at Scarlet who was standing closer to Zaugg’s team, and then to Sophie. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“I know, you could have me anytime you please.”

“No, it’s important. I shouldn’t be telling you this but…”

“If it's about what you started to tell me in New York, you don’t have to justify anything to me. You don’t have to explain yourself, expecially if it’s about something that happened in the army.”

Lea moved closer to him, but then moved away again, as if frightened of getting too close, physically and emotionally. “No, it’s not that. It’s something else, something about Eden.”

Hawke turned to look into her eyes. He had known all along she and Eden were keeping something back from him. “What is it, Lea?”

Ahead of them, the operation to pump out the water was coming to an end. All that remained in the previously underwater tunnel was a few inches of water. Zaugg ordered his men to remove the pumping equipment and shut down the generator.

Seconds later Baumann threw the switch and the engine sputtered for a few seconds before quitting completely, leaving a new, deafening silence in the cavern complex.

Hawke turned to Lea and held her gently by the shoulders. “What is it?” he asked. “What do you want to tell me about Eden?”

Lea looked up at him, her eyes filled with uncertainty. She glanced at the others and then back to Hawke. “I… I can’t tell you now. I’m sorry.”

She moved out of his grasp and stepped away.

Zaugg began barking orders at Baumann, who in turn shouted at the men, who then scurried about with boxes of equipment, flashlights and glow-sticks. Slowly, they slipped into the tunnel.

“You!” Zaugg shouted, aiming his gun at Hawke and the others. “I hope you will accept my invitation to die in the vault of Poseidon. Get moving!”

Hawke moved forward first, and Lea and the others followed his lead. He knew there would be few chances of survival deep inside the tomb, but they were covered by at least half a dozen submachine guns and Zaugg wasn't about to take any chances after the disaster on the Thalassa. He didn’t look like the kind of man to underestimate the same enemy twice.

As they approached the tunnel entrance, Zaugg stepped up to Hawke, muzzle of the Uzi aimed at his stomach.

“You thought you could save the world,” Zaugg said. “But instead, you have helped me to bring about its total destruction. A glorious new dawn is about to rise over mankind, Mr Hawke, and you are here to witness it!”

Hawke’s heart sank. All he could do was hope to heaven that Hugo Zaugg had badly misjudged the power of whatever he thought was inside the tomb.

Slowly, with guns at their backs, they entered the darkness of the final tunnel and moved towards the vault.