The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

With the water gone they were able to walk through the tunnel to the vault of Poseidon. Once inside the giant cave they turned the corner by the boulder-door and were instantly speechless when they saw the treasure before them.

It was mostly gold in the form of coins, jugs, flasks and goblets, but there were vast piles of glittering diamonds forming a strange, warm amber in the light of the glow-sticks. Other heaps of gems — rubies, sapphires, emeralds and even opals littered the vault’s floor and left Hawke stunned with awe.

It didn’t seem possible, Hawke considered, that so much wealth had been hidden down here for so many countless centuries, lost to history, lost to mankind. But however awe-inspiring he thought the treasure was, he knew Zaugg was here for another reason.

And Ryan saw it first. “It’s Poseidon’s sarcophagus!”

With his exclamation still echoing in the cavernous space, everyone turned to see the ancient stone sarcophagus in the center of the tomb. It was partially obscured by another great pile of gold coins pushed up against its carved stone sides like a golden snowdrift, but there it stood, formidable, undeniable. The legend turned real.

Hawke found himself moved in a way he hadn’t thought possible until this moment. For the briefest of seconds he thought he knew how Zaugg felt, the obsession with power and immortality coursing through his veins like adrenalin and taking over his rational mind. Was Poseidon really inside that sarcophagus? Where was the trident? And, most intoxicating of all, where was the source of eternal life?

Zaugg was even more captivated by it all, and was now wandering among the heaps of diamonds and golden goblets muttering to himself like a madman. He picked up a simple coin and tossed it casually back down again when he saw something that pleased him even more.

“Finally my destiny will be fulfilled!” Zaugg said. “I will raise the greatest army known to man.”

Hawke smirked. “I’d be surprised if he could raise an erection.”

Baumann struck him hard in between the shoulder blades with the butt of his gun. “Enough!”

The Englishman staggered back to his feet and his mind turned slowly away from the treasure and back to the tactical situation. He noticed that on the wall behind the sarcophagus there was a small trickle of water running through a split in the rock. Baumann saw it too.

Zaugg saw nothing but the glistening gold before him and his eyes crawled over the treasure. He was beginning to look nervous. “Open the sarcophagus!” he screeched.

“Be careful, Zaugg!” Lea shouted. “You have no idea what you’re doing. You’re playing with fire!”

“Silence!” said Zaugg, reddening with rage. “No one tells me what to do! This is a great moment in history. I have waited all my life for this! What my father tried and failed to do, his only son has succeeded in achieving. Inside that sarcophagus Poseidon keeps the greatest secret of all time and now it is rightfully mine to use as I wish.”

Hawke turned to Lea and whispered in her ear. “Now there’s your guy who was smacked too hard as a child.”

Zaugg ran his hands over the smooth, carved edges of Poseidon’s tomb as if he were caressing a lover. His eyes sparkled with a crazed, obsessive look. “With the power of immortality my victory over the world will be final. I will rule in the way that even Hitler was too weak to do.”

“You can’t say he lacks ambition,” Hawke muttered.

Then Zaugg ordered Demetriou to approach the sarcophagus.

The Greek scholar looked anxious, but did as he was told, picking up a crowbar and walking through the piles of gold coins to the sarcophagus. Zaugg barked another command in German and seconds later two more men joined Demetriou.

Demetriou muttered a series of inaudible words — prayers, maybe — and began to jam his crowbar into the gap running around the lid of the ancient sarcophagus. A cloud of dust billowed up into his face and he coughed and wiped his eyes. He seemed to be having trouble getting any further.

“What’s the problem?” Zaugg said.

“It’s not moving,” Demetriou said, his voice wobbling. “Perhaps we should remove the sarcophagus to another location before…”

“Open the sarcophagus!”

“I can’t,” Demetriou said. “I won’t!” He stepped back in fear. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

“Very well,” Zaugg said. He raised his gun and filled Professor Demetriou full of holes, exploding his chest with the impact of the bullets and knocking him down with a heavy thud in the dust at the base of the sarcophagus.

“You!” Zaugg screamed at the two men. “Remove the lid!”

With startled terror on their faces, the two men tried their best, but they too found the lid unmovable.

“It weighs more than lead!” one said, desperately trying to avoid the same fate as Yannis Demetriou.

A few garbled sentences in German and Zaugg stalked over to them, knocking one out of the way and trying with all his might to force the bar under the stone lid of the sarcophagus.

“The real treasure will be in here,” he said. “It must be opened!”

On the wall behind the sarcophagus the trickle of water had grown larger. Hawke realized it was some kind of booby-trap, activated if anyone tried to tamper with Poseidon’s sarcophagus.

Several minutes of puffing and panting later, Zaugg cursed and kicked the side of it with his boot. “Verdammt!”

“That’s not very respectful,” Lea whispered.

“I wonder if this place puts a curse on everyone who enters it, like Tutankhamen’s tomb did?” Ryan asked casually.

‘Silence!” Zaugg shouted. “Baumann, place a charge on the sarcophagus and get that lid off, now!”

Hawke watched the former German Special Forces man place a couple of modest charges around the lid of the sarcophagus before ordering everyone back behind the safety of some boulders.

Zaugg watched with zeal as Baumann blew the charges and the tomb filled with a fine grey dust and the smell of burned explosives.

“Grobel! To the tomb, now. Tell me what is inside.”

Grobel was hesitant, but Zaugg’s Uzi helped him make the decision to go. He walked slowly over to the shattered tomb and held his glow-stick over the lid as he peered inside.

Hawke and the others watched him in the settling dust, their flashlights illuminating him from a safe distance as he craned his neck over the giant sarcophagus.

“It’s safe!” he called back. “There’s a lot of rubble inside, and dust, but…”

Zaugg clambered to his feet and pushed Baumann roughly out of his way as he moved forward to the sarcophagus. Hawke watched him closely as he too leaned over the edge beside Grobel. He lowered his hands inside and began to rummage around inside, muttering to himself incoherently.

For a moment he simply stared into the dusty sarcophagus, then turned away, wide-eyed with either fear or amazement.

Then the split in the far wall began to grow in size, and small pieces of rock started to crumble out of it. The trickle of water doubled in size and began to flow out into the tomb like a small river.

“It’s a trap!” Baumann said. “The whole bay is above us — we’ll all be drowned.”

Zaugg looked coolly at the rushing water and then back to the sarcophagus. For a moment, a sort of desolation shadowed his face, but then his eyes were lit with a new idea, and an evil, frozen smile began to dance on his lips.

“Baumann, get the men to start loading everything in this cave back to the trucks. We cannot risk being here any longer. Everything goes back to the mountain in Switzerland. I do not want a single penny left in here, not one single gem or coin! And start with the contents of the sarcophagus, is that understood?”

Baumann understood, and moments later the men loaded the contents of the tomb into smaller boxes and walked them through the drained tunnel and back along the complex to Zaugg’s fleet of trucks. Slowly the water began to pour down the wall and collect on the tomb’s floor.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Reaper said. “I need a cigarette.”

As the men emptied the tomb, Zaugg began to grow more and more anxious, peering into other chests and boxes littered around the sarcophagus’s base with increased concern. “Wo ist die Karte?” he said, quietly at first, and then screaming at the top of his lungs with his arms outstretched in supplication. “Poseidon, wo ist Ihre Karte?!”

Hawke leaned closer to Ryan. “I’m guessing that means ‘map’, am I right?”

“You are indeed. He’s asking Poseidon where his map is.”

“A bloody map?” Hawke muttered. “It took me long enough to accept he was guarding the secret of eternal life in his tomb, and now you’re telling me Zaugg was just looking for a map all along?”

Ryan nodded his head. “Looks that way.”

“That means it could be anywhere in the world.”

“Not that you will ever find it,” Baumann said. He smacked Hawke in the back with the butt of his rifle and knocked him into the dirt on the floor. “Because you’re all going to be dead in a few minutes. Now get up.”

As Hawke clambered to his feet, Baumann’s men walked over with more rope and cable-ties.