The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Hawke watched the last of the treasure disappear down the tunnel, followed by a soaking wet Dietmar Grobel, his terrifying reputation diminished somewhat by his new sodden demeanor. It was hard to look intimidating when you were dripping with sea water and cave slime.

Zaugg wasted no time in ordering his men to tie them up and start blocking them into the tomb by placing boulders in the entrance tunnel. Having failed to deal with the problem on board the Thalassa he seemed much more determined to end their challenge to his quest this time around.

Several men, led by Heinrich Baumann, roughly bound their arms behind their backs, cutting into their flesh with the careless application of plastic cable-ties, and then tying them back to back in pairs with short lengths of rope.

Hawke watched uneasily as Baumann fitted the C4 explosives to the wall a few inches above where the water from the bay above their heads was pouring through the slit. He went about his work methodically, enjoying every step of the process as he secured the explosives and set the radio antennae up.

Zaugg proudly explained to them what was about to unfold in the last few moments of their lives. “When that tomb wall blows, thousands of tons of seawater will explode through the hole and fill this cave in a few short minutes,” Zaugg said with undisguised pleasure. “And that will end all evidence of this tomb, as well as bringing your irritating existence to a swift and permanent conclusion.”

“Why don’t you untie me so we can sort this out man to man, Zaugg?’ Hawke was baiting him, trying to make him lose his cool. “Or are you not man enough for that?”

“My dear fellow, men of my social rank do not brawl in public with men like you.”

“I’ll let you throw the first punch, Zaugg. I’ll even let you tie one hand behind my back.”

Zaugg frowned, his cold eyes sparkling with a menace Hawke had never seen before. “You seem remarkably composed for a man so close to death,” he said calmly. “Was it Plato who once said, No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good? I shall never know, because I will be immortal soon enough. On this one matter you will beat me to the answer!”

“Cheerfulness in the face of adversity, Zaugg! That’s the commando’s way.”

“Really? That’s the commando’s way?” Scarlet said. “This is why I joined the army.”

“Pfft, the army,” Hart said.

Zaugg ordered the last of his men from the flooding tomb. “Besides, I will take an insurance policy in the form of the wonderful Miss Donovan.”

Baumann dragged Lea to her feet and held the muzzle of his submachine gun in her ribs.

“I never felt we really got to know each other on the Thalassa — may I call you Lea?” Zaugg said, gently stroking the side of her face with his bony fingers. “Perhaps, with a little encouragement you will learn to be more accommodating?”

With her hands restrained by the cable-ties, Lea’s only way of reacting to Zaugg’s repulsive touch was to spit in his face, which she did with violent accuracy.

Zaugg wiped the spit from his eye and stared at it in his hand. “In that case,” he said slowly, “perhaps your personality is better suited to Baumann here.”

Baumann grabbed Lea and dragged her through the tunnel entrance as the last boulders were pushed into place.

Zaugg laughed and stepped jauntily from the tomb, the last of the light receding into the tunnel with him as he took the glow-stick to light his own way to safety. Then the final boulder was pushed in the entrance, blocking their way and sealing them in the tomb.

“Your girl makes a bit of a habit of getting kidnapped, doesn’t she?” Scarlet said.

“She’s not my girl, Cairo, so pack it in. He’s taken her so we can’t attack him on the way to the bloody airfield, or even shoot the bastard down in midair. When he’s used her for that he’ll just hand her over to that freaking maniac Baumann, and God knows what that psycho will do to her.”

He desperately looked on the wall where the C4 was stuck a few inches above the cracked rock.

“When that thing goes off, we’re all dead, right?” Ryan asked.

“No,” said Hawke. “It’s too far away to kill us with the blast.”

“Thank heaven for small mercies,” Ryan said.

“Instead we’ll drown like rats when the Bay of Sami bursts through that wall and fills this tomb with sea water in about three minutes.”

“Great, and we’re trapped in here.”

“Maybe not,” Hawke said. “I’m hoping the force of the water will knock out those boulders they put in the door.”

Ryan looked at Hawke, to the C4 and then back to Hawke. “You know, I’m really beginning to enjoy this.”

And then the C4 exploded with a terrific detonation that was almost deafening in the cavernous tomb. Before the smoke and rubble had cleared they heard the water rushing into the vault.

Seconds later it was deep enough to give them buoyancy, and then they were able to slip out from beneath the ropes but their hands were still tied behind their backs. As Hawke had thought, the pressure of the water building against the boulders was beginning to push them clear of the entrance.

“We have to work fast!” he shouted. “In a few minutes the water will be over our heads and at the roof of this cave.”

He turned and rubbed the cable-ties that bound his hands up against a piece of serrated boulder, and seconds later the plastic split into two and he was free.

Now the water was up to their waists as he struggled to slash the cable-ties from everyone else’s wrists.

When he had done this, they waded through the tunnel as fast as they could go in the darkness until they reached the other cave along. Zaugg’s generator and other pieces of now unnecessary equipment were just left scattered on the floor.

The water began to rush up though the rock pool behind them and suddenly the ground beneath their feet began to tremble and shake. Chunks of rock fell from the ceiling of the cave and landed with a heavy, crunching thud into the stone floor of the underground tunnel system.

“The flood has destabilized the entire complex!” Hart said.

Hawke watched in horror as part of the cave wall beside the rock pool began to sink into the floor, bulging forward and crumbling as it went down.

“The whole place is about to implode!” he shouted.

“This is not good,” Reaper said. “In fact, I wish I was at home right now, maybe with some wine…”

“We have to get out the way we came but we need to run right now or the water will overtake us.”

They all ran back along the tunnels, but their escape was cut short when they realized Zaugg had taken their abseiling lines.

“What now?”

Hawke stared up at the vertical shaft — fifty feet up and impossible to climb before the rushing water reached them.

“We have to let the water take us up,” he said. “We have no other choice.”

‘But the shaft’s not wide enough for all of us. Some will have to stay at the back and swim up afterwards.”

Hawke stepped forward. “No problem for me.”

“Or me,” added Scarlet.

“Pour moi, c’est pas de problem,” said Reaper.

“Ryan and Sophie go first, then the commodore and Reaper,” Hawke said. “Then Cairo and I will swim up.”

“Water’s coming!” Ryan shrieked.

The ice-cold water rushed over them and bubbled up around them as it pushed them into the shaft. Ryan looked terrified but he and Sophie quickly disappeared from view when the water pushed them upwards. Then Hart followed them up, her head a few inches below the water line, Reaper not far behind. Finally, Scarlet and Hawke swam up beneath the others, straining their eyes in the darkness, aware only of the kicking heels of their friends above them.

Moments later the water spat them out into the next level and left them gasping for air as it began to fill up around them yet again. This time it filled at a slower rate because of the bigger size of the recess, but it was still too fast for comfort.

“There won’t be a sodding bay left at this rate,” Ryan said. “It’ll all be down here.”

They repeated the process for the other vertical shafts and then made their way up the stone steps, twisting in a spiral as they climbed, their flashlights bobbing about erratically as they ran to escape the chaos behind them.

They could feel the cave complex collapsing behind them with the power of an earthquake and the terrible noise of the destruction chased them up the circular steps like a monster with a taste for their blood.

Towards the top, they began to slow a little. Hawke and Reaper were now at the front, with Scarlet directly behind them. Ryan and Sophie were in the middle and Hart at the back.

Finally they reached the exit, following the tiny slit of sunlight until it grew large enough to reveal itself as the entrance to the dugout at the bottom of the initial vertical shaft.

Again Zaugg had taken the abseiling lines with him, so they repeated the process once again and allowed the water to push them to the top of the shaft.

When they were all clear, and panting on the side of the hill, the water rose up just high enough in the shaft to spill a little over the edge, and then slide back down again to around halfway up.

“So that’s how wells are made,” Scarlet said, deadpan. A moment later, they all started to laugh.