The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The wounded man grunted like an animal and heaved himself over to her with every last bit of energy he could muster.

“I will make you suffer for this,” he said, spitting with rage.

Baumann grabbed Lea by her shoulders and lifted her off her feet as if she were a rag doll. He smashed her back into the wine rack behind her, and she howled in pain as the corks rammed into her spine. He growled and smashed her into the bottles a second time. Then a short giggle.

Lea’s spirits were raised when somewhere above her head she heard the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire — Hawke must have survived and was launching a rescue attempt at this very minute.

But how long could she hold out against Baumann?

She saw her torturer was pale now — he had lost a lot of blood since she’d stabbed his leg, but was it enough to take him down? She kicked out against him, but this only made things worse because Baumann simply grabbed her around her neck with his metal hand so he could use his free hand to hold her legs down. She felt the icy cold steel as it gripped her soft throat.

Her tormentor grinned like a maniac as he closed the steel claw around her throat and she felt her windpipe constrict. She gasped for air, instinctively expecting the cold air of the cellar to flood into her lungs, but none came. She began to panic in response, flailing her arms out wildly trying to strike her attacker, but his arm was too long, and he held her at a distance long enough to avoid any reprisals from her much smaller body. He nodded his head in appreciation of some unvoiced thought and increased the grip on her throat.

“Because you tried to kill me,” said Baumann, his breath in her face, “I’m going to make this last a very long time.”

Up closer than ever now, less than half a meter from her face, Lea looked at the face of Heinrich Baumann — his repellent milky eye and scarred face, the stench of some kind of lubricant on the mechanism of the steel claw, the gentle whirring of the humidifier on the wall beside her aching head. This, she thought, was going to be her last minute on earth — her last sight, her last sound, her last smell — all Baumann, for now and forever.

She began to lose consciousness.

With the blackness encroaching all around her, Lea Donovan had only a few seconds to think before her processing faculties left her forever. Her world was tiny now — Baumann and his claw, the feel of his breath, the sound of the humidifier…

The humidifier. Just a few inches to her left was a humidifier gently whirring away, and she saw now that it was plugged into the wall right beside her. Without stopping to think anything through, she reached with the last of her strength behind her head and searched with her hand until she felt a wine bottle, which she pulled from the rack and brought crashing down on Baumann’s head.

The giant man screamed in pain and released Lea, who now, finally free of his devilish grasp, collapsed in a heap on the floor. Both were now on the ground on their hands and knees — Lea heaving the breath back into her body and Baumann in a puddle of wine woozily trying to regain his balance and hang onto consciousness.

Lea acted fast, and out of pure instinct. She tore the cable from the humidifier, and then climbed out of the spilled wine and onto the wooden crate.

“Go to hell you fucking freak!” she screamed, and dropped the cable into the wine, causing a massive electric shock to course through Baumann’s body. She was pretty sure that wine was an excellent conductor of electricity, and was only too glad to put her theory to the test.

Now, Baumann writhed on the floor in a fiendish shower of sparks, convulsing like a dying fish, his blood-curdling screams bouncing off the cellar walls.

He groped and slipped about in a vain effort to free himself of the terrific electric current now frying him alive. His metal hand sparked and scraped on the concrete floor in his final death throes, and then there was nothing left except a damp, smoking heap, reeking of wine.

Lea pulled the cable from his corpse and pushed the end into the straw bedding around one of Zaugg’s most expensive bottles of wine. She watched the fire grow for a few moments before running to the cellar door.

She made it up the twisting stone steps and to the door leading back from the cellar into Zaugg’s compound. Gently craning her neck around the door to see if the coast was clear, Lea Donovan decided to make a run for it, but before she could even get into the room she heard a familiar voice behind her.

“I’m impressed.”

She spun around to see Dietmar Grobel standing in the corridor.

“You!”

“The very same,” he said. He pulled out a Sig Sauer and pointed it at Lea. “I was sent down to get Baumann, but instead I find you as free as a kite. How did you get away from him?”

“I burned him alive, and I’d do the same to you given half a chance.”

“Unfortunately I have at least double the IQ of poor Heinrich, and I don’t give out chances, half or full. Get moving.” Grobel waved the gun at the end of the corridor. “Herr Zaugg doesn’t like loose ends.”

Lea Donovan watched in horror as the elevator doors slid open to reveal a vast complex deep inside the mountain. Dozens of men and women were hurrying about, completing tasks in preparation for something big. Some were checking inventories and loading crates onto a monorail whose rail twisted way into a darkened tunnel. Others were examining what looked like an air-conditioning system on the rock wall at the back. They all wore black boiler suits with a white Z on the back.

“Bring the girl with us,” Zaugg said. He was holding in his hands Poseidon’s trident — heavy, gold, but smaller than she had imagined it would be.

Grobel acknowledged the command by pushing Lea out of the elevator with a hefty nudge in the small of her back, almost causing her to fall over. Lea turned and gave him a look that would freeze mercury, but she knew there was nothing she could do to help herself — yet.

At Grobel’s gunpoint, Lea followed Zaugg down the galvanized steel staircase which connected the elevators to the main loading bays. It was like any other industrial space, and reminded Lea of Victoria Bus Station with its smells of oil and machinery and the sound of heavy vehicles turning on the polished concrete floors.

“What the hell is this place?” she asked, simultaneously amazed and terrified.

“This is the future, Miss Donovan,” said Zaugg, proudly assessing his work and presenting it to Lea with a generous sweep of his hand. “This is the Ark. Built two thousand feet under the mountain and able to withstand a fifty megaton nuclear blast. This is the safest place on earth in the event of a catastrophe… Now, if you please…”

Zaugg pushed a button on the door of the monorail carriage and it swooshed silently open. “Ladies first.”

He tipped his head to one side and smirked grimly as Grobel pushed Lea into the carriage, keeping the muzzle of his Sig Sauer firmly aimed in her direction.

When Zaugg was safely inside, the monorail began to slide gently forward and a few moments later the bright lights of the loading bay were gone, replaced with the subdued underlighting of the freshly carved transit tunnel. Lea felt the temperature drop once again, and was sure they were traveling deeper down in to the mountain, as well as towards the center of it.

“You impressed me a great deal with the way you dealt with Baumann,” Zaugg said. “By the way, what happened to him?”

Grobel replied: “She electrocuted him in a puddle of Coche-Dury les Perrieres.”

Zaugg was unperturbed. “And what’s the damage?”

“He’s dead.”

“I meant to my wine.”

“Oh…”

“Anyway, Miss Donovan — where was I?” Ah yes! Of course — the future. You see, the trident has yet undiscovered powers, but our reading of the ancient texts is that it is a weapon of such awesome power it would have been quite remiss of me not to make preparations for its use, as I am sure you will agree.”

Lea was horrified. “You can’t possibly know the extent of its power, Zaugg. You would be insane to try and use it.”

Zaugg was placid. “As ancient megaweapons go, Poseidon’s trident is the mother of them all. It is true we are not aware of its true power — not yet — but I cannot risk my life’s work, or my destiny. This is why we built the Ark — to keep us safe while the trident — how shall I put it — cleans up the world. After that, the way is clear for me to enjoy my immortality.”

“But without the map, you have no idea where the source of eternal life is.”

“Touché once again, Miss Donovan, but I fail to see how using the trident could make the search for the map anything but far easier. Once your puny rescue force has been eradicated, I will show you the first use of the trident in centuries — perhaps millions of years!”

They stepped off the carriage and walked to Zaugg’s private office in the Ark, but no sooner had they arrived when a man rushed into the plush room.

“Sir, our forces are being overwhelmed! It’s time to evacuate!”

“What are you talking about?” Zaugg said contemptously.

“The enemy forces have taken control of the main compound. Your men are deserting you.”

Zaugg’s face collapsed into a mask of rage and bitterness.

“Just give up, Zaugg!” Lea pleaded.

“Never!”

“There’s no escape now.”

Zaugg laughed. “You think I would leave myself vulnerable to that possiblity?” He grabbed Lea by the arm and pulled her roughly across the room. On a bookshelf was a single statue of Poseidon. Zaugg pulled it forward and the entire shelf began to slide to the right.

“We’re going for a ride.”

He turned to Grobel, nervously waiting in the office and yelled more orders at him: “Initiate the self-destruct sequence.”