...to gloriously reveal the far end of the chasm and their goal.
"Holy s.h.i.t..." Big Ears gasped. s.h.i.t..." Big Ears gasped.
"Swear jar," Lily said instantly.
Standing there before them in all its splendour, towering above the waterway, lording over it, easily fifteen storeys tall and jutting out from the far facing rockwall, was a gigantic ancient fortress.
The steaming vents of the chasm gave the fortress a grim haunting look.
A super-solid square-shaped keep formed the core of the structure, with a giant gaping archway in its exact centre. This central section was flanked by two soaring defensive towers, high-spired pinnacles in the darkness. The style of these towers matched that of the guard tower that West had just pa.s.sed through-only these were taller, stretching all the way up from the water.
Stretching downward from the Great Arch in the centre of the keep was a wide guttered rampway that lanced all the way down to the waterway, ending at a flat stone jetty. At least forty metres in length, with stairs nestled in its centre, the rampway resembled the step-ramps on Hatshepsut"s mortuary temple near the Valley of the Kings.
Never finished and never used for its intended purpose-and long since concealed by an ingenious Egyptian architect-this was Hamilcar"s Refuge.
West s.n.a.t.c.hed his printout from his pouch, examined it: Just like on the ancient drawing, the chasm before him ended at a Y-junction, splitting into two diverging channels. The Refuge sat nestled in the V at the top of the Y, facing the long upright "stem".
Two more spire-like "sentry towers" sat on either side of the stem, facing the two towers of the Refuge itself.
As if all this weren"t colossal enough, the Refuge featured two more soaring aqueduct bridges to add to the broken one in the main chasm-200 feet high and made of many bricked arches.
These two new bridges spanned the Y-channels of the waterway, but unlike the one crossing the main chasm, they were whole and intact.
It was Zoe who noticed the rockwall behind the Refuge.
"It slopes backward backward," she said. "Like the cone of a-"
"Come on, we don"t have time," West urged them on.
The final stretch of the chasm featured a descending stairway followed by an ascending ascending ramp. The ramp slithered up the left-hand wall of the chasm, bending with every curve. Curiously, it bore a low upraised gutter on its outer edge, the purpose of which was not readily apparent. ramp. The ramp slithered up the left-hand wall of the chasm, bending with every curve. Curiously, it bore a low upraised gutter on its outer edge, the purpose of which was not readily apparent.
Of course, this stairwayramp combination was mirrored on Judah"s side of the chasm.
West and his team charged down their descending stairway, avoiding a couple of blasting steam vents on the way.
In the meantime, Judah"s team had just crossed their little gorge and arrived at their guard tower.
They started climbing around it.
The Ascending Ramp An unusually high stepping-stone separated the base of the descending stairway from the base of the ascending ramp. It jutted out from the wall about thirty feet above the waterway.
The guttered ascending ramp rose above West and his team, stretching upward for maybe 100 metres, ending at the left-hand sentry tower. It was maybe four feet wide, enough for single-file only, and a sheer drop to the right of it fell away to the swirling waters below.
The ramp featured two openings along its length: one two-thirds of the way up that looked like a doorway; the second all the way at the very top of the ramp, that looked more like a pipe pipe.
Ominously, a wispy thread of steam issued out from the pipe, dissipating as it spread into the chasm.
Wizard was enthralled. "Ooh, it"s a single-exit convergence trap..."
"A what?" Pooh Bear said.
West said, "He means it"s a race between us and whatever liquid comes out of that pipe. We have to get to the doorway before the liquid does. I a.s.sume the high stepping-stone triggers the contest."
"What kind of liquid?" Big Ears asked.
Wizard said, "I"ve seen crude-oil versions. Heated quicksand. Liquid tar..."
As Wizard spoke, West stole a glance back at Judah"s men.
They were climbing around the outside of their guard tower,high above the waterway, moving in a highly co-ordinated way- far faster than his team had.
The first CIEF man climbed over the balcony and disappeared inside the tower.
"No time to ponder the issue," he said. "Let"s take the challenge."
And with that he jumped onto the stepping-stone and bounced over onto the ascending ramp.
No sooner had his foot hit the stepping-stone than a blast of superhot volcanic mud vomited out from the pipe at the top of the ramp. Black and thick, the mud was so hot it bore thin streaks of golden-red magma in its oozing ma.s.s.
The ramp"s gutter instantly came into effect.
It funnelled the fast-oozing body of superheated mud down the ramp, towards West"s team!
"This is why we train every day," West said. "Run!"
Up the ramp the seven of them ran.
Down the ramp the red-hot mud flowed.
It was going to be close-the ramp was obviously constructed in favour of the mud.
But West and his team were fit, prepared. They bounded up the slope, heaving with every stride, and they came to the doorway set into the wall just as the mud did and they charged in through it one after the other, West shepherding them through, diving in himself just as the volcanic mud slid by him, pouring down the ramp, where it ultimately tipped into the waterway at the bottom, sending up a great hissing plume of steam.
Judah"s team, close behind West"s, handled their ramp in a different way.
They sent only one man up it: a specialist wearing a large silver canister on his back and holding a device that looked like a big-barrelled leafblower.
The specialist raced up the ramp and beat the flowing mud to his doorway, where, instead of disappearing inside, he fired his big "leafblower" at the ramp. at the ramp.
Only instead of hot air, the device he held spewed forth a billowing cloud of supercooled liquid nitrogen, which instantly turned the leading edge of the mudflow into a solid crust that acted like a dam of sorts, funnelling the rest of the oncoming mud off and over the outer edge of the ramp!
This allowed Judah and his team to just stride up their ramp in complete safety, heading for the sentry tower on their side-moving ever forward.
In stark contrast, West and his team arrived in their sentry tower breathless and on the run.
"Even if we get this Piece of the Capstone," Stretch said, "how can we possibly get it out? How can we get it past the Americans? And if it"s a large Piece, it"ll be nine feet square of near-solid gold-"
Pooh Bear scowled. "Always argue the negative, don"t you, Israeli. Sometimes I wonder why you even bothered to come on this mission."
"I came to keep an eye on all of you," Stretch retorted.
Wizard said, "If we can"t get get the Piece, we at least need to the Piece, we at least need to see see the Piece. Lily has to see the positive incantation carved into its upper side." the Piece. Lily has to see the positive incantation carved into its upper side."
West ignored them all.
He just peered out from the balcony of the sentry tower, down at the Great Arch of the Refuge.
He eyed the jetty at the bottom end of the guttered rampway stretching down from the Great Arch. The jetty stood at a point exactly halfway between the two sentry towers and it was covered by a small four-pillared marble gazebo. The vertical distance from West"s balcony to the little gazebo: maybe 50 metres.
"Big Ears. I need a flying fox to that gazebo."
"Got it."
Big Ears whipped out his M-16, loaded a grappling hook into its underslung grenade launcher, aimed and fired.
The hook whizzed out across the chasm, arcing high through the air, its rope wobbling behind it. Then it shot downward,toward the marble gazebo on the jetty, until-thwack!-the hook whiplashed around one of the gazebo"s pillars and took hold.
"Nice shot, brother," Zoe said, genuinely impressed.
Big Ears looped his end of the hook"s rope around a pillar in the sentry tower"s window and the rope went taut-creating a long steep zipline that stretched down and across the chasm, from the high sentry tower down to the low jetty.
"Lily," West said, "you"re with me from here. Grab on. We go first."
Lily leapt into West"s arms, wrapped her hands around his neck. West then slung a compact handlebar-like flying fox over the rope and pushed off- -and the two of them sailed out over the immense chasm, across the face of Hamilcar"s Refuge, tiny dots against the great ancient fortress- -before they slid to a perfect halt on the surface of the little jetty that lay before the dark looming structure.
"Okay, Zoe, come on down," West said into his radio.
Zoe whizzed down the rope on her own flying fox, landing deftly next to West and Lily.
"Wizard, you"re nex-" West said.
Bam!
Gunshot.
It echoed loudly across the great chasm.
West spun, saw one of Judah"s snipers aiming a long-barrelled Barrett rifle out from their sentry tower"s balcony ...and suddenly realised that he was no longer within the protective range of the Warbler.
But strangely no bullet-impact hit near him, Zoe or Lily.
And then the realisation hit West.
The sniper wasn"t aiming for them.
He was aiming at the- "d.a.m.n it, no..."
Bam!
Another shot.
Ping! Shwack!
The flying fox"s rope rope was severed right in its middle and went instantly slack, cut clean in two. It dropped, limp, into the water. was severed right in its middle and went instantly slack, cut clean in two. It dropped, limp, into the water.
And suddenly West, Zoe and Lily were out on the jetty, all on their own, completely separated from the rest of their team.
"No choice now," West said grimly. Then, into his radio: "Big Ears, Pooh Bear, Stretch. Give us some cover fire. Because in four seconds we"re gonna need it!"
Exactly four seconds later, right on cue, a withering barrage of gunfire blazed out from Judah"s sentry tower.
A wave of bullets hammered the marble gazebo where West, Zoe and Lily were taking cover.
Impact-sparks exploded all around them.
But then the reply came from West"s team, on their tower: roaring fire, aimed at the opposite sentry tower.
Bullets zinged back and forth across the main chasm, between the two towers.
The cover fire had its intended effect: it forced Judah"s men to cease firing briefly and thus gave West the opening he needed.
"Okay, now!" he yelled to Zoe and Lily.
Out of the gazebo they ran, up the wide guttered rampway that gave access to the fortress, tiny figures before the enormous ancient citadel.
They flew up the stairs and, to the sound of gunfire outside, disappeared inside the dark yawning entrance to Hamilcar Barca"s long-abandoned Refuge.
They entered a high-ceilinged many-pillared hall. The pillars ran in long sideways lines, so that the hall was exceedingly wide but not very deep.
It was absolutely beautiful-every column was ornately decorated, every ghost-like statue perfectly cut. It was also curiously Roman in its styling-the heavy-trading Carthaginians had been incredibly similar to their Roman rivals. Perhaps that was why they had been such bitter enemies over three b.l.o.o.d.y Punic Wars.
But this hall was long-deserted. Its floor lay bare, covered in a layer of grey ash.
It had also been modified by the Ptolemaic Egyptian engineers.