The pilot took more evasive action, this time thundering to the left and pushing down on the collective. The chopper descended fast, and everyone clung to anything they could find to stay in their seats. The second RPG screeched past them with only meters to spare before detonating, this time even closer than before.
The pilot fought hard to keep the chopper in level flight as the shockwave blasted them through the air. When he had regained control, Caleb and Shafik shared a knowing glance and the decision was made to get the chopper out of here as fast as possible — and that meant getting the unit on the dam right now.
Caleb fixed his eyes on the team. “Everyone, get ready for a go.”
They were already wearing most of their kit, and helmets, but now they slid their visors down and put on double-leather palm rappelling gloves. Zara took the extra precaution of sliding a snub nose revolver in an ankle holster.
“You leave nothing to chance,” Caleb said.
“I worked plain clothes vice in LA, Cal,” she said.
“Enough said,” he replied with a smile.
The pilot had taken the chopper out of range of the RPGs as the team finalized their preparations for exiting the aircraft, but now he was turning the machine back into the line of fire to allow them to rappel into the battleground.
The helicopter swooped low and raced toward the dam. The colossal retaining wall approached them fast, looming out of the moonlight.
Kyle Cage shouldered the RPG launcher and pointed it at them, preparing to fire once again. Iveta Jansons and Molly Cruise ran to his side and watched the event like it was a reality TV show.
The pilot barked orders at his 2IC who then opened his window and started furiously firing on the Spiders with a submachine gun. Cage slipped the launcher off his shoulder and both he, Iveta and Molly made a break for the cover of the crane which regulated the dam’s mighty intake gates.
With the enemy temporarily subdued, the team checked their hookups and rappel seats and finally the rappel rings before testing the ropes. With the chopper swaying hard from side to side in another evasive manoeuvre, they finalized the prep by checking the anchor point connection to the inside of the helicopter.
Caleb swung open the door and the hot Egyptian night air blasted inside the cabin. He tossed his rope outside the chopper, ensuring it dropped over the outside of the portside skid, and with the wind buffeting him from every direction he swung his legs outside the chopper, flexed his knees and pushed himself outside.
The hot air washed over him as the father of two descended from the chopper. He was an old-hand at rappelling from buildings and helicopters, and as the rope slipped through both his brake hand and his guide hand, his main concern wasn’t the descent but the maniacs on the crest of the dam with the RPG launcher.
Going over ten feet per second now, he looked up and saw the rest of his team piling out the chopper and making their way down toward the top of the dam’s retaining wall. Glancing down, he saw the ground approaching fast as he lowered himself, but the chopper couldn’t hover there forever.
Just above the ground now, Caleb braked and released some of the tension on the rope, carefully controlling his rate of descent with his brake hand. Hitting the ground, he cleared the rope through the rappel ring and freed himself. The others hit the ground and did the same.
“We’re off rappel!” Caleb yelled, and the soldier in the chopper cut the ropes, allowing the pilot to turn and fly away into the night.
“All right,” Caleb said. “As we planned, Zara and Shafik plus two soldiers come with me to the hydropower generator plant and deactivate the bomb. Virgil, Ben and Don take Sharaf to the crest and take out Kyle, Iveta and Molly.”
The team split up, not knowing that one of them would be dead within minutes.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Kiya raised her gun but before she could fire, Eva threw a fistful of sand in her eyes, temporarily blinding her. The Bride cried out and took a step back, instinctively dropping her weapon in order to raise her hands to her eyes and rub the sand out.
Kranz also took a step back, his eyes swivelling down to Kiya’s gun on the sandy floor of the tomb.
Mason saw it too, and snatched it up, firing at the cultists seconds before launching himself into a forward roll and tumbling behind Cleopatra’s tomb. The other Raiders took cover as Mason fired again, this time on the fleeing figure of Schelto Kranz.
Striking him in the arm, Kranz released the Book of Thoth and clutched his wound as he staggered to the safety of the chamber at the top of the steps. Kiya was a step behind him, still struggling to see through her sand-streaked, red eyes.
“Tekin! Finish them! And retrieve the Book of Spells!”
Tekin ordered the soldiers to open fire, and they did so with a vengeance as they gradually advanced toward the book.
Returning fire on the soldiers, the Raiders cut down several and drove the rest to seek cover before any others were slaughtered.
“Fuck! They’ve got grenades!” Ella cried out.
“Things are getting desperate, Jed!” Milo said.
Eva shook her head in disbelief. “Whose frigging idea was this?”
Kiya and Tekin threw their grenades through the chamber and they rolled to a stop at the base of the pillars either side of the river.
“I’m not liking this one bit,” Ella said.
“Time to throw them back?” Milo called over.
Mason looked grim. “No chance.”
The detonations were ear-piercing, and achieved precisely what Kranz desired — the explosions had blasted enormous chunks of marble out of the supporting pillars and fatally weakened them.
Mason watched in horror as the damaged pillars began to buckle under the strain of supporting the chamber’s ceiling with so much of their strength now destroyed by the grenade blast.
“The chamber ceiling’s starting to crumble!” said Milo.
“It’s the weight of the aquifer,” Mason said. “And it’s coming down on top of us in about ten seconds!”
Eva pointed across the chamber. “The book!”
Mason looked up and saw Kiya sprinting for the Book of Spells.
“No way,” he said to himself, and broke cover. He scrambled across the tomb under a hail of bullets and falling ceiling plaster, determined to reach the book before Kiya.
Reaching it a few seconds before him, she snatched it up with a good fistful of sand on the side and ran back to cover under a barrage of cover fire.
Ella fired on her, forcing her back once again, but it was too late. They were out of rounds, and the Hidden Hand had pinned them down with their superior firepower.
“Damn it all!” Mason yelled.
“What the hell are we going to do now?” said Milo.
“He asks a good question,” Ella said. With the terror rising inside her, she tried to reload her weapon.
Eva watched Kranz as he ordered Kiya to bring him the ankh — the strange, jewel-encrusted artefact that had started everything back when they murdered Scala in the Vatican.
Ella saw it too. “What’s he doing now?”
“Not flash tuning his Aventador, that’s for sure,” Milo said.
Kranz held the book in his hands. “You failed, Mason! I have it! The Gods have given it to me at last!” He placed the ankh in the hole in the cover and they all heard a click. The front cover popped open, and Kranz’s eyes started to widen as he gently lifted the heavy cover and looked inside the Book of Spells.
The Dutch aristocrat began to read, quietly at first. As his confidence grew, he repeated the words louder and faster until his trembling voice reached fever pitch and the strange mantras tumbled from his mouth like birds escaping a cage.