Instead he snatched one of the small prayer wheels from the rack — and swung it by its handle like a golf club, hitting the grenade and sending it flying towards the hall’s far end.
It exploded at the doors. Candles flew in all directions, shrapnel striking the prayer wheels like hailstones on a tin roof. The largest of them was torn from its mounts, toppling sideways and slamming down on the carpet with a deep ringing boom.
Eddie looked back. Their attacker reappeared at the doorway with his gun raised, only to glare at it in frustration as he pulled the trigger to no effect. The Englishman burst from cover and ran, Nina doing the same. ‘Count your shots, dickhead!’ Eddie yelled as the man hurriedly ejected the empty magazine and fumbled for a replacement.
Flames from the scattered candles were already consuming the wall hangings. Nina squeezed past the giant prayer wheel. She was almost at the shrapnel-scarred doors when a burning ceiling beam crashed down in front of her. Smoke and sparks sprayed her face as she jumped back. ‘They’re blocked!’
Eddie braved the rising flames to tug at the handles. The doors opened, but not nearly enough to fit through. He kicked at the obstruction. It barely moved.
He hurriedly retreated — and saw that not only had the mercenary at the other end of the hallway reloaded his AK, but the other man had joined him. ‘Down!’
They dropped behind the prayer wheel as more gunfire spat down the hall. The great drum juddered and rang as bullets from two rifles pounded it. They were powerful enough to pierce the metal, but not to go all the way through to the other side. Even so, Eddie flinched as a smashed round impacted by his head with a clang. ‘Jesus!’
Another length of flaming wood hit the floor. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’ Nina cried.
The gunfire paused as one of the mercenaries ran down the hallway towards them. ‘How?’ Eddie demanded. ‘If we come out from behind this thing, they’ll shoot—’ An idea came to him. ‘Okay, we don’t come out from behind this thing!’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, but he had already risen to a crouch. He put both hands against the prayer wheel and pushed.
Metal creaked, and the cylinder started to roll. ‘Help me!’
Nina shoved the phone into a coat pocket, then slapped her palms against the metal beside Eddie’s and dug her soles into the carpet. The prayer wheel picked up speed. They pushed harder—
The advancing mercenary opened fire again. More bullets pounded the cylinder, stitching lines around its circumference as it rolled towards him. ‘Come on, come on!’ Eddie yelled as his pace increased to a hunched jog. ‘Faster!’
‘I’m fastering!’ she snapped. The gunfire ceased. Eddie risked raising his head. The mercenary had burned through another magazine, clumsily changing it before looking back at his targets — and realising they were closing on him. He pulled back into a gap between two prayer wheels.
‘Stop!’ Eddie told Nina. She immediately halted and ducked. He kept going, sidestepping to one end of the rolling drum and pushing harder on that side. It changed course, angling towards the wall.
The mercenary poked his head out to see the great cylinder growling towards him. He fired again. Eddie dived flat to the carpet, letting the juggernaut’s momentum carry it onwards—
It struck the mount of one of the standing prayer wheels, knocking it over to pound down on the mercenary’s head like a sledgehammer. He fell to the floor — and the bullet-riddled cylinder rolled over him. The man’s scream was abruptly cut off by a horrible crack as his ribcage collapsed under the weight.
The big wheel kept on turning. It deflected off another stand to continue down the hall. The second man hastily retreated through the doorway as it thundered towards him—
Another crack, much louder — and the floor gave way, carpet tearing and planks splintering apart as the prayer wheel plunged through to the stone corridor below with an almighty clang. More candles went flying, tapestries now alight at both ends of the hallway.
‘Bloody hell, it’s Flat Stanley,’ Eddie said, glancing at the corpse as he stood. ‘Nina, come on! Down the hole!’ They ran to the ragged gap in the floor.
The second mercenary reappeared at the doorway—
Nina and Eddie leapt into the hole as bullets cracked above them.
They landed on crushed boxes eight feet below. The now-buckled prayer wheel had flattened more supplies before blocking a door at the passageway’s end.
Nina helped her husband up. ‘We can get out down there,’ she said, pointing back at the stairs they had descended earlier in the day.
‘If we can reach them!’ he replied, hearing footsteps above. He pushed Nina ahead of him into the narrow aisle between the stacked provisions as the merc fired down into the hole. Flour exploded from ruptured sacks behind them.
A thump told Eddie that the man had jumped down into the stone hallway. He toppled the stacks in his wake to block their attacker’s line of fire. ‘Down!’ he yelled as the Kalashnikov’s flat hammering started again.
Wood splintered, bullets tearing into boxes of canned food and sacks of dried rice. But none of the rounds made it through the makeshift blockade. The shooting stopped, the mercenary snarling in frustration as he clambered after them.
Loud cracks echoed from the blazing hall above as more wooden supports surrendered to the flames. Nina weaved down the claustrophobic aisle, finally reaching the stairwell — only to stop in alarm as she looked up it. ‘Oh, great!’ The fire had already spread beyond the prayer wheel hall, the stairs ablaze.
Eddie tried the door to the room containing the gold furnace. Locked — but there was no keyhole, so it had to be bolted from inside. He pounded on it. ‘Hey! Let us in!’
No reply, and the door remained firmly closed. Crashes came from the corridor as the mercenary kicked aside obstructions. ‘In here!’ said Nina, opening the neighbouring storeroom door. ‘There might be something we can—’
She gasped as she was driven back by a wave of heat. A fallen beam from the floor above had punched through the ceiling, setting the room ablaze. The mere act of opening the door had fanned the flames, streams of fire swirling through the air like miniature dragons. ‘Or maybe not!’
Eddie shielded his face as he looked into the smoky storeroom. Its contents were all related to the furnace: crucibles of various sizes, moulds, bags of sand… and numerous cylinders of propane. As he watched, the valve on one of them started to squeal in protest at the rising temperature, jetting out a thin stream of gas.
But he saw something else: a large waist-high metal chest, faded olive-drab paint covered with stencilled symbols. Chinese, a container for some sort of military supplies that had passed through various hands to end up here. He hurried to it and opened the lid. Cardboard cartons of what he guessed were metalworking consumables were inside, taking up about a quarter of the space…
‘Nina, get in!’ he shouted. ‘Quick!’
‘Are you crazy?’ she cried. ‘We’ll get cooked!’
‘It’s the only way!’ He strained to tip the chest on its side, spilling its contents across the floor. He was surprised to see that some rusted old rifle parts had been at the bottom, but had no time to wonder what they were doing in a monastery, instead shoving the case into a corner near the door.
Nina was about to voice another objection when the crash of falling boxes warned her that the mercenary had forced his way through the obstacle course. She darted into the storeroom. Eddie slammed the door as a bullet splintered the frame behind her. ‘Get in!’