But the metal figure was not the most immediate danger. The mercenary had grabbed the Buddha as the tower went over, and now he let go, jumping down to land in front of Eddie. A kick caught the Englishman in the side as he tried to stand. The Nepali screamed at him, oblivious to the perils around him in his vengeance-fuelled rage.
Eddie scrambled out from under the staircase, only to take another blow to his stomach that sent him slithering downhill. The mercenary snatched a knife from his belt and bore down on his winded target—
Stone exploded, the statue finally breaking loose and dropping with a metallic boom.
It rolled like a boulder, rapidly picking up speed and smashing straight through the wooden staircase. The mercenary whirled — and was mown down by the laughing holy man.
Eddie dived aside as the golden figure tumbled at him, the protruding hand delivering an agonising karate chop to his shin as it passed. Then it was gone, demolishing another leg of the stairs as it continued towards the tower’s roof.
‘Nina!’ he roared. ‘Incoming Buddha!’
Nina had been thrown across the tower when it fell, hitting the wall hard. Debris bombarded her. The satphone flew from her pocket and skittered away.
Eddie’s shout gave warning that something else was coming towards her. Half blinded by swirling snow, she looked up — to see the Buddha burst through the staircase like the Kool-Aid Man, his smile now anything but reassuring.
She shrieked, flinging herself out of its path. The statue thundered by, obliterating another section of stairs before slamming to a halt against the thick beams supporting the topmost floor.
Nina gawped at the golden figure, then heard her husband call her name. She turned and saw him half climbing, half sliding down the wall. ‘You didn’t get Buddha’d, did you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she replied, relieved. ‘But I dropped the phone! I’ve got to get it!’ She started through the whirling blizzard towards the roof before he had time to object.
Object he still did, though. ‘You remember what’s at the bottom of this hill, don’t you? A fucking great cliff!’
Axelos and his companion jumped aboard the helicopter, but despite Collins jamming the throttle to full power, the aircraft’s rotors still had not reached takeoff speed. The Greek stared in horror at the overturned building rumbling towards them like a torpedo. ‘Go!’ he screamed. ‘Go, go! Get us up!’
The pilot’s gaze flicked between his instruments and the rapidly approaching tower. ‘What do you think I’m trying to do?’ he yelled back, regarding one dial intently as its needle crept towards a particular mark. ‘Come on, baby, come on… Yeah!’
He brought up the collective control lever. The AW169 rocked, slithering backwards down the hill for a few feet before finally leaving the ground. The loss of weight from its much-reduced passenger complement was more than counteracted by the added bulk of the Crucible, the aircraft struggling to gain height.
The tower rushed towards it, trailing lines of flapping prayer flags. Axelos grabbed the door handle, about to dive out. ‘It’s going to hit—’
The pilot jammed the cyclic stick hard over to the left. The helicopter rolled sideways — and the tower hurtled past, one corner of its pagoda-like roof whipping between the aircraft’s wheels. Flags lashed the fuselage, ripping the plastic sheeting.
Breathless, Axelos spun in his seat to watch the building plough towards the precipice.
Nina squinted into the rush of snow as she reached the Buddha. The phone was wedged against the statue. ‘Got it!’ she cried.
Eddie pushed past to enter the topmost room. The doorway that had led to the path to the Midas Cave was now above them, and the door had broken loose. He stood under the opening. ‘Here! I’ll help you up.’ He braced himself and boosted Nina upwards. She grabbed the door frame and struggled through.
The whirlwind of snow lessened as she clambered on to the tower’s upper face. The helicopter was pulling away to one side, but she gave it barely an instant’s notice. The terrifying view ahead completely dominated her attention. The cliff sliced across the snowfield before them, the drop into oblivion beyond only seconds away.
Eddie dragged himself up behind her. ‘Buddharation and fuckery!’ he gasped. At the speed they were going, if they jumped from the tower’s side they would keep tumbling downhill and go over the edge before they could stop themselves.
They had to counter some of that speed. He grabbed Nina’s hand. ‘Run!’ he yelled, pulling her with him back up the tower’s length.
She tried to protest, but the only sound she could manage was a panicked scream as they leapt into the maelstrom of churning snow in the building’s wake—
The whiteout consumed them. Pain overpowered their remaining senses as they hit the ground and somersaulted through the snow, coming to a stop on the very lip of the precipice.
Silence suddenly fell as the tower shot over the edge. The only noise they registered for a couple of seconds was their own panicked breathing… then came an almighty bang from below. The sound echoed off the surrounding mountains, reverberating for several seconds before fading.
The haze of snow drifted away in the wind. The couple looked at each other. ‘Are you okay?’ they both asked simultaneously. Eddie let out an exhausted laugh. ‘Yeah, I’m all right,’ he said. ‘You?’
‘I don’t think I’m any worse than before I jumped off the tower,’ Nina replied, panting. ‘Compared to how I felt this morning, though…’
He chuckled, then peered over the edge. The tower’s remains were strewn across the valley floor, a small mushroom cloud of pulverised stonework rising from the impact site. ‘That was too bloody close,’ he said, helping her to her feet—
The helicopter’s roar made them both turn in alarm.
The AW169 had levelled out, wheeling about to head up the valley. It passed a hundred feet away, close enough to make out Axelos in the co-pilot’s seat. The Greek stared down at them. Eddie glared back, adding a pair of middle fingers to his disapproval.
For a moment, Nina thought the mercenary leader might return to finish the job, but then Axelos looked away. The helicopter retreated into the distance, a yellow logo revealed through torn plastic sheeting flapping on its flank. ‘They got the Crucible,’ she said, dismayed.
‘Only one of ’em,’ Eddie reminded her. ‘But to be honest, I’d be fine if they’d got both. Or the other one’d gone over the cliff with that tower.’
‘So those monks would have died for nothing?’
He frowned at the implied criticism. ‘We almost died too. So did Jayesh. And for what?’
Nina looked past the burning monastery, picking out the pathway along the cliff. ‘Those guys knew what the Crucible is, and what it does. Which means they knew what the Midas Cave is — that it’s a natural nuclear reactor.’ She turned to watch the disappearing helicopter. ‘The fact that they took the Crucible and didn’t care about the cave means they’ve got some other way to make it do what it does. Something nuclear.’ She faced her husband again. ‘Eddie, this is a security issue. An ancient artefact — an Atlantean artefact — that uses nuclear power to turn other elements into gold? That whoever stole it is willing to kill for? We’ve got to tell the IHA.’
His expression remained stony. ‘We don’t work for them any more.’
‘But they’re already involved. I involved them; I called in favours to get here. And this kind of thing is their department. It’s what the IHA was set up to do.’ She held up the satellite phone. To her relief, it seemed undamaged.