The Master ignores him. ‘Sweep the area one more time. Once more and then we are finished.’ An expression of defeat washes over his face. ‘Grus, you know what must be done, don’t you?’
He nods. He understands. Understands perfectly.
184
For a few seconds neither of them move. Frozen in the suffocating dark. They can see nothing. They hear nothing in the hot, still air. Only their own stilted breathing. The scrape of their feet on the stone.
Caitlyn starts to panic. ‘We’re going to suffocate. Oh Jesus, no!’
‘Stay calm.’ Gideon climbs up several notches in the stone well. ‘Caitlyn, stop it.’ He reaches out, finds her foot with his hand. Touches her. Makes contact. The shaft is too narrow for him to get any closer. ‘Please calm down. We have to think our way out of this.’
She shuts her eyes. Tries to squeeze out the stinking blackness of the shaft with her inner blackness. She breathes in slowly through her nose. Out slowly through her mouth.
Gideon hears the deep rhythm building above him. He waits, then asks, ‘What happened? Did you pull something, stand on anything?’
‘I stood on something.’ She sounds tearful. ‘I’m sorry. It’s near my knee now. It was some kind of ridge that stuck out.’
It figures.
He knows ancient tombs were often rigged with devices to stop thieves plundering them. He pulls himself up a little further and feels for the ridge. The stone is smooth. Innocuous in size and shape. It’s a strategically placed block counterbalanced by another lodged deeper in the structure. Any sizeable pressure on it, such as a person, shifts the counter weight, which in turn slides the stone disc above across the mouth of the shaft. Simple. Simple and deadly.
‘We’re trapped, aren’t we?’ She is trying to sound calm but shaking with dread.
‘There’s no going back, that’s for sure.’ Gideon doesn’t give her time to dwell on it. ‘We need to continue downwards. Don’t tread on anything else that sticks out. If you feel another of those trigger ledges, tell me. Okay?’
She takes another deep and calming breath. ‘Okay.’
She feels and hears him moving away from her. Finds it hard now to hold on. Knows the strength of her limbs is giving out. She’s losing the ability to grip securely.
‘Stop. Stop!’ His cry halts her in her tracks.
‘I’ve found another one.’
He runs his toe across it. There’s no doubt that it is a trigger ledge. But what exactly does it trigger? An opening? Or another seal? Perhaps one that will trap them in the shaft for eternity.
Or is it just a decoy?
Should they ignore it and press on? But then again, doing nothing could prove fatal.
Gideon’s mind spins. The very bottom of the shaft may also be a trigger plate. It’s not impossible that standing on it could unleash an avalanche of hidden sand, lime and chalk, or even rocks.
They could be buried alive.
185
‘Nothing,’ says Grus. ‘They are nowhere to be found.’
The Master sits with his wounded leg elevated. ‘You are sure?’
Grus nods. ‘We have swept it systematically, chamber by chamber, passageway by passageway.’
‘Then they are gone,’ says the Master. ‘That can be the only conclusion. They must have somehow slipped past the Lookers on the surface.’
Neither of them can see how that can possibly be, but there is no other logical conclusion. Grus is reluctant to say what’s on his mind, but he has to. ‘We are out of time to complete the ritual. We must give instructions to disperse the Cleansers, the Bearers, the Lookers. Our foreign brothers must be alerted. All precautions have to be taken.’
The Master struggles painfully to his feet. ‘You are right. We have failed the Sacreds.’ He corrects himself. ‘I have failed them. Failed you all.’
Grus knows there is no time for reassurances, forgiveness or sentimentality. ‘Do I have your permission to cancel all other activity and revert to the back-up protocol?’
‘You do.’ He opens his arms to his friend and they embrace. ‘Make sure the Sanctuary is cleared within the next ten minutes. I will attend the Sacreds, then use the passageway.’
Grus nods. ‘It is the only way.’
186
‘What’s happening?’ shouts Caitlyn. ‘What are you going to do?’
Gideon doesn’t know.
His heart is beating way too fast.
‘Just taking a breather,’ he lies as he slides his toes away from the trigger ledge. He finds another foothold and relaxes a little. ‘Be careful coming down, there’s another one of those traps.’
‘Okay.’ Her fingers slip. She leans back against the side of the shaft and jams herself against the walls before she falls. All that time immured inside the Sanctuary at last has some use.
‘You all right?’
‘Lost my grip.’ She feels the walls and is relieved to find another finger hold. ‘I’m fine now. It’s all right. Go on.’
He can’t.
Gideon has reached the bottom of the shaft. He pulls his foot back.
Uncertainty hits him again. He tries to calculate how far down they have climbed. At least five times his height, that’s five times 1.8 metres. They’re a good nine metres down. From what he can remember, the centrepiece was about five metres high, so they are already well below the floor level of the crypt.
The thought gives him comfort. Enough for him to put one foot down and then the other.
Nothing happens.
It’s safe.
But there is no way out that he can see.
There is a noise above him. Suddenly, he feels a crushing blow, a great weight thudding into his shoulder, driving him down the thin shaft, making his legs give way. It’s Caitlyn. She’s fallen on him.
The ground beneath him has opened up. The extra, sudden weight has triggered another trap. The stone floor slab tilts and falls away, and they slide entwined down the slope, sandpapered by the rough surface of the rock. For a few heart-stopping seconds they drop into nothing. Then the slope bottoms out, they slow, then stop.
They’re still alive. Alive and excited. There can only be one reason for the final drop. It is a passageway to the outer world. Gideon suddenly understands the centrepiece. It was designed to be filled with the spirits of the ancients. When the shaft was full enough with the weight of the spiritually reborn, it would trigger the opening to a final passageway that would allow them to exit.
Caitlyn groans. Tries to move. Gideon listens to her heavy breathing. He can tell that she’s exhausted. He puts an arm across her. ‘Rest a minute. We’re going to be all right now.’
187
The Apache crew scrambles within five minutes of the call from base.
Tommy Milner had been beginning to think the night time operation wasn’t going to happen. It seldom does. A routine seek and destroy, something he could do in his sleep. The four rotors lift them high into the black night sky and out across the range. In the distance they see the lights of vehicles clearing the range. They’d been told there’d been some secret recon done out there while they had been stood down.
Milner’s radio crackles into life. ‘Range now cleared for manoeuvres. Confirm when you have target in sight, Apache One.’
‘Affirmative base, we’re airborne and beginning our approach.’
‘System lock,’ announces Charlie Golding, the Longbow fire control radar at his fingertips. ‘Within range and ready for fire command. Over.’