“Thanks.” Dracup smiled wryly. “But someone was talking to me—”
“Daddy, you are thin.” Natasha assessed him with the uninhibited assurance of her years. “And your face is dirty.”
Dracup fought back tears. He reached out his hand. “Come here. Just give me a hug.” He cupped Natasha’s face in his hands. She appeared unharmed, tranquil.
“By the way,” Moran said, “have you noticed?”
“What?”
Moran pointed. “Your arm. Have you checked it recently?”
Dracup pulled up his shirtsleeve to reveal the rough bandage Farrell had applied. With a shock he realised he felt no pain. More than that — he had forgotten his injury. His fingers probed under the dressing. They reappeared dry. No blood. He unravelled the gauze. The skin was unbroken.
“Someone’s on our side.” Moran took a deep breath. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
Dracup took Natasha’s hand and they walked away, retracing their steps. He wondered when the elation would kick in, but found that he was consumed by other, unbidden feelings; he dared not glance back. He could feel the tree’s energy seducing him, as if he were straining against the insistent tug of some invisible, elastic connection. As he made one foot follow the other he thought about the voice. He hadn’t imagined it. But if it wasn’t Moran’s…
Then whose was it?
Chapter 42
Potzner crouched low. He had heard something. Up ahead the leading marine hissed a warning. Behind him Cruickshank and Rutter’s nervous banter had stopped, replaced by the sound of adrenaline-primed heavy breathing. The signal came to move on. The stairwell was firm under Potzner’s feet, his steps confident. He felt unstoppable.
Suddenly there was nothing under his feet. The marines in front simply fell into the void, like stones dropped into a well. Potzner’s arms shot out for purchase, catching the edge of the stairwell and finding some metal projection, part of the trap’s machinery. He was a heavy man and the odds were against his being able to support his weight. He felt his back judder with the shock, a stinging pain in his bicep. For a moment he swung precariously above the blackness, then with gritted teeth he clawed at the crumbling stonework until he felt Cruickshank’s farmhand grip on his wrist. It took all the marine’s muscle to pull him up. Rutter added his energy to the final heave and then Potzner was lying across the staircase, the taste of blood in his mouth where his teeth had clamped against his tongue during the fall.
The sprung section had swung back into place by the time he had recovered sufficiently to get to his feet. He examined the stonework. They could pass if they clung to the side wall and moved slowly. He massaged his arm. Five men gone. Someone was going to pay.
By the waterfall Moran signalled caution. Behind the screen of water there was movement. And light. They exchanged looks. Moran shrugged and continued his appraisal of the area surrounding the falls. Every few seconds Dracup’s hand wandered unconsciously to the spot where the bullet had passed across his skin. What had happened at the tree? Who had spoken? He felt Alpha’s weight pulling at his belt and moved his hand down to ease the burden. The artefact had cooled by the time he had recovered it, but it was becoming harder to carry, as if its internal mass was somehow increasing without any visible change. And another problem gnawed at his mind: Farrell and Sara had disappeared.
Moran whistled softly. Dracup looked up. “If I’m not mistaken,” Moran grinned, “those are US marines.”
“Yes, but do we want US marines?” Dracup hissed in response.
“An armed escort? Sounds like a good idea to me.”
Dracup weighed the options. Moran was right. They needed help. But could he trust Potzner? The troops had no doubt been briefed. But what was their brief?
Moran was gesticulating impatiently. He had to take the risk. Dracup gave the thumbs up and felt a cautious relief as Moran, hands extended upward, stepped into the marines’ field of vision and stayed alive.
Moran signalled from the water’s edge. Dracup broke cover, negotiating the slippery stones. They couldn’t avoid a soaking from the spray, but Natasha seemed to enjoy it. She giggled and pushed her damp hair back from her forehead. The sound was a tonic to Dracup’s ears.
“You’ll be the Professor, I’d guess,” said the first marine, a fresh-faced boy of around twenty.
Dracup nodded. The soldier was dressed in standard desert combats, the light from his assault rifle bathing the trio in an intense beam.
“I’m Jackson, and this is my buddy, Cannon.” He cocked his head towards an untidy ginger-haired marine. “We have orders to see you clear of this place.”
Dracup’s fears resurfaced. He didn’t want clear of this place. He wanted Kadesh. Face to face. Answers. Closure.
“We have to get going,” Jackson told them. “The place is crawling with unfriendlies. If you would, please.” He barrelled his light along Dracup’s earlier route. The beam picked out the perfectly conjoined stonework that formed the passage’s ceiling, the enduring handiwork of Nebuchadnezzar’s master builders.
Cannon echoed the sentiment. “You heard the man. Let’s move out, folks.”
Dracup took Natasha’s hand and they fell into step behind the probing glare of Jackson’s light. How could he find Kadesh in this warren? Cannon’s footsteps trudged behind them, his light casting their shadows onto the path ahead.
“This is the lowest level,” Jackson called back. “We’ve got a way to go, so keep up.”
“There are seven levels,” Moran said, fumbling with his map.
Dracup moved in for a closer look. The map was a cutaway, exposing the innards of the ziggurat as if a giant knife had sheared through its centre. “Where did this come from?”
Moran shot him a strange smile. “What was it you said? ‘Hasn’t the imagination to be unstable’?”
Dracup was stunned. “Malcolm? What in the name —?”
He was interrupted by an impatient shout from Jackson. “C’mon now, let’s pick it up. Everyone okay back there?”
“Okay,” Cannon called. The passage began to rise under their feet. A faint susuration could now be heard; it filled the space with a primal, earthy urgency. Dracup heard Cannon muttering, “What the hell is that?”
“It’s just the singing, don’t worry. We’re near the chamber of worship on this level. I like it. Ruth taught me,” Natasha said. An instant later Dracup caught his breath as Natasha’s high treble joined in with the melody, adding her own harmony to the weird, ambient soundscape.
“Hold up,” Jackson called back. Dracup pressed his hand to Natasha’s shoulder and the girl fell silent. They had reached a junction and Dracup suddenly understood Jackson’s warning: footsteps, moving fast — their way.
Jackson consulted his map and signalled right. They fled down the new passage, which stretched ahead in a slow, upward gradient. Dracup glanced to one side. Moran had drawn his pistol, checking the number of rounds as he ran. Jackson broke right, then doused his light. They were in a subsidiary corridor of some sort, narrower than the main thoroughfare but not, as Dracup had feared, a dead end.
Natasha spoke in his ear. “My room is right up at the end.” She pulled at his sleeve. “Come and see. I know where we are.”
“You do? Can we get out this way — further up?” he whispered to his daughter.
“Wait up,” Jackson said. “I don’t want to go in any deeper. This place is a warren. We stay here, then we get back on the exit route.” He jerked a thumb towards the passage, a warning glint in his eyes. “Now quiet.”