He managed a pained smile, then heard another shout from above. ‘Nina!’ cried Berkeley. He had reached Thor’s Hammer. ‘I’ve got it, I’ve got the—’
Another burst of gunfire echoed through the chamber. Not from Nina’s AK-12, but a SIG.
‘Logan!’ she cried, seeing her former colleague flinch, then collapse. Lines of dark red trickled down Berkeley’s coat from the three scorched bullet holes across his chest.
35
Orbach lowered his rifle. ‘Good shot,’ Lock told him. ‘Now keep moving.’ He pointed to a nearby crystal span that angled upwards. ‘That way.’
Nina was still above the pair. She brought her Kalashnikov around, but from her current position couldn’t see them through the serpentine columns. ‘Oh my God, Logan!’ She looked back at the other archaeologist. ‘Logan, can you hear me?’
He was still for a moment, then slowly raised his head. ‘Nina, I…’ he gasped, blood oozing from the side of his mouth. ‘I’m sorry, I… I messed up. But at least… I can do this.’
With his dying breath, he stretched out a trembling arm — and pushed the steel canister over the edge.
The heavy container plunged down the shaft—
It hit a damaged crystal lancing across the cavern about ten feet above Eddie. Glassy splinters showered over him, but the metal vessel didn’t fall any further, wedged into the broken surface.
‘Eddie!’ Nina shouted from high above. ‘It’s Thor’s Hammer — get it to the eitr!’
He searched for a way to reach it. A pillar rose at an angle close to the canister. Weaving around the pools of eitr bubbling up through the rubble, he headed towards it.
Lock had also seen Thor’s Hammer fall. ‘Dammit!’ he snarled, pausing midway through his climb to another ascending spar. ‘Orbach, don’t let him reach that cylinder! Take him out!’
Orbach stopped and looked down the shaft, finding that Eddie was partially obscured behind a damaged spire. He put down the eitr, propping the sealed container against a stubby spike jutting from the span beneath his feet and backing up to find a clear line of fire.
He only had to move a couple of metres to get an unobstructed view. The SIG locked on to its target…
The crunch and scrabble of running footsteps came from one side, above him.
Orbach looked up — as Kagan leapt from a higher crossing to slam down beside the eitr canister, AK-12 in one hand.
The mercenary whirled—
Kagan was quicker.
The Kalashnikov’s thudding bark echoed through the shaft, a burst of bullets stitching bloody rents across Orbach’s torso. The spasming American fell over the edge back into the cavern below. The point of a stalagmite was waiting for him, the man’s agonised scream cut short as he was impaled on the ragged spike.
The Russian turned, drawing back one foot to kick the eitr into the pit below—
A single gunshot came from behind him.
Kagan let out a startled gasp, shock blotting out the pain of the bullet that had just ripped into his back. The AK fell from his hands and dropped down the shaft. He tried to complete his movement, to send the eitr over the edge… but his body would not cooperate. His knees buckled, and he slumped across the top of the spar, legs hanging over one side. The canister was just out of reach, and the mere act of reaching for it shifted his balance, the weight of his lower body slowly dragging him over the edge.
Lock jumped back down and advanced on him, faint wisps of smoke still streaming from the barrel of his handgun. ‘You made the same mistake Chase did in ’Nam, my friend,’ he said smugly. ‘The guy giving the orders — you thought he never gets his hands dirty, huh? Afraid not.’ He reached the fallen Russian. ‘And you want to know something else, Kagan? Back in Vietnam, you went to all that trouble to find out what you could about the eitr from that girl — but there was nothing to learn!’
Kagan forced out words, tasting blood. ‘What… do you mean?’
‘The BSA had already secretly taken samples from her before she even left Germany, but the results were worthless. We didn’t find out anything about the nature of the eitr from her… but we used Slavin to make you think that you could. She was just a decoy, a way for us to learn about your lines of research.’ Lock leaned closer, gloating. ‘You exposed Unit 201 for nothing! I just wanted you to know before you died — payback for all the trouble you caused me in Washington, you bastard.’
And with that, he raised his boot to Kagan’s head, about to shove him over the edge—
‘No!’ Nina cried. She had moved across the shaft to get line of sight on Lock below, emerging from cover by one of the light globes. The surprised American raised his gun, but Nina had already lined up her AK-12…
She fired — just as Lock jinked sideways. The single bullet shredded his left sleeve, a small puff of blood amongst the torn material. Lock barked in pain, but the wound was only superficial.
And the charging handle of Nina’s gun had locked back with a sharp clack. She had used most of the AK’s ammunition fighting the wolves, and now the rifle was empty.
Lock recovered from the shock of his injury. He took aim at her, a tight smile of triumph twisting his face—
Nina kicked the light globe like an oversized football, sending it sailing across the gap at Lock.
He fired. The bullet punctured the inflated latex sphere, but cracked against the cluster of LEDs and batteries at its heart rather than continuing through. Before he could react, the deflating globe hit him and knocked him back.
He gasped in sudden fear as he lost his footing — and fell.
The drop was only eight feet, on to a narrower span below. He clawed desperately for grip to save himself from another, deadly plunge, but was forced to let go of his gun. The weapon spun down the shaft and vanished into the glutinous void.
Kagan’s slide continued inexorably, the Russian’s grip faltering. ‘Grigory!’ Nina called, scurrying to a position where she could jump to reach him. ‘Hang on, I’m coming!’
‘No…’ Kagan growled. His waist was now over the side, only his hold on the edge of the crystal keeping him from falling. ‘I am… gone. But so is… the eitr!’
‘Don’t!’ shouted Nina, but too late.
Kagan dug the nails of his left hand into the scabrous surface and lashed with his right at the container of eitr. His fingers just caught it, jarring it loose from where it had been wedged — but the movement cost him his life. He slipped and plummeted without a sound, hitting the eitr lake with a flat splash and vanishing for ever beneath the oily liquid.
The canister wobbled… then tipped over the edge—
Its strap caught on the crystal spike.
Nina and Lock were both frozen for a moment, staring at the steel cylinder as it swung above the cavern — then they burst into motion, Lock dragging himself up to reach it from below as Nina dropped the empty AK-12 and leapt across to the span from which Kagan had fallen.
Eddie reached the canister containing Thor’s Hammer. He had heard the gunshots from above and was filled with fear for his wife, but he could do nothing to help her. Instead, he picked up the heavy steel container and jumped back down to the unstable island of rubble, debris crunching and shifting beneath his feet.
There was a handgrip set into a recess in the lid. Holding the cylinder as steady as he could, he clenched his fist around it and twisted. A moment of worry as it refused to move, then he felt the seal give as he applied more force. Still unscrewing the lid, he made his way to the broken shoreline.
At first he thought that the level of the eitr had risen, but then he realised that the smashed crystal remnants on which he was standing were sinking into the ooze. Black boils swelled all around him, threatening to burst. ‘Let’s fucking get this over with,’ he muttered, coughing as the acrid vapour rising from the lake stung his nose and throat.