“Nemean Lion,” Rita said while pondering. “He clubbed it and strangled it in its cave.”
“Right, then we need this one,” Nina said, moving the dial to place the stone with the club on it right above the pictograph of the lion.” After doing so, the two women looked anxiously at one another before Nina pressed on the loose stone of the outer dial to confirm the first labor.
Everyone held their breath, waiting to see what would happen. A clear click startled them, but nothing catastrophic happened, so they proceeded. The stone Nina had pressed down remained so, implying that the choice was acceptable. “Now remember,” Rita said, “the Hydra is the second labor, so don’t be fooled with the next symbol.”
“Next one,” Nina said, “is the Ceryneian Hind, I think. Look, Rita. A dog, right?”
“That looks correct,” the archaeologist affirmed. “Now look for a symbol of a king outside his fortress. Hercules promised the Hind to the king only if he came outside to collect it. And then he accidentally freed it during the exchange, remember?”
Nina turned the dial with a crown next to a castle wall and pressed it down.
Click!
“Hell yes!” Nina grinned. Purdue was as nervous as the ladies in his company, while Sam had fetched his waterproof camera to record the interesting safe-cracking developments.
“Dial this one,” Rita suggested. “The next labor is the Cretan Bull.”
Nina frowned. “No, not this one. The next one should be the Boar, shouldn't it?”
“No, the bull. Look at the picture. It’s the bull,” Rita insisted.
“I concur that it looks like a bull, but those aren't horns. They’re ears. It’s the Boar first, I think,” Nina argued.
Rita was losing her patience with the historian. Besides, as an archaeologist she would obviously know better than a historian would. Without any more argument Rita Medley placed the symbol of a man strangling a beast over what Nina knew to be the Boar, not the bull. When Medley pushed the stone down, a host of snakes fell from one of the chamber crevices, landing on all those gathered in front of the wall. Scattering in all directions, they fled from the large snakes in a clamor of fright.
It took over ten minutes to wait for the reptiles to disperse without harming anyone. Rita said nothing, but she knew that Nina had been correct about the Erymanthian Boar being the next labor. She allowed Nina to shift the dial to the symbol of a snowflake.
“Why a snowflake?” Purdue asked.
“Hercules had to corral the boar into the thick snow to catch it,” Nina explained.
Click!
As the women continued unlocking the Vault of Hercules, a battered Guido Bruno was biding his time from a sanctuary in the dark. With every click that sounded through the cave he grew more excited about what was happening. Sure, he took a beating and would probably have to kill his wife before the next dawn, but it was all worth it.
He crept toward where Valdi was supposed to be waiting for the Vault to open, one level up inside a cavern that led nowhere, the perfect place for a temporary vantage. Guido Bruno made sure that he wasn’t being watched or followed as he slipped between two protruding formations, an optical illusion much like the wall inside the mountain in Ethiopia that Purdue had escaped from. There, via the very slender tear in the rock, he made his way up the slightly angular ramp to where the wooden coffins were resting.
“Valdi,” he whispered. “Valdi, where are you?”
“Here,” the low slur answered from Guido's left. Slumped over, the large killer sat waiting, watching the whole unlocking ceremony from the hole over the chamber.
“The Vault of Hercules is about to be opened,” Guido smiled, patting his lapdog on the back. “Are the capacitors in good condition?”
“As you ordered,” Valdi muttered. “What a waste. If they survive, do I get the spoils?”
“They will not die, Valdi. They are older than the infant the Black Sun's men used seventy odd years ago, and there are seven of them to share the charge. Once we have them lined up, it should take no more than an hour to charge them,” Guido mused.
“What about the others? I don't like the men,” the big criminal complained.
“The moment that Vault opens, we whack 'em, of course. See? They're down to the last pairing. Thank fuck my wife's obsession finally pays off, hey?” Guido chuckled. “Now we just wait. After the last key is secured, we wait to see what it looks like before I call in the dogs. Once the party is extinguished…”
“Apart from the black-eyed beauty you promised me,” Valdi interrupted.
“Yes, apart from her,” Guido sighed. “Then we can take our time reining in the power of the Vault.” He leered at Nina down in the water, her full lips and dark eyes prominent now that her black hair was wet and unkempt. She was beautiful, but he hated her with a passion, especially for humiliating him earlier. Guido wished he could kill her for it.
Click!
Curious, he turned to Valdi, “Are you sure you’re not in necrophilia?”
Chapter 32
As the last key clicked into place, Sam was confronted with a bout of reality. Having been tracked by the Archaeological Crimes Unit all this time meant that they were probably already in the area, waiting to arrest Purdue. Too many factors had influenced his decision, and too many of those were based on an erratic emotional upset, he realized. But the time for decisions and pondering upon the moral implications had now run out.
“Sam!” Purdue called, grinning widely as he floated in the clear water. “Are you getting this?”
“Aye,” Sam smiled crookedly as he lifted the lens of his waterproof camera. A deep rumble ensued from the wall where the keys had just been latched in sequence, and the rest of the party swam backwards to put some distance between them and whatever was going to present itself. They were all excited about discovering the arcane legend, but the peril was very real in not knowing what was behind the wall. And since the previous expedition had not survived, it was wise to keep at a safe distance for now.
Nina too, had it in the back of her head that Purdue would soon be on the run. He couldn’t return to Wrichtishousis because it was the first place the authorities would search for him. She’d spent much time at night and during the travel time contemplating his fate. She knew he was resourceful and wealthy enough to elude his pursuers successfully for quite some time. And even though she done her part with warning him about what Charles had told her, she still felt concerned about what would happen to him.
Her attention was called away from Purdue's situation by the opening of the Vault. The high wall began to sink, slowly swallowed by the lake without more than a slight disturbance in the surface of the water. The entire surface shivered in tiny ripples as the massive sheet of marble and rock descended, to the speechless awe of all who watched. Nina, Purdue, Rita, and Sam smiled victoriously at one another, but John Arthur Armstrong was not inclined to delight in what was happening.
Tears filled his eyes for the first time in decades as the suppressed memories flashed back in his head about the holiday he’d spent with his aunt. At once the darting reminiscence of his childhood overwhelmed him, that he really had been inside the Vault of Hercules as a twelve-year-old boy. Here he had to finally face how she’d really died, or else his new acquaintances would have to suffer the same fate. Twitching and wincing, John yelped as he recalled looking in his aunt's eyes as he strangled her. He had to deal with the realization that his murderous streak did not come from prison or unsavory friends, nor from the SAS training he had honed.