19

‘What is it?’ Eddie asked.

‘Something that’s been missing for a very long time,’ Nina replied in a reverential whisper. The US government had taken the same approach to preserving the fragile sheet of browned animal skin as the Brotherhood, pressing it between two pieces of glass. Despite this, the ancient document’s condition was considerably worse than its matching half; it had passed through more hands over the centuries.

But it was still readable, the closely spaced Greek text clear. She gazed at the long-lost words of Kallikrates, starting to translate . . .

‘So?’ said Eddie impatiently. ‘What is it?’

‘The Brotherhood had the other half,’ she explained, indicating the torn top of the page. ‘Their part described the mental effects of what happens when the three statues are brought together – the “visions”. But this . . .’ She rapidly skimmed through the rest of the writing. ‘This is about the physical effects. And it matches what happened in Tokyo – the statues becoming charged with earth energy, the levitation . . .’

‘Levitation? What, you started floating around the room?’

‘Not me, the statues. And they just kind of . . . hung there. But never mind that.’ She kept reading, hungry to learn more. ‘In the Brotherhood’s text, Nantalas, the priestess, believed that the statues were the keys to godlike powers, which came from something she called the sky stone.’

‘A meteor?’

‘Seems likely. The statues are meteoric rock, after all – they must have been cut from it. But this text actually says what that power is.’ She pointed at the top of the parchment. ‘It follows on directly from the part I read in Rome. When she put all three statues together and touched them to the sky stone, it “rose from the floor, lifted by the power of the gods. Even though the chamber was not open to the sky, lightning flashed through the Temple of the Gods and the ground shook with thunder. After Nantalas lowered the stone, the king agreed that such power should be used against the enemies of Atlantis, but knew there would be those in the royal court who would be fearful of angering the gods by doing so. He said that he would bring the court to the Temple of the Gods so they could witness with their own eyes the power of the sky stone.” The royal court,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘If they were involved, it would have been recorded in the altar room . . .’

‘How big was the stone?’ Eddie asked.

‘It doesn’t say. But the inference seems to be that it was fairly large – bigger than the statues, certainly.’

‘So the whole thing’s basically an earth energy weapon, then? Only a natural one?’

‘It looks like it. And the Atlanteans had it, eleven thousand years ago.’

‘Then where is it now?’

‘I think that’s what a lot of people are trying to find out.’ She gave him a worried look. ‘And Eddie . . . I’m the key to finding it. When I had all three statues in Japan, I felt . . . drawn to something. I didn’t know what at the time, but it has to be this sky stone.’

‘Drawn to it?’ he said doubtfully. ‘How?’

‘It’s hard to explain, but it was like – like a bird’s homing instinct, perhaps. I just knew what direction it was in, and that it was a long way away. And Takashi was expecting it – one of the first things he asked me was if I had felt it. The mole in the Brotherhood gave this Group the first half of Kallikrates’ texts, and they obviously had enough influence over the US government to get access to this.’ She tapped the glass protecting the parchment. ‘They must think that the meteorite is some Atlantean super-weapon, and want to get their hands on it. And they need me to find it.’

‘That can’t be good,’ said Eddie. ‘Maybe I should’ve smashed those fucking statues after all.’

‘I’m starting to think you’re right. The question is, what are we going to do?’

He looked at the parchment. ‘Is there anything else on there that’s useful?’

Nina quickly checked the remainder of the text. ‘Nothing that seems relevant.’

‘Great. In that case, stick it back in the box and let’s get out of here.’

Nina closed the leather case, placed it back in the envelope, then returned it and the folder to their container. She picked up the box and was about to send it down the chute back to the automated library when her phone rang, startling them both. ‘We’ve got reception all the way down here?’ she said, puzzled, as she fumbled it from her pocket with one hand. The number was unfamiliar.

‘They must have a booster,’ said Eddie, suddenly wary. ‘You expecting any calls?’

‘Nope.’ She answered it. ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Dr Wilde.’ Dalton.

Nina lowered her voice so Ogleby or the guard wouldn’t overhear. ‘Hello, Mr President,’ she said, making the title sound almost derogatory. Eddie instantly became more alert than ever, checking what was happening outside the cubicle. As yet, nothing – but he was certain that wouldn’t last. ‘To what do I owe the extremely dubious honour?’

‘What do you think of Silent Peak?’

‘It’s impressive, if you like colossal wastes of taxpayer dollars. But you didn’t call me to get my opinion on that, did you?’ Eddie leaned closer to listen to the other side of the conversation.

‘No, I didn’t.’ The ex-president was relishing every word. ‘I called to say . . . goodbye. The base commander is just being told about a major security breach. I’d imagine you’ve got less than a minute before they come for you. In force.’

A sickening chill ran through Nina’s body. ‘A breach that’ll be traced back to you,’ she said with straw-grabbing defiance.

Dalton almost laughed. ‘No. It won’t. For one thing, my people covered their tracks, and for another . . . you won’t get the chance to tell anyone. So once again – goodbye, Dr Wilde.’

‘Son of a bitch!’ Nina hissed – but Eddie had taken the phone from her.

‘President Victor Dalton, before you hang up,’ he said, receiving an odd look from Nina at his use of Dalton’s full name, ‘I’ve got something to say.’

‘You’re going to threaten me, I suppose, Chase?’ came the reply. Eddie could almost see his smirk. ‘Use your little video of our discussion as leverage? It’ll never get out, I assure you. My contacts will see to that. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes.’

‘No, what I actually wanted to say is al-Qaeda bomb kill the president jihad terror!’

Silence, then: ‘You limey bastard!’ The line went dead.

‘What the hell was that?’ Nina demanded.

He gave her a grim smile. ‘The NSA records every phone call made in the States. All those red-flag keywords’ll make sure it’s a priority for investigation. Deal with spooks like Alderley for long enough, and you pick up tips. Maybe someone’ll recognise Dalton’s voice and realise he just admitted to getting us in here.’

Another phone rang – one on the wall by the airman. ‘That’s great,’ said Nina as he answered it, ‘but it’s not going to help us much right now, is it?’

The guard’s expression jumped from boredom to sudden concern as he listened. ‘Dr Ogleby!’ he yelled, dropping the receiver and drawing his sidearm. ‘We have a security breach!’ He ran to Nina and Eddie’s cubicle. ‘You two, freeze!’

Ogleby scurried up behind him. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Sir, these two are intruders! They’re not authorised to be here!’

‘What? But – but they were on the system!’

‘I’m just going by what Colonel Kern told me, sir.’

Eddie cautiously raised his hands. ‘Hey, ah don’ know wart the prahblem hee-ah is, but there’s ahhbviously been some mistarke.’

Ogleby boggled. ‘Where exactly are you supposed to be from, captain? Australia?’

The airman stepped into the cubicle. ‘I’ve got orders to take you both into custody. Miss, drop that box.’

‘No, don’t drop it!’ Ogleby snapped. He glared at the guard. ‘The contents are fragile, you idiot! Dr Wilde, put it down very carefully.’

‘Like this?’ Nina said, tossing it straight at the airman.

He reacted instinctively, pulling the trigger—

There was a loud clanging impact and a crack of glass. The flying box jolted, but carried on along its arc to hit the man’s gun hand. Before he could bring his weapon back up, Eddie lunged at him and drove a crunching punch into his face. The airman fell, a heel to his groin making sure he wouldn’t be getting up for a while.

Eddie shot a look of mixed anger and relief at his wife as he took the gun. ‘That was a fucking stupid thing to do.’

‘Jesus!’ Nina gasped. The back of the box had a prominent convex dent where the bullet’s force had been just barely absorbed by the metal and glass of the folder. ‘He tried to shoot me!’

‘What did you expect? That sign said deadly force was authorised.’

‘Yeah, but it didn’t say it was mandatory!’

Ogleby stumbled backwards, hands up in fear. ‘Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!’

Eddie followed him, the gun raised. ‘Just tell us how we get out of here.’

Before he could reply, honking klaxons sounded in the hangar outside. Red lights started flashing. ‘You don’t,’ said Ogleby, a spark of defiance returning. ‘That’s a lockdown alarm.’

The Englishman shoved him hard against a cubicle wall. ‘How many men in the base?’

‘About forty,’ he gulped. ‘They’ll be on their way down here already – if you want to stay alive, you should surrender while you have the chance.’

‘I don’t think we’ll be given the option,’ Nina said grimly. She went to the door and looked out towards the great vertical shaft. The elevator on which they had descended was no longer there, Kern having ridden it back to the surface – but as she watched another platform in the opposite corner came into view, bearing a group of uniformed men carrying rifles. ‘Shit! Eddie, they’re here already!’

Eddie’s glance into the hangar warned him that shooting their way out was not an option – nine M4 assault rifles against a single Beretta M9 pistol was a fight that would only end one way. Instead, he pulled Nina back into the cubicle. ‘Come on!’

‘Where?’ she demanded, confused. ‘There’s no way out!’

‘Yes, there is.’ He dived on to the exit chute of the automated delivery system, the metal rollers squealing as he juddered down the incline. ‘Let’s roll!’

He hit the flap with a bang and disappeared through it. She looked back through the door. The elevator was almost at the bottom of the shaft, the men preparing to leap out.

Nina threw herself on to the rollers.

She crashed through the flap – and immediately found herself in peril as a mechanical arm swung at her head. She yelped and twisted aside, a metal claw sweeping through her hair. The chute led to an oversized hopper where boxes being returned to the stacks were sorted . . . and the system apparently didn’t like unexpected objects.

The flickering laser beam of a barcode scanner flashed in her face, momentarily dazzling her. A section of the hopper’s side popped out like a pinball flipper and thumped painfully against her, forcing her towards what was presumably the destination for rejected items.

The rollers gave way to smooth metal. Nina slid helplessly down it – seeing machinery like a giant mangle descending to squash her at the bottom—

Hands grabbed her just before she reached it, dragging her to a stop. ‘Got you!’ Eddie grunted as he pulled her over the chute’s side. The giant rollers thumped together, then retracted, denied their meal.

‘God!’ she gasped. ‘What is this, Satan’s amusement park?’

‘Kern did say he was right below us. This way.’ He ducked under another chute, heading towards the stacks. ‘And watch what you step on. I think the tracks are electrified.’

‘As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.’ Eddie hopped over the track; she waited for a shuttle to clatter past before following. ‘Where are we going? We’re heading away from the elevators.’

Staying clear of the rails, they hurried down an aisle. ‘Have to see if we can find those emergency stairs Kern mentioned,’ said Eddie.

‘That’s a hell of a climb!’

‘You want to stay here reading ancient documents for the rest of your life? Wait, don’t answer that. But if we can get off this floor, we’ve got a chance.’

‘We still have to get back to the surface – and even then, there’s only one door that goes outside.’

‘Yeah, but it’s a pretty big door!’

Shouts came from behind them: the troops were spreading out in pursuit. Eddie looked back, alarmed. ‘Christ, we’ll be sitting ducks if they shoot at us down this aisle.’

Nina had drawn ahead, passing an intersection. ‘If we turn at the next – whoa!’ One of the towering shuttles rounded the corner directly behind her – and kept going, forcing her onwards. It was carrying a large container, not leaving enough room for her to squeeze past. ‘Eddie, I can’t get back to you!’

‘Go on ahead!’ he shouted. ‘Go left, I’ll catch up!’

Nina ran ahead of the advancing machine. Eddie doubled back to the intersection, cutting across to the next aisle. He looked along it. The next junction was about eighty feet away; he could catch up with her there—

‘Here! Over here!’

The yell was from behind him, one of the airmen at the start of the aisle.

Bringing up his rifle—

Eddie flattened himself against the end of the towering stack as bullets seared past. Even as the echoes of the gunshots faded he ran again, cutting across the endless rows of shelves. He had to draw the troops away from Nina, then find a way to double back past them.

Ranks of stacks flashed past. He kept his pace and footfalls as precise as those of a hurdler – if he tripped on the tracks, he would be an easy target.

Another aisle ahead – and a shuttle bearing several boxes rolled into view. If it turned towards him, he would be trapped—

It carried on past the intersection, heading for the cabins. Eddie swung round the corner and into the new aisle, running away from the retreating machine. It would give him temporary cover from the pursuing airmen, maybe even cause them to lose track of him.

More shouting, this time over a loudspeaker. ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!’ Ogleby’s amplified voice boomed. ‘You’ll hit the files! Catch them and take them outside – and then shoot them!’

That restriction would help – if the guards took orders from a civilian. Not willing to gamble his life on that, Eddie kept running. If Nina had taken the route he’d suggested, she would be eight or nine aisles back to his right. But now that shots had been fired, she might have followed a different path.

He reached the next junction and ducked into the cover of the cross-aisle, stopping to look across the cavernous hall. No sign of Nina. Damn! Had she carried straight on, or gone into another aisle?

He glanced back round the corner. The shuttle had switched tracks to deliver its cargo to a collection point, leaving the way free for some of the airmen to run towards him. The others would be charging up the neighbouring aisles to cut off their prey. Eddie took a deep breath and ran again, heading – he hoped – back towards Nina. He glimpsed two men as he crossed an aisle and a single shot cracked past behind him, plunking into one of the metal storage boxes, but he was already clear.

‘I said don’t shoot!’ screeched Ogleby over the PA system. ‘Do! Not! Shoot! How hard is that for you to understand?’

The next aisle had nobody in it, nor the one beyond that. Eddie turned up it and raced deeper into the hangar. If he could reach the next intersection before any of his pursuers saw him . . .

Sparks lit the aisle as another shuttle rounded the corner ahead, coming in his direction – then stopped, its lifting arm rising up to pluck a large box from a shelf. He cursed. Squeezing past the machine would slow him down, but he was too far down the aisle to turn back and find an alternative route.

Not that he could anyway. ‘Stop or I fire!’ a man bellowed.

The guards had found him.

Eddie was over ten feet from the stationary shuttle as it lowered its cargo. He would be shot before he could get past the machine. He stopped, and turned. Two airmen had him in their sights. He held up his hands. ‘Nina!’ he called out. ‘They’ve got me. Get out of here, don’t let them catch you!’

‘Shut up!’ one airman shouted as he and his partner advanced. Another two men reached the junction behind them and followed. ‘Drop the gun!’

Eddie obeyed, then glanced back at the shuttle. If it set off again, he might be able to dive behind it as it passed. But it was still lowering the box.

He would have to risk it. It was clear that Dalton’s plan was for them to simply ‘disappear’. Better to try to run than meekly accept his fate.

The guards approached. The leading man took one hand off his rifle to take a set of flex-cuffs from his belt. The M4’s muzzle swayed away from Eddie.

This was his chance.

He tensed, about to rush for the shuttle—

Metal crashed above. The startled airmen looked up – and were knocked to the floor by a cascade of storage boxes falling from a high shelf.

Nina popped her head through the gap where the containers had been. ‘Eddie, run!’

‘I told you to run!’ he complained. But he was relieved beyond belief to see her. She ducked back as he slithered sidelong past the shuttle. Fallen boxes clanged and thumped as the groaning guards tried to get up.

Eddie rounded the corner, emerging in the next aisle in time to see Nina jump to the floor. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, hurrying to him.

‘Yeah, but there’re more of ’em out there. Let’s find the stairs.’ They headed for the nearer of the hangar’s long side walls.

Ogleby’s voice came over the loudspeakers. ‘You morons!’ he shouted at the airmen. ‘They’re getting away! They’re in area seven. Stop them!’

‘Shit, he can see us!’ said Nina. There had to be security cameras somewhere above. If Ogleby could guide the troops after them, they had no hope of escaping.

Eddie looked ahead. They were coming up to another intersection, a set of points clacking to direct an approaching shuttle. He snatched a box file from a shelf. ‘What are you doing?’ asked Nina.

‘Putting things on the wrong track.’ He kicked at the points to force the switch open, then jammed the box into the gap. ‘Down here, get back.’

They retreated into the cross-aisle as the shuttle rumbled into the intersection. With the points out of position, it tried to continue straight ahead where it should have turned – then hit the box. The metal container was crushed by the shuttle’s weight, but it was enough to jolt the entire machine . . .

And send it off the tracks.

The thirty-foot crane tower made it very top-heavy. The shuttle wobbled before finally overbalancing and crashing against one of the stacks – which itself toppled, containers sliding off its shelves in a cacophonous chorus. It hit another stack, and that too fell, a giant domino reaction sweeping inexorably across the hangar.

But it wasn’t only the stacks that were falling. The top of the shuttle’s tower snagged the power grid as it tipped, tearing down a section. It slapped across the tracks—

There was a loud bang and a huge spray of sparks as the system short-circuited. The sudden overload blew out other parts of the Cold War-era electrical system – and the entire hangar abruptly fell into darkness. Ogleby’s horrified cry at the sight of the destruction of his library was cut off with a squawk of feedback.

‘Wow,’ said Eddie as the last echoing slam of a felled stack faded away. ‘That worked better than I thought.’

‘It doesn’t really help us, though, does it?’ Nina complained. ‘We can’t see anything either!’ But as her eyes adjusted, she realised they were not in total blackness. Amber emergency lights high overhead had come on, casting a dim fireside glow across the great chamber.

She could just about make out Eddie’s grin. ‘We can see enough. Come on.’ He took the lead as they ran into the gloom.

With the power off, they no longer had to worry about the repository’s machines, and in short order reached the side of the hangar. About fifty yards away, an illuminated box shone red above a recess in the wall: an emergency exit sign. They ran to it. Behind them, their hunters shouted across the stacks, but they were having enough trouble locating each other, never mind their prey.

Eddie barged through the door at the back of the opening. More sickly lights revealed a metal staircase switchbacking upwards into a tall shaft. No sign of movement above, but he still paused. ‘Can you hear anyone?’

Nina strained to listen, picking out a distant clamour of feet pounding on steel. ‘Someone’s there, but they’re a long way up.’ Eddie nodded and started up the steps. ‘Whoa, wait! I know your hearing’s not great, but didn’t you hear what I just said? They’re probably waiting for us at the top.’

‘Good job we’re not going all the way up, then. Come on, give it some high knees!’ He set off again, Nina following in confusion.

‘What do you mean?’ she panted. ‘How are we going to get out?’

‘Not by running up three thousand bloody stairs, for a start.’ As they climbed, another sign came into sight: the next level. ‘That big lift was on this floor.’

‘I think it may be a little hard for them to miss us if we ride up on that!’

‘Depends what we ride up with.’ They reached the landing; Eddie checked that nobody was lurking beyond the door before entering.

Lines of dark and silent armour lined up inside the vast space greeted them. The main lights were still on in this level, but the brightest illumination came from the portable rigs set up around the tank undergoing maintenance. Nina cautiously peered around one of the M60s to see the two mechanics standing by their charge, talking animatedly; they had heard the alert, but seemingly had no idea what was going on. ‘We’ll have to go past those guys to reach the elevator.’

‘I’ll take care of ’em,’ Eddie assured her.

‘How? As soon as they see you they’ll raise the alarm.’

‘Why?’ He indicated his now rather untidy uniform. ‘I’m an officer, aren’t I?’

‘Yeah, but the second you open your mouth they’ll know saahmthang’s wraahng,’ she said, imitating his attempt at an American accent. ‘What are you going to do, use sign language?’

Eddie cracked his knuckles and gave her a devilish smile. ‘I think they’ll get the message.’