33

The twisting lava tube opened out into a chamber cut from the volcanic rock – by human hands, not molten magma. The space was circular, about thirty feet in diameter. Offset from the entrance on the chamber’s far side was an imposing pair of tall stone doors. A metal plate was fixed upon one of them, glinting with the reddish-gold tint of orichalcum.

The doors were not what stopped Nina and Eddie in their tracks, however. It was what hung above them.

A giant hammer.

Its head was a single huge block of stone over fifteen feet across, one side matching the curvature of the wall. The handle was a thick beam crossing the entire chamber from a slot chiselled into the rock: a pivot. The entire massive object was designed to pound down and crush anything in front of the doors into a very thin paste.

‘I guess they did have time to build a booby trap,’ Nina whispered, as if afraid that her voice alone would trigger it. She shone her torch around the rest of the chamber. The walls, the lower parts coated by a layer of plaster, were covered with inscriptions: Atlantean texts. Near the entrance were several niches containing dusty objects.

Bodies.

She looked more closely. The corpses were tightly wrapped in cloth shrouds, heads left exposed. Empty-eyed skulls leered back at her.

‘Who are this lot?’ Eddie asked in distaste.

Nina knew the Atlantean language well enough to pick out a familiar name crudely marked in the stone above one particular nook. ‘It’s Nantalas!’

He directed his light at the shrivelled head. ‘Ha! Maybe you really are related.’ The beam picked out some surviving strands of distinctly red hair.

‘Very funny.’ She didn’t recognise the names over the other bodies, but understood the gist of an inscription nearby. ‘These must be her acolytes, I suppose. They died with her.’

‘How?’

‘Poison. It says that once the new Temple of the Gods was completed, they took their own lives in atonement for Nantalas’s blasphemy. Then I guess the other Atlanteans who came with them walled up the tunnel.’ She read more of the texts. ‘They took the statues with them – they were going to hide them in the empire’s farthest outposts so they could never be brought together again.’

‘That worked out well,’ Eddie said sarcastically. ‘Why didn’t they just smash the things?’

‘The same reason they didn’t destroy the meteorite. They thought it was sent by the gods, so smashing it would just have made Poseidon and co. even madder. And speaking of gods . . .’ She perused one particular section of text, then looked up at the suspended hammer. ‘I was right about them interpreting the volcano as being the forge of Hephaestus. They built this thing to honour him, by having his symbol protect the stone.’

‘So it’s a trap, right?’

‘Oh, yeah. Only someone who deserves to enter the Temple of the Gods can get through the doors. Anyone else . . . well, whoever wrote this was big on smiting.’

‘This isn’t the temple?’

‘No, just an antechamber. The actual place is through there.’ She indicated the doors . . . then, her curiosity fully aroused, started to cross the chamber to examine them.

‘Whoa, whoa!’ Eddie pulled her back. ‘Smiting, remember?’

‘I wasn’t going to touch anything,’ she said, annoyed. ‘Besides, if they just wanted to stop anyone from reaching the Temple of the Gods, they could have filled in the lava tube. There must be a way in, otherwise why even bother with the test?’

‘What test?’

She pointed at the orichalcum plate. Visible on it was an indentation in the metal: a handprint. ‘I think that’s how you find out if you deserve to go through. Nothing’ll happen as long as nobody touches it.’ She started back towards the doors. ‘Probably.’ Eddie winced as she crossed under the hammer . . . but it remained still. Warily, he followed her.

Nina peered at the metal plate. The handprint, fingers splayed, was not large; a woman’s. Nantalas? There was something set into the centre of the indented palm. A piece of stone.

Purple stone. Part of the meteorite, the same substance from which the statues had been made.

She stared at it, thinking. Why place a material that could conduct earth energy on a door?

The answer was obvious. It was a lock, one that could only be opened with a biological key. Someone who could channel earth energy would be able to unlock it simply by pressing their hand against the panel.

Someone like Nantalas.

Or herself.

‘I know what it is,’ she told Eddie. ‘This place must be an earth energy confluence – maybe it’s why the meteorite ended up here, because it was following the lines of energy. So if I touch the stone, it’ll charge up just like the statues, and release the lock.’

Eddie did not share her confidence. ‘And if you’re wrong, it’s hammer time and I have to mop you off the floor.’

‘I don’t think I’m wrong. But just in case, you should go back over to the entrance. Take this with you.’ She gave him the bag of supplies.

He didn’t move. ‘We can blow the thing open.’

‘We don’t know how thick the doors are. And what if doing that drops the hammer? It’s huge – we’d never clear it without using all the other charges, and if we do that we won’t be able to destroy the meteorite. Eddie, I know what I’m doing. It’s the only way to get into the temple.’

Reluctantly, he backed up. Nina gave him a look of reassurance, then turned to the metal plate. She raised her hand and let it hover over the indentation as she spread her fingers to match the print.

Slowly, she moved it closer, about to press her palm against the stone—

‘Stop!’ Eddie yelled. She froze. ‘Don’t touch the fucking thing!’ He ran to her and bodily hauled her away from the door.

‘Jesus Christ, Eddie!’ she cried. ‘What is it?’

‘The hammer’s not the trap. That’s the trap!’ He pointed at the plate.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The whole point of building this place was to make sure nobody could ever use the meteorite’s power again, right?’

‘Yes . . .’ she said hesitantly, unsure where he was leading.

‘So why would they make a door that only opens for the exact people who can do that? It’d be like building a bank vault that can only be opened if you’re wearing a stripy jumper and carrying a bag with “swag” written on it! The last person they’d want to let in would be someone who can actually channel earth energy. Someone like you!’

She was silent for a long moment. Then: ‘Eddie?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m an idiot.’

He grinned. ‘I didn’t want to say it myself, but . . .’

‘No, seriously. I. Am. A. Moron! How the hell did I not figure that out? Oh, my God!’ She clapped both hands to her forehead. ‘I fell right for it. I’d be a quarter-inch thick right now if it wasn’t for you.’

‘Well, you’d have been able to slide right under the door.’ That triggered a thought, and he looked back towards the lava tube before regarding the doors quizzically.

‘You just saved my life, Eddie,’ Nina went on. ‘Again. Thank you. You know, I don’t appreciate you enough. When we get home, you can do that thing that I don’t normally . . .’ He was still looking at the doors. ‘Hello, hi,’ she said, waving a hand in front of his face. ‘Wife, right here, offering free perversions.’

‘It’s a kink, not a perversion,’ he said. ‘And yeah, I’ll definitely take you up on it. But have a gander at this first.’ He went to the door and knelt to peer at the crack beneath it, then took out a penknife and opened its longest blade. ‘Shine your light in there.’

Nina illuminated the narrow gap – and was startled to discover that it was not what it seemed. ‘It’s a fake!’

Eddie probed it with the penknife. The blade only went an inch deep before its tip found solid stone. ‘I thought there was something weird about the room,’ he said. ‘It must have been part of the lava tube before the Atlanteans dug it out – but if they built these doors to block the tunnel, why don’t they actually line up with it?’

It was true; the doorway was offset from the entrance opposite by quite an angle. ‘The lava tube twists about, though,’ Nina said.

‘Not by that much.’ He returned to the entrance and faced into the chamber, pointing directly across it at a patch of plastered wall over six feet from the doorway’s edge. ‘Even if it were twisting, the tube should have come in somewhere over there.’

‘What are you saying – that there’s another door?’

‘No – they didn’t want anyone to get in, so it’s probably blocked off. But I bet the tunnel carries on behind that wall.’ He crossed the room again and stood before the inscriptions. ‘This is a closed room, but I can still feel a breeze blowing through. Where’s it going?’

Nina directed her light higher up the wall. At the top of the plastered section were several holes, each a few inches in diameter. ‘Through those, maybe.’ She gathered a handful of dust and tossed it at the small openings. The motes swirled in the torch beams – then were sucked into a vortex and vanished through the vents. ‘There’s definitely something back there. How are we going to get to it?’ Eddie drew his gun. ‘Oh, I see. You’re going to shoot it open.’

‘Not exactly.’ He turned the gun round in his hand – and bashed its grip against the wall, cracking the plaster.

‘Aah!’ Nina cried, appalled. She rushed to him as he chipped away at the ancient inscriptions, larger chunks breaking loose. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Sorry, but if we want to get through here, this wall’s going to have to come down.’

‘Well, yes,’ she said, flustered, ‘but at least let me photograph it first!’ She hurriedly rummaged through the bag for her camera.

Eddie sighed, but moved back so she could take several pictures. ‘All right, you done?’

‘Yes, okay.’ She hung the camera’s strap round her neck and grimaced. ‘I really wish we didn’t have to do this, but . . . go ahead.’

He returned to the wall and continued his attack. After a few minutes, enough plaster had been smashed away to expose a section of what was hidden behind it.

A wall. But not solid volcanic rock. This was built from stone blocks – another barricade, sealing the entrance to the Temple of the Gods.

Eddie used his penknife again to explore the cracks between the stones. Unlike his examination of the fake door, this time the blade went all the way in without obstruction. He also noticed something else. ‘It’s warm.’

Nina put her hand against the exposed wall. It was noticeably hotter than the chamber’s ambient temperature. ‘Well, we are in a volcano . . .’

‘Yeah, but if it’s warm on this side, God knows what it’ll be like on the other. We don’t know how thick this wall is. Only one way to find out, though.’ He looked at the bag of explosives.

Nina’s shoulders slumped in dejection. ‘Guess I’d better take photos of the rest of the room . . .’

‘Ready?’ Eddie asked.

Nina cringed, covering her ears. ‘Yeah. Do it.’

He switched the channel selector to ‘1’, flicked up the protective cover over the detonation control . . . and pushed the red button.

Even though they were back outside the lava tube, the explosion from the underground chamber was still as loud as a shotgun blast. A gush of dust and smoke rushed out of the tunnel, loose stones clattering down the slope.

Eddie turned the detonator control back to ‘Safe’ and closed the trigger cover. ‘Looks like Alderley’s mate took good care of the explosives. That was a bigger bang than I expected.’ They waited for the dust to settle, then started back down the lava tube. ‘Feel that?’ he asked, after a few steps.

‘Yeah,’ said Nina. The breeze blowing down the shaft was now a gust, strong enough to ruffle their hair. The residual haze in the air was rapidly being cleared. ‘I think we definitely opened up the wall.’ They continued down the curving tunnel. Rubble littered the floor as they got closer to the chamber. The final bend, and they raised their torches to see what awaited them.

To Nina’s relief, the enormous hammer hadn’t fallen, but was still hanging ominously over the room. Below it, the floor was strewn with debris. The wall blocking the exit had been obliterated – as had almost everything else. The blast had stripped most of the plaster from the walls, wiping out for ever the last tale of the expedition from Atlantis . . . and also the remains of its members. The bodies in the burial nooks had been pulverised, ancient bones shattered to splinters. She regarded the devastation sadly. Photographs were little compensation for the loss of such a find.

‘Hey,’ said Eddie quietly, recognising her mood. ‘This was just the outer room, remember?’ He nodded towards the newly opened passage. ‘The Temple of the Gods is right through there.’

‘You’re right,’ she said, composing herself. Eddie headed for the exit; she gave a silent apology to what little remained of Nantalas and her acolytes before following.

Even with the stiff wind at their backs, the temperature beyond the chamber rose rapidly. And as they moved down the short tunnel, the light from their torches was joined by another source from ahead. Eddie at first thought it was daylight, but the colour was wrong: too orange.

Nina had noticed it too. ‘You know we thought the meteorite was in a volcano? I think it’s literally in a volcano.’

The tunnel opened out . . . and revealed that she was right.

They emerged on a large bowl-like ledge jutting from the inside of the volcano’s throat. High above was a circle of blue sky, but the orange light was coming from below. The volcano was still active, a lake of molten lava bubbling away deep underground.

For the moment, though, Nina’s attention was on the ledge itself. A dozen statues surrounded the centre of the bowl. All were mythological figures: gods. She recognised Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Athena, Hera and more . . . the Olympians, the most powerful figures in the shared pantheon of the ancient Greeks and the Atlanteans. They faced outwards to keep watch in all directions, their poses and expressions a stern warning against approaching the object they guarded.

The sky stone. The meteorite. The object that had brought life to earth, and now held the potential to change that life – not with the power of gods, but with the science of men.

Eddie made a face. ‘I don’t think we brought enough explosives.’

It was not the size of a couch, or a car, as he had hoped. It was the size of a house. In places threateningly jagged, in others smoothed off as if melted, the irregular hunk of rock was a good sixty feet along its longest axis, rising at its highest almost thirty feet above the floor. The whole thing was covered with a grimy layer of ash and sulphur, deposited over millennia by the fumes rising up from the bubbling lava below. The statues around it were similarly defiled.

Nina and Eddie moved closer. As they left the cover of the tunnel, the rush of wind from it lessened – and the stench and heat coming from the bottom of the volcanic conduit hit them for the first time. The enormous updraught of hot gases rising past the ledge was sucking clean air from outside down the lava tube, keeping the natural bowl at least partially clear of the worst of the toxic vapours. ‘Christ, that stinks,’ Eddie muttered, trying to hold in a cough. ‘So, this is what everyone’s been looking for?’

‘This is it,’ said Nina. She went up to the stone, about to touch it, but then drew back her hand.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Considering what happened when Nantalas last touched the meteorite, it’s probably not a great idea for me to start messing with it.’

‘You’ve got a point.’ Eddie looked up at the statue of Poseidon, the god of the oceans holding a metal trident as if poised to hurl it at any intruder. ‘And he’s got three. This is the Temple of the Gods, then?’

Nina turned away from the meteorite – and froze in momentary shock as for the first time she took in the sheer wall that had been behind her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That is.’

A vast structure had been carved out of the cliff, extending almost the full width of the ledge and rising in tiers to over a hundred feet above. The elaborate yet harsh architectural style was unmistakably Atlantean. The lava tube emerged from the wall at its base between a pair of large pillars; on either side were more statues. Each level of the grand temple above them was lined with more ancient figures.

‘God!’ exclaimed Eddie, awed. ‘Or gods, I mean. How many are there?’

‘All of them, I think,’ Nina replied. The Olympians were the big guns of the lost civilisation’s mythology, but there were hundreds of lesser deities below them . . . and it seemed that every single one was in attendance. The rulers of Atlantis had been unable to decide which of their gods they had angered by unleashing the power of the sky stone – so had tried to appease them all.

‘That’s pretty bloody impressive. How the hell did they build all that in here?’

‘Nantalas’s expedition must have been bigger than we thought. Atlantis was the greatest empire the world would see for another few thousand years, so if anyone had the resources, they did.’ She raised her camera again and started taking pictures of the temple. Through the telephoto lens, she saw stairs linking the tiers behind the rows of statues.

‘There isn’t time for that,’ said Eddie, setting down the rucksack and removing the explosives and detonators. ‘We’ve found the thing, so let’s blow it up.’

‘It’s the only time for it,’ she countered. ‘You saw what the first charge did to the outer chamber – there was nothing left. When we blow up the meteorite, it’ll wreck the temple. Even if I can’t save it, I can’t let this place go unrecorded.’

Eddie reluctantly conceded. ‘Get your snaps, then.’ He checked the remaining detonators, then circled the rock as Nina continued. When he returned, his expression was decidedly more downcast. ‘You know I didn’t think we’d brought enough explosives?’

‘Yes?’

‘We definitely didn’t. Remember what that geologist, Bellfriar, told us about the statues before we went to South America? He said the meteorite they came from had a lot of metal in the rock – and that’ll make it really, really tough. There’s no way these charges’ll be enough to destroy it. Best they’ll do is split it into smaller bits, but they’ll still be too big for us just to chuck ’em into the lava.’ He looked back at the entrance. ‘We need a Plan B.’

‘What kind of Plan B?’

‘My usual kind – blowing something up.’

‘But that’s Plan A as well!’

He smiled, then collected one of the explosive charges and a detonator and headed for the lava tube. ‘Get all your photos – soon as I come back, I’ll set the bombs on the rock and then we’ll get out of here.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To make sure nobody gets through that tunnel after we leave.’ He jogged away, leaving Nina alone with the Atlantean gods.

She photographed the whole of the temple, then turned her attention to the statues around the meteorite. Whatever Eddie was doing, it was taking a while; he still had not returned by the time she had captured all of the Olympians. She considered taking a closer look at the temple, but curiosity about a more natural wonder won out and she made her way up the slope to the lip of the ledge.

The heat grew more intense the closer she got. Away from the fresh air coming through the lava tube, it also became harder to breathe. Coughing, she nevertheless climbed the last few yards to the edge and looked down.

It was like peering directly into Hell. The volcano’s conduit dropped dizzyingly down for hundreds of feet, a searing red eye at its end glaring back up at her. The level of the lava below had at some point sunk, leaving a seething molten lake churning in the subterranean magma chamber. The temperature was so great that she could only bear it for a few seconds before withdrawing, but she had seen more than enough. Even at its lowest level of activity, a volcano was still terrifying close up; she tried to imagine what it would have been like when Nantalas unwittingly released the full fury of the earth beneath Atlantis. It was almost too frightening to think about.

What made it more worrying was that she might be able to unleash a similar disaster – or be forced to do so. The sooner the meteorite was destroyed, and with it any chance of the Group’s using its destructive potential, the better.

The thought of the Group made her look back at the entrance, from which Eddie was finally re-emerging. Still coughing, she hurried back down to the much cooler centre of the bowl. ‘Are you done?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll show you on the way out. You got all your pictures?’

‘Yes, but I wouldn’t mind getting some close-ups of the temple. Do you need me to help with the explosives?’

‘I can manage. You go and get some more photos.’

‘It’s a shame they’ll probably be all that’s left of this place,’ she said glumly. ‘How long?’

‘I’ll need to find weak spots, so . . . fifteen minutes, maybe.’

‘Okay.’ Camera at the ready, Nina went to the temple as Eddie prepared the last three charges.

From the air, the volcano stood out from dozens of miles away, the column of steam from its peak standing tall in the sky like a marker flag.

An aircraft was heading straight for the beacon. Powering over the desert was an AgustaWestland AW101 helicopter, a civilian version of the military Merlin transport. The hold of this particular example had been fitted out with seats, all of which were occupied.

Alexander Stikes, seated directly behind the pilot, would have much preferred the twenty-four places to be filled with mercenaries under his command, but the surviving members of the Group had decided they wanted to witness the discovery of the meteorite first-hand. They had arrived in the Ethiopian capital the previous day and waited in Addis Ababa’s most luxurious hotel, such as it was, for the ongoing search to produce results. It was a harsh irony: one of the world’s poorest countries being visited incognito by a small group of people whose personal net worth outstripped that of the entire nation.

He turned to speak to Warden. ‘We’ll be there in a few minutes.’

‘Are you sure this is the place?’ the Group’s chairman demanded.

‘Not one hundred per cent, but considering the circumstances it seems highly likely. A volcano would fit nicely with the Atlantean priestess’s reference to the forge of Hephaestus. Benefits of a classical education,’ he added at Meerkrieger’s raised eyebrow. ‘And our aerial reconnaissance drone spotted a vehicle crossing the desert towards it some hours ago; it’s still there.’

‘Wilde and Chase?’ said Warden.

‘Who else?’ Sophia said from beside Stikes.

The former officer nodded. ‘Considering that there’s absolutely nothing in this part of the desert that would be of value to man or beast, they’re the only people I can think of who would have a reason for coming out here.’

‘But we don’t know they’re in the country,’ Brannigan said from behind Meerkrieger.

‘And we don’t know they’re not. Chase has proved very adept at getting around the world unnoticed.’

‘Good for him,’ said Larry loudly. Eddie’s father was seated towards the back of the cabin with the mercenaries, under guard. The man next to him had standing orders from Stikes if the prisoner made a nuisance of himself, and he carried them out by driving an elbow hard into Larry’s stomach. The older man curled up in pain, gasping for breath.

‘We know they left Switzerland,’ Stikes continued, dismissing the interruption, ‘and they didn’t return to the US, so it’s highly probable that they’re here. Wilde apparently has some sort of inbuilt direction finder, after all. And they have a very strong incentive to find the meteorite before we do.’

‘You’d better hope they haven’t,’ Warden said, with an undercurrent of threat.

Stikes concealed his look of derision until he had turned away to check the view ahead. The volcano was rapidly growing. His cold eyes scanned it, searching for anything standing out against the barren rock . . .

‘There,’ he said. ‘There they are!’ He pointed, indicating his find to the pilot, who turned the helicopter towards it.

Warden leaned forward to look. A small block of colour was visible on the mountainside: a vehicle. ‘Land as close to it as you can,’ he ordered, then addressed Stikes. ‘Will you be able to find them?’

‘Tracking is one of my specialities,’ the Englishman told him smugly.

The pilot brought the helicopter into a hover over the small plateau, its downwash whipping up a storm of dust and grit that buffeted the parked 4×4. He brought the aircraft down with a bump. ‘Right,’ said Stikes, addressing the members of the Group, ‘I think it will be best if you all wait in the chopper until my men and I find Chase and Wilde and locate the meteorite. It should—’

‘We’re not going to sit here baking in this thing,’ said Warden firmly. The pilot was in the process of shutting down the engines; once the cabin’s air conditioning was switched off, the temperature in the enclosed space would quickly become intolerable. ‘I want to be there to see the stone the moment it’s found.’

‘So do we,’ said both the Bull brothers simultaneously. The others agreed, even the elderly Meerkrieger undeterred by the prospect of negotiating the rough terrain.

‘As you wish,’ Stikes said. ‘In that case, if you’ll follow me . . .’ As Warden picked up the case holding the statues, the mercenary leader made his way down the narrow central aisle to his eight men at the rear. ‘Everyone arm up and move out. Remember that in no circumstances is Dr Wilde to be killed. Anyone else who might be there is fair game – except Chase. He’s mine.’ He reached past several parachutes on a rack to push a button, and the broad rear ramp lowered to the ground. ‘All right, let’s go.’

He strode down the ramp, the Group members – looking obviously out of place in the raw natural environment despite their newly bought expedition clothing – and Sophia following. The mercenaries pulled back tarps and collected their weapons and survival gear from behind the ranks of seats, then marched after their leader, two of them pushing Larry between them.

Gleaming Jericho drawn, Stikes checked that the Land Rover was empty, then surveyed the steep and barren landscape. There was nobody in sight.

But he spotted a small depression in the blanket of stones covering the ground. On its own it would have meant nothing, but near it was another, and another . . .

A trail of footfalls, leading away from the 4×4 up the volcano’s side. Two trails, in fact, one lighter than the other.

Sophia recognised his curling smile of triumph. ‘You’ve found them?’

‘I have,’ he replied. He called out to the others, ‘This way!’

They set off up the slope, Stikes leading the pack like a foxhound.

Eddie had eventually found two promising spots on the meteorite to plant his charges, and was now carefully traversing the top of the great rock, looking for a third. If the explosives shattered it along its natural fault lines, the combined blasts might have more chance of pulverising the separate pieces.

It was a long shot, though. So Plan B would have to come into effect, and even that had a major flaw – one that he only had to look up to see. If the worst came to the worst, people could descend on lines from the top of the crater. Considering the Group’s resources, if they found the place it wouldn’t take long for them to realise that.

And he was increasingly thinking there was no ‘if’ about it. They had already triangulated the meteorite’s general position based on the bearings taken in Japan and Switzerland, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that the plane he had seen was carrying out reconnaissance. Finding the Temple of the Gods was a matter of money, material and manpower, and the Group had all three in abundance.

He dismissed the grim thought as he spotted a wide crack in the meteorite’s surface, deep enough to swallow his entire arm. That should do the trick.

It would take a few minutes to rig the detonator and place the explosive. He glanced at the towering temple, seeing the flash of Nina’s camera from the second tier. ‘Might have bloody known she’d wander off,’ he grumbled, before raising his voice to a shout. ‘Oi! I’ll only be a couple more minutes – come back down!’

On the temple, Nina heard him, and reluctantly waved to show her agreement. There was still so much more to see; as well as the statues, the walls were inscribed with more Atlantean texts: accounts of the builders’ journey across Africa and how they had constructed the temple despite the extreme conditions.

But now nobody would ever know their story. The temple was well within the fifty-yard blast radius Alderley had mentioned, so blowing up the meteorite would bombard it with debris, smashing the statues and shattering the ancient records behind them. She would be the only person ever to see the hidden wonder of the lost civilisation close up.

She knew the sacrifice had to be made, though. Taking one last picture of a statue, whom she took to be Eupraxia, the goddess of well-being, she headed back to the narrow flight of stairs.

By the time she returned to the ledge, Eddie was out of sight on top of the meteorite, lying down to push the primed explosive as deeply into the rock as possible. She aimed her camera upwards, trying to get as much of the temple as she could into frame with the mouth of the crater high above . . .

A sound caught her attention. A soft scuff, like someone stepping on gravel.

She moved across the temple’s front to the tunnel entrance. Nothing but darkness was visible. She listened for several seconds, but the noise didn’t recur. Dismissing it as just the breeze shifting grit on the floor, she turned away, lining up her photograph again—

Crunch.

The same noise, louder, closer.

She whirled – and saw Stikes emerge from the lava tube, his gun pointed at her. Behind him, other faces came out of the shadows, all equally unwelcome: Sophia, Warden, the other members of the Group. And Larry, held at gunpoint by an unsmiling mercenary in desert combat gear.

‘Dr Wilde!’ said Stikes with malevolent brightness. ‘We can’t go on meeting like this.’

‘Eddie!’ Nina yelled. ‘They’re here, they found us! Set off the—’

Sophia rushed past Stikes and slammed a gloved fist against Nina’s jaw. The blow knocked the redhead to her knees. She spat out blood and whipped up one leg, trying to plough a retaliatory strike into the other woman’s stomach, but Sophia neatly sidestepped the attack and drove a boot into her chest. Nina let out a choked gasp of pain.

‘What’s the matter, Nina?’ Sophia snarled as she delivered another savage kick, this time to her abdomen. ‘Eddie not been keeping –’ a third impact – ‘up with your training?’ She stamped on Nina’s stomach, leaving her writhing and struggling to breathe.

‘That’s enough!’ ordered Warden. ‘We need her alive!’

With evident reluctance, Sophia withdrew. Ignoring Nina’s moans, Stikes surveyed the ledge. ‘Chase!’ he called, his voice echoing off the temple. ‘Show yourself or I’ll kill your father!’ The mercenary forced Larry forward, gun pressed hard into his back.

A head slowly rose into view over the top of the meteorite. ‘Let ’em go, Stikes!’ Eddie shouted. ‘This thing’s wired to blow – if you don’t, I’ll take us all out and this whole thing ends right here.’

There was a flurry of consternation amongst the Group, some of them pushing back through the mercenaries into the tunnel, but Stikes was unbowed. ‘You’re bluffing. You won’t let your wife die, especially not at your hand. Or even your father.’

‘Well, Eddie?’ asked Sophia. ‘What are you going to do?’ She kicked Nina again, drawing another pained cry.

‘Leave her alone!’ Eddie demanded.

‘Or what? You’ll blow us all up? Hardly. I know you better than that.’

‘We’re wasting time,’ said Warden irritably. ‘Mr Chase, I will let Mr Stikes carry out his threat if you don’t surrender right now. If you do, then . . . I’ll let you and your father live.’

‘What?’ snapped Stikes.

‘What can they do? We have the meteorite, and we have Dr Wilde – as you say, he won’t risk anything happening to her.’ He turned back to Eddie. ‘What do you say, Mr Chase? This is your chance to end this without any more death or violence.’

To Nina’s shock, Eddie held up his hands, then climbed down the sulphur-covered rock, jumping the last ten feet and walking out of the circle of statues towards the entrance. ‘Eddie!’ she gasped. ‘You can’t let them—’ Her words were cut short by another blow from Sophia’s boot.

‘She’s right,’ said Larry, forcing the words through his fear as the mercenary jabbed the gun harder into his back. ‘Edward, you can’t just give up!’

Eddie didn’t reply, stopping ten feet short of Stikes and Warden. The American nodded. ‘Good. You’re doing the right thing.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Eddie replied. ‘That thing you said about ending this without more death and violence?’

‘Yes?’

He grinned. ‘Not my style.’

Before anyone could react, he pushed the trigger button.