34

A deafening explosion rocked the ledge – but it didn’t come from the meteorite.

The trigger’s selector dial was set to detonate only a single bomb: the one Eddie had planted in the entrance chamber. The blast shattered the stone beam running across the room . . .

And the hammer fell.

The enormous stone block plunged to the floor – splattering those Group members who had retreated in fear and some straggling mercenaries to a bloody pulp.

But the carnage didn’t end in the entrance chamber. The earthquake force of the impact collapsed the roof of the lava tube. Rubble flattened more people—

Then the temple itself began to crumble.

A section of the first tier above the entrance splintered away, statues spinning through the air as it dropped. The people closest to the lava tube could do nothing but scream as it obliterated them like ants beneath a boot. The entire ledge shuddered, a great wedge-shaped chunk breaking from its edge and tumbling down to the lava lake far below.

Those further away were flung off their feet as the ground bucked beneath them. Eddie landed hard on his side, bringing up his arms to protect his head from flying debris.

As the echoing rumble of stone died away, coughs from inside the dissipating dust cloud revealed the survivors. There were not many. Of the twenty-four passengers from the helicopter, only ten remained alive, the others all buried under tons of broken rock.

Stikes painfully picked himself up and wiped his eyes. Sophia was sprawled on top of Nina, while Larry and his guard were both crumpled nearby. Warden sat up, moaning, while a few feet from him Meerkrieger held a hand to his bleeding head. The only other Group member who remained alive was Brannigan; behind her, what was left of the Bull brothers lay partially visible beneath a smashed stone slab, united in death as in life. Three other mercenaries were also stirring. Everyone else was dead.

Except one.

The thought made Stikes whirl. Chase—

The bruised Eddie realised he had dropped the trigger. Where was it? There – about six feet away. He started to crawl towards it . . . until the ringing in his ears faded enough for him to hear movement.

Running footsteps—

He fumbled to draw his gun – but Stikes kicked it from his hand. Eddie yelled in pain. The mercenary leader followed up with another crunching blow to his chest. ‘I should have shot you in Afghanistan when I had the chance!’ he snarled, lining up another strike at his head—

Eddie whipped up both arms, one taking the full force of the kick while the other clamped around Stikes’s ankle. Despite the pain he still twisted and rolled, yanking his opponent off balance. Stikes stumbled, landing heavily on one knee. He cried out – only for his yell to become a breathless groan as Eddie drove an elbow into his stomach. ‘Fuck off, you southern ponce!’

The Yorkshireman swivelled and unleashed a kick of his own that struck Stikes’s head with a satisfying crack. He pulled back to attack again, about to drive the former officer’s jawbone up into his skull—

A gunshot boomed across the ledge, a bullet smacking off the stone floor beside the two fighting men. Eddie froze, seeing Sophia striding towards him, the smoking Jericho in her hand. She sighed. ‘“Fuck off, you southern ponce”? Really, Eddie, the quality of your bons mots just keeps getting worse. Nina’s education clearly isn’t rubbing off on you.’

Stikes looked angrily up at her. ‘Why didn’t you just shoot him?’

A little mocking smile. ‘Because I didn’t think you’d appreciate the bullets going through you first, darling. Get up, Eddie.’ She gestured with the gun for him to stand, then looked back towards the entrance. The lava tube was now completely lost to sight, tons of stone blocking the exit. ‘You should have blown up the meteorite after all. We still have it, and we still have Nina and your father. And you, for that matter.’

‘Yeah,’ said Eddie, ‘but there’s not much you can do with it, is there? There’s no way out, and it doesn’t look like you brought a JCB with you to dig through the tunnel.’

‘There’s always a way out for the resourceful.’ She looked up at the circle of sky high above.

Warden staggered over to them. ‘What have you done?’ he yelled at Eddie. ‘You psycho! You’ve trapped us in here!’

‘Fuck me, so I have,’ Eddie replied sarcastically. ‘Hope you brought a packed lunch.’

Stikes stood, barking commands to his surviving men to secure Nina and Larry, then reclaimed his gun from Sophia. Seething, he regarded Eddie for a long moment as if considering pulling the trigger, then pointed at his other two prisoners. ‘Get over there.’

Meerkrieger and Brannigan, both visibly shaken, joined Warden. ‘What are we going to do now?’ asked the Australian. ‘Chase is right – we’ll never clear all that rubble.’

‘We might not have to,’ said Stikes, following Sophia’s gaze and staring up at the shaft above the temple. ‘It’ll be a tough climb, but I think it might be possible to reach the top of the volcano.’

Meerkrieger was far from pleased at the suggestion. ‘I’m eighty-one years old! How do you expect me to climb up there?’

‘I wouldn’t worry yourself about getting out of here,’ Stikes replied, his smug self-confidence returning. ‘There are ropes in the helicopter.’

‘And how are you going to get up to the helicopter in the first place?’ asked Nina. She indicated the temple. The collapsing tier had brought the first two flights of stairs down with it, making it impossible to ascend the structure. She turned to Warden. ‘Face it, you’ve lost. Most of the Group are dead, and while you might have got your precious sky stone, there’s nothing you can do with it.’

‘The Group will go on even without its individual members,’ Warden said angrily, then his expression suddenly became more calculating. He looked at the meteorite, then back at Nina. Chillingly, he was now smiling. ‘There may not be anything we can do with the meteorite – but there is something you can do with it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Brannigan demanded.

Warden hurried back to the rubble scattered around the entrance, searching the debris until he found the case he had dropped. He returned to the survivors and opened it, revealing the three small statues. ‘Put them together,’ he ordered Nina.

She shook her head. ‘Go to hell.’

‘Stikes?’

Stikes pushed his gun against Eddie’s head. ‘I think you know the drill by now, Nina.’

‘What exactly is this going to achieve?’ she said scathingly. ‘You don’t need the statues to tell you where the meteorite is any more. I mean, it’s right there.’

‘You’re forgetting the statues’ true purpose,’ Warden told her. ‘What did Nantalas call them? The keys of power? You can access that power – and move the meteorite over to the temple so we can climb up!’

Even with a gun pressed against his back, Larry couldn’t hold in an incredulous exclamation. ‘It’s the size of a bloody whale! How do you expect anyone to move that?’

‘Those little statues levitating is one thing,’ Eddie added, ‘but that? Come on, she’s not Yoda!’

Warden snorted in disdain. ‘You’ve just illustrated perfectly why the Group will ultimately win. If you decide something is impossible before even attempting it, then you’ve already failed.’

‘We see what’s possible,’ said Brannigan. ‘Then we make it happen.’

‘And in this case, we know what’s possible. The Atlantean texts describe Nantalas levitating the sky stone. If she can do it, so can you, Dr Wilde.’ He thrust the case at her. ‘Take the statues.’

‘And be careful with them,’ said Stikes, grinding the Jericho’s muzzle into Eddie’s cheek. ‘You wouldn’t want to drop one and startle me, would you? It could have very unfortunate consequences for your husband.’

‘Nina, don’t do it,’ Eddie warned. ‘If they get out of here with that DNA . . .’

He stopped as his wife’s eyes met his. Just a look – but he instantly knew she had something in mind other than mere surrender. He didn’t know what, but there was also an unspoken warning that he should be prepared for something major.

Nobody except Eddie picked up on it. ‘I . . . I don’t have a choice,’ she said, making a show of seeming conflicted. She took out the first statue.

It glowed in her hand, brighter than ever before. The volcano was evidently the site of an extremely powerful earth energy confluence point. The second statue joined the first, shoulder to shoulder. The eerie rippling blue light intensified, a brilliant line pointing directly at the remaining figurine.

Everyone watched the display intently as she cradled the two statuettes in one hand and reached with the other for the third. As in Takashi’s skyscraper and the Blauspeer hotel, she again experienced the electrical tingling coursing through her body.

‘Put them together,’ ordered Warden. ‘Do it!’

She gave Eddie a final glance . . . then completed the triptych.

The effect this time was more powerful, yet, because she was fully prepared for it, less overwhelming. She now knew that this was truly the source of life on earth, the feeling of having somehow come home undeniable. All life had started with the meteorite, and even after billions of years it was still linked, through the planet’s own mysterious energies. She could sense its myriad descendants even in the heart of the barren Ethiopian wilderness. There was not a corner of the planet that the offspring of the primordial DNA had not touched.

She kept her focus on the statues. If her desperate plan had any chance of working, she needed to learn how to control the power running through them.

And quickly. Through the maelstrom of unworldly sensation she heard Warden’s voice: ‘Take them to the meteorite. Now!’

Nina opened her eyes. The statues were not levitating; her hands were tightly clasped round their bases, holding them together, but she could feel the bizarre pressure as they tried to lift away from her. She moved towards the meteorite, everyone following with expressions of awe or expectation.

With two exceptions. Sophia took the opportunity to pick up Eddie’s gun . . . and Eddie himself kept a close watch on Nina, waiting for the cue to make his move.

Whatever that cue might be.

Nina reached the meteorite. The statues’ glow was now almost dazzling – and there was a strange charge in the air, as if the giant rock were humming in anticipation of the return of its long-separated splinters. She looked back. The faces of the surviving Group members were filled with rapacious greed.

‘Do it!’ Warden ordered again, but she didn’t need the prompt, already drawing a nervous breath . . . and touching the three statues to the sky stone.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the coating of sulphur and ash sizzled where the figurines met the meteorite as if dissolved by acid, centuries of grimy volcanic deposits flaking away. The purple rock beneath was revealed . . . and it too began to glow.

The entire ledge suddenly shook, everyone on it battling to remain standing. Nina shielded her eyes as a blizzard of dirty dust cascaded off the meteorite, repelled from its surface as the unearthly light grew brighter. The onlookers staggered back.

Slowly, impossibly, the stone began to rise.

It creaked and crackled as its weight shifted. Small pieces broke off, maintaining their glow for a few seconds before the earth energy they were charged with dissipated and they clattered to the stony floor.

Nina felt the power running through her body – and somehow knew, an instinctual certainty from deep within, that she could channel it, direct it. She willed the enormous rock to move . . . and it began to glide lazily away from the centre of the circle of statues. Another mental urging, and it slowed with the ponderous weight of a freight train, hanging silently two feet above the ledge.

Warden stepped forward, feet crunching through the sloughed-off dirt, and raised a hand to the meteorite – but held his fingertips an inch short, as if afraid that his touch would let gravity reclaim its hold. ‘We have it,’ he said in awe. ‘We have it all. Earth energy, the progenitor DNA . . . we can do it. We can carry out the plan.’

Both Brannigan and Meerkrieger were caught up in his growing excitement. ‘No more conflict,’ said the Australian woman, moving closer to examine the shimmering rock. ‘No more waste. We’ll have control over every single person on the planet.’

‘Total control,’ added the media baron. He signalled for Nina to lower the meteorite; it responded to her mental direction, settling on the ledge with alarming groans and snaps of overstressed stone. She stepped back, breaking contact by separating one of the statues from the others, but the huge rock remained aglow. The larger the object, it seemed, the longer it could hold its earth energy charge. ‘This is incredible!’

Warden was already making plans. ‘Once we get out, we’ll bring in more people, set up lines down into the volcano. We’ll cut the rock open and extract the DNA samples. As soon as we’ve got those, we can complete the sequencing process and release the virus. This is it,’ he said to his two remaining colleagues, his patrician scowl for once overcome by genuine euphoria. ‘This is our moment. We can remake the world – remake humanity! Everything that happens from now on will be according to our design.’

‘Not your design,’ said Sophia unexpectedly from behind them. ‘Ours.’

The Group members whirled – and were cut down as she opened fire with Eddie’s gun. Meerkrieger took two bullets in the chest, convulsing in agony before slumping lifelessly to the floor. Brannigan fell as another pair of shots tore into her. Warden was hit in the shoulder and collapsed with an anguished screech.

He raised a shaking hand, signalling to the mercenaries standing impassively nearby. ‘What are you doing?’ he gasped. ‘Kill her – kill her! Help me!’

Stikes joined Sophia, his self-satisfied smile oozing wider. ‘I’m afraid they’re all loyal to me, not to you.’

‘But they are still loyal to the Group,’ Sophia added. ‘The new Group, that is.’ She took Stikes’s hand.

‘Thank you for giving me full access to all the Group’s resources, by the way,’ Stikes added. ‘Don’t worry – we’ll put them to good use.’

In his desperation, Warden looked to the prisoners for assistance. ‘Do something! Please!’

All Nina could do was shrug helplessly. ‘What can I say? I told you not to trust them.’

Eddie nodded. ‘Saw that coming a mile off.’

Sophia brought the gun back down at Warden. ‘No, please!’ he begged. ‘I—’

A single shot hit him in the forehead, blowing out the back of his skull in a gruesome bloom across the stone. Nauseated, Nina looked away. Larry retched, struggling to hold in a mouthful of vomit.

‘Well then,’ said Stikes amiably, ‘now that’s all dealt with, there’s only one thing left to do.’ He raised his gun and pointed it at Eddie.

‘Just a minute, darling,’ said Sophia. ‘We agreed in Switzerland that I get to kill Eddie, remember? And secondly, business before pleasure – we still need Nina to move the meteorite so we can get out of here.’

Stikes glowered at Eddie, but reluctantly lowered the Jericho. ‘All right.’ He turned to the mercenaries. ‘Watch Chase and his father. Dr Wilde, if you’d be so kind?’

Nina returned to the meteorite. The huge stone began to hum once more as she brought the glowing statues closer, the very air around it tingling. She looked round at her audience: the guards mystified, Sophia and Stikes as avaricious as the late members of the Group had been, Larry still shocked by what he had just witnessed . . .

And her husband giving her an unspoken signal.

Ready.

An almost imperceptible nod, then she turned back to the hulking stone. Slowly, carefully, she brought all three statues together once more.

The expansion of her consciousness was this time almost familiar, even comforting. She belonged here; the power was a part of her. It always had been, simply waiting for the moment when it would be unlocked. She could feel the flow of the earth’s energy around her, an unimaginable torrent constantly circulating beyond the limits of the five human senses.

But now she could experience it. And channel it.

Control was out of the question: it would take too much time and effort even to begin to direct the power according to her specific wishes. But right now, she didn’t need control. If anything, she was trying to achieve the opposite. She allowed more energy to flood through the meteorite, willing it to take in more power.

And more. And more.

The great stone rocked and groaned again as the shimmering light ran over its surface. It slowly rose, more small fragments breaking loose and lazily spinning through the air until the charge they held faded and they dropped. ‘Good,’ said Sophia, wide-eyed. ‘Good! Now move it to the temple.’

Nina obeyed, still directing ever more earth energy into the rock as she held the statues against it. Its glow brightened, shadows of ancient gods shifting across the wall as she brought it closer to the Atlantean structure. Sophia followed, Stikes gesturing for the mercenaries to bring their prisoners after her. The Englishwoman surveyed the damaged tiers. ‘To the left,’ she ordered, pointing at a particular section. ‘Put it down with the tip next to the edge of that ledge. We’ll be able to reach the stairs from—’

She broke off, flinching as a lightning bolt flashed from the meteorite to strike the temple several storeys above. A statue exploded, shattered fragments showering the people below. ‘What’s happening?’ Stikes demanded.

‘I don’t know!’ Nina replied, only partly lying. She was still channelling more energy into the stone, but had no control over how it would manifest itself.

Sparks crackled from the floating rock, another, stronger bolt lancing up the volcanic shaft and out into the empty sky above. Eddie felt a static-like charge rising around him, the hairs on the backs of his hands standing on end. Larry gave his son a worried glance. ‘Hang on,’ Eddie muttered to him.

‘What was that?’ snapped Stikes. He looked between the two Chases, realisation growing that some conspiracy was afoot. ‘Stop!’ he shouted at Nina. ‘Put the thing down!’

‘It’s almost in place,’ Sophia objected. The meteorite was nearly close enough to the ledge to allow a person to jump across. More flashes bridged the gap, stonework splintering where they landed.

‘No, leave it!’ He pointed his gun straight at Eddie’s heart. ‘Dr Wilde, put it down and step away now, or I’ll kill them both!’

Nina closed her eyes . . .

And willed the entire power of the earth to flow into the meteorite.

Another flash, brighter than any before—

She was abruptly thrown backwards as if shoved by a giant hand, grit and dust peppering her skin as a shockwave of energy erupted from the glowing rock. The statuettes flew from her hands, tumbling weightlessly through the air.

An unimaginably deep rumble shook the ledge – shook the entire volcano. More statues toppled from the temple to smash on the rocky floor. Igneous shards rained down from the wall of the shaft as the tremor pummelled them loose.

The quake had knocked everyone down. Pre-warned, Eddie was first to recover. He spotted Nina near Sophia and was about to shout for her to get the other woman’s gun when the sight of the meteorite froze him in momentary shock.

The massive rock was no longer simply hanging in the air. Glowing so brightly it almost hurt to watch, it was rising with increasing speed up the shaft. It was what had happened in Atlantis thousands of years before, he realised: the sky stone had been overloaded with earth energy, and when it blew it would be thrown skywards . . .

To land somewhere else. Where the next set of arseholes with ideas for world domination could find it.

Unless—

He jumped up and ran – not towards Nina, but for the remote.

Stikes sat up – and found one of his prisoners had gone. He whirled, seeing Eddie running across the ledge, and grabbed the Jericho from the ground beside him. Teeth bared in an expectant snarl, he brought the gun round.

Eddie saw the detonator amongst the scattered debris. He dived headlong at it as Stikes’s first shot whipped past. Ignoring the pain of the landing, he twisted the dial to the ‘Full’ position.

Stikes rose, adjusting his aim. His prone target had nowhere left to go . . .

Eddie flicked up the protective cover – and jammed his thumb down on the red button beneath.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened—

Then the meteorite blew apart.