“You’re right,” Maddock said. “And that’s why we should avoid the doves.”
Dima and Bones turned twin looks of bemusement his way.
“Come again?” Bones said.
“Schrader said they came two-by-two, but not all animals came onto the ark in two’s, did they?”
Dima smacked herself in the forehead. “I’m an idiot.”
Bones frowned. “If you are, then I’m even worse because I still don’t get it.”
“Noah needed animals for sacrifice,” she began, “but he could only use so-called ‘clean’ animals. Remember that bit from the Book of Noah? ‘Two by two and seven by seven.’ Obviously, if he brought only two clean animals and sacrificed one…”
“A miniature extinction event,” Bones said.
“Exactly. So while Noah brought two of every animal considered unworthy of sacrifice, he brought seven of every clean animal so he could make sacrifices without eliminating his breeding stock.”
“So,” Maddock said, “the doves didn’t come two-by-two, but the pigs did.” He moved to the tunnel where Bones stood, the one marked by the unclean animals, and took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.” Taking one last, long look inside, he took a step.
The ceiling didn’t fall, the floor didn’t collapse, and nothing shot out of the walls to impale him. I’ve watched too many Indiana Jones movies. He took another step, and then another. When he’d taken a dozen, he felt safe enough to tell Bones and Dima the way was safe. They entered as slowly as he had, Dima clutching Bones’ arm.
“You might have saved my life, you know,” she said to Bones. “If you hadn’t stopped me from walking into that tunnel, who knows what might have happened?”
“Yeah, saving hot chicks is sort of my thing. You can thank me later.”
Shaking his head, Maddock moved on into the darkness.
Chapter 43
“Tyson! I’ve found something.” Ahmed stood in the center of a crumbled building at the center of Engaruka, waving like an idiot. The cloth he’d wrapped around his head had come loose and now dangled off his shoulder like a woman’s scarf, yet he seemed oblivious to how he appeared to the men.
Between the heat and the dire nature of their circumstances, Tyson was quickly losing patience with his colleague. If this were a false alarm, Tyson might have to punch him. He strode through the fallen stones and crumbled walls that passed for an ancient city, making his way to where his Ahmed waited. A dozen men circled around him, mercenaries hired to help them finish the job. He’d have preferred Trident regulars, but Shawa would never permit it. It was up to Tyson to earn his way back into the man’s good books, and he felt he was on the precipice of doing just that.
“What is it?”
“A ramp leading underground.” Ahmed beamed. “Right here. There was a giant black stone covering it, but it’s been moved aside.”
That was interesting. Tyson clambered over the loose stones until he reached Ahmed’s side.
It was just as Ahmed had described — a strange, dark stone had been moved, displacing the rubble around it. Down below was a stone ramp leading down to a passageway of some sort. “Well done,” Tyson said.
“I found three sets of boot prints. One set was large enough to be the Indian’s, and another small enough to be Zafrini’s.”
“I’d say that seals it. Let’s get them.” Knowing it was important to instill confidence in the mercenaries, who could be a fearful and superstitious lot, Tyson went first. Finger on the trigger guard of his pistol, he stalked down into the tunnel, shone his light around until he was certain the way was safe, and then called up to his men. “It’s clear. Come on down.”
One by one, the mercenaries made the drop, with Ahmed last. When they were all together, Tyson gave brief instructions.
“No talking. No flashlights or headlamps unless I give the order. We don’t want to warn them of our approach.”
The men nodded, recognizing reason and good sense when they heard it.
“Rifles at the ready and safeties on until I give the word. One stray bullet can do a world of damage should we find ourselves in tight quarters.”
As he turned and moved forward into the darkness, he allowed himself a smile. He had Maddock and crew cornered, and his men outnumbered theirs nearly five to one. This time he would not fail.
He moved as quickly as he could without making unnecessary noise. He wasn’t worried about booby traps. If there were any, Maddock and the others would have exposed them on their way in. Hopefully this would allow him and his men to make up for lost time.
When they came to a place where the passageway split into two, an unsettling place where old bones covered the floor, he barely hesitated. He chose two mercenaries and sent each down a tunnel with instructions to scout ahead fifty meters and report back. The two men nodded, seemingly happy to get away from the great heap of bones, and rushed ahead.
Ten seconds later, a loud crash and a cry of pain rang out from the passageway on the left. Tyson turned on his flashlight and moved to the mouth of the tunnel. Twenty paces in, a solid block of stone had fallen, crushing the mercenary.
“Rock fall in the tunnel,” he called over his shoulder. No need to alarm the mercenaries, who didn’t seem to have considered there might be dangers beyond that which their quarry presented. “Hopefully the other tunnel is solid.”
While they waited for the other scout to report back, Tyson made a quick inspection of the chamber in which they stood. He immediately noticed primitive carvings above each: doves above the booby-trapped tunnel and pigs over the other. He wasn’t sure what significance, if any, the images held, but he filed them away for future reference.
Moments later, the scout returned, declaring the way ahead clear. Emboldened, Tyson once again took the lead. He would catch Maddock.
“I don’t see any symbols here.” Bones stood gazing at the blank wall where the tunnel they followed had come to an abrupt end. “Could we have missed a turn somewhere?”
“Not if our theory about clean and unclean animals is correct,” Maddock said. They’d encountered numerous places where the tunnel split or intersected other passageways. Every time, only a single passageway was marked by the unclean animals. He was convinced it was more than good fortune that had brought them this far. They had to be in the right place. “Check everything,” he said. “Walls, floor, ceiling. There’s got to be something to show us the way.”
He dropped to one knee, inspecting the floor, while Dima searched the walls and Bones scanned the ceiling. Maddock saw nothing but rough, gray stone.
“This place is weird-looking,” Bones said. “Instead of the usual stalactites and stalagmites, there’s all these lumpy, twisty rocks all around. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s a product of the carbonatite magma,” Dima said. “It was mentioned in an article about Ol Doinyo Lengai. Because of the magma’s low temperature and unusual composition, it doesn’t flow like normal lava. It’s thick and slow-moving, and thus can harden in unusual shapes. There’s no other place like it in the world.”
This gave Maddock an idea. He ran the beam of his light down the cavern wall, inspecting the odd shapes that had formed in spots along the walls. One immediately caught his attention. “Maybe I’m just missing Key West, but that looks an awful lot like a lobster to me.”
He knelt beside the figure that had caught his attention. Up close, there was no doubt. Someone had worked on this formation, perhaps selecting one that vaguely resembled the sea creature, and carved out claws and a tail to enhance the resemblance.