This was Gabriel’s third foray into the realm of the Favored Son’s Killers of Men. His first exploration had released the bats. His second had revealed to him the ways in and out of the massive vault. Before he’d left the second time, he’d also observed the mechanics of the giant, pendulum-like iron baskets bracketing the stairway that led down from the stone arch. He had set to work on them, using the tools and climbing gear he had to restore the ancient mechanisms’ original function. And then he’d paced off the distance from the entryway to the spot below the funnel that wound its way to the outside. Keeping himself precisely oriented as to distance and direction, he could now move to that exact location even in the dark.
Standing at the head of the dung-befouled stairway, Gabriel reached back to tug Dinanath forward by the sleeve. “The Killers of Men,” he whispered, shining his masked flashlight forward into the void.
Dinanath’s mouth dropped open at the sight. His men crowded in behind him, eager to see for themselves.
Gabriel gave Dinanath a hard shove. The big man lost his balance against the thick oilslick of guano on the floor. Then Gabriel dived onto the right-hand balustrade and slid down into darkness as everybody started shooting.
Qi and Mitch heard a sound like two congested little barks. Squirrel coughs in the darkness. The helicopter pilot and his buddy dropped, tumbling lifeless out of the open cockpit doors, their cigarettes still smoldering.
“What the hell—” Mitch said.
Qi signaled her to keep quiet. Neither of them had seen even a muzzle flash.
Qi spoke with her eyes. Don’t move. Not a sound.
Five minutes later, still frozen and silent, they still hadn’t seen anything to explain what had happened. All they could see was the two dead guys by the chopper growing deader.
“Let’s take the bird,” Mitch whispered, impatient.
“No—too obvious. We would be exposed. We wait.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Mitch said, feeling her condition worsening.
“You must,” Qi said.
In the hunter’s-hide silence that descended around them, they could finally hear the sounds of gunfire coming from deep within the mountainside.
The iron plates of the floor inside the entry rooms were pressure-sensitive, Gabriel knew. His investigation showed that the ordeal of sliding open the large iron door at the base of the idol had a secondary purpose, which was to cock the mechanism for the long-dormant catapults. The weight of a single man could not trip it, but the weight of many would cause the floor to shift exactly one quarter of an inch. It was similar to the bed on a truck scale. And its purpose…
Gabriel surfed to the floor of the main chamber in a sludgy mudslide of decay, guano and worse.
Outside, the counterbalanced door slid back into position and locked, crushing one of Dinanath’s men who was half-in, half-out. Six men had been posted as sentries outside the idol. That left Gabriel with twelve inside, plus Dinanath.
As everybody unslung their hardware and started shooting, the thousands of bats in the cave awakened and began flying in every direction.
Thin flashlight beams swung wildly about the room, each extending three or four feet into the darkness before petering out. Muzzle flashes lit up the darkness as well, providing confusing snapshot contrasts of shadows and light, strobing in all directions, not aiding sight but blinding everybody.
The shooting ceased in a wave as Cheung’s men furiously swatted at the bats swarming over their heads. Then another wave of shooting came, mostly wild, aimed toward the ceiling.
The floor mechanism—thanks to Gabriel’s repair—was now able to do its intended job. Counterbalances clicked and cogwheeled belaying gears swung the ironbound baskets, hurling their deadly projectiles in the direction of Dinanath’s desperate men. Gabriel heard two dozen impacts, some of metal into walls or floor, but many into flesh.
Dinanath was still trying to find his footing, having fallen halfway down the dung-slick stairs as everybody went berserk. The pistol in his hand was lost to a quicksand of liquid waste as though it had disappeared through pie crust.
A wheeling bat smacked him in the face and knocked him down again.
Gabriel shut his eyes and sprinted. Five running steps, left, touch helmet of skeleton with raised sword on right-hand side, turn ninety degrees and haul ass straight out for twenty steps.
He kept his eyes shut, depending on his rehearsal in the dark to guide him according to touchpoints. Five more steps.
“Let’s just get the hell out of here,” Mitch whispered. “Please. I can get that helicopter in the air in minutes from a cold start. Whoever shot the pilot can’t be out there any longer. Let me do it.”
They could hear the thunderous sounds of gunfire below, muffled by layers of rock. “You would just leave Gabriel in there?” said Qi.
“If Gabriel’s in the middle of that, he doesn’t have a hope in hell. But we still do. We’ve got to get back to the city. Save his brother from Cheung.”
“Is that how you do it?” said Qi. “Exchange one goal for another? Your sister for his brother? Me for someone else?”
“Well, what do you think we should do?”
Qi thought for a moment. “I have confidence in Gabriel. I believe he had a plan. But,” she said, letting her eyes slide shut, “you are right. Our object must be Cheung.”
With one final glance back toward the pagoda, she came out from behind the cover that had shielded them and began to run toward the chopper.
In the harsh and uneven illumination provided by a dozen flashlights, many of which had fallen and were now casting their beams crazily into the darkness, Gabriel could see a flurry of still-circling bats and the bodies of dead men both ancient and new.
Two-thirds of Dinanath’s crew seemed to be down. The spiked metal siege balls had killed a few and bloodied several more—and the bats could smell the fresh blood. The rest were struggling to regain their footing and orientation, or firing madly, their bullets pinholing the muddy air. Panic shots bounced off the cavern ceiling or ricocheted off moist stone. Scabs of encrusted dung jumped away from the impaled corpses in their warrior drag. Near Gabriel, a warrior’s head—a featureless blunt point beneath waxy layers of droppings—was vaporized like a kicked anthill by a stray 9 mm slug.
Gabriel caught a glimpse of Dinanath. He was furiously emptying his magazine in what he must have thought was Gabriel’s direction, but he might as well have been shooting blind. One of his men, trying to claw a wriggling bat off his face, hit Dinanath from behind and the big Indian went down to hands and knees.
Falling bats pelted them like black hailstones. Other bats flew directly into the walls and dropped, unconscious or dead. The rest of the flock made for the funnel vent.
Primal fears took over. Terror of the dark, which their guns could not push back. Terror of the bats, which their guns could not track. Terror of more sharp killing objects, perhaps a second salvo of ancient metal death. Claustrophobia. Group panic, as men retreated to the sliding iron doorway only to find it cinched shut on the still-spasming arm of one of their comrades.
Dinanath was ground face-first into the sucking black mire by the panicked trampling of his own men.