Brice regarded the other panels of the quadriptych as Howie panned the camera’s light along them. ‘So could the real answer be any of these?’
Ziff examined the three pictures. ‘The tree seems to be a fig tree. The man holding up the dead goat, I would say is not Samson — he doesn’t have any hair. I don’t know who he might be, though. And the last panel is a plague of locusts devouring a wheat crop. I can’t see how any of those would relate to Samson’s riddle.’
‘Then it must be the lion,’ Mukobo said firmly. ‘Dr Wilde, reach into the hole.’
‘Wait, wait,’ she protested. ‘There might be something else we haven’t spotted.’
‘There is nothing else!’ The African swept his light around the room. Other than the frieze and the Hebrew inscription, the walls were blank. ‘You have the answer. We must find the treasure. Do it!’
‘It might be another fucking trap!’ Eddie objected. ‘Give her time to—’ He folded in breathless pain as Luaba drove his Kalashnikov into his stomach.
‘I grow tired of your voice, Chase,’ the warlord said, his suddenly affectless tone somehow more threatening than any angry shout. ‘I do not want to hear it any more.’ Luaba readied his rifle, finger on the trigger. The wheezing Yorkshireman looked up into the gun’s muzzle and opted to remain silent.
Nina was not about to do the same, however. ‘The lion’s much too obvious an answer. It’s the only one it could be — which means it can’t be. Solomon meant this as a challenge that only someone as wise as him could solve, but a passing knowledge of the Old Testament is all you’d need to reach this solution.’ She jabbed a finger at the image of the dead predator. ‘That’s not wisdom, it’s just having paid attention to the stories of your own people.’
‘Some would say that’s the very definition of wisdom,’ Brice observed smugly.
‘And some would say that it’s not falling for an obvious trap!’
‘Enough,’ Mukobo snapped. ‘Put your hand in there. Now!’ He shoved her to the carved lion. ‘If you do not do it, then I will make one of your friends do it instead — and anything that happens to them will be on your head!’
Nina stared with rising panic at the waiting hole. She was absolutely convinced that the obvious answer to the riddle was also wrong, and the first challenge had proved that Solomon was lethally unforgiving of mistakes. But despite her fear, she was unwilling to let someone else take the risk in her place. She looked back at her companions.
Lydia’s feelings were clear, her wide eyes pleading with the American: you do it. Not me. Don’t choose me! Howie’s sense of self-preservation was less blatant, but just as real. Ziff had the same misgivings as Nina about the puzzle, his expression almost apologetic for his failure to come up with a solution.
Eddie and Fortune, though, were both coiled springs waiting to unleash. She could see their eyes scrutinising their captors, searching for advantage, for weakness. And she knew Eddie would make a desperate strike rather than let her put her hand into the ominous opening — which would get him killed.
Her breath quickened, pulse pounding. A tiny shake of her head to Eddie, silently pleading with him not to sacrifice his life, but his determined expression warned her that he was not going to listen…
‘You are out of time, Dr Wilde!’ Mukobo barked. ‘Put her—’
‘Please — wait, please!’ A new voice, one that had not been heard for some time: Masson Kimba. The porter’s fear of Mukobo and his men had rendered him mute and passive, meekly going wherever he was pushed, but now he finally spoke again. ‘Do not hurt her. Please.’
The warlord rounded on him. ‘Do you want to take her place?’
‘I do not want to, but… but I will.’
‘Masson, no!’ Nina protested. ‘I can’t let you!’
Kimba gave her a weak smile. ‘You have to. I am to blame for all this.’ He shot a disgusted glare at Wemba, who looked away in discomfort. ‘I knew Cretien had money problems, that he had talked to the Englishman. I should have told Fortune that he could not be trusted.’
‘It was not your fault,’ said Fortune. ‘It was mine.’
‘I should have known,’ the porter insisted. ‘And Dr Wilde will be more likely to get you out of this place alive than me.’ He faced Nina again. ‘You were kind to me on the boat… Nina. Let me be kind to you. Please.’
She shook her head. ‘But I can’t—’
‘Enough,’ snapped Mukobo. ‘He has chosen. Think yourself lucky, Dr Wilde. And hope you are wrong if you want him to live.’
He gestured, and his men pushed Nina back before clearing a space around the first panel. Kimba gave Nina a last worried look, then cautiously slid his arm into the dark circle, reaching down at an angle. ‘It is… it is like a pipe,’ he reported. ‘There is a hole in the top, but… I cannot feel anything inside.’
‘Keep going,’ ordered the glowering Mukobo.
The porter leaned closer to the wall as his outstretched hand continued deeper. ‘I found something! It is metal.’
‘Careful,’ warned Nina. ‘Don’t push or pull it, just tell me what it feels like.’
Kimba’s face scrunched with deep concentration as his fingertips probed the unseen object. ‘It is like… a handle?’
‘A release for a hidden door?’ suggested Ziff, nervously fingering his beard.
‘Or it could be the release for a trap,’ Nina countered. ‘Masson, don’t pull it until you’re sure there’s nothing else there.’
The Congolese felt around the space’s entire circumference. ‘There is only the metal thing.’
Mukobo folded his arms. ‘Then pull it!’
Kimba glanced beseechingly at Nina for advice or salvation, but she had neither. He licked his lips, then turned back to the frieze. ‘Okay. I am holding it.’ A pause for breath, then: ‘And… pull.’
A faint metallic clunk came from behind the wall. Everyone flinched — but nothing happened.
Kimba gasped in relief—
Another sound, harsher — and the African screamed as something inside the hole slammed downwards with a crunch of tearing flesh and bone. ‘Oh my God!’ Nina cried. ‘Get him out of there!’
The porter shrieked, unable to pull free of whatever had caught him. ‘My arm! It has my arm, it—’
Another frightening noise, this time from the ceiling. Some instinct made Nina jump back — as a long metal spear lanced out of a hole overhead and stabbed diagonally downwards. Its prong plunged through Kimba’s back, impaling him against the frieze.
He flailed, letting out one final anguished, gargling cry before falling limp. Lydia screamed. His body remained pinned to the wall for a moment before the spear jerkily retracted into its hiding place, blood drizzling from the shaft.
Kimba slumped, hanging briefly by his trapped arm before whatever was holding it also withdrew. The dead porter flopped to the floor, a gaping wound in his forearm revealing how another spear had plunged through it to transfix him.
Fortune held the shivering Lydia as she stared at the corpse. ‘Is… is he…’ she stammered.
Brice completed her sentence. ‘Dead? Quite decisively, I’d say.’
‘You can fucking shut up,’ Eddie growled at him.
Mukobo directed his torch at the ceiling. He found first the hole from which the spear had fallen, then identical openings in line with each of the other three panels. ‘You were right, Dr Wilde. The lion was not the right answer. So what is?’
Nina’s voice was as shaky as her hands. ‘None of them.’
‘One must be. And you will find it.’
Anger overcame shock. ‘None of them are right, damn it! I told you, the Riddle of Samson is bullshit. If we try those other holes, the same thing’ll happen!’