Militia above and below them, Lydia and Ziff ascended while the bust was secured. Luaba and his other men guarded Nina and Eddie as Mukobo triumphantly watched its journey towards the light.
Brice, meanwhile, had turned his attention to the Shamir. He cautiously touched it, then looked at Nina. ‘As a rule, rocks don’t hum, so clearly this is no ordinary rock. You said you’d seen similar things before — what were they?’
‘Where to start?’ she replied. ‘A crystal that transforms mercury to gold; a meteorite fragment that pumps out enormous amounts of deadly gas when it’s exposed to air; an underground lake of poison that mutates DNA. I’ve even seen stones levitated by the earth’s magnetic field. I’ve done a lot of research into how they could have worked, and the impact they had on ancient cultures. They’ve all become part of myth and legend — just like the Shamir.’
‘So you think this really is a weapon?’
‘I don’t know what it is. And to be honest, I think it would be better for the world if we didn’t try to find out.’
He chuckled. ‘Your entire career has been based on unearthing things that would have been better left buried. I know that the IHA’s real purpose wasn’t to protect archaeological finds — it was to control them, make sure your discoveries never fell into the wrong hands. But wouldn’t the world have been safer if you’d never found them at all?’
‘Wouldn’t the world be safer without you selling guns to people like him?’ Eddie countered, nodding towards Mukobo.
‘That’s always been your problem, hasn’t it, Chase?’ Brice’s voice oozed condescension. ‘You really do want to save the entire world, when frankly there are large parts of it that don’t deserve to be “saved”. We need forest fires every so often to clear the rotten wood.’ He regarded the warlord, though his expression was more calculating than admiring. ‘I’m just giving Philippe a match.’
‘Or a flamethrower,’ said Nina.
One by one the treasures were removed, Howie and Fortune also climbing, until only the Shamir remained. ‘Bring it up behind us,’ ordered Mukobo. ‘We will climb out now. It will be good,’ he told Brice, ‘to be in the light again. There is something about this place that is… wrong.’ He started to climb the stone ladder, Brice behind him. Luaba waited until they were clear before gesturing with his gun for Nina and Eddie to ascend. Resigned, they followed their captors to the top of the tower.
They finally emerged into daylight. Shafts of sun penetrated the leafy canopy overhead, but the atmosphere was still oppressive — all the more so as they saw Mukobo’s look of malevolent expectancy. The only thing keeping the warlord from killing them both on the spot was the prospect of making the Yorkshireman suffer first. ‘Go down,’ he told them.
Nina looked over the tower’s side. Some of the Insekt Posse were on the palace roof, lowering the stolen treasures to the ground. Her companions were already below, reunited with Fisher, Rivero and Paris under armed guard. She started to climb down as the men at the top of the shaft began to haul up the Shamir. Eddie followed once she reached the roof, then the couple descended to the foot of the wall.
‘You are still alive,’ said Paris, relieved, as they reached the other prisoners.
‘For now,’ Eddie replied. ‘Probably not for much longer unless we can do something, though.’
‘Are you okay?’ Nina asked Paris and Fisher. Both men’s severed arms had been crudely bandaged, spots of blood soaking through.
The director listlessly raised his head. ‘Yeah. Great. As good as can be expected considering I had my goddamn hand chopped off.’ A flicker of anger broke through his numbed mask, directed not at Nina but Luaba as he climbed down behind her.
Lydia was with the American, trembling as she held him. ‘What’s going to happen now?’
‘I would imagine nothing good,’ said Fortune. ‘Unless you have any ideas, Eddie?’
‘I’ve got loads,’ he said with a bleak smile. ‘Problem is, they all start with me having an AK.’ He eyed their guards’ weapons.
‘We think alike, my friend.’ Fortune too managed a small grin, which vanished as Mukobo and Brice reached the ground. Above them, the men on the roof readied the Shamir for the final stage of its descent.
‘How can you make jokes?’ demanded Lydia, starting to cry again. ‘We’re — we’re going to die!’
‘We’re not dead yet,’ Nina reminded her. ‘There’s always a chance, we just have to be ready for it.’
‘Fight to the end,’ Eddie added.
The sound woman was not cheered. ‘Oh, stupid platitudes, that’s just what we need!’
‘Better than just giving up,’ snapped Nina — before something made her pause.
She wasn’t sure what it was at first. But then she caught the confusion of the men lowering the Shamir. She was not the only one to have felt it…
‘Lydia,’ she hurriedly said, ‘your sound gear — check it, quick.’
‘What good’s that going to do?’ asked the New Zealander.
‘Just do it! That weird noise — what’s it doing?’
Lydia reluctantly regarded her sound mixer… then reacted in surprise. She hurriedly donned her headphones. ‘It’s — it’s getting stronger,’ she announced. ‘A lot stronger.’
Rivero cautiously pressed a hand against the palace. ‘I can feel it! The wall’s… humming.’
Nina looked back at the descending stone. ‘It’s the Shamir, it must be!’
The same thought had occurred to others. Mukobo regarded it with alarm, then marched to his prisoners, stabbing an angry finger at the redhead. ‘What is happening? If you have tricked me—’
‘I don’t know!’ Nina protested.
A noise became audible, an almost impossibly deep rumbling. ‘It’s really spiking!’ said Lydia. ‘The intensity’s climbing, it’s shooting through the roof!’
A moment later, her words became literal — as an entire section of the palace exploded.
20
The Shamir’s wider end had scraped down the palace wall while it was lowered, cracks appearing in the pale blocks as the strange sound reached a crescendo — then stone shattered as if blasted by tons of dynamite.
Debris bombarded those below. The prisoners, against the wall to one side, were the least exposed — but the Insekt Posse nearer the treasures took the full force. One man was smashed flat by a flying hunk of rock as others were pummelled by smaller pieces.
Brice took a blow to the shoulder that knocked him down — and a lump the size of a fist struck Mukobo’s head. He fell.
Part of the roof collapsed into the widening hole. The men above plunged screaming after it. The Shamir tumbled out of the swelling dust cloud to land in the rubble not far from the prisoners. It stopped with its blunt end pointing towards the jungle. A militia man staggered upright in front of it, raising his gun—
A shrill buzz, the man reacting as if his rifle had been electrified — then the weapon shattered, metal shredding his arms and chest in a storm of razor-sharp shrapnel. Behind him, the ancient bricks of a ruined wall burst apart.
‘Jesus!’ Eddie gasped. How, he had no idea, but the Shamir was shooting out some invisible force with catastrophic effects on steel and stone.
It didn’t seem to affect people — but he saw something that would. One of the fallen guards had dropped his Kalashnikov. Eddie dived for it. He snatched up the rifle just as the man lunged to reclaim his weapon—
Too slow. The bullet punched through the guard’s outstretched palm and hit him in the face, blowing a bloody chunk out of his cheekbone.