‘So now you want to go in there too? A minute ago, you couldn’t wait to blow everything up!’
‘I know, but Nina’s made me realise there’s a better alternative. I don’t just want to stop these Nazis,’ he said, with sudden vehemence. ‘I want to kill them. I want them to pay for everything they’ve done. Not just what they did to me,’ he brought a hand to his bruised face, ‘but for what they did to my people — and your friends. Surely you can’t disagree with that.’
‘No, I can’t,’ Eddie replied grudgingly. ‘I owe them for Macy, at the very least.’
‘And Dr Assad,’ said Nina. ‘And Bill, and Dina, and everyone else they murdered to find this place. We can’t let them control the Spring of Immortality. No matter what. You remember how I said I wanted to leave a legacy? Well, stopping Kroll and the other Nazis would be better than any book.’
Eddie rubbed his forehead, conflicted and exasperated. ‘All right. We make sure they don’t get the spring — we poison it, blow it up, whatever. But we need to be quick, okay? It won’t be long before someone wonders why those guards haven’t come down for their bratwurst.’
‘Agreed,’ said Zane. ‘Haber, you bring the explosives and detonators,’ he told the other Mossad operative. ‘I’ll tell Behr and Arens to keep watch — the others will come with us. The more men we have, the quicker we can set the C-4 if we need to,’ he explained to Nina before hurrying back outside.
‘You absolutely sure about this?’ Eddie asked his wife. ‘’Cause if we go in there, we probably won’t come back out.’
‘I’ve been on a one-way trip from the moment I was infected by the eitr,’ Nina insisted. ‘If I’m going to die… then I want to die for something, not of something. And I know you’ve always thought the same way. Fight to the end, as you say.’
‘Fight to the end,’ he echoed, almost automatically, before adding: ‘Buggeration and fuckery. I’ve made you way too much like me.’
‘You’re a bad influence, Eddie Chase,’ she said, smiling. ‘But I love you all the same.’ She kissed him. He pulled her close and returned it, with passion. Banna blushed, finding a new fascination with the stone basin.
The moment was broken as Zane returned with five of his men. ‘The Nazis are still in their camp, but I don’t know how long they’ll stay there. Haber, are you ready?’
The agent picked up the pack of explosives. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. Nina? You should lead the way — this is your find.’
‘And Ubayy’s,’ said Nina.
The Egyptian shook his head. ‘It is an incredible discovery, but… the credit is yours. I wish I had not found it.’
She gave him a sympathetic look, then faced the darkness beyond the secret door. ‘Okay, then. Let’s end this.’
Steeling herself, she entered the passageway, Eddie and the others following.
34
They made their way up the steep tunnel. The last man, Krebs, tried to pull the door shut behind them, but was forced to leave it slightly ajar as the gap closed on his fingers. The passage was only wide enough for the group to proceed in single file, Nina’s caution — and archaeological urge to examine her surroundings — soon bottling up the others behind her. ‘Come on, love, shift it,’ Eddie complained. ‘We’re on the clock.’
‘I know, but look at this.’ Dust covered the stone floor, undisturbed for millennia — and visible in her flashlight’s beam were faint imprints, the sandalled feet of the last person to exit before the place was sealed. ‘Who knows how old these are?’
‘Nobody, and I doubt anyone but you cares either.’
‘All right, Jeez! Can’t a dying woman make her last discovery without being hassled?’ But she increased her pace.
Zane shone his own light past the couple. ‘How long is the tunnel?’
‘I think I can see the top,’ Nina reported. ‘It opens out.’
‘Sounds echoey,’ said Eddie as they neared the summit. ‘Must be a fairly big space.’
Nina reached it — and stopped in surprise, the others bumping together behind her. ‘Ah… yeah. You could say that.’
They had emerged on to a ledge overlooking a deep vertical shaft, a ragged rift at least a hundred feet across that dropped away into the heart of the mountain. ‘So,’ said Eddie, peering over the edge, ‘finding the spring’s going to take a bit longer than we thought.’
Nina shone her torch downwards. The powerful beam was reduced to a dim pinprick on the bottom far below. ‘Damn, that’s deep.’ She brought the light back up, seeing pathways carved into the walls of the shaft. They had been paved with stone slabs, but many were uneven or missing entirely, exposing the raw rock beneath.
‘There’s a way down here,’ said Zane, moving left along the ledge to illuminate the top of a steep path that descended clockwise around the shaft.
‘And here,’ added Eddie, finding a second route to the right. This one spiralled anticlockwise into the darkness below.
‘Which do we take?’ Banna asked.
Nina tried to track one, but sections were blocked from view by the folds of the craggy walls. ‘I don’t know. It looks like there are junctions lower down, but I can’t see how they connect.’
‘We should split up,’ said Zane. ‘One group takes the left path, the other the right. We’ll divide the explosives — that way, whoever gets—’
‘No, no!’ she interrupted, disparate pieces suddenly slotting together. ‘We take the right path. We always take the right path!’
‘What do you mean?’ Eddie asked.
‘It was written on the arch — “Heed Alexander’s words, and you will have nothing to fear.” It’s what he said in the Romance, remember? Once you go through the arch, you always take the right-hand path or else you’ll become lost. “Lost” in this case meaning falling two hundred feet on to solid rock. This whole thing is part of Andreas’ challenge; I wouldn’t be surprised if the left path’s booby-trapped somehow.’
Banna surveyed the chasm nervously. ‘We still might fall, whichever path we take. It does not look safe.’
‘He’s right,’ said Eddie. ‘Nina, it’ll take ages to get to the bottom — if we even can. We should just rig the tunnel with C-4 and get out of here.’
‘I don’t think we’ll get the chance,’ Zane said, whirling at the sound of someone running up the passage. He hefted his Uzi, but lowered it as he saw the two rearguard Mossad agents. ‘What’s happening?’
‘They’re coming,’ Arens reported breathlessly.
‘How many?’
‘All of them,’ the other agent told him. ‘We could never have stopped them, so we came to warn you.’
‘Shit,’ muttered Zane. ‘We won’t have enough time to set the explosives.’
‘We could hold them off here,’ suggested Behr. ‘They can only come up that tunnel one by one.’
‘They’ll make it eventually,’ Eddie warned.
Zane considered his options, then: ‘Okay, Arens and Behr, hold them for as long as you can, then follow us down.’ He looked back at Nina as he went to the anticlockwise path. ‘I hope you’re right about going right.’
‘So do I!’ she replied. ‘I’ll go first — just in case I’m not.’ She started down the ledge.
‘Going into the depths of the bloody earth after some ancient legend?’ grumbled Eddie as he followed. ‘Been doing that a lot lately…’
‘Sir! Over here!’ yelled a soldier. Kroll looked towards the source of the shout as he strained up the hill. The man was pulling a bloodied corpse out from behind a tree.