Zane hesitated, caught between the desire for revenge and the need to reach safety. He chose the latter. ‘Come on!’ he cried, hurrying after the trio. ‘Get into cover!’
The next three men followed their leader as Haber yelled for Galitz to move. He turned, starting after his companions—
A boom from above — and a high-velocity bullet ripped through his back and exploded out of his abdomen, the impact throwing him against the wall.
Haber jerked away in shock before recovering. He started to step over the fallen body—
A second round blew his skull apart.
‘Got him!’ the sniper reported, staring intently through the thermal imaging scope attached to his MSG-1 rifle. There had been no time to check that the sight was correctly aligned after its hurried fitting, but at a range of less than a hundred metres, it made little difference.
‘Shoot the others, quick!’ Kroll ordered. More lights were scuttling along the ledge ahead of the two dead men — heading for cover behind part of the cavern wall. The first three torches disappeared from view, the others racing to catch up.
The sniper swung the rifle to track them. Bright shapes appeared in the electronic haze of his sights. He zeroed in on the leader. Taking out the first man would trap the others behind him, making them easy prey. The luminous red cross-hairs found the running figure…
He fired — just as the ghostly shape disappeared as if it had darted behind a curtain. A flash as the bullet struck rock. The cavern’s walls were a uniform temperature, a featureless grey in the thermal scope, rendering the obstructing outcrop invisible. The sniper whipped back to find a new target and fired again, but in his haste the round hit only stone between two of the fleeing men. Before he could reacquire, they too had vanished.
‘Damn it, you missed them!’ Rasche snarled.
‘Go after them,’ Kroll ordered. ‘Schneider, take the lead.’
‘With me,’ Schneider told the sniper, before calling several other soldiers to join him. He fixed his torch upon the left-hand path. ‘Down here! We’ll go around that rock formation and pick them off from above.’ He led the descent, heading clockwise around the chasm’s inner wall.
‘I’ll go the other way,’ said Rasche. ‘We’ll catch them in a pincer.’ He summoned more men, then addressed Kroll once more. ‘Will you follow us down?’
‘Of course,’ the obese German shot back, not liking his mocking undertone. ‘I want to see the spring for myself.’
‘I understand. It’s just that these ledges look rather… narrow.’ Rasche couldn’t quite contain a smile.
Kroll’s anger flared. ‘Shut up and get after them!’
‘Yes, mein Führer!’ The second-in-command snapped an overly enthusiastic salute, then ordered his group down the right-hand path.
‘Is everyone okay?’ Nina asked as the Israelis caught their breath.
‘We are — but we lost Galitz and Haber,’ said Zane, grim. ‘And the explosives too. That only leaves us the poison — if we can even reach the spring to use it.’
‘Can’t exactly go back now,’ Eddie pointed out. He heard voices above. ‘Shit, they’re coming after us. If they get past that statue, they’ll have a clear shot.’ He directed his torch up at the imposing figure of the Phytoi. ‘How far down are we?’
Nina briefly redirected her flashlight downwards. ‘Nearly halfway, I’d guess.’
‘Not far enough!’ Eddie saw spears of light stab out from the ledge leading past the statue. The Nazis were fifty feet higher, about to round the great fold of rock to get a direct line of sight upon their quarry. ‘Keep going — if we can get under ’em, it’ll make it harder for them to target us.’
But even as he followed Nina down the winding ledge, he knew they wouldn’t make it. The first man’s light came into view, another appearing behind it a moment later.
Someone shouted in German. Nina recognised the reedy voice: Schneider. The creepy little Nazi was leading their pursuers, running past the statue to reach the perfect firing position—
An echoing crunch — and the shouts from above turned into screams.
Everyone on the lower ledge whipped their torches up to see the Phytoi’s outspread arms swing out from the wall — swatting the entire column of Nazis off the path. Those not sent flying into nothingness were impaled on the spikes, while Schneider’s shriek was cut off as he was pulped between the two stone limbs when they smashed together.
‘We definitely took the right path,’ Nina gasped.
Kroll stared down the shaft. ‘Rasche!’ he bellowed. ‘What happened?’
Rasche hurriedly ordered his team to hold position. Lights shone across the chasm. ‘There’s… it’s a giant statue,’ he called back in disbelief. ‘Its arms swung out and knocked everyone off. It’s a booby-trap.’ Fury rose in his voice. ‘This whole place — you’ve brought us into a fucking booby-trap!’
‘Stay calm, Rasche!’ Kroll shouted, less concerned about his increasingly unreliable subordinate than the morale of the men with him. He needed everyone to focus on their task. ‘It’s part of Andreas’ test. Only those who are Alexander’s equal can pass it.’
‘Then I guess Schneider wasn’t up to the challenge!’ A pause, then: ‘Which isn’t really a surprise, the perverted little turd. But we still have to get down there.’
‘Can you see any more statues?’
‘Not from here.’
‘Then keep going! I’ll follow you down. We’ve got to stop them from reaching the spring, no matter what!’
Nina arrived at another split in the pathway. Again a new leg peeled left, running clockwise around the shaft, while the original continued in the opposite direction. ‘Keep to the right,’ she told herself.
Eddie followed her. ‘Hope Andreas wasn’t taking the piss with that part of the story.’ He looked up, following their course back around the chasm — and saw torch beams above. A large group was coming down the spiral ledge after them, approaching the first junction. ‘Go on, go left, you bastards!’
Rasche’s team arrived at the fork. ‘Which way?’ one man asked.
‘Split up,’ Rasche decided. ‘Everyone ahead of me goes right, everyone behind goes left. And if you come around a corner and find a huge statue, stop!’ He followed the first group of soldiers down the right-hand path, the rest peeling away behind him.
‘Sir!’ someone called before long. ‘I see them, over there!’
‘Hold here!’ ordered Rasche. Off to the left, the other half of his group was making steady progress downwards, but his gaze was fixed on something more distant. Lights were visible on the far side of the great fissure, some thirty metres lower.
The SS man smiled. Wilde and her companions were far enough away to make the shot difficult with a sub-machine gun… but several sub-machine guns firing on full auto would spray enough bullets to ensure they hit something. ‘Ready weapons! Take aim—’
A sound like rushing wind — then the cracking of dozens of mighty whips echoed around the shaft, followed by shrieks of pain and panic.
Rasche spun to see the second squad’s torches plummeting down the abyss, their screaming owners falling with them. ‘What in hell—’
His own unit hurriedly aimed their lights at the clockwise path. The other group had passed in front of tall carvings of trees… but now only one man remained, hanging from the ledge and desperately clawing for grip with both feet.
He found it, pulling himself up — only to be blown backwards as a fearsome gust of dusty air exploded from a hole in the wall, lashing him with something resembling switch-like lengths of branches. The luckless soldier plunged after his comrades with a howl of terror that was abruptly cut off by a wet bursting noise.