Nina tried to blow water from her mouth and nostrils, but the Nazi’s palm blocked her airways. A surge of primal terror: she was going to drown! She swallowed, gulping down as much liquid as she could to keep it from her lungs, but there was no air to replace it.
Kroll’s hand twisted to get a firm grip on her throat. Nina tried to pull his blunt fingers open, but his hold was too strong. The numbness in her other arm had passed, replaced by a dull pain — she brought it up, but still couldn’t prise him off.
The Nazi leaned closer, his face just above the surface of the rising water. She glimpsed his snarling mouth, his eyes—
She lashed her hand up, trying to blind him — but the water slowed her movement. He jerked away, yelling in German, then spread his hand over her face like some huge loathsome spider and shoved her head down hard against the stone flags.
All Nina could do was squirm as what was left of her breath knotted in her chest. She groped uselessly for his face, then her hand dropped back into the water as her strength faded. A terrible pressure rose within her, a balloon swelling inside her skull with each pounding heartbeat—
Her fingers touched something. Not stone, but metal, a rounded shape on the floor…
The silver jar.
The vessel with which Andreas had first taken the water from the Spring of Immortality. The start of everything — and now her final hope to end it—
Her hand closed around the handle — and she used her last dregs of energy to swing it at Kroll’s head.
Brimming with spring water, the metal jug weighed almost three pounds. There was a flat clunk as it struck his skull. The Nazi fell against the sarcophagus.
Nina broke his hold and pushed herself out from beneath him. She dragged herself up, expecting to breach the surface — but the water had risen higher. Panic hit her, a fear that the entire chamber had flooded—
She burst from the water. It was at stomach height, and climbing rapidly as the torrent cascaded down the steps. The new air burned in her tortured lungs. She gasped, still feeling as if Kroll’s hand was clenched around her throat…
It was.
The SS commander grabbed her again, bellowing in German as he tried to drag her back underwater—
The entire bridge shook — and Andreas’ sarcophagus broke apart. The lid slid off and slammed down on Kroll’s leg like a guillotine.
The Nazi leader screamed as the heavy stone block snapped his shin bones and crushed his foot. He fell back into the churning pool, chin only just clearing the surface — but the water was still rising. ‘Hilfe!’ he cried between breaths. ‘Help me!’
Nina forced her way through the deluge to the steps, then looked back. The water reached Kroll’s mouth. He spat, desperately straining to raise his head higher, but the stone slab was an immovable anchor. ‘Dr Wilde! Please!’
‘You brought this upon yourself,’ she replied in a cold echo of his own words when she had begged him to save Macy. ‘You wanted the water? It’s all yours. Drink up.’
‘No! No! You—’ His yells became an unintelligible gargle as the flood rose over his face. Nina watched as he flailed and squirmed, bubbles belching from his mouth… then he went still.
Still gripping the jug, she clambered up the steps. The viaduct trembled again, deep splashes echoing through the cavern as stones broke away and fell into the pool below. She stumbled, the onrushing water threatening to throw her back into Kroll’s sunken tomb…
A hand clamped around her wrist.
She looked up in fear — which became relief as she saw Eddie. ‘Nina!’ he said. ‘Thank God! Are you okay?’
‘Yeah,’ was all she could say.
‘Where’s Kroll?’
‘Drinking his fill.’
He helped her up, starting towards the tunnel. Somehow she forced her leaden legs into motion. Ahead, Banna waited anxiously at the end of the corpse-strewn bridge. ‘Where’s Jared? Did he make it?’
‘Yeah, he went after Rasche—’ Eddie broke off as the viaduct shook as if hit by an earthquake. Booms and cracks erupted behind them as the section beneath the steps disintegrated. ‘Oh shit! Déjà fuckin’ vu! Run!’
Fearful adrenalin gave Nina a new surge of energy. They sprinted along the bridge as it crumbled behind them. What was left of the statue of Alexander sheared from the cavern wall, the smaller figure of Andreas briefly watching it disappear before falling too as the tomb shattered beneath it. The pair raced towards the exit, the wave of destruction following them. ‘Run, run!’ shrieked Banna.
‘I bloody am!’ Eddie gasped.
They kept running, thirty feet to go, twenty—
The viaduct bucked underfoot — then fell away.
Nina and Eddie both screamed and flung themselves into a last desperate leap for safety. They landed hard on the final few intact feet of the bridge, tripping and rolling as the rest of the structure dropped into the frothing pool below. Banna dragged them clear as the thunderous cacophony subsided.
‘Thanks,’ Eddie wheezed. ‘Fuck me! That was bloody close.’ He crawled to his wife. ‘Are you all right?’
She opened her eyes, surprised that they were still alive. Her hand was clamped tightly around the silver jug. ‘Yeah, I… I think so.’ Falling debris had disturbed whatever caused the spring water’s sparkling glow, but there was still enough light to see that the bridge and the great statue had been obliterated, only rubble remaining. ‘What about the Nazis? Did we get them all?’
‘No, one got away,’ said Banna. ‘The Israeli went after him.’
‘It was Rasche,’ said Eddie. He stood. ‘I’m not letting him escape.’
‘Nor am I,’ Nina said, determined.
They hurried into the huge chasm. Eddie saw two torch beams flicking along the rising path above. ‘There!’
Zane pounded after Rasche. The pain from the stab wound was like red-hot iron burning into his leg, but his desire to catch Benjamin Falk’s killer seared even hotter, driving him onwards.
Rasche was now only twenty metres away, slowed by a treacherous section of pathway. The German shone his light downwards, picking his way along step by step. Zane swept his own torch beam ahead, taking in the missing slabs in a flash, and kept running.
The other man’s light flicked back at him. ‘Scheiße!’ Rasche hissed. He increased his pace, caution overcome by fear.
Zane raced in pursuit. He glimpsed lights in his peripheral vision: Eddie and Nina starting up the ledge below. He gained on the Nazi, jumping over a gap without even looking. Rasche glanced back—
And stumbled on a loose stone.
The SS man let out a sharp gasp of fright. He clutched at the wall to stabilise himself—
The Israeli tackled him.
They fell, Zane landing on top — and then both went over the edge.
The Nazi shrieked, fingers scrabbling at the cliff before catching a ragged outcropping just beneath the path. Zane slithered past him, jerking to a stop as he grabbed Rasche’s jacket with one hand. Threads in the seams popped and snapped, but the fabric held… just.
Rasche tried to shake him loose. The Mossad agent tightened his hold — then clenched his free hand into a rock-solid ball and ploughed it into the other man’s stomach.
The impact made Rasche convulse. ‘No!’ he gasped. ‘What are—’ Another brutal blow left him breathless. Zane pulled himself higher, gripping the Nazi’s shoulder, then drew his fist back again. ‘Verrückte! If I fall, we both die!’
‘Then we die,’ Zane snarled. ‘But I’ll take the last Nazi with me!’