Panic erupted as a thunderstorm of bullets echoed across the tepui.
But instead of the slaughter of innocent scientists, the soldiers’ bodies were all pummelled by hundreds of bullets, shredding all six men apart.
Caught mid-lunge, Nadia watched as eight black-clad commandoes tore into the tent, P-90 assault rifles raised.
“Yay,” she said ironically, her heavy Russian accent dripping with sarcasm. “The Americans have arrived.”
As though hearing her comment and focussing on her accent, the leader of the newcomers pushed through the scramble of panicked scientists and over the bloodied hulks of Chinese and homed in on her.
“Where is the mask?” he demanded.
Dressed head-to-toe in black, from their heavy combat boots, trousers, Kevlar breast plates and sleek black helmets, the face plates of which reflected back Nadia’s own image, the commandoes looked more like futuristic Knights of the Round Table than U.S. Special Forces.
Without preamble, he pointed his weapon squarely at her chest. “The mask was taken into an underwater tunnel,” he said. “Tell me how to get to it.”
Nadia’s face betrayed nothing. Whoever these people were, she realised, they weren’t American soldiers, and they certainly weren’t here to save the day.
“What mask?” she asked innocently.
The butt of the man’s rifle slammed against the side of her skull, dropping her in an agonising explosion of stars.
Sid gasped and rushed to her side but one of the other soldiers made a show of hefting his rifle at her, halting her in her tracks.
“We are not the United States Special Forces,” the man said, as though reading her thoughts. He jammed the hot muzzle of his gun right against the Russian woman’s head, pinning her painfully to the ground. “And I have no qualms about putting a bullet in your skull. There are plenty of other people here to interrogate.”
Nadia’s vision blurred. Her eyes rolled.
“Now,” the leader said, kneeling down beside her. “Where is the mask?”
The two United States Black Hawk helicopters hung low to the canopy of treetops. In its hold, Laurence Gibbs frowned at the satellite telemetry he was receiving, bounced down to his durable military grade tablet computer from a CIA satellite orbiting high above the earth.
The thirty-second time-lag updated itself, a fresh screen pixilating into existence. Fires still smouldered on the summit of the table-top mountain, spewing out smoke, but even through the heavy rain clouds, Gibbs could make out the dots of armed men killing other armed men. Whatever was happening on the mountain, there was more than one enemy to contend with.
“What the hell is going on down there?” O’Rourke, his second in command, asked, peering at his C.O.’s data screen.
“I don’t know,” Gibbs replied, scrambling to his feet and shuffling towards the cockpit to peer out the windshield. The storm lashed the helicopter, sheets of rain driving into them.
He grasped the pilot, David Sykes, on the shoulder and called through his helmet’s radio. “We have to cut down our ETA! We need to get there. Now!”
Benjamin King burst up from beneath the pool of water, thrashing about in the total blackness. He kicked to keep his head above the surface, fear of what might be beneath him gripping his heart and turning it to ice.
It seemed like he had been consumed by darkness for hours, running through corridors, diving through submerged tunnels, never being able to see his surroundings, never knowing what was coming next: crocodiles, giant snakes and thundering waterfalls.
He hadn’t seen the approach to the waterfall, only felt the sudden ferocious tug of the current, the stomach lurching moment as he past the point of no return and plunged into oblivion, hitting another body of water beneath, but how far beneath he didn’t know. It had felt like he had been falling for an eternity, his stomach jumping into his throat. For all he knew a bed of jagged rocks could have been waiting for his bloody touch down.
He had survived the fall and struggled to the surface against the pounding torrents cascading from above. Nevertheless, death could still be seconds away.
“Nate!” he called out as loudly as he could but his voice was lost to the roar of the falls. He felt the current, though far more gentle now, guiding him away from the waterfall. “Nate, where are you!?”
What if he didn’t survive? What if I’m down here on my own?
Claustrophobia pressed in. Panic swept over him. He thrashed in the water and began to swim aimlessly away from the noise of the falls. After only a few strokes, his outstretched hand hit rock and he hauled himself out of the water. His body trembled uncontrollably, both from fear and the biting cold which pressed against his soaked clothing.
Forcing his breathing under control, his heart rate began to settle. The noise from the falls was still deafening, all encompassing, echoing all around. The cavern he had been deposited in must have been huge, he deduced.
Suddenly remembering the Moon Mask, he hurriedly checked it was still safely secured in the women’s handbag he had wrapped across his shoulders. He felt the hard contours of metal through the pink fabric.
A pinprick of yellow light suddenly erupted in the darkness across the other side of the underground reservoir, illuminating the shallow blur of an ethereal figure.
“Benny!”
King felt his breath release in relief.
“Nate!” he called back. “I’m over here!”
After several seconds of searching, the torch beam finally settled on him, its brightness blinding.
“Stay where you are,” Raine told him. “I’ll come to you.”
It took several minutes for Raine’s distant figure to navigate through the darkness. He splashed into the lake at the foot of the waterfall and swam in several powerful strokes to King’s side. The archaeologist helped to haul him onto dry land.
Behind him, something splashed into the water and Raine spun, aiming the torch at the silhouetted shape of a crocodile diving down. He played the beam of light across the pool to the waterfall and illuminated a zigzagging ledge leading down from above. Several enormous crocodiles waddled ungainly down it.
“We better get away from the water’s edge,” Raine warned, leading King back.
“Where are the goggles?” he asked.
“Lost them when we went over the falls,” he replied, turning to aim the torch away from the cascade. “Any idea where we are?”
“No,” King admitted, then he grasped Raine’s arm and directed the light down the edge of the pool. Branching off of it was another channel of water, the source of the current he had felt, but it didn’t meander its way naturally through the cave. Instead, it was directed in a straight line by an artificial aqueduct composed of interconnected blocks, sitting together perfectly like the pieces of a jigsaw.
“Its manmade,” he gasped.
“Yeah, so was that giant water-slide we just came down.”
“What?”
Raine explained how he had noticed through the night vision goggles how the underwater tunnels had all been constructed in the same manner as the rest of the Labyrinth.
“It’s a water supply,” King speculated. He frowned in the darkness. “The whole network of tunnels was built to direct rain water from the summit, underground. But why would someone go to the trouble of building such an elaborate system of water pipes? Other than the chamber where we found the mask, which I’m guessing was originally a shrine to bless the water — hence the niche for a deity carving — we’ve found no evidence of any habitation. No temples, no store houses, no residences… unless…”