He started to run toward the looming mosque, and the ruins just beyond it. Asya stayed right by his side. They raced through the concrete and manicured shrubs of the park to the road. Traffic was trickling through already, and several cars honked at them as they sprinted across the asphalt. Knight was drenched with sweat and sea water. The battle armor wasn’t helping. They angled across the road to a triangular parking lot where early arriving worshipers were already parking their cars. Knight paid them no heed as he made for the relative privacy of the trees beyond, which created a natural boundary between the mosque and amphitheater ruins.
When they reached a stand of trees and were free from the confused looks of the devout, he paused to catch his breath.
“Help me out of this crap,” Knight said, unbuckling one of the battle armor forearm plates. Asya stepped up and helped him unbuckle all the armor. Each new piece removed made him feel lighter and cooler. Even after the recent swim, he felt over-heated, and realized it had been hours since he’d had a drink of anything. With the armor off, he bounced on his feet twice, refreshed slightly by the feeling of lightness, and said, “Let’s go,” before tearing off again, much faster than before.
On the far side of the trees, they found a small path and a concrete bench. Next to it was a closed up and boarded food cart, with a hand-painted wooden board listing the food options in Arabic. He wanted to stop, break in and guzzle some water, but he’d trained to operate for days on minimal food and water. He could drink when the fighting was done.
His soaked BDU pants clung to him as he ran, but his synthetic t-shirt had nearly dried — damp only at the armpits and neck. He looked over at Asya as they ran through more trees right next to the concrete wall of a house. She glistened with seawater and sweat, but ran with the same look of determination he’d seen in King. The Sigler family had a lot in common.
Then he was on the ground, and Asya was shouting. His left arm burned with pain. He looked at it and saw blood. Gunfire rattled through the trees above him. He couldn’t move his head far enough to see what had happened to Asya.
Then he saw a man emerge from the trees. His scarred bald head gleamed in the first rays of the sun. The side of his face was horribly disfigured, and he smiled a huge leering grin. Then he took three running steps forward and kicked his boot into Knight’s stomach. The air left Knight’s body at the same speed the consciousness left his confused mind.
FORTY-SIX
Rook was nearly out of breath as he left the balcony rail. The oncoming rush of water subsided, but the room was completely submerged. He could feel the pressure of the deep mashing against his ears. It wasn’t easy to swim over the rail with the added weight of the impact armor plates and foam still attached to his legs, but he didn’t think he had time to take them off. The combat boots weren’t helping either.
Salt water stung his eyes as he stroked over the gallery toward where the Plexiglas wall had been. He thought his only chance would be swimming for the surface instead of trying to navigate up underwater stairwells and hallways. He didn’t know how far up the water went, but if the whole second level was under water, chances were good the entire complex was drowned.
His lungs burned as he stroked with his arms, hoping that outside the flooded gallery would be a clear shot to the surface — and not some underwater cavern with no air waiting for him.
The klieg lights in the water lit up the sandy bottom, from which the enormous statue was still rising. It had turned its head away from the exploded Plexiglas wall, and was now using its hands to push itself up. Rook couldn’t see the size of the gigantic thing — he was too close to it. What he could see were the enormous spikes on the crown, and the huge shoulders of the creature, as it started to rise up in the water.
He clawed for the surface, fighting the swirling waters created by the giant’s rising. He kicked and struggled, but as he rose, a sinking feeling began to grow in his heart.
He wasn’t going to make it.
He could see the glowing sky above. Layers of darting fish above showed him just how far below the surface he was. He just wasn’t moving fast enough. He lost some of his air in an involuntary exhale, then reached for his nose with one hand and clamped his mouth shut with his jaw. His lungs sucked hard at the scant air in his mouth, and he could feel the depth still trying to force its way into his ears.
His eyes moved to his left to where the stone behemoth was still in slow motion.
Bastard.
Then he had an idea. He used the rest of his strength to stroke madly with his arms, exhaling the last of his air and kicking wildly. As long as the giant didn’t spot him, he might have a chance.
But the monstrous statue started to turn its head again. Rook quickly shifted his direction, to stay behind the creature’s head as it rose, but the head was faster. One of the long spikes on its crown careened into him from behind, lifting him through the water faster. He twisted and tried to push off the spike, but it was too late. Rather than fight, Rook spun around and clung to the crown’s barnacle-covered spike.
A moment later, his head broke the surface. He took in a huge gulp of the sweet morning air. Then he started coughing and spluttering, drawing in deep drafts of air in between each fit. He fell from the crown and landed on the ground, hugging it as he coughed.
Then sense returned.
This isn’t the ground.
Rook had only intended to catch a lift to the surface of the water on the express train that was the rising statue. But his desperation for air had cost him. He was now lying face down and hugging the top of the giant’s crown. He leaned over the side and looked down to the water some fifty feet below him and receding.
The creature was standing up. It rolled over onto its hands and knees, then raised its waist. Rook clung on for dear life as he rose one hundred feet above the water, then two hundred, then more. When the gigantic statue was fully erect, only its lower legs were still submerged under the water — what Rook had judged to be fifty feet or more of salty brine.
“Well ain’t you the biggest fucking golem in the history of the world,” Rook said, and for the first time he realized what this statue was—the Colossus of Rhodes.
The statue took a step toward the shore and shallower water. Rook was at the back of the head, facing out to sea. He struggled to turn around so he could see where they were headed. He crawled across the head, hands and knees splayed wide like a water bug. The statue took another huge step, shaking its frame when it contacted the ground. Rook slid over the curved head and shouted as he saw the world ahead come into view. He slammed into the edge of the raised crown and clung on.
The head was enormous. Rook judged it to be forty or fifty feet in diameter inside the ring of the crown. He leaned back, inside the crown’s lip, and felt safer once he couldn’t see the immense drop. Inside the ring of the crown was like a balcony; the crown itself surrounding the top of the skull like a low wall. Rook slowly stood, wary of the next jolting step, and once again looked at the world before and below him.
The view was amazing.
Dawn had fully struck. The land was bathed in sunlight — except for a long stretch in front of the giant, where its shadow left a swath of ground in night. Rook was 300 feet up, and the few people he could see on the shore looked more like specks of ground-up pepper than ants. He knew how high he was. He knew what he was riding on. As a part of Chess Team homework, he’d had to study the ancient world, and the starting place had been the Seven Wonders: the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Halicarnassus mausoleum, the lighthouse at Alexandria.