The statue was his. It was one of the first antiquities he had discovered in his endless search for ancient knowledge and power. He had built his Omega facility right next to it on the shore, and had paid a fortune for the sea wall in his office, so he could look at it and dream of one day making it walk. It had been a long journey from there to here. Now, he was finally making the thing move. If only the last members of Chess Team could be dealt with, he would soon have the Chest of Adoon, and then the remaining military forces of the world would fall before him. Oh, certainly they would try to destroy him first, with their special forces teams, assassins and probably even a nuclear warhead. But none of those things would work.
He stuck his head up over the stone barrier, quickly checking on the position from which the gunfire was coming. Then he looked to the sky to see where he had sent the Colossus on its last blind sprint. He was getting closer.
He dropped down behind the stone wall, just as a bullet pinged off the top of it, missing his head by less than an inch.
“What can I do?” Seth asked from beside him.
“Crawl that way. Peek around the side of that rock and shout directions to me, while I try to steer our large friend.”
Ridley returned to mumbling the ancient language commanding the statue, as Seth scrambled away to another nearby block of stone exposed from the sandy soil.
The ground trembled as the Colossus charged back into the center of the Antonine Baths, its footfalls crushing blocks of stone and fragments of columns as it came.
“Turn right a bit,” Seth called from his vantage point.
Ridley made the mental adjustment and uttered the harsh words from the back of his throat.
“Good, now bring it closer to us.”
The rumbling footfalls sped up, as the creature lumbered faster toward their location.
“They are running for the trees now. Try to angle it to the left—” Seth began.
Suddenly, their position was riddled with bullets, shots ricocheting off the stone, and hitting all around the ground of their hiding place.
“Fuck!” Ridley’s concentration was broken. He lost control of the Colossus, and it stopped moving, frozen in mid stride. He and Seth scrambled away from the stone and down the embankment to the beach, away from the gunfire.
Somehow, it was coming from above them. Ridley scanned the skies, looking for a helicopter or something, but he found nothing. He looked up the beach to their former hide. Carpenter was dead. Trigger was scooting across the sand toward a stone block, trailing a river of blood from one limp leg. The man wouldn’t last long.
“Where they hell did that come from?” Ridley asked.
He frantically looked up and down the beach. At the north end, he saw figures in black moving into the ruins — more of his men. Finally. The local military would be dressed in garishly bright camouflage — exactly the wrong color for the local environment. The police would be dressed in black, but they would be carrying plastic riot shields with Arabic text emblazoned across them.
Now he just needed the mercenaries to keep the Chess Team busy long enough. He needed to get the Colossus under control and bring it to him. All he needed was a few uninterrupted minutes.
Suddenly, more bullets ripped into the sand from above, and Ridley and Seth leapt back, diving into the water.
“There,” Seth was shouting and pointing. “It’s coming from up there!”
Ridley looked up the body of the Colossus. Right up its chest to the cape bunched around its neck and the head with its pointed crown. On top of the head, next to one of the spires jutting off the crown, Ridley could see brief flashes of light.
“Son of a bitch! One of them is on top of it. How the hell did he get up there?”
“Can you toss him off?” Seth asked.
“I can do better than that,” Ridley said. He tried to ignore the hail of bullets occasionally peppering the sand of the beach, and he sat down in the shallow water, letting the warm water rise to his neck.
He began uttering the strange ancient language. He closed his eyes and let them roll up into his head, as he focused on one thought.
One command.
He repeated it in his mind, and then his mouth and tongue uttered the thought in the foreign language over and over again.
Slap. Your. Head.
FIFTY-FIVE
Bishop swore as his MP-5 ran dry. He’d been firing at the spot where Ridley and his men were hunkered down, when the gigantic statue went on a thunderous rampage, crushing everything under foot, before returning to the shore and suddenly stopping.
Then Rook had started firing from his perch up on top of the statue’s head. Ridley’s concentration must have broken.
“Longer you keep them off guard with shit like that, the more chance we have of finding you a really big step-ladder, Rook,” he spoke into his throat mic, as he set his submachine gun down on the sandy ground, and pulled out a pistol. It was better than nothing. If Peter and Lynn made it back with Knight, he’d get a spare magazine from them.
“Hardy har har,” came Rook’s reply. “I’m getting sun burnt like a friggin’ scorpion up here.”
Queen fired off a final blast of gunfire from her own weapon until the magazine was empty. “Just keep firing on Ridley’s position. If he can’t concentrate, he can’t move that thing.”
Queen turned to Bishop. “Any more mags?”
He shrugged. “Was gonna ask you,” he said, even though he knew she was out.
“Shit.”
Bishop heard movement behind his position and whirled the 9 mm around. Peter and Asya were struggling along, with Knight in between them. The little man looked like he’d been worked over by someone Bishop’s size. Lynn came behind them with an MP-5, covering the group as they moved. Bishop got up and ran to them. He slipped into Asya’s place, taking Knight’s weight.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Some bald guy missing an ear kicked the crap out of me. He said something about ‘his forces’, so I guess he must have been in charge,” Knight’s voice was weak.
“Ridley’s not running the show?” Bishop said.
“He looked a bit like Ridley, but it wasn’t another duplicate.”
Queen came and joined the group. They all crouched as another fusillade of bullets came their way, pinging off the stone ruins.
“This guy is missing an ear, you said?” she asked.
“Was. The golem squashed him flat.” Knight closed his eyes.
“I think I know who that was,” Queen said, accepting a fresh magazine from Peter, as Lynn handed Bishop her MP-5. He gave her the 9 mm in exchange.
“You do?” Bishop asked.
“Darius Ridley. Richard’s brother. I met him in the Ukraine. I’m the one who took the ear.”
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer prick,” Knight mumbled. “Where’s Rook?”
Bishop pointed, and Knight tiled his head to look up to the Colossus. “That’s the Colossus of Rhodes. Rook’s on top.”