Three rapid-fire gunshots echoed through the tunnel just a moment before the grenade exploded, sending a plume of dust and a wave of pressure into the small chamber. The force smashed King's head against the hard-packed earth, knocking him unconscious.
NINE
Pierce stared down at the limp body of Molly McCabe. Blood pooled around her, spreading out onto the hard-packed sand and pebbles like a mudslide through a suburban neighborhood. In the day's heat, the blood would be dried within the hour, a permanent stain on the desert marking the passing of a woman he had come to respect and enjoy. He fell to his knees next to her body and checked her pulse. He knew there wouldn't be one, but it was all he could think to do.
"Dr. Pierce," said one of the masked men as he picked up the satchel containing the artifact. "You're going to have to come with us."
He looked at the man through his tears. He longed for McCabe's spirit and strength, but the sight of the strange-looking pistol still in the guard's hand combined with the three holes in McCabe's chest deflated any thoughts of heroism. He wasn't King… and King was…. He stood up.
King represented what little family he had left. His parents were dead, his brother a drug addict, and King, the man who had nearly been his brother-in-law, had always been there for him.
The man in charge took aim at Pierce, recognizing the look of a man about to do something foolish. "Hold on, Pierce," he said, and then turned to the man who shot McCabe. "Fix her up."
The man knelt down next to McCabe and tore open the top of her shirt. He wiped the area over her heart, where the three bullets had torn through skin and bone, with a white cloth that smelled strongly of alcohol. The man discarded the now bloody rag, took a small pack from his pocket and removed a red liquid-filled syringe. As the man took aim over her heart, Pierce moved to stop him, but he was knocked to his knees and put in a submission hold by one of the other guards who'd finished zip-tying the crew
"Watch," the guard said, holding Pierce's head just feet from Mc-Cabe's dead body.
After five seconds, the holes in McCabe's chest shrunk and closed. Pierce stopped struggling and watched in silence, waiting to see what would happen next. A small undulation beneath the skin of her neck caught his eye. She had a pulse. Then he noticed her chest rising and falling. McCabe was alive.
"You brought her back to life?" he asked as he looked at the man in charge. "How is that possible?"
"Regeneration," the man said. "You know all about that, don't you, Doc?"
He looked at the artifact hanging from the man's shoulder. Hydra.
"She'll be fine," the man said, lowering his gun. "Now please, come with us."
Pierce nodded slowly. He knew in the end he had no choice, and they did save McCabe. He looked at the now damaged stone, its inscription ruined by the explosion. Regret tore at his insides. King had been his oldest friend, as close to family as you could get without sharing a blood relative. It made him sick to think it, but he hoped the grenade had killed King. Being stuck alive under that rock… he'd seen the faces of those men, roasted alive. No one deserved that fate. "Sorry, Jack," he said as he allowed the men to bind him in zip-tie handcuffs.
When he first saw them, Pierce thought these might have been part of the same group who stole the Argo crew manifest, but while these men held just as keen an interest in a Hercules-related artifact, their high-tech weapons and military precision set them apart from his previous attackers, who were much more… primitive. Those men had been passionate about protecting the secrets of the past, even if it meant destroying it. But these men, if they truly were interested in Hydra for its regeneration abilities, which seemed entirely likely given the miracle he'd just witnessed, were more interested in unlocking ancient secrets.
The men holstered their weapons and led Pierce up the incline, back toward the U.N. base camp. As they walked, the leader shouted back to Atahualpa, "Keep them tied up for two hours, then let them go."
"What about my money?" Atahualpa asked. A wad of cash was tossed his way. He caught it and smiled. "Two hours. Right!"
As they reached the top of the hill, Pierce looked back and saw Atahualpa sit down in the sand. "Oww!" he shouted as something bit his neck. His first thought was that a scorpion or spider had stung him, but he caught a glance of a syringe before a wave of nausea struck. His vision blinked out next.
Though he could no longer see, Pierce could still hear, though his consciousness quickly faded. He raged, unable to move, as one of the dark-clad men said, "That's mean, boss."
"Why's that?"
"Would have been nicer to just shoot them all in the head than leave them with her. She'll tear them to bits when she wakes up." "Too bad I'm not nice."
Pierce groaned as the men's laughter roared in his head, bent and distorted by his delirium. He lost consciousness as his body flopped down onto a hard surface and an engine roared to life.
TEN
King woke to a hard object poking his ribs. He grabbed at it and pulled it away, tossing it to the side. It clattered across the floor of the pitch-black, resealed burial pit. He realized he'd thrown a bone, probably one of the mummified men's arms.
Colors danced in his vision as he opened his eyes wide, searching for any sign of sunlight that might signify an escape route, but saw only phantom colors. He knew he hadn't been unconscious long because the colors he saw were created by his eyes adjusting to the pitch dark of the tomb. He experienced the phenomenon every time he went on a night mission. That first plunge into darkness always filled his vision with reds, purples, and greens.
Two other indicators told him he hadn't been out long. First, he was still breathing. There couldn't be much air inside the chamber and the lack of light also meant a lack of air passage. That was good news and bad news; good because he wasn't dead yet, bad because he soon would be. The second indicator was that he was only beginning to feel thirsty. Dehydration would set in soon enough as the sun-baked sand cooked him like a roast pig in a Hawaiian imu pit, but for now he was functioning fine, except for the ringing in his ears. Damn grenade.
King stood and smacked his head on the ceiling. "Damnit!" he shouted, bending down. The center of the pit stood seven feet high, but the edge, where he'd been thrown, shrunk to just under five feet. He shuffled to the center of the pit, hunching until his foot struck something, filling the chamber with a metallic clang. He bent down and searched with his hands until he found the source of the noise — the lantern.
He felt the electric lantern's body, searching for the power button. As he did, he wondered if he really wanted to light the chamber. What good would it do him? Any sunlight peeking through wouldn't be able to compete with the lantern light. He'd never see it. And he'd have to look at the ugly mugs of the mummified men surrounding him, reminding him of his fate. Buried alive. Mummified by the scorching sun and moisture-sucking air. But when he found the button, he decided he'd rather die being able to see. He said a quick prayer and pushed the button.
Light filled the small chamber, revealing a circle of horrified expressions, eyes pale, mouths agape, fingers torn to shreds, heads bashed in. Most of the men had survived the blast, being dead already, but several had been tossed and shattered after being blown across the chamber and striking the far wall.
The light blinked out as King pushed the button again. Perhaps it was best to keep it extinguished. Bullshit, King thought, then switched the light back on. Doing his best to ignore the never-fading shocked expressions of the corpses, he circled the chamber, hammering away with the butt of his handgun where the earth wall met the stone above. The sand and stone, packed in tight, couldn't be budged, even where the entrance used to be. Without a shovel, there would be no getting through. Still, he had to try.