‘What’s the matter, Nina?’ Sophia snarled as she delivered another savage kick, this time to her abdomen. ‘Eddie not been keeping —’ a third impact — ‘up with your training?’ She stamped on Nina’s stomach, leaving her writhing and struggling to breathe.
‘That’s enough!’ ordered Warden. ‘We need her alive!’
With evident reluctance, Sophia withdrew. Ignoring Nina’s moans, Stikes surveyed the ledge. ‘Chase!’ he called, his voice echoing off the temple. ‘Show yourself or I’ll kill your father!’ The mercenary forced Larry forward, gun pressed hard into his back.
A head slowly rose into view over the top of the meteorite. ‘Let ’em go, Stikes!’ Eddie shouted. ‘This thing’s wired to blow — if you don’t, I’ll take us all out and this whole thing ends right here.’
There was a flurry of consternation amongst the Group, some of them pushing back through the mercenaries into the tunnel, but Stikes was unbowed. ‘You’re bluffing. You won’t let your wife die, especially not at your hand. Or even your father.’
‘Well, Eddie?’ asked Sophia. ‘What are you going to do?’ She kicked Nina again, drawing another pained cry.
‘Leave her alone!’ Eddie demanded.
‘Or what? You’ll blow us all up? Hardly. I know you better than that.’
‘We’re wasting time,’ said Warden irritably. ‘Mr Chase, I will let Mr Stikes carry out his threat if you don’t surrender right now. If you do, then… I’ll let you and your father live.’
‘What?’ snapped Stikes.
‘What can they do? We have the meteorite, and we have Dr Wilde — as you say, he won’t risk anything happening to her.’ He turned back to Eddie. ‘What do you say, Mr Chase? This is your chance to end this without any more death or violence.’
To Nina’s shock, Eddie held up his hands, then climbed down the sulphur-covered rock, jumping the last ten feet and walking out of the circle of statues towards the entrance. ‘Eddie!’ she gasped. ‘You can’t let them—’ Her words were cut short by another blow from Sophia’s boot.
‘She’s right,’ said Larry, forcing the words through his fear as the mercenary jabbed the gun harder into his back. ‘Edward, you can’t just give up!’
Eddie didn’t reply, stopping ten feet short of Stikes and Warden. The American nodded. ‘Good. You’re doing the right thing.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Eddie replied. ‘That thing you said about ending this without more death and violence?’
‘Yes?’
He grinned. ‘Not my style.’
Before anyone could react, he pushed the trigger button.
34
A deafening explosion rocked the ledge — but it didn’t come from the meteorite.
The trigger’s selector dial was set to detonate only a single bomb: the one Eddie had planted in the entrance chamber. The blast shattered the stone beam running across the room…
And the hammer fell.
The enormous stone block plunged to the floor — splattering those Group members who had retreated in fear and some straggling mercenaries to a bloody pulp.
But the carnage didn’t end in the entrance chamber. The earthquake force of the impact collapsed the roof of the lava tube. Rubble flattened more people—
Then the temple itself began to crumble.
A section of the first tier above the entrance splintered away, statues spinning through the air as it dropped. The people closest to the lava tube could do nothing but scream as it obliterated them like ants beneath a boot. The entire ledge shuddered, a great wedge-shaped chunk breaking from its edge and tumbling down to the lava lake far below.
Those further away were flung off their feet as the ground bucked beneath them. Eddie landed hard on his side, bringing up his arms to protect his head from flying debris.
As the echoing rumble of stone died away, coughs from inside the dissipating dust cloud revealed the survivors. There were not many. Of the twenty-four passengers from the helicopter, only ten remained alive, the others all buried under tons of broken rock.
Stikes painfully picked himself up and wiped his eyes. Sophia was sprawled on top of Nina, while Larry and his guard were both crumpled nearby. Warden sat up, moaning, while a few feet from him Meerkrieger held a hand to his bleeding head. The only other Group member who remained alive was Brannigan; behind her, what was left of the Bull brothers lay partially visible beneath a smashed stone slab, united in death as in life. Three other mercenaries were also stirring. Everyone else was dead.
Except one.
The thought made Stikes whirl. Chase—
The bruised Eddie realised he had dropped the trigger. Where was it? There — about six feet away. He started to crawl towards it… until the ringing in his ears faded enough for him to hear movement.
Running footsteps—
He fumbled to draw his gun — but Stikes kicked it from his hand. Eddie yelled in pain. The mercenary leader followed up with another crunching blow to his chest. ‘I should have shot you in Afghanistan when I had the chance!’ he snarled, lining up another strike at his head—
Eddie whipped up both arms, one taking the full force of the kick while the other clamped around Stikes’s ankle. Despite the pain he still twisted and rolled, yanking his opponent off balance. Stikes stumbled, landing heavily on one knee. He cried out — only for his yell to become a breathless groan as Eddie drove an elbow into his stomach. ‘Fuck off, you southern ponce!’
The Yorkshireman swivelled and unleashed a kick of his own that struck Stikes’s head with a satisfying crack. He pulled back to attack again, about to drive the former officer’s jawbone up into his skull—
A gunshot boomed across the ledge, a bullet smacking off the stone floor beside the two fighting men. Eddie froze, seeing Sophia striding towards him, the smoking Jericho in her hand. She sighed. ‘“Fuck off, you southern ponce”? Really, Eddie, the quality of your bons mots just keeps getting worse. Nina’s education clearly isn’t rubbing off on you.’
Stikes looked angrily up at her. ‘Why didn’t you just shoot him?’
A little mocking smile. ‘Because I didn’t think you’d appreciate the bullets going through you first, darling. Get up, Eddie.’ She gestured with the gun for him to stand, then looked back towards the entrance. The lava tube was now completely lost to sight, tons of stone blocking the exit. ‘You should have blown up the meteorite after all. We still have it, and we still have Nina and your father. And you, for that matter.’
‘Yeah,’ said Eddie, ‘but there’s not much you can do with it, is there? There’s no way out, and it doesn’t look like you brought a JCB with you to dig through the tunnel.’
‘There’s always a way out for the resourceful.’ She looked up at the circle of sky high above.
Warden staggered over to them. ‘What have you done?’ he yelled at Eddie. ‘You psycho! You’ve trapped us in here!’
‘Fuck me, so I have,’ Eddie replied sarcastically. ‘Hope you brought a packed lunch.’
Stikes stood, barking commands to his surviving men to secure Nina and Larry, then reclaimed his gun from Sophia. Seething, he regarded Eddie for a long moment as if considering pulling the trigger, then pointed at his other two prisoners. ‘Get over there.’
Meerkrieger and Brannigan, both visibly shaken, joined Warden. ‘What are we going to do now?’ asked the Australian. ‘Chase is right — we’ll never clear all that rubble.’