In the second dark chamber, Eddie heard the shot. ‘Hide in here,’ he told Macy before running into the first unlit room. Broma was struggling to rise again, so he trampled him back down, then saw his knife glinting in the spill of torchlight and snatched it up.
Nina kicked the light stand. Top-heavy, it crashed to the floor, the bulbs shattering and plunging the room’s eastern end into darkness. She ran to another pillar near the sealed entrance. Diamondback jogged towards her. Behind him, Lorenz stumbled into the room, blood on his face. The shadows wouldn’t hide her for long . . .
Eddie ran in, guessing Nina’s position from where Diamondback was pointing his gun. ‘Oi!’ he yelled. Diamondback saw him, spun, fired - as Eddie ducked behind a column, the wall cratering just behind him.
‘Get the zodiac out of here!’ Shaban ordered, waving Lorenz over. Hamdi scurried to join him.
Diamondback closed in. Back pressed against the column, Eddie raised the knife. The American’s revolver fetish meant he only had two shots remaining in his Colt Python. Even with a speedloader, it would take him several seconds to re-arm once they were gone, leaving him open to a counter-attack.
But he had to use up the remaining bullets first.
A sound from the nearby doorway. Broma had recovered, face gnarled with anger. He lumbered towards Eddie. Shit! That left only one direction he could retreat - and Diamondback was waiting—
From the shadows, Nina saw Diamondback’s face light up with the anticipation of a kill. ‘Eddie!’ she cried, flinging the crowbar as hard as she could at the gunman.
It hit his shoulder. The .357 Magnum boomed as his finger flinched on the trigger. Broma jumped back from the bullet impact on the column - and Eddie ran into the darkness to Nina.
‘Broma! Lorenz! Take the zodiac!’ Shaban shouted, angry impatience rising. Broma hesitated, then crossed the chamber to pick up one end of the case. Lorenz took the other. Hamdi turned and fled up the tunnel, holding his nose. The two men carried the case after him.
‘Dammit!’ Nina said as she watched the zodiac disappear, before looking at Eddie. ‘What, you brought a knife to a gunfight?’
‘He’s only got one more shot,’ Eddie countered. ‘Then he’ll have brought fists to a knife fight!’
Diamondback was closing on them, but Shaban shouted to him. ‘Bobby! Come on!’
‘What about these two?’
‘The zodiac is all that matters - go! We’ll collapse the tunnel and seal them in!’
Nina and Eddie shared an anxious look. ‘Buggeration and fuckery!’ they said as one.
Shaban entered the tunnel. Diamondback followed him as far as the entrance, holding position beside the stone block with his gun raised, daring the couple to show their faces.
‘Give me one of those pots,’ Eddie said.
Nina grimaced at the thought of another priceless artefact’s destruction, but handed him a container. He hefted it.
Shaban’s voice echoed down the tunnel. ‘Bobby, move!’ Diamondback’s gaze flicked towards to the sound, just for a moment—
Eddie sprang out and hurled the pot.
He was already rolling for the cover of the next pillar as Diamondback fired - and hit the container in mid-air. It exploded like a clay pigeon. Some of the pieces struck Eddie, but he ignored them, only one thought in his mind.
Six shots.
He jumped up, hoping he hadn’t misidentified the revolver and that Diamondback wasn’t carrying a seven-shooter . . .
He wasn’t. The American turned and sprinted up the tunnel.
Eddie pursued him, light bulbs flashing past.
Too late, he realised Diamondback was carrying a second revolver. He tugged it out of his jacket, slowed, turned—
Eddie tackled him. Both men hit the floor beside the chugging generator. Diamondback raised his gun, but Eddie swiped it from his hand. The lank-haired gunman tried to scramble after it, only for Eddie to slam a sledgehammer punch into his kidney, dropping him flat.
But Diamondback wasn’t out of the fight, wrenching himself round and smashing an elbow into Eddie’s chest. Eddie gasped at a stab of resurgent pain where his rib had been broken seven months earlier.
Diamondback saw the weakness and lashed at the spot again. Eddie thumped back against a support beam.
The American pulled free, trying to get up, but Eddie kicked him hard on the backside. Diamondback stumbled before falling again . . .
At Shaban’s feet.
Eddie looked up. Shaban had retrieved the revolver.
And was pointing it at him—
He rolled behind the generator as Shaban fired. The first shot smacked off the floor and ricocheted down the tunnel - but the next hit the generator. The machine jolted, mechanism grinding. The lights flickered. Another shot - and the fuel tank burst open, petrol gushing out.
‘Get back,’ Shaban told his henchman, a cruel smile forming. Diamondback stood with a sadistic half-laugh. Both men retreated.
‘Oh, shit,’ Eddie whispered. He had a choice of death by bullet - or death by incineration.
Shaban fired. Hot lead ignited the fuel vapour, flashing it into fire.
Eddie leapt up and ran—
The generator exploded. The lights instantly went out, but Eddie could see all too well as a bright orange fireball erupted behind him, singeing his skin and hair as he dived. A greasy wave of flame roiled over him, clinging to the ceiling.
The echo of the blast faded - but that wasn’t the noise he was concerned with. Instead it was the sinister crackle of flames consuming wood, the deeper crunch of stone as the damaged ceiling gave way . . .
Eddie sprang up and raced into the darkness - as the roof caved in with a huge boom behind him. He tumbled across the entrance chamber in a swelling, choking cloud of sand.
‘Eddie!’ Nina shouted between coughs. ‘Are you all right? Eddie!’
‘I’m - I’m okay,’ he spluttered, pulling his T-shirt up over his mouth and nose. The noise of the collapse had stopped, only the hiss of falling sand audible from the tunnel.
‘What the hell happened?’
‘The generator blew up, took out the props. Ceiling fell down.’
‘You mean we’re trapped?’ A ball of ghost light resolved itself into Macy holding Broma’s dropped torch. ‘Oh, my God! We’ll run out of air!’
‘This place is pretty big, so we’ll be okay as long as nobody starts running laps,’ Eddie assured her. ‘Or starts panicking.’
‘I-I’m not panicking! I mean, we’re only trapped under the Sphinx, what’s to panic about?’
Nina helped Eddie up. ‘You okay?’
‘I’ll live - although I owe that mulleted twat a good kicking. Macy, give me the torch.’ He aimed it down the tunnel. Though the swirling dust was still thick, it was plain that the passage was completely blocked. ‘Huh. We’ll have a job digging through that.’
‘We don’t need to. Remember?’ Nina turned his hand to illuminate the chamber’s eastern end. The beam fell on the carved pillars of the second entrance. ‘We just have to wait for prime time . . .’
Berkeley composed himself before taking hold of the final broken stone and, with deliberate theatricality, moving it aside. ‘This . . . is it,’ he said to the camera behind him. Though the tunnel’s confines meant there was only room for half a dozen people to witness the opening of the Hall of Records first-hand, the cyclopean glass eye was an avatar for millions all round the globe. His words in the next few minutes could be as well remembered as those of Neil Armstrong when he made the first footfall on the moon.
As he passed the stone back to another team member, he briefly glanced at his watch - 4.46 a.m., 9.46 p.m. in New York, exactly on schedule - before picking up a crowbar and facing the camera again. ‘The last piece of rubble has been cleared from the entrance,’ he said, with as great a tone of expectant gravity as he could manage. ‘The only thing now standing between us and our first sight of the legendary Hall of Records beneath the Sphinx is this stone slab. Once it’s opened, we will be the first people to enter for over five thousand years. Nobody knows exactly what treasures are within . . . but there’s one thing we can be sure about. Whatever we see beyond this door will be remembered for a very long time.’