Turcotte shook his head to get rid of the thoughts and was immediately reminded of the fact that he was encased in a thick, hi-tech suit. The screen in front of him shimmered for a second and he felt dizzy. Then he regained his composure.
“Ten seconds.” Graves’s voice had gone up, and the shout hurt Turcotte’s ears. “Stand by.”
Graves edged forward to the end of the ramp, a hulking figure looking down. The red light above the ramp reflected a deep glow off all the men in front of Turcotte. He blinked as it changed to green.
“Go!” Graves didn’t attempt to keep his voice down, screaming the command as if they were on a normal jump and he had to try to be heard above the roar of the engines. But the green light and Graves stepping off into the night sky reinforced the command more than volume could.
Turcotte shuffled forward, barely noticing the strangeness of the suit encompassing his body as he focused on the edge of the ramp. Then he dropped.
The MC-130 had gone up to less than three hundred feet above the flat black surface of the Nile, the lights of Cairo ahead, not far in the distance.
Turcotte dropped like a rock, the weight of the suit adding to his descent. The static line reached its end and pulled out the three parachutes packed in the rig. Their abrupt deployment jerked Turcotte from terminal velocity into a somewhat controlled descent.
“Down view,” Turcotte ordered. The flat black surface of the river was just below. In five seconds he hit the Nile and was under water. He cut away the parachute and it quickly sank.
“GPS link and team display on,” Turcotte ordered. The dark screen in front of him gave way to a display of the local area. A small red glowing dot in the center was his own position. A dozen other green dots were the rest of the team. A yellow arrow pointed in the direction they had to swim to get to the tunnel entrance — downstream with the flow of the river.
Turcotte oriented himself at a depth of five meters. Gingerly he turned on the propulsion units, while trying to maintain the same depth. It was a case of trial and error as he moved. By the jerky movements of the green dots, the others were experiencing the same learning curve as they traveled downstream.
“Two stones indicate to me that the Grail does two things,” Lisa Duncan said.
Aspasia’s Shadow nodded. “Ah, you are indeed showing some intelligence.”
Duncan ignored the barb. “One is immortality, or at least that’s what you claim. What’s the other half?”
“That is more difficult to explain,” Aspasia’s Shadow said. “Is not immortality a great enough gift? Never growing old, never getting sick, having all the time in the world to do the things you’ve always wanted to do?”
“In a world run by you?”
“Somebody has to run things for you humans. Look at what a mess you’ve made doing things on your own.”
“How much on our own have we been over the ages?” Duncan retorted.
The propulsion unit worked well as Turcotte closed the distance to the tunnel entrance. It had just appeared on his screen as a yellow circle about two hundred meters away. He reached it and waited for the other team members.
“IR lights and IR imaging,” Turcotte ordered, switching off the GPS link, which would be cut anyway as soon as they went into the tunnel. The screen cleared and then was replaced by a greenish glow. The infrared lights mounted on his suit penetrated the dark water about ten feet. Turcotte could see the others as they also turned on their lights and infrared cameras. Black forms floating in the water, they waited as each man was accounted for. Turcotte could feel the tug of the water, wanting to draw him into the eight-foot-wide hole in the bank of the Nile.
“All present,” Graves finally reported.
“Follow me,” Turcotte said. He turned, went into the tunnel, and entered the second gateway to the roads of Rostau. The water carried him along. He hit the side of the tunnel, tumbled, regained his balance and orientation, and continued on.
The tunnel widened and Turcotte could stand, chest deep in the surging water. He stayed on the rebreather, though, uncertain when the tunnel would narrow once more. Burton had not gone this way, so all he could hope was to keep moving forward until he found the shaft Burton had come down. He walked forward, the team following, shifting his screen view to up every two steps, then quickly back to forward as long as he saw a roof over his head.
He was beginning to get the feel of the suit and his gait was getting smoother as he penetrated farther under the Giza Plateau. The tunnel was about fifteen meters wide by three high, the walls showing a smooth cut under the IR light.
“Hold on.” Graves’s voice was almost a whisper over the team net. “Anyone hear that?”
Turcotte held up his right arm, signaling for everyone to halt. “Audio magnify to maximum,” he ordered the computer.
He could hear the river, like a thunderous waterfall, going by. And there was something else. The sound of metal on stone a rapid clicking noise. And it was getting louder.
“Let’s keep going,” he ordered, heading directly toward the approaching strange noise.
“The change is inevitable,” Aspasia’s Shadow said.
“Nothing is inevitable.” Duncan found that her gaze had strayed from the wooden box to the canteen.
“Your death is, if you continue to deny me what is mine,” Aspasia’s Shadow swung the canteen by the strap.
“I will not give you the Grail for a drink of water.”
“Then how about for this?” Aspasia’s Shadow held up one the stones. “This is the urim.” He knelt and gently rolled it across the floor.
Duncan scrambled to her knees and caught it between both hands. She held it up in front of her, staring into the sparkling green depths of the stone. Her mind and soul were drawn to it with more power than her body would ever desire water.
She knew better. The part of her that was free over whatever was controlling her, knew better. Still, her hands cradled the stone and she felt whatever resolve she had weakening.
Turcotte stopped, signaling for the others to do the same. He’d stepped down the audio feed by stages, yet the clicking noise grew louder until he had no doubt the source was very close. He peered at the screen just in front of his face. He lifted his left arm, the MK 98 held level, just above the surface of the water.
“Aiming,” he ordered the computer. A reticule appeared on the screen. As he moved the MK 98, the reticule followed wherever the muzzle was aimed, unless he went too far and it went off screen.
The noise ceased. For several seconds Turcotte stood perfectly still, waiting, the team deployed behind him. He took a step forward. Then another.
After four steps the noise came again, not closer, but retreating at the same rate Turcotte advanced.
“Cover me from the right,” Turcotte ordered Graves, as he went back to checking the top of the tunnel every other step. The water rushing around his legs and waist was barely noticeable as he continued down. Whatever was making the noise continued to back up until Turcotte suddenly stopped.
The screen showed a circular opening about four feet wide in the roof. He turned as the members of the team gathered round. “We’re going up.”
Graves stepped forward. “Are we coming back out this same way?”
Turcotte pointed in the direction the noise had come from. “That way should also go to the Nile and you’re with the current. Either way. If we go back the same way we came in, we can always go downstream in the Nile itself to the pickup zone.”