Yakov had the box in his hands, turning it around, looking at it from all angles. “According to the invoice, this was recovered from beneath 77 Wilhemstrasse in Berlin on the first of May, 1945.”
“And that means?” Turcotte asked.
“77 Wilhemstrasse was the address of the Reichskanzlei. Underneath it was the Fuehrerbunker.”
“Hitler’s bunker?” Turcotte already knew the answer. “Where he died?”
Yakov held the case next to his head and shook it lightly. “It’s heavy, but nothing’s moving that I can hear. Look…” Yakov rubbed off some of the dust and dirt that covered the top of the box.
There were markings on it. It took Turcotte a second to recognize them. Not high rune characters, but Chinese. He tapped the top. “That’s the same character that was on the obelisk marker in the Ethiopian cavern where we found the ruby sphere.” He remembered Nabinger’s translation. “Same name. Cing Ho. The Chinese explorer who went to Africa and the Middle East in 656 B.C.” Turcotte turned the clasps and opened the lid.
A long sliver of highly polished metal, two feet long by less than four inches across at its widest, the edges razor sharp, tapering to a needle point at one end and a round hole at the other for the acceptance of a shaft. “The Spear of Destiny,” Turcotte whispered as he grabbed the shaft end and lifted it out of the case. “We need… ” He was interrupted as the door to the chamber imploded and the sharp crack of plastic explosive going off ripped across the room.
Turcotte shoved the Spear back in the box and dove to his left, swinging up the AKSU as he moved. He blindly fired a burst in the direction of the door and heard the crack of bullets coming back in his direction. Lying on his belly, he peeked around the crate he was using for cover. He saw several men in camouflage smocks slip through the now-open door. Turcotte fired a three-round burst and one of the figures slammed against the wall and slid to the floor, leaving a trail of blood.
The reaction was swift as a hail of bullets ripped into the wood around him, scattering splinters and causing Turcotte to press so hard against the floor that he could distinctly feel the buttons on his shirt push into his chest.
He heard a pistol firing and knew Yakov was giving him covering fire. He slid backward, putting more distance between himself and the invaders. Having relocated, Turcotte rolled onto his back and pulled two grenades off his vest. If there was one lesson he had been taught in Ranger and Special Forces school and had had reinforced in combat, it was to move swiftly and decisively when ambushed. Turcotte knew there was no time to “let the situation develop,” as Pentagon briefers liked to say.
“Yakov!” he yelled.
“Here!” Somewhere to Turcotte’s left as he lay on his back.
“The ladder in six seconds on my go. Flash-bang in five.”
“I’m ready!”
“Go!” Turcotte yelled as he pulled the pins. He tossed both grenades, arching them just below the ceiling toward the door. He squeezed his eyes shut while he pressed the palms of both hands over his ears.
Even with that, his ears rang as both grenades exploded. Turcotte jumped to his feet and dashed for the ladder, firing the AKSU one-handed over his shoulder.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Yakov’s large form moving in the same direction, also firing.
The bolt on the AKSU closed on an empty chamber as Turcotte reached the ladder. He took it two rungs at a time, climbing up. He could hear bullets cracking by, but he hoped the camouflaged men were firing blindly, the grenades having done their work. He reached the top and was almost shoved through by Yakov climbing up between his feet.
They sprawled onto the top of the bunker. Turcotte reached for the hatch to slam it shut, but Yakov’s large hand grabbed his arm. “Wait a second,” Yakov growled, his head cocked, listening. His other hand pulled two HE grenades off his vest. They looked like OD green Ping-Pong balls in his large hand. He let go of Turcotte’s arm and pulled the two pins, still waiting.
Voices were yelling below in Russian. There were a couple of bursts of automatic fire. The sound of movement. Yakov tossed both grenades through the opening and then slammed the hatch shut. Turcotte heard the explosion through the metal and the immediate screams of the wounded. Yakov turned on his penlight and stuck it between his teeth. The Russian whipped his belt off and looped it around the handle, ensuring that the hatch could not be opened from below.
“Do you have the key?” Turcotte asked.
Yakov tapped his chest. “Inside my shirt in its case.”
“Now what?” Turcotte asked Yakov as they slowly stood.
“The power, the air, must come down here somehow,” Yakov said.
“I think we came down the air shaft,” Turcotte noted.
“Let us take a closer look.” Yakov was already walking toward the edge of the bunker. Turcotte followed.
“One thing you must understand about Russians,” Yakov said as he shined his light along the cavern wall, slowly walking along the edge clockwise, “is that anyone building a shelter like this would plan a second way out. There is no other reason to have the hatch in the top, is there?”
Turcotte could think of several reasons, but he saw no point in disagreeing. Yakov stopped so suddenly that Turcotte bumped into him.
“There.” Yakov was shining his light at a six-inch-wide metal beam that spanned the ten-foot gap. At the far end, a dark opening waited. “Let us leave this place,” Yakov said as he stepped onto the beam and gingerly made his way across.
Turcotte waited until the Russian was on the other side, then followed.
CHAPTER 24
“They’re stalling at UNAOC. The Russian Ivanoc now chairs the committee, and he’s afraid. It’s as if everyone is holding their breath hoping this deadline passes and nothing happens.” Lisa Duncan had just arrived back from Cairo, to find Mualama still sitting between the paws of the Sphinx, impatiently waiting. “Why do you not call for some help of your own?”
Duncan had considered calling in the Special Forces team from Area 51, but she had a feeling the Egyptians would react violently to such a blatant transgression of their national boundaries. And she wasn’t exactly confident that Mualama knew where he wanted to go or what he expected to find. An exact definition of what the Hall of Records would look like had been one fact absent from all the information the archaeologist had given her. Overriding that reasoning, though, was the fact that she wanted the team free to be able to help Turcotte, since it looked like he was more likely the one on the trail of the needed key.
“Everyone’s afraid to rock the boat… And who the hell are you?” Duncan was looking over Mualama’s shoulder at the robed figure that had just appeared out of the darkness.
“My name is Kaji.” The old man’s face was like part of the desert, his skin dark brown, full of deep lines. A worn turban was wrapped around his head, a gray robe over his frail shoulders.
Mualama turned in surprise. “The same Kaji who was with Professor Nabinger under the Great Pyramid?”
“There has always been a Kaji here. My father, and his father before him, and thus it has been for as long as there is a memory.”
“You were with von Seeckt when he opened the lower chamber of the Great Pyramid,” Duncan said.
“What does that matter?” Kaji asked. “That is the past.”
“It matters,” Duncan said. “You took von Seeckt’s dagger. Did you take anything else from the Germans?”
Kaji considered her. “You have something in mind?”
“I don’t have time to play,” Duncan said. “Did you take the Spear of Destiny from them?”