“Bollocks.” Dahl tracked its twin support cables as they vanished on an incline up into the dark. They would finish at the very top, next to Odin’s tomb. “We need a better plan.”
It wasn’t pretty, but it was the best they could do in the circumstances. The SGG team took off at pace, aiming to reach Odin’s plateau the hard way. Dahl gave them a five-minute head start and then climbed into the swinging cable car with Akerman at his side. He gave his friend a rueful smile.
“Sorry, Olle, but with so much at risk I need you with me.”
“If I die I will haunt your bedroom, my friend.”
“I feel like you already do.” Dahl punched the green button, bringing the three man car quivering to life. It gave a jerk that sent Akerman to his knees, and set off. Dahl held out a hand. “No expense spared on the machinery, eh?”
The car swayed precariously as it travelled upward. Even Dahl made a point of not looking over the sides. Darkness soon swallowed them, and, for a time, he felt as if he were dreaming, all this effort merely the way out of a well-travelled nightmare. But when Olle touched his shoulder he patted the man’s hand firmly.
“It’s all good, mate. Won’t be much further now.”
Dahl peered into the blackness, fingers gripped tight around a thick supporting pole. Akerman stood next to him, the two men surrounded by a total absence of light, the only sound the slithering and grinding of wheel tracks over cable. Dahl almost jumped out of his skin as a heavy grinding sound fired his imagination.
“Now that sounds like something crawling up the mountain,” Akerman breathed in his ear.
“It is,” Dahl whispered back. “Us.”
The cable car scraped slightly over rugged rock as it approached the precipice. The radiant glow of lights illuminated the dark above. Dahl prepped his weapon confidently without looking as the car swung over the final mound of rock, swinging into view out across the wide plateau of Odin.
His first impression was a memory of the crazy pitched battle they had both won and lost here, of how he had leapt into darkness tethered with nothing but a length of rope to save Drake’s life.
And back then, he hadn’t even liked the thick-headed Yorkshire terrier.
His second impression was alarm. The welcoming committee was eight strong, fully tooled-up mercs with hard expressions and only one intention. To blast this intruder out of the sky.
Beyond them stood the tomb of Odin, empty now, but still as magnificent to him as when he had first seen it. An older man stood by the entrance and, even as he met Dahl’s eyes, turned away agitatedly to check his watch.
A sharp bark from below indicated the call to action. Machine guns opened fire. Dahl grabbed Akerman and ducked below the vacant windows. The whole car swung wildly. Metallic pings punctuated the roar of automatic weapons.
Akerman swore. Dahl tightened his grip. “It’s okay. The—”
A bullet tore through the floor of the car and exited the roof, leaving two jagged holes.
Akerman scrambled backward, but there was nowhere to go. Another bullet penetrated the floor. Men’s laughter erupted from below. They were having a great time. The attitude of mercs.
Dahl sprang into action. To stay there was to die. Somehow, they had to keep moving. On the car’s backward swing he leapt forward, reaching the front in one bound. He grabbed hold of the window frame and popped up fast, peppering the ground below with bullets. The mercs yelled and scattered, their sport interrupted. He slung his gun over his shoulder, took hold of the curved roof and hauled himself outside of the car. Using his legs as a piston, he thrust himself onto the roof of the car, holding tight to the edges on both sides to keep from falling. More bullets clattered around it, some pinging through and passing close to Dahl’s body. Without pausing, he rolled and heaved, ending up on one knee, gun sighted immediately, and fired down at the mercs as the cable car swung wildly to and fro. Somehow he stayed on and planted both knees firmly apart. In another second, he heard shouts of surprise from below.
At last. Bengtsson and the others had arrived.
Dahl reached up and grabbed the car’s guiding rope. Hand over hand he swung across the last few feet to the cable car’s station, a minor rock outcropping with a vertical ladder leading down to Odin’s plateau. As he swayed, a bullet fizzed past his shoulder. Dahl fought fire with fire, relinquishing his hold with one hand, unhooking his weapon and spraying lead at his target. The man scrambled clear, but caught a round in the vest and hit the ground face first. Dahl, hanging by one hand, threw his gun onto the rocky outcrop and swung over.
Suddenly, he had the perfect vantage point.
He fell to one knee and sighted in on the mercs. This battle, he thought, is over.
But then the civilian stopped checking his watch, screamed a warning to the mercs and raised his hands in the air.
Dahl’s eyes flew wide as the rumbling began. The real battle, it seemed, was about to begin.
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
Drake and his team had raced hard and fast back to the pit of Babylon. By the time they exited a military Humvee and stepped out into the cool desert night beside one of Razin’s old tents, they had less than an hour before Hayden’s agreed time came around.
But what the hell were they supposed to do?
The team had solved a part of the puzzle after rescuing the Great Sword from Zoya’s treasure hoard. Patterson had used his experience and Akerman’s cliff notes to decipher the last short inscription.
Take the Great Sword to the Pit.
“Is that it?” Mai had asked.
Even Patterson appeared disconsolate. “Crap. Yes, that’s all it says.”
“No instruction manual?”
Drake shook his head. “Not such a great sword after all.”
“The inscription is enough,” Patterson had speculated. “Could that be all we need to know?”
“It’s gonna have to be,” Drake had growled. “Tell us more about this bloody pit.”
Patterson spread his arms. “I don’t know any more. Not much is known about the pit of Babylon. It may also be an earth energy vortex. It was described as a deep, dark hole of sludge and dirt and just… nothingness. You understand? The remains of the original, most sinful city of all time were buried there and then dug up. What was left was an absence of everything. You surely know that some places which experience great trauma or tragedy absorb that disturbance and suffering. They become dark forever.”
“You’re saying the pit is haunted?” Drake cut through the bull and laid it on the line in true Yorkshire style.
“No. I’m saying that, like people, a terrible ordeal can damage a place, tainting it for all time. Need I quote factual references?”
“For God’s sake no,” Drake had finally moaned.
Now, as the world lay in ignorance of a possible doomsday event, Drake and Mai led Patterson and Yorgi past the gently billowing tents toward the edge of the pit of Babylon. Since Razin and his men had departed nothing had changed. Tools and crates littered the area. The winch stood idle, its man-size bucket swaying slightly. All four of them turned on their flaslights to survey the area.
Drake hefted the sword. “I don’t see—”
The mammoth came out of nowhere; hairy, enormous, growling like an earthquake and bent on murder. Drake felt it hit his midriff, almost breaking him in half, his relaxed state actually saving his life as he folded easily instead of resisting.
Mai’s piercing cry almost stopped his heart. “Zanko!”