“So the fourth one came later,” Drake said. “Companies change their logos all the time. Daedalus didn’t get a chance to do the rebranding he needed down here before he died. The point is, Jada’s father thought there was a fourth one, and somebody killed him because he was investigating the possibility. That’s evidence right there, as far as I’m concerned.”
Welch cradled the jar against his chest, looking like he was in the mood to argue. Not too bright, Drake thought, considering how urgent it was that they get out of there.
When Sully drew his gun, whatever Welch had been about to say was forgotten.
“Nate. Did you say you heard something?” Sully asked, the question almost a snarl around the cigar clamped in his teeth.
Drake reached for his gun, turning to face the entrance to the Thera worship chamber. “I did, yeah.”
Both weapons were trained on the doorway. Drake narrowed his eyes and peered at the darkness out in the antechamber. Jada looked at them in confusion and then reluctantly pulled out her pistol. Welch wore a worried expression but didn’t ask them about the guns, smart enough not to want to tip off whoever might be out there listening to their conversation. Drake figured if it was Henriksen or the dig director, Hilary Russo, they would have been interrupted already.
Drake padded quietly toward the door, gun at the ready. Sully used his flashlight to wave Welch back. The archaeologist shuffled backward past the altar, looking faintly ridiculous with his unruly hair and glasses.
Drake wondered if he held the vase because of its value or for comfort, the way a toddler clutches a stuffed animal.
That rustle of cloth came again. Drake frowned, all his attention on the open doorway now. He and Sully moved in, one on either side of the three stairs that led up into the darkened antechamber. They had guns in one hand and flashlights in the other, trying to figure out if there was anything for them to shoot at or if they had been spooked by nothing. They kept their flashlights aimed away from the opening, hoping that whoever lurked out there would show themselves. Jada hung back, just in front of the altar, her gun and flashlight both pointed at the floor.
Drake glanced at her, on the verge of issuing a snarky remark about how useless it would be to shoot a bullet into the floor. But when he glanced back at the doorway, he caught the shadows moving, one separating from the others, and whipped his flashlight beam up to spotlight the open doorway.
Something dashed by. Someone. No question now. They weren’t alone.
“Sully,” Drake said.
“Yeah.”
More motion, deeper into the antechamber, shadows within shadows. Drake whipped his flashlight beam up, illuminating the man dashing across the opening so quietly that he might have been a ghost. Only he wasn’t a ghost; they had seen him before. He was one of the killers who had stopped Jada from being abducted and killed by the hit squad Henriksen had sent to do it. Hooded and veiled, the man froze, glancing into the worship chamber at them.
They told us to go home, Drake had time to think.
The assassin narrowed his eyes and then leaped into the room, drawing a short curved blade as he raced at Sully. Drake and Sully fired at the same time. Though Drake’s bullet missed, Sully’s shot took the assassin in the chest, and he staggered backward, wheeling toward the steps. For a second, Drake thought he would run out of there as fast as he’d jumped in, but then the wounded, bleeding man spun and lifted his blade, about to hurl it at Drake.
Jada shot the assassin twice, once in the thigh and once in the abdomen. The blade whickered out of his hand with the speed of a boomerang, but she’d ruined his aim and the curved dagger clanged off the altar inches from her. He fell on his back, rolled, and began to drag himself out of the worship chamber.
“Don’t let him get out!” Sully barked.
“ Him? I’m worried about us getting out,” Drake said.
“Where did he come from?” Jada asked.
Other rustling noises came from the anteroom, and Drake swore loudly, pressing himself against the wall beside the stairs.
“There are others!” he said. “ Of course there are others!” It was their luck.
A scraping noise came from behind him. For a second he thought Jada was the cause, but then his mind sorted out the distance and the weight of stone on stone and realized the sound came from farther back. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Welch’s flashlight had died. In the gloom at the back of the chamber he saw shadows that did not belong, then heard the scuffle of a struggle. He swung his flashlight beam over in time to see another of the hooded assassins dragging Ian Welch through the partially open stone door at the rear of the room.
The archaeologist’s hands twitched and dropped the jar, which shattered on impact.
“Welch!” Drake shouted, turning to Sully. “They’re getting in through the other door!”
Jada rushed toward the stone door, beating Drake there. He wanted to tell her to back off, afraid they’d drag her in as well, but she wouldn’t have listened and he didn’t have time to get the words out before she was already there. She aimed her flashlight and gun together, not firing for fear of hitting Welch, and started to take a step through the gap in the door.
“Dr. Welch!” Jada called. “Ian!”
A hooded figure rushed from the darkness and grappled with her, pushing her gun away, trying to twist it from her grasp. Drake shot him in the shoulder. The attacker spun, blood spraying from the wound, and staggered back against the wall. In the shadows where Welch had vanished, others were moving. Welch was gone-maybe dead-and they had to get the hell out of the labyrinth before they joined him.
“Come on!” Drake shouted. “Jada, let’s go!”
They bolted, racing around the altar on either side and then toward Sully and the three steps to the exit together. Sully had his back to the wall on the left, but when he saw them coming, he led the charge, rushing up the stairs into the antechamber.
Drake heard the first shot but didn’t see it. Then he and Jada were out of the Thera worship chamber. The assassin they’d shot lay on the floor of the anteroom, bleeding but alive, but he was the least of their concerns. Two others were in the anteroom, and Drake saw motion off to his right. Several other hooded men were emerging from the darkness of the other doors.
“Look, if you want us to go home that bad, we’ll go home!” he shouted, swinging his aim over to cover them.
Loud footfalls came echoing along the tunnel through which Drake and his companions had arrived. A glance showed flashlight beams bouncing off the walls. They were about to have even more company.
A woman’s voice shouted in Italian and then in English.
“Who’s there? Ian, what the hell is going on down here?” she called angrily.
Hilary Russo, Drake thought. But her deputy, Welch, wasn’t going to answer. He was a captive of those hooded men or had become just another part of the labyrinth’s history, another thing that needed to be excavated from this place.
There were a lot of voices and a lot of footfalls, and Drake had the idea that at least a dozen people were headed their way. Maybe that was more people than the assassins were ready to kill at the moment or more people than they could risk letting live after having seen them down there in the secret corridors under the labyrinth. Drake and Sully and Jada weren’t even supposed to be there. Who would believe them?
One of the hooded men Sully and Jada were aiming at lunged, and Sully shot him.
“Go!” Sully shouted, and started to run.
Trust saved Drake. He couldn’t see if the way was open, couldn’t tell if Sully had done any real damage to the guy he’d shot or if they had the second or two they needed to get clear, but he and Sully had been friends since Drake was a kid. They might not have always gotten along and sometimes they frustrated the hell out of each other, but Sully had been his mentor for almost twenty years. In a moment like this, they had to trust each other or they’d both have been killed years ago.