“We all were,” Henriksen said.
Jada shook her head. “No. We’ve got to be missing something. Otherwise what purpose does this chamber serve? It’s no ritual space. They built a tunnel to get to it. It’s absurd to think there isn’t something we’re missing.”
“The geomagnetic survey showed crevices in the mound and in this tunnel,” Henriksen said. “Maybe there’s an entrance near one of those. Whether the labyrinth is here or not, there’s no question the emperor’s tomb is, so we’ve got to find a way in.”
Drake shined his flashlight along the base of the wall, all around the chamber, frowning deeply. He examined the floor, which had been made of the same stone blocks as the walls. Some of the stones seemed to go beneath the walls, as though they continued on the other side, which made sense if the entrance was in one of the walls.
He got on his hands and knees and ran his fingers along the crease between floor and wall on the north side of the small room. The wall definitely sat on top of the stone blocks that made up the floor. Flashing his light around, he realized that the same was true on the eastern and southern walls.
“You’ve got something,” Jada said. “What is it?”
Drake stood and rushed from the tiny chamber, nearly colliding with Corelli, who had been standing just outside, watching the proceedings.
“Watch yourself, moron,” Corelli growled.
“Back up,” Drake snapped at him. He waved his light at Perkins and the goon squad. “All of you, give me room.”
They obliged, and he stood just outside the room, using the flashlight to study the horn-shaped entry and the walls around it. The stones just above the point of the horn were a variety of shapes, as if they were remnants of quarried rock put into place solely because they would fit together. But six inches above the point was a stone that had a roughly octagonal shape. It wasn’t perfect, but studying it now, he felt sure the shape could not be an accident. At first none of them had noticed because they had been searching for an engraving, as they’d found in the other labyrinths.
Drake looked into the chamber again, stared at the floor, and gestured toward Jada.
“Come out of there,” he said. “All of you.”
Jada and Henriksen did as he asked, and he stood aside to let them pass. Olivia frowned. She didn’t seem to like the idea of Drake telling her what to do. After a moment, though, she followed her boss out of the chamber. For the moment, they were all still sharing the same goal.
He turned to Perkins and Corelli.
“Give me a boost?”
Corelli sneered. “I’ll give you a boost, all right.”
But Perkins turned to the largest of his squad. “Massarsky. Help the man out.”
The massive thick-necked mercenary slung off the strap of his semiauto and handed it to Garza, a Latina with cold eyes who had her hair tied back in a tight knot. She took it, but Drake noticed that her own weapon remained steady, aimed not quite at him but not away, either.
“Up you go,” Massarsky said.
Drake handed Jada his flashlight-he hadn’t yet drawn his gun tonight-and steadied himself on the edges of the horn-shaped entrance as he stepped up onto Massarsky’s back. Several flashlight beams converged on the octagonal stone he had identified. When he pressed his fingers against the stone, it did not move, but when he put one hand over the other and put his weight behind it, the octagon slid backward an inch and then two.
He thought of Sully and allowed himself to hope as he heard the grinding of stone and the heavy thunk of weights shifting in the walls. He dropped down from Massarsky’s back and peered into the chamber beneath the Soul Tower, but nothing was happening.
Then Jada tapped his arm, and he turned to see a square block sliding out of the wall to the left of the entrance. Dust fell to the ground. Flashlight beams swung over to illuminate the ten-inch square.
“There’s another one,” Corelli said.
Drake turned and watched the second stone, exactly opposite the first, sliding from the wall. With a loud double thud, the noises in the walls ceased. Henriksen pushed past Massarsky and examined the square on the left. Garza handed Massarsky his gun, but her gaze was on the other square. Jada had her flashlight on it, and now Drake joined her, running his fingers around the edges.
“There’s open space behind this one,” Henriksen said.
“Here, too,” Drake said. His fingertips touched what felt like a smooth stone cylinder, like a post or the axle of a wheel.
A wheel, he thought, gripping the square and trying to turn it. When he twisted to the right, he felt it give.
“Turn it!” Drake told Henriksen. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the big Norwegian doing just that.
Simultaneously, they rotated the squares until they wouldn’t turn any further. Drake felt something in the wall give way, and this time the grinding and thumping inside the walls was much louder, and he heard Jada cry his name at the same time he realized much of the noise was coming from the small room under the Soul Tower. The mercenaries were well trained-not one of them moved, ready for whatever happened next-but Corelli, Olivia, and Jada crowded in front of the horn-shaped doorway, and Drake had to crane his neck to get a glimpse inside.
The stone blocks that made up the floor of the small chamber were sinking in horizontal rows, each dropping a foot farther than the last, and Drake quickly realized they had released the mechanism they had been searching for. The floor had transformed into a set of stairs leading down into darkness.
“Massarsky,” Perkins said, “you and Zheng take point.”
The two mercenaries slipped through the horn-shaped entry, flashlights clipped to their guns, and started down the stone steps, weapons ready to fire. Drake had entered ancient temples and ruins before, and normally he’d have thought their caution unwarranted. But they were expecting an attack here. The Protectors of the Hidden Word would be waiting, but they didn’t know what kind of number to expect. It was possible that most of the hooded killers had died in their skirmishes in Egypt and on Santorini.
Still, better safe than dead.
Henriksen, Olivia, and Corelli followed the first half dozen mercenaries, ignoring Drake and Jada. Now that they had found the way into the emperor’s tomb, their former animosity was forgotten. Their full focus was on the yawning darkness below, and Drake understood why. As much as he wanted to find Sully, he had no problem letting some of the goon squad precede him. If the spooky ninja dudes were waiting, he was more than happy to let the hired guns take the first few hits.
They descended the stairs and found themselves in a long, sloping corridor. The rest of the mercenaries fell in behind Drake and Jada, though two of them hung back, staying to guard their exit. That made fourteen in Perkins’s squad and nineteen all together, counting Drake and Jada, Henriksen and Olivia, and Corelli. Nobody spoke as they moved along the corridor, listening for any sign of a potential attack coming from ahead and watching for hidden doorways.
The tunnel spiraled downward, taking them deeper, and then straightened out again and ran on for perhaps fifty yards before it ended in a vaulted chamber that caused them all to come to a halt. Two passages led away and farther downward from the chamber, and mercenaries were investigating both paths. But the rest of the group had focused elsewhere, and as flashlight beams illuminated the walls and ceiling, Drake stared in amazement.
“This isn’t man-made,” Henriksen said. “It’s a natural cave.”
Moss grew in thick patches on the walls. Stains on the solid rock showed the patterns where water had dripped down from above, and Drake shone his flashlight upward. He pressed himself against the wall alongside Olivia, who was doing the same thing.
“Do you see it?” she asked.
“A crevice,” he said.
Long, thick roots jutted from stone and earth and hung down, partially blocking the view, but Drake could see the glint of his light off jagged stone. Far above, where his beam could not reach, was a thin sliver of moonlight.