'Those stupid, stupid boys.' Wizard kicked the basket away.
On their way here, the Nine had passed through a small village. The villagers claimed that only a few days ago, lured by the Europeans' interest in the mountain, four of their young men had gone exploring in the swamp. One of them had returned to the village saying the other three had disappeared down a hole in the ground and not come out again.
At this point, the leader of the Nine stepped forwards, peered down into the hole.
The rest of the team waited for him to speak.
Not a lot was known about the leader of this group. Indeed, his past was veiled in mystery. What
His name was West—Jack West Jr.
Call-sign:
At 37, he had the rare distinction of being both militarily
Indeed, in the 1990s, when the Pentagon had ranked the best soldiers in the world, only one soldier in the top ten had
But then, around 1995, West disappeared off the international radar. Just like that. He was not seen at international exercises or on missions again—not even the allied invasion of Iraq in 2003, despite his experience there during Desert Storm in '91. It was assumed he had quit the military, cashed in his points and retired. Nothing was seen or heard of him for over 10 years . . .
. . . until now.
Now, he had re-emerged.
Supremely fit, he had dark hair and laser-sharp brown eyes that seemed perpetually narrowed. Apparently, he had a winning smile, but that was something rarely seen.
Today, like the rest of his team, he wore a decidedly non-military uniform: a rugged caramel-coloured canvas jacket, tattered cargo pants and steel-soled Salomon hiking boots that bore the scars of many previous adventures.
His hands were gloved, but if you looked closely at the left cuff of his jacket, you might catch a glimpse of silver steel. Hidden under the sleeve, his entire left forearm and hand were artificial, mechanical. How they came to be that way not many people knew; although one of those who did was Max Epper.
Expertly trained in the art of war, classically trained in the lore of history, and fiercely protective of the little girl in his care, one thing about Jack West Jr was clear: if anyone could pull off this impossible mission, it was him.
Just then, with a squawk, a small brown peregrine falcon swooped in from above the treeline and landed lightly on West's shoulder— the high-flying bird from before. It eyed the area around West imperiously, protectively. Its name, Horus.
West didn't even notice the bird. He just stared down into the dark square hole in the mud, lost in thought.
He brushed back some mud from the edge, revealing a hieroglyph cut into the rim:
'We meet again,' he said softly to the carving.
He turned. 'Glowstick.'
He was handed a glowstick which he cracked and tossed down the hole.
It fell for 20 feet, illuminating a pipe-like stone shaft on its way down, before—
Lots of crocodiles. Nile crocodiles.
Snapping, snarling and grunting. Sliding over each other.
'More of Sobek's minions,' West said. 'Nice. Very nice.'
Just then the team's radioman, a tall Jamaican with bleached dreadlocks, a heavily pockmarked face and tree-trunk-sized arms, touched his earpiece in alarm. His real name was V.J. Weatherly, his original call-sign
'Huntsman,' he said, 'the Europeans just breached the Third Gate. They're inside the Grand Cavern. Now they're bringing in some kind of crane to overshoot the lower levels.'
'Shit
'It gets worse. The Americans just crossed the border. They're coming in fast behind us. Big force: 400 men, choppers, armour, with carrier-launched fighter support on the way. And the ground force is being led by the CIEF.'
That really got West's attention.
The CIEF—the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force, pronounced 'seef—was America's very best special operations unit, a unit that answered only to the President and possessed the real-life equivalent of a licence to kill. As West knew from hard experience, you didn't want to be around when the CIEF arrived.
He stood up. 'Who's in command?'
Fuzzy said ominously, 'Judah.'
'I didn't think he'd come himself. Damn. Now we'd really better hurry.'
West turned to his team.
'All right. Noddy—you've got sentry duty. Everybody else . . .'
He pulled an odd-looking helmet from his belt, put it on.
'. . . it's time to rock and roll.'
And so into the subterranean dark they went.
Fast.
A steel tripod was erected above the pipe-like shaft and, led by West, one after the other, eight of the Nine abseiled down it on a rope strung from the tripod.
One lone man, a dark-haired Spanish commando—once known as
West sizzled down the drop-rope, shooting past three steeply slanted cross-shafts that intersected with the main shaft.
His falcon sat snugly in a pouch on his chest, while on his head he wore a weathered and worn
West eyed the cross-shafts as he slid down the rope. He knew what perils lay within them. 'Everyone. Stay sharp. Do not, I repeat, do not make any contact with the walls of this shaft.'
He didn't and they didn't.
Safely, he came to the bottom of the rope.
West emerged from the ceiling at one end of a long stone-walled room, hanging from his drop-rope.
He did not lower himself all the way to the floor, just kept hanging about 8 feet above it.
By the eerie yellow light of his original glowstick, he beheld a rectangular room about thirty metres long. The room's floor was covered by a shallow layer of swampwater, water that was absolutely
And directly beneath West, protruding half out of the water, were the waterlogged, half-eaten bodies of two twentysomething Sudanese men. The bodies lolled lifelessly as three big crocs took great crunching bites out of them.
'Big Ears,' West said into his throat microphone, 'there's a sight down here that's not PG-13. Tell Lily not to look down when you two reach the bottom of the rope.'
West fired a luminescent amber flare down the length of the atrium.
It was as if the chamber came alive.
Deeply cut lines of hieroglyphs covered the walls,
