Seven Ancient Wonders

base of the airstairs.

West keyed his radio mike. 'Sky Monster! Fire her up again! We gotta get out of here!'

'Roger that'.'' A moment later the great jet turbines of the 747 roared back to life, the thunderous noise drowning out the sound of gunfire.

'Big Ears!' West called into his mike. 'I hate to do this to you, but you've got to find a way to get Lily back on this plane! Now!'

Huddled behind the generator wagon, Big Ears was thinking fast.

Five yards. That was all it was. Five yards.

Only those five yards looked like a mile.

And then suddenly—with a kind of crystal clarity that was new to him—the situation became clear to Big Ears.

No matter what the outcome of this situation, he was going to die.

If he ran for the airstairs, he'd be shot for sure—even if they didn't shoot Lily, they'd nail him.

Alternatively, if he and Lily were caught by the Americans, they'd kill him then too.

And with that realisation, he made up his mind.

'Lily,' he said, over the raging din all around them. 'You know something. You've been the best friend I've ever had in my life. You were always way smarter than me, but you always waited for me, were always patient with me. But now I have to do something for you—and you have to let me do it. Just promise me, when the time comes, you do what you were put on this Earth to do. And remember me, the dumb grunt who was your friend. I love you, little one.'

Then he kissed her forehead and, with his MP-5 in one hand, he picked her up with the other, and shielding her with his body . . .

... he broke cover . . .

. . . and ran for the airstairs.

The American response was both immediate and vicious. They opened fire.

Big Ears only needed six steps to make it to the airstairs. He made four.

Before a crouching US trooper nailed him with a clean shot to the head.

The bullet passed right through Big Ears's skull, exploding out the other side and he fell instantly—crumpling like a marionette whose strings have been cut—falling to his knees midway between the generator wagon and the airstairs, dropping Lily from his lifeless hands.

'No!' Lily screamed in horror. 'Noooo!'

The Americans charged, moved in on the girl—

—only to be stopped by a curious sight.

At exactly the same time, in exactly the same way, two figures dived out from the base of the airstairs, each of them holding two MP-5 sub-machine guns, the weapons blazing away in opposite directions as they flew through the air toward Lily.

Pooh Bear and Stretch.

They couldn't have planned the move. There simply hadn't been time. No, they had actually both dived independently of each other.

Yet their identical dives had been motivated by the exact same impulse:

To save Lily.

The Arab and the Israeli slid to simultaneous halts alongside Lily, bringing down four Americans each as they did so.

Lily was still kneeling beside Big Ears's body, her cheeks covered in tears.

Still firing repeatedly, Pooh Bear and Stretch each grabbed one of her hands and crouch-ran with her back to the cover of the airstairs.

Up the stairs they stumbled, as the steel side railings of the airstairs were riddled with a thousand dome- shaped bullet impacts.

Off-balance and firing blindly behind them, Pooh Bear and Stretch reached the top of the stairs and flung Lily in through the door, rolling themselves in after her, while above them West jammed the door shut and yelled, 'Sky Monster! Go! Go! Go!'

The giant 747 pivoted on the spot, rolling around in a circle until it was re-aimed back up the runway—bullets pinging off its black armoured flanks.

As it completed its circle, it crunched right over a US Humvee that got too close, flattening the car.

Then Pooh Bear and Stretch took their seats in the Halicarnassus's wing-mounted gun turrets and let fly with a barrage of tracer fire, annihilating the other two Humvees.

Then Sky Monster punched his thrusters and the big black 747 gathered speed—thundering up the runway, its winglights blazing, chased by jeeps spewing gunfire, returning tracer bullets from its own turrets—until it hit take- off speed and lifted off into the night sky, escaping from its own supposedly secret base.

A grim silence hung over the main cabin of the Halicarnassus.

West held Lily in his lap. She was still sobbing, distraught over the deaths of Big Ears and Doris.

As the jumbo soared into the night sky, heading for nowhere in particular, everyone who had survived the gunbattle in the hangar returned to the main cabin: Pooh Bear, Stretch and Zaeed. Sky Monster stayed in the cockpit, flying manually for the time being.

With Lily in his arms, West's mind raced.

Big Ears was dead. Doris was dead. Their secret hideaway had been exposed. Not to mention the most frustrating fact of all— when he'd been killed, Big Ears had been carrying the Zeus Piece.

Shit.

Up until a few minutes ago, they'd actually succeeded on this impossible mission. Against all the odds, they had actually obtained a Piece of the Capstone.

And now . . .

Now they had nothing. They'd lost two of their best team-members, lost their base of operations, and lost the one and only Piece they'd ever got.

Hell, West thought, he didn't even know why Lily and Big Ears had suddenly turned and run back to the plane. Gently, he asked

Lily.

She sniffed, wiped away her tears.

'Doris gave me a warning. She said our return was like Gimli's return to Moria. In The Lord of the Rings, Gimli the dwarf returns to the dwarf mines at Moria, only to find that the mines have been overrun by ores. Doris was sending me a secret message. She obviously

couldn't say anything directly, so she spoke in a code I'd understand. She was saying that the farm had been taken over by our enemies and to get away.'

West was amazed at Lily's quick deduction—and at Doris's selfless sacrifice.

'Nice work, kiddo.' He stroked Lily's hair. 'Nice work.'

It was Pooh Bear who asked what they were all thinking. 'Huntsman. What do we do now?'

'I have to talk to Wizard,' West said, moving to one of the communications consoles.

But just as he reached it, the console—as if by magic—started blinking and beeping.

'It's the video phone . . .' Stretch said. 'An incoming call.'

'It must be Wizard,' Pooh Bear said.

'No,' West said, staring at the console's readout. 'It's coming from Victoria Station.'

West clicked the 'Answer' button and the screen on the console came to life. Filling its frame was the face of. . .

Marshall Judah.

He was sitting at a console inside the hangar back in Kenya, flanked by Kallis and some of his men.

'Greetings, Jack. My, my, wasn't that a narrow escape for you all. Sorry—' he corrected himself—'not exactly all of you escaped.'

'What do you want?' West growled.