Seven Ancient Wonders

It was point-blank range.

Judah couldn't miss.

He jammed down on the trigger.

The gun literally exploded in Judah's hands.

It wasn't a misfire, or a jam. It was a total outward explosion. The gun broke outwards in a hundred pieces and fell crumbling from Judah's hands.

Judah frowned, confused—then he looked up in horror at West and said, 'Oh my God . . . you . . . you have the power . . .'

West stepped forwards, his eyes deadly. 'Judah, I could forgive you for what you did to me, putting that chip in my head. I could forgive you for the beatings you gave Horus. But there's one thing I cannot forgive: killing Doris Epper. For that you have to pay.'

As he spoke, West picked up the end of Judah's long safety rope, undipped it from its anchor near the Capstone.

Judah stepped backwards, toward the edge of the platform where the Halicarnassus's wing loomed. He held his hands up. 'Now, Jack. We're both soldiers and sometimes soldiers have to —'

'You executed her. Now I'm going to execute you.'

And West threw his end of the safety rope past Judah . . . into the still-rotating jet engine of the Halicarnassus that hovered immediately behind Judah.

Judah spun as the rope flew by him, saw it enter the yawning maw of the engine.

Then he saw the future, saw what would happen next and his one good eye boggled with fear.

He screamed, but his scream was cut short as the enormous turbine swallowed the rope . . . and sucked the rest of the safety rope in after it.

Judah was yanked off his feet, doubling over as he was sucked backward through the air. Then he entered the engine and— thwack-thwack-CHUNK!—was chewed alive by its hyper-rotating blades.

And suddenly the summit of the Great Pyramid was still.

Seeing the awesome blast of light from the Sun and the deaths of their summit team, the American force at the base of the Pyramid fled, leaving West and Wizard up on the platform, alone.

Moments later, Zoe's Black Hawk landed on the platform and Zoe, Fuzzy and Stretch came rushing out of it —at the same time as Pooh Bear leapt onto the platform from the Halicamassus's wing.

They all arrived on the platform to find West—watched by Wizard—crawling underneath the Capstone to check on Lily.

West bellycrawled through the tight channel carved into the stone beneath the Capstone.

He came to Lily, found her lying motionless inside the human-shaped cavity in the Capstone's lowest Piece. Her eyes were closed. She seemed calm, at peace . . . and not breathing.

'Oh, Lily . . .' West scrambled forwards on his elbows, desperate to get to her.

His head came alongside hers. He scanned her face for any movement, any sign of life.

Nothing. She didn't move at all.

He deflated completely, his entire body going limp, his eyes closing in anguish. 'Oh, Lily. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'

He bowed his head, tears rolled from the corners of his eyes, and he said, 'I loved you, kiddo.'

And there in the cavity, in the golden glow of the Capstone, lying before the body of the happy little girl he had guarded and raised for ten whole years, Jack West Jr wept.

'I love you, too, Daddy . . .' a soft voice whispered weakly from nearby.

West snapped up, his eyes darting open, to see Lily staring back at him, her head rolled onto its side. Her eyes were milky, dazed.

But she was alive, and smiling at him.

'You're alive . . .' West said, amazed. 'You're alive!'

He scooped her up in his arms and hugged her firmly.

'But how . . . ?' West asked aloud.

'I'll tell you later,' she said. 'Can we please get out of here?'

'You bet,' he breathed. 'You bet.'

Minutes later, the Halicarnassus powered up and lifted vertically into the sky, rising on its eight massive retro thrusters.

Once it was high enough, it pivoted in mid-air and allowed itself to drop, nose-down. It fell briefly, plummeting towards the ground, before it engaged its regular engines, using the short vertical fall to get up to flight speed. Its main engines firing, it swung up at the last moment and soared away from the Pyramids on the Giza Plateau.

The Great Pyramid was left standing there behind it, with the half-destroyed platform shrouding its summit, and the American helicopters and cranes lying smoking and broken on its flanks. The Egyptian Government that had aided and abetted the American ritual would have to clean it all up.

Importantly, however, the peak of the Pyramid was also once again nine feet shorter than it should have been.

West and his team had taken the Capstone—the entire Capstone—with them.

Inside the main cabin of the Halicarnassus, West and the others gathered around Lily, hugging her, kissing her, clapping her on the shoulders.

Pooh Bear embraced her: 'Well done, young one! Well doneV

'Thanks for coming back for me, Pooh Bear,' she said.

'I was never going to leave you, young one,' he said.

'Nor was I,' said Stretch, stepping forwards.

'Thanks, Stretch. For saving me at the Gardens, for staying with me when you could have gone.'

Stretch nodded silently, to Lily and also to all the others, especially Pooh Bear. 'They don't come often,' he said, 'but every now and then, there come times in your life when you have to choose a side; choose who you are fighting for. I made my choice, Lily, to fight with you. It was a hard choice, but I have no doubt that it was the right one.'

'It was the right one,' Pooh Bear said, clapping a hand onto Stretch's shoulder. 'You are a good man, Israeli ... I mean, Stretch. I would be honoured to call you my friend.'

'Thank you,' Stretch said with a smile. 'Thank you, friend.''

When all the back-slapping was over, West was eager to understand how Lily had survived.

'I went willingly,' she said simply.

'I don't get it,' West said.

Lily grinned, obviously proud of herself. 'It was the inscription cut into the wall of the volcano chamber where I was born. You yourself were studying it one day. It said:

'Enter the embrace of Anubis willingly, and you shall live beyond the coming of Ra.

Enter against your will, and your people shall rule for but one eon, but you shall live no more.

Enter not at all, and the world shall be no more.

'Like the Egyptians, we thought it was simply a reference to the god Horus, accepting death and being rewarded for that with some kind of afterlife. But that was wrong. It was meant to apply to me and Alexander—to the Oracles. It's not about accepting death willingly. It's about entering the cavity, the embrace of Anubis, willingly.

'If I entered it of my own accord, I would survive. If I went unwillingly, I'd die. But if I didn't go at all, and the ritual was not performed, you would all have died. And I, well, I didn't want to lose my family.'

'Even if that meant giving Zaeed power for all eternity?' Pooh Bear said in disbelief.

Lily turned to him, and her eyes glinted.

'Mr Zaeed was never going to rule,' she said. 'When he grabbed me, I saw the soil in his jade box.' Lily turned