hurriedly escaping from it.
For Wolf wasn’t finished. “Note the stone slab on which you lie, my son. It is one of dozens that have been dropped into that pit over the last three hundred years. Right now, you lie on layer upon layer of previously crucified Ethiopian Christians. You will not die from the crucifixion—crucifixion is notoriously slow, sometimes taking up to three days. No…”
At that moment, Jack heard an ominous grinding noise and suddenly a large flat stone slab was dragged across the corner of the pit’s upper rim, pushed on rollers by a team of Ethiopian guards. The square-shaped slab perfectly fit the dimensions of the deep square pit.
“…you will be crushed, and thus become another layer in these people’s remarkable faith.”
Jack’s eyes went wide.
The square stone slab was now halfway across the pit’s opening.
They were going to drop it into the pit.
They were going to drop it into the pit now.
Holy shit.
This was happening too fast.
Jack began to breathe faster. He looked all around himself, and he beheld his right hand, bloodied and nailed to the slab beneath him.
The slab beneath him:the thought of it made him sick, picturing all the previously crucified Ethiopian men lying immediately below him, crushed between dozens of piled-up slabs.
“Good-bye, Huntsman,” Wolf intoned, as the slab cut him off from Jack’s view. “You really were a good soldier, a true talent. Believe me when I say that it’s a terrible shame. We could have fought together and we would have been unbeatable. But now, because of the choices you’ve made, like the spider of your namesake, you must be crushed. Good-bye, my son.”
The slab came fully across the pit, and as Jack shouted, “No!” the team of Ethiopian draggers withdrew the wooden rollers holding it poised above the pit and suddenly the great slab fell, fell a full twenty feet—down into the pit, its hard edges skimming against the pit’s walls, down toward Jack West Jr.—before it hit the bottom with a shocking boom that echoed throughout the mine.
WOLF GAZEDdown at the stone slab that had just crushed his son to death. The slab had landed askew, as it did when it landed on a human body. Over the coming days it would slowly sink down farther on Jack West Jr.’s body, flattening it.
Then with a shrug Wolf turned on his heel and walked toward the gantry elevator that led out of the mine. Mao, Rapier, and Switchblade followed.
Astro, however, did not.
He wobbled on his feet, drugged and dazed, held up by two Ethiopians who had been out of Jack’s sight.
“Father,” Rapier said, indicating Astro. “What do we do about him?”
Wolf stopped, gazed at Astro for a moment. “A futile gesture from our enemies back in the US—a pitiful play from a weak-willed Administration that has thrown its lot in with these pathetic small nations. But there can be no evidence we killed American servicemen. Take him with us. When he recovers his senses, he gets a choice: he either joins us or he dies.”
“What about the other two?” Switchblade said softly. “The Israeli sniper and Anzar al Abbas’s fat second son.”
Wolf paused a moment. “The Israeli is still upstairs?”
“Yes.”
“There is a considerable bounty on his head. Sixteen million dollars. The Mossad put it up after he refused to obey their orders at the Hanging Gardens. His fate is sealed: we return him to the Old Master and claim the reward. Sixteen million dollars is sixteen million dollars. Then that vengeful old bastard Muniz and the Mossad can torture him for as long as they like.”
“And Abbas’s second son?”
Wolf looked back out over the grim mine complex.
On the other side of the vast space, against the far wall, hung a small medieval cage, suspended above a wide pool of simmering liquid.
Imprisoned inside this cage, hanging ten feet above the dark pool, was Pooh Bear.
He was dirty, bloodied, and bruised from his tumble along the highway in Egypt, but alive. His hands were spread wide, held by manacles that were themselves attached to the bars of the cage.
The liquid in the pool beneath him was a mix of water and arsenic. While this wasn’t technically a gold mine, occasionally the miners found traces of gold in the walls and they used the arsenic-infused liquid to separate it from the earth. They also used it to punish anyone caught hiding gold on his body—thieves would be lowered, inside the cage, into the pool where they would drown in the thick black liquid.
To the guards’ great surprise, Wolf and his people didn’t seem to care for the gold that was found and they happily allowed the guards to keep any that was unearthed by the slave miners.
No, Wolf and his minions cared for something else, something that according to an ancient legend lay buried somewhere within the towerlike stone structures that bounded the walls of the mysterious subterranean complex.
Wolf gazed at the pathetic figure of Pooh Bear, dangling in his cage above the deadly pool.
“Let the guards sacrifice him to their god. He is of no use to anyone anymore.”
