started to rise, wiping blood from his hands.
'Sorry about that. I Didn't think we had the time to show you,' Jack said as he took the 9-millimeter from his belt.
'Damn, it's dark,' said Everett as he tried to penetrate the darkness around them beyond the light shining down the shaft.
Above, they heard the sounds of many vehicles approaching the mosque.
Jack's foot struck something and he reached down and saw that it was a field pack. He held it toward the sunlight and saw that it was marked with Leekie's name. He opened it and fished inside until he found what he was looking for. He brought out a phosphorescent flare and struck it. He held it up and the darkness gave way to bright light.
'Whoa, I think this may be the place,' Everett said as he took in the statues.
Jack looked down and saw one set of tracks leading away from the antechamber of the cave.
'Looks like another opening there, Jack,' Everett said as he pointed his weapon at the large opening.
The three men started forward slowly. They walked along the stone-and-earthen walls carved to resemble pillars. There were strange designs etched into them that depicted bulls, disks of a blazing sun, and women and fighting soldiers in armor. Hieroglyphs identical to those they had seen on the scrolls they had recovered lined the walls.
'Ah, Jesus,' Ryan said, disgust edging his voice.
Jack held the flare closer and saw the horrible death that had befallen one of Dutton's men. The two halves of his body lay crumpled side by side as if they were just laundry waiting to be picked up.
'Watch where you step,' Jack said as he threw the flare down and struck another. He held it close to the dirt floor and saw the sun designs on the packed earth. 'Look,' he said as he pointed the flare at the ground. Then he looked up and saw a large slit in the natural rock formation where something was hidden, just waiting for someone to step on the sun designs on the ground.
'I wish Sarah was here, she knows these traps far better than us,' Ryan said as he slowly backed away from the dead man.
Collins hopped over the line of pressure plates after making sure that one trap didn't lead directly to another. They slowly and cautiously entered what they had thought was another cave, but as the light struck and dispelled the blackness, they saw that it was a manmade extension of the natural cave. Jack could see where the ledge sloped steeply down in front of them.
'Listen,' he said.
'Running water,' Carl ventured. 'A lot of it.'
As they entered the larger excavation, Jack felt the same feeling he'd had earlier in the desert above. Eyes were on them. He tried to see beyond the steep slope, but there was nothing.
'Lieutenant?' he shouted.
'Colonel?'
It was Will Mendenhall, his voice echoing off the walls just below the slope's edge. He stood, lowered his 9- millimeter, and took a deep breath.
'I'm sure glad to see you guys.'
'Is Leekie with you?' asked Jack.
'She's right here. I thought we were going to make a last stand. I was going to take as many of those bastards with me as I could.'
The professor limped up the slope and joined Will.
'Glad to see you made it, Doc,' Collins said as he stepped forward.
'Major Dutton, his team?' Mendenhall asked.
Everett just shook his head.
'Damn.'
'What have we got down there?'
'You're not going to believe this,' Mendenhall said. 'Show 'em, Doc.'
Leekie gestured for the men to follow. She veered to the right side of the slope and then asked Jack for the flare. She touched it to a small ledge and the entire slope lit up with a ring of fire. The ledge, as it turned out, was a trough filled with something ancient, the smell of which was horrible. Everett, Ryan, and Collins watched as the ring of fire illuminated a series of ornamental pillars that lined each side of the slope, which led to an underground river that raged in front of them. The cool waters fell from a great waterfall that exited an opening sixty feet above. As the water from above struck below, it misted and then disappeared as it entered a natural cave that had stalactites and stalagmites lining the upper and lower edges, making the cave seem as if it were an open mouth full of very sharp teeth.
The vision on the other side of the river was what caught their attention. Placed at the very water's edge on the far shore was a small temple of marble and sandstone that gleamed in the flare's false light. Inside, they could see a giant bronze bull, head and right leg bent as it pawed the ground, just as if it were frozen in time while in the act of attacking.
'Now that is something,' Everett said, gazing at the incredible sight.
Mendenhall took Collins by the arm and leaned close.
'I didn't want to tell the doc this earlier, Colonel, but we weren't the first ones here.'
'I figured as much. I saw some heavy-equipment tracks in the desert. That, coupled with the fact that the Coalition hit so fast and hard, tells me they were nearby, just waiting to spring their ambush.'
Everett heard the last of the conversation as he stepped up.
'If we recovered the plate map, how in the hell did they get here first?' Will asked, looking from Jack to Carl.
'I don't know. After searching for it for thousands of years, they suddenly pop up out of nowhere. Did we miss something in Hawaii?'
'No one from Leekie's group entered before you, Lieutenant?'
'No, sir; I and two Special Ops men were the first.'
Leekie and Ryan joined the group.
'What are we waiting for? Let's get what we came to get,' she said as she looked at the serious faces of the three.
'I'm the strongest swimmer, Jack; I'll get a rope across and tie it off,' Everett said.
'Yeah, just don't end up in Cairo in that current.'
Ten minutes later, after Everett had given them all a scare by not coming up for six minutes, they saw him break the surface of the river a hundred yards downstream of the temple. He rested for only a moment before he worked his way back along the slim shore. He tied the rope off to the first pillar in line and made it fast. He then waved the others into the water.
Everett looked around the base of the temple for anything that resembled the trough that Leekie had ignited, but found none. He did, however, find torches, last lit when the foul place had its secret first placed there. Carl pulled his Zippo lighter out of his pocket and reached for the first of the ancient torches. He placed the flame next to it, then hesitated as he saw that it was made from a human arm. The skeletal hand of it held a small bowl. Carl hit it with the flame and it sprang to life with the same awful smell as the trough across the way. He lit all the torches that lined the walls of the temple.
Leekie and Ryan, tied together, were the first to traverse the rope hand over hand. Mendenhall and Collins followed. Everett was at the shore's edge to assist each out of the water.
They rested for only a moment and then made their way to the temple steps. The men allowed Leekie to examine the marble steps first so that they wouldn't make the same mistake as the sergeant had made back in the first cave. Then, she waved them forward. It was Jack who noticed that, for having been buried for close to fifteen thousand years, the temple was in remarkable shape.
Leekie was the first to enter the temple. Everett had retrieved a torch and Jack lit off one of their last flares as they looked on with amazement at the work that had gone into building such a thing beneath the earth. Spaced around and in front of each pillar, lifelike statues of men stared out at them with blank eyes. Some were dressed in ancient armor, others in the flowing robes of a politician. Most were impressive in looks but small in stature. The largest was of a bearded man, a soldier perhaps, with a battle helmet in the crook of his right arm and in his left a
