deaths.
They hit the bottom.
And went plunging underwater with a stunning splash. Dazed by the impact, Ben felt his body go limp. But with the first gulp of cold water he came to his senses and started swimming for his life. Bubbles erupted from his lungs as for an instant he was panicking in the murk, unable to tell which way was up and which was down. Then he realised he was still clutching the precious torch. The light beam sliced through the water and found the surface. He kicked out hard, and let out a wheezing gasp as his head and shoulders burst free of the water.
Kamal broke the surface a few feet away, saw him and swam towards him. His hands closed around Ben’s throat. Kicking wildly in the water, Ben lashed out with the torch and felt it connect with something solid. Heard a grunt of pain. He clubbed him again, harder.
Now the current was carrying them along fast, breaking their hold on one another as each man struggled to stay afloat. Another falling rock splashed down violently nearby, sending up a choking wave of spray. Ben coughed and blinked and flailed desperately against the powerful tide. Felt the brutal scrape of rocks as the surging water carried him through a narrow opening and down another tunnel. He went under for a few seconds, and came spluttering back to the surface, shining the Maglite around him.
Then Kamal was splashing violently back towards him. Something glinted gold in the terrorist’s hand, came lashing down and caught Ben across the shoulder. An inch to the right, and it would have shattered his collarbone. Kamal raised the weapon up again. It was the gold falcon statuette. Ben blocked the blow, twisted the precious artefact out of his hand and smashed it hard into his ribs. Kamal fell back, gasping.
The current was dangerously fast now, threatening to suck Ben under as swirling eddies grasped and tugged at his legs like the hands of water demons intent on drowning him. He kicked against them with all the strength he had left, but with both hands full it was nearly impossible to swim properly. He didn’t dare lose the torch, and he couldn’t let go of the gold statue. It was the evidence he needed to save Zara-it meant everything.
Just when he thought he was going under, he felt the hard surface of a rock under him. He clung on to it, dragging himself up out of the water, wheezing and coughing up water. Crouching on the rock with the underground rapids foaming all around him, he shone the light. Saw Kamal’s thrashing body carried past the rock. The terrorist’s eyes were round with horror as he tried to latch on to the slimy stone. But the water was too powerful. It carried him onwards.
Ben could see where he was heading. These were no ordinary rapids. The underground river was surging into a giant whirlpool, twenty-feet across-a vertical drop funnelling millions of tons of water crashing through its swirling vortex and straight downwards into the earth.
As he watched, Kamal hit the outer current of the vortex, a tiny bobbing figure against the dark water. Foam boiled around the rocks. Where the river had been rushing past them for eons, they were smooth and rounded. But the bits of rock that jutted above the waterline were jagged and sharp, like flint. Kamal’s body was slammed into one of them by the furious current. His mouth opened in a scream that was drowned out by the roar of the water. He floated past it. Crashed into another one, and now there was blood on his face and his bared teeth were red. The current carried him on, around and around, faster and faster. Another rock sliced him, then another, and now Kamal wasn’t screaming any more. His arms hung limp as the water tossed him and spun him and dashed him off another sharp rock. The foam boiled pink around him.
The terrorist’s broken body hit the vortex. Ben caught a last glimpse of his face as the swirling water carried him down the sink-hole. Then he was gone.
It was a long, long time later when Ben finally staggered up the last few yards towards the mouth of the cave. Framed in its jagged arch were the moon and stars that he’d seriously never thought he was ever going to see again.
Exhausted, he collapsed on his hands and knees, leaving bloody prints on the rock from the hundred lacerations that criss-crossed his palms after the endless journey back along the river tunnel. He’d lost count of the number of times the surging current had almost pulled him back in. After that had been the crippling, killing climb back up the wall of the chamber of Sobek. Every muscle in his body screamed out for rest, but he had to keep going.
He struggled to his feet and hobbled out into the night. He let his gaze linger for a moment on Lawrence Kirby’s body, then walked on. At the entrance to the cave, hidden in the shadows, he found his phone and pistol still lying where he’d laid them down earlier. He stuck the gun back in his waistband and pocketed the phone, thinking about the precious evidence stored inside it. He glanced down in the moonlight to the glinting statuette that was thrust diagonally in his belt. Ran his fingers along the smooth gold.
Now all he had to do was get out of this desert and back across the Egyptian border alive, then get to a place where he could phone Harry Paxton. He had two days to do it.
He made his weary way down the slope from the cave and walked up the moonlit canyon. He passed the dark shapes of the dead motorcyclists, and the smouldering hulk of the destroyed tank. With every step, he was flinching at the thought that there could be more unexploded mines buried just beneath the sand, waiting for him to tread on them.
A few metres further up the canyon, he paused to gaze regretfully at the flattened remains of the Toyota.
But just around the bend, he came across what he’d been hoping to find. Kamal’s black Nissan Patrol glimmered dully under the stars. Ben trotted up to it, wrenched open the driver’s door and almost laughed when he saw the key in the ignition. In the back of the vehicle were canteens of water, stores of provisions, tools and spare wheels. The steel jerrycans sloshed when he shook them. He reckoned there was just about enough fuel to get him where he needed to go.
He hauled himself up behind the wheel and drank thirstily from one of the canteens. Leaned back in the seat for a moment, shutting his eyes and letting his relief wash over him. Then he slowly turned and saw what was resting in the passenger footwell.
‘My old bag,’ he said aloud.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Ben carved his way north through the night like a man possessed, stopping only to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep when he could barely keep his eyes open any longer. The sun burned down viciously all of the next day as he crossed the Sudanese desert plains, and it was night again by the time he finally crossed over the Egyptian border. For a few tense hours he ducked and dodged the path of army border patrols. But even Special Forces would have been hard pressed to notice as he slipped by.
By next morning, the Nissan was overheating and running low on fuel-but it had done its job. He thrashed it mercilessly along proper metalled roads for as many miles as he could eke out of it. As the first signs of greenery in the distance signalled his approach to the Nile valley, the vehicle finally gave out. He abandoned it and started walking.
None of the lorry drivers or livestock transporters who blasted past on the highway would ever have guessed that the lone, dusty wanderer on the verge carried in his battered army haversack more gold than they would ever see in their lives, and the key to a billion-dollar treasure.
By the time Ben saw the first small town in the distance, he’d already got a signal on his phone and was calling Paxton’s number.
It was the start of the seventh day.
Things happened quickly after that. Ben bought a cotton shirt and fresh jeans from a clothes stall, found a small hotel and checked into a room. He spent a long time under a cool shower, washing away the sand and sweat and blood. He changed and rested awhile, then wandered back outside with his bag on his shoulder, refreshed and hardly feeling the sun’s heat any more. In the winding streets he discovered a little tobacconist and a grocer’s stall selling fresh food out of palm-leaf baskets. He settled on a shady wall under a palm tree on the edge of town, and munched on aish bread filled with hummus and smoked a couple of the cigarettes he’d bought.
Not long afterwards, the black Lexus came for him. He offered up his Jericho to the two taciturn men in suits, and they ushered him into the back. After days of harsh desert driving, the smooth, air-conditioned Lexus felt like something out of a different world. Ben rested against the cool leather as the car whisked him the eighty miles north to the nearest airfield.
