The Sacred Vault

two figures outside. ‘Damn it,’ Nina muttered, recognising Tandon. ‘We can’t go out there - they’ll kill us.’ She looked for anything that might help, spotting something near the overturned gondola. ‘Wait here,’ she said, propping Kit against a frieze. ‘I’ll be right back.’

The winch line descended above Zec. ‘You go up first,’ Tandon told him. ‘Dhiren might still come. And if Wilde or Jindal are still alive, I want to be sure that they do not stay that way.’

Zec nodded, watching the harness’s descent - then movement caught his eye, someone running along a tier below. He almost laughed. ‘Chase! He must have woken up very early this morning.’

Tandon was not familiar with the Bosnian proverb, but he understood its meaning. ‘His luck has run out. Give me your gun.’

Zec unslung his MP5K and handed it to the Indian. ‘Here,’ he said as he reached for the harness. ‘Wait until he is closer. Then we’ll see how awake he really is.’

Eddie reached the next flight of steps and pounded up them to the seventh tier. He saw two men at the top of the broken stairway: Zec and Tandon, preparing to be winched up to the helicopter . . .

Tandon was aiming an MP5K.

The nearest archway was behind him. Eddie skidded on the snow, turning to retreat—

Tandon fired as the Englishman stumbled, trying to back up and reach cover. Even with the MP5K’s short effective range, he could still hose the tier with automatic fire—

Another MP5K barked . . . inside the Vault. Two shots hissed past him - but a third hit his bicep, tearing out a ragged lump of flesh. Tandon roared, dropping the sub-machine gun, which cartwheeled down the steps to fall to the valley floor.

Zec had just fastened the harness. He spun to see Nina emerge from the Vault, holding the gun of the mercenary Kit had killed. That she had only scored a glancing hit from relatively close range told him all he needed to know about her shooting skills - and he gambled that unlike her husband, she didn’t possess a true killer instinct.

‘Bring me up now!’ he shouted into the headset. ‘Tandon, grab me!’

Even with a gunshot wound, Tandon was quick to react. As Zec was hauled off the ledge, he leapt up and clamped a hand round the Bosnian’s wrist. They swung out over the valley, the helicopter pilot immediately increasing power and banking away from the cliff.

Nina ran out on to the ledge, aiming at the two hanging men - but couldn’t bring herself to fire again. Both were unarmed, one was injured, and killing them would have no effect whatsoever on the Khoils’ plan. She knew that Eddie would have fired anyway, but it wasn’t something she could do. All she could do was hiss ‘Son of a bitch!’ as the pair were carried aloft.

Who had Tandon been shooting at? She looked across at the neighbouring tier, seeing nobody - then a familiar head cautiously peered out from an archway. Joy and relief filled her. ‘Eddie!’

He waved at her, then ran along the tier to leap over the gap on to the stairway. ‘Ay up, love!’

She kissed him. ‘Oh, God! I thought you might be dead!’

‘It’ll take more than this bunch of tossers. And Shankarpa and his boys helped. What about Kit?’

‘He’s okay - he’s inside. But we need to get him out of there - the place is filling with smoke.’

‘Yeah, I can see that.’ A dark cloud was billowing out from the top of the doorway. ‘Okay, let’s get him, then—’

A rising noise made them both turn. The gunship was approaching. As they watched, the M249 was drawn inside - to be replaced by another weapon.

An RPG-7 rocket launcher.

Aboard the Dhruv, the winch operator pulled Tandon into the cabin. Zec followed, rapidly releasing the harness and slamming the hatch. ‘Wilde and Chase are still alive,’ he reported.

‘Not for long,’ Vanita snarled. ‘Gunship! Destroy the Vault! Kill them, now!’

Kit limped out of the Vault - only to be scooped up by Eddie and Nina as they ran back inside. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Nothing good, as bloody usual!’ Eddie told him. ‘Nina, give me the gun.’ He took the MP5K as they deposited Kit behind the shelter of one of the great stone doors. The MD 500 had turned to face them, the gunner leaning out to aim the tubular Russian weapon along the aircraft’s length; the backblast from the rocket would be devastating inside the cockpit.

Eddie fired first, aiming high to compensate for his gun’s lack of range. The bullets arced down to strike the approaching chopper’s canopy. It cracked, some of the shots piercing the Plexiglas, but they didn’t have enough power behind them to cause any major damage.

The same wasn’t true of the RPG-7. Smoke burst from the launcher, the dark dot of the rocket racing at the ledge—

Eddie dived back behind the door as it exploded, stone shards slashing past him. The gunship had veered just as the rocket fired, the pilot startled by the bullet hits, and the warhead struck short of the Vault’s entrance.

But it still caused plenty of damage. With a thunderous crack, the stub of the stairway toppled into the abyss, a swathe of the ledge following it.

Eddie looked outside. ‘Buggeration and fuckery!’

‘My favourite words,’ groaned Nina, joining him. ‘What - oh . . .’

It was as if a giant had taken a great bite out of the ledge. A section covering more than half its width was gone, the remains of the stairway now in fragments far below.

And with the stairs gone, there was no way to reach the tiers on the valley walls. The gap was now well over thirty feet: impossible to jump even for the greatest Olympian.

The helicopter withdrew, the gunner pulling the rocket launcher back inside to reload it. Eddie checked his gun. Only three rounds left. He would need a great deal of luck to hit anybody aboard the MD 500 - and with the pilot now knowing he was armed, the next rocket would be fired from a safer distance. The RPG-7 had a range of over half a kilometre. ‘You didn’t find any other way out, did you?’

Nina shook her head unhappily. ‘What if we found some ropes and climbed down?’

‘It’ll take too long. We need a faster way . . .’ He tailed off.

‘Oh, no,’ she said firmly as she saw his gaze fall upon the vimana at the top of the ramp. ‘No way. We are not flying out of here on a goddamn ancient glider!’

‘We know it works,’ said Eddie, lifting Kit and hustling him towards the ramp. ‘That Atlantean bloke of yours said it got those priests back down the mountain.’

‘That was eleven thousand years ago!’ she protested.

‘Well, maybe this one’s not that old.’

‘It’s old enough! And you don’t know how to fly it.’

‘I’ve flown a glider,’ Eddie insisted as he started up the ramp. ‘Well, that one time. Kit, you’ll have to hop to it, literally.’

‘Just so you know, I am agreeing with Nina,’ said Kit, wincing with each step. ‘I don’t think this thing is safe.’

‘Nor’s being hit by a fucking RPG!’

‘Bad idea,’ Nina muttered as she hurried up the other side of the ramp. ‘Very, very bad idea.’

‘You were impressed by it before,’ said Eddie, reaching the vimana. He half helped, half pushed the unconvinced Indian on to the slatted platform under the wing, then examined the rocket.

‘As an archaeological find, it’s world-shaking. As a plane, it’s more likely to be bone-breaking!’

‘Those other machines still worked - maybe they built this to last as well. Give me those matches, then get aboard.’ He tweaked the end of the fuse as Nina produced the matches. ‘Okay, light the blue touchpaper and . . . hang on tight, I suppose.’

Nina lay down beside Kit. Leather straps hung from the wing’s wooden spars; she guessed they were meant to hold the passengers in place, but there wasn’t time to tie them - all she could do was wrap two round her wrists