A pair of gunshots echoed, coming from the lower mountain. Monk could no longer see the trundling force of mercenaries, but they were still coming, still cleaning house.
If anyone had survived that underground blast, they wouldn't be alive for long.
Monk had only one choice.
It took Creed's help, but he finally convinced the Norwegians.
1:21 P.M.
As the rumble grew and the ice shook, Painter prayed the avalanche wouldn't be a large one. But the rumbling grew in volume.
Then, out of the blanket of snow and wind, a Sno-Cat shot into view, rising up from below. It did not slow and sped straight at them.
'Get back!' Painter yelled.
He shoved Gorman away from the doorway, then grabbed Karlsen by the hood of his parka and flung them both bodily away from the wall of ice.
And not a second too soon.
The heavy vehicle struck the blocked doorway. Its front treads rode up the ice wall. The bumper cracked into the top half of the doorway. Ice blocks shattered into the tunnel and slid away.
The Sno-Cat backed up, likely readying itself for a second run.
Painter dashed forward. The bumper had broken a hole large enough for Painter to slide his body through. Diving into the jagged gap, he clawed and elbowed his way through the door.
The Sno-Cat suddenly halted its retreat.
The passenger door popped open. A familiar figure leaned out.
'Director Crowe?' Monk said, his face raw with relief.
'Monk...you are a sight for sore eyes.' And Painter's eyes were sore-bloodshot and inflamed.
'I get that a lot,' Monk said. 'But we should get moving.'
Painter turned. Karlsen clambered out of the hole, followed by the senator. 'There are more people locked up down below.'
'And that's where they should stay.' Monk hopped out, reached back inside, and came out with an armload of rifles. 'Can you shoot?' he asked the other two men.
Both Gorman and Karlsen nodded.
'Good, because we need as much firepower as we can muster.'
'Why?' Painter asked.
Before Monk could answer, the distant grumble of a heavy engine echoed out of the storm.
'We've got company coming.'
Painter joined Monk over at the Sno-Cat and took a rifle. He noted that the vehicle held only one man, a Norwegian soldier. He searched around.
'Where's Creed?' Painter asked.
'Left with this soldier's buddy on our snowmobiles. They've gone for help.'
Painter hoped they made it back in time with the cavalry. He assessed the group left to defend the fort.
One vehicle and four men.
The Alamo had better odds...and look how that turned out.
Chapter 23
October 13, 1:32 P.M.
Bardsey Island, Wales
Rachel almost dropped Seichan when she saw Gray fall from his perch. He slid down the face of the cross and caught himself on the tri-spiral bas-relief that decorated the lower leg of the cross.
He scrambled for a moment, then laced his fingers over the top of the symbol sticking out. Would it hold his weight or break away?
The same worry must have crossed his mind. He kept his body from moving too much. His boots hung over a twenty-foot drop into a pit lined by spikes.
But Gray wasn't the only one threatened.
Rachel slid across the upended side of the sarcophagus. 'Hold my legs!' she shouted back to Wallace.
The professor shared her perch on the stone coffin. He clung as precariously as she did. He grabbed her ankles and helped stabilize her.
It gave Rachel some slight reassurance but not much.
She hung over the side of the sarcophagus. She had a grip on Seichan's jacket. The woman who poisoned her clung with only her fingertips to the edge of the coffin.
Neither of them could hold out much longer.
A small quake shuddered through the chamber. The apparatus was ancient. Triggering it must have upset whatever fragile balance had been established over the centuries. She pictured the ruins of the tower above. It might all come down.
Another shake rattled through the tilted floor. From inside the sarcophagus, Malachy's Bible tumbled out. It fell into the pit and was speared through the middle, impaled on one of the spikes.
Wallace groaned at the loss, but they had more immediate concerns.
Bobbled by the quaking, Seichan lost her grip. She fell without making a sound, as if she expected it, deserved it. One of Rachel's hands lost its grip, but her other fist remained twisted in Seichan's coat.
She stopped the woman's plunge with a wrench of her shoulder. But the weight dragged her over the edge of the sarcophagus. Only Wallace's grip on her ankles stopped them both from a deadly plunge.
Rachel's upper body hung upside down, her hips and legs remaining atop the coffin, pinned by Wallace. It was hard to breathe. Seichan dangled below, hanging from her coat. Her only sign of fear was how tightly she clutched that coat to her neck with both hands.
Rachel wanted to let her go, but the woman was her only lifeline.
The floor shook again. A piece of the cavern roof broke away. A large slab dropped, and shattered against the spikes.
She closed her eyes and prayed for some way out.
Her angelic answer came from the most unlikely of sources.
'What the fuck!'
The shout came from the other side of the tilted floor, where the tunnel led up to Lord Newborough's crypt.
It was Kowalski. He must have come down either out of impatience or because he had heard the booby trap being sprung.
'Help!' Rachel yelled, but with her chest stretched and her belly squeezed, it came out as a squeak.
'Hello!' Kowalski called. Plainly he hadn't heard her.
Gray bellowed as he hung. 'Kowalski!'
'Pierce? Where are you? All I see is a pit and a blank wall. How did you all get across?'
From Kowalski's vantage point in the tunnel, all he must see was the underside of the fake floor-and the pit.
Gray yelled again. 'Go back and pull the bar!'
'Pull my what?' He sounded offended.
'The lever! Up the tunnel!'
'Oh, okay! Hang on!'
Rachel stared down at Seichan, then over to Gray. Hang on. That's all they could do.
'Hurry!' Gray called out. He had begun to slip again.
Kowalski's voice came back fainter. 'Quit nagging me!'
Rachel clung as tightly as she could. She closed her eyes and pictured the bar sticking out of the floor. She had spotted it earlier. It made sense that there would be a reset button for this trap. While the mechanism might kill any thieves who stumbled down here, the engineers of the trap would have needed a way to reset it. Otherwise, they'd be cut off from the key, too. Some sort of reset had to lie outside the chamber.
But was it the lever?
