the gunman in the legs. The guard kept his finger on the trigger as he fell. The wild spray tore apart more of the chariot and sparked off the stone floor where Mercer knelt. His HK virtually exploded in his hands when a lucky bullet slammed into the receiver. The AK-47 fell silent when the bolt came down on an empty chamber. The terrorist had fired through the entire magazine.
Mercer jumped to his feet before the guard could reload. He snatched a short sword from the pile nearby and vaulted over the chariot. For a moment he didn’t understand what the wounded guard was doing. The object in his hands wasn’t the distinctive curve of a Kalashnikov magazine. It was round. Then he saw the beatific smile. The guard yanked the pin of the grenade and held it to his chest.
Mercer had five seconds and knew it wouldn’t be enough to get clear of the blast radius. He rushed forward and without pause swung the sword down onto the prone figure. The ancient weapon held a keen edge and the terrorist’s head jumped free in an eruption of blood and escaping air.
Mercer scooped the grenade from his lifeless fingers and with an underhanded toss flipped it over the sarcophagus. The explosion destroyed the rest of the priceless casket and sent Alexander’s remains into the air like so much dust, but the blast wave passed harmlessly over Mercer where he lay with his head cradled in his arms.
He got up and blinked, the gunfire in the next room sounding distant to his tortured hearing. He shot a concerned look at the alembic and breathed a sigh when he saw it hadn’t been hit by the fragmentation grenade. He grabbed the fallen Kalashnikov and searched the corpse for more magazines, cursing when he realized the man hadn’t been carrying any.
Alexander’s burial chamber was a storehouse of state-of-the-art weapons for their day but they were worthless against automatic rifles. Mercer could only hope that however many Janissaries followed him into the tunnel could take care of the remaining three killers. Then he saw the bows.
One in particular caught his eye; the wood was glossy smooth and it had a handle of inlaid ivory. It was a magnificent weapon, surely Alexander’s own. Hanging from its tip was a bowstring of tightly wound wire. Mercer took up the ancient weapon, reversed it, and tried to bend it to hook the string on the top notch. He could barely cause it to flex. He repositioned himself and pressed with all his strength, throwing his weight on the bow and digging in with his feet. The tough wood dug into his chest as it bent ever so slightly. Mercer ignored the pain and redoubled his efforts.
Slowly the weapon bent, curling downward so the loop on the string was tantalizingly close to the notch, but Mercer couldn’t get it that last half inch. He felt his body weakening and the half inch gap grew to an inch, then two. He wasn’t up to the challenge. Only Alexander himself had ever managed to string the mighty bow. What made him think he could handle the weapon of a god? Yet Mercer refused to give up. He pressed all the harder, closing the gap once again. He drew a deep breath, strained with everything he had, and the loop touched the top of the bow and then slid over the notch. Mercer relaxed and the wire held.
He marveled at the weapon’s balance and how the handle fit perfectly in his hand. The quiver for the arrows was a bronze tube. Its strap had rotted away eons ago so he improvised one with the sling of the AK.
He nocked an arrow and tried to draw the string back, the muscles in his chest and shoulders taking the strain. No matter how hard he pulled he could only get the bow to about half cock.
Not wanting to become trapped in the dead end burial chamber, Mercer made his way to the exit. In the diorama room he could see tongues of flame shooting out from the darkness as Poli and his men fired at the unseen Janissaries.
He padded silently around the perimeter of the chamber, keeping to the shadows away from the burning braziers as he sought a target. A long burst of autofire to his left caught his attention. He could just make out a man on the other side of three of the skeleton tableaus, firing at someone farther down the arcade of columns. Mercer drew the bow and paused, not sure of who he was aiming at. It could be Booker or one of Ahmad’s men.
The gunman moved just enough for light to flit across his face for a second. Mercer recognized Mohammad bin Al-Salibi and his hatred flared.
Between Mercer and Al-Salibi the three rearing monsters out of mythology made the shot next to impossible. Mercer would have to thread the arrow though the gaps in their skeletons if he wanted to hit the terrorist leader, and he hadn’t fired a bow since summer camp when he was thirteen.
He drew back on the wire, pulling it past what he’d managed before, until the downy feathers at the end of the arrow touched his cheek. Salibi had shifted position, hiding behind a towering thighbone of what the ancients believed was a cyclops. Mercer could just make out a sliver of his face through the forest of interwoven bones.
Shifting his aim a fraction of an inch, Mercer let fly. The ninety pounds of pull he’d maintained on the ancient weapon sent the arrow singing though the air. It shot through the gap between the hips and tail of the hydra, passed the length of its rib cage and out a hole in its shoulder before streaking to the next skeleton. Here too Mercer’s aim held true. The arrow barely brushed the tooth of the snake-like creature as it arced through its open jaw. And then it passed through the bones of another monster.
Salibi must have heard the sound of the bow because he turned at the last second. The arrow sliced though his cheek, breaking when it hit the bone but still carrying enough speed for the tip to pierce his skull. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Mercer readied another arrow and continued the hunt. The firing suddenly stopped and he lowered himself behind a column, waiting to see what would happen next. He detected shadowy movement heading in the direction of Alexander’s tomb, but he wasn’t quick enough with the bow. He continued around the perimeter of the chamber, his eyes straining to see in the uneven light of the braziers while making sure whoever had entered the third room didn’t reemerge.
A hand reached out and grabbed his ankle. He jerked it free and heaved on the bow, letting off the tension when he saw Ibriham Ahmad lying on the stone floor. His customary black suit was shiny at the shoulder and along his side. The sheen was fresh blood.
Mercer knelt at his side. “How bad are you hit?”
“I am dead, Dr. Mercer.” His voice was a hoarse croak. “Yet I go to my grave knowing the alembic will not leave this place.”
“You dynamited the entrance to seal us in.”
He nodded stiffly. “When I blew up the tunnel only Devrin and one other were left. I could not risk losing the fight.”
Had the Turk not already been dying, Mercer would have killed him with his bare hands. “You could have fucking warned me you were going to pull something like this, for God’s sake.”
“It is for God’s sake I did it. There was no other way. Our sacrifice will save millions.”
That was the difference between them. Mercer was willing to risk his life on even the slimmest odds, but willingly knowing there was absolutely no chance was something he couldn’t comprehend.
“I only managed to get one of them,” Ibriham slurred. He was going fast.
“Poli?”
“No, an Arab.”
“I got Salibi.”
“May Allah’s blessing be upon you, and may he rot for all eternity in the most foul hell.”
Trapped in this subterranean nightmare he might be, but as long as Mercer was alive there was always hope. He’d take care of Poli first and then try to figure a way to get himself and Ahmad out of here. That must have been the one-eyed assassin he’d seen skulking back into the burial chamber.
“Where’s your gun?” Mercer asked the Janissary.
“I am out of ammunition. I think we all are. That is why Poli stopped shooting.”
“Haven’t any of you heard of fire discipline?” Mercer spat. “Well, if I could take Salibi with a bow I can do the same to Poli. Are you going to be okay for a couple of minutes?”
“No, Doctor. I will be dead.” He said it with calm resignation.
Mercer didn’t know what to say. He laid a hand gently on Ahmad’s good shoulder.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s Spanish. It means go with God.”
“You could give me no better blessing,” Ibriham said with a faint smile and then he simply didn’t take another
