King Solomon's Curse

  Fortune took up the rearguard position as his group headed downwards. ‘I can hear them in the tunnels,’ he warned. ‘They must have made it through the traps – if any were with Mukobo when we first came down, they would know how to beat them.’

  ‘If we got a couple of ’em, that’s still a help,’ Eddie called back to him as they crossed another bridge. ‘The less we have—’

  Another explosion ripped through the palace’s roof.

  Everyone ducked as gritty debris showered them, stone blocks plummeting past to explode on the cavern floor. Eddie looked up at the new rent overhead. The Insekt Posse reinforcements had this time planted their explosives with considerably less precision. The hole was bigger and more ragged than its predecessor, a loose block slowly bending the lead beneath it before falling away.

  But this did not deter the militia. Ropes were hurled through the second opening. A third line also dropped from the original hole, armed figures crouching at its edge to cover those about to descend. ‘There’s more coming – go, go!’ cried Eddie.

  Nina looked down at the terraces as they hurried deeper. ‘I think there’s more than one drainage tunnel,’ she said. ‘So which do we take?’

  Gunfire above. Eddie glanced up to see Paris return fire at an attacker on the roof as the militia started to descend from the second hole. ‘The nearest sounds good!’ More men lowered themselves from the first set of ropes. ‘Fortune, hurry up or they’ll cut you off!’

  Fortune fired at the rappellers, one falling with a scream that was abruptly truncated as he hit the cave floor. ‘Running low on ammo!’

  ‘Me too!’ added Paris as he sent a couple of shots at the other opening.

  ‘Some extra mags down here!’ Eddie shouted, pointing at the bodies below. He and Nina crossed the last bridge and headed as quickly as they could for the first tier of buildings.

  Movement below it: Brice, at the Shamir chamber’s entrance. The Yorkshireman halted sharply to take aim—

  Nina, unprepared for his sudden stop, ran into him as he pulled the trigger. The Magnum round blasted a chunk of stone from the wall beside the British agent. His countryman reacquired his target and fired again, but Brice had already darted into the opening. ‘Bollocks! Not your fault,’ Eddie quickly reassured her as he moved again.

  ‘Are you going to go after him?’ she asked.

  ‘No time.’ It would be touch and go whether everyone reached the terrace before the rappelling militia touched down.

  He jumped the last few stairs to the cavern floor. The village spread out before them, a ghostly maze in the shafts of half-light. ‘Where’s the nearest drain?’

  Nina had hoped the drainage tunnels – if that was what they were – would be evenly distributed, but the closest she could see was above the next tier down, unreachable without scaling the rock face. ‘Dammit! It’s on the other side of the village.’

  ‘Come on.’ He ran for one of the narrow alleys between the little structures.

  ‘That one’s closer!’ said Nina of another.

  ‘A guy fell over here,’ Eddie countered. They raced along the confined street. It zigzagged, the dwellings seemingly not constructed to any orderly plan, but he soon saw what he had hoped for. ‘There!’

  The broken corpse of one of the Insekt Posse was slumped over a roof, his lower jaw mashed grotesquely up into his mouth. Nina grimaced as Eddie dragged him to the ground. A rapid check of the rifle on his back proved it had withstood the fall far better than its owner. ‘Take this,’ he said, giving Nina the golden revolver as he hefted the AK.

  A burst of bullets fired from above struck nearby rooftops like deadly hailstones. Eddie and Nina flattened themselves against a wall, then ran again. A side alley gave them a glimpse of the lower level – and the men on the ropes descending towards it.

  ‘Eddie, keep going!’ cried Fortune, trailing his group across the final bridge. More shots came from the palace’s roof, Paris and Ziff firing back to force the snipers to retreat. ‘We will be right behind you!’

  ‘So will they,’ Nina said in alarm. More figures dropped from the roof, descending spider-like on their lines.

  As if that were not bad enough, now gunfire came from a new direction. The Insekt Posse had made it through Solomon’s challenges. ‘Shit, we’re gonna get swarmed,’ Eddie said. ‘We’ve got to find that way out!’

  The alley opened out into a small square. A stone bowl surrounded by oil casks sat in its centre, other streets angling out of it. ‘Which way?’ asked Nina.

  ‘Think there was another dead guy down here,’ Eddie said, heading for one passage.

  Nina started after him, but stopped as she heard Howie shout her name. She turned to see the young man breathlessly enter the square, still clutching the laptop. ‘Wait, wait!’ he gasped.

  ‘We can’t!’ she replied. More rifle shots echoed down the cavern, a round ricocheting off a nearby building. ‘Come on!’

  She followed Eddie, Howie in her wake. The light from the first hole in the roof made it easier to negotiate the confined alleyways – but it also made them easier to see from above. Bullets smacked against stone—

  A high-pitched cry from behind – Lydia. ‘Jesus, she’s hit!’ shouted Fisher.

  ‘It just clipped her arm!’ Ziff quickly responded. ‘She’s okay.’

  The New Zealander replied with a screech of both pain and anger. ‘That’s easy for you to say!’

  ‘Move, quickly!’ Fortune snapped. ‘Eddie, we are almost at the bottom.’

  ‘So are the militia!’ warned Paris.

  Eddie scrambled on to a nearby roof. He spun to take in the whole cavern – and did not like what he saw. The first wave of Insekt Posse coming from the palace roof had just reached the ground, with more on the way, and the group descending from the tunnels were now on the second bridge. The expedition was outnumbered at least four-to-one – and outgunned by a much greater ratio. ‘Get to the tunnels!’ he yelled as he jumped back down. ‘Get out of here – just run!’

  24

  Brice heard Eddie’s shout from inside the Chamber of the Shamir. ‘Yes, you run, Chase,’ he said with a smirk. ‘We’ll see how far you get.’

  He had removed the lead box’s lid to examine the Shamir. If it was reacting to the infusion of daylight into the chasm, he couldn’t tell – the growing vibration of the much larger mineral deposit in the mine was overpowering anything he could feel from its child – but his primary concern was that it was intact and undamaged.

  It was. And it was his.

  Other shouts outside. ‘In here!’ he called in French.

  Three members of the Insekt Posse ran in. ‘Le Fauchet!’ shouted one. ‘Where are—’

  The trio froze as they saw their leader slumped dead. Horror turned to fury, guns coming up to exact vengeance – but Brice was prepared. ‘They killed him,’ he gasped, feigning shock. ‘They murdered Philippe! The bald one executed him, right in front of me – and he would have killed me too if you hadn’t blown the roof!’

  The militia men stared at him, unsure what to do. All three were obviously on drugs, eyes red – and minds dulled. Mukobo himself never used, Brice knew, but ensuring a ready supply for his men kept them both loyal and unthinking. ‘They’re getting away!’ he went on, taking advantage of their confusion. ‘You’ve got to make them pay for killing Le Fauchet! Cut them up, butcher them like pigs!’

  One seemed less addled than the others, hostility in his eyes as he glared at the MI6 agent. Brice felt a moment of worry that the African either didn’t believe or didn’t care that he wasn’t responsible for Mukobo’s death . . . but then the other two ran from the chamber, shouting to their comrades. The last man gave him a nasty look, then followed.

  Brice turned back to the Shamir. Once Chase and the others were dead, the only people other than himself who knew the ancient relic’s
power would be a gang of drug-crazed savages – a small smile both at the use of the politically incorrect term and his certainty that it was entirely justified – whose wild stories about a magic stone that could destroy buildings would never be believed.

  That suited him perfectly. A plan had developed in his mind after he witnessed what the Shamir could do, and ironically, by killing Mukobo Eddie Chase had made it possible.

  He replaced the lid and took hold of the box. The combination of dense stone and lead plates made it a strain to lift, but it was still portable. And he only had to carry it as far as the boats. After that, he could use the satellite phone to call his contacts and get both the Shamir and himself out of the country . . .

  He hauled the casket towards the exit as gunfire resumed outside.

  ‘Go, let’s go!’ Eddie yelled as he hurriedly backed through an alleyway. Nina and Howie were ahead of him, Fortune and his group on a parallel path.

  But the Insekt Posse were closing in.

  One militia man had started whooping, a demented, almost animalistic sound, and his howl had been taken up by the rest. The terrifying cacophony echoed through the cavern as they bayed for blood.

  Eddie had no intention of letting them take any. A screaming man sprinted down the alley after him, AK in one hand and a machete waving in the other – only to tumble gracelessly to the ground as a bullet from the Yorkshireman’s own rifle blew a fist-sized chunk from his throat. ‘You can fuck off!’ he shouted.

  But more were coming, and he didn’t have enough ammo to take them all down. He turned and raced after Nina and Howie. The two Americans had opened up a lead on him – but to his dismay his wife was now squandering it as she stopped in another little square, Howie continuing past her. ‘No, keep going!’ he yelled.

  ‘I’m not leaving you!’ she insisted.

  ‘Do we have to have this conversation every fucking time we get chased?’ he demanded. Like the first square, this had a large bowl to provide illumination at its centre, pots of oil around it.

  ‘Do you have to run so goddamn slow?’ she shot back, setting off again.

  Eddie followed her to the crooked alley’s first turn – then crouched in an empty doorway, readying his weapon. The Insekt Posse charged into the square. He waited until the first man reached the bowl – then fired.

  One of the pots shattered, oil spraying out . . . but it didn’t ignite.

  ‘Oh, arse,’ Eddie muttered. The other howling men raced through the square, guns coming up—

  A second bullet smashed another pot – and this time the searing metal ignited its contents.

  Fire gushed from the broken vessel, splashing over the spilled oil – which erupted into a wall of flame that swallowed the leading militia. They burst through its other side as human torches, the bloodlust of their screams turning to agony. The Insekt Posse behind them hurriedly halted.

  Eddie rose, about to run after Nina. The fire had spread across the whole square. Nobody would be following him—

  His satisfaction lasted barely a moment. Rather than turn back, the trapped militia climbed on to the roofs of the surrounding buildings. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ he growled, unleashing a couple of shots that sent two men crashing back on to their enraged companions, before racing away.

  More gunshots from another alley: Fortune shooting at his own pursuers, and angry bursts of fire as they retaliated. But there was another sound over the thudding Kalashnikovs. The Mother of the Shamir’s subsonic hum was becoming a distinct, audible rumble.

  And it was getting louder.

  ‘Eddie!’ Nina cried. ‘I can see the tunnel!’

  ‘Keep going, don’t stop for anything!’ A look back spurred him to run faster as he saw the mob leaping from roof to roof in pursuit.

  He cleared the village. Ahead was the promised tunnel entrance, a black rectangle cut into the rock wall. Nina reached it, Howie ducking past as she stopped inside the low opening. The rest of the expedition members were heading for her, Fortune and Paris covering their rear.

  Ziff had fallen behind the documentary crew, the elderly Israeli struggling to keep pace. He looked back. ‘Eddie! Behind you!’

  Eddie glanced over his shoulder – and saw one of the Insekt Posse right on him. The tall youth let out a gleeful cry, swinging his machete at his prey—

  A bullet whipped over the Englishman’s head to strike the sprinter in the face. The African fell.

  Eddie looked ahead again to see Ziff standing on a rock, lowering his gun. ‘Thanks, Doc!’ he shouted. ‘But get down! Get to the—’

  Bloody holes burst open across Ziff’s torso.

  The Israeli tumbled to the ground. ‘David!’ screamed Nina.

  Eddie spotted his shooter: Luaba. He stood on the last building at the village’s edge, swinging his smoking Kalashnikov towards the Yorkshireman—

  Fortune and Paris both fired at him. The hulking Congolese dived flat. ‘Paris, go!’ Fortune shouted, heading for the fallen Ziff.

  ‘No, I’ll get him!’ Eddie yelled. ‘Cover me!’ He reached the rock, finding the Israeli sprawled behind it. Ziff was still alive, clutching at his stomach. ‘Doc! Stay with me, I’ll get you up.’

  He hauled the other man over one shoulder, then clutched both their rifles by their straps and lumbered towards the tunnel mouth. Fortune kept firing, downing two more militia. ‘Eddie, I’m almost out!’ he warned.

  Paris added his own firepower to his partner’s. More screams came from behind Eddie as he struggled onwards. But they were still massively outnumbered even with the Insekt Posse taking casualties – and rapidly running out of bullets.

  Rivero reached the tunnel and bent down to enter it, closely followed by Lydia and Fisher. Inside, he switched on his camera’s spotlight to reveal that the drainage channel sloped downwards for some distance into the rock.

  Eddie reached the opening. ‘Nina, help me!’ His wife took Ziff’s weight as he slid him from his shoulder.

  Paris and Fortune, still firing, followed him into the tunnel mouth. ‘I’m out,’ the tall Congolese barked, discarding his empty AK.

  ‘Take one of these,’ Eddie said, dropping the rifles. Fortune collected one, checking the magazine and giving him an unhappy look when he saw how few bullets it contained. ‘Don’t think the other one’s any better.’

  To everyone’s surprise, Fisher picked up the second Kalashnikov. ‘What’re you doing?’ Nina asked.

  ‘I want to fight,’ the director announced. ‘If these bastards are going to kill us, I want to take some of them down first!’

  ‘You know how to use a gun?’ Eddie asked dubiously as the group headed into the darkness.

  ‘Point, pull trigger, don’t hit your friends in the back,’ he replied, following Paris’s example by supporting his rifle’s foregrip in the crook of his right arm. ‘I did a documentary about doomsday preppers; they let me fire off a few rounds from an AR-15. Okay, a few dozen.’

  ‘More like a few hundred,’ said Lydia as she switched on a torch. ‘Rambo!’ Fisher managed a faint smile.

  Fortune took up the rearguard position again with Paris. ‘They will reach the tunnel any second!’ he warned.

  ‘There’d better be a corner down there,’ Eddie shouted to those ahead. ‘Or we’ll be fish in a very narrow barrel!’

  Rivero’s reply was both relieved and worried. ‘Yeah, there is – but it goes left and right! Which way do we take?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Nina protested as she realised the others were waiting for an answer from her. ‘It’s a drain, so whichever way goes down!’

  ‘They both look flat!’

  ‘Are you kidding me? Solomon, you asshole! Not you, David,’ she hastily added.

  The wounded Israeli gave her a feeble laugh. ‘No offence taken. And after all we’ve been through, I’m reconsidering my opinion of the “gr
eat king” . . .’

  Nina looked ahead. Howie had let Rivero and Lydia past to light the way. They were indeed approaching a fork in the tunnel. ‘Howie,’ she said, ‘you take David. I need to see where we’re going.’ Howie tucked the laptop under one arm and waited for her and Eddie to catch up—

  A single gunshot from behind made everyone jump, the sound physically painful in the confined space. ‘They are at the top!’ said Fortune, grimacing at the noise of his AK.

  Eddie took Howie’s rifle as the young man and Nina switched places, then the redhead scurried down the shaft. ‘Why didn’t they just shoot us already?’ asked Lydia as she caught up.

  ‘You’re complaining?’ said Rivero sarcastically.

  ‘For one thing, they’re all doped-up, so they’re not thinking straight,’ said Nina. ‘For another, I think they’d rather hack us to pieces for killing Mukobo.’

  Lydia was startled. ‘Wait, Mukobo’s dead?’

  ‘Ah . . . yeah,’ Nina said as she took the New Zealander’s flashlight. ‘Should probably have mentioned that sooner, huh?’

  ‘No shit!’ spluttered Rivero. ‘No wonder they’re pissed!’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Lydia asked.

  ‘What difference does—’

  Paris’s shout cut her off. ‘Grenade!’

  One of the Insekt Posse leaned around the tunnel mouth, about to hurl a bomb—

  Fortune fired again. The man’s wrist blew apart in a burst of blood and bone fragments – and he dropped the grenade. The militia around him yelled in alarm—

  A pounding blast came from the top of the shaft, shrapnel pinging off the stone walls. Paris yelped as a metal fragment slashed his cheek. The explosion’s echoes faded, replaced by the screams of the wounded.

  ‘Keep going!’ said Fortune. ‘That won’t stop them for long.’

  Nina reached the tunnel’s foot. Both new branches ran level for about fifty feet before turning again. ‘Oh God, which way?’ she said. One seemed no better than the other, but if she picked the wrong path, they would be trapped . . .