‘We’re not going to die,’ said Eddie wearily. They had been inside the palace for some hours now, and the New Zealander’s negativity was like a wet cloud filling the first chamber, fraying already strained tempers still further.
But if she was fraying them, Mukobo was actively tearing. ‘Oh, but you are,’ he intoned. Eddie had tied his hands behind his back and dumped him in a corner with a promise that if he tried to leave it, he would be shot. The warlord had taken him at his word – but that hadn’t stopped him from making the occasional threat. ‘My people will come for me, and when they do, you will beg for—’
He broke off with a pained gasp as Eddie delivered another savage kick to his stomach. ‘I’m getting pretty fucking tired of this, Mucky. Another word, and I will just shoot you.’
Even winded, Mukobo still managed to strain out a retort. ‘You would kill me for talking, Chase? And I thought you believed yourself a good man, a man of honour. Where is your honour if you are afraid of mere words?’
‘I’m not bothered about words,’ Eddie snapped. ‘I’m bothered that you actually mean them.’
The warlord’s lips curled into a mocking smile. ‘Ah. You are afraid. So afraid that you do not dare even use the word.’ He raised his voice to address the others. ‘And this is your protector? A coward who is scared of the words of a bound and helpless man?’
‘Yeah, whatever.’ The Yorkshireman turned away, fuming inwardly that Mukobo had called his bluff. Both men knew that for the team to have any hope of leaving the City of the Damned alive, they would need to use the militia leader as a bargaining chip.
‘Hey, Howie,’ said Rivero. The cameraman’s wounds had been cleaned and rebandaged as best as the team could manage. ‘You got my camera there?’
Howie brought the Sony to him. ‘What do you want that for?’ asked Fisher. The director was huddled with Lydia, his left arm folded over the stump of the right as if hiding it could negate what had happened.
‘I’m gonna do my job,’ Rivero told him. ‘I want the world to know what happened to us. If I die here, then maybe the footage’ll still get back to civilisation. And if we do get out . . .’
‘You’ve got something that might win you an award,’ Lydia noted, voice cutting.
‘Not what’s at the front of my mind, but hey, if it does that’d be cool.’
Fisher chuckled, without any humour. ‘Well, if an opportunity comes, I guess you’ve got to grab it with both hands.’ A long sigh. ‘Get it?’
‘Jesus, Steven,’ said Lydia quietly.
‘If you let me go,’ said Mukobo, ‘that hand will be the last thing you all lose. You will go free.’
The blonde raised her head. ‘Really?’
‘All I ask is that you give Chase to me. The rest of you can leave.’
‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Eddie. ‘This twat doesn’t know mercy. He probably doesn’t even know merci.’
‘Think about it,’ Mukobo went on. ‘You would return safely to your homes, to your families. You would even have your television show. Perhaps you really will win awards, no? You would be famous, even rich.’
‘Enough of this bollocks,’ said Eddie, not liking that some of the documentary crew – Lydia foremost, but even Rivero – seemed to be considering the warlord’s proposal. He pointed the revolver at Mukobo. ‘Get your arse up.’
‘Where am I going?’ asked the Congolese.
‘Long term? Hell. Short term, somewhere you can’t stir the shit.’ Keeping his gun trained on Mukobo, the Yorkshireman went to the passage. ‘How are things out there?’ he called.
Fortune had remained on guard at the entrance, though Paris had taken over from Ziff. Despite the loss of his hand, the mercenary had assured Eddie he could still use a gun, resting the Kalashnikov’s wooden foregrip in the crook of his right elbow. ‘Quiet here,’ the scruffy man replied.
‘I have seen a couple of scouts in the ruins,’ Fortune added, ‘but nobody has dared come close. They probably still think we have the Shamir with us.’
‘Maybe we should’ve kept it up here,’ suggested Howie. ‘Guns are one thing, but that was like a death ray.’
‘Nina thought it was best to put it back in its box, and considering what it can do, she’s probably right,’ Eddie told him. He did not entirely agree with her – his own opinion could have been decided by a coin toss – but had decided that presenting a united front was the only way to hold the already fragile group together. ‘If we need it, we can get it.’
‘Sure, so long as we don’t need it in a hurry,’ sniped Lydia. ‘Since it’s all the way down in the damn basement!’
Mukobo was now standing. ‘You see? If you trust in Chase, he will get you all killed. He cannot save you. Only I can. Let me go, and—’
Eddie pointed the Magnum at his head and thumbed back the hammer. ‘Move it. Through there.’ He nodded towards the booby-trapped tunnel. ‘Don’t tempt me to turn that thing back on while you’re inside it.’
Mukobo reluctantly set off, giving the other expedition members a last meaningful look. ‘Remember what I said.’
Eddie collected a torch and followed him. ‘Fortune, Paris?’ he shouted. ‘Keep an eye on things here.’ He hoped it was clear that he meant inside the palace as well as out.
‘We will, Eddie,’ Fortune assured him.
Keeping Mukobo at gunpoint, he headed deeper into the building. ‘Do you really think you will get out of here alive, Chase?’ said the warlord as they crossed through the second chamber. ‘You are a man of violence, as am I. We both know how this will end for you. Whether your friends meet the same end is your choice.’
‘Yeah, maybe I am a man of violence,’ Eddie replied, angered, ‘but the difference is that I only use it if I have to. You use it because you fucking get off on it, you sick bastard.’
Mukobo shrugged. ‘I use it because it achieves what I desire. As does every true ruler. That you do not understand this is why you were always a follower, and not a leader. Even in the SAS, you were only a common soldier, Corporal Chase. And when you became a mercenary, you again worked for other men, to achieve their goals. And now . . . ha! Your wife gives the commands. Where she goes, you follow.’
‘You can shut the fuck up about my wife,’ Eddie growled. ‘And I was a sergeant, actually.’
‘Until you were demoted.’
He frowned. ‘Brice been telling you about me, has he?’
They reached the third of Solomon’s challenges, Eddie ushering the Congolese into the cage before entering and rotating it so they could pass through. ‘Mr Brice has been very informative,’ said Mukobo. ‘I know all about you, Chase.’
The Yorkshireman tried to conceal his discomfort at the revelation. ‘Great, can you tell me my Facebook password? I forgot it ages ago. Now shut up, or you’ll go down to the bottom of the cave the quick way.’
Mukobo fell silent, though he clearly considered himself the victor in their little war of words. They entered the great cavern and picked their way down the steep steps. Lights were visible at the bottom, voices becoming audible as they neared the Chamber of the Shamir. ‘Nina?’ Eddie called as he approached.
Nina came to the doorway, concern on her face as she saw who was with him. ‘What’s going on? Is everything okay upstairs?’
‘Brought him down here before he offers Lydia thirty pieces of silver,’ he replied, pushing Mukobo inside. Ziff looked up in surprise from an inscription.
‘I don’t think she’d take it. Not after what he did to Steven.’
‘Well, I wasn’t going to give her the chance.’ He flicked the gun towards a high-backed stone seat. ‘Sit down, dickhead. No, arms over the top,’ he added as the warlord sat. ‘I’m going to tie you to it.’
Mukobo grimaced as he forced his bound arms over its unyielding back, then awkwardly lowered himself. ‘You really are afraid of me
, aren’t you, Chase?’ he sneered as Eddie took a strap from one of the tripod lamps that had been set up in the room and used it to secure him to the throne-like chair. ‘I am already bound – what could I possibly do?’
‘More than you can now,’ said the Yorkshireman as he pulled the restraint tight. Mukobo held in a grunt of pain. ‘Hurts? Tough shit.’
Ziff regarded the new arrival with unease. ‘Isn’t there anywhere else you could keep him? We were working in here. And making good progress too.’
‘Oh, sorry, Doc,’ Eddie said with pointed sarcasm. ‘Is the civil war interfering with your archaeology?’
The Israeli scowled at him over his glasses. ‘That was uncalled for.’
‘So was this fucking maniac chopping off people’s hands.’
‘Eddie,’ Nina chided. ‘I’m sorry, David.’
The older archaeologist shook his head, then headed for the exit. ‘I need a rest anyway. Let me know when I can get back to work without any . . . distractions.’
The redhead watched him leave, then turned to her husband with an exasperated breath. ‘Dammit, Eddie.’
‘Well, I’m right. We’ve got more important things to worry about than reading Solomon’s blog.’
‘Actually, I’m not sure if that’s true,’ she told him. ‘David managed to translate quite a lot of the text in here. We found out why Solomon built the Palace Without Entrance, for a start.’ She went to one of the inscriptions on the rear wall.
Eddie joined her, positioning himself so he could still observe the African. ‘To piss off door-to-door salesmen?’
‘Not exactly.’ She indicated a particular passage. ‘This describes what he was told by Makeda and the historians of Sheba about the people who once lived here. The mine down there’ – a glance towards the excavations below – ‘was literally the source of the empire’s power. The Mother of the Shamir is a vein of . . . well, they didn’t know exactly what it was, and nor do we. I’ve been wondering if it’s related to the Sky Stone from Atlantis, or the meteoric material that became part of the prophecy in the Book of Revelation: an arrival from the wider universe. Or maybe it’s produced by the earth itself, like eitr or the water from the Spring of Immortality. Either way, it’s something beyond conventional science that we don’t fully understand yet.’
‘We seem to find a lot of stuff like that,’ Eddie noted wryly. ‘But even if they didn’t know what the Shamir was, they knew what it could do. Blow shit up, in this case.’
‘Yeah – and extremely well. The bigger the piece, the more extreme the effect. The Shamir that Solomon used to build the First Temple was tiny, but it could still split stone and metal. That one, though?’ She turned towards the altar, where the Shamir had been returned to its lead box. ‘Well, you saw for yourself. The story of the Battle of Jericho from the Bible, where Joshua used a horn to blow down the city’s walls? I think that’s what we’ve found.’
‘I thought you two said this place was much older than that.’
‘The stories were probably conflated over time, one mythology absorbed into another. Like the way the story of the Great Flood long pre-dates Hebrew lore. But once the people here found the mineral vein, the Mother of the Shamir, they used the pieces they were able to break off against their enemies. They got greedy, though.’ She gestured at the mine beyond the windows. ‘They wanted more Shamirs, bigger – and more powerful – ones. So they dug out this whole place to make the mineral vein easier to reach, built all the bridges and passages down to it. But something went wrong.’
‘What happened?’
She went to another section of the inscriptions. ‘They used the Shamirs they already had to cut away the rock down to here. When it was fully opened, though, when the Mother of the Shamir was exposed to daylight for the first time . . . it had the same effect as when Mukobo’s men brought that one,’ a glance at the lead box, ‘outside. Only hundreds of times more powerful.’
‘What, it blew up the city?’
‘Not quite – but it caused an earthquake. Most of the city was flattened, thousands of people killed. And parts of the new cave they’d dug out collapsed. According to what the historians of Sheba told Solomon, as soon as the Mother of the Shamir was covered again, the destruction stopped.’
Eddie regarded the box thoughtfully. ‘So it really does only work in daylight? Cut it off and it stops?’
She shook her head. ‘There was a mention somewhere that the Shamirs still had their power at night, so I don’t think it’s light that activates them. But they do seem to have to be outside to work, or at least not under too much cover. Lead blocks, or at least reduces, the effect, so maybe it’s cosmic radiation or neutrinos, something that can penetrate solid matter more deeply.’
He smiled. ‘Didn’t think particle physics was your thing.’
‘Kind of a hobby after all the weird science artefacts I’ve found. But even after their city had been destroyed, the first thing they did was go back down and clear the rubble so they could reach the Mother of the Shamir again.’
‘And let me guess, they got another earthquake?’
‘Smaller, but yes. This time, it stopped when the bottom of the cave flooded. Water blocking the effect is something else that makes me think the cause might be some sort of radiation. We saw it in Nepal with the Midas Cave, where the water in the natural reactor stopped the radiation from reaching us.’ She went to the altar, staring at the dark grey casket. ‘The thing is, once they opened this place up, the genie was out of the bottle. Enough cosmic rays or whatever could now reach the mineral seam to keep the effect constantly active at a low level. Obviously Solomon’s texts put it in terms of curses and God’s wrath, but the results were pretty clear in modern terms.’
‘What were they?’
‘You saw the jungle outside. The vegetation has been . . . twisted, mutated. Long-term exposure to the effect caused genetic damage, which got worse over time. And the same thing happened to the people. Remember what Solomon said about the people who didn’t become sterile giving birth to monsters? That’s why they died out. They weren’t willing to give up the source of the Shamirs, and it ended up making them extinct.’
‘Holding on to their ultimate weapon even though it’s killing them?’ said Eddie. ‘There’s a metaphor there somewhere.’
She smiled. ‘Once the empire of Sheba found the lost city and discovered the secret of the Shamirs, they tried to reopen the mine for themselves, but the same thing happened again. They were smart enough to learn from their mistake, though. They kept the small Shamirs they’d found, but left their source alone. When they learned that Solomon had somehow gotten hold of one and was using it to build the First Temple, Makeda travelled to see him to determine if he could be trusted to use it properly. If he couldn’t, she apparently had an army ready to take it by force.’
‘I guess he passed the test, seeing as they got married.’
Nina nodded. ‘The marriage was as much to unite and strengthen their two powers as out of love. After the wedding, Solomon went with her to Sheba to see his new domain – but he also wanted to see the source of the Shamir itself. Once he learned what had happened to Zhakana and its people, he ordered the Palace Without Entrance to be built to contain it – like the sarcophagus that’s been built over Chernobyl. He also put in the challenges so that only the wisest visitors, or those to whom he’d already entrusted the knowledge, would be able to get inside. This Shamir,’ she tapped the box, ‘is basically a weapon of last resort, one that’s only supposed to be used when all else fails. Solomon realised that any empire which used it as a first resort would eventually bring about its own downfall. History repeating itself.’
‘Solomon was wrong.’ Nina had almost forgotten about Mukobo’s presence, his words taking her by surprise. ‘Whoever used such a weapon would win a war very quickly.’
Eddie put a hand to his chin in exaggera
ted deep thought. ‘Hmm, who should I listen to? The bloke who was so wise he actually has a saying about wisdom named after him, or a murderous rapist arsehole who’s going to get his head kicked in if he keeps talking?’
The warlord sneered at him. ‘Here is some wisdom for you, Chase. We are in the jungle. Only power matters here. If you do not use force, use violence, to protect your power, it will be taken by others.’
‘That’s not true,’ Nina insisted. ‘There are other ways to transfer power – peacefully.’
‘Democracy?’ It sounded like a mocking insult coming from Mukobo’s lips. ‘This country claims to be democratic, so much so that the word is even in its name, but it is a joke! Men with guns control the vote, control the country.’
Eddie shook his head. ‘Don’t let him drag you into some political debate,’ he told Nina. ‘He’s not a politician. He’s just a psycho.’
‘You think that because you come from a rich country, the rest of the world is the same?’ Mukobo nodded towards the revolver in Eddie’s hand. ‘You are using force to hold power over me, Chase. You are proving that I am right, but you are afraid to admit it. When the situation changes, I will have no such fears.’ A hint of anticipation turned up the corners of his mouth.
‘The situation isn’t going to change,’ said the Yorkshireman firmly. ‘Now shut up.’ The African fell silent, but his expression did not alter.
‘How do you even know this guy?’ Nina asked her husband. ‘You said you’d met him before – where?’
‘First time was in 2006, before I met you,’ he said. ‘I was working as a troubleshooter across the border in Rwanda, bodyguarding aid workers and refugees. There was a war going on between Rwanda and the DRC, and Mukobo was leading one of the militia groups running around the place killing people. The convoy I was protecting ran into him, totally by fluke. We outgunned him, so he didn’t have any choice but to surrender.’
Nina looked at Mukobo, whose face revealed clear anger at the memory. ‘So what happened?’