Sub-Sahara

by Ethan Arkwright

  ‘You’ll go in ten minutes. Drop your packs and get an energy bar and some water inside you. It’s also the last chance to use the toilet before you go. The ablution block is on the upper level with toilets going into dry septic tanks. Not the best, but better than going to ground level.’

  Kate Edwards shot her hand into the air.

  ‘I need to go really badly,’ she said.

  ‘Fine. Off you go,’ Cavill said.

  ‘Don’t I need an escort?’ she asked.

  ‘No, you know where it is. You and Watkins walked around the facility for an hour unaccompanied before. Anything you were going to do, you would’ve done then, so off you go. I need to talk to all my men separately.’

  Kate did not have to be told twice. She dropped her backpack and scurried into the science office to head for the access hatch to the second level. She climbed up to the administration offices but didn’t head for the toilets.

  She went straight for a filing cabinet and shoved her arm deep behind it.

  ‘Got you.’ She pulled out the folded map she had found earlier, during the chaos when she had escaped the pyramid entry room.

  She opened it up quickly to look again at the faded paper. It showed the navigation route inside the pyramid. A large smile creased her face as she started folding it up again.

  She never saw the blow coming.

  A paperweight from one of the desks smashed into the back of her head. Her body crumpled forward. She was out cold.

  ‘Hey,’ Matt Hayden yelled from the entry hatch. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  Chris Watkins turned. ‘I…I came in here to find her destroying paperwork,’ Watkins said. ‘When I confronted her, she said she was doing it to keep it from you, as you were sabotaging the mission.’

  ‘That’s bullshit, and you know it,’ Hayden said. He climbed out of the access hatch and was advancing on Watkins.

  ‘That’s what I told her,’ Watkins said. ‘I told her I didn’t believe her, so she attacked me. I grabbed the nearest thing I could to protect myself. It was self-defence.’

  ‘Really? I can see blood in the back of her hair from here. She was hit from behind. She never saw you, did she? I saw you heading off after her, and I decided to follow you.’

  There was a low moan from the floor as Kate moved slightly.

  ‘You didn’t connect properly,’ Hayden said. ‘She’s coming round. You’ve got a major problem now.’

  ‘Look, we can sort this out, why don’t we—’ Watkins swung the paperweight in a right hook at Hayden’s face.

  Hayden had seen his share of bar fights and was expecting a wild swing. He threw his left arm up to block it and at the same time, threw a right punch into his assailant’s face. The two men came together in clash of bodies with both holding the arms of the other. Both struggled to get free to deliver a decisive blow. Hayden headbutted Watkins, and his knees buckled. Hayden followed up with a knee to the solar plexus and grabbed the paperweight from Watkins’s hand as he fell to the floor. Hayden lifted the weight above his head to deliver the finishing blow, but his hand stopped in mid-air as a shattering boom filled the container. Hayden dropped the weight and looked in confusion at his chest and the blossom of red that was flowering around his heart. He dropped to his knees and looked in surprise at the smoking 9mm gun Kate Edwards pointed at him from her position on the ground. He slowly pitched forward, face down onto the floor.

  A clanging of metal was heard as Cavill and Cornell burst through the entry hatch, running to the sound of the gunfire. They saw Edwards drop the gun and collapse to the floor again. Watkins slowly raised himself up.

  ‘What’s happened here?’ Cavill demanded.

  He reached Hayden’s prostrate body and saw the pool of blood inching away from his chest. He quickly bent down and checked Hayden’s pulse.

  ‘He’s dead,’ he said.

  ‘I came in to see Hayden bludgeon poor Kate,’ Watkins said. ‘He was about to finish her off, standing over her, ready to cave her skull in. I jumped on him to stop him. We struggled, and Kate woke up and shot him. Must’ve seen he was her attacker and luckily shot him instead of me.’

  Cavill was inspecting Kate Edwards.

  ‘She’s conscious. Just very dazed. This knock isn’t too bad. We’ll get Harcourt to look at her and check she hasn’t fractured her skull.’

  Kate tried to speak but only mumbled something unintelligible.

  Watkins picked the map up off the floor. ‘Guess this is what he was after. Looks like a navigation map of the interior of the pyramid to get to the treasure chamber,’ he said.

  Cavill quickly looked at it. ‘This is the first bit of luck we’ve had on this mission.’ He looked at Watkins. ‘If Kate doesn’t recover enough, then I want you to work with Cornell on using this to get to the energy source and get the science efforts done as quickly as possible.’

  ‘I’m…I’m coming…’ Kate said from the floor.

  Cavill knelt down next to her. ‘Kate, what happened here? Do you remember who attacked you?’

  ‘I…decided to have a last look in here before we went away for clues or anything useful,’ she said, starting to recover. ‘I found the map. Then I got hit. Next thing was seeing Hayden about to kill Watkins, so I shot him. Sorry, I took the pistol as self-defence after the last attack. Good thing, too.’

  Cavill was silent as he mulled things over.

  Harcourt arrived with his medical kit and started checking her over.

  ‘I’m going,’ Kate said. ‘You need me. No way…can you keep me out of there at this stage.’

  Cavill sighed. ‘We need everybody. Get these guys patched up and back with the away team. They’re still going in five minutes.’

  He motioned to Cornell to follow him out, and they made their way back to the pyramid entry room.

  ‘We don’t have time to figure that out,’ he said to Cornell. ‘Brief stays the same. Watch all of them.’

  Cornell nodded in return.

  ‘And write in infrared pen on the walls the directions you’re taking in there, in case we need to get to you in a hurry.’

  Chapter 24

  The away team was fully assembled at the entry to the pyramid and ready to go. Harcourt was in the lead, with Cornell close behind him. They positioned Rebecca Grainger, Kate Edwards, and Chris Watkins behind them, with Sansom bringing up the rear.

  ‘We still don’t know who built this place,’ Harcourt said to Cornell as he did a final check on his torch. ‘Or why.’

  ‘Well, it—’ Cornell was cut off by a low moaning sound emanating from the hole in front of them.

  ‘What was that?’ Grainger asked.

  ‘Nothing like I’ve ever heard,’ Harcourt said. ‘Nothing human, anyway.’

  Cornell turned and saw the civilians’ faces white with fear.

  ‘It’s probably just the wind,’ he said, shrugging.

  ‘The wind?’ Watkins said. ‘In a pyramid?’

  ‘We’re still going. You all have a role to play in getting us out of this. And you’re going even if I have to put a gun in your back. It’s the mission. Let’s go.’

  He waved Harcourt on, and they all filed into the tunnel to disappear into the darkness.

  ***

  Cavill watched them leave with a heavy heart. He couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding that had come over him ever since the last attack. He didn’t feel in control of the mission and was worried sick about losing more people.

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ Evron said to him from his laptop. He’d been watching Cavill out of the corner of his eye.

  The radio retrieved from the Titan team squawked to life, and a voice emitted a string of numbers.

  Cavill quickly walked back to join Evron at the command centre. ‘Do we respond?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Evron said. ‘Not the best code in the world. I cracked it when it went off before. They’re not asking for a response. They’re giving a status update—their full force will be here in
two hours.’

  ‘Two hours!’ Cavill said. ‘That changes things significantly.’

  He quickly reconnected an open line to Christian Bramwell over the network. ‘Christian, we’ve got a team from Titan International inbound. Do you have any other intel for us?’

  ‘Hi, James. Yes, I picked up a big spike of activity, and I’ve been trying to narrow it down. I’m tracking two coded military frequencies broadcasting to military designated planes travelling over North Africa in your direction.’

  ‘How much time do we have?’

  ‘About three hours.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks. This raises the stakes a lot. We’ve got one and a half hours to find anything of significance and get the hell out of here before it all turns to shit.’

  ‘I’m still on call to help however I can,’ Bramwell said.

  ‘Thanks. We’ll be buying you a few beers when we get back. Things are going to pick up very soon, so keep this line open.’

  ‘Will do,’ Bramwell said.

  ‘You get all that?’ Cavill said to Evron.

  ‘Yup,’ Evron replied. ‘Just another day at the office. I hate Tuesdays.’

  ‘That’s exactly how it feels,’ Cavill said, smiling. ‘Like we haven’t even made the middle of the week yet.’

  ‘Look,’ Evron said. ‘Everything’s locked down for now. You need to give the away team at least ten minutes before you start calling them for updates. Sit down, get some food in you, and take a break for a couple of minutes.’

  Evron fished an energy bar out of his plate carrier and threw it to him. Cavill caught it and sat down, tearing into the energy bar as he did so. Once he’d finished, he crumpled up the wrapper and threw it in the corner.

  ‘I can’t just sit here,’ he said, tapping his feet impatiently.

  ‘Couple more minutes,’ Evron said, looking at his screen.

  ‘Wait,’ Cavill said, his eyes drawn to the corner of the room where he had thrown the wrapper. He shot out of his chair towards something in the corner.

  ‘Hey—’ Evron said.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Cavill said, returning to the chair. ‘Now I have something to check out.’ He held up a manila notebook.

  ‘What is it?’ Evron said, turning to face him.

  ‘Matt Hayden’s notebook. Remember I told him to translate that German notebook we found? Maybe we can find out who put the containers here and covered them in Nazi memorabilia.’

  ‘If you find any live Nazis, let me know. I know a couple of people back home who’ll want to talk to them,’ Evron said, going back to his laptop.

  After a few minutes of scanning the translated pages, Cavill let out a low whistle.

  ‘What is it?’ Evron asked.

  ‘Dynamite stuff,’ Cavill said. ‘Turns out the only reason Hitler invaded North Africa was to get to this location. It was well known the Nazis plundered all the museums of Europe, but they were also searching for particular artefacts, looking for a killer advantage in the field of conquest. What they found in the ancient texts amongst documents from the libraries that they looted in North Africa were records of this place—records of an endless power supply from a source of silver light. They dispatched a mission under the aegis of their Ahnenerbe institute, which was a pseudoscientific institute that was to research the supposed archaeological and cultural history of the hypothetical “Aryan” race.’

  Evron laughed. ‘Funny, I seemed to have missed all their scientific papers at university.’

  ‘Quite,’ Cavill said. ‘The whole thing was ridiculous. Says in the notes that the Ahnenerbe mission was to launch expeditions in an attempt to prove that prehistoric and mythological Nordic populations had once ruled the world. The Ahnenerbe expedition found the location of the city but could not get into the pyramid and had to pull back as part of the general Nazi retreat out of Africa by 1943. One of the heads of the Nazi Ahnenerbe organisation later procured a shipment of stolen gold bars in the chaos of 1945 and disappeared before the end of the war. After lying low for ten years, he financed a private mission in 1955 with other Nazi survivors to return to the site to reclaim the treasure. End of transmission.’ He closed the book and tossed it onto the table.

  ‘Nothing of why they left in such a hurry, not even taking their notes with them?’ Evron asked.

  ‘That’s all he wrote,’ Cavill said.

  ‘Unless they’re still here. Maybe they died inside the pyramid?’ Evron said.

  ‘That’s just what I was thinking,’ Cavill said, tapping his feet impatiently again. ‘I need to get hold of the away team.’

  Chapter 25

  01:46:00 to Endgame

  ‘Cornell, how’s it going down there?’ Cavill asked into the radio. He had been checking in every fifteen minutes. This was his fourth check.

  ‘Still so far, so good,’ Cornell replied. ‘Map is accurate in this maze. Still no traps encountered so far. Estimate about fifteen minutes left on the map at current pace. Should be at the objective by next check in.’

  ‘Good, talk in fifteen.’

  He switched lines on his comms system. ‘Christian, any update on those inbound parties?’

  ‘Still progressing at same speed. We’re picking reports of VHF disruptions in the region. Someone is laying down jamming to freeze out local military,’ Bramwell said.

  ‘That also means some heavy hitters are coming in. Notify me if anything changes.’

  He turned to Evron. ‘Now I’m worried. Private clowns, we can handle. Stratton’s brief was to be in and out before any world powers turned up. He was less detailed about what to do if they did turn up.’

  ‘We know the score,’ Evron said. ‘They’ll leave us all hanging out to dry.’

  ‘Only thing worrying me is who turns up. If this energy source is a world changer, not all of them will be wanting to leave any witnesses.’

  A very slow ten minutes passed till their radio crackled again in their ears. ‘This is Cornell. We’re approaching the objective. There’s a room at the end of this tunnel…getting closer…can see a plinth-type thing in the centre…’

  Cavill and Evron were on the edge of their seats.

  ‘There’s a dull silver-coloured metal nugget, about the size of a basketball, on top of the plinth. We’re at the edge of the room now. The place is also full of skeletons, all around, piled high in the corners. We’re chucking some Cyalume sticks in to light up the whole place…’

  Cavill waited as patiently as he could. He found himself chewing his thumbnail in anticipation.

  ‘Place is lighting up,’ Cornell said. ‘Oh…’

  ‘What? What?’ Cavill said.

  ‘We found the archaeologist away party. Three of them dead near the plinth.’

  ‘What do the bodies look like?’ Cavill asked quickly. ‘Any marks on them? Was it an attack or something else?’

  ‘Something else,’ Cornell said. ‘Not a scratch on them. Same for the skeletons—no sacrifice or mythical beast so far. Still, I don’t want to hang around here.’

  ‘Well, something in that room killed those people in the last twenty-four hours,’ Cavill said.

  His earpiece was pinging with a noise that meant he had other transmissions. Bramwell was trying to get hold of him urgently.

  ‘Time’s tight here,’ Cavill said. ‘You’ve got ten minutes to figure out how to get into that room safely. You’ve got two world-class scientists and an archaeologist in there. So get your heads together to work it out. Get in there, take pictures, get the object into the lead containers, and get the hell out of there. Clear?’

  ‘Roger that,’ Cornell said.

  Cavill switched his line again. ‘What is it?’ he said to Bramwell.

  ‘It’s not good,’ Bramwell said.

  Chapter 26

  ‘I’ve made a couple of connections with a few colleagues here looking after other areas,’ Bramwell said. ‘Something big is going down. There’s tons of chatter in intelligence and military circles and lots of units being mo
bilised. We know the Middle East SEAL team is up—’

  ‘Shit,’ Cavill said.

  ‘Quite. We’ve also got a lot of rich and powerful people we track suddenly quitting meetings and racing to uncharted flights. The foreign ministers of some big players, too.’

  ‘Safe to say Stratton’s lead from his weather satellite is gone,’ Cavill said.

  ‘Yes, the genie’s out the bottle. But the next lot of inbound is still going to get there way before them.’

  ‘Any more detail on who they are?’ Cavill said.

  ‘We managed to isolate their comms. Confirm it’s Titan.’

  ‘That’s possibly worse news. We can surrender to most special forces. They, on the other hand, will just kill us all.’

  Evron motioned him to look at the screen. The incoming enemy was now in range of Evron’s drone with radar and cameras.

  ‘Thanks, Christian. We’ve got them on local radar. Talk soon.’

  Evron was counting the moving dots on the screen. ‘Six vehicles. It’s a big unit,’ he said.

  ‘How do you think they got them here?’ Cavill asked.

  ‘By doing something unconventional, like we did. Probably parachuted their first team into the Red Cross site to commandeer a truck and equipment to get here first, then carried on south to land a couple of transports on the nearest usable piece of land. They’ve probably been driving like hell towards here ever since,’ Evron said.

  They both stared at the screen. Neither stated the obvious: they were vastly outnumbered.

  ‘We won’t be able to hold the pyramid for long,’ Cavill said. ‘Not with three guys below and two up top.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Evron said.

  ‘What’s our objective? To secure the energy source. To do that, we need to buy the away team more time. We won’t do that fighting here because we won’t last long. We need to take the fight outside and draw them away from the pyramid.’