But that wasn’t really the choice before him.
He knew what awaited the prisoner.
The real choice came down to one question: was he prepared to let this man die?
He didn’t know him.
He’d never met him
He didn’t owe him anything.
So what was one life to him?
Konstantin Khavin smiled ruefully in the darkness. Not so many years ago, there would have been no dilemma. Who lived, who died, had been inconsequential then. Life had been cheap in the Soviet Union. Men and women were expendable. Pawns on the chessboard, sacrificed as needed for the sake of the mission and the glory of the Rodina.
His eventual defection was proof positive that he rejected such a mind-set.
He wasn’t squeamish about death. He didn’t for a moment imagine himself to be a selfless hero. He was no Shane riding into town to save the weak and the helpless. He was Konstantin Khavin: a man of beliefs that ran deeper and were more complex than humanity or religion. He wasn’t a good man. Frost was a good man. He was a hard man. He had it in him to be ruthless.
But even so he could not shrug his shoulders and abandon this poor bastard to his fate.
There was no dilemma.
He moved close to the man in the chair and then gently reached out and tugged off the head covering. The man started, panicking, kicking and struggling against his bonds, wild-eyed. He was petrified.
Konstantin took him to be in his sixties. Light-coloured hair—probably grey—and a thick moustache. He was on the stout side and had a round avuncular face and jowls like ham hocks. In the green monochrome display of the night optics, his pupils were enormous white dots that seemed to stare right past the Russian without seeing him.
Konstantin tried to soothe him. “I’m a friend,” he whispered in English.
“Who are you?”
A Slavic accent; the man wasn’t a local. Not a native English speaker, either. “A friend,” he repeated. “I’m going to get you out of here, but if I am going to be able to do that you’re going to have to remain as quiet as possible. Understand?”
The man nodded.
Khavin didn’t even think about questioning the man—even though learning his name might offer insight into Habersham’s master plan. There would be time enough for that later. If they made it out of here.
He quickly cut the plastic zip-ties that bound the man’s wrists together, and then helped him to his feet.
The older man was unsteady at first. He’d taken a blow to the head when they’d subdued him during the initial abduction. There was blood matted in his hair and scalp that showed up darkly in the monocular.
“Can you stand?”
He nodded.
Konstantin grasped the man’s right hand and placed it on his own shoulder. “You’ll be able to see better once we’re outside,” he whispered. “Until then, don’t let go.”
The man nodded again, and Konstantin immediately headed across the empty room to the door to the outside world.
Again he eased it open a crack, listening, scanning the night for any hint of trouble ahead. The turbines creaked as they turned. There was no other movement. Very slowly, he opened the door wide.
A cool breeze swept over him, raising gooseflesh on the back of his neck.
His skin was damp with perspiration. He hadn’t even realised he was sweating.
The air carried with it the scent of the fields, and a hint of something familiar....
It was tobacco smoke. Someone was smoking a cigarette nearby, close enough that the breeze hadn’t swept away the odour....
Suddenly, something hard and heavy crashed into the side of his head, knocking the monocular away.
A fierce stab of pain lanced through his skull, followed by a flash of light.
And then his world went completely black.
15 Temple
Rome—0318 Local (0218 UTC)
DENISON DIRECTED THE beam of his light down into the black void.
Frost saw that the bottom of the receptacle had dropped away in pieces, at graduated intervals, to form a staircase, spiralling around the pedestal. It mirrored the design of the staircase in the temple basin around them.
“Brilliant!” Denison was uncharacteristically giddy. Without any prompting and before Frost could suggest caution, his friend had one leg over the low edge and was lowering himself onto the stairs. With Lili close on his heels, he descended into the newly discovered passage, leaving Frost to once more bring up the rear.
He didn’t like it.
He didn’t like it one little bit.
Going deeper. More earth above his head. More ancient passageways.
Hesitantly, Frost stepped down from the plinth and followed them.
The twelve stone treads that had lowered were only the first part of a much longer stairway that coiled around a central pillar, dropping at least thirty metres. Frost descended carefully, making sure not to dislodge the spears of the Salii that still rested on the first eleven steps, and caught up to the others at the base of the staircase where it opened onto a balcony that ringed the interior of a vast domed chamber.
“A subterranean Pantheon?” Denison exclaimed.
“There is a similarity,” Lili agreed, excited. “Albeit on a smaller scale, and built at least a century before the time of Hadrian.”
“No one has set foot in this room in centuries,” Denison said.
Lili played her torch beam on the walls, illuminating pillars and arches of smooth grey. “This is concrete, not carved stone.”
“So it’s new then?” Frost asked.
She shook her head. “The Romans discovered the secret of making concrete in ancient times. They utilized it extensively in the construction of bridges and aqueducts, and of course, the many temples and other buildings that still stand today. The knowledge was lost during the Dark Ages, and only rediscovered in more recent times.”
She turned her light onto the darkness below.
A single piece of statuary rested on a pedestal in the exact centre of the chamber; a life-sized figure of a sitting man. His face was handsome and commanding beneath a bald skull save for a fringe of curly hair. It wasn’t stone. It was some kind of dark metal. Bronze, Frost guessed. There was something resting on its lap that glinted back brightly in the torchlight. Rich. Warm. Gold. Like the sun trapped in the centre of the earth.
“That’s Caesar,” Lili said, breathlessly. “Even before his death, he was deified—a living god. This place is a temple to Julius Caesar.”
Frost knew what was coming next.
“And that’s the sword,” Denison said, fixing his beam on the statue’s knees. The weapon that lay across them was, unmistakably, an unsheathed Roman gladius.
The brass hilt gleamed like gold. There was no crosspiece or any kind of hand guard, save for the shape of the hilt itself which flared out a little where it wrapped around the blade. That blade was half-a-metre long, perfectly straight except at the tip where it angled to a severe point, and miraculously untarnished by oxidation. Despite the passage of two millennia the steel seemed mirror bright, as if it had been polished just yesterday.
As Denison played his light along its length, the reflection danced like yellow flame.
He let the light linger there only a moment before turning away and hastening around the balcony to another staircase that led down the floor of the temple.
Lili was moving almost as quickly.
They were halfway to the statue before Frost said, “Stop!”
Denison stopped in his tracks and turned to look up at him, his face a mixture of irritation and concern.
“Use your head,” Frost called down to them. “This place was built for the sole purpose of protecting that sword. Secret passages inside secret rooms. They didn’t just leave it here unprotected.”
When he received only blank looks, Frost drove the point home. “Am I the only one who’s ever watched Indiana bloody Jones?”
Denis
on cocked an eyebrow in Lili’s direction.
“He’s right. The Romans were exceptional engineers. Touch nothing. Not until we know it is safe.”
Denison nodded and played his light around the otherwise empty chamber. “What are we looking for, then? Some sort of mechanism?”
Lili scanned the room, following his torch with her eyes as the beam fell on the feet of the statue directly in front of them. “They worshipped at Caesar’s feet,” she mused. “If there is a trap, it would be designed to prevent anyone from removing the sword, not prevent worship.”
She resumed walking, more cautiously now, until the huge sculpture was less than an arm’s length away. “Here,” she pointed. “There is a seam where the pedestal meets the floor. Those stairs back there utilised some kind of counterweight mechanism. It could be the same principle here... some kind of balancing mechanism below us. Removing the sword might upset the balance.”
“That would make sense,” Denison agreed.
“So if we remove it, we need to put something else there of equal weight or just heavy enough to hold it down?”
Lili frowned. “Impossible to know.”
Frost was reminded vividly of every soldier’s nightmare: stepping on a live landmine, hearing that click as the pressure sensitive mechanism was armed, and knowing that no matter how fast you ran, no matter what you did, the mine would detonate the instant your foot came off the trigger. There were methods for fooling a mine, of course. It could even be disarmed in situ, but the odds of surviving were not good. Once the mine was armed, the slightest change in pressure could cause it to blow.
They weren’t literally standing on a live landmine, but they might as well be.
And Denison and Lili weren’t going to leave without the sword.
So, how do I beat this landmine?
“I’ve got an idea,” Frost said, thinking on his feet.
He darted back up the spiral staircase and then returned, bearing several of the ceremonial spears in his arms.
“That won’t work,” Lili said, misreading his intent. “If the sword weighs more or less than a spear by even a few grams, it might upset the balance.”
Frost shook his head. “Not where I was going. We can jam the spear points into the seam at the base of the pedestal...wedge it in place.”
“And keep it from moving when we remove the sword,” Denison finished for him. “The mechanism can’t be too sensitive. They have earthquakes here, remember?”
Indeed, the northern Emilia-Romagna region had experienced a recent spate of devastating quakes over the last few years that had led some fundamentalist Christians to believe it was God’s judgment against the Church for centuries of misrule.
“If we’re careful, and lucky, the statue won’t move a millimetre,” Frost promised as he handed one of the spears to Denison.
A closer examination verified Lili’s first suspicion.
Not only was there a discernible gap between the pedestal and the floor, but a firm but gentle sideways pressure on the statue caused that gap to widen perceptibly and relieving that pressure allowed it to ease back into place as though the pedestal were a boat bobbing next to a jetty. This only heightened Frost’s anxiety about what he was about to do; there was a trap waiting to be sprung, and his plan for beating it had about the same chance of success as trying to run away from a landmine one second after the click.
He glanced at Lili. “Maybe you should take a step back.”
She shook her head.
He shrugged and then ever so gently, worked the tip of a spear into the black seam, being careful not to push it too deep. He kept the pressure on the spear steady as he managed to work it in a full centimetre in and saw the gap widen a little to accommodate it as the metal point went deeper still. Finally, he backed away, leaving the shaft protruding upright from the floor.
Denison gave a nod of satisfaction and began trying to work his spear into the joint on the opposite side.
“Well that’s fortunate,” he said after a moment, but he didn’t sound all that happy with his fortune. “It’s wedged tight. I couldn’t even force the tip in—and I haven’t said that since my wedding night.” It wasn’t the best joke, but Lili offered a grudging smile. “Let’s put it to the test then, shall we?” He sucked in a breath and wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the bright brass hilt of the Crocea Mors.
After another pause and another breath, he lifted the ancient sword from its resting place.
Nothing happened.
No deadly trap sprung closed.
Frost realised he had been holding his breath.
He let it out with a sigh.
“Right. That’s it then. Mission well and truly accomplished. We have the sword so let’s get the Hell out of here.”
They ignored him.
Denison held the sword up in awe. “The sword of Julius Caesar,” he whispered. “The sword of kings. I never imagined I would hold it.”
Lili took a step toward him and reached out as though intending to take her turn marvelling in their discovery, but before he handed it over she let her hand fall. “The Irishman is right. We are not safe here. We must go.”
Denison nodded absently and backed away from the statue, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. He continued to hold the sword out reverently, but something about his stance worried Frost. It seemed as though he were poised for combat.
He’d taken only three steps away from the statue when a low keening sound began to reverberate through the chamber, growing in intensity as it echoed back and forth from the sides of dome.
“What the—?”
A loud clang momentarily broke through the hum, and Frost saw that Denison had dropped the sword and was staring at it wide-eyed in disbelief. He glanced at his companions then pointed at the antique weapon on the concrete floor. “It’s not me...I didn’t do anything. The sword...” He had to shout to be heard over the escalating hum. “It started to vibrate in my hands.”
Frost was still processing his claim when a new sound cut through the resonance waves—the scraping of stone. It took him a moment to place it: up above. There was another sound, metal hitting stone.
Frost glimpsed the shaft of the spear he’d wedged into the side of the pedestal as it clattered to the floor, its point no longer holding the statue in place.
“Shit,” he rasped, instinctively turning for the stairs.
Lili moved too, but instead of seeking the exit, she darted back and scooped the sword from the dusty floor.
She grabbed Denison’s hand in her own and dragged him into motion.
A new sound joined the tumult. It was more than just noise. Frost felt the vibration in the soles of his feet like the beginning of an earthquake.
But it was no earthquake.
With a sound like a gunshot, a section of the wall on the far side of the chamber exploded outward, driven by an immense pressure-jet of water. Two more sections of wall were blasted away, giant stones shattering as they impacted, propelled by an unrelenting torrent of water. In a matter of seconds, the entire floor of the domed chamber was a foot underwater, and the flow from the three spouts showed no sign of slowing.
“So much for being clever. Go,” Frost yelled, splashing toward the stairs.
By the time he put his first foot on the stone steps the ice-cold water was well over his knees and getting deeper fast.
From the balcony, the situation looked no less dire.
The water was rising fast—it was already lapping at the feet of the bronze Caesar. Frost started to climb the spiral stair. As he did, he saw that the ancient Roman guardians of the sword had anticipated exactly this: the final twelve steps of the stairway had risen back into their original position and the aperture that would have led them out had slammed shut.
He swallowed down the urge to scream out his frustration: right now he needed his wits about him. He could panic about drowning down here later. Better than being buried alive, he thought mawkishly. But not much.<
br />
Frost played his light overhead, looking for a weakness, a chink, anything he could exploit. The torch beam lit the underside of the stone circle. From this angle, he could see the ropes and pulleys that connected the steps to the mechanism in the spear receptacle, and he could see that one of the ancient ropes had broken, leaving one of the twelve steps in its lowered position. It wasn’t much. But it was a start. The step was almost waist high. The water hadn’t reached it yet. More importantly, he hoped, there was a gap in the ceiling where the aperture hadn’t closed flush. It wasn’t much, and there was no guarantee he’d be able to wriggle through it. But if he could get to the step, and climb using the recesses where the steps should have been, maybe he could get them out of here.
“See that?” Frost speared his light up at the gap above them, and then at the lone step, and traced the six black holes that rose up around the curve of the wall. “Think you can make it?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but crouched in place and then leaped out across the gap, slamming into the wall and very nearly staggering back into the rising water. He spread himself wide, feeling out the hand holds one at a time, and with his saturated clothes weighing heavily on him, started the hand over hand climb until he reached a point where he could use his feet to brace himself. His soaking jeans had left a wet trail along the wall. It was only going to get worse as the others followed him. With Denison coming last it was going to be treacherous. He would have been last, but with his arm he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to make it. Sometimes you couldn’t afford to be a gent.
“Lili! Your turn,” he called back. “Follow me.”
He expected her to balk, but her hesitancy had nothing to do with the thought of leaping out into space. To his dismay, he saw her eyes drop to the sword she still clutched in her right hand.
“Leave it,” Frost urged. “It’s not worth dying for.”
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