‘Nature doesn’t build in straight lines,’ he said softly.
‘It sure doesn’t,’ Iolanthe said. ‘It’s the pedestal. The one that aligns with each iron mountain and sends down its beam of green light during which one performs the Fall.’
Jack said, ‘There’s something on it.’
He could see a rumpled sheet of material lying on top of the altar-like pedestal.
‘It’s thermal foil,’ Iolanthe said. ‘Aluminised Kapton foil. It’s an insulation material used on spacecraft to protect them from solar radiation. That pedestal is located in a range of mountains on the moon known as the Apennines, beside a flat section of land called the Sea of Rains, which is where—’
‘—the Apollo 15 astronauts landed on the moon. The fourth Apollo mission,’ Jack said. ‘Hades said it was the important one. It was also the first mission to use a lunar rover.’
‘But there are two rovers there,’ Nobody said.
Jack said, ‘The Soviet Union never landed people on the moon, but they did successfully land several remotely operated probes and rovers to perform experiments. Looks like they drove one of those rovers here.’
‘That was probably at the direction of royal operatives,’ Iolanthe added.
Jack leaned back from the eyepiece.
A screen beside it showed the coordinates of the lunar site it was aimed at.
Latitude Deg N
(Davies system)
Longitude Deg E
26.13333
26.13407
26.13224
3.62837
3.62981
3.63400
Jack gazed at them thoughtfully. ‘I’ve seen these coordinates before . . .’
Then he remembered where: in Venice, at the abandoned headquarters of the Order of the Omega.
He looked at Iolanthe. ‘The Omega monks had all this information. And I just heard downstairs that they successfully performed the Fall at Potala Palace before it was destroyed. I also heard Dion say something about destroying the uplink to the rover.’
Iolanthe jerked her chin at the destroyed computer on the trolley beside the telescope’s eyepiece.
‘That would be that uplink computer,’ she said flatly. ‘His people covered the top of the pedestal with the Kapton foil and then they smashed the uplink to the only thing that can uncover it: the rovers. Jack, even if we knew where the last two mountains were, while that pedestal is covered, we can’t perform the Fall.’
Jack took this all in, biting his lip in thought.
‘Goddamn it,’ he said. ‘Goddamn it all . . .’
As if in answer, the monitor on one of the computers beside Jack came to life and a face appeared on it.
‘Hello there, Captain West.’
On the computer screen, smirking at Jack and the others, was the disfigured face of Dion DeSaxe.
‘You seem to have arrived at the party a little late, Captain.’ Dion seemed to be standing on a runway of some sort, in front of a jet aircraft and some military vehicles. The Alps rose in the background behind him.
He wasn’t far away, maybe down in Chamonix.
‘I figure things out eventually,’ Jack said.
Dion snorted. ‘Like you did at the Games. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss all of this party. For instance, you haven’t missed the fireworks. Fire.’
That final word was spoken to someone offscreen.
Dion stepped aside to allow Jack to see the large vehicle on the runway behind him.
It was an M270 mobile missile launcher.
On its back was a pod containing two Lockheed Martin MGM-140E surface-to-surface tactical missiles.
With twin blazes of white-hot tail fire, the two missiles launched, shooting off into the sky.
‘Goodbye, Captain West. Enjoy the fireworks. Because you’re about to be a part of them,’ Dion said a moment before the computer screen went black.
Jack heard them before he saw them.
Heard the distinct whoosh-whoosh of the two surface-to-surface missiles sweeping around the peak of the Aiguille du Midi.
The missiles had not needed to travel far to reach their target.
Jack didn’t have any time to react.
No time to run or flee.
One after the other, the two MGM-140E missiles slammed into the twelve-storey observatory perched on the mountaintop.
The first struck the base of the tall cylindrical building, its quarter-ton warhead detonating in a shockingly powerful explosion.
The building shuddered.
The walls squealed.
The foundations cracked.
That was when the second missile hit and, just as it was designed to do, finished the job.
The blast of its warhead caused the entire twelve-storey observatory—with its shiny silver flanks and its huge domed roof—to break free from its foundations and topple off the mountain . . .
. . . with Jack and the others inside it.
When the two missiles had struck the building, Jack had been thrown to the floor. Now he was hurled sideways as the building around him suddenly tilted crazily.
The squeal of rending steel filled the air and he looked up as the great telescope above him broke free of its mountings and fell.
‘Look out!’ Jack tackled Nobody and Iolanthe out of the way as the hundred-foot-tall telescope crashed down right where they’d been standing and smashed through a section of the wall.
Then things got really crazy.
From where he was inside the observatory, Jack saw everything around him tilt: computers slid off desks, cabinets toppled.
This was because, seen from the outside, the observatory was falling away from its perch on the mountain.
Like a hand on a clock, the observatory fell through one o’clock, then two, then three—at which point the whole building was horizontal.
At five o’clock—wham!—the observatory slammed down against the snow-covered mountainside, kicking up a cloud of white . . .
. . . before it began to slide, roof-first, down the flank of the mountain.
Jack had just got back to his feet when he felt the building start sliding.
He swapped a horrified look with Nobody.
‘We’re sliding . . .’ Nobody breathed.
Jack didn’t know what to do.
The interior of the observatory looked like a bomb had hit it, which was actually the truth.
Fires burned—windows were smashed—power cords swung like whips—and the great telescope rolled dangerously around.
Through a broken window beside him, Jack saw the snowy flank of the mountain rushing by outside.
His mind tried to comprehend the situation.
They were inside a building, an astronomical observatory, an upside-down observatory, sliding down a mountain.
And gaining speed.
Jack looked down the length of the sliding building and peered out through the wide slit-like aperture that had until recently been its roof, but which was now its lowest point, its leading edge.
‘Oh, you have got to be kidding me . . .’
Through the aperture he saw the slope ahead of them.
Covered in snow, it extended steeply for about another thousand metres before it ended abruptly at a rocky edge above a sheer three-kilometre drop.
They and their building were about to rush off a cliff.
And in that moment, Jack knew.
They were sliding too fast.
They couldn’t escape this time.
There was nothing they could do, nowhere they could leap to, no clever thing they could construct into some life-saving parachute.
This time—he gulpe
d deeply—they really had run out of options.
They were going to die.
Then his earpiece crackled.
‘Jack! Jack! Are you in there? Can you hear me?’ a voice yelled. ‘We’re coming in on your right side! Get to a window or a door and get ready to jump!’
The voice had a distinct accent, one that Jack knew well.
A New Zealand accent.
It was Sky Monster.
In a dark corner of his mind, Jack puzzled at how Sky Monster could be here.
Sky Monster was dead. He’d died with Pooh Bear when their Tupolev had been blown apart in the sky outside Moscow, shot down while they had slept in the coma of the bell and the plane had been flying on autopilot. Why, he’d even read their Messages from the Other Side.
Think about that later! his mind screamed.
Jack sprang into action.
‘Everybody! This way! Now, now, now!’
Inside the huge sliding building, Jack clambered over the rubble and debris, arriving at a side door, which he kicked open . . .
. . . to reveal an amazing sight.
An ICON A10 seaplane was right there, flying fast and low, skimming along inches above the steep snowy slope only metres away from the sliding observatory!
On its flank, Jack saw its name:
Sexy Prince Two.
The second seaplane from the lake at Hades’s estate.
And there at its controls he saw Sky Monster, performing an aerobatic feat that only a handful of pilots in the whole world could do, while beside him, reaching out from the seaplane’s open side door, waving them over, was Pooh Bear!
Honestly, it defied description.
The twelve-storey silver-sided observatory—sliding down the mountainside, roof-first, out of control, racing toward the cliff edge and a bottomless drop—flanked by a tiny seaplane zooming along beside it with a figure waving from its side door.
Because the observatory was sliding on its side, its door had opened downward, turning it into a little platform on which Jack and his people could stand.
They stood facing Pooh Bear, separated by about ten feet of rushing wind and snow. Owing to the plane’s wingspan, however, Pooh’s doorway was too far for them to transfer into.
Pooh Bear pointed at the seaplane’s left pontoon.
‘Grab onto the pontoon!’
Iolanthe went first, stepping off their little door-platform and grabbing hold of the pontoon. Nobody went next, then Easton.
Buffeted by the rushing wind, hammered by the snow, they clung desperately to the pontoon’s struts.
But there was no more room.
No more room for Jack.
Pooh Bear saw this, too, and he locked eyes with Jack . . .
. . . and extended one hand while gripping the doorframe with the other.
‘Jump! I’ll catch you, my friend!’ he yelled.
And as the speeding building hit the edge of the cliff, knocking snow down into the alpine chasm below it, Jack leapt full-length out of the doorway, reaching for Pooh Bear’s hand—
—and they caught each other’s forearms and clasped tightly.
The observatory shot off the cliff and sailed down into the chasm.
Down, down, down it went, the twelve-storey silver tower becoming smaller and smaller, dwarfed by the scale of the mountains around it—
—while the tiny seaplane shot laterally off the same cliff edge, staying aloft, with three figures clutching its left pontoon and another figure hanging from its left-side door.
The seaplane soared away into the night-time sky, bathed in the light of the moon, shooming off to safety.
Many seconds later, somewhere in the depths of the alpine chasm, there came a resounding boom as the observatory hit the bottom.
Ten minutes later, the seaplane touched down gently on a remote mountaintop lake in nearby Switzerland and cruised to a stop on its shore.
After everyone had leapt to the ground, hugged and thanked Sky Monster for an incredible piece of flying, Jack said, ‘Where did you guys come from? I thought you were dead.’
Sky Monster said, ‘We parachuted out of the Sky Warrior just before she got hit by that missile. You know me, Jack. I only use the best headphones when I fly: military-grade noise-cancelling. We weren’t asleep, just jammed.’
Pooh Bear added, ‘We landed in some godforsaken farmland outside Moscow, literally the middle of nowhere, so we couldn’t get in touch with you. We’ve been making our way back ever since. Eventually, we stole a plane from a regional airport and got back to Hades’s estate in Alsace-Lorraine . . . well, what was left of it. Place was a smoking wreck. Picked up a bunch of signals here—some mentioning you—so we hot-footed it this way. We’ve been trying to hail you on the radio, but you must’ve switched to another frequency.’
‘We did. We flicked over to a roaming frequency after Sphinx hacked the commercial airwaves. But I’m sure glad you arrived when you did,’ Jack said.
He looked at the tranquil mountain lake beside them. They were still in the Alps, to the east of Mont Blanc, in the Swiss section of the range, but a long way from anywhere.
Jack gazed out at the mountains, deep in thought.
Iolanthe came up beside him. ‘What do we do now?’
‘By now, Sphinx is either at or close to the Supreme Labyrinth,’ Jack said. ‘When I was down inside the mountain, I heard that the Omega monks performed the Fall at Potala Palace before Sphinx destroyed the mountain there. And now Dion has done a Fall, too, so he can join Sphinx at the Labyrinth and help him . . .’
His voice trailed away.
‘Which leaves us—broken, sleeping and scattered—and still far behind. We need to do a Fall. But to do that, we need to find one of the two lost mountains and also uncover that pedestal on the moon.’
Saying it all out loud seemed only to reinforce the hopelessness of their situation.
No-one said anything.
They all just stared despondently at the beautiful mountain landscape in the moonlight.
The Five Fortified Monasteries
A desert somewhere
25 December, 0900 hours
By the light of the morning sun, Sphinx’s mighty land force rumbled across a vast desert plain, kicking up a sandstorm in its wake.
Fifty vehicles of all shapes and sizes thundered over the relentlessly flat plain, both on it and above it.
Apache attack helicopters, bristling with guns and missiles.
Chinook transports containing thousands of bronzemen.
And, of course, Sphinx’s big Russian Mi-4000 quadcopter.
Speeding along the desert floor were many troop trucks and car-carriers containing more bronzemen.
Their destination: a low mountain range that rose up out of the otherwise flat plain.
Nestled up against the base of one of these barren rocky hills was a little collection of five long-abandoned monasteries not unlike the famous one near Mount Sinai dedicated to St Catherine.
Like St Catherine’s these five fortified monasteries were isolated in the extreme, a thousand kilometres from anywhere. A hermit’s dream.
Also like St Catherine’s, they each burrowed into the low brown mountain behind them.
They were arrayed around a tan-coloured mountain—arranged in a rough semi-circle, about five hundred metres from each other—and all were in similar states of ruin and disrepair. For unlike St Catherine’s, they had all been abandoned for over a millennium.
According to the locals, a small band of dedicated Christian monks had lived in them and defended them during the rise of Mohammed and his armies in the 8th century, but a vicious bout of the plague had wiped them out.
The rampaging Islamic army had arrived at the five fortified monasteries soon after and, seeing the infected corpses inside them, sealed their do
ors and painted warnings on all of their gates: do not enter, plague within.
And so the location and the importance of the five monasteries had been lost.
Until now.
The great land force pulled to a halt in front of the first abandoned monastery, the middle one of the five. Sphinx’s huge four-rotored chopper landed in front of all the vehicles and he stepped out of it.
Sphinx gazed up at the low mountain.
Brown and wrinkled, it was wider than it was tall. It looked like it was made of melted rock, a single slab of the stuff.
The monastery’s ancient gate—still bearing the centuries-old Muslim warning about the plague on its thick iron-studded slats—creaked open and a lone figure emerged.
It was Cardinal Mendoza. He had been sent ahead.
Only now he looked different.
Before, Mendoza had had black hair which he usually wore slicked back, underneath a cardinal’s red skullcap.
Now, he wore no cap and at some point between Mont Saint-Michel and here, he had shaved his head completely, exposing the scalp.
Mendoza bowed to his master . . .
. . . and in doing so revealed a complex tattoo on the skin of his skull.
The tattoo wrapped completely around his head, from temple to temple, and it featured many strange swirls and geometric shapes, plus lines of text in the ancient Word of Thoth.
‘Sire,’ he said. ‘This is it. The end of our long mission. This is the Emperor’s Gate to the Supreme Labyrinth and I have, marked in the ancient way on my scalp, the clues to successfully navigating it.’
Sphinx’s people moved quickly.
While Sphinx strode inside the monastery, his army sprang into action, forming a defensive perimeter around the low brown mountain.
Four thousand bronzemen were unloaded from the various choppers, troop trucks and car-carriers.
A thousand of them formed up in ranks in front of this monastery’s gate. They stood to attention, dead still, impervious to the blazing heat of the desert, something no human army could do.
The Two Lost Mountains - Jack West Jr Series 06 (2020) Page 22