The Tomb of Hercules_A Novel

by Andy McDermott

  No bluffing this time. Filled with fear, Nina looked at the drilling machine. It had slowed its advance on Chase… but was still moving.

  “Give me the map!” Fang shouted. “Or he will die! Give me the map!”

  “Nina, don’t do it!” Chase yelled. Trapped against the processor, the driller only feet away, he raised his gun and readied himself for a final kill-or-be-killed exchange of fire. “Don’t give it to him!”

  Nina tore off her backpack and held it out over the crusher. “Let Eddie go, or I drop it! And nobody gets the map!”

  Fang said nothing for a moment, engaged in some internal debate. “Give me the map, and you will all live!” he decided. “Otherwise, you all die! Your choice, Dr. Wilde!”

  Clinging to the railing with one hand, Nina extended her other arm as far over the crusher as it would reach. “I swear, I’ll drop it! Let him go!”

  “If you drop the map, the Tomb of Hercules will be lost forever! Nobody will ever find it! Is that what you want?”

  “Nina!” Chase shouted. “Drop it! Whatever Yuen wants it for, you can’t let him get it!” He was backed as far as he could go along the metal face of the processor, the drill heads still advancing, spattering him with dirt.

  Nina shook the backpack. “Let him go!”

  “If you give me the map, you have my word that you will not be harmed!” Fang countered. “Think about it! Is the Tomb of Hercules worth your lover’s life?”

  Chase prepared to spring out and fire. “Drop it!” Three, two, one—

  “Okay!” Nina screamed at Fang, pulling the pack back over the platform. “Okay, okay! I’ll give you the map! Just let him go!”

  “Stop the drill!” Fang ordered. The boring machine stopped moving, its lethal prow less than a foot from Chase. The clanking and screeching of the drills wound down. “Chase, you can come out now. You will not be harmed … if you surrender.”

  Chase balled his fists in anger, but cautiously looked around the corner as ordered. The gunman still had the MP-5 trained on him, but didn’t fire. Raising his hands, he dropped his Wildey before walking into the open.

  Fang’s voice rolled around the chamber. “You made a good decision, Dr. Wilde.”

  Nina slumped, trembling with sudden exhaustion as adrenaline and emotion crashed on to her. Even though she, Chase and Sophia were still alive, she knew that her decision would turn out to be anything but good.

  11

  Nina, Chase and Sophia were taken to the administration building by Fang and four of his men. Inside, they were brought to Yuen—who, as Sophia had predicted, had been meditating in a private room adjoining one of the executive offices.

  Yuen rolled the uncut diamond between his fingers. “Tsk, tsk, Dr. Wilde. Didn’t they tell you at the airfield about the seriousness of diamond theft?”

  “Screw diamonds,” said Chase. “What about running an illegal uranium mine, Dick? Who’re you selling it to—Iran? North Korea?”

  Yuen sighed and nodded to Fang, who smashed Chase on the back of the head with the butt of the Wildey. Chase gasped in pain and dropped to his knees.

  “Eddie!” cried Nina. She tried to help him up, but one of the uniformed guards pulled her away.

  “That was long overdue,” said Yuen with a satisfied smirk. He glanced at the Wildey. “Ridiculously large gun, huh? Compensating for something, perhaps? No wonder Sophia left you.”

  Chase staggered to his feet. “Do that again and I’ll rip your fucking head off,” he snarled at Fang, who just looked smugly unconcerned.

  Yuen went to a desk, on which lay the trio’s personal possessions, plus Nina’s backpack and the briefcase Fang had been carrying. “I gotta say,” he went on, almost laughing as he took the binder from the pack and flipped through the pages, “I never thought you’d actually bring the rest of the map right to me! There I was, about to tell Fang to track you down, and boom! Here you are!” He put the binder in the briefcase with the bound section of the Hermocrates text. “Although I guess my security arrangements need overhauling if you were able to get into the mine so easily. I assume my lovely wife had a hand in that.”

  He walked over to Sophia and cupped her chin in his hand. “And you, Sophia! My darling wife, the flower in my garden, the light of my life! What am I going to do with you?” She narrowed her eyes in a disdainful sneer. He lowered his hand and addressed one of the guards. “Keep her somewhere out of sight until the speeches are over, then take her to my helicopter.”

  The guard nodded and led Sophia from the room.

  “Where are you taking her?” Chase demanded.

  “Marriage counseling,” said Yuen. “Now, President Molowe and his minister of trade have just arrived to give some very boring speeches. You should be grateful to me—I’m going to spare you from having to sit through them.” He turned to Fang. “Take them to the processing plant and throw them into the crushers—”

  Chase whirled, striking at the nearest guard. He wrested the gun from his hand—

  Fang clubbed him again, harder. Chase dropped face-first onto the carpet, blood oozing down his neck. He groaned, moving weakly.

  “You son of a bitch!” Nina shouted at Fang. “You gave your word you wouldn’t kill us!”

  Yuen looked surprised. “You did?”

  Fang nodded, almost apologetically. “I did.”

  “Oh.”

  “But,” Fang continued, a cruel smile spreading across his face as he toyed with his cane, “I never specified for how long.”

  “Well, that’s all right then.” At Yuen’s nod, Fang and the guards picked up Chase, then took him and Nina from the room. “Oh, by the way,” Yuen called after them, the men pausing, “give me his gun.” Fang tossed it to him. “Cool souvenir.”

  Nina kicked at her captors, but they were too strong for her, whisking her and the semiconscious Chase out of the building.

  To their deaths.

  The diamond mine’s processing plant was similar in function to the one in the secret uranium mine—only on a vastly larger scale.

  The enormous trucks dumped their loads onto broad conveyors, which directed the hundreds of tons of rubble brought by each vehicle into a series of gargantuan crushers, each of which could swallow one of the house-size trucks with room to spare. Stone was smashed into smaller and smaller fragments at each stage, washed and shaken through ever finer filters, until nothing was left but dust…

  And diamonds. The hardest naturally occurring substance on earth was the only thing able to withstand the relentless pounding of the machines. Under constant security, the precious stones were taken into a closed section of the plant for grading.

  There was security at the crushers too—raw diamonds could simply be jolted loose from the rubble and drop onto the floor—but the guards normally on duty had been relieved on the direct orders of the mine’s owner. Any questions were forestalled by the promise of a bonus in the next paycheck. Whatever went on inside the huge building for the next few minutes, it was no longer their business.

  Fang led the way into an elevator cage, which took the group to a gantry overlooking the crushers. By the time it reached the top, Chase was recovering from the blow to his head, though still groggy. “Are you okay?” Nina asked.

  “I’ve been better.” He looked down as a truck tipped out the contents of its dumper, rocks and dirt rising up the conveyor before cascading into the jaws of the crusher. Car-size boulders exploded under the relentless pressure of the machinery within. “Going to feel a lot worse in a minute, though.”

  Fang slipped his black cane under one arm as he took out a silenced pistol. “You have two choices,” he said as the guards carrying Chase dumped him on the gantry floor. “Either you can be shot in the head and then thrown into the crusher. Or,” he added as Nina helped Chase stand, “you can do something stupid, be shot in the stomach, and then thrown into the crusher. While you’re still alive.”

  “How about option C?” Chase asked. “Holiday for two in the Carib
bean, and not being thrown into the crusher?”

  Fang smiled. “I’m afraid not. On your knees.”

  The three other guards all had their guns at the ready, moving back just out of striking range. Chase woozily weighed the odds. The only person he had a chance of reaching before being gunned down was Fang, and it might be worth it just to take the ponytailed bastard into the crusher with him …

  But that would leave Nina alone. And he didn’t want the last thing she saw to be his bullet-riddled corpse, the last emotions she felt to be grief and anguish.

  He turned to her. “Nina. I …” The words he had in his mind didn’t want to emerge. “It’s been an experience,” was all that came out.

  Nina shot him a disbelieving look. “Is that all you’ve got to say? They’re going to kill us, and the best you can manage is ‘It’s been an experience’?”

  “Well, what do you want me to say?” He knew, but for some reason couldn’t speak the words.

  Her eyes filled with sadness, even through the fear.

  “Eddie…”

  Fang moved to stand behind them. He raised his gun, aiming at the back of Chase’s head. His finger tightened on the trigger—

  The head of one of the guards exploded, spraying the man next to him with chunks of jagged bone and brain matter. A moment later, the unmistakable crack! of a high-powered rifle reached them, the bullet having hit its target at supersonic speed.

  Fang spun to hunt for the origin of the shot, hunching down behind one of the other men—

  The back of a second guard’s head blew out in a pink mist as a bullet hit him precisely between the eyes.

  Chase looked down the length of the huge building. No sign of the shooter.

  A third shot. The man Fang was using as cover flew backwards, blood gushing from the wound that had blossomed over his heart. He tumbled over the railing to land in the crusher and burst apart like the pulverized rocks.

  Realizing he was exposed, Fang dropped and grabbed Nina around the neck. He pulled her up, turning so she was between him and the unseen sniper. “Don’t try anything, Chase,” he warned, stepping diagonally across the gantry, cane squeezed under his gun arm. “Tell your friend to put down his gun, or I’ll kill her.”

  “I don’t even know who he is!” Chase protested. He now had a good idea where the shots had come from, but still hadn’t seen the shooter.

  Fang jammed the gun into Nina’s back. “Tell him, now, or—”

  Nina grabbed the head of his cane, pulled—

  And stabbed the sword back into Fang’s side.

  Fang howled, reflexively writhing away from the pain as he pulled the trigger.

  The bullet shot between Nina’s arm and her torso, hot gas searing her skin. But despite the pain she was already moving, releasing the sword and twisting at the waist to smash her elbow into Fang’s jaw. Dazed, spitting blood, he staggered back—

  Chase punched him in the face. The blow was so hard that Fang’s feet actually left the floor before he crashed against the guardrail. He teetered for a moment, almost falling over the edge, then collapsed on top of one of the dead guards.

  “You okay?” Chase asked Nina, picking up a fallen pistol.

  “Yeah, but…” She looked at the bodies. “What the hell just happened?”

  “Dunno, but I’m pretty fucking happy that it did!” He looked down the plant again, finally spotting the sniper silhouetted in a distant skylight. Tough angle, Chase realized—whoever he was, he was an outstanding shot.

  The sniper moved. For a moment Chase got a look at him—a tall, muscular black man, glints of reflected sunlight from a row of piercings on his bald head—then he was gone.

  Nina rubbed her aching elbow. “Ow. That move never hurt as much when we practiced it…”

  “I’m just glad you remembered how to do it. Come on.”

  She quickly followed Chase to the elevator.

  The sound of rifle fire had carried all the way to the area behind the stage, where Yuen was talking to President Molowe and Minister of Trade and Industry Kamletese. Soldiers immediately surrounded Molowe and pushed him down, while others spread out, weapons raised, searching for signs of danger. Yuen’s own guards moved to shield their boss.

  “What was that?” asked Kamletese, worried.

  Yuen looked in the direction of the processing plant. “Some people were caught earlier trying to breach security,” he said, thinking fast. “I’d been told they were under arrest. Apparently, I was misinformed. Mr. President, you should stay out of sight until they’ve been dealt with. I’ll find out what’s going on.”

  Molowe nodded, then with a human cordon around him went back to the marquee as Yuen and two of his men raced for the administration building. The president paused at the entrance to the tent. “Go with him, find out what’s happening,” he ordered Kamletese.

  The portly politician blinked. “Me?”

  “Yes, you! Go on!” Molowe disappeared inside the marquee, leaving the flustered Kamletese to stand there under the glares of the soldiers guarding the entrance before he hurried off in Yuen’s wake.

  “What do we do now?” Nina asked as she and Chase ran towards the open end of the processing plant.

  “We’ve got to find Sophia. Then we get the fuck out of here!”

  “Can’t we, you know, do it the other way around?” Chase frowned at her in disbelief. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Yes! Yuen won’t hurt her, I could tell. You can get her later!”

  “I’m not leaving her with that twat,” Chase insisted. They emerged into daylight, squinting at the brightness. “Okay, we need some wheels.”

  “I can’t see anything,” said Nina. There were no cars or 4×4s anywhere in sight.

  “What, are you blind?” Chase pointed at the huge yellow Liebherr dump truck approaching the building. “What do you call that?”

  She blanched. “A very bad and stupid idea?”

  “My speciality. Come on.” Ignoring Nina’s protests, he ran towards the truck, waving his arms for it to stop.

  The driver, twenty feet off the ground in the cab, gestured furiously for him to get out of the way, but Chase stood his ground. Brakes squealing, the truck slowed but didn’t stop, still coming right at him.

  Chase began to think that Nina had been right. “Oh. Oh, shit.” He hopped back a few steps, then started to run as the truck’s angular shadow swept over him. “Oh, shit!”

  The tumult of a massive diesel engine filled his ears, almost drowning out the piercing screech of the brakes. Nowhere else to run, Chase threw himself flat on the ground and covered his ears as the giant vehicle swept overhead …

  And stopped. Chase let out a relieved breath. He was under the front of the truck—but, he realized almost with amusement, he had only needed to crouch to fit safely beneath it. He moved back into the open and headed for the steps leading to the cab.

  Nina joined him. “Idiot!” she snapped, hitting his arm.

  “Ow! What was that for?” The steps—almost steep enough to qualify as a ladder—crossed the front of the radiator grill, which itself was the size of a panel truck. Chase hurried up them, Nina following.

  The driver came down, jabbing an angry finger. “What the hell are you doing? And why aren’t you wearing a hard—”

  “Sorry, mate,” said Chase, punching him in the groin. He let out a pathetic little groan and bent double, and Chase tossed him bodily over the railing.

  “Why did you do that?” Nina said. “You have a gun, you could have just told him to get out!”

  “We’re kind of in a rush,” Chase replied as he ran up the remaining steps into the cab. “Anyway, he’ll be okay. As long as I don’t run him over.”

  “Do you even have a clue how to drive one of these things?”

  Chase took in the controls. Steering wheel, accelerator, brake pedal, a number of levers that he assumed controlled the dumper, and several monitor screens showing the view from video cameras all around the ve
hicle. Judging from the surprisingly carlike lever beside the driver’s seat, the transmission was entirely automatic. “I think I can manage.”

  “How the hell did they escape?” Yuen demanded.

  “They had help,” Fang said painfully on the other end of the phone line. “Somebody shot my men. A sniper.”

  “What? Who?”

  “I don’t know, I didn’t see him. He got away.”

  “Find them! And kill them! If any of these bastards get away and tell the U.N. about the uranium mine, we’re all fucked!”

  He slammed down the phone, looking up to see Kamletese flanked by two security guards in the office doorway, face full of bewilderment. “Uranium mine?” asked the minister. “What uranium mine?”

  Yuen pressed a palm to his forehead. “Aw, hell,” he sighed. “Minister, I don’t suppose you’d be open to a very large bribe, by any chance?”

  Kamletese boggled. “What? No, of course not! What’s this about a uranium—”

  “I thought not.” Yuen picked up Chase’s Wildey from the desk and shot him. “You,” he said to one of the guards, who looked almost as surprised as the late government official, “go give the president the tragic, tragic news. A pair of diamond thieves called Eddie Chase and Nina Wilde have just murdered the minister of trade!” When the guard didn’t move immediately, he frowned and waved the smoking gun in his direction. “Well, go on!”

  “Yes, sir!” gulped the guard, stepping over the dead body and hurrying from the room.

  Yuen wiped his fingerprints from the gun, then dropped it and took the briefcase containing the Hermocrates pages. “Take me to my wife,” he ordered the other guard.

  Figuring out the surprisingly simple controls for the mammoth T282B truck was one thing. Actually controlling it was something else entirely, Chase rapidly discovered. With its load bed filled with more than four hundred tons of earth and rock it took a long time to build up speed—and just as long to lose it. One of the largest warning gauges on the dashboard showed the brake temperatures of each of the twelve-foot-diameter wheels, and every time he touched the brake pedal to slow for a turn, the needles shot up into the red.