"You say it's at a new location?" he said.
"Yes," said Malcolm. "It was originally a couple of miles further north, sitting on a concrete plinth."
"Jah," said Wulf, unable to resist. "We have der ice-rivers in my homeland. They can move anything, given time."
Malcolm frowned at the sound of the Scandinavian accent. "Do I know you?" he said to Wulf.
"Er..." said Wulf uneasily, wondering if he had blown it. Johnny tensed, ready to go for his gun.
"Jah," said Wulf. "We met at der hospital." Johnny winced. The last thing he needed was for Wulf to break cover.
"Oh yes," laughed Malcolm happily. "The man with the Gronk. I should have realised. Didn't know you were on the team, sorry!"
Malcolm turned back to the pyramid without another word. Johnny shot Wulf a heated glance and turned to follow. He spared just enough time to check Nigel, whose balaclava was well and truly covering his face, and whose minion identity was still unchallenged. Blarg and Squid were similarly anonymous, their eyes focussed on Johnny, waiting for even the smallest of signals. Only the Gronk was obviously a Gronk, taking a circuitous route to avoid all puddles, and squealing with anguish every time it got its feet wet.
Malcolm stopped at the base of the pyramid, his hands on his hips, staring up at it.
"What now?" Johnny said.
SENSELESS
Malcolm started to take a deep breath, then stopped midway when the freezing air hit his lungs.
"Know who Kulta is?" he asked. Johnny nodded.
"This is his tomb," said Malcolm. "We're going in for the body."
"There's treasure or something?" asked Johnny.
Malcolm laughed. "You'll be well paid," he said. "You can take what you can carry if there's anything in there, but we're not going after any gold or nothing."
"We're not?"
Malcolm shook his head. "The Man wants Kulta himself."
"The corpse?" Johnny was unable to hide his scepticism, but Malcolm nodded.
"Alnitak wants the skull of Kulta. That's the deal."
"Alnitak's here?" Johnny whispered. He glanced back at the Sherman lander and wondered if the towering form of Alnitak was sitting in the cockpit right now, his feet resting on the instrument panel, munching on tortilla chips and watching through the window. "
"No," said Malcolm. "Alnitak's... around. He'll contact me when I bring home the bacon." Malcolm saw the look on Johnny's face and smiled. "Guess you're excited about that," he added.
"You have no idea," said Johnny. So this was all some kind of antiques roadshow for a mad crime lord. Time for a change of plan. If this posse was going to lead him all the way to Alnitak, then he was prepared to play along.
The rest of the men were catching up. Johnny saw nine pairs of eyes staring expectantly at him. It took him several seconds to sift his own allies from the general minion population. The Gronk was closer to the pyramid, staying in its shadow where the ice on the ground was thicker and permitted longer slides. Nigel meandered along behind the Gronk staring up at the gleaming golden expanse.
"What now, boss?" an unfamiliar voice asked gruffly.
Malcolm chuckled uneasily. Squid turned away, hopping irritably from foot to foot, folding his arms around himself as if to cradle his cold torso. The Boy looked down and scuffed at a couple of loose rocks, kicking them across the ice.
"There's supposed to be a snecking door," said another minion.
"Where?" asked Johnny.
"In the history books," said the minion, "it says there's a big entrance in the bottom, at the middle."
The group of men stared back at the pyramid, then at each other.
"He's right," Malcolm said to Johnny. "I remember the pictures. There's like a door in the middle, at the base. Below the carvings."
"What carvings?" said Wulf, perking up.
Above his scarf, Malcolm's eyes narrowed in confusion. "There's supposed to be a kind of frieze-thing. A carving that goes around the edge," he said. He was fumbling with his jacket, unzipping the outer layers. He reached into his coat like Napoleon, pulling off his glove while shielded by the jacket.
"A bas-relief?" called Nigel.
"Yeah, something like that." Malcolm fumbled for something in his jacket pocket, and produced his phone. He thumbed through a couple of images on the screen and then held it up for Johnny. It was an antique-looking photograph of the pyramid, sans glacier. The circling band of carvings was unmistakeable, the letters twenty feet high.
"The inscription's in Latin" said Johnny.
"Yeah," said Malcolm. "Whatever."
"What do they say?" asked Blarg.
"I dunno," said Malcolm.
"Kulta is great," said Johnny. "Bow down before him, don't mess with the pyramid, that kind of thing."
"Must have worn away," said Malcolm, pocketing his phone and swiftly suiting up again. Johnny shook his head, pointing back at the golden wall.
"There are no letters there," said Johnny. There was no place on the face of the pyramid where there could have been carvings, no faint trace of letters that might have been worn down by the weather. The metal was scratched by a million pieces of rock and worn smooth by sand and sunlight, but it was clear that no Roman words had originally been carved into the base of the wall.
"No carvings, no door," said Blarg, contemptuously. "Let's just cut some chunks of gold and get the sneck out of here."
"Wait," said Squid excitedly. "Maybe it's the wrong pyramid."
"Excuse me?" said Malcolm.
"Maybe it's a decoy!"
Wulf laughed heartily, along with a number of the minions from the Sherman. Malcolm smirked to himself and waggled a finger at Squid.
"Er... I think one giant golden pyramid is enough," he said. "Two would be overkill."
"If you ask me," said Blarg, although nobody had, "Giant Latin letters proclaiming one's greatness is overkill."
"You're right," conceded Malcolm. "What can I say, Kulta was new money. He just wanted to do something big and bold."
"It's big all right," said Johnny.
"It's bold," said Wulf, nodding to himself at the thought of a giant triangular runestone.
"It's gold," said Squid. "Am I the only person who thinks that's snecking fantastic?"
"We're not here for the gold," said Malcolm sternly. "We are here for Kulta's grave."
"Well unless you've brought the world's biggest drill," said Blarg, "we can't get inside."
Johnny turned away as the men continued to argue, staring out across the ice. Nigel had sat on a boulder and was staring up at the pyramid. The Boy faced away from him on the same rock, pointedly looking away from the pyramid, determined to be unimpressed.
"What do you think?" asked Wulf, catching Johnny up.
Johnny glanced back at the Sherman crew, checking that they were out of earshot.
"Bottom line," he said, "is it doesn't matter if we get inside or not."
"Jah," said Wulf. "We deal with der people and get der Sherman back."
"We wait for our moment," said Johnny. "And then we take them out."
"All of them? Der leader is der doctor from Tammerfors."
"He said he was Tuka, clear as day," breathed Johnny in surprise. "I'm guessing that a doctor in this operation is a body shark. We should take him alive."
"And?" said Wulf.
"And what?"
"I know you, Johnny Alpha. I can see der little cogs whirring in your head. You are thinking of something."
Johnny sniffed, his nose numb in the freezing Kajaani air. "And," he said with a smile, "I figure it wouldn't hurt to try and get into that pyramid." He looked up at the dull-red disc of the sun, its dying spouts of flame powerless in the frigid air.
"Next time we're back here, this whole planet could be gone."
"We could teleport inside," said Wulf. "Use der flicky people-moving thing, steal what we want and then jump out again. We are not needing a door!"
"Even if we had teleporters," said Jo
hnny, "which we don't, I'm guessing that thing is almost solid."
"So we use der detector beam thingy to see where der chambers are."
"Even if it could penetrate solid metal," said Johnny, "you heard the radio on the China. The interference could throw off the instruments."
The Gronk was giggling to itself, sliding across a larger area of ice: its own personal rink. All four of its arms were wiggling to keep balance, before it hit the edge of the ice and fell flat on its face with a surprised squeak. The Gronk tried to bring itself to its feet, but it had landed at the top of a slight incline. Even as it tried to get to its feet, its momentum carried forward. Suddenly, it was standing on its head and then slapped down onto the ground, rolling, its head now over its heels. The Gronk tried to stop itself, but to no avail, and it tumbled down the small slope until it finally came to rest, upside down, plastered against the side of the rock where Nigel and the Boy were sitting.
"Holy sneck," said Johnny quietly. "Hey," he called, moving back towards the cluster of men.
"What?" asked Malcolm.
"We're looking in the wrong place!" he shouted.
"I don't think so," snapped Malcolm. "That's Kulta's pyramid. This is his grave world. His body is somewhere inside. How many giant snecking pyramids do you think there are in the univ-"
"No," said Johnny. "You said yourself, it used to be north of here, on a big concrete plinth."
"Well, yes," said Malcolm, "but..."
"How do you think it got here? Did it slide all the way on its base?"
"Well, maybe..."
"Maybe," said Johnny, "we're not looking at the side of the pyramid at all."
The men looked back at the pyramid, not understanding.
"We're looking at the base," said Johnny. "There are no carvings on it because it was flat on the snecking ground under a million tons of metal."
"Oh," said Wulf, "I can see this makes sense."
"It didn't slide here in the glacier," said Johnny. "The glacier snecking rolled it here."
The men stared up at the giant structure, trying to imagine it tumbling along the ground like a playful Gronk.
"But that would take a hundred years!" said Blarg.
"It's had a hundred years to do it!" said Johnny. "The ice pushes it off its plinth. One of the edges dips into the softer ground, it starts to tilt."
"And wham" said Wulf, slapping his hands together. "Der whole thing topples over."
There was a surprised murmur from the men.
"So," said Malcolm, "the carvings are on the sides still under the ice?"
"Yes," said Johnny, "and if you're looking for a door," he added, "it's right there!" He pointed up the face of the pyramid, halfway up on the far edge, where the side met the glacier and the waterfall tumbled down. The edge did seem a trifle irregular at that point.
"That's the entrance, there," said Johnny. "It must have been filled with rocks and earth when the pyramid was sliding along."
"We'll have to climb up to it," said Malcolm.
Johnny drew his Westinghouse and checked the auxiliary magazine. He noted with interest that not a single member of the party went for their own gun. Nobody suspected he wasn't one of them.
"I have two number four rounds," he said. "I can blow out a fair chunk of that snow and ice up there. It'll give us more of a ledge to stand on."
"Be my guest," said Malcolm. "Everyone!" he yelled. "Fire in the hole."
Malcolm's minions shuffled behind the largest rocks they could find or took cover behind the lander. The Gronk ran squealing for a hiding place of its own. Johnny waited impatiently while the Boy got off his rock and dawdled to a safer position.
Resting the bulky barrel of his Westinghouse on his left forearm, Johnny took aim at the place where the upper edge of the pyramid met the glacier wall. As he did so, he became conscious of a presence behind him.
"I do not wish to be interfering," said Wulf carefully. "But if I were doing this, I would aim at der lower part. If you are taking away der bottom part, der top part might fall anyway and save on der ammo."
"Right," said Johnny. "Thanks for that, Wulf." He sighted along the barrel again. If he concentrated, his alpha vision gave him a glimpse of what lay under the ice. There was what seemed to be a notch in the pyramid edge, crammed with ice and boulders.
"You know," said Nigel, "you're the man and everything, but have you considered aiming a little higher? That way, you could blow a larger ledge and your second round would go deeper into the ice."
Johnny smiled wryly.
"Yeah, thanks Nige, that's great." Johnny weighed the advice he had been given, staring down the barrel of his Westinghouse, and narrowed down the potential target to a patch of ice a couple of feet wide. The white area sat in between two large black boulders that reached back deep into the ice. Johnny figured that an explosive round in the white patch could drill down a few feet before it went off, packing the energy of the charge between the rocks.
"You know," said Squid. "It's none of my business, but-"
"That's right," said Johnny. "It's none of your business, so sneck off." He stared back irritably at the three men who stood at his shoulder. Turning back to his target, he spared it the barest glance to check his Westinghouse was still aimed in the right direction. Then he pulled the trigger.
The auxiliary barrel spat out the explosive round with a metallic slap and a smoke trail disappeared into the glacier. From somewhere inside, there was a muffled whump. A few chips of ice came free, bouncing and sliding across the smooth surface of the pyramid and thudding to the ground at its base.
Squid, Wulf and Nigel exchanged I-told-you-so glances, while Johnny pumped the second and last round into the chamber.
"Listen," said Squid. "Are you going to-?"
Johnny let the gun drop to his side and turned to face Squid. "Are you a snecking expert on blowing stuff up now?" he growled.
"Well," said Squid, "I just call it how I see it."
"Last time you used a number four cartridge, you shot someone with it!" yelled Johnny.
From their hiding places behind large rocks all across the landing site, unseen minions chuckled appreciatively.
"And whose fault was that?" said Squid, indignantly. "I didn't snecking ask you to-"
"Ssh," hissed Wulf. "Both of you." Johnny and Squid turned to Wulf ready to protest, but realised where they were heading. Considering the company they were in, it was not the best of places to discuss the night they shot up the kidnappers. For all they knew, the deceased Morgan and his nameless compatriot were friends of the very men with whom they currently shared the surface of Kajaani.
Johnny lifted his gun again without a word. The icy patch was no more. Instead, his shot had left a dark hole in the ice wall, a cave reaching back in between two stones. No matter how much Johnny squinted, his eyes were unable to penetrate the blackness from that distance. He pointed the gun right down the maw of the cave and fired a second shot.
The cave was deeper than it looked. It was a full extra second before the bullet hit home on something, and the muted sound of the explosion rumbled back to the waiting men. A few moments later, a thunderous roar reached their ears.
"What the sneck was that?" whispered Squid as the echoes died away.
"I know that noise," said Wulf as a succession of smaller cracking noises began. "Back. Everyone back."
The Viking began sprinting as best he could across the ice, his large steps skidding and sliding. He paused to boot the Gronk firmly in the behind, kicking it several feet ahead of him like a furry football. The Gronk screeched in protest as it landed on a patch of hard ice and continued its forward momentum.
The cracking sounds rolled into one, as larger chunks of ice sheared free of the wall. The Boy took the hint and scarpered, drawing on pent-up reserves of energy amassed through weeks of teenage sloth, pelting into the distance amid the teetering figures of the other minions.
Johnny stayed where he stood, watching with detached
interest as a huge piece of the ice wall slid free. Hot melt-water, created by the two explosions, forced a path out of the rock, dragging boulders and collapsing ice with it.
A piece of ice the size of an aircraft carrier twisted free and smashed to the ground, crumpling to a standstill at the base of the cliff. Its fall sent giant boulders flying and smaller rocks darting downwards. Johnny watched impassively as a rolling tide of snow, ice and rock tumbled towards him. It eventually came to rest just a few feet away from him, the last pebbles of its demise bumping and scattering around Johnny's boots.
Johnny holstered his Westinghouse and admired his handiwork. The place the icefall had left behind was now a hemispherical ledge carved into the rock, its curve only interrupted by the side of the pyramid.
"Guess we won't be needing to move the ship," said Blarg sulkily. The falling ice had stopped just inches from the China lander.
"That is true," beamed Wulf. "We can walk up there now."
Although perilous and jagged, the icefall had formed a ramp up the side of the pyramid. A little creative mountaineering and they would be able to clamber up to the ledge, and to the portal that it now revealed.
"Good work," said Malcolm.
"Now all we have to do is get inside," said Johnny.
"You take it," said Malcolm.
"You came all this way and you don't want to look inside?"
Malcolm chuckled and scratched at the back of his head. Through several layers of environment suit, his fingers didn't do much good.
"I'd rather not be the first to look inside," he said pointedly.
For a moment, there was just the noise of the wind ruffling the outermost layers of the environment suits.
"Come on," called Squid, already stumbling up the ice. "Last one there's a sneckwit."
"Traps?" said Johnny.
"Maybe," said Malcolm. "I wasn't here when this thing was built." He pointed at the receding figure of Squid. "Make sure you send in the disposable ones first," he added.
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