Seeing the hideous deaths of his men and Cassidy, Mao fled.
Her face impassive, Lily just watched him run.
“I imagine you weren’t so fearful when you tortured Wizard, Colonel Gongli,” she said, her voice oddly deep.
Breathing in short ragged gasps, Mao hurried off the balcony, running beneath a section of the semidestroyed battlement above him.
As he did so, Lily casually waved a hand at the battlement—and a great landslide of bricks dropped away from the battlement structure and landed with all their weight right on top of Mao.
Mao’s body was pulverized in an instant, reduced to a bloody smear on the balcony. The rockfall that killed him lay beside the huddled figures of Iolanthe and Alexander, both scared shitless at what Lily might decide to do to them.
Jack was horrified.
He turned to face Lily. Her face was dark and twisted, shot through with fury. She gripped the glowing Pillar in one tight fist.
The Pillar was giving her these powers, he thought, feeding her anger . . .
“Lily, honey—” he said.
She rounded on him, her black eyes blazing . . . and for a fleeting moment, she blinked, recognizing him.
And that moment of recognition—that moment of love clashing with all the hate rising within her—was too much for her little girl’s brain.
Lily fainted, falling to the balcony, the Pillar dropping from her hand and coming to rest near the edge.
Which left Jack standing there beside her on the balcony: the glowing Pillar at his feet, the immense pyramid above him, the bottomless abyss below him, and one last person blocking his exit: his father.
WOLF’S EYES were locked on the Pillar lying on the ground at Jack’s feet.
“Jack,” he said, “think about it. Whoever holds that thing can do whatever he wants. He can bend anyone to his will, he can kill with a single thought, he can rule without limit or boundary or—”
“—conscience,” Jack said.
There came a low rumbling sound. Lily’s dislodging of the battlement to kill Mao had weakened the wall holding the Halicarnassus. The huge 747, already precariously poised above the balcony, was about to drop onto it.
“I could impose peace on the world,” Wolf said. “Peace through the ultimate threat of force.”
“There’s no such thing as a benevolent dictator, Father . . .”
“What about you, then? Go on, pick it up,” Wolf coaxed. “Feel the power. Feel it flow through you. You know you want to.”
Jack glanced down at the glowing Pillar. It just lay there, all the power in the world . . .
He looked at it, and at Lily beside it, her eyes closed, breathing shallowly, and as he did so, deep in his heart he realized something.
He didn’t want to.
He didn’t want to pick it up.
He didn’t want to rule over anybody.
And in that moment, Jack realized with total clarity that he wasn’t like his father, wasn’t anything like him—
The bullet slammed into Jack’s chest armor, taking him completely by surprise, spinning him round, almost throwing him off the side of the balcony.
Jack lay on his belly, halfway down the length of the balcony, his feet dangling over the edge high above the abyss.
He looked up to see Wolf charging down it, going for the Pillar.
All Wolf’s talk of power and peace had just been a ruse to get Jack to take his eyes off Wolf for the second he’d needed to draw and fire his gun. It had worked.
The Pillar was a foot from Jack’s fingertips. Beside him, Lily was out cold.
Jack’s fingers scrabbled against the balcony’s polished stone floor, trying to reach the Pillar.
He heard the Halicarnassus groan again, saw some stone blocks and mortar crumbling beneath it. The last throes before the fall . . .
Then, just as the charging Wolf was about to get to the glowing Pillar, Jack reached out and with a desperate lunge, didn’t grab hold of the Pillar—he didn’t want to do that—but instead swiped at it, hitting it hard with the back of his hand, sending it sliding down the balcony, skidding toward the far end.
Wolf took off after it, racing down the balcony.
But Jack knew he’d done enough. He’d hit the Pillar hard enough to send it sliding down the elongated balcony and . . .
. . . off its end, into the abyss.
The glowing Pillar, with all its deadly power, tumbled into the bottomless chasm, disappearing forever.
Wolf chased it to the end, diving in vain, but he was too late.
Jack watched him fall to his knees at the very end of the balcony and roar in frustration—only to be yanked back to harsh reality by a sudden rumble.
Jack snapped round to see the Halicarnassus, poised above the balcony, finally lose its purchase on the battlement and drop from its precarious position.
In a dark corner of his mind, Jack realized he’d seen this scene before.
At the Third Vertex in Hokkaido, just after he and Wolf had laid the Third Pillar, when they were both gripping it from opposite ends with blood-smeared hands.
At that time, Jack had seen a weird vision: of falling into an abyss beneath a Vertex, with a dark one-winged 747 falling above him.
The reward for laying the Third Pillar, he thought with a chill.
Sight.
He recalled Wizard’s comments about a blood ritual in ancient Egypt where a priest would grip an object with bloody palms and see visions; and Laozi’s postulation that Sight might be the ability to see one’s own death.
So this was it. This was his death.
But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t try to avoid it.
His chest throbbing, his body aching, Jack summoned his last ounce of strength, scooped up Lily, and half-loping, half-staggering, hauled her to the safe end of the balcony just as the full weight of the Hali came thundering down on it with a colossal boom!
SLIDING FROM its perch, the Halicarnassus crashed down onto the elongated balcony about ten feet out from the battlement wall, slicing through it like a colossal axe. Almost the entire balcony was wrenched away from the battlement structure, and it dropped into the abyss at the exact moment that Jack and Lily jumped onto the small leftover sliver of balcony that remained.
Jack landed on solid ground and spun, just in time to lock eyes with his father.
Still lying on his belly at the end of the balcony, his hands bunched in frustrated fists, Wolf turned to see the Halicarnassus fall, and his eyes sprang wide.
And in that fleeting moment, Jack saw horrified understanding on his father’s face: Wolf’s unbridled quest for the power of the final Pillar had been his undoing. It had put him in this position, this fatal position. His desire for absolute power would kill him.
Hit by the bulk of the Halicarnassus, the magnificent balcony was torn from its mount and fell away from the battlement, dropping into the abyss, with Wolf on it.
Wolf fell.
As he did, he looked up and saw the inverted pyramid of the Sixth Vertex receding rapidly, getting smaller and smaller. Then the dark shadow of the one-winged Halicarnassus falling above him blocked out the view.
He, too, had seen this image before—at the same time Jack had, when they had simultaneously gripped the Third Pillar with blood-soaked hands; the thing was, it was Wolf’s blood on the Pillar, not Jack’s, so it had been Wolf’s death that they had both seen.
Thus Jack West Sr., the man known as Wolf, plummeted into the fathomless darkness and, like the all-powerful Pillar that had been hurled into the great abyss before him, he was never seen again.
GETTING OUT of the Vertex took some time and after months of racing the celestial clock, Jack was in no hurry.
Lily woke, dazed and groggy, with no memory at all of her murderous display of power.
Iolanthe helped Jack treat his chest wound, wrapping it in bandages while Jack jabbed himself with a painkiller.
Then, with Alexander accompanying them, they carried
Carnivore’s complete collection of Pillars and Ramesean Stones out of the Vertex.
Iolanthe made no attempt to steal or take them. She seemed to have reached an unspoken understanding with Jack—she would be allowed to leave here alive if she caused no further trouble.
They strapped into the scuba gear Carnivore had used earlier to get through the Vertex’s submerged doorway.
“You remember how to use all this scuba stuff?” Lily asked Alexander.
The boy didn’t say a word. Having seen Lily’s display of raw power, he seemed utterly petrified of her.
“Here, I’ll show you what to do,” she said.
“How are you going to get past the Chinese warships?” Iolanthe asked Jack gently.
Jack ignored her, just clicked his radio. “You out there, J.J.?”
There was a rush of static.
“Copy that, Jack,” came the voice of the Sea Ranger. “Been waiting here a few days now. Wasn’t sure you’d turn up.”
“We turned up, all right,” Jack said wearily “We’re ready for scuba-assisted extraction. Northwest corner.”
“Swim out and let the current take you eastward across the north shore of the island. I’ll be waiting.”
And so the four of them swam out through the now-submerged pillared entry hall, with the two children tethered to Jack for safety. When they emerged from the massive doorway, they felt the tug of a strong ocean current that took them eastward, away from the Chinese naval vessels.
They did not fight it. They just let it carry them away, across the northern coast of Easter Island and several miles to the east, where they were met by J. J. Wickham’s submarine, the Indian Raider.
They were taken aboard through a hatch and the old Kilo-class submarine sailed away to the south, away from the confused Chinese aircraft carriers still guarding Easter Island.
FAR EASTERN RUSSIA
MARCH 24, 2008
FOUR DAYS AFTER THE FINAL DEADLINE
JACK AND Lily rushed into the improvised infirmary that had been set up in Carnivore’s former lair.
Zoe, Alby, and Lois lay in military cots, cleaned up and awake. Next to them, also in a cot, was Astro and beside him, Sheik Anzar al Abbas, who was flanked by Pooh Bear, Stretch, the twins, Sky Monster, and a cluster of armed soldiers from Pooh Bear’s regiment.
Jack and Lily had flown here as soon as the Sea Ranger had been able to unload them at a friendly nation, in this case New Zealand.
Lily rushed to Alby’s side.
Jack went straight to Zoe.
“Are you okay?” Lily hugged Alby tightly.
“We’re all right,” he said. “Pooh and Stretch got here just before our air ran out.”
Lily looked apologetically at Lois, Alby’s mother. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Calvin. I’m sorry you got mixed up in all this.”
Lois Calvin smiled warmly at her. “Over the last few days, Alby has told me everything, Lily. I’m very proud of my little boy, and just as proud to know that he has such a wonderful friend in you.”
Jack stood by Zoe’s bed a short distance away. For a long moment, they just gazed at each other in silence.
“Hey there,” he said.
“Jack,” Zoe said, “I’m so sorry about what I did in Dublin and—”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I was stupid. I had too much to—”
“It’s okay. You never have to say sorry again.”
Lily came over, took Zoe’s hand. “Hi.”
Jack said, “I once gave Lily some advice about friendship. I told her that a friend’s loyalty lasts longer than their memory. Zoe, I don’t care what happened, and back then I was dragging my feet about us. My loyalty to you is forever. As far as what happened back then is concerned, for me it’s already forgotten.”
And Zoe smiled, tears of joy running down her cheeks. Then she threw her arms around Jack’s neck and as Lily clapped, kissed him passionately.
Thus the team regathered and for the rest of that day, they celebrated their triumphs, shared stories, and compared wounds.
Pooh Bear told his father of his brother’s betrayal and death; and of his rescue mission to save Stretch from Mordechai Muniz. The old sheik was horrified and saddened by the reports about Scimitar’s actions, but in the end, he put a hand on Pooh Bear’s bandaged left eye and said, “It pleases me to know that I have at least one noble son.”
Jack told them of the Halicarnassus’s spectacular entrance at the final Vertex and how he had slid the plane down the slope there.
Lily said, “I thought you always said you weren’t allowed to cheat a trap system?”
Jack shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I was in a hurry. And the fate of all life on Earth was at stake.”
Someone asked about Iolanthe and Alexander.
Jack informed them that he had left the British royal in New Zealand to make her own way home. Her connection with their mission had been complex, at times hostile, at times helpful, and on one occasion at the Fifth Vertex in Diego Garcia, she had saved Jack’s life when she could easily have let him die. Jack was sure that they and the world hadn’t seen the last of Iolanthe Compton-Jones.
As for Alexander, Jack had left him with some trusted people in New Zealand, a couple unknown to anyone in the world’s military and whom Jack knew would look after him as their own: Sky Monster’s sweet and grandchild-hungry parents.
“At least they’ll stop pestering me for a grandkid now,” Sky Monster said.
At one point in the celebrations, Sky Monster took Jack aside and asked him to explain in more detail what had become of his beloved Halicarnassus.
Jack told him the whole story and Sky Monster’s face fell. “She was a good plane . . .”
“She sure was,” Jack agreed. “But, you know, if you’re up for a little break and enter in a few weeks’ time, I think I might know where we can get you a new one.”
THE SIMPSON DESERT
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
MAY 1, 2008, 1730 HOURS
SIX WEEKS AFTER THE FINAL DEADLINE
THE SETTING sun illuminated Jack West Jr.’s new farm in a glorious orange glow.
Jack’s new place was a huge isolated property in the middle of the vast Australian outback, on the edge of a dry salt lake. It had been given to him by the Australian government as payment for a job well done—and to replace his last one after it had been invaded.
An old Army base, it came with a few of the features of his previous farm: some hills, a small basic salt mine, a runway with a hangar attached to it and lots of open space; plus some new ones, including satellite, laser, and video surveillance systems.
Jack sat on the wraparound verandah of his new farmhouse, sipping a cup of coffee with Zoe. In the dusty yard before them, Lily and Alby were playing happily, throwing a fake mouse for Horus to catch in midair and return to them.
Jack looked out at the hangar, where he saw Sky Monster doing some work on the black Tupolev-144 they had liberated from an enclosure at Easter Island’s airport a few weeks before. It was smaller than the Hali had been, but then it was also faster. Sky Monster loved his new plane. He’d christened it the Sky Warrior.
As a bonus, they had found inside the Tupolev all of Carnivore’s records on the Pillars, the Machine, and the Dark Star, including charts, maps, and digital photos of the white Thoth writing on the Pillars. Those records were destroyed.
As for the five remaining Pillars themselves, they now resided inside the farm’s little salt mine by the lake, in a white-walled chamber sealed with salt crystals, behind a wooden door marked with Thoth symbols carved by Lily.
They glistened, their liquid cores glowing brilliantly, unseen by anyone.
While the Pillars remained here—hidden from the world, far from humanity and the human lust for power—their rewards would remain unused, however powerful, deadly, lifesaving or far-reaching they might be.
Jack had told his superiors that all of the Pillars had been lost during the confrontat
ion at the final Vertex, that they had fallen with Wolf and the Sixth Pillar into the bottomless abyss there, never to be seen again. This news had been taken with some grumbling, but then, since Jack had saved the world from both destruction and tyrannical rule, it was accepted without much questioning.
In the end, Jack had decided, humanity would just have to make do on its own, without the knowledge and powers of the fabled Pillars.
As they sat together on the deck, Zoe reached out and held Jack’s hand. They both now wore matching wedding rings, thanks to a civil ceremony performed the week before.
“And so the world is quiet once more,” she said.
“I have to say, I kinda like it that way,” Jack said.
“It’s a good thing that whoever built that Machine built it,” Zoe said. “They saved our asses. But what bothers me is: they themselves ultimately didn’t survive. Somewhere along the way, their civilization disappeared, despite their obvious technological advancements.”
Jack shrugged. “The Earth is over two billion years old, Zoe. In just 5,000 years, our version of humanity has gone from hunter-gathering to space travel. The builders of the Machine were just a civilization that rose to a great height and then, well, who knows? Maybe they got a disease. Maybe they fought among themselves. Maybe a rogue asteroid that they never saw coming wiped them out. Civilizations rise then die, and then it all starts over again. That’s the way it goes. Our civilization will end one day—and, yes, we might bring about that end ourselves—only that’s not going to happen just yet, not if I have anything to say about it.”
Zoe smiled. She pulled out a notebook. “You know, there’s still one other thing we never figured out.”
“What’s that?”
“The identity of the fifth greatest warrior. Let me read three quotes to you.” Zoe held up the notebook:
“ ‘A mortal battle between father and son, one fights for all, the other for one.’
“ ‘The Fifth, the Brilliant Warrior, will be there at the Second Coming, and decide the fate of all.’ And,
The Five Greatest Warriors Page 32