Zeus pointed the gun at them and then back at his captive. He fired quickly, three shots, threw Gunn’s body at them, and spun toward what Bodie had thought was a solid wall. In a split second, he saw Heidi lining a gun up on Zeus, and Gunn collapsing to the floor. Cursing the choices, he let Gunn fall and bellowed at Heidi.
“No! Let him go.”
Confusion swept her face, but she paused with her finger on the trigger.
“Thief’s choice,” he said. “Always think ‘sneaky.’”
“I’m okay,” Gunn gasped, leaning on his leg to test the pain levels. “He missed me on purpose, I think.”
The shots were a distraction, then. Cassidy ran past and carefully surveyed the back of the cave. “Another way out.” She peered inside. “Hidden behind this outcropping. Do we go after him?”
“Leave him for now,” Bodie said, keeping the plan he had started to form to himself. It wouldn’t do to explain it all now, but he’d noticed Zeus’s blood on the floor of the cave. A potential trail to find the madman. “Too many of us need medical attention.”
And the Bratva want something too.
“We don’t have time,” Jemma said. Lucie nodded, taking up the thread.
“That man will destroy the evidence. It is all he has left. We never found the cave on Jebel Musa which will take us to the next clue, but it has to be there. If we tarry . . . we lose.”
“I’m not dragging badly injured friends into another confrontation,” Bodie said. “No discussion. But we’re not done yet.”
Yasmine approached him, and he became aware of the size of the Bratva crew now—six strong—standing with their weapons lowered and faces expectant. “We have a medic,” she said. “Right here.” She indicated a young man with an earnest face. “Field trained. He’s an army deserter, but that’s another story. He can patch your people.”
Bodie stared between them, torn. Why the hell did Yasmine keep on saving them? Even now, why offer her help? And Viktor, her boss. Had he promoted her for a specific reason? But there was no time to ponder the mysteries of their new Bratva friends. Zeus was escaping and Lucie was right—he would rather destroy Atlantis than let it be discovered.
“Okay,” he said. “You saved our lives, so I’ll take it on merit that your man’s not a quack. I don’t like it, but Lucie and Jemma are right.” He stared at Heidi. “If you still want Atlantis, we have to stay in the middle of this.”
“After all we’ve gone through?” Heidi groaned. “Yeah, I still want it.”
“I want that bastard’s balls too,” Cassidy said. “For what he tried to do to my team.”
“Get in line.” Jemma limped gingerly across the floor. “Finding Atlantis will be a poor second compared to finding Zeus.”
“Didn’t we already do that?” Gunn tried to inject a measure of humor as the young medic looked at his wounds.
“Very droll,” Bodie said. “Look, I’m fine, but everyone else get checked out.” He turned to Yasmine and the bald man. “We need to talk.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Can I trust the Bratva? No, but I do trust Yasmine. Maybe she helped them because of Cross, a way she could make up for the mistakes of her past. He had to believe she wouldn’t betray Cross and that the trust he placed in her was well founded. Bodie was speculating, but couldn’t think of any other reason.
Bodie listened to them speak and assumed they were wondering the same thing about him. The situation they found themselves in was based on mutual faith and hope, and a whole lot of supposition.
“I took one tracker off Eli, and Hakim planted another on your Cassidy.” Yasmine shrugged. “Distraction. Smoke and mirrors. It is Spy Craft 101.”
Bodie winced at that. “Not entirely our fault, love.”
“Maybe. But professionalism is everything in our business.”
She was right, he knew. Cross should have stayed in the game rather than wallow in lifetimes lost. God knows, Bodie himself had a plethora of great memories that would allow him to do just that. Right now, though, those old memories were solidifying his love for this team.
“I’m not sure we can trust you,” Bodie said.
Yasmine smoothed down her midnight-black hair. “Of course. But we have goals that, for now, outweigh HQ’s orders, at least in the minds of Viktor and Lucien, and we have similar numbers.”
“Speaking of goals—what is your ultimate goal?”
“You mean, will we try to steal the discovery from underneath you? I would obviously ask you the same.”
Bodie knew this was going nowhere. “You need us,” he said, “to solve the clues. You lost men saving us. I’m not so sure we need you.”
Yasmine shrugged. “Viktor is the head of an incredible worldwide criminal organization that can call on thousands of members. The best thing you could do is kill him.”
Bodie agreed, and was surprised at the candidness, especially in the light of recent developments concerning Pantera, himself, and the Bratva.
“We should share,” Yasmine said, “in the glory of finding Atlantis.”
“How is that even possible?”
She pushed him hard then, right in the chest. Bodie staggered in shock. It was the last thing he had been expecting. The bald man held him up and laughed raucously. As this was going on Yasmine leaned in and whispered rapidly into Bodie’s ear.
“Because . . . this beautiful bald man and I are Interpol agents, and with Lucien’s help we intend to bring Viktor to justice, to destroy his businesses and incarcerate his crew. We’re on your side. We’ve been inside for years and are close,” she breathed. “So close.”
It was good the bald man was holding him, for Bodie suddenly felt limp. Shock coursed through his system. Yasmine was . . . what? Shit, Cross would have a seizure.
Was that why she abandoned him all those years ago? Because she was an Interpol agent? It drew a few parallels to Heidi’s issues with her own family.
He spun away before the others reacted. Just in time, as Cassidy was headed over. “We all good here? Playing nice?”
Bodie nodded. “Yasmine and . . . umm . . .”
“Hakim,” the bald man said.
“Hakim . . . were just convincing me of their sincerity. And wow, they’re pretty good at it.”
Bodie stared at them. Yasmine betrayed the most emotion, no doubt scared he would reveal their secret, but Hakim stayed impassive, watching everything, including his own comrades. Bodie wondered what kind of enduring state of mind it would take for somebody to remain in the lion’s den for so long. Of course, all he had so far was their word, but perhaps Heidi could make some covert inquiries.
He nodded. “We’ll do this together.”
Yasmine looked relieved.
Gunn stood up and tested the weight on his damaged leg. All seemed well. Bodie would never say it aloud, but if Gunn wasn’t complaining about a wound, then it sure as hell couldn’t hurt worse than a scratch.
Only twenty minutes had passed since Zeus had escaped. The Bratva started to file out of the cave, no doubt to secure the perimeter. Yasmine had already told Bodie that they took care of Apollo earlier.
“Jebel Musa,” Jemma said. “Luckily, it’s not far.”
Bodie laughed, buoyed by her quick recovery from Zeus’s shock treatment, but didn’t kid himself. It would be superficial in the short run and she might need a ton of help. He’d keep her busy for a while. Outside, they found a windy, overcast afternoon belied by a lowering sun that glittered across the ocean. Jebel Musa was a short hike, but the large group took their time, some still sore and hurt, others just gauging their new companions. It was an odd group that came once again to the mountain top and stood staring down into the Dead Woman’s mouth.
Bodie shrugged off the sick feeling he harbored for all the men they had lost. Grieving would come later, and the same for the Moroccan Bratva. Drawing in a long breath, he studied the terrain below.
“For an area full of caves,” he said, “I don’t see many, but we have
to rule this out first, I guess.”
“Right, well.” Lucie sat down among the rocks and made sure her laptop was connected with a good signal. “I’ve already done all the hard work. As you know, this place is a honeycomb of caves, which means there are always new ones waiting to be found. New passages. Ask any caver. Where there’s no real published literature that helps, there is a little information on caving blogs. Experienced men and women and old-timers have weighed in on a local thread and, if you compare topographical and geographical maps, we can identify a couple of likely areas for unexplored caves. Right there”—she pointed—“is a sinkhole, and over there another, but it is easy to pass a cave entrance—a small pit or brush hole for instance—and not see it. We need as many people as possible to search, but . . .” She paused. “I don’t think this is it.”
Bodie blinked. “Why?”
“Too easy. Surely somebody would have stumbled across it by now. If you want my opinion, we should locate the cave closest to the GPS coordinates and search for a new passage.”
Bodie agreed, but the consensus was to search the area. They toiled for half an hour, coming up with nothing, knowing with every passing moment that Zeus was a little closer to implementing his plan. In the end, though, the answer was easy. Jemma pointed it out.
“We follow the damn clue,” she said, “that Danel left for us. Instead of second-guessing and backtracking.”
Bodie nodded. “It’s as I thought.”
They found the closest cave network and immediately felt dumb. It left them back at the cave they’d vacated a half hour ago, and when they searched harder, painstakingly probing the tunnel that Zeus had taken, they found one more dark offshoot toward the end. But they weren’t superheroes. They were fallible and therefore needed to cover every eventuality. Bodie found, if he was being honest, that the path they traveled was standard enough. Nothing out of the ordinary. They had no way of knowing if they’d found the right tributary, but the direction followed Danel’s celestial coordinates more closely than any other route appeared to.
And they found spots of blood on the floor. This was the sneakier way of finding Zeus that Bodie had imagined, and was now their last hope of catching the madman. Zeus was intent on derailing all their efforts. Where would he flee to?
They spurred themselves on, ramping up the speed. Tunnel after tunnel and chamber after chamber passed until Jemma voiced the concern that they should be looking at finding some serious caving equipment. A few spots of blood here and there gave them hope that they were following the right track. Bodie smiled when Heidi congratulated him on letting Zeus go.
“It’s how my mind works,” he said. “Slyly.”
“I knew there was a reason we tamed a thief.”
Hours later they stopped, weary to the bone, hungry and thirsty. Bodie perched on an outcropping of rock, simply longing for a soft bed, any bed. Just somewhere to lay his head. Everyone shared his exhausted look, and Jemma mentioned again that they needed equipment and supplies.
The thought of retracing their steps—twice—to get back to this very point spurred them on once more. They did have a small amount of water and shared three chocolate bars among them. Bodie nodded at Zeus’s latest blood trail.
“It’s getting fresher.”
“We aren’t far behind that bastard now.” Gunn alternated between limping and striding, but still gamely hung in alongside Cross. The older man looked like he wanted to speak to Yasmine, but she didn’t look his way.
Eventually Cross forced the confrontation by moving to her side, despite Hakim’s glare. “You’re going to have to talk to me sometime, Yasmine.”
“Not yet, Eli. Danger is . . . everywhere.”
Cross was no stranger to hidden signals. He waited until he could pull her to the front of the group, away from the rest of the Bratva and close to Bodie. “I thought my world was made up of two people,” he said, “before you left.”
“Truly, I saved your damn hide. The cops knew all about you. They were ready to descend, until I fed them better, more significant prey and diverted their attentions. That’s why I left, Eli. To protect you.”
Cross was speechless for several seconds, then said quietly, “And you couldn’t come back?”
“That was impossible. I’m a cop. I work for Interpol now.” Her voice was so low Cross had to strain to hear it. Bodie moved behind them to make some noise, to help.
“The love of my life . . .” Cross sounded bereft. “My enemy. Did you pretend to love me . . . to catch me?” His throat sounded like a mixture of gravel and knives were caught up in it.
“I never stopped loving you, Eli. Not once. My feelings ran so deep, conflicting with everything I did, everything I stood for. If you had found me . . .”
Cross glanced over at her. “What?”
“I’d have changed everything for you.”
Tears formed at the corner of Cross’s eyes. The thief looked away, but Bodie saw it. He felt deeply for the man, even more so because Cross was his immovable rock, the mainstay he relied on. Now, though, he saw an imperfect, human side to him.
After another twenty minutes of walking, following a gentle descent, they turned a sharp corner, astounded at the size of the chamber that suddenly lay before them.
A wide stream ran through the middle of it, flowing so quickly it lapped up and over the edges and onto the cave floor. The ceiling arched high above, lost in darkness. The far side was over ten meters away and lit only because a madman stood there, holding a flaming torch in each hand.
“Gunpowder,” Zeus shouted. “Who do you think invented it? The Chinese? No, it was invented far, far earlier than that.”
Bodie pulled up short, wondering what the hell was going on. “Thanks are in order,” he called back. “We’d never have found this place without you. Well, not this week, anyway.”
“Is that what you think?” Zeus all but cackled. “That I led you here like a witless oaf?”
The team walked closer, approaching the stream and the chamber’s halfway point. Some of the detail behind Zeus came into sharper focus. The incredible wall was covered in some kind of extensive bas-relief or mural, the depictions of kings or gods—possibly Zeus himself, among the other names that the Evzones had taken for themselves from this very chamber. Five in all.
“I let you come all this way to show you how close you came . . . but still lost. We are sworn by our birthright to protect this secret at all costs.”
Constellations filled the upraised hands depicted in the mural. A map of the stars. Bodie saw a trail within a trail . . .
Zeus brandished the flaming torches, sending the representation into blackness and flitting shadow. Heidi nudged Bodie on his right hip.
“Umm, look at his feet.”
What the . . .
A trail of black powder surrounded Zeus and then led in a sweeping curve to the edge of the stream. Bodie realized he’d been distracted by the leader and hadn’t properly assessed his surroundings.
“Is that . . . a barrel?”
“Yeah,” Heidi said. “Four, actually. Four barrels of real gunpowder.”
“Fuck.”
The team shone their meager lights on the barrels, gauging size and distance. Zeus read their minds.
“Don’t worry,” he cried out. “There’s enough fire to cleanse the entire chamber and everyone in it.”
“My friend.” Yasmine stepped forward, speaking gently. “You do not have to do this.”
Zeus glowered at her. “Of course not, but I want to. I was born to make this decision for you. My station in life demands it.”
Bodie gritted his teeth, holding back the retort, which was a decidedly lower-class curse. In the end, though, he could see only one real option. Before Zeus blew it all to hell, they had to get a look at that frieze.
“You won,” he said, feeding the man’s ego. “Fair and square. You beat all of us.”
Zeus’s chest expanded and the smug smile flourished as he reveled in his a
pparent victory.
“But I wonder, since we’re all now at your mercy . . . what is so mind-blowing that you would give your life to protect it?”
Zeus raised the torches without pause, illuminating the frieze. “The five great kings of Atlantis later became the gods of lower beings like yourselves. The Greeks. The Phoenicians. Their gods were based on real men. Remnants like this—cave paintings, petroglyphs—helped to cement that belief, fashion the faith. The ignorant Greeks thought those who came before worshipped these figures, not that they were familiar to them. Do you see? Atlantis and its secrets were so extraordinary that their lords became our gods. They were years ahead of where we are now, and we can’t allow anyone to gain access to that.”
Jemma, Gunn, and one of the Bratva had taken advantage of Zeus’s distraction with his own prideful revelations to take a few photos of the mural. Bodie thought it was sound and quick thinking, given what may happen. The whole group drifted closer to the fast-flowing stream, though Bodie harbored intense reservations.
Zeus suddenly seemed to realize that something was wrong, turning his attention away from the cave wall and back to them. The fire surely had to be blinding to his eyes, and Bodie assumed the man’s vision was limited. A gunshot would send Zeus flying and ignite the powder. Waiting would only lead to the same outcome, as would an attempted retreat.
“Shall we get on with this?” Cassidy hissed. “I’m super tired of listening to this asshole.”
And there it was—the spark to the touch paper that controlled their situation. Zeus yelled something unintelligible and threw the torches to the ground. Bodie saw a sacrificial inferno leap up around the man as two sparking trails of fire streamed toward the waiting barrels.
Everyone leapt into the stream, immersing their bodies in the rushing waters. Sometimes, privileged men and women were just too arrogant and blind to realize their well-laid plans and opinions might be slightly askew. Bodie turned over in the stream, eyes narrowed against the water, and saw a blazing conflagration pass right over him. In his bones, the depths of his body, and the bedrock all around, he felt the percussive whump as the barrels exploded. Fire rolled across his vision, surging, undulating, taking everything that lay before it. Debris fell on and alongside him, shards of timber and rock. The furnace lasted many seconds. Bodie felt a lifetime pass before his eyes, from those glory days of youth to the friends that surrounded him now—and in those moments he experienced a startling revelation.
The Atlantis Cipher (The Relic Hunters Book 2) Page 23