As his hands closed over a sizeable shard of rock crystal, a sound made him look up. The nymphs were emerging from the shadows at the back of the antechamber. In the half-light they appeared threatening, until his friend with the red flowers in its frond-like hair began to chant the James Bond theme Ross had taught it on their first encounter. Ross smiled and responded. The nymph emitted a staccato burst of laughter-like chatter and approached closer. The others followed until they surrounded him. As he edged closer to the exit, the nymph with the red flowers reached for the crystal in his hand. Instinctively, Ross clasped it tighter. The creature made another chattering sound, went into the tunnel, selected a larger, even more iridescent shard from the stream and presented it to him. Ross put down his sample and took the gift. 'Thank you.'
The nymph copied his words, making Ross smile again. He glanced up the tunnel one last time, mesmerized by the light coming from the source - whatever it was. He considered how the lake water had failed to save Weber and wondered how its power compared with that of Father Orlando's el origen. What if the crystal in his hand failed to save Lauren? What if the injuries to her brain and spine needed something even more powerful? The question was academic, of course. Even if he could negotiate the rock worms there was no time to explore the tunnel. He must go now before the guards realized they were gone.
He turned to leave and a piercing sound silenced the nymphs. The high-pitched whine of an alarm.
Shit.
As the nymphs skittered nervously around him, he pushed past them and peered out of the antechamber into the rain. Figures were spilling from the tents and moving through the rain towards where the others had made their escape - or tried to. The soldiers must have installed a trip alarm by the entrance to the garden.
Shit.
Two figures stopped, turned and headed for the forbidden caves - towards Ross.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He was trapped. Unless . . .
He pushed through the nymphs towards the dark recesses of the antechamber. There was another way out: the exit across the magma pool, via the broken bridge. It was dangerous and he would have no supplies in the jungle, but he had the crystal to sustain him. There was one other route, of course. He could try his luck up the tunnel of blood. He stopped, torn with indecision.
'Dr Kelly!'
He glanced over his shoulder. Torino stood in the entrance to the antechamber, waterproof dripping with rain, two-way radio in his hand. Bazin stood beside him, peering down the sights of a rifle.
The radio crackled and Torino held it to his ear. 'Excellent, Feldwebel. If they give you any more trouble shoot them.' He smiled. 'The others are being rounded up, Dr Kelly. The great escape is over.'
Bazin spoke next: 'My rifle is aimed at your heart. Drop the crystal, raise your hands and walk back here.'
'You're going to shoot me, Marco? How does your God justify killing an unarmed, innocent man who wants only to save his wife?'
'No one's innocent, Dr Kelly,' said Torino, 'and this place is bigger than your wife. I can't let you leave with the crystal. Not till I've decided what to do with the garden.'
As the nymphs swarmed round Ross, pushing him back into the shadowy recesses of the cave, he tried to keep Torino talking. 'But you've already decided what to do with the garden, Father General. I've seen the yellow parcels. I know what they are.' Ross saw Bazin glance uncertainly at Torino. 'But I don't care about your plans. If you want to rewrite history or evolution, if you want to change the truth to fit your beliefs, then go ahead. I only want to save my wife.' He pointed up the tunnel. 'Once you've done what you want to do and gained control of el origen, or the radix or whatever's up there, you needn't worry about me - or any of us.'
'That crystal in your hand is now the property of Rome,' Torino said. 'Only the Holy Mother Church can dispense miracles. Not you.' More nymphs spilled out of the shadows, shepherding Ross to the back of the caves. 'Enough of this, Marco. Shoot him.'
'Stop screwing about, Ross,' said Bazin. 'Drop the crystal, put your hands up and walk over here. Those things can't protect you.' There were at least thirty nymphs surrounding Ross now and they were forcing him into the shadows. 'Come on, Ross. I don't want to shoot you, but I will.'
Ross had a decision to make. To have any chance of escape he had to drop to a crouch, use the nymphs as cover and make a dash for the other exit. Or he had to give himself up and try to escape another time - if there was another time. Either way, he had to decide now.
In that split second, however, the decision was made for him. The nymphs surged with such force that he slipped on the damp rock floor. And as he fell Bazin fired. The shot echoed round the caves but the sound didn't concern Ross. His only concern was the bullet throwing him on to his back.
And the pain.
Lying there on the hard rock, each breath more agonizing than the last, he looked up at the nymphs and clutched his chest. He raised his hand and saw it was dripping with blood - his blood. Despite the intense pain, or because of it, his mind was eerily devoid of panic. With chilling clarity he knew he was dying. He thought of Lauren and their unborn child and a heavy sadness descended on him. He wasn't supposed to die. He was supposed to save them.
He reached out for the crystal shard he had dropped beside him and tried to raise it to his mouth. If he could bite it and ingest some of its power, he might stave off death. But his arms had no strength.
'We warned you, Ross,' he heard Torino call, from some distant place. 'We warned you.'
Yes, thought Ross, you warned me.
The nymphs crowded round him. The smell of stale sex and mustard seed was overpowering. Cool, clammy skin touched his arms. Small hands gripped him - he had no idea how many. He was Gulliver, but these Lilliputians weren't tying him down, they were reaching under him, lifting him, carrying him.
Where?
He was dimly aware of Bazin trying to reach him and being thwarted by the nymphs. Lying on his back, he looked towards his feet and saw light ahead: the tunnel. They were taking him up the tunnel of blood. As he entered it, the light was so bright that his dying mind saw the nymphs as angels bearing him aloft to Heaven. The thought amused him as he lay back, on the cusp of consciousness, staring up at the shimmering patterns and colours of the tunnel's crystal-encrusted ceiling. His vision was dimming and the pain was fading, replaced by a warm glow. Death wasn't so bad. Perhaps there was a God, Heaven too. Perhaps, in time, he would be reunited with Lauren and their child.
A familiar chant pierced his fractured thoughts, and he knew instantly where they were taking him: to his funeral. He'd read once that fallen Vikings were burnt on a funeral pyre, but as he listened to the nymphs' two-note incantation he knew his pyre would be different. He heard the waterfall and felt them carry him up the steps towards the dark chamber with its pock-marked walls infested with rock worms. He felt a cold shaft of fear.
He glimpsed the friendly nymph with the red flowers. Was it some kind of honour to be consumed by the worms?
He closed his eyes, grateful suddenly for the imminence of death, willing its dark embrace to claim him before the creatures did. He didn't want any more pain. He just wanted sleep. As his mind folded in on itself, he listened, waiting for the pacifying chants to stop and the worms to attack.
Moments earlier
The shot had been a reflex. Bazin had pulled the trigger as soon as Ross had made his sudden move. His experience told him it had been a death-shot but when he tried to move closer and confirm it, the nymphs hissed and bared their teeth. Sharp teeth. There were too many and he wished he had brought the flame-thrower with him. As he hung back with the Superior General, and watched them carry Ross up the tunnel, something nagged at him. It took him a moment to recognize it as guilt. He had barely known the people he had killed in the past, let alone befriended them. And not one had ever saved his life.
'I saw the wound in his chest,' said Torino. 'Is he dead?'
'As good as,' said Bazin. 'I shot him through
the heart. Why are they taking him up there?'
Torino narrowed his eyes. 'Can't you guess?' They followed as far as the waterfall and could see shapes moving in the dark holes above. Then the nymphs started their chanting and carried Ross's motionless body to the place where the worms had attacked. Torino turned to Bazin. 'Remember what Kelly told us about the dying nymph being fed to those creatures?'
'I hope, for his sake, my shot did kill him.'
'It doesn't matter now,' said Torino. 'Either way he's dead.'
Four of the nymphs turned suddenly, bared their teeth and hissed at them. Other nymphs closed in. 'We've seen all we need to,' said Torino. 'Tomorrow we'll use the nymphs to get to the top. Let's go.'
They walked back down the tunnel, the sound of chanting in their ears.
Chapter 67.
The first thing Ross became aware of as he flickered awake was that the chanting had ceased. Then the pain kicked in again. And the fear. He didn't dare open his eyes - he didn't want the last thing he saw to be the rock worms.
Why the hell am I still alive?
He felt hands under him and realized he was still moving. He opened an eye. The light was even more dazzling than before. Above him, the crystalline ceiling of the tunnel sparkled with increased intensity. He turned his head and saw no sign of the dark chamber or the infested holes and passageways. Relief coursed through him. The nymphs had taken him further up the tunnel, beyond the rock worms.
He glanced at his feet and his relief turned to excitement. The tunnel was ending. He was rounding a corner and passing through a wide portal into a chamber of such brilliance that it made the tunnel appear gloomy by comparison. Had he any breath left he would have gasped. The whole place seemed to pulse as if its phosphorescent walls and ceiling were alive; he could see small glowing creatures in the lattice of crystal that encrusted the walls. It was warmer here too. He heard a rushing sound, looked up and saw water falling from the high ceiling through an opening concealed behind crystalline, chandelier-bright stalactites. It filled a small pool in the middle of the chamber, which fed the stream that ran down the tunnel into the garden, but before it reached the pool it hit an object so dazzling that the spray ricocheting off its surface fizzed and sparked like electricity. But it was the object itself, and what appeared to be growing from it, that commanded Ross's attention.
Even as he coughed up blood and felt his chest contract for the last time, tears stung his eyes. In all his years studying the natural wonders of the world he had never seen anything so beautiful. He felt a burst of gratitude. If he had to die, if he had to leave Lauren and never know their child, then at least he had seen this. As the darkness claimed him and his heart stopped beating, he smiled at the irony of dying now, here - in the presence of what had given birth to all life on this once barren planet.
The Sacred Heart Hospital, Bridgeport, Connecticut
As Ross Kelly lay dying, Lauren lay comatose in her hospital bed in Connecticut, watched over by her mother. The unborn child inside her womb now weighed more than one and a half pounds. Although it looked normal on the scans, many of its vital organs, particularly its lungs, were still underdeveloped.
It would be difficult for a baby so premature to survive undamaged outside the womb but, amazingly, with the help of ventilators, monitors and medication, it could be delivered in a few weeks and live. It would need to spend time in hospital but the truth was that, although its current chances of survival were slim, they were now significantly better than those of either its mother or its father.
PART FOUR
The Source
Chapter 68.
By the next morning the rain had stopped and the sky was as clear and blue as it can be in the rainforest. Sitting with Hackett and Zeb, Sister Chantal couldn't help but contrast the frantic buzz of activity coming from Torino's men with their own quiet despair. Last night's escape attempt had been disastrous in its futility. In their hurry they hadn't seen the trip-wire in the rain and the alarm had sounded before they could reach the passage to the sulphur caves. The soldiers had rounded them up in minutes.
When Torino and Bazin had told them Ross was dead she had seen her own shock and disbelief reflected in Zeb's and Hackett's eyes. Juarez's death had been terrible but no one had purposely killed him. Ross, however, had been shot. Not only had Bazin murdered him, but Torino - the Superior General of the Society of Jesus - had sanctioned it. It appeared there was nothing he would not do in the name of protecting his precious Church.
Hackett looked exhausted. All his dreams had been dashed. He would never return to his lost city and reveal its treasures to the world. Zeb seemed equally subdued. She had come on a grand adventure to save her friend and discover the mythical place described in the Voynich. But things hadn't turned out as she'd hoped. As for Sister Chantal's long-cherished dream of fulfilling her vow, it took all her self-control not to bow her head and weep. She glanced at the mound of stones where Father Orlando was buried. Was this how she would end her long vigil, fruitlessly, without passing on her burden?
'I hope Lauren never wakes up,' said Zeb. Her unkempt red hair no longer made her look feisty and individual, just young and vulnerable. 'She'd hate to think Ross died trying to save her. Nigel, I bet you wish you were back in your lost city and had never set foot in this "miraculous garden".' She spat the last two words.
He managed a rueful grin. 'Wouldn't have missed it for the world. My only regret is that I came to protect you and made a bit of a hash of it.'
She reached across with her bound hands to pat his arm. 'You didn't do so bad. You saved me from the snake when we passed that mound of bat shit.'
'I suppose.' He shrugged and gazed out across the garden to where two soldiers were cleaning their guns and refuelling the flame-throwers. Torino, Bazin and Fleischer stood in a huddle by the tents. 'The question is, what's going to happen to us now?'
Sister Chantal sighed. 'Whatever the Superior General has planned,' she said. 'We'll find out soon enough.'
Torino paced outside the tents. 'I want everything in place before we go up again. Are the devices ready?'
Feldwebel Fleischer nodded. 'Gerber has placed all the thermite and napalm to achieve the maximum effect you asked for.'
Bazin frowned. 'You're not really going to use them, are you, Father General?'
His half-brother was beginning to annoy Torino. He hoped Bazin wouldn't become a problem and interfere with his plans. 'Relax, Marco, it's just a contingency.' He rested a hand on Fleischer's shoulder. 'Feldwebel Fleischer understands. It's a scorched-earth policy to ensure no one can use this unusual garden and its creatures to harm the Church. Prevent its falling into enemy hands, so to speak.'
Bazin nodded, apparently satisfied.
Torino turned back to the sergeant. 'How do I activate them?'
Fleischer handed him a matt-black box, no bigger than a radio. On one featureless face was a green light diode and a flip switch, which covered a red button. 'Gerber has fitted the devices with wireless detonators. Flick the switch to arm the device and reveal the detonator button. You can press it as soon as the green light comes on.'
'How about getting up the tunnel?'
'We're going to round up two of the nymphs now, Father General.'
'If they don't co-operate, shoot them and get two more. They'll soon learn. And when we go up this time I don't just want to get past the worms. I want to destroy as many of them as possible.'
'They'll be easier to kill when they're still,' said Fleischer. 'Shotguns worked best last time. And we'll load the Heckler & Kochs with armour-piercing rounds.'
'Good,' said Torino. 'Come and tell me once you've got everything ready, Feldwebel.'
When Fleischer left to talk to his men, Torino pulled Bazin closer and lowered his voice. 'The new Vatican will be built around whatever's up that tunnel, and its miracles used for the good of the Church. To do the most good, however, we must keep it secret. No one must know about the source of these miracles, excep
t the Holy Mother Church. This is holy work, Marco, and you are privileged to be part of it.'
Bazin indicated the three prisoners. 'What about them? How can we be sure they won't talk when we leave?'
Torino narrowed his eyes. 'No one will leave.'
'Is it necessary to kill them?'
It amused Torino that his half-brother, a remorseless assassin when he had killed for money, should worry now about killing for a righteous cause. 'No one will leave,' he said again.
'The soldiers?'
'They have a purpose for now. But once their job is done, only you and I will leave here. You understand? Only you and I can be trusted to protect the purity of this place. If you do this, Marco, if you fulfil this sacred task, your sins will be wiped out and the Holy Father himself will bless you for your work in claiming this shrine for the Holy Mother Church.' He paused. 'You still need redemption, don't you, Marco?'
Bazin nodded again. This time more slowly. 'Yes,' he said.
Chapter 69.
Two hours later
Sister Chantal entered the tunnel of blood shackled like a slave to Hackett, Zeb - and the two nymphs in front of them. Their hands were bound and a connecting rope looped round their necks. Behind them marched Petersen, Gerber and Bazin, with the rope secured round his waist. Fleischer and Torino took up the rear. Torino evidently hoped that the nymphs would pacify the creatures that had devoured Weber, Ross and the conquistadors. If they failed, she, Zeb and Hackett would act as human shields.
Sister Chantal had always suspected that Torino wouldn't let them leave the garden alive but she hadn't expected to die like this. When the Inquisition had handed Father Orlando to the secular authorities to be burnt at the stake it had been a case of ecclesiaabhorret a sanguine, the Church shrinks from blood. This time, however, the Superior General would simply distance himself from her death - allow it to happen. This time there would be plenty of blood.
the Source (2008) Page 25