by Sam Christer
Caitlyn groans. Tries to move. Gideon listens to her heavy breathing. He can tell that she’s exhausted. He puts an arm across her. ‘Rest a minute. We’re going to be all right now.’
187
The Apache crew scrambles within five minutes of the call from base.
Tommy Milner had been beginning to think the night time operation wasn’t going to happen. It seldom does. A routine seek and destroy, something he could do in his sleep. The four rotors lift them high into the black night sky and out across the range. In the distance they see the lights of vehicles clearing the range. They’d been told there’d been some secret recon done out there while they had been stood down.
Milner’s radio crackles into life. ‘Range now cleared for manoeuvres. Confirm when you have target in sight, Apache One.’
‘Affirmative base, we’re airborne and beginning our approach.’
‘System lock,’ announces Charlie Golding, the Longbow fire control radar at his fingertips. ‘Within range and ready for fire command. Over.’
‘You have authority to fire at will, Apache One.’
Golding checks his helmet display. From up above the main rotor, the fire control radar relays data to a matched milli metre wave seeker in the nose of the laser-guided Hellfire II missile. In the middle of his display, Golding sees the first of the enemy tanks that they have been instructed to destroy.
In the dark Wiltshire night there’s a blinding flash and an explosive roll of thunder. The ground trembles and groans as it sucks up the brutality of the bomb. Beneath two old Chieftains, the dome of the Great Room cracks like a boiled egg. The Sanctuary’s passageways disappear like shrivelled veins and the Crypt of the Ancients is buried under thousands of tonnes of sandstone, earth and rubble. It’s like it never existed.
188
Caitlyn and Gideon feel their way through the pitch black passageway. It’s getting wider and higher now. They’re able to walk side by side. She leans on him to ease the pain in her injured leg.
Gideon is still fearful. The ancients protected the shrines ferociously. There could be more surprises. The whole thing could collapse on them. Or underneath them. He stares into the murk, at the floor, the walls, desperate for any telltale signs. Anything unusual.
He uses his left hand to feel their way along the rock. Holds it high, in case there is a support beam or something worse threatening to smash into their unsuspecting skulls.
From the strain of his knees he can tell they’re climbing. Hopefully up means out. Bearing in mind how deep below ground the Sanctuary was sited, he guesses they still have a long way to go.
Caitlyn says little. The trauma of the last few hours and seven days without food have taken the last of her energy. It’s a miracle she’s still putting one foot in front of the other.
‘Do you want to stop?’
‘No. No. Keep going. If I stop, I might not be able to start again.’
They hobble on. A deafening noise erupts somewhere behind them. The ball of sound rolls through the passage. They can’t see anything, only hear and feel the shockwaves. The ground beneath them shakes. The walls too. The air fills with dust.
Gideon knows what’s happening. A cave-in.
‘We have to run.’ He grabs her around the waist and gets her moving. ‘The tunnel’s collapsing.’
It sounds like a giant subterranean beast has woken and is thundering after them, growling and biting at their heels. They charge in a blind panic up the darkened passageway, the jaws of the animal snapping at their heels.
Gideon runs smack into a stone wall. A dead end. The blow knocks him flat. He brings Caitlyn down with him. She tumbles sidewards into the blockage and cracks her hip.
There’s so much flying dust and rubble she can hardly breathe. The passageway is filling with soil and debris. They’re being buried alive.
‘Where are you?’ She has lost him in the darkness.
She feels soil and stone flow like a river of dirt over her bare feet. The tide of death is coming in.
‘Gideon! Gideon, where are you?’
He is face down in the gathering debris. His chest feels like it is filled with wet cement. There is a pounding in his head and his nose is broken. It takes all of his energy just to get up on his hands and knees.
‘Gideon!’ She shouts in desperation more than hope.
‘Here,’ he says. ‘I’m over here.’
But she can’t find him. ‘Over here! Gideon, I’m over here!’
He stumbles towards her voice. His outstretched hands finally find her. Dust is swirling, spiralling above her head.
‘Put your hand up! Lift your hand up.’ There’s excitement in her voice.
He does as she tells him.
His fingers find a thin ragged hole. A hole in an exit shaft through the tunnel ceiling. He links his hands together and presses them against her. ‘Put your foot in my hands. Climb.’
She’d laugh if she had the energy. It’s a shaft.
If it’s the same as the other one, Gideon calculates they’re just nine metres away from escaping.
Nine metres from freedom.
189
They haul themselves upwards using the last of their strength.
‘Stop,’ she shouts. ‘It’s another switch.’
‘Work round it,’ he says. ‘Don’t put any weight on it.’
Caitlyn shifts slowly around the trigger plate. But she is high in the shaft. She looks up, hoping to see some light. A glimpse of night sky. A sparkle of stars or fresh breeze. But there’s nothing and the air is still rank and fetid.
She climbs, thinking now about her parents, about making up with her mum, holding tight to her dad, saying a long and heartfelt sorry to Eric.
There are no more finger holds. She has run out of space. Reached the top of the shaft. She bangs it with the palms of her hands.
‘It’s blocked,’ she shouts down, dregs of panic already filtering back into her voice. ‘There’s no way out. It’s all sealed off.’
Gideon wishes he was in front and could explore whatever it is she has found. But the shaft is too narrow to swap positions.
‘What do I do?’ she shouts. Impatient. Frightened.
‘Wait and think.’ He tries to imagine the layout of the crypt. They climbed five metres up the centrepiece. They descended a total of nine metres. So the escape tunnel was four metres below the floor level of the crypt but probably rose by the same amount as they made their way along it. He reckons that since entering the second shaft they’ve only climbed about two metres. So the surface could still be at least three or four metres away.
‘Keep your hands off the roof of the shaft,’ he calls. ‘I’m going to try something.’
Caitlyn crouches low and waits.
He steps across the hole and deliberately puts his weight on the trigger ledge near his right foot. At first nothing happens. Then the stone disc above their heads slowly starts to slide back.
‘It’s moving. The thing is opening up.’
Her excitement quickly dies down. There is still no glimpse of sky. Just more shaft.
‘Keep going up,’ he urges. ‘After about a metre, you’ll find another trigger plate on the right. Don’t stand on anything on your left.’
She finds it. Tingles with anticipation. ‘What do I do?’
He hesitates. There’s everything to gain and everything to lose. He closes his eyes. ‘Step on it.’
Caitlyn edges upwards and leans across on her right foot. Nothing happens. She slides her other foot across. All her weight is now on the ledge. Soil and stone rain down on her head. She gasps with shock and fear. Turf and sand fall in on her and cascade down on to Gideon.
Fresh air. Caitlyn feels it for the first time in a week. She all but scampers up the last metre. Her fingers touch wet grass. She can hear the sweet sound of outside, feel freedom.
She hauls herself out of the hole and rolls on to her back. She’s still laughing as Gideon crawls out of the shaft and collapses b
eside her.
A cool wind floats across the bomb-blasted fields. They lie there panting and breathing in the early morning air. Neither of them notice the open-top Jeep heading their way or who is in it.
190
‘Stop in front of them,’ Grus calls to the staff officer at the wheel. He and Aquila ready themselves. Both are still dressed in the Craft’s sackcloth robes. The Jeep’s bobbing headlights cut through the grey twilight and fall on Gideon and Caitlyn’s wasted bodies.
Everyone had deserted the Sanctuary just minutes before the Master emerged and phoned the military base. In his capacity as lieutenant colonel, he’d given the command for the Apache air strike to take place and had then made his own escape.
Grus never expected to come across Gideon and the sacrifice. He was simply trying to get to his car parked just off the Imber range.
Gideon turns towards the blaze of light. Help at last. He shields his eyes from the glare and is about to shout to the driver when he makes out that the man approaching him on foot is carrying a gun. Even if he had the strength to run, there is nowhere he could hide. No escape.
Grus lets out a shallow laugh. ‘One last gift from the Sacreds. The treacherous son and the woman that ruined everything. Looks like she’s going to die after all.’
He slips the safety catch off the pistol and walks closer. Night sun lamps from the Apache suddenly unleash a torrent of blinding white light. A megaphone message echoes out of the surrounding field. ‘This is the police. Drop your weapon. You are surrounded.’
Grus’s face says that’s not going to happen. He recognises the voice. It’s Jimmy. His own son. He glances to the side and in the half-light beyond the search beam catches a glimpse of men in black uniforms, no more than fifty metres away. Tactical support. They’re running low, dropping into the grass, sighting their weapons. He knows the drill.
The light from the Apache burns brighter and the copter hovers lower.
‘Armed police, drop your weapon!’
His son’s voice hangs in the air. He’s out of time and he knows it. Grus raises the pistol, jams it in his mouth and fires.
The idling Jeep instantly kicks up grass and darts away. Gunfire blazes from across the field. The headlights of the Jeep go out. More shots. This time returned from the speeding vehicle. Sniper fire barks back from the grass, short growls like feral dogs.
The vehicle swerves viciously. It flips on its side. Cartwheels like a clumsy gymnast. Crashes upside down, spilling ragdoll corpses. An eerie silence ensues. No one moves.
Only when birdsong fills the air does one of the firearms team signal that it’s safe to move in. Gideon and Caitlyn struggle to their feet and hold each other. The new moon fades in the morning sky.
Dawn finally breaks over the flat Wiltshire plain.
191
MONDAY 28 JUNE
News of Caitlyn’s safe recovery is relayed to the suite of Kylie Lock at five a.m. By six, the Hollywood star has sobered up enough to speak to her daughter and to tearfully relay the good news to her father.
Jude Tompkins has a full crime-scene team working on site at Imber by six-thirty. By seven the bodies of James Pendragon’s driver, Nicholas Smith, the Deputy Chief Constable, Gregory Dockery and Inspector Adam Stone have all been examined in situ by a Home Office pathologist and moved to the county mortuary.
By eight a.m. Lee Johns is being formally interviewed in Devizes by Jimmy and by nine he is the first to be charged with kidnapping and manslaughter.
By ten past eight, the media has the story. Newsflashes are filling every radio, television and web bulletin across most of the world.
At ten a.m., Chief Constable Alan Hunt fronts a hastily called press conference in Devizes, congratulating his officers and thanking the Home Office, the FBI and the public for their support.
By eleven, Josh Goran has given the first of what he intends to be many TV interviews, telling how he was responsible for leading the police to Imber and how he is now going to sue the army for the ten million dollars reward that he thinks should rightfully be his. He also shows reporters the fox holes that he and his men dug to escape from army patrols.
By midday someone at the barracks in Warminster remembers they still have several of Goran’s team in their cell block and grudgingly releases them.
A little after one p.m., Megan is at her parents’ house hugging her daughter Sammy and wondering how to tell her that she’ll never see her father again.
Just before three, Gideon wakes in the recovery ward of Salisbury District Hospital, the same one he was in after being attacked in the house of the man he’ll always think of as his father. His real father. Professor Nathaniel Chase.
At five p.m. Gideon receives a call of thanks from the Vice President of the United States and a fax from the office of the President.
At six p.m. security teams strip the black plastic sheeting from the fences around Stonehenge and prepare it for a public reopening the following day. By the time the workers have cleared the site, it’s twilight again.
Police reports show that no VIP party had taken place after all. There were no crowds and no sacrifice. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. Except for one thing. In the pale light of that busy morning in Wiltshire, there was a solitary visitor to the henge. A tired-looking, grey-faced man entered the circle. He spent a solemn time on his knees, embracing each and every stone.
No one seems to know his name.
And no one has seen him since.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost my consiglieri and spiritual bodyguard Luigi Bonomi – agents don’t come any better. The folks at Little, Brown/Sphere have been amazing – this is as much Dan Mallory’s book as it is mine, maybe even more so, and it’s been an honour to write this with him. Big thanks to Iain Hunt for all the heavy lifting he did on draft one at short notice. Kudos to Andy Hine, Kate Hibbert and Helena Doree in international rights, you are all goddesses. Thanks to Hannah Hargrave and Kate Webster in publicity for spreading the word. Scary Jack, big thanks to you too. Mrs M, I couldn’t have done this without you x
The Stonehenge Legacy is purely a work of fiction. Scholars will note that while much of it is based on astronomical, archaeological and historical fact, some of those facts have been used in ways to purely enhance the story and don’t purport to form a collective truth. That said, despite centuries of research, there is still no indisputable answer to the big question: why was Stonehenge built?