Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear

by Gabriel Hunt

  Yes, there was definitely a separate block here, no question about it. The question was how he could get it out. In Giza it had taken two strong men to lever the stone slowly out of its hole—and that had been a smaller block that had already been removed and replaced several times. This one had probably never been moved since first being sealed up who knew how many centuries ago. Even if Sheba helped, they’d be at a disadvantage. And they didn’t have an unlimited amount of time. Hunching over to protect it from getting wet, he looked once more at the device Lucy had given him. 40SW, it said. Forty miles—it meant DeGroet was in Kurunegala already. Even in the rain it wouldn’t take him long to cover the remaining distance…

  Gabriel froze.

  He’d heard a sound, faintly, from the direction of the stairs, one that chilled him in a way that an hour spent out in the rain and wind had not. Or had he just imagined it? He looked down at Lucy’s device again. It couldn’t be—

  Slap, slap, click.

  He looked up—and, noticing him do so, Sheba did, too. She was still aiming the flashlight down at the stone of the lion’s paw, but enough light leaked past to outline the figures at the top of the steps. The man in front was small and slender and stood stiff-backed with a walking stick in one hand.

  Lajos DeGroet.

  DeGroet switched on a small flashlight in his other hand. There was a bigger man standing behind him, holding an umbrella over DeGroet’s head. To one side of DeGroet and one step back, holding his own umbrella, was Karoly, a cigarette smoldering in a corner of his mouth, a pistol in his hand.

  The man behind DeGroet, Gabriel saw, had a gun on them as well.

  “You look surprised,” DeGroet said.

  He walked slowly down the steps, clipping the flashlight to his belt as he went.

  “Do you think I am an idiot, Hunt? Did you think I wouldn’t notice that Andras’ cell phone was gone? Or that maybe it wouldn’t occur to me that you could use it to track mine?” DeGroet stopped a foot away, flanked by his men. “Have you never played chess, Hunt? I know you’re not the intellectual your brother is, but I would have thought you might have picked up some of the basic principles over the years. One of which is lulling your opponent into a false sense of security.”

  He extended his free hand, palm up.

  “Your gun, if you please.”

  Gabriel unsnapped his holster and handed over the gun he’d taken from DeGroet’s man in Istanbul, butt first.

  “Where’s your Colt, Hunt? I hope you haven’t lost it. That was a fine piece. A fine piece.” He turned the gun over in his hand a few times, then tossed it off the side of the mountain.

  “How did you beat us here?” Gabriel said.

  “How do I beat everyone at everything? I just do. It is my gift.” He turned to Sheba. “I am sorry we didn’t meet under better circumstances, my dear. You are a very lovely girl and I can be most generous to my friends.” He gestured at the man holding the umbrella over him. “Istvan, help Mr. Hunt get that stone out, will you? Here, I’ll take that.” He took the umbrella in his free hand. “Go on.”

  Istvan slipped his gun into a shoulder holster under his jacket and knelt on the ground beside the paw. Both DeGroet’s light and Sheba’s shone on the block. Istvan felt around the edges of the seam Gabriel had uncovered, tried to slip his thick fingers inside. It was impossible—the groove was too narrow. He looked back at his boss somewhat helplessly. “How am I supposed to get it out?”

  “Well, Hunt? How were you going to do it?”

  “Frankly,” Gabriel said, “I hadn’t figured that out yet myself.”

  “Well, figure it out now, or your lovely friend goes where your gun just did.”

  Karoly took the bag off Sheba’s shoulder, transferred it to his own, and pressed the nose of his revolver into her back. Gabriel could see that his hand was bandaged. “Did that hurt,” Gabriel said, “when I shot the gun out of your hand?”

  “Quit stalling,” Karoly said, his voice a low rasp.

  “Oh, good,” Gabriel said. “It did.” He turned back to the block, thought about the options for getting it out. With a drill and some anchored screws it might be possible to gain purchase on the stone and draw it out; with an explosive, of course, you could blast it out. But with neither…

  “Lie down,” he told Istvan. “On your back.”

  “What?” the big man asked.

  “On your back, next to me,” Gabriel said, and demonstrated, lying down with the soles of his boots up against the stone block.

  “What are you doing, Hunt?” DeGroet wanted to know.

  “We’re not going to be able to pull it out—we don’t have the tools. That means we’ll have to push it in.”

  DeGroet thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Do it,” he told Istvan.

  The big man lay down, braced his feet against the stone. Gabriel briefly considered the possibility of rolling over on top of him, trying to get to the gun in his holster, but he discarded the idea. Even if he succeeded in taking Istvan by surprise and could overpower him and get to his gun—none of which was a sure thing—doing so would take time, and with Karoly’s pistol millimeters from Sheba’s spine, it was time they didn’t have.

  Gabriel said, “Count of three, push. Okay?” Istvan spat to clear rainwater from his mouth, then nodded. “One,” Gabriel said. “Two…”

  He saw Sheba move. She spun and broke free of Karoly’s grip and started running for the stairs. DeGroet reacted swiftly: He swung his walking stick out, slipping it between her legs in midstride and, with a snap of his wrist, sweeping her ankle from under her. Sheba fell to the ground with a crash.

  Gabriel jumped to his feet, but Karoly stepped forward with his gun aimed squarely between Gabriel’s eyes. “Just give me a reason,” he growled.

  DeGroet stood over Sheba where she lay sprawled, her breath knocked out of her, her hair a wet heap against the stone. He put the tip of his walking stick against her throat. “Don’t do that again. Next time it’ll be my sword you’ll feel. Get up.”

  Sheba climbed unsteadily to her feet. Karoly grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her to him.

  “Where were we,” DeGroet said. “Ah, yes. You were counting to three?”

  Gabriel looked from DeGroet to Karoly and then to Sheba. Her eyes shone apologetically. “Don’t,” he told her. “It’s all right.” He resumed his position on the ground, steadied his feet against the stone.

  “One,” he said. “Two…” He looked over at Istvan, who nodded. “Three—”

  He pushed with all the strength in his legs, and beside him he saw Istvan doing the same. Judging by the size of the man’s legs, he had no shortage of strength in them. The block moved—but only infinitesimally. “Again,” Gabriel said, and counted. It moved a bit more this time, sliding inward by a few inches. “One more. Kick this time.”

  They both brought their knees to their chest and, when Gabriel called “Three,” kicked out, their soles landing sharply against the stone. The block slid in by half a foot or more—and then, after teetering for a second, fell inwards. There was silence for several seconds, then a large, reverberating thud that sounded like it had come from a long way below them.

  Gabriel rolled over and approached the opening. Istvan was right behind him, gun in hand once more. Gabriel took his Zippo from his pocket, lit it. Inside, a corridor led along the length of the paw and deep into the rock behind it—but first there was a gaping pit, beginning an inch from the opening, and it was into this pit that the stone block had fallen. If they’d managed to pull the block out rather than push it, whoever had been the first to step into the opening would have fallen similarly.

  “I need more light,” Gabriel said. He picked up the flashlight Sheba had been carrying from where it had fallen when she’d taken her spill. Shining it at the corridor’s ceiling, Gabriel saw a series of crossbeams stretching from wall to wall as well as columns supporting the ceiling. It looked almost like a tunnel in a mine, propped up to ensure stabi
lity.

  The first of the crossbeams was directly above the pit.

  Gabriel walked up to Karoly. “I need something from that bag. You can get it for me or you can let me get it myself—your choice.”

  “What is it?”

  “A coil of rope.”

  “Get him the rope,” Karoly said to Sheba. “Nothing else. I see anything else come out of that bag, you’re a dead woman.”

  “Understood,” Sheba said. She unzipped the bag and pulled out a hank of nylon rope.

  Gabriel carried it back to the opening. It took three tries to get the end of the rope over the crossbeam and then much fishing with the middle portion of the rope to snag the far end and pull it far enough back across the pit for him to grab it. When he did, he tied a quick six-loop hangman’s knot and drew the rope tight around the beam, like a noose. He tested it with a few strong tugs. The beam held.

  “Okay,” Gabriel said. “Who goes first?”

  They all looked at each other. Gabriel pictured DeGroet running scenarios in his head along the lines of the old missionaries-and-cannibals puzzle: If he sent Gabriel first, Gabriel could keep the rope on the far side and escape along the corridor, if he were willing to sacrifice Sheba, and DeGroet couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t; on the other hand, if DeGroet sent one of his men across first, he’d no longer have the advantage in terms of numbers back on this side of the pit…

  “Ladies first,” DeGroet said, and he pulled Sheba toward the opening. She took hold of the rope, wrapped it several times around one fist, then grabbed it with her other hand as well. She gave Gabriel a concerned look, then lifted her feet and swung across. She staggered a bit when she landed and for a moment Gabriel thought she might slip backwards—but she steadied herself and remained upright. When she’d regained her balance, she threw the end of the rope back. Karoly caught it and, after pocketing his gun, followed her across.

  Next came Gabriel. He tossed the flashlight across to Sheba, who shone the beam downward so it wouldn’t get in his eyes. Gabriel gripped the rope firmly and pushed off. He noticed as he swung that the crossbeam didn’t seem quite as stable as it had when he’d first tested it. But he made it safely across. When he landed, Karoly made a point of showing him that he had his gun out again and his finger tight against the trigger. “I see it,” Gabriel said. “You don’t have to wave it around.”

  “Just as long as you don’t get any bright ideas,” Karoly said.

  “If I were the type to get bright ideas,” Gabriel said, “I wouldn’t be here, would I?” He swung the rope back across the pit.

  DeGroet caught it, handed his walking stick to Istvan, moved his grip around a bit till he got comfortable with it, and then swung across, the light hanging from his hip brushing a reflected arc against the stone wall. When he had landed, he had Istvan throw the walking stick to him. He snatched it one-handed out of the air.

  Then he sent the rope back. Istvan took hold of it and walked up to the edge. He tugged on the rope a couple of times, wrapped it around one hand as Sheba had, held on with the other hand, and launched himself across.

  When he’d made it halfway, the crossbeam snapped.

  He vanished in a split second, plummeting into the pit. He screamed all the way down.

  It took him as long to hit bottom as it had taken the stone block to fall. The sound of his impact, when it came, was quieter. That made it no less painful to hear.

  “Unfortunate,” DeGroet said, after a moment. He aimed his stick down the corridor. “Now get moving.”

  Chapter 25

  Karoly had taken the flashlight back from Sheba and was shining it between them, lighting the path a few feet ahead. They were walking two abreast, Gabriel and Sheba in front, DeGroet and Karoly in the rear, the clicks of the old man’s stick against the stone floor punctuating their progress as they went.

  The main corridor ended at an archway that led into a circular chamber, though there were other, smaller archways branching off to the left and right as well. Prodded by Karoly’s gun in his back, Gabriel walked forward.

  The room was large enough that it took them some time to explore it all. There was no map on any of the walls, Gabriel noted, and no sculptures, of sphinxes or otherwise. What they did find was cages, their bars extending all the way from the rough-hewn floor to a ceiling some fourteen or fifteen feet overhead. In each there were metal shackles attached to the walls by heavy chains, the circular bands lying open and empty on the ground. Some cages had just one pair, some had two. One had three. And the walls were covered with the intricate swoops and whorls of the Sinhala alphabet, the faded ink showing dimly in the yellow beams of the flashlights.

  “Please do us the kindness of translating this…this scribbling,” DeGroet said to Sheba.

  “I’m no expert—” Sheba began

  “Come now,” DeGroet said. “We both know that an expert is precisely what you are. I seem to recall seeing a paper of yours on Sri Lankan vowel variants in the Journal of Phonetics, and though I didn’t understand two words of it, I trust the peer reviewers wouldn’t have accepted it if its author had been illiterate in the languages it purported to analyze. Now—what does that say?” And he swung his stick to point at a passage inscribed beside the largest of the cages.

  Sheba read it over twice. “It’s a…a feeding guide. It specifies a diet of one whole cow and two goat flanks daily, to be provided freshly slaughtered but not prepared in any other way.”

  “Provided to what?” DeGroet said.

  “It doesn’t say.”

  “All right. How about this one?” DeGroet pointed out a bit of text a few cages down.

  “Same thing. Only this one got goats and sheep, one of each in the morning and then again at night.”

  “That’s all?” DeGroet said.

  “It says they’re to be brought to the cage alive,” Sheba said.

  “Not a word about what it was that would eat all these goats and sheep?”

  Sheba shook her head.

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

  “I’m not lying,” Sheba said. “That’s what it says.”

  DeGroet looked around at the rows of empty cages. His face betrayed a strange mix of elation and disappointment. “It’s proof,” he muttered, half to himself. “It’s proof enough.”

  “Of what?” Gabriel said. “That thousands of years ago, they bred sphinxes here? I don’t think so.”

  “It’s proof they bred something, Hunt. Something big. Look at the size of those shackles. Something carnivorous, too—we know that, thanks to Miss McCoy. What do you suppose it was they were breeding?”

  “I don’t suppose anything,” Gabriel said. “If I had to guess, I’d say maybe lions. Or maybe they brought some tigers over from South India. Or jackals—they have those in India as well.”

  “You ever see a jackal eat a cow?”

  “Actually, yes,” Gabriel said. “I have.”

  “By itself? One jackal, a whole cow?”

  “No,” Gabriel said, “there were a few of them, but—”

  “You wouldn’t build a cage like this to house a jackal,” DeGroet said, and silently Gabriel had to admit he agreed. “And you couldn’t sell a jackal for much at all. No prince would come across the sea to buy one. No, the inhabitants of these cages were far rarer than that.”

  “Maybe,” Gabriel said. “But they were not monsters. Terrible creatures, perhaps. Fierce ones trained to attack or to guard. But not crossbreeds between animals and men.”

  “You are so very sure of yourself,” DeGroet said. “It must be comforting at a time like this.” He gestured toward Karoly. “Let’s go on.”

  Karoly prodded Gabriel into the next room. This one seemed to have once been an antechamber of some sort, smaller than the previous room and with stone benches where the other room had cages. Between each bench and its neighbor a metal rack stood, covered thickly with dust and cobwebs and crammed with various tools and implements. In the brief glance he got as
the flashlights’ beams swept past, Gabriel spotted a sort of halberd or poleax in one, with both a blade and a point at the end—the sort of thing you might use to keep a large animal at bay. He also saw what looked like a branding iron, and something else that resembled a long-armed pair of pincers, and—was that a rack of swords and armor pieces? But DeGroet and Karoly pressed them onward and the narrow shafts of light moved on as well.

  In the center of the room there was a circular platform made from what looked like a single thickly varnished slab of wood, with vertical chains attached to the perimeter at regular intervals. Karoly angled his flashlight up to see what the other ends of the chains were attached to, but they receded into darkness too far above for the light to reach.

  A long metal lever abutted the platform and DeGroet approached it, struck it ringingly with the side of his walking stick. “Interesting,” he said. “Interesting.” He turned in a tight circle, the light on his belt traveling along the walls. “What do you think, Hunt? If you were going to hide an ancient treasure somewhere here, where would you put it?”

  “Can I ask what it is you’re looking for?” Gabriel said. DeGroet didn’t answer him. “You don’t know, do you?” He felt a jab from Karoly’s gun but he went on anyway. “I don’t think you have the faintest idea.”

  “Oh, I have as much of an idea as you have,” DeGroet said, “and that was enough to bring you halfway around the world, wasn’t it? It’s a treasure—we know that. Is it a mechanical device of some sort? A religious artifact? Some physical relic of a living sphinx? No one knows. But there is no question that a treasure of some sort was taken out of Egypt and brought back here—and apparently one from Greece, too. Something precious. And powerful—very, very powerful.”

  “You believe that?” Gabriel said. “This business about the power to terrify with a glance?”

  “I have what you might call an open mind,” DeGroet said.

  “But what would you even want with it?” Gabriel said. “Did you suddenly wake up one morning and decide you wanted to rule the world?”