Search: A Novel of Forbidden History (37 page)

David played his flashlight over the encircling wall and saw something unexpected. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

Jess looked up. “A map . . .”

“Of what?” The image at first glance didn’t make sense to David.

“The world!” Jess’s voice rose in wonder. “See?” She directed her flashlight at one spot on the wall. “There’s Africa, but it’s upside down. Putting north at the top of a map is just a convention, and whoever drew this chose the other way.”

Together, they turned slowly in a circle. As their twinned flashlight beams swept over the entire wall, the map was revealed in colors seemingly as bright as the day they’d been painted into the plaster. Brown and green for land, blue for water, with smooth arcs of black and red lines crossing oceans.

“A map of the world? From nine thousand years ago?” David swung his flashlight’s beam around to what was clearly the
Mediterranean, but a Mediterranean in which Sicily was a continuation of the Italian boot, instead of a separate island. Other parts of the continental outlines seemed equally crude and imperfectly detailed, though if the map were in fact that old, he couldn’t fault its lack of precision.

“It has to be,” Jess said. “There . . . what’s that?” The beam of her flashlight moved in, wavered, and David saw Western Europe, and its extension—England, still attached. And on the southwesternmost tip of that extension—

“Cornwall,” David said. Then he saw something more. A mark on their approximate location. Two intersecting blades topped by a circle. Like the cross that Jess had given him. She saw it, too.

“Our sign, David . . . This
was
built by our—”

David grabbed for her flashlight, switched it off along with his.

Footsteps.

Merrit shone his flashlight and aimed his gun along the damp and disintegrating passageway as J.R. trudged up behind him. “I need to see it,” Merrit said, suppressing his irritation. He’d underestimated the enemy in the South Pacific, not anticipating the MacCleirighs would pay his divers to betray him. Ironwood’s son wasn’t a competent associate, but at least he couldn’t be bribed.

J.R. swore, voice shaking with cold, as he pulled the sheet of paper from his Windbreaker.

Frank Beyoun had produced the printout before Merrit had permanently relieved him of the inconvenience of being arrested with the rest of the Red Room team. It showed the outline of one of Ironwood’s alien outposts over a close-up of the ground surface high above them now.

Merrit studied the map to confirm his plan. The dead-end passageway from the opening in the bluffs was the only easily accessible point of entry for the entire outpost complex. Weir and the MacClary girl weren’t armed, and there was nowhere they could hide. Their glowing lightsticks also marked their trail.

Merrit turned off his flashlight. This would be over very soon.

Then it wouldn’t matter how much noise J.R. made.

Lit only by the green chemical radiance of the lightstick in the passageway, David held up his hand to signal silence, listening.

“Two people,” he whispered. “First passage. Before the branch.”

“The lightsticks lead right to us,” Jess whispered back.

“Any idea who it is?”

“Ironwood? Who else would have a map of this place?”

David knew. He spoke softly, urgently. “Merrit’s here to kill us.”

Jess immediately unzipped the top of her coveralls and reached inside for a small pistol.

David was startled. “How’d you get that?” They’d carried nothing but a few quickly purchased clothes and toilet articles on their flight to England. There was no possible way that gun would have escaped detection.

Jess didn’t answer. She was already edging toward the open doorway. David stayed with her.

The sound of rocks scattering created an instant mental image for him of Merrit and his accomplice pushing through the large debris pile. They’d be here in a minute. David glanced behind him. The details of the wall map were being swallowed as the lightstick faded, sapped of its strength by the cold floor. “Jess,” he said as quietly as he could, “is there another way out of this chamber?”

She shook her head.

More stones fell. Running footsteps now. Past the rocks. No flashlights. Guided by the dying lightsticks. David had a sudden thought. “We could blind them.”

“For a second, maybe.”

“Enough to run down one of the other two corridors?”

“
If
there’re no other obstructions—they both go two hundred feet straight before they hit another branch. No cover.”

“You could shoot first.”

Jess nodded, and David realized she’d already planned to do that.

A foot scraped loudly; someone cursed. Loudly.

David knew the voice. “J.R.—Ironwood’s son,” he breathed.

“How close?”

He cocked his head, intent. “Twenty feet.”

“Ready at ten,” Jess whispered back. “Hold the flashlight as far to the side as you can.”

David held up the flashlight and silently began the count.
Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen . . .

Merrit stopped, his free hand raised to make J.R. hold position. He took a moment to attain situational awareness. He smiled as he saw the green lightstick lying on the floor. Ironwood’s treasure room would be ahead and to the right, and the tunnel—duplicating the one he’d swum through in the Pacific—would be on the left, directly opposite the entrance to that room.

He guessed—no, he
knew
—that his quarry was already in the chamber, and it would be wise to assume they’d heard him approaching. Or, to be more realistic, that they’d heard J.R.

Not that that would change anything. Weir was a civilian, and thus unskilled. The MacClary girl, though, had turned out to be more of a problem than expected. She’d survived J.R.’s ill-considered grab in Canada and fought back well in Weir’s lab.

Merrit considered the situation from her perspective. She had the same
map he did, so she’d know there was no escape route.
When we get close enough, she’ll leap out and start shooting,
he decided. Maybe, for the advantage of a second or two, she’d try to blind him with a flashlight as well.

Covering his left eye with the palm of his hand, Merrit told J.R. to do the same but not to move until ordered. Then he put his back against the wall and slowly and silently began to advance again, his Glock 9 mm leading the way.

Sun Tzu, a thousand years earlier, had summed it up best: In a situation such as this, with no possible escape, an adversary could only fight to the death.

Merrit asked for nothing more.

Ten . . .

David held his breath to improve his hearing.
No footsteps.
Either Merrit had stopped at about fifteen feet, or he was moving forward with exceptional care.

He lightly touched Jess’s arm, pointed to his ear, shook his head. She’d have to risk making the first move. They couldn’t wait for Merrit and J.R. to suddenly appear in the doorway.

Jess held up her left hand, two fingers and a thumb.

David nodded, understanding.
A silent count of three.

She folded in her thumb first, then a finger.

He tensed to lunge.

The first explosion struck the corridor.

The force of the blast blew Merrit and J.R. backward.

Merrit hit the stone floor hard, any sound of the impact lost in the deafening thunderclap that reverberated around and through him.

His first thought was that the girl had gone insane. That she was destroying her temple so Ironwood couldn’t claim it.

His second thought was for his gun. The Glock was no longer in his hand.

In the dark and dust-filled chamber, David and Jess scrambled to their feet. David held his hands to cup his ears, still ringing from the explosion. Jess held her hands over her mouth, trying to stifle coughs.

They swayed on their feet as another explosion shook the ancient chamber. Something metallic dropped to the floor from high overhead and, unseen in the darkness, clattered like a spinning coin.

“This is deliberate.” Jess’s voice was tight with fear. Not for her life, David knew, but for the loss of this place, this echo of her family.
My
family, too?
“But who? It can’t be Merrit. Ironwood wants this place as much as we do.”

“Who else knows about the temples?”

The thunder of a third explosion assailed them, its impact different from the other two. This time, not all its energy was channeled through the corridors. David began to build a sound image. Someone was blasting in, forcing a different opening.

Jess was horror-struck. “Take pictures, David! Fast as you can. We have to make a record!” Jess rushed back to the door, gun held ready.

David sprang into action. The first three sites had all been looted, without artifacts and ornamentation. But in this one, the ornamentation, the world map, was pristine. If the chamber didn’t survive tonight’s attack, then at least the information in it would.

He found their packs and pulled out a fresh camera. Standing with his back against the stone table, he began taking photos swiftly, moving the camera to the right a few degrees after every flash. He went all the way around the room, capturing the map.

“Ceiling!” Jess said.