Seven Ancient Wonders (18 page)

Wizard stared in wonder at the sight. So did the others.

Through sheer force of will, Imhotep VI had indeed constructed a
ceiling
over the natural inlet—turning it into a most unique cavern.

It wasn’t wide, maybe twenty metres on average, fifty at the widest. But it was long, superlong. Now lit by many flares, it was revealed to be a narrow twisting chasm that stretched away into darkness for several hundred metres.

Its side walls were sheer and vertical, plunging into the water. Spanning the upper heights of these walls, however, were massive beams of granite—each the size of a California Redwood—laid horizontally side-by-side across the width of the inlet, resting in perfectly fitted notches dug just below ground level.

At some time in the distant past, this granite ceiling had been covered over with sand, concealing the entire inlet.

Behind West’s team stood the great wall that sealed the inlet off from the sea. Four hundred feet tall, it was a colossal structure, strong and proud, and on this side its giant granite bricks had not been camouflaged to match the coastline. It looked like a massive brick wall.

Of immediate importance to West and his team, however, was what lay behind this wall.

The roofed chasm.

Cut into the sheer cliffs on either side of the chasm’s central waterway were a pair of narrow ledge-like paths.

The two paths ran in identical manner on either side of the twisting, bending chasm—perfect mirror images of each other. They variously rose to dizzying heights as long bending stairways or
descended below the waterline; they even delved momentarily into the walls themselves before emerging again further on. At many points along the way, the paths and staircases had crumbled, leaving voids to be jumped.

The waterway itself was also deadly. Fed by the surging tide outside, small whirlpools dotted its length, ready to suck down the unwary adventurer who fell in, while two lines of tooth-like boulders blocked the way for any kind of boat.

Spanning the watercourse was a beautiful multi-arched aqueduct bridge built in the Carthaginian style, but sadly it was horribly broken in the middle.

As a final touch, vents in the walls spewed forth plumes of steam, casting an ominous haze over the entire scene.

Wizard raised a pair of night-vision binoculars to his eyes and peered down the length of the great chasm.

The world went luminescent green.

In deep shadow at the far end of the cavern, only partially visible beyond its twists and turns, he saw a structure. It was clearly huge, a fortress of some kind, with two high-spired towers and a great arched entrance, but because of the bends in the chasm and the haze, he couldn’t see it in its entirety.

‘Hamilcar’s Refuge,’ he breathed. ‘Untouched for over 2,000 years.’

‘Maybe not,’ West said. ‘Look over there.’

Wizard did, and his jaw dropped.

‘My goodness . . .’

There, wrecked against some rocks in the middle of the waterway, lying half-in half-out of the water, was the great rusted hulk of a World War II–era submarine.

Emblazoned on its conning tower, corroded by time and salt, were the Nazi swastika and the gigantic number: ‘
U-342
’.

‘It’s a Nazi U-boat . . .’ Big Ears breathed.

Zoe said, ‘Hessler and Koenig. . . ’

‘Probably,’ Wizard agreed.

‘Who?’ Big Ears asked.

‘The famous Nazi archaeological team: Herman Hessler and Hans Koenig. They were experts on the Capstone, and also founding members of the Nazi Party, so they were buddies of Hitler himself. In fact, with Hitler’s blessing, they commanded a top secret scientific expedition to North Africa in 1941, accompanied by Rommel’s Afrika Korps.’

Big Ears said, ‘Let me guess, they were after the Capstone, they disappeared and were never heard from again?’

‘Yes and no,’ Zoe answered. ‘Yes, they were after the Capstone, and yes, Hessler never returned, but Koenig did, only to be caught by the British when he arrived, on foot, in Tobruk, staggering out of the desert, starving and almost dead from thirst. I believe he was ultimately handed over to the Americans, who asked to interrogate him. Koenig would ultimately be taken back to the States with a bunch of other German scientists, where I believe he still lives.’

West turned to Wizard. ‘How far behind us is Kallis?’

‘Five minutes at the most,’ Wizard said. ‘Probably less.’

‘Then we have to get cracking. Sorry, Zoe, but you’ll have to continue the history lesson on the way. Come on, people. Dump your bigger scuba tanks, but keep your pony bottles and your masks—we might need them.’ A pony bottle was a small handheld scuba tank with a mouthpiece. ‘Wizard, fire up a Warbler or two.’

The First Staircase (Ascending)

West and his team took the left-hand cliff-path.

It quickly became a staircase that rose and twisted up the left-hand wall like a slithering snake. After a minute of climbing, West was 80 feet above the swirling waterway below.

At two points along the ascending stone staircase there were four-foot gaps that preceded stepping-stone-like ledges.

And facing onto those ledges were wall-holes just like the one that Fuzzy had neutralised at the base of the quarry in Sudan.

West didn’t know what deadly fluid these wall-holes spewed forth, for the Nazis had—very conveniently—neutralised them long ago, riveting sheets of plate steel over the holes, then laying steel catwalk-gangways over the gaps in the stairs.

West danced across the first catwalk-bridge and past the sealed wall-hole.

Whump!

A great weight of some unseen liquid banged against the other side of the steel plate, trying to burst its way through. But the plate held and West and his team ran by it.

No sooner were they past the second plugged-up wall-hole than—

Zing-smack!

A bullet sizzled past their heads and ricocheted off the wall above them.

Everyone spun.

To see a member of Kallis’s CIEF team hovering in the water at the base of the great wall, his Colt rifle raised and aimed.

The CIEF man let fly with a spray on full auto.

But Wizard had initiated a Warbler in Big Ears’s backpack and the bullets fanned outward, away from the fleeing group.

More CIEF men surfaced at the base of the false wall—until there were three, six, ten, twelve of them gathered there.

West saw them.

And once all his people were past the two gaps in the rising
staircase, he jimmied the two Nazi gangways free, sending them free-falling into the water 80 feet below. Then he used his X-bar like a crowbar to prise off the Nazi plate covering the second wall-hole. The plate came free, exposing the hole.

Then West took off after the others.

The Crucifixes

Up they ran, following the narrow winding staircase that hugged the left-hand cliff.

About 150 feet up, they came to a wider void in the stairs, about twenty feet across.

Some handholds had been gouged out of the cliff-face, allowing one to climb sideways across the void, resting one’s feet on a two-inch-wide mini-ledge.

Strange X-shaped hollows—each the size of a man—lined the wall of the void, curiously in sync with the handholds.

‘Crucifixes,’ Wizard said as West caught up. ‘Nasty. Another of Imhotep VI’s favourites.’

‘No choice then. I’ll go up and over,’ West said.

Within seconds, he was free-climbing up the cliff-face, gripping cracks in its surface with only his fingertips, crossing it sideways above the trap-laden void.

As he climbed, Wizard peered anxiously at the pursuing CIEF force. They were themselves trying to negotiate the two stepping-stone ledges fifty yards below.

West landed on the other side, and quickly strung a rope—with a flying fox attached to it—across the void.

The CIEF team got past the first stepping-stone ledge.

West pulled the others across the void on the flying fox. First Lily, then Zoe, Big Ears and Wizard.

One of the Delta men leapt onto the second stepping-stone ledge—and a gush of superheated
mud
came blasting out of the now-exposed wall-hole there and enveloped him.

The mud was a deep dark brown, thick, viscous and heavy. It was volcanic mud. It seared the skin from the man’s body in an instant before its immense weight hurled him down to the water 80 feet below.

Wizard’s eyes boggled. ‘Oh my. . . ’

The remaining CIEF men were more cautious, and they skirted the wall-hole carefully.

In the meantime, Stretch and—last of all—Pooh Bear were hauled across the wider void on the flying fox.

No sooner had Pooh Bear’s feet touched solid ground than the first member of the pursuing CIEF team arrived at the other side of the void, only twenty feet away!

West immediately cut his team’s rope, letting it fall into the abyss, and took off around the next bend.

The first CIEF man, energised by how close he was to his enemy, immediately set about using the handholds gouged into the wall of the void.

It happened when his hands hit the second and third handholds.

Like slithering tentacles, two bronze manacles came springing out of the wall and clasped tightly around his wrists.

Then, a great man-sized bronze cross
fell out
of the X-shaped recess in the wall,
right in front of
the hapless CIEF man.

And the operation of the crucifix trap suddenly became apparent to the CIEF trooper: the manacles were attached to the big heavy cross and he was now held tight by them.

He shrieked as the cross tipped out of its recess and fell 150 feet straight down the sheer cliff-face, plunging into the water at the bottom with a gigantic splash. . . 

. . . where it sank, taking the CIEF man with it.

He screamed the whole time, right up to the point where the weight of the cross took him under.

West and his team ran.

The Sinkhole Cave

It was probably the first time in history someone could claim to have been
helped
by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, but it was largely the Nazis’ bridge-building efforts from 60 years previously that kept West and his team ahead of Kallis’s men.

At the next bend in the chasm, halfway up the high vertical wall, the ledge-path bored
into
the cliff-face, cutting the corner.

The short tunnel there took them to a square diorite-walled sinkhole cave, 20 feet across and 30 feet deep. Steaming, bubbling volcanic mud—heated by a subterranean thermal source—filled the entire base of the sinkhole. The tunnel continued on the opposite side of the cave.

But the Nazis had once again bridged this gap—so West’s crew ran across the bridge, then promptly kicked it into the sinkhole behind them.

The Second Staircase (Descending)

They emerged on the other side of the bend—where they fired some new flares—and beheld a steep staircase that plunged down the curving wall of the chasm before them, hugging it all the way down to the water at its base.

Indeed, the staircase seemed to continue
into
the water . . . right into the mouth of a swirling whirlpool.