The Chaos Code (20 page)

Venture and Harper examined the map, and discussed with Sven where best to start digging. As they spoke, another man arrived with a computer printout.

‘Ground penetrating radar,' Harper explained, taking the long, folded sheet of paper. ‘No time to get the most modern equipment, I'm afraid, but this will probably do.'

Matt had seen similar printouts before. It looked like a sonar trace from a submarine, and worked in much the same way. Radar was used to map out the rock and any other solid structure below the surface of the ground
that would reflect back radio waves – metal, different types of soil even… He left Venture and Harper with Sven as they plotted the results of the radar trace over the map.

‘You really think it's in there somewhere?' Matt asked Robin.

She was standing just inside the staked-out area, sheltering from the worst of the wind behind one of the enormous diggers. They had looked so small from the helicopter, which was itself perched like a metal fly on the clifftop a hundred yards away.

She shrugged, pulling her coat more tightly round her. ‘We'll know soon enough.'

‘You been on a dig before?' Matt asked her.

She looked at him with ill-disguised sympathy. ‘Just a few.'

They huddled into their coats and watched as Katherine directed the diggers into position, relaying instructions from Harper and Venture. Before long, the first chunk of grassy earth was bitten out of the ground and moved aside, revealing the rich, dark soil beneath.

Harper had transferred the data from the radar into his laptop and used it as the basis for a computer model of the mound. It showed densely packed material – rock or stone – forming two intersecting double-lines through the mound. A cross. They set the diggers to work at either end of one of the lines.

‘Why not just dig down in the middle?' Matt wondered. He was getting bored watching. The diggers seemed to have been at it for hours, peeling back layer after layer of topsoil. It was amazing how delicate the huge machines could be.

‘We want to preserve the context,' Venture told him. ‘We dig along, making a trench, then we can see the history and what else is going on. The radar image shows what looks like two parallel lines forming each of the arms of the cross. I'd like to know what they are.'

‘What do you think they might be?' Matt asked.

Venture's reply was interrupted by a shout from one of the men supervising the diggers. They ran to see what had been uncovered.

It was an opening – a rectangular hole leading into the darkness. Weathered stone walls on either side formed a corridor into the very heart of the mound. Venture smiled and nodded as if this was exactly what he had expected. Perhaps it was, Matt thought – it made sense. A way into the treasure house. There was a shout from the other side of the mound, and Matt guessed that the other digger had uncovered something very similar.

Sven brought torches. Harper inspected the tunnel opening, rubbing his hands together in delight. ‘I suggest we approach the problem from both ends,' he said. ‘Julius, perhaps you and Robin would like to explore this tunnel, while Sven would you take the other end?' he turned to Matt. ‘I assume you'd like to go with him,
and see what your father has been searching for so diligently, hmm?'

‘Of course,' Matt agreed. He felt both excited and nervous at what they might find inside. Would there be treasure, or just a short tunnel ending in a wall or earth?

‘What about you?' Robin asked Harper.

‘Oh I'll wait here for you to report back.'

‘You don't want to see for yourself?' Matt asked, astonished.

Harper was already sitting down on the raised edge of the mound and opening his laptop. ‘I'll see soon enough, and I should hate to miss the excitement by being in the wrong tunnel. If you find anything, come straight back and tell me. And after all, you're the ones who've done all the real work here.' He turned his attention to the screen. ‘I shall write up my account while events are still fresh in my mind, unpolluted by memory and emotion.'

‘You're sure?' Venture asked him.

‘Hurry back.'

Venture nodded. ‘See you in the middle,' he told Matt and Sven, and together with Robin he stepped into the tunnel.

Sven walked quickly to the other end of the mound. It was about fifty yards, and Matt had to almost run to keep up with the tall man. ‘They'll be there before us,' Matt said. Sven did not answer, but Matt could see his eyes were gleaming with excitement.

They reached the very similar opening on the other side, the other end of the tunnel. Sven switched on his torch and shone it into the darkness. The walls, floor and roof of the tunnel were all made of stone. But between the stones, Matt could see the thin, dark lines of earth trying to break through.

‘I think, from what Mr Harper says, that you deserve to go first,' Sven said.

Matt was surprised. ‘Thank you.' He wondered if Sven was willing to let him take the lead as the tunnel looked about ready to collapse under the weight of the soil and earth above. But he switched on his torch and stepped into the tunnel without protest. Immediately the air felt damp and stale, the fresh wind cut off. He had to stoop slightly to avoid bumping his head. Glancing back he could see that Sven was bent almost double.

‘Have you worked for Mr Harper for long?' Matt asked as he moved slowly forward into the gloom.

Sven laughed, the sound echoing in the tunnel. ‘Since his people called me at six o'clock this morning,' he said. ‘I am curator of a small museum in Dorpfelt, about fifty miles away as the blackbird flies.'

They made their way slowly forward, Matt shining his torch on the uneven ground ahead. The floor was lined with slabs, but they were old and uneven. In places, the stone had lifted and the ground seemed to be forcing its way through into the tunnel. The walls were the same – old and broken. Here and there stones had
fallen or crumbled away leaving debris on the floor and holes for earth to trickle through.

Matt ran his hand along the wall, to steady himself as he picked his way over a pile of debris. He could feel the old, damp texture beneath his fingers – indentations, flaking stone, and then, suddenly, a straight edge. Surprised, he stopped and shone his torch directly at the wall.

‘Look at this,' he breathed.

‘What is it?' Sven was shining his own torch at the same spot. At the indentation in the wall where a small cross had been carved out of the stonework. ‘There's another one here,' Sven said, shining the torch further along, ahead of them.

‘And another,' Matt realised, looking back towards Sven. ‘All along the wall.' He turned and examined the opposite side of the tunnel. ‘Both walls,' he realised. ‘Leading us onwards. Marking the way.'

The torchlight seemed to be swallowed up by blackness when Matt shone it ahead of them. As they moved forward again, he saw why. A whole section of the tunnel roof had collapsed. The passageway ahead of them was nearly filled with earth and debris, creating a huge mound, that reached almost to the remains of the ceiling.

‘We shall have to go back,' Sven said, disappointed.

Matt was not so sure. ‘There's space at the edge, we might be able to squeeze through. If it isn't too densely packed.'

‘You think so?' Sven sounded dubious.

‘Worth a try,' Matt told him. He shone his torch round the edge of the pile of debris, and could see the stone floor disappearing into the gloom on the other side of the obstruction. He turned the torch off and stuffed it into his pocket.

With only half the amount of light, the tunnel seemed to close in around him. Matt tried to push himself sideways through the narrow gap. Sven was right, there just wasn't enough room. But the gap got wider higher up. Matt reached his arms over the pile of stone and earth and felt for something on the other side, something to grab hold of so he could pull himself through.

It was strange, Matt thought as he stared up at the murky darkness of the collapsed roof – the hole in the tunnel ceiling was just about the same size as the space he was now trying to wriggle through. It looked like something had pushed its way through, forcing the ceiling and the earth behind it down into the space below. Had someone got there before them?

‘Careful!' Sven warned as more earth fell through the ruptured ceiling and slid down the pile.

‘It's OK,' Matt gasped, heaving himself up and into the gap. ‘It's not blocked for long. I can get through, then we can maybe shift some of this and make the hole wide enough for you.'

He was nearly there now. Emerging head first from the mass of dirt and debris into darkness. His body was
filling the gap and blocking out the light from Sven's torch. He could feel the grip of the earth round him. It seemed to tighten as the darkness deepened. Then with a last heave he was through, and was tumbling down the other side of the mound of earth.

There was a roaring in his ears – Sven shouting, the whole tunnel seeming to groan and move. Then dirt and darkness came crashing down over Matt. The roof was collapsing, what little support had been left for it was pulled away by Matt himself as he broke through the blockage. He could feel the earth and stone falling down around him, knocking him sideways. His nose and eyes were full of gritty blackness. He fumbled desperately for his torch, and managed at last to switch it on.

The beam of light was misty with falling dust and dirt. And behind Matt the tunnel was completely blocked. He could hear Sven's muffled voice from the other side of the blockage, shouting to him that he would get help and dig Matt out.

Matt sat on the cold, damp tunnel floor, shining the torch helplessly and hopelessly at the mass of debris clogging the passage behind him. All he could do was wait.

Or was it? Surely, if he kept going he would meet Venture and Robin coming the other way – he might even find the Treasure. Matt scrambled to his feet and set off quickly along the tunnel.

Only to find that there was another blockage further
along. One of the walls had fallen into and across the tunnel, blocking the way forward with huge, heavy chunks of stone.

The wind was blowing Katherine Feather's ice-blond hair round her face as she stood at the end of the tunnel. She was peering into the darkness. There was no sign now of Venture and his daughter. She waited patiently, listening for any sound, watching for any sign that they had found something.

Sitting on a lower part of the rising mound, Harper was still engrossed in his laptop. He was smiling thinly, oblivious to the cold wind, angling the screen so he could see it despite the bright sunlight.

There were two windows open on the screen. One showed a basic wire-frame model of the mound itself, with the information from the radar added in so that tunnels formed a cross through the middle. It was the second window where Harper was working. An image solidified slowly from its own wire skeleton – surfaces and textures gradually filling it out like a child's colouring. A dark, mottled rat-like creature revolving slowly inside the window. Its eyes glinted darkly.

Satisfied, Harper clicked on a control and the creature stopped turning. It stared back out of the screen at him. Harper's fingers traced across the touchpad and the pointer on the screen moved to another control. An
entry box opened and he typed in a number – 10. He hesitated, then added another 0 – making it 100. The box closed, and the window was suddenly full of the creatures, jostling and fighting for space, disappearing behind the edges of the window. They seemed to scratch at the glass of the screen, trying to get out. Screeching and shrieking erupted from the little speakers at the sides of the laptop, and Harper adjusted the volume.

Then he closed the window. It shrank back down to a small icon on the desktop. Slowly, carefully, Harper picked up the icon with the pointer and dragged it over to the wire-frame picture of the mound. The pointer, loaded with the icon, hovered for a moment over a point two-thirds of the way along a tunnel – a point where a black web of lines traced out an obstruction. Harper lifted his finger from the touchpad. And the icon tumbled into the tunnel.

It was the noise that Matt noticed first. A scratching, scraping sound.

‘Hello?' he called. ‘Is that you?' Had Robin and her father reached the other side of the cave-in? Were they trying to get through? ‘I'm here!' he shouted, shining the torch at the wall of fallen stone in the hope some of its light might penetrate to the other side for them to see.

The sound was getting louder, a high-pitched shrieking and squealing as well as the scratching. It seemed to
be coming from all around him. Matt swung the torch away from the wall. A shape caught in its beam – it hesitated, then darted into the blackness. Shadows moved and trembled all around him.

Something landed on Matt's shoulder. Instinctively he brushed it away, looking up in case the roof was about to fall. His hand had brushed against something cold and rough, like fallen earth. The torchlight seemed to be absorbed by the black of the roof – dark shadowy stone. It rippled and moved as the torchlight shone across it. As if it was alive.

And another shape detached itself from the ceiling and dropped onto Matt's shoulder. Caught full in Matt's torch beam, dark eyes gleaming, the shape stared back at him. A rat. Claws raked savagely at his face.

Matt shouted, thrashed at the thing on his shoulder, crawled back as more of them fell from the roof. They were landing all around him –
on
him. The scratching and shrieking got louder and louder. A black tide was flowing across the ground, clawing its way up his legs as he struggled back as quickly as he could.

The back of his head met something hard and gritty, and Matt turned and lashed out. The torch went flying, its light dancing crazily across the scene before landing with a thump. It went out. Darkness.

But Matt had already seen the wall of earth behind him, and the mass of creatures scurrying towards him. He was trapped.