The Chaos Code (21 page)

Without thinking, Matt was lashing out again, thumping at anywhere on his body he felt – or thought he felt – one of the creatures. He expected them to be soft, oily, warm … But they were hard and brittle, rough and gritty like the earth piled behind him. And cold as stone. He could feel their sharp, brittle claws scraping through his trousers, tearing at his coat. Their teeth nipped at his ears and face as he desperately fought and thumped and ripped them off him. The sound was unearthly – echoing and reverberating in the confined space. No longer the high-pitched shriek of the creatures, but Matt's own shouts and cries for help and the thumping of his heart.

Without the light, he could only imagine where the animals were, how many were attacking him. He was breathing in short, sharp, panicked gasps as the blackness itself seemed to take on texture and become a living thing. He could feel it pressing down on him. Dragging him into oblivion.

‘Matt is trapped,' Sven gasped. ‘There was a fall – the roof …' He paused to get his breath back.

Harper glanced up. ‘But he is all right?'

Sven nodded. ‘We need to get him out.'

‘We can reach him from other end of the tunnel, I'm sure,' Harper said. He was smiling as he returned his attention to his computer.

‘I'm afraid not.' It was Venture's voice, and Harper looked up again, surprised.

Venture and his daughter were standing with Katherine Feather. Their faces, hands and clothes were dusted with mud and earth.

‘Problem?' Harper asked.

‘The tunnel's blocked,' Robin said. ‘We went as far as we could, but there's no way through. It's completely collapsed.'

‘We can get through from my end,' Sven said. ‘We just need a couple of shovels.'

‘Come on then,' Venture said.

Harper tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the area below his keyboard. Then he closed down the program he was running, and snapped the lid shut. ‘The poor boy must be terrified,' he said. ‘We must help him, of course.'

Matt found the torch by accident – rolling over it as he desperately thrashed and crawled trying to get away from the attacking creatures. He scooped it up, thumbing the switch without much hope. Incredibly, the torch wasn't broken. It must have just switched off when it hit the ground.

A beam of yellow light shot out, illuminating the passageway, and the dark mottled shapes of the creatures as they hurled themselves out of the darkness at Matt like a black wave. He gave a shriek of terror and swung the torch, smashing it into one of the dark shapes. The creature exploded in a shower of dry fragments.

But Matt didn't stop to think about that, didn't wait
to see the dry earth that fell to the ground tremble and gather itself back into a new, identical creature – stone-black eyes glinting malevolently. He was tearing at the mass of earth and stone blocking the tunnel. He couldn't go back, but he could try to dig his way forward, further into the mound.

Coughing and choking and gasping, tears streaming down his frightened face, he had nothing to lose. He pulled desperately at the rubble, scraping away the smaller stones, leaping out of the way of the larger ones that fell down after them. He jammed the torch under his armpit so he could use both hands to rip away the obstruction.

With a scraping roar, the whole bank of debris collapsed. A falling lump of stone caught Matt on the shoulder and knocked him backwards. He stumbled away, stamping one of the creatures to powder, not noticing. The tunnel was full of dust like an eerie mist. He almost dropped the torch again. It slipped from under his arm and he scrabbled to catch it. As it fell, the light cut through the opening in the rock wall ahead of Matt, showing him the hole that he had cleared. A hole large enough to climb through.

He hurled himself towards it and scrambled through into the tunnel beyond.

On the other side, he waited only long enough to realise that the rat-like creatures were not following him. He didn't stop to wonder why, he just ran. Head down,
he charged along the tunnel, the torchlight swaying drunkenly over the floor and walls.

Behind him, the small, shadowy creatures fell back into the darkness from which they had come. Scattered across the tunnel floor. Dirt and earth and mud and sand…

The rock-fall was not as deep as it looked and, with help from Sven, Venture managed to shovel the earth aside quite quickly. As soon as there was room, Robin was past them and pushing through the gap.

‘Matt? Matt are you all right?'

She turned to take the torch that Sven held through the gap for her. The ground was covered with small piles of earth, like mole hills, but otherwise the tunnel ahead seemed empty. She reached the second rock-fall, and like Matt before her, climbed over the fallen lumps of stone from the roof.

‘Here!' a voice called from ahead in answer to her increasingly worried shouts.

Further on, the tunnel widened out into a large circular chamber with a domed roof. The floor sloped gently down into the middle of the chamber, which must reach almost to the top of the inside of the mound.

The floor was grey with the dirt of ages, but even so Robin could see that some of the stones were black amongst the light grey that was used everywhere else.

A pattern, inlaid in the floor – a large Maltese Cross with the centre directly under the middle of the dome.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the chamber was Matt. He looked pale under the dirt that smeared his face and his clothes were torn and caked with mud. There were trails down his face where tears had run, but now he was grinning in the light from the torch resting in his lap.

‘I think this is it,' he said. His voice was trembling, and Robin could sense it was from fear as much as excitement. ‘Here, help me.'

The centre of the cross, the tips of the four inward-pointing triangles that formed the pattern, was set into a single circular stone. Like a tile it rested in the middle of the floor, about half a metre in diameter. Matt had his fingers in the narrow crack between the circular shape and the stone next to it. He had managed to lift it just slightly.

Putting down her torch, angling it so she could see what they were doing, Robin reached down to help. The stone was cold and unyielding, but together they managed to inch it slowly upwards. At last, there was darkness beneath as the stone lifted away to reveal a dark circular well.

Robin picked up her torch. She was only vaguely aware of her father and Sven arriving beside them. Barely noticed Atticus Harper and Katherine Feather entering the chamber.

Like Matt, she was looking down into the hole they had revealed. Staring at the cracked rolls of parchment, the leather-bound volumes and the glint and gleam of metal.

There was nowhere on the island for Matt to clean himself up, so he had to wait until they were back in Copenhagen. He was cut and bruised, but elated at finding the Treasure. However, just as Robin had warned him, there was no sign of Dad – or even any indication that he had ever been there. Harper gave instructions that the site was to be preserved and left it to Katherine to organise the purchase of the land from the farmer who actually owned it.

‘Buy the whole island if you have to,' he said, and gave her the names of three Danish officials and politicians she could talk to if there was a problem.

Nothing was touched except for the artefacts and relics and documents that Matt and Robin had uncovered in the central chamber. These were carefully crated up and put on the helicopter to return with Harper and the others to the Waterfall Pyramid. Harper brushed aside the objections of both Venture and Sven, both of
whom argued that everything should be left intact and
in situ
.

‘We have to know if this is indeed the Treasure of St John,' Harper insisted. ‘And if it is, then we need to take it into safe keeping. Who knows what might happen to it otherwise – we're not the only people interested in it you know. But we are the most trustworthy.'

Venture said nothing, and Sven was silenced with some quiet words from Katherine. Matt did not hear what she said, but he could guess – a grant for his museum, a pay-off of some sort. It seemed to be how Harper did business. To Harper, everything
was
business.

At Copenhagen airport, money also greased the wheels. But Matt did not object – Harper had organised rooms at a luxury airport hotel and Matt was at last able to soak off the mud and dirt in a hot, deep bath. His whole body stung like hell from thousands of tiny scratches. They had three hours before Harper's plane would be leaving for Rio, and their luggage had been sent over from the hotel. Matt spent over half the time just lying in the bath, occasionally topping it up with hot water, and gradually feeling less of the pain. He tried not to think about how he had come by the scratches and bruises. It was over now, that was what mattered. Just … rats. But a part of his mind couldn't help but wonder if that was really what they were – where had they come from? Where had they gone?

When a car arrived and took him back to the runway,
Matt wasn't surprised to find that Harper himself, together with both Venture and Robin, did not seem to have left the plane at all.

‘There's a shower,' Robin pointed out as they strapped in for take-off. ‘Everything we need. Why bother with the hotel.'

‘Oh wish I'd thought of that,' Matt said sarcastically.

‘Well, you're a special case,' she told him.

‘Thanks a bunch.'

‘I mean, you really
did
need a bath.'

On the flight, Matt tried to tell Robin about the creatures in the tunnel. It was the first chance he'd had to talk to her without other people around, but the further Matt got with his story, the more improbable it seemed. Was he starting to imagine things, he wondered? Was it some sort of nervous problem brought on by the strain of the last few days?

‘Rats?' she said incredulously. ‘I didn't see any rats.'

‘No, well, they were there. Hundreds …' He sighed. ‘A lot of them.'

‘Something must have scared them off,' Robin said. From the way she said it, Matt guessed that she didn't believe him.

‘You, probably,' Matt grumbled.

‘Thanks a bunch,' she said, echoing his earlier tone.

The crate was standing in the main cabin, and it wasn't long before Harper had it opened and together with
Venture began to unpack the artefacts onto the conference table.

Robin, Matt and Katherine helped. Matt could feel the age of the leather-bound books as he lifted them out of the packing and placed them carefully alongside rolls of parchment. The paper was thick and dry and brittle. The writing was faded and none of it was in English.

‘Just a fraction of what was there in Constantinople,' Venture said sadly. ‘It seems they managed to save even less than we thought.'

‘Or else Sivel didn't retrieve it all,' Robin suggested.

Harper, strangely, did not seem interested in the papers and parchments and books. Almost at once he had picked up one single artefact, ignoring jewelled crucifixes, bracelets, swords and daggers, and even gold and silver coins. He sat alone on a large sofa and examined a disc that looked like it was made of terracotta.

The others continued to sort through the materials on the table, except for Venture. He was standing motionless close to Harper, watching him intently through narrowed eyes. He was so still and stern that seeing him made Matt shiver.

‘What have you got there?' Venture asked after he had been watching for a while.

Harper did not look up. ‘I wonder,' he said. ‘Any ideas?' He held the disc out and Venture took it.

Venture cradled it carefully in his palm as he examined it closely. ‘It's just a bit of pottery,' he said in a level
voice. ‘Anyone else?' He handed the disc to the nearest person, as if deciding it was of no value or interest at all.

The nearest person happened to be Matt. He took it, turning it over in his hands, feeling the weight … For a moment, just a second, he imagined himself back in Dad's study. Something about the disc was so familiar. The size, the shape, the weight … Then he remembered the box he had found in Venture's house when he'd been sent to get a statue. A wooden box containing a metal disc …

Matt was aware that Venture was watching him closely, as if he had guessed what Matt was thinking. The slightest shake of the head – almost imperceptible. The man's expression was still set and stern. Matt shrugged and handed the disc to Katherine Feather.

‘I've never seen anything like it,' he said.

The gentle motion of the plane eventually lulled Matt to sleep. He dozed, and woke and dozed again. Sometimes when he woke, Robin was sitting beside him, sometimes he was alone. Snatches of reality in between dreams of darkness.

He was aware of Katherine stretched out cat-like and asleep on one of the sofas. None of the others seemed to sleep at all. Harper in particular was wired – examining the strange disc through a magnifying glass, going through the parchments and papers, talking earnestly and urgently to Venture.

An hour out from Rio, Matt woke to find Robin once more in the adjacent seat. Her father was beside her, crouched down so they were on the same level to talk.

‘I've told him it's not my field,' Venture was saying. ‘But he's becoming worryingly insistent. Just be careful.'

Robin nodded, and Matt wondered what they were talking about.

Venture was looking across at Matt now, seeing that he was awake. ‘You need to be careful too,' he said.

‘What of?'

‘Of Harper. He wants me to help him translate the symbols on that disc.'

‘And you can't?'

‘I won't,' Venture said softly. ‘He may ask Robin. He may even ask you. Be careful how you reply. That disc is
unique
.'

Matt frowned, remembering the very similar disc he knew Venture had in his possession. ‘But, surely –'