The Lost Temple (41 page)

Grant almost dropped it in his amazement. “Over here,” he called. He polished it some more while the others ran over, working back the boundaries of the exposed patch of gold so that it spread across the face of the object. It was a cup, he saw, a beaker with a high rounded handle like a teacup, and pictures of deer and lions worked into the metal. He handed it to Reed. “How much is that worth?”

Reed took the cup with trembling hands, like a father holding his child for the first time. “I can’t imagine.”

Grant took Reed’s flashlight and moved the beam along the wall. The ridge of piled-up treasure ran unbroken all round the room. Now that he knew what he was looking at, he could make out individual shapes among the debris: plates and bowls, cups, crowns, statues and swords. He tried to imagine how it would look all polished up, a hoard of heathen gold. “There must be half a ton of this.”

“Forget that.” Jackson took the flashlight back from Reed and aimed it at the walls, moving it in tense, erratic jerks. “We don’t have the time. Where’s the goddamn shield?”

They scanned the chamber. Unlike the shrine on Lemnos, there was no altar, no ring of gas flames, no hole in the floor for an initiate to crawl through. The circular walls continued smooth and unbroken. Except . . .

“There.” On the far side of the room a recessed door interrupted
the curve of the wall. They hurried over. Corroded metal pins stuck out of the sides of the frame, but the door they had once hinged had crumbled away long ago. Jackson beamed the flashlight through the aperture. Grant glimpsed a small chamber with elaborately carved walls; then the view was blocked out as Jackson stepped through the doorway.

“
Careful
.” Reed grabbed Jackson’s sleeve and pulled him back. He pointed to the ground. Just inside the door, right at Jackson’s feet, a shallow pit about three feet deep yawned in the floor. Jackson shone the flashlight in—and recoiled with a sharp hiss of breath. At the bottom of the pit, skeletal prongs of white bone protruded from the patina of dust and dirt that caked the floor.

“Those aren’t—human?” Even Jackson’s normally bullet-proof confidence sounded shaken.

Reed took the torch and shone it around the pit. “I think it’s a bull.” The beam picked out a dull brown horn sticking up in the corner. “It must have been sacrificed when they dedicated the temple. In Greek hero cult a pit usually fulfilled the function of an altar.”

“How did they get the bull down the entrance shaft?” Grant wondered.

The three men skirted the pit and edged into the chamber. It was a small room, but almost every inch of its walls was covered with carvings: hunts, sacrifices, battles—even after three thousand years the life in the stone had lost none of its savage intensity. In the far wall two niches flanked a huge sculpted roundel that seemed to bulge out of the stone. Inside them . . .

“The armor!” With a cry of delight Reed ran to the alcove and lifted out the object inside. He held it above his head as if he was about to crown himself. In that position it was easy to see that it was, or had been, a helmet. The dome tapered to a strange, key-shaped spike, while rounded cheek pieces projected down like rabbit ears. Grant, no historian, thought it looked more like Kaiser Bill’s Prussian cavalry helmet than the angular, slit-faced headpieces he had always imagined in ancient Greece.

“And the greaves.” Reed crossed to the other alcove and pulled out two lumps of metal that looked like hollowed-out split logs. “These would have protected his legs.
Achilles’
legs,” he added in absolute wonder.

“Maybe if he’d worn them backward he could have protected his heel.”

“But where’s the goddamn shield?” With the flame from Grant’s lighter, and Jackson’s flashlight, there was plenty of light to see by in the small room. Apart from the two pieces of armor, and the bones in the pit, it was empty.

“Maybe in the pit?”

Jackson jumped down and began scraping away the grime that caked the floor with an ox bone. Grant scanned the walls, looking for a chink or crevice that might betray a hidden door or secret chamber. Nothing. Inevitably, his eyes returned to the massive round carving between the two alcoves. The workmanship on it was much finer than the rest of the room. The figures were smaller and the designs seemed more intricate—though it was hard to tell with all the black age that covered them. In fact, the closer he looked, the more he realized it had a different texture to the surrounding walls.

“That’s not a carving.”

He stood in front of it. That close to, he could see each individual figure: men and women, shepherds and plowmen, lawyers and merchants, soldiers and gods—a microcosm of the world. He rubbed it with his arm and felt cold metal through the sleeve of his shirt. It came away black—but on the surface in front of him a golden smear illuminated the dirty metal.

No one spoke. Jackson scrambled out of the pit, opened his pocket knife and worked the blade into the thin crack between the shield and the surrounding stone. It fitted its carved socket almost perfectly, but gradually—carefully—he and Grant managed to prise it free. They lowered it to the floor and leaned it up against the wall—even with two of them its weight was immense. Then they stepped away, almost pushed back by its power, and stared at the shield of Achilles.

Is that it?”

After so much effort, so much struggle, there was something inadequate about finally seeing the shield. It was perfectly round, though chewed at the edges, about three feet across and curved like a lens. Under the coat of grime the embossed designs gave its surface a mottled, almost organic look, like tree bark. Grant wondered if it had ever been used in battle.

“How are we going to get it out of here? We won’t fit it through that shaft we came down.”

Jackson stared at him, then back at the shield. “We have to. It must have come down there once upon a time, right?”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t move it.”

“
What
?” Jackson swung round toward Reed. “Have you been asleep in class for the last three weeks? We didn’t come here just to prove a theory, snap some pictures for the folks back home and go. The whole reason we’re here is to take this thing back to get the metal out of it.”

“And Marina,” Grant reminded him.

Jackson looked confused for a second. “Right—Marina.” He grasped the shield in both hands and strained to lift it. Half carrying, half dragging, he moved toward the door.

“
In modern ages not the strongest swain, could heave the
unwieldy burden from the plain
,” Reed murmured. He looked at Grant. “Do you have your pistol with you?”

Grant pulled out the Webley and showed it to Reed. “Why?”

“If Mr. Jackson takes another step, please shoot him.”

Grant couldn’t believe he’d heard him right. “Excuse me.”

“Ask him what he intends to do with the metal from the shield—if we manage to get it out of here.”

Jackson glared at them with a look of pure fury. “Are you crazy? Put that gun down.”

The Webley wavered in Grant’s hand. “What the hell are you on about, Professor?”

“He’s wasting time,” hissed Jackson. “He’s in league with the Russians.”

Reed looked calmly between the two of them. “This mysterious Element 61 has a name now, I believe. They called it
Prometheum
.”

“How do you know that?” Jackson demanded. “It’s classified.”

“You shouldn’t leave your ciphered messages lying around your hotel room. Have you come across Prometheus, Grant? He was a Titan; he stole fire from heaven and put it in the hands of men.”

Grant stared at Reed, then at Jackson. His legs were hidden behind the shield and his face was in shadow. “Are you saying . . .”

A noise outside the door interrupted him. Forgetting Jackson, Grant turned and ran back into the main chamber. It was much brighter than before—a mustard-yellow light filled the dome, illuminating the painted warriors and the treasure at their feet. Grant barely noticed them.

She was standing a few feet in front of the entrance, holding up the lantern so he could see her face. It was scratched and stained with mud; a purple bruise ringed her right eye where they must have hit her and her hair was tangled. She still wore the same clothes he had last seen her in: a white blouse and a black skirt that hugged her hips, now torn and filthy.

“Marina!” He ran toward her. She lifted her head and gave a tired smile—but there was no joy in it.

“Halt there.”

The voice, harsh and cold, rang out of the passage behind her. Halfway across the room Grant stopped as if he’d been kicked in the guts.

“Drop your guns. Drop them or I will terminate her now.”

A tall, lean figure stepped through the doorway. His boots rang on the stone floor. He wore a green uniform with the gold bars of a full colonel on the epaulettes. His cheeks were hollow, his thin gray hair slicked back to his skull, his one eye sunk in darkness. A triangular black patch covered the other. In his arms he cradled a tommy-gun, which he aimed at Marina. “Put them down,” he said, jerking the gun. “You and the American.”

“Forget it,” said Jackson. “She’s one of them.”

Grant ignored him. He looked at Marina and saw the defiance in her eyes.

“You know what we said in the war,” she said in Greek. “No compromises; no sentiments.”

“That was our war. This . . .” Grant was numb. His muscles refused to move. More men ran down behind Kurchosov and fanned out around the room—too many, now. All of them carried guns.

“OK,” Grant said flatly. “You win.” He bent down and laid the Webley on the floor.

Behind him Jackson was still hesitating. Kurchosov swung the gun round and pointed it straight at him. “I will count to three, Mr. Jackson. Then I will kill you.
Odeen
. . .
dva
. . .”

Grant heard the Colt clatter on to the ground.

He looked back—and paused. At the back of the chamber he could see someone moving in the darkness to the right of the door. He stared in disbelief. “Muir?”

Muir stepped out of the shadows. An unpleasant leer played across his face. He took out a cigarette and lit it. “If you’re waiting for me to rescue you, you’re in for a nasty fucking disappointment.”

Kurchosov turned to Muir and shook his hand. “Well done, Comrade. Comrade Stalin will be a happy man.”

“We’ll break out the Beluga when we’ve got the shield in Moscow.”

“Christ, Muir.” Jackson ground his heel against the floor. “There’s a word for men like you.”

Muir gave a wicked grin. “I always was a hopeless romantic.”

“Do you have any idea what they’re going to do with that shield?”

“Do with it? Why the hell do you think we went to all this fucking trouble?”

Muir turned as another man came striding out of the passage. As he stepped into the lamplight, Grant recognized Belzig’s stocky frame and straw-blond hair. He seemed to be wearing the same brown suit he had worn that day at the library in Athens. But then, he was a prisoner too, Grant supposed.

“Is it here?” Even his ugly voice was touched with a childlike awe as he stared around the great domed chamber. “
Mein Gott, ist das schön
. Have you found the shield?”

“It’s in there.” Muir pointed to the side chamber. Between them the Russian, the German and the Scot seemed to have settled on English as their common language. “Mind your step when you go in.”

Belzig hurried across, snatching the lamp from Marina’s hand as he ran past. He ducked under the doorway. The gasp of astonishment from inside the little chamber echoed around the dome.

“That’s not all.” Muir took a lamp from one of the Russian soldiers and beamed it at the black hoard on the floor. He picked up a cup and tossed it in his hands. “It may look like junk, but there’s more gold in this room than in the Bank of England. A nice bonus for the party.”

“Indeed. It will take much time to remove it. The Americans made us pay heavily to take the valley.”

“Did any of them survive?”

Kurchosov gave a dismissive twitch of his head. “Not
even those who surrendered.” He looked back to the center of the room where Grant, Marina, Jackson and Reed stood huddled together. “What about our prisoners?”

Muir shrugged. “They’ve all worked for British Intelligence—even the professor. Let the interrogators at the Lubyanka sink their teeth into them when we get to Moscow, find out what they know.”

Kurchosov pursed his lips, then nodded. “
Da
. But first the shield.” He snapped something in Russian; two of his men put down their guns and ran across to the side chamber. Grant eyed up the guns. Too far away.

The men returned, carrying the shield between them. Belzig trailed behind. They held it up like a sporting trophy for Kurchosov to inspect.

“So this was the shield of the god Achilles. The first hero of the great war of East and West. Only now it is the East who have won.” He stroked his fingertips over the metal, then pulled them away as if he’d been burned. He glanced at Muir. “Is it safe?”

“God knows.” He exhaled, watching the smoke curl up off the shield. “You’ll need to test it in the laboratory.”

“Then we must get it out of here.”

The soldiers fetched two lead-lined blankets. They sandwiched the shield between them and trussed it up with ropes, then carried it out of the door into the passage beyond. Grant watched it go with indifference; beside him Jackson trembled with anger.

“Put the prisoners away until we are ready.”

The remaining guards herded their four prisoners toward the side chamber, making sure to keep well back. They were almost there when a commotion by the main door paused them. They all looked round. Belzig and the two soldiers had returned. They still had the shield.

“It does not fit through the hole,” Belzig explained.

Anger flashed on Kurchosov’s face. “It must. How else could it come in otherwise?”

Belzig took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Perhaps there was another entrance. Perhaps
they have built the temple round the shield, so that no one can take it away. But it does not go out now.”