“An elevator to what?” inquired Marie. “How do you make it go back down?”
“I’m betting it’s as simple as moving the lion statues onto the trigger tiles.” He moved to test this theory.
“You didn’t answer my first question,” she complained. “Where does it go?”
He tried to answer in between grunts of exertion as he moved the statues. “To our mysterious tunnel. Whoever built this made it big enough to handle a truck. My guess is that it was supposed to be some kind of bunker; a last redoubt, designed to hide the remnants of the high command, along with a representative number of vehicles and tanks, until the immediate threat had passed.”
“We’re more than a kilometer from the temple ruin. Are you saying the tunnel is that extensive?”
“I guess it would have to be.” He gave the last remaining lion a final push, and as the legs of the sculpted feline came to rest on the stone, the supporting slab began to sink. At the same time, the pool deck fell away, sliding back down to its original position. The pedestals for the water buffalo statues also receded into the pool deck, but stopped as soon as they were flush with the mosaic surface. The pool bottom kept going.
In the beam of the MagLite, Kismet could distinguish the catch basins in the walls to which the pool water had been shunted. Doubtless, the architect had designed the pool to be emptied or refilled on a moment’s notice. He found himself once more in awe of the engineering achievement.
The descent of the surreptitious elevator continued unchecked, dropping to a depth of ten fathoms—nearly twenty meters—into the darkness below. The shaft had been reinforced with concrete, maintaining the illusion of a swimming pool, albeit one that was ridiculously deep. When it finally stopped, Kismet could not tell if there was a means of continuing on.
He walked back to stand below Marie on the balcony. “I’m going to play with this for a minute to see if I can bring it back up. Go get Pierre and tell him what we found.”
“You’re not thinking of going in tonight, are you?”
“Why not? It’s time something went our way for a change.” As she turned away, he remembered one more thing. “And bring a rope!”
Marie hastened away, oblivious to the human form concealed in the shadows that had listened to every word of their conversation.
***
Saeed and his brother had remained concealed until well after the fall of night, long after Kismet and the others had withdrawn from the temple site. The hasty retreat was disturbing, for while he knew that the UNESCO team would find nothing of consequence in the ruins, he had expected them to invest several days, perhaps even weeks, before admitting defeat. The swiftness with which they concluded their operation made him wonder what Kismet had discovered, but he dared not contact his informant for fear of exposing her presence. So, he and Farid waited in the sweltering heat as the sun finished its journey across the sky.
They had only begun the trek back to Farid’s vehicle when the satellite phone receiver trilled, signaling the call he had been so eagerly awaiting. He answered immediately. “Yes?”
“Our mutual friend is very efficient. He has discovered untapped reservoirs of ingenuity.”
The double-speak wasn’t too hard to unriddle. ‘Reservoir’ surely referred to the hidden lift in the swimming pool. Saeed had known of it since its creation, but he was one of a privileged few. That Kismet had so quickly located it verged on the miraculous. “I understand. When you follow him in his voyage of discovery, we will no longer be able to communicate in this way. However, I will meet you along the way.”
“You know of another way in?”
“I do. But that need not concern you. Do nothing to arouse suspicion. This matter will soon be resolved.” He ended the conversation with typical abruptness then turned to Farid. “Kismet has found the tunnel entrance.”
“What? You mean it is inside the palace?”
“Fear not, my brother. That is but one entrance of many. When he begins to comprehend what he has found, he will make his way to the ultimate destination. That is where we will meet him. Now however, it is time to gather your men. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
***
As the concealed elevator bearing Nick Kismet and his companions slowly receded into the unseen depths, Rebecca emerged from her hiding place. Her simple civilian attire had been replaced by a utilitarian black combat uniform and her mane of fiery copper was concealed beneath a matching knit watch cap. Almost invisible against her dark clothing was a compact Steyr TMP machine-pistol.
She moved stealthily to the balcony rail, unsure of how long it would take to remove the descending group from her line of sight. She risked a quick look, ducking back before her brain could completely process the information gathered by her eyes. Her caution was unnecessary. Kismet and the others were nowhere to be seen. She raised a hand from her weapon and made a “come along” gesture.
Immediately, seven similarly clad figures stepped from various hiding places and wordlessly moved to join her. One man drew to within a few centimeters of her face in order to hear her whispered orders.“Chance and Jacques will stay here to guard our rear and maintain contact with our recovery team.”
The man nodded then moved back to relay the orders in a whisper while Rebecca climbed over the railing. Kismet’s group had left behind a fixed rope which, under his guidance, each person had used to rappel down to the pool deck three stories below. She had watched with great interest as Kismet coaxed and cajoled the reluctant woman and the older Chiron, eventually convincing them of the inherent safety in what he was asking them to do. Rebecca now coiled several lengths of that same rope around her torso, then effortlessly abseilled down to the terrazzo surface below.
There was a faint grating sound emanating from the depths of the shaft. The platform was still making its ponderous descent. Rebecca stayed well away from the edge until the vibrations ceased, and then held back a few minutes more. She had been told that the objective was not immediately accessible from the shaft, so there was no harm in allowing their quarry to get a head start. Better that than to reveal their own presence by activating the noisy lift.
The remaining members of her team descended in order, joining her on the pool deck. In a subdued voice, she directed each of them to stand beside the statues and wait for her cue to begin the complicated sequence of shuffling that would bring the lift back to the surface. She had surreptitiously observed Kismet’s experiments with the sculpted animals, noting the exact pattern of movements required to raise or lower the device.
One of the men made a faint tisking noise to get her attention. She could see that he was holding something, but in the darkness it was impossible to discern what the object was. She moved closer to get a better look.
It was a crude sign—a permanent ink marker on a sheet of paper—with a brief message. Her first impulse was to believe that Kismet had somehow become aware of her presence and left the message behind to mock her. She read the words a second time:
“Gone after the White Rabbit. Back soon! Alice and the gang.”
The message was in English, flippant in tone, but vague. Kismet’s handiwork, she reckoned, but not for her eyes. Doubtless, he expected the Marines to find his ropes and the blank hole where the swimming pool had been, and had left the message as a clever way of letting them know who it was that uncovered this mystery. She crumpled the sign in her fist and stuffed it into one of her deep cargo pockets.
Exactly five minutes after the elevator platform completed its descent, she gave the signal for her men to begin moving the statues. As soon as the pool bottom was level with the deck, she and five selected members of the team moved out onto the concrete slab. The remaining men—Jacques and Chance—shifted the lion statues into place and commenced yet another drop into the dark shaft. One of the men began unspooling a thin antenna wire that would serve as their communications link to the surface.
Rebecca watched as the gossamer strand paid out in generous curlicues overhead. As the walls began to rise up on all sides, the implications of what she and her team were doing finally hit home. The smooth concrete shaft resembled nothing less than a tomb, and while she would never reveal even a hint of the trepidation she now felt to her subordinates, she was keenly aware that their lives hung by that single thread-like strand of metal.
Pure, unrefined darkness swelled around them and still they descended. When they finally stopped, it took a supreme effort of will to take that blind step away from the platform. She took out a flashlight, capped with a red lens, and shined it up the shaft, signaling for their comrades to return the elevator to its original state, effectively sealing them in.
As the platform removed their final link with the world above, her fingers unconsciously found the crumpled page in her pocket. She once more curled her fist around the message and decided that Kismet had gotten it all wrong. This wasn’t a magical doorway into Wonderland. More apropos would have been the words of Orpheus.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here…
The inscription above the gates of Hell.
***
The darkness swallowed them whole. Kismet’s MagLite was insignificant against the overwhelming totality of the subterranean night. There was a larger lantern in the supplies Hussein had packed, but it seemed pointless to use up that resource when there was nothing in particular to look at. They had settled instead for yellow Cyalume sticks—plastic tubes filled with a phosphorescent substance that would shine for hours once activated. The chemical light source did not afford much in the way of illumination, but was useful for keeping the group together.
From his position at the front of the line, Kismet could not see the handheld light sticks, but he could hear the distinctive sounds of his companions’ footsteps. In the absence of visual cues, he was soon able to distinguish the differing styles of footwear and the particular rhythms of each person’s stride. The tapping of their feet on stone however was the only sound in the dark womb of the earth; hardly a word had been spoken since their arrival.
The tunnel began immediately at the bottom of the shaft and cut due east through the bedrock at a gentle slope. Compared to the claustrophobic confines of most caverns and mine shafts, the passage through the rock was immense, rising several stories overhead to a smooth arched ceiling. With the exception of an occasional buttress to reinforce the walls or roof, the tunnel was unremarkably uniform. It was a long hallway stretching on indefinitely without doors or junctions. As Kismet had earlier suggested, the corridor was easily large enough to accommodate a military vehicle. He surmised that most of those who found their way to this place made the journey with the assistance of motorized transport.
The slope of the tunnel soon leveled out. Kismet was keeping a careful pace count, reconciling the distance traveled in the subterranean passage with the actual separation between the palace and the temple ruins. There was no question that the tunnel’s vector would intersect that point, and he had little doubt that they would find the treasure vault when they reached that critical junction. Despite his earlier dismissal of Chiron’s agenda, there was no denying the excitement he felt as he pushed forward.
“We’re getting close,” he said, breaking the unintentional silence. His words echoed hollowly, ricocheting indefinitely from one wall to the other. The effect was anything but reassuring. To counter the ominous cloud of dread, he turned his flashlight beam against the walls, scanning for any irregularities. As diligent as he was in his search, he almost missed the opening.
The architects of the passage had used crushed rock from the excavation to plaster over a semicircular section of wall, rising from the floor to just above Kismet’s knees. There was only a faint seam delineating the patch from solid rock and an almost indistinguishable color difference. He knelt beside the cemented wall and probed it with his fingertips.
“This is it,” he said, unable to hide the eagerness in his tone.
Rather than wait for Hussein to sort through the gear for an excavating tool, he drew his
kukri
and used its iron-capped pommel to hammer at the facade. The rest of the group crowded around, barely giving him room to swing. He passed his light to Marie and resumed the assault with both hands.
The improvised plaster crumbled after only a few blows, revealing a web of chicken wire. Pieces of the patch dropped through into the void beyond and rattled against a solid surface almost instantaneously. He banged the knife hilt against it a few more times, then used his feet to smash through the mesh. The entire facade vanished into the darkness beyond.
Kismet tossed his chem-light into the opening and followed its journey with his eyes. The glowing stick dropped a few meters, illuminating a series of perfectly parallel lines for only an instant before rebounding and disappearing from view. He took back his flashlight then cautiously poked his head through the hole. There was a faint odor underneath the generic mustiness that pervaded the tunnel. It was a repugnant smell but diluted to the point that it was impossible to identify. He wrinkled his nose, then pulled back from the opening.
“It’s a stairway,” he reported. “It looks like they just barely intersected it during the excavation. If they had deviated by a few degrees, they would have missed it altogether.”
“Where does it go?” Chiron asked.
“Up and down. Beyond that, who can say? The treads are carved from solid rock and don’t show any wear whatsoever. If this is an ancient tunnel, then it was hardly ever used.”
“We must be over a hundred meters below the surface.” Marie now added her voice to the chorus. “I can’t believe the Babylonians would have dug so deep.”
“The ruins of the city also lie beneath the surface,” Hussein supplied. “Perhaps it was not so far for them to dig.”
“I think we also need to consider what it was that Nebuchadnezzar sought to conceal.” Chiron’s comment must have seemed cryptic to the young Iraqi, but Kismet understood and agreed.