Hunt at World's End (12 page)

Joyce continued toward the trench in the seafloor, her slender form gliding gracefully through the water. Gabriel followed, closing the distance between them. The water grew colder the farther they got from the surface and the reach of the sun. Ahead, Joyce passed into the shadows of the trench, disappearing from view. A moment later, her dive light went on, a bright shaft that cut through the darkness and illuminated her body in silhouette. Gabriel approached the mouth of the trench, pulling his own dive light from his weight belt and switching it on. A fat spotted eel dove into the sand to hide as he passed, descending into the trench, the darkness and cold closing in around him.

In the glare of his dive light, he saw rugged stone walls on either side. Tufts of marine plant life grew out of the cracks and swayed in the gentle current. The deeper he swam, the more the pressure built, making the bruises and wounds on his torso and face throb dully.

He caught up to Joyce as she passed a rounded outcropping in the trench wall. She glanced at him, her eyes hidden in the shadows of her swim mask, then shone her light deeper into the trench. The beam pierced the darkness for a hundred feet, then faded without touching anything. There was no telling how far they were from the floor, only that at this height the trench seemed bottomless.

The Death’s Head Key floated up in front of his mask. He reached up to push it out of the way, but before he could touch it the key jolted suddenly to the side. He pulled it down, but the key yanked up
to the side again, too insistent for it to be due solely to the current. It felt like it was pulling against the strap of its own accord. He signaled to Joyce to follow him, then swam in the direction the key was pointing. It remained floating in front of him as he swam, which wasn’t right—his momentum should have caused the key to trail behind him.

He remembered the key leaping out of Grissom’s hand into the lock of the crypt in Borneo. Grissom had muttered a word Gabriel almost hadn’t caught.

Magnetized.

The key angled up suddenly as he neared the trench wall, pulling at the strap with such force that Gabriel thought the leather might break. He shone his light up and saw he was directly beneath the large outcropping, the rock’s surface slick with sea moss and thick weeds. Joyce swam up beside him, adding her light to his in illuminating the enormous stone above. The key kept tugging forward.

He swam closer, Joyce right beside him. The Death’s Head Key rose over his head, almost pulling the strap from around his neck before he could grab it. It was aiming itself directly at the outcropping. Gabriel released the key. It sped a few inches through the water and attached itself to the bed of moss.

Grissom had been right. Somehow the key was magnetized, responding to something in the outcropping.

He started pulling at the weeds around the key, tearing them off the surface of the rock. Joyce dug at the moss as well, scraping handfuls away. Together they cleared a wide swath, enough to see that the surface underneath was made of metal. As they pulled away more vegetation, it revealed itself to be a large, square hatch, decorated under a thick patina of rust with the same sorts of ornate designs as the door in Borneo. As
before, there was no knob or handle, only a lock featuring the same peculiar triple-slotted keyway and the same etching above it of a skull with a diamond shape between its eyes.

Gabriel retrieved the Death’s Head Key from where it was stuck, quivering, in the moss and angled its three blades toward the keyway. The key leapt from his fingers to sink into the lock. Joyce looked at him in amazement. He tried to turn the key, but the pins and tumblers inside the lock hadn’t moved in thousands of years, and the water had all but rusted them in place. He kept forcing it, and just when he thought either the key or his arm would snap in half, he felt something give inside the lock. Using both hands, he managed to turn the key, first just forty-five degrees, then the rest of the way around. He felt a powerful vibration inside the door, then a heavy
clonk
, as of a bolt sliding aside.

Taking hold of the key, he planted both flippered feet against the rock and pulled as hard as he could. Joyce slid her knife into the edge between the hatch and the surrounding rock, to try to help wedge it open. It felt like he was trying to pull the entire outcropping out of the trench wall with his bare hands. The hatch refused to budge. He wondered if it even would be possible to open it after all this time. Then he felt something give. The hatch popped open a crack and slowly swung wide. Behind it, Gabriel saw nothing but pitch-black, a tunnel into the rock. He pulled the key from the lock, struggling against the magnetic force that tried to keep it in place, and hung it around his neck again. He shone his dive light into the opening.

Something moved in the distance, heading toward the hatch.

Joyce shone her light in as well, then recoiled and screamed into her regulator, sending a rush of bubbles over her head.

Long, white arms reached suddenly toward them, followed by the leering face of a skull.

Gabriel swam aside to let the skeleton drift harmlessly past. It bumped against the trench wall and its bones broke apart, tumbling away loosely with the current. He turned his light on Joyce. She put a hand out and pushed the light away. In the brief glimpse he’d gotten of her face, she’d looked embarrassed.

It was nothing to be embarrassed about. Most people would scream if they saw a skeleton apparently swimming toward them, even if they hadn’t just spent five days imprisoned by men wearing skull masks. But here again Joyce seemed to need to prove she was every bit the hardened veteran he was. He just hoped this tendency on her part wouldn’t lead to her doing something that would be worse than embarrassing—possibly even fatal.

In any event, he wasn’t going to give her the chance to do so here. Gabriel swam into the tunnel first, the beam from his dive light leading the way. Joyce followed, shining her light along the walls. The entire stone outcropping was hollow, angling slightly upward from the hatch and extending some thirty feet into the trench wall. Rough alcoves had been carved into the walls on either side, just as there had been in the crypt in Borneo. Inside all but one alcove was a skeleton, wrists and ankles manacled to the stone. In the empty alcove, broken manacles hung where they’d
once held the skeleton that had floated away. All traces of skin and clothing on the skeletons were long gone, and the Hittite armor they had worn when buried had corroded to shapeless patches covering their rib cages and in a few cases the tops of their skulls.

Gabriel’s heart beat faster at the sight of a familiar shimmering green light playing along the walls at the far end of the chamber. As he swam closer, he saw a pedestal on the floor, and atop it a huge emerald, the same shape and size as the one in Borneo, clutched in a similar stone hand. Like its twin, this jewel glowed from within, painting the walls around it with flickering green rays that illuminated a row of carved cuneiform symbols. Gabriel recognized them as the same Nesili words they’d seen in Borneo.

The light at world’s end.

The stone fingers looked like they had a firm grip on the gemstone; at minimum they had prevented it from floating away all this time. Remembering what had happened in Borneo, Gabriel examined the walls and ceiling for any sign of booby traps before touching the stone hand. Nothing.

He signaled to Joyce to keep an eye out, then pulled the knife from his belt. He placed one palm over the emerald to brace it and felt a strange vibration travel up his arm. What Grissom had felt, presumably; the power of the storm god, he’d called it.

Gabriel slid the blade of his knife between the emerald and the stone thumb. The hand in Borneo had had hidden hinges in the knuckles. If he could bend the thumb away, he might be able to pry the gemstone free. He pushed with the knife, trying to lift the thumb. It didn’t budge. He pushed harder. It was difficult to gain leverage while floating, but finally the thumb started to give. He slid the knife deeper between the
emerald and the thumb and pushed again, but instead of bending on its hinge, the thumb broke off entirely. The oblong bit of stone spun away from the pedestal and sank slowly to the floor.

He put the knife away in its sheath and grasped the emerald carefully with both hands. With the thumb gone, he was able to shift the gemstone easily within the confines of the other fingers. He maneuvered it toward the space where the thumb had been and with a little finessing and a lot of yanking, he managed to pull it free.

Joyce swam over to him, her eyes flashing with excitement. She gave him a thumbs-up.

Movement at the corner of his eye brought Gabriel’s attention back to the pedestal. The stone fingers began to bend inward on their hinges to form a thumbless fist. Just like in Borneo, before they’d almost gotten buried alive in the chamber. He pointed in the direction of the hatch and started swimming, gripping the emerald tightly and kicking his legs as fast as he could. He glanced back to make sure Joyce was still behind him. Past her, at the far end of the underwater crypt, a panel in the ceiling was sliding open (damn it, he hadn’t seen a seam!), and a large, jagged stone fell through, moving at a tremendous pace as though hurled by some sort of spring mechanism. It smashed the pedestal beneath it and careened off the floor. Because the chamber was angled downward toward the hatch, the stone caromed toward them. It banged off the walls, smashing off shards of stone that spun through the water like shrapnel. Behind it, another stone, even larger than the first, shot out of the hole and barreled toward them in the first one’s wake. Then a third. Gabriel twisted back around and kicked as fast as he could toward the hatch.

The water slowed the speed of the oncoming boulders, but not enough. He’d seen the damage they were capable of doing. If one of them hit him or Joyce, they’d be pulped.

As they swam desperately along the channel, he felt Joyce beside him, tugging at his arm. He looked where she was pointing—at the alcoves with the skeletons inside. She swam toward one of the alcoves and started wedging herself inside.

Not a crazy idea on the face of it—hide in an alcove, let the stones pass—but in fact it would be suicide, for reasons he had neither the time nor the ability, underwater, to explain. Instead, he yanked Joyce out of the alcove she’d swum halfway into and shoved her furiously toward the hatch. She plunged through, disappearing outside. He gave one last glance over his shoulder and saw the first boulder bearing down on him. Gabriel launched himself through the hatch.

He made it through a fraction of a second before the boulder slammed against the hatch from inside, blocking the opening. The second boulder hit the first from behind a second later, then the third, and with each impact the metal frame of the hatch warped and bulged under the weight, forming a tight seal. If they hadn’t made it out—if they’d tried to duck into the alcoves instead of fleeing—there was no way they would have gotten out now.

Joyce stared at him through her mask, the look on her face once again tinged with embarrassment. Gabriel pointed toward the surface and started swimming up.
Let her feel embarrassed all she wants. I promised her uncle I’d keep her alive.

A few minutes later he spied the bright beacon lights along the bottom of the
Ashina Tuwu
and headed for them. Joyce followed close behind. When they broke
the surface, Gabriel saw Daniel rushing down the steps from the flybridge toward them. They pulled themselves up the ladder on the side of the ship, Gabriel clutching the emerald in one arm. He took the regulator out of his mouth and slipped out of the air tank’s straps, putting it down on the deck next to Joyce’s.

Daniel handed them each a towel and said breathlessly, “Dear god, is that it?”

Gabriel held up the emerald. “Right where Arnuwanda said it would be.”

“My God,” Daniel said, “it’s huge. It would be worth a fortune to any jeweler, never mind the historical value.”

“Right, never mind that,” Joyce said. She flipped her ponytail to her shoulder and squeezed the water out of it. “That’s only the reason dozens of people are trying to kill us right now.”

“Oh, I know, I know,” Daniel said, still staring at the gemstone. He reached for it tentatively. “May I?” Gabriel handed it to him. “Oh, my word. Is it…vibrating?” He put his ear to it. “And humming? It’s incredible! I can feel something, like an electrical charge.” He shook his head in wonder. “Fantastic.”

Daniel handed the gemstone back to Gabriel. “I’ll turn the ship around. We should be back in time for dinner. I know a place on the Atatürk Caddesi. A bit pricy, but this calls for a celebration.” He climbed the steps to the flybridge again and disappeared behind the tinted windows.

Gabriel stood by the railing, letting the sunlight play off the facets of the emerald in his hand. They’d beaten Grissom to the second Eye of Teshub. That was good, but it didn’t mean they were out of danger yet. Grissom still had the first gemstone, and quite possibly had a better idea of where the final one was hidden than they
did. Of course, even if Grissom found the third Eye before they did, the Spearhead was presumably useless, inert, without all three to activate it. But that only put their lives in further danger. It meant Grissom would come looking for the missing piece, and he wouldn’t stop until he had it.

Briefly Gabriel thought about whether they could use Grissom’s determination to their advantage somehow—maybe they could stay put in Turkey and let him come to them. But no, it was too dangerous. Grissom had too many men under his command, too many resources. Besides, Joyce would never go for it. Watching her walk toward him across the deck, tying a towel around her hips like a skirt, Gabriel knew exactly what she was going to say. He could have written the script for her.

“The third gemstone is still out there somewhere,” she said. “We have to find it before Grissom does. It’s the only way to keep him from getting his hands on the Spearhead.”

“You still don’t have any idea what that third element from the legend is?”

She shook her head. The light from the emerald reflected in her eyes as she stared at it. She lifted it out of his hands and cradled it between her palms. “Whoa! You guys weren’t kidding about the vibrations. How is it possible? It’s just an emerald, isn’t it?”

He cupped his hands around hers, feeling the gemstone’s muffled vibrations through her flesh. “I met a medicine woman in Paraguay once, one of the last of her tribe, who claimed to be able to use crystals to heal the sick. Her line was that all crystals are in a constant state of vibration, which gives them special conductive properties. She said it was what made it possible for her to heal her patients.”

“Did it work?”

Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t know if it was the crystals or not, but a lot of sick people got well in her care. Maybe it was purely psychological. Maybe there was more to it.”

“But you couldn’t actually feel the vibrations in her crystals, could you?”

Gabriel shook his head.

“So this is different.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Gabriel said.

“It’s like these gemstones are so charged up that they can barely contain the energy inside them. But what kind of energy is it? Where did it come from?”

“Don’t you remember the legend?” Gabriel said. “It came from Teshub.”

She laughed sarcastically, but only for a moment. He wasn’t laughing, and with the giant emerald thrumming powerfully in their hands, no explanation felt like it was worth dismissing.

They stood for a moment in silence.

“So…Gabriel,” she said, looking up at him. “Are we up to four now, or have I lost count?”

“Four what?”

“Four times you’ve saved my life.”

“Someone’s got to,” Gabriel said. “You keep risking it.” He smiled. “And what would the world do without Joyce Wingard to keep things interesting?”

A questioning look came into her eyes, for once an unguarded one, and she tilted her head back. There was no embarrassment in her expression now, nor any hostility. Her lips were slightly parted, and it was clear what she was waiting for. He bent his head forward and kissed her, felt her lips soft against his, her tongue slipping gently between them, her eyes sliding shut. She released the gemstone with one hand and moved it up to behind his head, her fingers curling in his wet
hair. Her grip tightened and she pressed her lips harder against his—and then she broke away suddenly. She turned her face aside.

“I should…,” she said. Her breathing was unsteady. “I’m going to get changed.”

“Sure,” Gabriel said, though sure was the last thing he felt. “That’s a good idea.”

He took the emerald back from her and watched her walk to the door.

“I’m sorry,” he called to her. “I shouldn’t have…”

She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “What in the world are you talking about, Hunt? Of course you should have.” A half-smile played about her face, then she disappeared belowdeck.

He shook his head.
What have you gotten yourself into now?

He opened the backpack and placed the gemstone and the Death’s Head Key inside. He looked up at the tinted rear windows of the flybridge. The ship had turned around, heading back for Antalya, and with the sun now on the other side of the bridge he could make out Daniel’s silhouette through the dark glass. He thought he saw Daniel move something small away from his ear—a cell phone?—and slip it into his pants pocket.