The Prisoner's Gold (The Hunters 3) (38 page)

‘I call dibs on the biggest nugget,’ McNutt said in her ear.

‘Sorry, Josh,’ she said as Cobb landed behind her. ‘There’s nothing here.’

Maggie groaned as she made her way to the site. ‘That can’t be right. There has to be something. No symbols? No signs? No markers of any kind?’

‘Hang on,’ Sarah said as she and Cobb pushed deeper into the passageway. He turned on his flashlight as well. ‘There’s something on the floor up ahead.’

She could see a large wooden square on the ground, its frame having been cobbled together from scraps of the same sturdy timber that reinforced the tunnel. ‘I think it’s some sort of trap door. Jack, can you move that for me?’

‘I can certainly try,’ Cobb replied.

He dug his fingers into the gap at the edges of the wood and pulled with all his might. The door gave way with a groan, and a dry, dusty smell of ancient air escaped from the hole beneath. The opening was just wide enough for one person to squeeze through.

Sarah shined her flashlight down into the opening and spotted handholds carved into the side of the rock. She cracked another amber glow stick and dropped it into the hole; it fell a hundred feet straight down before it smacked some rock and rolled out of sight.

‘What did you find?’ Maggie asked.

‘Another hole,’ Cobb said as he peered below. ‘This one’s a lot deeper.’

‘Deep enough to hide a treasure?’ Garcia wondered.

Sarah nodded. ‘Deep enough to hide a building.’

Lim Bao had watched the helicopter peel away nearly fifteen minutes ago, but his leader had yet to rise. Instead, Feng He lay perfectly still, as if literally frozen in place. Lim dared not budge until his mentor moved first.

They were both hidden among a plot of shrubberies that had grown near the lion’s paws entrance to the plateau, waiting for their opportunity to surge ahead. During the arrival of the UN aircraft they had hunkered low, each of them wondering what new addition the aircraft had delivered above. They knew the American woman had been left atop the rock – they had seen her in the open door as the helicopter approached and noticed her absence during its departure – but assumed there was more to the story.

Finally, Feng spotted the missing piece to the puzzle.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he whispered as he stared up at the rock through high-powered binoculars.

‘Sir?’ Lim replied.

Feng slowly lowered the tinted lenses from his face and extended them toward his companion. ‘See for yourself.’

Lim took the offering, but he had no idea what he was searching for.

Fortunately, Feng answered the question before Lim could even ask it.

‘The soldier and the sniper took no weapons to the summit, but look now at the widest edge of the rock,’ Feng whispered. ‘Outside the fence line, in the trees that sprout horizontally from the stone. He’s waiting there like a tiger. Do you see him?’

Lim moved his gaze to the spot that Feng had described and adjusted the focus. The sniper had somehow squeezed through the protective metal fence that encircled the top of the plateau and had crawled out and up the rounded trunk of one of the trees. From that vantage point, he could cover the entire series of zigzagging stairs that led from the lion’s paws to the upper levels – and he could also fall to his death if the wind blew strongly.

‘That man is crazy,’ Lim said.

Feng sneered at the comment, wondering how many of his followers considered
him
crazy for battling gunmen in Sri Lanka instead of running his organization from the safety of his hotel penthouse. On the surface, it did seem rather foolish to risk his life for a pile of gold, but Feng valued something even more than the promise of wealth. He sought the political clout he would gain if he discovered Marco Polo’s treasure and brought it back to China.

To Feng, that was priceless.

Though he was respected, even feared, in certain circles, Feng was not a household name in his homeland. He knew the only way to change that was to do something memorable; something the general populace viewed as heroic. That wouldn’t happen by outfoxing telecom giants like Harold Ledner. Corporate deals weren’t sexy to the working class. They weren’t talked about in schools, in offices, or in rural villages, even though his efforts brought thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to his country.

But the recovery of gold, jewels, and artifacts from the time of Kublai Khan?

That would make front-page news around the globe.

‘He’s not crazy,’ Feng assured Lim. ‘He’s
dedicated
. Never mistake the two.’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Lim handed the binoculars back to his boss. ‘It appears he has us pinned down. I don’t see how we can mount an assault from this direction.’

‘We can’t,’ Feng agreed. ‘Not yet.’

Feng knew that as long as the sniper held his location, there was little they could do. From his elevated position, the sniper could pick off anyone that approached from below.

‘We need a diversion.’

* * *

Cobb had thought that the handholds in the cave wall would be smooth, shallow, and useless, just like the steps near the base of his initial ascent. But once they were inside the shaft, he realized that the scooped-out holes were actually quite deep, with pronounced lips that allowed for easy finger grip. Spared for centuries from the elements, the built-in ladder allowed them to make their way down without the need for a rappelling harness.

But, just to be safe, they tied a rope around their waists.

The floor was ten stories down into the rock. When Sarah reached the bottom, she shined her flashlight in all directions, illuminating a cavern that was eighty feet long and nearly half as wide. She remembered from Maggie’s discourse that the entire Sigiriya rock was some four hundred and fifty feet long, so she assumed that there was plenty of solid stone around them on all sides to support the chamber. Still, the lack of any apparent bracing gave her a moment of pause.

‘Amazing,’ Cobb said. ‘Hector?’

‘Reading you loud and clear,’ Garcia replied as he marveled at the video.

Cobb touched the walls. ‘The surface is rough. Tools leave a smooth finish. This wasn’t man-made.’

Sarah nodded. ‘Polo and Lobsang found a natural cave inside the mountain.’

The ‘natural cave’, as she called it, was technically known as an igneous lava bubble. It was a hollow space that had been formed eons ago when the whole rock mountain had been shoved up from the bowels of the Earth.

‘Do you see anything that looks out of place?’ Maggie asked.

Cobb and Sarah walked carefully around the periphery of the space. At first, the room seemed completely empty, like an unused chamber in the world’s biggest anthill. But as they moved deeper they spotted something in the farthest corner of the chamber. They were about to investigate when they heard a warning in their ears.

‘Guys,’ Garcia said, ‘you might have a problem heading your way.’

‘Explain,’ Cobb demanded.

‘A helicopter is coming,’ Garcia said. ‘It doesn’t look like the UN chopper that brought Sarah. It’s too early to tell if it’s actually going to the rock, but it’s headed in that direction.’

‘You’re watching via satellite?’ Cobb asked.

‘No. I won’t have sat coverage of the rock for another ten minutes. I had to get creative. I’m using a UAV.’

‘A what?’ Sarah asked.

‘An unmanned aerial vehicle,’ Garcia said. ‘The Pakistanis were testing it nearby, so I borrowed it for a few minutes.’

‘What?’ Sarah asked incredulously. ‘You stole a military drone?’

‘Relax,’ Garcia answered. ‘They have no idea what’s going on. It’s not like they’re going to report a rogue UAV the moment they lose control of it. These things have to go through channels. Ain’t that right, Josh?’

‘Actually,’ McNutt laughed, ‘Guillermo the Kid has a point. The Pakis won’t say a word to anyone until they know exactly what happened. No one will believe that they just lost it. They’ll be accused of trying to start some shit in foreign airspace.’

‘Jack,’ Garcia pleaded. ‘You told me to get you some eyes, and this was the only thing available. I made sure to swing well south of India, just in case they had an itchy trigger finger, but I’m telling you—’

‘I’m sold,’ Cobb said. ‘We can worry about it later. What are you flying?’

‘It’s a US-made RQ-7.’

‘Josh?’ Cobb asked, searching for more information.

‘RQ-7 Shadow,’ McNutt explained. ‘About eleven feet long, with a wingspan of fourteen feet against a height of only thirty-six inches. Top speed of, um, I honestly don’t know, but the fucker moves really fast.’

‘Armaments?’ Cobb asked.

‘It can be outfitted with a variety of toys, but I’m guessing an M134 minigun with a firing rate of about four thousand rounds per minute.’ McNutt chuckled. ‘Hey Guillermo, wanna trade?’

‘Nope,’ Garcia replied. ‘And guys, the chopper is still headed your way.’

‘That’s not all,’ McNutt said, his tone suddenly serious. ‘Unless I’m seeing things, we’ve got hostiles on the ground.’

* * *

McNutt peered down into the thick undergrowth, scrutinizing even the slightest movement. He had already noticed a few monitor lizards – huge reptiles that stalked the lush vegetation looking for smaller prey – so he had grown accustomed to spotting things in the bushes. But the lizards were brown, and the flash of color he had just noticed was not. It was olive drab: the color of jungle camouflage.

McNutt was quite familiar with the hue.

He focused his scope on the suspect, waiting for any signs of movement. Instead, he saw a telltale burst of smoke and heard the whine of an RPG.

Unfortunately, he knew those, too.

In an instant, McNutt grabbed his Russian Dragunov sniper rifle and jumped from his perch in the tree. He hit the side of the rock and started a controlled slide toward the staircase below.

Behind him, the rocket-propelled grenade smashed into the surface of the rock only feet from where he had been lying. The impact of the warhead’s tip against rock fired its piezoelectric fuse, transmitting a small electrical charge to the base of the projectile. The shaped charge exploded, forcing its way out the path of least resistance: the tiny opening at the nose of the cone-shaped rocket. The force of the blast was multiplied as it exited the cone.

McNutt felt the shards of razor-sharp rock tearing into his back and shoulders as he rolled nearly twenty feet down the rocky slope. He tried to grab the lip of the ledge but was unable to gather himself as he plunged an additional ten feet to the steps below. He hit the stairs with a meaty thud, but somehow managed to survive the fall without any broken bones.

He was bruised and battered, but very much alive.

‘Josh!’ Garcia shouted. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No, fuck-tard, I’m not okay. I just fell off a mountain.’

‘I know, I mean … what can I do to help?’

McNutt rubbed his sore ribs and spat out some blood. The residue stained his teeth like a ravenous wolf’s. ‘Bring in the drone and start kicking ass.’

McNutt scrambled along the edge of the plateau, looking for the best position to return fire. He was determined to defend the Lion Gate against the enemy’s advancement … or at least make them think twice about their assault. Adrenaline eased the pain of his superficial injuries as he rushed back up the stairs and onto the plateau’s grassy surface.

He slowed his charge as he neared the six-hundred-foot drop to the base of the rock, diving onto his stomach then crawling the remaining few yards to the edge. Hidden in the tall grass, he raised his rifle and scanned the area from where the rocket had been launched. He could see several armed men, all Chinese, racing through the trees toward the stairs between the gate’s stone paws.

‘Sorry, folks. Park’s closed,’ he mumbled as he leveled the crosshairs on the nearest intruder. ‘The moose out front should’ve told you.’

McNutt squeezed the trigger and unleashed the kind of fury that Clark Griswold couldn’t have handled in
National Lampoon’s Vacation
. The 7.62 mm round easily penetrated the foliage and sliced through his target’s sternum like a laser beam, killing him instantly. The semi-automatic weapon readied itself for round two as McNutt adjusted his aim half a meter to the right. He fired again, and another man fell.

The remaining assailants took cover as they peppered the mountainside with spray from their assault rifles. These were pot shots, and McNutt knew it. They had no idea where he was hidden, and their only response to his aggression was to aimlessly fire in all directions. He knew he had been exposed in the tree – he had given up protection to find the best possible angle – but he wouldn’t make that mistake again. Now he was nearly invisible in the overgrown grass near the edge.

He watched as the heads of his enemy randomly popped up from behind rocks, fallen trees, and bulbous shrubs. The men would peek for a few moments before diving back to the earth in fear. He chuckled as he thought back to the Whack-A-Mole game at the carnival that would visit his hometown every summer.

He was good then. He was better now.

Boom!
A mole slumped over, dead.

Boom!
A cloud of crimson mist erupted in his scope.

He picked them off one by one, until there was nothing left but bodies.

‘The front door is officially closed,’ McNutt informed his team.

‘Great,’ Garcia replied, ‘but there’s a party coming in the back door!’

McNutt grinned at the description. ‘How many times have we told you not to watch porn when we’re in the field?’

Garcia ignored the joke. ‘Better check your six, Josh. You’ve got multiple hostiles inbound. There’s a chopper landing on the opposite edge of the plateau. And you’ve got at least a dozen men trying to summit the southern face of the mountain.’

‘How the hell are they doing that?’ McNutt asked.

‘They’ve got grappling hooks and some sort of reverse zip lines. They’re literally
running
up the side of the rock!’

‘Sneaky bastards,’ McNutt said, impressed. ‘I’m headed that way.’

‘I’ll meet you there,’ Cobb said. He had been listening to their chatter and realized McNutt needed him more than Sarah. ‘Hector, how good are you with the drone?’