Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

The bases of two of the pillars were pulverized, immediately collapsing. The third suffered a more glancing blow, a section knocked sideways so that it still barely held up the column above.

But it would not hold for long.

An entire section of roof on the far side of the plinth plummeted downwards, the stone slabs of the ceiling and the tons of loose rock and sand covering it hitting the floor with earth-shaking force. Cracks radiated outwards, widening the jagged gap, more spears of daylight stabbing into the tomb as smaller holes ripped open in their wake.

Komosa recovered from his shocked paralysis and turned to aim at Chase and Nina as they fled-only to see Sophia hurdling across the bottom of the ramp, running as fast as she could for the winch platform. Eyes widening as he realized he was being abandoned, he raced after her.

Weaving through the meteor storm of falling stones, Nina and Chase kept running.

Sophia rushed past her men, most of whom had dived to the floor to avoid the broken disc as it came off the ramp, and leaped onto the platform. Several bars of gold had already been loaded, but she ignored them and hit the green button to start the winch.

The platform began to ascend. A second later, Komosa vaulted over one of the bewildered men and landed beside her. He gave her a dirty look, which she ignored, instead throwing one of the ingots from the platform. Komosa got the idea and did the same, the heavy ringing thud of the soft metal bars hitting the floor joining the clash of more falling stones.

Another man tried to jump onto the platform as it rose, slamming into it at chest height and scrabbling for a handhold. Sophia and Komosa exchanged glances, then as one kicked him in the face. He screamed as he fell back to the ground. The extra weight gone, the platform picked up speed.

The exit was a dark rectangle ahead of Nina. Chase was right beside her.

Stone above splintered like breaking bone. Another section of roof tore loose, slabs crashing down in a solid wave behind them.

The damaged pillar finally collapsed. The ceiling above it held for a moment, then succumbed to gravity.

Even before the platform reached the surface, Sophia and Komosa threw themselves from it and raced desperately away across the stony hill as the holes behind them widened and merged, gaping mouths in the ground swallowing everything up.

The platform disappeared back into the earth from which it had just emerged, the winch following. One of the helicopters was consumed as well, teetering on the edge of the expanding sinkhole before being pitched nose-first into the maelstrom of churning rubble and dust below.

All support gone, what remained of the tomb’s ceiling gave way at once, a square 150 feet across suddenly collapsing with an impact so huge that one of the other helicopters was thrown on its side, rotor blades snapping like dry sticks.

Chase and Nina dived at the archway as the roof dropped, all light abruptly blotted out by hundreds of tons of stone-

Sophia sat up, panting, and squinted through the dust cloud. Inches from her feet was the edge of a crater. Komosa’s diving escape had been even narrower, his shins actually extending over the rim of the great hole.

“Jesus Christ!” Sophia gasped, her normal composure shaken. “That… that fucking maniac!” She staggered to her feet and moved to a safer distance from the angular crater before surveying the scene. The tail of one of the helicopters poked up from the rubble below. On the far side of the hole, the handful of her men who had managed to get clear of the collapse milled about in confusion around the surviving chopper.

Komosa joined her, wiping dust from his face and bald head. “Now what do we do?”

Sophia took a long breath to settle herself. “Well, we’ll need some more helicopters, for a start,” she finally said, voice returning to her usual clipped, even tones. “But this can still be excavated and the gold recovered; it’ll just take a little more time. And I don’t actually need the gold to be in my possession-as long as I know where it is and can still get to it, that’s what’s important. But we’ll need to get a trustworthy team of diggers out here as soon as possible. I don’t want to delay the plan.”

Komosa peered down into the pit. Broken slabs of roof jutted out of the rubble like the bones of some vast animal carcass. “And what about… them? Do you think they could have survived?”

Sophia frowned. “Even if they survived, which I very much hope they didn’t, and even if they manage to get back through the maze… they’ll be stuck in the Sahara a hundred miles from anywhere with no food, no water and no survival equipment. Eddie’s good, but he’s not that good.” She looked back at the destroyed helicopters. “Just to be safe, as well as recovering the gold, have everything that could be used for survival stripped out of the wrecked choppers.”

Komosa nodded, then set off around the edge of the hole. Sophia remained still for a moment, gazing into the crater. “Good-bye, Eddie,” she said, before turning away to follow the Nigerian.

Chase opened his eyes… to see nothing but blackness.

He knew he wasn’t dead, though. The stitches in his leg ached too much.

The collapsing roof had felt like a bomb exploding behind him, a shock wave of displaced air blasting him through the gilded archway into the passage beyond. Ears still ringing, he got to his knees. The air was full of dust; he coughed, putting a hand over his mouth and nose to filter the worst of it.

Eyes adjusting, he saw a feeble scrap of daylight through the stone and sand now blocking the archway, dust swirling in the soft glow.

That was the end of the Tomb of Hercules, he thought. Anything inside would have been hammered flat as the ceiling collapsed. Nina wouldn’t be happy… “Nina!”

The name burst from him, shocking him back to full awareness. She had been beside him just before they reached the exit-where was she now?

He groped blindly through the rubble on the floor of the passage, feeling nothing but hard stone, the dry and gritty rasp of sand. The faint light didn’t even provide enough illumination for him to make out his own fingers.

A fear rose inside him, the cold horror of loss. He’d felt it before, in combat, the growing certainty that somebody from his unit wasn’t coming back.

But this wasn’t combat. And Nina was more than any comrade in arms…

“Nina!” A scream this time, but still unanswered. His hands clawed harder through the smashed stones, scattering them aside in an increasingly desperate search for anything that wasn’t unyielding and cold-

His fingers brushed soft cloth. Nina’s shirt.

Under a lump of stone.

“Shit!” Chase pulled the fractured slab off her, throwing it aside. He still couldn’t see, but felt her lying on her back.

Unmoving.

“Oh fuck,” he gasped, reaching for her neck, searching for a pulse. “Shit, come on, come on…” Nothing-“Come on!”

A pulsation beneath his fingertip, weak but definitely there.

Relief exploded within him. “Oh, Jesus, yes!” he cried, clearing the rest of the rubble from her. “Nina, come on, wake up…”

Chase hurriedly checked her for the wetness of blood or the jagged bulge of a broken bone beneath the skin. Not finding either, he bent to feel for her breath against his cheek.

Nothing.

Without light, there was no way for him to tell why she was unresponsive. He didn’t even know how long she had been unconscious, having lost track of time while he’d been dazed. It could have been just seconds, or over a minute…

He began CPR. Heel of his hand on Nina’s chest, pushing down firmly. Thirty compressions. Then he tilted back her head and pinched shut her nose with one hand, delivering two breaths into her open mouth.