Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear

Chapter 24

They were better preserved than the paws of the Great Sphinx in Egypt—but as Dayani had warned, the well-preserved paws were all that remained. The steep stone stairs between the paws led only to a rock ledge that in turn led to more stairs winding further up the mountain—the monumental head the stairs must once have passed through was completely gone.

Gabriel walked over to what would have been the figure’s left paw and crouched beside it. Rainwater ran down its sides and pooled at his feet. He shone the flashlight on the wet surface and felt along it with one hand, inching his fingertips from the base of the claw all the way back to the rock wall the paw emerged from. Then he did the same thing again, a few inches lower.

“What are you doing?” Sheba said.

He didn’t answer, just kept feeling along the surface for any irregularity in texture, any indication of a seam. He stopped about halfway down. “The men of Taprobane,” he said, pulling from his belt the other tool he’d hung there on the way off the plane, a spring-loaded emergency window punch, “were creatures of habit.” He set the tip of the punch to the section of the stone where his finger had halted and triggered its action. The point shot out, chiseling into the stone. “Two temples, separated by hundreds of miles and hundreds of years, but they had matching maps and matching statues inside, matching inscriptions.” He pried the punch out, reset it, moved it a few inches away, and triggered it again. “I figure if they built a secret entrance into the Sphinx’s left paw in Giza, they’d probably—” He moved the punch once more, triggered it again. “—do the same thing here.”

After a few more shots, the outline of a seam began to emerge. “Here, hold this,” he said, and Sheba took the flashlight from him, aiming it down to illuminate the surface. “A little higher.” The beam moved. “That’s it.” He drew the point of the punch along the seam, clearing it of the compacted stone dust that had filled it in for so long. The rain was helping, by washing particles away as he dug them out.

Yes, there was definitely a separate block here, no question about it. The question was how he could get it out. In Giza it had taken two strong men to lever the stone slowly out of its hole—and that had been a smaller block that had already been removed and replaced several times. This one had probably never been moved since first being sealed up who knew how many centuries ago. Even if Sheba helped, they’d be at a disadvantage. And they didn’t have an unlimited amount of time. Hunching over to protect it from getting wet, he looked once more at the device Lucy had given him. 40SW, it said. Forty miles—it meant DeGroet was in Kurunegala already. Even in the rain it wouldn’t take him long to cover the remaining distance…

Gabriel froze.

He’d heard a sound, faintly, from the direction of the stairs, one that chilled him in a way that an hour spent out in the rain and wind had not. Or had he just imagined it? He looked down at Lucy’s device again. It couldn’t be—

Slap, slap, click.

He looked up—and, noticing him do so, Sheba did, too. She was still aiming the flashlight down at the stone of the lion’s paw, but enough light leaked past to outline the figures at the top of the steps. The man in front was small and slender and stood stiff-backed with a walking stick in one hand.

Lajos DeGroet.

DeGroet switched on a small flashlight in his other hand. There was a bigger man standing behind him, holding an umbrella over DeGroet’s head. To one side of DeGroet and one step back, holding his own umbrella, was Karoly, a cigarette smoldering in a corner of his mouth, a pistol in his hand.

The man behind DeGroet, Gabriel saw, had a gun on them as well.

“You look surprised,” DeGroet said.

He walked slowly down the steps, clipping the flashlight to his belt as he went.

“Do you think I am an idiot, Hunt? Did you think I wouldn’t notice that Andras’ cell phone was gone? Or that maybe it wouldn’t occur to me that you could use it to track mine?” DeGroet stopped a foot away, flanked by his men. “Have you never played chess, Hunt? I know you’re not the intellectual your brother is, but I would have thought you might have picked up some of the basic principles over the years. One of which is lulling your opponent into a false sense of security.”

He extended his free hand, palm up.

“Your gun, if you please.”

Gabriel unsnapped his holster and handed over the gun he’d taken from DeGroet’s man in Istanbul, butt first.

“Where’s your Colt, Hunt? I hope you haven’t lost it. That was a fine piece. A fine piece.” He turned the gun over in his hand a few times, then tossed it off the side of the mountain.

“How did you beat us here?” Gabriel said.

“How do I beat everyone at everything? I just do. It is my gift.” He turned to Sheba. “I am sorry we didn’t meet under better circumstances, my dear. You are a very lovely girl and I can be most generous to my friends.” He gestured at the man holding the umbrella over him. “Istvan, help Mr. Hunt get that stone out, will you? Here, I’ll take that.” He took the umbrella in his free hand. “Go on.”

Istvan slipped his gun into a shoulder holster under his jacket and knelt on the ground beside the paw. Both DeGroet’s light and Sheba’s shone on the block. Istvan felt around the edges of the seam Gabriel had uncovered, tried to slip his thick fingers inside. It was impossible—the groove was too narrow. He looked back at his boss somewhat helplessly. “How am I supposed to get it out?”

“Well, Hunt? How were you going to do it?”

“Frankly,” Gabriel said, “I hadn’t figured that out yet myself.”

“Well, figure it out now, or your lovely friend goes where your gun just did.”

Karoly took the bag off Sheba’s shoulder, transferred it to his own, and pressed the nose of his revolver into her back. Gabriel could see that his hand was bandaged. “Did that hurt,” Gabriel said, “when I shot the gun out of your hand?”

“Quit stalling,” Karoly said, his voice a low rasp.

“Oh, good,” Gabriel said. “It did.” He turned back to the block, thought about the options for getting it out. With a drill and some anchored screws it might be possible to gain purchase on the stone and draw it out; with an explosive, of course, you could blast it out. But with neither…

“Lie down,” he told Istvan. “On your back.”

“What?” the big man asked.

“On your back, next to me,” Gabriel said, and demonstrated, lying down with the soles of his boots up against the stone block.

“What are you doing, Hunt?” DeGroet wanted to know.

“We’re not going to be able to pull it out—we don’t have the tools. That means we’ll have to push it in.”

DeGroet thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Do it,” he told Istvan.

The big man lay down, braced his feet against the stone. Gabriel briefly considered the possibility of rolling over on top of him, trying to get to the gun in his holster, but he discarded the idea. Even if he succeeded in taking Istvan by surprise and could overpower him and get to his gun—none of which was a sure thing—doing so would take time, and with Karoly’s pistol millimeters from Sheba’s spine, it was time they didn’t have.

Gabriel said, “Count of three, push. Okay?” Istvan spat to clear rainwater from his mouth, then nodded. “One,” Gabriel said. “Two…”

He saw Sheba move. She spun and broke free of Karoly’s grip and started running for the stairs. DeGroet reacted swiftly: He swung his walking stick out, slipping it between her legs in midstride and, with a snap of his wrist, sweeping her ankle from under her. Sheba fell to the ground with a crash.