The shaking began as a rumble, but in a heartbeat became something more. Deep underground, massed beneath three storeys of stone, concrete, tarmac and the buildings of the city above, everyone in the vault chamber felt a sudden, new terror as the earth unleashed its own violence to overtake their own.
The movement was erratic, thrashing. Emil lost his footing and toppled on to the man next to him, and behind her Angelina could feel Ben’s crouch give way as his body fell against hers. She reached forward to grab the control box for support, but as the earth itself shook and vibrated, there was nothing that felt stable. Beneath her feet the ground moved one way, above her it moved another.
Cement, stone and dirt burst their way through the crumbling support structure above the chamber, and started to fall down on them all in thumps and crashes. The vault itself, already weakened by the chemical treatments and explosives Emil’s men had used to infiltrate it, not to mention the massive hole they’d blown through one of its sides, could no longer withstand the earthquake’s violent vibrations. It split across a seam that ran ceiling to floor, the force of the moving earth tearing apart the ‘indestructible’ treasury of human wealth.
Unsure, at first, what was happening, men on both sides of the splitting vault squeezed down on their triggers, gunfire spraying into an air already filled with falling debris. But at some point survival instincts overtake command instructions even in the most well-trained of people, and as the world bellowed and collapsed around them, both Heinrich’s men and Emil’s simply reached after something, anything, to support them.
The shaking went on for what seemed an impossibly long time, but then, as swiftly as it came, it ceased.
The room went from explosive noise to dead silence in an instant, punctuated only by the intermittent thud and clunk of stones dropping from above.
That, and just to her left, the dust-covered frame of Thomás, still huddled, eyes pinched closed in terror, but whose lips were still moving.
‘And then the earth shall quake,’ he whispered, quoting from the prophecies that had so transfixed him. He repeated the phrase over and over again.
‘The earth shall quake. The earth shall quake.’
And the lull came to an end.
With a thunderous boom louder than anything a storm could produce, the earth lurched into motion again – a singular jolt that knocked over half the men still standing.
As its sound faded, it was replaced by another as the earth between the opposing groups trembled, then simply fell away.
An enormous sinkhole had been opened up by the quake, and as its upper surface gave way, the flooring of the vault tore from its moorings and ripped itself from the walls.
With a sickening slowness, a chasm emerged beneath the vault, growing deeper and deeper. What little of the flooring hadn’t already fallen in, now slanted at straining angles, the remaining contents of the vault sliding off their shelves and falling with golden shimmers into the emerging darkness below.
‘Grab what we’ve got!’ Emil’s voice suddenly boomed out again. ‘Everything you can, and get out of here!’
Whatever the scenarios for victory might have been before, all that was left now was to survive, and to make it out with whatever they’d already extracted and got to a distance far enough away that it wasn’t being pulled down into the massive hole.
Emil’s men scrambled into motion, grabbing bags and packs while trying to keep their weapons trained on Heinrich’s team across the chasm. But the ground still rumbled, the flooring lurching into unexpected motion, the danger unpredictable and violent.
It was a danger one man didn’t adapt to quickly enough.
A heavy bag in one hand and his Glock in the other, his balance faltered as a new vibration shook the earth. He spread his feet on instinct, trying to adapt, but the ground beneath him angled too steeply. The weight of the gold in his hand pulled him towards the hole in the earth, and even after he released his grasp and let the bag go, gravity had already pulled him too far off his footing. The only way his body was going was down, and as he reached the ledge the speed of his descent increased as his scream began.
‘Ridolfo!’ another man cried out, reaching forth a hand to try to grab him by the pack on his back, but the man’s tumble couldn’t be stopped. He cried out as his footing met open air, his eyes growing wide on a disfigured face as the inevitability of what was coming registered. A second later, he fell over the edge of what had formerly been the vault’s floor, his scream fading as he disappeared into the darkness.
The man who had tried to save him remained rooted to his spot, one arm angled around a beam to support himself while his other was still reached out in the failed effort at rescue.
As other men grabbed what they could and fled in retreat, this man stayed motionless, his eyes on the spot where his friend had fallen out of his sight.
And then they turned with fury to face across the vault.
Angelina recognised his face.