“I’ve fallen through the rabbit hole,” Kilgore France growled under her breath as she placed probes against the sides of the great black sarcophagus. After having been suited and masked, she’d spent her quick introduction to the tomb alternately staring, shaking her head, and mumbling to herself.
Reid and Yusif stood to the side, arms crossed, as she worked. The microphone in her mask picked up the slightest of sounds, and Skientia, back in California, had to be hearing her whispered imprecations.
Fixing the last of the probes, Kilgore stepped over to the computer. She checked the data transmission cord that snaked its way across the tomb and outside to the satellite phone. With a final growl, she flicked the machine on.
After several minutes of waiting, she chuckled humorlessly. “How about that?”
“Find something, Doctor?”
She beckoned him over. Reid bent slightly, Yusif crowding in behind him. The ghostly image from inside the sarcophagus reminded him of a series of tubes stacked atop each other.
“Ideas?” Reid asked.
“The sarcophagus is definitely made of wood, but I don’t know what these blocks are on all four corners.” She pointed to four squares of opacity. “It’s some sort of granular substance in a container. Nor do these white strips rising out of the containers make sense. Given the opacity, they’re obviously iron of some sort, and these thin chip-looking things that press against them are perplexing.”
“Gun flints?” Reid wondered, noting the shape of the things. Then it hit him: “Oh, shit! That Latin inscription up on the chest, the one the image is clutching. APERTUS ET DIRUMPO. Skientia translated that as ‘Open and abruptly disperse.’”
“Then that means . . . ?”
“Well, if that’s an iron strip, and those are slivers of flint, and the blocky granular stuff is black powder, anyone opening the sarcophagus might strike a spark.”
“And ka-bang!” Yusif added. “Very clever.”
“But why?” Kilgore asked. “If it’s a hoax . . . No, this goes beyond a hoax to outright malicious behavior. Call it psychotic. Gentlemen, this isn’t a game, it’s a crime scene.”
“Come again?” Reid asked.
“Dr. Farmer, these traps you’ve brought me past? The fact that you were doused by toxic spores and fungi, the sarcophagus rigged with explosives? It’s all designed to kill. The intricacy indicates a highly organized and psychopathic mind at work. I’ve dealt with cases similar to this where—”
“Dr. France, there is an alternate hypothesis.” Bill Minor’s voice came through Reid’s earpiece. “While the ultimate lethality of the traps may not be up for debate, their purpose is. Our interpretation is that these were designed as defenses.”
“Defenses, Mr. Minor?” Kilgore asked. “To protect what? And from whom? Everything I’ve seen here is bizarre to the extreme. This entire place reeks of a psychopath’s nightmare. The tomb’s been designed as a lure, one that’s working brilliantly. But for the skill, preparations, and expertise of the investigators, someone would have already been killed. All I want is to find the sick son of a bitch who designed this and see him locked away for attempted murder.”
“If our team at Skientia is correct, Dr. France, the designer, your ‘sick son-of-a-bitch,’ is buried in that tomb. If not in the central sarcophagus—as your data would seem to suggest—then perhaps in one of those smaller ones to the rear.”
Reid muttered, “Bill, as soon as this bus stops at reality, I want to get off.”
“If you could . . . Shit! We’re under attack!”
“Mr. Minor?” Kilgore asked. “Attack?”
Reid glanced back and forth. “Mr. Minor? Bill? What do you mean, attack?”
“Dr. Farmer? This is California,” Dr. Kaplan’s voice interceded. “Our remote cameras indicate the approach of a party of armed men. Please secure yourselves.”
“Huh?” Reid glanced at his companions. “Secure ourselves? What the hell does that mean?”
Communications, however, had gone silent.
Kilgore gestured anger and disbelief. “I’m a fucking professional, for God’s sake! When I get a hold of my agent, I’m gonna kick her ass right up between her ears for booking me on this lunatic’s quest.”
Yusif flipped off Kilgore’s computer and began disconnecting it from the leads. “Come, my friends. Let’s see if we can’t . . .”
The faint chatter of automatic weapons fire resonated in the tomb.
Reid turned and saw a silhouetted figure charging down the passage. The man wore a riot helmet, black tactical garb, and the M16 in his hands looked real.
“Wait!” Reid threw up his hands. But even as he did, the man slammed a foot down on the pitfall. He dropped like a stone, his cry cut off by a smacking impact. A second man followed more cautiously, an ugly black submachine gun at the ready. Wary, he cast a glance down into the pit. The narrow passage amplified the fallen man’s anguished screams. The second assailant stepped to the side and crossed the plank bridge. At the burial chamber entrance, he crouched, the weapon’s butt pressed against his chest as if it were an extension of his gaze.
Reid’s heart stopped as the gunman’s eyes pinned him—the black muzzle of the submachine gun pointed at Reid’s head. For that brief-and-frozen moment, an electric fear left him paralyzed.
Then the man’s gaze—and the terrible gun—swept past him to Kilgore.
When the gunman finally spoke, his voice was filled with a New York accent. “Dr. France! How good to make your acquaintance.” Ignoring the sloping planks that would have let him slide down, he leaped down onto the wooden platform and placed a foot on the stone threshold. “Now, if you’ll step back so we can get the body out of . . .”
At the grating sound, he glanced up.
The great block sheared through the wooden planks and mashed the gunman as though he were butter. The man’s body crackled, popped, and snapped as the stone slammed down.
Then the room went black.