Passage Graves (33 page)

Gunshots rang out,
cast into the sky and finding no target.

Javan appeared again with Dettorio’s gun. His good ear was bleeding, his eyes large and frantic. “Climb
Ian!”

Ian
looked down at Dettorio. Their eyes met. More gunshots were swallowed up inside the noise.

They raced up the line.
Ian’s thin biceps burned as he pulled himself upward, arm over arm, inch by inch. Dettorio reached Ian’s feet and started to climb over him. Their weight split the nylon and the rope began to fray, unraveling at the top ledge. They were close to the bottom of the platform.

Javan
shouted over the base of the platform, blood gushing from his ear. His words were lost in the commotion. The sky was charged static discord. Everywhere Ian looked, noise was physically visible.

The nylon split again, pinning Javan’s hand against the ledge
. He screamed as the rope severed his fingers.

As the rope untangled,
Ian grabbed the base of the platform. His hands found holds within the rock. He fought to unclip the karabiner.

The rope snapped.
Dettorio plummeted into the well. His body hit the water with a terrible crash. He surfaced, choking and hacking, trying to yell for help over the noise. His face was pure confusion. The monster of a man was drowning as he tried to swim to the wall. Ian couldn’t hear him, but he saw the sense of panic on Dettorio’s face.

Clinging to
the ledge, Ian struggled to inch upward. His muscles were locked in spasm, his legs still numb. There could be no mind over matter. He simply did not have the energy to climb. He lowered his head against the cliff and stared down at the water.

Javan reappeared at the ledge, cradling his wounded hand. He grabb
ed Ian’s arm and pulled him up.

Ian rested
his stomach on the rock hedge. He was safe.

With a ravaged stump of
a hand, Javan tore the ring from Ian’s neck. He stumbled backwards and looked up at Ian. In his other hand was Dettorio’s gun, aimed at Ian’s head.

“You’re not the Chosen
One!” Javan squeezed the trigger.

Chapter 81

MONDAY, 12:34 a.m.

Orkney Island, Scotland

David rested his head against the helicopter window. He searched the fog for familiar landmarks, but the haze was too thick to see much of anything. The world felt strangely out of foc
us. The earth had stopped its perpetual motion to prepare for the end. The atmosphere smothered the ground in a cloud of hopelessness. Thick, numinous clouds gathered on rolling grasses. A wet chill radiated from the window as water droplets slid diagonally across the glass.

The chopper dropped in altitude and touched down at Stenness Basecamp. Maeshowe was barely visible through th
e fog.

This was it, t
he grand finale.

He was forced outside onto the soggy ground. The men were government officials of some kind, although he didn’t recognize their uniforms
. Some British Military special operations force. He paused for a moment to take in the landscape. Stenness was reduced to No Man’s Land. It looked worse than he’d pictured from Thatcher’s description, completely obliterated humanity, the wreckage of military haste, hell on earth. There was nothing recognizable. 

They went directly to an elevator shaft. Without a word, the men clipped a harness to
David’s waist and belayed him down the vertical tunnel. Steel girders lined the corners of the shaft. The metal was twisted and fractured in places, but mostly intact. Below, pieces of the destroyed boxcar were strewn across the floor.

Morning light
shrank as it became more and more distant. It was merely a rectangular glow by the time he lowered into basecamp. His feet met the floor, and a man stepped forward and unclipped the harness.

Opaque walls separated the corridor from what David guessed was the morgue. Thatcher said the Stenness dead were still down there. He could see the shadowy outline of body bags lining the wall. Marta, Darwin,
and many others, would be buried in this tomb. The smell of death permeated the walls.

The h
ulking silhouette of Hummer appeared down the walkway. The width of the man’s shoulders filled the narrow corridor. As he passed below the blue halogen lights, David could see how apt Thatcher’s descriptions were—the man was an imposing presence in any space. Undeniably, Hummer seemed entirely capable of carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and without flinching.

The militiaman
handed Hummer the seal.

Hummer clenched his jaw. He met David with a toxic stare.

David’s handcuffs were secured. The man disappeared down the corridor as Hummer led David into the helm. Shrapnel cement and rebar obstructed most of the floor. Broken computers, cracked sound equipment, boxes of explosives—everything was in piles against the splitting walls. The place was ready to crumble. He and Hummer were the last remaining occupants. 

They sto
pped beside a door a short distance from the living quarters. The door was made of metal composite very different from the rest of basecamp, something from the original structure. The underground mine didn’t look anything like the place he had stayed in during his quarantine.

Hummer
unlocked the door and shoved David inside.

David landed o
n his knees. The floor was damp. Muddy cement soaked into his pants. It smelled like earthworms and the bodies he’d passed on the way inside. The door slammed shut and he was left in the dark.

He felt around the room with his hands.
It was nothing more than a large closet. He could reach the ceiling with his fingertips.

The floor chilled his bones.

For the first time, the end suddenly felt real.

Would Hummer leave him
here to die?

He closed his eyes.
All he could see was the look on Thatcher’s face as the flood swept over her.

Chapter 82

Air bubbled from his mout
h and nose. He tried to scream but water flooded his throat. There was no up or down. Just water. Murky darkness. He could barely see his hands in front of his face. He flailed his arms, expelling the last amount of air from his lungs. The bubbles percolated upward and broke through the surface. He followed them, gasping and spitting. How long had he been submerged?

He found the surface.
The water was free of debris, anything large enough to keep him afloat. Walls of chalky stone towered overhead on every side. The world was silent. Eerily quiet. That horrible sound had ended. Even the chirping frogs and buzzing crickets had stopped. Above, all he could see were millions of stars. The pin holes of light were more than a trillion miles away. The universe was holding its breath, waiting for him to die. 

He swam for the rock wall
, his lungs burning. There was a foul taste in his mouth from swallowing too much water—if it could be called water. He felt sludge on his head and realized it was blood. He wiped it away from his eyes and felt the back of his skull. His head was wet and cold. There was no pain. Above his right temple was a gash deep enough to reveal bone. Firing at point blank range, Javan had grazed him. The laceration wasn’t fatal.

But the pit was.

Now death was less of a matter of how and more a matter of when.

Ian swam to the wall and felt along the surface. There were only
a few small divots and cavities, no hanging vines where he could rest his body. His fingers scraped rock. Sand fragmented and crumbled into the water. There was no leverage. 

His next impulse was to scream.
But who would hear him so many miles from civilization?

The ruins would be filled with
tourists in the morning. They would find his body floating on the surface of the sacrificial well.

He kicked
his legs to keep adrift. The cold water was stiffening his joints. Soon his muscles would fail.

The flashlight Javan had tossed into the pit floated just out of reach, its light
dim. He swam to it and pulled it back with him to the rock. His heart stopped as he held the beam toward the wall. There were gouges from fingernails cut into the sandy surface, perhaps centuries old, some more than a half-inch deep. Flesh must have been torn from bone. He slammed the end of the flashlight into the cliff. Blow after blow, sand just crumbled into the water. He couldn’t make a dent.

Time
passed. Apathetic and unhurried. 

It
was a good hour before the flashlight burned out.

After that, everything w
ent dark. His legs became lethargic, slowing their kick. It was too hard to stay above the surface. His body started to feel illusively warm. These were the first signs of hypothermia. He was fully aware of this. Nonetheless, the counterfeit heat dimmed his thoughts with unusual comfort, almost with acceptance. He closed his eyes. His head dipped under water.

He awoke, hacking and gagging. The water was putrid
, acidic and dense.

Flipping onto his back, he gave another effort to float and conserve energy. If he could hold out until morning, people would come. They would see him.

Pond water ignited the submerged gunshot wound, sending a lightning rod of pain down his spine until he swam upright.

Ancient legend
said that gods had saved some from the pit.

How had the others escaped? The Chosen Ones. There must be some trick.

There must be some way out.

He forced himself to follow
the perimeter of the pit again. The hole was a perfect deathtrap. Certainly, his watery tomb. On his third trip around, his fingers were too numb to feel the walls. He succumbed to the sensation and looked up at the stars.

This was not how he was supposed to die.

Muscles hardened to rock. Joints stiffened like boards. His body slipped under the surface. Liquid death rushed over him. There was no fear this time. He was numb, and his feet weighted, tied down with sand bags of indifference. He sank and let the Mayans claim him, mind, body, and soul.

Chapter 83

MONDAY, 1:00 a.m.

Stenness Basecamp

Orkney Island, Scotland

Hummer sat alone in the basecamp lab—or what was left of it. He stared at the countdown clock. It registered 4 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, and 0 milliseconds remaining before AVX annihilation.

Javan’s voice sounded over the comlink, cutting through the static. “
Abort the operation! I’m returning to Britain. We’ve miscalculated.”

Hummer lifted his arm radio to his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“Ian wasn’t the Firstborn Chosen.”

Hummer looked over at David’s cell door.

“Brenton has taken me on a goddamn wild goose chase!” He was furious. “David has to be the Firstborn Chosen.”

Javan’s decision to send David to ground
zero was a serious mistake. The risk of having the Chosen One, the seal, and the eternal stone so close together was unnerving. Immortality, the power of Conqueror—all of it was a short walk from basecamp.

“Abort the operation and get out of there,” Javan said. “AVX was a precaution, a failsafe. Now I need that grave intact. I need
to get David to Chichén Itzá.”

Hummer remained fixated on the door.

“This is an order.”

The few working monitors overhead displayed
the targeted graves and a menu of logistics, including the option of a manual abort.

“I sent a helicopter,” Javan said. “They’ll be there any—”

“What about Brynne?”

“Brynne
?”

Hummer gritted his teeth. “You promised her safety.”

Static filled the void. Javan was talking to someone else. He came back over the comlink. “I’m sorry, Director, she didn’t make it out of Jordan.”

Hummer closed his eyes.

“Confirm abort of Operation Silence,” Javan ordered.

The yells of the promised rescue team echoed d
own the corridor. They were already there. 

Hummer lifted the radio device to his mouth. For a moment, he couldn’t speak.

“Abort confirmed,” he stated.

He shut off his CB radio and slammed it on the desk. The device broke into pieces.

Two men entered the lab.

“Director
Hummer?” one man asked.

Hummer pulled the gun from his belt and shot them
both down in a single sweep of his arm. His fingers hovered over the abort option. He typed the command for manual system lockout.

There would be no abort.

The graves, the seal, and the Chosen One would all be destroyed.

Chapter 84

There was a stabbing pain in his palm.

Ian stirred awake.

He couldn’t
remember if he was dead yet.

Through the dark waters, the
Hebrew mark scratched into his hand glowed vibrant white. Its sting surpassed the numbness. He flailed his arms and legs in one final struggle to survive. He stopped, confused as to the direction of the surface.

There was
a light, a short distance away. The glow penetrated the haze, extending outward from a hole in the bottom of the pit’s rock wall. It was a passage, a tunnel just wide enough for his body.

Ian’s feet touched the
floor as he forced himself in the direction of the light. The scum of the bottom was hideous. Piles of decomposed skeletons—the sacrifices not saved by the gods—protruded from the earth like ghosts above the murky sand. He pulled himself inside the tunnel. The light was more vibrant inside. He followed it.

Oxygen depleted from his bloodstream, and a shower of sparks was cast over his eyes. He paddled forward until his hands met a boulder. He felt around it,
up the rock, higher and higher. He broke through the surface, gasping for air. Blood warmed and circulated through his body, reviving each limb. He lay strewn upon the boulder, wheezing in exhaustion. The mark still glowed on his hand. His sight returned and he realized it was bleeding. 

His surroundings came into view. He was inside a cavern, an underground chamber a dozen or so feet adjacent to the Pit of Sacrifice. Water pooled at the end of
the room, where he had entered through the tunnel. It glowed unworldly green. Tree roots and stalactites hung from the looming ceiling. Blood-red water dripped down the dome’s formations. A tiny hole in the far corner of room invited the first ray of morning sunlight inside the chamber.

Sometime during his harrowing swim, night had ended.

The beam of light cut
directly across the center of the cavern and landed at the tip of a stalagmite protruding out of the water. The stalagmite looked like a finger. The ring would fit perfectly on it. Ian held his breath.

This
was the Holy of Holies.

He reac
hed for the ring, and remembered Javan’s bloody hand tearing it from his neck. He crawled toward the stalagmite altar and stopped. Something cold rested against his hip. He pulled up his shirt.

Javan’s gun was still tucked under his belt. 

He looked down at his hands. They no longer trembled.

In a single moment, everything changed.