Jack rejoined Lily at the top of the salt shaft.
‘Got it?’ she asked.
‘Got it.’
‘Was he . . . in there?’
‘He was, and it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced,’ Jack said softly. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
They crossed the brine lake and started climbing the scaffold structure that led back to the gallery. Iolanthe was still waiting for them at the top of the scaffold.
Lily climbed in the lead, with Jack behind her in case she slipped or fell, so she reached the top first.
He heard her scream before he saw why.
The short plank-bridge between the scaffold and the lip of the pit fell away, past Jack’s disbelieving eyes, leaving a nine-foot gap between them and the lip.
They were stranded out on the scaffold.
Jack joined Lily and Iolanthe on the top of the scaffold and looked out across the gap.
Two men brandishing crossbows stood on the other side.
Vulture and Scimitar.
They’d come back.
‘You knew the other Pillar was a fake,’ Jack said from his position out on the scaffold.
Vulture smiled. ‘Of course. This place has long been known to our people, so too its secrets. Our Chinese colleague is now taking that other Pillar back to the Russian, completely unaware that it is worthless. Deeming us to be of no more use, our guards left us here, which happens to be just fine with us.’
‘I thought you and China were in this together,’ Jack said.
‘As the end approaches, partnerships of convenience will naturally dissolve,’ Scimitar said.
‘I think the phrase you’re looking for is “There’s no honour among thieves,”’ Jack retorted.
‘Throw the Pillar over to me and I might spare the girl. Rest assured, I will not be sparing you or the royal bitch.’
Jack gripped the Pillar, biting his lip.
He was screwed. He couldn’t fire a gun in this methane-filled environment. And he, Lily and Iolanthe couldn’t possibly jump across the gap. They were trapped, totally out of options.
Vulture sneered, raised his crossbow. ‘You’ve played well, Huntsman, very well. But here your adventure ends.’
Jack closed his eyes. . .
. . . just as another voice echoed out from somewhere else in the cavern.
‘Not yet!’
Vulture spun. So did Scimitar and Iolanthe and Lily.
Jack didn’t need to. He’d know that voice anywhere. Deep and gruff, it belonged to the one man in the world who wanted to stop Vulture and Scimitar more than Jack did.
It belonged to Pooh Bear.
Pooh Bear stood with Stretch at the northern end of the gallery, in between the salt mounds. Jack guessed that they must have entered the mine through the same tunnels he had and followed his trail of glowsticks here.
Pooh and Stretch stood opposite Vulture and Scimitar like gunslingers on a wild west street.
Vulture grinned. ‘Well, well, well, Fat Zahir returns.’
Pooh Bear ignored the Saudi, jerked his chin at Scimitar. ‘Brother. A simple question. Do you still side with this snake?’
Scimitar hesitated for a second, then raised his nose. ‘My way is the right way, Zahir, for our country and for our faith.’
‘What about our father in his watery tomb in Russia?’ Pooh Bear asked.
‘His death is a sacrifice I am prepared to endure,’ Scimitar replied evenly.
‘You are truly lost, then, aren’t you . . . ’
‘You do not have to die here, Zahir. But if you stand in my way, you most certainly will.’
‘I do not wish to fight you, brother,’ Pooh Bear said. ‘But I will if I must. I cannot let you pass. I am sorry that it has to come to this.’
Pooh Bear drew a long-bladed knife from his weapons belt. Stretch did the same.
An incredulous grin broke out across Scimitar’s face. ‘You intend to fight me, Zahir? Me! Never even in our childhood wrestling matches could you beat me. And your sickly Jew friend is no match for a blade-handler of Vulture’s skill.’
Pooh Bear was unmoved. ‘That may be so, brother. But you hold our friends at your mercy, so we will fight you anyway. Only one of us can leave this place alive.’
‘So be it,’ Scimitar said. ‘Fight we shall.’
Quick as a whip, he raised his crossbow and fired it. The bolt thudded directly into Pooh Bear’s chest. At the same time, Vulture fired at Stretch, but Stretch was ready—he swerved and the bolt went wide.
Pooh Bear shuddered as Scimitar’s crossbow bolt struck him, but he remained standing, the bolt protruding from his chest.
He looked up at Scimitar in apparent disbelief.
Scimitar said, ‘I never said I would fight fair.’
Pooh Bear didn’t move. Perhaps he was in shock, perhaps he was—
Then he calmly reached down and wrenched the bolt from his chest, revealing a Kevlar vest. He threw the bolt to the ground. ‘Neither did I,’ he said.
Their crossbows expended, Scimitar and Vulture discarded them and drew their own curving blades. Pooh noticed that Scimitar’s knife was the beautiful gold-hilted bejewelled dagger their father had given to Scimitar on his thirteenth birthday—a prized gift from a father to his firstborn son.
Pooh and Stretch raised their own more humble Ka-Bar knives.
Scimitar and Vulture gripped theirs backhanded, special forces style, and suddenly it was on.
And in the darkness of the ancient Roman salt mine, the two pairs engaged.
Jack watched in horror as Pooh Bear and Stretch took on Vulture and Scimitar in hand-to-hand combat—in a battle that was not only for their lives, but for his as well.
If Pooh and Stretch lost, Jack would be killed and Lily taken captive.
Their fates were entirely in Pooh’s and Stretch’s hands.
Blades flashed and clashed as Iwo separate knifefights began near the brink: Pooh Bear vs Scimitar and Stretch vs Vulture.
Scimitar roared as he slashed at his younger brother with great sweeping swipes, and at first Pooh Bear successfully parried each blow away, holding his ground, sparks flying with each impact of their knives.
But then, gradually, Scimitar forced him backwards, and started drawing blood—slashes to the hand, then taunting gashes to the face. Still, Pooh Bear kept fighting, grimly, determinedly.
As for Stretch, he was in trouble from the moment Vulture unsheathed his cutlass. Vulture was indeed a skilled bladesman, extremely skilled. His knife moved with blurring speed and it was all Stretch could do to defend himself.
It soon became apparent that while Stretch was fighting with every ounce of concentration and energy he had, Vulture was toying with him, barely even perspiring.
Vulture was pushing him toward the edge of the pit, forcing him back. Stretch tripped, stumbled, raised his knife again. Then Vulture punched him and he fell against the big wooden slave wheel, his back momentarily turned to his opponent—
—and to his utter horror he felt the cold blade of Vulture’s knife plunge into his lower back.
Stretch froze. Bullets of sweat broke out on his forehead.
Vulture pressed himself close to him, hissed in his ear: ‘Feel that, Jew? Feel my blade inside you?’
Vulture twisted the knife. Fiery pain shot through Stretch’s body. He clenched his teeth in agony, slumped to the ground. His own knife fell from his hand.
‘No!’ Lily screamed from the scaffold.
Stretch turned and saw he; his eyes pleading, but he was spent. Despite his exhaustion, he reached pathetically for the knife, his bloody hand shaking.
Clink!
He frowned. Looked around.
And saw that Vulture had clasped one of the slave wheel’s manacles to his left wrist.
Stretch looked up in horror. He was now bound to the slave wheel.
‘Come, watch the death of your friend,’ Vulture said. ‘Then I shall come back and hack off your fucking head in front
of the girl.’
Vulture stood and headed over toward Scimitar and Pooh Bear’s fight.
Stretch yanked on the manacle, but it was no use. His strength was gone and the manacle was too strong.
At that same moment, Pooh Bear was struggling in his own battle with Scimitar—he was backed up against a salt mound, desperately deflecting Scimitar’s vicious thrusts.
Then he saw Vulture approaching—glimpsed Stretch, slumped and beaten, manacled to the slave wheel—and he realised that this was quickly becoming a disaster—
—when suddenly Scimitar broke through Pooh Bear’s defences and slashed him horrifically across the left side of his face.
Pooh roared, his face exploding blood. His whole left eye had been slashed clean in two.
Pooh slumped to the ground, clutching his eye socket with his free hand, blood pouring down his face.
Scimitar stood triumphantly over him as Vulture arrived at his side.
Jack and Lily watched in horror from the scaffold, only fifteen metres away, but helpless to intervene.
The end was coming for Pooh Bear and Jack clutched Lily to his chest, shielding her eyes, not wanting her to see this.
Pooh sat dumbly against the salt mound, legs outstretched, head bowed, blood running out of the grisly maroon hole that was his eye socket, down his beard and onto his lap. He clutched weakly at his beard as if trying to stem the flow of blood down it, still gripping his knife with one hand.
Scimitar crouched before him, shook his head sadly.
‘I will never understand you, Zahir. But understand me when I say that you have brought this upon yourself. You have forced this upon me. . .
Scimitar raised his cutlass—Just as Pooh Bear made one last desperate lunge at his throat!
Only for Scimitar to jerk his head expertly away, just far enough for the tip of Pooh’s extended blade to fall an inch short of Scimitar’s Adam’s apple.
Scimitar smiled. ‘An impressive final lunge, my brother, but like I said, you can’t beat me. You never could. And nothing can save you now.’
His face covered in gashes, salt and sweat, his left eye socket a dark hole of bloody blackness, Pooh Bear glared at his duplicitous brother with his one remaining eye. His knife-arm was still fully extended so that its blade-tip was directly underneath his brother’s chin.
When he spoke, his voice was a husky whisper.
‘Just one thing . . .’
‘Oh fuck—’ Vulture saw it.
Scimitar didn’t. ‘Wha—?’
The compact blast of the small wad of C-2 plastic explosive that Pooh had slipped out of his beard-ring and attached to the tip of his knife-blade completely engulfed the lower half of Scimitar’s face. A pocket of stale methane in the surrounding air made the blast flash brightly, scorching Pooh Bear’s outstretched knife-hand.
A hideous inhuman scream filled the air—a wailing, primal, blood-curdling shriek—and as the smoke from the short sharp blast dissipated, it revealed a horrific version of the once-handsome Scimitar: he now had only half a face, and he was screaming despite his lack of a jaw.
The entire bottom half of his face had been blown away by the blast, and now it was the picture of gore: a foul mix of bone, blood, exposed teeth and dangling flesh. His scream was one of horror, disbelief and total agony.
Scimitar wobbled on his feet, dropping his gold-hilted knife, clutching at Vulture who recoiled from him in disgust—
—but then Vulture regathered himself and turned toward Pooh Bear—
—in time to see Pooh Bear’s arm blur with movement—
—and suddenly something lodged deep in Vulture’s throat.
He staggered with the impact, reached for his throat, and found Scimitar’s gold-hilted knife embedded in it. Pooh Bear had caught it by the blade when Scimitar had dropped it and in one quick movement had flung it directly into Vulture’s throat, piercing the windpipe.
Vulture gasped for air, but his windpipe could no longer facilitate breathing. His eyes bulged. He staggered backwards, his face going purple, then he dropped to his knees and toppled face-first to the hard salt floor, driving the knife fully through the back of his neck. His body sagged, never to move again.
Scimitar was still screaming his shrill mouthless scream when he tripped off the edge of the pit and sailed down into it, landing in the milk-coloured brine where he flopped and thrashed for a minute before the water pouring directly into his lungs was too much and his body floated on the surface, limp, unmoving, dead.
And suddenly the salt cave was quiet.
In the silence, Pooh Bear slumped back against the salt mound behind him, bloodied, broken, half-blinded and exhausted.
‘Stretch!’ he called. ‘You still alive?’
‘Yeah . . . just . . .’ Stretch groaned, still manacled to the slave wheel.
‘Jack?’ Pooh Bear called, his eyes shut.
Jack was staring in speechless disbelief at Pooh Bear—he had just single-handedly killed both Scimitar and Vulture in perhaps the bloodiest fucking fight Jack had ever witnessed. He released Lily from his grip, and she squealed when she peered out and saw that Pooh Bear was alive and the bad guys were dead.
‘Jack. . !’ Pooh Bear called again, opening his good eye.
‘I’m here,’ Jack said gently. ‘We’re here.’
‘I’m a little . . . wounded . . . over here, Jack,’ Pooh gasped. ‘Just give me . . . a minute . . . to catch my breath.’
‘Buddy, after what you just did, you take all the time you need.’
While it had taken Jack almost an hour to descend to the bottom of the salt mine, it took him three hours to retrace his steps.
First, he had to tend to Pooh Bear’s and Stretch’s wounds, and they were severe. Beyond their gashes and cuts, Pooh’s eye was a gory mess and the stab wound to Stretch’s lower back was life-threatening.
Pooh Bear had been able to walk back to the jeep, leaning heavily on Jack’s shoulder, but Stretch was a different story. To get him out, Jack had constructed a stretcher from some old wooden ladders and with Lily and Iolanthe holding a corner each, they had slowly and carefully carried Stretch back up to the parked jeep.
Only then could Jack drive them back to the surface, and even then, very slowly so as not to unnecessarily jolt Stretch.
During the long journey up, Pooh Bear had told Jack how, after speaking with him earlier, they had come directly here, guided by the Halicarnassus’s transponder beacon over the final stages. Cieran and the twins were right now up on the surface—having overcome the Russian guards, Ding and Dong—with the charged Fourth Pillar in their possession and a helicopter they’d chartered from Amman airport.
‘I’m glad you got here when you did,’ Jack said. ‘You saved our asses.’
They turned a final corner and saw a small square of daylight up ahead, the outside world.
The jeep rumbled out of the mine, bouncing out into glorious desert sunshine.
Jack brought it to a halt and, smiling with relief, looked down the hill at the Halicarnassus, expecting to see the twins and Sky Monster with Ding and Dong subdued—
His face fell.
Down by the Hali, he saw Sky Monster and the twins slumped on the ground, handcuffed to the cargo ramp’s struts. All three sat with their heads bent, unmoving.
A Bell helicopter stood beside the 747—Pooh Bear’s chopper from Amman—but so did another aircraft, parked on the desert highway.
It was a sleek black Concorde-like jetliner with a sharp beak-like nose and missiles on its wings.
A Tupolev-144.
And standing there on the dusty turnaround outside the mine, flanked by four of his own Spetsnaz guards plus Ding and Dong, waiting for Jack, was Carnivore.
‘West the Younger,’ Carnivore grinned, his gruesome steel jaw glinting. ‘My, what a handy tool you have turned out to be. I’ll take that.’
He took the Jesus Pillar from Jack. ‘It will go well with the one your friends laid in the Bristol Chan
nel.’
With Jack and the others disarmed and covered by the Spetsnaz troops, Iolanthe stepped out of the jeep and joined Carnivore. ‘The Chinese colonel has a fake Pillar and the Saudi spy is dead,’ she reported.
‘The Blood Vulture is no more?’ Carnivore seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Killed by West the Younger?’