The Trespass(118)
A woman lay spread-eagled on the floor, her sightless eyes gazing at the ceiling. Natasha was staring at the body. “Ruth.” She stretched out her arm and took a hesitant step forward.
Dracup grabbed her. “Don’t look, ’Tash. Come away.” He pulled Natasha back. She shook him off and pointed to an alcove, where a spread of furs and an intricately embroidered wrap lay partially concealed behind a fine, silken curtain. On the wrap lay a pile of carefully folded clothes. Dracup recognised Natasha’s school uniform. There was also a dolly dressed in a bright blue pinafore.
Dracup stepped gingerly around the body, retrieved the uniform and dolly and ushered the girl out. His heart was thudding in his chest as they rejoined Moran and Jackson at the junction. Moran looked at Dracup and frowned, but the question died on his lips as a burst of machine gun fire broke the silence. Dracup instinctively ducked as it was followed by another staccato fusillade. A bullet hit the ceiling above the junction, raining down a small shower of loose shale.
Jackson cursed. “Sons of bitches have doubled back. How in hell did they know we were here?” He inspected his helmet; a burnt scar showed where a bullet had come close to finding its mark.
Dracup frowned. “’Tash. Give me the doll.”
Natasha handed Dracup the toy. His probing fingers found a small, round disk beneath the dress. As he carefully extracted it, it gave a faint red pulse. He held it up for Jackson to see. “That’s how.”
“Woah,” the marine whistled. “GPS tracking device.”
Cannon took up a position at the bend. “You all right, Jacko?” He glared at Jackson with an accusing look, clearly rattled that his CO had nearly had his head blown off.
Jackson was reloading. “I’m cool.”
“Where to?” Moran’s face was grim.
“Sure ain’t gonna be this way.” Cannon clipped off a couple of rounds.
Dracup bent and held Natasha gently by the shoulders. “’Tash. Is there a way out past your room? Can you remember where this passage leads?”
Natasha pursed her lips. “If you follow it all the way it comes out at the big stairway. All the corridors in this level do. Then you can climb up right to the top – if you want. To his chamber.”
The words sent a chill down Dracup’s spine. “You mean to the top of the ziggurat – the pyramid?”
“There’s a staircase. A big one.”
Moran was poring over the map. “She’s right – I think. Look.” He traced out Natasha’s suggested route.
Jackson nodded grimly, peering over Moran’s shoulder. “We’ll be out in the open a while –”
“We’ll be full of freakin’ holes if we stay here,” Cannon called back over another burst of fire. “Open sounds good from where I’m standing. Get going. I’ll cover you.”
Jackson nodded tersely. “Okay – two minutes only,” he told Cannon. “Then get the hell out of here.”
Dracup took Natasha’s arm and followed Jackson and Moran past the room where the woman – Ruth – lay stiffening in death. He wondered briefly what had happened to her. He also wondered at the absence of other Korumak. And then, remembering his encounter with Jassim, a thought occurred to him. He’s started to evacuate them. That’s why the place is deserted. But where would he take them?
The noise of gunfire faded as they raced along the passage, which instead of widening as he had supposed, grew more constricted as it turned sharply to the right towards what Moran had identified as the central stairwell. Dracup’s side was aching, his lungs straining for breath. Without warning the passage abruptly ended. Dracup stopped with an exclamation.
“It’s big, isn’t it?” Natasha smiled. “I told you.”
They were looking at a stairway, but a stairway of astonishing beauty. The steps glinted dully in the diffused light, gradually narrowing until they were lost to sight in the opaqueness of the roof.
“Up?” Moran cocked his head at Jackson.
“Looks like it,” Jackson agreed.
“Not that way, Daddy.” Natasha took Dracup’s hand and led him to the left of the stairway. “You can’t go up the wide stairs – that’s only for special ceremonies. You have to go up here. There’s no way in at the top of the big stairs.”
Jackson and Moran looked at each other. The policeman shrugged.
Dracup let Natasha lead him into another passage, lower and smaller than the one they had just emerged from.
“Here.” She stopped beside a heavy wooden door. It was ajar. Dracup pushed it open gingerly with his foot, revealing a stone staircase spiralling up to the distant apex of the ziggurat. He craned his neck.