What combination of seven sevens? He looked down at Jackson, on his haunches, rifle between his knees, covering Moran as he fumbled a new magazine into place. Another spray of bullets, ricocheting around the top of the stairwell. Natasha covering her ears. Above them, the wall stretched away. Nowhere to climb. He pressed the first seven symbols in sequence. Nothing. Then again, but repeated seven times. Nothing. He banged the wall in frustration.
Right. Last chance saloon. He pressed the four and the nine from the last group together, slowly and deliberately, seven times. On the last press the squares on which the symbols were engraved sank silently into the wall.
He felt a vibration under his fingertips, a rumbling of tumblers. And the pattern parted in the centre, the wall peeling back like an orange skin. He bent, hands under Jackson’s armpits, Moran covering, slowly dragging the boy through the doorway.
Now what? How to close it?
Jackson groaned as Dracup propped him against the chamber wall. He turned to face the new room they had entered and felt his heart skip a beat. In the centre of the chamber was a long sarcophagus, black as onyx, raised up on a dais of solid gold. A clutch of bullets fizzed past his head. Moran was scrabbling at a lever inset into a small recess by the gaping doorway. Dracup shouted. It had to be the lock.
The door slid seamlessly together, like a closing mouth. Dracup had a fleeting impression of the jihadis, their faces contorted in hatred, racing towards them. And then they were sealed into the chamber with a final clunk of hidden weights and pulleys. Silence descended. Natasha was crying softly.
“It’s all right.” Dracup held her. “It’s going to be okay.”
Moran was tending to Jackson. The bullet had torn through his calf, leaving a ragged, flesh-tattered hole as it exited.
“I got some painkiller in my pocket,” he told Moran. “Ow! Jeez, that hurts.”
“It will,” Moran said matter-of-factly. He finished packing the wound with his handkerchief and strapped the marine’s leg tightly with his tie. “Keep it up. That’s it, elevated.”
Dracup approached the sarcophagus warily, felt the dry coolness of its lid. It was hard to see; there was some light, but –
Lights came on. Bright, dazzling. They tracked across the chamber and illuminated the sarcophagus. A harsh, electronic voice filled the room:
“Professor Dracup. And friends. You have entered the resting place of Adamah, or ‘Adam’ in your abbreviated vernacular. The chamber is sealed for a reason; namely, to aid the preservation process put into place millennia ago. This means, gentlemen – and young Natasha – that the oxygen is removed from the chamber when it is not in use. In the prophetic words of God himself, dust you are, and to dust you shall certainly return. Professor, your forty-eight hours are up.”
There was a soft click as the transmission was concluded. Already the chamber was warm, their breathing laboured in the confined space.
Moran wet his lips. Jackson’s head fell forward as loss of blood and fatigue caught up with him. Dracup began scouring the chamber. There was only the sarcophagus. No other object broke the simple contours of what had now become a death trap. Dracup walked around the sarcophagus, placed his hands on the lid and tried to lift. It wouldn’t budge.
Moran kicked the wall in frustration. “There’s nothing.” He laughed harshly. “Unless we open up the door again.”
“Not a good plan,” Dracup agreed. The jihadis wouldn’t be far away. He conducted a full inspection of the walls, feeling for any bump or protrusion. There was only the sarcophagus.
“Is he going to die?” Natasha was looking down at the slumped figure of Jackson.
Dracup shook his head. “No one’s going to die,” he told her. He felt a rising desperation, hoped it didn’t show in his face. From beyond the chamber, behind the door they had entered, came the sound of muffled thumping. They exchanged glances. The unspoken thought was the same: Would the jihadis crack the code? Death by gunshot wound or suffocation. It wasn’t a choice Dracup wanted to dwell on.
Moran was at the other end, beyond the sarcophagus. “Reckon this is an exit too?” He looked in vain for a corresponding lever.
Dracup was thinking about the shape of the ziggurat. Surely multiple stairways ran up to the apex? “Yes, there’s probably another stairwell through there. Maybe it’s only accessible from outside.”
“Great.” Moran leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. The air was stale now, their breathing shallow. Dracup felt a series of sharp constrictions in his chest. For a moment he thought he was having a heart attack, then the pains left him and were replaced by a growing tightness in his lungs. Natasha was sitting cross-legged, her face expressionless as she fought to inhale the oxygen her body craved. She looked at Dracup and tried to smile. He too sank to the floor, and raised an arm weakly towards his daughter.