Seven Ancient Wonders Part 40

Pooh was heavier than he was, with far less arm-strength. He wouldn't be able to hold himself up for long.

West swung alongside him. 'Hang in there, my friend. No pun intended.' He quickly tied the now loose return rope around and under Pooh's armpits-allowing Pooh Bear to hang from it without effort.

As for himself, West could hang from his mechanical arm longer-but not forever.

'The Israelis?' Pooh Bear asked.

'They destroyed the catwalk. Took the Piece and Lily. We're stranded.'

'If I ever catch him, I'll throttle Stretch,' Pooh Bear said. 'You know, for a moment there I actually thought he might have become one of us. But I was wrong. Dirty betrayer.'

'Pooh, right now, I'd just be happy to get out of here alive.'

The Israeli team charged back down the stalact.i.te, with Lily and the Piece in their possession.

As they reached the tip of the great stalact.i.te, they saw their two rear-guards come running into the supercavern.

'Sir! The Americans have breached the Giant Stairway! Repeat: the Americans have breached the Giant Stairway! We couldn't hold them off any longer!'

'You held them off long enough! We have the girl and we have the Piece,' Avenger replied, grinning. 'Meet us at the ziggurat and proceed to the other side. We're going out that way!'

Stretch ran behind Avenger, saying nothing, his teeth clenched, his eyes vacant and distant, lost in thought.

The Israeli team reached the bottom of the stalact.i.te-just in time to see Zaeed disappear down the square shaft in the top of the ziggurat: the Priests' Entrance.

Avenger didn't care.

Although killing the terrorist would have brought him much kudos back home, Zaeed wasn't his concern here.

He had to get out.

Only then, as he clambered down the A-frame ladder at the base of the stalact.i.te and stepped down onto the ziggurat, he saw the Americans enter the supercavern.

They came rushing in from the Giant Stairway entrance. But it wasn't the superlarge force of men he was expecting, it was just ten men.

And oddly, they didn't didn't venture out across the quicksand lake. venture out across the quicksand lake.

No.

Rather, this small group started free-climbing up the sheer wall above above that entrance, the wall that had filled in the old Grand Archway. that entrance, the wall that had filled in the old Grand Archway.

And there they- 'Oh, no...' Avenger breathed.

-started planting explosives, heavy-duty Tritonal 80/20 demolition charges.

The Americans worked fast, laying their charges and then getting the h.e.l.l out of the way.

The result when it came was as spectacular as it was destructive.

With a colossal series of booms booms, the demolition charges went off.

The rockwall filling up the Grand Archway of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was ripped apart by twenty simultaneous blasts. Great starbursts of rock sprayed out from it.

But the charges had been directional, forcing the bulk of the debris to be flung toward the outside world. Only a few smaller boulders landed in the quicksand lake.

Giant holes were opened in the rockwall.

Shafts of sunshine blazed in through them.

And daylight flooded into the supercavern for the first time in 2,000 years, illuminating it gloriously-and in the brilliant light of day, the Gardens took on a whole new level of splendour.

Then these many holes collapsed, forming one great 50-metrewide hole and through this opening, following hard on the heels of the sunlight, came the American helicopters, roaring into the supercavern with a fury.

West couldn't believe what was happening.

First, he'd been left for dead up in the recess by Avenger.

And now he could only watch in stunned awe as the entire cavern beneath him was flooded with light.

Six, then seven, then eight American choppers-Black Hawks and Apaches-banked and buzzed around the immense cavern, hovering above the ancient ziggurat, rising alongside the great stalact.i.te, searching for the enemy, searching for the Piece.

The roar of their rotors in the cavern was deafening, the wind that they generated, swirling.

Then West saw one of the Black Hawks rise up directly beneath him, saw the circular speed-blur of its rotors, and he thought, If I fell now, at least death would be quick. If I fell now, at least death would be quick.

But the Black Hawk hadn't seen him and Pooh Bear-it was peering at the stalact.i.te at the stalact.i.te, searching...

It moved closer to the stalact.i.te, for a better look, and suddenly it wasn't directly beneath West anymore.

And West saw a way out of his predicament. It was totally crazy, but it might work...

He sprang into action.

'Pooh Bear, get a handhold. I need that rope and piton.'

Pooh Bear obliged, grabbed a handrung, while-one-handed- West disengaged the piton and wound in the rope. It was about fifty feet in length.

Then he said, 'Okay, Pooh, now let go of the handrung and grab my waist.'

'What!'

'Just do it.'

Pooh Bear did. Now he hung from West ...as West hung from his superstrong mechanical hand, gripping a handrung.

And then West let go.

They dropped from the ceiling.

Straight down. down.

They shot like a bullet past the tail of the Black Hawk...

...and as they did so, West hurled his piton-still attached to the rope-at the Black Hawk's landing wheels! the Black Hawk's landing wheels!

Like a grappling hook, the steel piton looped around the rear landing wheels of the helicopter ...and caught.

The rope played out before-snap!-it went taut and suddenly West and Pooh Bear were swinging swinging, suspended from the helicopter's landing gear, swooping in toward the giant stalact.i.te!

The helicopter lurched slightly with their added weight, but it held its hovering position, anchoring their swing.

They swung in a long swooping arc right over to the path on the flank of the stalact.i.te, where West and Pooh Bear dismounted deftly and released the rope, now back in the game.

'Never thought I'd be happy to see Judah arrive,' West said. 'Come on! We've got to save Lily.'

They charged down the path at breakneck speed.

Chaos. Mayhem.

Blazing sunlight.

The roar of helicopters, and now...

...hundreds of American regular troops flooded in through the newly-opened Grand Arch.

Avenger's Israeli team danced down the far side of the ziggurat and raced out over the quicksand lake on that side. As West had seen before, this side was the mirror image of the entry side: it also featured a concealed path just below the surface with a hexagonal well in its centre.

Avenger's team reached the well, raced down into it in two subgroups, beheld another statue of a proud winged lion.

Avenger and the two Israelis carrying the Piece went first. The trap sprang into action. Quicksand flooded in. The one-gate cage revolved. But they sloshed through the inky sand and emerged from the other side with little difficulty.

Stretch, the other two Israeli commandos, and Lily went next.

Again the trap initiated. Quicksand poured into the hexagonal well. The cage rotated. They sloshed across it, knee-deep.

And suddenly Lily tripped and fell.

The rising quicksand had caught her feet and she stumbled to all fours with a squeal.

The sand grabbed her, sticky and foul.

She screamed in terror.

Stretch and the other two Israelis spun, saw her struggling. They were almost at the exit doorway and the cage's rotating gate was about to let them out.

Avenger called from the doorway, 'Leave her! We have the Piece! She was only a bonus! It's the Piece that matters, and if we don't get it out, this will all have been for nothing! Move!'

The two commandos with Stretch didn't need to be told twice. They sloshed toward the gate and slipped through it.

Stretch, however, paused.

With quicksand flooding in from every side and the cage turning dizzyingly around him, he looked back at Lily.

The little girl was struggling against the rising quicksand pool, whimpering vainly with the effort. The sand had wrapped itself around her like a constricting snake, it was up to her neck now, consuming her, dragging her under.

'Cohen!' Avenger called. 'Leave her! That's an order!' That's an order!'

And with a final look at Lily, Stretch made his fateful decision.

Flanked by the flying Horus, West and Pooh Bear were bolting down the spiralling path on the stalact.i.te when suddenly the foliage beside them was ripped apart by helicopter gunfire.

One of the American Apache choppers had swung into a hover right next to them and was now lining them up in its minigun sights!

They dived into a nearby cross-tunnel just as the Apache's six-barrelled minigun whirred to life-and came to the vertical bore-hole that ran up the centre of the rock formation.

'They're firing firing at the Hanging Gardens of Babylon!' Pooh Bear exclaimed. 'Have Americans no respect for history!' at the Hanging Gardens of Babylon!' Pooh Bear exclaimed. 'Have Americans no respect for history!'

Moments later, they emerged from the same bore-hole at the lowermost tip of the stalact.i.te, having slid all the way down it with their hands and feet braced against its walls.

West jumped down onto the peak of the ziggurat, snapped round to check on the progress of Avenger's fleeing Israeli team.

'Jesus, no...' he breathed.

He spied Avenger and four of his men just as they disappeared through an exit tunnel at the far end of the supercavern, having navigated the quicksand lake and the well on that side.

Stretch wasn't with them.

Nor was Lily.

And then West saw the well.

Peering under its canopied stone roof, he could see that the hexagonal well was just then overflowing with quicksand- completely completely filled. filled.

'Oh, no. No No...' West stared at the scene in horror.

Worse still, at that very moment, two American Black Hawk helicopters were landing on the star-shaped paths surrounding the well.