The Last Odyssey (Sigma Force #15) - James Rollins Page 0,135

demonstration of her marksmanship. He even cast a protective arm over his face as he dove away.

Her ruse gave her the time to cross halfway back to the forest. Then she spotted Kadir peeking out again, glancing from the helicopter to her. He raised his rifle, but her pistol was already up. She fired at his position, driving him back down for another breath.

It allowed her to reach the forest’s edge and dash into the dark woods. She didn’t slow, noting Elena crashing alongside her a couple of yards away.

Then the world exploded behind them with a thunderous blast and a heated whoosh of flames.

What the hell? Had the helicopter actually blown?

Then another fiery explosion burst to her right. Another to the left.

Charlie understood as she fled, her body whipped by branches. Kadir was shooting grenades after them again—only these ones were packed with incendiary charges.

She risked a glance back.

A wall of flames grew and spread behind her, quickly becoming a hellish forest fire. The stiff north wind blew the smoke through the forest, enveloping her, heating the air, making it hard to breathe. Elena coughed harshly on her right.

Charlie understood Kadir’s intent.

He’s herding us back the way we came.

43

June 26, 7:38 P.M. WEST

High Atlas Mountains, Morocco

At the end of the tunnel, Gray stood before a set of unadorned bronze doors. Even from a foot away, he felt the heat radiating off them. He reached a palm and tested one of the handles. Hot but manageable.

He remembered Hunayn’s cryptic warning.

Beyond the palace, where the fires of Hades burn . . .

“Everyone, get back,” he warned.

Let’s see if this is the right place.

He gripped the handle with both hands and tugged hard. It did not give, perhaps locked like the other gates. But then the door budged. He let out a breath of relief. He braced his legs and hauled on the door, which was solid bronze, half a foot thick, a veritable vault door.

He gasped as he worked it open—not from the effort, but from the intense heat, from the sulfurous stink of rotten eggs that swelled out into the dark tunnel. Still, he heaved the door the rest of the way open.

“Oh god,” Kowalski groaned, waving a hand before his face. “This is definitely Hell.”

Gray straightened and stared into the cavern beyond. The space was herculean in size, stretching endlessly upward and spreading hundreds of yards to the right and left. Massive stalactites hung from a roof that could barely be seen.

This was not the polished, refined cavern of the Phaeacians, but instead, the home of Hephaestus, a true Vulcan’s forge, a vast and steaming industrial workshop.

Gray led the others into the hot cavern.

To either side, a massive mining operation had carved out the walls long ago, leaving behind rough-cut terraces, climbing high, with hills of broken scrap below. Gray imagined that vast operation, pulling much-needed ore, metals, and most important, deposits of phosphate rock.

Gray continued through this area, drawn by a ruddy glow deeper in the cavern. With each yard gained, the temperature rose. The source of the hellish heat became clear.

A fissure split the cavern into two halves. A gargantuan stone slab had been dropped across it long ago, creating a wide bridge.

Gray drew near the fissure’s edge and peered down. The drop was endless, as if to the core of the earth. Molten fires glowed far below. The heat became too intense after only a few breaths. He had to back away.

Bailey had looked, too. “Magma,” he concluded.

Gray nodded, picturing the Da Vinci map. “This could be a section of the convergent boundary between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates.”

“A veritable crack in the world,” Bailey said.

Gray headed to the stone bridge, risking the heat, the poisonous air. He climbed to the top of the bridge to get a better look at the cavern beyond the fissure.

The others gathered behind him.

“It’s amazing,” Maria said in a hushed, reverential tone, as if standing at the threshold to a vast cathedral.

“And terrifying,” Mac added.

They were both right.

Ahead, and covering twenty acres, was something out of a Brobdingnagian nightmare, the foundry of some twisted god. The bones of this sleeping factory were a byzantine network of bronze pipes, scaffolded in layers, rising toward the distant roof and diving down into the magma fissure. Across the floor were rows of cold forges. Elsewhere, kilns and ovens towered.

Yet, even here this ancient forge showed signs of waking.

Within the depths of the factory, a scatter of furnaces blazed with golden fire. Several