The Last Odyssey (Sigma Force #15) - James Rollins Page 0,52
as deep into this bunker as we can.”
Everyone moved. Following the monsignor’s instructions, Bossard dropped the lid over the gold map. He then lifted it in both arms, demonstrating his considerable strength. Off to the side, Bailey gathered sheaves of papers from a desk, while Maria grabbed books. Mac, with his arm in a sling, tried to stay out of everyone’s way.
More of the dome collapsed, washing a thick cloud of dust into the room.
Too close.
“That’s it!” Gray ordered. “Everyone out!”
They fled the room, turned a corner, and ran down the neighboring tunnel. Their way was lit by the red glow of electronic locks sealing off storage chambers. The chain of crimson lights ran down the dark throat of the passageway. After seventy yards or so, the tunnel ended at a stone wall that blocked the way.
Gray reached out and put a palm against the cold volcanic stone.
Dead end.
He turned to face the others. Behind them, one by one, the red glows of the vaults blinked out. As darkness fell over the group, the collapse of the vault continued, closing relentlessly toward them.
“Is there any way out of here?” Gray asked.
Monsignor Roe’s answer was a moan. “No . . .”
15
June 23, 7:04 A.M. TRT
Çanakkale Province, Turkey
I have to risk it . . .
Elena crossed to the wood-framed cot in her stone cell. As she knelt beside it, she glanced to the roof, as if in prayer. Instead, while reaching under the thin mattress, she noted the old chisel marks across the ceiling. Fat candles flickered in niches hacked into the rock walls, while thick layers of accumulated wax—likely decades, if not centuries old—dripped down the walls.
She estimated she was a dozen stories underground—in one of the many ancient subterranean cities dug out of the rock in Turkey. She pictured those long-dead builders, using Bronze Age tools to excavate these multilevel metropolises. As an archaeologist in this region, she knew that more than two hundred such troglodyte-cave cities had been discovered throughout Turkey, mostly in the Cappadocia region to the east, but also here near the coast.
The most famous was discovered in the sixties, the Derinkuyu Underground City. She had toured that complex. It had its own rivers, bridges, and thousands of ventilation shafts that carried air down to its deepest levels, some of which were dug three hundred feet into the earth. The massive city had once housed over twenty thousand people. It had barns, churches, kitchens, storage cellars, even its own winery. Some of these ancient cities, like Derinkuyu, had been turned into tourist attractions, while others were still used to stable animals or kept as secret hideouts for unsavory elements.
Which was clearly the purpose of this cave-city.
Yesterday, the private jet that had flown Elena from the Arctic landed at a small airfield in the middle of the Turkish hills. After that, she had been driven by her captors to the outskirts of a small village, where in the cellar of a farmhouse, a door had led into this hidden complex.
She had been marched down stone stairs and along passageways strung with electric lights. In the upper levels, she passed rooms full of sleek gym equipment, free weights, and mat-lined rings. Another held shelves and racks of assault rifles and boxes of ammunition. Throughout the tunnels, they passed several hard-eyed men and women, all in red or black. From the subservience of those in red, she guessed them to be recruits in training. No one made eye contact with her as their group was led by the woman who called herself the Daughter of Moses. Even those in black gave slight bows of their heads as the woman passed. Clearly, she was high up in this group’s hierarchy.
Elena could also guess the purpose of this subterranean complex.
A terrorist training camp.
Certainty grew the deeper she went. Stiff-backed gunmen guarded the entrances to each level. They stood posted before giant disk-shaped stones, as ancient as the city itself. To distract herself from her trepidation, she concentrated on the archaeological significance of her surroundings. To escape waves of raids and attacks, people over the centuries had retreated into these underground cities. They rolled those circular stone slabs to seal off each level. Battles had been fought across these lands going back millennia. The Derinkuyu complex dated back to the eighth century B.C., while others were even older. But most had been built during the depths of the Greek Dark Ages, when the entire Mediterranean was embroiled in a great war.