The Last Odyssey (Sigma Force #15) - James Rollins Page 0,58
the open back of his satellite phone to the guts of the lock.
She turned to Monsignor Roe, who stood next to her. “If this works, we’ll only have seconds for you to swipe your card and for the locking mechanism to release. After that, the circuitry will be toast. Are you ready?”
He nodded and held aloft his glossy black keycard.
“On my mark.” She touched the final wire to the lead on phone’s lithium-ion battery. “Go.”
The crimson light on the lock briefly flickered. Roe hurriedly swiped his card across the reader. The lamp switched to green. A rumble of gears sounded—then a bright spark snapped across the exposed circuitry, and the light went dark.
Seichan stood up, tugged on the door handle, and swore when it didn’t budge. The lock had failed to complete its cycle.
They’d been so close . . .
Clearly frustrated, Seichan stepped back and kicked the vault. The impact shook the frame, and something loud clicked and tumbled inside the door. Everyone looked at each other and held their breaths.
Seichan reached again and pulled on the handle.
The door swung open this time—to the cheers of those gathered behind her.
Gray drew her into a hug. “My beautiful bank robber.”
“We’re not out of here yet,” she reminded him.
Her words were punctuated by the loud crash of a boulder down the tunnel.
Gray got everyone moving through the door and along a dark, curved hallway, both sides lined by hermetically sealed glass doors. He caught glimpses of bookshelves and cases holding shadowy treasures, some glinting gold or silver in the meager light. But they had no time for sightseeing in this forbidden library.
They quickly reached the far door. It had a manual lever on its inside, meant to facilitate the escape of anyone trapped in the vault.
Like us.
Gray pulled the lever down and pushed the door into the next tunnel. He flashed his beam around. The next passageway was blocked on the right by a pile of rock and debris. But on the left, it ended at a brick wall.
He led the others to it.
“What now?” Maria asked as she ran a palm over the bricks. “How are we getting through there?”
Major Bossard pushed to the front and lifted his H&K submachine gun. “I may know a way.”
Gray got everyone back into the shelter of the vault as the Swiss soldier unloaded his entire magazine at the wall, concentrating on a pair of bricks that looked the most fragile. By the time his deafening barrage ended, he had pulverized those two to dust and knocked out several bricks around the opening.
Gray followed Bossard back to the wall to inspect his handiwork. The major shoved and kicked the opening larger. Gray then leaned his head and an arm through the hole and shone his flashlight into the next space. It was cavernous, excavated from the volcanic rock, and at the bottom, his light reflected off a black mirror.
Water.
He sighed with relief.
In short order, they knocked down more of the wall and climbed down a series of carved steps into the next room. In the center, a square pool thirty feet across was full of water. Gray circled its edge, probing its depths. On one side, he discovered an arched opening of a tunnel—the mouth of an old Roman aqueduct—a yard or so below the surface.
The others gathered around him.
“I’ll swim down there,” Gray said. “See if it’s passable all the way to the lake.”
Seichan stepped in front of him. She had already shed her jacket and blouse and now kicked off her boots. “I’m the faster swimmer.” She poked his midsection. “And there’s the matter of this.”
Gray wanted to object, but he knew she was right—maybe not about his gut, but she was definitely part fish, if not full mermaid. If anyone could make it to the lake, it was her.
“All yours,” he said.
She doffed her trousers and picked her flashlight up off the ground. As she straightened, her eyes glinted in the light.
Her excitement set his own heart to pounding. “Be caref—”
She dove smoothly into the water and, with barely a ripple, vanished into the black depths.
Mac joined Gray. “You’re a lucky, lucky man.”
Don’t I know it.
7:27 A.M.
Seichan thumbed on her flashlight as she kicked into the dark tunnel. The passageway was barely wider than her shoulders, which hindered her kicks, but the closeness of the walls allowed her to push against the stone and propel herself forward.
She led with the flashlight extended in her other hand.