Raoul ordered his men: “Bring the prisoners down below. I don’t want to take any chances. Stand them against the lower wall. The rest of you”—he eyed the ring of soldiers that stood guard atop the tier—“keep a constant bead on each of them. Shoot anyone that moves.”
Rachel and the other five were led below and forced to separate, to spread out along the wall. Gray stood only three steps from her side. She longed to reach out to him, to hold his hand, but he seemed lost in his own misery.
And she dared not move.
Soldiers lay flat on the tier above, rifles aimed at them.
Gray mumbled, staring at the glass floor. His words reached only her own ears. “The Minotaur’s maze.”
Her brow crinkled. Standing in place, he glanced at her, then back to the floor. What was he trying to indicate?
The Minotaur’s maze.
Gray was referring to one of the names for the labyrinth. Daedalus’s maze. The mythic labyrinth that was home to the bullish Minotaur, a deadly monster in a deadly maze.
Deadly.
Rachel remembered the trap at Alexander’s tomb. The deadly passageway. To solve these riddles didn’t require just the technology. You had to know your history and mythology. Gray was trying to warn her. They may have solved the technology, but not the entire mystery.
She now understood Gray’s hope. He had only told Raoul enough to hopefully get the man killed.
Raoul freed a laser scope and stepped toward the central pedestal. Then he seemed to think better of it. He pointed the scope to Gray.
“You,” he said, plainly suspicious. “You take it out there.”
Gray was forced away from the wall, away from her side. His arms were cut free. But he was hardly free. Rifles tracked his every step.
Raoul shoved the laser into Gray’s hand. “Set it up. Like you described.”
Gray glanced to Rachel, then headed across the glass floor in his socks.
He had no choice.
He had to enter the Minotaur’s maze.
7:32 A.M.
GENERAL RENDE checked his watch. Thunder rumbled beyond the walls of the palace. What he had sought for so long was about to come true. Even if they failed to open whatever secret vault lay below, he had taken a brief look. That storehouse alone was a treasure to dwarf all others.
They would escape with as much as they could and destroy the rest.
His demolition expert was already going over the incendiary charges.
All that was left was to wait for the trucks.
He had arranged for a caravan of three heavy-duty Peugeot trucks. They would run in shifts to a huge warehouse at the outskirts of town near the river, unhooking their load, mounting an empty container, and returning.
Back and forth for as long as they could.
The general frowned at his watch. They were running late. He had had a call from the lead driver five minutes ago. The roads were a mess, and even though dawn had already broken, it remained a perpetual twilight under the thunderclouds and torrents of rain.
Despite the delay, the storm served to shelter them, to cover their actions, to keep any interest here to a minimum. Outlying guards were ready to eliminate anyone who became too curious. Bribes had been paid.
They should have half a day.
A call came through on the radio. He answered it.
“First truck is climbing the hill now,” the driver reported. Thunder boomed in the distance.
Now it began.
7:33 A.M.
SCOPE IN hand, Gray crossed to the short pillar of magnetite. Overhead, double arches of the same stone stretched. Even without touching anything, Gray sensed the power that lay dormant.
“Hurry up!” Raoul called from the edge.
Gray stepped to the pedestal. He placed the scope atop the pillar, balanced it, and pointed it toward the twelve o’clock window. He paused to take a deep breath. He had tried to warn Rachel to be ready for anything. Once this was activated, they were all in danger.
“Turn on the laser!” Raoul barked. “Or we begin shooting out kneecaps.”
Gray reached to the power switch and thumbed it on.
A fine beam of red light shot out and struck the gold glass plate.
Gray remembered the batteries at Alexander’s tomb. It took a moment for whatever charge or electrical capacitance to build, then the fireworks began.
He had no intention of standing here when that happened.
He turned and strode rapidly back to the wall. He didn’t run, no rash actions, or he’d be shot in the back. He regained his spot on the wall.
Raoul and Alberto stood at the base of the stairs.
All eyes were on the single strand of red fire that linked scope to mirror.
“Nothing’s happening,” Raoul growled.
Vigor spoke from the other side. “It may take a few seconds to build enough energy to activate the mirror.”
Raoul raised a pistol. “If it doesn’t—”
It did.
A deep tonal note sounded and a new ray of laser shot out from the twelve o’clock plate and struck the five o’clock one. There was a half-second dazzle.
No one spoke.
Then another beam of red fire blazed out, slamming into the ten-o’clock marker. It reflected immediately, springing from mirror to mirror.
Gray stared at the spread before him, forming a fiery star, waist high. He and the others stood between points of the display, knowing better than to move.
The symbolism was plain.
The Star of Bethlehem.
The light that had guided the Magi.
The humming note grew louder. The star’s fire blazed brighter.
Gray turned his head, squinting.
Then he felt it, some threshold crossed. Pressure slammed outward, shoving him to the wall.
The Meissner field again.
The star seemed to bow upward from the center as if shoved up from the floor. It reached the cross of magnetite arches overhead.
A burst of energy crackled across the vaulted archways.
Gray felt a tug on the metal buttons of his shirt.
The magnetic charge of the arches had grown tenfold.
The star’s energy was repelled by the new field and slammed back down, striking the glass floor with a loud metallic chime, the strike of a giant bell.
The central pillar blasted upward as if jarred by the collision. It struck the center of the crossed arches—and stuck there, two electromagnets clinging tight.
As the chime faded, Gray felt a pop in his ears as the field broke. The star winked out, though a ghost of its blaze still shone across his vision. He blinked away the afterburn.
Overhead, the short column still clung to the intersection of the archways, pointing downward now. Gray followed the stone finger.
In the middle of the floor, where the column had stood before, lay a perfect circle of solid gold. A match to the key. At its center—the center of everything—was a black slot.