Part 22 (1/2)
In the lab, the Philosopher's Stone sat still, lifeless, yet somehow it radiated energy, power.
Wizard and Vulture then used some tongs to gently lift away its lid.
The lid came clear......to reveal the Pillar still nestled within the Stone.
Wizard lifted the Pillar from its slot and gasped.
Whereas before the diamond Pillar was cloudy and translucent, now it was perfectly clear, like polished gla.s.s or crystal. And the liquid trapped inside it, which had previously been colorless, was now a vivid s.h.i.+ny silver.
The First Pillar had been transformed.
It had been cleansed.
”WE'VE GOT NO time to waste,” Jack said, striding through the corridors of the base.
”We have to get this cleansed Pillar to the templeshrine at Abu Simbel by dawn.”
Hustling to keep up, Iolanthe said, ”Captain! Captain, please! There are other issues about the Pillars that I must discuss with you.”
”You can discuss them on the way to Egypt,” Jack said, heading for the door.
”I'm going with you?”
”She's going with us?” Zoe asked.
”She is now.”
Things started moving very quickly.
In a hangar near the base's runway, theHalicarna.s.sus stood in all its glory, black and huge, bathed in arc lights.
The doors to the hangar parted, and a chill Atlantic storm rushed in, rain and wind las.h.i.+ng the nose of the plane.
Jack's team hotfooted it across the hangar floor to the airstairs leading up to the 747.
The trusted regulars: Wizard, Zoe, Pooh Bear, Stretch.
And the new players: Vulture, Scimitar, Astro, and now Iolanthe.
And the kids: Lily and Alby. This time, Jack decided, they'd come with him. In Egypt, the home of the Word of Thoth, he had a feeling he might need Lily's linguistic skills.
The only ones not going were Tank and the twins, Lachlan and Julius Adamson. They would stay here on Mortimer Island and continue their studies, searching for the locations of the other templeshrines.
In an office elsewhere on the island base, the American colonel known as Wolf watched the eleven members of West's Abu Simbel team arrive at theHalicarna.s.sus on a closed circuit TV monitor.
Flanking him as always were his two junior men, Rapier and Switchblade.
The door behind them opened, and Paul Robertson entered.
”What do you think, Colonel?” he asked.
At first, Wolf didn't reply. He just kept watching Jack on the monitor.
”Judah was right,” he said at last. ”West is good. He puts together puzzles very well- Abu Simbel was smart. He's also slippery. He got the better of Judah at Giza and escaped Black Dragon's attack in Australia.”
”Iolanthe?” Robertson asked.
”She is to be watched like a hawk,” Wolf said. ”They might appear helpful now, but the Great Houses of Europe only ever act in their own interests. They have their own agenda here. Make no mistake, the Royals will abandon us the instant it suits them.”
”Do you want me to give Astro or Vulture any special instructions?” Robertson asked.
”As far as Astro is concerned, definitely not. At this stage, his actions must be completely unconnected to us. Astro must be completely ignorant of his role in this otherwise West will almost certainly find him out. As for the Saudi, he knows we're watching.”
”What about this mission to Abu Simbel to place the First Pillar?” Robertson said.
”Should we step in?”
Wolf thought about that for a moment.
”No. Not yet. It's not the first reward that interests us. It's thesecond. Thus we have an interest in Captain West succeeding in placing this First Pillar. We can also learn from his experience.”
Wolf turned to Robertson, his blue eyes glinting. ”Let young West lay this one, and when it is done, grab the little f.u.c.k and all his people and bring them to me.”
Lashed by the driving rain, theHalicarna.s.sus lifted off from Mortimer Island in the Bristol Channel.
As it banked round on a heading that would take it to Egypt, another encrypted signal went out from the island base, but not one related to Jack or Wolf or even Iolanthe. To those who could decrypt it, the message read: FIRST PILLAR SUCCESSFULLY CLEANSED.
WEST GOING TO ABU SIMBEL IN.
SOUTHERN EGYPT TO SET IT IN PLACE.
DO WHAT MUST BE DONE.
TEMPLE OF RAMESES II AT ABU SIMBEL.
TEMPLE OF NEFERTARI AT ABU SIMBEL.
AIRs.p.a.cE OVER THE SAHARA DESERT.
DECEMBER 10, 2007, 0135 HOURS.
THE HALICARNa.s.sUS soared toward southern Egypt, zooming through the night sky, racing the coming dawn.
Despite the late hour, there was activity going on all over the plane: Jack and Iolanthe checking the layout of Abu Simbel and its surrounds Wizard, Zoe, and Alby doing mathematical and astronomical calculations while Lily, Stretch, and Pooh Bear studied Lake Na.s.ser.
”So,” Jack said, coming over to Wizard's desk, ”when exactly do we need to have the Pillar in place?”
Wizard tapped some astronomical charts with his pen. ”Again, everything depends on Jupiter. According to these charts, the t.i.tanic Rising will occur at 6:12A.M. local time, just around dawn.
”It'll be difficult to see Jupiter due to the light of the rising Sun-so we'll have to use an infrared telescope. The duration of the Rising will also be shorter than the one Zoe saw at Stonehenge because we're on a different lat.i.tude-at the high lat.i.tude of Stonehenge, the Firestone received a flat, almost tangential blow from the Dark Sun. But at Abu Simbel we'll be a lot closer to the Equator and thus more perpendicular to the Dark Sun, so we'll receive a more direct hit from it. Which means it'll be shorter, lasting about a minute.”