Part 44 (1/2)
And so Jack stood at the base of the pit, with one full arm and one half arm, to the sounds of chants and drumbeats-only now he was free.
Another wad of C2 cracked the section of slab above his artificial forearm, releasing it, and Jack quickly reattached it and tied a rag tightly around his wounded right palm.
Then he climbed the ladder in the wall of the pit and commenced his own oneman war against the guards of his father's mine.
JACK STOOD before the crowd of guards looking like Death incarnate.
His eyes were bloodshot and a ring of his own blood was caked around his mouth, blood from the masonry nail that he had wrenched from his own hand with his teeth.
But he was still just one man against thirty.
It was then that he brought his spare hand into view. In it was a fire extinguisher, grabbed from over by the gantry elevator.
With a sudden blast of white carbon dioxide, he fired the extinguisher into the burning cross, and it went out, plunging the mine into darkness.
Absolute black.
The guards panicked, started shouting. Then there came the sound of many feet shuffling, moving, and- -Bam!- -the mine's dim emergency lights came on, revealing Jack standing in exactly the same position as before, beside the cross...
...only now an army stood behind him.
An army of several hundred slave miners that he had released from their underground quarters before confronting the guards.
The looks on the faces of the slaves said it all: hatred, anger,vengeance. This would be a battle without mercy to avenge their horrific treatment, to even the score for months, years of slavery.
With a piercing cry, the crowd of slave miners rushed forward, attacking the guards.
It was a slaughter.
Some of the guards tried to get their guns from a nearby rack, but they were intercepted on the way, crashtackled to the ground, and stomped to death. Others were grabbed by many hands and hurled into the a.r.s.enic pool.
A few tried to flee for the gantry elevator-the only exit from the mine-but they were set upon by several dozen slave miners waiting there with nailstudded planks. They were clubbed to death.
Within minutes, all the guards were dead and the mine was eerily silent in the dim emergency lighting.
Jack quickly set about releasing Pooh Bear from his cage. Once he was free and standing on solid ground, Pooh gazed at Jack in horror.
”By Allah, Jack, you look like s.h.i.+t.”
b.l.o.o.d.y and filthy and weary beyond all human endurance, Jack smiled a crooked smile.
”Yeah-”
Then he fainted into Pooh Bear's arms.
JACK AWOKE to the wonderful sensation of warm sunlight on his face.
He opened his eyes, to find himself lying on a cot in a guardhouse just inside the upper entrance to the mine, suns.h.i.+ne slanting in through the window.
A fresh bandage was on his right hand and his face had been washed. He also wore crisp new clothes: some traditional Ethiopian robes.
Squinting, he stood and padded out of the guardhouse.
Pooh Bear met him in the doorway.
”Ah, the warrior wakes,” Pooh Bear said. ”You'll be happy to know we now own this mine. We took out the upper guards with the help of the miners-who, it should be said, were most enthusiastic in a.s.sailing their captors.”
”I'll bet,” Jack said. ”So where are we in Ethiopia?”
”You're not going to believe it.”
They stepped out of the office and emerged in bright suns.h.i.+ne.
Jack took in the surrounding landscape.
Dry, barren brushland, with rustcolored soil and treeless hills.
And dotting the hollows of some of those hills were structures-stonebuildings -exquisitely carved buildings, each easily five stories tall, that had been hewn from solid rock and were sunk inside ma.s.sive stonewalled pits. It was as if they had been cut out of the living rock.
One of the buildings, Jack saw, was carved in the shape of an equalarmed cross, a Templar cross.
”You know where we are?” Pooh Bear asked.
”Yes,” Jack said. ”We're in Lalibela. These are the famous churches of Lalibela.”
”Our mission is in tatters, Huntsman,” Pooh Bear said sadly.
It was a short time later and the two of them were sitting in the suns.h.i.+ne, with Jack nursing his injured right hand. Around them, the freed slave miners variously left, ate, or plundered the upper offices for clothes and booty.
”We've been scattered to the winds,” Pooh went on. ”Your father sent Stretch back to the Mossad, intent on collecting the bounty on his head.”
”Aw, s.h.i.+t...” Jack said. ”And did I see Astro go off with Wolf?”
”Yes.”
”Timeo Americanos et dona ferentes,”Jack muttered.
”I don't know, Jack,” Pooh said, ”from what I could see, Astro didn't seem, well, himself.
And during our mission, he struck me as a fine young man, not a villain. I wouldn't rush to judgment on him.”
”I've always valued your opinion, Zahir. Consider judgment suspended, for the moment.
What about Wolf?”
”He set off after Wizard, Zoe, and Lily, to find the ancient tribe and get the Second Pillar.”
”The Neetha...” Jack said, thinking.
He stared out into s.p.a.ce for a moment.