Seven Ancient Wonders jw-1 Read online

  'And the evil spell?' Saladin asked hesitantly.

  Epper's face went grim.

  'The evil incantation—the ritual of power—will also spare the world from the blaze of Tartarus by capturing the Sun's rays in the Capstone's crystal array, but at a terrible price.

  'For, according to the ancient texts, when the entire Capstone is placed on the summit of the Great Pyramid at noon on the seventh day and a designated amount of pure soil from one nation is placed in a crucible inside it and the ritual of power is uttered, "all earthly power" will be invested in that nation for 1,000 years.'

  Epper stared at Saladin. 'The Capstone is the ultimate test of mankind's mettle. In the face of cataclysm, it can be used selflessly for the universal good, or it can be used selfishly, to attain absolute power.'

  'Or there is the third option,' Saladin said. 'Our option. If we obtain a single Piece of this Capstone and withhold it, we condemn the world to two weeks of catastrophic weather and floods, but not 1,000 years of slavery. A lesser-of-two-evils argument, Dr Epper?'

  'Something like that,' Epper said quietly. 'Either way, my Arab friend, the fate of the world now depends on our efforts.'

  VICTORIA STATION SOUTHERN KENYA 1996-2006

  Within days of the historic meeting, the team was in Kenya—living and working and training—at a remote farm-station near the Tanzanian border. On a clear day, to the south they could see the mighty cone of Kilimanjaro peeking above the horizon.

  Far from the Western world.

  Far from their enemies.

  The farm—very deliberately—had wide flat treeless pastures stretching for two miles in every direction from the central farmhouse.

  There would be no unexpected visitors to this place.

  The team raised few eyebrows among the locals.

  To the Kenyans, Victoria Station was just another working farm, populated by a few foreigners, all working for the old man, Epper, and his lovely wife, Doris. Grey-haired, patient and kind, she had come from Canada to join her husband on this mission and provide a much-needed grandmotherly figure on the farm.

  Of course, the locals soon became aware of a baby girl on the property—every now and then, Doris or a worker from the farm would come into town to buy baby food, formula milk, diapers and sometimes toys.

  But the Kenyans simply assumed that the olive-skinned girl was the daughter of the young blonde woman at the farm, who in turn

  was presumably the wife of one of the men.

  The locals, however, never noticed that every single night, there were always two members of the team patrolling the perimeter of the property.

  Lily grew up quickly.

  Indeed, she transformed rapidly from a happy gurgling baby into an inquisitive toddler who on taking her first steps became an absolute security nightmare.

  It was not uncommon to see seven crack commandos frantically upturning chairs, couches or hay bales trying to find a giggling little girl who could disappear seemingly almost at will.

  Then she began to talk and to read.

  Inevitably, she was the product of many influences.

  When she saw Saladin kneeling towards Mecca, she asked him what he was doing. It was he who taught her about Islam—only growing tongue-tied once when, as a four-year-old, she asked him why some Islamic women wore head-covering burqas.

  'If they do not wear the burqa, some men will not. . . er . . . respect them,' Saladin said, clearing his throat.

  'Zoe doesn't wear a burqa,' Lily said.

  Several members of the team were eating nearby at the time: Zoe, Epper and West. Smiling, Zoe looked expectantly at Saladin, waiting for his answer.

  'Well, no, she doesn't, because she is not a Muslim.'

  'But you can see her head, right?' Lily asked.

  'Yes...'

  'Which means, according to Islam, you mustn't respect her.'

  Saladin blushed bright pink. 'Well, no ... I do respect Miss Zoe. Very much.'

  'Then why do Muslim women wear these burqa things?'

  Saladin was helpless.

  It was Zoe who saved him. 'Not all men are as gentlemanly as Aziz, Lily. They can't control their urges as well as he can.'

  'Urges?' Lily asked, zeroing in on the new word.

  Zoe said, 'And that is a topic we will address when you're a little older.'

  All this time, a sheet of paper hung in the kitchen, attached by a magnet to the refrigerator—on it were seven boxes, filled with a strange kind of writing, reproductions of the seven main verses in the Callimachus Text. It looked like this:

  It was positioned so that Lily saw it every day when she went to get her morning juice. When she asked what it said, Doris Epper answered: 'We don't know. We're hoping that one day you'll be able to tell us.'

  When she hit five years of age, Max Epper took charge of her schooling, teaching her maths, science, ancient history and languages—with an emphasis on Latin, Greek and cuneiform.

  It turned out she had a singular aptitude for languages, learning them quickly and fluidly—with almost unnatural ease.

  By age 7, she had mastered Latin and Greek.

  By 8, she was deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.

  By 9, she had outstripped Epper in his knowledge of cuneiform— translating all three of the ancient languages from the Bisitun Monument.

  Not to mention the modern languages she was learning just by speaking with her multinational guardians. She particularly loved the difficult Gaelic tongue spoken by her Irish protectors, Zoe and Liam Kissane.

  Epper was a wonderful teacher.

  Lily just adored him—loved his wise old face, his kind blue eyes, and the gentle yet clever way he taught.

  And so she renamed him Wizard.

  Every day, she would race to his schoolroom in the east wing of the farmhouse to learn new and interesting things.

  Poems like 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' were acted out with verve and energy.

  Simple arithmetic was illustrated with farming examples.

  And science was a blast—literally. For Wizard had all manner of crazy home-made inventions in his workshop at the farm. Gadgets

  and tools that emerged from his dabblings in electromagnetism and foam epoxies.

  He once told Lily that a long time ago he had worked at a laboratory called Sandia in the United States, and that it was a secret place where they made secret things.

  She liked that. Secret things.

  She got along with the team members in different ways.

  Although she wasn't a very girly girl, Zoe taught Lily some necessary girly things—like brushing her hair, filing her nails and how to make boys do her bidding.

  Matador, the Spanish trooper, spent a lot of time in the gym they'd set up in the smaller barn. At first he let Lily watch him work out. Then, as she grew bigger, he let her sit on one end of a plank of wood while he bench-pressed it, balancing her mass with lead weights at the other end, lifting her high into the air. She loved that.

  Witch Doctor, the Jamaican commando, taught her how to tread in silence—they would terrorise Doris Epper, sneaking up on her when she dozed on the veranda in the afternoon Sun.

  But the soldier she bonded with most was Zoe's brother, Liam, call-sign Gunman.

  Gunman was a big guy, broad and tall, easily six-foot-three— with a wide honest face, a fully-shaven head, and large jug ears.

  He wasn't all that smart, but he was a great commando.

  With Lily, though, he just clicked—perhaps because they were of an equal intelligence level, even though he was 24 and she was just a kid.

  They watched movies and read books together.

  They played the video game Splinter Cell endlessly in dual-player mode—killing baddies left, right and centre, co-ordinating their moves with loud shouts and commands. They actually made a good team, winning the inaugural 'Victoria Station Dual-Player Splinter Cell Competition', defeating Wizard and Zoe in a hard-fought final.

  They went on adventures
around the station—including one visit to a giant hangar concealed in the western hills of the property, inside which they found the towering Halicarnassus.

  Lily gazed in awe at the great 747, and felt a thrill of excitement when she walked up to it, touched it and read a peculiar inscription on its underbelly: 'PRESIDENT ONE—AIR FORCE OF IRAQ'.

  But most of all, no-one would ever forget the famous tea party held on the front lawn one summer, with Mister Bear, Little Dog, Big Dog, Barbie, Lily and Gunman—huge Gunman, all 6 feet of him, hunched over on a tiny plastic chair, sipping from a plastic teacup, allowing Lily to pour him another cup of imaginary tea.

  Everyone in the team saw it—watching from inside the farmhouse, alerted by a whisper from Doris. The thing was, no-one ever—ever—teased Gunman about the incident.

  This was unusual.

  They were soldiers. They could and did make fun of each other on a regular basis, but for some reason, Gunman's relationship with Lily was off-limits.

  Well, except for the time he and Lily broke into Aziz's workshop in the big barn, took a plasticine-like substance from his lock-box and used it to blow up Barbie's campervan.

  Both Gunman and Lily copped hell for that.

  And so, gradually, the team became a family—a family centred around the protection and nurturing of one little girl.

  Of course, Lily loved the attention—like when she discovered ballet and put on a one-girl show to a cheering audience of seven commandos and two grandparent-like figures.

  And still every day, when she appeared in the kitchen for breakfast, whoever happened to be there at the time would turn to see if she noticed the sheet of paper magnetised to the fridge.

  But then one day, when she was seven, there was a commotion.

  As the team was eating breakfast, a radio squawked: 'All units. This is Sentry One, I have an intruder coming in through the main gate:

  Everyone leapt up, alarmed at the presence of an outsider, worried that other nations might know of their mission.

  The intruder turned out to be a lone man—tall and thin, with a sanguine face—walking casually down the dirt road from the main gate.

  Three hidden guns were trained on him as he rang the doorbell.

  Wizard answered the door. 'Can I help you, young man?'

  'Indeed you can, Professor Epper,' the thin man said. He had a dry pale face, with high cheekbones and deep hollow eye sockets.

  Wizard blanched, did a double-take.

  The intruder's grey eyes never blinked. He knew that he had just chilled Wizard to the very bone.

  'Professor Max T Epper,' he said, 'Professor of Archaeology at Trinity College, Dublin, and the representative of Canada on a secret eight-nation task force protecting the daughter of the Oracle of Siwa, with a view to obtaining the lost Capstone of the Great Pyramid. My name is Lieutenant Benjamin Cohen, call-sign Archer, formerly of the Sayaret Matkal, now of the Israeli Mossad. I've been sent by my government to join your task force.'

  West stepped out from behind Wizard.

  'Why hello, Jack,' Archer said familiarly. 'Haven't seen you since Desert Storm. Heard about what you did at that SCUD base outside

  Basra. Very nice. And Israel appreciated your efforts; although we still don't know how you got out. My bosses said you were involved in this, which was why they sent me. They thought you would accept me more than you would a total stranger.'

  'They were right, Ben,' West said. 'It's the only thing keeping you alive right now.'

  'Don't shoot the messenger.'

  'Why not?' West said and for the briefest of moments, Archer's confident air fell.

  West said, 'I don't like having my hand forced, Ben, and you've got us over a barrel here.'

  Archer said seriously, 'This is big, Jack. Affairs of state. Fate of the world and all that. This confrontation between Europe and the US has been coming for a long time. Let's just say, Israel always likes to be involved. If it makes you feel better, I have orders to place myself under your direct command.'

  West pondered this a moment.

  Then he said, 'No contact with home. No reporting back to Mossad until the mission is achieved.'

  'I have to report back sometime—'

  'No reporting back to Mossad until the mission is achieved or I blow your brains out right now, Ben.'

  Archer held up his hands, smiled. 'Can't argue with that. You've got a deal.'

  The team was stunned—but they knew they didn't have any choice in the matter.

  Either they allowed Archer to join their team or the Israelis would just advise the Americans of their mission.

  How the Israelis had discovered them, they didn't know—but then the Mossad is the most ruthless and efficient intelligence service in the world. It knows everything.

  What was also apparent, however, was that Israel did not want to see the Capstone fall into the hands of either America or

  Europe—which meant Israel had an interest in the mission succeeding. That was good.

  The big question, however, was what Israel planned to do at the end of the mission. Could Archer and Israel be trusted then?

  At first, hardly anyone even spoke to Archer—which the ever-cool Israeli didn't seem to mind at all.

  But no man is an island, and one day he joined West as he carried out some repairs on the station . . . and so began the process of becoming part of the team.

  And slowly, over the course of many months, by working and sweating and training with the others, he became accepted as one of them.

  One member of their little community, however, always regarded Archer with great suspicion.

  Saladin.

  As an Arab and a Muslim, he distrusted the Israeli intensely, but he also knew that Archer's presence in Kenya was now a given.

  He would often say that while he had to accept Archer's presence, he didn't have to like it.

  As all this was happening, Lily's development was proceeding apace.

  She was always inquisitive, always watching.

  Watching Saladin go off into the big barn and disappear inside his explosives workshop. He was so sweet and cuddly, she renamed him Pooh Bear.

  Watching the new man, Archer, go out to the western paddock and practise firing his ultralong Barrett sniper rifle at far-off targets—and hitting the target every single time. She watched him closely, even when he disassembled his rifle. He was so tall and thin, she started calling him Stretch. (She also noticed that Pooh Bear and Stretch hardly ever even spoke. She did not know why.)

  Watching Witch Doctor do chin-ups. From an early age, she had loved his wild dreadlocked hair. He became Fuzzy.

  Watching the two youngest troopers, Matador and Gunman, jog together, train together and drink together. This earned them their new callsigns: Noddy and Big Ears.

  And, of course, watching Zoe.

  Idolising Zoe.

  Being the only twenty-something female Lily knew, it wasn't unexpected that Zoe would become her feminine role model.

  And Zoe Kissane was a good role model. She could outlast the men in fitness tests, outwit most of them at dinner-table discussions, and she could often be found studying history books deep into the night.

  It was not uncommon to find Lily sitting in an armchair late at

  night beside Zoe, fast asleep with a book open, trying to imitate the pretty Irish woman.

  Naturally, Lily called her Princess Zoe.

  But above all, the one person Lily enjoyed watching most was Jack West Jr.

  She would never forget the day in 2000 when Wizard had presented West with a shiny new silver arm.

  With Zoe assisting, Wizard spent the whole day attaching the high-tech arm to West's left elbow, pausing every now and then to frown and say something like, 'The arm's CPU is experiencing interference from somewhere. Aziz, would you turn off the television set, please.' Eventually, he changed some frequencies on the arm's central processing unit and it worked to his satisfaction.

  The four-year-old
Lily had watched them keenly as they worked.

  She was aware that West had lost his arm on the day she was born, in the process of saving her life, so she really wanted his new arm to work.

  At the end of the day, the arm was on, and West flexed his new metal fingers. His new hand could actually grip things far more tightly and firmly than his natural right hand could.

  True to his word, Wizard had built West an arm that was better than the one he'd been born with.

  Other things about West intrigued Lily.

  For one thing, of all the team at the farm, he hung out with her the least.

  He didn't play with her.

  He didn't teach her any special subject.

  He would spend most days in his study, poring over old books— really old books with titles like Ancient Egyptian Building Methods, Imhotep and the Architects of Amun-Ra and one really old scroll titled in Greek: A Collection of Wonders from around the World.

  Lily loved his study.

  It had lots of cool stuff arrayed around its walls: sandstone tablets, a crocodile skull, the skeleton of some ape-like creature Lily couldn't recognise, and hidden in one corner, a glass jar filled with a very strange kind of rusty-red sand. On a secret mission of her own late one night, she discovered that the jar's lid was sealed tight, too tightly for her to open. It remained a mystery.

  There was also a medium-sized whiteboard attached to the far wall, on which West had scribbled all sorts of notes and pictures. Things like:

  HOWARD CARTER (1874-1939):

  Found Tutankhamen's tomb; also discovered Queen Hatshepsut's unused tomb (KV20) in Valley of the Kings in 1903. Empty tomb, never used. Unfinished carving on tomb's east wall is only known picture of Capstone atop Great Pyramid receiving vertical shaft of sunlight:

  After this West had noted: 'Queen Hatshepsut: only female pharaoh, prolific obelisk builder'.

  One note on the board, however, caught Lily's eye.

  It was at the very bottom corner of the whiteboard, under all the others, almost deliberately out of the way. It read simply: '4 MISSING DAYS OF MY LIFE—CORONADO?'