The Doomsday Key (Sigma Force 6)

So far they had not been spotted again.

All they’d found were a scared guard and an old woman out in the ruins. She had questioned them, but they didn’t know anything.

She stood in the walkway with Khattab and stared at the brass compass in the middle of the garden. They’d been doing something over there when her team flew in.

She pointed. “Get two men on that compass. See if there is anything unusual.”

“And what about the targets? Do our orders remain the same?”

“I have new orders.” She had hoped to secure the Doomsday key, but she recognized that was one brass ring beyond her reach. “Shoot to kill.”

As she stepped away, her boot heel skidded on some sand. It drew her eye to the stones underfoot. She knelt down. She had missed it before in the shadows, but a sandy line of grated limestone delineated a rectangle on the floor. Half-hidden behind a pillar, the location was where the shooter had seen their escaping targets vanish.

Krista pinched some of the crushed stone. She rubbed it between her fingers. Her eyes narrowed.

“Khattab, scrub those orders. I want men over here. Someone with demolition experience.”

Maybe that brass ring wasn’t quite so far out of reach.

3:34 P.M.

With his flashlight in hand, Gray led the others down a brick tunnel. It descended steeply in a straight course. As well as Gray could get his bearings down here, it seemed to be leading them beneath where the old abbey had once stood. By now, they had to be four stories underground.

No one spoke.

They all knew everything depended on finding that key.

Gray followed the beam of his flashlight. The sides of the tunnel vanished up ahead. Despite the urgency, he slowed everyone down. He remembered the booby trap he had inadvertently activated. Now was not the time for a careless mistake.

Holding his breath, he edged down the last of the tunnel. His flashlight’s beam diffused into a much wider space. He stepped to the opening and gazed out at the chamber beyond.

His first impression was of a subterranean cathedral. Brick walls lined by four giant pillars supported a massive circular dome. The structure was similar to the vaults along the edges of the cloister. But here the dome was really one massive vault. Arched ribs rose from each of the four pillars and crossed at the top. Viewed from below, Gray knew what the pattern must look like: a circular dome quartered by crossed ribs.

It formed the pagan cross.

The quartered circle.

If there had been any doubt about the symbolic representation, he had only to look below for confirmation. Sculpted in bronze and embedded in the limestone floor lay a massive design. It stretched thirty yards across. It curled in one continuous pattern, sweeping out, then back in again, forming three perfect spirals, all entwined together.

It was the ancient tri-spiral, the ubiquitous symbol found carved across the standing stones in England, illuminated in old Irish Celtic texts, and absorbed by the Catholic Church to represent the Holy Trinity.

The circle above, the spiral below.

And between them stood one object. It was the chamber’s only feature.

“A Celtic Cross,” Rachel said, her voice awed.

The others joined Gray as he entered the domed chamber.

The cross rose from the center of the tri-spiral. Sculpted also of bronze, it was plain, unadorned, only seven feet tall. It was constructed of two bronze poles crossed up high with a circular crosspiece.

Gray led the way.

Only Kowalski hung back by the tunnel. “I’ll stay here,” he said. “I remember what happened the last time you messed with a cross.”

The four of them continued into the chamber.

Wallace commented on the simplicity of the religious sculpture. “Cistercian monks always preached against excessive adornment. They believed in austerity and minimalism. Everything in its place and serving its function.”

Gray carefully crossed to the bronze spiral. He wasn’t sure such a massive floor design could be classified as austere. But the professor was correct about the cross. In form and size, it seemed insignificant. In fact, it looked more like an industrial tool than a religious symbol.

Still, no one could deny its importance.

Rachel commented on it, looking up. “It stands between the spiral and the quartered cross.”

Gray took a moment to shine his light across the dome. As his beam washed over the roof, he recognized something he’d missed. The dome, divided into four quarters, was not unadorned. His light reflected off raw chunks of quartz crystal imbedded in the ceiling.

As he cast his light around the dome, he knew what he was looking at.

“It’s a starscape,” Rachel said.

Gray agreed. He recognized constellations formed out of bits of quartz. The crystals varied in size, creating the illusion of three-dimensionality.

But they didn’t have time to appreciate the artistry.

Seichan reminded them. “What about the key? Back at Bardsey Island, you thought the cross held the combination to unlock its vault. Could it be the same here? Look.”

She pointed to the circular element hanging on the cross. The bronze wheel was scored with deep lines, similar to those on the stone cross on Bardsey.

Like the marks on a combination lock.

Gray suspected she was right, but there was a problem.

He didn’t know the combination.

And the last time he’d tried, he’d almost gotten them all killed.

From everyone’s worried expressions, they hadn’t forgotten either.

“We have to attempt it,” Wallace said.

“And if you trigger the booby trap,” Seichan said, “we can have Kowalski yank that lever like last time.”

He shook his head. “Even if it worked, we would still be screwed. Pulling the lever might haul our butts out of the fire here, but it could also reopen the stairs.”

He eyed the others, letting the significance sink in. Commandos would flood down here.

“Out of the fire and into the bloody frying pan,” Wallace concluded sourly.

Gray turned back to the cross. “We get one try. One mistake, and we’re doomed.”

Rachel offered the only solid reason for attempting it. “But we’re just as doomed if we do nothing.”

Kowalski added his own opinion. He grumbled it under his breath, but the acoustics carried it across the chamber.

“One more person says doomed and I’m out of here.”

3:48 P.M.

Krista stood next to Khattab as the team’s demolition expert finished packing the last hole with C-4 plastic explosive. He worked it with his fingers and shaped the charge with the deft skill of a sculptor. Once satisfied, he inserted a spark detonator tied to a wireless transmitter.