The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 99

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of gunfire deafened and confused him. He stared around him and could not

credit the'carnage he was witnessing. At such close range the 7.62 round

is a terrible missile, which can blow off an arm or a leg as efficiently

as an axe-stroke, but more messily. Taken in the belly, it can gut a man

like a fish.

Nahoot saw one of the monks hit in the forehead. His skull'erupted in a

cloud of blood and brain tissue, and the gunman who had shot him laughed

as he fired. They were all caught up in the madness of the moment. Like

a pack of wild dogs that had run down their prey, they kept on firing

and reloading and firing again.

The monks in the front rows turned to flee and ran into those behind.

They struggled together, howling with agony and terror, until the storm

of bullets swept over them, killing and maiming, and they fell upon the

heaps of dead and dying. The floor of the chamber was carpeted with the

dead and the wounded. Trying to escape the hail of bullets the monks

blocked the doorway, plugging it tight with their struggling white-clad

bodies, and now the troopers standing clear in the centre of the qiddist

turned their guns upon this trapped mass of humanity. The bullets socked

into them and they heaved and tossed like the trees of the forest in a

gale of wind. Now there was very little screaming; the guns were the

only voices that still clamoured.

It was some minutes before the guns stuttered into silence, and then the

only sound was the groans and the weeping of the wounded. The chamber

was filled with a blue mist of gunsmoke and the stink of burned powder.

Even the laughter of the soldiers was silenced as they stared around

them, and realized the enormity of the slaughter.

The entire floor was carpeted with bodies, their shammas splashed

and-speckled with gouts of scarlet, and the stone paving beneath them

was awash with sheets of fresh blood in which the empty brass cartridge

cases sparkled like jewels.

"Cease firing!" Nogo gave the belated order. "Shoulder arms! Pick up the

load! Forward march!'

His voice roused them, and they slung their weapons and stooped to lift

their heavy, tapestry-wrapped burdens.

Then they staggered forward, their boots squelching in the blood,

tripping over the corpses,. stepping on bodies that either convulsed or

lay inert. Gagging in the stench of gunsmoke and blood, of bowels and

guts ripped wide open by the bullets, they crossed the chamber.

When they reached the doorway and staggered down the steps into the

deserted outer chamber of the church, Nahoot saw the relief on the faces

of even these battle hardened veterans as they escaped from the reeking

charnel-house. For Nahoot it was too much. Never in his worst nightmares

had he seen sights such as these.

He tottered to the side wall of the chamber and clung to one of the

woollen hangings for support; then, heaving and retching, he brought up

a mouthful of bitter bile.

When he looked around him again, he was alone except for a wounded monk

who was dragging himself across the flags towards him, his spine shot

through and his paralysed legs slithering behind him, leaving a slimy

snail's trail of blood across the stone floor.

Nahoot screamed and backed away from the wounded monk, then whirled and

fled from the church, along the cloisters above the gorge of the Nile,

following the group of soldiers as they ffarried their burdens up the

stone staircase. He was so wild with horror that he did not even hear

the approach of the helicopter until it was hovering directly overhead

on the glistening silver disc of its spinning rotor.

otthold von Schiller stood outside the front door of the Quonset hut,

with Utte Kemper waiting a pace behind him. The pilot had radioed ahead

while the jet Ranger was in flight, so all was in readiness to receive

the precious cargo it was carrying.

The helicopter raised a cloud of pale dust from the landing circle as it

sank down to the earth. The long tapestry covered load it carried had

not been able to fit into the cabin, and was strapped across the landing

skids of the aircraft. The instant that the skids kissed the ground and

the pilot cut back the throttle, Jake Helm led out a team of a dozen men

to loosen the nylon retaining straps and lift the heavy bundle down.

Between them the gang of overallclad workers carried the stele to the

hut and eased it through the door. Helm hovered close at hand, issuing

terse orders.

A space had been cleared in the centre of the conference room, the long

table pushed back against the wall.

With extreme care the stele was laid there, and minutes later the coffin

of Tanus, the Great Lion of Egypt, was laid beside it.

Brusquely Helm dismissed the gang and closed and bolted the door behind

them as they left. Only the four of them remained in the room. Nahoot'

and Helm crouched beside the stele, ready to unwrap the woollen

tapestry. Von Schiller stood at the head of it, with Utte at his side.

"Shall we begin?" Helm asked softly, watching von Schiller's face the

way a faithful dog watches its master.

"Carefully," von Schiller warned him in strangled tones.

"Do not damage anything." He was sweating in a sheen across his

forehead, and his face was very pale. Utte edged rotectively closer to

him,, but he did not glance in her direction. He was staring fixedly at

the treasure that lay at his feet.

Helm opened his clasp-knife and cut away the tasselled cords that

secured the covering. As he watched, von Schiller's breathing became

louder. It rasped in his throat like a man in the terminal stages of

emphysema.

"Yes," he whispered hoarsely, tthat's the way to do it." Utte Kemper

watched his face. He was always like this when he made another

significant addition to his collection of antiquities. He seemed on the

verge of a seizure, of a massive heart attack, but she knew he had the

heart of an OX.

Helm came to the top end of the pillar and carefully opened a small slit

in the cloth. He eased the point of the blade into this opening, and

then ran it slowly down towards the base, like a zip fastener. The blade

was razor sharp and the cloth fell away to reveal the inscribed stone

beneath it.

The sweat burst out like a heavy dew on von Schiller's skin. It dripped

from his chin on to the front of his khaki bush jacket. He made a small

moaning sound as he saw the carved hieroglyphics. Utte watched him, her

own excitement mounting. She knew what to expect of him, when he was

caught up in this paroxysm of emotion.

"See here, Herr von Schiller." Nahoot knelt beside the obelisk and

traced the outline of a broken'winged hawk with his finger. "This is the

signature of the slave, Taita."

"Is it genuine?" Von Schiller's voice was that of a very sick man,

wheezing and gusty.

"It is genuine. I will guarantee it with my life."

"It may come to that," von Schiller warned him. His eyes were glittering

with the hard brilliance of pate sapphires.

This column was carved nearly four thousand years ago," Nahoot repeated

stoutly. "This is the veritable seal of the scribe." He translated

glibly and easily from the blocks of figures, his face shining with an

almost religious rapture: "'Anubis, the jackal-headed, the god of the

cemeteries, holds in his paws the blood and the viscera, the bones and

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