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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