Gorgon: An Alex Hunter Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

edge of the circular pit.
    Baykal watched Çekiç three’s camera image as it moved from the inky blackness of the pit to the surrounding chamber, then back down to the pit’s depths. Already the other team’s lights were being swallowed by a darkness blacker than Hades.
    Baykal’s eyes moved to the other five image feeds that showed what his men were encountering as they descended into the pit. They traveled downwards for approximately one hundred steps until they came to the damp floor of a large vault-like room. Though the walls were thick with slime and moss, the men’s flaring pipes of light picked out mosaic images and what looked to be Roman script, as well as several other languages.
    The Mizrak team leader signaled his men to spread out. The five images moved slowly forward, each soldier’s light beam cautiously sweeping left and right. As the men came to the end of the circular room, Baykal could see arched stone doorways leading off into more velvet-thick darkness. For a fleeting moment, he imagined the Colosseum of ancient Rome, where slaves huddled in the center of the arena, waiting for savage beasts to spring upon them from arched doorways just like these.
    The men were drawn to one central doorway, larger than the rest, which looked as if it had once been bricked up. Bricks lay scattered before it, evidently roughly chipped and pulled out of position. The Mizrak team leader pointed to new cuts and breaks in the stone, revealing the paler granite beneath.
    A hundred questions sprang into Baykal’s mind, but now was not the time to ask them. Distractions could be lethal.
    A boot pushed aside some of the debris, to reveal a metal chisel and hammer. Modern tools , Baykal thought. Someone had pulled those stones out recently. The tourists? Why?
    The five onscreen images came together, and a hand went up flat in a hold it gesture. All five images froze.
     ‘Proceed?’ the team leader asked.
    Baykal responded quietly. ‘Affirmative.’
    The flat hand came down to point at the broken-open doorway. Baykal stared with fierce concentration as his men stepped cautiously forward, careful not to stumble over the broken stone and bricks, careful not even to nudge the rubble and make a noise. The images jumped as the soldiers looked down for foot placement, then quickly back up at the doorway. On the ground, Baykal saw more pieces of what looked like broken statue – multiple statues – and also, strangely, piles of dusty clothing.
    One camera focused in on the closest carved figure and Baykal saw that the detail on the face was exquisite. The artist had truly captured the emotions of pain, agony, fear, and a sort of hellish torment. He could only wonder at the artisans’ intentions as they crafted those tortured visions. He frowned; there was something at the back of his consciousness bothering him. Being a former Special Forces soldier himself, he was trained to miss nothing – but he felt he just had.
    The five images onscreen coalesced as the men reached the doorway and stood before it. Baykal leaned across and put his arm on the technician’s shoulder. ‘Rewind the last thirty seconds.’
    The man’s fingers leaped forward on the keyboard, and immediately the dark images raced backward, then replayed at normal speed.
    There – he knew it. On the slender finger of one of the broken statues – a gold ring. Baykal knew Roman statues had often been adorned with laurels of gold and other embellishments, but the ring didn’t look right given the antiquity of the tunnels. He straightened and reached up to pinch his chin.
    A soft noise drifted around the chamber.
    The team leader moved the barrel of his gun slowly across the space. ‘Are you picking that up?’
    Baykal leaned forward and the technician amplified the sound. Baykal frowned – it sounded like weeping.
    ‘We got it,’ he said. ‘Maybe one of the tourists. Proceed.’
    The images moved forward again, slow and controlled. Baykal was about to