Seven Ancient Wonders Read Online Free PDF Page B

Stretch. Once known as Archer, he had a long, sanguine, bony face. He hailed from the deadly Israeli sniper unit, the Sayaret Matkal.
    Stretch arrived at the right-side arm of the Scar, where he triggered a huge trap from a safe distance: a bronze cage that fell out of a dark recess in the Scar and clattered down to the lake.
    Had any of the team been walking on the foot-wide mini-ledge in front of the recess, the cage would have caught them and taken them down to the lake, to be either eaten by the crocs or drowned under the weight of the cage itself.
    Now West and Lily took the lead, crossing the mini-ledge across the Scar, stepping out onto the centre section of the First Level.
    Here they found the trigger stone for the Master Snare at the base of the wall-ladder leading up to Level 2. West made to step on it—
    ‘Captain West!’
    West froze in mid-stride, turned.
    Del Piero and his troops were staring up at him from the base of their half-finished crane, holding their useless guns stupidly in their hands.
    ‘Now, Captain West, please think about this before you do it!’ del Piero called. ‘Is it
really
necessary? Even if you trigger the Master Snare, you are only postponing the inevitable. If you do somehow get the Piece, we’ll kill you when you try to leave this mountain. And if you don’t, my men will just return after the Snare has run its course and we will find the head of the Colossusand the piece of the Capstone it contains. Either way, Captain, we get the Piece.’
    West’s eyes narrowed.
    Still he didn’t speak.
    Del Piero tried Wizard. ‘Max. Max. My old colleague, my old friend. Please. Reason with your rash young protégé.’
    Wizard just shook his head. ‘You and I chose different paths a long time ago, Francisco. You do it your way. We’ll do it ours. Jack. Hit the trigger.’
    West just stared evenly down at del Piero.
    ‘With pleasure,’ he said.
    And with that he
stomped
on the trigger stone set into the floor at his feet, activating the Master Snare.
    The spectacle of Imhotep’s Master Snare going off was sensational.
    Blasting streams of black crude oil shot out from the hundreds of holes that dotted the cavern: holes in the rockface and its sidewalls.
    Dozens of oil waterfalls flowed down the rockface, cascading over its four levels. Black fluid flooded out from the sidewalls, falling a clear 200 feet down them into the croc lake.
    The crocs went nuts, scrambling over each other to get away from it—disappearing into some little holes in the walls or massing on the far side of the lake.
    In some places on the great tiered rockface, oil came
spurting
out of the wall, forced out of small openings by enormous internal pressure.
    Worst of all, a
river
of the thick black stuff came pouring down the main course of the Scar, a vertical cascade that tumbled down the vertical riverbed, overwhelming the trickle of water that had been running down it.
    And then the clicking started.
    The clicking of many stone-striking mechanisms mounted above the wall-holes.
    Striking mechanisms made of flint.
    Striking mechanisms that were designed to create sparks and . . .
    Just then, a spark from one of the flints high up on the left sidewall touched the crude oil flowing out from the wall-hole an inch beneath it.
    The result was stunning.
    The superthin waterfall of oil became a superthin waterfall of
fire . . .
    . . . then this flaming waterfall hit the oil-stained lake at the base of the cavern and set it alight.
    The lake blazed with flames.
    The entire cavern was illuminated bright yellow.
    The crocs screamed, clawing over each other to get to safety.
    Then more oilfalls caught alight—some on the sidewalls, others on the rockface, and finally, the great sludge waterfall coming down the Scar—until the entire Great Cavern looked like Hell itself, lit by a multitude of blazing waterfalls.
    Thick black smoke billowed everywhere—smoke which had no escape.
    This was Imhotep’s final