Serpent of Moses Read Free

again and it wasn’t long before he noticed a change in the feel of the wall beneath his hand. It took a few seconds for him to realize that the soft, damp skin covering the rock was moss. It was while he was processing that fact that his foot came down in several inches of water that traveled over his shoe, drenching his sock.
    He thought a curse, but stifled it before it could pass his lips. Pulling his foot from the water he took a step back and, after weighing the danger of doing so, he chanced the use of the flashlight. With his hand over the lens Jack allowed only a sliver of the beam to escape, just enough to show him what lay ahead.
    Taken aback by what he saw, his hand fell away from the front of the flashlight, allowing its full strength to fill the chamber. He stood there motionless, studied the wall that marked the end of the tunnel. To his practiced eye the barrier gave every impression of having been an abandoned project, as if ancient excavators had given up once water started to trickle from the rock lest they loose the trapped reservoir behind it. Over time, though, the water had worked its way through the stone, creating several larger cracks that sent the water down the wall, where it created the stream that pooled at Jack’s feet before following a gentle slope that kept the water emptying through a fissure in the ground.
    It was an escape route Jack could not take. To make matters worse, the only other way out would now be blocked. It was also possible that they had sent some of their number after him.
    Jack stared at the wall for a few more moments, until he heard noises behind him that had nothing to do with running water. Turning away from the wall, he dropped to a knee and swung his pack from his shoulder. Experience had taught him that when fate removed one option, a man had to move quickly to the next one. He unzipped the pack and pulled out the one item in it that lacked any connection to the practice of archaeology.
    He held the gun up, bringing it into the light. For most of his professional life he’d never traveled with a gun, and even now he didn’t like keeping one near. Esperanza hated it, even if she understood why he sometimes chose to take it along when he traveled. However, he hadn’t fired one since Australia.
    The sounds of his pursuers grew more pronounced; he knew they would have seen the glow of his light.
    Jack moved to his left, putting his shoulder against the rock, and then turned off the flashlight. It took several blinks and a handful of seconds before he could see the approaching illumination displacing the darkness that surrounded him. He raised the gun and waited.
    It didn’t take long.
    When the first of them appeared, stepping clear of the curving wall, Jack sighted on the flashlight in the man’s hand. Just as the light began to turn in his direction he started to squeeze off a shot. At the last moment, though, he shifted and put the bullet into the wall a few feet to the side of the shadowy form.
    With the time that had passed since the last time he’d fired a gun, Jack almost lost his grip on the weapon. The man he’d shot toward dropped the flashlight in his scramble to get out of the line of fire. Jack smiled in grim satisfaction and settled back to wait for whatever would play out next. He kept the gun raised, but no one else stepped out and he suspected the men who had chased him to this point were debating the merits of making themselves targets for a desperate archaeologist entrenched in a defensible position.
    Several minutes passed in that fashion, and every so often Jack thought he heard voices over the sound of the water. However, when the minutes began to stretch out without any activity, he began to grow irritated at the delay. He was about to call out when a voice came from down the tunnel.
    “So what happens now?”
    The man had an accent—English, Jack thought.
    “What happens is that I shoot anyone who steps around that corner,” Jack called