‘Easton, wait, no!’ Jack lunged after him.

Too late.

Fizzzzzzzz – whap!

A bullet fired from somewhere beyond the doorway sizzled through the air and slammed into Easton’s right shoulder, spinning him backwards.

Jack caught him and yanked him back into the safety of the tunnel.

‘You okay?’ Jack whispered.

Easton grimaced in pain but nodded. Jack applied pressure to the wound as Lily arrived beside them and pulled a bandage from her pack.

As if in response to that first shot, a flurry of many more gunshots rang out from outside.

Blam!-Blam!

Boom!-Boom!

Bang-bang-bang!

Jack’s trained ear could tell immediately that they came from several different guns: Steyr AUG assault rifles, pistols and at least one sniper rifle.

Jack guessed that the shooter who had hit Easton was a sniper left behind by Sphinx: probably the same one who had killed Rastor’s Serbians in this very doorway.

But in firing that shot, the sniper had drawn the fire of the other parties already here.

Jack was processing all this—half crouched in the doorway holding Easton while Lily bandaged the wound—when movement caught his eye.

‘What the goddamn hell . . .’ he breathed in horror.

The Vandal that had been slumped on the floor was getting up.

It wasn’t dead . . .

Like a ghoul rising from a grave, it stood slowly, at first facing away from Jack, and he saw that it had something duct-taped to its back, near the shoulderblades, something small and round.

Then the Vandal turned and levelled its red-rimmed eyes at Jack.

‘Hello, Captain! I’ve been waiting for you!’

As it spoke, Jack saw that this Vandal was actually handcuffed and that the cuffs were attached to a longer rope looped around one of the nearby obelisks.

It wasn’t here of its own accord. And the thing taped to its back . . .

Jack frowned, mystified and concerned.

What was this about—

Then the Vandal took a step toward him. ‘My master Sphinx left me behind to kill General Rastor. But Rastor captured me and taped the little red thing to my body. Then he tied me to this obelisk and told me to wait for you to arrive. He said when you did, I was to say I am his farewell gift for you.’

The Vandal took another step forward. Ten feet away.

The little red thing . . .

And suddenly Jack realised what the object taped to the Vandal’s back was and his blood went cold.

A red orb, taken from the ceiling of the Endless Tunnel.

And then Jack’s horror was complete as he looked into the Vandal’s eyes and realised—too late—what a fucked-up and deadly trap Rastor had set for them.

‘Rastor’s turned this Vandal into a walking bomb,’ he said. ‘He must’ve left a sniper of his own to—’