He actually now stood even higher than the rim of the colossal ring-wall holding back the sea, and he could see, off to the east, the Russian aircraft carrier and the Sinai coast. To the west, he could see the oil rig, the Red Horizon Star-4.

A cheer went up from some Russian officers on the carrier’s flight deck. They pumped their fists in triumph.

While he was at the top of the castle, Sphinx still stood at the bottom of the pinnacle that led up to the Life Throne, a dizzyingly high needle of silver and gold that was shot through with carved handholds.

It was essentially a supertall cylinder, about one hundred and fifty feet tall and twenty feet wide, with decorative images of huge snakes winding around it and small ledges protruding from it.

Abruptly, gunfire slammed into the stone all around him, from a new source.

Jaeger Sechs spun and returned fire to two Omega snipers perched on a tower to the east. He killed one of them, only for the second sniper to nail him in the chest and Sechs went sailing off the castle, falling for thousands of feet to his death.

Sphinx didn’t care.

He was so close to his goal. He turned to face the pinnacle and looked up at it.

He scanned the bending paths of hand- and footholds running up the needle and eventually reaching the throne at its top.

Sphinx reached for the first hand—

Whoosh!

A missile whizzed by his head, missing him by mere feet.

Sphinx whirled—

—to see General Rastor standing on top of one of the towers to the south of the castle, with a missile launcher on his shoulder.

Sphinx laughed: ‘Nice try, Garthon! But I have electromagnetic protection from such weapons!’

‘Is that so?’ Rastor called back. ‘Oh, Hardin, you never understood me and the lengths to which I will go to achieve my goal!’

This was, of course, the moment when Jack arrived on the scene, emerging from the Endless Tunnel.

Jack saw Jaeger Sechs exchange shots with the Omega snipers, get shot and fall; saw the RPG missile whoosh past Sphinx on the castle’s summit, and heard Sphinx’s exchange with Rastor.

‘We might be too late,’ Jack said.

‘There has to be a way,’ Lily said.

And then, to their horror, Rastor did something completely unexpected and the scene descended into a whole new level of anarchy.

It was Sphinx’s comment about having electromagnetic protection that must’ve made Rastor do it, Jack figured.

Sphinx, Jack deduced, must have himself been wearing some kind of Warbler, an electromagnetic shield that deflected subsonic projectiles like bullets and shoulder-launched missiles.

True to his reputation for wild tactics and strategies, Rastor simply chose a different way to counter Sphinx.

He hefted his RPG launcher onto his shoulder and fired it again . . .

. . . only this time, he didn’t aim it at Sphinx on the castle.