Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code in this nonstop action-packed thriller about the greatest treasure hunt of all time—a headlong race to find the seven wonders of the ancient world. An ancient secret...a team of heroes...the adventure of a lifetime. A legend of the ancient world decrees that every 4,500 years, a terrible solar event will wreak worldwide destruction...but whoever sets the Golden Capstone atop the Great Pyramid at Giza will avert disaster and gain the ultimate prize: a millennium of world dominance. Now the Sun is turning once again and nation will battle nation to retrieve the missing Capstone...but a group of small nations, led by super-soldier Jack West Jr., bands together to prevent any one country from attaining this frightening power. Thus the greatest treasure hunt of all time begins—an adrenaline-fueled race on a global battlefield. From the Colossus of Rhodes to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the Great Egyptian Pyramid itself, unlock the thrills of Seven Deadly Wonders.
Release date:
January 3, 2006
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster
Print pages:
400
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Seven Deadly Wonders THE GREATEST STATUE IN HISTORY IT TOWERED like a god above the mouth of Mandraki harbor, the main port of the island state of Rhodes, much like the Statue of Liberty does today in New York.
Finished in 282 B.C. after twelve years of construction, it was the tallest bronze statue ever constructed. At a stupendous 110 feet, it loomed above even the tallest ship that passed by.
It was crafted in the shape of the Greek sun god, Helios—muscled and strong, wearing a crown of olive leaves and a necklace of massive golden pendants, and holding a flaming torch aloft in his right hand.
Experts continue to argue whether the great statue stood astride the entrance to the harbor or at the end of the long breakwater that formed one of its shores. Either way, in its time, the Colossus would have been an awesome sight.
Curiously, while the Rhodians built it in celebration of their victory over the Antigonids (who had laid siege to the island of Rhodes for an entire year), the statue’s construction was paid for by Egypt—by two Egyptian Pharaohs in fact: Ptolemy I and his son, Ptolemy II.
But while it took Man twelve years to build the Colossus of Rhodes, it took Nature fifty-six years to ruin it.
When the great statue was badly damaged in an earthquake in 226 B.C., it was again Egypt who offered to repair it: this time the new Pharaoh, Ptolemy III. It was as if the Colossus meant more to the Egyptians than it did to the Rhodians.
Fearing the gods who had felled it, the people of Rhodes declined Ptolemy III’s offer to rebuild the Colossus and the remainder of the statue was left to lie in ruins for nearly nine hundred years—until A.D. 654 when the invading Arabs broke it up and sold it off in pieces.
One mysterious footnote remains.
A week after the Rhodians declined Ptolemy III’s offer to reerect the Colossus, the head of the mammoth fallen statue—all sixteen feet of it—went missing.
The Rhodians always suspected that it was taken away on an Egyptian freighter-barge that had left Rhodes earlier that week.
The head of the Colossus of Rhodes was never seen again.
ANGEREB SWAMP BASE OF THE ETHIOPIAN HIGHLANDS KASSALA PROVINCE, EASTERN SUDAN MARCH 14, 2006, 4:55 P.M. 6 DAYS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS
The nine figures raced through the crocodile-infested swamp on foot, moving fast, staying low.
The odds were stacked against them.
Their rivals numbered in excess of two hundred men. They had only nine.
Their rivals had massive logistical and technical support: choppers, floodlights for night work, and boats of every kind—gunboats, houseboats, communications boats, three giant dredging barges for the digging, and that wasn’t even mentioning the temporary dam they’d managed to build.
The Nine were only carrying what they’d need inside the mine.
And now—the Nine had just discovered—a third force was on its way to the mountain, close behind them; a much larger and nastier force than that of their immediate foes, who were nasty enough.
By any reckoning it was a hopelessly lost cause, with enemies in front of them and enemies behind them, but the Nine kept running anyway.
Because they had to.
They were a last-ditch effort.
The last throw of the dice.
They were the very last hope of the small group of nations they represented.
Their immediate rivals—a coalition of European nations—had found the northern entrance to the mine two days ago and were now well advanced in its tunnel system.
A radio transmission that had been intercepted an hour before revealed that this pan-European force—French troops, German engineers, and an Italian project leader—had just arrived at the Third Gate inside the mine. Once they breached that, they would be inside the Grand Cavern itself.
They were progressing quickly.
Which meant they were also well versed in the difficulties found inside the mine.
Fatal difficulties.
Traps.
But the Europeans’ progress hadn’t been entirely without loss: three members of their point team had died gruesome deaths in a snare on the first day. But the leader of the European expedition—a Vatican-based Jesuit priest named Francisco del Piero—had not let their deaths slow him down.
Single-minded, unstoppable, and completely devoid of sympathy, del Piero urged his people onward. Considering what was at stake, the deaths were an acceptable loss.
The Nine kept charging through the swamp on the south side of the mountain, heads bent into the rain, feet pounding through the mud.
They ran like soldiers—low and fast, with balance and purpose; ducking under branches, hurdling bogs, always staying in single file.
In their hands, they held guns: MP7s, M16s, Steyr AUGs. In their thigh holsters were pistols of every kind.
On their backs: packs of various sizes, all bristling with ropes, climbing gear, and odd-looking steel struts.
And above them, soaring gracefully over the treetops, was a small shape, a bird of some sort.
Seven of the Nine were indeed soldiers.
Crack troops. Special forces. All from different countries.
The remaining two members were civilians, the elder of whom was a long-bearded sixty-five-year-old professor named Maximilian T. Epper, call sign: Wizard.
The seven military members of the team had somewhat fiercer nicknames: Huntsman, Witch Doctor, Archer, Bloody Mary, Saladin, Matador, and Gunman.
Oddly, however, on this mission they had all acquired new call signs: Woodsman, Fuzzy, Stretch, Princess Zoe, Pooh Bear, Noddy, and Big Ears.
These revised call signs were the result of the ninth member of the team:
A little girl of ten.
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