The tile dropped out from under him. It was hinged along one edge, swinging away to pitch him into a black void below-

Chase threw out his arms, his flashlight spinning down into the darkness as he caught the side of the hole with one hand. Pain searing through the wound in his back, he swung helplessly for a moment before struggling to bring up his other arm. With a groan, he finally managed to secure himself.

Nina screamed his name through the headset. “I’m okay, I’m okay!” he gasped. “Well, technically.”

“What happened?” Sophia asked, sounding more professionally curious than concerned.

“The tile was hinged; it gave way when I stepped on it.” Chase turned his head to examine the side of the hole opposite the hinge. Metal strips supporting the tile from beneath had bent under his weight.

“I always said you could stand to lose a few pounds, Eddie,” said Sophia.

“Yeah, ho fucking ho. Get me out of here.”

Her voice became patronizing. “I’m disappointed in you. Can’t you climb out on your own?”

“I would’ve if some bastard hadn’t stuck a drill in my shoulder!” Chase twisted around to see Komosa still lurking in the entrance. “Oi, Silvernips! Give me a hand, for fuck’s sake.”

Komosa smirked, making no effort to move. Behind him, the other members of the expedition arrived, Nina leading. “Help him, then!” she cried.

Corvus directed his flashlight at the dangling Chase. “He fell in the hole, let him get out of it. Why should we help?”

Nina fixed him with a cold, determined stare. “Because if he dies, you might as well kill me too, because there’s no way in hell I’m going to translate another word of this.” She held up the parchments, thumb tightening. Part of one page tore. “Oops.”

Sophia brought up her gun, but Corvus raised his hands. “All right, Dr. Wilde.” He nodded to Komosa. “Get him out.” Annoyed, Komosa entered the room and pulled Chase from the hole.

“Cheers, mate,” Chase said sarcastically, kneeling on the solid light tile that he’d grabbed. He peered into the hole to see his light lying on the ground ten feet below-surrounded by a nest of jagged metal spikes. “Jesus. You’d need more than a tetanus shot if you landed on those.”

“How do we get across safely?” Sophia asked, looking at the transcribed Greek text in Nina’s notebook. “Are all the dark squares booby-trapped?”

“Yes, but so are some of the light ones too,” said Nina, defensively turning the book away from her. “Let me see… oh, Christ, this is complicated.” She frowned as she read through the text. “Okay, I think I’ve got it. Every second light-colored tile in the first row, the one along the left side of the room, is booby-trapped. Then in the second row, the third light tile is trapped. The third row, all the light tiles are safe. Then the pattern repeats-every second one, every third. All the others should be safe.”

“Should be safe?” Chase remarked dubiously.

Sophia pointed her gun at him. “Only one way to find out.”

Cursing under his breath, Chase banged a heel down hard on the next light tile in the adjoining row. It didn’t move. He warily stepped onto it, then with a little more confidence hopped diagonally to the light tile on which the column stood. “Okay. Any chance of another torch?”

Komosa tossed him his flashlight. Chase caught it and examined the metal cage on top of the column. “Yeah, we’ve got an apple in here.” He tugged at the cage, but it held firm. “Better roll the ball, I suppose. You’re absolutely sure about which tiles are booby-trapped?” he asked Nina.

Nina was working as quickly as she could, holding the red plastic sheet over one of the parchment pages and shining a light on it to spot each hidden letter in turn, then scrawling them into her notebook. “As far as I can tell.”

“Well, if you’re sure, that’s good enough for me. Which way do I go?”

There was a short pause while Nina worked out the pattern. “Okay, if I’m right, the light square diagonally to the right is trapped.”

Chase tested it with his heel. It dropped fractionally. “Yep, you’re right.”

“Okay, go left.” He moved cautiously; this light tile was solid. “Now go right, right again and left to get to the second column, then go left, then right, and you’ll be at the statue.”

Chase followed her directions, arms half raised ready to grab the sides if another hole opened up beneath him. Nothing happened. He reached the statue of Atlas, which stood seven feet tall, and looked up at the giant ball. There was some kind of mechanism beneath it, set between Atlas’s shoulders. “So I push this off, and then…” he muttered, as much to himself as to Nina, as he looked around. “Oh, here we go. There are some holes in the wall. Three guesses what fruit they’re shaped like.”

“You must have to put the apples in them, then push the ball back into place,” Nina suggested.

“Yeah, I guessed that. It’s like a psycho version of The Crystal Maze.” Chase turned back to the statue and reached up to push the ball. Even though it was hollow, it still took a fair amount of effort before it started to move. “Go on, you bugger!”

With an echoing rumble, the ball came free and rolled down the rails, picking up speed before reaching the steeper upward curve at the bottom. It trundled back and forth a few times, then finally came to rest.

Chase retraced his steps to the nearest of the four columns. This time, the metal cage rose easily. He reached inside and carefully lifted out the bronze apple. There was a square protrusion at its base, which he realized matched an indentation in one of the holes in the wall behind Atlas-a primitive key.

He returned to the statue and placed the apple in the indentation, experimentally turning it. It made a quarter-turn clockwise, then stopped. “Okay, it seems to work.”

“Get the other three,” ordered Sophia.

Chase made an annoyed grunt and turned back to face the grid, standing before the central light square. “Okay, Nina, is this one safe?”

A brief pause, then: “Yes. Then go right.”

He took the step-

“No no no, stop, wait!” Nina shrieked. Chase flung himself back just as the tile fell away with a bang.

“Jesus!” he gasped. “What happened? I thought you had this all worked out!”

“Sorry, sorry! We’re facing in opposite directions-I meant, go to my right. Your left.”

A half laugh escaped Chase’s mouth. “All those brains, but you still can’t tell left from right?”

“Yeah, okay, sorry,” Nina said sheepishly. “So, you need to go left, then left again to get to the next column.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“Like I said, just checking.”

Under Nina’s guidance, he gingerly picked his way around the board to collect the three other apples before returning to the statue of Atlas and the keyholes behind it. He inserted the apples one by one. As he turned the final one, he heard some hidden mechanism click: a lock opening.

All that remained now was to push the heavy ball back up the rails and onto Atlas’s shoulders. It took considerably more effort than it did to move it in the first place, but after a couple of minutes the ball rolled back into place onto the switch in the statue’s shoulders. With a loud thump, one of the lighter tiles at the back of the room fell open.

“How do you like them apples?” Chase called triumphantly across the room as the rest of the party followed the safe route to the far side.

“One down,” said Sophia, unimpressed. “Two to go. Get moving.”

“This is just what she was like when we were married,” Chase said into the headset for Nina’s benefit, even though he knew full well that Sophia could also hear him. “‘Cept for the cold-blooded murder, I mean.” Nina almost smiled.

“Let’s keep the stupid comments to a minimum, Eddie,” Sophia said in a clipped tone. Chase shrugged and dropped through the newly opened hole, Komosa waiting for him to advance before jumping down after him.