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“People, please drink up before you become dehydrated.” Howard said with a serious tone.

Like football players who embraced isotonic drinks after a match so as to re-balance the loss of sodium in their bodies, everyone in the confined space started gulping down the heavenly soda from the bottled soft drinks to quench their thirsts. Mrs. Chan handed the drinks to her two children and was seen planting an extra bottle in her hand bag. Nonetheless, nobody bothered at that point of time.

Howard waited a moment for the adults to finish their drinks before he talked to them in a whisper, trying his best to keep his voice down, “Guys, We were at the Power Room. The entire power system to drive the elevator and the overhead lights has broken down and there’re no backup generators whatsoever to even power up the ventilation system.”

He looked into the weary eyes of the tourists and continued, “We found a map and some stuff at the Guard office. There are no land lines here. Maybe they used to have some phones lying around but after the archeologists left this site years ago, the authorities had since deactivated all communication lines in this place. No phones, no computers, no fax machines. It really sucks but there’s nothing we can use here to send our distress calls out.”

“This is ridiculous,” Mr. Chan said worryingly, “somebody would come for us right? This is an archeological site isn’t it?”

Howard glared hard at Wong who slowly lowered down his head with a stern face splattered with guilt and remorse.Howard rolled his eyes. He then took out a small crumpled map and a tattered piece of newspaper cutting from his right pocket, unfolded them and explained, “This place is one of the various abandoned sites of the Chinese National Archeological Center. It was believed that in one of these sites stood the entrance to the west wing chamber of the General’s Tomb. There are probably twenty or thirty such sites in this area.” He pointed to a few excavation sites marked in red ink at the top right corner of the map. He then repositioned the newspaper cutting which he had held upside down and said, “Look, the newspaper cutting give details that this excavation site was abandoned by Chinese archeologists in the 1970s due to safety reasons. I believe our good tour guide here and some of his friends from the village used to work here but now they were digging for leftover treasures, antiques, anything they can savage from this place…and they sell their national treasures for a profit.”

“So they were tomb raiders? Damn it!” Nelson howled, turning his fiery eyes towards Wong and let out a pent-up breath that he’d not been aware of holding. “Damn it,” He repeated, “So who is this guy? A tomb raider moonlighting as a bloody tour operator?”

“I can hardly breathe now,” Paul lamented, “We must find a way to get out.”

“You bet,” Howard replied, waving the crinkly map in his hand, “this tells us where we are now but unfortunately, I believe we are trapped.”

“Let me have a look.” Johnny scrutinized the map for about a minute and said despairingly, “Umph...This is where we are and ...that is the excavation chamber. You are right Howard, seems no other way out. Shall we ...” Before Johnny could finish his sentence, a series of loud explosions rocked the underground facility.

The solid ground where the group was standing suddenly felt soft and it reverberated with the thundering sounds that rumbled through the narrow passageway, like tsunami waves radiating from an epicenter somewhere in the excavation chamber.

The tourists cried out in fear and darted in all directions to seek cover as fragments of rocks and heavy coats of dust and debris came raining down the roof.

A heap of mangled pipes crashed a few feet away from young Pauline Chan who was staring blankly at the chaos around her. She was so traumatized by the turmoil that she could hardly move. A blanket of debris toppled toward Pauline and in the split of a second, Howard dived forward and swiftly pulled her into safety underneath an iron structure that had provided momentary shelter amidst the fallen wreckages.

CHAPTER 11

“Watch out!” Sarah Tan shrieked at the top of her voice as she shoved Madam Kim aside before a cluster of rocks fell onto her.

Madam Kim fell flat on her belly, cursing in Korean when she tumbled. Judging by the distance between Madam Kim and the fallen rocks, a mere two feet was all that separated Madam Kim between life and death.

The fearful rumbling from above halted for few seconds before another explosion shook the dusty air.

Debris rained and a bundle of electrical cables and pipes from the ceiling fell onto Gupta and he screamed in pain, “Arrrgh! My leg!”

“Pete! Hide under that table!” Mr. John Chan cried, pointing to a huge workshop table that was standing a few feet away from his son, Pete. Pete nodded at his father but stood motionless.

A gargantuan piece of sand rock about the size of a truck tire landed just beside Pete, producing a deafening thud which made John Chan’s heart sink at that very instance. Luckily, the fallen rock had missed Pete by inches. If the sequence of events that followed were captured on film, it would be a hilarious scene. What happened was that Pete literally jumped when the rock crashed beside him. Instinctively, he lugged his shaken body forward and forced himself under the workshop table, like a rat disappearing into its hideout in the blink of an eye.

“Pete, are you okay?” John Chan shouted with all his might as the thick dust in the air slowly dispersed.

“I am alright dad, I am here.” Pete stuck his head out from underneath the table and waved gaily at his father.

“No, keep your head in!” John Chan cried, “Stay there.”

There was a moment of silence. The rumbling seemed to have stop but nobody was crazy enough to move out of their temporary shelters which were made up of fallen structures, conduits and water pipes. After the dust in the air cleared, people realized that the entire lift landing was literally in a mess. Sudden outbursts of moans and sobs resonate in the constricted passageway which was littered with tons of mangled objects and scores of fallen rocks.

It was another few minutes before somebody took the initiative to comb the passageway to check on each other. Ironically, it was a lucky moment on an unlucky day for the tourists as most of them went unhurt and suffered only minor abrasions and bruises.

The most severe injury among the group was that of Gupta who was pinned under a bunch of fallen electrical cables. With the help of Mr. Chan and Paul, Howard and Wong gently removed the fallen cables weighing upon Gupta and they were surprised that his injury was not as bad as they thought.

Sarah came forward with Kevin by her side and she knelt beside Gupta, who was moaning like a baby. Working with the speed and confidence of a seasoned practitioner, Dr. Sarah Tan surveyed Gupta’s leg wounds and tried lifting up his leg gently. Gupta responded with a crude scream. A small crowd started to gather around them.

“Guess you had a minor fracture,” Sarah said to Gupta and she looked around her, “Is everyone else ok?”

Nobody said anything and Sarah made the assumption that they were all fine.

“What the hell was that really? Are we safe now?” Mr. John Chan asked, looking specifically at Wong.

“It’s an earth quake, it happens all the time…but never so strongly.” Wong said with a deep tone, his face gleaming with guilt.

All of a sudden, a gust of icy-cold wind blew ferociously into the confined passageway, catching everyone by surprise. Kevin Tan’s long hair swayed slightly, like overgrown grass pulsating in a gentle breeze before an incoming storm.

“Can you feel that?” Kevin Tan asked.

“Yes, fresh air!” Sarah Tan said optimistically to her fiancé.

Paul took a few steps forward and lifted his head up. He seemed to be glaring in the direction of the wooden door leading to the underground chamber, which was obviously not within his sight. He paused for a moment to savor the fresh breath of air before saying jubilantly, “Yeah, it’s really coming from the chamber!”

“Hooray! We can breathe properly now.”Mr. Park exclaimed in delight as he squeezed the hands of Madam Kim. The gust of fresh air had not only revitalized the oxygen level in the otherwise asphyxiating environment but brought hope back to the group of breathless tourists.

Howard, Wong and a few of the grown-ups surveyed the elevator landing and they took a closer look at the level of damage the consecutive earthquakes had caused to the surroundings. Unanimously, they agreed that it made perfect sense for the group to leave the wrecked passageway immediately and seek a safer site.

“Okay, everyone, time to get out of this dump,” Howard said, his sharp eyes still scanning the surrounding. He then turned toward Paul and his gang, “Paul, do you think you guys can help Gupta?”

“No problem man,” Paul grinned, “We are trained by the Singapore Armed Forces to evacuate the casualty.”

“That’s great,” Howard replied with a smile. He looked at Sarah who had just secured a splint made up of three foot-long wooden planks around Gupta’s injured leg. Without saying a word, Dr. Sarah nodded back at Howard before she reassured Gupta.

“Gupta, we have to go now. This will keep your leg still for the time being. Paul and Johnny will walk with you.” She then opened up her purse, took some pills from within and placed them into Gupta’s palm. “Here, take some painkillers, you will feel better.”

Gupta gulped down the painkiller pills and managed to stand up on one foot with the help of Paul and Johnny. “Thanks, thank you so much guys.” Gupta said with intense gratitude.

Howard, Wong and Nelson picked up the duffel bags and stuff on the ground. Howard check the lift landing for the last time to make sure that nothing that was crucial for their survival was left behind. He took a quick glance at Lang’s lifeless body and said firmly to the group, “Everyone, follow me closely.”

The tourists marched closely behind Howard who led the way through the passageway and out of the wooden door at the far end. Along the way, Nelson and Wong helped push aside fallen wreckage and debris to clear the path as they moved forward. Luckily, there were no big obstacles standing in the way. Paul and Johnny were walking with Gupta, arms around him and helping him take his first step forward followed by the next. The three of them were the last few in the line, moving slowly but judiciously toward the underground chamber.

The bitterly cold air continued to blow in from the underground chamber. Like a spell being casted, it had succeeded in drawing the tourists closer and closer to their destinies on that stormy and frigid night.

CHAPTER 12

The famous Eastern Wing of the Han Dynasty General’s Tomb was officially opened to the public in 1968, twelve years after a Chinese peasant accidentally discovered an underground river beneath a remote village near Jin An town in Sichuan province. The underground river stretched hundreds of miles north of the village and in 1958, it carried a team of archeologists to a buried gate door which turned out to be the main entrance to the East Wing Chamber in the General’s Tomb. Both the underground river and the eminent gate door were not recorded in any of the historical books and were completely unknown to the world until then.

The level of public interest and media coverage surrounding the discovery of the West Wing Chamber in 1974 was very much lower as compared to the discovery of the Eastern Wing in 1958. That was mainly due to the fact that the Chinese government had learnt their earlier lessons and had decided not to over publicize the discovery. The purpose of doing that was not just to protect the precious artifacts that could be uncovered, thereby allowing the government scientists to work on the findings with reduced interference but also to prevent localized tomb thieveries.

In fact, the news on the discovery was barely noticed by anyone. Some scholars later commented that the government need not go through such meticulous efforts to block out news of the discovery as the number of artifacts unearthed in the Western Wing was incomparable to that in the East Wing. Historians and archeologists were deeply puzzled over the tiny amount of treasures and artifacts that were excavated and because of that, many believed that the West Wing Chamber was nothing but an empty enclosure since the Han Dynasty. In Dec 1976, the Chinese government announced that they had completed their excavation and research of the West Wing Chamber and had abandoned the site due to safety considerations.

It might be bad timing or poor Feng Shui whatever the Chinese people called it but a very tangible reason why nobody had paid attention on the news related to the discovery of the Han General’s Tomb West Wing Chamber was because during the same week when that discovery was made, a group of farmers in north western China accidentally uncovered the location of Emperor Qin Shih Huang’s Mausoleum. The herculean archeological discovery of the tomb of China’s first emperor and his terracotta warriors had practically overshadowed all other discoveries combined together in China during the same period.

Many superstitious people at that time believed that the excavation of terracotta warriors, who were meant to protect Emperor Qin’s subterranean palace would bring upon misfortunes to the intruders of the tomb - the scientists and the archeologists. Some of these people had believed that the misdoings of the government archeologists in Emperor Qin’s tomb had angered the earthly divine deity and subsequently brought about bad luck to the archeologists.