The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor by Max Allan Collins

entire circular floor split apart, like a giant hinged trapdoor.
    Scrambling, Wilson managed to roll off and save himself, but Alex fell into the newly revealed crevasse, taking a nasty hit on the rump of a bronze horse and bouncing off to find his face in someone else’s face.
    Someone else who had been dead for a very long time.
    Pushing the mummified corpse away, and getting to his feet, a horrified Alex used his flashlight to identify three mummies, arms around one another. Based upon their feminine garb, Alex deduced that these were concubines the Emperor had buried with him.
    Wilson called down, “Are you all right, son?”
    Alex said, “Fine!”
    Then Alex swung his flashlight around and was confronted by the find of a lifetime.
    “Oh . . . my . . . God . . .”
    “Dear boy, what is it?”
    “Nothing much. Just the greatest discovery since my grandfather found King Tut . . .”
    A ceremonial bronze chariot, drawn by four magnificent bronze horses, stood connected to an even larger cortege wagon on which rested an ornate sarcophagus; the entire affair perched on a platform. Commanding the chariot was a slightly oversized bronze figure of the Emperor—even in bronze, Er Shi Huangdi’s face radiated a fierce cruelty and a dark charisma.
    The scale of it all dwarfed the young explorer. Millennia of blackness had shrouded these impressive objects, and now his eyes were on them.
    Above, kneeling over the edge of the crevasse, Wilson clenched a fist and said, “Finally! At last . . . at last . . . yes!”
    But before his victory could be relished, Wilson was sent into a black pit—not that of the crevasse before him, rather into unconsciousness, thanks to a vicious kick in the head from an assailant so silent, the professor hadn’t heard even a whisper of approach.
    In the Emperor’s crypt below, Alex was unaware of the attack on his mentor. Right now he was climbing up a chariot wheel to get at the sarcophagus, the top of which he dusted off with a gloved hand, revealing a bas-relief of a three-headed dragon.
    The Emperor’s symbol!
    Now Alex knew for sure—this was indeed Er Shi Huangdi’s final resting place.
    Pleased with himself, the young explorer jumped down. His flashlight traveled to the various mummified figures, including the concubines. Horny selfish bastard, he thought. Even had his lovelies buried alive with him.
    His attention elsewhere, Alex did not see the lithe, masked figure in black drop silently down into the crypt, behind him.
    He turned just as the assassin was blending into the darkness, and called up, “Professor Wilson! You want to come down and have a look?”
    Nothing.
    Grinning, Alex called, “What’s wrong, Professor? So overwhelmed by the prospect of fame and fortune, you can’t even find the words? It’s not like you!”
    Craning to try to catch a glimpse of his mentor, Alex presented a perfect target for the intruder, who hooked a kick around and caught him in the neck, knocking the boy hard against a bronze horse’s rump. Alex shook the blow olf and drew his nine-millimeter automatic, but a foot whipped out and flicked it away. He heard the gun clunk somewhere across the crypt, but between him and the weapon was a barrier . . .
    . . . an assassin in black, from turban to toe.
    And that assassin was unsheathing a dagger with a dragon hilt.
    With lightning speed, the assassin attacked, dagger in hand, but Alex ducked with similar speed, and the blade sparked off the bronze animal, momentum bringing the assassin forward enough to give Alex the opportunity to kick the figure behind the knee. Then the young explorer dove onto the floor, like he was stealing a base, to slide through an array of bones and skulls to retrieve his gun.
    Alex plucked up the Browning and thumbed back the hammer and began firing, only the assassin was the moving target to end all moving targets, backflipping behind the chariot, the bullets digging noisy holes in support beams as Alex emptied his clip.