Hunt Through Napoleon's Web (12 page)

Michael sent an e-mail to the last address he had on file for Arif. To his surprise, he received a reply within a half hour. Arif supplied a telephone number and asked that Michael call him on a landline.

“Michael Hunt! As I live and breathe!” Arif bellowed jovially. “How many years has it been?”

“How are you, Reza?”

“Happy, wealthy, and in good health. And you, sir?”

“Not so well, Reza. I’m concerned about Gabriel. And Lucy. Our sister.”

“Oh? What is the matter?”

Michael briefly recounted the situation for him.

“Michael, you are asking an awful lot,” Arif said, his voice suddenly cagey.

“Are you saying you can’t help?”

“No . . . not ‘can’t.’ But—the Alliance of the Pharaohs . . . this is not a minor organization. Nor is it a government operative who, even when corrupt, plays by his own corrupt rules. These are killers, Michael, plain
and simple. No, strike that—they are neither plain nor simple. These are killers who relish what they do and revel in making it as painful as they possibly can.”

“What are you saying, Reza?”

“Merely that I would need to be well incented before I would consider tangling with them.”

“You will be,” Michael said.

“Let us discuss,” Reza said, “just how well.”

They put him in a bedroom on the top floor. After picking briefly at a plate of chicken, rice, and hummus—it might have been brought to him intact from Lucy’s room—Gabriel collapsed on the bed and lay without moving for several hours, not sleeping, just recovering. He replayed over and over in his mind the events in Khufu’s chamber and came no closer to understanding what had happened. It was the scepter—it had to be, unless that was just stagecraft and misdirection and somehow the electrical charge had been shot up through the floor. But no—his soles were rubber and Khufu’s were wood with metal trim; if there were any electricity running through the floor, the pharaoh would have gotten it worse than Gabriel.

So it must have been the scepter, concealing some sort of long-distance taser or stun gun—Gabriel did know of batons used by police in certain situations that delivered a similar charge. Hell, cattle prods did more or less the same thing, and could be used to subdue humans as well as animals. Not from a distance, true . . . but who could say that some sort of long-range wireless electroshock weapon hadn’t been developed? If one had, maybe the Alliance had gotten hold of a prototype in one of their heists . . .

Or maybe it was a stick that channeled the wrath of Egypt’s ancient gods. Whatever it was, Gabriel knew one thing: he wanted to stay clear of it in the future.

And that meant getting out of here now.

The digital clock on the dresser told him it was four thirty in the morning. His whole body was sore, but he forced himself to get up from the bed. He found he could walk, if somewhat stiffly; could move his arms, his fingers. He went through a routine of stretches and then took a shower, first as hot as he could stand and then as cold. When he got back into his clothes, he felt almost human.

He went to the window. Like Lucy’s, it was boarded up and fitted with bars outside the pane. Glancing through the cracks between the boards he could see that the sun hadn’t yet risen. Better yet, the shadowy sliver of wall he glimpsed across the way included copious bougainvillea—exactly the view he’d seen from Lucy’s window, just slightly higher up, which meant this room must be directly above hers.

He opened the window and began the process of loosening the boards, hammering each swiftly with his palm. When one hand tired, he switched to the other. It took several hard blows apiece to knock out the screws holding them in, blows Gabriel was sure could be heard throughout the building. But no one showed up at his door, so maybe the sound wasn’t carrying quite as much as he thought. One by one he pounded at the boards until they came free and plummeted the four stories to the street below. He could hear the distant cracks as the wood splintered.

Next, Gabriel tested the strength of the bars. These were fastened more snugly. He moved the desk till it was directly below the window, lay on his back with his
heels against the bars, and began methodically kicking at them. He felt them budge, first just a bit, then a bit more. He redoubled his effort. One by one, they came loose. He stopped short of kicking them out, though—the noise of a steel bar landing on the pavement from four stories up would wake everyone for sure. Instead, he worked each bar the last few millimeters by hand, wrenching it out and carefully pulling it back inside. He laid the first three bars quietly on the desk, then stowed the last one in his inside jacket pocket.

Having cleared away the last barrier, he stuck his head out through the window and looked down. As he’d remembered: a smooth, straight shot down to the street. He would need rappelling rope of some kind.

Gabriel looked around the bedroom for something that might work. The cable on the television wasn’t long enough. He didn’t have enough clothing to tie together. His eyes landed on the bed. Sometimes the old ways were the best.

He yanked off the thin bedspread and the lower and upper sheets. He tied them to one another with secure sailors’ knots. Unfortunately, even tied corner to corner diagonally, the combined length was only around eighteen feet. Not enough to get down to the ground.

But—it was enough to get down to Lucy’s window. One step at a time.

As quietly as he could, Gabriel pushed the bed across the floor so that it butted against the windowed wall. He then twisted the top sheet and tied one end to the leg of the bed closest to the window. He tugged on the knot to make sure it would hold, then tugged once more on each of the other knots for good measure. Having satisfied himself that they were secure, or at least as secure as they were going to get, he tossed the loose end out
the window. Gabriel positioned himself on the bed and crawled out backward, his legs dangling in the air. He put his weight on the rope slowly, cautiously. It held. He found the surface of the wall with his feet, planted his soles firmly. Clasping the sheet-rope tightly with both hands, he began to descend.

Rappelling to Lucy’s window only took him onto the second of the two sheets. The bedspread still extended below, not quite reaching to the second floor.

Looking down, he saw the pavement far below. The broken remnants of the boards were a fine reminder of how much damage a fall from this height could do.

Speaking of which—

He released the sheet with one hand and worked his fingers under the edge of the board outside Lucy’s window that he had loosened earlier. He pried it off the rest of the way and let it fall. Now he could see in through the window. The room was dark—but he could make out Lucy’s shape, curled up in the bed. He tapped lightly against the glass. No movement. Rapped again, a little louder. Still nothing.

Wake up!

The drugs, he figured; even if they hadn’t dosed her again, whatever was still in her system was probably making her sleep more soundly than usual. And if they
had
dosed her again . . .

He knocked as loudly as he dared. This time it elicited a response. The humped shape moved on the bed, turning over. He knocked again. She sat up.

Holding on to the sheet-rope with one arm and his twined ankles, Gabriel pried another board off the soft sandstone. He tapped once more. She turned toward the sound, saw him, and ran to the window, flinging it open. She was dressed in a long T-shirt, her legs and feet bare.
She seemed fairly alert, though still a bit muzzy—or perhaps just bewildered at having been awakened by the sight of her brother dangling on bedsheets outside her window.

“Gabriel! How did you get out there?”

“They put me in the room above you. Come on.” He pried the remaining board loose and let it fall. “I’ll need your help to get these bars off. My leverage isn’t so good from here.”

He passed her the metal bar from his pocket and instructed her to use it as a lever. She wedged it between two of the bars, gripped the free end in both hands, and pulled. She may have been small and she may have been thin—but she wasn’t weak. The bar she was trying to loosen shifted with a groan of metal against stone. Gabriel helped her with his free hand. Soft sandstone powder spilled out of the holes around the screws. He held onto the bar as it came free so it wouldn’t fall, and Lucy carefully brought it inside. They repeated the performance with the others.

In five minutes it was done. Gabriel threw a leg over the sill and climbed inside, leaving the sheet-rope dangling behind him.

“Come on, help me take the sheets off your bed,” he said. Then he changed his mind. “No, I’ll do it. You get dressed. Hurry.”

Gabriel removed the sheets and bedspread, tied them together, and then pulled his line in from the window. He tied the new set onto the old and then threw the entire assembly outside. Gabriel looked down and saw that the end was just above the top of the first floor. That was good enough. The drop to the ground from there shouldn’t be too dangerous.

Lucy was dressed and ready to go.

“How do you feel? Did they drug you again?”

She shook her head. “Not since yesterday.”

Gabriel gestured to the window. “You think you can climb down?”

“With my eyes cl—”

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. They froze. “Hey,” came a voice. “What’s going on in there?” They heard the sound of a key in the lock. Turning.

Gabriel bolted for the bathroom and flattened himself against the wall. Lucy moved quickly to the door and stood beside it with one hand on the knob, preventing it from opening too widely.

The face at the door belonged to Chigaru.

“Wait!” Lucy said, pushing back on the door so that there was only a narrow opening. She stuck her head around the edge. “I’m not dressed!”

“I heard something,” Chigaru said.

“I fell out of bed,” Lucy said.

“It sounded like voices,” he said.

“Yeah, that was me cursing,” Lucy said, “when I fell out of bed. Would you please leave me alone, Chigaru?”

Chigaru put one hand on the door, forced his thick fingers inside. “I’m going to take a look around.”

“I told you, I’m not dressed. Stay out!”

But he shoved his way in. And the first thing he saw was that she was completely dressed.

“What’s going on?” he said, his voice loud, angry. “I’ll make you tell me—” He raised an arm to backhand her across the face. But he found himself unable to lower it.

He looked over at the man who’d seized his wrist in a steel grip.

“Close the door,” Gabriel told his sister.

As Lucy did, he squeezed tighter, his thumb on the inside of Chigaru’s wrist.

Chigaru’s face showed a mixture of pain and fear—like he wanted to cry out for help, but some last ounce of pride kept him from doing so.

“You are
dead
, Hunt. You and your whore sister.” He grimaced as Gabriel increased the pressure further. The pain drove him to his knees. “You won’t get away with this,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Khufu will kill you.”

“Maybe so,” Gabriel said. “But not tonight.” Reaching over to the desk, he hefted one of the metal bars they’d removed from the window. Chigaru saw it and finally opened his mouth to scream—but Gabriel brought the bar down across his temple and Chigaru went out like a snuffed candle.

Gabriel dropped the bar and the man’s wrist. “Go,” he told Lucy. “I’ll be right behind you.”

While Lucy climbed onto the windowsill, Gabriel stooped to search Chigaru. He found a wallet and took out the few bills it contained in local currency. “Sorry, pal.” Patting him down further, Gabriel felt a bulky item in the man’s jacket pocket—a gun? He reached inside and almost shouted as he pulled the object out. It was his Colt .45! Gabriel gave it a kiss on the barrel and stuck it in his waistband.

He went to the window. Lucy had already gone eight feet or so, letting herself down hand over hand.

“When you get to the bottom,” Gabriel whispered, “drop and roll.
Drop and roll
, understand? I don’t want you to break your leg.”

Lucy didn’t answer; he didn’t know if she’d heard. But she kept going. All he could do was hope.

He looked back at the door, at Chigaru’s unconscious
form on the floor beside the bed. How long would it be before one of the other guards wondered where he was? Or till someone else heard something?

He was tempted to climb out and start his descent, too—but he didn’t want to put any weight on the sheets until she was all the way down.

He watched her go, shimmying down the line like a pro. When she made it to the bottom, she let go, dropped, and rolled. Perfect.

He tugged on the sheets to test their strength again, then slipped out the window.

He started to rappel hastily—but he hadn’t gone more than a few feet when he heard a voice shouting above him.

Gabriel looked up. The head of one of Amun’s men was sticking out of the window on the top floor. The man shouted again, sounding the alarm. Then he whipped out a knife and began slicing at the sheets.

They wouldn’t hold—Gabriel knew a few strokes with a sharp blade would sever the fabric. And he was still too high up to fall safely. Gabriel thought fast. He reached into his sock and grabbed the kitchen knife he’d stolen in Cairo. Holding it firmly in one fist, he rammed the blade into the soft sandstone as hard as he could. The impact jarred his wrist and he had to bite down on a yelp of pain—but the knife stuck. At that very moment, the sheets cut loose. Gabriel held on to the knife handle with one clenched fist, clinging to the wall by this narrowest of handholds. By comparison, the rubber-clad pickax handle in Carlsbad Caverns had been a luxury.

As the sheet-rope tumbled past him, Gabriel managed to snag it with his other arm. He let it run through his fingers till he found the end, then swung it up and over, wrapping the twisted sheet as tightly as he could
several times around the knife’s handle. It wasn’t pretty, and when he was done he didn’t have a knot. But the handle of the knife did have a decorative curve that was enough to keep the coiled-up sheet from slipping off altogether. It would have to do—already he could feel the knife’s blade starting to come out of the widening crevice, and inside the building the sounds of shouts and clattering feet were multiplying. Gabriel took a deep breath and let go of the knife, sliding as fast as he dared down the sheet.