The Pharaoh's Secret (22 page)

Joe sat on a plush chair in a swanky downtown office. The modern decor, subdued lighting and soft music gave off the aura of success. It was a far cry from the stormy night several years before when he'd first met Major Edo in a smoky interrogation room.

And that was unfortunate.

“So, I take it you're not in the military anymore,” Joe said.

Edo's hair was longer, his Clark Gable looks even more evident now that he'd traded in his fatigues for a sharply tailored suit.

“Advertising,” Edo said. “That's the name of my game now. It's much more lucrative. And it allows me to be”—he waved his hands around in an artsy manner—“creative.”

“Creative?” Joe asked.

“You'd be surprised how that's frowned upon in the military.”

Joe sighed. “I'm happy for you,” he said, trying to sound sincere. “I'm just surprised. What happened? You were promoted to general, last I heard.”

Edo leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “Changes,” he said. “Big changes, you know. First, the protests. Then all the fighting. It became a revolution. One government fell. A new government took over. And then, of course, the protests began again and that government fell. Many in the military were purged. I was forced out with no pension.”

“And you chose
advertising
for your new career?”

“My brother-in-law has made a fortune in the business,” Edo said. “It seems everybody wants to sell someone something.”

Joe wondered if there was any way Edo could still help them. “I don't suppose you could get us a meeting with the head honchos at Osiris Construction?”

Edo leaned forward and focused more sharply. “Osiris?” he asked with obvious concern. “What are you involved in, my friend?”

“It's complicated,” Joe said.

Edo opened a drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He stuck one between his lips, lit it and then began to wave it around as he spoke, never putting it back in his mouth. At least some things hadn't changed. “I would leave Osiris alone, if I were you,” he warned.

“Why?” Joe asked. “Who are they?”

“Who
aren't
they,” Edo replied. “They're everyone who used to matter.”

“Maybe you could be more specific?” Joe asked.

“The old guard,” Edo said. “The military men who were swept out of power a few years ago. The military had been in control of Egypt since the Free Officers took over in 1952. They've been
the hand on the wheel. Nasser was military. Sadat was military. Mubarak also military. They've been running things all this time. But it's more than that. I'm sure you've heard the term
military-industrial complex
. In Egypt, we took that to a whole new level. The military men owned most of the businesses, they decided who got the jobs. They hired friends to reward them, enemies to placate them. But since the Revolution, things have been different. There's too much scrutiny for things to go back to the old way. Osiris came out of that. It's run by a man named Tariq Shakir. He was a full colonel in the secret police. He had great ambitions to lead the country someday. But he knows his past will prevent that from happening. So with the help of others in the old guard, he's found a different way. Osiris is the most powerful corporation in Egypt. They get every contract. And not just from our government, but from others. Everyone is wary of them. Even the sitting politicians.”

“So this Shakir is a kingmaker and not a king,” Joe said.

Edo nodded. “He will never step to the forefront, but he wields great power both here and abroad. You've seen what's going on in Libya, Tunisia and Algeria?”

“Of course,” Joe said.

“The new governments in those countries are made up of Shakir's friends. His allies.”

“I heard they were members of the old guard in their own respective lands,” Joe said.

“Yes,” Edo said. “Now you see how it ties together.”

Joe had the distinct impression they were getting in deeper than they expected with each turn, almost as if they'd hooked a small fish that had been eaten by a larger fish and was being chased by a giant shark.

“Osiris has its own private army,” Edo said. “Castoffs from the regular units, men from the Special Forces, assassins from the secret police. Anyone too hot for the regular military can find a home at Osiris.”

Joe rubbed his brow. “We still need to get inside that building,” he said. “And we don't have time to wait for an invitation. Thousands of lives are at stake.”

Edo tapped some of the ash from the end of his cigarette, stood and began to pace. Joe thought he saw something change in Edo's eyes: a more calculating look took hold. He put his hand on the wall and looked up at the ceiling. He seemed confined by the office, almost as if he were too big to be contained by such walls.

He turned to Joe with a snap of his heels. “It will probably be the end of my advertising career to help enemies of Osiris, but I owe you. Egypt owes you.” He crushed the cigarette out emphatically. “Besides, I've had it with this business. You have no idea what it's like working for your brother-in-law. It's worse than the Army.”

Joe laughed. “We appreciate the help.”

Edo nodded. “So how do you and your friends propose to get into the Osiris building? I'm assuming direct frontal assault and jumping from a helicopter are out of the question.”

Joe nodded toward the reception area, where Kurt and Renata had been poring over diagrams and blueprints downloaded on her computer. “I'm not sure yet. My friends have been working on that. I'd like to hear the plan myself.”

Edo waved them in. Proper introductions followed. And then they got down to business.

“My colleagues sent me the schematics of the Osiris plant,” Renata said, stepping forward and placing the iPad flat on the desk so they could all see it. “Assuming these blueprints are accurate, we think we've found a weakness.”

She tapped the screen until a high-resolution photo of the site was displayed. It included the river and the surrounding area. “The street-side security is multilayered and almost impossible to overcome, which means our only approach to the site is from the river. We'll need a boat, diving gear for three and a mid-frequency laser—green will work best, but anything similar to a targeting laser used by the military will do.”

Edo nodded. “I can get my hands on those things. Then what?”

Kurt took it from there. “We motor upriver to this point, half a mile south of the site. Renata, Joe and I will go into the water and drift downstream, keeping to the west bank. We'll slip into the hydro channel, bypass the first-stage turbines and continue down to a point just in front of the second impeller . . . here.”

“Sounds easy,” Edo said.

“I'm sure there will be complications,” Joe added.

“Of course,” Kurt said, then turned to Renata. “Would you switch to the schematic?”

Renata tapped the computer screen and a blueprint of the hydro channel came up.

“We should have no problem getting into the hydro channel,” Kurt said. “But once inside it, we'll have to navigate past the turbines. Since it'll be night, we can assume they'll be making minimum power, but that could change at any moment. And even if they're at idle, the turbines will still be rotating slowly.”

“Put them on the to-be-avoided list,” Joe said.

“Exactly. And that's best done by sticking to the inner wall. There's plenty of room around the first set of turbines. Once we've passed them, we continue toward the second-stage impeller. Here's where it gets interesting.”

Studying the diagram, Joe noticed two things. The second turbine was larger. And there were two protrusions angled inward
from the wall toward the edge of the huge rotating disk. They looked like the flippers of a pinball machine. He pointed to them.

“Deflector gates,” Kurt said. “Designed to force more water over the turbine blades in times of peak power need. In the retracted position, they lie flat against the walls and some of the water bypasses the blades. But in the open position their edges line up directly with the cowling of the turbine. There's no way around them except that we're going to be out of the water before we get to the blades.” He pointed to a spot on the schematic. “There's a maintenance ladder welded to the side of the gate here. We stick near the wall, grab on as we drift by and climb up.”

“Seems fairly straightforward as long as the gates are retracted,” Joe said. “But what if they're extended? Do you have any figures on what that does to the current?”

“At full extension, the current is doubled and the exact amount of force will depend on the existing flow in the river. This time of year, it's normally about two knots.”

“Two knots isn't a problem,” Joe said, “but four knots will be.”

Kurt nodded. That was the risk they were taking.

Joe considered the odds. There was no reason the station should be generating full power in the middle of the night. Peak power draws occurred in the afternoon.

“Assuming we don't get pureed,” Kurt added, “our next problem begins at the surface.”

“They will most certainly have cameras,” Edo pointed out.

Renata answered this time. “They do. Here and here. But these two cameras are pointed outward, designed to look for someone approaching the structure. Once we're past the first set of turbines, there's only one camera we have to worry about. It's mounted here,” she said, pointing to a new location. “It scans the entire length of the catwalk on the inner wall. The same catwalk we have to use.”

“That's what you want the laser for,” Edo said.

“Precisely,” Renata told him. “A focused laser can overload the sensor. So you'll be in charge of that. Your best angle will be from a beach just upstream and on the opposite bank. Once you align it with the camera, the sensor will struggle to process the signal and they should see nothing but a blank screen.”

Kurt continued. “Once the camera is blind, we can exit the water. Move along this catwalk and go in through this door.”

“How long do I keep the laser active?”

“Two minutes,” Renata said. “That's all we'll need.”

“What about alarms and interior security cameras?” Edo asked.

“I can disable them once we're inside,” she promised. “Both the alarms and cameras are controlled by a software program called Halifax. The people in our technical section have given me a way to hack it.”

Renata brought up the schematics of the interior. “We know Hassan entered through this door,” she said. “His signal stayed strong as he traveled this corridor and then presumably got into this elevator. Based on the signal getting weaker and then vanishing, we have to assume he went down to the lower level, not up. Which means he would be in the power-generation control room here.”

“Are you sure you're not walking into a trap?” Edo asked. “I don't have to tell you that once you go in there, you're beyond the reach of any help.”

“We know,” Kurt said. “And, believe me, I can't imagine why Hassan would be sitting in the building, watching the power levels. But his phone was broadcasting from there until it went dark and it hasn't been picked up by the satellite since. And even if he's not there, Osiris has something to do with this. Which means it can't hurt to take a look around.”

“You're all very brave,” Edo said. “What am I to do while you're inside the building?”

“Just wait for us downriver,” Kurt said. “If we find Hassan, we'll bring him out. And if we don't, we'll take the tour, skip the gift shop and come right home.”

A few hours later, they were back on the Nile, motoring upriver in a boat one of Edo's friends had loaned them. Diving gear for three had been rounded up along with a tripod-mounted laser.

Night had already spread a blanket of darkness across the region and the river was far less crowded than it had been during the day. The moon hadn't risen, but light from the windows in tall apartment buildings and hotels spilled onto the river.

As they approached the Osiris plant, Kurt looked downriver. “The water at the far end of the channel is moving smoothly now.”

“They must be generating less power,” Renata suggested.

“That's a good sign,” Joe added.

“There's still something that doesn't make sense about it,”
Kurt replied. “But calm water
will
make it easier for us to get into the channel and get ashore.”

Joe had a night vision scope trained on the hydro channel. “Looks like the gates are flat against the wall. Score one for logic.”

Edo guided them farther upriver, before changing course and veering toward the west bank. As he moved the boat into position, Kurt, Joe and Renata got ready for the dive.

They were already wearing black wet suits beneath their street clothes but had to pull on their buoyancy compensator devices—their BCDs—connect their air tanks and check their regulators. The stainless steel oxygen cylinders were dull and weathered, so they wouldn't reflect much light. Split fins, waterproof pouches in the suits and low-intensity dive lights that would allow them to keep track of each other completed the outfitting.

The only things missing were self-propelled dive units to whisk them along and an underwater communications system. Standard hand signals would have to do.

“We're in position,” Edo said.

Kurt nodded, then he and Joe slipped into the water and clung to the side of the boat. Renata checked the computer one more time before joining them.

“Second thoughts?” Kurt asked.

“No,” she said. “Just wanted to make sure our target hadn't left the building before we went to all the trouble of breaking in.”

“I assume the phone is still off the grid?” Kurt asked.

She nodded.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Kurt said. “Let's go.”

He pulled his mask into place, bit down on the regulator and pushed away from the boat.