Hunt Through Napoleon's Web (16 page)

“A man Michael put me in touch with,” Gabriel said. “Someone he thought might be able to help out. You feeling better?”

“I peed, if that’s what you mean,” Lucy said. “So what’s the verdict? Michael willing to fly me to Paris, or does he insist on a detour through New York first?”

“He doesn’t like it,” Gabriel said, “but he’s willing.” He turned the phone around and pushed it back toward the woman behind the counter. “Come on.”

Naeem placed a call to Amun after he and Thabit had followed Sammi and her stolen car onto the expressway.

“She’s in a blue Citroen,” Naeem said. “On her way to the airport.”

“Then that is where Hunt is,” Amun answered. “And his sister. I will alert our men at the airport. Meanwhile—do not let the French woman out of your sight.”

“Of course,” Naeem said.

Lucy looked at the bank of clocks high up on the terminal wall. “I should go. They’ll be boarding soon.”

Gabriel nodded. Just as well—Sammi would arrive in a few minutes, and he wanted Lucy safely out of the way before she did. “All right.”

Gabriel pulled her into his arms and hugged her hard.

“I’ll e-mail you,” she said.

“The person you really should e-mail is Michael,” Gabriel said. “Or better yet, call him. Let him know you’re safe.”

She pulled herself out of his grip and walked down the corridor toward the security checkpoint. She got in line and called back to him. “Gabriel?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll think about it.”

He nodded, turned, and left.

The line had barely moved at all when an airport official wearing a customs uniform approached Lucy.

“Could you please come with me, miss?”

“What?”

“Please come with me.”

“Why? I’m waiting to go through security. My flight is in twenty minutes. They’re probably boarding already.”

“I’m sorry, you must come with me to customs.”

“But why?”

“Are you resisting arrest, madam?”

“
Arrest?
For what?”

The man lowered his voice and took her arm. “Come with me. Now.” She felt a gun poke into her side. He held it close to his body, unseen by anyone else. “Come quietly,” the man said, “or you die right here.”

She looked around, gauged her chances if she made a
break for it, or if she fought. She saw the man’s head shake minutely from side to side and felt the gun’s barrel press more deeply into her flesh. She swallowed. “All right.”

The agent led her away and through a door marked
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
in English, Arabic, and French. Waiting for them in a small office was a stranger, a swarthy man in a neatly tailored suit.

“Miss Hunt,” he said as the customs agent roughly twisted her arms behind her back and handcuffed her. “I regret that we meet under these unfortunate circumstances. I know your brothers and have all the respect in the world for them. True gentlemen, both of them.”

“But then—why . . . ?”

“Khufu was very upset that you left without saying good-bye. I’m afraid he insists you return.”

“Who
are
you?” Lucy said. “Why are you working for them?”

“Why? Because they pay me,” the man said. “As for who I am . . .” He bowed slightly from the waist. “Reza Arif, at your service.”

Sammi double-parked the hotwired Citroen outside the baggage claim area and ran inside. She found Gabriel more or less in the same spot she’d met Arif. He swept her up in his arms and she found hers going around his neck. She hadn’t planned to kiss him; she got the sense it surprised them both when she did. But neither of them seemed in any hurry to end it.

“I was so worried about you,” she said when they finally separated. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve been worse,” he said. “You?”

She looked away.
If anyone could understand
—

“I killed two men,” she said.

“Did you,” Gabriel said, and stroked her hair gently. “Well. I’m sure they had it coming.”

“One did,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It was terrible,” she said. “I did not know if you were alive or dead; I did not know if I would live or die, I just knew I had to—had to . . .”

He took her in his arms again. “It’s okay.” Then he whispered something into her ear. “When I say ‘duck’ . . .”

“What?”

“Duck!”
he shouted, and pressed one palm down on the top of her head while drawing his Colt with the other. Sammi dropped and rolled toward the metal bench against the nearest wall, wedging herself beneath it. She saw Gabriel running toward a pair of open glass doors, where two men with guns were charging toward him. All three guns were roaring and spitting flame; airline staff and deplaning passengers were running, screaming, trying to get out of the way.

One of the men went down, sprawling as the impact of a bullet above his right knee swept his legs out from under him. The other one kept coming, squeezing off shot after shot in Gabriel’s direction. Gabriel hunched down and a glass light fixture just past his shoulder exploded into fragments.

He whipped up a suitcase in one hand, saying “Sorry” to the astonished tourist who’d been reaching down to pick it up, and hurled it at the remaining gunman. The heavy bag split open in midair, punctured by a pair of gunshots, scattering clothing and duty free souvenirs in all directions; but the bullets didn’t halt the bag’s momentum and it smashed into the shooter’s hand with an audible crack. The gun flew out of the man’s hand and
he dropped to his knees, cursing and cradling his broken wrist.

Gabriel ran back to the bench and extended a hand. Sammi grabbed hold and pulled herself to her feet. “Come on,” he said and raced toward a door marked
PRIVATE FLIGHTS
. They shot through and Gabriel slammed the door shut behind them, twisting the lock.

“Can I help you?” a young woman asked. She was well trained—her voice exuded calm and professionalism in spite of the sounds of gunfire she must have heard coming through the door.

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Hunt Foundation, Gabriel Hunt. Where’s our plane?”

They heard someone try the doorknob, then start hammering on the door.

“Do you have any ID?” the woman said.

Gabriel grinned ruefully. He waved his Colt at her. “Honey, this is all the ID I’ve got, and it’s going to have to be good enough.”

A huge blow rocked the door. It wouldn’t stand up to many more.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman said, “but I am going to have to confirm with the pilot . . .”

“Come on, we’ll go confirm together.” Gabriel pushed past her, past the counter, and kicked open the metal door behind her. Across a hundred feet of sun-baked tarmac, the Hunt Foundation jet sat with its cockpit door open and stairs extended. A man in short sleeves sat at the top of the stairs, reading an issue of
Plane and Pilot
.

“Charlie!” Gabriel yelled as he ran toward the plane. “Get off your ass and get the engine started!”

Behind them, Sammi heard the door lock splinter.

“Sir,” the woman called breathlessly. She was running
behind them, as fast as she could. “This man claims he’s Gabriel Hunt. Can you confirm—”

“That’s Gabriel, all right,” Charlie called back, and he disappeared into the cockpit.

“Happy?” Gabriel said.

The woman stopped running; she stood bent over, her hands on her knees, panting. Sammi knew how she felt. But she kept pushing till they reached the foot of the stairs, then followed Gabriel up, taking the steps two at a time. The stairs began retracting the instant her feet cleared the last step.

Looking out the window, she saw three men—two in airport uniforms, one in plainclothes—race across the tarmac after them. But Charlie already had the plane taxiing. A few gunshots sounded dully and one bullet spanged off the side of the plane. Then their nose was up and the ground dropped away behind them.

“Where we going?” Charlie called from the cockpit.

“Corsica,” Gabriel called back.

Pressing his hand against Thabit’s leg wound, Naeem made another call to Amun.

“They got away,” he reported. “On a private jet.”

“Never mind,” Amun said. “He will go right where we want him to, and he won’t raise a finger against us. Not now that we have his sister again.”

Gabriel was glad for the chance to take a proper shower and change his clothes. He apologized to Sammi for not having anything on board she could change into.

“That’s all right,” she said, tousling his wet hair. “I’ll make do.” She shut the door between them. Gabriel heard the sound of the shower’s spray going on, then a zipper sliding down and a pair of shoes being kicked off. Then he heard the spray interrupted as she got in, followed by a low growl of contentment.

She’d be a while. Gabriel went up front to talk with Charlie.

“All due respect, Mister Hunt,” Charlie said, “you can’t just come running and expect me to take off on a dime. Not at a busy airport. Took a miracle to make it out of there without hitting anything.”

It was the longest speech Gabriel had ever heard from the man. He patted Charlie’s shoulder. “Didn’t take a miracle, just a great pilot.”

Charlie grumbled. But it was true—he’d seen Gabriel out of many a tight spot.

“Still,” he said. “Your brother wouldn’t like you taking risks like that. Or me, with Foundation property.”

“He ever complains to you about it,” Gabriel said, “you just tell him to talk to me.”

He sat in the copilot’s seat for the next hundred miles, watching Africa’s northwest coast disappear behind them and the south of Spain come into view. In the distance he could just make out the small humps in the water that were the Balearic Islands.

He thought about the ordeal Lucy had been through, and the one Sammi had. At least Lucy was on her way to Paris—that was one less thing to worry about, a big one. But Sammi was with him now, and he knew there was no way she’d agree to stay behind with the plane when they landed. He could tell her that Lucy had gone to Paris and would be looking for her there, encourage her to let Charlie fly her there, too—but he had a feeling she wasn’t going to let him face the Alliance on his own in Corsica any more than she had in Cairo. And the truth was it might be good to have her along. She was the historian, after all, not him, and her store of knowledge about Napoleon seemed likely to be more than a little useful if he wanted to get his hands on the Second Stone.

From the main cabin he heard the sound of the bathroom door opening, then footsteps padding toward the rear of the plane and storage compartments opening, one after another. When Gabriel went back, he saw Sammi standing with a blanket clutched around her, the fabric bunched in one fist.

“You really
don’t
have anything a girl could wear,” she said, and swung the compartment door shut. “Not even a spare stewardess uniform.”

“No stewardesses,” Gabriel said, coming toward her.

“Oh? What do you do if you get thirsty in the middle of a flight?”

“I go to the galley,” Gabriel said, “and forage for myself.”

“And if you get lonely,” she said, “in the middle of a flight? Do you take care of that for yourself, too?”

He stopped an arm’s length from her and looked her up and down, from her bare feet to her dripping auburn hair. “Miss Ficatier, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were offering me an alternative.”

She smiled at him. “Who says you know better?”

When she woke, pleasantly sore and in need of another shower, Sammi saw Gabriel over by one of the windows, sketching on a piece of paper. She went over.

Gabriel looked up. “Your clothes are probably dry by now.” After her shower, she’d rinsed them in the bathroom sink and hung them on the towel rod.

“I’ll put them on in a bit,” she said. “Unless you mind—”

“Not in the slightest,” Gabriel said, kissing the side of her breast, “and Charlie’s too much of a gentleman to peek.”

Sammi stretched, heard her shoulders crack. “What are you working on?”

“A map,” Gabriel said. “Doing my best to reconstruct it from memory. Amun had it in his office—”

“Amun!” Sammi exclaimed, snapping her fingers. “I
knew
there was something I needed to tell you. I know who he is!”

“So do I,” Gabriel said. “He’s the second-in-command of the Alliance of the Pharaohs.”

“Maybe—but he’s also the professor I was telling you about, the one who taught the Mediterranean History course we took. Omar Amun. Did you get my text message?”

“Your text . . . ?”

Then Gabriel remembered. Back in Cairo.

THAT’S THE PRO

That’s the professor
.

“I got part of it,” Gabriel said.

“Well, they grabbed me while I was typing it,” Sammi said. “I wasn’t sure I even pressed ‘Send.’ ”

“What the hell is a history professor from Nice doing high up in an organization like the Alliance?”

“I don’t know,” Sammi said. “He was just a visiting professor . . . and he did talk a lot about ‘Egypt for the Egyptians’ and so forth, but . . .”

“But you didn’t think he’d cut anyone’s head off over it.”

“No,” Sammi said. Her face fell. “I feel . . . I feel terrible about the whole thing. I was the one who talked Cifer into taking his class—and I was the one who told him about you.”

Gabriel frowned. “What do you mean, told him about me?”

“There were only thirty seats in the class, and more than a hundred people applying. I thought it would help, that Cifer was the sister of the famous explorer, Gabriel Hunt . . .”

“I’m sure it did,” Gabriel said. “Especially once he realized he could get me to do the Alliance’s bidding by kidnapping her.”

“I didn’t know he would—” Sammi began, but Gabriel pressed a finger against her lips.

“You couldn’t have known,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

“Except that it is. And now she is god only knows where, suffering god only knows what—”

“Shh,” Gabriel said. “Lucy’s fine.”

“What?”

“I got her out. She’s on a plane to Paris right now.”

“She’s . . . ? Really?” Sammi’s voice betrayed her excitement and relief. “You wouldn’t say that just to make me feel better—”