The Arab Fall (A James Acton Thriller, Book #6) (James Acton Thrillers) (12 page)

Valley of the Kings, Egypt

November 25, 1922 AD

It was a disaster. There was no other way to describe it. Basel and
several fellow members of The Brotherhood watch in horror at the activity in
the valley below, powerless to stop it. Word of the discovery of an ancient
tomb, long unknown to all, including The Brotherhood, had reached them only
hours before, and a rushed expedition was assembled, racing to the site on
horseback, but to no avail.

The tomb
had been opened, and desecrated.

If they
had found it themselves, they might have moved it to their secret, and sacred,
valley in the desert, the cave system housing over a dozen fallen Pharaohs and
their treasures, their tombs staged as robberies by generations past of The
Brotherhood.

But this
tomb no one knew about.

They had
over the centuries rescued several of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, or
as it was more properly known, the Valley of the Gates of the Kings, but had
clearly failed in this case. Basel felt rage fill his chest as he saw Europeans
scrambling over the sacred ground in excitement, their modern equipment leaving
nothing undiscovered. This tomb had been lost, but a plan was already
formulating as to how to prevent it from being a completely wasted moment.

His
brother, Nadeem, arrived, jumping off his horse and racing to their position,
dropping to his stomach and scurrying the last few feet.

“What
have you found out?”

“The
leader is named Carter. From the markings I saw, it appears to be the tomb of Tutankhamen.”

“Tutankhamen?”
Basel scratched his beard. “I don’t recall the name. Are you sure?”

Nadeem
shook his head. “No, I am just telling you what I read before I was kicked
out.”

“And
this man, Carter, what of him?”

“Seems
excited, friendly, seems to care about preserving everything as much as possible,
but also doesn’t understand our ways, and is blundering inside, desecrating the
fallen king with every step, with every word spoken in the chamber.”

“A
warning must be sent,” muttered Fadi, Basel’s second in command of The
Brotherhood.

Basel
nodded. “Agreed. Have a cobra delivered to this man’s house immediately,
hopefully if he is at all learned in our ways, he will understand the meaning,
that the Egyptian Monarch he has disturbed is angry, and the Royal Cobra is striking
back.”

“At
once,” said Fadi, scrambling backward from the edge of the cliff, then mounting
his horse, galloping away.

Basel
turned to Nadeem. “Go back down there and point at some hieroglyphs, tell them
it is the Curse of the Pharaohs.”

“But
won’t they know it isn’t? We haven’t written the curse on a tomb in over a
millennia.”

“These
fools have no idea what they’re looking at.”

Nadeem’s
eyes narrowed and he turned his attention to the valley below, as he muttered
the curse The Brotherhood had inscribed on every tomb they had protected, “Death
shall come on swift wings to him that toucheth the tomb of a Pharaoh.”

Basel
nodded. “Those words alone should be enough to scare away the laborers, and
perhaps after we are finished with them, make some people think twice.”

“Why?
What else do you have planned?”

“The
members of this expedition must die, but it must not appear to be us that has
done it, it must be the curse.”

Nadeem
grinned then scurried back to his horse to deliver the “curse” as Basel rolled
back on his stomach, watching the proceedings below.

If
enough die, perhaps future desecrations can be prevented.

al-Hirak, Syria

One Day Before the Liberty Island Attack

Command Master Sergeant Burt “Big Dog” Dawson, BD for short to his
men, stared through his binoculars, the hazy green of the night vision setting
all too familiar. There was very little movement, the sentries clearly amateur,
having taken their posts at their appointed hour when dusk hit, then all slowly
migrating to a fire and a game of craps which had preoccupied them for the
better part of the past hour.

A
tank could roll through without these guys noticing.

He
activated his comm.

“Bravo
Two, this is Bravo One. Status, over?”

The
voice of his second in command, Mike “Red” Belme, squawked through the
earpiece.

“Bravo
One, Bravo Two. We’re in position, all quiet here, over.”

“Bravo
One to Bravo team. Remember we’re dealing with sarin gas and amateurs, both
dangerous things. Our contact will give us the location of the crate. We go in,
locate it, confirm the gas is inside and intact, plant your explosives, notify
the team, everyone put your gas masks on, and get the hell out of there. And
don’t forget your atropine shots. If you’re exposed, it’s the only damned thing
that will save your ass.”

Dawson
felt Spock elbow him.

“What is
it?”

“We’ve
got movement. Two o’clock.”

Dawson
looked through his binoculars and quickly spotted the target heading directly
for their position. The infrared marker on his chest indicated he was a
friendly, obviously their contact, or someone who had borrowed his clothes, so
Dawson shifted his focus to the sentries and their game.

No
movement.

In fact,
none at all.

Spock
apparently had picked up on the same thing.

“When
the hell did he take them out?”

“You
mean all
eight
of them?”

Who
the hell is this guy?

Dawson
knew he was CIA and that was it. He’d met dozens of their Special Activities
Division men before, in fact some had even come from his own Delta Force
command. They were tough bastards, their training picking up where his left
off. But they were a different breed as well. Dawson didn’t have a death wish.
He hoped to live a long, full life, and retire to some beach in some country
where he hadn’t killed anybody.

But
these agents seemed to feel they were already dead. Dawson of course knew of
the Memorial Wall at CIA Headquarters in Langley, where there were over one
hundred stars, each representing a dead agent, many of whom weren’t named due
to national security, but to go through life expecting your name to be recorded
in a leather book if you were lucky, a star on a wall all that remained of your
life?

That
wasn’t for him.

If he
died, he died. That was part of the job. If he wanted a cushy job, he would
have become an officer and a gentleman. Instead, he chose the life of a
noncommissioned officer, an NCO, who got dirty, killed people with his bare
hands, and got shit-faced drunk with the boys at the end of a mission.

The
figure was close now and jumped over a small rise and into the hands of Jimmy
and Niner.

“Thunder!”
the man hissed.

“Flash!”
replied Niner, everyone visibly relaxing.

“Who’s
in command?”

“I am,”
replied Dawson, waving the man over. Jimmy and Niner helped him up and as he
neared, a smile spread across Dawson’s face. He was about to blurt out Dylan
Kane’s name when he caught himself. He may know who this was, but the rest of
his men didn’t, and for Kane’s safety, and his family’s, he held his tongue.

Kane
dropped beside him and smiled, smacking Dawson on the shoulder.

“Good to
see you again, Sergeant.”

“Good to
see you too. I see my training paid off.”

Kane
grinned with a chuckle. “You have
no
idea.”

I’m
sure I don’t.

Dawson
nodded toward the compound.

“Sit
rep.”

Kane
pulled out a satellite photo of the compound less than twenty-four hours old.
He motioned to Spock for his head gear, and Spock complied, handing him the
night vision gear. Dawson flicked his night vision lenses down and the
specially printed map jumped at him, bright as day.

“Unfortunately
their craps game was blocking my only means of egress. If they’re discovered,
you’ll lose the element of surprise, so let’s make this quick. The perimeter
now has nobody guarding it. Inside there’s a mix, at least twenty armed
hostiles, but there’s also women and children, so aim high and go for the
headshots. These are fanatics, so expect the women to act as meat shields. The
gas is here”—he circled a building in the center of the compound—“and is
heavily guarded; fourteen by my count. It’s amateur hour though, with them all
in plain sight. They’re arrogant enough to think the Syrian government won’t
dare touch them.”

“And
they’re right.”

Kane
nodded with a smile. “They didn’t count on Delta though.”

Dawson
grunted. “No, they didn’t.”

“I
recommend we set up covering positions here, here and here,” he said,
indicating three positions surrounding the compound that would provide cover
for the team going in.

Dawson
looked up at Red, his second-in-command. “You concur?”

“That’s
exactly where I’d put us. It’s almost like we trained this guy,” said Red with
a wink.

Dawson
allowed himself a chuckle, then motioned for Red to leave. “Get your men in
position, radio when ready.”

“Yes,
sergeant.”

Red
motioned to his squad and after a quick huddle over his own copy of the map,
they split into three teams of two for their assigned positions. Kane pointed at
the map.

“We
should head in the same way I came out. There’s lots of cover from here to the
compound, go in the way I came”—he indicated where he had killed the
guards—“then around the south side of this main building which is where most of
the civilians are, then a direct assault on the storage building where the
sarin gas is. We can have your sniper teams take out most of the opposition
before they even know what hit them. Verify the target, plant the explosives,
evac and light it. No problems.”

“And the
civilians?”

Kane
shook his head. “The explosives you’re packing are designed to consume the gas
in the blast. They should be okay.”

Dawson
nodded, then motioned for his team to gather around, Kane returning the night
vision glasses to Spock. Dawson outlined the plan, as Red’s teams radioed their
readiness.

“Okay,
let’s go.”

Dawson
motioned with his hands for the team to move forward as he activated his comm.
“Bravo Two, Bravo One. We’re moving in now, over.”

“Roger
that, Bravo One.”

Dawson
took up the rear, Kane already far out ahead, the rest of his team hot on his
heels. The terrain was rough, countless holes and rocks eager to swallow a foot
or turn a heel, but the experienced operators cleared it quickly, and in less
than a minute were safely under cover of the rebel encampment.

Though
they called themselves rebels, fighting the Syrian dictatorship, the reality
was never as black and white as most in the West believed. We are so blinded by
our democratic ideals thinking that anything is better than a dictatorship.
While true democracy is absolutely better, the fundamental incompatibility
between democracy and Islamic fundamentalism was lost on many. And what the
Western media portrayed as a civil war pitting the evil military dictatorship
against the brave freedom fighters was far more complex than a thirty second
news clip would suggest.

The war
had always been sectarian, the Alawite Muslims of the ruling class, versus the Sunni
Muslims of the subjugated majority. But the rebels had been joined by Islamic
fundamentalists from around the world, whose only aim was the establishment of
another theocracy like Iran, with Sharia law to rule the day, and chemical
weapons to protect its borders.

Which
was why they were here. The Syrian government had lost one of their bases only
temporarily, and an Israeli Mossad team had tracked the gas, and called in the
intel to her American allies. It was considered far better politically to have
an American team discovered with boots on the ground rather than an Israeli
team, which might lead to a wider war.

As they
rushed past the dead perimeter guards, they silently entered a small building
guarding the entrance of the walled compound, then emerged into a courtyard. It
appeared to have once been a large house with a six foot high stone wall
surrounding it on all sides, much of that however now knocked down from the
months of fighting. The main building covered much of the south side. Kane
sprinted for the cover it provided, their position currently exposed, the rest
of the Bravo team following.

As
Dawson neared the position a figure suddenly emerged from a doorway,
stretching, his eyes closed. Dawson swung his hand flat at the man’s throat,
crushing his windpipe so he couldn’t make a sound, then buried a knife deep
into his kidney, twisting it then dragging the man to the rear of the building.

He
tossed the gurgling mass against the stone wall and continued after the rest.
Using hand signals, Kane indicated twelve guards. Dawson signaled an
acknowledgement, then activated his comm.

“Bravo
Two, Bravo One. Twelve targets at the building in the center of the compound.
Engage, over.”

“Roger
that.”

Dawson moved
forward so he could get eyeballs on the target, and as he rounded the corner
where Kane was crouched, he saw the first target drop. Two more quickly
followed, then another three before their companions finally realized what was
happening.

“Let’s
move,” ordered Dawson in a harsh whisper as he stepped out from behind the
wall, raising his weapon and taking aim. Kane surged forward and to his right, .40
caliber Glock 23 in hand, squeezing off several rounds as Dawson did the same,
and within less than twenty seconds all dozen guards had been eliminated.