The Pharaoh's Secret (13 page)

The DC-3 raced down the dirt strip, past the pumping station, and clawed its way into the air. The plane struggled to gain altitude in the hot afternoon, even with its two Curtiss-Wright Cyclone engines straining at maximum rpm's. New off the assembly line, they'd been rated at a thousand horsepower each, but no amount of maintenance work could ensure that that was the case seventy years later. Still, the aircraft picked up speed and began to climb, heading due south, until it reached ten thousand feet, where the air was cool and dry. After leveling off, it turned back toward the airfield.

Inside, Reza's pilot handled the controls while Paul and Gamay
stood in the center of the cabin, manning the two sides of a rolling cart.

The metal cart had four wheels, a flat, dented deck and a handle attached to one side. It was supporting a block of concrete that weighed nearly four hundred pounds. Paul and Gamay were doing their best to make sure neither the concrete nor the cart that held it would move around prematurely.

As she untied a strap, Gamay looked Paul's way. “You got it on that end, right?”

Paul was crouched down, holding the cart firmly to prevent it from sliding toward the tail of the plane before they were ready.

“We're two minutes from the drop zone,” the pilot shouted.

“Time to see if this works,” Paul said. “Slowly, now.”

With Gamay holding the handle and Paul pulling the cart from his side, they began to make their way to the back of the cabin. The seats had been removed, as had the cargo door. Air currents streamed through the yawning gap. A gap Paul and Gamay planned on pushing the cart through, hopefully without falling out themselves.

It all went well until they were five feet from the open door. Not surprisingly, as they neared the back of the plane, its nose began to rise. Balancing the concrete slab on the cart, Paul and Gamay now moved seven hundred and fifty pounds from the front of the plane to almost the very back. It changed the weight and balance, making the plane tail-heavy. As a result, the nose pitched upward.

“Push forward,” Gamay shouted.

“I think he knows that,” Paul replied, bracing himself to prevent the cart from rolling farther.

“Then why isn't he doing it?” she replied.

Actually, the pilot was pushing forward, but the controls were responding very sluggishly. He pushed harder and used the trim tab to assist. In response, the nose came down appreciably—too much, in fact—as the plane pitched down. Suddenly, the cart wanted to roll toward the cockpit, trying to steamroll Gamay in the process.

“Paul,” she shouted.

There was little Paul could do except hold on and try to arrest the runaway cart. He managed to stop the progress just as Gamay found herself wedged against the remaining seats.

The weight shifting forward added to the nose-down effect the pilot was trying to achieve and the plane went into dive.

Gamay felt like she was being crushed. She pushed the cart back with all her strength. “This is the worst idea ever!” she shouted. “Right up there with all of Kurt's bad ones.”

Paul was pulling the cart with all the leverage he could muster, trying to take the pressure off of Gamay. At this point, he couldn't disagree with her.

“Pull back,” he shouted to the pilot, giving instructions now. “Pull back!”

—

Reza and his crew
had been placing sensors in the ground awaiting the return of the aircraft and the concrete bomb it was carrying. They heard the plane coming, looked up and saw it bucking and diving, the engines roaring and then cutting back. From the ground, it looked like a roller-coaster ride.

“What are they doing?” one of the men asked Reza.

“The Americans are crazy,” another said.

—

Back up in the plane
, Paul was thinking the same thing. As the nose came up, the cart became maneuverable again and they'd forced it back toward the tail. The pilot was ready this time and he controlled the pitch much better.

That left Paul near the open door, holding the cart and its concrete payload and trying to figure out how to shove it through without falling out.

He could push it hard, but how would he stop himself?

“We're almost at the drop zone!” the pilot shouted.

Paul looked at Gamay. “This seemed much easier when I thought it up.”

“I have an idea,” she said. She shouted to the pilot: “Roll to the left.”

The pilot glanced back. “What?”

She made a rolling motion with her hand and shouted again. The pilot didn't seem to comprehend. Paul did. “Great idea,” he said. “Can you show him?”

Gamay let go of the cart and ran up to the cockpit. She sat in the copilot's seat once again and grabbed the wheel. “Like this.”

She turned the yoke to the left. The pilot followed suit and the DC-3 went over on its side.

In the rear, Paul had wrapped an arm around a cargo strap and put his back to the far side of the fuselage. When the plane rolled, he shoved the cart with his feet and watched it shoot out through the cargo door, carrying the heavy concrete block with it.

As the plane leveled off again, he moved cautiously to the
door. Behind and below, the cart and the block were falling like two separate bombs—not tumbling or spinning, just dropping smoothly and silently through the air.

Gamay ran back and watched. “This is your best idea ever!” she shouted, giving him a kiss on the cheek. Paul smiled to himself, watching the culmination of his efforts approach.

—

Down below,
Reza and the other technicians were also watching the block fall.

“Here it comes,” Reza said. “Everyone ready?”

Spread out across a few acres of land were four teams of men. Each team had drilled sensor probes into the ground. If all went well, the listening devices would pick up deep reverberated waves of sound after the concrete hit the ground. And, from that, they hoped to figure out what was beneath the sandstone.

“Green!” someone shouted.

“Green!” the rest of them confirmed.

Reza's board was also green. His sensors were operating perfectly. He took one last look up, spotted the falling object and thought it appeared to be headed directly for him. Can't be, he said to himself.

He waited exactly one second and then ran and dove across the sand.

The concrete block missed by fifty yards, but its impact boomed across the desert with a deep resonating thunder that Reza felt through his chest and limbs as much as he heard it with his ears. Exactly what they were hoping for.

He got up quickly, ran through a spreading cloud of dust and
checked his computer. The green light continued to blink, the graph on the screen remained a blank.

“Come on, come on,” he pleaded. Finally, a bunch of squiggly lines began to run across the graph. More and more each second. Different frequencies from different depths.

“We have data,” he shouted. “Good, deep data.”

He took off his hat and threw it upward with exuberance as the DC-3 continued on by. Data was one thing. Now they would have to figure out what it meant.

Tariq Shakir stood in a chamber once reserved for the pharaohs and their priests. A hidden tomb, untouched by grave robbers, it was filled with possessions and treasures far surpassing those discovered with Tutankhamun. Art and hieroglyphics from the height of the First Dynasty lined the walls. A smaller copy of the Sphinx, covered in gold leaf and blue semiprecious stones, dominated one end of the huge room and a dozen sarcophaguses rested in its center. Inside each, the body of a pharaoh, thought to have been stolen and desecrated thousands of years ago. Mummified animals were placed around them to serve them in the afterlife and the skeleton of a wooden boat rested nearby.

The world at large knew nothing of this chamber, a fact Shakir had no intention of revealing. But he brought in experts from time
to time to work on it and he saw no reason he and his people should not bask in the full restored glory of the ancients. After all, if he succeeded, a new dynasty of his own creation would rise over North Africa.

But, for now, he had a problem.

He left the burial chamber and walked to the control room. There, his trusted lieutenant, Hassan, was on his knees, being held at gunpoint, per Shakir's order.

“Tariq? Why are you doing this?” Hassan asked. “What is this all about?”

Shakir took a step toward his friend and raised a finger. It was enough to quiet Hassan. “I'll show you.”

With a remote control, he powered up a flat-screen monitor on the far wall. As an image began to appear, the sun-blistered face of candidate number four emerged.

“A report came in from Malta,” Shakir said. “Hagen and two members of your handpicked team were tasked with eliminating the Americans. One of them was killed, Hagen was captured and one escaped. I'm sure you understand why it is imperative that none of our operatives be captured.”

“Of course I do,” Hassan replied. “For that reason, I sent—”

“You sent a candidate who failed me,” Shakir boomed. “One who I was led to believe had died in the desert three days ago.”

“I never suggested he was dead.”

“You kept his survival from me,” Shakir said. “One and the same transgression.”

“No,” Hassan insisted. “He survived. You didn't inquire. I took it upon myself to execute your offer, which was that any of those who made it back to the checkpoint would be given another chance.”

Shakir despised having his own words used against him.
“Except that it's not possible for anyone to have survived the march back to the checkpoint. Not thirty miles, across the desert, in the blazing sun, without any water or shade. Not after weeks of draining competition with little sleep.”

“I tell you, he made it,” Hassan said. “And without help. Look at his face. Look at his hands. He burrowed into the sand when he thought he was going to die. He hid there until dusk. Then dug his way out and continued on.”

Shakir had seen the scars.
Smart,
he thought.
Resourceful.
“Why wasn't this reported by the men?”

“The checkpoint was deserted when he arrived,” Hassan insisted. “The men had left assuming, like you, that no one would live to finish the trek. Number four broke in and made contact with me. Seeing his strength and determination, I decided he would be the perfect choice to watch our own men. He was there without their knowledge. Should they falter, his orders were to eliminate them and keep us from being exposed.”

Shakir was the unquestioned leader of Osiris, but he wasn't afraid to admit his mistakes. If Hassan was telling the truth, then number four was indeed the one candidate worthy of being honored with a position—and, just as important, a name.

Ordering Hassan to keep silent, Shakir unmuted the satellite link and questioned number four. The answers were close enough without being identical. Shakir felt he was hearing the truth, as opposed to a practiced story.

He glanced at the guards behind Hassan. “Let him up.”

The guards pulled back and Hassan stood. Shakir turned to number four.

“Let me tell you a story,” he began. “When I was a child, my family lived on the outskirts of Cairo. My father scavenged metal from the trash heaps to sell. That is how we survived. One day, a
large scorpion came into our house. It stung me. I was about to smash it with a brick when my father stayed my hand.

“He said he would teach me a lesson. So we put the scorpion in a jar and tried to drown it, first with cold water and then with hot. Then we left it out in the sun, beneath the clear glass, for days. Then we poured rubbing alcohol over it. It tried to swim but couldn't and eventually settled to the bottom. The next day, we drained the alcohol and dumped the scorpion out onto the dirt beside our house. Not only was it still alive, it immediately turned to attack us. Before it could get me, my father flicked it into the distance with a broom.
The scorpion is our brother,
he said to me.
Stubborn, poisonous and hard to kill. The scorpion is noble.

On-screen, number four nodded slightly.

“You've proved your worth,” Shakir said. “You're one of us now. A brother. Your code name shall be Scorpion for you have proven to be stubborn, hard to kill and, yes, even noble. You did not beg me for mercy in the desert. You did not give in to fear. For this, I commend you.”

On-screen, the man with the newly bestowed title bowed his head.

“Wear those scars proudly,” Shakir said.

“I shall.”

“What are your orders?” Hassan asked, trying to get back into the conversation but mostly just thankful to be alive.

“They remain as before,” he said. “Get the artifacts before they're made public and erase all record of them within the museum. This time, you will go and supervise personally.”

Malta

1900 hours

A shrill, chirping sound pierced the night as a delivery truck backed up to the loading dock of a large warehouse. The warehouse belonged to the Maltese Oceanic Museum and held many of their ongoing projects.

From the door of the warehouse, two security guards and a forklift operator watched the truck approach.

“Can you believe we're stuck here, taking deliveries,” one of the guards said, “while the rest of the guys are over at the museum enjoying the sights?”

Down the street, limousines and exotic cars had been pulling up in front of the museum's main building, where the gala ball would be held. Some of the attendees were arriving by boat straight from their yachts.

Between the cars, wives and mistresses, not to mention the hostesses—who were dressed in shimmering gowns—the guard at the warehouse had the distinct impression he was missing out.

The second guard shrugged. “Wait till someone loses an earring: all hell will break loose over there and we'll be sitting here with our feet up reporting that all is well.”

“Maybe you're right,” the first guard replied, grabbing a clipboard. “Let's go see what we have here.”

He stepped out onto the loading dock as another guard closed the gate a short distance away. A perimeter fence with razor wire on top was the first line of defense. Warehouse doors with security keypads that required key cards were the second, but the security guards themselves watched the warehouse twenty-four hours a day. And ever since the attack that killed Kensington, they'd tripled the manpower.

The truck bumped the platform and the warning alarm mercifully ceased.

The driver hopped out, came to the back of the truck and opened the door, which rattled as it slid upward.

“What do you have for me?” the guard asked.

“Last-minute delivery.”

The guard glanced into the truck. A single wooden crate, approximately eight feet long, four feet wide and maybe five feet tall, rested inside.

“Invoice number?” he asked.

“SN-5417,” the driver said, checking his own clipboard.

The guard scanned page one of his delivery sheet and found nothing. He quickly flipped to the second page. “Here it is. Last-minute add-on. Where've you been? This was due here an hour ago.”

The driver looked put-out by the question. “We got a late start
and your big party is making for a traffic nightmare. You're lucky I came at all.”

The guard didn't doubt that. “Let's take a look.”

Jamming a large screwdriver underneath the lid of the crate, he pried it open. Inside, resting on a bed of packed hay, was the narrow barrel of a small antipersonnel cannon used to fire grapeshot at one's enemies. According to the delivery sheet, it had come from an eighteenth-century British sloop. Beside it, wrapped in acid-free paper and protected by bubble wrap, were several swords.

Satisfied, the guard turned to a forklift operator. “Take it through to the back, put it somewhere that it won't be in the way. We'll deal with it once the party's over.”

The forklift operator nodded. Unlike the guards, he was happy to be here. Night shift meant overtime. If it went past midnight, as it almost certainly would, it would be double time. He put the forklift in gear, picked up the crate and backed into the warehouse. Making a quick turn, he was soon heading down the central aisle of the sprawling space. When he reached a spot where the new crate would be out of the way, he stopped.

He placed the crate down with a light crunch. A quick glance told him the old wooden pallet underneath it had cracked. He shrugged. It happened all the time.

Pulling free, he backed out and made his way to the front end once again. Things would be quiet for a while. Until then, he decided to watch some TV in the break room.

He parked the forklift, took off his hard hat and stepped through the door. The first thing he noticed were several bodies on the ground, two of whom he recognized as the guards who'd just checked in the new delivery.

Across the room, several other security guards were standing with pistols drawn. He turned for the door but never made it.
Three shots hit him almost simultaneously, accompanied only by the dull popping sound of a silencer-equipped automatic.

He dropped to his knees and a fourth shot put him out of his misery. He fell sideways, landing on the floor next to one of the other dead workers.

Had the forklift operator lived long enough to think about it, he'd have recognized the men with the guns as the new hires—temporary workers brought on to beef up security for the auction. He might also have noticed that a man with a burned face stood behind them. But he was dead before the synapses in his brain registered any of it.