That was the plan, anyway.
The bunker came into view: a squat, ominous building of cinderblock and concrete and barbed wire fences. Cameras on the posts. It looked like a scene straight out of any military man’s nightmare. An outpost in the middle of nowhere, packed with a hundred border patrol hostiles just itching for action.
They stopped to collect themselves. Josh looked at Ethan and Sam. They took a collective breath and stashed their weapons.
“Ready?”
Ethan didn’t grin. “As we’ll ever be. Let’s go.”
There wasn’t much to add to that. Sam followed as the two men stepped out of the shadows and into plain sight.
They were stopped immediately by the guard at the gate. “Who the hell are you?”
Josh offered up his lawyer smile. “Brought by some clients for the boss. This place is hell to find on a map, you know that, right? When he said it was easy to find, Jesus. Never heard such bullshit.”
The guard glared. “Clients for what? He expecting you?”
Josh didn’t back down. “The boss’s business is the boss’s business.” He shrugged. “Sorry, man. I just follow orders. He said bring them here, don’t tell anyone. I haven’t told anyone.”
The guard cocked his gun. “Consider me no one?”
Josh held up his hands. “Listen, I don’t want to get my asshole stitched or opened, okay? I just want to get these men to the boss so he’s happy, making everybody happy. I set it up with Mia. She’s been working a beat getting keys for Carlos. Don’t ask me what they’re for; I honestly don’t know.” He gestured to Sam and Ethan. “But they’ve been having a shit time finding the rest of them. Finally, she tracked down a source—these two know where the others are—but they won’t talk to anyone but Carlos.”
The guard gestured the gun toward Ethan and Sam. “Why they in masks?”
Ethan didn’t waver. “Self-preservation. Faces get you killed; this is deeper than you know.”
The guard wavered. “Gotta check.” He went for a radio. They waited, tense. This was Josh’s man’s time to shine. If he didn’t come through…
“Castro. Men here for the boss. You know about it?”
“Cleared.” A massive click and the gate opened. “Send them through.”
The guard didn’t seem convinced. He put down the radio but continued to glare suspiciously. “How do I know—”
There was a brief “pft” and then he slumped forward, just a bit, and the one next to him jerked as if to go for his gun, and then he, too, slumped. Ethan caught the second while Josh caught the first, and Sam’s hand came out of his pocket where he’d kept the pistol with the silencer out of sight.
Josh propped the guard against the wall with a nail gun. “Man, this heat,” he said. “Gotta be careful.”
He slipped the nail gun to Ethan who slammed the long spikes into the other guard’s dead palm and into the concrete wall. It wasn’t too convincing, but they didn’t need much time. At least he hoped they didn’t. They just had to get inside.
They left the gate open behind them. Sam, Ethan and Josh slipped inside.
The bunker was armed to the teeth. It looked like a demented version of Sam’s high school with small rooms, all branching off a main corridor. He smelled coffee and disinfectant and wondered if Josh’s contact had succeeded in poisoning the brew. If not, they were going to need every piece of ammo they’d brought with them.
Now that they were in, they had no idea where to go. Mia had promised to get in and keep Carlos in the treasure room, but she hadn’t given them the map like she’d promised. They didn’t know if this meant the whole plan had gone to shit already or she didn’t want to blow her cover.
They were also supposed to get a guide but that, apparently, hadn’t worked out either.
Sam checked his watch. They were five minutes late. He didn’t know how long Mia would be able to detain the boss. They didn’t have time to figure it out.
Ethan took point. “Fan out. Shoot if you have to—meaning, if you think they’re going to run.”
They nodded. Sam gripped his pistol, touching the ammo on his vest.
Ethan turned and without warning kicked open the nearest door, gun in hand, hot and ready.
Beyond his shoulder Sam saw what looked like a break room. He swung around wildly and spied a camera. Take it out?
Ethan sliced his hand through the air.
Sam took out the camera.
The men in the break room looked like mules, just there shooting the shit over coffee in the morning and doing their best to wake up from a night of hard partying the day before. Sam thought they were either mules or chefs. None of them looked too important and they certainly looked terrified at the sight of the gun. Their paycheck wasn’t worth their lives to them, it seemed.
If that was true, they were in the wrong line of work. Nothing was certain in this goddamn world.
Ethan snapped his fingers, swinging the gun around at them.
“Boss!” he barked, low and urgent without shouting. “Tell me where the boss is, and no one gets hurt. Get back to your coffee and churros. Got a meeting with the boss and the motherfucker didn’t tell me where the hell he’d be waiting.”
A stammering mule babbled something in Spanish. Sam could barely make out the words ‘middle’ and ‘room’ and ‘floor’. They were looking for a middle room on one of the floors? That narrowed it down.
The mule coughed then slumped forward. For a moment Sam thought he’d been shot, but no one looked as if they’d fired. He smelled no gun smoke. Just coffee and cleaning solution and stale sweat.
The mule nearby slumped forward.
It looked like Josh’s contact had come through; at least in one regard: Innocent casualties were getting knocked out of commission. Sam fervently hoped it’d be enough to help them out.
Sam and Josh and Ethan looked at each other with desperation.
“Split up? Cover more ground?”
Sam shook his head. “We stay together. We need to cover each other’s backs.”
They backed out of the door and headed down the halls, kicking in the unopened doors and peering in; clearing each room as they went. No luck. They hurriedly secured any men they came across.
Eventually, they came to the third floor. Sam was starting to despair they’d never find it. Josh bled onto the linoleum, his white shirt ripped into strips and tied around his bicep, tightening each with his teeth. Ethan took over point, gun raised. They paused, waited in silence, hearing voices inside.
A man’s voice and a woman’s voice. In Spanish. Too hard to hear what they were saying. Sam, Ethan and Josh exchanged glances.
“Whoever the man is, shoot to kill as soon as we get through that door.” Josh’s eyes were hard and certain. “I’m not taking any chances with her safety. We need to get her out; time to end this.”
Ethan nodded. Sam stepped forward and turned the handle.
The door opened without a problem. They swung inside.
A man who could only be Carlos, the drug lord, reclined on a plush couch that looked lifted from some French chateau, covered in dust. His expensive shirt was open to his navel, showcasing a thick mat of dark hair on his chest. He had mean, intelligent eyes and a stupid, self-assured smile.
The woman straddling him was thin and small, her crop of dark hair styled in curls.
Sam recognized her instantly, even with her hair now dry.
Something was unfamiliar, though – she was entwined around Carlos, his hand down her shirt, cupping her breast.
Ethan stalled at seeing this scene and for one crucial second, his gun faltered.
Carlos gripped Mia’s arm in surprise, consternation on his face at having his dalliance interrupted. Then he saw the guns and his hand went to his pants – open at the top, Sam saw – and pulled Mia in front of him as he realized his gun was on a table just out of reach.
Mia was dragged into the line of fire. She winced in pain as his meaty hands locked arou
nd her thin throat.
“You shoot me I’ll break her goddamn neck,” he growled. Mia’s wide eyes were steady and calm as the men stood there trying to get a clear shot at the boss. Sam had no doubt he’d let her take any bullets meant for him. “Who the fuck are you?”
“We want the girl,” Sam said, hoping his mask disguised his voice and that Carlos wouldn’t remember what it’d sounded like fifteen years earlier. “And we want the keys. Give us those and no one gets hurt.”
The boss laughed and a light of recognition sparked in his eyes. “If it isn’t Captain America. Who are you? More capital stooges?”
Josh stepped forward, but Sam gripped his arm, holding him back. They needed Josh, of all people to remain unrecognized. He needed to keep working for them as they might need him in the future.
Ethan stepped forward; gun trained on the drug lord. He stepped to the side, clearly hoping to get a shot at Carlos’s fleshy middle, but the boss’s gaze followed him, tightening his grip.
“I swear to Christ and your whore spawn mother, I’ll break her neck if you come one step closer!”
Mia turned to Carlos in panic, trying to twist her hand free.
“Carlos,” she babbled, desperation in her voice. “Baby, don’t let me die. They want me. They won’t shoot me. I’ll get your gun, just don’t break my neck.”
Ethan cocked his gun and trained it on her chest. “We want the keys. You’re secondary.”
Her eyes flashed fury for an instant as they stared at each other.
Please, girl, Sam pleaded silently, don’t do anything stupid…
“Carlos,” she said soothingly, “I’m going to reach for the gun, just let me get it.”
Many things happened at once.
Carlos eased his grip on her neck, Mia leaned across his body for the gun on the table, and Ethan’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Steel flashed in Mia’s hand.
Carlos screamed.
Ethan fired.
Mia pushed off the couch, covered in blood. She wiped the tiny knife on her shorts as the drug lord gurgled from where she’d sliced his jugular.
She held onto the knife as the men stared at her.
“Come on!” she shouted. “You never seen a woman? Get out of here!”
Ethan snapped out of his reverie. “Keys.”
She rummaged in a box. “Take your damned keys and let’s get out of here.”
Sam tucked the keys in his pants. Mia looked up at Josh and then she threw her arms around his neck. “I knew you’d make it, big brother.”
He held her tightly, then released her. “Always do.”
She turned to Ethan with a tentative grin. “You were gonna shoot me?”
“We’ll talk later,” he snapped. “Once we’re out.”
She touched his face. “He was going to leave,” she said, as if they were the only two in the room. “I had to keep him here somehow.”
Sam ushered them out of the room. “Romantically touching, yes, but can it wait until we’re out?”
They hurried out the door and into the hall. “What about the knife?” Ethan asked as they clattered down the stairs. Their cover was blown anyway. Josh fired a shot at a man with a pistol coming up the stairs. Head shot. They kept moving, past his body, continuing down. Two floors to go.
“I always carry it,” Mia said breathlessly. “You would too if you lived with them.” She flashed a quick grin and Ethan blasted a horde of men coming at them from behind, shielding her with his body. “That’s the good thing about having boobs. Keeps a lot of things hidden.”
The men collapsed in a heap of death.
One more floor.
Ethan cocked his gun. “Surprised he didn’t find it. Looked like he was on the hunt.”
“Nah, he’s a pussy. He only gropes the sides.” She grinned.
Josh panted after her, gripping his arm in pain. “Mia,” he gasped as they reached the ground floor and Sam hurled a grenade at a window, blasting through wall and wired-glass, alike. “You don’t have boobs.”
She turned on him, knife to his belly as they climbed through the window. “Say that again and you won’t have any balls.”
There was no sign of the Osprey.
They sprinted for the trees anyway as the men on the walls opened fire. “Now what?” Mia yelled.
“Get to the…”
Sam’s instructions were drowned out by the arrival of the craft as it landed vertically. It was as if they’d planned this mission right down to the last second. The stairs descended, they ran up, and the door closed behind them, as enemy fire peppered the hull. By the time the men got close enough to make any kind of difference, the doors were closed, and they were pushing off again, straight up into the canopy, straight up into the sky.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Sam stared at the two Labyrinth Keys.
They were housed in a purpose-built metallic suitcase.
His eyes drifted out the large windshield and across the shimmering waters of the Gulf of Mexico, far below.
Ethan said, “I’ll pick up the Syrian key from where I have it hidden, a quick stop in Rhyolite then off to Egypt—last stop, Strabo’s labyrinth.”
The corners of Sam’s lips curled upward, offering up the slightest of grins. “Why? What do you think we’ll find there?”
Ethan frowned. “Is that where you buried the last labyrinth key?”
Sam tilted his head to the side but remained silent.
“All those years ago,” Ethan persisted… “You and I buried something. I glimpsed the sign of the labyrinth key. Isn’t that what we buried there?”
Sam shook his head. “Goodness, no! I knew something like that was way too valuable to bury. My Labyrinth Key has been stored in a bank’s private vault under a name that can’t be traced back to me and as an item that in no way could ever have been connected to the labyrinth key.”
“Then, what did we bury?” Ethan’s forehead furrowed in puzzlement. He cursed. “I mean, what sort of secret have I kept all these years, if not the location of the last labyrinth key?”
Sam smiled. “Secrets which are going to come out soon, but not yet. If anything, they’re even more dangerous now.”
Ethan asked, “Will I ever learn the truth?”
Sam’s eyes aimlessly drifted across the ocean, before landing hard on Ethan’s firm gaze. “If we reach Strabo’s Labyrinth and get out alive, I promise you, we’ll go back to Rhyolite together and bring to life secrets that have been buried for far too long… or possibly, not long enough.”
Ethan locked eyes with him, his jaw set firm. “Agreed. I’ll go with you to Egypt and help you reach the ancient library beneath Strabo’s labyrinth – and then I’m going to hold you to that.”
Sam grinned. “Please, make sure that you do.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Nile River, Egypt
The motor-yacht formed a dark silhouette along the river. At a length of one hundred and eight feet, with a width of forty-five feet, it was shaped more like a bullet than a traditional yacht. She had a long black hull and narrow beam, tapering to a razor-sharp prow.
The trailing whitewash, a stark contrast against the near black river against the night sky, was the only demonstration of the vessel’s unique combination of raw power. The twin Rolls Royce 28,000hp MTU diesel engines and twin ZF gearboxes which projected the force of the combined 56,000 hp into four, HT1000 HamiltonJet waterjets; and did so all but silently. This massive power was married to her unique hull, which used a series of hydraulic actuators to alter her shape in order to achieve the greatest speed and stability under any type of sea conditions. She was able to lift out of the water and into an aquaplane at speeds of 60 knots—making her the fastest motor yacht of her size in the world.
Now she sliced up the river that had seen the birth and death of a civilization thousands of years before like a silent angel of vengeance, like a river god herself. The Nile sliced through the desert like a snake, a dark thre
ad scaled by the wind rippling its obsidian surface.
Sam felt, more than heard, the power humming under him and knew he was home. There was something about the unique thrum of the Tahila that comforted Sam in a way that nothing else did. He’d worked his whole life for this sense of release.
They’d met up with the ship as the last of the sun’s rays drained from the sky and Genevieve had a veritable Egyptian feast waiting for them; a very welcome sight after the flight from the jungle to D.C. to Egypt. Sam hadn’t set foot on dry ground in what felt like a week.
Now Sam and the crew sat around the table with empty plates and the carnage from dinner before them as the engine pumped in a pattern endlessly, droning on and on in Sam’s ear until it became background noise, like the rhythmic drum of a clock’s second-hand tick. The rumbling never left. It made the table at which Sam sat shake just enough that an empty plastic cup rattled loudly without cessation until he stood up and filled it with Coke—just to quiet it down. As he began to lower himself back into his seat, the entire boat lurched forward, pitching Sam’s balance off-center. He steadied himself and reached for the cup again, taking a quick sip as he sat. No sense in risking a doused lap; a wardrobe emergency ranked pretty low on his priority list right now.
He groped for a napkin then broke off laughing as a big, fluffy golden retriever pushed his head adoringly into the hand holding the cup. “Caliburn,” he scolded, fielding the cup and drinking again. “Caliburn, stop it!” The dog panted with a happy, adoring dog grin. “It’s good to see you too. I’ve missed the hell out of you.”
Tom laughed from down the table and snapped his fingers. “Here, Caliburn.” The dog shifted his attention and wiggled up to Tom. Tom slipped him a slice of roasted lamb, which the dog snapped up greedily.
“Tom!” cried Genevieve from the door. “That’s not allowed!”
Tom raised his hands in self-defense. “I’m just doing my job, taking care of the crew. Am I not allowed to take care of my crew?”
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