by David Wood
Maddock nodded. “They’ve probably already moved millions of dollars worth of irreplaceable artifacts onto the black market. If news of this discovery gets out, those pieces may become too hot to handle.”
Nora’s eyes flashed back and forth between the men, her face moving from confusion to understanding to anger. Then, her eyebrows drew together in consternation. “But... I don’t understand. How could anyone have known you were coming?”
“Did you tell anyone else about your discovery?”
“Just Mr. Fayed. And of course, my contact at the Global Heritage Commission.”
“Well, somebody spilled the beans,” Bones said. “Loose lips sink ships.”
“We’ll worry about that once we’re out of here. My concern now is that they might have figured out that we escaped through the underwater passage. They might be waiting for us outside.”
“A very astute observation, Mr. Maddock,” intoned a voice from the darkness of the doorway.
A familiar voice.
Maddock tensed, instantly on his guard, but wasn’t at all surprised when Nassir Fayed stepped out from the shadows. He wasn’t alone. Trailing behind Fayed were four Egyptian men—the same four men that had been waiting in the back-alley garage in Luxor. But this time, they had guns.
EIGHT
Nora gasped. “Mr. Fayed? I don’t understand.”
Fayed regarded them all coldly for a moment, then turned to one of his henchmen and barked a terse order in Arabic. Since he did not seem inclined to share, Maddock filled the relative silence. “Oh, I think it’s all pretty simple. Fayed here decided there was more money to be made selling the treasure than letting you discover it for the Egyptian people.”
“Or letting tourists gawk at it,” Bones added.
The barbs had their intended effect. Fayed scowled at them. “Tourists,” he said, almost spitting out the word.
“Is this true?” Nora asked. “How can you be part of this? You said yourself, these discoveries are the lifeblood of Luxor.”
Fayed offered a cruel smile. “Luxor is already dead, my dear. It is a lifeless mummy, decaying little by little. Why should I die with it, when instead, I can be rich?”
“I can think of a few reasons,” Maddock said. “For starters, you’ll never be able to get away with this. Even if you kill us—and that is what you have planned isn’t it?—people know we’re here. The Global Heritage Commission knows, and they’re going to be wondering what happened to us. They’ll find this place, probably a lot sooner than you think, and they’ll know that someone raided the tomb. It might take a while, but the trail is going to lead back to you, and when it does, being rich won’t help you a bit.”
Fayed just laughed. “Very good, Mr. Maddock. You have it all figured out.” He looked to his accomplices again, uttering another set of commands in Arabic, then spoke in English. “This way, if you please.”
“Not going to kill us here?” Maddock asked.
“Are you in such a hurry to die, Mr. Maddock?”
Bones raised his hand. “I’m not. I’ll leave right now.”
He took a step toward the exit, which immediately prompted the four gunmen to brandish their weapons. Bones, took a dramatic backward step, and in the process turned so that Uma’s light was shining right into Fayed’s eyes.
The Egyptian let out a surprised yelp, throwing up a hand to shade his eyes. One of his men advanced on Bones, shouting in Arabic and gesturing with the gun, his meaning easy to understand even if the words were not.
Drop it.
“Okay, okay,” Bones said, and then knelt where he stood and began fumbling with Uma’s control box.
“Get away from that,” Fayed snarled.
“Just trying to save the batteries,” Bones explained, unhurriedly.
“I said—”
Uma’s light flickered out, plunging the small room into sudden darkness. Fayed’s men erupted into angry shouts. Fearing that they might start firing blind, Maddock pivoted into Nora, pulling her down into a protective huddle on the floor, but a moment later, several handheld torches blazed to life, revealing Bones, now standing with his hands raised, with Uma now out of his reach.
“Chill, dudes. No need to freak out.”
“That was a very foolish thing to do,” Fayed hissed.
Bones affected a look of child-like innocence. “Was it? Sorry.”
“I would prefer not to kill you here,” Fayed said, “But if you continue to test me...” He let the threat hang in the air, and after a few seconds, took a step back and gestured to the exit. “Move.”
Sensing that there was nothing to be gained by further resistance, Maddock nodded to Bones, signaling his intent to go along with their captors, and then did as instructed.
They followed a long, narrow, gently-sloping passage to emerge inside a roofless ruin. After so many hours spent underground, the sunlight was blinding, even inside the four-walled structure, and for a few minutes, all Maddock could do was blink his eyes against the piercing brightness. The world was a blur of sandstone brown and bright blue.
Before his eyes could adjust, Fayed’s men led them out of the structure, down a similarly roofless corridor and across a flat sun-scoured area where a white van with dark tinted windows waited. That was about all Maddock could distinguish about the vehicle as he was directed to climb inside. He did, taking a seat in the middle row, scooting across to sit on the far left. Nora sat beside him, and Bones took up the anchor position on the right. Once the doors were closed, he was able to distinguish his surroundings a little better. Fayed had taken the front passenger seat and one of his hirelings was behind the wheel. Another man sat in the open space between them, facing backward to keep an eye—and a gun—on Maddock and the others. The other two men sat in the back row where they also could maintain continuous control over the captives. The van was unremarkable if a little run down, and smelled of stale cigarette smoke and body odor.
Bones wrinkled his nose. “Dude, you guys ever heard of Febreeze?”
None of the men showed the slightest inclination to respond. The driver turned the key and both the engine and the radio began to wail. A few seconds later, they were rolling down a dusty paved road that appeared to follow the course of an ancient wadi.
“That was Deir el-Medina,” Nora murmured, evidently recognizing the ruins they had just left behind. “It was the village where the craftsmen who built the tombs resided. We’re more than a mile from where we started.”
Fayed half-turned to look at them. “Indeed. I honestly didn’t expect you to make it out. An impressive feat.”
“Gee, thanks,” Bones retorted, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “If you want to book us for speaking engagements, we’re available, but I’ll warn you, we don’t come cheap.”
Fayed gave a snort of laughter. “Actually, I don’t think you are available. I’m afraid you’re booked solid for the rest of your life.”
“Hey. Leave the jokes to the experts. I’ll let you know when we need the douchebag perspective.”
“So, what’s the plan here?” Maddock said. “Drive us out into the desert, put a bullet in our heads, and let the vultures take care of the evidence?”
Fayed seemed to ponder the question for a moment as if trying to decide whether it was worth the bother of answering, but then he gave an indifferent shrug. “Whatever you may think of me, I’m not a savage. For the time being, you are going to be guests in my home.”
“Sweet,” Bones said. “Mind if we raid your liquor cabinet?”
“I don’t think they have those here,” Maddock said.
Bones affected a look of shock and dismay. “You’re kidding. You know, they’ve got booze at that other Luxor. Just sayin’.”
Fayed scowled and turned away, evidently at the limit of his patience. Outside, the van had reached an intersection with a main thoroughfare, and was continuing east. In the near distance, Maddock could see the transition from brown desert to the lush green of the Nile Valley. Al
most directly ahead, and rising fast, were the twin sculptures of the Colossi of Memnon. They had come full circle and now appeared to be heading back toward Luxor.
Nora leaned close to Maddock. “He told his men to take us to Gezira el-Tamsah. It means ‘crocodile island.’”
“You said there weren’t any crocodiles in the river,” Bones pointed out.
“There aren’t. I mean, not below the dam.”
“My home is on Gezira el-Tamsah,” Fayed explained without turning to join the conversation. “I own the entire island. The only way to reach it is by boat. And while I do have a few pets, you needn’t worry. I’m not going to feed you to them.”
Nora went on, speaking only for Maddock’s benefit. “He also said they should hold us there until after they released the curse.”
“Ha,” Bones said. “I knew there was a curse.”
“Release the curse,” Maddock echoed, fixing Fayed with his stare. The other man continued facing straight ahead.
“That’s what he said.”
“You don’t ‘release’ a curse,” Maddock went on, mostly thinking out loud. “You release—”
“The kraken!” Bones’ boomed dramatically, dropping his already deep voice another octave. “Or the hounds if you’re more of a Seinfeld guy.”
Nora smiled despite herself.
“Or a bioweapon,” Maddock finished. The thing that had been nagging at the back of his mind since emerging from the passage now finally clicked into place. He turned to Nora. “Remember what you said about that black mold being a possible explanation for some of the unexplained deaths attributed to the Curse of the Pharaohs.”
She nodded, tentatively. “I said it was one theory.”
“I thought it was odd how the walls in the tomb looked like the mold had been cleaned away. Now I understand why. He...” Maddock nodded toward Fayed. “Harvested it.”
Her brow furrowed. “Harvested?”
“Collected it. Probably vacuumed it right off the walls so he could cultivate it and harvest the toxin in the spores for use as a weapon. Saddam Hussein did something like that back in the 1990s—weaponized aspergillus mold to produce aflatoxin. Apparently, we interrupted more than just a black-market antiquities racket. Our host is also a terrorist. What’s the local flavor down this way? Islamic State? Hezbollah?”
From his oblique angle of observation, Maddock thought he saw a hint of a smile touch Fayed’s lips. “It will certainly look that way.”
Maddock immediately saw his misstep. “But you’re not really a true believer, are you. All you care about is making money.”
“How does releasing a biological weapon make him money?” asked a bewildered Nora.
“It doesn’t. He’s doing that to divert attention away from the discovery of the tomb. Eventually, somebody else is going to discover that tomb, and figure out that it was only recently looted. When they realize it’s also the source of the aflatoxin, they’ll assume that the jihadists took the treasure and sold it on the black market. It won’t make moving the pieces any easier, but it will deflect attention away from him.”
Fayed let out a heavy sigh. “You are very well-informed for a treasure hunter.”
Maddock remained impassive, but mentally kicked himself for having overplayed his hand. Fayed probably didn’t know that he and Bones were former-SEALs, and that ignorance might just be the one thing that would allow them to escape.
“But killing innocent people?” Nora protested. “How can you do that?”
Fayed ignored the question. The van was now approaching the riverfront. The driver turned off the main boulevard and onto a dirt road that wound through cultivated but otherwise empty fields, eventually reaching a small, private pier where a twenty-four-foot motor launch was moored. The boat, a serviceable Mastercraft Xstar, would have been great as a tow boat for wakeboarding, but Maddock hadn’t seen evidence that visitors to Luxor indulged in watersports. It was more likely that this craft was used simply to shuttle back and forth across the river, or presumably, transport the wealthy hotelier to his private island.
Fayed now turned to Maddock. “If you make any attempt to flee or cry out, I will not hesitate to have my men shoot you in the legs, after which, your deaths will be long and painful.”
“You win,” Maddock said quickly, hoping to keep Bones from making any further displays of bravado.
The doors opened and Fayed’s men got out. Although they appeared to be alone and unobserved, the men had put away their guns, but their hands never strayed too far from where they hid under untucked shirttails. One of them, moved close to Nora, gripping her biceps and roughly putting some distance between her and the others; the clear implication that her safety would depend on Maddock and Bones behaving themselves. Another gestured to the boat and barked something in Arabic.
Maddock complied, heading down the dock to climb into the waiting craft. As Bones clambered over the gunwale to take a seat beside him, Maddock realized that Fayed had remained at the van, along with the driver.
“Guess he’s got somewhere else to be,” Bones muttered.
“You think maybe he’s going to launch the bioweapon attack right now?”
“Maybe we screwed up his timetable by surviving longer than planned.”
“Or just by showing up at all. I think his original plan was just to derail us by stealing Uma. When that didn’t work, he had to take things up a notch. I’ve got a feeling he’s making this up as he goes.” Maddock stopped talking as the remaining gunmen escorted Nora to the boat and boarded.
While the Mastercraft could theoretically seat up to fourteen people, it felt overcrowded with just six—probably because, save for Nora, they were all physically imposing figures. The boat sank a little lower in the water with each addition. Fayed’s men however seemed to know what they were doing. One of them loosened the moorings and then took a seat at the wheel, while the other two positioned themselves facing the captives, their guns out again, but held low and concealed from casual view.
The inboard roared to life, and the boat backed away from the dock. When it was floating clear, the pilot pointed the prow south, and gradually increased throttle until the boat was skipping across the wakes that crisscrossed the river.
“Think these guys speak English?” Maddock asked. He had to almost shout to be heard over the roar of the motor, and one of their captors shot him a warning glance.
“Dunno,” Bones said, and then looking the wary gunman in the eye said, “My friend is interested in camel humps.” He winked suggestively. “You guys are into that, right?”
Nora grimaced apprehensively, but the man’s glower remained about the same. His eyes darted back and forth from Maddock to Bones, clearly expecting them to try something, but the insult seemed to have gone entirely over his head.
Bones looked back over at Maddock. “No habla. I guess you’ve got a plan?”
“Working on it,” Maddock said. “Nora, you can swim, right?”
“Yes,” came the tentative reply, and then. “Oh, you don’t mean...” She glanced at the gunmen, and then mouthed the word, “Jump?”
Maddock guessed they were traveling at about thirty miles an hour. Exiting at that speed would be unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as getting shot, which was in fact his greater concern. Even if the three of them all managed to leap out into the river—and survive the impact—their captors would only need to cut speed, come about, and either pick them off one by one, or simply run them down. No, if they were going to get out of this, they would have to do more than just jump.
As Maddock considered and rejected various strategies for overpowering the men, the boat continued on its upriver journey. They briefly had an unrestricted view of the sprawling Karnak Temple Complex on the east bank of the river, but were soon all but surrounded by ferries, feluccas and other craft roaming the waterway. Fayed’s men remained especially alert whenever they passed close to another vessel, but as the left the more densely populated urban center behind, t
ransitioning into the fertile agricultural zone, the men seemed to relax a little. Maddock got the sense that they were nearing their destination; if he didn’t do something and quick, the chance might be lost.
He caught Bones’ eyes and gave a slight nod—the signal to be ready—and then slowly, carefully, stood up.
The gunmen reacted instantly, brandishing their weapons, thrusting them at Maddock and shouting incomprehensible commands.
Which was pretty much exactly what he had hoped they would do.
Maddock raised his hands quickly in a show of harmlessness. “Hey, it’s okay.” He called out. “No problem here. Just stretching my legs.” And then, in the same tone, without missing a beat, he added. “Now would be a really good time.”
With their attention laser-focused on Maddock, the gunmen were half-a-second slow in noticing that Bones was also on his feet and, unlike Maddock, moving. Before they could adjust their aim, he darted toward the control console and, leaning over the surprised helmsman, shoved the throttle all the way forward.
NINE
Maddock had not known precisely how Bones would seize on the opportunity, but he trusted his friend to make it something dramatic, and knew that he would have to react quickly to protect himself and Nora from whatever followed. Even as the attention of the two gunmen shifted toward Bones, Maddock spun around and threw himself onto the still seated Nora, covering her with his body and wrapping his arms around her. His thinly-sketched plan had been to scoop her up and leap from the fast-moving speed boat into the river, but the last part proved unnecessary.
As the screws suddenly revved to full throttle, the front end of the boat rose high in the air, like a motorcycle popping a wheelie. The abrupt shift had the effect of catapulting the boat’s occupants, launching them backward, even as the boat rose out of the water like a kite attempting liftoff.
Maddock, still embracing Nora, curled himself into a protective ball and braced for impact as the world around him spun crazily. When it finally came, the splashdown was less of a jolt than expected. The surface, already churned up by the boat’s passage, acted like an air cushion, softening the blow. As the frothing wake enveloped him, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the boat, teetering on its stern, and slowly heeling over.