Mako led the way to the parapet, or in this case as they were below ground level, the retaining wall. He easily scaled the five-foot wall and reached down to help Rashi. Gretchen ignored his hand and vaulted the wall.
They were in a plaza. Fortunately, it also was crowded with groups of school kids and tourists. In their robes they blended in and, after a few strange looks from people who had watched their unusual exit from the library, they were ignored.
“I have a car,” Rashi said, taking the lead.
“They’ll be watching that for sure. We have a driver.”
Mako checked his watch. They were late for the rendezvous. He led them quickly through the throngs of people. They reached the street where Assam had dropped them off and hurried toward the pedestrian bridge where they were supposed to meet.
“He’s not here,” Mako said. Sweat stung his eyes as he caught his breath. It took him a second to realize that there were no vehicles waiting in the pickup area. Another few seconds’ observation showed him that two policemen were ensuring no one stopped, other than for a quick drop-off or pickup.
He glanced at his watch. They were only ten minutes late. He assumed that Assam was circling. There were two problems with that. First, he would have to reveal his face for their driver to recognize him. Second, every other vehicle was a white cab.
“Stay here.” Mako peeled his scarf off and moved toward the spot where Assam had dropped them off. At least if he were noticed, Rashi and Gretchen wouldn’t be spotted.
Seconds later a horn blared. Mako watched in horror as Assam cut off another driver to reach the curb. Mako opened the door and called for Rashi and Gretchen. They were soon settled into the cab. Whether he sensed something was wrong or if he just feared the wrath of the policemen, Assam took off immediately.
“Where to, boss?”
Mako saw Assam check his mirrors. “Need out of here ASAP.”
“Sure thing.”
While the cab sped away from the library, Mako glanced over at Rashi and Gretchen. “What’s our next step?”
“I need to get to my office in Cairo,” Rashi said. “I’ve got some scans that we can use to match your map to some of the areas I have selected.”
“Got that, Assam? Next stop, Cairo.”
“Got it.” Now that he had a destination, the cab picked up speed.
Twenty minutes later they were on the road to Cairo. As the inner city faded into the suburbs, with the only discernible difference being there was slightly more space, Mako watched through the rear window. There was the usual traffic, but no one seemed particularly interested in them. If they had been followed, their pursuers were more curious about their next destination than taking them out on the road. He leaned back and tried to relax.
Sometime later, an elbow to his ribs woke Mako. He looked around to see they were back in a city. “Needed to catch a few.”
“We’re in Cairo. So far, so good,” Gretchen said.
“Where to?” Assam asked.
“The museum,” Rashi answered.
It was getting dark and Mako wondered if it was still open. “You have after-hours access?”
She nodded. Assam threaded his way through traffic. Car horns blared as cars crossed the invisible lines in the two-lane-turned-three-lane road. Some honked once, others twice; some were short blasts, others long. Mako watched, trying to figure out if there was some kind of car code.
“How do you know what they’re honking about?”
“There is one rule: go, go, go, go, go. No traffic lights, no accidents.”
Assam swerved to miss a pedestrian.
Mako could have guessed the next guideline. “If it is a woman, child, or elder crossing, drivers will yield. A man is on his own,” Rashi explained.
A truck sped into the narrow gap between the van and the car ahead.
“And the larger vehicle has the right of way.”
Assam was clearly enjoying this and continued his rolling dialogue of driving tactics in Cairo until they reached the gates of the Egyptian Museum.
“It is better if I go alone,” Rashi said.
Mako and Gretchen exchanged a look and nodded. There were policemen on the street, and guards at the gate and in the driveway. If she wanted to walk away, there was nothing Mako could do about it.
He was shocked when only a few minutes later he saw Rashi’s robbed figure running toward them.
“They got here first!”
36
Key Largo, Florida
Alicia swept the trash off her desk. She wanted badly to find a disinfectant wipe to clean her keyboard, but John and the siblings were watching her. She sat, deciding to hide that part of her OCD, but she didn’t hide her anger. Samantha and her brother’s invasion of their space was one thing—trashing it another. It took TJ entering the room for her to gather herself.
"We need a place to start," she said.
TJ moved to the captain’s chair. He tossed an empty soda can onto the floor and replaced it with his Coke. Alicia expected he was just as upset as she was, but cleanliness was not instilled in him like her mother had drilled it into her. Thinking of her mother redirected Alicia’s anger. She knew the woman had sacrificed for Alicia to get where she was, and she had grown to appreciate what her mom had thought was right. Only it wasn’t, and though Alicia could forgive, she couldn’t forget.
TJ started typing. “Don't log in yet. I want to isolate whatever they've done, then create a firewall so they can't get back in remotely. It's gonna take some time.”
Alicia went for the wipes.
Dave stood behind TJ, explaining to him every step they had taken to breach the firewall. Alicia glanced over. The neutral expression on TJ’s face told her that he had forgiven the mercenary hackers. His systems having thwarted the interlopers’ attempts put him in a position of authority. He was now talking to the boy like a mentor to his prodigy. Alicia glanced at Samantha. She was following everything on the screen.
“Eidetic memory?” she asked.
The girl looked at her and nodded. Alicia knew what most people called a “photographic memory” was as much a curse as a gift. Having something in common seemed to ease the tension.
“There’s a folding table in the dining room and a couple of laptops with Bluetooth keyboards and mice on the shelves over there. Maybe you guys should set up a station and lend a hand.”
“Really?”
Alicia nodded, realizing she had done the same thing as TJ.
John entered the room, breaking the kumbaya moment. He moved to Alicia’s desk and held out his phone. On the screen was a picture of the passport Mako had taken. "I know the name Mako is traveling under. Through the credit card, I tracked him to Luxor." John looked down at his phone. "He used it at three ATMs in Cairo yesterday. After that, nothing."
“Can you Airdrop me the info?” Alicia asked, hoping that some of it might be new information. John looked a little panicked.
"Text her." TJ came to John's rescue.
“Here,” Sam said. She reached for the phone showing the credit card transactions and quickly had had it up on screen.
"Where are you at with the map?" John asked.
TJ answered. “We narrowed the search area and were about to set up a query with elevation constraints when we were interrupted. Gonna take us a few to access The Vault and get back on line.”
“The Vault?” Dave asked.
“I knew you had offsite servers. Told you these guys were good,” Samantha said.
“Coming up now,” TJ said.
The screens suddenly went blank, rebooted, then repopulated with the maps they had displayed earlier.
Alicia took charge. “TJ, you and John work the map. I’ll see what I can do to find Mako.”
“What about us?” Samantha asked.
“Set up your stations and hang on.” TJ turned to John, who was standing beside him.
“Can I get you a chair, Mr. Storm?” Dave asked.
A light ripple of
laughter broke the tension as TJ explained, “The Valley of the Kings is at 190 meters. That’s the mean elevation of the tombs that have been discovered. The higher peaks max out at about 270 meters, then drop to 75 meters at the river in Luxor. For our purposes, I’m going to define 150 to 250 meters. There is a chance it would be higher, but I doubt lower.”
TJ’s hands flew over his keyboard that slid across his lap like the tray table on an airliner. Seconds later, the center four monitors blinked and showed the sections of the topo map that matched the query. Curious, Alicia looked up from her keyboard and studied the results. There was still a lot of area to cover, but considerably less than previously.
“Western-facing cliffs,” John said. “For most of antiquity, but especially the dynasties we care about, it was all about the sun. Temples faced east, graves west.”
TJ added the additional parameter, which eliminated another large chunk of land. “Still big odds.”
“Transportation is an issue in the desert. They would have stayed close to the river,” Dave said.
TJ glanced at him.
“You’re not the only gamer in the room.”
That got a laugh.
Sam worked her mouse and drew a circle around a section of cliffs. “Can you build a 3D relief of this area?”
Alicia sat back and watched TJ. He was in his element, soaking up the attention. She knew the task of rendering the topo into a workable picture would take time and shifted her concentration back to locating Mako. She looked over at Samantha. “Are you with me here?”
“Yes, ma’am. Anything I can do to help.”
Alicia was surprised by the courtesy and sent a note to the bottom left screen, which was her action board. “Take whatever you can handle and put your initials next to it.”
She turned her attention back to her task. The passport information confirmed that Mako was in Egypt, and John’s online credit card statement showed where. She started to plot the purchases with their corresponding timestamps on a map, but before she could enter the second one, a screen flashed with the entire data set. She glanced over at Samantha and smiled. There weren’t many people who could keep up with her.
“Cairo to Luxor, back to Cairo.” Zooming in on individual vendors showed the ATMs were in the bazaar area, and then Giza.
“He’s on the run. Only reason to go to the bazaar and look, Giza is on the way out of town,” Samantha said.
“Alexandria?”
“Maybe. Access security footage, CCTV, traffic cams, whatever you can from the area of the ATMs around the timestamps. We figure out how he’s traveling, we’ll get him.”
An old-school ringtone pierced the War Room. There was no doubt it was John’s. It certainly wasn’t Alicia’s or TJ’s, something she’d forgotten. The man now heading for the Bahamas had tossed her and TJ’s into the ocean. John stepped out into the living area to answer, an old instinct from his days in the field, she guessed. While she waited to see if the call was relevant to her search, she set up an interface to their cellphone provider. A minute later, she had tapped into their phones and brought their activity up on a monitor. She immediately noticed the missed calls and voicemails. Cursing herself, she redirected Sam from tracking the vehicle to finding the phone, Mako had called on.
John stepped back into the room. “Got him.”
“Speaker,” she called out.
TJ reached for John’s phone. John flinched, but handed it to him. Placing the phone, speaker down, in a small tray in his armrest, they soon heard Mako’s voice coming through the room’s sound system.
“Mako, sorry about earlier. We were detained.”
“This Ahmed cat is bad news. I’ve got Gretchen and Rashi Mustafa with me now. We’re headed to the Valley of the Kings to expose his scheme.”
John spoke before anyone else could react. “Not so fast.”
37
Cairo, Egypt
“What do you mean they didn’t get on the plane?” Ahmed slammed his fist into the desk. His head of security was a straight shooter and loyal, but Ahmed needed to look sincere in his feigned anger, without directly implicating the man who had nothing to do with their escape. Ahmed had issued separate and private orders to the men tasked with putting Mako Storm and the woman on the plane. He had been clear that once they boarded, they were only to be watched—no matter what. He pursed his lips in apology and looked at the man standing before him. Unlike his superiors, Ahmed tried not to take his frustrations out on his staff.
“Where is he now?”
“We tracked a credit card issued in the same name as the passport. Six withdrawals in Cairo and Giza. Then we tracked them to the library in Alexandria.” The man looked down. “We lost them there.” He hurried to add the good news. “Nothing until an hour ago, when Dr. Mustafa entered her office at the Egyptian Museum. We are monitoring her now.”
“You are doing everything possible. Your men who let them escape, I will deal with later.” He had no intention of disciplining the men now. He knew that fear of the unknown was a good motivator and got more results than punishment or death. “Have you talked to Dr. Mustafa’s staff about the unveiling?”
Ahmed sat back. Beecher hadn’t reported in since they had parted in Luxor. That wasn’t necessarily bad news. The Western Desert covered two-thirds of the country and had no cell service. The excavator had been elusive when Ahmed had questioned him about his search area. Beecher had every incentive to find the cache and report back. Mako Storm didn’t, hence the subterfuge. Ahmed leaned back. He had his money on Beecher, but the American was surprising him. Who won mattered little as long as he controlled the result.
“I’ll deal with Dr. Mustafa. Just in case she’s headed to Luxor, we’ll need security in place.”
“I have a dozen men at the excavation. I can assign her a personal bodyguard.”
“Good thinking.” Rashi would probably object, but would have no choice except to go along. Once his men were on her, she would form the last corner of the triangle of information. He had to believe one of those sources would come through but, as with all his other plans, he was prepared for contingencies.
“Do you have the explosives?” There were, after all, still terrorists whose mission it was to erase all history before the One True Prophet.
38
Cairo, Egypt
Mako decided not to wait for John in Cairo. He was due to leave out of Miami in the morning, their time. With the time change that would put him into Cairo a full day from now. Travel was a problem, or at least a time constraint. John would be able to transfer directly to a flight from Cairo to Luxor, but without passports Mako and Gretchen had fewer choices. Rashi chose to fly, explaining that any deviation from her normal routine would alert Ahmed that something was wrong.
The overnight train or a Nile cruise from Cairo were two tourist favorites. Taking either would deplete their cash, and there was a chance they would be asked for ID. That left a bus or car. Given that choice, Mako negotiated a fee with Assam. It was for more than he wanted to pay, but there was nothing else to do. They just had to survive until John arrived. The old man never traveled without resources.
The endless miles of sand fell into darkness as the sun set. The glow of Cairo was well behind them and stars illuminated the sky ahead. Mako felt Gretchen’s head on his shoulder. He drew her close and within minutes they were both asleep.
The burner phone vibrating in his pocket woke Mako. He slid his arm out from around Gretchen. Squinting at the display, he saw it was 4:45. He glanced at the number, but it meant nothing to him. Mako pressed the green button to accept the call and brought the phone to his ear.
“I’m going to open it today.”
Mako was still half asleep, but he recognized Rashi’s accent. “Rashi?”
“Yes. Ahmed has gone too far. He has what he calls a security detail at my door. Not that I had any choice, but that seemed okay last night. I woke up early and wanted to go for a walk before it got hot. They forced
me back into my room. I am a prisoner.”
Mako was fully alert now. “You’ve got your phone. Is there someone higher up that can help?”
“The minister is a powerful man.”
“What’s our ETA?” Mako asked Assam.
“Hour and a half, boss.”
“We’ll be there by six. What can we do?”
Gretchen was awake, and Mako shifted the phone so they could both hear.
“The only thing I can think of is to just get this over with. I know he’s trying to prevent the opening until he can load it with forgeries, but it would be better for Egypt if it was just an empty cavern. There are many unexplained things left over from the ancient world. A portal to an empty cavern could be explained as one.”
Mako wasn’t sure what outcome he wanted. He had been thrust into a situation where he had no direct interest.
“Can you do it?” Gretchen asked Rashi.
“They expect me to inspect the site and work performed to this point this morning. I can simply say that I am satisfied and see what happens. Unless Ahmed and his people are prepared for that, it will work. The equipment is already in place to drill the stone.”
Mako remembered Rashi describing the procedure for opening the portal. Once the authenticity was confirmed, several holes would be bored through the stone. Fiber optic cameras would be inserted and the immediate interior revealed.
“Stay put. We’ll call as soon as we hit town.”
Mako saved her number into his empty contact list. He checked his watch and did the math. It was well before midnight in Key Largo. Mako was still unsure where he stood with Alicia and had used the nighttime hours to avoid her. Time was up.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
“Your first mistake was to call from a burner phone and not ditch it immediately. Really, Mako, about your tradecraft. It’s a good thing your father’s asleep.”
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