Leather’s face revealed no emotion.
“Agreed.”
“Recommendations?”
“Firm policy on leaving the camp, I call for some reinforcements—they can be here in two days—we watch for hostiles, monitor the help, and you try to convince them it’s time to leave, at least for a little while.”
Reading wasn’t sure about calling in reinforcements. It would turn the dig into an armed camp, was bound to attract more attention, and he wasn’t sure they could win any gunfight should one happen. But this was Islamic Egypt, where what semblance of law and order it had under the military dictatorship, was now gone, replaced by near anarchy, with little to no protection for infidels like the millions of resident Christians, and isolated foreigners.
He looked at the excited university students, students that reminded him of his son, a son he would trust would have professors concerned enough to have him sent home should they be in this situation.
If only we knew for sure what was going on.
There was a shout from the pit and he turned to see Acton’s head poke out of the hole, a huge smile etched across his sand covered face. He was helped to the ground by several students, one of whom handed him a canteen. He took a drink, swished out his mouth, then spit the water on the ground. Taking another swig which he swallowed, he poured much of the remaining water over his face and head, ridding himself of most of the caked-on sand and sweat.
“What did you find, Professor?”
Acton grinned, looking at the gathered students, saying nothing, causing the suspense to rise amongst the anxious youngsters. Even Reading found his pulse picking up as he too couldn’t wait to hear the news.
“Perhaps the greatest find in archeological history.”
“Bigger than Tut?”
Acton’s grin stretched even further.
“After the world reads about this, they’ll be saying, ‘Tut who?’”
Reading’s shoulders dropped.
We’ll never get them out of here now.
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, wher
e 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.
“Masks,” ordered Dawson as he and Kane took up positions on either side of the door holding the sarin gas, the rest covering the compound. Kane nodded to Dawson who then grabbed the handle and turned, shoving the door open. They were greeted with a burst of gunfire, and an “Allahu Akbar!”
Dawson tossed in a flash-bang, not willing to risk a shrapnel grenade with the gas. There was a muffled explosion and a bright flash, followed by screams from inside. Dawson pushed through the door, knife in hand, and silenced the screams. Spock rushed past him with Atlas, who yanked the top off the crate sitting in the middle of the room as Spock planted the ex
plosives.
Atlas gave a thumbs up. “It’s all here.”
Spock stood up, tossing the remote detonator to Dawson. “All set.”
“Evac.”
Spock and Atlas rushed from the building, followed by Kane and Dawson. What greeted them outside however was chaos. Women and children were pouring out of the main building, screaming in anger and anguish. Their wails were loud, loud enough Dawson knew to attract the attention of other fighters in the area, and though they might not be the same fundamentalist faction as they had just eliminated, they were definitely not on the side of a group of infidels.
Kane stepped forward, his hands raised, motioning for them to back up, yelling in Arabic, “Move back, or you will get hurt!” His voice was muffled, Dawson barely able to understand him, the gas mask still snugly attached to his face.
“Let’s get out of here!” ordered Dawson. “Grab the kids, the women will follow. Once we’re behind the main building, I’ll blow the charges.”
He rushed forward and grabbed two girls who couldn’t be more than five, one under each arm, and rushed toward the rear of the building. Their wails and kicks went unnoticed, the swatting by two female relatives making more of an impression.
But they followed him.
He heard more screams as other children were grabbed. He rounded the rear of the building, rushing toward the far end, a quick glance over his shoulder showing the rest of his team, including Kane, with kids under arms or over shoulders, mothers and grandmothers chasing the men.
“All clear,” came Red’s voice over the comm. Dawson placed his precious load on the ground, then flipped the cover protecting the switch from accidental activation, and flicked it. A terrific explosion rocked the compound, the high explosives hopefully doing their job.
“Spock, Atlas, report!”
Spock and Atlas rushed around the corner and out of sight, and a moment later Spock’s voice crackled over the comm.
“Crate confirmed destroyed, contents vaporized. And we’ve got a lot of company coming our way, over.”
The Arab Fall (A James Acton Thriller, Book #6) (James Acton Thrillers) Page 9