“Dr. McRae, I understand we have a bit of a problem this morning.”
McRae just lay there, and said nothing. He was through. If they wanted to hurt him, fine. He wasn’t building them any more lasers.
“Very well, if that’s how it’s going to be,” Alpha said, sighing like this was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. He opened the manila envelope and began laying eight-by-ten glossy photos on the foot of the bed.
McRae didn’t look at them. They were probably just gruesome pictures of some person they had mutilated. It was the lowest level of coercion. Perhaps the real torture would start soon. But McRae was betting it wouldn’t. After all, if they damaged him, he wouldn’t be able to work for them. This was his trump card, and he was finally playing it.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of one of the photos being laid on his bed.
It wasn’t some sick, blood-and-guts picture of some anguished prisoner.
It was Alida. Gardening.
McRae sat up, his heart pounding like a jackhammer against his rib cage.
“Nice pictures, aren’t they?” Alpha said. “Really captures the care she puts into her work.”
Alpha took out another photo. It was Alida, clutching the newspaper as she walked up the steps to their house. “I like this one, too. Action photo. And if you look very carefully, you’ll see the date of the newspaper is yesterday. So it’s very recent.”
McRae’s mouth was dry. He couldn’t find any words.
“Let me talk this out for you, Mr. McRae, in case you’re missing the point of all this. We have a man set up at your house, watching your dear Alida closely. If you refuse to work for us, we won’t harm a hair on your scrawny little head. You’re too valuable to us. We’ll just hurt Alida instead. Are we clear?”
McRae nodded.
“I’m going to need to hear a word or two, Mr. McRae. Are we clear?”
“Yes,” McRae said, hoarsely.
“Very good,” Alpha said. “Now—and this time, I suggest you answer—what would you like for breakfast?”
CHAPTER 21
WEST OF LUXOR, Egypt
T
hey had extracted Bouchard the mummy the night before, packing him in a crate with all the care they could to ready him for transport along with some of the other artifacts the expedition had unearthed.
Storm had kept his eyes open throughout the evening, still convinced there was more to the archaeological site than just some old bones. He was undeterred by his failure to find anything of significance. It was like the hieroglyphs on the walls: for years, no one knew what they meant; not until the other Bouchard, good ol’ Pierre-François, tripped on that stone. Then it all became clear. Sometimes, in detective work as in life, you just had to be patient and wait for a break.
In the meantime, Storm immersed himself in the role of IAPL protector. He had pressed for leaving in the middle of the night and traveling through the desert under starlight. After all, if the bandits tended to attack in the morning, why wait?
But Professor Raynes nixed the idea. There were no roads where they were traveling, and the raw desert had too many furrows and trenches that would be hard to see at night. If they got stuck in one it could be disastrous.
Plus, the camels needed their sleep. Being familiar with the complications posed by an angry camel, Storm acquiesced. They planned a predawn departure and now, here it was: the first hint of light was glowing on the horizon when Raynes gave the order to move out.
Their caravan consisted of eight camels and three twenty-foot-long cargo trucks, one of which had been specially designated to carry Bouchard. The other two were more fully packed. Storm had not personally overseen the loading. That, he figured, was best left to the professionals.
But he did exert his influence on how the caravan would be organized. He placed the trucks, which were being driven by grad students, in the middle. He and the professor rode up front on their camels. The four hired guards were split between the two side flanks. Strike and Katie Comely brought up the rear.
As long as they were in the desert, they had to move slowly up and down the dunes. Their payload was too fragile and too valuable to risk jostling it. All it would take was one bump traversed a little too quickly to result in catastrophic damage to one of the pieces.
As a result, the cargo trucks were put on a strict speed limit of five miles an hour. Even the camels had to be reined back to match that torpid pace. It was fifteen miles to the nearest blacktopped road and the relative safety of Egypt’s highway system. Once they reached it, they would be able to stable the camels and increase their speed for the remainder of the journey.
But they would not be getting there with any particular alacrity. Fifteen miles at five miles an hour. It didn’t take a mathematical wizard to know that meant three hours—three hours during which time they would be fully exposed to anyone who wanted to take a shot at them or their precious cargo.
The International Art Protection League’s unintentional stand-ins were more than ready for any outlaws who might try. Storm had assembled his CheyTac sniper rifle and wore it strapped across his back. Strike was, likewise, ready with her M16.
Just with those two weapons—and their proficiency at using them—they could repel a substantial force.
“So, Mr. Talbot, how is it you came to work for the International Art Protection League?” Raynes asked as they got under way.
“Friend of a friend recommended me. They pretty much hired me on the spot,” Storm lied smoothly.
“There was no interview process?
“I guess I’ve got that useful look about me,” Storm said.
Antony punctuated Storm’s boast with a loud belch. The camel had been his usual cantankerous self that morning. But at least he hadn’t tried to mate with anyone.
“And how long have you been working there, Mr. Talbot?” the professor asked.
“About two years now. And, please, call me Terry.”
“Two years. Impressive,” Raynes said. “Have you ever bumped across a man named Ramon Russo there?”
Storm did not allow even the faintest wrinkle to appear on his face. With no access to the Internet, he had been unable to do any research on the International Art Protection League. But he had faked his way through many such conversations during his years undercover. The trick was to answer the question without answering it. Politicians called it a “pivot,” and had usually perfected it by the time they finished their first campaign. Spies were no less masterful at it.
“You know, every time I hear the name Ramon Russo I think of the guy who played the part of the jock in 2 Cool for School back in the nineties,” Storm said. “Did you ever watch that show?”
“I can’t say as I did.”
“Oh, it was so funny. Every time this one character saw a pretty girl he’d say, ‘Hubba-hubba.’ So when you say the name Ramon Russo it makes me think, ‘Hubba-hubba.’”
Storm let out a belly laugh and added, “Classic. Just classic. Hubba-hubba! Hey, you want to quote movie lines? It’s a great way to pass the time. I’ll say the line. You say the movie. Okay, here goes: ‘Over? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Nothing’s over until we say it is!’ Okay, what’s the movie? Come on, that’s an easy one.”
Storm caught Raynes looking at him with utter disdain and kept it going for the next hour, seldom letting the man cut in as he ran through the entire canon of Animal House, Caddyshack, Vacation, and other American film classics.
He was just getting into My Cousin Vinny when he saw a dust cloud rising in the distance. He cut off his version of Joe Pesci’s rant about the biological clock to say, “Looks like we’ve got company.”
STORM DIRECTED THE CARAVAN TO CLIMB to the top of a dune, where it would have the greatest visual and tactical advantage, then called for it to halt. He scramble
d down off Antony, climbed to the top of one of the cargo truck’s cabs, unslung the CheyTac, and began setting up its legs. Given the cowardice of Raynes’s security forces, these bandits—assuming it was the same ones—had never encountered the slightest resistance. They had just stolen whatever they wanted, laughing the whole way. Things were about to change.
This was not, in the truest sense, his fight. It was surely not why he had come into the desert in the first place. But the basic framework of this confrontation offended his sense of decency. It was the strong picking on the weak. And to a man like Derrick Storm, that was always a fight worth having.
“What are you doing?” Raynes asked.
“In my experience, bullies are pretty much the same, the world over,” Storm replied, continuing his preparations. “Whether it’s the playground back home in America or the Sahara Desert, you need to punch them in the mouth before they take you seriously.”
The bandits continued their approach. Storm almost thought of himself like a chemist running assays to identify an unknown element. This particular test involved making one of the bandit’s heads explode like a target practice watermelon. Then he’d really see what these assailants were made of.
He was a good enough shot that, even with the raiding party closing in at fifty miles an hour, he was reasonably sure he could drop one of them at five hundred yards. He could then retarget and take out another one by the time they were within three hundred yards.
Then see how brave they were.
With his rifle set, Storm began a deep breathing exercise that would slow his heart rate. It was one of the first things an elite sniper learned: you had to pull the trigger in between beats. The slower your heart, the more of a window you had to squeeze off a shot.
Storm quickly got himself down to where he was going at least a second between beats. He decided his first target would be in the lead car, the one that was at the point of the rough V shape in which the bandits were approaching.
Storm drew a bead on the man’s head. It was a harder shot than going for center mass, yes. But it would also have a more dramatic effect—head shots being bloodier, more spectacular, and less unambiguous. A guy slumping over from being hit in the chest could have just fallen down. It scared no one. The same guy losing a chunk of brain matter before he dropped tended to take his comrades’ swagger away in a hurry.
There was no wind, which helped. Storm did some quick, rough math, judging how far the bullet would drop over the course of those five hundred yards. He set the crosshairs of his scope just above the man’s head, knowing gravity would bring the bullet down to hit him square between the eyes. He put his finger on the trigger, felt his heart. It was a rhythm thing. Storm always liked to pull the trigger after the third beat. Thump, pause, thump, pause, thump…
“Wait! Don’t shoot!” Raynes shouted.
“Why not?” Storm asked, without moving himself.
“Because I had a suspicion this would happen,” he said. “I had the workers replace all of the valuable finds with garbage.”
“Including Bouchard?”
“Especially Bouchard. That’s actually a box of sand in that truck. There’s nothing of value worth protecting. Let’s just give it to them. We’ll get Bouchard out another way.”
Storm lifted his head from his gun. The bandits were getting closer. Four hundred yards now. Whatever advantage Storm had being able to pick them off at a distance wasn’t going to last. According to Katie, the bandits had AK-47s. It was a weapon that grew vastly more effective at shorter range.
“I don’t care what’s in those trucks,” Storm said. “We have to send them a message.”
Storm moved his eye back to his scope.
“No! With all due respect, Terry, we are an archaeological expedition here to venerate this country’s great history, not a bunch of outlaws ourselves. We are here as guests of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Part of the agreement we sign with the Supreme Council of Antiquities is that we will be law-abiding and peaceful. We’re not even supposed to have firearms. Please! There’s no point in shedding blood to protect a pile of sand. Let me just talk to them.”
The professor urged his camel toward the oncoming bandits. He raised his hands high in the air as the camel made a slow walk out.
“I don’t like this,” Storm said to Strike, who had come up from the rear on Cleopatra, with Katie trailing not far behind.
“This isn’t your party, Storm,” she said in a hush. “And, remember, we’re not really here to protect anyone’s art. Would you at least try to keep a low profile and not go shooting up the citizenry? If Doctor Dolittle thinks he can talk to the animals, let him try.”
Raynes and the raiders came to a stop about fifty yards away. There were four enemy pickup trucks with seven armed assailants standing in the backs of the flatbeds. The professor kept his hands in the air and began chattering in Arabic with the man who appeared to be the head bandit. The conversation was, to say the least, tense in tone and body language.
But then Storm began dialing in on what was actually being said.
“Start shouting at me, point the gun at me, and sound really angry,” the professor said in smooth, easy Arabic, never realizing that the boob who was just quoting Ferris Bueller was, in fact, quite fluent in the language.
The lead bandit, a tall man with a prominent nose, complied with the professor’s instructions, lifting the muzzle of his gun and shouting something about how the professor had better stop playing games, saying it loud enough that everyone could hear it.
“Very good,” the professor said calmly. “Now take a swing at me with the butt of your rifle. But for God’s sake, Ahmed, would you miss this time? It hurt like hell last time.”
The lead bandit—whose name was, apparently, Ahmed—unleashed another angry burst of words, punctuating it by swinging his rifle like an axe, coming within two inches of his head.
Strike, who also spoke Arabic, turned to Storm and asked, “Are you getting this?”
Storm nodded. He wanted to see how it would unfold. He trained his ears back toward the distant conversation.
“Okay, thank you,” the professor said, his hands still raised. “Now, I’m going to give it to you for the same price as last time, but next time the price is going up, understand?”
“We’ll see about that,” Ahmed replied. “Let’s just worry about this time.”
“Very well. But we’ll have to talk about next time,” the professor said. “In the meantime, what you’ve come for is in the second truck. You’re going to have to make a show of taking it forcefully, of course. You might want to be particularly careful of the big guy on top of the cab of the truck there. Keep a gun trained on him in case he tries anything. Shoot him if you want to. But otherwise you’ll find everything wrapped real nicely for you.”
Ahmed said something Storm couldn’t quite make out—his accent was thicker than the professor’s. But, at this point, Storm didn’t need to hear more.
“Katie, I’ve got bad news for you,” Storm said. “What you’re seeing isn’t a stickup. It’s more like a negotiation. Professor Raynes has been selling you out.”
“What?” Katie said.
“He and the bandits are in cahoots. I’m sorry.”
Katie was, at first, too stunned to form a full sentence. Instead, she sputtered, “What do you…He’s…But that’s not…”
“Katie, who owns the stuff you guys dig up?” Strike asked.
“Well, ultimately, the Egyptian people,” Katie answered. “That’s part of the agreement we sign with the Supreme Council of Antiquities.”
“That’s why he’s selling you out,” Strike said. “He doesn’t see a dime if these pieces end up in a museum somewhere, but I bet these bandits are giving him a nice percentage of what they get for this stuff on the black market.”
“So what are we supposed to
do?” Katie asked.
Storm didn’t answer. He had already resumed his position in front of the CheyTac, where he began counting heartbeats.
HE DID NOT AIM FOR HEADS.
He aimed for shoulders. Right shoulders, in particular. Storm knew the left hand was seen as unsanitary in Islamic culture. He was therefore betting all seven of the armed men in front of him shot with their right.
Unless they got shot first. A wound to the right shoulder would not be fatal for any of these men; and, truly, they did not deserve to die for the crime of being poor, desperate desert bandits. But it would certainly keep them from shooting back.
Storm trained his sights on Ahmed, the lead bandit, and squeezed the trigger. Ahmed crumpled, clutching his right shoulder as he went down. Storm quickly targeted the goon next to him. Thump, pause, thump, pause, thump, BANG. The goon joined his boss in agony.
By this point, the other bandits were looking wildly around, trying to ascertain where the gunfire was coming from. For as hostile as they pretended to be, they had not anticipated any resistance from this ragtag group of scientists. Especially when they probably all knew this was just a business deal in disguise.
Storm used this time of confusion to drop a third. Three of the men had, by this point, taken cover in their pickup trucks. One was still somewhat exposed. Storm buried a bullet in his bicep. Technically, it was a miss. But it would do the job.
The professor had put his hands down and now had his hands on the reins of his camel, which was braying loudly and running in a pattern that had no discernible sense to it.
The bandits were, likewise, in full panic. Their shouts were filled with confusion. Storm could tell, in that instinctive way he had, that the chief thought on all of their minds was, How the hell do we get out of here?
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