The Seven Seals of Egypt
(Matt Drake #17)
By
David Leadbeater
Copyright 2017 by David Leadbeater
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher/author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
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Thriller, adventure, action, mystery, suspense, archaeological, military, historical
Other Books by David Leadbeater:
The Matt Drake Series
The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)
The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake #2)
The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3)
The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake #4)
Brothers in Arms (Matt Drake #5)
The Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake #6)
Blood Vengeance (Matt Drake #7)
Last Man Standing (Matt Drake #8)
The Plagues of Pandora (Matt Drake #9)
The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake #10)
The Ghost Ships of Arizona (Matt Drake #11)
The Last Bazaar (Matt Drake #12)
The Edge of Armageddon (Matt Drake #13)
The Treasures of Saint Germain (Matt Drake #14)
Inca Kings (Matt Drake #15)
The Four Corners of the Earth (Matt Drake #16)
The Alicia Myles Series
Aztec Gold (Alicia Myles #1)
Crusader’s Gold (Alicia Myles #2)
Caribbean Gold (Alicia Myles #3)
The Torsten Dahl Thriller Series
Stand Your Ground (Dahl Thriller #1)
The Relic Hunters Series
The Relic Hunters (Relic Hunters #1)
The Disavowed Series:
The Razor’s Edge (Disavowed #1)
In Harm’s Way (Disavowed #2)
Threat Level: Red (Disavowed #3)
The Chosen Few Series
Chosen (The Chosen Trilogy #1)
Guardians (The Chosen Tribology #2)
Short Stories
Walking with Ghosts (A short story)
A Whispering of Ghosts (A short story)
Connect with the author on Twitter: @dleadbeater2011
Visit the author’s website: www.davidleadbeater.com
All helpful, genuine comments are welcome. I would love to hear from you.
[email protected]
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
Other Books by David Leadbeater:
CHAPTER ONE
A dense fog swirled and thickened beyond the edge of town, seeping inside the blurred boundaries with questing fingers as cold as ice. The midnight darkness, already close to impenetrable, congealed until it resembled a living, breathing, shambling thing. All noise was muted, and the views across the valleys toward what they now knew was Dracula’s castle were reduced to a creeping white mist pressed up against the window panes as if seeking a way inside.
A crackling fire warmed the inside of the large room, embers spitting in the hearth like angry demons, a chorus line of bright orange flames dancing along the walls and on the ceiling. The crackling pop and bang of timbers filled the room like gunshots, putting the gathering on edge.
“We can’t stay here,” Torsten Dahl said.
“We ain’t going anywhere.” Hayden nodded at the nearest window.
“Yeah, get a grip, Torsty,” Alicia Myles croaked in a mock-frightened voice. “It’s impossible to say what’s lurking about in that mist.”
The Swede shook his head slowly. “You’ve been reading too much Stephen King.”
Alicia blinked. “Reading who? Do I look like I spend my time in bed reading?”
“You’re the one afraid of ghosts.”
“Dude.” Alicia lowered her voice and stared around theatrically. “You know we’re in Transylvania, right?”
The Swede ignored her. “A few days is fine. But ten Europeans staying at the same hotel for almost a week. Rarely leaving. Eating indoors. Staying together. Looking shifty—”
“One thing I do not look,” Kenzie said, close to Dahl’s right elbow, “is shifty.”
“Maybe not. But I do. I know it’s surprising—but Alicia does have a point. We don’t look like . . . civilians.”
Alicia only nodded as if sharing wisdom. Kenzie took a moment to study the other faces in the room.
“And do you think we could ever be civilians?”
Matt Drake grunted and drank coffee. “I’ve been struggling with that one for years, love.”
“You tried once, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Didn’t work out so well.”
“Which leaves us—” Hayden gestured at the four walls “—here.”
It was the largest room in the guesthouse, where Drake and Alicia were staying. The carpet and the painted walls were tired-looking, the furniture shabby. The bed was small and uncomfortable. Black and white photographs on the wall portrayed several castles and were smeared and dusty. The baseboards and corners of the room were chipped and pitted, untouched for years.
“Where to next then?” Kinimaka asked.
It was a good question. The team had been mulling it over for days on end, exhausted all lines of conversation, and then started again. Information coming out of DC was scarce and unreliable. Hayden knew people that would fight for her; that would keep her in the loop, but the last thing she wanted was to compromise them.
“We know some high-level players in Washington burned us,” Hayden said. “We can only speculate as to Kimberley Crowe’s involvement. She’s relativel
y new to the job and could have been railroaded. Or . . . she could be the instigator. We need to get closer, go higher. Somehow, we have to get back to DC.”
Dahl shook his head. “We’ve been over all this,” he said softly. “Those I care about are in DC. The girls . . . and Johanna.” He covered the pause by talking fast. “We don’t know the breadth of what we’re up against and we can’t risk my family being used against us.”
“I can’t believe they would sink that low,” Kinimaka said.
The Swede didn’t look at him. “They’re politicians,” he said. “Yes, I know some are good. Some are trying to do the right thing. But as for the rest . . .”
He didn’t finish. It had been said before.
“Keeping a low profile is best for now,” Drake agreed.
“And the Sword of Mars?” Hayden pressed. “The longer that weapon of the gods stays in the wrong hands the worse I feel. It could be part of a longer-term venture.”
“Like what?” Mai asked. “It’s only just surfaced.”
“No telling how long people have been looking for it.”
“And who says Cambridge of the British SAS is the wrong hands?” Drake wondered.
“Well, don’t forget it could also be with the Chinese Special Forces,” Hayden reminded them. “That’s a vast and deadly gulf between choices.”
Drake acknowledged her words with a nod. “True.”
Lauren, quiet until now, spoke up. “I should go back to DC. I wasn’t with you in Peru when all the . . . shit happened. I wasn’t there when Joshua died. I’m free.”
“They’ll interrogate you,” Smyth said a little dismissively.
“What can they say?” Lauren protested. “I was on the phone to Crowe herself, gathering Intel and acting as the go-between. And it can be vouched for. Like I said, I’m free.”
“Almost as if we set it up,” Hayden said. “Or someone did.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Lauren insisted. “But of all the people here I am the one that can go back to DC with ease, with impunity. Yeah, they’ll question me and I’ll tell them all I know. But the longer I hang around with you guys the longer it will take for them to believe me, and leave me alone to do my thing.”
The entire team stared at her, thinking it through. It was true, almost as if had been set up right back at the beginning of the Inca operation. Lauren Fox was in the clear.
“They’ll quiz you about the four corners mission, and why you didn’t leave sooner,” Smyth still protested.
“Yeah, and I’ll say I kept my distance. Which I did, for the most part. This was my first real opportunity to leave. I’ll tell them I slipped away in Transylvania and then recount everywhere else you’ve been. I’ll tell them everything, quickly. Hope they check it out. Then . . .” She shrugged.
“They’re trained for this kind of thing. They’ll see through you,” Kinimaka noted.
“You forget who I am.” Lauren smiled. “And why I was initially recruited. My job is lying. My whole world was built around a lie. Jonathan initially recruited me for one thing—lying.”
Again, the team sat back, more than a little impressed. Had Jonathan Gates envisioned a scenario like this, way back then? It was impossible, of course, but all bases had to be covered for all contingencies, and Lauren was the perfect actress and deceiver.
“Can’t say I saw this coming,” Drake said. “Nobody could. But Lauren does have a good point.”
“They could keep her locked up for months,” Smyth said. “Black-site her. Torture her. They could kill her and drop her down a well and we’d never know.”
“All I need,” Lauren said, “is one chance. One chance to get close to President Coburn. If I get that done—” she spread her arms “—all this goes away.”
“Smyth does have a point,” Hayden said. “I know how this shit works. They may keep her hidden away for a long time. Unofficial. Off the books. They may want all trace of SPEAR gone forever.”
“Then I’ll make if official,” Lauren said. “I don’t need my goddamn hand holding here. I’ll walk right into the New York Times and give myself up.”
Drake and the others regarded her with admiration. “It could work . . .” the Yorkshireman said.
“It will work,” Lauren said. “I can do this for all of us.” She coughed at the end of her last sentence, waving the help from Smyth away. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve been coughing for days.”
“Yeah, dickhead, it’s called a cold.”
“She’s right,” Alicia said. “I have one too. You never tried to hug the tits off me, Lancelot.”
“And me,” Drake put in.
“This is Transylvania,” Dahl said seriously, with an accent. “There are far worse things out there than colds.”
The team looked at him, surprised, and then all laughed together. It lightened the situation considerably and put a temporary end to Lauren’s suggestions. As on every previous day, they would revisit all the diverse solutions later. It had become an unspoken agreement.
The team would stick together.
They watched without word as a whorl of mist seeped under the ill-fitting door and swirled around. The night pressed hard against the windows, the walls and the foundations of the house, as if representing the new enemy that hunted them.
Another enemy. So many, they had lost count.
“Y’know something,” Hayden said. “I never mentioned this before. But winning, succeeding in whatever you do . . . simply paints you as a target. In many ways.”
“Not just a target,” Dahl said. “We could be on anyone’s agenda, and used in a thousand ways. Even us, a team that supposedly does not exist.”
Gravity was returning to the room, thick and fast. Alicia sensed it and all the morose gloom it brought; she rose quickly to her feet, and started to undress.
Pausing with her T-shirt raised above her head she looked around and said, “So, you guys gonna fuck off, or what? Drake promised to do the Time Warp on me tonight.” She threw the shirt in the corner. “Now, I don’t really know what that means, but I’m dying to find out.”
She started on her jeans, unbuckling the belt.
The room emptied fast.
CHAPTER TWO
It was no coincidence that the shrewd, streetwise New Yorker, Lauren Fox, mentioned returning to DC that night. She’d thought it all through and planned it for days. She’d walked the roads, learned the routes, found out the time the first bus stopped by. In addition, she had scoped out a car that she knew how to hotwire. Leaving a double trail was better if they decided to follow.
Smyth would want to, maybe Mano too. Maybe even Dahl. But the others had seen right through to the core of her plan, considered her role and resolution, and saw that it might succeed. She was willing to accept whatever consequences came her way.
Wrapping up warm, cursing the cold she’d picked up, she left her room just before dawn when the night was still dark. The mist helped conceal her but also jabbed at her lungs. She managed to stifle another cough before moving on. Soon, she was clear of her room, walking a familiar path toward the center of town. Around her, though she could not see, homes were built atop the undulating slopes, all following the angles of the mountains and valleys. Some flickering lamps shone out against the darkness, sparse and bare, promising a safe haven, but Lauren pressed on through the wet murk, head down, and stuck to her pre-planned route.
Vague sounds caught her attention, sharp over her softly padding footsteps. A dog barking, a large bird taking flight. A car burbled over up ahead to the right, revealing that she wasn’t the only one abroad in the chilling gloom, and offering an odd, small amount of comfort.
The long walk. The last walk. Would she ever see them all again? A team of strangers that had gradually become family. A bunch of misfits that had accepted her, befriended her and valued her opinion. She wasn’t like them at all, wasn’t built to fight and hunt and kill enemies. She hadn’t even had much chance to showcase her
skills, but when she did . . . they all respected her.
They would respect her again now.
*
Drake awoke to see Alicia staring out of the bedroom’s single window, the glass foggy, a weak, stray beam of sunlight trying to find its way inside.
“Dawn?” he asked.
“A little after.”
“Come back to bed. We have nothing to rush out for.”
“Yeah, ain’t that true.”
Drake propped himself up on an elbow. Alicia was fully dressed as though prepared to head straight out on a mission. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s all wrong. We should be out there. Fighting. Hunting. Putting the fear of the Devil into every would-be killer that crosses our path.”
“Nobody asked for this.”
“That’s not the point.”
He shifted a little. “Don’t you . . . ache?”
She turned her head toward him, the blond of her hair catching the fragile light. “For what?”
“I don’t mean mentally, Alicia, I mean physically. All the injuries, the wounds, the bruises; they add up.”
“Of course I ache. I just get on with it.”
“So take some time to heal.”
Alicia shook her head. “Shit, Drakey, do you even know me?”
Of course he did. He knew her innermost thoughts and feelings, her fears and ambitions. He knew that right now she wanted nothing more than to keep moving, with friends; simply set her feet on a forward course. It was the inaction that hurt her.
“If it helps we’re gonna have to leave here soon. We don’t need more attention.”
“How are the funds?”
“Not bad, love. Not bad. Yorgi appropriated a small fortune from that safe near where they were keeping the Sword of Mars.”
She managed a smile. “Ah, yes, well at least that promises another future adventure.”
Drake climbed out of bed naked and padded over to her. “Plenty more to come.”
The Seven Seals of Egypt (Matt Drake Book 17) Page 1