The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection

by Carolyn McCray

  Dust filtered down from the ceiling as dirt particles danced along the top of the sarcophagus.

  Fuck.

  “Cave-in!” Lopez shouted.

  * * *

  No, no, no, Davidson prayed.

  But the sight in his scope confirmed the worst. The Egyptians’ attempt to clear the rubble underground had triggered a cave-in of the tunnel system that led away from the pyramid.

  Sink holes—actually, sink troughs—were poking the desert floor. Radiating out from the Great Pyramid like a destructive spiderweb. Men ran from the monument, fleeing the catastrophe. The tanks they had brought in aimed to escape, but their treads did nothing but exacerbate the damage. One fell gun first into the sand.

  Another tipped backward as the ground gave out from under them. Police cars swerved and dodged, trying to keep themselves on firm ground. The scattered chairs of the pyramid light show disappeared out of sight.

  And the far-reaching tendrils were advancing rapidly. The crack of the earth filling the air.

  At first, they confined themselves to the pyramid complex, but one leg aimed straight for the Sphinx. Straight for Rebecca and the others.

  “Is this as bad on the ground as it looks on TV?” Bunny asked in his ear.

  He gave a single click.

  Actually, Davidson was certain that it was far worse than it looked. However, he didn’t have a code for that.

  “If it gets much further…”

  Yeah, Davidson got it, but he wasn’t sure what he could do about it.

  It sounded like Bunny was holding back tears. “I don’t know how we are going to get the van to them.”

  There was that problem. However, Davidson feared that Bunny wasn’t really allowing herself to go the worst-case scenario. That Sphinx had to be heavy. Even if the encroaching cracks didn’t collapse the tunnel where Brandt was hiding…Any damage to the bedrock around the Sphinx would bring it down, right on their heads.

  * * *

  Rebecca finally got Vakasa away from the sarcophagus as larger boulders began falling. She’d been in a cave-in before. Make that several. They never went well. And this time they didn’t have hyper-buoyant water to save them.

  “Go back out?” Talli suggested.

  Brandt shook his head sharply. “At least here we’ve got some maneuverability.”

  To accentuate his words, the tunnel past the antechamber shook once, then collapsed.

  “Can we get inside these?” Levont suggested.

  “So we can get double-buried inside?” Brandt retorted. He was pissed. Not at his point man, but at the situation. Rebecca couldn’t find fault with that. She covered Vakasa’s head with her hand, trying to protect the girl’s fragile skull. Not that a hand would help if one of those boulders fell here.

  “Look,” Lopez shouted over the increasing rumble. “That corner. There’s no cracking.”

  Everyone followed his finger. The northwest corner did seem intact.

  “Great.” Talli frowned. “We stand over there and pray?”

  That was looking like a viable option, and Brandt seemed to agree, as he urged them over there.

  “No, smart-ass,” Lopez retorted. “I say we get the lids and prop them up to act as a shelter and a bracing.”

  “Do it,” Brandt ordered before his team could ask any more questions.

  Rebecca huddled in the far corner with Vakasa as the men grabbed the nearest lid. They didn’t bother with the main sarcophagus. That thing would take a crane to lift. Lopez handed her the camera.

  “Film this, will ya?”

  Rebecca obliged but feared she would catch Lopez’s death on tape. Not the thing that the corporal had in mind for his son. She watched on the screen as the men broke the seal on the first coffin. The stone fell to the side with a loud thud.

  “We can’t carry it,” Brandt admitted. “So let’s walk it over!” He had to shout the last part as rubble tumbled from the ceiling.

  Even before that slab of stone was firmly in place, tilting over Rebecca’s head, the men were on to the next one. Despite the fact the men were being pelted by debris, they brought the second lid over.

  “Get in!” Rebecca urged as the front half of the chamber collapsed, crushing the Scorpion King’s tomb. But the men refused. They hauled the third slab over. Talli got knocked in the shoulder by a huge piece of ceiling. He stumbled into their meager shelter.

  “Brandt!”

  The men were trying to secure the last slab, but it refused to cooperate.

  She grabbed Brandt by the sleeve and hauled him inside. Lopez and Levont followed. He wrapped his arms around her and Vakasa as the roof cracked and split. It sounded like the world was ending. As her joints shook, it felt like the world was ending.

  Lopez took the camera. “Looks like this may be the end of the road…” The corporal gulped as a huge section of ceiling shattered. “Know I loved you, buddy.”

  He turned off the camera and held it close to his chest as their world collapsed.

  CHAPTER 19

  ══════════════════

  Undisclosed Location

  3:14 p.m. (EST)

  Bunny watched the screen, refusing to believe what she saw. The entire tunnel system had shattered, which was almost to be expected. What wasn’t expected and what never should have happened was the Sphinx cracking in half.

  Clearly, the ground beneath the giant statue had become unstable. So right at the rib line of the beast, it split and sank a good twenty feet. One rear leg broke off, tumbling to the side. An ear flew off.

  The Sphinx’s serene face was marred by a network of cracks, making it seem like it was made of parchment rather than limestone.

  Then it stopped. The destruction stopped.

  Bunny held in a breath. Could they really get that lucky?

  No. They could not.

  With a resounding bang, the Sphinx’s head tilted to the left as if someone had taken an ax to its neck. The visage teetered there for a moment, then crashed to the ground, rolling between its legs.

  Whatever had been holding up the weight of the Sphinx gave out. The body split into a dozen other chunks and tumbled into the sink hole. Only one foreleg, broken and ragged, stuck up from the sand.

  As the dust settled, Bunny poked Stark in the arm. “Can we get another angle?”

  Stark shook his head. “No one was set up over there.”

  There was no movement. Nothing. The shattered Sphinx just sat there mocking them.

  Where the hell were Rebecca and the others?

  * * *

  Davidson wiped his scope—again. The dust plume was still settling out over Giza. Blue-and-white strobe lights illuminated the grainy cloud with an almost-supernatural glow.

  He didn’t care about any of that. Davidson blocked out the sirens, the screams, the wailing. He only cared about movement near the Sphinx.

  The army was already cordoning off the area, keeping everyone away.

  This wasn’t supposed to be the way this went. None of it was. He shouldn’t be out here. He should be in there, with them. Finding a way out.

  Gritting his teeth, Davidson shoved down the doubt and recrimination. They had both been close friends to him after the fire. After his old life had been burned away. Rebecca, though, had found him in that Moroccan hospital, scarred and suicidal, yet she had given him hope. Like a present, gift-wrapped. He wouldn’t throw it away, just because…well, just because everything seemed hopeless.

  Davidson swept the area again, searching for any sign of life. But there was none. Given the level of destruction, it could take days, if not weeks, to find any remains. If they even could. With a crushing collapse like this…

  Wait. Davidson panned back to the paw that jutted up out of the hole. Was that a hand? A dark hand? He punched up the magnification.

  It was! It was bloody and dirty as all get out, but it was a hand. Then Levont’s face came into view. It was a dusty mess, but Davidson could have kissed it
.

  Abandoning protocol—because who really was going to hear him over the sirens and yelling?—Davidson brought the sat phone to his ear. “Are you seeing this?”

  “Yes,” Bunny said through tears.

  “You’ve got to get that van over there.”

  There was a delay. Why was there a delay?

  “Bunny?”

  “We’re not sure…” She paused. He could hear her lick her lips “With the army over there, guarding the perimeter…”

  Davidson gritted his teeth and braced the rifle against his right shoulder. “Get them on the move.”

  Then Davidson did what he did best.

  Shoot.

  * * *

  Brandt held tight to the little girl, protecting her with his body. The mass of broken rock and debris was unstable at best. Levont had tested it with his weight, but everything was still shifting, trying to find its equilibrium.

  Rebecca was right in front of him, trying to scale the uneven, rocky precipice. Her foot slipped, nearly kicking him in the jaw.

  “One foot at a time,” he encouraged.

  Then the bang of a gun sounded. Then another.

  “Are they shooting at us?” Talli asked, a few feet above them.

  Did it really matter at this point? It was only a matter of minutes before the whole Sphinx completely collapsed.

  “Move it.”

  Rebecca scrambled past Talli, still keeping her head low. The handholds were too damn far apart. Brandt was going to have to trust that the girl could hold her own.

  “You’ve got to hang on, honey,” he cooed to her. Vakasa nodded her head, burrowing it against his shoulder, her little arms clutching around his neck, her legs wrapped around his chest.

  Now able to use both hands, Brandt scaled the pile, arriving at the top with Rebecca and Talli.

  “It looks like somebody’s shooting at the army perimeter,” Levont reported.

  Brandt nearly stumbled a step. Davidson had come through. He had been very busy, indeed.

  “Look!” Lopez exclaimed. “The van.”

  From the south, a blue van careened through the dark desert. It punched through the perimeter where Davidson was scattering the men. Good thing too, because that fucking deep rumbling started under his feet.

  “Get clear!”

  Everyone climbed over the huge paw. There was no jumping straight off it, though. Levont must have figured that out, as he leapt down onto the Sphinx’s head, slid down its nose, and hit the dirt feetfirst. Lopez went next and caught Rebecca at the base.

  Then it was just Talli, then him.

  “Smile for the camera,” Lopez said.

  Brandt was about to rip him a new one, but he realized that the corporal was actually talking to Vakasa, who had raised her head and waved to Lopez. Anything to keep the child calm.

  But what was going to keep him calm as the last of the Sphinx shook underfoot, the head of the statue rocking backward into the maw? It was no longer a slide, but a scramble, running up the nose now, trying desperately to stay one step ahead of gravity. Finally, he reached the tip of the nose and slid down the lips as the head tipped straight back and fell out from under him.

  They landed hard next to Rebecca. Brandt pushed forward, making sure there was plenty of solid ground beneath them.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Talli asked, pointing to the van, which did look like it was driving around in circles.

  Levont nodded to the fissures and cracks that scarred the desert. “I think they are avoiding fault lines.

  Fuck.

  Brandt realized there was no avoiding the fault lines. They were everywhere. And worse? There was a linear gouge in the ground that ran between them and the van. There was no way the van could make it over that earthen moat.

  “We’ve got to meet them halfway,” Brandt ordered.

  They were going to have to rely on Davidson supplying cover as they dashed across the desert. The point man was the first one over. He cleared the deep fissure easily. Lopez sailed across as well. Talli, however? Talli’s boot caught the edge of the other side. If it hadn’t been for Levont grabbing his shirt, the sniper would have fallen down the thirty-foot gash in the ground.

  As much as he would have liked to think himself a far better athlete than Talli, Brandt realized he could never make it over with the girl in tow. Rebecca, too had stopped on this side of the fissure.

  He hugged Vakasa quickly. “Honey, I am going to have to toss you over.”

  Brandt had no idea if the girl really understood him or not. She just clapped. However, that was her response to just about everything.

  “Levont!”

  “I’m ready!” the point man yelled back.

  “One,” Brandt said, swinging the girl’s body back to get some momentum. “Two.” Another swing. “Three.”

  Channeling every bit of high school javelin throwing, Brandt let Vakasa launch. The light girl was so light that he actually overthrew her. Levont had to jump up to catch her before she flew past.

  Rebecca looked to him. “I’ll never make it.”

  “I know.”

  * * *

  Tears threatened. Seriously, after surviving the Sphinx falling on her, she was going to die because she didn’t have thighs of steel?

  “And you can’t throw me. I weigh…” Well, even at death’s door, Rebecca wasn’t going to admit that. Maybe Brandt could throw Bunny, but not her.

  Still, he took her hand in his. “That’s why we are going to run.”

  “Run?” she asked, but he had already turned away, circling his arm over his head.

  “Get in!” he yelled to the others.

  The words were barely out of his mouth when he tugged her forward.

  “Where are we going?”

  “With any hope,” he answered, “to a part of this fissure that narrows.”

  Rebecca ran, having to really press to keep up with Brandt as the men loaded into the unmarked van. Her fiancé was such an optimist. However, the gap only got larger and larger. And it began to send off side cracks. The van easily caught up to them, but had to veer off to avoid a four-foot dip in the desert.

  She slowed, tugging his hand. “Just go, Brandt.”

  “No.”

  Rebecca pulled to a stop. “You’ve got to get over before it’s too far for even you.”

  There was no time to argue. The Egyptian army was regrouping. Not even Davidson could keep that many away. And the longer the van lingered trying to pick them up, the more likely the entire team, including Vakasa, would be captured.

  “Jump, damn it” Rebecca insisted.

  “Sarge!” Levont yelled as the van pulled to a stop as close as it could get to the edge. He waved a coil of rope. “We’ve got you.”

  As the point man tossed the end of the rope over, Rebecca turned to Brandt. “What does he mean?”

  Brandt caught the rope, wrapping it around his wrist over and over again. “I’m going to anchor this side, and you are going to climb the rope across.”

  “What? No. Huh?”

  As Davidson kept a halo of bullets around them, Brandt urged her to grab the rope with both hands. That disastrous time in Pushchino flashed.

  “I don’t do well with heights.”

  Brandt tugged on the rope, tightening it down even further. “It’s not a height. It’s a depth, so get moving.”

  Yep, that was her inspirational honey, all right.

  Taking a deep breath, Rebecca stepped off the edge, her weight suspended only by her grip on the rope. Kids did this kind of thing on the monkey bars, right? Usually without gunfire and an abyss beneath them, but still.

  Hand over hand, she made her way across the gap.

  Only, the gap was getting bigger. And bigger. The sides crumbling away. She couldn’t climb as fast as the edge disintegrated. The rope went slack, dropping Rebecca several feet, as Levont had to back away from the edge before he fell.

  “Legs up!” Lopez shouted to her.

 
; She rationally didn’t know what he was saying, but her body, keen on survival, did as he said. With her weight more evenly distributed, she climbed faster, hauling it across the rope.

  Talli grabbed her as she reached the edge, helping to pull her the rest of the way.

  High on success, she turned to find the gap so much larger than she’d remembered it. Way wider than even Brandt could jump.

  Her excitement turned to fear as Brandt frowned.

  * * *

  Yeah, he was never going to make that.

  Fuck it.

  “Get ready!” Brandt yelled as he backed away, then charged the edge. It was a great feeling flying through the air. Until he started falling. As predicted, the other wall came up fast.

  Brandt turned his shoulder into it, hitting the limestone rather hard. He clung to the rope, falling another ten feet, until Levont caught up on his end. Then it was just a matter of climbing up the side.

  Right.

  But he made it. Cresting the edge and getting hustled into the van were a blur.

  “Is everyone okay?” Brandt asked, trying to right himself.

  A murmuring of affirmatives came back at him.

  “Bloody hell,” a voice said as the sliding door slammed shut and someone hit the gas, rocking them all back. “Do you destroy everything you touch?”

  He looked up to find Vanderwalt smiling that crooked-ass British smile of his.

  “What the…?”

  They met in a bro hug.

  Vanderwalt chuckled. “Let Emily know she owes me.”

  * * *

  Bunny hugged Stark, who hugged Emily, who hugged Prenner, who didn’t exactly look thrilled about it, but also didn’t fit the expression of group affection.

  That was the single most awesome extraction in the history of extractions.

  “Davidson, get out of there,” Bunny exclaimed, so happy to give that directive.

  Prenner took the phone. “The rally point is the British consulate. You’ll get whisked to Turkey from there.”

  A single click answered them.

  Then reverie was short-lived, however, as a beep came from one of the computers.

  “What was that?” Bunny snapped. She didn’t like beeps. In her world, beeps were usually bad. And from Stark’s frown, she wasn’t wrong.

  “Someone is trying to hack their way in.”