by Gabriel Hunt
“We have found,” Amun said, “that it is best to operate outside of Egypt. There are certain groups within our country—the government, for one—that support what we do in theory but cannot publicly condone some of the more . . . decisive acts the Alliance has carried out.”
“You mean like torture, kidnapping, and theft?”
“Yes,” Amun said. “Those would be examples. Of course what we do is simply retribution for crimes committed against Egypt, and many in the government have told us privately that they wholeheartedly support our actions. But to say so publicly would be impossible.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Gabriel said.
“Your media would leap upon it instantly,” Amun said, “the international media would follow, and any politician who expressed solidarity with us would be hounded from office by the chorus of outraged voices. The media, after all, are in the control of the Jews, who would like nothing more than to see—”
“Yes, yes, the Jews,” Gabriel said. “Eat your soup.”
Amun fell silent, but the look in his eyes was vicious. Finally he spoke. “We need not like one another, Mister Hunt. But we do have to work together. I suggest you show me a bit more respect.”
“Actually, Amun, I think you have it backward. I think you need me. And I think you know you need me. You’ve been looking for your Second Stone for thirty years and you haven’t found it yet. You think I can get it for you. Fine—maybe I can. But if you want me to cooperate, you’re going to have to show me and my sister a bit more respect.”
“We have shown your sister enormous respect,” Amun said. “We have not killed her.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Gabriel said. “But we’re going to need more than that.”
“For instance?”
“You can let me see her. I’d also like my gun back.”
“You will see your sister in an hour. Your gun is another story. You will get it back when I am certain you will not use it to harm me or anyone else here.” Amun gestured to the men who had let them in, who were now standing on either side of Gabriel. They took hold of his arms. “Now. I respectfully ask that you join me in my study so that you might learn about the work you have ahead of you.”
The two men forcefully propelled Gabriel forward, practically lifting him by the elbows. Together, they climbed the stairs to the second floor. The men shoved him into a dark room lined with bookshelves and took up positions on either side of the doorway. Amun seated himself on the edge of a desk made of some highly polished dark wood, almost black. A map on the wall behind him showed the geography of Corsica in enormous detail. There were pushpins stuck into it in various locations.
Amun spoke curtly in Arabic to one of the men by the door, then turned to Gabriel. “Would you like something to eat or drink? You have a lot of reading ahead of you.”
“I could use a bourbon and ice.”
Amun shot him a look. “No alcohol in a Muslim house, Mister Hunt.”
“Water, then,” Gabriel said. “Just not from that guy out in the square, please.”
Amun communicated the request to the guard and the man ran off.
“Why don’t we start with this map, Mister Hunt.”
Gabriel came closer and studied it. Most of the pins were clustered in the lower half of the island, close to the capital city of Ajaccio and a little farther south, near the towns of Filitosa, Propriano, and Sartene.
“I’ve been there,” Gabriel said. “That region’s where all the prehistoric sites were discovered.”
“Correct. Fascinating places, old as Stonehenge. Full of caves and houses made of rocks and strange menhirs arranged in circles.”
“You think the Second Stone is hidden somewhere around there?”
“We know it is. In one of these prehistoric forests close to Ajaccio.” Amun pointed to a bulging leather folder on the desk. “Inside here you will find copies of all the documents I mentioned earlier. Some in Italian, some in French; one or two in very bad English. I can translate the ones—”
“Not necessary,” Gabriel said. “I should be fine.”
“There is also a good deal of material about Napoleon in the folder.” Amun opened it and thumbed through a stack of stapled documents, some yellow with age, some gray and faded almost to illegibility. The stack was as thick as the manuscript of a book, and not a skinny paperback, either. Gabriel estimated there were five or six hundred pages.
The guard returned carrying a cup of coffee, a bottle of water and a glass. Amun took the coffee; Gabriel took the rest.
“I’m going to leave you alone for a while, Mister Hunt,” Amun said. He looked over at an ornate, golden clock on one of the shelves. “Maybe a bit more than an hour. Please look over all the materials, and feel free to take down any of the books you’re curious about. Do not try to escape. Odji and Ubaid will stay here with you, and Kemnebi is right outside the door. He’ll come and fetch you when your sister is ready to receive you.”
“What do you mean, ready? Why wouldn’t she be ready now?”
“She’s not awake yet,” Amun said. “It takes some time for the drug to exit her system.”
Amun left the room and shut the door. Gabriel heard the click of the lock. It hardly mattered; maybe Sammi could have found a way out of this place, but he didn’t see one. There were no windows in the room, only shelves of books, and the two guards inside could see his every move. Plus there was the giant of a man outside the door, and the three other men in the building, all of them hostile. And no way in or out of the building other than a narrow tunnel . . .
He sighed and settled into the chair behind the desk. The document on the top of the stack showed a sketch of the Second Stone, supposedly drawn by the private secretary who’d dug it up at Louis’s direction; the drawing showed the stone still half buried in the desert sand, a skeletal arm and skull beside it, a retinue of soldiers on horses milling about in the background in native garb. Gabriel turned the page. The next document was a map of Corsica, similar to the one on the wall, with markings where the pushpins were. A single word of Arabic had been written on the map next to a cluster of markings and underlined heavily. Gabriel copied it onto a scrap of paper and stuck it in his pocket.
Then on to the first long text document, an account from the nineteenth century describing how the Second Stone had been transported from France to Corsica. The language of the document was dense and old-fashioned, and Gabriel felt a headache coming on before he’d made it through the first page. But he had an hour to kill—maybe more—and he might as well use it productively. He rested his chin on his hand and kept reading.
Ninety minutes later, the lock clicked again, the door swung open, and Kemnebi stepped inside. He said just one word—the first, Gabriel realized, he’d ever heard the big man speak.
“Come.”
Gabriel stood, allowed himself to be steered out into the hallway and up another flight of stairs. They approached a closed door with a guard stationed in front of it, a man with a sullen look, several gold teeth glinting dully in his mouth, and four raw scratches raking diagonally across his left cheek. The guard stepped aside and Kemnebi knocked.
A tired-sounding voice answered from inside: “Yes? What do you want?”
It was Lucy’s voice. Gabriel felt his heart race. He hadn’t seen her since the night she’d shown up in the townhouse on Sutton Place, begging him to help get a friend of hers out of jail. He’d done what Lucy had asked, but it hadn’t quite turned out the way either of them had intended, and he hadn’t heard from her in the six months since.
Kemnebi held out his hand. The guard passed him a set of keys. Kemnebi picked one out and unlocked the door.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said to Gabriel in the low rumble he had for a voice, and then he pushed the door open.
Chapter 11
“Gabriel!”
“Hey!” He caught his sister in his arms as she rushed unsteadily forward.
Kemnebi shut the door behind them and locked
it from the outside.
Lucy was shivering although it wasn’t at all cold in the room. She seemed thinner even than the time he’d seen her in Istanbul—their first meeting after nine years apart—and she’d been awfully thin then. Gabriel took hold of her arms and stepped back to look at her.
She was dressed in blue jeans and a black T-shirt with a peeling image of the Eiffel Tower on it in white. Her short-cropped hair had recently been dyed dark green down to the roots. A tattoo of entwined serpents poked out from under one of the T-shirt’s short sleeves, one of a prowling jaguar from under the other. There was a piercing in her left eyebrow that Gabriel hadn’t noticed six months earlier.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
“You look like you’ve lost weight.”
“You try being kidnapped sometime. Best diet in the world.”
Gabriel looked around the room. It looked more like a bedroom than like a cell, complete with a desk, a chest of drawers, a bookshelf full of books and magazines, a small television set. An open door led to a bathroom with a shower. There was even a window—though like the ones downstairs it was securely boarded up, and it looked like they’d installed metal bars across it outside the glass for good measure. Which made it a cell no matter how nice the furnishings might be.
“I’m going to get you out of here, Lucy.”
“Cifer,” she said, quietly but firmly.
He put one hand along the side of her face, felt a muscle in her cheek tremble. “Did they hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Not too bad. I got a bit banged up when they broke into my apartment—but so did they. And I haven’t exactly been a shrinking wallflower since. It’s why they keep drugging me. You saw Chigaru out there in the hall?”
“The guy with the scratches on his face?”
“Guess who gave ’em to him?” She held up her right hand and made a clawing motion through the air. She swayed a bit as she did so, though, and Gabriel led her over to the bed, sat her down. He pulled out a chair and sat beside her.
“Chigaru,” she said. “He told me it means ‘hound.’ His parents knew what they were doing when they named him.”
“Why?” Gabriel said. “What did he do to you?”
“Less than he wanted to,” Lucy said.
Gabriel found his fists clenching involuntarily.
“It’s okay, Gabriel,” Lucy said, patting him on one fist. “I can take care of myself. Hell, I figured maybe he’d be my ticket out of here. I’ve slept with worse-looking guys for less.”
“There are some things an older brother doesn’t need to know,” Gabriel muttered, standing up again, pacing.
“How’d you find me?” Lucy asked.
“They found me,” Gabriel said. “Sent a note to Michael saying my helping them was the price for letting you go.”
“Helping them do what?”
“Find something they’re looking for,” Gabriel said. “A stone—an artifact from ancient Egypt that they say is hidden in Corsica.”
“Why Corsica?”
“It’s a long story,” Gabriel said.
Lucy stared at him, concerned. “Are you going to do it?”
“I’m going to do what it takes to get you out of here.”
“Do you really think they’ll let me go if you get this thing for them? That they’ll let you go . . . ?”
Gabriel shook his head. “But they aren’t going to hurt either of us as long as they still need me to get it. That gives us an advantage.”
“A small one,” she said.
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, but he grinned and chucked her gently under the chin. “But how much of one do I need?”
He saw her eyes warm to the prospect of a rescue. She’d always believed in him—more than she should have, maybe. But a bit of confidence wasn’t a bad thing, a bit of hope. She needed something to restore her strength.
Some food would help. He went to the door and pounded on it with the side of his fist.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Getting you some food.”
The lock turned and the door opened. It was Chigaru.
“Hey,” Gabriel said, his voice low. “I want you to bring her some food. Right now. And—hold on.” Chigaru had started to turn away, but Gabriel snagged the front of his shirt in his fist, turned him around. Chiagru looked down at the bunched fabric angrily. “I want you to know something else. If you touch my sister again, I’ll kill you. Do we understand each other?”
“Take your hand off me,” Chigaru said.
“Do we understand each other?”
The look in Gabriel’s eyes was impossible not to understand. Gabriel let go of Chigaru’s shirt, smoothed down the creased fabric. “Good,” he said. “Now—food.”
Gabriel shut the door. He heard Chigaru’s footsteps going away. He’d left it unlocked, and Gabriel thought for a moment of trying to break Lucy out right now, while the door was open and Chigaru was away from his post. But it wasn’t feasible—not with three stories of armed men between them and the tunnel, and not with Lucy barely steady enough to stand. With some food in her, some more time for the drugs to get out of her system . . . maybe. But not yet.
“I’m going to talk to Amun and get him to stop giving you the drugs,” Gabriel said. “I’ll tell him you’re going to be cooperative now.”
“Who’s Amun?”
“Tall guy, goatee, fez?”
She shook her head. “Haven’t met him. Have you seen Khufu yet?”
“Who’s Khufu?”
“The boss around here,” she said. “Calls himself ‘Khufu the Second.’ Like he’s a pharaoh. Carries a scepter, wears a mask, this traditional Egyptian thing . . . He’s the man in charge.”
“I thought Amun was—”
“I don’t know who Amun is,” Lucy said, “but he’s not in charge. You meet Khufu, you know he’s the boss.”
She lay back on the bed. Her eyes were sliding shut, though she was fighting to keep them open.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she said. “I don’t want you hurt because of me.”
“What do you mean, shouldn’t have come?” He reached out and stroked her cheek. “I’m your brother. Of course I’m going to come.”
“I bet Michael’s mad at me,” she mumbled.
“He’s worried about you,” Gabriel said.
“He’s always worried. About everything.”
“So he’s more worried than normal. He cares about you, you know.”
“Even though I haven’t talked to him since I was seventeen?”
“Even though,” Gabriel said. “You’re still his sister.”
Her eyes slid shut and this time they stayed shut.
“I’m glad,” she said, her voice very tired, “that at least they’re not asking for money. That’s what I figured they wanted. And I really didn’t want Michael paying ransom for me. You know how I feel about the money.”
“Yeah, I know.” Gabriel smoothed her hair. “When this is all over, maybe you can explain it to Michael. Over a nice dinner in New York.”
She sleepily shook her head. “Not happening.”
“Why not?” Gabriel said, but at that moment the door swung open and Chigaru entered carrying a tray. He put it down on the desk, glared at Gabriel, and left without a word.
There was a plate of rice, some strips of grilled chicken, a little pile of hummus. A bottle of water accompanied it.
“Try to get some down,” Gabriel said—but when he turned to look at Lucy he saw she was asleep.
Well. It would keep. Hopefully she’d eat some when she woke up, maybe even a bite or two of the chicken. Not that he was too optimistic. Lucy had been a committed vegetarian since childhood.
Gabriel went over to the window. There were indeed bars attached on the outside of the glass pane. The wooden boards were screwed into the wall over them. Peering through the cracks between the boards he could just make out the bougainvillea-covered wal
l of the building across the street.
And what about the building they were in? Gabriel remembered his brief look at it when they’d gotten out of the limo. There was no bougainvillea here. No fire escape, no drainpipe. Nothing to hold onto or to shimmy down. Just three sheer stories of sandstone wall.
Gabriel raised the window, put his hand through the bars, and tested the strength of the boards. They seemed firmly attached. The only thing was, as Gabriel knew from caving and climbing, sandstone was soft. You could drive a piton into it barehanded if you had to, and pull it out again afterward; whatever screws they’d used to attach these boards should come out, too, with enough force. He gave one of the boards a few blows with the heel of his hand. After three or four, he felt it loosen slightly, and after a few more it was moving noticeably. One more strike, he thought, and it would come free.
Gabriel closed the window and went back to the chair. Lucy was sitting up, chewing on a spoonful of rice.
“I thought you were asleep,” he said.
“I was, till you started banging on the window.”
They heard a hand at the doorknob outside, saw it turn.
“Eat,” Gabriel whispered quickly, “and rest—and be prepared to move, fast, when I come for you.”
The door opened and Kemnebi stuck his head inside. He gestured to Gabriel.
“Come,” he said again.
Gabriel stood. “All right. I’m going to want to talk to Amun.”
“Later,” Kemnebi said.
“What do you mean, later? I want to talk to him now.”
“Later,” the big man repeated. “Khufu awaits.”
Chapter 12
He was led downstairs to the ground floor, through the living room, and into a corridor he hadn’t seen before. Gabriel was struck by the sudden change of decoration in the hallway. The walls here were the color of stone and uneven, and had been painted with fairly good hand-drawn reproductions of Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was as if the Alliance wanted to give the impression of walking into a pyramid or an ancient temple. They’d even mounted torches along the way in metal holders. As the modern living room receded behind them, it felt a bit like walking back through time.