by Gabriel Hunt
“But why?”
“Are you resisting arrest, madam?”
“Arrest? For what?”
The man lowered his voice and took her arm. “Come with me. Now.” She felt a gun poke into her side. He held it close to his body, unseen by anyone else. “Come quietly,” the man said, “or you die right here.”
She looked around, gauged her chances if she made a break for it, or if she fought. She saw the man’s head shake minutely from side to side and felt the gun’s barrel press more deeply into her flesh. She swallowed. “All right.”
The agent led her away and through a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in English, Arabic, and French. Waiting for them in a small office was a stranger, a swarthy man in a neatly tailored suit.
“Miss Hunt,” he said as the customs agent roughly twisted her arms behind her back and handcuffed her. “I regret that we meet under these unfortunate circumstances. I know your brothers and have all the respect in the world for them. True gentlemen, both of them.”
“But then—why . . . ?”
“Khufu was very upset that you left without saying good-bye. I’m afraid he insists you return.”
“Who are you?” Lucy said. “Why are you working for them?”
“Why? Because they pay me,” the man said. “As for who I am . . .” He bowed slightly from the waist. “Reza Arif, at your service.”
Sammi double-parked the hotwired Citroen outside the baggage claim area and ran inside. She found Gabriel more or less in the same spot she’d met Arif. He swept her up in his arms and she found hers going around his neck. She hadn’t planned to kiss him; she got the sense it surprised them both when she did. But neither of them seemed in any hurry to end it.
“I was so worried about you,” she said when they finally separated. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve been worse,” he said. “You?”
She looked away. If anyone could understand—
“I killed two men,” she said.
“Did you,” Gabriel said, and stroked her hair gently. “Well. I’m sure they had it coming.”
“One did,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It was terrible,” she said. “I did not know if you were alive or dead; I did not know if I would live or die, I just knew I had to—had to . . .”
He took her in his arms again. “It’s okay.” Then he whispered something into her ear. “When I say ‘duck’ . . .”
“What?”
“Duck!” he shouted, and pressed one palm down on the top of her head while drawing his Colt with the other. Sammi dropped and rolled toward the metal bench against the nearest wall, wedging herself beneath it. She saw Gabriel running toward a pair of open glass doors, where two men with guns were charging toward him. All three guns were roaring and spitting flame; airline staff and deplaning passengers were running, screaming, trying to get out of the way.
One of the men went down, sprawling as the impact of a bullet above his right knee swept his legs out from under him. The other one kept coming, squeezing off shot after shot in Gabriel’s direction. Gabriel hunched down and a glass light fixture just past his shoulder exploded into fragments.
He whipped up a suitcase in one hand, saying “Sorry” to the astonished tourist who’d been reaching down to pick it up, and hurled it at the remaining gunman. The heavy bag split open in midair, punctured by a pair of gunshots, scattering clothing and duty free souvenirs in all directions; but the bullets didn’t halt the bag’s momentum and it smashed into the shooter’s hand with an audible crack. The gun flew out of the man’s hand and he dropped to his knees, cursing and cradling his broken wrist.
Gabriel ran back to the bench and extended a hand. Sammi grabbed hold and pulled herself to her feet. “Come on,” he said and raced toward a door marked PRIVATE FLIGHTS. They shot through and Gabriel slammed the door shut behind them, twisting the lock.
“Can I help you?” a young woman asked. She was well trained—her voice exuded calm and professionalism in spite of the sounds of gunfire she must have heard coming through the door.
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Hunt Foundation, Gabriel Hunt. Where’s our plane?”
They heard someone try the doorknob, then start hammering on the door.
“Do you have any ID?” the woman said.
Gabriel grinned ruefully. He waved his Colt at her. “Honey, this is all the ID I’ve got, and it’s going to have to be good enough.”
A huge blow rocked the door. It wouldn’t stand up to many more.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman said, “but I am going to have to confirm with the pilot . . .”
“Come on, we’ll go confirm together.” Gabriel pushed past her, past the counter, and kicked open the metal door behind her. Across a hundred feet of sun-baked tarmac, the Hunt Foundation jet sat with its cockpit door open and stairs extended. A man in short sleeves sat at the top of the stairs, reading an issue of Plane and Pilot.
“Charlie!” Gabriel yelled as he ran toward the plane. “Get off your ass and get the engine started!”
Behind them, Sammi heard the door lock splinter.
“Sir,” the woman called breathlessly. She was running behind them, as fast as she could. “This man claims he’s Gabriel Hunt. Can you confirm—”
“That’s Gabriel, all right,” Charlie called back, and he disappeared into the cockpit.
“Happy?” Gabriel said.
The woman stopped running; she stood bent over, her hands on her knees, panting. Sammi knew how she felt. But she kept pushing till they reached the foot of the stairs, then followed Gabriel up, taking the steps two at a time. The stairs began retracting the instant her feet cleared the last step.
Looking out the window, she saw three men—two in airport uniforms, one in plainclothes—race across the tarmac after them. But Charlie already had the plane taxiing. A few gunshots sounded dully and one bullet spanged off the side of the plane. Then their nose was up and the ground dropped away behind them.
“Where we going?” Charlie called from the cockpit.
“Corsica,” Gabriel called back.
Pressing his hand against Thabit’s leg wound, Naeem made another call to Amun.
“They got away,” he reported. “On a private jet.”
“Never mind,” Amun said. “He will go right where we want him to, and he won’t raise a finger against us. Not now that we have his sister again.”
Chapter 18
Gabriel was glad for the chance to take a proper shower and change his clothes. He apologized to Sammi for not having anything on board she could change into.
“That’s all right,” she said, tousling his wet hair. “I’ll make do.” She shut the door between them. Gabriel heard the sound of the shower’s spray going on, then a zipper sliding down and a pair of shoes being kicked off. Then he heard the spray interrupted as she got in, followed by a low growl of contentment.
She’d be a while. Gabriel went up front to talk with Charlie.
“All due respect, Mister Hunt,” Charlie said, “you can’t just come running and expect me to take off on a dime. Not at a busy airport. Took a miracle to make it out of there without hitting anything.”
It was the longest speech Gabriel had ever heard from the man. He patted Charlie’s shoulder. “Didn’t take a miracle, just a great pilot.”
Charlie grumbled. But it was true—he’d seen Gabriel out of many a tight spot.
“Still,” he said. “Your brother wouldn’t like you taking risks like that. Or me, with Foundation property.”
“He ever complains to you about it,” Gabriel said, “you just tell him to talk to me.”
He sat in the copilot’s seat for the next hundred miles, watching Africa’s northwest coast disappear behind them and the south of Spain come into view. In the distance he could just make out the small humps in the water that were the Balearic Islands.
He thought about the ordeal Lucy had been through, and the one Sammi had. At
least Lucy was on her way to Paris—that was one less thing to worry about, a big one. But Sammi was with him now, and he knew there was no way she’d agree to stay behind with the plane when they landed. He could tell her that Lucy had gone to Paris and would be looking for her there, encourage her to let Charlie fly her there, too—but he had a feeling she wasn’t going to let him face the Alliance on his own in Corsica any more than she had in Cairo. And the truth was it might be good to have her along. She was the historian, after all, not him, and her store of knowledge about Napoleon seemed likely to be more than a little useful if he wanted to get his hands on the Second Stone.
From the main cabin he heard the sound of the bathroom door opening, then footsteps padding toward the rear of the plane and storage compartments opening, one after another. When Gabriel went back, he saw Sammi standing with a blanket clutched around her, the fabric bunched in one fist.
“You really don’t have anything a girl could wear,” she said, and swung the compartment door shut. “Not even a spare stewardess uniform.”
“No stewardesses,” Gabriel said, coming toward her.
“Oh? What do you do if you get thirsty in the middle of a flight?”
“I go to the galley,” Gabriel said, “and forage for myself.”
“And if you get lonely,” she said, “in the middle of a flight? Do you take care of that for yourself, too?”
He stopped an arm’s length from her and looked her up and down, from her bare feet to her dripping auburn hair. “Miss Ficatier, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were offering me an alternative.”
She smiled at him. “Who says you know better?”
When she woke, pleasantly sore and in need of another shower, Sammi saw Gabriel over by one of the windows, sketching on a piece of paper. She went over.
Gabriel looked up. “Your clothes are probably dry by now.” After her shower, she’d rinsed them in the bathroom sink and hung them on the towel rod.
“I’ll put them on in a bit,” she said. “Unless you mind—”
“Not in the slightest,” Gabriel said, kissing the side of her breast, “and Charlie’s too much of a gentleman to peek.”
Sammi stretched, heard her shoulders crack. “What are you working on?”
“A map,” Gabriel said. “Doing my best to reconstruct it from memory. Amun had it in his office—”
“Amun!” Sammi exclaimed, snapping her fingers. “I knew there was something I needed to tell you. I know who he is!”
“So do I,” Gabriel said. “He’s the second-in-command of the Alliance of the Pharaohs.”
“Maybe—but he’s also the professor I was telling you about, the one who taught the Mediterranean History course we took. Omar Amun. Did you get my text message?”
“Your text . . . ?”
Then Gabriel remembered. Back in Cairo.
THAT’S THE PRO
That’s the professor.
“I got part of it,” Gabriel said.
“Well, they grabbed me while I was typing it,” Sammi said. “I wasn’t sure I even pressed ‘Send.’ ”
“What the hell is a history professor from Nice doing high up in an organization like the Alliance?”
“I don’t know,” Sammi said. “He was just a visiting professor . . . and he did talk a lot about ‘Egypt for the Egyptians’ and so forth, but . . .”
“But you didn’t think he’d cut anyone’s head off over it.”
“No,” Sammi said. Her face fell. “I feel . . . I feel terrible about the whole thing. I was the one who talked Cifer into taking his class—and I was the one who told him about you.”
Gabriel frowned. “What do you mean, told him about me?”
“There were only thirty seats in the class, and more than a hundred people applying. I thought it would help, that Cifer was the sister of the famous explorer, Gabriel Hunt . . .”
“I’m sure it did,” Gabriel said. “Especially once he realized he could get me to do the Alliance’s bidding by kidnapping her.”
“I didn’t know he would—” Sammi began, but Gabriel pressed a finger against her lips.
“You couldn’t have known,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”
“Except that it is. And now she is god only knows where, suffering god only knows what—”
“Shh,” Gabriel said. “Lucy’s fine.”
“What?”
“I got her out. She’s on a plane to Paris right now.”
“She’s . . . ? Really?” Sammi’s voice betrayed her excitement and relief. “You wouldn’t say that just to make me feel better—”
“Of course not,” Gabriel said. “Lucy’s fine.”
Sammi was startled to feel tears running down her cheeks. Gabriel drew her to his chest and she buried her face in his shirt. “I was so worried—so worried . . .”
He put his pen down and stroked the back of her head.
After a moment she looked up. “But if she really is fine,” she said, “and on her way back to France . . . why did you tell Charlie to take us to Corsica?”
“Let me tell you a story,” Gabriel said.
Charlie touched down smoothly at Campo dell’Oro Airport, located on the east side of the Gulf of Ajaccio, just north of the mouth of the Gravona River. The capital of Corsica sat on the western side of the island, a little south of the halfway median that bisected the country. It was the largest and most modern city in Corsica, though that wasn’t saying much—none of the municipalities were particularly large, and most were simple villages. Ajaccio had perhaps fifty thousand inhabitants. Among its few claims to fame was that it was the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte.
In the airport Gabriel tore a map from a pad of them at the car rental counter and compared it to the one he’d sketched out on the plane. He’d marked as many of the pinned landmarks as he could recall, particularly the ones near the spot where “the web” had been written in Arabic. It was an area in Southern Corsica near Filitosa, in the rough wilderness that Corsicans called the “maquis.” The last time he’d been to Corsica, Gabriel had gone to that region, pursuing a legendary urn rumored to have been buried beneath one of the clusters of menhirs—large, upright standing stones that had been carved around 1,500 BC. The urn had turned out to be a myth, but Gabriel’s photographs of the strange and paganistic menhirs had been good for a feature article in National Geographic.
If Napoleon had wanted to keep the Second Stone hidden, Gabriel thought, he couldn’t have chosen a better place for it—doubly so if he’d believed the stone to have mystical properties. Growing up in Corsica, he must have heard every fable and legend about the strange powers of this territory, and the endless maze of caves and rock structures buried in the hills certainly offered no shortage of hiding places.
With his money belt refilled from the stash on board the plane and a new Hunt Foundation credit card in his pocket, Gabriel had no difficulty renting a Renault Laguna 1.8 at the airport. He and Sammi drove it into the city and spent an hour and a half at a hardware store buying supplies: water and food, rope, climbing tools, flashlights, pickaxes. The final expenditure, because it was dark by the time they got out, was a hotel room for the night. At the front desk, Gabriel found himself confronted by the baleful eye of the manager, whose glance flicked from Gabriel to Sammi, from their naked ring fingers to their ankles, where no luggage stood. “Is monsieur certain he wishes but a single room, and not two? I can offer a most reasonable price on a second . . .”
Sammi stepped forward and matched the man glare for glare. “Monsieur is certain,” she said coldly in French, “and so is madame. One room will do, and I suggest you make it one without neighbors on either side if your guests are as sensitive about these things as you.”
The man handed over a key glacially. “Very well,” he said.
But in the end, the only noise they made in the room would have been inoffensive had their neighbors been librarians on one side and nuns on the other. A room service dinner of sadly overcooke
d steak and undercooked vegetables was followed by a phone call back to New York, where it was two in the morning but Michael nevertheless answered on the first ring.
“Have you heard from Lucy?” he wanted to know.
“I wouldn’t know,” Gabriel said. “I don’t have e-mail, and my phone’s . . .”
“Your phone is what?” Michael asked.
“Not so much a phone anymore as a collection of phone pieces. Lying somewhere in Cairo.”
Michael was silent for a moment, no doubt mourning the $30,000 piece of equipment. But only for a moment—his primary concern lay elsewhere. “If she couldn’t get you, she’d at least have called me, don’t you think?”
“I asked her to,” Gabriel said. “She didn’t make any promises.”
“Her plane landed hours ago,” Michael said.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Gabriel said. “If you want to worry about something, let me give you something else to chew on.”
Gabriel gave him Amun’s name and a quick summary of what Sammi had said about him. “I’ll have someone check him out,” Michael said. “See what I can find out. But, Gabriel . . .”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to try to find Lucy first. I know she doesn’t want to talk to me—and she doesn’t have to. But I need to know she’s okay. I have a bad feeling somehow.”
“You have a bad feeling about everything,” Gabriel said.
“And how often have I been right?”
“Not more than ninety-eight percent of the time,” Gabriel said.
Sammi came over as he was hanging up the phone. “Something wrong?”
“He’s worried about Lucy because she hasn’t called.”
“Well, don’t you think—”
“Sammi,” Gabriel said, “she hasn’t called him in nine years. She’s fine.” Silently he added, And if she’s not, we’re on the trail of the one thing that might help.
“They went to a hotel,” Naeem reported over his cell phone. “I can get the room number from the clerk, enter while they’re sleeping . . .”
“No,” Amun answered. “Do nothing of the sort. Do you understand? I am on my way. Just watch them—that is all. Do not touch them, do not speak to them. We need them alive.”