It was going to be good to be remembered after all.
What came before in…
THE ADVENTURES OF HAWK
Nineteen-year-old Danny Hawk, his uncle, and his best friend Craig, were in Cairo to look for his missing father. Danny had witnessed the death of his only contact in Cairo, Professor Davis, because the professor had Danny’s father’s journals.
Danny knows that the men who had killed the professor were now after him and the journals. Danny finds the journals and gets his uncle and friend to safety in an airport hotel where he tells them what happened. They decide to keep searching for Danny’s father and try to rescue him.
Along the way, Danny and Craig find some help from a street kid named Bud and twins from South Africa who had worked with Danny’s father.
They managed to escape the men chasing them twice so far, Danny wasn’t sure their luck would hold a third time.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
August 20, 1970
Khan Al-Khalili bazaar, Cairo, Egypt.
DANNY HAWK felt like he might end up with a sore neck at any moment because he was twisting around so much, looking at the crowds around him, like every man or woman could be after him.
And they just might be.
He kept waiting for the knife to be thrust into his stomach from a man walking past, or a gunshot to rock him backwards into a booth. His imagination was making everyone look like a Hydra League member out to kill him.
He stared at everyone’s hands, looking for the tattoo of the snake’s head rising out of a pool of water that indicated Hydra League membership. Or at least Danny thought it did. The two men who had killed the professor both had the tattoo.
And in the crowds of this bazaar, there were thousands and thousands of people crammed into the streets.
Thousands of possible enemies.
There was an old man sitting on an ancient WWII motorcycle. Could he be the enemy?
Or what about the sinister-looking jewelry vendor with the thick brows and a gold tooth?
Anyone could be the one who kills him and takes his father’s notebooks.
Anyone.
That had Danny scared to death, gripping his backpack with a death grip that made his hand ache.
The narrow streets of the bazaar felt like it must have felt a few thousand years ago. The smells of rich food, new carpets, and incense filled the air like a thick shield. Everyone was dressed in the traditional loose Arab robes, and all the women had their heads covered. The street was so jammed with booths, small tents, and people that it was almost impossible to move anywhere.
Since Danny and his best friend, Craig, were Americans, still dressed in their jeans and light shirts, everyone in the bazaar looked at them with suspicion, while at the same time seeming to want to sell them something.
Danny kept a firm hand on his backpack, which held his clothes and his father’s original journals, and checked it every time it got bumped.
After twenty halting paces into the crowd, Danny felt the tug of Bud’s hand on his shirt. He was yanked hard down and to the right, close to a stone wall.
“Get down!” Bud shouted to the other three.
A moment later, a shot rang out over the bazaar and a bullet smashed into the wall near Ed Black, one of the twins, not more than ten feet from Danny.
The echo of the first shot sent the thousands of people in the bazaar into a panic. Everyone tried to get out of the way at the same time, all moving in different directions.
The sounds of the screams and shouting was deafening.
Chaos.
A second shot rang out. It hit the wall close to Danny, between him and the twins, and just above their heads.
“Too close!” Craig shouted from behind Danny.
People screaming and running smashed into Danny as he tried to stay down and against the wall. He got kicked hard twice, and had yet another man trip over him a moment later.
From what Danny could see, his four friends were taking the same punishment. He had no idea where the shots had come from, but they were clearly aimed at the five of them. And where they were crouched, they had no real cover.
“The shooter’s on the far roof!” Bud shouted, pointing up through the swirling crowds at the other side of the bazaar. At that moment, another shot cut through the screams and shouting and a man fell just a few feet from Danny.
“Follow me!” Bud shouted and headed along the right side of the bazaar, staying low.
Bud was short, and he looked more like a bum because of the tattered clothes. But Danny already knew the clothes were just a disguise to make Bud not be noticed in his many scams and tricks on tourists. Bud had lived on these streets for years. He could move through the bazaar crowds like a ghost, and Danny was noticing that Bud never seemed to miss a detail. It was a special talent he had, and Danny was happy to have him helping them stay alive right now.
Staying low, below the level of the frightened crowds, Danny ran along the wall, following Bud.
Craig was right behind him, and the twins brought up the rear. The twins were from South Africa. They were nineteen as well, Danny and Craig’s age, but they clearly had had a much harder life, with their father being killed revolting against the South African white government.
Danny could only tell them apart by the fact that Ed wore a white earring in his right ear, and Ernie wore one in his left ear. They dressed the same in casual Egyptian clothes and sandals, and their dark eyes and black skin made them look distinguished.
Their passion was archeology and language, and they had actually worked on Danny’s father’s last dig. Last night, in a hotel room, they had translated all of Danny’s father’s notebooks into English. Languages were their special talent, and one that already came in very handy.
Another two shots sent stone chips flying from the wall near Danny.
Another man fell face first onto the street.
Danny had to get out of these crowds. Too many innocent people were getting hurt.
All this was because of the notebooks Danny carried on his back.
His father’s notebooks.
His father had clearly found something big, so big that it had gotten him kidnapped. From what Danny had read in the notebooks, his father had found some of the Hydra Journals. Those were the ancient clues that led to whatever history had called The Fountain of Youth.
The Hydra League was an ancient group that for over six thousand years, since before the first pyramids, had protected the Hydra Journals. Two of the League’s members had killed Professor Davis for the research notes, and now they were after Danny.
Danny had to stay alive and keep the notebooks safe. He and his friends were his father’s only chance of rescue.
They ran past booth after booth, staying low and against the stone walls of the buildings. There were no more shots. They must have outdistanced the shooter for the moment, but Danny had no doubt the man, or men, would be right behind them.
Two-story buildings blocked some of the mid-morning sunlight from reaching the street, and Bud stayed in the shadows, leading them at full run through the venders.
Suddenly Bud turned into an alcove and went down a dark side alley. The intense sounds of panic in the bazaar was cut off by the narrow alley like someone had thrown a switch. It became only a background rumble, like waves on a distant beach.
At a fast run, they all went up a long, narrow staircase without handrails and turned left at the top toward the twins’ apartment.
“Everyone all right?” Bud asked, stopping for a moment in the narrow hallway as Ernie Black pushed past and fumbled to open a door across from their apartment.
Danny nodded, trying to catch his breath as he glanced around at his friends. All of them looked like they had escaped the shooter, at least this time.
Next time, they might not all be so lucky.
“We also rent this apartment under another name,” Ernie said, indicating a door he was fighting to open.
“I really
don’t think it’s a good idea to stop here,” Craig said, glancing back down at the staircase behind them.
“We’re not,” Bud said.
“I need to hide these,” Danny said, patting his backpack and his father’s original journals. The twins still carried the copies that they had translated last night in the hotel room. But the men chasing them were after the originals.
Ernie shoved the door open finally. Everyone crowded inside except Bud, who said, “I’m going to see how far behind that shooter is.” He turned and headed back down the stairs toward the alley.
The room was tiny, the size of a small bedroom, and completely empty except for two chairs and a small wooden table with a scarred top. A window led out to a rooftop.
The twins’ other apartment was across the hall.
“Why two apartments?” Danny asked, turning from the window. “One for each of you?”
Ernie shook his head. “Safety.” He pointed to the window. “Another way of escape from this top floor. We’re going out that way.”
“Why?” Danny asked. “Something to do with what my father found?”
Ernie shook his head. “Our father.”
“The South African government?” Craig asked before Danny could.
Ernie nodded. “They killed our mother trying to get to us. We were very vocal after they killed our father, and led demonstrations against them. We are criminals in our own country.”
Danny was shocked. That was the exact reason he had sent his uncle home to protect his mother, in case the Hydra League would go after her to get to Danny and the notebooks.
“I’m afraid,” Ed said, “that if we help you, we will all also be running from not only the ancient and powerful Hydra League, but the South African government.”
Ernie nodded. “In fact, it may be some of their operatives shooting at us, not the Hydra League.”
Danny didn’t much like the sounds of that, but at this point, he had no choice. He needed their help if he was to ever find his father. He smiled. “Well, at least that will make it interesting.”
Danny just wished he felt as confident as he had tried to sound.
At that moment, Bud slammed into the apartment and quickly closed and locked the door.
“Three men in brown suits,” he said breathlessly. “Headed up the stairs.”
“Hydra?” Danny asked.
Bud shook his head. “I don’t know. Couldn’t see their hands. But I’ve never seen them before and they’re all carrying big guns.”
“Great,” Craig said. “Now we have even more people out to kill us.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
August 20, 1970
Near the Khan Al-Khalili bazaar, Cairo, Egypt.
BUD RAN TO THE WINDOW and pushed it up and open. “Let’s go.”
“We’ll be right behind you,” Ed said as he moved to one corner of the room and quickly pried up a loose floorboard. It didn’t come easily, but it was clear Ed knew it would come.
“Put your father’s journals in here,” Ed said as Bud climbed out of the window and onto the roof. “We have paid for this apartment for a year. They will be safe.”
Danny quickly took the notebooks out of the pack, knelt down, and shoved them between the floor joists, off to the right under a board still in place. If anyone did pry the board off, they would never see the notebooks.
Outside the door, the sounds of heavy footprints filled the hallway. It sounded like a herd of elephants had filled the building. Danny wasn’t sure if the sound of his pounding heart was louder, though.
Ed quickly and silently replaced the board. It looked like it had never been removed. Danny knew that if something happened to the five of them, no one would ever find his father’s work. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do, but at this point, anyone who Danny might send those journals to would more than likely be killed. And Danny just couldn’t put someone else at risk, no matter how much work his father had put into the research.
Ernie was half out the window, and Bud and Craig were already running across the rooftop.
“Hurry,” Ed whispered to Danny.
With one last look at where he had hidden his father’s life work, he ducked out the window and onto the hard, white sand of the flat rooftop. From here, he could see mostly roofs and walls of buildings. Laundry was hung in different places, blowing in the hot wind, and on another roof, a couple of children played a game in the shade.
Ed came out behind him and carefully closed the window. Then the two of them ran to follow the others. From inside the building, the sounds of someone banging on an apartment door could be heard even outside. Those men weren’t going to be far behind, that was for sure.
“Run fast,” Ed said breathlessly from behind Danny. “You have to jump.”
Danny didn’t have time to ask how far or when. He could see when.
Right in front of him Ernie, at full run, leaped into the air and disappeared downward over the edge of the building.
Danny wanted to ease up to the edge and look at what faced him, but instead he just kept running. If a fall killed him, so be it. More than likely it would be a quicker death than having the men behind him catch him.
He hit the edge of the roof in mid-stride and full running speed and jumped.
“Oh, nooooooo!” he shouted as he flew over the hard stone of a dark alley two stories below.
The distance across the alley to the next building, which was lower than the one they were on, was a good eight or nine feet.
He focused on it, willing himself to make it.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion as he sailed through the air, finally landing solidly on the other roof, stumbling, but still running.
Ed cleared the alley right behind him.
Ahead of them, Ernie turned and quickly started down a metal ladder attached to the side of the building. It led into yet another alley.
Danny got to the ladder as below Ernie reached the ground and then ducked inside a building. There was no sign of Bud or Craig.
Danny half climbed, half-slid down the ladder, hitting the ground hard enough to jar his knees, but not hard enough to hurt himself.
The door led into a long, dark hallway that went through the middle of the entire building. On the other end, through a door, Bud was waiting like a doorman, holding open a cab door.
They had come out onto a main street of Cairo a few blocks to one side of the bazaar.
Danny piled into the back of the cab with Craig and Ernie.
A moment later, Ed jammed into the crowded back seat with them, then Bud slammed the door of the building closed and climbed into the front seat beside the driver.
Bud said something to the driver in Arabic that was clearly instructions. A moment later, the cab sped off, moving at full speed down the narrow side street and finally onto a wide boulevard.
All of them fought to catch their breath as the cab swerved through traffic, putting distance between them and the men with the guns.
Danny was sweating like he had never sweated before, and the hot wind coming through the open window didn’t seem to help much.
They had escaped again.
For the moment.
Finally, Danny breathlessly asked Ernie, “Where are we going?”
“Your father’s last dig,” Ernie said. “You said you wanted to see it, remember?”
“Yeah,” Danny said, sitting back in the seat and wishing his heart would stop racing. “But that was before people started shooting at us.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
August 20, 1970
Cairo, Egypt.
“STOP HERE,” Bud shouted, pointing to a place beside a food cart on the sidewalk near the four lane highway. The cab crossed two lanes and almost slid to a stop, half up on the sidewalk.
“What’s wrong?” Craig asked, looking around, his blue eyes wide with worry. Craig and Danny were both from the Pacific Northwest, and before this trip to Egypt, their biggest fear was making it to work a
nd their college classes on time.
They were both in far, far over the heads.
Bud didn’t say anything and motioned for them to stay in the cab.
Danny had no idea what the short Egyptian kid was up to.
Bud jumped out, talking quickly to the man in the food cart. A moment later, Bud started handing into the back seat what looked like wrapped meat sandwiches and warm bottles of Coca-Cola.
Food. Bud was getting them food.
It looked and smelled like heaven to Danny. He had forgotten they had skipped breakfast that morning and had had no time to eat in the bazaar. They needed food and drink, and Bud had been the only one to think of it.
It was like a fast pit-stop in a sports car race. Less than thirty seconds later, Bud was back in the cab and the cab was again speeding toward the western edge of town.
Bud said something to the cab driver in Arabic, then handed him a bottle of Coca-Cola.
The man seemed very happy to have it.
The wrapped meat tasted like a mild Sloppy Joe. And Danny had never thought a warm Coke could taste so good.
Danny ate, watched the neighborhoods of Cairo flash past, and thought about what he had read in his father’s notebooks last night. Those notebooks were the key to all of them staying alive.
While reading them, it had become clear that over a decade ago, his father had decided to try to track down the historical background for the myth of the Fountain of Youth. From the dates in his journals, it had taken a few years for his father to get any traction at all on the goal.
Then the famous engineer Taccola came into the research about the time Danny would have been in his early teens. Taccola lived in 15th Century Siena and was known for being ahead of his time in inventions concerning the movement of water. During the last of his life, Taccola had become focused on Egypt and had actually disappeared there in 1458.
In hieroglyphs, Danny’s father had written a simple phrase that Taccola had found.
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