Journey of the Pharaohs - NUMA Files Series 17 (2020)

by Cussler, Clive

  Robson pushed him away. “Get off me.”

  “Your men can cover us,” the professor urged. “They can shoot at Austin and Manning while we run to freedom.”

  “More likely, shoot us by mistake,” Robson insisted. “Now, sit tight.”

  Realizing he was getting nowhere with Robson, the professor appealed to Barlow. “Have your men attack. Order them to rush forward and take their chances.”

  Barlow stared blindly into the cave. It was completely dark except for a narrow beam of light at the center of the cave where one headlight of the crashed ATV still shone. Philosophically, he found himself agreeing with the professor, but to charge forward was suicide. He wouldn’t do it himself and he wouldn’t order his men to do it. But he could send the professor.

  “You rush them,” Barlow said.

  “What?”

  “You’re so eager to attack,” Barlow said, “why don’t you take the lead?”

  “But I’m unarmed,” the professor cried. “They’ll shoot me if I go out there.”

  “If you’re lucky, they’ll miss,” Barlow said, “but I won’t.” He aimed his pistol toward Professor Cross as he spoke.

  Cross froze in place, his heart pounding inside his chest. When Barlow cocked the hammer, he knew it was over.

  “Go!” Barlow shouted.

  Professor Cross stumbled from the hiding spot, tripping over a relic and nearly losing his feet. Regaining his balance, he kept going and charged across the room. Maybe if he could speak to Morgan …

  He tripped again, going face-first into the collection of Egyptian artifacts. They tumbled around him like bowling pins.

  He stayed down, switching the headlamp off and lying flat, as gunfire erupted above him. Barlow and Robson were shooting in one direction, Kurt and Morgan were shooting back. The others joined in from the entrance. The muzzle flashes were terrifying, the noise of each discharged weapon startlingly loud in the confines of the cave.

  Professor Cross covered his head and began to crawl, moving off to the side, trying to get out of the line of fire. He worked his way deeper into the treasure pile, pushing past and underneath things, slithering along like a snake.

  He came to a stop beside a crouching Anubis. Its sleek jackal’s body looked relaxed, its tall, pointed ears standing proud. The professor patted its head for reassurance and accidentally broke off one of the ears. Holding the broken piece up, he studied it in the dim light. He noticed writing printed on the inside. The words were folded and twisted, but they weren’t hieroglyphics or ancient Greek. They were modern English. The print was faint, but Professor Cross could have sworn it was old newspaper copy.

  “What is this?” he said to himself. He reached for Anubis’s other ear and accidentally snapped off the jackal’s entire head. Anger rose inside him. He smashed the head to the ground and picked up the largest pieces, studying the inside. The words on the inside were newsprint. And the flaky plaster underneath unmistakable. “Papier-mâché?”

  The professor’s head spun, he felt dizzy. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  He threw the rest of the statue of Anubis to the ground and it shattered upon impact. A second statue suffered a similar fate. A third he kicked, putting his foot through its torso.

  He pushed the pieces away and waded through the treasure trove. In his rage, he’d forgotten all about the battle and the flying bullets. He knocked things over and shoved them aside, moving objects that should have weighed hundreds of pounds without much effort at all.

  They were hollow, constructed of papier-mâché and plaster, balsa wood or tin. He found nothing made of stone, no solid gold.

  He pushed an eight-foot statue of Osiris to the ground, picked up a hieroglyphics panel that was made of plywood coated with crumbling stucco. Flinging the panel away, he revealed the latest surprise—a tall, three-drawer filing cabinet. It would have fit well in the office of Sam Spade.

  Grabbing the top handle, Professor Cross opened the first drawer violently, all but yanking it off its rails. The drawer was filled with invoices, instructions and memos.

  He pulled open the second drawer, discovering a stack of bound folders. Grabbing one from the top, he studied the front page.

  The paper was entirely white. Whatever had been written there had faded completely. He turned the page and found the ink on the inner pages in better condition. Foolishly, he switched his headlamp back on. A bullet pierced his back before he could read a single word.

  He dropped to the ground, feeling a burning sensation in his body. With great effort, he turned sideways and propped himself up, sitting with his back against the wall. He coughed up some blood and felt the slick feeling of it trickling down the side of his mouth.

  With his life force ebbing away, he glanced down at the bound page in front of him. The lamp illuminated the header at the top of the page. It read Shooting Script / Journey of the Pharaohs / A Cecil B. DeMille Production.

  CHAPTER 61

  Joe watched Kurt and Morgan shooting out the lights and immediately understood what his best friend had in mind.

  Gamay was more confused. “Why would they blow out the lights?”

  “Putting the pressure on,” Joe said. “Someone has to crack and Kurt’s betting on those men nearest the exit.”

  Joe, Paul and Gamay had remained out of the battle so far, mostly acting to keep Barlow’s men from rushing and overrunning Kurt and Morgan.

  “The darkness plays into our hands,” Joe said. “Time for us to take the offensive.”

  “I’m all for aggressive action,” Paul said, “but we’ll be shot to pieces as soon as we come out from behind this car.”

  “Then we won’t come out from behind it,” Joe said. “We’ll push it in front of us and use it as a shield.”

  “You’ll need someone to drive,” Gamay said.

  “Get in,” Joe said. “Paul and I will provide the power. All we have to do is get it pointed toward the entrance and rolling down that ramp. Once it picks up enough speed, we’ll hop on the running boards and ride it down like proper gangsters.”

  Gamay climbed into the two-seater Kissel, fitting snugly in the small compartment. She placed her gun down on the passenger seat and released the brake. “Ready.”

  Joe moved into position at the back of the antique car. Paul lined up next to him. They found excellent handholds on the trunk-mounted spare tire and rear fenders.

  “This thing is a classic,” Paul said. “I’ve seen cars like this in Dirk’s collection.”

  “Assuming we live long enough, we can give it to him for Christmas,” Joe said. “Hopefully, he won’t mind a few holes.”

  Rocking the Kissel back and forth, they got it moving. The motion allowed Gamay to turn the wooden steering wheel.

  “A little more to the left,” Joe insisted. “We need to go down the ramp, not off the edge.”

  “I’m trying,” Gamay said. “This thing isn’t equipped with power steering.”

  As Gamay strained to turn the wheel, Joe and Paul pulled the Kissel back toward themselves and then pushed forward once more, this time lowering their shoulders and putting their entire bodies into the effort.

  The car turned onto the ramp, the front wheels taking the slope. As soon as the weight of the car shifted, it began to pick up speed.

  Joe and Paul kept pushing, their feet digging in as they shoved the car. The Kissel surged toward the tunnel and the exit to the cave, heading toward daylight for the first time in a hundred years.

  Going down the ramp, Joe could barely keep up with the car. He sprinted and leapt onto the side board, latching onto the door, before the car got away. Holding on tight as the Kissel rolled toward the tunnel entrance, he took what protection he could from the bodywork while raising the MP7 and firing over the front fender.

  Paul was doing the same thing on the other side of the car. But as the incoming fire was shattering the windshield, he lost his grip and jumped off.

  Gamay had her head down for most of th
e trip, flinching only when the windshield shattered. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Paul jump off. She also heard Joe firing at the enemy. Gripping her own pistol tightly, she sat up and pulled the trigger as soon as she spotted a target.

  Robson’s men knew something was happening when they heard the wheels of the Kissel rolling, but they didn’t know what. They held their ground and peered into the darkness. By the time they saw the car emerge from the shadows and opened fire, it was almost too late.

  Fingers turned to run and was hit in both legs.

  Snipe saw someone clinging to the right side of the automobile. He also saw the tall man running on the other side. He divided his fire between the two while trying to back away. He never saw Gamay until she popped up from the passenger compartment and hit him in the shoulder with a perfectly aimed shot.

  The bullet spun him around and knocked him over. His own weapon flew from his hand as he hit the ground.

  Gus was the last of Robson’s men to give in. He held his position to the end, turning to run only with the car bearing down on him. He went right, but his feet slipped on the sandy floor of the cave and the vintage Kissel slammed into him and sent him flying.

  He landed awkwardly, breaking an arm and hitting his head. By the time he recovered his senses, he was being held at gunpoint.

  With the cave’s entrance secured, Joe looked around for any other sign of trouble. One of Barlow’s crewmen was scampering back outside. From the look of it, the man wore a flight suit. Joe figured it was one of the pilots and not a major threat. There was no one else around to worry about.

  “We’ve got the front entrance covered,” Joe shouted across the cave. “They’ll never get out now.”

  Kurt heard Joe’s call but remained silent to avoid giving away their position. He and Morgan were making their way through the stacks of artifacts, looping around in a wide half circle, hoping to flank Barlow, Robson and Professor Cross.

  Of the three of them, Morgan’s thoughts were on the professor. “How’d you know he’d gone over to the other side? I was sure he was with us.”

  “Barlow’s men showed up in Cambridge on the same day we did,” Kurt said. “They didn’t follow us, they actually got there first. That suggested they were tipped off. And it was Professor Cross who insisted on punting on the river instead of meeting in his office. That allowed them to attack us in the open and make a clean getaway. He even shouted at you to throw the briefcase to them when they got too close.”

  Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “But they ransacked his cottage when they abducted him. It looked as if there’d been an awful fight.”

  “Overkill,” Kurt said. “They already had the Writings of Qsn, there was nothing for them to search for. On top of that, there was simply no chance Professor Cross could have put up the kind of fight you described. Not against Barlow’s people. It had to be staged.”

  “He did seem well when he reappeared.”

  By now they’d circumnavigated the room and were nearing the back wall. “Thought we’d have spotted them by now,” Morgan said. “Either they’re playing dead or they’ve moved.”

  Kurt pointed to the ground. Several brass shell casings could be seen in the dim light. “This is the right place.”

  “They didn’t go forward,” Morgan said. “We would have seen them.”

  “They must have gone back,” he said. “Deeper into the cave.”

  Following the tracks in the dust led them to a section of the cave that looked more natural than the area filled with treasure. It twisted as it went farther into the cliff.

  “They’re looking for a back door,” Morgan said. “If they find one, we’ll lose them.”

  Kurt nodded and moved deeper into the passage. With Morgan covering him, they cleared one section at a time until the sound of scuffling reached them from up ahead.

  Glancing along the passage, Kurt noticed the flickering glow from a flashlight moving about randomly. He stepped forward just in time to see its illumination tumbling down the side of the wall. Glancing upward, he spotted a pair of boots disappearing through a narrow opening thirty feet above.

  “Too late,” he said.

  “Can’t risk following them,” Morgan said. “They’ll shoot us as soon as we stick our heads through the opening.”

  “True,” Kurt said. “But that’s rough country out there. They’re not going to get very far on foot.”

  CHAPTER 62

  Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona

  Omar Kai and his men had left the power plant and made their way back inside the dam, stopping here and there to cut electrical cables and damage water sensors in a way that would make anyone on the outside think the dam itself was leaking badly.

  “I think we’ve done enough,” Kai told his men. “Time to head for the exit.”

  The men heartily approved, picking up the pace as Kai led them to a ladder. They went down three levels and entered another of the long galleries that ran the length of the dam.

  “Shouldn’t we be going outside?” one of the men asked.

  “This tunnel meets up with the old bypass channel at the far end,” Kai explained. “From there, we can break into a maintenance shaft that runs to the surface.”

  Kai led his men forward, double-timing it through the dark tunnel until their feet began splashing through water. At first it was just a trickle of water running down the center of the corridor, but it widened by the second.

  “What is this?”

  Kai wasn’t sure. “Stay here,” he said. He continued forward, the water deepening with every step. When he was fifty yards from the end, he began to hear a hissing sound. Raising the flashlight, Kai saw water blasting into the tunnel through a crack in the wall at the far end. It was also pouring out beneath the door of the maintenance shaft they’d hoped to go through.

  Kai remembered three small explosions and one large one that reverberated through the entire dam. Suddenly he knew what had happened.

  He backtracked to his men. “Can’t go that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because those two idiots let the explosives get sucked into the bypass tunnel. The explosives detonated inside the dam instead of against its outside wall. There must be a fissure in the tunnel. The backflow is forcing its way into the dam.”

  “How much of it?”

  “Enough that we’re going to need another way out.”

  As he spoke, the door at the far end groaned from the weight of the water pressing against it. Kai looked down, he and his men were standing in two inches of water. And the pace of the inundation was picking up. It flowed past them toward the low point at the center of the dam.

  Kai had to come up with a contingency plan quickly. “We need to go back to the power plant.”

  “And then what?” one of the men asked. “We’ll be trapped there.”

  “Not if we swim for it,” Kai said.

  “What about the water we just released?” one of the men said. “A billion gallons of it, flooding into the channel.”

  Kai saw that as a positive. “It’ll give us cover and push us downstream at high speed. We get a few miles away and disappear into the backcountry. They’ll never find us.”

  The men always took their cues from Kai and they seemed to consider this a reasonable plan even if he knew it was a long shot. Truth was, they had little choice. “It’s either that or take the elevator to the top and fight off the National Guard with a couple of handguns.”

  None of them wanted that. They got up and moved back through the corridor, climbed the ladder and wound their way back to the door they’d entered earlier. Pushing through it, they moved across the open-air corridor and took cover.

  “Watch for snipers,” Kai ordered.

  On high alert, the men edged their way around the building and onto an extension of the power plant that ran along the southern wall of the canyon.

  The area was broad, flat and paved. Several trucks were parked there. A road led from the parking area into a
tunnel. Kai briefly considered that as an escape route. But, however inviting the open end at the bottom looked, the top would be guarded like the walls of a fortress.

  “Move toward the outlet pipes,” Kai said. “The mist will cover us.”

  The water pouring through the gates on the other side of the dam was blasting out through four huge pipes, two on each side and each wide enough to swallow a full-sized van. The water was deafening, the spray and mist silently drifting up and back.

  Half the parking area was shrouded. Four or five parked vehicles and a small concrete wall at the end offered some cover.

  Kai was about to run for it when one of his men grabbed him and pointed upward.

  Through the mist, Kai saw a Black Hawk helicopter swoop in over the Glen Canyon Dam. It descended rapidly, dropping toward the power plant. A second helicopter could be seen near the crest.

  “Now we’re outgunned for sure,” one of the men said.

  The first Black Hawk slowed to a hovering position over the top of the plant. A squad of men deployed from it, sliding down ropes, onto the roof.

  One of his men foolishly shot at them, drawing fire in return that was far more deadly. He took three bullets to the chest, tumbled back and fell over the railing, splashing down into the churning green and white water of the Colorado River.

  “Move!” Kai shouted to the others. There was nothing to do but run or surrender and he didn’t feel like surrendering. He took off, crouching low and ducking behind the trucks that were parked near the outlet tunnels.

  He moved in spurts, from one to the next, well aware that he was probably being shot at, though he couldn’t hear the gunfire. This close to the pipes, the roar of the jetting water had become so loud that even shouting was pointless.

  Kai urged his men on, waving his arms and then pointing. One of them took a bullet in the calf and fell to the blacktop. Another pulled open the door of a truck, found the keys above the visor and tried to drive off.