The Forbidden Tomb (25 page)

McNutt nudged Cobb to get his attention. ‘Jack, it’s one of them.’

‘One of who?’

‘One of the guys from the tunnels. The goddamn monkey men.’

‘Where?’

‘At your three o’clock.’

Cobb zeroed in on the triage area, scanning for anything that looked familiar. Only one man stood out. ‘Black pants, black tunic, dark skin.’

‘That’s him.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Almost positive.’

Cobb nodded in understanding. McNutt didn’t recognize his face, but the man was wearing the same clothes as the other men in the cistern.

Plus, he was acting strangely.

With nothing else to go on, they stood back and watched as he worked his way through the tent that had been set up on the edge of the blast site. The victims, both dead and alive, had been spread out in rows so that the doctors could quickly work their way through the masses. Many of the dead had been covered with sheets, towels, or scraps of clothes, and he took the time to uncover every last one.

Cobb and McNutt understood his intentions.

He was searching for someone.

Maybe one of his own. Maybe one of his targets.

Either way, it showed remarkable dedication to his cause.

And his boldness filled Cobb with rage.

Once the man had finished his search, he broke away from the makeshift hospital and made his way toward the periphery of the madness. Determined to get answers, Cobb knew they needed to act fast. They simply couldn’t let a lead like that walk away. Despite the crowd, Cobb sensed their opportunity and decided to take him down.

‘Nice and slow,’ he whispered to McNutt. ‘We don’t want to spook him.’

‘Slow, I can promise. But
nice
is out of the question.’

Cobb took a course to intercept the man while McNutt trailed from a safe distance. No discussion was needed; both knew how to proceed. They had been taught well by the US military. They knew how to coordinate their actions and predict each other’s moves. The entire time they scanned the crowd for trouble without making themselves known. They walked casually but quickly, confident but not defiant.

They simply looked like they belonged.

Meanwhile, the bomber was the exact opposite.

He strode purposefully through the chaos. Not strolling or running but somewhere in between, as if he were trying to do some light cardio in the middle of a warzone. As he walked, the man shook his head back and forth to someone in the crowd.

The movement was subtle, but Cobb noticed it. Looking ahead, he spotted an ambulance parked fifty feet away. A second man stood next to an empty gurney behind the vehicle. He looked the part of a medic – the uniform, the comfortable shoes, the sterile gloves – but the anger on his face gave him away.

This was a man who
took
lives, not a man who saved them.

Cobb lowered his head and tried not to be spotted, but he was a large white man in an Egyptian city. It wasn’t easy to hide. Eventually the medic saw Cobb’s approach and knew their cover had been blown. He slapped the side of the ambulance, shouting instructions to the driver in Arabic. A moment later the engine roared to life as the medic opened the rear doors and climbed into the back of the van.

For an instant, Cobb was tempted to raise his gun and fire.

But all of that changed when he saw the cargo inside.

Somehow, someway, Jasmine was in there.

Obviously he was thrilled that she wasn’t buried under a million pounds of rubble like he had feared, and yet her appearance was mystifying.

When did they grab her?

Why did they grab her?

And how did they smuggle her out before the blast?

The last time he had seen her was in the depths of the tunnels, more than a block away. She and Sarah were heading off to investigate the Roman temple; now Jasmine was lying on a tilted gurney, as if she were watching TV. Her hands and feet were bound to the railings with plastic straps. Heavy tape covered her mouth. Her unblinking eyes were frozen open, but Cobb couldn’t tell the reason why.

Maybe she was drugged. Maybe she was dead.

Until he knew for sure, he couldn’t risk a shot.

Cobb, McNutt, and their initial target all broke for the ambulance at the same time. The medic in the van kicked the empty gurney into Cobb’s path, slowing him down just enough for the first assassin to get inside. He dove into the rear compartment as the medic slammed the doors shut behind him.

Tires squealed as the ambulance sped off.

Bile burned the back of Cobb’s throat as he sprinted after the vehicle. His frustration had been growing throughout the day, but seeing Jasmine had pushed him over the edge. Though he prided himself on his calm demeanor, rage began to fuel his actions. It was a consuming, blinding hatred of those responsible for the day’s tragedies.

In his mind, justice wasn’t enough.

They needed to be punished.

* * *

The layout of Alexandria has changed very little in the last two thousand years. Though much of the city has been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times, the architects retained the original design of north–south and east–west streets whenever possible.

Obviously, the grid has grown over time and the roads have been vastly improved, but the only considerable difference between the ancient and modern layouts was a handful of major thoroughfares that linked Alexandria to the rest of Egypt. Had the explosion taken place in the suburbs, the ambulance would have had an easy escape route. On the outskirts of town, wide surface streets offered quick access to the larger arteries that connected the various districts around the city. Once the ambulance reached the highway, Jasmine and her kidnappers would have disappeared.

But in the city, things were more complicated.

Though contemporary in appearance – McDonald’s and Starbucks sightings were commonplace – the older section of the city was surrounded by the classical, narrow streets of Alexandria’s past. There were no medians or bike lanes. Even the buses were forced to fight their way through traffic, just like everyone else. It was a striking juxtaposition: the progress of modern buildings nestled in an ancient city.

Unlike the tragedy of 9/11 when millions of citizens fled New York and stayed away for days, people in the Middle East were more accustomed to bombings. As crazy as it seemed, the streets were clogged in both directions with a mixture of locals fleeing the scene and people who wanted to see the damage for themselves.

Both groups slowed the bombers’ escape.

Cobb watched as the ambulance’s lights began to flash and its siren began to wail. Normally that would be enough to clear a path through traffic, but not on a day like today. There was simply nowhere for the other cars to go.

When the ambulance ran out of road, it bounced over the curb and sped down the sidewalk. Surprised pedestrians jumped from the path of the careening van before it suddenly veered back onto the asphalt. A moment later it changed direction again – this time disappearing around a street corner to the left.

Despite their anger and their fitness, Cobb and McNutt knew there was no way for them to keep up with a speeding ambulance, not on foot. Their desperate desire to retrieve Jasmine would keep them going until they dropped; but they
would
drop.

They needed something faster. Something mechanical.

Something that didn’t feel fatigue.

Fortunately, scooters were quite popular in Egypt.

The nimble motorbikes allowed riders to dart in and out of traffic and down narrow alleyways where cars weren’t allowed to travel. What they lacked in top-end speed, they made up for in agility. In the congestion of the older neighborhoods, they were a remarkably efficient means of transportation.

Plus, they were pretty easy to steal.

McNutt eyed the closest rider and braced for impact. This wasn’t the time for negotiations. This was a time for action. McNutt charged toward the rider like a jouster without a horse. Or a lance. At the very last moment, he threw his arms out in front of him and tackled the rider to the ground as his scooter toppled, then slid, to a crashing halt.

McNutt hopped to his feet and reached out his hand.

Lying bruised and battered on the pavement, the dazed rider stared up at McNutt and was ready to curse him out in a dialect that McNutt wouldn’t have understood anyway, but the moment he saw the rage in McNutt’s eyes, he knew any complaints on his part would most likely lead to a severe beating – or worse.

He quickly changed his approach. ‘Take it, my friend. The scooter is yours.’

‘No thanks,’ McNutt said as Cobb lifted the bike from the ground and quickly sped off toward the ambulance. ‘I’ll take the next one.’

As luck would have it, a passing rider stopped at the crash site to see if the first biker was injured from his fall. Unbeknownst to him, this random act of kindness might have saved his life. Of course, it probably didn’t seem very fortunate when McNutt pulled out his gun and stole the Vespa in the middle of the street, but at the very least it prevented him from being tackled from his speeding scooter.

‘Sorry,’ McNutt apologized, ‘I need it more than you.’

Then he grabbed the handlebars and sped off toward Cobb.

They followed the path of the ambulance, jumping the curb and speeding down the sidewalk. When they reached the end of the block, they slowed and frantically searched the street for any sign of the ambulance. It should have been easy to track – the ambulance was not only painted in bright orange and green, it also had flashing lights and a blaring siren – yet the vehicle was nowhere in sight.

McNutt’s stomach rolled at the thought of losing Jasmine. Cobb’s blood boiled at the idea of her kidnappers surviving the night without suffering intense pain.

Both developments were simply unacceptable.

Fortunately, their fears were a bit premature.

Cobb spotted the ambulance in front of a large truck. ‘There!’

The ambulance swung wide and swerved through an intersection, running through a red light as the oncoming cars screeched to a halt. From its acceleration, it appeared that the driver had found some room to move.

McNutt gunned the throttle, launching the mini-bike toward the crossing. It was the same approach they had used when tracking their target at the blast site: McNutt would follow the ambulance directly while Cobb looked for a way to get ahead of it. Following McNutt’s lead, Cobb did his part, tearing off in the same direction as the van.

Cobb zipped in and out of his lane, dodging slower cars and oncoming traffic as he tried to keep pace with the ambulance. The unrelenting stream of cars on both sides of the centerline forced him to focus on the road ahead. As the spaces between the vehicles grew tighter, Cobb knew he needed more room to operate.

He found it on the sidewalk.

Terrified pedestrians jumped out of his way as Cobb motored down the footpath. Building after building whizzed past as he sped through the city. The alleyways and cross streets offered fleeting glimpses of his target, but he needed to narrow the gap.

Cobb ducked low to lessen the drag and tried to squeeze every last bit of power from the small motor. From his rekky earlier in the week, he knew the upcoming parking garage provided his best opportunity to close the distance between himself and the kidnappers. It was a risky move, but their time was running out. If the ambulance made it to the highway system, there was no way that they could keep up.

Not on tiny scooters.

McNutt chased the van on the main street as Cobb swerved left and steered his bike up the entrance ramp of the massive structure. At the top of the incline, he cut diagonally across the garage’s uppermost level. Had it been earlier in the day, the spaces would have been filled with cars, but at this hour the floor was virtually empty.

With no traffic to slow him, Cobb pulled in front of the ambulance. Unfortunately, his view was over the side of a building, looking down to the pavement below.

Under normal circumstances, Cobb never would have risked a shot. The streets were full of innocent bystanders, and Jasmine was inside a speeding vehicle. And yet he sensed that this was his best opportunity to stop the van in the city.

It was a risky move, but one he opted to make.

Cobb steadied his aim, knowing that it should have been McNutt taking the shot. When it came to weapons, Cobb was highly skilled, but he wasn’t on McNutt’s level. Cobb knew all the variables – speeding vehicles, uneven pavement, varying elevations, wind, even temperature – but precisely compensating for their effects was a different matter. The calculations involved were staggering.

Unfortunately, McNutt was more than a block behind.

Cobb alone had the tactical advantage.

He took a deep breath then squeezed his trigger several times.

His first shot missed wide, but the windshield of the ambulance exploded on the second. The van lurched to the side, veering across the street through oncoming traffic. Other motorists were forced to take evasive action as the van swerved in front of them. The booming gunshots were followed by the sounds of brakes screeching and cars slamming into each other, one after the next. The groans of metal shearing against metal were accented by high-pitched cracks of shattering windows.

Cobb had hit the ambulance, but he had failed to stop it.

Worse, he had inadvertently created even more destruction.

He watched in horror as the day’s injury count grew in the massive pileup. Only McNutt’s quick reflexes saved him from becoming a casualty of the aftermath. As it was, he was merely immobilized, hemmed in by wreckage.

But the ambulance pressed on.

As Cobb reloaded, the driver pushed the accelerator to the floor and steered the ambulance down a narrow one-way alley. A moment later he turned sharply and the van disappeared behind the buildings one block over.

Cobb cursed as he gunned his scooter and looked for an exit.

By the time he reached street level, Cobb feared the worst. Five seconds can make all the difference in a chase. Thirty seconds was an eternity. The time had allowed McNutt to extricate himself from the traffic jam, but it had also put them at an even greater disadvantage. There was simply no way of knowing what had happened when they lost sight of the ambulance. As they sped down the one-way alley, Cobb knew they needed a break if they hoped to pick up the trail.