The Pharaoh's Secret (19 page)

—

Twenty feet down,
Joe was swimming inverted, holding the tank between himself and the strawlike trails of bubbles that marked each bullet that came his way.

He pulled the air hose from his mouth, releasing an eruption of bubbles that he hoped would hide his true position. The bullets kept coming, hitting all around him like a meteor shower. One grazed his arm, slicing a fine line in his skin that instantly began to bleed. Another hit the base of the air tank but didn't penetrate.

He made it into the shadow beside the D'Campions and allowed each of them to breathe from the stream of air.

—

On the bridge,
the shooter was getting frustrated. Hassan and the others were driving away. “Finish them before you leave,” Hassan had ordered.

The shooter pulled back, replaced the empty magazine and switched to full auto. Aiming back down through a hole in the bridge, he gripped the barrel. The bubbles were distracting, but each time his prey took a breath from the air hose, the bubbles cleared just enough. He zeroed in and readied himself to pull the trigger.

A red-and-gray shape flashed into the space and slammed into the stanchion that supported the bridge. The old structure shook and groaned.

For a second, the gunman thought the bridge would topple, but it steadied and the dust cleared. The gunman looked back down through his firing slot.

The grinning face of the silver-haired American was looking up at him, holding one of the APS rifles.

“Don't!” the American said.

The gunman tried anyway, snapping the barrel of the rifle downward as quickly as he could.

It wasn't fast enough. A single, odd-sounding shot rang out.

In some corner of his mind, the gunman recognized that sound as the report of the APS rifle's heavy bolt, normally fired underwater, but in this case fired in the air. The thought was a flicker, brushed away by the impact of the five-inch projectile.

Southern Libya

Two days after his vacation was supposed to have ended, Paul was doing anything but relaxing. He was studying the geological printouts, running a computer analysis on the sound waves, with a program he'd downloaded from NUMA headquarters, and brewing a fresh pot of coffee all at the same time. He was on his own since Reza's original geologist had either been kidnapped or run off to join the rebels several weeks before.

“Look at this,” Paul said as the computer finally printed an interpretation of the sound waves for him.

Gamay looked over, bleary-eyed. “What is it? More squiggly lines? How exciting.”

“Your enthusiasm's not what it used to be,” Paul replied.

“We've been looking at this stuff for hours,” she said. “One
chart of zigzag lines after another, running the data through filters and computer programs and comparing it to squiggly-line pictures from other parts of the world. At this point, I feel like you're just testing my patience. Not to mention my sanity.”

“Tests you're not exactly passing with flying colors,” Paul said, needling her.

“In which case I can kill you and claim temporary insanity. Now, what am I looking at?”

“This is sandstone,” Paul said, pointing to one section of the printout. “But this is a layer of liquid at the bottom of that sandstone. There's still water down there.”

“Then why can't the pumps pick it up?”

“Because it's moving,” Paul said. “It's subsiding, down into this secondary, deeper layer of rock and clay.”

“Meaning what?”

“If I'm right,” Paul said, “there's another aquifer under the Nubian Aquifer.”

“Another aquifer?”

Paul nodded. “Seven thousand feet below the surface. These formations suggest it's literally swelling with water. But this sound wave distortion here, and here, suggests the water is moving.”

“Like an underground river?”

“I'm not sure,” Paul said, “but that's the only thing the computer has been able to match the pattern to.”

“So where's it going?” she said, perking up.

“I don't know.”

“Why's it moving?”

Paul shrugged. “It just is. The squiggly lines can tell us only so much.”

A large boom rattled the windows and both of them looked up.

“There's no thunder in this desert,” Gamay said coldly.

“Maybe it was a sonic boom,” Paul said. “I used to hear them all the time when I lived near the air base.”

Two similar thuds followed, accompanied by shouting and the rapid
Pop! Pop! Pop!
of distant gunfire.

Paul put the printout down and ran to the window. Across the desert he saw another flash as one of the pumping towers was engulfed in an orange fireball before falling to one side.

“What is it?” Gamay asked.

“Explosions,” he said.

Reza came busting in seconds later. “We have to go,” he shouted. “The rebels are here.”

Paul and Gamay reacted slowly.

“Hurry,” Reza added, heading for the next room. “We have to get to the plane.”

Paul grabbed the printouts and he and Gamay chased after Reza. As soon as they'd gathered everyone, they made for the stairs. Across the gravel, the DC-3 was starting up, its engines coughing clouds of oily smoke as they came to life.

“There's enough room for all of us,” Reza said. “But we have to go quickly.”

They raced across the ramp to the DC-3, piling in through the cargo door. Another explosion went off behind them as the control center was hit with a rocket.

“Move forward!” Paul shouted as others climbed into the plane through the door near the tail.

Reza counted heads. There were twenty-one people inside, plus the pilot. The center's entire staff plus Paul and Gamay.

“Go!” he shouted.

The pilot moved the throttles up and the plane swung onto the runway, picking up speed, as more flashes lit the desert behind them.

Paul looked at Reza. “I thought you said even the rebels had to drink?”

“Maybe I was wrong.”

The engines roared to full power, drowning out all other conversation, and the plane gathered speed rapidly as the cool night air helped increase the horsepower. The acceleration was brisk, but a fully loaded plane meant a very long takeoff roll, and as they neared the end of the strip, the pilot had to make a choice.

He pulled back enough to get the plane off the ground, then lowered the nose and raised the landing gear. For another thirty seconds, they cruised along at twenty feet or so, buoyed by what pilots called ground effect, a little boost in lift that came when they were close to the surface of the earth. It allowed the plane to fly before it was really going fast enough and it gave them time to pick up speed and begin a proper climb. It also brought them right over the top of a group of pickup trucks with machine guns mounted on them.

“Incoming,” the pilot shouted, banking to the right and pulling up.

They never heard the sound of the guns firing, not over the roar of those huge engines, but the cabin was suddenly alive with metal confetti and glowing sparks.

“Paul,” Gamay called out.

“I'm all right,” he called back. “You?”

Gamay was checking herself over. “Not hit,” she said.

The DC-3 was racing along, climbing just high enough to avoid trouble and speeding into the dark. The men and women inside were shaking but unharmed. Except for one.

“Reza!” someone called.

Reza had tried to stand up and then fallen forward into the aisle.

Paul and Gamay were the first to reach him. He was bleeding from a stomach wound and leg wound.

“We have to stop the blood loss,” Paul said.

Shouts went back and forth.

Gamay said, “We need to get him to a hospital. Is there a town nearby?”

The men around them shook their heads.

“Benghazi,” Reza managed to say. “We must get to Benghazi.”

Paul nodded. Ninety minutes. Suddenly, that seemed like an inordinate amount of time.

“Hang in there,” Gamay urged. “Please, hang in there.”

Gozo Island, Malta

At the bottom of the shallow bay, Joe shared the oxygen from his tank with the D'Campions, calming them and keeping them alive until Kurt and Renata found a way to haul them to the surface.

Getting them on the dive boat was a cumbersome process, and cutting the chains off more delicate, but soon enough they were free. By then, a new problem had become obvious.

“We appear to be sinking,” Joe said.

The dive boat had taken a pounding, the worst damage sustained when Kurt rammed the bridge.

“The whole forward compartment is flooded,” Renata said.

“Good thing we're not far from the beach,” Kurt said.

He aimed for the shore and bumped the throttle. The damaged
boat wallowed across the lagoon and beached on the sand moments later. The group climbed out, dropped into the shallows and waded the last few yards up onto the dry sand.

“Let's head for the access road,” Kurt said. “Maybe we can flag down a ride.”

They hiked across the beach, checking on the defeated combatants along the way.

“All of them are dead,” Renata said. “Including the one I only shot in the legs.”

“This group has a twisted, backward view of
No man left behind
,” Joe said.

Kurt looked closer at the man Renata had hit in the legs. White foam was bubbling from his mouth. “Cyanide. We're dealing with fanatics here. They must have standing orders not to get captured.”

“Wouldn't it be easy to give such an order but rather hard to follow it?” Mrs. D'Campion asked.

“For normal people,” Kurt said. “But who knows what kind of an organization we're up against.”

“Terrorists,” Mr. D'Campion suggested.

“They're well versed in terror,” Renata chimed in. “But I think their goal is more than spreading fear.”

Kurt searched the body. He found no identification, no religious paraphernalia, jewelry or tattoos, no initiation scars that fanatic groups sometimes used to brand their own people. In fact, nothing at all to indicate who the men were or who they worked for.

“Make a call to the Maltese government,” he said to Renata. “See if they can get some cooperation from the Defense Force and security agencies here. The saying goes
Dead men tell no tales
, but in my experience that's almost never true. Their weapons, their clothes, their fingerprints: sometimes those things can be traced.
These guys didn't just materialize out of nowhere, they have to have a past. And considering how they fought, I don't think they were honor students or choirboys.”

She nodded. “Maybe we'll get something out of the two that were captured near the
Sophie
C.
”

“If they haven't poisoned themselves yet,” Kurt said.

From there, the group began a long climb up the access road, past the abandoned resort buildings, to the road at the top of the bluff.

—

A few hours later
, showered and wearing clean clothes, they were sitting in the baroque living room of the D'Campion estate as dusk fell. Overstuffed couches and chairs filled the lower level. Artwork, statues and a library's worth of books covered the walls. A balcony from the loft looked down on them. In the center of one wall, a crackling fire burned in a huge stone hearth.

The hallway and the library were a mess, where the intruders had torn through the books and smashed lamps in an effort to intimidate the D'Campions.

Nicole D'Campion was doing her best to clean up until her husband stopped her. “Leave it, my dear. We need the police and the insurance people to see it before we tidy up.”

“Of course,” she said. “It's just not in my nature to leave a mess.” She sat down and stared at Kurt, Joe and Renata. “My deepest appreciation for the rescue.”

“And mine,” her husband said.

“Somehow, I think we owed you,” Kurt replied. “It may have been our coming here that put you in danger.”

“No,” Etienne said, picking a crystal decanter off of a sterling silver tray. “These men arrived two days before you did. Cognac?”

Kurt passed.

Joe perked up. “I could use something to warm the bones.”

Etienne poured the golden liquid into a tulip-shaped glass. Joe thanked him and then sipped and savored it, enjoying the aroma as much as the taste. “Incredible.”

“It should be,” Kurt said, glancing at the decanter and then his unpretentious friend. “If I'm not mistaken, that's a Delamain Le Voyage. Eight thousand dollars a bottle.”

Joe's face flushed with embarrassment, but Etienne would have none of it. “The least I could do for the man who saved my life.”

“Quite right,” Nicole said.

Quite right indeed.
Kurt was proud of his friend who gave so much, often with such little recognition.

Etienne returned the Baccarat crystal decanter to the serving tray and sat down, sipping his own glass and contemplating the fire.

“Leave it to me to ruin the moment,” Kurt said, “but what exactly did those men want from you? What is it about these Egyptian artifacts that makes people so willing to kill?”

The D'Campions exchanged glances. “They turned my study upside-down,” Etienne said. “Tore through our library.”

Kurt got the feeling the D'Campions didn't want to talk about it. “Forgive me, but that's not an answer,” he said. “Rather than point out that you're in our debt, I'll appeal to your sense of humanity. Thousands of lives hang in the balance. They may well depend on what you know. So I need you to be honest.”

Etienne seemed wounded by the statement. He sat as still as stone. Nicole fidgeted, playing with the hem of her dress.

Kurt stood and moved to a spot beside the fireplace, giving them time to consider what he'd said. Above the fire was a large painting. It depicted a fleet of British ships pummeling a French armada at anchor in a bay.

Kurt studied the painting quietly. Considering history and the current situation, he realized quickly what he was looking at: the Battle of the Nile.

“The boy stood on the burning deck,

Whence all but he had fled;

The flame that lit the battle's wreck

Shone round him o'er the dead.”

Kurt whispered the verse, but Renata overheard him.

“What was that?”

“‘Casabianca,'” he said. “The famous poem by the English poet Felicia Hemans. It's about a twelve-year-old boy, who was the son of
L'Orient
's commander. He stood at his post all through the battle right up until the end, when the ship exploded after fires reached the powder magazine.”

Kurt turned to Etienne. “This is Aboukir Bay, isn't it?”

“Quite right,” Etienne said. “You know your history. And your verse.”

“Odd painting to be hanging in the home of a French expatriate,” Kurt added. “Most of us don't commemorate our nation's defeats.”

“I have my reasons,” he said.

In the lower corner the artist had signed his name:
Emile D'Campion
. “Ancestor of yours?”

“Yes,” Etienne replied. “He was one of Napoleon's
savants
.
Brought along on the ill-fated expedition to decipher the riddles of Egypt.”

“If he painted this, it means he survived the battle,” Kurt noted. “I'm guessing he brought home some souvenirs.”

The D'Campions exchanged glances once again. Finally, Nicole spoke. “Tell them, Etienne. We have nothing to hide.”

Etienne nodded, drank the last swallow of his cognac and set the glass back down. “Emile did indeed survive the battle and commemorate it with that painting. If you look to the corner opposite his name, you'll see a small rowboat with a group of men in it. That's him and several of Napoleon's finest. They were on their way back to the flagship
L'Orient
when the fighting began.”

“I'm guessing they didn't reach
L'Orient
,” Kurt said.

“No,” Etienne said. “They were forced to take shelter aboard a different vessel. You would know it as the
William Tell
—or, in French,
Guillaume Tell
.”

Kurt had spent half his life studying naval warfare, he knew the name. “The
Guillaume Tell
was Admiral Villeneuve's ship.”

“Rear Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve was second in command of the fleet. He was in charge of four ships that day. But even as the battle turned badly against his comrades, he refused to engage.”

Etienne walked over and pointed to a vessel set off from the rest. “This is Villeneuve's ship,” he said. “Waiting and watching. Interminably, it must have seemed to the others. By morning, the tide of battle was still against them, but the tide in the bay had changed. Villeneuve weighed anchor, set his sails and rode the tide out to sea, escaping with his four ships and my great-great-grandfather.”

He turned from the painting to face Kurt. “Not surprisingly,
Villeneuve's act is one I've always been deeply conflicted about. While it shines a poor light on French courage and
esprit de corps
, I might not be here today had Villeneuve not cut and run.”

“Discretion
is
the better part of valor,” Renata noted, joining the conversation. “Though I'm sure the rest of the fleet didn't see it that way.”

“No,” Etienne said, “they didn't.”

Kurt put the pieces together in his mind, thinking aloud as he went. “After the battle, Villeneuve came here to Malta and was eventually captured by the British when they took the island.”

“Correct,” Etienne said.

“I don't normally interrupt epic sea stories,” Joe said, “but can we get back to your ancestor and what he found in Egypt?”

“Of course,” Etienne said. “From his diary, I've gathered that he excavated several tombs and monuments. All in places where the early Egyptians buried their pharaohs. And by
excavated
, I mean Napoleon's men grabbed everything they could carry: artwork, markers, obelisks and carvings. They chiseled entire panels from the walls, hauled off countless jars and pots, sending a steady train of material back to the fleet. Unfortunately, most of the haul was aboard
L'Orient
when it blew itself to pieces.”

“Most but not all,” Kurt said.

“Precisely,” Etienne said. “The last batch of treasure—if you want to call it that—was right there with him in that rowboat with the sailors when an argument broke out. Emile was under strict orders to deliver all he found to the care of Admiral Brueys on
L'Orient
, but the English had already broken through the line and three of their vessels were surrounding the French flagship.”

Etienne glanced at Renata. “
Discretion
came into play again,” he said, repeating her word. “They turned toward the only ships that were unengaged, and the last few trunks of Egyptian art ended
up in Villeneuve's hands, escaping destruction when he sailed for Malta and arrived there two weeks after the battle.”

“And those trunks were put on board the
Sophie Celine
several months later,” Kurt said.

“So it's believed,” Etienne said. “Though the record is somewhat unclear. At any rate, this is what our violent little friends were demanding to see when they appeared: anything Emile had gathered in Egypt, especially in Abydos, the City of the Dead.”

“City of the Dead,” Kurt repeated, staring into the fire and then turning to Joe. The exact words Joe had used to describe Lampedusa. Certainly it was an island of the dead. Or the nearly dead. “These artifacts didn't have anything to do with a mist capable of killing thousands at one time, did they?”

Etienne looked stunned. “As a matter of fact, they refer to something called the Black Mist.”

Kurt suspected as much.

“But that's not all,” Etienne said. “Emile's translation also speaks of something else. Something he called the Angel's Breath, which is admittedly a Westernization. The more correct term, the Egyptian term, would be the Mist of Life: a mist so fine it was believed to have come from the realm beyond this one—the afterlife—where the god Osiris used it to restore to the living whomever he wished. Taken literally, this Angel's Breath was capable of bringing the dead back to life.”