The Pharaoh's Secret (26 page)

“I'm afraid so.”

“How does it work?”

“In response to the dry conditions,” Golner explained, “glands in the frogs' bodies produce a cocktail of enzymes, a complex mix of chemicals, that triggers dormancy at the cellular level. Only the lowest part of the brain remains active.”

“Like a human brain in a comatose state.”

“Yes,” the biologist said. “It's almost identical.”

“So you and your team extracted this chemical cocktail from the frogs and modified it to be effective on human biology.”

“We adjusted the chemicals to be effective on larger species,” Golner said. “Unfortunately, that shortens the shelf life. If it's frozen at subzero temperatures, it can be kept indefinitely. But at room temperature it will become inert in eight hours. When released into the air, it will dissipate within two to three hours, breaking down into simple organic compounds.”

“That's why they found no trace of it on Lampedusa,” Kurt said.

Golner nodded.

“That's a very short-lived weapon,” Kurt noted.

“It wasn't supposed to be a weapon. Not at first. It was a treatment. A way to save lives.”

Kurt didn't really believe that, but he let the man explain. “How so?”

“Doctors use medically induced comas all the time. For trauma victims, burn victims and others who've experienced tremendous injuries. It's a way to allow the body to heal. But the drugs are very dangerous. They're damaging to the liver and kidneys. This drug would be natural, less harmful.”

He sounded like a true believer and a man trying to convince himself both at the same time.

“I hate to say it, Brad, but you've been sold a bill of goods.”

“I know,” Golner replied. “I should have known anyway. They kept asking about methods of delivery. Could it be dissolved in water? Could it be disbursed in the air? There was no medical reason to ask such questions. Only weapons need be distributed in these ways.”

“So why keep working on it?”

“Some of the others raised questions and promptly disappeared,” Golner said.

Kurt understood. “I've seen how Shakir treats those who cross him. It's my intention to put an end to that.”

“It won't be that easy,” Golner said sadly. “Soon, the whole process will be automated. They won't even need me.” He put the bullfrog back down in its hole. “Come with me.”

They went through another air lock and emerged in a typical research lab. Clean, dark and quiet, filled with refrigerators and lab tables on which small centrifuges were slowly spinning.

Brad Golner checked the first one and then the second. “The new batch isn't quite ready,” he said, moving from the centrifuge to one of the stainless steel refrigerators. He opened the door and cool mist poured out. Reaching in, he pulled a few vials from a
freezer, placed them in a Styrofoam box and then added cold packs all around it.

“You have about eight hours before it warms up past the critical temperature. After that, it's no good.”

“How do I use it?” Kurt said.

“What do you mean
use it
?”

“To revive the people on Lampedusa,” Kurt said. “The ones Shakir put into a coma.”

Golner shook his head. “No,” he said urgently. “This isn't the antidote. It's the Black Mist.”

“I need the antidote,” Kurt explained. “I'm trying to wake people up, not put them to sleep.”

“They don't make it here,” Golner said. “They won't allow us to. Otherwise, we'd know too much. We'd be a threat.”

Another way for Shakir to keep his people off balance and subservient, Kurt thought. “Do you know what it is?”

Golner shook his head again.

“You might not know,” Kurt said. “But you can guess.”

“It would have to be some form of—”

Before the biologist could finish his sentence, the door behind them swung open. The red glow from the Mars-like incubation room spilled into the storage facility. Kurt knew it wouldn't be Joe or Renata. He dove to the side immediately, grabbing Golner as he went and trying to pull him out of harm's way.

He was a fraction too slow. Several gunshots rang out. One bullet grazed Kurt's arm, two others hit the biologist squarely in the chest.

Kurt pulled Golner behind one of the centrifuge tables. He was barely breathing. He seemed to be trying to say something. Kurt leaned close.

“. . . The skins . . . put in hermetically sealed container . . .
picked up every three days . . .” Golner tensed as if a new wave of pain had stricken him and then he relaxed and his body went still.

“Kurt Austin,” a much louder voice boomed from the open doorway.

Kurt remained on the floor, behind the table. He was hidden from view, but the thin wooden cabinetry of the table wouldn't stop a bullet. He expected to be shot at any moment. But it didn't happen. Maybe the men didn't want a shoot-out in the midst of their toxin-filled lab.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Kurt shouted back.

“And that's where you'll stay,” the voice replied.

Kurt glanced around the corner of the table. He spotted a trio of silhouettes in the doorway. He guessed the silhouette in the center was Shakir, but with the red glow of the incubation room lighting them from behind, the three men looked more like the devil and his minions come to collect a long-outstanding debt.

“So you must be the great Shakir,” Kurt called out.

“The great?” his adversary replied. “Hmm . . . Yes. I like the sound of that.”

Kurt still couldn't see him clearly, only that he was tall and lean and flanked by two men with rifles.

“You can get up now,” Shakir said.

“I'd rather not,” Kurt replied. “It makes me too easy a target.”

Kurt still had a pistol. But he was lying on the ground. And with at least two rifles pointed his way, he wasn't going to win a shoot-out even if he managed to get off a shot or two.

“Trust me,” the man said. “We can hit you with ease right where you are. Now, toss your gun to us and stand up slowly.”

Making it look as if he was reaching for his gun, Kurt slid the
cold pack of vials into his waterproof pouch and zipped it. When he brought his hand back out for everyone to see, he had the pistol in his grip. He placed it on the concrete floor and shoved it across the room. It slid easily, stopping only when Shakir trapped it with his boot.

“Up,” Shakir said, motioning with his hand.

Kurt eased to his feet, wondering why they hadn't just shot him. Maybe they wanted to know how he'd discovered the place.

“Where are your friends?” Shakir asked.

“Friends?” Kurt replied. “I don't have any. It's a sad story, really. It all began in my childhood—”

“We know you came in with two others,” Shakir said, cutting him off. “The same two you've been working with all along.”

Truthfully, Kurt had no idea where Joe and Renata were. He was glad to know Shakir didn't have them. They must have seen or heard danger coming and hid somewhere. On the odd chance they were following orders and heading for safety on their own, Kurt wanted to keep Shakir off their trail. “Last I saw, they went looking for a bathroom. Too much coffee. You know how that goes.”

Shakir turned to the man on his left. “Check the pumps, Hassan,” he said. “I don't want anything interfering with them.”

“Ah, yes,” Kurt said. “You and your pumps. Great idea, faking the hydroelectric plant and using it to hide what you're doing. It won't work for long, though. Anyone with a brain in their head and a basic engineering background can look at your hydro channel and see that there's more water coming out than going in.”

“And yet, no one has ever asked us. And you only just put it together.”

Kurt shrugged. “I said anyone with a brain. There are others out there a lot smarter than I am.”

Shakir motioned for him to move forward. “It doesn't matter,” he said. “It will all be over soon. And then the siphoning will stop. And the hydroelectric plant will perform its original function. And no one will ever know it had been otherwise. By then, you'll be long dead. And Libya, like the rest of North Africa, will be part of my domain.”

Kurt moved forward reluctantly.

“Hands.”

Kurt lowered his hands and put his wrists together. Shakir motioned for Hassan to tie them and Hassan stepped forward, wrapped a zip tie around Kurt's wrists and pulled it tight.

“Why are you doing all this?” Kurt asked as he was marched through the incubation room.

“Power,” Shakir said. “Stability. Having wielded it for decades and having seen the chaos that a power vacuum brings, I, and others like me, have decided to put things back in order. You should be thankful that your country might prefer dealing with me, and those who answer to me, instead of a bunch of squabbling factions. It will be so much easier to get things done.”

“Things?” Kurt said as they neared the air lock. “Like killing five thousand islanders from Lampedusa? Or letting thousands of Libyans who have nothing to do with you die of thirst or in the violence of another civil war?”

“Lampedusa was an unfortunate accident,” he said. “Unfortunate mostly because it brought you into my world. As for Libya, mass deaths will provide an impetus. The worse it gets, the faster it will be over. But, then, history has always required the shedding of blood,” Shakir gloated. “It's grease for the wheels of progress.”

They were through the air lock. Several additional guards waited on the other side in their black uniforms. One stepped forward, grabbed Kurt by the wrists, yanked him toward a waiting
ATV and threw him in the back. There were two guards in the front seat.

“Take him to the—”

Shakir's words were drowned out by the engine's sudden growl as the guard in the driver's seat turned the key, revved the engine and stomped on the gas.

The tires spun and Kurt was almost thrown off the machine.

The ATV sped down the tunnel, leaving a shocked group behind.

“It's them!” Kurt heard someone shout.

Gunshots echoed through the cave and sparks flew from the walls as the bullets missed their quarry. Kurt held on and tried to make himself small as the barrage continued until they whipped around the first turn.

He glanced forward, saw Joe and Renata dressed in the uniforms they'd taken from Shakir's men. Renata had her hair tucked up under a cap.

“How's that for a rescue?” Joe shouted.

“It's a heck of a start,” Kurt said as they flew down the tunnel.

And it was only a start. Because a few seconds later the lights from a pair of similar ATVs sped into the tunnel behind them.

“Hang on, boys!” Renata shouted. “I'm about to show them how we drive in the mountains of Italy.”

She had a lead foot and quick hands on the wheel. She took the ATV sliding around one corner, glancing off a wall, and then around another, before they went back onto a long straightaway.

The cars following navigated the turns more carefully and by the time they reached the new tunnel they'd lost substantial ground. The response was gunfire.

Kurt ducked down, but the bumpy ride made aiming an impossible chore. Without an extremely lucky shot, they'd be safe.

“How'd you guys manage it?” Kurt shouted. “I figured you two were long gone.”

“We were changing our clothes when I heard a commotion,” Joe said. “By the time I looked out, that Shakir fellow was giving orders to all these guys in black fatigues. So we just got in line.”

“Genius,” Kurt said. “I guess I owe you another one.”

They were racing through a narrower tunnel now, close quarters pressing in on both sides. A big bump in the road jarred them, the ATV went airborne for a second and the roll bar banged against the low roof.

Seconds later, they came upon a dead end. “Look out!”

Renata slammed on the brakes and the ATV skidded to a halt. She flicked it into reverse and zoomed backward toward their charging pursuers and then swerved into a side tunnel she'd seen as they passed. She hit the brakes again, spun the wheel and hit the gas. The ATV shot forward into the new tunnel and downward across a sloping rubble field.

It proved to be a huge open room, probably mined for decades. It also had no other exit.

“We have to go back up,” Renata shouted as the headlights played across a stark wall.

She turned them around just as the lights from the following vehicles were growing brighter in the entranceway.

“We'll never make it,” Joe said.

Renata pulled to the side and shut off the headlights. She kept still as the first ATV came through the entrance and rumbled down the rock-strewn slope. Their lights blazed straight ahead and Renata, Kurt and Joe remained hidden in the dark.

The second car followed. As soon as there was a gap, Renata stomped the accelerator and aimed for the exit. Halfway up, she flipped the lights back on.

The transmission surged and protested as tires spun one moment and grabbed for purchase the next. They pulled out into the tunnel again and headed back the way they'd come.

The chase vehicles didn't give up, emerging rapidly and closing the gap once again.

“Joe,” Kurt shouted. “Cut me loose.”

Joe reached back and grabbed Kurt's arms. Holding them as still as he could, Joe slipped a knife under the zip tie and pulled. The plastic snapped and Kurt was free.

He unzipped the waterproof pouch on the front of his wet suit and pulled out the case with the cold packs. Opening it, he pulled out one of the vials.

“Is this what I think it is?” Joe asked.

“Black Mist,” Kurt said.

More gunfire came their way.

“Now what?” Joe said.

“Nap time for the group chasing us.”

Kurt flung the vial at the wall as far as possible behind the vehicle. It shattered on impact and spread its contents through the tunnel, causing the glare from the headlights of the ATVs pursuing them to dim momentarily.

The chase vehicles burst through the Mist as the lights of the lead car veered off course and hit the wall. It bounced off, turned sideways and tumbled. The second pursuit vehicle rammed it and the men were thrown from the seats and scattered into the tunnel. They didn't get up.

Renata kept the pedal to the floor and the wreck was soon far behind them.

“Handy stuff,” Joe said.

“We can't use it all,” Kurt replied. “We need to get it to a lab so it can be analyzed.”

“Is that why it's packed in ice?”

“The guy told me we had eight hours or it would degenerate.”

“That was nice of him,” Joe said.

“He wasn't a bad guy,” Kurt said. “Just in over his head.”

Up ahead, the tunnel split in two. Lights could be seen reflecting down the curving section on the left.

“Always traffic when you don't need it,” Renata said. She veered right. This tunnel took them up, where it split again and dumped them into a much wider tunnel. She continued on and found several more offshoots, some going up, others going down.

“This must be the central vein,” Joe said.

“I suggest we go higher any chance we get,” Kurt replied. “There's got to be an exit to this mine somewhere.”

“Not back to the pipeline?” Renata asked.

“It's going to be guarded now,” Kurt said. “Either we find another way out or we spend an eternity down here like the pharaohs, the crocodiles and the frogs.”