The Pharaoh's Secret (6 page)

The gunshot echoed in the narrow hallway and Kurt fell backward, twisting awkwardly. He landed on his side and lay there not moving.

Surprised, but born with quick reflexes that he'd honed in the boxing ring for half his life, Joe lunged forward. His gloved hand knocked the man's arm to the side and caused the next two gunshots to bury themselves in the wall. A headbutt, assisted by the steel diving helmet, sent the gunman sprawling and the weapon flew from his hand and slid along the scuffed white floor of the hallway.

Both men scrambled for the gun. Joe reached it first, grabbing it and standing, but the gloves got in the way and he couldn't get
his finger on the trigger. The wiry assailant tackled him and they crashed through a door marked
Caution MRI
.

They landed hard on the floor and were separated by the impact. Hindered by the limited visibility from the helmet, Joe momentarily lost track of both the gun and his opponent. When he looked around, the gun was nowhere to be seen, but the man who'd attacked them was lying twenty feet away. He seemed to be unconscious.

Joe got to his feet and took a step forward. He felt a tremendous sense of vertigo, as if he were being pulled over backward. Before he could take another step, he found his sense of balance failing. His first thought was that the toxin had affected him, but it wasn't his imagination, he was actually being pulled backward, like someone had attached a rope between his shoulder blades.

The reason dawned on him quickly. They'd crashed through the door into the hospital's MRI lab. Twenty feet behind him stood a machine the size of a small car. It was filled with powerful, supercooled magnets that had no off mode. Having worked in a hospital for a summer, Joe was familiar with the danger of MRI machines, anything made of ferrous metal that got too close would be drawn in like a tractor beam. And Joe had a steel tank on his back and a steel helmet on his head.

He leaned forward at a thirty-degree angle, fighting the magnetic force, trying to prevent it from lifting him off his feet. He took a few steps in that posture, like a man walking into the brunt of a hurricane, but his progress was agonizingly slow.

His injured opponent was only ten feet away, still recovering from hitting the floor, but, despite every effort, Joe could not reach him.

Joe leaned farther, pushed harder, and put his foot down on a
slick spot on the floor. His foot slipped and came out from under him, the traction suddenly gone. That was all it took. In the next instant, he was yanked off his feet and flying through the air.

His back slammed against the curved face of the machine, his head whiplashing against another section and knocking against it with a resounding clang.

The magnets held him in place and he hung there at an odd angle. Even his feet were held up, thanks to the steel shanks in his boots, and his left arm, thanks to the steel in his watch. He managed to pull his right arm away from the machine but was unable to free anything else.

In the meantime, the assailant had regained consciousness. He got to his feet, looked over at Joe and then shook his head as if seeing things. He began to laugh and raised the pistol only to have it fly from his hand and slam against the MRI's housing beside Joe.

Joe twisted his body and stretched for it, but the gun remained stuck to the machine and just beyond his reach.

The thug seemed surprised but quickly got over it. He switched to a second weapon, a short triangular knife connected to brass knuckles. He slid his fingers into the holes, clenched his fist in a ball and began moving toward Joe.

“Maybe we can talk about this,” Joe said. “I'm thinking you need some help, right? Maybe a better medical plan. Perhaps something with mental health coverage.”

“You might as well accept the inevitable,” the man said. “It will be easier that way.”

“Easier for you, maybe.”

The man lunged, but Joe wrenched one foot from the machine and kicked, catching the man in the side of the face.

The blow stunned the assailant, knocking him backward. He
reacted with rage, raising his arm and preparing to punch a deadly hole in Joe's chest, when the door behind them opened. Kurt stood there with an IV stand in his hand. He released it and the metal rod flew toward them. It pierced the assailant's body like a javelin, pinning him to the machine beside Joe.

Joe watched as the light went out of the man's eyes and then turned his attention to Kurt. “About time you got here. For a minute, I thought you were going to impersonate an upside-down beetle all day long.”

Joe could see a sharp dent gouged into the top of Kurt's helmet and blood running down his face behind the cracked acrylic face shield.

“I
was
out cold,” Kurt said. “But I figured there was no hurry. I knew I'd find you hanging around somewhere.”

A smirk crossed Joe's face. “Couldn't resist, could you?”

“It was too easy.”

“Well, you'd better not come in any farther or you'll end up impersonating a refrigerator magnet right alongside me.”

Kurt stayed by the doorway with his hands against the doorjamb to prevent him from being pulled forward. He looked around. To the left, behind a Plexiglas wall, the MRI control room stood empty. “How do I turn it off?”

“You can't,” Joe said. “The magnets are always on. At the hospital I worked at in El Paso, they got a wheelchair stuck in one of these. It took six guys to pull it out.”

Kurt nodded and held his ground. His attention was on the man who'd tried to kill them both. “What do you think his problem is?”

“Aside from the spear sticking out of his chest?”

“Yeah, aside from that,” Kurt replied.

“No idea,” Joe said. “Though I do find it strange that the only
thing moving on this island is a deranged lunatic who wanted to kill us for no apparent reason.”

“That surprises you?” Kurt said. “Somehow, I've gotten used to it. These things seem to happen to us. But what I am shocked about is his attire—or lack thereof. We're sweating off the pounds in our best imitation of chemical-resistant suits and he's walking around in street clothes without a mask.”

“Maybe the air has cleared,” Joe said. “Which means I can—”

“Don't risk it,” Kurt said, holding up a hand. “Keep your gear on until we know for sure. I'm going to deliver the oxygen to this Dr. Ambrosini. I'll see if she has any idea what happened.”

“I'd help you,” Joe said, “but . . .”

Kurt smiled. “Yeah, I know, you're kind of stuck.”

“It must be my magnetic personality,” Joe said.

Kurt laughed, allowed Joe to have the last word, and then turned back down the hall.

Renata Ambrosini sat on the floor of the operating room with her back to the wall, waiting and powerless. A state of affairs she was neither used to nor enjoying.

Taking only shallow breaths to conserve what oxygen remained in the sealed-off room, she ran her fingers through her lush mahogany-colored hair, pulled it together and reset the ponytail that kept it out of her way. She stretched and smoothed the fabric of her lab coat and did everything she could to keep her mind off of the clock and the almost uncontrollable urge she felt to rip the seal from the door and fling it wide open.

Low levels of oxygen made the body ache and the mind groggy, but she kept her priorities straight. The air inside was bad, the air outside was deadly.

Originally from Tuscany, Renata had grown up in various parts of Italy, traveling with her father, who was a specialist for the Carabinieri. Her mother had been killed in a crime wave when Renata was only five and her father had become a crusader, dragging her around the country as he built up special units that would fight organized crime and corruption.

Inheriting her father's grit and determination and her mother's classic looks, Renata had gone to medical school on a scholarship, graduated top of her class and spent time modeling to pay the bills. All in all, she preferred the ER to the runway. For one thing, the life of a model meant being judged by others, an arrangement she would not stand. In addition, she was barely tall enough, even for a European model, at five foot three, and curvy, not cut out to be used as a walking clothes hanger.

In an effort to get others to take her more seriously, she kept her hair back, wore little makeup and often donned a set of unflattering glasses that she didn't really need. Yet, at thirty-four, with smooth olive skin and features that bore a passing resemblance to a young Sophia Loren, she still caught her male colleagues staring at her often enough.

And so she'd decided to take on a tougher craft, one that brought her to Lampedusa and that would leave no doubt just who she was and what she was all about. Though in the wake of the attack, she wondered if she'd survive this latest mission.

Hang on, she said to herself.

She took another breath of the stale air and fought the weariness brought on by the high concentrations of carbon dioxide. She glanced at her watch. Nearly ten minutes had gone by since she'd spoken with the American.

“What could be taking them so long?” a young lab tech sitting beside her asked.

“Perhaps the elevator is out of order,” she joked, and then wearily forced herself to stand and check on the others.

The room was crowded with all those she'd managed to corral as the attack began. Including a nurse, a lab tech, four children and twelve adult patients with various ailments. Among them were three immigrants who'd sailed on a dilapidated rowboat from the coast of Tunisia, surviving the blistering sun, the tail end of a storm and a pair of shark attacks when they'd been forced to swim the last five hundred yards. It seemed unfair, after all that, for them to die of carbon dioxide poisoning in the operating room of the hospital that had been their salvation.

Finding several of the patients unresponsive, she picked up the last of the portable oxygen bottles. She turned the valve but heard nothing. It was empty.

The bottle dropped from her hand, banged against the floor and rolled across to the far wall. No one around her reacted. They were passing out, falling into a sleep that might soon end with brain damage or death.

She stumbled to the door, put her hand on the tape and tried to peel it off. Her grip was too weak.

“Focus, Renata,” she demanded of herself. “Focus.”

An orange blur entered the room beyond. A man in some kind of uniform. Her tired mind thought he looked like an astronaut. Or possibly an alien. Or just a hallucination. That he seemed to disappear suddenly all but confirmed her last guess.

She gripped the tape, went to pull it and heard a voice shouting.

“Don't!”

She let go. Fell to her knees and then over onto her side. Lying on the floor, she saw a thin tube poke through the plastic beneath the door. It hissed like a snake and for a second that's what she imagined it was.

Then her mind began to clear. Oxygen—pure, cold oxygen—was pouring in.

Slowly, at first, but then with sudden speed, the cobwebs began to vanish. A head rush followed, painful but welcome. She inhaled deeply as a shiver ran through her body and the surge of adrenaline hit like a runner's high.

A second tube poked through and the flow doubled. She moved out of the way so the oxygen would reach the others.

When she had the strength, she stood up and put her face to the window in the door. The astronaut in orange reappeared, moving to the intercom on the far wall. Beside her, the speaker came alive with a scratchy tone. “Is everyone okay?”

“I think we'll make it,” she said. “What happened to your head? You're bleeding.”

“Low bridge,” Kurt said.

She remembered hearing gunshots. She'd thought it was her imagination or even a delusion. “We heard shooting,” she said. “Did someone attack you?”

He grew more serious. “As a matter of fact, someone did.”

“What did he look like?” she asked. “Was he alone?”

Her rescuer shifted his weight and his posture stiffened slightly. “As far as I can tell,” he said, no longer sounding so flip and jocular. “Were you expecting trouble of some kind?”

She hesitated. She'd probably said too much already. And yet if there was more danger, this man in front of her was the only one who could possibly defend them until the Italian forces arrived.

“I just . . .” she began, then switched tactics. “This whole thing is so confusing.”

She could see him studying her through the cracked visor and the window in the door. There was enough distortion that she
couldn't truly read his expression, but she sensed him gauging her. As if he could look right through her.

“You're right,” he finally replied. “Very confusing. All the way around.”

There was enough in his tone that she knew he was partially referring to her. There was little she could do now but stay silent and cover up. He'd saved her life, but she had no idea who he really was.

Reagan National Airport, Washington, D.C.

0530 hours

Vice President James Sandecker lit a cigar with a silver Zippo lighter he'd bought in Hawaii almost forty years prior. He had plenty of other lighters, some of them very expensive, but the well-traveled Zippo that was worn smooth in places from the touch of his fingers was his favorite. It reminded him that some things were built to last.

He took a puff on the cigar, enjoying the aroma and then exhaling a lopsided ring of smoke. A few furtive glances came his way. Smoking wasn't allowed on Air Force Two, but no one was going to tell the Vice President that. Especially when they'd been sitting on the taxiway, going nowhere, when they were supposed to be winging their way to Rome for an economic summit.

Truthfully, they'd only been holding for ten, maybe fifteen
minutes, but Air Force One and Air Force Two never waited on the ground unless there was a mechanical problem. And if that was the case, the Secret Service would have made the pilots taxi back and taken the Vice President off the plane until it was fixed.

Sandecker pulled the cigar from his mouth and looked over at Terry Carruthers, his aide. Terry was a Princeton man, incredibly sharp, never one to leave a job undone and outstanding at following orders. In fact, he was too good at following orders, Sandecker thought, since it seemed to mean taking the initiative was not a big part of his vocabulary.

“Terry,” Sandecker said.

“Yes, Mr. Vice President.”

“I haven't sat on a runway this long since I flew commercial,” Sandecker explained. “And to give you some idea of how long ago that was, Braniff was the hottest thing going at the time.”

“That's interesting,” Terry said.

“It is, isn't it?” Sandecker said in a voice that suggested he was getting at something else. “Why do you think we're delayed? Weather?”

“No,” Carruthers said. “The weather was perfect up and down the Eastern Seaboard when I last checked.”

“Pilots lose the keys?”

“I doubt that, sir.”

“Well . . . maybe they forget the way to Italy?”

Carruthers chuckled. “I'm fairly certain they have maps, sir.”

“Okay,” Sandecker said. “Then why do
you
think the second-most-important person in America is cooling his heels on the taxiway when he's supposed to be flying the friendly skies?”

“Well, I really wouldn't know,” Carruthers stammered. “I've been back here with you the whole time.”

“Yes you have, haven't you?”

There was a brief delay as Carruthers processed what Sandecker was getting at. “I'll run up to the cockpit and find out.”

“It's either that,” Sandecker said, “or I'm going to have a level-three conniption and put you in charge of a nationwide review of the country's entire air traffic control system.”

Carruthers unlatched his seat belt and was off like a shot. Sandecker took another draw on the cigar and noticed the two Secret Service agents assigned to the cabin trying to suppress their laughter.

“That,” Sandecker said, “is what I call a grade A teaching moment.”

A short time later, the phone in the arm of Sandecker's chair began to flash. He picked it up.

“Mr. Vice President,” Carruthers said. “We've just been told about an incident in the Mediterranean. There's been a terrorist attack on a small island off the coast of Italy. It resulted in a toxic explosion of some kind. All air traffic is being diverted, grounded or rerouted at this time.”

“I see,” Sandecker replied, serious once again. There was something in Carruthers's voice that suggested more. “Any other details?”

“Only that the first news of this came from your old outfit, NUMA.”

Sandecker founded NUMA and guided the organization for most of its existence before accepting the offer to become Vice President. “NUMA?” he said. “Why would they be the first to know about this?”

“I'm not sure, Mr. Vice President.”

“Thanks, Terry,” Sandecker said. “You'd better come back and have a seat.”

Carruthers hung up and Sandecker immediately dialed the
communications officer. “Get me in touch with NUMA headquarters.”

It took only seconds for the transfer to go through and in short order Sandecker was speaking with Rudi Gunn, who was NUMA's Assistant Director.

“Rudi, this is Sandecker,” he said. “I understand we're involved with an incident in the Mediterranean.”

“That's correct,” Rudi said.

“Is it Dirk?”

Dirk Pitt was now NUMA's Director, but during Sandecker's term as Director Pitt had been his number one asset. Even now, he spent more time in the field than the office.

“No,” Rudi said, “Dirk's in South America on another project. It's Austin and Zavala this time.”

“If it's not one, it's the other,” Sandecker lamented. “Give me the details as you know them.”

Rudi explained what they knew and what they didn't and then indicated he'd already had a conversation with a ranking officer in the Italian Coast Guard and the director of one of the Italian intelligence agencies. Other than that, he had little to go on.

“I haven't heard from Kurt or Joe either,” Rudi admitted. “The captain of the
Sea Dragon
said they went ashore hours ago. Nothing since then.”

Another man might have wondered why two men would be crazy enough to enter a toxic zone with only makeshift protective gear, but Sandecker had recruited Austin and Zavala precisely because that's the kind of men they were. “If anyone knows how to take care of themselves, it's those two,” he said.

“Agreed,” Rudi said. “I'll keep you posted, if you'd like, Mr. Vice President.”

“I'd appreciate that,” Sandecker said as the engines started to
wind up. “Looks like we're moving here. When you speak to Kurt and Joe, tell them I'm heading that way, and if they don't get themselves squared away double-quick, I may have to check in on them myself.”

It was all in jest, of course, but it was the kind of subtle boost Sandecker had always been great at providing.

“I'll tell them, Mr. Vice President.” The tone in Rudi's voice was noticeably more positive than it had been at first.

Sandecker hung up as the plane swung onto the runway and began to accelerate with its engines roaring. A mile and a half later, the nose came up and Air Force Two lifted off, beginning its long journey to Rome. As it climbed up, Sandecker sat back in his seat, wondering for quite a while just what Kurt and Joe had stumbled upon. He never imagined that he'd find out the answer in person.