Selene cleared her throat. “What if I told you Souk showed me a modern chamber under the Temple of Ammon with hatches leading even farther into the Earth?”
The captain’s lips tightened.
“That’s impossible, right?”
“Utterly,” Nasser said in a deadpan voice.
“Yet what if I showed you—?”
“You will remain silent,” Nasser said. “I am uninterested in your revelations concerning the ancient ground.”
That didn’t sound good. She needed to know which way the captain leaned. “Who is this man?”
Nasser stared at her for several seconds. He finally nodded, opening his mouth, maybe to tell her.
A heavy engine took that moment to cough in the distance. Nasser took several steps away from the soldier and Selene. He raised the pistol again, gripping it with both hands. He spread his feet in a shooter’s stance. Then, he concentrated on her.
A big truck appeared from behind the hill. It looked new and heavy duty. A smiling man with black hair drove it.
Selene’s fear redoubled. This had to be more of them. She was trapped. She should have shot the police captain when she had had the chance.
Soon, the big truck parked on the road beside them, releasing its air brakes with a blast of noise. The tailgate came down. Several men in brown fatigues jumped out. One went to the Volkswagen, climbing inside and starting it. The others went to the downed soldier, squatting around him, inspecting the wound and bandage.
As Selene watched helplessly, the one drove the beetle out of the ditch to behind the big truck. Two men slid out long steel ramps. The driver revved the engine and took a running start, driving onto the ramps into the truck bed. Afterward, others laid the soldier onto a stretcher, carrying him up the ditch to the truck and sliding him in the back as well. Those men shoved in the ramps, closed the tailgate and climbed inside, disappearing from view.
“You will come with me,” the driver told Selene. He had an obvious French accent.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“Questions are forbidden,” the Frenchman said.
Selene had one last hope. Maybe she could force the police captain to take her away from them.
She turned to Nasser. “Am I under arrest, Officer?”
The police captain clicked his heels, bowing his head to the Frenchman. “Please, tell her—”
“I assure you this isn’t personal,” the Frenchman told Nasser, interrupting the policeman. The Frenchman raised a machine pistol, aiming it at the well-pressed uniform.
Nasser tried to speak. Bullets from the machine pistol cut him down before he could say anything. Nasser toppled backward, riddled with slugs.
“Mon dieu!” the Frenchman exclaimed, as if surprised. “My gun went off. I’m terribly sorry, Captain. You have my deepest regrets.” The smile evaporated as he turned to two others. “Put him in the truck with Marcus. Then check under the temple. Souk is supposed to be down. Bring him up. We’ll feed him to the pets with the others.”
Selene watched in renewed horror. This was the worst. The cold-bloodedness of the murder—
“Mademoiselle,” the Frenchman said, smiling again, “you will ride up front with me, yes?”
Selene was too numbed to nod or speak. One of the others pushed her from behind. Woodenly, she headed for the truck cab.
-43-
SIWA OASIS
EGYPT
Jack trudged across the hot sands. He kept debating shedding something to lighten his load. He carried the heavy rifle with its five bullets. That was the extent of the extra ammo he’d found on the dead man.
The shooter hadn’t carried any ID or tags, although he’d had a strange tattoo on the bottom of his left foot.
Jack had thoroughly searched the fallen corpse. He’d not only taken off the boots and socks, but the pants and shirt as well. He’d gone through the garments, using his knife to shred them into ribbons. It had taken time and energy, but he’d needed to find positive information in order to make a wise decision.
Nothing about the shooter had linked him to Hammond. The corpse had smacked of D’erlon Enterprises. The shooter had been big, six-five. He must have weighed over 300 pounds, too, with those muscles. The man had reminded Jack of the big soldier in the Ardennes. The knuckle scars had told Elliot the shooter had fought hand-to-hand before. The act of loosening his seat belt and perching his foot outside the helo told Jack the man had been cocky, probably more than a little reckless.
The heavy sniper rifle was Russian. The AK-47s the Iranians had used against Carter had been Chinese knockoffs. The two-seater had been American.
Jack had no doubt the shooter belonged to the antimatter people. He believed the advisor had taken bribes or could belong to the conspiracy.
Jack halted, took off his baseball cap and wiped his forehead with a shirtsleeve. The oasis had grown from a smudge to the point where he could make out individual trees.
He tugged the cap back onto his sweaty head. He had a raging thirst. But it would be a little while before he was dehydrated. Jack lowered his head as he began to trudge for the trees.
As he strode across the sand, Jack checked his wrist-monitor. Carter’s signal had moved a half mile from its last location, but now it was stationary again.
What did the strange tattoo on the bottom of the shooter’s left foot mean? It hadn’t been a rune. Jack closed his eyes, recalling it. It had been distinctive. After fifteen steps, Jack’s eyes flew open. He’d seen the symbol before. His sweaty features hardened with concentration, trying to place it.
He listened to the crunch of his boots. He felt the baking heat. Every once in a while, a faint wind stirred. It would have felt good if it had been a cooling breeze. Instead, it blew the desert heat against his face.
Five minutes later, he heard a faint cry.
Jack stopped, took off his cap, wiped his forehead and looked straight up. A vulture soared in the thermals. Was that the same carrion bird that had circled before the helicopter had showed up?
Screwing the cap onto his head, Jack continued trudging. He still cudgeled his memories, trying to place the tattoo on the bottom of shooter’s foot.
Jack’s eyebrows rose. He remembered where he’d seen the symbol before. It had been in high school, in a history textbook on ancient Egypt. The symbol had been a hieroglyphic in a pharaoh’s tomb.
Why would a starkly white man have a tattoo like that on the bottom of his foot? People didn’t get tattoos there. One might mark a prisoner that way, though.
Did it mean the tattoo had an Egyptian significance?
He was in Egypt. The tattoo was a hieroglyphic. Hammond had brought antimatter to the Siwa Oasis. That all had to mean something, but he had no idea what.
Jack halted abruptly, thinking of something else. The enemy should have sent another helo, sent someone to finish him. They knew he’d survived the first helo. What were they waiting for? Hmm…maybe they knew he was coming to them. How would they know that?
“Of course,” Jack muttered.
They’d found the tracking device in Carter. The D’erlon people had already shown they had the most advanced technology on Earth. They might have figured out how to track the chip embedded in him.
Jack took off his baseball cap, wiped his forehead and took out his knife. He was going to have to dig out his own bug.
D17’s tech chief had told him no one could track the latest bug. That it was state-of-the-art.
That told Jack he was going up against a better-than-state-of-the-art foe. He was going to have to use his chip to his advantage—that the enemy knew he was coming and Jack knew they knew. What other advantage did he have against them?
Tightening his grip of the knife handle, Jack loosened his belt. Digging this out was going to hurt like a son of a gun…
-44-
STORAGE SHED
SIWA OASIS
Selene was terrified. She was beyond her depth, finding it impossible to sto
p trembling. The amount of killing she’d witnessed, the causal brutality and murder—
She was a prisoner, sitting on an old wooden chair inside a huge warehouse. Plastic wrist-ties secured her hands behind her back to the chair. Giant wooden crates piled four high created a cul-de-sac around her. She could still see most of the warehouse, bigger than a football field in area. Huge air conditioners hummed, keeping it cool in here. Men hustled, working fast and efficiently.
Two forklifts moved giant wooden crates out of the last of the heavy-duty trucks. There were three of the large trucks parked in here. The forklifts brought each crate to the middle of the building. There, men pried apart the wood with crowbars, revealing a shiny metal container in each one. Obviously, those containers held something critical. A woman in a white lab coat checked each container, studying a screen, tapping keys and reading the screen again.
A leaner man but much like the soldier Selene had throat-shot paced around the metal containers. He wore a black leather jacket and seemed hyper-competent.
Selene bent her head while lifting her right shoulder. She rubbed a cheek against the shoulder because it itched horribly.
The ride to the warehouse had been uneventful. She’d tried to talk to the Frenchman. He’d finally told her to seal her lips or he’d staple them together. After watching him murder Captain Nasser, she had not felt that to be an idle threat.
The warehouse stood in the middle of a palm grove. A fierce-looking guard had walked up to their idling truck, glanced at the Frenchman and pressed a switch. A huge warehouse door rolled up and the Frenchman drove in. He’d hustled Selene to this chair, from where she had watched the activities.
A half hour ago, the Frenchman had instructed a group of Iranian-looking men to sit down on the floor. Several of them had seemed as if they’d wanted to protest. The lean, scary man with the black leather jacket had turned their way.
Without further protest, the Iranians sat on the floor. Afterward, the Frenchman came by with a needle. Roll up the sleeve, swab the skin, jab and inject. The Frenchman had been efficient.
Selene had assumed it must have been a vaccine. She imagined the Iranians had believed the same thing. One by one, they’d lain on the floor. Soon, they twitched and jerked horribly. Now, each had begun to stiffen with rigor mortis.
Now, the Frenchman strode toward her.
Selene’s trembling increased. Would he inject her next? She wouldn’t beg for life. She would—
“Please,” she said, the words spilling out of her despite her best attempt to remain stoic. “Why are you doing these horrible things?”
The Frenchman halted, blinking with surprise. He grinned a moment later. He was lean with dark hair and a hatchet face. The ready smile and the cheery delight in his eyes proclaimed him a sadist.
“Mademoiselle, permit me to introduce myself. I am Monsieur Blanc, although most people call me Ney. My mother,” he said with a shrug, “loved the Napoleonic era, naming me for that ass Ney. The bravest of the brave, they called him, but he was a stupid lout of a general. The one time he shined was in Russia during the rout. Ah! What can I say?”
“You killed those men.” With her head, Selene pointed out the Iranians.
“Abu Hammond and his smugglers, bah,” Ney said. “The world is better off without them. I have committed a noble deed. The chief of the DGSE would pin a medal on me if he could.”
“Who?”
“The French CIA, one could say.”
“You belong to this DGSE?” Selene asked.
“Oui.”
“You’re combating terrorists?”
Ney smiled. “Mademoiselle, I am a hero of the human race. I am doing much more than squashing a few mosquitoes. I am liberating us from our petty squabbles and setting humanity on a path to the stars.”
Selene stared at him as her trembling increased.
“Why should that upset you?” Ney asked.
“You…” Selene licked her lips. “Were you in the Indian Ocean a few days ago?”
Ney stared at her with conflicting emotions playing across his face. It was a strange performance. Finally, he settled on a grin and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper:
“As a matter of fact, I was there, yes.”
Selene wasn’t sure whether she believed him or not, but she asked, “You know about the underwater dome?”
He winked at her. “Oui, I most certainly do.”
Selene swallowed. “Who are you really? What’s going on here?”
Ney leaned closer so he hovered over her, whispering, “Tell me about this dome. Tell me what you remember.”
She frowned. “Are you testing me?”
He gave a Gallic shrug.
Selene still wondered about his sincerity, but what did it matter anyway. “I…I went down to study an anomaly near the 2004 Indian Ocean quake’s epicenter—” she began.
“Ney!” shouted the scary man with the black leather jacket. “Why are you talking to her?”
Ney grew pale as he turned to the man. The French DGSE agent smiled nonetheless. “I’m making sure she’s secure, monsieur.”
“Stay away from her,” the man said, “or I’ll be injecting you next.”
“As you wish,” Ney said. He didn’t turn back to Selene, but headed to the twisted corpses on the floor.
Selene stopped trembling. What had just happened? Ney said he’d been in the Indian Ocean a few days ago. But the lean man—he must be in charge here—he’d just told Ney to stay away from her.
Why?
Had Ney been lying? Had he been trying to glean information from her? Was he really a DGSE agent or had he lied about that too?
I don’t know enough to make any judgments. This is bewildering.
Selene squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them wide. If she was going to figure things out, she had to start thinking. It would help to catalog what went on around her.
One of the forklift drivers drove his machine close enough for her to smell the propane energizing it. He didn’t even glance at her, but wheeled the forklift so the prongs slid under a wooden slat. With the rev of his engine, he raised a giant wooden crate. Cranking the steering wheel, he turned his forklift and raced for one of the heavy-duty trucks.
He’s reloading the vehicles, putting these crates in lieu of the ones he took out.
Selene nodded, filing that away. Across the warehouse, there were several rooms along the other side. She counted three doors, making probably three separate chambers. She had no idea if they were kitchens, restrooms or rest areas.
She spied a white tarp covering something the size of a large truck. She had no idea if it was another vehicle or not. Finally, she noticed a few more large crates on the other end of the warehouse.
Selene’s head swayed back. A large electric motor whirled. Then, a section of flooring slid open near the middle of the warehouse. It appeared this place boasted a basement. A vehicle engine revved and a Land Rover drove up. More appeared, twelve altogether.
If it had been busy before, now men scrambled. They loaded ten Land Rovers with the metal containers taken from the heavy-duty trucks. The eleventh vehicle received the throat-shot man on a stretcher. A forklift entered one of the rooms through a larger opening. It returned with a cage. Inside the cage was a large, shaggy hound.
Something about the creature caused Selene to shiver. The dog seemed too self-possessed, if that was possible.
The forklift driver set down the cage. Several men cautiously approached it and the hound. They used poles to lift the cage, working it into the back of the twelfth Land Rover.
Each of the rovers had outsized tires, which indicated desert terrain vehicles.
Soon thereafter, the Land Rovers headed for the front of the warehouse. A large door rolled up. One after another, the vehicles roared away. As soon as the last one departed, the opening closed.
Approximately fifteen minutes later, seven men walked among the Iranian corpses. They knelt or squatted, undressing the d
ead, and then stripped out of their own clothing, putting on the dead men’s clothes. Once finished, the seven dispersed, each going to a heavy-duty truck.
The trucks coughed into life and gears grinded. The big machines inched or jerked toward the main entrance. The opening rose as before and the trucks headed out.
This time, the garage-like door remained open.
The man in the black leather jacket called Ney to him. He pointed at Selene. Ney nodded. The man spoke sharply. Ney nodded once more.
Three men in camouflage gear appeared and strode to one of the separate rooms. They reappeared, helping a stumbling man. He blinked constantly as if his eyes hurt, and he had a thick bandage on the side of his head.
Ney approached her. “It is time,” the Frenchmen said.
“Time for what?” Selene asked.
Ney smiled without any warmth. “You are about to learn a secret, mademoiselle. I had to absorb this secret myself. It is a painful process, I assure you. In the end, however, you will find it liberating.”
Selene didn’t like the sound of this. “Can you be more specific?” she asked.
“Naturally, I could, but I won’t, as that would spoil the surprise. Are you ready?”
“No!”
Ney laughed in what appeared to be a good-natured manner. “We will go to a different part of the compound.”
“Do you—”
“No more questions, mademoiselle. Stand up. We’re taking a ride.”
“You’ll have to undo this tie. My wrists are connected to the chair.”
“Of course,” Ney said, coming around, opening a jackknife and cutting the plastic. He put a new tie on her wrists, one free of the old chair.
Selene stood. It amazed her that she no longer trembled. Maybe the anticipation of danger was worse than having to do something. Selene followed the Frenchman to a large SUV.
Artifact Page 17
