The Forbidden Tomb

by Chris Kuzneski

  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.’

  34

  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.

  Ironically, their break was a trail.

  At the end of the alley, they found torn chunks
of rubber. Just beyond that, a scorched line had been burned onto the pavement. It started near the alleyway and haphazardly meandered down the street into the distance.

  Cobb had seen similar markings before. He knew the rubber was a tire that had been torn from its wheel and that the ambulance was now riding on a rim. It was the grinding of metal on asphalt that had left the scarring. The zigzag pattern in the road meant the driver had never experienced losing a tire and was having trouble with the lack of stability.

  More importantly, it meant they could follow the kidnappers.

  Cobb and McNutt tore down the street in pursuit, their eyes pinned to the trail that led the way. Like the spark at the end of a fuse, they would inevitably reach the end. And when they did, they expected fireworks.

  Not only had the missing tire made the ambulance hard to drive, but it had severely limited its speed. Only a few blocks from where they had first picked up the trail, they found the disabled vehicle stranded in the roadway.

  Cobb and McNutt dismounted their bikes and approached on foot, using parked cars, garbage cans, and lampposts as cover. Neither liked the situation as they sensed they were charging into an ambush, but each accepted it was a chance that they had to take if they hoped to get to Jasmine and the bombers before the police arrived.

  ‘Cover me,’ Cobb said as they ducked behind an SUV less than twenty feet from the ambulance. ‘If they rigged the van to blow, you’ll be safer here.’

  ‘Screw safe,’ McNutt growled. ‘I want blood.’

  ‘You can get it from here. Now cover me.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Cobb took a deep breath and sprinted toward the ambulance, ready to return fire, but there was no sign of the man in black, the medic, or the driver. Still, he knew he wasn’t out of danger. There were a thousand different ways for the bombers to rig the rear doors. He realized any action he took from here on in might be his last.

  Still, he had to know.

  He carefully pulled the latch, hoping that the next sound he heard was a simple click rather than the deafening roar of a bomb followed by the singing of angels.

  Instead the door swung open, revealing nothing.

  The ambulance was empty.

  35

  Garcia was relieved to be back on the yacht. He had viewed his time on the speedboat as a necessary evil. Not only did it take him away from the gadgets and gizmos of his command center – the only things that helped him feel connected to the world – he simply wasn’t comfortable on the open water.

  Never had been, never would be.

  It wasn’t just because moisture was the mortal enemy of electronics. It had far deeper roots than that. His uneasiness had developed long before he had written his first lines of code. Even as a young boy, swimming in anything but a shallow pool had felt unsafe, no matter what his parents said to comfort him. He knew when he was out of his element, and he preferred the constant steadiness of the land to the uncertainty of the sea.

  He had swallowed his fear to rescue Sarah.

  But not enough to actually dive in the water.

  Thankfully, Papineau had jumped in and saved the day.

  Garcia was deeply troubled by his indecision but he didn’t have time to worry about it now. The only thing that mattered was his current task.

  His search would start with the video footage recorded on Jasmine’s hard drive. That is, if he could salvage what was left of it. To speed the drying process, he took apart Jasmine’s and Sarah’s flashlights and spread out the waterlogged parts on a lint-free pad on his desk. To aid the recovery process, he dipped the memory cards in a vat of fresh water before he placed them in a natural desiccant to pull moisture from the circuitry.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Papineau asked as he entered the room, freshly showered and wearing a different suit than before – one that wasn’t wet. He glanced over Garcia’s shoulder and tried to figure out what he was doing. ‘Is that rice?’

  ‘Yep,’ Garcia said as he placed the last few components in a paper bag and added several cups of uncooked rice. ‘I would have preferred packets of silicon dioxide – it’s a gel that sucks up moisture like a sponge and has a lot less dust than grain – but time is the most important factor when rescuing data. The clock was ticking, so I had to act fast.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Papineau said as he considered the scene. ‘You didn’t anticipate a need for silica packets, but we had rice in the pantry.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And the vat?’

  ‘Filled with your finest spring water.’ He pointed to several empty bottles in a nearby bin. ‘I used the liquid to bathe the parts before I started the drying process. Otherwise, the salt crystals from the seawater would have messed with the circuitry.’

  Papineau shook his head. He had authorized an unlimited budget for the best equipment that money could buy, and Garcia was retrieving key data with rice and water. ‘What do you think: can you undo the damage?’

  Garcia nodded. ‘Once the water’s been sucked away, the drive from Sarah’s flashlight should give us something to work with. There might be a few bad sectors that were damaged beyond repair, but I’m fairly confident we’ll be okay.’

  ‘And Jasmine’s?’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s a different story. Her flashlight was basically destroyed. The drive didn’t just get wet, it got smashed. That means there’s a far greater chance that her data will be unrecoverable. We’ll have to wait and see.’

  ‘Keep me posted.’

  ‘And you?’

  Papineau arched an eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’

  Garcia pointed to the row of small monitors that he had set up for Papineau. It allowed him to watch several satellite feeds of the various international news networks simultaneously. ‘Anything on the blast?’

  Papineau nodded. ‘The explosion is being covered around the world, as I expected. The BBC and CNN are withholding their speculation until they see a report from Nile TV here in Egypt, and that won’t happen until Nile gets a preliminary finding from the Deputy Minister of Special Police. Al Jazeera is calling it a natural disaster. The Chinese are saying it’s an act of terrorism. And the North Korean government has labeled it proof that the Egyptians now have a tactical nuclear device.’

  Garcia shook his head and laughed. ‘That they used against their own people? That doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘I mention North Korea, and you expect the story to make sense?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  Garcia stopped abruptly and stared at the video feed from the security camera that he had installed on an outside rail. The camera pointed down the dock, allowing him to see anyone approaching the boat from shore. In this case, he spotted two battered men as they opened the gate and made their way toward the yacht. They were covered in so much filth and blood that they were virtually unrecognizable.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Papineau demanded.

  Garcia glanced at him, then back at the screen. ‘I’m not sure if anything’s wrong. Two men are coming this way, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I think . . .’ Garcia didn’t want to create false hope until he knew for sure, so he waited to make his pronouncement until the last possible moment. ‘Oh my God! It’s Jack and Josh! They’re here – and alive!’

  ‘They’re here?’

  ‘And alive!’

  Garcia and Papineau rushed down the stairs and met Cobb and McNutt in the galley below. Both soldiers were exhausted and covered in grime.

  Garcia wanted to hug them both, but he sensed they weren’t in the mood so he kept his distance and said the only thing he could think of: ‘Welcome back.’

  McNutt nodded his appreciation as Cobb rummaged through the refrigerator for two bottles of water. He tossed the first to McNutt and chugged the second himself.

  When his thirst had been quenched, Cobb finally spoke. ‘We lost Jasmine. She’s been taken by the bombers.’

  ‘Taken?’ Papineau blurted. ‘Why would they
take Jasmine?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cobb admitted. ‘But they had plenty of opportunities to kill her and they didn’t. In fact, they did the exact opposite. They saved her life by taking her.’

  Garcia stared at him. ‘Jack, you keep saying they. Who are they?’

  Cobb shrugged and handed his cell phone to Garcia. ‘I was hoping you could tell me.’

  ‘Pictures?’ Garcia asked.

  Cobb nodded as he tipped back another bottle of water.

  ‘We documented as much as we could,’ McNutt explained. ‘They used an ambulance to get away from the blast. It was empty by the time we caught up to it. You should find enough to give you a make and model, as well as images of the plates and the vehicle identification number. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stick around. We only had a few seconds before the police arrived.’

  Papineau grimaced. ‘The police? Do they know about Jasmine?’

  ‘I doubt it. I don’t see how they could,’ McNutt answered.

  He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Good. Let’s keep it that way. Meanwhile, I’ll reach out to some of my contacts and try to get a sense of things. If they’re after money, I’ll do everything I can to negotiate her release.’

  Cobb nodded but said nothing.

  ‘In the meantime, what else can you tell me?’

  Cobb wasn’t in the mood to talk, but he knew he had to fill in the rest of his team so they could get to work. ‘There were maybe a dozen guys. All dressed in black, all armed with blades. They were experienced and well trained. They knew exactly what they were doing. They got in and out of the cisterns without us noticing. They eliminated everyone they encountered, and they erased their presence with a series of explosives.’

  ‘Except for the ambulance,’ Garcia blurted. He could see that Cobb and McNutt had been through hell, and he was trying to boost their spirits. ‘It’s a good place to start.’

  Papineau stroked his chin in thought. ‘Back up for a moment. You said they eliminated everyone that they found in the tunnels? You mean they weren’t working in tandem with the men from the boiler room?’