The Forbidden Tomb

by Chris Kuzneski

  Sarah shook her head in disgust. ‘You know, there’s a whole pantry of things to eat. Not to mention a stocked refrigerator. You don’t need to barge in here and take ours.’

  McNutt took his next bite. ‘I didn’t come for the food. That was just a bonus. I came here because I think I can help you.’

  She eyed him suspiciously. ‘Help me with what?’

  He plopped down on the couch across from Sarah. ‘I’ve got a lead on the explosives. Well, kind of . . . I mean, maybe.’

  She didn’t have time for games. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  Cobb had faith in McNutt’s abilities, but he understood Sarah’s frustration. The Marine’s delivery needed some work. ‘Josh, what are you talking about?’

  McNutt could sense their annoyance. This wasn’t the time to be ambiguous. Too much was at stake. ‘I can almost guarantee that the Semtex was made in the Czech Republic, at a company called Explosia.’

  ‘Explosia?’ she scoffed. ‘You’re making that up.’

  ‘I swear I’m not,’ he assured her as he continued to eat. ‘That’s the actual name of the company. It’s located in Semtín, a suburb of Pardubice in the Czech Republic. They invented the compound in Semtín – that’s where Semtex gets its name – and they’re still the world’s leading manufacturer of the stuff. They make at least a half-dozen different varieties, and there’s no shortage of buyers.’

  Cobb knew that explosives were often marked with unique chemical or powdered metal tags that labeled specific batches. These taggants, as they were called, were like encoded messages that identified the origin and purchaser of the material. If they could determine the taggant, then all they needed was the manufacturer’s paperwork. They could simply compare the marker that had been detected to the entries on their master list, and that would give them the name of the buyer.

  Cobb cursed himself for not taking a sample of the compound when he had a chance. ‘If we can get you a forensic report, can you trace the signature?’

  ‘Probably not,’ McNutt answered. ‘But that’s okay. We don’t need to go through all of that.’

  ‘Why can’t you trace it?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘And why don’t we need that information?’ Cobb added.

  McNutt answered Sarah’s question first. ‘You probably won’t get a trace because taggants weren’t mandatory in Semtex until recently. And even then, the regulations only apply to new Semtex. There are still warehouses full of older, unmarked Semtex that has yet to be sold.’

  He turned toward Cobb. ‘The reason it doesn’t matter is because the explosive is only part of the equation.’

  Cobb didn’t understand. ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, when I learned that you can’t trace Semtex, I looked for something else that might help us.’ He opened the folder he had brought with him and held up a picture of a detonator attached to a bomb pack. ‘And I found this.’

  Cobb recognized the image. It was a close-up shot of the timer used to synchronize the explosions in the cisterns.

  McNutt didn’t wait for questions. ‘It may look like an ordinary digital counter, but it’s not. It’s one of a kind. It’s made in Tunisia by a company named Mecanav. They make ships, of all things. This sucker actually belongs in the instrument panel of a high-end marine display.’

  Sarah tried to connect the dots. ‘I don’t get it. Why is a Tunisian boat timer being used to detonate explosives?’

  McNutt smiled. ‘Convenience.’

  He pulled out a map of Northern Africa and pointed at the small country of Tunisia, which sat at the tip of the northern coast. He ran his finger south into Libya.

  ‘Remember Muammar al-Gaddafi – the whack job who ruled Libya for, like, forty years? Under his leadership, Libya became Explosia’s biggest and most-important client. The Semtex that they received was technically the property of the Libyan Army, but most of it ended up on the black market.’

  Cobb needed specifics. ‘How much are we talking about?’

  ‘A scary amount,’ McNutt replied. ‘At least seven hundred tons. And that might be a conservative estimate. Some experts put that figure at well over a thousand.’

  Cobb groaned. For Sarah’s benefit, he put the number into perspective. ‘Remember the Lockerbie bombing in 1988? A few ounces took out an entire airplane.’

  Sarah was familiar with the incident in Scotland, having studied it extensively during her training with the CIA. She knew about the damage not only to the plane, but also to the two hundred and fifty-nine people who had lost their lives.

  McNutt didn’t let her linger on the past. ‘Libya is a hotbed for the Semtex market, but it doesn’t have the manufacturing base to supply the rest of the components needed to construct a bomb. The nearest source of reliable electronics is Tunisia, their neighbor to the north. Namely: Mecanav. Entire truckloads of these timers have disappeared as they made their way from the company’s assembly plant to the shipyards. They almost always turn up on the streets of Tripoli or Benghazi.’

  McNutt tapped the picture of the timer to reinforce his next point. ‘Forget about the tomb, this is where the real money is. You could buy an entire boat for the same price that just a few of these timers go for on the black market.’

  Cobb finally had the whole picture. It might have taken McNutt a few minutes to get there, but it was worth the wait. The Libyan border was less than three hundred and fifty miles from Alexandria – close enough for a team to get in and out in less than a day. It meant that they could narrow their investigation.

  ‘Sarah—’

  She cut him off. ‘I can limit the parameters of my search. I’ll focus on groups operating out of Libya, specifically those who have a track record with explosives.’

  ‘Well-financed groups,’ Cobb added. ‘If the timers are that expensive, there’s got to be some big money supporting their efforts. The way they blanketed the whole network of cisterns, they certainly weren’t worried about the cost.’

  Sarah grabbed the laptop she had been using to pull up research material and attacked it with renewed vigor.

  Though it was only a minor breakthrough, Cobb felt the need to compliment McNutt. ‘Nice job, Marine. Well worth the price of a sandwich.’

  McNutt smiled and burped. ‘Thanks, chief.’

  42

  Garcia raced down from the command center as Cobb and McNutt talked and Sarah pounded away on her keyboard. ‘Do you mind if I interrupt?’

  Sarah shouted, ‘Yes!’ as Cobb said, ‘No.’

  Cobb grinned. ‘Did you find something?’

  Garcia tossed him the used glow stick. ‘I found the distributor.’

  Cobb rolled the plastic cylinder in his hand. ‘Let me guess: Libya?’

  Garcia, unaware of the conversation that had prompted the response, was temporarily confused. He knew that Cobb wasn’t prone to wild shots in the dark, but the comment seemed to be coming out of nowhere. ‘Um, no. Not Libya.’

  Sarah chimed in. ‘Tunisia?’

  McNutt couldn’t resist. ‘The Czech Republic?’

  Garcia didn’t know what was happening, but the expressions on their faces told him that they weren’t joking. ‘No and no. It was sold in Greece.’

  ‘Greece?’ Cobb echoed. ‘Are they available in other countries?’

  Garcia shook his head. ‘Nope. They’re manufactured in Piraeus, Greece, and the company only sells them domestically. No exports at all for tax reasons.’

  Sarah cursed under her breath. ‘Back to square one.’

  Annoyed that someone had ruined his moment, McNutt hurled the rest of his sandwich at Garcia. ‘Thanks a lot, Fernando.’

  Garcia tried to catch it, but the sandwich separated in mid-flight, sending chunks of bread, cheese, and mustard-covered meat at him like shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade. All he could really do was try to protect his face.

  ‘What the heck?’ he screamed as he surveyed the damage to his vintage T-shirt. ‘That was totally uncalled for.’

 
‘And so was your update!’ McNutt shouted back.

  Cobb ignored their bickering and tried to make sense of the new development. Everything he had just learned about the nautical timers and the Semtex pointed to a force operating out of Libya. They hadn’t yet determined if the men were affiliated with a larger group or if they were hired mercenaries, but their location was a good lead.

  A lead that Garcia had just thrown into doubt.

  Given the magnitude of the setback, Cobb needed more. ‘How sure are you that the glow sticks came from Greece?’

  ‘I’m ninety-nine percent positive,’ Garcia replied as he peeled a slice of salami off of his chest. He knew better than to offer anything higher. In his world, nothing was an ironclad certainty. There was always a margin of error.

  ‘But not one hundred?’ Cobb asked.

  Garcia sensed that Cobb wouldn’t let it rest until he heard exactly how he had reached his conclusion. Unfortunately for Garcia, that meant their conversation was about to go in a very strange direction. ‘Have you ever been to a rave?’

  The typing stopped as Sarah cocked her head to the side. She honestly didn’t know which was more amusing: Garcia’s question or Cobb’s reaction.

  ‘A rave?’ Cobb repeated.

  The mere thought of it made McNutt laugh. ‘Oh sure, Jack’s a regular on the rave scene. Trip-hop, acid house, reggae dub – he’s into all that shit.’

  Cobb had no idea what McNutt was talking about. It was like he was suddenly speaking in a foreign language. All Cobb knew about raves was what he had seen on television. ‘You mean the all-night dance parties where blitzed teenagers act like zombies? No, Hector, I can’t say that I have.’

  ‘I’m not advocating the lifestyle,’ Garcia said defensively. ‘I just needed to know if you were familiar with the concept.’

  ‘Yes, I know what they are. Why?’

  Garcia knew he needed to make his point quickly before Cobb shut down the conversation. Still, he felt a little background information would help his cause.

  ‘Raves’ he explained, ‘started out as a way for kids to blow off steam. The physical exertion of a dance marathon was just innocent stress relief. The problem was that some people didn’t know when to quit. When a few hours of dancing wasn’t enough, they turned to pharmaceutical alternatives to help them mellow out or to keep the party going. Ecstasy, Crystal Meth, Special K, GHB – it was all being passed around like candy. These kids would wind up naked in the hospital, with absolutely no recollection of how they got there.’

  McNutt sighed. ‘God, I miss the nineties.’

  Cobb smiled. ‘So it was a great time for drug dealers. What’s the point?’

  Garcia continued. ‘Besides drugs, the other common element at most raves was an abundance of glow sticks. People would attach them to their clothing or wave them through the air. I’m talking about maybe a thousand people all drawing shapes in the darkness. It’s pretty cool when you see it sober. In a drug-fueled haze, the effect is mind-blowing.’ He paused briefly. ‘Or so I’ve heard.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Garcia looked back at Cobb. ‘The only people who appreciated the light show more than the inebriated masses were the authorities. Particularly the DEA.’

  Cobb scrunched his face in confusion. He couldn’t figure out why the Drug Enforcement Agency had an interest in plastic lights. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘The biggest raves were thrown by the biggest narcotics distributors. Why waste time selling single hits on the street when they could sell five thousand hits overnight? The DEA knew that the problem was only getting bigger, but the nature of the enterprise left very few clues. These parties would be announced only an hour or two before they started, and all they left behind were overdose victims. Them, and a trampled field or filthy warehouse full of spent glow sticks.’

  Cobb finally made the connection. ‘Somewhere along the line, an agent got the idea to check the serial numbers of the glow sticks. If they could determine the manufacturer, they could track where the shipment had been delivered. And if they knew the point of sale, they could get the name of the buyer.’

  Garcia nodded. ‘You don’t just walk in and buy ten thousand glow sticks off the shelf. You have to order them in advance, to make sure they’re available on rave night. The party favors led the authorities to the masterminds. They’ve been keeping a logbook on every glow stick manufacturer ever since. They can tell every product, where it was made, by whom, and where it was delivered.’

  He pointed to the plastic tube in Cobb’s hand. ‘Which is why I can tell that this glow stick was made and sold in Greece. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Cobb said, ‘I’m convinced. The glow stick is from Greece, not Libya. We’ll adjust our theories accordingly. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said as he grabbed a paper towel from the sink and tried to clean the mustard from his T-shirt, ‘I was finally able to salvage some of the footage from Jasmine’s flashlight. Not everything, of course, but a pretty good chunk of it. We’ll be able to access it soon.’

  ‘How soon?’ Sarah demanded.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Another minute or two. I’m currently uploading the video to our network server. Once the process is done, we’ll be able to view the footage on our televisions, our laptops, and even our phones. As long as you’re on our encrypted network, you’ll have access to the file.’

  Cobb nodded his appreciation. Though they were working toward a common goal, each of them was focused on a different part of the investigation. Once the briefing was over, they could view the footage whenever and wherever they liked, without getting in each other’s way or fighting over the remote control.

  But that was later.

  In the meantime, they would view the video together.

  As a team.

  43

  Garcia tapped a few buttons on his digital tablet. A moment later, the footage from Jasmine’s flashlight was streaming to the television.

  Cobb, McNutt, and Sarah watched as he sped through the first portion of the video. They had been with Jasmine when she first entered the cisterns, and there was nothing in those images that they hadn’t seen before. They were much more interested in what her flashlight had recorded after she crawled through the wall.

  When Jasmine reached the reinforced tunnel on the screen, Garcia allowed the video to play at normal speed. The footage wasn’t as smooth as the others. It was a rough, choppy assembly of the segments that Garcia was able to save. It looked more like an aged 8mm movie than a modern digital film.

  But it met their basic needs.

  Sarah saw glimpses of the pictograph. ‘Those are the carvings we found.’

  Jasmine’s narration played over the images. Like the video, portions of the audio had been mangled as well. Her voice sounded as though it were coming from the wrong side of a bad telephone connection.

  ‘I tried to double-check her comments; at least, the ones I could decipher,’ Garcia said. ‘But I had no luck at all.’

  ‘Why not?’ Cobb wondered.

  ‘Because my keyboard has letters, not ancient Egyptian symbols. Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out a way to type in “a face with horns next to a squiggly line”.’

  Eventually, the final panel of the pictograph came into view. They could see the depiction of the tunnel, the waiting boats, and the symbol of Alexander the Great. They listened to the brief exchange between Sarah and Jasmine that they had heard previously on Sarah’s footage and watched as Sarah disappeared into the tunnel.

  Once she was gone, Jasmine retraced her steps to the beginning of the wall. She scanned every inch of it, making sure to capture the images for posterity.

  To her, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

  When she reached the final panel for a second time, the image froze on the screen. At first, Cobb and the others assumed that it was another glitch in her hard drive, but that wasn’t the case at all. Garcia had stopped the video on purpose.

  ‘Guys
,’ he warned, ‘the rest is . . . it’s hard to watch.’

  Cobb nodded in understanding. ‘Maybe so, but we need to see it.’

  Garcia swallowed hard and restarted the footage.

  On screen, Jasmine didn’t have time to notice anything suspicious. There were no investigations of unknown noises, no calling out to mysterious shadows. One moment she was focused on the wall, and the next she was fighting off an attack.

  At first glance, there was little to be gleaned from the frantic images on the screen. The footage showed little more than a panicked blur of movement as she reckoned with an unknown intruder. The muffled screams and agonized groans confirmed that she had been taken by force, and the haunting calm of her sudden silence left them wondering how badly she was injured when she was finally subdued.

  A moment later, the video stopped abruptly.

  Several seconds passed before anyone said a word.

  ‘That’s it,’ Garcia whispered. ‘There’s nothing left to see.’

  McNutt shook his head. ‘Play it again.’

  ‘No, don’t,’ Sarah pleaded, still feeling guilty for losing her teammate. ‘We know what happened. I don’t need to hear it again.’

  But McNutt was insistent. ‘Play it again. I think I saw something.’

  Cobb knew better than to challenge a sniper on what he had or hadn’t seen. ‘Hector, you heard the man. Play it again.’

  McNutt walked closer to the screen. ‘Go to the part at the very end, right before the footage stops.’

  Garcia rewound the video and played it again.

  McNutt stepped even closer. ‘Again.’

  Garcia played it one more time.

  ‘Again,’ he demanded. ‘This time in slow motion.’

  Garcia adjusted the playback settings, and the footage ticked by slowly. Halfway through the segment, McNutt’s hand shot forward and he pointed at the screen.

  ‘Freeze it!’ he shouted with glee. ‘I told you I saw something!’

  Garcia and the others leaned in, trying to see why McNutt was so excited. But all they could make out were patches of light and dark on the screen.