He gripped the rough iron rod in his hand. For the first time, he noticed its weight. He began to doubt his initial plan of hurling it at Axe’s head. He’d only get one shot. Should he throw it like a spear or fling it end over end? The truth was, his eye-hand coordination was abysmal. He wasn’t at all confident he could hit Axe in the head, even from this short distance.
He had only one viable option. He readied himself to attack the muscular security man directly.
Suddenly Axe stepped from behind the column that blocked him from Rachel and Mousa. He didn’t run, but somehow he moved much faster than Ethan expected.
He’s starting his attack!
The realization sent Ethan’s adrenal glands into hyperdrive. He broke into a sprint. But in his gut he had the empty feeling he would be too late.
CHAPTER 61
KARNAK TEMPLE COMPLEX
Axe rounded the column. His targets had their backs to him. The Jordanian was pointing at some carvings in the base of a column in front of them.
“—and the scarab here symbolizes rebirth and eternal life because—”
Just as he closed in on the final steps, a sensation unlike anything he’d ever experienced stopped him. His spine began to seize up. The image of a snake made of ice emerging from his skull and coiling itself around his vertebrae flashed through his mind. A black fear gripped him, just as it had on the helicopter ride over the desert.
“—the dung beetle, which is what the scarab is, hatches from an egg as larvae but stays in the ground until it emerges as a fully-formed beetle.” Mousa moved to the left as he continued to explain the carving, his back still facing the immobile Axe. “So the seemingly miraculous emergence of a live beetle from the desert sand was seen as symbolic of the process of mummification and eternal life that would come to the pharaoh.”
In seconds, he knew, he would be spotted. He willed his body to move, but the blackness threatened to overwhelm him. Then his training took over. His legs began to inch forward, and the strange vision and the cold dissipated. He reached the unarmed man in a few strides. The Jordanian would be dead in seconds.
Axe snaked his left hand out and around Mousa’s head, clamping down on his mouth and jerking backward. But his gut told him that something was wrong with the tactical situation. An uncharacteristic hesitation of doubt entered his mind. Was his mind messing with him again? He shoved away the feeling and thrust his right hand, the one holding the knife, forward—toward the kidney.
As the knife sunk in to the hilt, a thunderclap went off inside his head.
The rod reverberated in Ethan’s hand as it crunched against Axe’s skull. The large man dropped to the ground as if the power had been cut from his body. But Ethan had been a second too late, even with the strange hesitation that had slowed Axe a moment before the attack. He’d seen the knife plunge into Mousa’s back. The doctor collapsed on top of his attacker.
Please, let him be okay.
“What—” Rachel turned toward the men. When her eyes fell on Mousa lying on top of Axe, she screamed.
As much as he wanted to run to her, Ethan had to triage the knife wound first and then get his friends to safety. “He’s been stabbed!”
“God, no!”
He dropped to his knees and glanced at the plastic hilt of the knife. The best course of action was to keep Mousa still, but he didn’t know how much time they had before Wolfe’s other men arrived.
“My back!” the Jordanian moaned.
“Mousa, we have to move you.” In spite of the pounding in his chest, Ethan tried to use his best hospital tone. “This is going to hurt.”
He grasped Mousa’s forearm and his shoulder. “Rachel, his other arm!” Her eyes were wide and her hands shook, but she knelt and took Mousa’s hand. Together they lifted him. He groaned as he stood on shaky legs.
They helped him walk several yards away from Axe, who lay unmoving on the dusty stone floor. “Can you support his weight for a minute?” Ethan asked her, placing Mousa’s arm on her shoulder.
“Okay.” Her voice quivered, but she widened her stance. “You can lean on me.”
Ethan inspected the doctor’s back. “The hilt of a small knife is protruding from your lower lumbar region.” He touched the skin underneath the blue shirt just below the wound. His fingers became damp with blood. “It’s embedded in the psoas major muscle, but it looks like it just missed your kidney.” A wave of relief passed through him.
“Yes, that’s what it feels like.” A half-smile masked the grimace on Mousa’s face.
Hearing that the Jordanian hadn’t lost his macabre physician’s humor encouraged Ethan. The wound would hurt like hell, but Mousa would live.
A quick look at Axe confirmed that he was unconscious. Ethan wondered if he would have brain damage. “Axe was stalking you. I got here a second too late.”
“You were quick enough,” Mousa said. “Thank you.”
Rachel’s eyes darted to Axe. “We’ve got to find the police.” The panic in her voice was barely veiled.
Ethan glanced around the Hypostyle Hall. The columns hid them from the scores of other tourists, as well as the Egyptian police. “Axe was speaking on his radio; we should move somewhere more public.”
“Surely you’re going to pull that out?” Rachel pointed to the knife.
Mousa shook his head. “Extracting it might cause more damage—it will worsen the bleeding, too.”
“I concur. They’ll remove it at the hospital.”
She stared at them with an incredulous expression as they calmly discussed the knife protruding from Mousa’s back. Then a guttural groan escaped Axe’s lips.
He’s coming to already? The man was even stronger than he looked, which Ethan hadn’t thought possible. Then he had an idea. He stepped over to Axe, kneeled, and grabbed a forearm the thickness and weight of a heavy tree branch. Clipped to his cuff was a black microphone. He dropped the arm and patted around a waist disproportionately small for the mass of muscle carried above it. Feeling a bulge, he jerked up Axe’s shirt and pulled out a radio the size of a cell phone. He unplugged two wires from the radio, pocketed it, and stood.
Rachel stared at him with raised eyebrows when he returned to Mousa’s side. “Saw him speaking into his sleeve. Now he can’t call for backup when he wakes.” He draped Mousa’s arm over his shoulder. “Can you walk?”
“Not sure.” The Jordanian exhaled sharply. “But I have to.”
Axe noticed the taste of sand first. Dry and grainy, it stuck to his lips. Gradually the sounds returned, as if someone was slowly turning up the volume on a distant TV. The voices confused him. Snippets of German and Italian.
He forced his eyes open, then snapped them shut, praying for the hammering inside his head to clear so he could think. He rolled to his side and drew a deep breath. Bile rose to the back of his throat. He swallowed. The second time he opened his eyes, he cracked them open into a slit. A sandy stone floor came into focus. A few feet from him stood the base of an immense column. Then the memories flooded back.
He’d been finishing off the Arab doctor when someone attacked him from behind. He didn’t see his assailant, but the thought that it must have been the lanky professor brought him out of his haze. He pushed himself to his hands and knees. His pounding headache brought with it a vertigo that tilted the ground at an unnatural angle. A few feet from him was an iron rod. He winced at the sight of it.
How had Lightman snuck up on him? His training had prepared him to be hyperaware of his surroundings. Then he remembered the strange sensation that had seized him before the attack. He grabbed the warm limestone of the column and hauled himself to his feet. He flexed his quads, his hams, and his calves in rapid succession. As the blood pumped into his muscles, the spinning subsided.
A quick survey revealed that a dozen tourists had wandered into the temple hall. His targets weren’t among them. A door to his left led into another courtyard. How long had he been unconscious? The Jordanian wouldn’t get far with
that knife wound. He glanced at the droplets of blood on his right knuckles. Had he punctured the kidney? He’d flinched at the last second, just as he was plunging the blade forward. As much as he was hurting, however, the three of them would be slower. He willed his thighs to move, imagining that they were giant pistons pushing forward the powerful machine that was his body. On heavy lifting days, he would often visualize his body parts as indestructible mechanical devices made of titanium: levers, pulleys, and pistons.
As he headed toward the doorway, he brought his sleeve to his mouth. “Lost contact,” he said. “The professor’s here too. Anyone have a bead on them?”
He would have to think of a better way to explain what happened other than admitting the professor snuck up on him and hit him with a rod, but that could wait until after the mission was successful.
His earpiece was silent. “Dawkins, check in. Over.”
He touched his ear. The earpiece was still in place. Then he noticed his shirt was untucked.
“Damn it!” They’d taken his radio.
He stepped through the doorway into a courtyard enclosed by stone walls. More tourists ambled about, but his targets weren’t among them. In addition to the doorway he’d come through, two other openings led out to different areas of the complex. He picked the one straight ahead. Just outside the courtyard a monumental granite obelisk had fallen to the ground. Past it a lake stretched for several hundred yards. They would feel safer in the open.
When he reached the doorway, he saw a group gathered by the obelisk. He stopped. The tourists surrounded a man lying on the ground. The Jordanian doctor. Kneeling next to Mousa was an Egyptian security guard.
“Damn!” he muttered.
The operation was going to hell. He searched the tourists surrounding the man. Neither the girl nor the professor was there. He looked closer at Mousa, who lay on his side, facing away from him.
He grinned at seeing one good piece of news. The knife was still embedded to the hilt, and the Jordanian wasn’t moving. He must have struck the kidney after all. Before the Egyptian guard could look in his direction, Axe turned and headed back through the enclosed courtyard toward the other doorway.
“I still don’t feel right leaving him,” Rachel said. Her tight grip on Ethan’s hand threatened to cut off his circulation.
He led her through the maze of the Karnak Temple Complex. Two obelisks towered over them, piercing the pure blue sky as they were designed to do in honor of the sun god, Ra.
“I don’t either, but he was right. We’ll be safer if we split up. He needs to get to the hospital right away.”
Mousa had told the tourists in the other courtyard that he’d been stabbed from behind in a robbery attempt. They’d agreed that revealing their involvement in a CIA conspiracy would not help matters.
“So how do we get out of here?” Rachel asked.
“Good question.”
Ethan paused and surveyed their surroundings. On the far side of the two obelisks, he saw hundreds of stone blocks scattered around a courtyard. Some of the blocks were almost as tall as he was. About twenty yards into the piles of stone, the blocks began to take shape, forming walls. Farther in, one wall rose over seventy feet tall. Another ancient temple must have stood there, he guessed.
He would need to ask someone for directions. He’d become disoriented during the events of the past few minutes. He looked around. For the moment, they were alone.
“The bigger question is, what do we do when we leave here?”
Rachel grabbed his arm. “I called my father before we left the hotel.”
“He got my text?”
“He’s been totally freaked the past few days. My roommates called the New Haven police when they got home and saw that I was missing and the bathroom door was broken. Then after you texted him and your call disconnected, he assumed the worst. He’s been in President Martin’s office all day.”
Ethan had only been in the Yale president’s office once, for a cocktail reception when he was first hired as an assistant professor. The mahogany bookcase-lined suite had smelled of tradition.
“They’ve had some heated calls with Washington.”
“Washington?” His doubt about whether he could trust Houston surfaced again. “Who?”
“If you would stop with the questions for a minute, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“Sorry.” He smiled, but before he could ask her to continue, a movement from his peripheral vision caught his attention. He swiveled his head. Jogging toward them from an adjacent courtyard was the hulking figure of James Axelrod.
“Oh, no!” Rachel cried.
Ethan took her hand and pulled her into the maze of the fallen stone blocks.
The pounding from the back of Axe’s head had spread to behind his eyes, but he’d suffered worse pain during some of his tougher workouts. Sometimes the increase in blood pressure from a heavy set would cause a migraine, but he never stopped his workout. Besides, his targets were right in front of him. No way he was screwing up this time.
Fortunately for him, they’d just made a tactical mistake. They’d ducked into a bunch of rubble where they would be hidden from the Egyptians. The only exit to the temple complex was to his left, and his men had that covered. They might be able to avoid him among the rocks for a minute or so, but they were trapped. He’d seen the tall wall rising from the opposite side of the fallen stones.
His only weapon, the knife, was stuck in the Jordanian’s back. But against these two he wouldn’t need one. Their necks would snap like brittle branches. He picked up his pace as he passed the first block of granite. The officer who’d found the Jordanian would be calling for backup. He needed to get to the professor and the girl before the area was swarming with tourist police.
They dashed left and then right, trying to put as many rocks and turns between them and their pursuer as they could. Ethan heard Rachel’s breath coming in short gasps. Her dilated pupils made her blue eyes seem black; sweat glistened on her neck, and her hand was cinched tight around his.
She slowed and looked behind them. “Not there,” she panted. “Maybe we lost him?”
Ethan kept her moving forward, dodging another pile of rubble from the collapsed temple, this one taller than the others. “We need to make our way back to the entrance and the tourist police.”
“I’m so turned around—which way is it?”
Ethan paused and surveyed the ruins. The two obelisks they’d passed a minute earlier cast sword-like shadows across their path. The various stacks of stone and the tall foundations obscured his view of the main temple complex.
“I have no idea.”
Then he heard the sound of heavy footsteps falling on the stone path on the other side of the near rocks. He pulled her hand and continued forward. “Keep moving!” he whispered.
Somehow the man who had been lying unconscious from a blow to the head minutes ago was gaining on them.
They dodged around the foundation of another crumbling wall and then froze in their tracks. Ahead of them was the wall Ethan had seen earlier. It was as high as a six- or seven-story building. He flicked his head left and right. After twenty yards in each direction, the path was blocked off by fallen rubble. They’d reached the temple’s rear wall—the only wall that still stood at its original height, a dead-end.
“We’re trapped.” The strain in Rachel’s voice was evident.
Axe would be on top of them in seconds.
Ethan searched the ground for anything he could use as a weapon, but the rocks that comprised the temple rubble were all too large to move, much less pick up. Even if he found one, he feared he would be no match for the combat-trained man. Earlier he’d had surprise on his side. Now he had nothing.
His heart thumped in his chest like a bass drum at a rock concert. The wall obstructing their path was made of the same stone blocks they’d dodged around to end up where they were. The blocks were staggered, often with several inches overlapping the edges. He gazed u
pward. About three-quarters of the way up, the blocks were offset even more, creating several ledges wide enough to stand on. He had an idea.
He turned to Rachel. She was young, in shape, and had a petite frame. Their pursuer had to weigh over two-fifty. He grabbed her shoulders.
“Ever done the rock climbing wall at Payne Whitney?” If they could climb to one of those ledges, they could yell for the police above the maze of ruins. He didn’t think Axe would attack them in full view of the authorities.
She shook her head. “Not a fan of heights.” She cut her gaze to the wall. “You’re not suggesting that—”
“It’s our only escape.”
Her eyes were wide in fear and her bangs were damp with perspiration. “Ethan, I—”
Axe would appear any second. They were out of time and options. He guided her hands to the stone.
“Climb like you’re going up a ladder. Use your legs more than your arms, and don’t look down.”
She turned her head toward his, kissed him on the lips, and started to climb.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be right beside you.”
“Damn!” Axe cursed under his breath. Where are they?
He rounded a corner. An elderly French couple approached him as they argued with each other, both waving their arms in the air. He stopped. He should have reached his targets already. Had he missed a turn? The possibility that they’d eluded him caused his pulse to accelerate further, which only served to worsen the pounding in his skull.
He pivoted and checked his flank. Then he pushed past the couple and jogged to the next intersection of rubble. He was close to the end of the temple. The seventy-foot wall he’d seen earlier was to his right, past a fallen column and another pile of boulders.
He sprinted to the wall. When he was about eight feet away, he could see down the length of it. A dead end.
Then a movement up on the wall caught his attention. He squinted against the blinding sun that seemed to amplify the pain in his head. The professor and the girl were about fifteen feet off the ground and climbing. They must have reached the wall and discovered they were trapped. Maybe they thought that they could yell for help once they reached a higher point. But he saw the flaw in that logic. Whether they screamed or not, he would reach them before any help did. Now he had an even better opportunity to finish them. He would toss both of them from the top of the wall to the stone ground. His cover story that they were terrorists the CIA had been tracking would require some finessing with the authorities, and Wolfe would throw a fit that their deaths had happened in public. But they would be gone, and Wolfe’s problems solved.
The Jericho Deception: A Novel Page 33
