by Gabriel Hunt
Gabriel lifted his boot and kicked the door in, snapping the lock off the jamb.
Lucy was there, dressed exactly as she had been in the airport, her eyes slightly glazed from the lingering effects of whatever drug they’d given her this time.
“You came back,” she said, her voice muzzy.
“Of course I did,” Gabriel said. “We’re going to get you out of here.”
“Don’t think I can climb . . .” she said.
“You don’t have to. Just stay behind me and do what I say.”
“Okay . . . Gabriel?”
“What?” he said, and began pulling her toward the door.
“I don’t hate Michael,” she said sleepily. “I don’t.”
“That’s great. We’ll talk about it later.”
“I just . . . can’t live there, in their home, spending their money . . .”
“Later,” Gabriel said. Then he pressed her back against the wall and followed suit himself just as a spray of bullets came whizzing past.
“Gabriel!” Lucy exclaimed.
He poked the nose of the Colt around the doorframe and snapped off one shot. Then another—and this time he heard someone groan and collapse. “Come on.” He pulled Lucy with him toward the stairs.
They made it halfway down.
Chapter 26
Two guards met them on the second-floor landing. One of them held a lit oil lamp, the other a long-barreled pistol. Both men attacked Gabriel as he pushed Lucy out of the way. Gabriel focused on the man with the gun. He feinted at the man’s face, then grabbed his forearm and used it as a lever to throw the man over his shoulder. The man fired his gun as he flew through the air and through the smashed stair railing, plummeting to join his colleague on the floor below. His bullet thunked solidly into the wooden wall.
By then, the second guard was swinging the oil lamp at Gabriel.
Gabriel ducked and slammed into the guard’s middle. The guard collapsed and the oil lamp went flying. It crashed onto the carpeted floor, spilling its contents and immediately igniting the area in flames.
Gabriel heard Sammi shouting from the first floor. A few seconds later, she appeared on the staircase, trying to see through the curtain of flame that had erupted.
“Cifer!” she called.
Lucy’s head jerked up. “Sammi?”
Sammi ran to her and wrapped Lucy in her arms. She helped her to her feet.
“You were supposed to stay downstairs,” Gabriel said.
“You sounded like you could use some help.” She looked at the smashed railing and the guard lying prone and moaning on the landing. “Guess not.”
“Just get her to safety,” Gabriel said. “You, too.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Sammi said, and led Lucy swiftly through the flames.
Gabriel took a moment to reload his gun, then ran down to the first floor himself. As he passed the pantry, he saw that the trap door was now closed. Good. He ran in the other direction, toward the corridor leading to Khufu’s temple.
One more guard stood in the corridor. As Gabriel ran toward him, the man raised his pistol to fire, but Gabriel beat him to the draw, and the man went over backward with a bullet in his chest.
Gabriel leaped over the guard’s body and rushed to the fake stone slab that served as a door. It swung open when he grabbed the hidden handholds and pushed.
As he stepped into the temple, Khufu’s back was to him. He was still in the ancient Egyptian garb, and he was placing items of value—statuettes and jewel-encrusted treasures—into a large steamer trunk. His scepter was leaning against the throne.
Gabriel aimed the Colt at the center of Khufu’s back and thumbed back the hammer. Khufu stiffened and slowly straightened, extending one arm toward the side.
“Reach for that scepter and you’re dead,” Gabriel said.
Khufu stopped moving. With his arm halfway extended and his back still turned, he spoke. “You are a very foolish man, Mister Hunt. You should never have returned here.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” Gabriel said.
“What do you want? Your sister? Very well. You can have her.”
“I already have her,” Gabriel said. “I want the Stone.”
“That you cannot have,” Khufu said.
“Your men are dead,” Gabriel said. “Kemnebi, the guards. I don’t know where Arif is, or Amun, but if they were in the building I think they’d have shown by now. You’re on your own.”
Khufu whirled and leaped for the scepter, snatching it up just ahead of the bullet Gabriel had sent speeding toward it. Khufu dived behind the throne.
Gabriel raced forward, keeping the throne between him and Khufu—and between him and the deadly scepter. Behind him he heard the sound of crackling fire and smelled heavy, acrid smoke. The whole place was going up in flames.
“Come on out,” Gabriel called. “It’s over. Give up while you can.”
He expected some response—defiance, taunting, rage, an attack. But when he got no response at all, Gabriel ran around to the back of the throne. There was no sign of Khufu anywhere.
He spun in place, gun raised. Where could the man have gone?
He glanced back at the open doorway. The corridor beyond was completely engulfed now, the cast resin walls melting from the heat. Smoke was billowing into the room at an alarming pace.
He returned to the throne. He knew the man had been here; people didn’t just disappear. Khufu had to have gone somewhere . . .
He remembered what Sammi had said about cages. Maybe the same held true for thrones. He searched the elevated base of the throne carefully. Near the edge of one of the six shallow steps on which the throne rested, he spotted a very narrow tile that was raised slightly above the ones on either side. He depressed it with one finger and the steps opened on a hidden hinge.
Gabriel stuck his gun inside and pulled the trigger twice, then lowered himself to the floor and slipped into the opening.
He dropped for about ten feet, landing in a crouch on the floor of a small room lit with hanging electric lights. There was a wooden crate on casters here, its top open, its interior packed with shreds of newspaper, through the uppermost layer of which Gabriel could see one corner of the Second Stone sticking out.
And on the floor—
On the floor Khufu lay facedown, blood pooling beneath him, the scepter still clutched in one hand. One of Gabriel’s gunshots must have hit him, either directly or on a ricochet. Gabriel went over quickly and kicked the scepter out of his grasp.
“Hunt . . .” Khufu was trying to speak, but his voice was ragged and weak, muffled by the falcon mask he still wore and fading from the blood loss he’d sustained.
Gabriel squatted beside him and turned him over onto his back. The bullet had torn through his abdomen. The man was dying.
“Hunt . . .” he said again, and then something Gabriel couldn’t make out. Gabriel reached down and pulled off the mask.
Beneath it, contorted with pain, was Amun’s face.
“Mister Hunt . . .” Amun breathed heavily and with evident pain. “You have not won . . . as long as any true Egyptian breathes, men like you will . . . answer for their crimes . . .”
His voice dropped away, and his body went limp. Gabriel lifted one of Amun’s arms and let it fall. This was one true Egyptian whose breathing Gabriel didn’t have to worry about anymore.
Gabriel stood. Smoke was pouring into the room through the open panel in the steps of the throne, and the temperature was becoming very uncomfortable. Pretty soon it would be impossible to see, and soon after that to breathe. Gabriel looked around for an exit and spotted a door in the corner. He tried the knob and the door swung open. Gabriel went to the crate and wheeled it out.
The tunnel he found himself in looked similar to the one leading from Nizan’s to the Alliance’s building, and he wasn’t entirely surprised when, after angling upward steeply for about thirty yards toward the end, the tunnel let out (through a heavily barred woo
den door) onto the rear loading platform of Nizan’s shop.
Gabriel pushed the crate onward until he found himself on the street. A few people were standing around, some in nightclothes and robes, some of them barefoot, each turning to the others in an attempt to learn what was going on. Sirens were converging on the building a block away, where Gabriel could see the orange glow of the fire in the sky over the rooftops. He made his way down the block, steering the crate behind a row of trucks and cars that had hastily been parked on the scene, disgorging police and firemen to combat the chaos. A larger crowd had gathered here, in front of the blazing building.
Sammi and Lucy were among them, their faces frozen in strained expressions of concern.
Gabriel approached them, pushing the crate before him. “Ladies.”
“Gabriel!”
“My god!”
They both rushed to him.
“We thought you were dead for sure,” Lucy said. Her voice sounded a little clearer, as if the combination of adrenaline and cool night air were combating the effects of the drug in her system.
“How did you get out?” Sammi asked.
“Gabriel,” Lucy exclaimed, looking at a seared patch on Gabriel’s sleeve he hadn’t even noticed himself, “you’re hurt!”
“Oh, she’s right—did you get burned?”
Gabriel held up a hand. “I’m all right. I’m all right. Really.” He looked at his sleeve and the reddened skin showing beneath. “It’s nothing a fifth of bourbon won’t cure.”
Sammi’s eyes dropped to the crate and to the corner of gray stone peeking out from the packing material. “The Stone! You got the Stone.”
Gabriel glanced at the emergency personnel, who were working hard to put out the fire. He held a finger to his lips.
“We can discuss it in the car,” he said.
And together they wheeled the crate away, into the night.
Chapter 27
The plane was fueled and ready for takeoff from the same private airstrip at the Marrakesh airport they had previously used. They hadn’t been able to fit the crate in the trunk of the car, so Gabriel had lifted the Stone out and left it with Sammi in the backseat. He lugged it up the stairs of the plane now, surprised not to see Charlie waiting for them at the top of the steps. “Could use a hand here,” he called—but the cockpit door was already shut and with the engines revving loudly it was clear that Charlie was gearing up to start taxiing, so Gabriel carried the heavy piece the length of the plane on his own, his arms aching from the strain. His entire body ached, in fact, and the options for good bourbon were few, though he thought there might be a bottle stashed somewhere on board.
The plane took off a few minutes later and they soared into a predawn sky that was just beginning to turn all sorts of shades of pink and orange at the horizon. Sammi sat with her face pressed to the window, watching. Lucy sat beside her, head back and eyes shut. She wasn’t asleep, since from time to time she would nod in response to something Sammi said to her in French, but she wasn’t entirely awake either.
“Hey, Gabriel,” Lucy mumbled.
“Yes?” he said.
“Did I say thank you yet?”
“You don’t have to thank me. I’m your brother. It’s my job.”
She smiled. “Well, thank you anyway. You’re a good brother.”
“Get some sleep,” Gabriel said.
They sat in silence as the Challenger tilted, turned, and then leveled at around 30,000 feet. Gabriel looked out the window and watched Marrakesh disappear from view. It would be a long while before he had any desire to revisit it. He sighed and then turned his attention to an English-language newspaper he had bought from a vending machine at the airport.
Strapped snugly into the seat beside him, wrapped in a blanket, was the Second Stone. He was tempted to unwrap it just a bit, begin looking over its inscriptions; but there would be time enough for that on the second leg of the flight, from France to New York. For now, the thing to do was just leave it alone. It had already been subjected to more handling in the past few hours than in the two hundred years before, and he didn’t want to risk damaging it in some—
The plane lurched unexpectedly.
Sammi and Lucy both looked over at him.
“I’ll go see if everything’s okay,” Gabriel answered. He unbuckled his seat belt, stood, and walked down the aisle to the cockpit door. Gabriel knocked and called, “Charlie? What’s going on?”
There was no answer. Instead, the plane veered violently, knocking Gabriel off his feet and onto the seats next to him. Gabriel looked out the window. The scenery was swinging past the windows—they were changing course.
Gabriel got to his feet and tried the cockpit door. It was locked—which may have been standard operating procedure on commercial flights, but not on the Hunt Foundation’s private jet.
He rapped again. “Charlie! Open the door!”
Nothing.
This isn’t good.
Unlike commercial airplanes, the door to the Challenger’s cockpit wasn’t break-proof, so it wasn’t difficult for Gabriel to raise his foot and kick the door in.
He followed the swinging door into the cockpit, then stopped dead.
Reza Arif stood inside the broken door. He held a Parabellum-Pistole in his right hand. The barrel was pointed at Gabriel’s chest.
“Back up, Gabriel. Hands in the air.”
“Goddamn it,” Gabriel muttered. He looked past Arif and saw that Charlie had a gag tied around his mouth and his hands cinched together with a pair of plastic crowd-restraint cuffs. Somehow he was still flying the plane. “How did you get on board?”
“How did I get on board?” Arif laughed. “Do you forget the connections I have in my country? I may be wanted by the police, but that doesn’t mean I can’t pull strings, especially at an airport owned by my good friends in the Union Corse. Access to a privately owned jet at the airstrip? That’s nothing.” He jerked his head toward Charlie. “Your pilot has been very accommodating. He knows that if he tries anything stupid we will all die. I’ve instructed him to take us where I want to go.”
“Where’s that?”
“I don’t think I’ll tell you, Gabriel. You’ll find out when we land. If you’re still alive when we land—it’s up to you.”
“And then?”
“And then we shall see. First of all, I will relieve you of the Second Stone, for the second time. Even though the Alliance isn’t around to take it off my hands anymore, I am sure I can find a buyer willing to pay a handsome price for it. I’ve already had an offer of forty-five million—but I think I can get at least a hundred. Do you think the Hunt Foundation would be interested in making a bid?”
“I think the Hunt Foundation would be interested in seeing you in a jail cell. Or a morgue.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Arif said. “I suggest you take your seat, now, Gabriel. Oh, and please hand me your weapon. You do still carry that revolver, don’t you?”
“Better than that German piece of junk you’re holding.”
“What are you talking about? A Luger in fine shape is one of the most sought-after collectibles in the world. It’s an excellent semiautomatic. Each magazine holds eight rounds, which is two more than your Colt. A thirty-three percent advantage.” He held out his hand. Gabriel reluctantly pulled his Colt out of its holster and handed it to Arif. Arid dropped it into a carry-on bag that sat on the copilot seat. “Thank you. Now back to your seat. And buckle up.”
Gabriel scowled at him, but turned when prodded with Arif’s gun. Arif followed him back.
“My two favorite women,” he said, nodding toward where Sammi and Lucy were sitting. “How nice to see you again.”
“You know that shooting a pistol in here wouldn’t be a very good idea,” Gabriel said. “Which makes your threat a little meaningless.”
“I don’t see you acting like it’s meaningless,” Arif said. “And that’s because you know the nonsense you see in the movies isn’t true—that business about
plummeting cabin pressure and people being sucked out through the windows. It’s good for one of your James Bond pictures, but it doesn’t work that way in real life.
“You’re right, of course, that I don’t want to fire the gun in here. But I will if I have to. So please, none of you do anything stupid, all right? This will all be over in a few hours. We’ll land, I’ll take the Stone, and you lot can go off to wherever you like, unmolested.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “You give your word.”
Arif shrugged.
“I know you, Reza. You have no intention of letting us go. The Hunt Foundation’s jet is going to mysteriously disappear, isn’t that right? And its pilot and three passengers along with it.”
Arif waved the Luger. “That’s enough. If you want to live, I suggest you be quiet.”
A new voice spoke then, coming from unseen speakers around the plane’s cabin. Looking over, Gabriel saw Sammi’s finger resting on one of the buttons on her armrest. The one with a picture of a telephone on it.
“Reza,” Michael Hunt said, “if you touch any of them, I will personally see that you pay for it.”
“You?” Arif said, with a laugh. He looked up at the plane’s ceiling, as though that’s where the voice was coming from. “Michael Hunt, with your books and your scrolls and your ancient languages? What will you do, Michael, bore me to death?”
“Don’t underestimate me, Reza,” Michael said. “You’re not the only shady operator I know.”
“ ‘Shady operator.’ You wound me, Michael, you really do. I aspired at least to ‘nefarious.’ ” He swung the gun to point at Sammi. “Enough. Hang up on him.”
Gabriel didn’t need any more opportunity than that. He launched himself out of his seat and jumped at Arif, tackling him from the side. Together they tumbled into the cabin’s aisle, Arif clawing at Gabriel’s face, Gabriel slugging him in the neck with one hand and grabbing hold of Arif’s gun hand with the other.
“What’s going on?” Michael asked. “Sammi? Lucy? Somebody—”
Arif swung his free hand, connecting painfully with Gabriel’s ear. Gabriel’s grip on the gun loosened and Arif yanked it free. He scooted backward and got an arm around Gabriel’s throat. Gabriel grabbed hold of Arif’s arm, trying to pull it off him, but a moment later felt the barrel of the Luger pressing against his head.
