The Porus Legacy

by Daniel Leston

  The result at this close range was devastating and instantly fatal, ripping through their bodies as well as exploding a line of holes in the building’s galvanized metal walls. Caught off guard as he’d been, David got slowly to his feet and stepped behind the helicopter, thinking himself damn lucky to even be alive, let alone to have escaped uninjured.

  But it was by no means over.

  Omar was shouting.

  “Karim, no—! Stop! Don’t do it!”

  David reloaded his machine pistol with a fresh clip and hurried back toward the front entrance, no longer concerned by the building’s unguarded side entry. With the chopper disabled, it would provide no feasible avenue of escape to whoever still remained inside. He found a distraught Omar standing alone in the shadows as he rounded the corner.

  “Where is—?”

  “It all happened so fast, David.”

  “What did?”

  “After the shooting ended back at the helicopter, Karim simply got up and walked into the building through the front door. I was too far away to stop him. He was mumbling incoherently—something about needing to face his childhood friend a last time. He was babbling, making no sense.”

  David filled him in on what had transpired at the side entry.

  “So how many do you figure are still in there?” asked Omar. “I haven’t heard a sound since Karim entered. Think maybe it’s just this Tazir bastard?”

  “It may well be.”

  “More important, David, what do we do about Karim?”

  “No alternative. We’ll have to go in after him.”

  This decided, they prepared to do so with extreme caution. With Karim somewhere inside, David exchanged the machine pistol for a Glock revolver. At best, both men knew it would be a crap-shoot, no way of knowing what they’d encounter. The only thing that might conceivably be working in their favor was the long period of continuing silence. But how to evaluate this? It was either ominous or encouraging.

  David gambled on the latter.

  It proved to be both.

  With weapons at the ready, they cracked the door and cautiously slipped in without drawing fire from anyone. A man still clutching a briefcase even in death was sprawled on the cement floor near the side entrance, his midsection soaked in blood. It took but a quick glance to see the cause. His fatal wounds lined up perfectly with the earlier salvo unleashed by David’s machine pistol, the bullets having penetrated more than the galvanized wall.

  Fifty feet directly ahead, a very much alive Karim stood with his back to them, facing a tall, uniformed man who could only be Tazir. Beneath the harsh glare of the overhead lighting, there was no mistaking a wide, ragged scar on his lean face. Behind the officer was a heavy table flipped onto its side.

  They were conversing, no more than six feet apart, their words mostly garbled at this distance. Apparently neither yet knew they were no longer alone. Both were similarly armed—but the distinct advantage went to Tazir. While Karim’s gun hung loosely from his hand, Tazir had his aimed squarely into Karim’s chest. Making the situation worse, the officer’s expression now indicated he was fast running out of patience with what it was his old childhood friend was saying.

  Shit! This wasn’t going to end well!

  Partially blocked by Karim from taking a clean shot, David tried to improve his chances by quickly shifting two feet to his right and dropping down on one knee. Before he could aim his revolver, however, it was already too late. For whatever reason, Karim suddenly chose this moment to raise his gun and fired—prompting Tazir to likewise pull his trigger. The shots were almost simultaneous, but with far different results. Karim was blown backward, his chest awash in a rush of blood, while Tazir was unscathed.

  He wasn’t to remain so for long.

  Having caught David’s movement out of the corner his eye, he immediately leaped for cover behind the upturned table, narrowly escaping what probably would’ve been a lethal shot from David’s Glock. Though the bullet missed his chest, it ripped high into his shoulder, eliciting an involuntary groan of pain as he disappeared from view.

  But this wasn’t enough to put him out of action.

  Incredibly, he then reared up and fired two quick shots as David rolled behind an empty metal crate. Both came close—too close!—one teasing the hair at his temple. Christ Almighty! The man was good! Any thoughts of concluding this quickly now seemed improbable.

  Omar had likewise sought and found cover.

  “Are you okay, David?”

  “I’m good. Just keep your eyes peeled. He’s a crack shot.”

  Tazir’s voice now came from behind the heavy table.

  “Ah, so then it really is you, Manning. Karim spoke the truth. I wasn’t sure of half of what he was saying. My compliments. I seriously underestimated your abilities. How you so far survived tonight is actually quite admirable.”

  “So far—?”

  “Well, the night is hardly over, now is it? I’ve learned that life’s events can often turn around in an instant.”

  David knew this recognizable ploy, a desperate man stalling for time.

  “Myself,” Tazir continued, “I’ve always been a proponent of determination and perseverance, qualities I suspect you may also possess. I’ve found the key is to never give up. When all seems hopeless, a truly resolute man will always find—”

  “Not true,” interrupted David. “There’s cold, hard pragmatism, as well. Face facts, Tazir. It’s time to give it up. You’re wounded and bleeding. The jeep and the chopper have both been disabled. There’s no way out for you.”

  “Isn’t there? What about your vehicle?”

  David silently acknowledged the point.

  “Do you honestly believe you’ve any real chance of getting past us? If so, you haven’t been listening.”

  “Listening to what, Manning? To you?”

  “No. I mean to what’s happening outside as we speak. If I can hear it, then surely you can, as well.” A reverberating noise was rapidly building, the pounding resonance of Rashidi’s promised help about to arrive. “Being a military man, you must recognize the sound of incoming helicopters. All your options have run out. Accept the inevitable and call it quits.”

  It took a long period before Tazir finally responded.

  “Not all my options, Manning,” he said in a subdued voice. “I kept a last one in reserve.”

  A second later, David heard the report of a single gunshot.

  EPILOGUE

  Nine Days Later. Forty Minutes Out From Boston’s Logan Airport.

  After a brief stopover at Shannon International Airport for refueling, the long homeward leg of DeCaylus Corp’s executive jet across the Atlantic should’ve provided David ample time to catch up on much needed sleep. By all measure, the opportunity existed. Cruising at 45,000 feet for the past several hours, the sleek Cessna CJ4 was a remarkably comfortable craft, its twin engines performing whisper silent. Though sleeping had been his sincere intention, reality, however, often had a way of superseding the best of plans.

  Such now was the case.

  Even with the cabin lights dimmed, all he’d so far managed were occasional short periods of unsatisfying slumber. Truth be told, he always envied Elizabeth’s innate ability to simply tilt back one of the wide seats to its horizontal position and quickly drift off. For her, at least, he considered this aptitude a true blessing, a talent he’d never quite mastered.

  No matter, he thought, for it was fast closing on 4am, eastern seaboard time. Before many more hours passed, he would be home, ensconced in his own bed.

  He sighed in genuine anticipation.

  The frenetic activity of the past number of days had been both a mental and physical drain; very satisfying from a historical and archaeological standpoint, of course, yet not the relaxing escape both he and Elizabeth had initially planned. The old adage of needing an extensive period to fully recuperate from a busy vacation was now proving true.

  The thought brought an amused smile to his face
.

  Perhaps he really was getting too old for all this!

  Still and all, there was much to be pleased over how all the intricate events finally came together. For this alone he was infinitely grateful. Considering the stunning magnitude of the discovery—and how close it came to being forever lost on the black-market—their accomplishment was astounding. A veritable national treasure previously unknown to even exist was now safely secured inside the ultra-modern Alexander Exhibit.

  And what better location to display it?

  Through a series of tests performed in only the past few days, Rashidi had established conclusive links to both Alexander and the Indian king, Porus. The provenance of the ancient chest and its spectacular contents were now irrefutable.

  The loss of Karim, however, still left a range of mixed feelings, which David knew Elizabeth and Bayoumi were both finding difficult to assimilate. And with good reason, for the man’s death had played out as something mindful of a Greek tragedy. In many ways, Karim’s motives were bound up within the totality of his complex character—beginning with a childhood devotion to the person who had not only saved his life as a mere boy, but who also had occasionally assisted him through tough financial times as he struggled to support and educate his innocent daughter. Being at heart a decent and moral man, his loyalty was such he’d steadfastly refused to see the inherent evil in his lifelong friend until it was almost too late. In the end, it was fortunate for all of them he did so in time to partly redeem himself.

  David felt a faint shudder as the plane now began dropping altitude, prompting him to again check the time. It was apparent they were on schedule for their approach to Logan.

  This subtle shift was enough to waken Elizabeth. After a relaxed stretch, she raised her seat to its upright position.

  “Getting close, are we?”

  “Appears so. Have a good sleep?”

  She nodded.

  “What about you?”

  “Not quite what I hoped,” he said. “But enough.”

  She smiled in disbelief, tossing her pillow across to another chair.

  “You know, I never did really ask how your final meeting with those Egyptian authorities went with you and Omar yesterday. What exactly were the results?”

  “Actually, it went pretty much as expected. You’ll be happy to learn both our names are going to be kept out of the eventual announcement revealing the chest’s discovery. Whether Omar likes it or not, all the credit is going to go to him. I know I was pleased.”

  “I can imagine,” she said, knowing his strong objections to publicity. “So it’s to be a similar situation as to what happened fourteen years ago with Alexander’s tomb?” She paused to brush the hair back from her brow. “Just curious, but what’s the government’s reasoning this time?”

  He gave a slight shrug.

  “Internal politics. What with all the domestic unrest inside Egypt—plus the recent election reinstating a member of the military to the presidency—the last thing they want to see exposed to the public at large is the criminal activities of a rogue general such as Tazir Rahal. As I understand it, even his death will be put down to totally unrelated natural causes.”

  Elizabeth grew silent for a moment.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t say, but part of me now wishes at least a bit of the credit should go to Karim. Not so much for him, mind you, but it would go a long way toward helping Lana through all of this, don’t you think?”

  He held no real opinion, his feelings still somewhat ambivalent.

  “I can see where you’re going, but it strikes me that Omar is doing a good job in that respect all by himself. Since this all went down, they seem to be almost inseparable. Your first instincts regarding his feelings for Lana appear to be proving true.”

  “So you’ve finally noticed, have you?”

  “Never doubted your intuition for a minute, hon—which now reminds me that I have an overdue apology to make before we land.”

  “Apology for what?”

  “For everything that happened after our arrival in Egypt,” he said. “I know how much you hoped this would be our long-delayed honeymoon, yet it never came to pass. I can only say I intend to make amends at my earliest—”

  Elizabeth’s sudden burst of laughter cut him off.

  “David, you can’t be serious!” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “For someone who claims to know me so well, how can you possibly believe I’m feeling the least bit cheated?”

  “You’re not?”

  “Hardly! If anything, the opposite is true. It was absolute perfection. Look at the bigger picture. Not only did we share an extraordinary adventure with dear friends—but we also found a treasure once belonging to the legendary Queen Cleopatra, herself! My God, how many women can make a like claim for their honeymoon?” As always, the warmth of her smile was irresistible. “And I owe it all to you, my darling!”

  Books by Daniel Leston

  The Snow Leopard - Copyright © 2010

  The Amun Chamber - Copyright © 2010

  1st adventure of Professor David Manning

  The Genghis Tomb - Copyright © 2012

  2nd adventure of Professor David Manning

  The Emperor's Treasure - Copyright © 2013

  3rd adventure of Professor David Manning

  The Porus Legacy - Coming late Fall 2014

  4th adventure of Professor David Manning