The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

“Now what?” Bracko asked.

The Egyptian didn’t answer. Instead, he pried the top from one of the barrels and put it aside. To Bracko’s surprise, a white fog spilled out over the rim of the container and drifted downward.

“Liquid nitrogen?” Bracko said, feeling an instant coolness to the air. “What on earth do you have in there?”

Ammon Ta continued to ignore him, working in silence, bringing out a cryogenically cooled bottle with a strange symbol on the side. As Bracko stared at the symbol, it dawned on him that this was probably nerve gas or some type of biological weapon.

“This is what they’re after,” Bracko blurted out, lunging for the Egyptian and grabbing him. “Not propane or protection money. It’s you and this chemical they want. You’re the reason these thugs are killing my crew!”

The initial move had taken the Egyptian by surprise, but the man recove

red quickly. He knocked Bracko’s hands free, twisted one of the burly captain’s arms backward and flung him to the ground.

An instant after he landed, Bracko felt the weight of the Egyptian coming down on his chest. He looked up into a pair of merciless eyes.

“I don’t need you anymore,” the Egyptian said.

A sharp pain ripped through Bracko as a triangular dagger plunged into his stomach. The Egyptian twisted it and then removed it and stood.

In excruciating pain, Bracko tensed and released his grip. His head fell back against the metal floor of the container as he clutched at his stomach, feeling the warm dark blood that was soaking his clothes.

It would be a slow and painful death. One that the Egyptian saw no need to hasten as he stood and calmly wiped the blood from the stubby triangular blade and slid it back into a sheath, pulled out a satellite phone and pressed a single button.

“Our ship has been intercepted,” he told someone on the other end of the line. “Criminals, it seems.”

A long pause followed and then the Egyptian shook his head. “There are too many of them to fight . . . Yes, I know what must be done . . . The Dark Mist shall not fall into the hands of others. Remember me to Osiris. I’ll see you in the afterlife.”

He hung up, moved to the far side of the propane tank and used a large crescent wrench to open a relief valve. There was a loud hiss as gas began escaping.

Next, he pulled a small explosive charge from a pocket in his coat, attached it to the side of the propane tank and set the timer. That done, he returned to the front of the shipping container, opened it a crack and slipped out into the darkness.

Even lying in a pool of his own blood, Constantine Bracko knew what awaited him. Despite almost certain death either way, he decided to stop the explosion if he could.

He rolled over, grunting in agony at the movement. He managed to crawl to the edge of the tank, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He tried to shut off the relief valve using the crescent wrench but found he lacked the strength to hold the heavy tool steady.

He dropped it to the deck and inched forward, crying out in anguish with each move. The smell of propane was nauseating, the pain in his gut like a fire inside him. His eyes began to fail. He found the explosive charge but could barely see the buttons on the face of the timer. He pulled at it and it came away from the tank just as the doors to the shipping container swung open.

Bracko turned. A pair of men rushed in, weapons aimed at him. Reaching him, they noticed the timer in his hand.

It hit zero, exploding in Bracko’s grasp and igniting the propane. The shipping container blew itself apart in a brilliant flash of white.

The force of the explosion dislodged the forward stack of shipping containers and sent them tumbling over the side into the sea.

Bracko and the two men from the syndicate were vaporized in the flash, but Bracko’s action had foiled the Egyptian’s plan. Pulled away from the thick steel wall of the propane tank, the charge was not strong enough to puncture the cylinder. Instead, it caused a flash explosion and lit a raging fire fueled by propane still jetting through the open valve.

This tongue of flame shot directly outward from the tank, burning through anything it touched like a cutting torch. As the tank shifted, the tip of the flame angled down and onto the deck.

As the surviving criminals fled, the steel deck beneath the tank began to soften and buckle. Within several minutes, the deck became weak enough that one end of the heavy cylinder fell partway through. The tank was now held up at an odd angle and the jet of flame was redirected along its side. From this point, it was only a matter of time.

For twenty minutes, the burning ship continued west, a traveling fireball that could be seen for miles. Shortly before dawn, it hit a reef. It was only a half a mile off the coast of Lampedusa.

Early risers on the island came out to see the blaze and take pictures. As they watched the propane tank rupture, fifteen thousand gallons of the pressurized fuel burst forth and a blinding explosion lit up the horizon, brighter than the rising sun.

When the flash subsided, the bow of the M.V. Torino was gone, the hull split open like a tin can. Above it, a dark cloud of mist drifted toward the island, hanging on the breeze like rainfall that never quite reaches the ground.

Seabirds began dropping from the sky, hitting the water with tiny splashes and thumping the sand with dull thuds.

The men and women who’d come out to watch the spectacle raced for cover, but the outstretched tentacles of the drifting fog quickly overtook them and they fell in their tracks as they ran, crashing to ground as suddenly as the gulls had fallen from the sky.