The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

They reached the entrance and the automatic doors opened with a swish. They passed a dozen bodies in the waiting room, half of them slumped in chairs. A nurse lay beside the front desk.

“Something tells me we don’t need to check in,” Joe said.

“Not checking in,” Kurt replied, “I’m down a third of a tank of air. You have to be too. This is a pretty big place, I’d rather not walk the halls

checking every room.”

He found a directory, flipped it open and scanned through the names. Ambrosini was on the first page—oddly enough, the name was written in by hand while everything else was typed. “She must be new,” Kurt said. “Unfortunately, no office number or floor is listed.”

“How about we use this?” Joe said, holding up a microphone that seemed to be connected to a PA system. “Maybe she’ll answer a page?”

“Perfect.”

Joe turned the system on and set it to hospital-wide by selecting a switch that said All Call and Kurt took it from there.

Holding the microphone up to the faceplate of his helmet, he tried to speak as clearly as possible. “Dr. Ambrosini, or any survivors in the hospital, my name is Kurt Austin. We picked up your distress call. If you can hear this message”—he almost said “pick up the white paging phone”—“please contact the front desk. We’re trying to reach you but don’t know where to look.”

The message went out over the PA system, somewhat muffled but clear enough to understand. He was about to repeat it when the automatic doors opened behind them.

Both he and Joe turned with a start, but there was no one there, just the empty space. After a second or two, the doors closed.

“The sooner we find these people and get out of here, the happier I’ll be,” Joe said.

“Couldn’t agree more.”

The desk line began to buzz and a white light began blinking on the panel.

“Call for you on line one, Dr. Austin,” Joe said.

Kurt punched the speaker button.

“Hello?” a female voice said. “Is anyone there? This is Dr. Ambrosini.”

Kurt leaned near to the speaker and spoke clearly and slowly. “My name is Kurt Austin. We heard your radio call. We came to help.”

“Oh, thank God,” she said. “You sound American. Are you with NATO?”

“No,” Kurt replied. “My friend and I are with an organization called NUMA. We’re divers and salvage experts.”

There was a pause. “How is it you’re unaffected by the toxin? It affected everyone it touched. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Let’s just say we dressed for the occasion.”

“Overdressed in some ways,” Joe said.

“Okay,” she replied. “We’re trapped on the fourth floor. We sealed off one of the operating rooms with plastic sheets and surgical tape, but we can’t stay in here much longer. The air is getting very stale.”

“Italian military units with a hazmat response team are on their way,” Kurt said. “But you’ll have to wait a few hours.”

“We can’t,” she replied. “There are nineteen of us in here. We desperately need fresh air. CO2 levels are rising rapidly.”

In a backpack, Kurt had brought two extra dry suits and a smaller handheld emergency oxygen tank. The plan had been to shuttle whomever they found out to the Sea Dragon and then come back for the rest. But with twenty people trapped . . .

“I think I see a fly in the ointment,” Joe said.

“A whole swarm of them,” Kurt mumbled.

“What was that?” the doctor asked.