The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

Fortunately, the other hit man still had a radio clipped to his belt. He pulled it free, pressed the talk button and kept running.

“Shadow, this is Talon,” he said. “We need extraction.”

“What happened, Talon?” The voice sounded agitated.

“Kensington met with the Americans. He was going to expose us. We had to kill him. Now they’re chasing us.”

“So kill them.”

“We can’t,” he said. “They’re armed.” This was a lie, but the extraction team didn’t need to know that. “We’ve been injured. One man dead. We need to be pulled out.”

Fort Saint Angelo loomed up ahead, its imposing walls lit up a blinding orange by a bank of powerful spotlights. The closer they got to the fort, the brighter the ground around them became. It was like running through Times Square. But they had no choice, safety lay on the other side.

“Well?” Hagen shouted. “What did he say?”

“Shadow, do you copy?”

Silence lingered before the voice came on the line again. “The boat will be in the channel. Deal with your pursuers and then swim for it. Do not fail us. You know what’ll happen if you do.”

Hagen overheard the reply. It wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear, but it was better than nothing. He slowed going up the ramp toward the fort. Talon, the man who was supposed to assist him, ran on without waiting. He was in better shape than Hagen. And he didn’t seem to care if Hagen was caught.

19

Kurt and Joe were making up ground on the two assassins, but the men had a large lead and they reached the fort and vanished.

Kurt rushed on, heading up the ramp. Joe was right behind him.

Kurt went from a sprint to a jog. The glare from the orange lights and the shadows where those lights were blocked made it difficult to see. He swung wide, not interested in being jumped by someone hiding in a dark nook or alley.

Even from this angle, the fort was an imposing structure. Built on a spit of land that stuck out into Valletta Harbor, it was shaped like a multilayered wedding cake, but the walls of each new level canted at a different angle so that an attacking ship would be unable to find a spot to safely fire from.

Kurt slowed down. The wall of the fort was on his right, the waters of the harbor on his left. He passed a locked gate and then came to a stairwell that cut into the wall like a narrow canyon. A similar gate was in place, but a quick look told Kurt the men had turned in there.

“They broke the lock,” he said, pushing the gate open.

After a glance upward, Kurt began to climb. He stuck close to the wall but was ambushed at the top as a limping man jumped out at him with a sword in his hand.

Kurt managed to dive away from the blade, hitting the ground, rolling and popping up just as Joe appeared. The man with the sword stepped back, his gaze pivoting to Joe, and the crowbar he held, to Kurt and then back again.

Kurt noticed a suit of armor displayed as part of the fort’s illustrious history. A gauntlet lay on the ground. The sword had been ripped from it.

The man pointed the sword from one of them to the other. Kurt recognized him.

“You must be Hagen,” Kurt said. “The cowardly doctor who fled a dying island.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Hagen grunted.

“We know you have an antidote for what happened to the people of Lampedusa. If you tell us, it might just keep you from the gas chamber.”

“Shut up,” Hagen shouted. He feinted toward Kurt and then swung at Joe, whipping the sword through a long arc.

The old blade whistled as it cut through the night, but Joe stepped back with the reflexes of a mongoose and deflected the killing blow with a swift jerk of the crowbar. Sparks lit out into the dark accompanied by the metal clang of the weapons coming together.

“This whole situation has turned positively medieval,” Joe said.

Hagen lunged forward again. He swung at Joe several times, trying to drive him back to the stairs, perhaps hoping he would fall, but each attack was deflected until after a last swing Joe knocked the tip of Hagen’s sword off and then kicked him in the chest all in one swift move. Hagen fell back and readied himself for another round.

“You’re pretty handy with that thing,” Kurt said.