The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

The diver shook his head right back and pointed to the surface again.

“You’ll get the bends,” Kurt said.

The diver read the words on the small screen and then pointed upward again. Following that, he made a strange motion with his hands.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Kurt replied.

The diver seemed panicked. Kurt needed to calm him down. He pointed to the diver’s whiteboard. “Write slowly.”

The diver took the board into his hand, erased what he had scribbled before and wrote more methodically this time, like a child patiently trying to perfect his ABCs. When he was finished, he turned the board around and showed it to Kurt.

He’d written one word. It was easy to read.

BOMB!

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The diver pointed furiously toward the half-excavated wreck. He wrote something more on the board.

When you attacked—they set bomb.

Kurt began to see the pattern. These guys wanted the relics. But if they couldn’t have them, they were determined to keep anyone else from getting them. “Show me.”

The diver hesitated.

“Show me!”

Reluctantly, the diver began to swim, kicking slowly and leading Kurt toward the wreck. As they arrived, the diver shone his light down into it. The team had used the vacuum to excavate tons of silt. They’d pulled articles from the sediment and discarded everything that didn’t look Egyptian. Muskets, rotting barrels and old boots rested on the bottom like a garbage heap.

The ship was a skeleton. Most of the outer planking was gone and only the ship’s ribs, made of thicker timbers, remained. Gliding over the top of these ribs, Kurt saw what the diver was talking about. Not one bomb but two, blocks of C-4 wired to timers, just like they’d tried to use in the warehouse. The problem was, these explosives had been dropped inside the bones of the ship like steaks tossed into an animal’s cage.

Kurt maneuvered closer, grabbed onto the encrusted wood of the vessel and took a closer look. Digital timers on them displayed an alarming number—2:51—and dropping.

Kurt tried to squeeze through the wreckage to get at the bombs, but he

couldn’t fit. He reached down and grabbed for it, but his fingers swiped at nothing. They were at least a foot or two beyond his grasp.

“Joe,” he called. “I could use a little help.”

Joe and the Turtle arrived just as the timer hit 2:00. The ROV had a manipulator arm, which Joe quickly extended, but it too was coming up short.

“We’d better get out of here,” Joe said. “I can drag these guys off.”

“Too late,” Kurt replied. “We’ll never get far enough. Considering the amount of C-4 down there, I’m pretty sure we’d be crushed by the shock wave like a submarine getting hit with a depth charge. We need another option.”

Something bumped him and Kurt spun to see the diver he’d rescued holding the vacuum pipe.

“Excellent idea,” he said.

The vacuum was still on, drawing in a small amount of water. Kurt stuck it down into the framework of the ship and opened the valve.

On the first try, it sucked the big square block of explosives, which became stuck against the nozzle’s opening. He drew the excavator back toward them and, once it was clear of the wreck, Joe pulled the charge free.

It was a simple enough process to pull out the electrical leads. Joe stopped the timer as well, just in case.

“Forty seconds,” he said, gazing at the number frozen on the screen. “Let’s be quick about the second one.”

Kurt was already lowering the vacuum again. He aimed it toward the second bomb, but instead of getting stuck on the end of the nozzle as the first one had, the baseball-sized charge vanished up the tube.