The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

“Of course,” Joe said.

“The new governments in those countries are made up of Shakir’s friends. His allies.”

“I heard they were members of the old guard in their own respective lands,” Joe said.

“Yes,” Edo said. “Now you see how it ties together.”

Joe had the distinct impression they were getting in deeper than they expected with each turn, almost as if they’d hooked a small fish that had been eaten by a larger fish and was being chased by a giant shark.

“Osiris has its own private army,” Edo said. “Castoffs from the regular units, men from the Special Forces, assassins from the secret police. Anyone too hot for the regular military can find a home at Osiris.”

Joe rubbed his brow. “We still need to get inside that building,” he said. “And we don’t have time to wait for an invitation. Thousands of lives are at stake.”

Edo tapped some of the ash from the end of his cigarette, stood and began to pace. Joe thought he saw something change in Edo’s eyes: a more calculating look took hold. He put his hand on the wall and looked up at the ceiling. He seemed confined by the office, almost as if he were too big to be contained by such walls.

He turned to Joe with a snap of his heels. “It will probably be the end of my advertising career to help enemies of Osiris, but I owe you. Egypt owes you.” He crushed the cigarette out emphatically. “Besides, I’ve had it with this business. You have no idea what it’s like working for your brother-in-law. It’s worse than the Army.”

Joe laughed. “We appreciate the help.”

Edo nodded. “So how do you and your friends propose to get into the Osiris building? I’m assuming direct frontal assault and jumping from a helicopter are out of the question.”

Joe nodded toward the reception area, where Kurt and Renata had been poring over diagrams and blueprints downloaded on her computer. “I’m not sure yet. My friends have been working on that. I’d like to hear the plan myself.”

Edo waved them in. Proper introductions followed. And then they got down to business.

“My colleagues sent me the schematics of the Osiris plant,” Renata said, stepping forward and placing the iPad flat on the desk so they could all see it. “Assuming these blueprints are accurate, we think we’ve found a weakness.”

She tapped the screen until a high-resolution photo of the site was displayed. It included the river and the surrounding area. “The street-side security is multilayered and almost impossible to overcome, which means our only approach to the site is from the river. We’ll need a boat, diving gear for three and a mid-frequency laser—green will work best, but anything similar to a targeting laser used by the military will do.”

Edo nodded. “I can get my hands on those things. Then what?”

Kurt took it from there. “We motor upriver to this point, half a mile south of the site. Renata, Joe and I will go into the water and drift downstream, keeping to the west bank. We’ll slip into the hydro channel, bypass the first-stage turbines and continue down to a point just in front of the second impeller . . . here.”

“Sounds easy,” Edo said.

“I’m sure there will be complications,” Joe added.

“Of course,” Kurt said, then turned to Renata. “Would you switch to the schematic?”

Renata tapped the computer screen and a blueprint of the hydro channel came up.

“We should have no problem getting into the hydro channel,” Kurt said. “But once inside it, we’ll have to navigate past the turbines. Since it’ll be night, we can assume they’ll be making minimum power, but that could change at any moment. And even if they’re at idle, the turbines will still be rotating slowly.”

“Put them on the to-be-avoided list,” Joe said.

“Exactly. And that’s best done by sticking to the inner wall. There’s plenty of room around the first set of turbines. Once we’ve passed them, we continue toward the second-stage impeller. Here’s where it gets interesting.”

Studying the diagram, Joe noticed two things. The second turbine was larger. And there were two protrusions angled inward from the wall toward the edge of the huge rotating disk. They looked like the flippers of a pinball machine. He pointed to them.

“Deflector gates,” Kurt said. “Designed to force more water over the turbine blades in times of peak power need. In the retracted position, they lie flat against the walls and some of the water bypasses the blades. But in the open position their edges line up directly with the cowling of the turbine. There’s no way around them except that we’re going to be out of the water before we get to the blades.” He pointed to a spot on the schematic. “There’s a maintenance ladder welded to the side of the gate here. We stick near the wall, grab on as we drift by and climb up.”

“Seems fairly straightforward as long as the gates are retracted,” Joe said. “But what if they’re extended? Do you have any figures on what that does to the current?”

“At full extension, the current is doubled and the exact amount of force will depend on the existing flow in the river. This time of year, it’s normally about two knots.”

“Two knots isn’t a problem,” Joe said, “but four knots will be.”

Kurt nodded. That was the risk they were taking.