The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

“This must be the central vein,” Joe said.

“I suggest we go higher any chance we get,” Kurt replied. “There’s got to be an exit to this mine somewhere.”

“Not back to the pipeline?” Renata asked.

“It’s going to be guarded now,” Kurt said. “Either we find another way out or we spend an eternity down here like the pharaohs, the crocodiles and the frogs.”

52

Edo stood on the deck of the small boat, scanning the waters of the Nile with night vision goggles. It had been hours since Joe and his friends went into the Osiris building.

The helicopter had left the compound forty-five minutes earlier. The flow of water from the end of the hydro channel had increased to a torrent and still there was no sign of them.

As the clock ticked, Edo grew more and more concerned. He was worried about his friend—that much was true—but being a military man, he also knew the danger of a failed assault. It left one vulnerable to a counterattack.

If any of them was captured, they would be tortured until they gave in. Edo’s name would be mentioned eventually. That put him in danger. Danger of being killed, arrested, imprisoned. And even if nothing so dire came of it, he would still end up back where he’d started: under his brother-in-law’s thumb, working a job he despised and prevented from any opportunity to get free.

Strangely, that fate seemed worse than any of the others.

He decided the time had come. He started making calls. Calls he should have made when Joe first came to him. Initially, his old friends ignored him.

“You must understand,” he told a friend who was now part of Egypt’s antiterrorist bureau, “I still hear things. I still have contacts who are afraid to talk to people such as yourself. They tell me that Shakir is going to strike at the Europeans. That he caused the incident on Lampedusa. That he and Osiris are behind everything taking place in Libya. We must intervene or Egypt as a whole will never survive.”

The men he spoke with were a diverse group: ex-commandos, current members of the military, friends who’d gone into politics. Despite that, their responses were remarkably similar.

Of course Shakir and Osiris are a danger, they said, but what do you expect us to do?

“We need to get into the plant,” Edo said. “If we can prove what they’ve been doing, the people will rally behind us and the military will save this country again.”

Stony silence followed, but, eventually, the men began to see it his way. “We must move now,” Edo insisted. “Before the sun rises. Morning will be too late.” One by one, they agreed.

A colonel in charge of a special commando group pledged his assistance. Several of the politicians insisted they would back the decision. A friend who still worked for internal security agreed to dispatch a group of agents to go with the commando team.

Edo was charged-up by the support. If this worked, if he could rally the troops to this movement, he would be a hero of the new Egypt. If it also stopped the bloodshed in Libya, his name would be famous across North Africa as well. He would be a legend. He might even be the next leader of the country.

“Contact me when your men are in position,” Edo said. “I’ll lead them in myself.”

—

Deep inside the underground nest of tunnels, five miles from the hydroelectric plant, Tariq Shakir could barely control his outrage. He was furious over the failure he’d just witnessed, embarrassed in front of his own men and ready to take it out on someone. Hassan was the easiest target.

Shakir had half a mind to shoot him dead on the spot, but he needed Hassan to coordinate the search.

“Find them.”

Hassan sprang into action, organizing a search and calling for reinforcements. The ATVs at the scene zoomed off down the tunnel. When more men arrived, Hassan dispatched them as well.

A few minutes later, the driver of one of the ATVs came back and spoke to Hassan, before speeding away again.

“Well?” Shakir demanded. “What’s the report?”

“No sign of the intruders, but two of our ATVs were found wrecked. There was no indication of how the crashes occurred. When two from the advance team went closer to investigate, they collapsed.”

“The Black Mist. They have the Black Mist,” Shakir said. “Where did this happen?”

“Three miles from here, in tunnel nineteen.”

Shakir looked at his map. “Nineteen is a dead end.”