The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

Kurt and Joe found her in a corner behind two of the cars. A body, dressed in Italian Army fatigues from the era, lay in front of her. It was resting on a dusty bedroll.

Dried and desiccated by the desert environment, the face was incredibly gaunt and the skeletal hand, still covered by leathery skin, rested on the butt of a pistol. A small pile of ashes and partially burned papers lay next to the body.

Kurt searched through the half-burned papers and found one with some legible writing on it. It was written in Italian, so he handed it to Renata.

“Orders,” she said. “Looks like he was destroying them.”

“Can you make anything out?”

“‘Harass and disrupt,’” she said, shining her light on the faded paper. “‘Create chaos prior to . . .’ That’s all I can read.”

“Skirmisher’s orders.”

Renata handed the burned papers back to Kurt and picked up a small book that sat beside the pile of ash. She opened it. A personal journal. Most of the pages had been ripped out. What remained was blank except for a good-bye note to someone named Anna-Marie.

“‘The water is almost gone. We’ve been here for three weeks now. We have no word, but we must assume that the English have turned Rommel back. Some of the boys want to go out and fight anyway, but I sent them home. Why should they die for nothing? At least soldiers get to surrender. If we’re caught, we’ll be shot as spies.’”

“I wonder why they expected to be shot,” Joe said. “He looks like regular Army to me.”

“Maybe because they were so far behind enemy lines,” Kurt said.

“So how did he send them home?” Joe asked. “And why leave the cars here?”

Renata leafed through the rest of the papers. She found nothing to answer that.

“Does it say any more?”

“His handwriting is barely readable,” she said. “‘Spitfires pass over daily . . . So far, they haven’t found me, but I cannot hope to flee without being spotted. I’ve blown the tunnel. The English will not have our steeds. It’s too bad. We could have made a difference. We should have brought less fuel and more water. Throat closing now. Nose and mouth bleeding. I would use my pistol to end this agony, but that is a mortal sin. If only I could sleep and not wake. But each time my eyes close, all I do is dream of cold water. I wake as parched as ever. I shall die here. I shall die of thirst.’”

She closed the notes. “That’s the last entry.”

Kurt took a deep breath. The mystery behind the hidden base and the antique off-road vehicles would have to wait. They had their own problems, and the soldier’s letter, in Kurt’s mind, had laid them bare.

“The good news is,” he announced, “there must be an exit nearby for them to have gotten these vehicles in here. The bad news is, our valiant friend apparently caved it in to prevent the English from finding it.”

“If we could find the exit, maybe we could tunnel our way out,” Renata said.

“Possibly,” Kurt said. “But, suddenly, I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

They both looked at him like he was crazy.

Kurt nodded to the body of the Italian soldier. “He was worried about Spitfires. We have to worry about something similar. If you notice, our pursuers seem to have given up the chase. I can think of only two reasons for that. Either there’s no way out of here or there is an exit and Shakir’s men are waiting beside it like the wolf licking his chops outside the rabbit hole.”

Joe offered a solution. “There are plenty of weapons, ammunition and explosives here. If we could get one of these things running and use the explosives to blast our way out, we might be able to fight through the blockade. If they are waiting on the other side, they’re expecting us to show up in that two-seat ATV, not a heavily armored rolling gunship.”

“That would be a nice surprise to throw at them,” Kurt said. “But we’ve wounded them pretty badly already. They know we have the Black Mist. And that means they’ll throw everything they have at us. They don’t really have a choice. Your friend Edo said they have a private army. That could mean tanks, helicopters, airplanes—who knows? But even with one of these armored cars at our disposal, we won’t stand a chance.”

Joe nodded thoughtfully.

“Beyond that, I’m thinking about the situation in Libya,” Kurt said, continuing. “Whole cities going thirsty. Hundreds of thousands without water. Many of them are going to suffer and die exactly like this soldier did.”

“Not that any death is good,” Renata said. “But to die from lack of water is excruciating. Organs shut down, eyes go dark, but the body lingers as it tries to hold on.”

Kurt nodded. “If we go back the way we came, bringing some of these explosives with us, maybe we can blow the pipeline or shut off the pumps.”

Joe seemed to like it. But, then, he would follow Kurt anywhere. “They’ll never be expecting it, that’s for sure.”

“What about getting the samples to a lab?” Renata asked.