The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

“Not yet,” Hassan replied. “I told you, it’s a long shot that they’ll ever find their way out.”

“Keep the men on full alert,” Shakir said. “I don’t like this waiting game. I’d much rather—”

The lights flickered in the control room, putting a stop to Shakir’s rantings. The computer screens skewed for an instant as if they were about to go off, but then they straightened out. He stood, listening. The sound of the pumps had changed slightly.

The technicians at their consoles heard it too. They began tapping away on their computer keyboards, trying to figure out what was going on. Yellow warning flags began to appear on the screen.

“What’s happening?” Shakir demanded.

“We lost power for a second. It’s been rerouted through the secondary cable.”

“Why would that happen?” Shakir demanded.

“Either the main cables shorted out or the circuit breaker tripped,” one of the technicians said.

“I understand electricity,” Shakir said. “What caused it?”

He was answered by a thud that shook the bones of the cave. The vibration could be only one thing. An explosion.

Ignoring the technicians, Shakir went out into the hall.

Half the lights were out. Only the emergency systems were operating. In the distance he felt a low rumbling, like a large truck heading his way. He stared down the tunnel. Something was coming, something large. It seemed to be crawling in the dark, filling the tunnel from wall to wall. As he strained to make out what it was, a bank of headlights snapped on, blinding him.

They were older, yellow-tinted beams. Nothing like the ones on his cars. Several of his men ran to intercept the vehicle and were cut down by the hammering sound of a heavy machine gun.

Shakir dove back into the control room as the weapon turned his way. Muzzle flashes lit up the cavern behind him and large-caliber shells blasted chunks from the wall.

“Get your men back down here,” he shouted to Hassan. “The intruders have not followed your script. Instead of leaving, they’ve returned.”

Hassan ran to the console and picked up the phone again. “Section One,” he yelled. “This is Hassan. Get everyone down here. Yes, immediately. We’re under attack.”

Even as he spoke, gunfire from the unknown vehicle blasted out the windows separating the control room from the rest of the cave. Hassan took cover and crawled along the ground as glass and rock rained down on him.

Two of Shakir’s men attempted to return fire but were quickly cut down.

“That’s not one of our vehicles,” Hassan said. “It’s a military machine.”

“Where did it come from?” Shakir asked.

“I have no idea.”

With that, Shakir raced out the side door, vanishing down the secondary tunnel that led to the central burial chamber.

Hassan moved to the side door as a squad of troops positioned themselves to defend the control room. He pulled his sidearm, a 9mm pistol. He had absolutely no intention of standing in the way of whatever was blasting the cave to bits, but he knew he would look better if he ran for cover with a weapon in his hand.

—

Out in the tunnel, Kurt, Joe and Renata had the opposite intention. It would end today, here and now.

Joe had given one of the AS-42 Saharianas a long-overdue tune-up. The job was easier than he thought. For one thing, the engines from the bygone era were just that: engines, unlike modern vehicles, which were packed to the gills with air-conditioning systems, emissions controls and every imaginable gizmo and gadget. When Joe opened the hood to the AS-42, all he found was an engine block and a fuel system. That made it easy to work on. And the dry desert air meant zero corrosion of anything metallic. Most important, the clandestine base had been stocked with a full set of tools and spare parts.

The only problem was fuel and getting the AS-42 started. Every drop of gas the Italians had brought with them had evaporated decades ago, no matter what kind of container it was in. Not that it would have been any good had it remained.

But the ATV had a tank of fuel in it and a siphon was easy to rig up. It also had a deep-cycle battery and that was easy enough to transfer to the old machine. When the Sahariana came to life, Joe felt a sense of pride. Not surprisingly, the deep rumbling of the engine boosted the spirits of all three of them. Now they would ride into battle on the near equivalent of a tank while everyone against them would be on foot.

While Joe worked on the vehicle, Kurt and Renata took up the more thankless job of clearing the entrance back into the main tunnel. They used the ATV to drag the larger boulders and then shoveled the rest until there was just enough room for the low-profile AS-42 to squeeze through.

With sore backs and aching legs, they took up a second task of checking and loading weapons. The vehicle Joe had restored to life carried a Breda Modello 37 heavy machine gun, which fired large shells from twenty-round cartridges. In addition, it carried a 20mm antitank gun that was affixed to a firing platform in the rear. Kurt had found plenty of ammunition for each weapon, but much of it was unusable. He stocked what looked good into the back of the vehicle and brought along two Beretta Model 1918 submachine guns, whose odd design required the magazine to protrude vertically from the top of the weapon instead of downward like most fully automatic weapons.