The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

As a last resort, Kurt still had two vials of the Black Mist. To protect themselves if they had to use it, they’d gathered three gas masks from the Italian cache.

Armed, they began the return trip. Finding their way back to the main hall proved easy enough, but figuring out which t

unnel to take from there was more difficult. Several wrong turns later, they came upon the split in the tunnel where the two ATVs had overturned.

Hassan had wisely posted guards there, but the men weren’t expecting a fight and Kurt took them out with the Breda before they knew what hit them.

From there, they continued toward the central hub of the cave system, discovering the heavily insulated power lines along the way. Using explosives from the Italian supply lockers, they blasted apart the cable at a junction. They’d expected a total blackout but only got a dimming of the light.

“Power still coming from somewhere,” Joe had said.

“We can’t worry about it,” Kurt replied. “I have a feeling we just announced our arrival. That puts us squarely in the ad-lib phase now. We need to find Shakir before he gets away.”

They rumbled up the main tunnel, tangled with a second group of Shakir’s men and spotted Shakir himself outside the control room. Kurt opened fire, not to kill him but to force him back into the control center, hoping to trap him. He hadn’t counted on a second exit.

Pulling up in front of the control room, Kurt jumped down with the Beretta submachine gun in hand. As he entered the room, he saw two engineers cowering underneath a computer console, but no sign of Shakir.

“Chicken has flown the coop,” he shouted to Joe. “He must have gone out the back door.”

“I’ll see if we can loop around and cut him off,” Joe replied.

Kurt gave him the go signal and watched as the AS-42 rumbled forward. To prevent Shakir from doubling back, he moved into the control room. He kept his weapon on the engineers and paused beside the lit console. On the screens above it, he could see the outline of North Africa, along with the network of pumps and pipelines Shakir was using to drain the aquifer.

“English?” Kurt asked.

One of them nodded. Kurt pointed the Beretta their way. “Time to turn it off.”

When they held still, Kurt fired a burst of shells into the floor beside them. Both men hopped up and went to the console. They began typing and throwing switches. Kurt was familiar with pumps and pressure gauges, they were present on every salvage job, reclamation project and ship he’d ever been stationed on. Studying the layout, he instantly saw an opportunity.

“I changed my mind,” he said. “Don’t turn them off.”

The men looked at him.

“Reverse them.”

“We don’t know what’ll happen if we reverse the pumps,” one man said.

“Let’s find out,” Kurt said, raising the submachine gun a fraction to enforce the order.

The technicians went back to work and Kurt watched with satisfaction as the flow rates listed on the screen diminished, with the numbers for pumps along the Nile dropping first to zero and then, after a brief pause, increasing again, this time highlighted in red with a minus sign next to them.

A short time later, arrows on each pipeline flipped and showed water going the opposite way, from the Nile back through the pipes and—Kurt hoped—back down into the aquifers.

—

While Kurt was in the control room, Joe urged the AS-42 onward. The old warhorse moved slowly. The engine was fine, but the tires were mush: dry-rotted and completely flat. It felt like he was driving on marshmallows. Still, they didn’t need to break any speed records down there. Just move slowly and take out all resistance, which Renata was doing with deadly efficiency with the Breda heavy machine gun.

At a T-junction in the tunnel, he began a turn and the AS-42 wallowed around the corner. Down the passageway, several of Shakir’s men had set up shop behind one of the ATVs. They opened fire, riddling the front of the Sahariana.

Joe threw the transmission into reverse and backed out of the firing line. The nose of the vehicle was punched with bullet holes, but, fortunately, the engine was in the back.

“Get out one of those antitank shells,” he said to Renata.

Renata pulled out one of the small, grenade-sized explosive shells from an ammunition locker. They were supposed to be fired from a bazooka-like weapon, but none of the tubes they’d found seemed to be the right fit. Joe had brought them along anyway in case they needed to blow something up.

“What do you want me to do with it?” Renata asked.

“Fling it down the hall,” he shouted. “And then when I drive past and they’re busy shooting at me, you pop around the corner and shoot the explosive. You’ll have to hit it with one shot.”