The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

do understood. He turned to the technicians. “Do you need any special equipment to pack the antidote?”

“No,” their leader said. “The antidote is stable at room temperature.”

“Then we’ll leave as soon as possible,” he said.

The technicians began loading plastic crates onto a wheeled cart. The crates were filled with individual vials of the antidote.

Edo turned back to Kurt and Joe. “I’ll be sure your friend Renata gets the first dose.”

“Thank you,” Kurt said.

—

Kurt and Joe watched from the shadows of the blockhouse as Edo and the scientists lifted off with the supply of the antidote and the raw materials to make more. At Kurt’s request, the helicopter climbed to a higher altitude than normal before tracking to the east and back toward Cairo.

“You think Hassan will have seen that?” Joe asked.

Kurt nodded. “If he’s within ten miles of this place, he can’t have missed it. I’m hoping it’ll make him think the place is empty once again.”

“Do you really believe Hassan is going to come here?”

“If you were Hassan and you had only two chips left to play, both of which were in this building, what would you do?”

Joe shrugged. “Personally, I’d retire to the French Riviera. But Hassan doesn’t strike me as the vacationing type.”

“He won’t quit,” Kurt said assuredly. “And the only option left to him that would create any leverage is to reverse the pumps and continue the drought. If he manages that, he might yet swing this defeat into some kind of victory. But he’s not counting on the two of us waiting for him. Now let’s find ourselves a place to hide.”

They entered the building, took the elevator down and studied the setup.

“Each time we’ve tangled with them, they’ve had a man in high-cover position,” Kurt said.

“Scorpion,” Joe said.

“If Hassan brings him down here, he’ll probably want him in a cover position just as he’s done before,” Kurt said.

“The only real point of danger is the elevator,” Joe said. “But from a place on the scaffolding surrounding it, you could cover this entire room.”

Kurt looked up and began climbing the scaffolding. It went up into the rock above, but there was enough space around it to hide and not be crushed as the elevator went past. “Send the car back to the top,” he said, taking up a spot where he could brace his feet. “We wouldn’t want to be rude and make them wait.”

Joe pressed the up button and the machinery came to life. The elevator car began its long, slow climb passing Kurt with a foot to spare.

“I’ll go hide in the control room,” Joe said. “If he’s going to reverse the pumps, that’ll be his first stop.”

65

Scorpion drove the Land Rover across the same desert he’d been forced to walk in the blazing sun. Brief flashbacks of the pain and anger that had sustained him on that trek intruded on his thoughts. Occasionally, he saw mirages in the shape of men, who vanished like ghosts.

His mind switched to the Americans, the men from NUMA, who had all but destroyed the organization in a matter of days. He would hunt them. Even if Osiris was finished and Hassan’s last-ditch effort had failed, he would hunt them—until the end of his days, if necessary.

Hassan sat in the passenger seat, staring at the monotonous terrain, in silence. From time to time, the wind gusted, pelting the SUV with fine grains of sand, as the sun baked the land from high overhead.

As the pumping station came into view, Scorpion brought the Rover to a halt.

“Why are you stopping?” Hassan demanded.

“Look.”

Hassan pulled out a pair of binoculars and trained them on the low-lying building. His older eyes weren’t as sharp as Scorpion’s, but through the binoculars he could plainly see the Gazelle helicopter sitting on the pad.