“They’re going to kill him,” Summer whispered. “We’ve got to find help.”
“There’s no time. It’s a half mile to the nearest village, and the same to the antiquities office up north. Take us too long to get there and back.”
“What do you propose we do?”
Dirk stared at the dead antiquities agent, who’d worn a holstered pistol. The three gunmen were now assembled close together above the trench, dust blowing at their feet.
Dirk turned to his sister. “We’ll have to move fast. I need to ask you one thing.”
“What’s that?”
He motioned toward the scene. “Can you drive a front-end loader?”
21
Blood dribbled down Stanley’s cheek, but he remained unfazed by the assault. He stood tall and stoic as the interrogator bombarded him with questions.
“I don’t know of any tombs. The royal tombs of Amarna are all in the wadi, east of here. Any tombs in the city were for commoners and excavated decades, if not centuries, ago.”
“What of the tomb hidden here?” The gunman barely concealed his impatience.
“Pure speculation,” Stanley said. “We’ve uncovered a workboat and an offering table, that’s all. They might indicate the presence of a tomb. Or they might not. It seems unlikely. If there is a tomb, it could take weeks, or months, to find.”
“Where would you look?”
Stanley eyed the offering table, then stared at the ground. Shifting his feet, he waved an arm toward the other side of the excavation.
“Perhaps over there. That area between the boat and the North Riverside Palace. At one time there was probably an important residence there.”
The gunman considered the location, then gazed at Riki a moment. He slowly turned back to Stanley. “You deceive me,” he hissed. “You will die for this.”
As Riki screamed “No!” he raised his weapon to Stanley’s forehead.
A mechanical rumble sounded nearby, followed by a puff of black smoke that rose into the air behind them. The gunmen turned toward the noise—and the mountain of dirt suddenly began to cascade onto them.
One man fell, his lower torso buried by the avalanche. He screamed as a giant steel blade burst through the dirt mound just above his head. An accomplice tried to pull him free, but had to jump back as the front-end loader crushed the first man beneath its big, knobby tires.
The third gunman shoved Stanley aside and turned his weapon on the machine, firing into the cab. With its dusty windows, he was unable to see that the vehicle was driverless.
Zeibig realized what was happening and dragged Riki and the two laborers along the trench and away from the collapsing dirt mound. Then, through a cloud of rising dust, another woman dropped into the trench ahead of them.
“Summer?” said Zeibig.
“Quick, this way. Stay in the trench.” She motioned along its path.
“Where’s Dirk?”
“Hoping to provide us cover. Come on!”
Riki hesitated, but Zeibig pushed her. “Follow Summer. I’ll get Harrison.”
A few steps back, Zeibig found the archeologist staggering along the edge of the trench. Zeibig grabbed his shirt and pulled him into it. “Come along, Harry, this way.”
The two scampered after the others as the front-end loader lumbered behind them, its blade raising a cloud of dust.
The loader’s front wheels rolled down the dirt mound into the trench, and the vehicle dropped forward, pinning itself in place. Just a few feet ahead, the two remaining gunmen riddled the cab with gunfire, until they realized it had no driver. They looked about and saw the two archeologists fleeing.
The gunman with the checked headscarf raised his weapon at the two men, then redirected his fire to a tall figure crouched in the center of the field.