The Emperor's Revenge

TWENTY-THREE

Surprised by Juan’s shooting, Gretchen whipped her head around and then brought her Glock up in a fluid motion.

“Behind you!” She popped off three quick shots. Juan turned to see a gunman dragging his injured comrade back behind some crates.

Footsteps pounded in their direction from where he’d taken down the two men aiming at Zavala. A head poked around the corner and Juan fired twice more to keep him back. A submachine gun stuck out and fired a wild volley, but none of the rounds were close to hitting them. A stack of clay amphorae shattered in a cloud of shards and dust.

They huddled at the intersection, Juan firing in one direction and Gretchen in the other.

“MacD, this is the Chairman,” he said. “We’re getting pounded in here. We need extraction pronto!”

“On our way,” MacD said.

Automatic weapons fire chewed into the priceless artifacts around them.

Gretchen fired off a couple more rounds and slapped a new magazine into her Glock before letting off two more shots. “They’re surrounding us, Juan! We need to move now!”

She was right. They’d be cut to ribbons if they stayed where they were.

Juan motioned for her to follow him down the only route open to them. He was about to sprint for it when a third set of gunmen rushed toward them. Juan dove to cover Gretchen.

He peered through a gap in the crates they were hiding behind. While the first two groups of men kept them pinned down, the third group was advancing and readying a block of C-4 to throw. Juan prepared himself to make a last stand before the C-4 blew them to bits.

The men with the C-4 were next to one of the water tanks when it was suddenly shattered by the cannon inside, sending down a wall of water that slammed the men into the shelves across from it.

A soaking wet man with a platinum shock of hair flowed out with the water and landed on top of one of the intruders. He punched the thug with a thunderous shot to the jaw and the man went limp. The man holding the C-4 was rising to his feet when a heavy object struck him in the head, thrown from the direction where Juan had seen Joe Zavala.

“Juan, this way!” the drenched man yelled.

Juan hesitated when he heard his named called. Gretchen peered around the crate in confusion.

The platinum-haired man pulled the electrical probes from the block of C-4 and turned in Juan’s direction. “Hurry! You’re getting surrounded.”

Juan was stunned by the man’s sudden appearance. He turned to Gretchen and said, “Go.”

They fired several shots to give themselves cover and ran over to crouch beside their new ally. It was now a standoff.

“Kurt Austin,” Juan said, shaking his head in disbelief at one of NUMA’s finest coming to his rescue. “What brings you to this shindig?”

“Saving your hide, by the looks of it,” Austin said, grabbing a pistol from the man he’d knocked cold. “And you?”

“Long story. It’s related to the thing in Monaco.”

By now, the intruders seemed less interested in getting to them. Perhaps they realized their numbers advantage had been whittled down. They could be spiriting away whatever they’d come for, maybe the same thing that he and Gretchen were after.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Gretchen blurted out.

“Old friend,” Juan said.

Austin looked her over. “I don’t suppose your name is Sophie?”

She stared at him, nonplussed, before saying, “Naomi.”

Austin shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

Juan grinned at the exchange, then turned back to Austin. “What are you really doing here?”

Austin pointed toward the men they were fighting. “Those men. They have something to do with the disaster on Lampedusa.”

“Is NUMA investigating that?”

“By way of another government,” Austin said.

Juan nodded. “Sounds like we’ve both got our hands full. Anything I can do to help?”

Even though he’d been busy, Juan had heard of the tragedy at Lampedusa. For the past few days it had been competing with the destruction at the Monaco Grand Prix for airtime in the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Given the high-profile nature of the emergency, he couldn’t be too surprised NUMA was on the case.

More shots came their way. All three of them pressed deeper into the recess under the lowest shelf. When they returned fire, the assailants pulled back once more.

“Not sure,” Austin said. “It’s all connected to some Egyptian artifacts I hoped to find here.”

“Good luck finding anything in this place,” Juan said. “We’ve been looking for a book Napoleon had on St. Helena.”

Gretchen shot him a warning glare about sharing confidential info, but Juan ignored it.

“An old copy of The Odyssey?” Austin said. “With some handwritten notes in the margin?”

“That’s the one. Have you seen it?”

Austin pointed toward their adversaries. “That way.”

For now, the gunfire dwindled to the occasional random shot. Together with Austin, Juan and Gretchen crouched down on one end of the aisle, while their enemies guarded the two corners where the aisle intersected the next row. There was little hope for either side to gain any ground. “They seem intent on keeping us from heading that way,” Juan noted.

“I’ve got a solution,” Austin said. He looked up and whistled to Zavala.

Juan followed his eyes and saw Zavala, who had climbed all the way to the ceiling to reach what looked like a heat and smoke detector. He made it to the highest point on the upper shelf but couldn’t reach the sensor. He moved a box out of the way and stretched, an effort that put him out in the open. One of the gunmen saw him and fired. Bullets began punching holes in the ceiling around him.

Juan turned and felled the shooter with a single round.

With the coast clear, Zavala reached for the sensor again and pressed a Taser against it. The heat of the snapping and sparking high-voltage electricity was instantly interpreted as a potential fire. Alarms screeched, strobes flashed, and jets of carbon dioxide blasted out into the open space of the warehouse.

The assailants waited only seconds before fleeing with whatever they’d been able to recover. Juan thought they had the right idea. Even though the carbon dioxide stopped pumping shortly after Zavala pulled the Taser away from the sensor, the authorities would be coming.

“Forty feet past that intersection,” Austin said. “First shelf on the left. I’d hurry, if I were you.”

Juan offered a hand. “’Til next time.”

Austin shook it. “Over drinks instead of bullets.”

With that, Juan and Gretchen sprinted toward the location Austin had indicated.

“We’re outside the front door,” MacD said in Juan’s ear.

“Hold there,” Juan replied. “We’ll be out in a minute.”

“I hope you’re eventually going to explain what just happened,” Gretchen said as they ran.

“Happy to,” Juan said. “Let’s just hope I’m not explaining it to the police as well.”

They reached the aisle and saw the placard marked Lot XVI. Lying inside the container next to it was a fire-proof Nomex envelope. Juan unzipped it and saw L’Odyssée. They had originally planned to flip through it and take photos of each page, but they didn’t have time for that now. He zipped the envelope back up and tucked it into his waistband.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

It was Juan’s turn to be surprised when Gretchen fired twice down the aisle. He spun around to see Golov’s men, still clad in black, duck for cover.

“Come on,” Gretchen said. “The front door is right over here.”

They raced toward the exit and dashed outside to the police car waiting for them.

“Hop in!” MacD yelled. “Gomez is at the airport.”

Once they were in, MacD mashed the accelerator and drove off.

“Drop us at the car,” Juan said.

“We’re not headed to the helicopter?” Trono asked.

“Soon. We owe a favor to a couple of friends back there who might need a lift, Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala. You can’t miss Austin and his platinum hair. They won’t be at the loading dock. Too crowded. Look for them at a side door. We’ll meet you two at the airport as soon as you drop them wherever they’re staying and then ditch the police car.”

By now, fire engines were approaching. Police cars and half the security team from the auction were not far behind. Juan and Gretchen got out of the stolen police car and into the BMW. MacD and Trono sped away back to the warehouse to pick up Austin and Zavala.

“The auction is sure to be canceled now,” Gretchen said as Juan put the car into gear and slowly drove by the emergency vehicles heading for the warehouse.

Juan gave her the envelope holding the diary.

“It’s good you speak French and Greek,” he said, “because the only way we’re going to find ShadowFoe and our money now is to beat them to Napoleon’s treasure.”