Curse of the Pharaoh: A Brock Stone Adventure

16 The Fighting Pit

They took seats at a table at the far corner of the room. Brimble introduced “Lord Rockwell” to the other players. Zafrini was a Cairo politician, Ihara a Japanese expat, and Saroyan was an heiress from Armenia. The men greeted him with perfunctory nods while Saroyan looked him up and down like a hyena sizing up a potential kill.

Ihara dealt the cards and they set to playing. Stone bet conservatively, played the game by the numbers, and occasionally made a bad decision that cost him the hand. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to himself by cleaning up at the table. He won a couple, lost several.

He had just anted up when a familiar face strode toward him. It was John Kane! Stone raised his cards, shielding his face. The business magnate paid him no mind. He took a seat at the table directly behind Stone. A minute later, a corpulent, bearded man in an expensive pinstriped suit joined him. His red fez sat atop his head at a jaunty angle. He gave Kane an ebullient greeting and they shook hands warmly.

“That is Amir,” Brimble said softly. “He owns this boat. I don’t know the other man.”

Stone shrugged as if he, too, had no idea who Kane was. As the game went on, he listened intently to their conversation. Kane spoke softly, but Stone’s sharpened senses served him well. He heard everything.

“What brings you to Egypt, my friend?” Amir said.

“Mags is shooting a film.”

“And how is the lovely Miss Fischer?”

“Challenging.” Kane laughed and Amir joined in. They clinked glasses.

“Are you filming close by?” Amir asked.

“That is the problem,” Kane said. “Magda wants to film specific scenes at a place called Kauketos, but no one seems to know where it is.”

Stone was barely paying attention to the card game. He wondered if the false clues they had planted on Orion’s map had done the trick.

“Kauketos was a place of great evil,” Amir said. “All traces of its location were scrubbed from the annals of history.”

“She has a map of questionable origin,” Kane said carefully. “It shows the city as being somewhere in the vicinity of Siwa Oasis.”

Stone smiled. Kane had been taken in by the ruse. But for him to have obtained the map, that meant someone inside the Bureau was dirty. That could mean future trouble for Constance, but that was a problem for another day.

“Nonsense,” Amir said. “Kauketos was in the Western Desert somewhere west of Edfu.”

And just like that, Stone’s clever deception went up in smoke. They and Kane were back on an even footing in the search for the tomb of the Night Queen.

“Interesting,” Kane said. “Can you tell me anything more specific? Something that will get me ‘in the ballpark’ as they say in the States?”

Stone listened for Amir’s reply, but Rose chose that moment to return. She glided up to Stone’s side, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Gentlemen, I hope you have taken enough of Lord Rockwell’s money, because I need to borrow him,” she said.

“Rose, we were only just warming up,” Gerard said, a note of lighthearted reproval in his voice.

“You’re about to clean me out,” Stone said. “I fold.” His hand was weak, so it was no great loss. He pushed back from the table, thanked them for the game, and followed Rose out onto the deck that wrapped around the second level.

“I’ve found Trinity,” Rose said. “She’s belowdecks. But it’s going to be difficult to get her out.”

“Show me the way. I’ll think of something.”

They descended a set of stairs down to the main deck, where a band was playing and guests were dancing and cavorting. They skirted the dance floor and came to a door guarded by a mountain of a man with ebony skin and fists the size of hams. When Rose approached, he smiled, gave a quick bow, and stepped to the side.

The air belowdecks smelled of cigar smoke, petroleum, and sweat. Loud cheers and raucous laughter filled the air. A shrill scream cut through the wall of noise. Rose grabbed him by the arm.

“Don’t worry. That isn’t her.”

“What exactly goes on down here?” he asked.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

The smoky air was colored dusty yellow by the oil lamps and electric bulbs that lit the cramped space. Men were crowded around a pit in the center of the room. Inside, two men were wrangling a crocodile, while another carried a young woman’s limp body out of the makeshift arena.

“She was not much of a fighter.” A man in an obnoxious yellow suit laughed. He was an odd-looking man. His long nose, large eyes, and accent suggested French ancestry, but he had the tan skin and coarse dark hair common to Egyptians. He lounged in a gold-painted chair atop a small dais. A distracted-looking young woman sat on his knee. “Who is our next gladiator?”

“That’s Balthus, Amir’s right-hand man,” Rose whispered. “He’s the product of a visiting French aristocrat and a local flapper — the kind who works for a living, if you take my meaning. The father never wanted anything to do with him, but Balthus still considers himself to be part of the noble class. Amir is intelligent and ruthless; Balthus is stupid and reckless. I’m not sure which is more dangerous.”

“Let go of me, you slimy worm!” a woman shouted.

“Trinity!” Stone could just see the top of her head as she was shoved through the crowd.

Rose seized his wrist in both hands. “Don’t do anything crazy.”

“That might be my only option,” Stone said. “Is there another way out? Preferably one not guarded by a giant?”

“Toward the stern is a door that leads into the engine room. From there you can climb up to a trapdoor by the paddlewheel. You can climb down and swim to shore.”

“How do I get Trinity out of here without bringing Amir’s thugs down on my head?”

“Do I have to do everything? I got you inside and I found her for you. The rest is up to you.”

“Fine.” Stone worked his way up to the edge of the arena. It was a sunken pit about three feet deep and fifteen feet across, and ringed by a low wall.

Two men shoved Trinity roughly down into the pit and slammed the gate behind her. She stood, looked around angrily. She wore silk harem pants and a tight-fitting top that left her shoulders and arms uncovered. She turned and glared at Balthus.

“What am I supposed to do down here?”

“Fight for your freedom, of course. You are a gladiator.” Balthus fished into his robes, took out a long knife, and tossed it down into the arena.

“All right, then.” Trinity picked up the knife, tested its weight and heft. “I challenge you.”

The men in the crowd laughed and catcalled. Stone cracked a smile. Trinity was no coward, and she had been in dangerous situations before. Still, he had to put a stop to this before it turned ugly.

“We have another opponent in mind for you.”

Balthus flicked his hand and a man clad in traditional robes pushed his way through the crowd. He carried a sack which he upended over the rail. Something large and black thudded to the ground. The crowd let out a collective gasp as a snake uncoiled and slithered toward Trinity. It was eight feet long and as thick as Stone’s calf.

“Meet Naga. She is an Egyptian cobra,” Balthus proclaimed. “Like all females, she is ill-tempered and highly venomous.”

Stone looked around for a weapon. A spear and a khopesh, the traditional sickle-sword of ancient Egypt, adorned the wall to his left. He worked his way toward them, keeping one eye on Trinity.

Naga’s handler whistled and the snake raised up, flattened its head, poised to strike. Cheers faded to a confused murmur when Trinity showed no fear of the snake. She had been raised in the American south, which was home to a variety of snakes, including deadly rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cottonmouth moccasins. In their youth, she, Stone, and Alex had spent enough time wading through creeks and tromping through the woods that she had no particular fear of wild animals — only a healthy respect. She raised her knife and eyed the cobra like a puzzle that needed solving.

“Have at it, girl!” a florid-faced Englishman bellowed. “And if you could give us a little wiggle while you’re about it.” The men around him laughed.

The cobra swayed, its eyes locked on Trinity as she circled.

Men stamped their feet and urged Naga to attack. Others flung bottles and glasses into the arena, some aimed at Trinity, others at the snake. Stone thought he understood. For the spectators, half the fun was the terror of the female ‘gladiator’ and Trinity was not playing the part.

Finally, Naga struck. Trinity had kept her distance, and the snake’s attack fell short. A cobra could strike roughly a third of its length and could not change directions in mid-strike. Trinity was well aware of this, being a regular visitor to the National Zoological Park in Washington, and she circled just beyond its range. The cobra struck and missed again.

Stone reached the weapons hanging on the wall just as the snake made another attack. This time Trinity did not dance away. Confident she was out of range, she held her ground. As Naga struck, she drove her knife down into the snake’s flattened hood. It was not a killing blow, but it pinned the snake to the floor of the pit.

Balthus let out a cry of rage and sprang to his feet. The woman he dandled on his knee tumbled to the floor.

“Give me another gladiator now!” he shrieked. “I want this woman dead!”