Hunt Through Napoleon's Web

Chapter 9

Amun led Gabriel through an archway and into a modestly appointed dining room. A table had been set for two.

Kemnebi followed close behind.

“I thought you might like a bite before we embark on our journey,” Amun announced as he gestured to a chair. “Please.”

“I’m not hungry,” Gabriel answered. “I had lunch.”

“Come, come. We have already discussed the insult of refusing hospitality. Try some of our delicacies. I don’t expect you to clean your plate.”

Gabriel took one of the seats. Amun bowed slightly and then sat across from him. Kemnebi stood near another archway that was draped with long, hanging curtains. He clapped his hands. A young woman wearing a niqab entered with a tray. The pungent aromas of cooked food wafted into the dining room.

She placed a basket of pita bread on the table and poured two glasses of water. Along with a pair of steaming bowls, Gabriel noted the several sets of utensils on her tray. Including knives.

The woman put the bowls of greenish soup in front of both men and doled out a spoon apiece from the stack of cutlery, then carried the tray out of reach, standing with it against one of the walls.

“Have you tried our molokhiyya soup?” Amun asked. “It’s made from a vegetable that’s distinctly Egyptian.” He took a piece of pita with his right hand and dunked it into his bowl. Gabriel did the same. The soup was salty but very good.

“You’ve been to Egypt before, I take it?”

“Many times,” Gabriel replied. “Never had the soup, though.”

“I am pleased,” Amun said, “to introduce a man as worldly as you to a new experience.”

“I’ve never had my sister kidnapped either,” Gabriel said.

“Or your traveling companion killed, I imagine.”

“No,” Gabriel said, “that one I’ve had.”

“Well, I’m sorry to burden you with it again. With either of these distasteful events. Rest assured it gives me no pleasure to do these things. I am not a sadist, Mister Hunt. Merely a man with a purpose.”

“So was Torquemada,” Gabriel said.

“Yes, yes, Torquemada,” Amun said. “Eat your soup.”

Gabriel took another spoonful, trying hard to control his temper. It was difficult to converse politely with the man responsible for Lucy’s kidnapping and Sammi’s present situation. Whatever that might be. He knew how skilled she was at getting out of impossible traps; he wouldn’t believe she was dead till he got some proof.

“What exactly did you do to my . . . traveling companion?”

“Miss Ficatier?” Amun said. “You were told to come alone to our rendezvous. Let’s leave it at that.”

“If she’s been harmed—”

“What? What, Mister Hunt? You are in no position to make threats. If I were you, I’d resign myself to cooperating. After all, I am sure your sister means more to you than some woman you just met in Nice.”

“She’s my sister’s friend.”

“She should have stayed home.” Amun snapped his fingers and the woman with the tray came forward again and collected their bowls. She vanished for a moment through the curtains, then returned with something new on the tray, a platter of rice topped with chunks of cooked lamb and onion. The dish smelled of marjoram and lemon juice. Once again, Gabriel eyed the utensils.

“May I have a fork?” Gabriel asked.

“It is customary to use your bread,” Amun said. He demonstrated by scooping up some of the food with a piece of pita.

The woman was refilling their water glasses. As she turned back toward the kitchen, Gabriel shifted his foot to catch the hem of her garment, a full-body burqa. She took two steps before the tug on the fabric trapped under Gabriel’s heel overbalanced her and she tripped, sending the tray and extra utensils flying.

Gabriel jumped up from the table to help her. “Are you all right?”

Her veil—the niqab—had slipped to one side, revealing her features. Embarrassed, she pulled it back into place.

He put a hand on her arm to help her up, but she jerked it out of his grasp. He gathered up the scattered utensils instead and put them back on the tray. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, in Arabic, as he handed the tray to her; it was one of the few expressions he knew. Behind the veil, he could only see her eyes as they glanced at the pile of knives and forks and then back at him. There was a question in her gaze. Gabriel shook his head minutely. She turned away and vanished through the curtains.

“I apologize, Mister Hunt, for Nabirye’s clumsiness,” Amun said. “She will be disciplined.”

“Don’t do that, it was my fault. I stepped on her dress by accident.”

“You are kind to try to protect her, but I know you are lying,” Amun said.

“I’m not—I did step on her dress—”

“Yes,” Amun said. “But not by accident. Kemnebi, please search Mister Hunt’s sleeves.”

Reluctantly, Gabriel submitted to his third pat-down of the day. Kemnebi found the long-handled dinner knife he’d shot up his right sleeve in the confusion. The big man brandished it in Gabriel’s face, tweaking the underside of his chin with the point.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” Amun said, “that you won’t be able to put anything over on me? It is getting tiresome.”

“All right,” Gabriel said, sitting at the table again. “Consider the lesson learned.”

He scooted his chair closer to the table, his trouser leg neatly covering the second knife he’d grabbed. The blade was snug against his calf, the handle held in place by the elastic of his sock.

Gabriel scooped some rice onto his piece of pita and stuck it into his mouth.

“When we have finished,” Amun said, “Kemnebi will take us to the airport. We’re going to take a short plane ride.”

“Where to?”

“Morocco.”

“If you wanted me in Morocco, why didn’t you just have me meet you there in the first place?”

“I had business to attend to here in Cairo. Besides, I had to make sure that anyone you brought with you for protection could be disposed of. As we have seen, I was right to be concerned.”

“And what’s in Morocco?”

“Oh, many things are in Morocco,” Amun said. He ate another mouthful of the meat. “If you are well behaved, Mister Hunt, perhaps we shall let you see your sister.”

Gabriel didn’t say anything.

“We shall spend the night in Marrakesh. The following day we leave for Corsica. In between, we will provide you with access to all the materials we have in our possession on the subject of the Second Stone. We want you to be well prepared when you go after it.”

Gabriel thought about the task they were proposing—if you could call insistence at gunpoint “proposing.” Was it really possible that there was a second Rosetta Stone, one that somehow held the secret to Napoleon’s world-dominating reign? Gabriel had learned long ago never to dismiss anything as impossible. He’d seen things in his travels that no sane man would believe if he hadn’t witnessed them himself. And yet . . . the thought of a mystical inscription from the time of the pharaohs that somehow gave the French emperor the ability to conquer millions? It was a lot to accept.

On the other hand, even if the legend of the inscription was just that—a legend—the stone itself might well be real. And the traps protecting it.

“How much do you know about the Stone’s hiding place? This vault you say Napoleon designed.”

Amun looked up from his plate. “Not as much as we would like. But everything we do know, you will learn in the next twenty-four hours. We would prefer if you didn’t die in the attempt, Mister Hunt.”

“That makes two of us,” Gabriel said.

Amun waved at his nearly empty plate and at Gabriel’s nearly full one. “If you are finished . . . ?” Gabriel nodded, pushed his plate away from him. “Very well. Then we shall depart.”

Sammi raced back to the Khan el-Khalili, parked the van down the street from Jumoke’s, and attempted to call Gabriel again. His phone wasn’t even ringing, just going directly to voice mail; there was definitely something wrong. She was tempted to walk into the carpet shop and see if she could turn up any sign of him, but she knew that would be a mistake. Free, she might be of some help; captured, she’d be useless.

The two-hour time limit had long since passed, so the smart thing would be simply to call Michael Hunt. It’s what Gabriel had instructed her to do. But Michael was in New York, five thousand miles away. What could he do for them?

Before she could decide on an alternative plan, a black limousine rolled up through the mass of people in the street and stopped in front of Jumoke’s. As Sammi watched, Gabriel appeared in the shop’s entryway. He was followed by the same two men who’d led him inside earlier. The three of them came out of the shop and headed straight for the limo. Gabriel looked unharmed, at least. The big man opened the back door and held it while the others climbed in. Then he climbed in after them. The driver leaned on the horn to scatter the pedestrians that had gathered around the car, then pulled away and drove slowly down the street.

Sammi started the van and followed.

The limo made its way out of the bazaar and onto Al-Azhar. Sammi stayed back several car lengths—the van belonged to the Alliance, after all, and she didn’t want them to spot and recognize it trailing them. Fortunately, it was difficult to lose a black stretch limo on the streets of Cairo.

They made several turns until the limo reached the expressway leading south out of the city. Sammi followed them onto the ramp and picked up speed but kept a steady distance behind them. It wasn’t long until the skyscrapers gave way to low-rises and the urban sprawl grew thinner. Eventually the limo exited the expressway and drove along a stretch of road to an airfield surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Sammi stopped at the edge of the fence. Through the binoculars she watched the limo pull up to the gated entrance. A sign on the fence warned in Arabic and English, PRIVATE! NO TRESPASSING!, and a security camera watched anyone who drove up. After a moment the gate lifted and the limo rolled in. The driver parked just a few yards past the fence, in a small lot next to the control tower. Sammi watched the men get out of the car and go inside the building. She scanned the rest of the property. Beside the tower was a single hangar; a small twin-engine corporate jet sat on the only runway. It appeared to be ready to go—its hatch was open and a staircase attached to the fuselage led down to the tarmac.

Sure enough, it wasn’t three minutes before Gabriel and the other two emerged from the tower, together with a pair of men in flight uniforms. They walked toward the jet and climbed aboard. The staircase automatically withdrew into the fuselage and the hatch closed. Moments later the plane was in the air.

Now what?

Sammi took a deep breath, let it out slowly. She checked in the rearview mirror to make sure her hair was all tucked under the headscarf again, and drove up to the gate. When you didn’t want to be noticed, she’d learned, the best way was sometimes to just walk boldly through the front door. The key was to look like you belonged, like there was no reason to pay attention to you. In this case, the fact that the van she was driving was one of theirs should help—as long as they didn’t take too close a look at her.

She waited, stared straight ahead, and tried not to look directly into the security camera. After a moment she honked the van’s horn.

Come on . . . !

She heard a click beside her and slowly the gate began to rise. With her heart racing, she drove inside and parked next to the tower. She slipped the handgun into her purse and got out. Past a pair of glass doors, she saw a reception desk, unmanned, and a flight of stairs. She climbed them two at a time.

At the top of the stairs was the control room. One man sat in front of a bank of monitors, watching radar sweeps in glowing green. His eyes widened at the sight of her and he reached for a telephone.

“Don’t move!” Sammi shouted, pointing the gun at him.

The man cautiously raised his hands.

“The plane that just left, where was it going?”

He shook his head.

She pointed the gun at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The acoustic tiles splintered and rained down on the man and his monitors. He flinched.

“Answer me!”

“M-M-Marrakesh . . .”

She approached him, the gun extended before her.

“Please . . . don’t shoot me . . .”

“I’ll only shoot you if you make me,” Sammi said. “Now: What other planes do you have at this airstrip that can make it to Marrakesh?”

“None,” the man said. “That was the only plane here.”

She’d had a bad feeling he was going to say that. Without lowering the gun, she dug her cell phone out of her purse and jabbed at the screen with her thumb.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end of the phone was reedy and nasal.

“Michael Hunt?”

“Yes? Who is this?”

“I’m a friend of your sister’s. And your brother’s. They’re both in trouble and I’m trying to help them.”

“What? Who are you? Where are you calling from? What’s the—”

“I’ll answer all your questions later,” Sammi said. “But right now I need you to get me on a plane to Marrakesh.”