Hunt Through Napoleon's Web

Chapter 23

“As soon as Michael told me he’d contacted you, I knew it was a mistake,” Gabriel said.

Arif shrugged. “What can I say? Your family has always paid me well . . . but the Alliance of the Pharaohs pays better.”

“You bastard,” Sammi said. “You cowardly—”

Gabriel shook his head. “Sammi. Don’t.”

“Well, he is!”

Arif grinned at her. “You are right. I make no bones about it. I am not brave, like your friend here. If you like, you may call me a coward. But cowards live to toast the memories of brave men. As I shall toast yours, Gabriel. And yours, my dear Miss Ficatier.” He shook his head. “It would have been a true pleasure to have some more time alone with you. Imagine if it had been she in my cellar instead of you all those years ago, eh, Gabriel? We would not have spent the days and nights just drinking tea.”

“How did you get down here?” Gabriel said.

“Why, we followed you, of course. You left a fine trail. Even left that rope attached for us. Most helpful.”

“But the first trap, the room with the echo—”

“Yes, that,” Arif said. “Quite an intricate contraption, I am sure. But nothing several pounds of dynamite couldn’t deal with, now that the Corsicans were no longer around to interfere.”

“They’re all . . . ?”

“Dead, yes, every one of them,” Arif said. “It is just us now, Gabriel. You and I and these gentlemen here. There is no one to protect the Stone now. But never fear. The Alliance will see that it returns to its rightful home.”

“Don’t give it to him, Gabriel!”

“If you prefer, Miss Ficatier, I’m sure Kemnebi here would be happy to take it from him.”

“No,” Gabriel said. There were five men, four with guns drawn, against the two of them, Sammi armed with a flashlight and Gabriel with his hands full. “You win,” he said. “Take it.”

“Gabriel!”

“I just want your word that Lucy will be released unharmed, as Amun promised.”

“My word?” Arif clucked and sadly shook his head. “You know what my word is worth, Gabriel.”

“And you know you can name your price,” Gabriel said. “Michael will pay it.”

“Now, that I will have to think about most seriously.” He stepped forward. “The Stone, please.”

Gabriel handed it to him. Arif bent under the weight and Gabriel leaped forward, swinging his arm up and around the smaller man’s throat—but Arif ducked and darted backward out of reach. Two of the other men stepped forward to flank him.

“Now, now. That wasn’t sporting.” Arif passed the stone to one of the men, who carried it from the chamber.

“As for your sister, Gabriel . . . I am afraid Khufu has grown quite fond of her. I seriously doubt he will let her leave his side. He has wanted an heir for some time. Do you happen to know if she is fertile?”

Gabriel rushed at him. But before he could reach Arif, Kemnebi stepped between them. He blocked Gabriel’s charge with one arm, lifting him off his feet and hurling him to the side. Gabriel landed on one of the skeletons in a clatter of breaking bones. He only hoped that none of them were his.

“Good-bye, Gabriel; Miss Ficatier.” Arif backed out of the chamber, followed by Kemnebi and the others. “The Alliance thanks you once again for your service,” he called from the other room. “Your contribution will not be forgotten.”

Gabriel jumped to his feet as he saw the wall begin rotating shut. But before he could reach it, Kemnebi gave the blocks of stone a huge shove—and kicked the two rucksacks out of the way. The wall slammed closed with a sound like a kettle drum booming.

Gabriel raced to the wall and began hammering against it with his fists. He pushed at it, kicked it. Nothing. It was locked firmly in place.

“Hey, Arif,” he shouted, “why don’t you pick up some treasure on the way out?”

He listened for the sound of a spear being triggered, but heard nothing. He wasn’t sure he would—with the wall as thick as it was, they probably hadn’t heard him shouting, either.

He returned to where Sammi stood, in the center of the room.

Was her flashlight dimmer than it had been? It was probably just an illusion, he knew; but before much longer it wouldn’t be. Darkness would come, and then thirst, and hunger, all steps along the path to becoming the two freshest skeletons on the chamber floor.

“I’m sorry, Sammi,” Gabriel said. “I wish I hadn’t dragged you into this.”

“You didn’t drag me anywhere. I made up my own mind every step of the way.” She laughed ruefully. “I wish I hadn’t come, but that doesn’t make it your fault.”

She began walking around the perimeter of the room, peering at each wall, then examining the floor, then looking up at the ceiling. She searched around the base of the cage and the track on which the pedestal had swung.

“What are you doing?” Gabriel said.

“What I do best,” she said. “Finding a way out.”

“We know the way out,” he said. “It’s the way we came in.”

“We know one way out. Since that way is no longer available to us, I am finding another.”

“Here’s the other,” Gabriel said, and pulled the compact pickax out of one of the rucksacks Kemnebi had kicked out of the way of the closing door. “It may take a while, but—”

“It’ll go faster if you bring that over here,” Sammi said.

She’d reached into the cage and pulled out the rotting fragments of cloth on which the Second Stone had rested. Pushing down on the bottom of the cage showed some give in the surface, like the bottom of a wrestling ring or a gymnastics mat. It wasn’t solid stone.

“Well, now, that’s interesting,” Gabriel said.

“Isn’t it?”

Gabriel leaned into the cage and started working at the bottom surface with the point of the ax. It was slow going, but after working through a layer of stone and a layer of some sort of dense batting below, he found what seemed to be a metal panel. The edges of the panel extended a good two inches beyond the stone in which the cage’s bars were embedded, but by prying with the ax and using the handle as a lever—

The center of the panel bowed and bent, and then the edge came free.

Gabriel heaved, bending the metal farther back.

Beneath it, darkness beckoned.

Gabriel shined his light down, revealing a set of narrow stone rungs carved into the rock.

“How did you know . . . ? What made you think there might be something under the cage?”

“Two reasons,” Sammi said. “First, there had to be some other room connected to this one—if nothing else, a place where the mechanism for generating and propelling the poison gas was located. Perhaps also a back door through which the Corsicans could keep an eye on the Stone without having to navigate the three traps themselves.”

“And the second reason?”

“My father was a magician, Gabriel. He used plenty of cages. He escaped from them. He taught me to escape from them. One thing I learned was, if you ever see a cage? There’s a good chance there’s something hidden under it.”