Path of the Assassin

CHAPTER 24

Hashim Nidal was a fool. Trying to have his way with the American woman was an unwise and unprofessional act. She may have been beautiful and may have represented everything he hated about America, but he had allowed his desire to consume him. By molesting the American woman, half-witted Hashim had brought consequences upon them that could never have been foreseen. Though he had been warned once, he still could not help himself, and that had cost them dearly.

Hashim’s masked comrade had discovered him lying on the floor of the upper deck, where the American woman had left him to die. Praise indeed belonged to Allah in that the bullet had not entered his skull, but had just grazed him. It had been enough to make him lose consciousness and he had bled profusely, but he would live. The scar it would leave would hopefully serve as a reminder to him of his foolishness. His mistake had cost the organization not only millions, but tens of millions of dollars, which could have been smuggled out of the airport along with them.

It was only through sheer force of will that Hashim’s accomplice had been able to neutralize the Alpha Team and successfully drag him to their hiding place deep within the bowels of the plane. They had underestimated their enemy, and because of it, all of their months of planning and training were ruined.

Now they had no choice but to wait. All of their soldiers were dead. It was a calculated loss. Contrary to what they told their devout followers, they had suspected that the plane might never leave Cairo and that many might die. As part of their contingency plan, they had prepared for either an assault or the need to create a diversion themselves by detonating several charges throughout the plane, but not so soon. They had hoped to ransom at least one of the VIPs. Either the mayor or the airline CEO. One ransom would have helped their cause incredibly, but to get paid both would have been an answer to their prayers. They needed the money desperately and now they were left with nothing, less than nothing in fact, because the execution of this mission had been expensive. With America’s war on terrorism waging, it seemed that everything these days was very, very costly.

Hashim’s impulsiveness would one day be the ruin of the organization. Abu Nidal had not worked as hard as he had to have it torn asunder by his idiot son.

Hours passed, and finally Hashim Nidal and his accomplice felt themselves moving. A forklift removed the crate from the cargo hold and transferred it to a flatbed trailer with several other matching containers. Everything was being done under strict military supervision. Though armed teams had swept the cargo bay repeatedly once all of the passengers were off the plane, they were still leaving nothing to chance. The crates were driven to a customs warehouse adjacent to the terminal along with all of the passenger luggage from flight 7755.

Customs broker Farouk Negim was waiting in the warehouse, flanked by one of his company’s most important clients, Dr. Abdel Mandour, curator of Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, and Dr. Kamal el Aziz, Egypt’s government minister of antiquities. They had been camped out in the warehouse manager’s office since the hijacking had been announced the previous afternoon. As part of the cultural exchange between Chicago and Cairo, Chicago’s Field Museum was loaning the Egyptian Museum a pair of mummies that had been removed from Egypt over a hundred years ago. The Egyptian Museum planned to study the mummies and then put them on display.

The fact that all of the containers had been sitting in the cargo hold of the 747–400 since yesterday afternoon troubled all but one of the men, who now exited the warehouse manager’s office and quickly made their way toward the incoming airport trailer truck.

The truck was met by Egyptian soldiers and a blond man, an obvious westerner, in a pin-striped business suit.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said the blond man as the three Egyptians approached the trailer. “This area is off-limits. No one gets in here.”

“Who are you?” demanded Dr. el Aziz.

“Who am I? I’m Tom Ellis of the United States Embassy and this is a crime-scene investigation involving American property.”

“Well, I am Dr. Kamal el Aziz, Egypt’s government minister of antiquities, and this crime, which happened on Egyptian soil, also involves priceless Egyptian property, which has been languishing in unacceptable conditions. We are here to remove those containers in particular and get them back to the Egyptian Museum as soon as possible.”

“We? Who’s ‘we’?” asked Ellis.

“This is our customs broker, Farouk Negim, and Dr. Abdel Mandour, curator of the Egyptian Museum.”

“Gentlemen, I am sorry, but those containers are not going anywhere until we have had a chance to thoroughly investigate them.”

“You will pardon my asking, Mr. Ellis,” began Dr. Mandour, “but what is it exactly you wish to investigate?”

“We want to make sure that no one has stowed away in them and that they don’t contain any evidence that might have to do with the hijacking.”

“That is impossible,” replied the museum’s curator, who was completely unaware of what the containers truly held.

“So you say, but until I’m convinced, those crates are not going anywhere.”

Dr. el Aziz did not like the man’s tone and stepped away from the group to place a call on his cell phone.

“Mr. Ellis, do you wish to know what is in those crates?” asked Dr. Mandour, who was just as ignorant as his colleague, Dr. el Aziz.

“You betcha, and I plan to find out.”

“Let me save you the trouble. The crates contain two ancient mummies, their two wooden boxes, and two rather extraordinary sarcophagi.”

“Let’s hope, Doctor, that that’s all they contain.”

“Surely, Mr. Ellis, you do not intend to open them here.”

“Yes, I do.”

“That simply cannot happen,” said Dr. Mandour.

“Really. And why not?”

Dr. Mandour did not have the energy for this. He had been waiting since yesterday afternoon to claim the containers and had not gotten a wink of sleep all night. His wife had called him incessantly, believing he was using the hijacking as an excuse to see another woman. Finally, the poor man had to turn off his cell phone. No, the curator definitely had neither the energy, nor the patience for any of this.

“Mr. Ellis, let me show you something, if I may,” said Dr. Mandour, taking the clipboard from the customs broker and guiding Ellis toward the crates. “These crates, as you can plainly see, have all been stamped and stenciled as ‘Environmentally Controlled.’ The top of each one has been locked with a rubber seal under the strictest of conditions at Chicago’s Field Museum. Inside, a substance called silica gel has been added to temporarily maintain the proper balance of humidity. The key word here, Mr. Ellis, is temporarily. Because of the risk to the artifacts from our modern-day air, we can only open these containers within a special facility at the Egyptian Museum—”

“And that is exactly what is going to happen,” said el Aziz, the minister of antiquities, who flipped the top down on his cell phone and returned to the group.

“What are you talking about?” said Ellis.

“Mr. Ellis, I know it is very early, but if you would kindly call your ambassador at his residence, you will find that not only has he already spoken with my government, but that he will instruct you to impede us no further.”

Ellis called the American ambassador, of course, and was furious when told to back down. Dr. el Aziz then shouted orders in Arabic to both the soldiers and the warehouse workers. A semitrailer from Worldwide Customs Brokers International was backed into the warehouse, and the Egyptian Museum’s containers were loaded without further delay.

Once the semi was loaded, Dr. el Aziz offered to treat Dr. Mandour to breakfast before he returned to the museum to open the crates. Dr. Mandour accepted and the pair departed in the minister’s chauffeured Mercedes.

Farouk Negim finished signing the paperwork and climbed into the semi’s passenger seat next to his driver.

Tom Ellis was fuming. “Mr. Negim,” he called snidely through the open window. “Beware of the mummy’s curse.”

Farouk Negim didn’t bother to respond. He simply instructed his driver in Arabic to proceed. Once they had cleared the customs warehouse and were on the road leading from the airport, he smiled to himself. Mummy’s curse, indeed. He knew full well that the occupants of his crates were not at all cursed. If anything, they were blessed, and they had showered riches upon him and his counterpart in Chicago, the likes of which neither had ever before seen in their long careers of smuggling.