The Pharaoh's Secret

60

Joe drove to the elevator room and found a protrusion of metal framing that extended downward from a vertical shaft cut into the rock above. The metal lattice was wide and sturdy and Joe knew the elevator car would be best suited for lifting freight, heavy equipment and large groups of men, like those he’d seen in any number of mining operations around the world.

The car hadn’t arrived, but the gears were turning. Considering that twenty or thirty armed men would be in the car, Joe stopped it from touching down.

Unfortunately, like most elevators, the car was controlled from above, where a heavy drum attached to steel cables raised and lowered it on the rails. The only thing Joe could do was ram the metal framework in hopes of bending the guide rails and jamming the descent.

He got the Sahariana into position and revved the engine. He was about to charge when he noticed that water was flooding into the room from the hall and spreading across the floor in broad, probing fingers.

“We seem to have sprung a leak,” he muttered to himself.

Realizing they might need the elevator to escape in, Joe relented on ramming it and quickly changed over to plan B.

He parked the AS-42, climbed into the gunner’s position and raised an armored plate that protected him. He then locked and loaded both the 20mm antitank gun and the heavy Breda machine gun.

The shadow of the elevator car came into view and then the bottom of the car. The wide metal box slid down into place. There were no doors, just a cage wrapped around a grated floor. At least twenty of Shakir’s soldiers stood inside.

Joe wasn’t interested in gunning down a group of trapped men, but if even one of them got twitchy, he would pull both triggers and not stop until the guns were empty.

The elevator car hit the ground with a resounding boom.

“I’d head back to the surface, if I were you,” Joe shouted with his fingers tight on both triggers, eyes peering through a tiny slot in the armored plate. The lights of the Sahariana were blazing away, blinding the men in the cage.

The outer gates of the elevator cage opened. The men inside clutched at their weapons but were packed in so tightly they couldn’t raise them.

“You don’t have to die today!” Joe yelled.

The inner gates began to open. Joe expected them to make a break for it, and get massacred in the bargain, but no one moved.

They stared back at him, squinting against the glare of the lights. Finally, without a word, one of the men pressed a button. The gates closed, the steel cables pulled taut and the elevator lurched upward, rising rapidly and vanishing into the ceiling.

Joe angled the submachine gun upward, tracking the elevator car, until it disappeared into the shaft. Moving forward, he watched the grated floor of the car rising. Thirty seconds more and he was convinced that they had no plans to return. He hopped back into the driver’s seat.

By Kurt’s earlier estimation, it was four hundred feet to the surface. A two-minute ride at least. Four minutes round-trip. He knew they had at least that much time.

He revved the engine and rumbled back toward the control room. By the time he reached it, he was driving through a foot of water.

He found Kurt halfway down the hall, pinned down by a few of Shakir’s men. Taking aim with the antitank gun, Joe blasted away. The heavy projectiles tore chunks of rock out of the wall and the group scattered.

Kurt sprinted to the vehicle. “In the nick of time,” he said. “How’d it go at the elevator?”

“Sent them back up top after a stern talking-to,” Joe said.

“Do you think they’ll come back?”

Joe looked around. The cavern smelled of smoke from the explosions and gunfire. It was barely lit and rapidly filling with water. “Would you?”

“Not on your life,” Kurt said, climbing in.

“Guessing you didn’t catch up with Renata,” Joe said.

Kurt shook his head. “Got pinned down by these guys. Let’s go find her and get out of here. Otherwise, we’re going to end up swimming for it.”

Joe put his foot on the gas and the Sahariana went forward, pushing a small wave ahead of its bow and leaving a wake behind its stern in the dark. At a low point in the tunnel they almost washed out, but the air intake was high on the frame and they forded the dip and rose up the other side.

“Where is all this water coming from?” Joe asked.

“The Nile,” Kurt replied. “I reversed the pumps. Shakir’s system is now forcing water from the river back into the aquifer at high pressure. I guess it’s bubbling up here.”

“And filling up the dry lakes in Libya and Tunisia,” Joe said.

Kurt grinned. “I’m hoping for geysers in downtown Benghazi.”

They continued forward, passing two bodies floating in the water — Shakir’s men.

“Renata’s been this way,” Kurt guessed.

They continued moving, and farther down the water was halfway up the side of the car.

“Don’t suppose this thing is amphibious?” Kurt asked.

Joe shook his head. “Another foot or two and we’re sunk.”

They rumbled through the tunnel and out into the central burial chamber. “The lab is on the other side,” Kurt said.

Kurt scanned the room as Joe drove them into the open space. No one was in sight, but halfway across a sudden whoosh caught his attention.

From the corner of his eye, Kurt saw a trail of smoke and fire streaking their way. There was no time to react or even shout. The RPG hit several feet in front of them and off to the side. It blasted a giant crater in the flooded floor, mangled the front end of the AS-42 and flipped the vehicle over on its side.

Kurt remained conscious, but his ears were ringing and his head pounding. He found himself in the water.

He looked forward to the driver’s seat. “Are you all right?”

“My legs are pinned,” Joe said. “But I don’t think anything’s broken.”

He was straining, trying to get loose. Kurt put his shoulder against the bent metal of the dashboard and forced it.

Joe came free and landed in the water beside Kurt.

“We’re lucky that missed,” he said in obvious pain. “A direct hit would have killed us.”

“I guess the place isn’t totally abandoned yet,” Kurt said.

“No, it isn’t,” a voice shouted from beyond the wrecked vehicle.

Kurt recognized that voice. It was Shakir’s.