The Solomon Scroll

CHAPTER 48

Al-Bayati and a half dozen men carrying AK-47s were positioned on either side of the entrance. A seventh man held a grenade. He looked as though he should be playing in the ugly man basketball league. He was almost seven feet tall, with a jaw like a crocodile and crooked eyes. Standing next to him was a man Nick recognized as the former MI6 agent, Addison Rhoades. Rhoades smiled.

Al-Bayati reached out and took the ring from Nick's hand. Rhoades took his pistol.

"Raise your hands. Call the others out."

"Al-Bayati," Nick said in a loud voice. He raised his hands. "You're a surprise. What others?"

"Please, show some respect. I know who you are and I know the rest of your team is with you. Tell them to come out with their hands up," Al-Bayati said, "or Badr will toss that grenade into the cave. Your friends wouldn't like that."

He gestured at the ugly man. Badr grinned at Nick, showing a mouthful of rotten teeth. The others heard Nick say Al-Bayati's name and the threat as they entered the front room.

"There's a room farther in, down a flight of steps on a lower level," Nick said, keeping his voice loud. "That's where I got the ring. The others are down there, looking through the rest of what we found."

"What did you find? Solomon? Gold?"

"Well," Nick began," yes, Solomon's down there. So is Sheba. There are wooden trunks. Lots of gold coins…"

Nick kept talking, stalling for time. Inside the tomb, the others huddled where they couldn't be seen from the entrance.

"We've only got one shot," Ronnie said. His voice was barely a whisper. "They can't see us back here in the dark. We stick to the walls until we get to the sides of the doorway. Then we come out shooting."

"What about Nick?" Selena asked.

"It's what he'd do," Lamont said. "Al-Bayati can't let us go. We give ourselves up, we're dead. Nick knows that. He knows we have to try."

"He's right," Diego said.

Selena nodded. They split and moved to the front and took up positions on either side of the door.

"Enough." Al-Bayati cut off Nick's running monologue on the treasure of the Temple. "Call for your friends, or the grenade goes in."

"You do that, you'll bring down the rock and seal it all up."

"It's a chance I'm willing to take," Al-Bayati said. "I have what I came for."

He placed the ring on his finger.

"Tell me something," Nick said. "Are you the one who sent people after us in Virginia?"

"That was my operation," Rhoades said. "Too bad it didn't work out or you wouldn't be in this nasty situation, would you? You should have left it alone, Carter."

Nick's ear began itching and burning.

Showtime, he thought. His heart began pounding as adrenaline rushed through his body.

Al-Bayati's Skorpion pointed at Nick's gut. The muzzle was too close, the kind of mistake an amateur might make, or someone who was overconfident. Nick knocked the gun sideways in a hard, sweeping motion and shouted at the same time. Al-Bayati's finger was on the trigger and the gun fired, sending a three round burst into one of his henchmen. Nick drove his elbow into the side of Al-Bayati's head. Pain exploded in his arm.

Selena, Ronnie, Diego and Lamont burst from the doorway firing their pistols. Al-Bayati's men weren't wearing armor. Three went down with the first shots. Al-Bayati lay where Nick had knocked him to the ground. Selena's gun jammed as she fired at the ugly man. Badr snarled at her, stepped forward and slammed a huge fist into her face. She went down as if she'd been hit with a hammer.

The ledge was chaos. Everyone seemed to be shooting at once. Selena was on the ground, Al-Bayati on his knees. A round seared Nick's leg, hot and burning. He saw Rhoades aiming at him.

"Bye," Rhoades said.

There was a shot. Rhoades got an odd expression on his face. He looked down at a red blotch spreading across the front of his shirt. He stumbled backward, trying to raise his rifle. There were two more shots. Rhoades staggered and took another step back.

It was a step too far. He went over the edge and disappeared. His scream lasted for what seemed like a long time before it suddenly cut off.

Nick turned back and froze. Badr held Selena upright. Blood streamed from her nose and down over her shirt. She looked dazed. Al-Bayati hid behind Badr with his gun pressed against her head.

"Stop or I kill her," he shouted.

Ronnie and Lamont stood in the doorway of the tomb with their pistols pointed at Al-Bayati. Diego lay on the ground between them in a widening pool of blood. He wasn't moving.

"Ronnie, hold it," Nick called.

"Put the guns down," Al-Bayati ordered.

"I don't think so," Nick said. "Looks to me like a standoff. You shoot her, you're a dead man and your buddy too."

"I'll do it."

Nick shrugged. "Go ahead. You're not leaving here if you do."

Al-Bayati looked at Lamont and Ronnie, their pistols pointed at him. Their faces were grim. He licked his lips.

"I'll make you a deal," Nick said. "You let her go, we let you go. You've got the ring. It's what you wanted, right? She's hurt and I have a man down. They're my priority, not you."

"You really think I'd trust you?"

"I don't see as you have much of a choice," Nick said. "You kill her, we kill you. Simple. She's in no shape to go down those steps. I can't leave her and Diego here like that and come after you. Take the ring and leave and let me take care of my wounded. You'll be long gone by the time I do that."

"I'll take her with me."

"She'll slow you down," Nick said. "And if she should slip and fall off, I won't rest until you're dead. I promise you that. You know who I am, don't you?"

"Yes." Al-Bayati spat the word out. "I know who you are, Carter."

"Then you know I mean what I say. I promise that if you let her go, I won't follow you down the steps."

"He lies," Badr said.

"Shut up."

"That's right, ugly, shut up. Your boss knows it's your best chance at getting out of here alive."

Selena sagged in Badr's hold. Blood trickled from her nose.

"All right, Carter. Let her go, Badr."

Badr looked unhappy but did as he was told. Selena fell in a heap onto the rock floor of the ledge and lay there. She stirred and groaned.

"I can still shoot her," Al-Bayati said.

He began to back away toward where the steps started down. Badr followed, keeping his gun pointed at the others.

"If anyone tries to follow us you will be, how do they say, sitting like turkeys."

"Ducks," Nick said, "like sitting ducks. Not turkeys."

"Yes, like ducks. Dead ducks. Easy to shoot." He held up the ring. "This will protect us."

"Good luck with that," Ronnie said.

"Can it, Ronnie." Nick said.

Al-Bayati still had his gun pointed at Selena. "Come, Badr."

The two men reached the steps, started down and disappeared around the corner.

"Selena." Nick went to her.

She was conscious, her eyes open.

"Selena, talk to me."

"What?"

Her eyes focused on him. "Nick?"

"You got punched. Your nose is broken."

"The others?"

"Al-Bayati's gone. Diego's hurt. I don't know how bad yet."

He looked over at Ronnie and Lamont. Ronnie was pressing a bandage on Diego's chest. Pressing hard.

Shit.

"You all right now?" Nick asked Selena.

"I think so. Dizzy."

Nick helped her stand and walked her over to the others, away from the edge of the cliff and the long drop to the bottom.

"Sit here."

Ronnie knelt next to Diego. He'd stopped pressing on the bandage. His hands were covered with blood. He looked up at Nick.

"Diego?" Nick asked.

Ronnie shook his head.

"He took two rounds, one low, one in his chest. They went right through that light armor like it wasn't there. He's gone."

"Fuck," Nick said.

"Yeah."

"All right. We'll give Al-Bayati time to get off the steps and then we'll carry him down."

"You're really going to let him leave?"

"We know where he lives. He's a dead man walking, he just doesn't know it yet. There's no cover going down, it's too exposed. He can pick us off."

Nick looked down at Diego's body. What a waste, he thought, and for what?

Lamont was working on Selena.

"This will hurt," he said. "Your nose is broken. I'm going to put it back in place and tape it. Okay?"

"I'm going to kill that ugly bastard next time I see him. Yow!"

Lamont pushed the cartilage back in place with a sudden movement of his thumbs while she was talking. He taped it in place.

Tears of pain ran from her eyes. "You could've warned me," she said.

"I told you it would hurt. You're going to have a couple of real shiners in an hour or two," he said.

"Diego's dead?"

"Yeah."

"He kept saying he was glad nobody was shooting at us."

"One of the reasons I quit before," Lamont said. "It's better when no one's shooting at you."

"We missed you," Selena said.

"I'm back now. Anyway we have to catch up with Bayati. That might take a while. I guess I'll stick around."

The adrenaline rush from the fight was gone. Nick felt like he was eighty years old.

Nick activated the satellite link.

"Director, you copy?"

"Nick, what's your status? My visuals are down."

Harker's voice was clear.

"Everything turned to shit. We found the tomb. Then Al-Bayati showed up. Diego is dead."

"What? He's dead?"

"Affirmative."

"What about Bayati?"

"He's gone. I had to let him go or he would've killed Selena. All of his men except one are dead. Bayati's pet spy is dead."

"Rhoades?"

"Yes. He sent those people after us in Virginia. Tell Lucas."

There was silence over the link. Nick waited.

"What's in the tomb?"

"Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, and a lot of gold and artifacts from the Second Temple. It looks like it was a Coptic shrine. There's a big jeweled cross on an altar. We even found the Seal of Solomon. Al-Bayati has it. Director, we need extraction."

"Where are you now?"

"On the ledge in front of the tomb. We'll start down soon with Diego. I'm not leaving him here."

"We have a carrier group in the Aden Sea. I'll arrange a chopper to pick you up." She paused. "I'm sorry about Diego."

"Yeah. Out."

"How long are we going to give that scumbag?" Ronnie asked.

"An hour ought to do it. I want to make sure he's gone. He was right about us being sitting ducks on those stairs. It's not worth the risk. Like I said before, we know where he lives. We'll catch up with him later."

An hour later they were getting ready to start down when Lamont said, "There's a bird coming right toward us."

"That's a Black Hawk," Ronnie said.

Nick activated the link.

"Yes, Nick."

"Director, there's a chopper headed our way. Military."

"It's not one of ours," Elizabeth said. "Extraction for you is about to leave."

Ronnie had his binoculars focused on the approaching aircraft.

"Israeli markings."

"Director, the bird is Israeli. It will take us a couple of hours to get down," Nick said. "All they have to do is wait for us."

"It will take a couple of hours to get someone to you," she said. "Keep the link open."

"Copy."

"I'm going to call the White House. It's time to get the Ethiopians involved. Try not to create an international incident."

"It might be a little too late for that," Nick said.