Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth

6

Drake stepped off the cargo plane onto the tarmac of Cairo International Airport, stiff and parched from the long flight. He had slept at least seven hours, more than half the journey, but he still felt tired. Though he had been there multiple times, Egypt had not lost its magic for him. Its cities were modern, full of car exhaust, loud music, and stressed-out people just like everywhere else, but you could feel the ancientness in the air. There were places just miles outside of any city-Cairo included-where it felt as if he’d stepped back in time.

He dropped his duffel on the tarmac and stretched, glad to be off the plane and able to breathe fresh air. The reasons for the journey were grim, but it felt good to be in motion and trying to do something to solve the puzzle of Luka’s death. He figured it would be nice if they could accomplish that before someone started shooting at them again.

“I need something to drink,” Jada said, hefting her duffel as she followed him off the plane.

Sully had been the first one off. He had walked around, doing a visual reconnaissance of the little corner of the airport where the cargo plane had taxied to a stop.

Now Sully turned at the sound of Jada’s voice and arched an eyebrow.

“I like a drink as much as the next guy, but don’t you think it’s a little early? It may be past noon here, but it’s barely sunrise back in New York.”

“Water, Uncle Vic,” Jada said, smirking. “Just a bottle of water. I’m dried out from the flight.”

Drake grinned at Sully’s chagrined expression.

“Yeah,” Sully said, pulling a cigar from his jacket and pinching it between his teeth. “I could use some water, too. Flying always makes the inside of my mouth feel like steel wool.”

When Jada went to thank the pilot for the ride and for delivering them safely to Egypt, Drake sidled over to Sully.

“Maybe you want to dial down the protective parent vibe a little.”

Sully gnawed on his cigar. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you, Romeo?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Drake waved him away with both hands. “Look, Sully, I don’t have any interest in romancing this girl. But I’d like to keep us all alive, and if you keep thinking of her like she’s some kid you have to protect, you’re liable to get us all killed. She seems capable of taking care of herself. Let’s focus, okay?”

Sully’s expression turned to stone. “I’m reading you loud and clear. I’m not her father. You think I don’t know that? But Luka is dead, and I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to Jada.”

“The best way for you to make sure that doesn’t happen is to stay alive yourself,” Drake countered, lowering his voice as Jada strode back toward them. “Just try to stop worrying about her long enough to not get shot, okay?”

A thin, humorless smile touched Sully’s face. Whatever retort he might have come up with-and Drake had no doubt he had been formulating one-he let it pass and turned to face Jada.

“You done playing Little Miss Sunshine with the flight crew?” Sully muttered.

Jada smiled. “Don’t be such a cantankerous old man. I know you didn’t sleep well, but when you’re trying to travel without anyone knowing you’ve left the country or thinking you’re a terrorist, you take whatever accommodations are available. Maybe if you speak up, they’ll give you a nice soft pillow next time.”

Sully seemed about to bark at her, but then he just muttered something under his breath and marched off toward a small hut outside the cargo terminal. Beads of sweat already had popped out on his skin, and Drake watched him wipe a hand across his forehead.

“He hates Egypt this time of year,” Drake said, hefting his duffel.

“Yeah?” Jada said as they fell into step side by side, leaving the plane behind. “What time of year is better?”

“He doesn’t mind the second week of January. Usually the Wednesday, around three in the afternoon, you can actually breathe for a minute,” Drake said.

Jada laughed. “Actually, I don’t mind the heat. Better this than winter back home.”

“Don’t let Sully hear you say that,” Drake replied.

“What about you?” she asked. “What’s your take on Egypt?”

“Sultry and mysterious. I need a little of that in my life.”

She shook her head. “Listen to you. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a romantic instead of a sarcastic.”

“I could be a sarcastic romantic.”

Jada arched an eyebrow. “I like that. I think I’m going to steal it.”

“I give it freely and of my own will.”

“Aw, it’s no fun if it’s not stealing.”

They both faltered then. Drake figured they had taken their flirting to its natural conclusion and any more would be strained and awkward, so he let silence fall between them. Jada didn’t object. Their shared quiet was comfortable, as if their brief encounters years ago had built a foundation for a friendship now. Getting shot at had contributed to their budding friendship, too. Drake knew all too well how quickly a bond could form between people who were in danger.

“So, what is it with you and Uncle Vic?” Jada said, switching gears. “You guys have friends everywhere.”

A pair of cargo trucks rumbled past, their engines almost as loud as the planes coming in and out of the airport.

“Not friends,” Drake said. “Connections. We know who to call when we need something: information, equipment, transport-”

“A new identity,” Jada added.

Drake nodded. “And weapons when we need them. But knowing who will take your money to do something that might not be strictly legal isn’t the same as having friends. A connection who’ll sell information about a treasure hunter to me is just as likely to sell info about me to the competition.”

“I thought you were an ‘antiquities acquisition consultant,’ ” Jada said.

“That, too,” Drake replied.

“So you trust your friends not to sell you out?” she asked. “I mean, everybody has a price, right?”

“Almost everyone. As for friends-I choose carefully.”

Jada nodded, but a cloud seemed to pass over her face, and he knew she must be thinking about her father.

“What is it?” Drake asked.

“My dad always gave advice like that,” she said. Switching the weight of her duffel from one hand to the other, she gazed off into some middle distance, as if she could peer into her own memory. “He always had these great quotes about choosing your friends wisely and all that, but I guess he was a pretty crappy judge of character, considering he married Olivia.”

“I don’t know about that,” Drake said. “Sully may smoke the smelliest cigars in creation-sometimes I think he buys tobacco scented with manure or something just to aggravate me-but I’ve never known anyone more loyal. Luka picked him as a friend, so he had to have at least some idea who to trust.”

“Then why did my father marry the wicked witch?”

“To some men, women are a mystery. We don’t understand how their minds work. Which makes it a lot harder to avoid a knife in the back.”

Jada smiled. “Oscar Wilde said a friend is someone who stabs you in the front. And by the way, women have the same problem with men. We can see the treachery in other women easily enough, but guys might as well be from another planet for all we understand them.”

Drake glanced sidelong at her. “ ‘Treachery’?”

“It’s a good word,” she protested.

“Yeah. I like saying it. ‘Treachery.’ You don’t get to say that word enough in life.” He frowned. “Actually, that’s probably a good thing.”

Up ahead, Sully had reached the little hut on the tarmac. Drake wasn’t sure if it was a security booth or a spot for incoming crews to check in with their cargo manifests, maybe some kind of traffic office. A skinny man in khaki pants and a loose shirt of blue cotton stood leaning against the side of the hut, smoking a cigarette. He wore sunglasses too large for his face, but he smiled as Sully approached him, and the two men shook hands.

“Not a friend?” Jada said, keeping her voice low as they neared the hut.

“A connection,” Drake confirmed.

By the time they reached Sully and the thin Egyptian man, Sully was in the middle of lighting his cigar, which Drake took to mean things were going well. Sully’s cigars were a form of communication all their own, and sometimes lighting up could be a sign of frustration, but not this time. Sully looked pleased.

“This is Chigaru,” he said, and the Egyptian gave a little bow of his head. “Chigaru, meet Jada Hzujak and Nathan Drake, the closest thing I’ve got to a family in this world. I take their health and well-being very personally.”

“Not to mention your own,” Chigaru said in British-accented English.

Sully laughed, and it turned into a short cough. He frowned and looked at his cigar. “Gotta give these damn things up.” Then he leveled his gaze at Chigaru. “Yeah, I take my well-being pretty personally, too.”

“Not to worry, Sully. You have friends in Egypt.”

At “friends,” Drake glanced at Jada and saw her raise her eyebrows at the word.

“The best friends money can buy,” Sully said.

Chigaru grinned and nodded sagely. “Absolutely.” He regarded the three of them, obviously taking note of their meager complement of luggage. “Shall we go?”

“It was a long flight,” Drake said. “And it’s a long ride to Fayoum. We were hoping for something to drink.”

Chigaru’s expression blossomed into a brilliant smile. “My friends, do you think me so poor a host? I have Coca-Cola, beer, and sparkling water on ice in the car. If you like, I will stop at a market and pick up some takeaway food before we leave Cairo.”

“That would be fantastic,” Jada said happily.

Drake couldn’t disagree. Chigaru might only be a connection, but at the moment Drake felt pretty friendly toward him. A meal and a cold Coke sounded like heaven.

Chigaru started to lead the way toward a Volvo station wagon with tinted windows parked between the hut and the cargo terminal. Just before they reached the car, Sully spoke in a low voice so that no one else would hear.

“What about the weapons we talked about?” Sully asked.

“Didn’t I tell you not to worry?” Chigaru said. “Our first stop is for guns.”

He opened the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel. Sully smiled at Drake and Jada like it was Christmas morning.

“That’s more like it. We run into any more trouble, I wanna be able to give some back,” he said before climbing into the passenger seat.

Drake opened the rear door and held it for Jada.

“Looks like we’ve got everything covered,” she said, strained amusement in her voice. The idea of guns and more shooting obviously did not appeal to her any more than it did to Drake.

“For the moment,” Drake agreed.

But even as he climbed into the back of the Volvo with her and heard the clink of ice as she drew a bottle of sparkling water from a cooler, he couldn’t suppress a shiver and the temptation to look back over his shoulder.

He’d just had the strangest feeling they were being watched. It was a sensation he’d had before, and far too often he’d been right.

The Auberge du Lac had been built as a hunting lodge for King Farouk, the last monarch of Egypt. Drake thought it looked more like the kind of place where Sinatra might have appeared in the early days of Las Vegas, with its whitewashed walls and palm trees. The hotel stood on the shore of a lake that was part of the Fayoum Oasis, not far from Fayoum City, which was modern and industrial by local standards.

An hour in any direction and the whole world changed. The Valley of the Whales was within that radius-quiet endless desert where the sand hid fossils of ancient sea life-but so were off-the-tourist-path pyramids, as well as the waterfalls that were a part of the Fayoum Oasis. Some of them had been part of an irrigation plan that went back as far as Ptolemy, diverting water from the Nile for agriculture, but others-the Wadi el Rayan-were part of a modern hydro project. The area had little tourism, but from what he’d learned, it had been growing.

And all of it, the whole damn area, was a part of what had once been called Crocodilopolis. The City of Crocodiles had taken its name from the reptiles that had been plentiful around the lakes in ancient times. Like Kom Ombo, which had come later, Crocodilopolis had been a center of worship for the Egyptian crocodile god, Sobek. The cult of Sobek had built an enormous temple where a single crocodile would be chosen to represent their god and encrusted with gold and gems.

Archaeologists had found the ruins of the Temple of Sobek decades ago. Though legends of a labyrinth in Crocodilopolis persisted, that part of the temple had never been unearthed-until more than a year into the Wadi el Rayan hydro project, when spill-off water from the Fayoum Oasis was being diverted into man-made lakes. Two of the lakes were still in use, but the third had dried up without explanation. Upon investigation, the engineers had discovered that the water had not evaporated; it had drained into the remains of the labyrinth of Sobek.

The final mystery of the cult of Sobek had been located purely by accident. But to learn the secrets of the labyrinth, the archaeological expedition’s first task would be to draw the water back out of the ground. More than a year had passed before the team had been able to begin mapping and doing further excavations, and Luka Hzujak had been consulting with the dig’s director-Hilary Russo-since day one.

All this, Drake and Sully had learned from Jada during the final hours of the flight from Montreal to Cairo. They knew all there was to know, at least until they could make contact with Ian Welch, whose sister Gretchen was the grad student who’d been working with Maynard Cheney on the labyrinth project at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Gretchen had promised to enlist her brother’s help. If she couldn’t deliver on that promise, they had come a very long way for nothing.

For the moment, their most vital task was trying not to melt.

Plumes of dust rose from the tires as Chigaru drove the Volvo up the driveway in front of the Auberge du Lac and pulled the car into a parking space in the small lot beside the hotel.

“You are not as close to downtown Fayoum City as you might wish,” Chigaru said in his mannered accent. “But this is a beautiful hotel. Certainly you would not find a hotel like this in the city.”

Drake thought he detected some slight resentment, as though Chigaru felt put out that they hadn’t arranged their accommodations with him. He wondered if the skinny Egyptian would have gotten a cut of their room fees. He might be able to acquire guns and vehicles and information, which were higher-ticket items, but Drake suspected Chigaru would not have minded taking a commission on just about anything. Like the tour guides who received kickbacks from souvenir shops if they directed tourists there, Chigaru wanted his percentage-a chance, as Sully often put it, to “dip his beak.”

“It looks nice,” Jada agreed, popping open the door. “I’ll be happy just to lie down.”

Drake slid from the backseat and dragged his duffel with him. They had stopped in the middle of nowhere-and nowhere might have been exaggerating its significance-to divvy up the guns Chigaru had acquired for them. Sully and Drake each had tucked Belgian FN Five-sevens in clip holsters at the small of their backs. An armpit holster would have been too conspicuous, and so would a jacket worn in the Egyptian heat. With their shirttails out, the guns would be hidden but easily accessible.

Jada had taken the SIG P250, a smaller, more compact weapon that carried a few rounds less. Her father had taught her to shoot at a range in upstate New York, but she had never even pointed a gun at another human being, so though she reluctantly accepted the weapon, she kept it in her duffel.

With a cold Coke in hand, the glass bottle dripping, Sully climbed out and leaned on the roof, looking over the top as Chigaru got out of the car.

“You know how to romance a guy, Chigaru,” Sully said. “You always take me to the nicest places.”

Chigaru smiled and patted his pockets, digging out his cigarettes and a lighter.

“You are on your own from here, my friends,” he said, glancing around at the three of them. “The car is yours. Leave it at the airport in Cairo when you’re done or text me and let me know where you’ve abandoned it and I’ll send someone to get it. You have my number should you require anything else.”

Sully grabbed his duffel and walked around to shake Chigaru’s hand. “I think we’ve got it as under control as we’re ever going to. I’ll see to it that the second half of your money is wired into your account before my head hits the pillow tonight.”

Drake fished another bottle of water out of the cooler in the car. The ice had melted almost completely by now, but the drinks were still cold enough to be sweet relief.

Chigaru gave a small bow, then dropped the car keys into Sully’s hand. “Good hunting, my friend.”

Jada and Drake thanked him as well and then fell into step with Sully, headed for the hotel. Chigaru remained by the car, leaning against the trunk of the car with his sunglasses glinting in the late afternoon sunlight.

“What, he’s just going to hang around out here?” Jada asked, her voice low.

“A guy that suave? I’m sure someone’ll be along to pick him up,” Drake said.

“You’re just jealous that you’re not that suave.”

“Suave is overrated and very last century. I’m rugged and sometimes adorably awkward,” Drake replied.

Before Jada could fill the obvious opening with good-natured mockery, Sully pushed between them, shouldering them apart like a teacher worried that his young charges were dancing a little too close at a junior high school mixer.

“Can you two cut it out with the cute banter?” Sully said. “You’re making me nauseous.”

Drake smiled innocently. He would have liked to tell Sully that he was just trying to keep Jada’s mind off her father’s death and the reason they were in Egypt to begin with, but he didn’t want to talk about it with Jada right beside them.

“I’m sure Chigaru’s arranged for transport,” Sully told Jada. “I figure he’ll be gone within the hour.”

Drake glanced over his shoulder at Chigaru, who leaned against their car, smoking, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Even at a distance, the man looked in control of the world around him. He might have been little more than a minion for hire, but it was clear he didn’t see it that way.

“As soon as it gets dark, I’ll sweep the car,” Drake muttered to Sully.

“Sweep for what?” Jada asked.

“Bugs,” Sully said. “Maybe explosives.”

She paled. “We just drove more than two hours in that car.”

“He wouldn’t blow it up with himself inside. He’s an entrepreneur, not a suicide bomber.”

Jada narrowed her eyes and glanced back at the parking lot. They were almost to the hotel door, but they could still see Chigaru leaning against the car. She pressed her lips together in irritation.

“It just seems wrong. You paid him.”

Sully laughed softly. “There’s always somebody willing to pay more, darlin’. Remember that. Money can’t buy more than a minute’s worth of loyalty.”

Drake glanced over the lake-visible to him now only through the fronds of a young palm-and despite the glare off the water, he saw a silver go-fast boat jet into view. It must have cut its engines a moment later, for it seemed to stop short in the water, rising and falling on its own wake as it settled and drifted, the nose turning to point toward the hotel like an arrow. Or a bullet.

Narrowing his gaze, he saw a second, apparently identical boat about a hundred yards farther out, also drifting with its nose pointing toward the Auberge du Lac. The sudden arrival of the second boat couldn’t have anything to do with them-he knew that would be too much of a coincidence-but both of the crafts seemed to have an air of purpose around them, as if they were there on business rather than pleasure.

Then Sully called his name, breaking his train of thought, and he saw that Jada was holding the interior door open for them. Drake followed them in, basking in the cool, air-conditioned interior of the hotel, and the go-fast boats were forgotten.

As late as the 1940s, political figures from around the world had met and stayed at the Auberge du Lac for minisummits that helped determine the fate of global relations. The hotel still had the flavor of that bygone era, with its lazy ceiling fans and huge round arched windows and the woodwork in the lobby that seemed to hint at the architect’s love of Swiss ski chalets. It seemed to Drake like the sort of place that Rick and Ilsa would have escaped to for a romantic tryst if only Casablanca had ended differently.

Sully glanced right, then split off to the left, taking up a position with his back to a pillar. From there he could watch them at the check-in counter and still watch the door and most of the lobby. Drake fought the temptation to wisecrack. The time for digressions had passed. Once they had stepped into the lobby, they had entered the territory of mystery. Somewhere here there were clues as to why Luka Hzujak had been cut up and dumped on a train platform in an old steamer trunk, and Drake’s usually mischievous nature was tempered by the weight of the man’s death.

Drake and Jada approached the front desk. The man who greeted them gave only the hint of a smile. His red jacket was neatly pressed, and his gray hair and seamless features seemed to have undergone the same process.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the man said, nodding first to Drake and then to Jada. “Madam. How may I help you?”

“We have reservations. This is Mr. Merrill,” Jada said, indicating Drake as she gave the name on his fake passport. “You’ll have mine under Hzujak.”

She spelled her last name for him. Drake was glad she had remembered to grab her real passport when they had stopped at the apartment she’d been hiding out in back in New York. She had traveled under her new, false identification-just as Drake and Sully had-but here it was important that she be Jada Hzujak.

The clerk tapped keys on a computer keyboard and studied his monitor, frowning. He’d seen something in the reservation he didn’t like. He took their passports-Jada’s real one and Drake’s fake-and set them beside his computer. A few more taps, some sleight of hand, and then he was handing Drake a small envelope containing a pair of plastic key cards.

“There are two booked into your room, Mr. Merrill. You are traveling with a Mr. David Farzan?”

“Right here,” Sully said, his gruff voice carrying though he had spoken in a sort of stage whisper. He waved a hand as he strode up to the desk to join them and slipped his fake passport onto the counter.

The clerk smiled and nodded. “Excellent,” he said, taking Sully’s fake passport, keying in the passport number, and then handing it back. “You gentlemen are in Room 137. I trust you’ll find everything to your liking, but if you need anything at all, just ring the front desk.”

He frowned as he realized they didn’t have any luggage other than the duffels but did not comment. Instead, he handed another envelope to Jada with her single key card inside and returned her passport.

“Miss Hzujak, you’ll be in Room 151.”

Jada stiffened, then shook her head. “No, that’s wrong.”

Drake and Sully exchanged a look, realizing what was happening.

“I spoke to someone on the phone,” Jada said emphatically. “I’m supposed to have Room 213.”

The red-jacketed man narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I see there is a note in the computer system to that effect. But that room is unavailable.”

“You mean it’s taken by someone else?” Drake asked. He didn’t like the vibe he was getting off the clerk. The whole situation felt strangely tense and awkward, and not just because the hotel employee didn’t want to upset his customers.

“Not precisely.”

“What does ‘not precisely’ mean?” Sully asked. “If the room isn’t occupied, you have no reason not to give it to her.”

The clerk seemed at a loss for words, itchy and nervous, and he glanced around as if he were hoping a supervisor would come to his rescue.

“Why don’t we talk to your manager?” Drake suggested. “If you can’t explain this, get us someone who can.”

Offended, the clerk sniffed in irritation. He glanced around, but this time he spoke in a surreptitious fashion, not wishing to be overheard.

“The room is not available because it is being refurbished. There has been a little bit of damage since it was last occupied.”

Now Drake got it, and he didn’t like it. A trickle of ice ran down his back.

“So one of your guests trashed the room?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” the clerk said, even more insulted, but this time on behalf of the hotel. “Room 213 was vandalized. Repairs are being made but if you please, it is not something the hotel wishes its other guests to learn. It isn’t good for our reputation, you understand?”

“We do,” Sully said. “But she still needs that room. And if you want us to keep quiet about your troubles, you’ll give it to her.”

For the first time, the clerk’s expression turned from irritation to anger. Then his smile returned, forced and insincere.

“Sir, I have explained that this is quite impossible.”

Drake moved up against the counter and leaned in close so that he could speak as quietly as possible.

“Listen. We don’t want to make some kind of spectacle, here. Maybe the person who arranged this for Miss Hzujak didn’t explain the circumstances to you, but here they are. Several weeks ago, her father stayed in Room 213. Soon after his return to New York, he passed away.”

A flicker of sympathy in the clerk’s eyes. That was good. Drake forged ahead.

“This is her goodbye to him, understand? And she’s going to have it. I’m sure most of the damage in the room has been cleaned up. Are the windows broken?”

“No, but I-”

“Everything else is cosmetic. Send a maid up there to put fresh sheets on the bed and give her the damn key to 213. You can charge us twice the normal rate. Call it a surcharge, whatever you want. But she’s going to have that room before the next hour expires or things are going to get really messy.”