Map of Bones (36 page)

Another diver surfaced in the pool. He was clearly weighted down. Raoul stepped over and unburdened the man. It was another of those barbell-shaped charges. An incendiary grenade.

Raoul slung the device over a shoulder and stepped back to them. He raised his own speargun and pointed it at Vigor’s crotch. “As the monsignor has sworn off using this part of his anatomy anyway, we’ll start here. Any missteps and the monsignor will be able to join the castrato choir of his church.”

Gray straightened. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything…but first, show us what you found.”

Gray lifted an arm toward the tunnel to Alexander’s tomb, then swung it around to the other tunnel, the shorter of the two, the one that required one to hunch over to traverse it. “It’s that way,” he said.

Vigor’s eyes widened.

Raoul grinned and lifted his speargun. He waved a group of men into the tunnel. “Check it out.”

Five darted away, leaving three men with Raoul.

Seichan, leaning near the tunnel entrance, watched the group disappear. She stepped to follow.

“Not you,” Raoul said.

Seichan glanced over a shoulder. “Do you and your men want to leave this harbor?”

Raoul’s face reddened.

“The escape boat is ours,” she reminded him, and ducked away.

Raoul clenched a fist but stayed silent.

Trouble in paradise…

Gray turned. Vigor’s gaze was hard upon him. Gray motioned with his eyes.
Dive away at the first opportunity
.

He faced the tunnel again. He prayed he was correct about the Sphinx’s riddle. It was death to solve it wrongly. And that certainly was about to be proven here, one way or the other.

That left only one mystery to be answered.

Who would die?

M
ONK RACED
the bullets. His jet sled skidded across the water. Rachel clung to him from behind, half choking his airway.

The harbor was in chaos. Other watercraft fled from the fighting, scattering like a school of fish. Monk hit the wake of a crabbing boat and sailed high into the air.

Gunfire chewed into the wave below.

“Grab tight!” he cried.

He flipped the sled on its side just as they hit the water. Under they went. He straightened their course and dove deeper, speeding through the water at a depth of three feet.

At least that’s what he hoped.

Monk had squeezed his eyes closed. Without his mask, he couldn’t have seen much anyway. But before diving under, he caught a glimpse of an anchored sailboat directly ahead.

If he could get under it…put it between him and the hydrofoil…

He counted in his head, estimating, praying.

The world went momentarily darker through his eyelids. They were under the shadow of the sailboat. He did an additional four-count and canted back upward toward the surface.

They burst back into sunlight and air.

Monk craned back. They had more than cleared the sailboat. “Fuck, yeah!” The hydrofoil had to swing around the obstacle, losing ground.

“Monk!” Rachel yelled in his ear.

He faced forward to see a boxy wall of boat in front of him, the naked houseboat couple’s. Crap! They were flying right toward its port side. There was no shying from it.

Monk slammed his weight forward and tipped the nose of the sled straight down. They dove in a steep dive…but was it steep enough to duck under the houseboat, like he had the sailboat?

The answer was no.

Monk slammed into the keel with the tip of his sled. The sled flipped ass-end up. Monk clutched an iron grip to the handles. The sled skittered against the wood side, barnacles ripping at his shoulder. He gunned the throttle and shot deeper.

He finally cleared the underside of the boat and sped back into clear water.

He jetted upward, knowing he had little time.

Rachel was gone, knocked off with the first collision.

G
RAY HELD
his breath.

A commotion immediately sounded from down the low tunnel. The first of the men must have reached the end of the passage. It must have been short.

“
Eine Goldtür
!” he heard shouted.
A gold door
.

Raoul hurried forward, dragging Gray with him. Vigor was kept pinned at the pool’s edge by a diver with a speargun.

The tunnel, lit up by the explorers’ flashlights, extended only some thirty yards and was slightly curved. The end could not be seen, but the last two men in line—and Seichan—were limned against the glow, all focused forward.

Gray had a sudden fear that perhaps they’d been wrong about the gold key they had found. Maybe it was meant for this door.

“
Es wird entriegelt
!” a shout called.
Unlocked!

From where Gray stood, he heard the click as the door was opened.

It was too loud.

Seichan must have noted it, too. She spun around and leaped back toward them. She was too late.

From all walls, sharpened poles of steel shot out of crevices and shadowed nooks. They skewered across the passage, piercing through flesh and bone, and embedded into holes drilled on the opposite side. The deadly tangle started deep and swept outward in a matter of two seconds.

Lights bobbled. Men screamed, impaled and pinned.

Seichan made it within two steps of the exit, but the tail end of the booby trap caught her. A single sharpened pole lanced out and impaled through her shoulder. She jerked to a stop, legs going out from under her.

A pained gasp was the only sound she made, hung up and skewered on the bar.

Shocked, Raoul weakened his grip on Gray.

Taking advantage, Gray wrested free and flung himself toward the pool. “Go!” he shouted to Vigor.

Before he could take a second step, something struck the back of his head. Hard. He went down on one knee. He was clubbed again, on the side of the head, pistol-whipped with the butt of a speargun.

He had underestimated the speed of the giant.

A mistake.

Raoul kicked Gray onto his face and pressed a boot on his neck, bearing down with full weight.

Gasping, Gray watched Vigor fished back out of the pool. The monsignor had been caught by the ankle and denied escape.

Raoul leaned down, leering into Gray’s view.

“A nasty little trick,” he said.

“I didn’t know—”

The boot pressed harder, squeezing off his words.

“But you have eliminated a bit of a problem for me,” he continued. “Taking that bitch out of the picture. But now we have some work to do…the two of us.”

R
ACHEL CLAWED
back to the surface of the water, hitting her head again on the side of the boat. She choked on a mouthful of water and broke through to open air. She coughed and gagged repeatedly, reflexively, unable to stop. Her limbs floundered.

A gate suddenly dropped and she saw a naked middle-aged man standing there, bare-assed to the world.
“Tudo bem, Menina?”

Portuguese. Asking if she was okay.

She shook her head, still coughing.

He bent down and offered an arm. Taking it, she allowed herself to be hauled up and stood shakily. Where was Monk?

She watched the hydrofoil banking away, heading out toward deeper waters. The reason soon became apparent. A pair of Egyptian police cruisers sped out from the far pier, revving up, gaining speed, finally responding. The chaos in the harbor must have delayed them, but better late than never.

Relief flooded through her.

Rachel turned to find the man’s wife or companion, equally naked.

Except for the gun.

M
ONK SURFED
around the stern of the houseboat, searching for Rachel. Further out in the harbor, a police cruiser wailed across the waters. Lights flashed an angry red and white. The hydrofoil raced away, picking up speed, lifting to the full extent of its skids.

Escaping.

There was no way for the police to catch it. The hydrofoil headed out…to international waters or to some other hidden berth.

Monk turned his full attention to his search for Rachel. He feared to find her floating facedown, drowned in the polluted water. He edged around the stern, staying close to the boat.

He spotted motion on the rear deck of the houseboat.

Rachel…she had her back to him, but looked unsteady. The naked middle-aged man supported her with one arm.

He slowed. “Rachel…are you o—”

She glanced back, eyes panicked. The man raised his other arm. He held a snub-nosed automatic rifle, pointed at Monk’s face.

“Oh…I guess not,” Monk muttered.

G
RAY’S NECK
was about to break.

Raoul knelt atop him, one knee square on the middle of his back, the other on the back of his neck. One hand twisted into Gray’s hair, yanking his head back. The man’s other hand held the speargun straight-armed toward Vigor’s left eye.

The monsignor was on his knees, flanked by two divers with additional guns. A third looked on, scowling with a knife balanced in his hand. All eyes were narrowed with raw hatred. Gray’s trick had slain five of their men, comrades-in-arms.

Moans still echoed from the bloody tunnel, but there would be no rescue for them. Only revenge.

Raoul leaned closer. “Enough games. What did you learn in—”

A zinging
thwack
cut off his words.

The speargun clattered from Raoul’s grip. A roaring howl erupted from him as he fell off Gray.

Released, Gray rolled across the floor, snatched up the abandoned speargun, and shot one of the men holding Vigor.

The shaft pierced through the diver’s neck, knocking him back.

The other man straightened, turning his weapon on Gray, but before he could fire, a spear flashed through the air from the pool and spitted the man through the belly.

His weapon fired reflexively, but the shot went wild as he tumbled backward.

Vigor slapped the one unfired speargun toward Gray, then flung himself low.

Gray grabbed it and swung it toward Raoul.

The giant ran for the nearby tunnel, the one that led to Alexander’s tomb. Raoul clutched a hand to his other wrist, his palm pierced through by a length of steel spear.

Kat’s shot had been precise, disarming and disabling.

The last of the Court’s men, the one with the dagger, was the first into the tunnel and led the way. Raoul followed.

Gray gained his feet, took aim at Raoul’s back, and fired.

The spear flew down the tunnel. Raoul would not reach the first turn in time. The shaft struck the large man in the back and clanged.

The spear clattered harmlessly to the stone floor.

Gray cursed his luck. He had hit the incendiary grenade still slung over Raoul’s shoulder. Saved by his own damn bomb.

The giant vanished around the first turn of the passage.

“We have to go,” Kat said. “I killed the two guards outside, slipping in on one of their own sleds, caught them by surprise. But I don’t know how many more are out there.”

Gray eyed the tunnel, hesitating.

Vigor was already in the water. “Rachel…?”

“I sent her off with Monk on another sled. They should be at shore by now.”

Vigor hugged Kat quickly, his eyes bright with tears of relief. He pulled down his mask.

“Commander?”

Gray considered going after Raoul, but a cornered dog was the most dangerous. He didn’t know if Raoul had a dry-wrapped pistol or some other weapon stashed, but the bastard definitely had a bomb. Raoul could lob it here on a short fuse and take them all out.

He turned away.

They had what they needed.

One hand patted the thigh pouch and the hidden gold key.

It was time to go.

Gray pulled on his mask and joined the others. On the stone floor, the man he’d shot through the throat was already dead. The other moaned, pierced fully through the belly. Blood pooled under him. Shot through the kidney. Or maybe his aorta had been nicked. He’d be dead in minutes.

Gray felt no pity. He remembered the atrocities in Cologne and Milan. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

R
AOUL YANKED
the spear from his hand. Steel ground on bone. Fire lanced through his arm to his chest, emptying his breath in an angry hiss. Blood poured. He pulled his glove off and tied the neoprene around his palm, stanching and putting pressure on the wound.

No broken bones.

Dr. Alberto Menardi had the medical background to patch him up.

Raoul stared across the room, illuminated by his flashlight on the floor. What the hell was this place?

The glass pyramid, the water, the starry dome…

The last surviving man, Kurt, returned from the passageway. He had gone to reconnoiter the entry pool. “They left,” he reported. “Bernard and Pelz are dead.”

Raoul finished his first aid and considered the next step. They would have to evacuate quickly. The Americans could send the Egyptian police straight here. The original plan had been to lure the local authorities away with the hydrofoil, leaving Raoul and his team to do a full investigation down here in secret, then make their escape in the clunky, nondescript houseboat.

Now matters had changed.

Cursing, Raoul bent to his pack on the ground. It held a digital camera. He would get a visual record, get it to Alberto, and hunt down the Americans.

It wasn’t over yet.

As Raoul dug out his camera, his foot nudged the sling holding the incendiary grenade. A fold of sealcloth fell away. He ignored it until he noted a slight red glow on the neighboring wall.

Fuck…

Dropping to a knee, he snatched the bomb and rolled it digital face forward.

00:33.

He spotted the deep ding in the casing near the timer. Where the American bastard had struck it with the speargun.

00:32.

The impact must have shorted something, activated the timer.

Raoul tapped the abort code. Nothing.

He shoved up, the sudden motion making his hand ache.

“Go,” he ordered Kurt.

The man’s eyes were fixed on the bomb. But he glanced up, nodded, and ran for the tunnel.