The Pharaoh's Secret (21 page)

Joe sat on a plush chair in a swanky downtown office. The modern decor, subdued lighting and soft music gave off the aura of success. It was a far cry from the stormy night several years before when he’d first met Major Edo in a smoky interrogation room.

And that was unfortunate.

“So, I take it you’re not in the military anymore,” Joe said.

Edo’s hair was longer, his Clark Gable looks even more evident now that he’d traded in his fatigues for a sharply tailored suit.

“Advertising,” Edo said. “That’s the name of my game now. It’s much more lucrative. And it allows me to be”—he waved his hands around in an artsy manner—“creative.”

“Creative?” Joe asked.

“You’d be surprised how that’s frowned upon in the military.”

Joe sighed. “I’m happy for you,” he said, trying to sound sincere. “I’m just surprised. What happened? You were promoted to general, last I heard.”

Edo leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “Changes,” he said. “Big changes, you know. First, the protests. Then all the fighting. It became a revolution. One government fell. A new government took over. And then, of course, the protests began again and that government fell. Many in the military were purged. I was forced out with no pension.”

“And you chose
advertising
for your new career?”

“My brother-in-law has made a fortune in the business,” Edo said. “It seems everybody wants to sell someone something.”

Joe wondered if there was any way Edo could still help them. “I don’t suppose you could get us a meeting with the head honchos at Osiris Construction?”

Edo leaned forward and focused more sharply. “Osiris?” he asked with obvious concern. “What are you involved in, my friend?”

“It’s complicated,” Joe said.

Edo opened a drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He stuck one between his lips, lit it and then began to wave it around as he spoke, never putting it back in his mouth. At least some things hadn’t changed. “I would leave Osiris alone, if I were you,” he warned.

“Why?” Joe asked. “Who are they?”

“Who
aren’t
they,” Edo replied. “They’re everyone who used to matter.”

“Maybe you could be more specific?” Joe asked.

“The old guard,” Edo said. “The military men who were swept out of power a few years ago. The military had been in control of Egypt since the Free Officers took over in 1952. They’ve been
the hand on the wheel. Nasser was military. Sadat was military. Mubarak also military. They’ve been running things all this time. But it’s more than that. I’m sure you’ve heard the term
military-industrial complex
. In Egypt, we took that to a whole new level. The military men owned most of the businesses, they decided who got the jobs. They hired friends to reward them, enemies to placate them. But since the Revolution, things have been different. There’s too much scrutiny for things to go back to the old way. Osiris came out of that. It’s run by a man named Tariq Shakir. He was a full colonel in the secret police. He had great ambitions to lead the country someday. But he knows his past will prevent that from happening. So with the help of others in the old guard, he’s found a different way. Osiris is the most powerful corporation in Egypt. They get every contract. And not just from our government, but from others. Everyone is wary of them. Even the sitting politicians.”

“So this Shakir is a kingmaker and not a king,” Joe said.

Edo nodded. “He will never step to the forefront, but he wields great power both here and abroad. You’ve seen what’s going on in Libya, Tunisia and Algeria?”

“Of course,” Joe said.

“The new governments in those countries are made up of Shakir’s friends. His allies.”

“I heard they were members of the old guard in their own respective lands,” Joe said.

“Yes,” Edo said. “Now you see how it ties together.”

Joe had the distinct impression they were getting in deeper than they expected with each turn, almost as if they’d hooked a small fish that had been eaten by a larger fish and was being chased by a giant shark.

“Osiris has its own private army,” Edo said. “Castoffs from the regular units, men from the Special Forces, assassins from the secret police. Anyone too hot for the regular military can find a home at Osiris.”

Joe rubbed his brow. “We still need to get inside that building,” he said. “And we don’t have time to wait for an invitation. Thousands of lives are at stake.”

Edo tapped some of the ash from the end of his cigarette, stood and began to pace. Joe thought he saw something change in Edo’s eyes: a more calculating look took hold. He put his hand on the wall and looked up at the ceiling. He seemed confined by the office, almost as if he were too big to be contained by such walls.

He turned to Joe with a snap of his heels. “It will probably be the end of my advertising career to help enemies of Osiris, but I owe you. Egypt owes you.” He crushed the cigarette out emphatically. “Besides, I’ve had it with this business. You have no idea what it’s like working for your brother-in-law. It’s worse than the Army.”

Joe laughed. “We appreciate the help.”

Edo nodded. “So how do you and your friends propose to get into the Osiris building? I’m assuming direct frontal assault and jumping from a helicopter are out of the question.”

Joe nodded toward the reception area, where Kurt and Renata had been poring over diagrams and blueprints downloaded on her computer. “I’m not sure yet. My friends have been working on that. I’d like to hear the plan myself.”

Edo waved them in. Proper introductions followed. And then they got down to business.

“My colleagues sent me the schematics of the Osiris plant,” Renata said, stepping forward and placing the iPad flat on the desk so they could all see it. “Assuming these blueprints are accurate, we think we’ve found a weakness.”

She tapped the screen until a high-resolution photo of the site was displayed. It included the river and the surrounding area. “The street-side security is multilayered and almost impossible to overcome, which means our only approach to the site is from the river. We’ll need a boat, diving gear for three and a mid-frequency laser—green will work best, but anything similar to a targeting laser used by the military will do.”

Edo nodded. “I can get my hands on those things. Then what?”

Kurt took it from there. “We motor upriver to this point, half a mile south of the site. Renata, Joe and I will go into the water and drift downstream, keeping to the west bank. We’ll slip into the hydro channel, bypass the first-stage turbines and continue down to a point just in front of the second impeller . . . here.”

“Sounds easy,” Edo said.

“I’m sure there will be complications,” Joe added.

“Of course,” Kurt said, then turned to Renata. “Would you switch to the schematic?”

Renata tapped the computer screen and a blueprint of the hydro channel came up.

“We should have no problem getting into the hydro channel,” Kurt said. “But once inside it, we’ll have to navigate past the turbines. Since it’ll be night, we can assume they’ll be making minimum power, but that could change at any moment. And even if they’re at idle, the turbines will still be rotating slowly.”

“Put them on the to-be-avoided list,” Joe said.

“Exactly. And that’s best done by sticking to the inner wall. There’s plenty of room around the first set of turbines. Once we’ve passed them, we continue toward the second-stage impeller. Here’s where it gets interesting.”

Studying the diagram, Joe noticed two things. The second turbine was larger. And there were two protrusions angled inward
from the wall toward the edge of the huge rotating disk. They looked like the flippers of a pinball machine. He pointed to them.

“Deflector gates,” Kurt said. “Designed to force more water over the turbine blades in times of peak power need. In the retracted position, they lie flat against the walls and some of the water bypasses the blades. But in the open position their edges line up directly with the cowling of the turbine. There’s no way around them except that we’re going to be out of the water before we get to the blades.” He pointed to a spot on the schematic. “There’s a maintenance ladder welded to the side of the gate here. We stick near the wall, grab on as we drift by and climb up.”

“Seems fairly straightforward as long as the gates are retracted,” Joe said. “But what if they’re extended? Do you have any figures on what that does to the current?”

“At full extension, the current is doubled and the exact amount of force will depend on the existing flow in the river. This time of year, it’s normally about two knots.”

“Two knots isn’t a problem,” Joe said, “but four knots will be.”

Kurt nodded. That was the risk they were taking.

Joe considered the odds. There was no reason the station should be generating full power in the middle of the night. Peak power draws occurred in the afternoon.

“Assuming we don’t get pureed,” Kurt added, “our next problem begins at the surface.”

“They will most certainly have cameras,” Edo pointed out.

Renata answered this time. “They do. Here and here. But these two cameras are pointed outward, designed to look for someone approaching the structure. Once we’re past the first set of turbines, there’s only one camera we have to worry about. It’s mounted here,” she said, pointing to a new location. “It scans the entire length of the catwalk on the inner wall. The same catwalk we have to use.”

“That’s what you want the laser for,” Edo said.

“Precisely,” Renata told him. “A focused laser can overload the sensor. So you’ll be in charge of that. Your best angle will be from a beach just upstream and on the opposite bank. Once you align it with the camera, the sensor will struggle to process the signal and they should see nothing but a blank screen.”

Kurt continued. “Once the camera is blind, we can exit the water. Move along this catwalk and go in through this door.”

“How long do I keep the laser active?”

“Two minutes,” Renata said. “That’s all we’ll need.”

“What about alarms and interior security cameras?” Edo asked.

“I can disable them once we’re inside,” she promised. “Both the alarms and cameras are controlled by a software program called Halifax. The people in our technical section have given me a way to hack it.”

Renata brought up the schematics of the interior. “We know Hassan entered through this door,” she said. “His signal stayed strong as he traveled this corridor and then presumably got into this elevator. Based on the signal getting weaker and then vanishing, we have to assume he went down to the lower level, not up. Which means he would be in the power-generation control room here.”

“Are you sure you’re not walking into a trap?” Edo asked. “I don’t have to tell you that once you go in there, you’re beyond the reach of any help.”

“We know,” Kurt said. “And, believe me, I can’t imagine why Hassan would be sitting in the building, watching the power levels. But his phone was broadcasting from there until it went dark and it hasn’t been picked up by the satellite since. And even if he’s not there, Osiris has something to do with this. Which means it can’t hurt to take a look around.”

“You’re all very brave,” Edo said. “What am I to do while you’re inside the building?”

“Just wait for us downriver,” Kurt said. “If we find Hassan, we’ll bring him out. And if we don’t, we’ll take the tour, skip the gift shop and come right home.”

A few hours later, they were back on the Nile, motoring upriver in a boat one of Edo’s friends had loaned them. Diving gear for three had been rounded up along with a tripod-mounted laser.

Night had already spread a blanket of darkness across the region and the river was far less crowded than it had been during the day. The moon hadn’t risen, but light from the windows in tall apartment buildings and hotels spilled onto the river.

As they approached the Osiris plant, Kurt looked downriver. “The water at the far end of the channel is moving smoothly now.”

“They must be generating less power,” Renata suggested.

“That’s a good sign,” Joe added.

“There’s still something that doesn’t make sense about it,”
Kurt replied. “But calm water
will
make it easier for us to get into the channel and get ashore.”

Joe had a night vision scope trained on the hydro channel. “Looks like the gates are flat against the wall. Score one for logic.”

Edo guided them farther upriver, before changing course and veering toward the west bank. As he moved the boat into position, Kurt, Joe and Renata got ready for the dive.

They were already wearing black wet suits beneath their street clothes but had to pull on their buoyancy compensator devices—their BCDs—connect their air tanks and check their regulators. The stainless steel oxygen cylinders were dull and weathered, so they wouldn’t reflect much light. Split fins, waterproof pouches in the suits and low-intensity dive lights that would allow them to keep track of each other completed the outfitting.

The only things missing were self-propelled dive units to whisk them along and an underwater communications system. Standard hand signals would have to do.

“We’re in position,” Edo said.

Kurt nodded, then he and Joe slipped into the water and clung to the side of the boat. Renata checked the computer one more time before joining them.

“Second thoughts?” Kurt asked.

“No,” she said. “Just wanted to make sure our target hadn’t left the building before we went to all the trouble of breaking in.”

“I assume the phone is still off the grid?” Kurt asked.

She nodded.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Kurt said. “Let’s go.”

He pulled his mask into place, bit down on the regulator and pushed away from the boat.

Night dives were difficult under the best of circumstances. Drifting through the dark in a river filled with crosscurrents, sandbars and other obstructions made it even more demanding. But as long as they stuck close to the west bank, they were bound to hit their target.

In the liquid darkness, Kurt used only his legs, kicking slowly and smoothly, while keeping his arms at his sides. He pegged their speed, combined with the current, at three knots. At that rate, it would be ten minutes to the entry point of the hydro channel.

Kurt allowed himself to descend until the water around him was as black as tar and only a slight shimmer could be seen on the surface. At this depth, he would be invisible to anyone on land, but the small amount of light would keep his senses oriented correctly.

He adjusted course to the left and looked back. In the dark he could see two glowing LEDs on the flashlights that Joe and Renata had strapped to their wrists. The two of them had linked up and were swimming in formation. His own light was pointed their way so they could follow it.

A dim glow became visible up ahead. It was the floodlights of the construction project washing over the surface of the river.

Right on track.

With the light filtering through the water, Kurt went a little deeper.

He swam forward, passed under the first wave of lights and caught sight of the concrete buttress that divided the hydro channel from the rest of the river. He needed to stay to the left or risk being swept around the wrong side by the backflow or slipstream.

He passed into the channel without any problem. The current remained steady, but the surroundings were altogether different. A second wave of lights dappled the water and in the soft glow he could see the wall to his right and the concrete-lined bottom of the channel.

Up ahead were diamond-shaped obstructions on the channel bottom designed to add some turbulence to the water flow. He crossed above them, swam closer to the inner wall and slowed himself until he was mostly just drifting with the current. He held his breath, stopping a stream of bubbles that might be seen on the surface, until he was in the shadow of the wall.

The first-stage turbines appeared, looming out of the darkness like a ship emerging from a fog. Dull gray and initially indistinct, they reminded Kurt of the engines of a 747. Each of them had a fifty-foot diameter and dozens of closely spaced blades sprouting from a central hub like a fan. He could hear a clicking noise as the blades rotated lazily in the current.

Kurt kept to the inside wall and slipped through the gap
between the nearest turbine and the wall. Glancing back, he saw Joe and Renata following.

As they passed into the central section of the channel, the second stage began. Kurt slowed even further, drifting now and kicking only to keep himself near the wall. He didn’t want to fly past the maintenance ladder that was their only method of escape.

Another sound became audible. This vibration was deeper and more ominous, like the thrum of a distant ship’s propeller.

The main turbine was up ahead. It had nearly twice the diameter of the first and took up most of the channel. He heard the sound long before he spotted the blades, as the front edge of the deflector gate came into view.

Just as they’d hoped, it was in the retracted position, flat against the wall. Its heavy steel face was painted bright yellow to prevent corrosion. And though the color looked faded in the water, it stood out in sharp contrast to the dull concrete wall.

Drifting along beside the gate, Kurt watched for the maintenance ladder, reaching for it and latching on with both hands as soon as it came into view. The rungs were made of curved rebar welded to the steel gates—sturdy and easy to grip.

Kurt reached down, loosened his fins and allowed them to be pulled off by the current. He watched as they disappeared downstream.

The flow of water in the channel was no faster than the river current, but water is denser than air and holding his position against the current was like holding on against a strong wind.

He watched as Joe and Renata approached. Renata hit first, grabbing onto the same section of ladder as Kurt. Joe took hold of the rungs beneath them. Like Kurt, they quickly got rid of their fins and hooked their feet onto the ladder for added stability.

Joe offered a thumbs-up. Kurt looked into Renata’s mask, only
inches from his. She was beaming. She made the
OK
signal with her fingers.

A quick check of his orange-faced Doxa watch told him they’d made good time. Now they’d have to wait. They had three full minutes before Edo would activate the laser and blind the camera on the catwalk above.

—

Edo had already
beached the boat, unpacked the laser and set it up on its tripod. It was a civilian system, designed for surveying, but it wasn’t much different than the targeting systems Edo had used in the military.

With the device set and ready, Edo looked through the scope and located the specific camera they needed to disable. He zoomed in, locked the targeted camera lens squarely in the crosshairs and stepped back.

He checked his watch. Two minutes to go. He had nothing left to do but press the button.

He longed for a cigarette, just for something to pass the time. The waterfront was empty, but a sound intruded on the solitude: the sound of a helicopter approaching.

A light in the sky could be seen heading toward the Osiris building. Edo watched for a moment to be sure that was the helicopter’s path. As it landed, he wondered who could have business at Osiris in the middle of the night.

—

Clinging to the ladder
in the hydro channel thirty feet beneath the surface, neither Kurt, Joe nor Renata knew about the helicopter’s
approach. They were dealing with other changes: a loud mechanical clang followed by a noticeable increase in the current.

Upstream from their position, a circular port in the wall was opening. It was the size of a large runoff pipe from a system of storm drains. As its doors yawned wide, the current began to pick up as a huge volume of water began flowing from the newly opened pipe.

They hugged the ladder, trying to present the smallest area possible for the flowing water to press against. Holding on this way, they could feel the strain. Kurt risked a glance at his watch.

One minute.

A second rumbling shook them severely. The vibration went through the ladder and into their bodies as the entire deflector gate shuddered and began to move.

Renata’s eyes met Kurt’s. They were wide with concern. He wasn’t surprised: this was a far bigger problem. The gate was pivoting into the open position and that would accelerate the water flow even further.

Downstream from them, the big turbine spun faster as the gap around it narrowed and the thrumming sound increased. By the time the gates closed flush against the turbine cowling, the force of water washing over them would be too strong to resist for long and they would be pulled off and swept through the blades.

Kurt pointed upward and Renata nodded. He unlatched his BCD and turned sideways to the current, shrugging out of the harness. The BCD, the oxygen tank and the mask were torn from him by the accelerating current and dragged off downstream. He went first, releasing only one hand at a time and ascending the ladder slowly and methodically. Each rung was an effort. Each hand and foot movement a battle with the weight of flowing water.

As Kurt neared the top, he looked back down. Renata and Joe
were following his lead. He took one more look at his watch.
Ten seconds.

Kurt counted.

Three . . . two . . . one . . .

Time to go.

He broke the surface and climbed onto the top of the deflector gate. It felt great to be free of the rushing water, but the danger was far from over. The moving gate was only three feet wide and the hardened steel and yellow paint were wet and slick.

Kurt remained in a crouch, low and stable. A bulge of water rose up beside the gate where the current was deflected toward the turbine, while behind the gate the water was several feet lower and swirling in a foamy whirlpool. White water churned beyond the cowling, the sound and fury of it echoing along the channel and off the buildings.

The din was too loud to shout over, so when Renata surfaced, Kurt just pointed. Like him, she’d released her diving gear. She nodded and moved along the top of the gate. Joe came up next, also free of his tanks. They followed Renata, making their way along the deflector gate to the catwalk and then along the edge toward the maintenance door.

In the distance Kurt saw an ethereal green glow where the laser was hitting the camera lens.

Good work, Edo.

“Bad timing, the gates opening like that,” Joe said.

“I’m more surprised by that outflow port,” Kurt said. “I didn’t see any bypass tunnels on the blueprints.”

“Neither did I,” Joe said. “But if it’s not a bypass tunnel, then where’s all the water coming from?”

“We’ll have to worry about it later.” Kurt checked his watch
and turned to Renata. “We have less than a minute before Edo turns off the laser.”

She was already working. “Plenty of time,” she insisted.

Unzipping the waterproof pouch in her wet suit, she’d pulled out a set of lockpicks. She made quick work of the bolt and they moved inside.

Ten feet from the door, she found the panel for the alarm system. She pulled the cover off and plugged a small device into the data slot. Numbers and letters streamed across the face of the device in blazing fashion as it went through ten million possible codes and deactivated the alarm. In five seconds the lights on the panel went green.

“That’s it,” she said. “The alarms are off and interior cameras frozen. They’ll continue to display a recorded loop for the next twenty-five minutes. Until then, we should be able to move about freely.”

“So much for the alarm system I spent good money on last spring,” Kurt said.

“Remind me to get a dog,” Joe replied. “Low-tech works best.”

Renata nodded and put the small device back in her pouch and zipped it closed.

“Let’s go,” Kurt said.

They moved down the hall and quickly found the stairwell. Three flights down, they heard a high-pitched humming sound.

“Generator room,” Joe said.

Kurt cracked the door and looked inside. They were still one story above the bottom floor. The room itself was huge, a distance of several hundred feet to the far wall and sixty feet from floor to ceiling. A row of circular housings dominated the interior. Each was thirty feet across and at least half as high.

“Looks like the inside of the Hoover Dam,” Joe said.

“Power station,” Kurt said, “just like the plans indicated.”

“Were you expecting something else?” Renata asked.

“I’m not sure,” he replied. “Had a feeling this would be something more if Hassan was hiding out down here.”

“Looks legit to me,” Joe said. “The water turns the big impeller out in the river, which is connected to these dynamos by reduction gearing.”

“I agree,” Kurt said. “It also looks empty. Not only don’t I see Hassan, I don’t see anyone. Maybe he
did
turn the phone off and leave. Could he have possibly known we were tracking him?”

“I doubt it,” Renata said.

As they eased the door shut behind them, Kurt moved forward, crouching. Joe and Renata joined him.

The elevator door on the far side of the long room opened. A group of men stepped out and began walking across the floor. Three were dressed in black uniforms, three others in various garb that looked vaguely Arabic, and the last man wore a dark business suit, white shirt and no tie.

The men were momentarily out of view before reappearing on the far side of one of the generators. At almost the same time, the humming sound filling the room changed in pitch and began to slow.

“Someone’s shutting off the power,” Joe noted.

“If they’d have done that five minutes ago, they’d have saved us a lot of stress,” Kurt said.

The whining generators slowed and finally stopped. Green lights on top of each dynamo housing switched over to amber and then to red. The men below continued to a spot near the far wall, where they paused at a computer panel.

“You’ve seen how we generate power,” one of the men said, his
voice carrying through the now quiet room and up to the three infiltrators. “Now you’ll see the reason you have little choice but to comply with our demands.”

“This is ridiculous,” one of the Arab men said. “We came here to speak with Shakir.” He spoke heavily accented English. By the nods and other gestures it seemed obvious that he spoke for the other two.

“And you shall,” the man in the suit replied. “He’s looking forward to negotiating with you.” This man sounded European, either Italian or perhaps Spanish. English must have been their common language.

“Negotiate?” the Arab man said. “We were promised assistance. What kind of a trick are you pulling, Piola?”

Kurt noticed a reaction from Renata as the name was mentioned.

“No tricks,” Piola replied. “But it’s important that you understand the nature of your position before you begin to barter. Lest you make a foolish mistake.”

Beside them, one of the uniformed men tapped away at a keyboard. When he finished, a wall panel slid upward like a garage door opening. Beyond it lay a dark tunnel. The only features Kurt could see were a pair of metallic rails shimmering with a dull gloss and the curved side of a large-diameter pipe. A white tramcar with a blunt nose waited on the rails. It reminded Kurt of the driverless SkyTrain cars becoming common at many airports.

“Based on the geometry, I’d say that’s the same pipe that tried to wash us off the ladder,” Joe said.

Renata was glancing around, getting her bearings. “I’m no hydro engineer, but does it make any sense to have a bypass tunnel running at ninety degrees to the course of the river?”

“No,” Joe replied quickly, “and I
am
an engineer. That water has to be coming from somewhere else.”

On the floor, a new argument broke out. This time, the words were more hushed and the flow of the conversation too quick to catch.