The Pharaoh's Secret (5 page)

A few miles away, a brooding figure sat in a small Zodiac boat, one that he’d stolen from the doomed freighter. Ammon Ta had escaped the ship by making his way aft to the boat, complete with a radio that the freighter’s crew normally used to inspect the hull.

He’d been no more than a hundred feet from the ship when the blast occurred. Far too close. He should have been killed by the concussion wave, if not incinerated completely, but the dull thud of the explosion had only startled him. The ship hadn’t been obliterated as he’d expected.

Something had gone wrong. His immediate instinct was to reboard the ship, and despite the initial explosion, the freighter was
still running flat out and the little boat he’d commandeered was too slow to catch up.

There had been little he could do but watch the ship continue on until it ran aground and finally exploded in the manner he’d intended.

Even then, things didn’t go quite right. Instead of destroying the cryogenically cooled serum, the fire and explosion had atomized it, creating a killing fog as effective as any nerve gas. He watched helpless as the fog spread to the west, engulfing the island. His attempt to hide what he and his superiors were doing had now been broadcast to the entire world.

As if to prove it, he’d overheard a call for help over the runabout’s radio. It came from a doctor trapped with a number of patients in the island’s main hospital. He heard clearly as she referenced seeing a cloud of gas before quarantining herself and several others.

He made a fateful decision. On the chance the doctor was still alive, he needed to eliminate her and any evidence she might have gathered.

He reached into his pocket, withdrew a prepackaged hypodermic needle and pulled the top off with his teeth. After a quick tap with his finger to make sure there were no bubbles in the syringe, he jabbed it into his leg and pressed the plunger down, injecting himself with an antidote. A cold sensation ran through his body with the medicine and for a moment his hands and feet tingled.

As the feeling subsided, he restarted the Zodiac’s motor and made his way toward the island, angling along the coast until he found a safe spot to go ashore.

Without delay, he began a brisk hike across an empty beach
and then up a staircase cut into the rock and onto a narrow road above it.

The hospital was two miles away. And not far from that lay the airport. He would find this doctor, kill her and the other survivors and then make his way to the airport, where he could steal a small plane and depart for Tunisia or Libya, or even Egypt, and no one would ever know he’d been there.

“Not exactly what I’d call resort casual,” Joe said.

Bundled up in full diving gear while sitting in a boat on the surface beneath the hot sun was not only uncomfortable and awkward, it was downright claustrophobic. Even the breeze couldn’t reach them through the thickly layered suits.

“Better than choking on poisonous fumes,” Kurt said.

Joe nodded and kept the runabout on course toward the shore.

They were cruising past the breakwater into Lampedusa Harbor. Dozens of small boats dotted the scenic port, bobbing at anchor.

“Not a single hand on deck anywhere,” Joe said.

Kurt looked beyond the water to the roads and buildings lining
the harbor. “Front Street looks deserted,” he said. “No traffic at all. Not even a pedestrian.”

Lampedusa had no more than five thousand inhabitants, but, in Kurt’s experience, half of them always seemed to be on the main road at the same time, especially whenever he needed to go somewhere. Scooters and small cars zoomed around in every direction, tiny delivery trucks darted and dodged through the fray, with that uniquely Italian style of daring that suggested half the population could qualify as Formula 1 drivers.

To see the island so quiet gave him a chill. “Cut to the right,” he said. “Go around that sailboat. We can take a shortcut to the operations shack.”

“Shortcut?”

“There’s a private slip over there that’s a lot closer to our building than the main dock,” Kurt said. “I’ve been fishing off it a few times. It’ll save us a lot of walking.”

Joe changed course and they passed the sailboat on the port side. Two figures could be seen slumped on the deck. The first was a man, who seemed to have fallen and gotten one arm tangled in the sail lines. The second was a woman.

“Maybe we should . . .”

“Nothing we can do for them,” Kurt said. “Keep going.”

Joe didn’t reply, but he kept the boat on course and they were soon tying up at the small pier Kurt had mentioned.

“Guess we don’t have to worry about someone stealing our ride.”

They climbed out of the boat in their bulky suits and quickly reached the lane at the top of the pier. More bodies lay on the street, including a middle-aged couple with a small child and a dog on a leash. Dead birds littered the sidewalk beneath a pair of shade trees.

Kurt walked past the birds and knelt briefly to examine the couple. Except for bruises and scrapes where they’d hit the ground, there was no sign of bleeding or trauma. “It’s like they fell straight down. Taken without warning.”

“Whatever hit these people, it hit quickly,” Joe said.

Kurt looked up, got his bearings and pointed up the next street. “This way.”

He and Joe hiked for two blocks before they reached the small building that NUMA was using for their logistics center. The front was a small garage, now given over to equipment and littered with items recovered from the sunken Roman ship. Behind this lay four small rooms that were being used as offices and sleeping quarters.

“Locked,” Joe said, trying the handle.

Kurt stood back and then stepped forward, slamming his boot into the wooden door. The blow was heavy enough to splinter the wood and send the door swinging wide.

Joe ducked inside. “Larisa?” he shouted. “Cody?”

Kurt shouted as well, though he wondered how much noise actually escaped the helmet. Most of it seemed to reverberate in his ears.

“Let’s check the back rooms,” Kurt urged. “If anyone realized it was a chemical vapor, the best defense would be to seal off the innermost room and hide out.”

They lugged their way to the back of the building and Kurt entered one room to find it empty. Joe pushed open the office door across from him and found something else. “In here.”

Kurt stepped out of the empty room and came around to where Joe stood. Facedown on a table were four of the five team members. It looked as if they’d been studying a map when it hit them. In a chair nearby, slumped as if he’d simply fallen asleep there, was
Cody Williams, the Roman antiquities expert who’d been heading up the research.

“Morning meeting,” Kurt said.

“Check them for signs of life.”

“Kurt, they’re not—”

“Check them anyway,” Kurt replied sternly. “We have to be sure.”

Joe checked the group at the table while Kurt checked on Cody, easing him out of the chair and onto the floor. He was deadweight, a rag doll.

Despite shaking him, there was no response.

“I can’t feel a pulse,” Joe said. “Not that I’d expect to through these gloves.”

Joe went to pull one of the gloves off. “Don’t,” Kurt said.

As Joe relented, Kurt brought out a knife and held the flat edge of the blade against the bottom of Cody’s nose. “Nothing,” he said. “No condensation. They’re not breathing.”

He pulled the knife away and lowered Cody’s head gently back to the floor. “What the hell was that freighter carrying?” he muttered aloud. “I don’t know of anything that could do this to a whole island. Except maybe military-grade nerve agents.”

Joe was just as baffled. “And if you were a terrorist and you had a stockpile of killer nerve gas, why on earth would you use it here? This is a speck on the map in the middle of the sea. The only people here are vacationers, fishermen and divers.”

Kurt looked at the fallen team members once again. “I have no idea. But I’m telling you right now we’re going to find the people who did this. And when we do, they’re going to wish they’d never heard of this place.”

Joe recognized the tone in his friend’s voice. It was the opposite
of the easygoing, everything-will
-
be-all-right manner Kurt usually projected. In a way, it was the dark side of his personality. In another way, it was a typical American response:
Don’t tread on me. And woe unto those who do.

Sometimes Joe would try to talk Kurt down when he got like this, but at the moment he felt exactly the same way.

“Call the
Sea Dragon
,” Kurt said. “Tell them what we found. I’m going to look for a set of keys. We need to get to that hospital and I’ve had enough of walking.”

The Jeep’s V-8 engine roared to life, bringing the shock of sound to an island bathed in silence.

Kurt revved the engine a few times as if the din could break the spell that seemed to have been cast on those around them.

He put the Jeep in gear and drove while Joe consulted a map. It was a short journey but one made more difficult by dozens of wrecked cars with steaming radiators and scooters lying on their sides not far from their spilled riders. Every intersection had a pileup, every sidewalk pedestrians lying where they’d fallen.

“It’s like the end of the world,” Joe said grimly. “A city of the dead.”

Near the hospital entrance another multicar wreck blocked the way, this one including a truck tipped over with half its contents
spilled out. To avoid it, Kurt drove up over the curb and across a rock garden until they arrived at the main doors.

“Modern-looking hospital,” Joe said of the six-story structure.

“As I recall, it was updated and expanded to care for the refugees making their way here on boats from Libya and Tunisia.”

Kurt shut off the engine and climbed out of the Jeep, pausing as something caught his eye.

“What’s wrong?” Joe asked.

Kurt stared back in the direction they’d just come. “Thought I saw something moving.”

“What kind of something?”

“Not sure. Over by the wrecked cars.”

Kurt stared for a long moment but nothing appeared.

“Should we check it out?”

Kurt shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just the light on my face shield.”

“It could be a zombie,” Joe said.

“If that’s the case, you’ll be safe,” Kurt said. “I hear they only eat brains.”

“Very funny,” Joe said. “Honestly, if someone did survive and saw us dressed up like this, he might think twice before coming up and introducing himself.”

“More likely, my mind is playing tricks on me,” Kurt replied. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”

They reached the entrance and the automatic doors opened with a swish. They passed a dozen bodies in the waiting room, half of them slumped in chairs. A nurse lay beside the front desk.

“Something tells me we don’t need to check in,” Joe said.

“Not checking in,” Kurt replied, “I’m down a third of a tank of air. You have to be too. This is a pretty big place, I’d rather not walk the halls checking every room.”

He found a directory, flipped it open and scanned through the names. Ambrosini was on the first page—oddly enough, the name was written in by hand while everything else was typed. “She must be new,” Kurt said. “Unfortunately, no office number or floor is listed.”

“How about we use this?” Joe said, holding up a microphone that seemed to be connected to a PA system. “Maybe she’ll answer a page?”

“Perfect.”

Joe turned the system on and set it to hospital-wide by selecting a switch that said
All Call
and Kurt took it from there.

Holding the microphone up to the faceplate of his helmet, he tried to speak as clearly as possible. “Dr. Ambrosini, or any survivors in the hospital, my name is Kurt Austin. We picked up your distress call. If you can hear this message”—he almost said “pick up the white paging phone”—“please contact the front desk. We’re trying to reach you but don’t know where to look.”

The message went out over the PA system, somewhat muffled but clear enough to understand. He was about to repeat it when the automatic doors opened behind them.

Both he and Joe turned with a start, but there was no one there, just the empty space. After a second or two, the doors closed.

“The sooner we find these people and get out of here, the happier I’ll be,” Joe said.

“Couldn’t agree more.”

The desk line began to buzz and a white light began blinking on the panel.

“Call for you on line one, Dr. Austin,” Joe said.

Kurt punched the speaker button.

“Hello?” a female voice said. “Is anyone there? This is Dr. Ambrosini.”

Kurt leaned near to the speaker and spoke clearly and slowly. “My name is Kurt Austin. We heard your radio call. We came to help.”

“Oh, thank God,” she said. “You sound American. Are you with NATO?”

“No,” Kurt replied. “My friend and I are with an organization called NUMA. We’re divers and salvage experts.”

There was a pause. “How is it you’re unaffected by the toxin? It affected everyone it touched. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Let’s just say we dressed for the occasion.”

“Overdressed in some ways,” Joe said.

“Okay,” she replied. “We’re trapped on the fourth floor. We sealed off one of the operating rooms with plastic sheets and surgical tape, but we can’t stay in here much longer. The air is getting very stale.”

“Italian military units with a hazmat response team are on their way,” Kurt said. “But you’ll have to wait a few hours.”

“We can’t,” she replied. “There are nineteen of us in here. We desperately need fresh air. CO
2
levels are rising rapidly.”

In a backpack, Kurt had brought two extra dry suits and a smaller handheld emergency oxygen tank. The plan had been to shuttle whomever they found out to the
Sea Dragon
and then come back for the rest. But with twenty people trapped . . .

“I think I see a fly in the ointment,” Joe said.

“A whole swarm of them,” Kurt mumbled.

“What was that?” the doctor asked.

“We can’t get you out,” Kurt said.

“We’re not going to last in here much longer,” she replied. “Several of the elderly patients have already fallen unconscious.”

“Does the hospital have a hazardous-materials unit?” Kurt asked. “We could round up some suits from there.”

“No,” she said. “Nothing like that.”

“What about oxygen?” Joe said. “All hospitals have oxygen.”

Kurt nodded. “You’re really earning your pay this week, my friend.”

“Don’t I always?”

Kurt held out a hand, made a side-to-side gesture, as if to say it was iffy sometimes.

As Joe feigned great offense, Kurt turned back to the speakerphone. “What floor is your supply room on? We’ll bring you more oxygen bottles. Enough to extend your stay until the Italian military arrives.”

“Yes. That would work,” she said. “Medical supplies are on the third floor. Please hurry.”

Kurt hung up and they went to the elevator. Joe pressed the button and the doors opened to reveal a doctor and nurse slumped in the corner.

Joe went to pull them out, but Kurt waved him off. “No time.”

He pressed
3
and the door closed. When the bell pinged, Kurt moved down the hall while Joe dragged the doctor halfway through the door and left him there.

“Using him as a doorstop?” Kurt mentioned as Joe caught up with him.

“I’m guessing he won’t mind,” Joe insisted.

“No, I guess not.”

They found the supply room at the end of the hall and broke in. A cage marked
Medical Oxygen
was near the back. Kurt pried it open. There were eight green bottles inside. He hoped it was enough.

Joe came forward with a wheeled gurney. “Pile them on this. That way, we don’t have to carry everything.”

Kurt loaded the bottles onto the gurney. Joe strapped them down so they wouldn’t slide off.

They pushed the gurney out through the door, tried to turn and slid into the wall.

“Where did you learn to drive?” Kurt asked.

“These things are harder to maneuver than they look,” Joe replied.

Straightening up, they gathered steam as they headed toward the elevator. Halfway there, they heard another ping and the sound of the second elevator’s doors opening.

“This building must be haunted,” Joe said, continuing on.

“Either the building or its electrical system,” Kurt replied.

As they neared the elevator bank, a darkly tanned figure stumbled out of the second car and fell.

“Help me,” he said, collapsing against the wall. “Please . . .”

Stunned, Kurt parked the gurney and dropped beside the man.

The man’s eyes were hooded at first, but as Kurt leaned close to him they opened and locked on Kurt’s. There was no delirium or fear in those eyes, only deadly malice, which was backed up by the short-barreled pistol the man pulled out and fired.