Part 3 (1/2)

It was now or never- Bunching his leg muscles, he launched himself forward, dragging her with him, but he stumbled, his legs rubbery. He was weaker than he'd thought and she was almost dead weight. A burst of bullets chewed a line in the planking above their heads. As he tried to dive for cover, he heard running feet, and then the straw-haired man was looming over them, swinging the barrel of his rifle at his face like a club. With the last of his strength Skarda lurched to his right, twisting, taking the blow on his deltoid. Pain lanced through him like searing fire and he staggered backward, losing his balance. He hit the floor with a thud.

The commando towered over him, his eyes dark with hate. ”You have...our plans....” He scowled, not finding the English verb he wanted. ”...verdorben,” he finished in German. His heavy boot lashed out, smas.h.i.+ng into Skarda's ribcage. Skarda wanted to scream, but he bit his tongue. He didn't want to give the guy the satisfaction. Again the blond man kicked him, enjoying it. A snarl of hate darkened his face and he aimed the rifle.

”Now...I shoot you.”

Skarda shook his head. ”I don't think so.” The words reverberated inside his skull, as if he were inside a cave.

The commando's face registered a flicker of uncertainty. ”Why not?”

”Because she's going to shoot you.” Skarda's eyes slid toward the door.

The man was good, trained to expect the unexpected. Instead of twisting around to fire, he jacked his torso down between his legs, whipping the gun barrel down to spray the s.p.a.ce behind him with bullets.

But April was faster. She had already quick-stepped next to him, jamming the muzzle of the G36 into his armpit just above the edge of his armored vest. She pulled the trigger twice.

The man jerked and flopped over, dead by the time he hit the floor.

She stooped to Skarda's side. ”You okay?”

He managed a grin through gritted teeth. ”I don't think anything's broken. At least I hope not.”

Beside him, Flinders was staring at the dead man, her shoulders shaking in jerky spasms. He put an arm around her shoulder. ”Okay?”

Hacking out deep coughs, she moved her head up and down.

Skarda glanced at April's face and gown, splashed crimson with Cowell's gore. She was bleeding from several cuts and the wound where the bullet had nicked her collarbone.

Her face set into hard lines. ”Stephen Cowell is dead. The rest of them, too.”

Skarda paled. His stomach wrenched. ”Oh, G.o.d...”

For a long agonizing moment, Flinders stared at her in horror, then started to sob.

By now, the thermite had burned itself out and cool oxygen was flowing into the room through the shattered windows. Still, Skarda's lungs were on fire. He gulped air.

”Come on,” he said to Flinders. ”We have to get out of here.” Getting to his feet, he stretched out a hand to help her up.

She stared up at him. ”Who are these people? And why would they want to hurt Dr. Cowell?”

”That's what we have to find out.”

April was inspecting the pile of black wingsuits. ”I've seen those before,” she said. ”Gryphon wingsuits. We used to call them 'squirrel suits'. Very cool. They can drop you from thirty thousand feet and you can glide for twenty-five miles, totally silent.”

She rummaged through the dead man's pack, then held up a handful of what looked to Skarda like black pencils. ”Detonators for C-4. They must have planted charges. We need to get out of here. Now!”

___.

April hit the sky deck at a run, supporting Skarda with her arm around his waist, dragging him forward on wobbly legs. Flinders raced behind them, clutching the papyrus in its silicone sleeve. Together they vaulted over the rail, hitting the Nile with foaming splashes. By the time they surfaced, shaking water from their eyes, the cruise s.h.i.+p had already sailed away a hundred feet, the autopilot keeping its direction true.

Around them the night sounds seemed to hush. Then the stern of the Queen Hatshepsut erupted in a hot, white flash and a rolling red fireball painted the water and sh.o.r.eline crimson as a second explosion blew through the fuel tanks, sending boards and debris hurtling skyward, pursued by a fireball of orange-red flames.

Within moments the cruise s.h.i.+p had sunk out of sight amid swirling black clouds of smoke and churning water.

Treading water, April made sure the papyrus was sealed inside the case.

Skarda glanced over at it, then at the flaming debris bobbing on the surface. ”Looks like this qualifies for something unusual.”

April turned her gaze toward him. ”Yeah.”

Holding the scroll above water level, she struck out for sh.o.r.e.

Skarda and Flinders followed.

SIX.

Luxor, Egypt THE muggy night swaddled Skarda. He was sitting alone on the balcony of their suite at the Sonesta St. George Hotel, staring out at the majestic sweep of the Nile, where reflected lights jiggled and s.h.i.+mmied, torn to jittering shreds by pa.s.sing river traffic. Wet and bedraggled, they'd hitched a ride on a donkey cart to a small village, where a toothless cab driver overcharged them for the ride into Luxor. April had taken a shower and gone straight to bed and Flinders had followed right behind her.

But not him.

From the sh.o.r.eline below the faint scents of c.u.min and turmeric and grilled fish wafted up to his nostrils, but he barely noticed them. He was trying to will his mind into a black emotionless void, the way April had taught him. He needed to put Sarah's ghost to rest. Enough time had gone by. But it was hard. He knew she wouldn't have wanted to see him like this. She would want him to move on, to make peace with her death and her memory. But he couldn't do it yet. So he'd come out here instead of going to sleep, hoping to let the soft night and the panorama of lights lull him into peace.

But peace wouldn't come. He closed his eyes. Images of Stephen Cowell's face scrolled through his memory, haunting him. He knew that guilt was a useless emotion, especially now that there was work to be done. But he still felt that if OSR hadn't funded Stephen's project, the archaeologist would still be alive. And that made it his responsibility.

A soft footfall sounded behind him, and then April lowered herself to his side, laying a gentle hand on his cheek. She was a constant source of amazement to him: those hands that could knife-edge through a plate gla.s.s window could also feel as velvety as warm silk. He smiled at the thought. Her feet were a different story: they were hard as slabs of wood. Having spent much of her childhood alone in the pine and cottonwood forests of the Bitterroot Range of southern Montana, she'd wandered for miles barefoot.

”Thinking?” she asked.

”Yeah.”

”Don't.”

He half-turned to her, showing her the ghost of a smile. ”Easy to say.”

”Stephen was able to see his dream fulfilled.”

Skarda didn't answer. For a while they sat in silence, watching a felucca drift past on the far side of the river until its sail dropped out of sight. ”If Flinders is right, then the Emerald Tablet is the key to this whole thing. Something on Stephen's papyrus must be a clue to the Tablet's location. Or at least the Bad Guys think it is.”

”We've got nasty people with big guns looking for a major power source that sounds like some kind of explosive to me. Not a good combination.”

”I agree. We're going to have to stop them from getting that Tablet.” He was silent for a few moments, turning something over in his mind. Then he said, ”I think Flinders is over her head in this one. It's getting too dangerous. Maybe we should hole her up in a safe house. Keep her out of harm's way.”