Storm Clouds Page 11

  Moving his attention from head to toe, tightening and relaxing each muscle and tendon, told him that his condition was pharmacological. His wrists and ankles were restrained by zip-ties, but otherwise everything seemed to work. He fell into a regular breathing pattern, designed to allow him to enter a parasympathetic state. The regulated inhale, hold, exhale, hold sequence soon placed him in a kind of trance. From this state he was able to access the deep recesses of his brain.

  The physical check and performing a conscious task like his breath pattern revealed that, as he suspected, he had been drugged. He also felt as he dug deeper that the effects were wearing off.

  John held two key pieces of the puzzle. He knew where he was and what condition he was in. The why was easy—the files. What he didn’t know was who.

  Getting to this point had exhausted him. Silently, he slipped back into his regular breathing pattern and dropped off.

  The room was dark when he woke again. This was disturbing; not that it was night, but that he hadn’t noted the time of day earlier. The fact that he was having this conversation with himself was a good sign, though.

  Darkness was his friend and allowed him to open his eyes without his captors knowing he was awake. His vision acclimated immediately, allowing him to make out the outline of the furniture in the room. Over the next few minutes, details emerged from the shadows. The most notable was that the two men who had been sitting across from him earlier were gone.

  That in itself meant nothing. They could easily be in another room. The smell of burgers and fries wafted in the air, and he moved his head slightly to see a light on in the kitchen. His stomach grumbled—another good sign. John listened intently, trying to gather any information he could, but found that he couldn’t hear anything. His head still hurt, a hangover from the drugs, and it took him a minute to realize that earplugs had been inserted in his ears.

  The precaution elevated his captors to above the norm. Tying hands and feet, gagging, and blindfolds were standard practice. Few thugs understood how much information, mostly incriminating, a captive could hear. The handicap bothered John. Most people in his situation would be focused on escape; he wanted information first. His captors understood as well as he did how important words were.

  John recognized that his thought process had improved. He guessed the men in the kitchen would know when the drugs wore off. If they needed information from him, he could expect a session with them shortly; if not, they would try to sedate him again.

  Torture was not a problem. John bore scars both internally and externally from past unsuccessful attempts. He needed a plan if they tried to inject him.

  John lay still, breathing slowly. His situation was like a hunter stalking prey. The metaphor might sound backward, as he was currently lacking his normal mental capacity from the drugs and was physically limited by his bonds. Those things didn’t affect his thought process, though.

  The hunter looks for advantage. He’d spent some time in Africa and remembered an axiom about tracking lions. Before you begin to hunt a lion, the lion is already hunting you.

  John was the lion.

  19

  Key Largo, Florida

  Alicia was in the kitchen cooking a meal she didn’t really want to eat. She felt despondent after failing to complete the contract. By going offline and showing up in Egypt under a false identity, Mako had placed their future at risk. Of course, she had discovered his whereabouts when the name “Wolfgang Messer” showed up in her passport search. It had been part game, part necessity to discover John Storm’s other identities, this one an art dealer. She’d won, and the work paid off when the name appeared.

  Her frustration came from knowing Mako had entered Egypt, but in Cairo he had gone off the radar. To make matters worse, she had been unable to make contact. In the Army, the term used was AWOL; to the CIA, he was a rogue spy. At the Agency, it was as close to a termination sanction as treason.

  Alicia and TJ’s long-term plan was to become self-sufficient from their diving business and not have to rely on CIA contracts. That work wouldn’t end, but financial freedom would allow them to work when and on what they wanted.

  Alicia had worked for the Agency under several administrations and knew firsthand that the mixture of political appointees and career employees was unproductive in getting anything accomplished. During some administrations the relationships were almost volatile. For contractors, the money was good when it came, but there was no guarantee that their latest contract wouldn’t be their last.

  Her eyes watered when she thought about life without Mako Storm, but it was from the onion she was cutting, not missing Mako. Alicia knew herself well enough to accept that she needed to be challenged in any career she chose. TJ would be fine. He could return the War Room to its prior incarnation as his gaming empire. The online tournaments had only gotten richer in the four years she had been with him, and his gaming skills could replace a chunk of their contract income.

  Bottom line: Alicia was worried about herself. Diving was a passion, but not her life—especially the charter end of it. They had found a niche in the adventure-diving market and were doing better than many smaller dive charters, but they catered to a narrow market of advanced divers just under the technical threshold. Many recreational divers never got past open-water certification. Some moved on to advanced and specialty courses, but most were more concerned about their post-dive Mai Tais than they were interested in using custom-mixed gases.

  Nitrox allowed divers to stay deeper for longer, but had its limits. With the higher levels of oxygen in the mix, saturation at depth became a problem. The most potent oxygen-rich mixture readily available had a maximum depth of ninety-five feet, while recreational divers could safely go to 130 feet using plain air. The advantage of the mixed gas came with the additional bottom time and reduced decompression time, especially when attempting multiple dives in one day.

  This appealed to many people, but the shortcoming of nitrox was volume. As depth increased, so did consumption. Most recreational divers used up their air supply before they ran out of bottom time. This limited their clientele to more experienced divers or those wanting to do multiple drops in one trip.

  Operating a small boat also had its challenges. They both had Coast Guard-issued Uninspected Passenger Vessels licenses, more commonly known as a 6-pack license. Where many of the “cattle car” charters took upwards of twenty paying passengers, they were allowed only six. With the extra equipment needed to blend the air also aboard their thirty-six-foot Bertram convertible, six divers was a comfortable number.

  The business plan allowed them to charge a premium price. With one of them acting as divemaster and the other captain, the labor costs were near zero. The reef was less than five miles from their dock, and hundreds of feet of water lay minutes past that. The short distances kept operating costs low and allowed two charters a day, sometimes three.

  Running what she called a scientific diving business was challenging, but Alicia knew it wouldn’t be enough to engage her talents. The intelligence world, with its layers of innuendo, had captivated her. She just wanted to play the game on her terms.

  “He’s back!” TJ called out from the War Room.

  “Just a minute. Almost done here.” She had to force herself not to run in to clean up whatever mess Mako had gotten into now.

  “I think you’re going to want to see this.”

  Alicia wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and walked over to the double doors of the War Room. She took one glance at the blinking dot on the map. Within seconds, she was at her desk, clicked on, and logged in.

  Her state of being was one described by many soldiers in active combat situations. Known as a flow state, it also occurred in athletes, musicians, artists, writers, and in Alicia’s case, intelligence analysts. A smile crossed her face as she refined the search algorithm. The blinking dot was still in Egypt, but not Cairo. It took her about thirty seconds to place it in Luxor, and more specifically, the Valley o
f the Kings.

  Mako had landed on his feet again, and if he could pull this off, it might save their careers.

  20

  Luxor, Egypt

  Mako allowed himself to be steered by Gretchen, who “suggested” a table off to the side and out of Rashi’s sightline.

  “Do you have any idea who you were talking to?” she asked.

  “She seemed to know a lot.”

  “Rashida Mustafa is one small step below the Minister of Antiquities. She’s a big deal.”

  They were interrupted by a waiter asking for their order. Mako did a double take, sure that the young man wasn’t old enough to serve drinks. It was just a subtle reminder that there were different rules here.

  “Jealous?” Mako regretted saying it as soon as the word was out of his mouth.

  Gretchen ignored the barb. “If nothing else, you’ve alerted the authorities to our presence here. You didn’t tell her anything, did you?”

  Mako wrinkled his brow. “Just asked her some questions about the excitement today. Was that okay?”

  Gretchen’s expression softened slightly. “Did you learn anything?”

  Mako’s memory was excellent—when he was paying attention. He had caught most of what Rashi had told him, but the names were lost. Instead of rambling on about the dynasties of the New Kingdom, he decided on shock and awe. “She thinks it’s Nefertiti’s grave.”

  “Really?” she asked, sarcastically.

  The response was not what he expected. Now he was forced to regurgitate the history lesson he had just absorbed. When he was finished, she sat back with a pensive look on her face. Mako waited patiently.

  “What are the odds?”

  “Of?” he asked.

  “That this is related. Cliff faces don’t just disintegrate overnight and reveal one of the most sought-after archeological treasures in the world. First the files and map, now the discovery? People have been searching for Nefertiti’s tomb for centuries.”

  “My thought exactly,” Mako said, stopping when the waiter returned with their drinks. The interlude gave Mako just long enough to reset himself and realize that since Gretchen had entered the room, his sex drive had entered the equation. He studied the woman sitting across from him. They were comfortable together, which from his experience was rare. But that didn’t mean their goals were aligned. Mako had decided the best chance of solving the riddle of the map was to involve Alicia, but John’s words still rang in his ears.

  They sat in a comfortable silence for several minutes. Mako saw Rashi get up and cast a sideways glance at them as she left. He stole a glance at Gretchen, hoping she hadn’t noticed. She, of course, did.

  “I could use some food,” Mako said, hoping a change of venue would help.

  “This new tomb. We should have a look,” Gretchen said.

  “Like now?”

  “No, first light though.”

  It was certainly worth looking at. If nothing else, it might prove or disprove Mako’s theory that the map and the tomb discovery were related. They finished their drinks and paid the bill. Walking back through the Egyptian-themed lobby, they decided on one of the open-air restaurants overlooking the Nile.

  A host seated them at a table, where they sat back and watched the river that had seen thousands of years of history flow slowly by. Even Mako Storm was not immune to the romance of it.

  After taking the waiter’s recommendations, they watched the river some more and waited for their food to arrive. Under other circumstances he would have stayed quiet and let the river perform its magic, like it had on countless generations. But Mako was uneasy. It wasn’t about Gretchen’s proposed recon trip or even her company. He had the feeling he was treading water. His father might not be in immediate danger, but the clock was certainly ticking.

  The food was delivered, but Mako’s thoughts continued to drift between Alicia and his father. He felt like he was on an island, or more appropriately, an oasis. Gretchen allowed him his space, which just added to the things he liked about her.

  With dinner finished, they walked back to their rooms. They stood in front of her door. As he started to say goodnight, Mako wondered briefly about himself. This might be the first time he had walked away from a seemingly receptive woman. But he had a plan and needed privacy to figure it out.

  He took a step back as she opened her door.

  “Would you like to come in?”

  “No,” should have been his response, but the word refused to cross his lips.

  20

  The Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt

  Denton Beecher stared across the desert at the lights illuminating the cliff. It was near midnight and a chill ran down his spine from the cold night air. Once the sun set, the hundred-plus degree temperatures dropped rapidly. He guessed it was in the fifties, a comfortable temperature for the night’s work.

  Standing on the running board of the truck, he picked up a pair of binoculars and studied the site. There was no activity around the cavern itself other than the three guards standing on the overhang scanning the desert for any threats.

  Higher above, on the top of the cliff backlit by the moon, he could see another four guards. Moving the glasses to ground level, he saw more men moving around. The hum of the generator that powered the string of lights illuminating the site wafted over the sand.

  Everything was as he expected. There would be no grave robbers to pilfer this tomb. He laughed to himself at the irony. Tonight was part one of seeding the tomb. Instead of robbing it, he would be filling it.

  Beecher moved to the tailgate where a pile of paper maps were spread out on the steel deck. His headlamp illuminated the drawings. With him were two demolitions experts. One was packing the surveillance drone in a shockproof case, while the other was working on a tablet.

  “Have you located the entry point?” Under normal circumstances Beecher would have pinpointed and scouted the spot days ago, but Ahmed had been very specific about the timing for the job and given him the coordinates only two days before, when they had met in Cairo. Beecher set the frustration aside. With the scans from the ground-penetrating radar loaded on the tablets, and the expertise of the men assigned the job, it was a sure thing—or as much of one as working at night in the desert with at least a dozen armed guards a quarter-mile away could be.

  He put all the “what could go wrong” scenarios to the back of his mind. Worrying about contingencies was something that needed to be done before the op, not during it. He had the best men, equipment, and experience available. They would get the job done.

  The plan tonight was to create the back door to the grave. Once that was in place, the goods could be installed.

  Beecher leaned over the man’s tablet. “Let’s see your work.” The man set the tablet down on the tailgate. Its surface glowed with the black-and-white image from the scan. The database was huge, requiring more processing power than was available in the field for the full-color, 4K resolution the unit was capable of generating. In this case, the lower resolution images had to be enough.

  The limestone structure of the cliffs was interspersed with layers of marl, shale, and flint. The geology was visible even in the low-res scan, but that was only a small piece of what Beecher and his men were looking for. Over the eons the flood waters of the Nile had both cut away and heavily altered the terrain. When the waters receded, fractures and faults were created in the limestone. Those voids showed clearly on the scan. A similar scan had pinpointed the location of the cavern entrance now under guard. They were currently analyzing the backside of the entrance. Though the long line of cliffs was a feature of the plateau above, the area they had chosen was more like a mesa, though instead of being freestanding, it jutted out like a peninsula.

  The demolitions expert traced a line on a printed relief map with his finger. “That should get us in.”

  Beecher held up the paper rendering to compare it to the cliffs in the distance, illuminated by the moonlight. After identifying several key
features, he was able to see where the man was pointing.

  “Fifty feet?”

  “Give or take. Should be a straight shot through.”

  Beecher didn’t expect it to be that easy. There were two types of limestone in the area: one soft and one hard. They were randomly placed and could be seen in the excavated tombs. The high resolution scans would show them as well, but time was of the essence. Beecher was used to working with what was at hand. Making a supply tunnel through the softer type would be child’s play to his men—the harder stone would be a night of hard labor.

  “We’ve only got five hours until sunrise. Better get to it.”

  They folded the maps, closed the tailgate, and loaded into the truck. Beecher had chosen to go with only the three of them for this part of the operation. Though all his men were trustworthy, the fewer people who knew about the back door the better.

  Running without lights, the truck took a circuitous route to the chosen location. As they drove, Beecher continued to survey the barren landscape through his binoculars. It was a precaution, but things happened in the desert at night, and those things were never good. After taking a five-mile loop to cover their approach, they stopped the truck at the bottom of the cliff.

  Loaded with battery-operated roto-hammers, pick axes, and shovels, the men climbed the cliff face. Beecher looked down at the truck below. So far everything had gone according to plan, but this was just the beginning. The unknown lay in the rock.

  The three men reached the spot and immediately got to work. On seeing the depression in the cliff, Beecher smiled. Nature had started the work for them. He left one man to drill a series of holes that would direct the expansive energy of the demolition grout. He and the other man made two trips back to the truck to retrieve the water for the mixture.

  The jackhammer-like hum of the rotary drill echoed through the valley. It was the only noise they would make. The men guarding the tomb and the valley would undoubtedly hear the drill, but out in the desert between the cliffs and open expanses, it would be untraceable.