Storm Clouds Page 13

  “Well?”

  John knew they were after the files, and that meant the artifacts. They might be hired thugs, but if their aim, or more likely their employer’s, was the relics, they were essentially thieves. Assault and murder were not part of their business plan. Theft from a museum involving an item over one hundred years old was a federal offense and dealt with by the FBI. Sentences were a maximum of ten years and without any violence attached, the perps were often free in much less time. For many, the risk was worth the reward.

  “Any interest in Egyptian artifacts?” he asked.

  He could tell from their expressions that he had guessed correctly. “Well, now that we have that clear, I think I can help you.”

  “What can you do from here?” one of them asked.

  “A little breakfast and some of my coffee that you’re enjoying there, and I’ll hand over the map of their location.” John wanted to dictate terms. His casual demeanor was deliberate.

  “The map first.”

  The response was what he had expected. “I need to make a call.”

  “The woman in Florida is not in a position to help.”

  That they knew about Alicia was not surprising—what worried John was that they had minimized her involvement. One explanation he hadn’t wanted to consider was that something had happened to Mako. Part of his goal with this conversation was to form a picture of what he was dealing with.

  Through his years in the field, John had learned that there is a difference between data, information, and intelligence. Data illustrated a single point in time—a snapshot. Until his conversation with the men, that snapshot was all he had: he was being held against his will.

  Information combined multiple data points into a bigger picture. That Alicia would be of no help fell into this category. Getting the men to open up more would turn that piece of information into intelligence—something he could act on.

  “You know that for a fact? She’s always got irons in the fire. Worth a try, if you ask me.” He wanted to ask Alicia several questions himself, mainly why she had agreed to a contract that seemed to benefit another country. To him that was treason. He understood she had been trained not to question orders or operations. Having laser focus was both a strength and a problem for analysts, but she had proven she could think outside the box. It was the reason her refusal to listen to John had caused the rift.

  John would do whatever was in America’s best interest, regardless of his orders. He had learned in the field to make his own decisions and he had no regrets. Somehow he had survived the regular political purges the Agency went through, but that was more because of who and what he knew. What John excelled at was judging the difference between “interesting” and “important.” Information was interesting—intelligence was important. He was willing to give his captors all the information he could to secure his escape, but he would keep any intelligence to himself.

  He asked to call her again and they shut him down. That wasn’t a good sign. “Look, I know you want the map.” He paused to gauge their reaction. Reading their expressions, he knew he was correct. “What harm is it going to do?” John knew hounding them wasn’t going to help his cause. If they were astute, it would also tell them that this was all he had to offer, besides being a hostage.

  “Should we check with the minister first?” one of the guys asked the other.

  John picked up on the data point and added it to his growing file of information. He had done his research before confronting Alicia and knew exactly who the man referenced. He listened intently as they debated. That they decided against involving the minister was another vital piece of data to add to the previous information he had assembled and it formed his first piece of actionable intelligence.

  Contract thugs would have automatically called someone above them for permission to contact Alicia. That the men had decided themselves told John that they were looking to impress their employer by finding the map on their own. Now he knew what made them tick.

  One of the men handed John his phone.

  John dialed quickly before they changed their minds. “Alicia, it’s John. Call back on this number.” He hadn’t expected her to answer, but she would check the message. He knew she was monitoring the phone and would place a trace on it before returning his call. A minute later the phone rang. John noticed the 305 area code and looked at the man, who nodded.

  “Alicia. Listen to me.” He hoped to avert her immediate reaction. She should have figured out he was in trouble from the phone he had called on.

  “I’m a little busy, John. Make it quick.”

  That gave him hope that she was helping Mako. “I’ve got two men holding guns on me.” There was no other way to describe his situation. He half expected her to acknowledge him and disconnect.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  “They want the map from the files.”

  Key Largo, Florida

  Alicia sat back, confused. Just because she’d had a disagreement with John didn’t mean she was going to abandon him to a pair of gunmen. There was no question his abduction and the attempt on Mako were connected. She also understood the chasm between data and intelligence, and she was lacking in the latter.

  She glanced over at TJ, who was running the phone number that John had used. He shrugged his shoulders, but his fingers continued to fly over the keyboard. There was a good chance it was a burner, but TJ was good enough to figure out where it had been bought. Surveillance camera footage would eventually show who.

  Alicia’s focus moved to another screen displaying a map and a blinking dot. Similar to the adjacent screen that showed Mako’s location in Egypt, using data from the triangulation of the nearby cell towers, TJ was able to pinpoint the phone John was using.

  The dot showed the call originating from John’s house.

  That was an interesting piece of data, but not enough to help right now.

  Alicia looked at her screen. What she really needed was time to assimilate the data from Mako and John into something she could work with. John was a straight shooter. If he said he was being held by two gunmen that was exactly what was happening. Mako’s situation, as usual, was unclear.

  “This is over my pay grade. I’ll have to run it up the chain of command and get permission. Should that happen, where do I send it?” Hopefully, the answer would reveal something about the gunmen’s superiors.

  “They will. Some government minister. Stand by for contact information.”

  John had told her what she didn’t want to hear. She hoped the gunmen wouldn’t understand what he meant, though she certainly did. Alicia cursed under her breath, loud enough for TJ to glance over. She opened a chat screen and quickly typed her thoughts.

  John had been right. She’d done her research on accepting the contract and knew exactly who the government minister was. Now she was starting to understand what John had been warning her about. The minister was playing both sides to achieve his objective. That meant that John’s situation was tied to the attempted assault on Mako and both had been engineered by the minister. The discovery of the tomb had been international news. Alicia had realized John might have been correct. The find could, of course, be authentic, but coincidences like this didn’t happen in a bubble.

  The data had become information. Alicia typed a message for TJ: Can we make a map?

  She looked over and saw the smile on his face.

  Certainly.

  “John, if I’m not on speaker, put me on.” She waited for a few seconds. “I have the authority to release a copy of the map to you. Unfortunately the original is not in country.”

  “Stand by. We will send directions,” one of the men answered.

  “What can I have for assurance that John will be released?”

  Alicia almost jumped from her seat when she heard a crash on the other end of the line. The phone went dead, leaving her in the dark about what had just happened.

  “Start working on it,” she called to TJ.

&
nbsp; “What are you going to do?”

  “I have a few ideas.”

  23

  Luxor, Egypt

  Mako had his reservations about converting his room into their headquarters, but it made sense. It also meant he would be sleeping in Gretchen’s room, though the soreness from the camel ride told him that nothing interesting was going to happen for a day or so.

  After being dropped at the hotel by the shuttle bus, they had dispatched Alaa with a list. He was to purchase whatever maps of the surrounding area were available. He had returned just as they had finished breakfast.

  The maps were spread out on the bed in no apparent order. Gretchen was sorting through them, trying to find features that matched the map found in the files Mako had taken from the Ford Building. She’d been at it for over an hour.

  He thought about Alicia and TJ’s War Room. The myriad of monitors on the wall could display the same maps, but between TJ and Alicia’s experience and the computer power at their disposal, they would have the ability to overlay and render the maps in three dimensions.

  Mako felt like he’d indulged Gretchen long enough. The scouting trip this morning had yielded nothing except a near-death experience and, if the cache were discoverable using the old-school maps, it would have been found long ago.

  Mako turned to Alaa, who sat at a small table in the corner playing on his phone. “Here’s a list of supplies if we need to climb.” He handed the driver a piece of paper and a wad of cash.

  “Any chance of finding a weapon bigger than your pea shooter?” He handed him the rest of his money.

  Alaa glanced at the list. “Sure thing, boss. I’ll see what I can do.” He got up and left the room.

  Gretchen looked up with a tired expression on her face. “What?”

  “We need Alicia’s technology.”

  “I told you it was okay if you really think you can control her.”

  “I can control her.” Mako sounded more confident than he felt.

  “In my opinion it’s a risk.”

  Mako had to agree, but he had a ten-thousand-foot overview of the situation, and she was depending on fifty-year-old maps. A loud knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Mako reached for the handle, thinking it was housekeeping or Alaa, but Gretchen stopped him.

  “Wait. Not sure this is all for public consumption.” She gestured to the maps on the bed.

  Mako wondered what anyone else would get out of it. Even knowing what they were looking for, they hadn’t found any clues. His thoughts were interrupted as the knocking continued. It was the last solid thunk that told him it wasn’t a person’s hand knocking—it was something hard and solid, like the butt s fenof a gun.

  The knocking stopped and the room fell quiet, which was never a good thing during a break-in. Usually, it meant that the action was escalating.

  Mako glanced at Gretchen, who shrugged. He looked around for a weapon, finding only the paper maps spread out on the beds. Taking one, he rolled it tightly. In theory, if he shoved it into an attacker’s mouth, it would choke him. But the odds of catching someone with their mouth open were slim. After that, it might serve as a club, but his hopes weren’t high.

  “Call hotel security,” Mako said, as he approached the door. Remembering the earbud in his pocket, he placed it in his ear. A quick scan of the room showed the balcony as the only other egress point and, being on the seventh floor, it wasn’t an option. There was nothing else.

  “They’ll be up.”

  “No time frame given, I’m guessing?”

  She shook her head. Mako knew there was an odds-on chance that the whoever was trying to get into the room was a compromised security guard. His guess was confirmed when the electronic lock beeped. Mako lunged for the door before the lock released. The door cracked open, but he swung the security latch over.

  The door closed and there was a quiet moment. Then it cracked opened again. Limited by the security bar, there was only enough space for a hand to reach through. Mako reacted instantly and slammed his body against the door, hoping to crush the hand extending into the room. The door froze and he saw that a block of wood now held it open. In the seconds it took him to react, a rubber band was looped over one of the small bars of the security bar, then back on itself.

  The inquisitive and pragmatic part of Mako’s mind took over for just long enough to watch the hand stretch the rubber band upward at a forty-five-degree angle, where it was secured to the wall with a piece of adhesive tape. Mako realized how the security guard would be compromised a millisecond before it happened. He was too late to stop the latch from snapping back into its open position, releasing the small ball that slid inside it.

  The door burst open. Mako found himself staring into the barrel of a gun. He felt Gretchen inch closer behind him. Clutching the rolled-up map in his hand, he stepped backward in an attempt to create some space to maneuver the two-foot-long makeshift weapon.

  “Drop the map. We’re not here to kill you,” the first man said.

  Had it not been for the gun pointed at him, Mako would have laughed at the ridiculousness of it.

  “Mako?”

  The voice in his ear startled him. Hearing Alicia, which often as not chilled him, was reassuring, and he relaxed. Whatever the distrust that had developed between Alicia and his father, this was not the time to sort it out. They’d been in similar situations more times than he wanted to count and he knew what to do. The communications device meant she was blind and deaf to all but Mako’s voice. Without a visual or a way for her to hear the other parties, Mako had to narrate the action.

  “What do you men want?” The language was stilted, but it would tell her who they were facing. He expected by now she had pinned down his location and called for help. With the door the only way out, and two large bodies blocking it, both with guns, there was little he could do except buy time.

  “The papers.” A smaller man walked through the door. “Get their phones too.”

  “What do you want with maps and papers?” Mako restated the demand for Alicia.

  As if on cue, he heard her voice. “Help is coming.”

  “Are you some kind of idiot? Get out of the way.” The larger man in front took a step toward Mako. He reached out, but Mako slunk back and avoided his grasp. Without thinking, he swung his arm and the rolled-up map arced toward the man’s head.

  The guy hadn’t seen it coming and tried to swat the tube out of the way. Mako used the advantage to drive his free hand, knuckles first, into the man’s throat. He crumpled to the floor, forcing the smaller man to step backward to avoid the falling body.

  The man was focused on him. “Go!” Mako yelled at Gretchen. She wasted no time and moved to the door. Just as she was about to reach the hallway and freedom, she stopped short and crashed into Alaa.

  “Is that what you call help?” Mako muttered.

  The guide’s unexpected appearance did serve a purpose and Mako didn’t hesitate. As the man turned to see what was going on in the hall, the first man started to rise. Mako turned and kicked him in the face. The man’s neck snapped back as he fell to the floor. Mako grabbed his gun and stepped lithely over his body. He pointed the gun at the second man.

  “Not much stopping me from killing you.” In fact, he had already decided, and his finger was tightening on the trigger when he heard Alicia’s voice.

  “No. Just get out of there. You fire that weapon and you’ll have the authorities after you too.”

  No one else was privy to his handler’s remarks. They remained frozen. Mako reacted instantly. He spun the pistol in his hand and grasped the barrel. Before the other thug could react, he smashed the butt of the gun into his temple.

  “Drag them in and tie ’em up,” he ordered Alaa, then turned to Gretchen and, still holding the gun by the barrel, handed her the stock. “They move, shoot them.”

  Mako wasted no time and looked around the room.

  “I got the supplies you asked for,” Alaa said.

 
Mako didn’t put it together until Alaa reached into a new-looking pack and removed a coil of rope. He smiled and began to cut it into lengths. Mako took the pieces and bound the men’s hands and feet. Once they were secured, he went to the bathroom and grabbed two washcloths, which he stuffed into their mouths.

  As Mako stepped back to admire his work, he noticed he was covered in dirt. Something hadn’t felt right about the intrusion. There were few circumstances where he could have singlehandedly taken out a pair of armed men. As he studied them through a different lens, he realized they looked more like construction workers than thugs. That didn’t fit either. Then it dawned on him.

  They were the same men who had shot at them earlier.

  24

  Luxor, Egypt

  Ahmed was informed of Gretchen’s call by one of his guards mere seconds after it had been made. As the Minister of Tourism, any attack on a hotel guest was reported directly to him. If you didn’t count panhandling tomb attendants or obnoxious souvenir peddlers, there was virtually no crime against tourists. With internet review sites as popular as they were, any incident would be livestreamed and shared with prospective tourists as it happened. The government had worked hard to eliminate everything except the random pickpocket or purse snatcher. Besides being impossible to police, that kind of crime was expected by tourists and most were prepared for it. For some it even added to the adventure.

  Fortunately, he was staying in the same hotel, biding his time until Rashi was satisfied and unsealed the tomb. The timing had to be perfect. He’d received a message from Beecher early this morning that progress was on schedule. The excavator and Kosma were both doing their parts. Finally, Ahmed felt he was getting closer to finding the cache and with any luck the answer was within his grasp. With his life quite literally on the line, he had decided to stay in the city to ensure everything continued to go according to plan.