Eddie burst out from his cover. Blazing guns swung after him, chunks of statues and spalls of gold exploding in his wake. But he also heard hard metallic clacks as two grenades hit the floor behind him.
Something large and low to his right. He dived over it, rolling and pressing himself against its base—
Both grenades detonated, a lethal blizzard of steel shards shredding the treasures around them. Sculptures toppled and smashed on the floor.
Rasche looked out from behind a column as the echoes faded, seeing no movement except drifting smoke and dust. ‘Pull out!’ he ordered. ‘Protect the statue!’
Walther was first to the door. The big man had to turn sideways to fit into the gap, making manoeuvring the statue through it tricky, but after a few seconds he managed it. The others slipped out of the treasury behind him. Rasche cast another glance back, gun raised, but nobody challenged him. A small, nasty smile, and he followed his men.
Nina lowered her hands from her ears. Even halfway across the large room and with solid stone at her back, the explosions had still knocked her down.
The chamber was now completely dark. ‘Eddie?’ she called, before hearing someone close by. ‘Banna, are you okay?’
‘My ears…’ said the Egyptian, voice quavering.
‘Did you get hit?’
‘No, I–I do not think so, but my ears, they hurt so much…’
‘Stay still for now.’ She got shakily to her feet. ‘Eddie!’
No reply. A new fear rose within her. ‘Eddie, can you hear me?’
A metallic clang from the blackness. ‘Nina, is that you?’ came a female voice.
‘Macy! Are you okay? Where’s Eddie?’
‘I dunno, I’m not even sure where I am. Hold on, I’ve got a light…’ A corner of the room lit up as Macy surveyed her surroundings. ‘Holy crap! They’ve blown the hell out of the place!’
‘Just find Eddie!’ Nina said, picking her way towards her friend. Shrapnel crunched underfoot. She found one of the abandoned lanterns in the wash from Macy’s own light and switched it on. ‘Come on, Eddie, I know you’re here somewhere, you’ve got to be…’
A moan came from the shadows. ‘Over here!’ Macy shouted. ‘I see him, he’s here!’
Nina went towards her, rounding a heavy marble bench to find Eddie sprawled against it. Blood stood out on the dusty floor around his head. Frightened, she touched his neck, searching for a pulse. ‘Eddie, wake up. Please…’
‘Oh God,’ Macy whispered. ‘Is he…’
‘Am I what?’ came a Yorkshire-accented grumble.
The younger woman let out a sigh of relief. ‘Okay, not dead, then!’
‘No, I’m not dead, but it fucking feels like it. Jesus Christ, my head hurts!’
‘You’ve been cut,’ Nina warned him. A crooked gash had been sliced into his scalp.
‘Yeah, grenade frag, probably,’ he said, face scrunching as he sat up. ‘Ow! Shit, it’s got my arm too.’
Macy brought her own light closer. ‘There’s a big rip in your sleeve — I can see blood underneath.’
His frown deepened. ‘Buggeration. This was a new jacket!’
‘This is new?’ She regarded the battered black leather dubiously. ‘But it looks like it’s been dragged under a bus.’
Nina gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Yeah, don’t get me started. We’ve had discussions about his taste in distressed clothing before. Can you stand?’
‘Yeah.’ He picked up his gun and rose. ‘Got some new bruises, but I’ll survive. Where’s Banna?’
Nina pointed. ‘Over there. I think he’s okay, just shaken up.’
‘I’m guessing from the way we’re not being shot at any more that the bad guys have gone.’
‘Yeah, and they took the statue.’
He eyed her. ‘You sound like you’re pissed off about that.’
‘Well… kind of, yes. It could have led to an amazing find.’
‘And it could’ve led to us all getting killed!’ He saw Banna crawl out from his hiding place. ‘Go and help him,’ he told the two women, before hurrying to the entrance.
‘What are you doing?’ Nina called after him.
‘What do you think? I’m not letting a bunch of fucking Nazis get away with all this!’
‘Eddie, wait!’ she cried, but he had already gone.
10
Eddie ran back through the tomb, finding the antechamber littered with the bullet-torn corpses of the defending ASPS. No sign of the Nazis. The passageway through which he had originally entered the tomb was now strewn with debris, the long tunnel blocked after about thirty feet by tons of earth and rubble. Nice work, he thought grimly; the explosives that had blasted a six-foot hole through the ceiling had also collapsed the passage behind it, letting the intruders get in and out while preventing the ASPS still on the surface from providing backup.
Several ropes dangled from the new opening’s ragged top — the Nazis had initially rappelled into the tomb — but two aluminium ladders had been their means of escape. Eddie moved underneath the hole, gun raised in case they had left a guard. Nothing moved above. He scaled one of the ladders.
The entrance had been blown through the floor of an apartment, all its windows shattered by the blast. He swept the room with his gun at the ladder’s top, but there was nobody there.
Nobody alive, at least. He didn’t need to see the bodies of the apartment’s former residents in an adjoining room to know they were there; the buzz of flies told him the Nazis had taken their dig site by force.
He clambered out. Most of the floorboards had been ripped up to give access to the ground below. The air was still hazy with dust from the explosion. He held in a cough, then looked for an exit.
An open door led into a lobby, where he found a middle-aged Egyptian man slumped dead against the wall. The sound of weeping reached him. A woman was curled up tightly outside another apartment, shuddering with grief. The man must have come to see if anyone had been hurt — gas explosions were not unheard of in Alexandria — and been shot for his trouble.
‘Bastards,’ Eddie growled, but there was no time to offer any comfort. The door to the street was open. He checked outside.
The rumble of slow-moving traffic greeted him. The road was busy, vehicles crawling in both directions. The sun’s angle told him it ran roughly north — south, but he didn’t know where he was in relation to the archaeological dig’s entrance; probably a couple of streets away.
No sign of the tomb raiders — but a conspicuous gap between the parked cars suggested they had left in a van or small truck. They couldn’t have gone far through the congestion — but which way?
He darted on to the narrow sidewalk, gun raised. That turned out to be a mistake. The MPX immediately prompted panic from bystanders, mobile phones hurriedly summoning the police.
Muttering a curse, he looked for the robbers, but there was too much traffic in the way. He needed a better view.
The apartments above all had balconies…
Eddie ran back inside. There was a narrow flight of stairs past the crying woman. He clattered up them to the first landing, then went along the hall.
The door to one apartment was open; the occupants had fled after the explosion. Eddie entered. The balcony door was ajar, a shutter half lowered to let in a breeze while keeping out the heat of the Egyptian sun. He ducked under it.
The street spread out below him, four lanes of traffic crammed into a thoroughfare meant for two. There was barely enough room for pedestrians to squeeze between the jostling vehicles, so intense was the competition for space. Horns parped and bleated.
The most insistent blasts came from a knot of cars to the north. A long-wheelbase white van was shoving through them, using its size to intimidate some of the drivers, and bullbars to barge others aside in a more physical manner.