‘Look on the bright side,’ Nina said, looking up at Osir. ‘At least he flushed first.’
The cult leader had, with mocking irony, opted to tie up Nina and Eddie where they had tied him - his cabin’s bathroom. Nina’s hands were secured to a pipe beneath the washbasin, while Eddie ended up in the same position as Osir, wrists fastened to the lavatory’s waste pipe and his head over the bowl. They were bound with rope rather than neckties; their legs had been left free, but with a guard watching them all night as Osir and his associates studied the zodiac they had been given no opportunity to turn that to their advantage.
‘Aren’t you comfortable, Chase?’ asked Osir. ‘Too bad.’
Shaban stood beside him, rubbing his eyes. ‘We are getting nowhere with the zodiac, Khalid. We’re wasting time.’
‘The answer is there,’ Osir said. ‘She found it - so can we.’
Shaban sneered at Nina. ‘A shame you weren’t listening when she did. If they know how to find the pyramid, we should have tortured them for the information.’ Another sneer, this time directed at Osir. ‘If you weren’t so worried about getting blood on your silk sheets . . .’
Osir’s face flashed with anger. ‘Shut up, Sebak! We will find the pyramid ourselves. There’s no need for any unnecessary pain.’
‘What do you know about pain?’ said Shaban, moving almost nose to nose with his brother. The scar tissue across his cheek twisted with his snarl.
An uneasy silence hung between the two men before Osir backed away slightly. ‘We will find the pyramid ourselves,’ he insisted. ‘These two we’ll . . . bury at sea. But we have other business first - the race.’
‘You go,’ said Shaban dismissively. ‘I’ll stay here and,’ a cruel smile, ‘politely discuss the pyramid’s location with Dr Wilde.’ Nina tensed.
Osir shook his head. ‘You’re expected there with me.’
‘Then tell them I’m ill.’
‘Sebak! This is for the Temple - you are coming with me.’ He stared at Shaban. This time, it was the younger brother who backed down, though the tendons in his neck were tight. Osir addressed the guard. ‘Watch them until we get back.’ The guard nodded, and sat down on a chair facing the bathroom doorway as Osir and Shaban left.
‘When does the race finish?’ Nina asked.
‘Four o’clock,’ Eddie told her. ‘What time is it now?’
She shifted to check her watch. ‘Coming up on ten.’
‘Hey!’ the guard shouted, raising his MP7. ‘Keep still. And no talking!’
Nina knelt back down, watching the guard. After a few minutes, his attention began to wander, the gun drifting away from the prisoners as he looked round the opulent cabin.
She used his distraction to glance over her shoulder. In a corner was a pair of nail scissors, one of the items Osir had scattered when Eddie pushed him into the bathroom. She had spotted them when she was first tied up. But with her hands firmly attached to the pipe, the only way to reach them was with her feet - and she couldn’t do so without the guard noticing.
Six hours to find a way . . .
An opportunity took close to four uncomfortable hours to arrive.
The guard was also a racing fan. With the start imminent, he had switched on a large plasma TV. Its position on one wall meant he had to move the chair further away to see both the screen and his captives, dividing his attention.
‘You okay?’ Nina whispered, her voice covered by the noise of the starting grid.
‘My knees are fucking killing me,’ came the hollow reply. ‘One good thing, mind - I’m not thirsty.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Gross, Eddie.’ A look at the guard; he glanced into the bathroom, but was clearly more interested in the race. ‘Listen, there’s a pair of scissors here. I’ll try to kick them to you when the guy outside isn’t looking.’
He turned his head as far as he could. ‘If you can get them to my legs, I can try to knock them behind the bog with my knee. But I can’t move my hands much. If they end up too far away, we’re fucked.’
‘Then we’ll have to get it right first time, won’t we?’ She gave him a half-hearted smile; he returned it.
‘Do it when the race starts,’ he said. ‘There’s usually a prang in the first corner at Monaco - the crashes are what most blokes are really watching for.’
‘I’ll only need a few seconds.’ Nina watched the guard; bar the occasional glance, he was fixated on the TV. The commentary was in French, but she understood enough to know that the cars were performing their formation lap before the start of the race proper.
Very slowly, she shifted her weight to one knee and slid her other leg out from under her body. Her muscles prickled painfully. The guard looked at her; she froze, afraid that he had seen what she was doing, before exaggeratedly cricking her neck to one side as if relieving stiffness. He frowned, then turned back to the TV.
The commentators became more excited as the cars took their places on the grid. Nina moved her leg out as far as she dared.
‘Ready?’ she whispered. Eddie raised himself slightly on his toes.
The racers were in position. The guard leaned forward, watching the screen intently. Engines revved as the starting lights came on. ‘Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq . . .’ The commentator paused in anticipation. ‘Allez!’
The engine noise rose to a multi-tonal scream as the cars leapt away from the grid. ‘C’est Virtanen, Virtanen!’ the commentator cried. The guard was almost out of his seat with excitement as Team Osiris’s star driver took the lead. ‘Oh! Oh! Mollard s’est écrasé!’
Someone had crashed going into the first corner. The guard jumped up - and Nina jerked her leg, kicking the little scissors.
Even with all the activity on the big TV, the guard couldn’t miss the sudden movement in his peripheral vision. He whipped round, gun raised - as Eddie dropped his legs, covering the scissors. Pointing the MP7 at Nina, he rushed into the bathroom. ‘I told you not to move!’
‘Cramp!’ Nina gasped, not lying, as she flexed her leg. ‘I’ve got cramp, it hurts! Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot!’
‘Get back down!’ She complied. Pressing the gun against her, the guard bent to check that she was still tied, then leaned down to look at Eddie’s bonds. All were still secure. ‘Keep still,’ he ordered, returning to the cabin. After a few suspicious glares into the bathroom, he turned back to the race.
‘Did you get it?’ Nina whispered.
Eddie lifted his right leg, revealing the nail scissors under it. Slowly, carefully, he lowered it again and dragged the scissors a few inches forward, then raised his leg and moved it back to its original position before repeating the move. After a minute, the scissors were just in front of his knee.
‘This is the tricky bit,’ he muttered. He angled his leg out to one side. ‘Okay, here we go . . .’
He jerked his knee forward.
The scissors slithered across the polished floor, clacking against the back wall. Eddie winced, but the TV had drowned out the faint noise. He reached for them with his fingertips.
They fell short by mere millimetres.
‘Bollocks!’ he growled. The rope tying his wrists to the pipe was already pressed against a protruding joint; he couldn’t slide his hands any closer. And if he tried to raise his body higher for leverage to push his wrists further through the loops of rope, the guard would see.
He had to take the chance. He levered himself upwards, lifting his backside into the air.
It was undignified, but it worked. The extra weight pushed his wrists little by little through the rope as he wriggled. Hairs were ripped out and friction burned his skin, but his fingers were getting closer to the scissors, closer . . .