The crowd, around fifty people, filed past, led and tailed by more green-jacketed guards. There was a lot of conversation: the tone was excited, expectant, but also tinged with what Eddie could only think of as gloating. Whatever the ceremony was, it already had the feel of a victory rally.
A glance up at the battlements, another at the guards behind, waiting for their view to be partly obscured by the throng - then he stood and smoothly matched pace with the group as if he had just emerged from the car.
He tensed, ready to fight or run. Since he was already inside the castle he doubted the cultists would question his right to be there, but if the trailing goons thought he was out of place . . .
Nobody shouted in alarm. A young man gave him a mildly curious look, but returned to his conversation with another. Relieved, but still alert, Eddie marched with the group into the pyramid.
There was no sign of Shaban or the men with him in the lobby, but there were more guards. ‘Everyone will wait in here. The temple will be opened soon,’ one called over the hubbub as the cultists filled the space, another repeating the instruction in French, then Arabic. Eddie stayed near the fringes of the crowd, checking the exits. A glass lift rising at an angle, a set of large frosted glass doors that he assumed led to the temple, two more smaller doors to each side. The lift couldn’t be the only way to reach the upper floors - there had to be stairs somewhere.
A few minutes later, another group of cultists entered. Then another. The lobby quickly became packed to bursting point. Eddie made sure he was right by one of the side doors as the original group moved to make room for the newcomers. A guard was nearby, but he just needed a brief distraction . . .
It came when the temple doors opened. Everyone instinctively turned to see, pushing closer - and Eddie slipped unseen through the side door.
As he’d hoped, it led to a stairwell, the sloping outer wall forcing each flight to ascend at odd angles like an Escher painting. He donned the headset again as he headed for the pyramid’s peak.
‘Eddie!’ Nina snapped as the monitor finally showed something other than the crotch of her husband’s jeans. ‘About damn time! What’s going on?’
‘Shaban’s gathering the faithful, by the look of it.’
‘Yeah, we saw - three busloads of them. I meant, what’s going on with you? What the hell are you doing?’
‘I told you - I’m going to take out that lab.’
‘With what? You don’t have any explosives - you don’t even have a gun!’
‘I think I’ll manage.’
One of the ASPS standing with Assad flinched at Eddie’s insouciant tone. ‘What is it?’ Assad demanded.
The soldier rushed to one of the equipment cases stacked in the van - and gasped an Arabic obscenity. ‘Sir, there are two packs of C- 4 missing.’
‘C-4?’ Macy asked as Assad gaped at him.
‘Explosives,’ said Nina. Macy edged away from the case.
‘Yeah, I borrowed ’em while you were getting set up,’ Eddie announced, as casually as if he’d taken a pencil without asking.
‘Chase!’ Assad shouted. ‘Get out of there immediately! You can’t use explosives in there - it’ll be a diplomatic catastrophe!’
‘Then why did you bring them in the first place?’ said Nina, jumping to Eddie’s defence despite sharing the Egyptian’s feelings.
Assad looked sheepish. ‘As a . . . contingency.’
‘Well, this is contingency-y,’ said Eddie. ‘And diplomacy’ll be the last thing to worry about if Shaban’s turned that crap into a bioweapon. If I take it out now, problem solved. So I’ll go upstairs, plant these charges, get Grant and blow the place up before anyone even knows I was here—’
On the screen, he reached the landing of the upper office level - and a door opened in front of him, a guard freezing in surprise as he came face to face with the Englishman.
‘Or not,’ Eddie said as he and the guard stared at each other.
The other man snapped out of his shock and tried to grab him, but Eddie slammed a knuckle punch into his throat and sent him lurching back.
The guard lashed out at Eddie’s eyes, but he whipped his head back and smashed his boot into the cultist’s groin, then punched him in the face so hard that the back of his head smacked against the door. The guard slithered to the floor, out cold.
Eddie dragged him through the door. The offices were lit only at a low level, the occasional screensaver glowing beyond the glass walls. The employees of both Osiris Investment Group and the Osirian Temple were either done for the day or filing into the temple downstairs.
‘Eddie! Are you okay?’ Nina asked.
‘Yeah, fine.’ He pulled the unconscious man out of sight, then examined him. He was roughly Eddie’s build, and only marginally taller . . .
‘Does Nina know about this side of you, Eddie?’ said Macy as the Eddie’s-eye view showed him stripping the limp guard of his jacket and trousers.
‘Funny girl,’ he replied. The image abruptly shifted, the camera pointing up at the ceiling.
‘What’re you doing?’ asked Nina.
‘I don’t want to scare Macy with what’s in my pants.’
Macy had become used enough to his innuendoes to respond only with an eye-rolling sigh. Nina smiled. ‘I don’t think she has anything to be afraid of.’
‘Tchah!’
‘It’s you who’s got things to be afraid of,’ she continued pointedly. ‘If you get caught, they’ll kill you.’
The camera aimed ahead once more. Eddie’s hand - now holding a gun - filled the screen. ‘They can try.’
‘They will try, Eddie! Don’t take any stupid chances.’
‘You know me, love.’
‘Yes, and I’d like to go on knowing you! Be careful, okay?’
‘I will. Mr Assad?’
‘Yes?’ Assad said.
‘Get your boys ready. However this turns out, there’ll be trouble - and they’ll need more than tear gas and pepperballs to deal with it.’
‘I see,’ Assad said, unhappy. A nod to the ASPS, and they opened more cases, taking out compact FN-P90 sub-machine guns. ‘Another contingency,’ he told Nina and Macy. ‘I really hope we don’t have to use them, Mr Chase.’
‘Depends on Shaban, dunnit?’ The Eddiecam tipped downwards to show him slipping the gun inside his newly acquired green jacket, then picking up the two C-4 packs and their radio detonator to squeeze them into the tight-fitting garment’s outer pockets. ‘All right, I’m ready.’
‘Good luck,’ Nina whispered as he moved out.
Eddie returned to the stairwell. No sounds of activity above or below. He didn’t know how long he would have before the guard was missed, so he quickly ascended to the top floor.
There was only one route he could follow, which brought him to the lift. A man was waiting for it; he glanced casually at Eddie as he came through the stairwell door, then did a slight double-take. Eddie concealed his concern - the man didn’t seem alarmed, just mildly puzzled by his appearance - and gave him a polite nod, keeping his head turned to conceal the earpiece. The lift arrived just as he passed it; the man boarded without looking back.
The strong scent of yeast hit his nostrils as he entered the next room. ‘Smells like a baker’s armpit in here,’ he said. The opposite wall was glass, giving him a view of the space beyond. The lab was right under the pyramid’s cap, the walls rising to meet almost at a point; above was the spotlight sending its beam towards the pole star.
There was only one person inside the chamber, his back to Eddie as he examined an object on a workbench.
One of many objects, all identical. More stainless steel containment flasks, all bearing the biohazard symbol.