Besides, Garcia had a new gadget in his bag of tricks.
This would be the perfect opportunity to test it.
Garcia raised a pair of tweezers that held a tiny sliver of thin, flexible plastic. ‘It’s been imprinted with all the necessary circuitry to both send and receive radio transmissions. And it would take a dentist to spot it.’
McNutt’s face twisted in confusion. ‘Why a dentist?’
‘I’m going to anchor the film behind your molar, in the farthest corner of your mouth,’ Garcia explained.
‘Screw that,’ McNutt said.
Papineau glared at him. ‘You have an issue with this method?’
‘I had a bad experience with a retainer once, so I’m not a fan of dental work.’ McNutt laughed to himself. ‘Then again, he could have told me that it would take a proctologist to find it, so I guess this is better by comparison.’
Garcia stepped toward McNutt as the others chuckled at the comment. He raised the tweezers, but McNutt cut him off before he could get anywhere close.
‘Oh, hell no,’ McNutt said. ‘Not you. Let Jasmine do it. Her hands are smaller. You’ll drop that thing down my throat, and it’ll be seven years before we see it again.’
‘That’s gum,’ Garcia replied.
‘And this is plastic and, well, um, a bunch of other stuff that I don’t want in my colon. Give Jasmine the damn tweezers, or I swear to God I’ll bite your fingers off.’
Jasmine took the tweezers with the tiny device and set about installing it as Garcia explained how it would work.
‘The microphone will pick up everything you say and transmit it across a secure frequency to the rest of us back here in the harbor. That much is fairly common technology. The real beauty of the implant is the way it uses your jawbone to project the incoming signals. It vibrates the fluid inside your head to amplify the sound. You, and only you, will be able to hear the voices. Anyone standing next to you will be completely oblivious to the conversation.’
‘So I just talk normally?’ McNutt asked as soon as Jasmine finished. ‘Check one-two-three. Testing. One-two-three. Can you hear me, Papa Bear?’
Garcia stared at him. ‘Of course I can hear you. I’m standing right here. Walk away or something so we can test it.’
McNutt did as he was told while Garcia put on his headset. He pushed the microphone in front of his mouth before he whispered, ‘Can you hear me, Josh?’
‘Yes!’ McNutt shouted from across the room.
‘Josh, just speak normally if you have to. But remember that your job tonight is to listen, not to talk… Okay?’
McNutt shouted again. ‘Okay!’
Garcia winced from the sound in his ear. ‘Josh, why are you screaming? I told you not to scream.’
‘Why? Because you’re freaking me out. It’s like you’re inside my head.’
‘Technically, I am inside your head.’
McNutt froze in place. ‘You can’t hear my thoughts, can you?’
Garcia laughed, unsure if it was a joke. ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’
16
The Fools of Alexander.
That’s the derogatory name used by scholars to describe anyone who has wasted time searching for buried treasure in Alexandria. In a city of millions, it seems that everyone — not just historians and archaeologists, but also lawyers, waiters, and hobos — has a theory about Alexander the Great and the location of his golden tomb.
In most parts of the world, people buy lottery tickets.
In Alexandria, they buy shovels.
In recent years, digging has become an epidemic. Once the upper levels of the city had been thoroughly examined, the fools took to the sewers en masse, hoping to find a secret passageway into the ancient depths of the city. Most excavated without permits, often leaving common sense behind as they dug deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
Eventually, something had to give.
It didn’t take an engineer to realize that the city’s core was being compromised by the subterranean plague of treasure hunters, but the government brought in a team of experts to determine how bad it really was. The last thing officials wanted was for the city to fall again. The soldiers of Persia, Rome, and Turkey were one thing, but surely they could defend themselves against a horde of civilians with picks and shovels.
Once they had the proof they needed, the authorities ordered for all digging under Alexandria to cease immediately. In addition, all entrances and passageways that led to the ancient levels of the city were either sealed or locked. Signs posted in every corner of the city made it clear that the underground network of tunnels had been deemed off-limits to anyone but city workers and members of the Ministry of State for Antiquities — the final authority when dealing with anything related to the cultural heritage of Egypt. Only those who understood the structural consequences of digging and those trained in museum sciences were welcome in the ruins. Everyone else would have to be content with the officially sanctioned tours of the city’s ancient tunnels.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough for Cobb.
And it would take more than a sign to keep him out.
It was a typical Friday night in a trendy part of town. The kind of place where locals and tourists gathered every weekend for food and entertainment.
Cobb and Sarah strolled down the block, as if they were early for dinner and had time to kill. Around them, the neighborhood was alive. Car horns were honking, music was playing, and pedestrians filled the sidewalks. As expected, the police presence was high, but they were concentrating on the streets, not the tunnels underneath.
‘You ready?’ Cobb whispered.
McNutt watched them through the window of the Internet café across the street. He had arrived a few minutes earlier with an empty bladder. He knew it would take at least four large coffees for nature to force him from his lookout. If he drank them slowly, it would be more than enough time for Sarah and Cobb to get what they needed.
‘Ready,’ he mumbled.
Garcia monitored all the chatter from the converted radio room on the boat. He was the digital maestro. Not only was he responsible for recording the video feeds, he also controlled who could talk to whom, and when. ‘Remember guys, Josh is there to look and listen. The more he talks, the more this plan falls apart. Don’t forget, he’s sitting alone at a table. We don’t need him talking to himself if it can be avoided.’
‘Like he doesn’t do that already,’ Sarah teased.
‘I heard that,’ McNutt said.
Seated next to Garcia, Jasmine stared at a map of the ancient city on a next-generation computer screen. While it wasn’t the same as the three-dimensional hologram, the software was still rendering an amazingly precise set of images. ‘I’ve got all three of you on the map. The GPS units are relaying your location, loud and clear… Well, not loud. I mean, the units aren’t beeping or anything because that would get annoying, but I can see where you are quite clearly. Well, not really you. Just dots on a screen.’
Garcia winced. ‘For the love of God, what was that?’
‘Sorry. I’m nervous.’
‘Nervous, or drunk?’
‘Nervous!’ she assured him.
‘Good, because we can’t afford to have two drunks on the job.’
‘I heard that, too!’ McNutt growled.
Cobb had been hesitant about the global positioning trackers. He assumed that if Garcia could follow his movement, others might be able to home in on the signal as well. Not that anyone would. After all, they had no reason to believe that they were being followed. Still, Cobb wanted to stay off the radar, not announce where he was.
But Garcia had assured him that his security measures were sound: no one could hack the GPS signal without Garcia knowing it. And if someone tried, he could intercept the attack or shut down the signal before Cobb or Sarah’s position could be traced.