“Power still coming from somewhere,” Joe had said.
“We can’t worry about it,” Kurt replied. “I have a feeling we just announced our arrival. That puts us squarely in the ad-lib phase now. We need to find Shakir before he gets away.”
They rumbled up the main tunnel, tangled with a second group of Shakir’s men and spotted Shakir himself outside the control room. Kurt opened fire, not to kill him but to force him back into the control center, hoping to trap him. He hadn’t counted on a second exit.
Pulling up in front of the control room, Kurt jumped down with the Beretta submachine gun in hand. As he entered the room, he saw two engineers cowering underneath a computer console, but no sign of Shakir.
“Chicken has flown the coop,” he shouted to Joe. “He must have gone out the back door.”
“I’ll see if we can loop around and cut him off,” Joe replied.
Kurt gave him the go signal and watched as the AS-42 rumbled forward. To prevent Shakir from doubling back, he moved into the control room. He kept his weapon on the engineers and paused beside the lit console. On the screens above it, he could see the outline of North Africa, along with the network of pumps and pipelines Shakir was using to drain the aquifer.
“English?” Kurt asked.
One of them nodded. Kurt pointed the Beretta their way. “Time to turn it off.”
When they held still, Kurt fired a burst of shells into the floor beside them. Both men hopped up and went to the console. They began typing and throwing switches. Kurt was familiar with pumps and pressure gauges, they were present on every salvage job, reclamation project and ship he’d ever been stationed on. Studying the layout, he instantly saw an opportunity.
“I changed my mind,” he said. “Don’t turn them off.”
The men looked at him.
“Reverse them.”
“We don’t know what’ll happen if we reverse the pumps,” one man said.
“Let’s find out,” Kurt said, raising the submachine gun a fraction to enforce the order.
The technicians went back to work and Kurt watched with satisfaction as the flow rates listed on the screen diminished, with the numbers for pumps along the Nile dropping first to zero and then, after a brief pause, increasing again, this time highlighted in red with a minus sign next to them.
A short time later, arrows on each pipeline flipped and showed water going the opposite way, from the Nile back through the pipes and — Kurt hoped — back down into the aquifers.
While Kurt was in the control room, Joe urged the AS-42 onward. The old warhorse moved slowly. The engine was fine, but the tires were mush: dry-rotted and completely flat. It felt like he was driving on marshmallows. Still, they didn’t need to break any speed records down there. Just move slowly and take out all resistance, which Renata was doing with deadly efficiency with the Breda heavy machine gun.
At a T-junction in the tunnel, he began a turn and the AS-42 wallowed around the corner. Down the passageway, several of Shakir’s men had set up shop behind one of the ATVs. They opened fire, riddling the front of the Sahariana.
Joe threw the transmission into reverse and backed out of the firing line. The nose of the vehicle was punched with bullet holes, but, fortunately, the engine was in the back.
“Get out one of those antitank shells,” he said to Renata.
Renata pulled out one of the small, grenade-sized explosive shells from an ammunition locker. They were supposed to be fired from a bazooka-like weapon, but none of the tubes they’d found seemed to be the right fit. Joe had brought them along anyway in case they needed to blow something up.
“What do you want me to do with it?” Renata asked.
“Fling it down the hall,” he shouted. “And then when I drive past and they’re busy shooting at me, you pop around the corner and shoot the explosive. You’ll have to hit it with one shot.”
“I don’t miss very often,” she said confidently.
“Good.”
She climbed out with the explosive in one hand and a Beretta submachine gun over her shoulder. Edging to the corner, she flipped the explosive down the adjacent tunnel toward Shakir’s men and pulled back.
Joe revved the engine and jammed the vehicle back into gear. It surged forward, riding unevenly on its damaged tires. It passed the top of the T-junction in a second as a half dozen shots still came his way. Joe ducked instinctively. When he passed the far wall, he looked back.
Renata had moved, as planned, aimed and fired. A deafening boom thundered through the cave, hurling up a cloud of dust. When it cleared, the ATV down the hall was on its side. Several men lay around it, the others were gone. It seemed as if Shakir and his men were running for the hills.
“I’m going for the lab,” Renata shouted. “To see if there’s anything else useful there.”
She ran down the hall, covered face to foot in brown dust. It was quite effective camouflage.
Joe watched her go, got the AS-42 back into position and rolled down the tunnel, driving with one hand and firing the Breda with the other hand anytime he spotted a group of Shakir’s men.
Kurt noticed something flashing on the screen. “What’s that?” he demanded.
“Elevator,” one of the techs said. He pointed beyond the side door. “Down that tunnel. It goes to the pump house up top.”
The display showed it descending from four hundred feet above them.
“Elevator?” Kurt muttered. “I wish someone would have told me about that. Can you stop it?”
The men shook their heads.
“I don’t see you two carrying weapons,” Kurt said. “So I’m going to let you go. If I were you, I’d take the first train out of here.”
The men got up, one of them tried to thank Kurt.
“Just go!” he shouted.
They took off down the hall, running toward the burial chamber and the access corridor. When Kurt was confident they wouldn’t turn around, he made his way toward the side exit.
He found Joe coming down the hall in the Italian armored car.
“New problem,” Kurt shouted, waving his friend down.
“What’s that?”
“There’s an elevator along this passageway.”
“Elevator?” Joe said.
“Apparently,” Kurt replied. “We need to take it out before the car gets down here to engineering.”
“Wouldn’t we want to use it?” Joe replied.
“Shakir’s men are using it. Reinforcements are coming down from the surface.”
“Gotcha,” Joe said.
Kurt went to climb in but stopped. “Where’s Renata?”
Joe pointed. “She went looking for the lab.”
“I’m going to catch up with her,” Kurt said. “Meet us down there. We seem to have these guys on the run.”
As Kurt ran off, Joe pressed the gas pedal down and moved deeper into the corridor, looking for the elevator. He really wasn’t interested in blasting apart the quickest way out, but if he had to, then that’s what he’d do.
59
Shakir and Hassan ran down the hall and came out into the large open room with the golden Sphinx, the ancient boat and the collection of sarcophaguses. As they ran past the boat, their feet splashed through an inch of water.
“The complex is flooding,” Shakir said.
“That makes no sense,” Hassan replied. “The pumps are still on. I can hear them.”
The water could be seen bubbling up in the low spots. Shakir knew exactly what had happened. “They’ve reversed the water flow. Instead of draining the aquifer, they’re pressurizing it.”
“If that’s true, we have a problem,” Hassan said. “This room was flooded when we found it. It will flood again. We have to get out of here.”