“Give them the fastball,” Joe said. “Don’t mess around with the slider or the curve.”
Kurt grinned and stood slowly, half expecting to get shot the instant he came out from behind the overturned car.
He straightened up and looked Shakir in the eye. Renata was down on her knees in front of him.
“Your friend as well,” Shakir shouted.
With his hands behind his head as requested, Kurt glanced down at Joe and then back to Shakir. “His leg is broken. He can’t stand.”
“Tell him to hop!”
Joe nodded. He was ready to fire.
“Tell him yourself!” Kurt shouted. He cocked his right arm and hurled the first vial toward the stone sarcophagus Shakir was standing on. It just missed and splashed harmlessly in the water, skipping like a stone.
Shakir watched the projectile fly past and flinched, expecting an explosion. When it didn’t come, he raised his weapon and fired at Kurt.
Kurt had already switched the second vial into his right hand and flung it, sidearm this time. It hit the stone lid of the pharaoh’s coffin right underneath Shakir’s feet. The vial shattered, the contents of the bottle directed upward by the curved edge of the coffin.
Shakir was covered in the Mist and he staggered back, his vision blurring. He knew instantly what had happened, but it mattered little: the Mist was taking him. He fired once more in Kurt’s direction and fell back as the recoil knocked him over and into the water.
At the other end of the wrecked vehicle, Joe had popped up and braced the heavy machine gun on the front fender. He opened fire at the target on the Sphinx. The report of the Breda boomed through the burial chamber like the sound of a cannon.
The soldier in position on the Sphinx pulled back behind the edge of the statue as the first shots flew wide. But the next burst cut into the statue’s flared headdress, punching holes right through it and out the other side.
The soldier realized his mistake too late. The Sphinx was made of plaster and covered with gold leaf and semiprecious stones. The weapon Joe was using fired shells designed to penetrate armor. They blasted through the headdress like they were punching holes in paper.
He dropped to his knees as one of them hit him. The next hit finished him and he fell to the side and slid off the back of the Sphinx. He crashed into the water and came to the surface, floating facedown.
62
Kurt glanced around, listening. The chamber had gone silent. The shooting was over. And then a disturbance near the Sphinx stirred the water as one of the crocodiles knifed down the lane, snapped its jaws on the dead soldier’s body and rolled over in a swirling death spiral.
“Better get Renata,” Joe said.
Kurt was already moving, grabbing a gas mask from the wrecked vehicle, pulling it over his face and cinching it tight.
Even having spent half his life in water, Kurt was always amazed how hard it was to run once the water level reached above one’s knees. He charged forward and found Renata floating and unconscious. He grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder and climbed up on the stone coffin.
From there, he could see the dilemma. The hungry crocodiles had made their way out of the pit. They were moving around the shallow waters now filling the burial chamber in search of a meal. He counted four, but that didn’t mean he was seeing all of them.
Behind him, Joe had climbed onto the side of the AS-42 and was safe for the moment. But the water was still rising. Seeing no danger between them, Kurt waved Joe over.
With a gas mask on, Joe trudged to the nearest sarcophagus and climbed up. From there, he hopped from one to the next until he stood with Kurt.
“Biting dilemma we find ourselves in,” Joe said.
Kurt could hear the humor through the mask, though it was muffled. “Let’s hope not,” he said.
On the water, Shakir was floating faceup, bobbing in four feet of water. Right beside him was the last vial of Black Mist.
“Cover me,” Kurt said.
He hopped down and waded toward Shakir and the glass container with the toxin inside it. He knew they could use both to their advantage. Shakir might even be more important if they could get him to talk.
He snatched the vial out of the water and grabbed Shakir with his other hand. Towing Shakir, he was moving even slower than before.
“Hurry!” Joe shouted, raising the Breda and firing over Kurt’s head.
Kurt tried to hurry, but buoyancy made it difficult to get any traction and, as he tried to run, his feet slipped. Trudging forward, he reached the sarcophagus, hopped out of the water and tried to pull Shakir up onto it.
A bulge of water surged toward them again. A twelve-foot croc appeared and closed its jaws on Shakir’s legs. Kurt’s grasp was overcome in an instant and the croc whipped Shakir’s body backward and then dragged him under.
The water churned green and red with foam as several of the other beasts fought over the body, and then one of them swam off with the others chasing.
“Guess he’s going to meet the god of the afterlife now,” Joe said.
“Something tells me Osiris isn’t going to like what he’s done with the place,” Kurt replied.
“Not that he didn’t deserve it,” Joe said, “but there goes our last real chance to find the antidote.”
Kurt stood, scanning the water that lapped at the edge of the coffin beneath his feet. “If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up following him,” he said. “This little island isn’t going to protect us. I’ve seen crocs in the Amazon jump five feet out of the water to snatch birds from a tree. I’ve seen worse at the edges of watering holes, where they took down big game.”
Joe agreed. “What do you say we leave now while they’re eating?”
“I’ll carry Renata. You carry that machine gun. We’ll cut straight across to the ramp and then back out toward the Osiris plant. I’ll dump the contents of the vial out behind us. You shoot at anything that gets in front of us. And we go as fast as we can.”
“Right,” Joe said. “I have a feeling that last part is key.”
Kurt lifted Renata up over his shoulder and wrapped his left arm around her legs. He held the vial in his right hand.
“Looks clear,” Joe said.
Just to be sure, he fired a few shots into the water ahead of them. He jumped in and began wading forward. Joe was certain he’d be eaten alive before he got halfway to the tunnel. He fired at something to the left. It was just a shoe. He swung to the right but saw nothing.
Kurt jumped in behind him and flipped the top of the vial open with his thumb and began spritzing the contents out behind them, swishing the water as he went.
He turned as Joe fired again. This time, something raced off through the water in the opposite direction. Kurt watched as it curled around behind them and began an attack run.
Looking back, he saw the beast knifing in. “Joe!” he shouted.
The Breda sounded off once again — two bullets fired — and then it jammed. The crocodile continued forward and crashed into Kurt’s legs.
The impact knocked him backward, but its jaws never opened, and when Kurt got back to the surface, he saw it floating away like a harmless toy in the pool. Whether it was the effect of the Black Mist or the accuracy of Joe’s shooting, Kurt would never know.
Joe reached the ramp ahead of him, but, in seconds, all three of them were high and dry.
They rested for a moment, yet the water was still rising.
“Let’s go home,” Kurt said.
Joe cleared the Breda and they made their way down the access tunnel, past the mummified frogs, to the Anubis room with the pipeline and the tram. One car remained and they climbed in, powered it up and began the ride back to the Osiris plant.