Journey of the Pharaohs Read online

  “Just watch out for sheep,” Kurt replied. “I’ve no interest in radiator-grilled lamb for dinner.”

  Joe laughed, but it was no joke. Scotland has millions of sheep, far more sheep than it has people. Out here in the Highlands, the ratio is perhaps a thousand-to-one.

  “The rain is doing us one favor,” Joe said. “The flocks are huddling under the trees.”

  Kurt gazed down the hill. Masses of what looked like dirty clouds huddled around the base of the old-growth trees.

  Beyond the flocks of sheep lay the Highlands road, a pair of tracks grooved into the earth by car and truck tires, with plenty of green growing between the grooves. Dark and muddy in color, the straight road stood out against the pale mossy hillside. Joe began to angle toward it.

  “Hold off,” Kurt said. “Keep to the high ground.”

  Joe stayed up on the top of the hill, running parallel to the road. Looking down toward it, he saw a pair of headlights cutting through the twilight. “You realize we’re actually heading someone off at the pass. First time in history this has actually happened.”

  “Afraid not,” Kurt said. “They’re turning.”

  “Did they see us?”

  “I don’t think so,” Kurt said. “They’re heading toward the ruins of that castle the bartender mentioned.”

  Joe slowed down to a crawl. “I suppose you want to go down there and find out what they’re stopping for?”

  “That’s why we came here.”

  Joe leaned on the wheel, looking over at Kurt. “You realize we don’t have any weapons.”

  “We have surprise on our side.”

  Joe turned the wheel and began heading down the hill. “Last I checked, surprise doesn’t fire any bullets. Or block them.”

  “I know that,” he said. “But we have an investment to protect. We did a lot of work to save the captain in the first place, I’d rather not have all that go to waste.”

  Joe sighed. “Your logic is—”

  “Impeccable?”

  “I was going for the opposite,” Joe said.

  Joe brought them near enough to the trees that the clouds of huddled wool began to look like individual sheep. Stopping nearby, he shut the engine off. “We’ll go on foot from here.”

  Kurt was already opening the door.

  Joe got out of the truck, avoiding the huddled sheep and moving around back to where Kurt had dropped the tailgate.

  Kurt had agreed with Joe’s comment about having no weapons and figured they’d better improvise. He dug into the back of the truck and pulled out a pair of telescoping aluminum poles, which were normally used to attach cameras and sensors to a small ROV.

  They were lightweight, sturdy and could extend to four feet in length, but they weren’t exactly two-handed swords.

  “Great,” Joe said. “This will come in handy if I need to take a selfie.”

  Now armed, they moved across the road and down onto the grounds of the old castle, quickly reaching the outer wall. Slipping through a broken section, they closed in on the motionless van. It had been parked near an archway that led into the castle. Once upon a time, there had been an iron gate, but it had long since rusted away.

  “Looks empty,” Joe whispered. “Maybe they switched vehicles. That’s standard practice for a getaway.”

  Kurt crept up toward the van, confirmed it was unoccupied, then studied the ground. “I don’t see any other tire tracks. But there’s footprints leading into the castle. Maybe they have another vehicle parked on the far side. Let’s see if we can catch them before they get there.”

  Kurt moved against the wall, leaned his head around the corner and looked into the castle for any sign of movement. Seeing none, they went inside.

  * * *

  —

  On the other side of the castle, the men who’d abducted the captain brought him out into the courtyard. Kicking him in the back of the legs, they dropped him to his knees. One man held him down while Slocum stood over him with the pistol to his head execution-style.

  No shot was fired. Another man appeared, coming out of the shadows of the castle. He had dark hair, a heavy brow and a large nose. He wore a turtleneck and black jeans.

  “Are you Barlow?” the captain pleaded.

  “You’ll never meet Barlow,” the man in the turtleneck said. “I’m Robson. I’ll decide your fate. Where is our merchandise?”

  “It’s on the boat,” the captain said. “That’s what I tried to tell these idiots. It’s still there.”

  “And what about Vincennes?”

  “He’s out there with it,” the captain said. “You can go see him, if you want to pay your respects.”

  Robson nodded a quick signal to one of his men. A kick came flying in and hit the captain in the face. He went down and tried to cover up.

  “Pick him up,” Robson said nonchalantly.

  The two enforcers lifted the captain, trying to avoid the blood dripping from his nose and mouth.

  “The next kick will be to a more vital part of your body,” Robson said. “Do I make myself clear?”

  The captain nodded. “I’m telling the truth,” he said. “I tried to get it out, but Vincennes wouldn’t help. He wouldn’t come with me and he wouldn’t leave it behind.”

  A hint of disappointment crossed Robson’s face. “Not bloody likely,” he said. “But we know there was another bidder. Did someone contact you? Did you kill Vincennes and divert to this little speck on the map to give us the slip?”

  Robson spoke with a London accent—East End, maybe. He used fancy words, but his voice betrayed him. He was just another heavy.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “For money.”

  The captain looked up, his blackened eye and bleeding face defiant. “Running my ship aground doesn’t sound very profitable, does it?”

  This time Robson rushed forward and delivered a kick to the captain’s midsection himself. “You could buy a fleet of fishing trawlers with what you’ve lost,” he snapped, “with enough cash left over to purchase a small country.”

  The captain looked at Robson in shock. Only now did Robson believe his innocence.

  “It’s still on the ship,” the captain said once more. “Just wait for the storm to pass and you’ll be able to get it. All you need are a few good divers.”

  Robson looked at Slocum, who shook his head. “The hull is already breaking up. Even if it wasn’t, this place will be overrun with investigators and police once the storm clears. We know that.”

  Before Robson could make a decision, another man appeared on the wall above. He’d been hiding among the old weathered stones watching the road with an infrared scope. “We have company. A couple of men on foot.”

  “Where did they come from?” Robson said.

  “I couldn’t tell you,” the man replied. “The road has been clear.”

  Slocum reacted instantly, looking alarmed. “They might be the troublemakers from the tavern. They tried to stop us from taking him.”

  “Members of the crew?”

  “No,” Slocum said. “The bartender said they’re from some American government agency.”

  Robson stared incredulously. He wondered if Slocum even thought about what he’d just said. “Men from some American agency tried to stop you from bringing the captain here and you just decided to tell me this now?”

  “They’re not involved,” Slocum said.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because it has nothing to do with them,” Slocum said. “And because Americans never tread lightly. If they were involved, they wouldn’t send a couple of men who are good with their fists to deal with it. And those men certainly wouldn’t announce who they were to the barkeep at some local tavern. It’s a coincidence.”

  Robson shook his head. “Time for me to go.”
>
  “What about us?” Slocum asked.

  “You stay here and figure out if these Americans are a bloody coincidence or something more.” He turned to go, waving for the man on the wall to join him.

  Slocum and his men held their positions. They hadn’t been invited.

  “What about him?” Slocum asked, pointing to the wounded captain.

  Robson was already putting some distance between himself and the group, heading toward the opposite side of the courtyard. “Shoot him quickly. He doesn’t need to suffer. He’s an incompetent fool, not a traitor.”

  “And the men from the bar?”

  “They’re your problem,” Robson insisted. “But I wouldn’t let them live if I was you.”

  With that, Robson climbed through a gap in the far wall and disappeared.

  * * *

  —

  Kurt and Joe were deep inside the ruined castle when they heard a shot. A single report that echoed down the corridor.

  Judging by the echo, Kurt chose a direction. “This way.”

  Crossing a room knee-deep with muddy water, they came to a partition that had crumbled into a pile of rubble. Beyond it lay an open courtyard surrounded by ivy-covered walls.

  Kurt moved to the edge of the room and crouched among the fallen stones. Out in the courtyard he saw the captain, lying on the grass, bleeding from a stomach wound. Two men stood over him, their backs to Kurt and Joe.

  Kurt gripped the aluminum pole tightly. Every instinct in his body told him to rush out and attack while the men had their backs turned, but Kurt’s mind worked with a cool efficiency. The more intense the moment, the colder it ran.

  He pulled Joe down next to him. “There were three of them.”

  “We can’t just leave him out there,” Joe said. “He’s going to bleed to death pretty quick.”

  “If they wanted him dead, he’d have a head wound,” Kurt said. “They’re using him as bait. We need to split up. You find the high ground. I’ll run the gauntlet. When the third man shows his face, take him out. Preferably, before he gets a clean shot at me.”

  Joe nodded. “Give me thirty seconds.”

  As Joe backtracked, Kurt held his position and glanced at his orange-faced Doxa watch before returning his attention to the courtyard beyond.

  The men outside remained focused on the captain, taunting him and kicking him from time to time, but neither of them turned Kurt’s way.

  As the second hand swept past the six o’clock mark, Kurt took a slow, deep breath, gripped the aluminum pole like a javelin and prepared to run.

  * * *

  —

  Joe moved quickly, focusing more on speed and less on stealth. He found the opening in the ceiling he’d passed earlier, scaled the wall and pulled himself up to the next level. The seconds ticked past.

  Sixteen . . . seventeen . . . eighteen . . .

  On the second level, he discovered several ways to reach the outside world, but getting back to the courtyard was a little more difficult.

  Twenty . . . twenty-one . . .

  He climbed out through what had once been a window and found himself on the outer wall, exactly where he’d hoped to be.

  Twenty-four . . . twenty-five . . . twenty-six . . .

  Moving along the wall, Joe came within sight of the courtyard. He saw the two men and the captain down below. If there was a shooter set up to take Kurt out, the man would have to be on Joe’s level. The best position was the ruined cupola of the tower to the right.

  Twenty-eight . . . twenty-nine . . . thirty . . .

  Should have said forty seconds, Joe mused to himself. Joe rushed toward the tower, running along the ancient stones with his arms held out for balance. He reached the cupola just as Kurt charged toward the two men in the courtyard.

  At that moment a pair of hands holding a pistol in a two-handed grip appeared from inside the tower. Joe swung his aluminum weapon, bringing it down on the barrel, just as the gun discharged.

  The shot hit behind Kurt, nipped at his heels. The men in the courtyard turned only to be clotheslined by Kurt throwing his body sideways and slamming into both of them at full speed.

  Joe saw no more of the fight down below. He was fully engaged in a battle of his own. He’d knocked the pistol downward but hadn’t jarred it free.

  With hands that had to be stinging, the man wielding the pistol turned Joe’s way to fire. This time Joe used the pole like a spear, jamming it into the man’s forearm and pinning it and the weapon it held to the wall.

  The gun discharged again, firing a shot into the stone wall. The recoil and ricochet shook the gun loose, but as the pistol fell the man spun free, pulled a knife and slashed at Joe’s face.

  Joe ducked, caught the man with his shoulder and rammed him into the wall. Expecting the knife in his back at any minute, Joe shoved the man to the side and out over the edge of the broken wall. He flailed as he fell, dropping ten feet, and landed on his back in the muddy grass.

  He was banged-up but not dead or even out of action. And Joe realized he’d just created a three-on-one, with Kurt at a severe disadvantage.

  He grabbed the pistol off the stone floor and found that the barrel had been damaged. Tossing the gun aside, he prepared to jump. As he stepped up on the wall, multiple shots rang out. They came so fast, Joe couldn’t count them.

  Below, he saw Kurt hit the deck. The three men he was fighting fell in rapid succession. None of them moved again.

  * * *

  —

  Well aware of his exposure, and quite surprised to be alive and uninjured, Kurt crouched low and looked for the source of the gunfire. He found it on the upper wall as someone in an olive raincoat emerged from an archer’s perch.

  The figure pulled back the coat’s hood, revealing a face with high Anglo-Saxon cheekbones, smoldering eye shadow—now slightly smudged by the rain—and a tightly wound ponytail of shimmering flaxen hair.

  Kurt recognized her immediately. Morgan Manning.

  Chapter 9

  Kurt stood there in the pouring rain, surrounded by the fallen men, as Morgan Manning picked her way through the jumbled stones of the wall and made her way down to the courtyard.

  Jumping onto the grass, she holstered the pistol beneath her raincoat and walked to where Kurt was standing by the captain. “Tell me he’s still alive?”

  “Sorry,” Kurt said. “We were too late.”

  The captain was dead. By the look of it, he’d been dead before Kurt and Joe arrived. All the shouting and kicking was just for show. Part of a trap that had almost worked.

  Morgan took a deep breath and shook her head. “Congratulations. You two have mucked up an operation that took months to arrange. Now, instead of suspects to interrogate, I have four dead bodies.”

  “‘Suspects to interrogate’?” Kurt said. “The news business must be rougher than I thought.”

  “That was obviously a cover story,” she said, “made necessary when you got involved. I needed your names, voiceprints and facial profiles to run background checks.”

  “I don’t recall you taking any photos,” Kurt said.

  “The voice recorder did it for me,” she said. “It contains a hidden camera. Between the photos and the registration of your truck, I was able to confirm your NUMA backgrounds and rule you out as anything but overzealous bystanders who, unfortunately, chose not to stand by.”

  “Is that why you shot at me?” Kurt said.

  She motioned toward the dead men. “I shot around you.”

  “Not here,” Kurt said. “Back at the tavern. In the parking lot. It had to be you. Shots came from a high position. These men were at ground level and busy trying to get out of there.”

  She pursed her lips, pausing, before offering a reply. Finally, she nodded. “Very observant. For the record, I shot well ahead of you, into the mud. That
way, you’d see the danger, pull back and take cover.”

  “And when I was behind the wall?”

  “I had to keep you pinned down,” she said. “There was no danger. It’s a small-caliber round. Not enough to punch through brick. It allowed these men to get away and me to follow them. So I could find out who they were meeting with and take them into custody. An act you’ve now prevented.”

  Having made his way back to ground level, Joe arrived in the courtyard just as Morgan finished speaking. “Ruining the best-laid plans of mice and men happens to be a specialty of ours.” He took his jacket off and laid it over the captain. “Maybe we could have this discussion somewhere else. Like under what’s left of the roof.”

  Kurt had gotten so used to the rain, he barely noticed it. With the wind dying down, it was almost peaceful out there. Still, it made no sense to linger in the open. The three of them moved to the shelter of Clagmore Castle, where the conversation resumed.

  “Okay,” Kurt said, “you know who we are. But who are you? More importantly, what organization are you with? And I don’t want to hear that it’s UK News 1.”

  “Security Service,” she explained. “Section 5.”

  “MI5,” Kurt replied. “And these men?”

  “Part of an organization known as the Bloodstone Group.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” she said. “But, trust me, they’re very dangerous people.”

  Kurt didn’t need to trust her on that, he’d seen it. The bigger question remained—her presence in the mix. “And yet, you wanted to take them on by yourself?”

  “Not necessarily,” she said. “My team is standing by in Dunvegan. Our intel suggested a package would arrive there by sea yesterday. We’ve been watching everything and finding nothing. When I’d heard about the trawler mishap, I left the team behind and came up here on a hunch. Everything else happened so fast, there was no time to call for help. I wasn’t even sure the boat was connected to the operation until Slocum and his men showed up.”