King's Crusade (Seventeen) Read online

  The Hunton’s owner had already filed the paperwork for his transit through the waterway. A hefty, undeclared fee to personal contacts on either side of the canal also ensured that the powerboat would make the normal twelve-hour trip in less than half a day.

  After notifying port control of their approach on the Hunton’s radio, Alexa slowed the vessel and joined the northbound shipping convoy.

  The transit up the waterway was smoother than their passage through the Gulf of Suez, even with the powerboat doing three times the canal’s recommended top speed, a fact that was blatantly overlooked by the Egyptian soldiers posted at regular intervals along the banks. The fields lining the west of the canal were a vivid green under the harsh winter sun. On the eastern side, the yellow dunes of the Sinai Peninsula occasionally disappeared behind episodic sandstorms.

  They went through the Great Bitter Lake before Ismailia, passed under the Suez Canal Bridge at El Qantara, and reached Port Said shortly after midday. Alexa guided the boat into the marina on the eastern bank of the canal and docked it in the empty berth assigned to the Hunton’s owner.

  A sigh left Jackson’s lips when he stepped onto the jetty. ‘Man, I’m glad that’s over,’ he muttered under his breath.

  She finished securing the powerboat and took her bag off him wordlessly. They turned and headed down the road to the ferry terminal, where they caught the next service to Port Said.

  As she leaned against the port bulwark of the ship and examined the looming western bank of the canal, Alexa was conscious of Jackson hovering close to her, his stance strangely protective. She was only vaguely aware of the local men’s stares. Although form-fitting, the dark cargo pants, combat boots, army T-shirt, and leather jacket she wore were comfortable, utilitarian in their design, and helped mask her custom-made body holster. She saw no need for false modesty unless it was crucial to the mission at hand. Besides, she could count the number of dresses she owned on one hand. All of them had been ridiculously expensive gifts from her godfather.

  They landed at the port terminal shortly and were making their way through the crush of bodies when the back of her neck suddenly prickled.

  Alexa froze. Her head snapped around. She caught a glimpse of a short, bald, saffron-robed figure before it melted in the crowd.

  She stood perfectly still as she scanned the sea of unfamiliar faces. She was certain it was the same man she had spied close to Jackson’s apartment in Boston.

  The Harvard professor stopped a few steps ahead and looked at her curiously over his shoulder. ‘What is it?’

  Alexa hesitated. ‘It’s—nothing.’ She filed the event under ‘things to investigate further’ and joined him.

  A trip to the administrative offices of the port authority revealed that the Juzur Tawilah had stopped briefly at a cargo handling yard less than a mile south of their current location, before proceeding up the canal to the fishing harbor. They left the building and made their way along the busy streets of the city to the address they had been given. It turned out to be a large depot in the middle of a row of similar constructions, all of which looked out over the water. The place was bustling with activity.

  ‘Now what?’ said Jackson. They stood in the shadow of a shipping container and studied the warehouse two hundred feet down and across the road from their position.

  Alexa observed the layout of the yard with a thoughtful frown. ‘We wait until nightfall.’

  Jackson stiffened. ‘You mean, we’re breaking and entering again?’ he countered, staring at her.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied without compunction.

  A sigh left his lips. ‘I worry about how easily you said that,’ he murmured.

  They headed into town and found a quiet cafe a short distance from the harbor. Alexa called Reznak and updated him with the recent developments. She omitted her sightings of the mysterious, saffron-robed figure.

  ‘Boyko Dragov?’ said Reznak.

  She could picture the frown on her godfather’s face. ‘Yes. The techs didn’t have anything on him,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I’ll see what I can dig up,’ he said before disconnecting.

  She sat back and closed her eyes while Jackson got on the phone to his contacts in the universities and museums in North Africa and the Middle East. No one had heard of any tombs being dug up in the Eastern Desert in the last two months.

  ‘The people who did this will not be using normal channels to move the stolen goods.’ Alexa opened her eyes and looked calmly at the Harvard professor’s troubled face.

  ‘I don’t get it. If they’re not intending to display the artifacts, then what’re they planning to do with them?’ said Jackson testily. ‘Dispose of them on the black market?’

  ‘Reznak would have heard of it by now if that were the case,’ she said dismissively.

  They returned to the warehouse at eight that evening. The shipping yard was quieter than it had been that afternoon, and they easily avoided detection in the darkness. Alexa completed her second perimeter check of the day before joining Jackson in the shadows of the adjoining depot.

  ‘There’s a light on at the back. The place looks dead otherwise.’ She pulled on a pair of black leather cross training gloves, removed the Sigs from their holsters, and screwed a pair of suppressors on the ends.

  Jackson watched her warily while she clipped magazines to her waist. ‘What are you intending to do with those?’

  ‘Shoot anyone who gets in our way,’ said Alexa. She removed El Bashir’s Beretta from her jacket and handed it to him. He took the weapon gingerly. ‘Do you know how to handle a gun?’

  ‘Of course!’ he exclaimed with an affronted air. ‘I grew up in Montana.’

  Her frown deepened. ‘When was the last time you fired one?’

  ‘1992,’ Jackson replied promptly.

  Alexa stared at him stonily. ‘That’s eighteen years ago.’

  He shrugged. ‘So?’

  Her fingers flexed unconsciously on her Sigs. She gritted her teeth and spent the next minute showing him how to use the Beretta. ‘If the bullets start to fly, stick behind me,’ she warned him over her shoulder as they made their way across the alley to the warehouse. Jackson grunted something unintelligible in response.

  The side exit to the building was closed. Alexa picked the padlock, drew the external bolt, and carefully pulled the door open. There was a faint creak of metal on metal as it moved on its hinges. She crossed the narrow threshold into the dark space beyond and closed the door behind Jackson.

  They stood still while their eyes adjusted to the gloom. Shapes slowly materialized in front of them. Rows of shipping crates and containers appeared, soaring on pallets along a series of wide, intersecting aisles that ran the length and width of the warehouse. Suspended high above was a bridge crane on rails.

  The building was as silent as a tomb.

  Alexa turned and headed quietly toward the back of the warehouse. Jackson fell into step behind her. A dim light soon filtered around the hulking towers of boxes. Faint voices followed. Though she could not make out the words, the general tone indicated that an argument was in progress.

  They had barely covered another dozen yards when the sound of a single gunshot boomed across the cavernous interior of the warehouse.

  Jackson flinched. His right foot collided with a pile of metal pipes and sent them crashing to the concrete floor. The resulting clatter was almost as deafening as the gun blast.

  Alexa stared at him.

  ‘Oops,’ he whispered with a contrite grimace.

  Heavy footsteps rose on the other side of a wall of crates.

  ‘Who’s there?’ a thick male voice demanded.

  The man’s accent was distinctly eastern European. As Alexa pondered whether the voice belonged to the elusive Boyko Dragov, another sound reac
hed her ears above the noise of the approaching footfall.

  She whipped around, shoved Jackson against the crates, and shot the figure creeping up behind them. The dead man hit the ground with a dull sound, gun falling from limp fingers.

  Jackson gaped at the body on the floor. Before he could utter a single word, Alexa caught another flash of movement above them. She leapt into a back flip and narrowly avoided the spray of bullets that peppered the ground where she had been standing. She landed solidly on her feet, fired a defensive volley at the men atop the crates, grabbed a stunned Jackson by his arm, and dragged him into the closest aisle.

  Loud thuds rose from the roof of the shipping containers that lined the right wall of the passage. Excitement fluttered through her. She smiled grimly. Their invisible assailants were keeping track.

  A junction appeared in the gloom ahead. Several figures stepped into view.

  Alexa pushed Jackson to the floor, jumped, and high-kicked the closest man in the chest. He stumbled back into a wall of boxes with a grunt, the gun in his hand clattering to the ground. She swept the weapon out of the way with one foot, shot the second man raising his gun to her left, and delivered a hooking knee strike to the thigh of the third man to her right. There was a loud snap as his femur shattered. He screamed and fell. A savage grin flashed across her lips. She stepped up to him and dropped her leg in an axe kick that broke his right wrist. A strangled gurgle escaped his throat, and he curled up in a ball on the floor.

  Bullets thudded into the crates next to her head.

  Alexa dropped on her back, raised both Sigs, and fired rapidly at the shadows on the top of the containers. Two men landed on the ground with loud, fleshy thumps and lay still. There was a faint noise behind her. She rolled to one knee and leveled a gun at the figure standing above her.

  It was Jackson. He inhaled sharply when the tip of the Sig froze an inch from his left eye.

  She stood. ‘Don’t do that,’ she said steadily. ‘I could have shot you.’

  Jackson opened his mouth to speak. Before he could utter a single word, someone gripped him around the neck in a chokehold. He gasped.

  Alexa looked at the figure behind the Harvard professor. It was the man she had kicked in the chest.

  Jackson grabbed his assailant’s arm with one hand and elbowed him in the stomach. His aggressor grunted and maintained his hold. The Harvard professor stepped back and stamped down on the man’s foot. The latter groaned and sagged, his arm slipping a fraction from his victim’s neck. Jackson turned and punched him squarely in the jaw.

  The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the floor.

  Jackson coughed and rubbed his neck while he gazed at his unconscious assailant. ‘Were you having fun watching?’ he said, glancing at her accusingly.

  Alexa shrugged. ‘I wanted to see what you could do,’ she said. ‘Your uppercut could do with some tighten—’

  A shadow blocked out the light coming from the rear of the warehouse. Jackson stared at something behind her. His eyes widened. Acting on instinct, she dropped to the floor and rolled toward him.

  Chapter Six

  A fist the size of a lead sewer pipe arced through the air where her head had been a second before and smashed into the boxes at the side of the aisle. Wood splintered and shattered. The tower of crates trembled. Alexa rose to her feet and looked at the giant figure filling the width of the alley.

  ‘Is it me, or does this guy look like the Hulk?’ said Jackson dully at her side.

  She silently assessed the man facing them. About six-foot-seven and built like a tank, the stranger moved with deceptive silence for his size. His neck was almost as wide as her thigh, and thick, corded muscles bulged under his tight-fitting sweater and linen trousers. Small, dark eyes were set in a coarse, pockmarked face. He watched them dispassionately from under a pair of thinning eyebrows.

  ‘Boyko Dragov?’ said Alexa.

  The man’s expression did not change. ‘Who wants to know?’

  She had spent enough decades in fighting rings to know that the giant was pumped up on steroids. Her gaze dropped to his torso. She raised a Sig and fired four shots in rapid succession. The bullets struck Dragov’s chest with a series of dull thumps. The force of the impacts did not even rock him on his heels. The giant man blinked and looked down curiously at the holes in his sweater.

  Alexa holstered the guns and shrugged her jacket off her shoulders. ‘Stay back,’ she told Jackson, her eyes never leaving Dragov. Anticipation of the fight buzzed along her limbs. ‘I want him alive.’

  The Harvard professor gazed at her, slack jawed. ‘You just shot him!’

  ‘He’s wearing body armor,’ she retorted.

  Jackson stared at the gray material visible through the tears in the giant’s top. ‘Would it have hurt to ask?’ he said, glancing at her. ‘I mean, look at him. The guy is seriously pissed!’

  Dragov’s thick lips parted in a feral smile. Alexa flexed her gloved fingers, bent her arms slightly at the elbows, turned her body sideways, and moved her legs into a fighting stance.

  The giant took a step forward and swung his right hand around in a hook punch. She didn’t even attempt to block the attack. Instead, she slipped deftly to the side, twisted, and delivered a powerful back kick with her left foot. Her heel struck the inner side of Dragov’s left knee at the same time that his fist passed a good foot from her head and pulverized a wooden crate.

  Dragov looked at her over his shoulder. His smile broadened.

  The kick would have incapacitated an ordinary man. Alexa darted back half a dozen steps and scrutinized her opponent. Although Dragov was strong, his size would undoubtedly limit his speed. A shadow above his head caught her eyes.

  The giant turned and lumbered steadily in her direction.

  Alexa ran toward him, kicked up against a container on her right, pushed off the crate on the opposite side of the aisle to gain more altitude, spun in the air, and aimed a spinning reverse kick at Dragov’s head.

  Her right foot connected with his jaw with a loud snap. The impact jarred her ankle and momentarily stopped him in his tracks. As she dropped toward the ground, his hand snaked out with unearthly speed and grabbed her left thigh in an iron grip. He swung her body up and across the alley as if he was swatting a fly.

  Alexa saw the approaching pallet of crates, raised her arms to cover up her head, and rotated her body slightly.

  Despite her defensive posture, she struck the boxes with enough force to cause her teeth to vibrate in her jaws. A gush of blood slid across her tongue as she inadvertently bit the inside of her cheek.

  A savage thrill flooded her senses at the same time that a surge of adrenaline spiked through her body. It had been some time since she had experienced an emotion in battle. She grabbed the edge of the crate above her head, twisted, and grinned fiercely over her shoulder at Dragov.

  A glimmer of confusion dawned on the giant’s face.

  Alexa knew what he saw in her eyes. It was utter fearlessness overlaid with a brutal determination to win.

  There was a sharp cry below them as someone rushed Dragov and hit him on the leg. She looked down. Jackson had found a metal pipe from somewhere. He swung it back to attack the giant again.

  Dragov reached down, closed his fingers around Jackson’s throat, and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. The Harvard professor choked. The pipe dropped from his grasp. A look of alarm clouded his face as he pulled and punched in vain at the giant’s arm.

  Alexa jabbed her right leg into a straight foot thrust at Dragov’s face and felt his nose give beneath the heel of her boot. His grip momentarily loosened on her thigh.

  It was enough for her to pull free. She kicked against the wall of boxes, back-flipped across the alley, and landed against the side of a crate. She climbed nimbly to
the top of the tower of containers.

  Dragov turned slowly, a trickle of blood oozing out of his left nostril.

  Jackson’s face had gone an unhealthy shade of purple in the giant man’s grip. He managed to turn his head and stared at her with a desperate, wide-eyed expression. His mouth formed the word ‘Run’.

  An unfamiliar emotion stabbed through Alexa at the look in Jackson’s ice-blue eyes. She took a few steps back, ran to the edge of the container, and jumped. Her body arced through the air and her hands closed around the loop of the iron chain she had seen hanging from the bridge crane. Gravity brought her down on Dragov’s head. She landed on his shoulders, dropped to wrap her thighs around his neck, and twisted the chain under his jaw.

  Dragov’s hand opened and he released Jackson. The Harvard professor fell to the ground with a thud. A series of hoarse, rasping coughs left his lips and he audibly sucked in air.

  The giant’s fingers closed on Alexa’s thighs. He dug deep into her flesh and tried to throw her off. She ignored the bone crushing pain, smiled viciously, and tightened her hold on the chain. He let out a grunt and stumbled back a step.

  Alexa leaned down and brought her lips to his ear. ‘Where are the tombs?’ she demanded coldly.

  Dragov’s grip switched to the chain. He pulled at it with all his might. Alexa felt a couple of links slide through her fingers. She increased her grasp on the thick metal.

  She was stronger than a human and stronger still than most immortals. It was the first time she had met someone who could prove to be more powerful than her.

  There was a bang and a loud thunk next to her head. A splinter from a bullet-damaged crate slashed across her cheek. She looked irritably over her shoulder.

  Jackson was already up and moving toward the man he had knocked out earlier, and who now stood with a firearm aimed at her head. The gunman’s finger moved on the trigger a split second after Jackson tackled him to the ground. The bullet whistled through the air, entered the soft flesh of her inner arm, exited through the other side, and slammed into a metal container. Blood dripped onto her hand.