Corsair

They found Linda and Alana a few minutes later, sitting with their backs against a wall sharing a protein bar.

“Not to keep repeating myself,” Linda said around a monstrous bite, “but we hit another dead end.”

“Eric and I think we found something.”

Moments later, Eric explained how the rock incline was a pivoting device, balanced in the middle, halfway up the ten-foot-high slope. The four got into position at the top of the ramp, standing side by side, their upper shoulders pressed to the ceiling.

“And go,” Linda ordered.

Their combined strength made stone grate against stone, and the incline began to flatten out. What had been a tiny crack yawned into the entrance of another chamber, one they could see was partially lined with mud bricks. Harder they pushed, groaning at the effort. The lever dipped on its fulcrum, so the ramp became perfectly flat.

“You know once we’re through, there’s no going back,” Linda grunted, fresh perspiration flushing her pixie face.

“I know,” Mark replied. “Push.”

The rock platform began to slope down into the bricked chamber beyond the tunnel, and they were able to shuffle back so they stood at its very lip, muscles quivering. They were only a couple feet above the sand-covered floor.

Linda judged they had enough clearance. “Ready? Go!”

The four leapt off the stone slab, tumbling into the dirt. Behind them the rock-slab lever crashed back to the ground with an echoing boom. There was a space under it like the nook beneath a flight of stairs. They could see the actual fulcrum was a thick length of log resting on notched-stone blocks. In the crease where the rock met the floor was another small wooden contraption whose purpose was unknown.

No sooner had the echoes died away than there came a new sound, a deep rumbling hiss from someplace above them. Eric flashed his light to the ceiling twenty feet over their heads just as sand began to pour out of dozens of manhole-sized openings.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mark said.

The wooden device was the trigger for a booby trap that activated when the pivot returned to its original position.

They cast their lights around the room. It was about ten feet square. Three of the walls were natural rock, part of the limestone cavern—one had the alcove for the lever device. The fourth wall was mud bricks laid with mortar between the joints. They ignored the rock and concentrated their attention on the brick. There were no holes or openings of any type, no handles or other kind of mechanism for getting out of the room.

In the five minutes they spent searching the wall, two feet of sand had built up on the floor in uneven piles that shifted and spread, with more dropping down from above. Linda pulled her knife from its sheath and pried at the mortar near one brick. It crumbled under the blade, and she was able to loosen the brick enough to work it out of the wall. Behind it was an identical layer. And, for all she knew, there were a half dozen more.

“We’ll have to try to move the lever from underneath,” Linda said. She accidentally backed into the stream of fine sand cascading from the ceiling and had to shake her head like a dog to dislodge the grit.

There were three holes directly in front of the alcove, and already it was half full of sand.

Eric countered, “With that much sand right in front we’ll be buried before we can push it open.”

“We’re trapped,” Alana said, panic making her voice crack. “What are we going to do?”

Stoney looked at Mark Murphy, and for the first time neither man had an answer.

THIRTY-ONE

TARIQ ASSAD THANKED HIS PILOT FRIEND AND STEPPED from the helicopter. He closed the flimsy door, gave it a tap, and scurried from under the whirling blades. The small service chopper lifted off the desert floor in a dust storm of its own creation. Assad had to turn his back to it and keep his eyes tightly closed.

As soon as the helo had lifted clear, he strode toward the team commander. The seething anger he had felt in the wake of the police raid back in Tripoli had been replaced with unmitigated joy. He embraced the terrorist leader, kissing him on both cheeks effusively.

“Ali, this is going to be a great day.” Assad grinned.

He’d radioed ahead that he was coming and saw with satisfaction that his orders had been carried out. The men were waiting at the rear cargo ramp of their Mi-8. When Assad waved, they gave him a rousing cheer. Their prisoner was bound to one of the bench seats, a rag tied over his mouth.

Ali noticed Assad’s look. “When we do not gag him, he shrieks like a woman. If he wasn’t such a supposed expert on Suleiman Al-Jama, blessings be upon him, I would put a bullet through that fat lout’s head and be done with it.”

“What a remarkable turn of events,” Assad said, Emile Bumford’s treatment all but forgotten. “A few hours ago, I was moments from being grabbed by the police, and now we will shortly discover the lost tomb.”