“What are you doing?” Grant asked, watching her.
She knelt and buried her arm up to her elbow into the top drawer of her desk-side, metal filing cabinet. Zahra grinned when she felt it. There, at the rear of the cabinet and magnetized to the underside of the lid, was her Seal Pup knife. It had been a gift from a friend who had been in the American military, a retired Navy SEAL. The perfectly balanced, all-black armament was nearly ten inches long from tip to butt. Half of that was its razor-sharp blade, which was partially serrated near the hand guard.
It was a gift that had come with training, as well. She could wield the blade as deftly as any trained operative.
Zahra then opened a box that had been sitting next to her desk for the last week. Its contents had arrived from an obscure address in America, from the name ‘Tommy.’ She had yet to test out the updated model. No better time than the present, she thought. Zahra took comfort in the fact that the sender had promised it would fix the ‘issues’ she had with the previous iteration. Gripping the new — and hopefully improved — grappling hook tight, Zahra felt its weight in her hand. It was a tad bit heavier than her last one, but not by much.
While she was good with a knife, this was her preferred tool of the trade. The grappling hook was sleek and modern, yet built like it would last a lifetime. She had used and abused the previous iteration while searching for The Lost City of Z, and this was the replacement, complete with a few tweaks.
She quickly snapped her wrist and opened its four imposing blades, inspecting their agile, yet rugged construction. Zahra nodded, approving of Tommy’s design. Following the instructions in his email, she gently pulled on the cable and watched as the blades folded back into place. The grappling hook was now built around a load-bearing, spring-back system. Tommy had included the blueprints in the email, but even after reading them several times, Zahra didn’t fully understand them.
Whatever. As long as it works…
He had also mentioned that it would only support up to twenty percent more than her current body weight and to not overload it, or it could fail.
“Well,” she had said, closing the email, “no more Taco Tuesdays for me.”
Zahra attached the hook and its coiled, seventy-foot-long cord to her belt on her left hip. Last, but not least, was Zahra’s high-powered handheld flashlight. Adding her trusty Glock to the belt, she would feel ready for anything life could throw at her. Zahra was also wearing her customary all-black attire, though her current clothing wasn’t as rugged as her typical outdoors gear. Her outfit included a pair of well-worn jeans and a shirt featuring her favorite band, a Canadian hardcore group named, Counterparts.
Grant cautiously eyed Zahra as she flipped the fixed-blade knife into the air, nonchalantly catching it by its handgrip. The weapon and its sheath buckled onto her belt right next to the grappling hook. “Um, what did you say you did in the army?”
Zahra rolled her eyes. Why does everyone ask me that?
“I was a linguist… Now, stay here and keep your mouth shut, or I’ll come back here and curse you out in every language I know.”
Grant swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple visibly rose and fell as he backpedaled into the center of the room. Slowly, Zahra opened the door and peered out into the hallway. She looked left, and then right. Nothing moved. Satisfied that all was clear, Zahra slinked out and whispered back to her assistant.
“Lock the door, and don’t open it for anyone besides me.” He nodded. She playfully winked. “Be back in a jiff.”
The door closed and the lock reengaged with a soft click. Zahra knelt outside her office and peered down the dark hallway. The only illumination was up ahead in the form of a single red emergency light. She stalked forward, staying low. The corridor ended at a set of plain, off-white double doors. These led out into the main hallway of the Lower Floor, where a handful of the administrative areas were stationed as well as the Clore Centre for Education, including a series of lecture halls and classrooms. She gripped one of the two door handles and slowly tried it, twisting it until the partition opened just enough to peek out. Zahra saw nothing of note through the inch-wide gap. The area was deserted, as expected at this time of night.
Good, she thought. She took a deep breath and opened it more, sliding through. Zahra helped the door close without a sound and headed right. She would have normally used the elevator to move between floors, but not now. First off, there was no power to call the lift. Secondly, if she used it, and there were, in fact, people trying to break into the museum and harm her and whoever else was there, the elevator car would have been the perfect place for an ambush.
She continued forward and looked up. To either side of the elevator was a long, rectangular gap in the floor above. They each gave way to a beautiful glass roof high overhead that had been designed by Foster and Partners. The two-acre space situated below it was the single largest covered public square in all of Europe, the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court.
Even though Zahra had walked beneath the ceiling hundreds of times, she was still marveled by its majesty. Some days, she would just stare at the pattern of triangles and watch them gleam in the sunlight. She often found Bernie there as well, also staring in reverence.
Zahra silently ascended the right-hand stairs up to the Great Court without conflict. She hurried across a fifteen-foot expanse that, under the current circumstances, felt as wide as the Grand Canyon. Keeping her head down, she took cover behind the black siltstone Obelisk of Nectanebo II, the last native king of Egypt. The five-and-a-half-foot tall relic stood atop a thick pedestal in the southwest corner of the Great Court. She poked her head out and confirmed that she was still alone. Luckily, for her and Grant, the museum didn’t publicly post the locations of the offices anywhere. The network of corridors and workspaces were veiled behind simple, unassuming doors.
Directly to the north of her position was the Lion of Knidos. She hated the animal’s eyes.
Or lack thereof.
Zahra found herself constantly glancing back to its face, half-expecting it to morph into another expression. Rage? Maybe hunger? She imagined the scene as if it were something out of Jason and the Argonauts or Clash of the Titans. She would have loved to have seen what Ray Harryhausen would have done with the stone beast. It honestly gave her the willies, but it intrigued her too.
Staying low, she bolted straight for the creature. Once there, she pivoted and pointed herself at the nearby information desk. She swiftly moved away but slipped and spilled to the hard floor. Her fall was like a shotgun blast inside the still auditorium-sized room. Caught out in the open, Zahra panicked and backward crab-walked, returning to the concealment the bulky lion gave. She sat and caught her breath, and luckily, heard nothing. It seemed that no one had heard her.
With her back against the heavy base, Zahra reached her left hand out and placed it on the floor, using it to brace herself as she stole a quick look around the statue. When she did, she felt something odd — something wet. Zahra slowly lowered her eyes to the floor and spotted the fluid. Its presence instantly filled her with dread. Even in the low light, Zahra knew what the dark, viscous substance was.