Kurt wriggled his other hand free and opened a Velcro pack strapped to his arm. He pulled a thin black cable from the pack and unwound it. Attaching one end to his goggles and the other to a small cylinder that was actually a tiny camera, he prepared to take a look at their surroundings.
“Up periscope,” he whispered.
Tapping a button on the camera, he gave it power and threaded the wire upward through a tiny hole drilled in the top of the crate.
As the lens focused, an image was projected on the inside of Kurt’s mask. It was grainy, since the back section of the warehouse was dimly lit.
“Any Japanese destroyers up there?” Joe whispered.
Kurt panned around, twisting the wire a little bit at a time. “Nothing but open seas, Mr. Zavala. Take us up.”
Kurt reeled the camera back in and disconnected it as Joe got to work prying the lid upward. Kurt took care of his side, switched off the mask light, and together they eased the top of the box backward.
Joe scrambled out first, Kurt followed seconds later and both men hid behind the crate until the feeling came back into their limbs.
“This place looks a lot bigger on the inside than it did from the street view,” Joe noted.
A quick look told Kurt it was more of a maze than an orderly arrangement of sections. In the back, where they were, all the items were stored on the ground floor, but the rest of the space was filled with racks and shelves, in some places stacked three stories high.
“We’ll never look through all this stuff in a couple of hours,” Joe said.
“Most of it’s irrelevant,” Kurt said. “We need to focus on the items set for auction. Anything Egyptian, in particular. I’m guessing whatever they plan to sell will be on the ground floor, maybe even separated from everything else. So let’s ignore the shelves unless something catches your eye. You take the left side. I’ll take the right. We’ll work our way to the front.”
Joe nodded and put a tiny speaker in his ear, which was connected to a radio, and Kurt did the same. Both men also pulled out cameras that would take digital pictures in infrared. Pictures they could review later.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Kurt said. “Security will be jumpy, after what happened the other night. And I’d rather not get shot or have to take any of them out to protect ourselves. If anything happens, meet back here or take cover.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Joe said. “Tasers and pepper spray aren’t going to be much use against pistols and shotguns.”
Knowing they would be dealing with innocent security guards, they’d brought along only nonlethal methods of subduing anyone they encountered.
“Then don’t get caught by the people with the pistols and shotguns,” Kurt said.
“Good advice under any circumstance.”
Kurt grinned and offered an archer’s two-finger salute before moving off and focusing on the dimly lit space ahead of him.
26
Hassan had arrived in Malta just before the party with orders to take charge of the operation. He was to retrieve what he could of the hieroglyphics record and destroy any evidence that remained. Fortunately, his men had already infiltrated the museum’s security service. Posing as legitimate guards, they’d now taken over the warehouse and were ready to search for and remove the artifacts. All Hassan needed for his plan to go smoothly was to keep the security supervisor talking to the rest of his men.
He stood behind the supervisor with a gun drawn as the man spoke to the guards assigned to the ballroom via a radio. In what seemed like a suspicious bit of good fortune, three-fourths of the security detail was stationed in and around the ballroom. That left only eight men at the warehouse. And two of them were operating undercover for Osiris.
Hassan knew the artifacts in the warehouse were valuable, but to him they were worth nothing in comparison to the yacht-owning, private aircraft — flying captains of industry who were attempting to buy them for their own collections.
A call came over the radio. “We’ve made our rounds. More diamonds and pearls than you can shake a stick at. But everything is secure over here.”
The supervisor hesitated.
“Answer him,” Hassan prodded, jabbing him with a pistol.
The manager keyed his own microphone. “Very good,” he said. “Report back in thirty minutes.”
“Affirmative. Do you want to swap any of the guys out? They’re probably getting bored back there.”
Hassan shook his head. There was no one left alive to swap out.
“Not at this time,” the supervisor replied. “Continue your watch over there.”
Hassan figured they were safe for a little while. “Now,” he said, “show me where lots thirty-one, thirty-four and forty-seven are.”
The supervisor pondered over this for a second too long. Hassan backhanded him across the face and he fell over, taking the chair to the ground with him.
“You’ll find I don’t like to wait,” Hassan explained.
The night supervisor held up his hands submissively. “I’ll show you.”
Hassan turned to Scorpion. “Get the explosives and something to transport the items on. If we have to, we’ll destroy them, but I’d prefer to bring them back to Egypt where they belong.”
He pointed to a second man. “Infect the computer with the Cyan virus. I want all record of these artifacts erased.”
The man nodded and Hassan stood back satisfied. All seemed to be in order. But no one paid any attention to the flickering TV screens displaying the feed from the security cameras. On two separate displays black-clad figures could be seen sneaking through the darkened warehouse.
Scorpion reappeared with a four-wheeled cart.
“Excellent,” Hassan said. “Let’s start with lot thirty-one.”
Joe stood in front of a hard plastic case. Beside it was a placard that read XXXI.
“Thirty-one,” he said.
Joe pulled open the hard case and unzipped a fireproof sheet of Nomex. Underneath it lay part of a broken tablet with Egyptian art on it.
Depicted on the stone was a tall green man holding his hand over a group of people that were lying on the floor of a temple. Men or women in white robes stood behind them. Lines drawn from the hand of the green-skinned man to the sleeping or dead people made it look as if he were levitating them. In the upper corner, a disk that might have been the sun or moon was covered as if in the midst of an eclipse.
Joe had spent some time in Egypt. He’d even done a little archaeology there. He recognized some of the iconography.
Joe held a wire connected to an earpiece. Squeezing it allowed him to talk and the signal would be transmitted to Kurt. “I’ve found a tablet with Egyptian art on it,” he said. “You should see this green guy, he’s huge.”
“Are you sure it’s not an early version of The Incredible Hulk?” Kurt replied quietly.
“Now, that would really be worth something,” Joe whispered back.
He raised a camera, scanned the artwork and then covered it up once again before moving on.
On the other side of the warehouse, Kurt was having less luck but was moving as quickly as he dared. Like most museums, this one had far more artifacts than it could possibly display. As a result, they would often loan pieces out or rotate exhibits, but most of the overflow remained in the warehouse.
That and the lack of any discernible method of organization were making the job even harder. So far, Kurt had discovered sections dating to the Peloponnesian conflict and the Roman Empire located side by side with artifacts from both World Wars. He’d come across a section of relics from the French Revolution, weapons the British carried at Waterloo and even a scarf allegedly used to stem Admiral Nelson’s bleeding when he’d been wounded at Trafalgar.