Kurt was at a disadvantage, one he had to reverse quickly. “Maybe,” he said. “But we’ll definitely learn something from the artifacts they recovered. Egyptian relics must be a thrilling hobby. I’m curious what this big green guy is all about. Seems to have magical powers to raise people up.”
It was a gamble, but it seemed to have worked. This time, instead of laughter, there was silence. A far better response, Kurt thought. He knew he’d struck a nerve.
“You have the tablet?”
“Actually, I have three,” Kurt lied.
“I’ll make you a trade,” the man on the other end of the phone said.
“I’m listening.”
“You bring the tablets and I will give you the D’Campions alive.”
“Deal,” Kurt said. “Just tell me where.”
34
“Are you sure it was wise to bring these guys?” Renata asked, pointing to the men now tied up on the foredeck. They were traveling toward the rendezvous at high speed.
“We promised them a trade,” Kurt said. “We’d better at least show them the goods.”
“What do you think is going to happen when they find out we have only captured men to trade and no tablets?” Joe asked.
“Gunfire, explosions and widespread chaos,” Kurt replied.
“So… the usual,” Joe deadpanned.
“Another day at the office,” Kurt said.
Joe laughed lightly, but Renata offered only a wan smile.
“Here’s the real problem,” she said finally. “Even if we had the tablets to trade, they may not want to give up the D’Campions, especially if they know what these guys are really looking for. The items at the museum came from the D’Campion collection. They excavated the Sophie C. years ago. That means the D’Campions are just as big a danger to them as the artifacts themselves.”
Kurt glanced out across the sea, his bright blue eyes squinting against the glare. A hard task lay ahead and all the joking in the world wouldn’t change that. “We’ll have to take them by surprise. What do we have weapons-wise, man-at-arms?”
Joe had been checking through the supply of ammunition in the guns they’d taken from the prisoners. “Two AK-47s and one APS rifle,” he said. “No extra magazines, and a total of about ninety rounds divided among the three guns.”
“I have a Beretta nine-millimeter with a full clip, carrying eighteen shells,” Renata added.
“And I have a block of C-4,” Kurt said.
“That covers weapons, what about recon?”
Renata used her phone to download a satellite image of the area. “This is the location they’ve chosen.”
The image of a bay was easy to see. Teardrop-shaped and surrounded by limestone cliffs. In the cup of the bay was sandy beach. The clear water was turquoise in the afternoon sun.
“What’s this?” Kurt asked, tapping a section of the display.
Renata enlarged the image. “Buildings,” she said. They were constructed on the limestone cliffs, looked to be several stories high and were terraced with balconies. A narrow bridge cut across part of the bay.
“Abandoned hotel,” she said, bringing up some information about the site. “This is the main building. This bridge was designed to take guests from the hotel to the beach.”
“Is the bridge on the water, like those resorts in Bali?” Joe asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Looks like it’s raised up for boats to pass underneath. According to some information I found, it’s supposed to look like the Azure Window, a famous natural formation down the coast from here.”
Kurt had seen the Azure Window years before. A breathtaking arch, a hundred and sixty feet high, jutting out over the sea. Some adrenaline junkies he was traveling with wanted to cliff-dive off of it. Kurt told them he’d inform their next of kin.
“That bridge will be a problem,” Kurt said. “So will the cliffs around the bay. They’re good places for snipers to perch. And, as we’ve already seen, they have one or two of those in their midst.”
“Maybe we can come in behind them,” Joe suggested. “Actually take the high ground this time.”
Renata panned out and scanned the edge of the image. The hotel was an outlier, a long way from the next populated area and connected only by a dirt road. There was no way to get to that road from the sea except up a rickety stairway that zigzagged beside the hotel.
“We could set these guys up as human shields,” Renata suggested coldly.
“I’d love to,” Kurt said. “But they seem to have no qualms about shooting their own. They might even thank us for it.”
“So what’s to stop them from hitting us with an RPG and blowing up the whole boat the second we enter the bay?”
“Nothing,” Kurt said, quickly realizing the truth. “Especially if they have no preference whether they take possession of the imaginary artifacts or destroy them. But I’m counting on them wanting to see what we have. And if they sink us or blow us up, they’ll never be sure if we had them on board. We just have to be ready to respond when they realize we’ve got nothing.”
“Any ideas?” Joe asked.
“You’re the mechanical genius,” Kurt said. “What can you do with all this?”
Joe scanned the deck. They had scuba tanks, hoses, a boat hook and some ropes. “Not a lot to work with,” he said. “But I’ll come up with something.”
35
With Kurt at the controls up on the flybridge, the dive boat sped toward the secluded bay and the abandoned hotel, carving a white wake into the blue-green waters. While Kurt drove, Joe built a bunker by lashing together empty scuba tanks.
“Don’t these things blow up when they get hit by bullets?” Renata asked.
“Only in the movies,” Joe said. “But I vented them just in case. Now they’re just thick, double-walled steel canisters of protection. Perfectly arranged for us to hide behind.”
“You’re very brave,” she said. “Both of you.”
“Make sure to tell all your female friends that when we’re finished saving the world for humanity.”
She grinned. “I have a few girlfriends who’d be happy to make your acquaintance.”
“A few?”
“Three or four,” she replied. “They’ll have to fight over you.”
“That could be interesting,” Joe said, a mischievous grin on his face. “But there’s enough of me to go around.”
“I hope this works,” he said to Kurt. “I suddenly really, really want to survive.”
He finished lashing the last of the tanks together as they approached the soaring cliffs that marked this side of Gozo Island. “Your crow’s nest is as secure as I can make it,” he said to Kurt. “I’ll be heading below.”
Kurt nodded and turned to Renata. “You need to stay out of sight. They don’t know about you yet.”
“I’m not hiding out belowdecks while you guys duke it out with the people who attacked my country,” she replied.
“Actually, that’s exactly what you’re going to do,” Kurt said. “The aft cabin has a skylight. Disconnect the latch and wait until the right moment to act.”
“Why the aft cabin?”
“Because I’m going to back in. In case we have to make a quick getaway.”
She didn’t seem to like it but acquiesced. “Okay, fine,” she said. “This time.”
They put communication devices on. After testing hers, Renata dropped down to the main deck, then went below to the aft cabin. As Kurt suggested, she popped the latch, but left it closed, and then pulled out the Beretta and waited.
As they neared the gap in the limestone cliffs, Kurt swung the boat out wide, turned it around and backed into the bay at a veritable crawl. As they passed between the cliffs that guarded the bay, he crouched behind the oxygen tanks, rifle in hand, eyeing the rocks up above for any sign of danger and half expecting to take immediate and direct fire.