They heard music when they reached the correct deck, a pop beat coming from a cabin. They crept past and headed for Nina’s room. She had left the door unlocked; they ducked inside.
Nina quickly shed the dress and changed back into her regular clothes, then gathered her few belongings. “Should I call Macy?” she asked, holding up her phone.
“Let’s get off the ship first,” said Eddie.
“How are we going to get back ashore?”
“Nick a boat.” He stepped into the corridor. “Okay, come on.”
They moved back to the stairs, approaching the cabin where the music was playing. Pass that, up one level, then they would be on the main deck, needing only to keep out of sight to reach the boats. Simple.
Or not.
The door opened, the music jumping in volume as a young blond woman carrying two empty glasses stepped out—and found the revolver aimed right between her eyes. She screamed and jumped back, a man shouting in surprise.
Nina and Eddie looked at each other. “Leg it!” Eddie yelled.
They ran up the stairs. An alarm bell clamored as they reached the next deck. Nina heard more voices from above. Osir’s crew had been caught off guard by the unexpected alert, but it would only take them seconds to respond.
Eddie took the lead as they ran down the passage. Another smoked-glass door ahead led to the aft deck. Someone behind them shouted.
No time to stop and open the door. Instead Eddie fired a single shot through it. Glass shattered, dropping in a dark cascade to the floor. They crunched over the debris and ran out onto the deck.
It was empty. Ahead, more stairs led down to the mooring platform. “Which boat?” Nina asked as they raced toward it.
“Whichever’s got the keys in!” Eddie replied, glancing back. He saw someone emerging from a door on the deck above, and fired another shot to force him back inside.
Nina hurried down the steep stairs as he crouched and took cover at the top. Not liking the look of the small, exposed Jet Skis, she went to the boats. The speedboats would be faster, but the Solar Barque’s tender still had its key in the ignition.
She climbed aboard. “Eddie, come on!”
Eddie glanced around at the burble of the tender’s engines. “Untie it!” he shouted. His gunshot had made the crew more cautious, nobody wanting to be the first to put himself in harm’s way.
That wouldn’t last. As soon as Shaban or Diamondback arrived, he would order a rush on the boat dock. And with only four bullets remaining, Eddie’s chances of holding it off were slim.
He looked back at Nina. She was still unraveling the ropes.
Two men ran onto the upper deck and dived in opposite directions to the floor. Eddie shot at one, but missed. Three bullets left.
“Eddie!” The tender was free; Nina jumped behind its wheel.
“Get going!” he yelled. She shook her head, unwilling to leave him behind. “I’ll jump on, just get the bloody thing moving!”
The engine growl rose to a roar. He turned to leap down the stairs—
Diamondback burst from the broken glass door. Eddie snapped off another shot, but it went wide as the American flung himself headlong into cover. Two bullets.
The black barrel of an MP7 poked over the upper deck’s edge, laser sight flicking on. The needle-thin red beam swept toward Eddie—then jittered in a crazy display as he shot the weapon out of the gunman’s hands.
One bullet.
“Fucking revolvers!” Eddie spat. Even with its ammo capacity limited by the sheer size of its .50-caliber bullets, his old Wildey handgun had still been able to manage more than a mere six shots. One bullet, several targets—it was time to go.
He jumped, landing on the dock with a bang. The tender was pulling away, but Nina was still reluctant to gun the throttle until he was aboard. He straightened, turned, launched himself into a sprint to make a running jump—
A searing pain exploded in the side of his head.
The flash of agony was so overwhelming that he fell, crashing down just short of the dock’s edge. He clapped a hand to the wound. It stung viciously, and he felt blood on his palm—but not the torn meat and bone of a direct bullet impact against a human skull. The revolver shot had grazed him, slicing a gash just above his left ear.
If he had started his run on the other foot, if he had thrown his weight left rather than right, he would be dead.
And his wife would be a widow. Eyes tight with pain, he saw Nina looking back at him in horror. He waved desperately at her. “Get out of here! Go!”
It took her a moment to fight through her fear for him—a moment too long. A laser spot swept across the boat, zeroing in on her chest.
Very carefully, she moved her hand away from the throttle.
Eddie heard the clip-clop of cowboy boots approaching. He painfully turned his head, seeing that he had dropped the revolver a couple of feet away. A hand reached down to collect it. “I think this is mine,” said Diamondback.
“You’re welcome to the fuckin’ thing,” Eddie groaned. “There’s only one bullet left.”
“It’s all I need.” A faint clicking as the trigger was pulled back, the cylinder rotating to bring the last bullet under the raised hammer …
“No!” someone almost screamed. Osir. “You idiot, people will see!”
Eddie heard Diamondback mutter “So? Fuck ’em …,” but with a soft clink the hammer lowered back into place. The Solar Barque was not the only expensive craft moored off Monaco; the sound of gunfire had probably already caught the attention of people on other yachts.
“Get them out of sight. Quickly!” Osir ordered.
Shaban joined his brother. “We have to kill them. You should have listened to me.”
“I know, I know. We will. But not here. If the Monaco police come to investigate the gunshots, and we have a ship full of corpses …”
The boat was quickly secured, and Nina was brought back to the dock at gunpoint. Osir gave her an especially disgusted look. “I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve left me no choice. When this ship leaves Monaco tomorrow, after the race … you will both die.”
NINETEEN
You know, mate,” said Eddie, voice echoing, “I really don’t like your hospitality.”
“Look on the bright side,” Nina said, looking up at Osir. “At least he flushed first.”
The cult leader had, with mocking irony, opted to tie up Nina and Eddie where they had tied him—his cabin’s bathroom. Nina’s hands were secured to a pipe beneath the washbasin, while Eddie ended up in the same position as Osir, wrists fastened to the lavatory’s waste pipe and head over the bowl. They were bound with rope rather than neckties; their legs had been left free, but with a guard watching them all night as Osir and his associates studied the zodiac they had been given no opportunity to turn that to their advantage.
“Aren’t you comfortable, Chase?” asked Osir. “Too bad.”
Shaban stood beside him, rubbing his eyes. “We are getting nowhere with the zodiac, Khalid. We’re wasting time.”
“The answer is there,” Osir said. “She found it—so can we.”
Shaban sneered at Nina. “A shame you weren’t listening when she did. If they know how to find the pyramid, we should torture them for the information.” Another sneer, this time directed at Osir. “If you weren’t so worried about getting blood on your silk sheets …”
Osir’s face flashed with anger. “Shut up, Sebak! We will find the pyramid ourselves. There’s no need for any unnecessary pain.”
“What do you know about pain?” said Shaban, moving almost nose-to-nose with his brother. The scar tissue across his cheek twisted with his snarl.
An uneasy silence hung between the two men before Osir backed away slightly. “We will find the pyramid ourselves,” he insisted. “These two we’ll … bury at sea. But we have other business first—the race.”
“You go,” said Shaban dismissively. “I’ll stay here and”—a cruel smile—“politely disc
uss the pyramid’s location with Dr. Wilde.” Nina tensed.
Osir shook his head. “You’re expected there with me.”
“Then tell them I’m ill.”
“Sebak! This is for the temple—you are coming with me.” He stared at Shaban. This time, it was the younger brother who backed down, though the tendons in his neck were tight. Osir addressed the guard. “Watch them until we get back.” The guard nodded, and sat down on a chair facing the bathroom doorway as Osir and Shaban left.
“When does the race finish?” Nina asked.
“Four o’clock,” Eddie told her. “What time is it now?”
She shifted to check her watch. “Coming up on ten.”
“Hey!” the guard shouted, raising his MP7. “Keep still. And no talking!”
Nina knelt back down, watching the guard. After a few minutes, his attention began to wander, the gun drifting away from the prisoners as he looked around the opulent cabin.
She used his distraction to glance over her shoulder. In a corner was a pair of nail scissors, one of the items Osir had scattered when Eddie pushed him into the bathroom. She had spotted them when she was first tied up. But with her hands firmly attached to the pipe, the only way to reach them was with her feet—and she couldn’t do so without the guard noticing.
Six hours to find a way …
An opportunity took close to four uncomfortable hours to arrive.
The guard was also a racing fan. With the start imminent, he had switched on a large plasma TV. Its position on one wall meant he had to move the chair farther away to see both the screen and his captives, dividing his attention.
“You okay?” Nina whispered, her voice covered by the noise of the starting grid.
“My knees are fucking killing me” came the hollow reply. “One good thing, mind—I’m not thirsty.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Gross, Eddie.” A look at the guard; he glanced into the bathroom, but was clearly more interested in the race. “Listen, there’s a pair of scissors here. I’ll try to kick them to you when the guy outside isn’t looking.”
He turned his head as far as he could. “If you can get them to my legs, I can try to knock them behind the bog with my knee. But I can’t move my hands much. If they end up too far away, we’re fucked.”
“Then we’ll have to get it right the first time, won’t we?” She gave him a halfhearted smile; he returned it.
“Do it when the race starts,” he said. “There’s usually a prang in the first corner at Monaco—the crashes are what most blokes are really watching for.”
“I’ll only need a few seconds.” Nina watched the guard; bar the occasional glance, he was fixated on the TV. The commentary was in French, but she understood enough to know that the cars were performing their formation lap before the start of the race proper.
Very slowly, she shifted her weight to one knee and slid her other leg out from under her body. Her muscles prickled painfully. The guard looked at her; she froze, afraid that he had seen what she was doing, before exaggeratedly cricking her neck to one side as if relieving stiffness. He frowned, then turned back to the TV.
The commentators became more excited as the cars took their places on the grid. Nina moved her leg out as far as she dared.
“Ready?” she whispered. Eddie raised himself slightly on his toes.
The racers were in position. The guard leaned forward, watching the screen intently. Engines revved as the starting lights came on. “Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq …” The commentator paused in anticipation. “Allez!”
The engine noise rose to a multi-tonal scream as the cars leapt away from the grid. “C’est Virtanen, Virtanen!” the commentator cried. The guard was almost out of his seat with excitement as Team Osiris’s star driver took the lead. “Oh! Oh! Mollard s’est écrasé!”
Someone had crashed going into the first corner. The guard jumped up—and Nina jerked her leg, kicking the little scissors.
Even with all the activity on the big TV, the guard couldn’t miss the sudden movement in his peripheral vision. He whipped around, gun raised—as Eddie dropped his legs, covering the scissors. Pointing the MP7 at Nina, he rushed into the bathroom. “I told you not to move!”
“Cramp!” Nina gasped, not lying, as she flexed her leg. “I’ve got a cramp, it hurts! Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot!”
“Get back down!” She complied. Pressing the gun against her, the guard bent to check that she was still tied, then leaned down to look at Eddie’s bonds. All were still secure. “Keep still,” he ordered, returning to the cabin. After a few suspicious glares into the bathroom, he turned back to the race.
“Did you get it?” Nina whispered.
Eddie lifted his right leg, revealing the nail scissors under it. Slowly, carefully, he lowered it again and dragged the scissors a few inches forward, then raised his leg and moved it back to its original position before repeating the move. After a minute, the scissors were just in front of his knee.
“This is the tricky bit,” he muttered. He angled his leg out to one side. “Okay, here we go …”
He jerked his knee forward.
The scissors slithered across the polished floor, clacking against the back wall. Eddie winced, but the TV had drowned out the faint noise. He reached for them with his fingertips.
They fell short by mere millimeters.
“Bollocks!” he growled. The rope tying his wrists to the pipe was already pressed against a protruding joint; he couldn’t slide his hands any closer. And if he tried to raise his body higher for leverage to push his wrists farther through the loops of rope, the guard would see.
He had to take the chance. He levered himself upward, lifting his backside into the air.
It was undignified, but it worked. The extra weight pushed his wrists little by little through the rope as he wriggled. Hairs were ripped out and friction burned his skin, but his fingers were getting closer to the scissors, closer …
“Hey!” The guard ran into the bathroom—just as Eddie’s fingertips reached the scissors. The Englishman snatched them up and clenched them in his fist. “Get back down!”
“Ow, for fuck’s sake!” Eddie gasped as the man kicked him. “I’ve been like this all day, I’m bursting! I need a piss!”
The guard laughed. “You’re in the right place!” Still chuckling, he checked the ropes again. Satisfied they were still tightly fastened, he went back to his seat.
“Are you okay?” Nina asked quietly.
“He didn’t help my backache, but I’ve got the scissors.” He fumbled them around in his hand, opening the blades as wide as they would go and pressing one against the rope. “Might take a while, though.”
He began sawing. The small blade and the cramping of his hand made it slow going, but the rope’s strands eventually started to fray and split. Ten minutes passed; twenty. The guard remained engrossed in the race, Virtanen involved in a close battle to hold the lead. Half an hour gone. The race was over a quarter done, Osir and Shaban’s return drawing closer …
Eddie let out a small grunt. “Eddie?” whispered Nina. “Did you do it?”
“Yeah,” he replied, keeping the scissors hooked on one finger as he tugged at the rope with his thumb. The severed loop came loose; he slipped his wrist free, then quickly unfastened his other hand. “Problem is, we’re still trapped in a toilet by a man with a gun. Can you get him in here?”
“I’ll try.”
Nina lifted her leg again, letting out a strained gasp. The guard stood, annoyed by the interruption. “I told you to stay still!” he said as he entered the bathroom.
“Please,” she said through a mask of pain, “my leg hurts so much, I can’t stand it anymore!”
“You won’t have to for much longer,” he said with a sardonic smile, shoving her back into a kneeling position. He examined the ropes around her wrists, then bent to check Eddie’s bonds.
They weren’t there.
Eddie’s hand shot up with savage force and stabbe
d the scissors point-first into his eye.
That the blades were less than an inch long below the hinge didn’t matter—the entire length of the scissors disappeared into the guard’s skull. The pain and shock froze him in place—long enough for Eddie to roll sideways and grab him by his shirt, yanking him downward. There was a horrible crack as the man’s head struck the flush lever, and he collapsed twitching onto the toilet.
Eddie pushed the guard face-first into the swirling bowl. Collecting the MP7, he quickly untied Nina. “Flushed with success,” he said, grinning.
She rolled her eyes. “Is he dead?”
“After all that? I hope so.” The flush cycle ended, the water turning pink around the man’s part-submerged head. Eddie watched for several seconds to make sure no bubbles rose from his mouth or nose, then checked the MP7. It was fully loaded: twenty rounds. “This is more like it—no pissing about with revolvers like we’re still in the fucking nineteenth century.”
Nina gratefully stood, rubbing her aching legs. “What’s the plan?”
“Same as last night. Get back to shore, find Macy, find this pyramid. And shoot anybody who gets in our way. Sound okay?”
“I’d prefer it without the shooting part, but otherwise, yeah.” She went into the cabin, retrieved her possessions from the desk where they had been dumped, and was about to go to the door when she changed her mind and instead crossed to the zodiac. Osir and others had been working on it through the night; more notes were scattered about. She picked up a photo of the entire relief and shoved it in a pocket. “Just in case,” she told Eddie, who had recovered his own belongings and was now waiting impatiently near the door. “I don’t think Osir’ll give us another chance to look at it.”
“Still think we should just smash the thing,” he said, checking the corridor. “Okay, the quickest way down’ll be jumping off the balcony to the rear deck. Are you up for that?”
“I’ll be okay,” she said, touching his head. The only treatment he had been given after being shot was a large adhesive bandage stuck roughly over the cut; it was now dark with dried blood. That at least meant the bleeding had stopped, but the wound still needed attention. “What about you?”