Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

She rested her head on his shoulder. “Me too. Whatever it takes. I don’t want to lose you again either.”

He kissed her forehead. “Great. Then we’re in agreement.”

“It’s been awhile.”

“Too long. So let’s keep it this way.”

“I agree.”

Chase managed a tired laugh, stroking her arm. “Now all we’ve got to do actually is get out of this. Just hope MI6 are more reliable than last time.”

Nina looked up at him. “Last time?”

He grinned. “Long story.”

She smiled back. “I think you’ve got time to tell it.”

Night had fallen.

Nina and Chase huddled together between the rocks, out of the wind. The stars overhead shone with an almost unnatural brilliance, sparkling like the gems strewn throughout the Tomb of Hercules. Nina shifted position to gaze up at the spectacle. “You were right.”

“About what?”

“Stargazing in the Grand Erg. It really is amazing.” Chase chuckled, putting his arm around her. “I love you.”

Nina gave him a look of delighted surprise. “Where did that come from?”

“Thought I owed it to you. Should have said it a long time ago.”

She hugged him. “Better late than never. And I love you too.”

“Glad to hear it.” Chase smiled, then rubbed his bare arms. The heat of the day was gone, the temperature having plunged enough to give him goose pimples. “God, I really miss my jacket,” he grumbled. “Went through all kinds of stuff in it. Never thought it’d be melted by acid.”

“I’ll get you a new one,” Nina assured him.

“It won’t be the same.”

“It’ll be better, I promise.”

He smiled. “Is that like a metaphor or something?”

“Could be…” Suddenly, she felt him tense. “What is it?”

“I can hear something.” They both stood, Chase picking up the rifle, and stepped out of the stone passage.

Nina could now hear it too, a distant rumble. “Chopper?”

“Sounds like it. Can’t tell from where, though.” He pointed to the south. “See if you can see any nav lights.”

Nina scanned the horizon, but saw nothing except stars. “What if it’s Sophia?”

He hefted the F2000. “Then I’ve got twenty bullets with her name on them. And ten spares for that body-pierced bastard.”

After a minute, Nina called out to Chase, who was watching the sky to the north. “Over here!”

He ran to her, seeing flashing lights low over the horizon to the southeast. “Coming right at us, whoever it is.” He looked thoughtfully at the approaching helicopter, then switched on the rifle’s spotlight and aimed it at the aircraft.

“You sure that’s a good idea? If it’s Sophia, you’re leading her right to us.”

“I don’t think it’s a Sikorsky. Too small. But wait in the tunnel entrance, just in case.”

The next minute passed with rising anxiety as the helicopter closed in. When it was four hundred yards away, it slowed to a hover and turned sideways-on to them, whipping up sand in its downwash. Chase locked the crosshairs onto the pilot, but nobody within the craft was aiming weapons back at him. The helicopter only had two people aboard, neither of whom was Sophia or Komosa. In the copilot’s seat, he saw a man staring at him through binoculars.

Chase lowered the rifle and waved. The chopper drifted closer. “Looks promising,” he called to Nina, “but stay out of sight for now.”

The helicopter set down two hundred feet away, Chase shielding his eyes against the blowing grit.

A man jumped from the cabin. Head low until he was clear of the spinning blades, he jogged towards the tomb entrance. “Mac!” he shouted. “Mac, is that you?”

“Oh, Christ,” Chase muttered. He thought he knew the voice, and a glance through the sights-during which time he was very tempted to pull the trigger-confirmed his suspicions. “Hold it, Alderley! Of all the fucking people they could send, it would be you, wouldn’t it?”

The man froze. “Well, blimey. Eddie Chase.” His right hand slipped into his jacket.

“Don’t even think about it,” Chase told him, raising the gun and shining its spotlight to reveal a thin-faced, middle-aged man sporting what Chase could only think of as a 1970s porn star’s mustache.

Alderley hurriedly raised his hands. “You know, Chase, misuse of an SIS extraction code is a pretty serious offense. Unless Mac’s hiding back there somewhere, you’re in a lot of trouble.”

“Nothing new there. And Mac’s dead.”

“What?” Alderley seemed genuinely unsettled for a moment, before suspicion crept on to his face. “Youdidn’t kill him, did you?”

“Of course I bloody didn’t! The people who stranded us here did, though.”

“Who’s ‘us’?” Alderley asked, looking around.

“Nina!” Chase called. Nina cautiously emerged from the tomb. “Alderley, this is Dr. Nina Wilde, director of operations for the U.N.’s International Heritage Agency. Nina, this is Peter Alderley, MI6 spook and absolute bell-end.”

“Hi,” said Nina, waving politely. Alderley halfheartedly returned the gesture with one of his raised hands. “Eddie, are you really going to keep pointing the gun at the guy who’s come to rescue us?”

“I came to rescue Mac,” said Alderley. “Not some sanctimonious ex-squaddie. I ought to just leave you here, Chase. Freelancers aren’t any of my business. But…” He looked at Nina. “I can’t really leave a lady in distress, can I?”

“Thank you,” said Nina. “I’m very grateful. And so is Eddie,” she added. Chase grunted.

“All right.” Alderley sighed. “This is entirely against protocol, but since I’m out here anyway, I may as well do my good deed for the day. Just get rid of the rifle, Chase. I don’t want you sitting with a live weapon aimed at my back for the whole trip.”

Reluctantly, Chase tossed the F2000 aside. For a moment, Alderley hesitated as if about to draw his own gun, but then he lowered his arms. “What are you doing out here, anyway?” he asked. “This is supposed to be nothing but open desert, but when I checked the latest satellite image before setting off, there was a bloody huge smoking crater with a helicopter sticking out of it!”

“There was an ancient tomb under the hill,” Nina said, “but it collapsed.”

Alderley gestured at Chase. “And I imagine he was the cause of that?”

Chase gave the MI6 agent a nasty look. “At least when I blow stuff up I try to minimize the collateral damage!”

“Two minutes,” said Alderley, rolling his eyes. “I’m amazed it took so long for that to come up.”

Chase took an angry step towards him, but Nina took hold of his arm. “Whatever problem you two have, could you maybe put it on hold? Until we’re, y’know, not stranded in the desert?”

“I suppose,” Chase said irritably.

“Good. So, Mr. Alderley? Can we go now?”

Alderley’s base of operations was across the border in southern Tunisia, a small drilling rig in a bleak region of rocky desert.

“Natural gas exploration,” Alderley explained after they had landed and he had taken Nina and Chase to the cabin housing his office. “It’s really a cover so we can keep an eye on what’s going on next door in Libya, but the funny thing is that it’s actually been quite successful. Always nice to have an intelligence operation that turns a profit.”

“Great,” said Chase, unimpressed. “You’ll be able to buy another crappy old Ford Capri with it.”

“The Mark One 3000GT is a classic!” protested Alderley in what seemed to Nina to be automatic defensiveness, before he composed himself and sat at his desk to log on to his computer. “Okay. Now, let me check what you told me on the flight…” He hunched forward, pecking at the keys with two fingers.