Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Through Napoleon's Web

Rappelling to Lucy’s window only took him onto the second of the two sheets. The bedspread still extended below, not quite reaching to the second floor.

Looking down, he saw the pavement far below. The broken remnants of the boards were a fine reminder of how much damage a fall from this height could do.

Speaking of which—

He released the sheet with one hand and worked his fingers under the edge of the board outside Lucy’s window that he had loosened earlier. He pried it off the rest of the way and let it fall. Now he could see in through the window. The room was dark—but he could make out Lucy’s shape, curled up in the bed. He tapped lightly against the glass. No movement. Rapped again, a little louder. Still nothing.

Wake up!

The drugs, he figured; even if they hadn’t dosed her again, whatever was still in her system was probably making her sleep more soundly than usual. And if they had dosed her again . . .

He knocked as loudly as he dared. This time it elicited a response. The humped shape moved on the bed, turning over. He knocked again. She sat up.

Holding on to the sheet-rope with one arm and his twined ankles, Gabriel pried another board off the soft sandstone. He tapped once more. She turned toward the sound, saw him, and ran to the window, flinging it open. She was dressed in a long T-shirt, her legs and feet bare. She seemed fairly alert, though still a bit muzzy—or perhaps just bewildered at having been awakened by the sight of her brother dangling on bedsheets outside her window.

“Gabriel! How did you get out there?”

“They put me in the room above you. Come on.” He pried the remaining board loose and let it fall. “I’ll need your help to get these bars off. My leverage isn’t so good from here.”

He passed her the metal bar from his pocket and instructed her to use it as a lever. She wedged it between two of the bars, gripped the free end in both hands, and pulled. She may have been small and she may have been thin—but she wasn’t weak. The bar she was trying to loosen shifted with a groan of metal against stone. Gabriel helped her with his free hand. Soft sandstone powder spilled out of the holes around the screws. He held onto the bar as it came free so it wouldn’t fall, and Lucy carefully brought it inside. They repeated the performance with the others.

In five minutes it was done. Gabriel threw a leg over the sill and climbed inside, leaving the sheet-rope dangling behind him.

“Come on, help me take the sheets off your bed,” he said. Then he changed his mind. “No, I’ll do it. You get dressed. Hurry.”

Gabriel removed the sheets and bedspread, tied them together, and then pulled his line in from the window. He tied the new set onto the old and then threw the entire assembly outside. Gabriel looked down and saw that the end was just above the top of the first floor. That was good enough. The drop to the ground from there shouldn’t be too dangerous.

Lucy was dressed and ready to go.

“How do you feel? Did they drug you again?”

She shook her head. “Not since yesterday.”

Gabriel gestured to the window. “You think you can climb down?”

“With my eyes cl—”

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. They froze. “Hey,” came a voice. “What’s going on in there?” They heard the sound of a key in the lock. Turning.

Gabriel bolted for the bathroom and flattened himself against the wall. Lucy moved quickly to the door and stood beside it with one hand on the knob, preventing it from opening too widely.

The face at the door belonged to Chigaru.

“Wait!” Lucy said, pushing back on the door so that there was only a narrow opening. She stuck her head around the edge. “I’m not dressed!”

“I heard something,” Chigaru said.

“I fell out of bed,” Lucy said.

“It sounded like voices,” he said.

“Yeah, that was me cursing,” Lucy said, “when I fell out of bed. Would you please leave me alone, Chigaru?”

Chigaru put one hand on the door, forced his thick fingers inside. “I’m going to take a look around.”

“I told you, I’m not dressed. Stay out!”

But he shoved his way in. And the first thing he saw was that she was completely dressed.

“What’s going on?” he said, his voice loud, angry. “I’ll make you tell me—” He raised an arm to backhand her across the face. But he found himself unable to lower it.

He looked over at the man who’d seized his wrist in a steel grip.

“Close the door,” Gabriel told his sister.

As Lucy did, he squeezed tighter, his thumb on the inside of Chigaru’s wrist.

Chigaru’s face showed a mixture of pain and fear—like he wanted to cry out for help, but some last ounce of pride kept him from doing so.

“You are dead , Hunt. You and your whore sister.” He grimaced as Gabriel increased the pressure further. The pain drove him to his knees. “You won’t get away with this,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Khufu will kill you.”

“Maybe so,” Gabriel said. “But not tonight.” Reaching over to the desk, he hefted one of the metal bars they’d removed from the window. Chigaru saw it and finally opened his mouth to scream—but Gabriel brought the bar down across his temple and Chigaru went out like a snuffed candle.

Gabriel dropped the bar and the man’s wrist. “Go,” he told Lucy. “I’ll be right behind you.”

While Lucy climbed onto the windowsill, Gabriel stooped to search Chigaru. He found a wallet and took out the few bills it contained in local currency. “Sorry, pal.” Patting him down further, Gabriel felt a bulky item in the man’s jacket pocket—a gun? He reached inside and almost shouted as he pulled the object out. It was his Colt .45! Gabriel gave it a kiss on the barrel and stuck it in his waistband.

He went to the window. Lucy had already gone eight feet or so, letting herself down hand over hand.

“When you get to the bottom,” Gabriel whispered, “drop and roll. Drop and roll , understand? I don’t want you to break your leg.”

Lucy didn’t answer; he didn’t know if she’d heard. But she kept going. All he could do was hope.

He looked back at the door, at Chigaru’s unconscious form on the floor beside the bed. How long would it be before one of the other guards wondered where he was? Or till someone else heard something?

He was tempted to climb out and start his descent, too—but he didn’t want to put any weight on the sheets until she was all the way down.

He watched her go, shimmying down the line like a pro. When she made it to the bottom, she let go, dropped, and rolled. Perfect.

He tugged on the sheets to test their strength again, then slipped out the window.

He started to rappel hastily—but he hadn’t gone more than a few feet when he heard a voice shouting above him.

Gabriel looked up. The head of one of Amun’s men was sticking out of the window on the top floor. The man shouted again, sounding the alarm. Then he whipped out a knife and began slicing at the sheets.

They wouldn’t hold—Gabriel knew a few strokes with a sharp blade would sever the fabric. And he was still too high up to fall safely. Gabriel thought fast. He reached into his sock and grabbed the kitchen knife he’d stolen in Cairo. Holding it firmly in one fist, he rammed the blade into the soft sandstone as hard as he could. The impact jarred his wrist and he had to bite down on a yelp of pain—but the knife stuck. At that very moment, the sheets cut loose. Gabriel held on to the knife handle with one clenched fist, clinging to the wall by this narrowest of handholds. By comparison, the rubber-clad pickax handle in Carlsbad Caverns had been a luxury.

As the sheet-rope tumbled past him, Gabriel managed to snag it with his other arm. He let it run through his fingers till he found the end, then swung it up and over, wrapping the twisted sheet as tightly as he could several times around the knife’s handle. It wasn’t pretty, and when he was done he didn’t have a knot. But the handle of the knife did have a decorative curve that was enough to keep the coiled-up sheet from slipping off altogether. It would have to do—already he could feel the knife’s blade starting to come out of the widening crevice, and inside the building the sounds of shouts and clattering feet were multiplying. Gabriel took a deep breath and let go of the knife, sliding as fast as he dared down the sheet.