Donovan strode to the wall and pushed aside a large wooden table carved to look like a prowling jaguar on each side. The piece was heavy and scraped against the stone floor.
“No,” Mahmood cried, suddenly animated again. “You must not move things.”
He started toward Donovan, but Avery and Mitch raised guns to his chest. “Stay where you are,” Avery warned.
He did, with a devastated expression as Kyle tucked his gun into his belt and helped Donovan move the table. They swung it out ninety degrees, then moved the alabaster box that sat beneath it. Mahmood moaned and muttered something in Arabic that sounded like a prayer.
Low in the wall, a dark hole revealed a passage to another room.
“Jess,” Donovan yelled into the dark.
No answer. His voice echoed back, hollow and empty. He pointed his gun through the opening, letting the strong light below the barrel play over the dark room. Painted walls jumped out at him, farther away than he’d expected. A big room. In the center his light revealed a pedestal holding a huge block of gray stone. The sarcophagus of a king.
Another muffled sound and a frantic scrape made him lower the light to illuminate the floor in front of the sarcophagus. Three sets of eyes squinted back at him in the strong light. Three captives. His light swept over a young man and woman, sitting as still as if carved of stone themselves. The third person was tightly gagged, with hands and feet bound—Jess.
His heart gave a leap of joy that was stronger than he would have thought possible. “Jess.” He crawled through, keeping his gun pointed at her because it was the only source of light. The terrified-looking man and woman were obviously the American archeology students they had come to rescue. He hadn’t even thought to wonder why they had let Jess remained bound and gagged instead of freeing her until he got to his feet, prepared to do it himself. She made urgent grunting noises in her throat and nodded her head sharply to her right.
Puzzled, he pointed his light in that direction. More brilliant paintings flared to life as his light hit the walls, pictures of gods and goddesses, a pharaoh and his queen, chariots and hunting scenes, filling the tomb from floor to ceiling. And a motion in the shadows. He moved the light farther to his left.
Standing on the side of the room was a man with a gun. The gun was pointed at the three scared people sitting with their backs to the sarcophagus of Ramesses VIII, but the man’s eyes were on Donovan.
“Hello,” the man said in careful, Arabic-accented English. “I am sorry to make your acquaintance. Drop your weapon, please. And tell your friends to do the same.”
His friends—the man knew he hadn’t come alone. He looked to see if there were more weapons or people, but saw no one. Only the gunman who, he noted now, had a cast on his other arm. “I believe we’ve met before,” Donovan said with satisfaction.
From behind him, Kyle said sharply, “Donovan? Who’s there?”
He didn’t move, keeping his gun trained on the robber as he answered. “Jess and the hostages. And a man with a broken arm and a gun. Stay where you are.”
“Tell your friend to give his gun to Mahmood,” the man instructed. “And toss yours over here.”
“I don’t think so.” He met the man’s tense stare, curious to see what he’d do. “See, I have two priorities. The first one is saving that woman right there—and by the way, I don’t like the way you’ve treated her. The second is to rescue those two students. I don’t see how giving up my gun will make either of those things happen. Perhaps you’d like to drop yours, since we have you outnumbered.”
“You are the only one in the room,” he pointed out. “If anyone else comes in, I shoot them. I believe I have the advantage.”
The man was not flustered. Not fast-talking him in an attempt to distract him. Not worried about being in a standoff with loaded weapons. Donovan didn’t like it. A cool opponent was the most dangerous kind.
Aiming his gun at the armed man had left Jess in the shadows at the far end of the sarcophagus, but from the corner of his eye he saw a light hit her, spotlighting her and casting faint light on the two students. He realized Kyle must be lying on his stomach in the doorway with his light trained on Jess, ready to back him up. He moved aside to make sure he didn’t block Kyle’s view. A second light hit the two students; either Avery or Mitch had joined Kyle, inching into the low doorway in a belly crawl until they could see the gunman.
This was not good. Maybe he should have told someone else about his suspicions, because he couldn’t watch Mitch and the armed kidnapper at the same time. Telling them now would confuse everyone. But at least his team was still acting like one unit, working toward the same goal. He grabbed onto the faint hope that it would stay like that a bit longer, just long enough to ensure Jess’s safety. Then if Mitch wanted to kill his coconspirators before they gave him away, he wouldn’t care.