Chapter Eighteen
Jess had picked up the tension in Donovan’s rigid posture and the firm arm he’d flung out, holding her back. She peeked around him cautiously, then froze at the sight of Evan holding a gun on them.
Evan? A gun?
Puzzlement swirled in her mind, finally coalescing into a bright, hard-edged anger. She didn’t know how or why, but one thing was clear—Mitch wasn’t the mole. Evan was.
That meant he was the one who had sent a hired killer after her father. He’d killed his best friend.
“Thank you for bringing Jess along,” Evan said, his conversational tone seriously out of whack with the gun aimed at Donovan’s chest. “It’s so convenient to have you all together when I eliminate you. But it would be a shame if a bullet went through your body and nicked any one of the priceless treasures in here.” He stepped aside, giving them room to pass. “We wouldn’t want to affect their historical value like that, would we?”
“Or their monetary value,” Donovan said flatly.
“Exactly. So I would much rather do this outside. Move. And don’t try anything, Donovan. I might not be as well trained as you are, but I do know how to handle a gun, and at this range, I can’t miss.”
Jess moved slowly and Donovan took her hand, helping her along. She imagined that like her, he was in no hurry to get outside where the deserted, nighttime wadi provided a perfect killing ground.
Where were Kyle, Avery, and Mitch? Everyone had cleared out of the tomb. She imagined Evan taking them all by surprise, having the rearmed tomb robbers hold the team hostage while he’d waited for Donovan and Jess to emerge from the back chamber. Or had the others been killed already? She staggered at the thought, and Donovan wrapped his arm around her, steadying her.
Just as she regained her balance, Evan reached out and yanked her backward. Jess gasped, then cried out in pain as fire shot up her arm and across her shoulder. She tried to break free, but Evan held her aching arm in a position that felt like it might twist off if she moved another inch.
Donovan whirled around, crouched to spring, but halted abruptly as Evan dug the barrel of his gun into her neck. She flinched from the painful pressure on her carotid, but couldn’t move. “The first shot goes in Jess,” Evan said. The threat was low, but clearly audible in the close confines of the cluttered tomb. “Turn around and follow the tunnel to the surface. We’ll be right behind you.”
Donovan’s eyes met hers and lingered, a determined look that promised…something. She didn’t see what he could do for her. For either of them. Evan stood behind them, and Alicia, Jeffery, and their two Egyptian helpers waited ahead of them, all armed and ready to kill. Maybe they would take them farther out into the desert before shooting them. More likely they would do it right here, then transport their bodies at their leisure. It would be easier to handle five dead bodies than five unwilling captives, four of them trained fighters. No, she would be dead as soon as they reached the surface. Kyle, Avery, and Mitch might already be dead. If they weren’t, it could only be because their captives were waiting for orders from Evan.
Evan’s grip on her loosened, but only enough to let her walk ahead of him. When they came to the partially excavated tunnel and she had to crouch, he grabbed a handful of her hair in one fist and pressed his gun into her back, one jarring move away from an accidental discharge that would sever her spinal cord. She had no choice but to follow Donovan in an awkward shuffle through the tunnel.
Ahead, light filtered into the gloom. As they got closer she could see the stairs cut from the rocky desert floor, leading back to the surface. Donovan paused. Evan jerked her hair and she cried out, and it was all the prompting Donovan needed to keep going. He climbed, not quite upright until his head cleared the surface. From below she saw him pause again, taking in the scene. She wanted to ask what he saw, but figured she could guess—the four tomb robbers waiting to finish off the Omega team.
As Donovan’s feet disappeared up the final two stairs, he called down, “Be careful Jess. Don’t fall.”
Don’t fall? Why, because she might get hurt? Yeah, that would be a real bummer, breaking her leg just before being shot to death. At a nudge from Evan’s gun, she began climbing the short flight to the surface.
He released her hair. The gun dropped away too, although she knew it was just a few feet away, aimed at her back as she climbed. Not a huge relief.
Light glared on each side as she rose. She saw the lanterns fist, their steady lights glowing on each side of the opening to the tomb. As her head broke the surface, she saw silhouettes beyond them, eight people standing in the dark desert night, their feet and legs brilliant in the glow of four lanterns that sat on the sand. Her gaze darted over them as she climbed another step—Donovan, Kyle, Alicia, and Mitch, each with one of the tomb robbers close behind them. No, scratch that. One man guarded both Avery and Mitch, as Alicia sat on the sand off to one side, holding something around her bleeding leg. Kyle, Avery, and Mitch appeared to have their hands bound behind them. Donovan didn’t, but Mahmood motioned him backward with a particularly large and menacing gun as she took another step upward. The desert floor was at her waist level, with only one more protruding slab of rock to serve as a step. No one offered a helping hand. She put her foot on the step and leaned forward, prepared for an ungainly crawl up the final few feet.