Chapter 16 – Search and Rescue
"A clever move, Mr. Bey, very clever. I would never have expected such an effort to succeed, especially after having spent so long ... hanging around, if you'll pardon the pun."
Sidney Black's face shone like a demonic mask in the dying light of the fire pit. The glow from the embers made his eyes gleam red and hollowed out his already sunken cheekbones until he looked more like a skeleton than a man of flesh and blood. The glow also cast an eerie light on the silver pistol he held at the ready in his hand.
One of the embers leapt to life, sending a small flame into the air. It danced for a moment, illuminating a single shifting shadow along the stone wall, then died into a dull red glow. A tingle frizzled along Ardeth's spine as he stared into the darkness, a sensation he pushed aside as he focused his attention once again on his tormentor.
"I'm a bit disappointed. I was going to plan something very special for your demise. Something Blick there would have enjoyed. But you've managed to kill him, I see. And since my plans to remain here for the night have seen an untimely interruption, I must, unfortunately, simply shoot you. Not a fitting completion to our acquaintance for either of us, I dare say."
Ardeth gazed into the darkness for a moment, then looked up at the man who had tormented him. "I gather my warriors have found your hiding place." Although he spoke out loud, his parched throat made the words seem more of a whisper than not.
"Yes. I assume they have come to the rescue, all hoping they will find you alive. I'm afraid they will find themselves quite mistaken. You see, there is only one way out of this cellar now. I've locked the other doors."
As if on cue, the men could hear muffled voices at the top of the stairs and faint sounds of pry bars being applied to the thick, wooden door.
The Med-jai ignored it. "I did not think it would take them long. You chose your companions poorly."
Black smiled, wryly. "Yes, I suppose I did. I really wasn't certain Croft and Milton would hold up and I assume by my unexpected guests that they haven't. Still in all, it was a fruitful relationship while it lasted. I garnered a great deal of valuable intelligence information for my organization concerning England's fortifications during my stay here. And there is the added bonus of having run into you. Thanks to our little conversation, a contingent of operatives is now on the way to Hamunaptra. I expect my reward will be something to remember."
To his great shock, the captive man slumped before him began to laugh. A rough, hoarse laugh, but a sound of genuine mirth nonetheless.
"Something amuses you?" Black asked, his own smile still playing at the edges of his emaciated lips.
Ardeth nodded, then took a breath and composed himself. "You are the one mistaken, Mr. Black."
"Oh, really? In what way?"
"Your operatives are not on the way to Hamunaptra."
Black shook his head and clucked his tongue. "Now, now, Mr. Bey. Now is not the time to play that little card. You cannot buy time that way. Yes, I'm sure they will get the door open but not soon enough to save you, even if you manage to get me to listen to your feeble attempt to save yourself."
"What makes you think I would tell you the true location of Hamunaptra?"
Black shook his head knowingly. "Because, Mr. Bey, all men have their price. Yours was your child. You are weak as all men of your type are weak. Oh, yes, you desert rats all consider yourself great warriors but when it comes down to it, you are nothing more than heathens who will vanish like blood into the sand when the army of the New Republic sweeps over you; an army that will be fueled by the riches you have so fruitlessly guarded."
Ardeth lips curled into an icy smile of their own. "I would not betray the location of Hamunaptra to you, Mr. Black, for any price, even the life of my child. Unlike your companions, I honor my oaths. But you are right. It matters not. You will be dead before your leader finds out about your misinformation. "
The banging on the door grew louder. It sounded as if someone had found an axe.
The traitor chuckled. "Yes, well, as fascinating as all this is, I really must go. I need to return to Germany as soon as possible." Black raised his gun. "As they say in the new English language - Auf Wiedersehen, Mr. Bey."
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"I want this door open and I want it open now, understand?" Rick tightened his grasp on Ollie Wentworth's throat and shook him much like one would a small animal.
"We keep tellin' you, we don't have the ruddy key!" Cummins yelled over Ollie's frantic gasping breaths and the Med-jai's attempts to pry open the door. "You're going to kill him, you bastard. Let him go." He struggled against the iron grips of the masked warriors who held him firm.
Realizing that Wentworth wasn't going to say anything worthwhile, Rick dropped the smaller man and turned on Cummins. He paid no attention to the two warriors who worked at the door near his elbow. "You have until the count of five to tell me how to get in. One."
"It's locked from the inside! I told you that already."
"Two."
"Black always said that's what he'd do if it came down to it."
"Three."
"He'd lock himself inside and then get out a secret way only he knew of."
"Four."
Cummins was speaking so fast he was barely understandable. "We was to meet him down on Whey Street Docks if that was ever to happen! I told you! I told you!"
"And that means what?" Rick asked menacingly.
"I told you so you wouldn't kill us!" he shouted.
"When did we make that arrangement?"
"O'Connell." Nadhir's quiet voice cut through the tension and caught Rick's attention. "Perhaps they are telling the truth. Even so, we must find another way to get the door open. I fear we are losing time if indeed this Black is inside. The king needs our help, not further delays."
"King? Whot the bloody 'ell are you goin' on about?" Ollie gasped, still trying to force air past his bruised throat. "There ain't no ruddy king down there."
"Yeah," offered Cummins, grasping at the notion that perhaps a misunderstanding had occurred. "You've made a mistake then. There's just Black and that strange-faced fella."
"That 'strange-faced fella', as you so put it," said Nadhir calmly as he pulled down the fabric masking his face, "is the king of our tribe. You are the ones who have made a mistake, gentlemen, two of them, to be precise. You made one when you chose to associate with Sidney Black, and you made one when you kidnapped Ardeth Bey. And while the one may have had no bearing on your futures, the other will rob you of them."
And while Arnie Cummins and Ollie Wentworth were digesting his statement, he issued a quick command in Arabic and the two men were led out of the service hallway and into the bowels of the house.
"May I suggest," Nadhir offering Rick an axe as the screaming men were led away, "an alternative means of entry."
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The shot rang loud in the stone cellar, the terrible echo bouncing off the walls. Sidney Black cried out in pain and alarm as a bullet tore through his hand. He turned quickly to his right, his eyes wide with astonishment as a dark shadow disengaged itself from the blackness nearby.
"Perhaps my warriors' hopes are not as bleak as all that," Bey rasped dryly.
Black ignored him and stared at the intruder. "How in the hell did you get down here?" he wondered, his voice betraying his shock.
"It would seem that you are not as well fortified as you had imagined," Ardeth replied. "Did you honestly think that hunters trained to track bandits through the catacombs of pyramids could be vanquished by an English manor house?"
The nazi spy continued to hunch over his wounded hand. "Perhaps not an English manor house," he murmured painfully, "but most definitely by an English man!"
With a speed that one would not have expected from his appearance, Sidney Black whirled away from the two warriors and seized one of the still-hot pokers from the dying fire. The others fell to the floor with a loud clang or landed on the mound of kindling. Gunshots rang out as the hooded Med-jai attempted to hit the running man. Using the same shadows that had hidden the intruding rescuer, Black made his way around the fire pit. When he heard what he'd been waiting for, the click of an empty bullet chamber, he raised the poker and lunged at Ardeth Bey.
The Med-jai warrior had started firing the second Black dashed behind the furnace. With grim determination, he fired shot after shot at the dancing shadow of the English traitor. When the chamber clicked empty, he unsheathed the wicked scimitar at his side, knowing that Black held the poker in his hands. Only the slightest glow illuminated the thin shadow that stalked his king, but it was enough. When Black emerged from behind the furnace, the warrior was ready.
The iron poker hit the steel blade with a great crash. Sparks flew as the two opponents parried above Ardeth's head. Ignoring the pain in his body, Ardeth forced himself to roll sideways as soon as he was able, giving his champion more room. None of them noticed the smoldering kindling nor the tiny flames that began to form in the bone-dry wood.
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"How ... thick ... can this ... door be?" Rick wondered aloud as he hammered at the door with the heavy axe.
"Ah, but English manors are well built, my friend," Nadhir answered him, taking a turn to swing at the door with his own cleaver. "They are made ... to be ... invincible." His last word rose with triumph as a small chink finally broke away, leaving a small sliver of the cellar's inky darkness exposed.
Rick leaned over and took a breath, preparing to call to his brother. He stopped short and backed up a step, raising alarmed eyes to Ardeth's father-in-law. In unison they attacked the wooden portal for neither of them needed words to tell them what to do; the smoke rising through the crack said it all.
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The fight was a furious one. Neither Black nor his opponent gave ground as they parried and thrust at each other, each hoping to break the other's grasp on his weapon. Ardeth lay gasping for air on the cold floor. Rolling away from the lunging feet as he needed to had drained his strength and left him desperately trying to pull air through to his lungs past broken and bruised ribs and pulled abdominal muscles. It was only when he managed to pull in a deep breath that he promptly coughed out that he noticed the smoke creeping through the air. He took a brief second to curse silently then called a warning in Arabic.
"Med-jai, fire! This must be finished!"
Black didn't know what Bey had called out but the choking cough as he finished speaking gave him an indication. He, too, was beginning to notice the thickening air.
"Well, my brave fellow," he gasped out as he continued to fight against the warrior who defied him, not caring if the man could understand him or not, "it seems ... we have reached ... an impasse, one in which ... we all die. And I don't know about you ... but I am not ready for death!"
With a burst of unexpected strength, Black lunged at the Med-jai, abandoning any attempts at finesse and simply hammering away at the scimitar with the poker, driving the warrior backward. When he stumbled over the spilled kindling, Black aimed a heavy blow to his midsection and the Med-jai went down in a heap, sword dropping to the floor as he fumbled to keep his balance. Black laughed wildly at his victory and reached for the hilt with one hand while pulling up the gasping warrior with other.
"Now, Bey, you get to watch your rescuer die before you." He pulled the headscarf off the warrior's head and almost dropped the weapon in his hand. "A woman! You people really are heathens, aren't you? Sending your women do your men's work." Black cruelly grabbed a handful of the woman's hair and pulled her upright, poising the razor sharp scimitar at her throat. He allowed himself a brief second to take in her exotic beauty then turned to Ardeth, a gloating smile on his lips. Despite the injuries and his obvious inability to do him harm, Black felt a shiver of dread creep down his spine. Bey's eyes were black with rage and in their depths Black could swear he saw his death.
"You will release her."
The Nazi shook off the fear that threatened at the edges of his emotions and grinned another death's head grin. "Why? Is she someone special to you? Do your warriors service you? Perhaps this one is especially good, eh, Bey?"
"I said, you will release her."
The smoking kindling had finally found its flash point. The pile of wood burst into flame, sending yellow light and heat into the smoky cellar.
Black glanced at it and spoke over the every growing sound of crackling wood. "No. Your Med-jai whore will die. Then you will die."
The warrior in his grip spoke. "I am not his whore," she ground out through clenched teeth.
Sidney Black threw his head back and laughed. It was the last mistake he would ever make. "What are you then?" he asked snidely.
He never saw the blade that appeared from her sleeve; never knew she had it until he felt it slide into his belly.
"I am," the warrior said coldly as she easily twisted out of his weakening grasp and yanked the knife upward into his chest, "his queen."