Jonathan had heard whispers of exactly how lethal the agents of the Mossad were rumoured to be, and wasn't exactly eager to test their capabilities. That was a young man's game now. Even so, he strongly suspected that the moment he and Kurt fulfilled their responsibilities, they would conveniently disappear. That tended to be the MO of these sorts of disagreeable people.

Maybe he needed to rethink his life choices.

"What did you do to her?"

"What?"

Kurt indicated where Adela was standing. "What did you do to her?"

"You're really assuming it's my fault?"

"Are you really claiming it's not?" He parried.

Jonathan chuckled. "Well, the first time we met Adela spent most of the night locked in a closet. It wasn't my fault."

Kurt's eyebrows rose.

"Alright, maybe only a little." He shrugged. "I didn't know she worked for Intelligence until '38."

He cocked an eyebrow. "The… naked handcuffs situation?"

"No, that happened in 1940. I'd say if I tell you I'd have to kill you, but I find that horribly cliché."

"And you're not cliché in the slightest."

"Oh, poo to you."

With a slight grin, Kurt turned back to his paperwork. "The best descriptions we have for the location of Punt is courtesy of Queen Hatshepsut."

Jonathan was used to sudden historical subject changes by now and just went with it.

"Despite that little bugger Thutmose trying to wipe her from the history books."

It was like Kurt hadn't heard him speak. "Five ships set out from a port on the Red Sea southwards to Suakin. The voyage had taken between 20 and 25 days."

The two of them were sitting in a tent, the canvas flap open and an armed guard standing at the entrance. Beyond was an entirely bombed out little French town, and though they hadn't really been afforded the chance to look around, Jonathan was mostly convinced that they were in Oradour-sur-Glane, the poor town that had been destroyed when the Nazis had mixed it up with the nearby village of Oradour-sur-Vayres and razed it to the ground in a misguided revenge mission.

The French had very deliberately left this town the way it was, as a monument to all those lost in the war. So much death. Was there anything left of humanity actually worth saving?

"They covered on average 50 kilometres a day, hugging the coast rather than risk the deep water of the Red Sea. From Suakin, the route to Punt was overland through the Red Sea hills."

"Brilliant." Jonathan said. "So what's the plan? We just sail down the Nile like Cleopatra and see where we end up?"

"I would have thought that would be more your speed."

"I've sailed down the Nile, believe me, it's not all it's cracked up to be." Jonathan said, recalling raging dysentery and chronic seasickness and all the bloody tourists. "I'm sorry, is this what my plans sound like?"

"You do have a talent for pulling plans out of your backside, to varying degrees of success."

"I'm like a magician that way." Jonathan said. He clapped his hands together briskly. "Alright, I daresay it's time to be more proactive in escaping."

"You have a plan?"

Al-Qarawiyyin library was founded in 1359 AD and was the world's oldest remaining and continually operating library. When the library was opened the Mongol Empire ruled Asia and Christian soldiers were still stomping across the Middle East. The library itself was on the grounds of the Al-Qarawiyyin University, and when the uni had been founded as a mosque in 859 AD there were still Viking raiders sailing across the Mediterranean Sea.

Regrettably the whole facility had been in some decline for a while now, and Jonathan really hoped that the faculty would find some way to turn it around. Even he could admit that it would be a depressing loss of knowledge and history to the world.

It had been so long since Jonathan had been to Morocco, and if he hadn't been on rather a time crunch he would have been happy to take in the sights, maybe show Kurt around. After all, there were still quite a few people that owned him a beer or two.

Jonathan ran his fingers lightly along the once brilliant-coloured tiles, and Kurt shot him a sharp glare that seemed to convey that if he didn't keep his hands firmly in his pockets, Kurt would happily remove them. He rolled his eyes and pulled a face, silently needling his friend.

"Evening." Jonathan said to the harried-looking librarian in Darija. "Hope the day's been treating you well."

Get on with it, you entitled foreign idiot, the librarian seemed to say soundlessly. Jonathan was endlessly fascinated by how these bibliophiles were blessed with the ability to communicate entire phrases with narrowed eyes or a raised brow. Jonathan could and did have entire conversations with his baby sister with Evy saying nothing at all.

"No funny business." Adela said sharply.

"Dear lady, I would never!" Jonathan theatrically fanned himself like a swooning maiden before turning back to the librarian. "So we need to see the back room."

The librarian's eyes narrowed.

Jonathan nudged Adela. "Give him the donation."

She scowled but passed across the money, which immediately disappeared into the little man's paw. That was when he smiled, before leading them down into the archives, the ancient walls lined with wooden boxes. Job done, the little man turned to leave.

"Do give the Major my regards, yes?"

The librarian didn't stop walking, but the minute incline of his head was all the acknowledgement that Jonathan needed. Adela's head whipped around, immediately recognising something passed between two people that didn't know each other in the slightest but a mutual code tethered them together. The next moment the agent grabbed Jonathan by the wrist, locking his elbow and bending his arm up around his back. Jonathan immediately went over headfirst, his face smacking against the ancient tile.

"Ow! Bloody hell, woman! You're really dead-set on giving me a repetitive head injury, aren't you?"

It spoke of how far the library had fallen as none of the staff even looked up at one of their patrons getting his face punted into the wall.

"Who did you signal?" She demanded.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!"

Adela wrenched his arm up even further and Jonathan twisted over in a way his middle-aged body decidedly didn't appreciate, all so his shoulder wouldn't pop from its socket. He could put it back, of course, but what a bother and all. "Who did you signal?" She repeated.

"You're entirely too paranoid for your own good, you psychopath!"

As abruptly as she seized him, Adela let Jonathan go. He backed off as much as he could, fingers tingling as the blood flow to his arm was restored.

"So you know, when stuffy old men whinge about hysterical women I picture you every time." He shot a glare at Kurt. "Fat lot of good you were."

"What did you expect me to do? You bring this on yourself, you know."

Jonathan smiled wryly. True, definitely true, but- "Now you've got that out of your system, can we get to work now?"

Adela barked something to her men, no doubt warning them in case more armed goons rocked up to spring them. "Go."

Jonathan and Kurt exchanged brief looks before heading toward the archives. Jonathan's fingers had only lightly brushed one of the boxes when there was a scream. And another. Followed by a volley of gunfire and the screeching of rubber on gravel. His eyes went wide. Kurt stared at him, and Jonathan shook his head.

"What have you done?" Adela screamed.

"It's not me." Jonathan said.

She swore. "Stay here." Pulling a gun from the back of her trousers, she left the room.

"Carnahan?" Kurt said, as the gunfire got closer.

"It's not me!" Jonathan snapped. "We've got to get out of here."

"We would be walking into a fire fight! What do we do?"

Jonathan scanned the room, the massive archive boxes and the sturdy wooden shelves, the ornate window set high in the wall.

Seconds later the doors burst open, slamming into the ancient tile. Masked men in heavy fatigues filed into the storeroom, checking every nook and cranny with rifles drawn. The lead figure scanned the boxes piled staircase-style against the wall to the open window set high in the wall. He barked something at the other henchmen and they swiftly filed out of the storeroom.

Jonathan watched it all from his perch lying flat on his stomach on the top of one of the massive bookcases, heart in his throat. As the last heavy left the room, he allowed himself to breathe again and looked across to Kurt lying on an adjacent bookcase, not moving and barely breathing and looking rather like a gargoyle.

"They'll be back soon." Kurt said.

"Then it's time to skedaddle." Jonathan cautiously got to his feet, legs apart for stability. He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment to dispel the sudden spell of vertigo before breathing deeply, eyes flickering open. He flexed his shoulders a couple of times before bouncing up on the balls of his feet and grabbing for the nearest rafter.

Splinters bit into his fingers as he hauled himself into the roof of the building. There was a creaking of timber and Jonathan glanced over his shoulder to see Kurt cautiously picking his way across to him. Jonathan reached up, fingers probing the roofing tiles for any sort of give. Finally one started to shift, and with a bit of Kurt's added muscle they were sliding one of the roofing tiles away to be bathed in searing Moroccan sun.

After an upwards boost from his muscle-bound companion Jonathan found himself scrabbling onto the roof of the historical structure. He staggered slightly as he got his footing, his old-man body not exactly appreciating how he chose to exit the building. It wasn't exactly the smoothest way he'd ever left a venue, but he supposed it honestly wasn't the weirdest way either.

Well, if he thought he had vertigo before-

"Which way?"

Jonathan pointed. "Follow the coastline."

Kurt looked extremely doubtful. "Follow the coastline?"

"Oh, please, like you have so many other choices. Feel free to speak up if you have any pearls of wisdom to share."

With every step he expected to plummet through the roof, but eventually urgency won out over caution and the two of them were running over the flat rooftops, jumping balconies and sprinting through loaded washing lines. Kurt was slapped in the face by a pair of wet underpants and Jonathan couldn't help the breathless laugh. Behind them rang out a chorus of swearing from the inhabitants in Arabic, Berber and French.

French. Why's it always the French?

He thumped down onto someone's rooftop garden before hefting himself over the balcony railing, leaning out to grab the drainpipe. Jonathan shook it. It was fastened to the building but secured quite a bit looser than he would have liked.

Well, there was no rest for the wicked and only the good died young.

With each move Jonathan expected the drainpipe to entirely rip away from the wall, but somehow the structure held for him to scramble to the bottom. Jonathan's arms and shoulders were screaming. Kurt thumped down beside him as Jonathan looked around.

"This way," he grabbed the fellow's wrist.

And that was when a shout rang out. Jonathan's head didn't immediately unscramble the language but as the man shouted again he immediately recognised the universal urgency of Stop!

"Bugger."

And they bolted. Jonathan's side panged painfully with a stitch, his breath short, and he briefly considered that just maybe he should start some sort of fitness regime. Get himself into better shape, what. Bullets nipped at their heels, attempting to take them to their knees, getting closer with every step. The two of them tore into a side street emerging into a quiet road behind empty shops. No. He had come so far. He had been around the world and back.

Jonathan was not going to be gunned down in the sand of the continent he had been born, even though it would make a certain amount of poetic symmetry.

That was when a dull green patched Ford pickup truck rumbled into the square, a dark figure in workers' denim sitting on a toolbox lashed to the bed, watching them with a studied disinterest. The Ford slowed but didn't stop, and the dark man quirked a brow at them. Jonathan and Kurt exchanged a glance.

Well, it was doubtful that the situation could really get that much worse.

Coming to a silent accord to not look a gift horse in the mouth, Jonathan and Kurt immediately climbed up onto the bed of the truck, the dark man throwing a heavy tarpaulin over them as the truck rumbled out of Fez.

"Are you sure Mum will be okay with you leaving her in France?" Alex asked doubtfully.

"As opposed to what?" Rick raised an eyebrow. "Letting you run off with a bunch of strangers?"

"They're not strangers to Uncle Jon," The kid flared immediately, and Rick knew without a doubt that his next words could potentially start another argument. It was make or break time.

"Yeah, because your Uncle Jon has got such good judgement."

Alex gave him a flat look, before stomping away. Rick sighed. Well, so much for that.

"Don't have kids."

The pilot snorted, fixing water cans to the wall of the plane. "I'll stick to bears. It's easier."

He eyed up the grizzled pilot, with the wild hair and the slightly batshit crazy glitter in his eyes that every pilot he'd ever met had. Rick had never met a more hard-drinking hard-partying lot of men. It probably had something to do with coming face-to-face with mortality more abruptly and dramatically than the average guy. Every time you went up you could come down in a flaming ball of death.

Winston would have liked Vasily Dragovitch, he thought with a pang of nostalgia.

"I'll take your word for it."

"Are you coming, Hot-rod?"

Rick didn't react to the nickname, a corner of his mouth lifting slightly. Magnusson's crew was testing him, and probably would be for a while. He couldn't exactly blame them. After all, they had already been reluctantly lumped with one O'Connell. Not to mention whatever they'd gone through with Jonathan in the first place.

"Let's get this show on the road."

Despite the rather dire immediate situation he was in, Jonathan had been in so many other dire situations over the course of his life that he somehow actually managed to nod off in the back of the bouncing truck.

Finally the Ford rumbled to a stop and the canvas tarpaulin was pulled away, leaving Jonathan blinking into the light. As the glare finally settled, Jonathan sat up and saw the man standing at the tailgate, grinning at them, the waning sun catching in his greying red hair and Jonathan felt an immediate rush of relief. The Major, though he didn't much look like a Major nowadays. Well, not that he ever really did, even when they were both in uniform.

"Well, isn't it old Carnage Carnahan. Strewth, don't you look like a dog's brekkie."

Jonathan Carnahan had first met Harry O'Rourke when the two of them were in basic training in Egypt before the worst of the Great War. Jonathan had been trucked in with a load of other English and Welsh squaddies when the Australian cavalry, the Lighthorse, arrived with pomp and flair. Although they were rough and ready and quite unrefined, a good majority having been farmers, when those boys got on their horses there was something almost spiritual about it, how those boys moved as one with their animal and had a bond that seemed to go deeper than anyone outside their own Regiment could possibly comprehend.

To those young pasty nervous British recruits, the tall, tanned confident Aussies were as gods among men. And Harry, as one of the Australian officers who was more than ready to take the piss out of his British counterparts, was a king. Admittedly there might have been a bit of bias as Jonathan had been an impressionable 16-year-old at the time and Harry a knowledgeable 19.

…but of course that was before Jonathan found out exactly how mad the man they called Crazy Harry was. Jonathan knew very well that if it wasn't for Harry's sheer brass balls in the face of adversity that it was very likely he would have ended up splattered all over Gaza in 1917.

Jonathan awkwardly hopped down from the bed of the truck, stumbling a little on the uneven ground.

Harry's dark eyes switched from Jonathan to Kurt as the burly German scrambled down from the truck. Kurt's gaze immediately locked on the service revolvers holstered on Harry's hips and his shoulders hunched as he tried to minimise his bulk to the best of his ability. Jonathan's lips pursed. It wasn't natural, that his friend should be so cowed.

"Wasn't sure the code'd work after all this time."

"Yair, well. Yer sister called, said we might be getting visitors and to keep an eye and ear out."

"Of course." Jonathan demurred. Apparently wherever he went in the world, his sister would be there. Watching. Maybe he should be worried. He shook his head. "Harry, this is Kurt Steiner. Kurt, this is the Major, Harry O'Rourke." Jonathan hoped his casual tone would cut through the tension.

"Steiner, eh?" Harry sniffed. "Seems I remember that the last few times we went up against the bloody Krauts didn't exactly end so well."

"Yes, well, this is entirely more complicated than last time."

"Fucking bonzer. Not more of your spy shit, yair?"

"Mate, I have got absolutely no sodding idea anymore."

There was a strange pull to this ancient land, Jonathan mused, that no matter how much blood and trauma and literal parts of themselves they'd left here, there was just something that kept reeling them all back. Something that kept calling.

He hadn't believed in God for a long time, but there was something out there, something that connected them all. The three sides of the pyramid.

Jonathan snorted in derision at the sudden thought. Three sides of the pyramid and the whole thing would fall down. Ardeth and his ridiculous vaguely ominous-sounding proclamations. He had decided that it was all in the voice. No one would have ever taken him even slightly seriously if he'd said there were seven days before the Scorpion King returned and resurrected the Army of Anubis, all in a thick Geordie accent.

The nice suit he had been wearing at the beginning of this whole debacle was a compete write-off, and Jonathan sighed ruefully as he inspected the once-fine trousers that were now stained and ripped and coated with blood and sand. At least he was getting into the habit of wearing boots instead of his expensive loafers, or the sacrifice would have been much more painful.

He collapsed back on the bed, feeling relaxed and comfortable after a long bath. Thank Christ that Crazy Harry had finally installed indoor plumbing to the homestead and he didn't have to wash down in the metal tub that was still sitting in the front yard. Despite evidence to the contrary, he wasn't a complete exhibitionist.

All the chaos seemed to fade to the background as Jonathan finally allowed himself to be exhausted, eyes fluttering closed.

It seemed like he had only just laid down when the roaring of jet engines reached his ears. Moments later there was a sharp knock on the fame before the door swung open, and Jonathan found himself blinking up at Maggie, the lady of the house.

"You have visitors."

After a moment he forced himself to sit up. "I'm in my smalls, Missus."

Maggie arched an eyebrow. "Jonnie, I've known you since you were 18, I've seen the wedding tackle before and luv, you're not all that."

"You really know how to hit a chap in the old ego, dear Margaret."

She shook her head. "Put some pants on and let's say hello."

The aeroplane taxied along the farmstead's bush runway, bouncing to a stop. Jonathan sat on the veranda barefoot and in his flannel pyjamas, two of the farm's older working dogs sitting on either side of him, in a strange echo of when he was a child and he'd run outside in similar states of undress when his parents arrived home from another adventure.

After a moment Kurt came out to join him. The last of the bright blue suit had bit the biscuit but thankfully one of the farm workers was roughly his size, loaning him some jean trousers and a checked flannel shirt. As Jonathan watched, the big man sat cross-legged in the grass and the little spotty puppy that had been following him around most of the day settling himself firmly in Kurt's lap, a big hand curling protectively around the little body. Even regarding the situation the big chap looked more composed, and calmer than he had been since Oxford. Maybe he could convince Harry to let him take the pup with them.

Thank God for dogs.

Harry stopped beside Jonathan, hands on his hips as he eyed up Dragovitch's aeroplane. "Looks like a Heinkel." One of the dogs rose to stand obediently at Harry's side while the other stayed with her big head determinedly on Jonathan's knee, making mock-biting motions at him whenever it looked like Jonathan was going to stop scratching behind her ears. Demanding females.

"Yep." Jonathan said. "I gather there's a story behind it. I'm pretty sure it's stolen."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "The calibre of your friends hasn't exactly improved, mate."

"Are you including yourself in that?"

"Never said I wasn't." Crazy Harry eyed up Jonathan. "You good?"

Jonathan blew out a sigh. If he couldn't talk to one of his oldest friends, who could he talk to? "I am so fucking tired."

"Twelve hour nap not long enough for you?" Harry said with a glimmer of humour.

"You know exactly what I mean. I'm not built for this anymore."

"Mate, like you ever were?" He laughed.

"Funnily enough, that's exactly my point. I'm made for cocktail parties and jazz bars and drinking wine in the afternoon. Not shuttling around the world pretending I know what I'm doing. Maybe I should just go back to China. Or do what you did and just raise chickens somewhere."

"Brooding doesn't suit you." Harry said sternly.

Jonathan was affronted. "I don't brood."

After a moment he lowered himself to sit down beside Jonathan with a little old-man huff. "Jonnie, I know you. I've seen your best and I've seen your very worst. And I know that if you want to go somewhere, you just go. Yair, you're not exactly a natural when it comes to adventuring, but staying in one place for the rest of your life would send you troppo and kill yer faster than a bullet. You're here because as much as you whinge about it, you want to be here." He arched an eyebrow. "I found my place here. Georgie found his by going back to school for some bloody reason. Evy found where she belonged. Now you need to find your place."

He pulled a face. "Oh, the sentimentality. I think I'm going to vomit."

Harry chuckled. "'Sides, you couldn't do chickens."

"Yeah?"

Harry hummed, looking into the horizon with a thousand-yard stare. "Chooks're vicious, they'd eat you alive."

He said it with such a philosophical air that Jonathan had to laugh. "Thank you, Confucius."

One of the workers took the farm truck to pick up the visitors, and after ten minutes or so the truck trundled back up the driveway to the house.

The passenger door opened, and Sigrun Sarsgard Magnusson stepped out, fading light catching in her fair hair. She turned and when she saw Jonathan she smiled, a genuine smile of relief and happiness, and something in him warmed.

And then his nephew jumped down from the bed of the truck and almost tackled him in his haste for a hug, before stepping back with a flaming face as he realised he was 21 and an adult and a man and shouldn't be hugging his family anymore and displaying emotions was gross.

"You okay?"

"Right as rain! How about you, partner?" Jonathan grinned, hands on his nephew's shoulders.

"I'm fine, but listen, there's something I need to tell-"

"So I'm thinking we need to have a talk about you getting my kid into a car accident."

And Jonathan looked up to see Rick O'Connell standing casually by the side of the truck, gun belt slung casually over his shoulder.

Bugger.