The Amulet of Power Read Free Page A

you.”
    “That
who
will be sending after me?” she insisted. “Why did two men I never saw before want to kill me?”
    “Later.” He helped her to her feet. “Are you strong enough to walk by yourself?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Mason frowned. “If you collapse in front of anyone, I’ll never get you out of here.” He paused. “I’ll get a wheelchair and bring it back.” He looked around, picked up a white laundry bag, and handed it to her. “These are your clothes. The hospital washed them. I know you’re groggy, but try to get into them while I’m gone.”
    “Why?” she asked, fighting off another wave of dizziness.
    “Because once we get out of here, I can’t take a beautiful woman through a Moslem country with her backside peeking out of her hospital gown.”
    “I should have thought of that,” said Lara.
    “If you didn’t have a lump the size of a baseball on the back of your head, I’m sure you would have. Now hurry up.”
    Then he was gone, and Lara took off her gown and climbed slowly, painfully, into her clothes. Her holsters were there, but her pistols were gone. Back in the tomb, probably. Which meant they were as good as gone. She felt a pang. She was going to miss those guns.
    Mason came back about half a minute after she’d finished, wearing a doctor’s white lab coat and pushing a wheelchair.
    “In case you’re wondering,” said Mason, “your pistols are in my car. If you’d still been wearing them when I brought you in here, they’d be locked away in some hospital safe now.”
    “That’s another one I owe you.” She sat in the wheelchair while he walked over to the bed, pulled off a pair of lightweight blankets, and covered her with them.
    “You’re not exactly wearing hospital garb,” he said as he tucked them around her. “No sense advertising it.”
    Then they were out in the corridor, and he wheeled her past the nurse’s station to an elevator. The door closed and the elevator began descending.
    “So far so good,” said Mason.
    The elevator stopped at the main floor, and the door slid open. Mason quickly surveyed the lobby. There were half a dozen doctors milling about, a trio of nurse’s stations, a registration desk, and two uniformed policemen standing by the door.
    “Now what?” Lara asked in a whisper.
    “Hopefully this white coat I’m wearing will make them think I’m a doctor. Better cross your fingers under those blankets, Lara—here we go.” He took a deep breath and wheeled her to the main entrance.
    One of the guards stared at him curiously, but Mason simply smiled and continued walking, and the guard stepped aside and allowed him to wheel Lara out of the hospital and over to a late-model Land Rover.
    “That was either very brave or very stupid,” Lara said. “I’m not sure which.”
    “I read in a spy novel once that the best way to deflect suspicion is to act like you’ve got nothing to hide.” He opened the passenger door and carefully helped her to her feet. “Can you climb in by yourself?”
    “Of course I can,” said Lara. She tried to pull herself onto the seat. Suddenly another wave of dizziness overcame her, and she fell back into Mason’s arms. “Well, I
thought
I could.”
    He helped her into the Land Rover, then walked around and took his place in the driver’s seat.
    “Where are we going?” asked Lara.
    “Away from here,” said Mason. “If I step on it, we can be out of Cairo in half an hour.”
    “Where are my pistols?”
    “The glove compartment.”
    She opened it, found her passport and billfold, which she pocketed, and her pistols, which she slipped lovingly into their holsters.
    “Those are very unusual guns,” said Mason. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like them.”
    She pulled a pistol out. “This is the Wilkes and Hawkins Black Demon .32.”
    “Custom job?”
    “Modified to my specifications,” she answered. “Fifteen shots to the clip, and it’s just this side of a hair