Wild Storm Read Free Page A

not, that’s why we’ve got those gentlemen,” he said, gesturing toward the four men with guns.
    The vehicles were still closing in, now roughly a mile away, driving in a straight line toward the dig site with a determination that, to Katie, seemed to signify malignant intent.
    “They’re probably just merchants trying to sell us something,” the professor suggested. “Fruit or vegetables or trinkets. Anyhow, I’m going into the tent to get some water, and I suggest you do the same. I keep telling you, it’s very easy to get dehydrated out here.”
    “I’m fine,” she said. “I just…I can’t lose Khufu.”
    The professor disappeared. Katie, however, continued walking in the direction of the dust cloud, toward the tented staging area where the valuables they brought up from under the sand were being carefully wrapped and readied for transport. There were crates of varying sizes, some small enough for a few tiny figurines, others carrying huge slabs of carved granite that weighed a thousand pounds or more.
    Among the artifacts she had personally discovered was a life-sized bust of Khufu. One of the early pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty, a god-man who ruled Egypt some 4,500 years ago, he was generally accepted as being the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid of Giza. Little else was known about him. If verified, the pink granite statue would be just the second known depiction of the ancient king.
    It would also be the kind of find that would propel Dr. Comely into the first rank of young archaeologists. Perhaps it would even lead to a rare tenure-track professorship at a leading research university. But only if she could get it back to the lab.
    The dust cloud now appeared to be at least three stories high, and the vehicles—they were pickup trucks, with men riding in their flatbeds—were just a few hundred yards away.
    Close enough that Katie could see their guns without the aid of her binoculars.
    “Professor!” she shouted. “It’s them. They’re back.”
    Raynes reappeared from his tent.
    “Are you sure?” he asked.
    “Just look!”
    He grabbed the binoculars from her outstretched hand, focused them, then swore.
    “Okay, okay. Let’s…let’s not panic here,” he said.
    Then—in a voice that sounded a lot like panic—he began shouting in excited Arabic at the sleepy-eyed guards. Katie only spoke a few words of the language, enough to be polite on the street and ask where the restroom was. She had been meaning to improve her skills. She was lost as soon as a conversation started.
    The moment the professor’s instructions to the guards were issued, one of the young assailants rapidly closing in pointed his AK-47 in the air and gleefully squeezed the trigger. A rapid burst of ten or twenty rounds flew into the atmosphere. Katie counted at least six other men with guns in the raiding party.
    To Katie’s dismay, the four guards did not return fire. They took one look at what was coming and, as if in practiced unison, reached the simultaneous conclusion that they were not being paid enough to do anything about it. They turned and ran.
    Katie felt a shout escaping from her lungs. The professor was also berating them in Arabic. His admonishment bounced off the guards’ backs as they fled.
    The bandits were now on them. They were mostly young, barely out of their teens, their dark beards still scraggly. The leader—or the man who appeared to be the leader—was older, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties, with strands of white in his beard.
    They pulled to a stop near the staging area and hopped off the pickup trucks with the apparent intention of helping themselves to whatever was there. The professor rushed at them—courageously, foolishly, and completely unarmed—and did not stop even as several gun muzzles were trained on him. Katie rushed behind him, yelling at him to stop. He was unbowed.
    The leader unleashed a stream of words at the professor. Katie tried to pick them up, but to