Pyramid: A Novel (Jack Howard Series Book 8) by David Gibbins Read Free Book Online Page B

his final planned departure from Egypt. He was hoping to show something to the world arising from those years that was not tainted by the guilt and dishonor that pervaded the failure to rescue Gordon.
    The boat bumped again, more jarringly this time. There was a commotion from the hold opening in the center of the deck, and a voice with an English accent cursing. “God damn you.
God damn your eyes
.” Another man spoke, higher pitched, in French, remonstrating angrily, followed again by the first voice. “I didn’t mean you, Guerin. I meant the spanner, God damn it. The one I just dropped.”
    Chaillé-Long took out his cigar and peered into the hold. “Keep your voice down, Jones. We’re close enough to shore that we might be overheard.”
    Jones’ head and shoulders appeared out of the opening, and he spoke in Arabic to the captain. After listening to the reply, he turned around, his bearded face scarcely visible in the darkness. “Don’t worry yourself, Colonel. The captain says there’s nobody along the shoreline. The fishermen don’t bother to come this far along the bank when it’s pitch dark, when there’s no moon. They’re terrified of slipping into the whirlpools that appear during the flood and being sucked down by the monsters they think lie beneath. Nile perch, no doubt, some of them of prodigious size, though who knows what else swims in this river. Even the captainand his boy are afraid. It’s only your gold that’s brought them here, and you’ll probably have to cough up more of it to make them stay. So I can curse and swear as much as I like.”
    “In my experience of English soldiery, Corporal Jones,” Chaillé-Long drawled, “that could keep us occupied to dawn and beyond.”
    “The valve of the diving cylinder is jammed,” Jones said, and he ducked down again. There was a sound of scrabbling in the bilges, and then he reappeared. “I’ve found the spanner, Allah be praised. But I’m going to have to strike the valve to open it, and that sound would wake up all Cairo. I’ll need to muffle it.” He paused, looking up. “Toss me your scarf, would you, old boy?”
    Chaillé-Long drew himself up and snorted. “I will
not
give you my scarf. It is the purest cashmere, direct from my
fournisseur
in Paris.”
    “I don’t care if it’s rat skin. I never took you for a dandy, Chaillé-Long, but now I’m wondering. How did an American get a name like that anyway?”
    “Not all Yankees are Irish, despite the prejudicial views of you English. My great-grandfather was French, from a landed family under the old regime. And before you call me a dandy, I will have you remember that I was a captain in the army of the North at the Battle of Gettysburg, and after that a colonel in the Khedive’s Sudanese army, chosen for the task by your revered General Gordon, no less.”
    Jones narrowed his eyes and stared at him. “Well, if you were good enough for old Charlie Gordon, God rest his soul, I suppose you’re good enough for me. But I still need your scarf.”
    Chaillé-Long snorted again, paused, then unlooped the scarf from his neck and dropped it into the opening. A few moments later there was a sound of dull thumping, of metal against metal, and then a sharp hissing noise that stopped as abruptly as it had started. “Done,” Jones called up. “That’s the breathing device prepared.As soon as the captain gives the word, Monsieur Guerin will be ready to go. We will help him to kit up.”
    —
    Fifteen minutes later Jones lit the small gas lamp inside the hold and then turned it down so that the glow would be invisible beyond the boat. He had known Guerin for only a few hours, since the man had joined them from the Cairo dock with his secret crate of equipment, and until now it had been a matter of fumbling around in the dark as he had helped to unbox and assemble the contraption.
    Guerin had come straight from the harbor of Alexandria, where he had intended to dive on the ruins of the