circular pattern. Aiming the beam of her light, Sydney took in her surroundings and was struck by the beauty of the place. The ceilings were still intact in all their original bright colors, and the walls between the niches had been frescoed with joyous paintings—crocodiles, ibises, hippopotamuses, and lotus leaves.
Flashlight tucked beneath her arm, Sydney sketched away. Francesca had other ideas besides standing there and soaking in the history of the place. She began lifting lids in each niche, those that she could reach, then shining her light carefully on those she couldn’t, clearly looking for something.
Sydney and Griffin watched her for several moments, until she finally seemed to remember their presence. “Since you’re here, you might as well help. I need every loculus checked, every lid of every olla lifted, at least of those you can reach.”
“There are hundreds in here,” Griffin said. “It’ll take forever.”
“Isn’t it convenient that there are three of us?”
“And what is it we’re looking for?”
“Something scratched on the wall or perhaps written on the inside of one of the lids. Something that tells me where this other hidden chamber is.”
Tunisia
0805 Hours
The delivery truck turned into the drive, then stopped at the barricade. The guard stepped out of his hut, walked up to the driver’s door. Marc, dressed in coveralls matching the logo on the truck, handed a clipboard with an invoice attached. “Delivery.”
The guard took it, looked at papers clipped to the board. “Oil?”
“Motor oil. High grade.”
“Wait here.” He returned into his office, then exited a few moments later with the schedule of deliveries in hand. “You’re a day early. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
According to the schedule Marc had photographed, other than the oil that wasn’t due for delivery until tomorrow, there wasn’t anything scheduled until later in the week. It was the best they could do, and Marc pointed to his forged invoice. “Our paperwork says today. Tomorrow we have a full delivery schedule, and we won’t be able to make it back here until next week.” He waited.
The guard eyed him, and then Rafiq, who sat in the passenger side, twenty years added to his looks with gray hair and a mustache, thanks to Lisette’s makeup skills. The guard turned his attention back to the paperwork, finally saying, “Open up the truck.”
Marc exited, walked to the back of the truck followed closely by the guard, and slid open the rear door, revealing case after case of motor oil. The guard signaled for Marc to lower the lift, so that he could get up and inspect the cargo. He took a knife from his belt, slit open one of the cases, pulled out a can of oil, then punched the top of the can with his knife. He removed the knife, touched his finger to the tip, rubbing the oil, then smelling it, as he walked between the stacks of cases toward the front of the bed, where he was about to do the same to another case. There was a damned good chance that he was about to drive his knife into either a case containing the explosives or the combustible fluid needed to incinerate the bioweapons. The former was bound to raise his suspicions when his knife didn’t come out covered in oil. The latter was a different problem. The slightest spark and they were toast.
The guard shoved the tip of his knife into the top of the case to open it, and Marc called out, “You want a case of the oil to take home?”
The guard hesitated, looked over at him. “Two cases.”
“Two cases,” Marc said, patting the two toward the front. He hopped up on the lift, then removed two cases. “Where do you want them?”
The guard walked over to Marc. “Bring them into there,” he said, pointing to the guard shack. Marc followed him in, glancing at the monitors as he placed the cases on the floor before them.
“Not there,” the guard said, pointing toward the desk. “There.”
Marc lifted the cases and moved them behind the desk, where they would no doubt stay until the guard was off duty. In about forty minutes, the oil would be the last thing the guard would be thinking about, and Marc walked out, again trying to get a glimpse of the monitor of the warehouse. No sign of Tex. He wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad.
The guard called for an escort, who drove up a few minutes later in a jeep old enough to probably use