allowed to leave. Drake didn’t relish the idea of spending time in an Egyptian prison.
“We need to get Jada some air,” Sully said to Olivia. “You understand.”
Olivia seemed to be practically vibrating with indecision. She glanced at Henriksen, who had his hands clenched into fists. Melissa and a couple of other dig employees had stayed with them, and Drake thought it was touch and go for a moment as to whether he might start breaking people’s necks with his massive hands.
“Of course,” Olivia said, but her eyes were on Henriksen, keeping him in check with her pleading gaze. “I’ll come up with you.”
“No,” Henriksen snapped, the first time they’d heard him speak in his crisp, deep voice. “I need you here.”
Olivia hesitated. Drake studied her, hating that he couldn’t read her. Was she really a victim in Henriksen’s thrall, or was she in on the whole thing and simply trying to prevent him from doing anything stupid? Did she care about Jada at all or care that her husband had been murdered? Had she helped murder him?
“Fine,” Olivia said. She gave Jada a little push. “See you outside. Don’t go far.”
“Yeah,” Drake said, glancing at Henriksen. “We’ll stick close.”
Drake held Henriksen’s icy stare as he backed away, cognizant of the weight of the gun he’d tucked into the back of his waistband and hoping he didn’t have to use it in such close quarters.
“What did you find?” Melissa asked as they walked past her. “What’s down there?”
Drake looked at her, then at Henriksen, wanting the bastard to know that they had beaten him to it and were that much closer to solving the mystery he’d killed Luka Hzujak to keep from talking about.
“Secrets,” he said, smiling at Henriksen. “Stuff that’s going to blow your mind. Things you never would have expected.”
Henriksen lifted his chin, sneering. “Some secrets can be dangerous. Sometimes it’s safer for them to remain secret. Men can become very wealthy keeping secrets.”
Drake smirked. Was the guy trying to buy him? Not that he was offended by the idea of someone trying to pay him to shut up and go away. But Henriksen was the kind of arrogant bastard who thought he was king of the world. He’d had people murdered, including Jada’s father, because he thought he was too special to have to follow rules or share his discoveries with the world.
Sully took Jada’s hand and led her along the corridor, headed for the stairs that went up into the labyrinth. Drake hung back a moment, still locking eyes with Henriksen. Then he glanced at Melissa and smiled.
“Nothing stays a secret forever.”
He didn’t want to turn his back on Henriksen, but he figured if the guy was going to paint the walls with his blood, he’d have done it already. Still, it was all he could do not to run for the stairs, knowing those icy, soulless eyes were behind him, wanting him dead. Not that I’m afraid, of course, he thought. I’m just also not stupid.
Fifteen minutes later they were outside.
Four minutes after that, they were in the Volvo wagon, racing across the desert, wondering how long it would take the authorities to get out to the dig once someone radioed them.
Three hours later they were on a boat racing north on the Nile, headed for Port Said in hopes of finding a ship’s captain willing to run them northwest across the Mediterranean to Santorini. There would be ferry service, but a ferry would have other stops and might take a couple of days to get them there, and they didn’t have a moment to spare. They had a head start on Henriksen, but that wasn’t likely to last very long. Henriksen had more money than God, and he had the luxury of traveling under his real name, not a false identity that might not hold up under real scrutiny.
They did have a few things in their favor, however. Welch had given them their destination before he’d been abducted and maybe killed—more blood spilled over this secret—and since Hilary and her team didn’t know what Henriksen was looking for, they would come to their revelations more slowly. Also, Hilary and her staff would be occupied with the police, trying to figure out who had taken Welch and trying to get him back.
They would beat Henriksen to the third labyrinth, Drake decided. They had to.
As for Welch’s abduction, Drake, Jada, and Sully avoided that subject as much as possible, partly because they knew the police would assume