The Library of the Kings (A Tom Wagner Adventure Book 2) Read online

  “Excited about tomorrow, babe?” Arno asked sleepily.

  “Of course. I really hope we find something.”

  “I hope so too, for your sake. I’d love for you to be able to carry through your father’s legacy and finally rediscover the library. And I’m happy that I’m able to help you with it, at least a little.”

  One agreeable advantage to being with Arno was that his father happened to own a South African diamond mine; the family had more money than the Sahara had grains of sand. Hellen had wasted no time getting him excited about the excavation.

  4

  Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.

  Scott dragged Tom back from the street. Tom, on autopilot, had been heading toward the two SUVs parked on Jefferson Drive, and had almost been hit by a car.

  “Tom, look out!” Scott cried as they stumbled backwards. The car flew past honking its horn, the driver gesticulating furiously.

  “Did you see those guys?” Tom said, still in his trance. He threw his hot dog in the trash and ran across the street. Scott took a final bite of his own, and followed him.

  Construction of the Castle, as the impressive structure had been nicknamed, had begun in 1847, a year after the Smithsonian Institute’s founding. It had been completed in 1855, the first building erected as part of Institute. Today, the Smithsonian was the biggest museum complex in the world, with more that 142 million items officially in its possession, although no more than two percent of that was on display in its nineteen museums.

  Tom and Scott could hear the first cries from inside the Castle as they approached, and a few hysterical people came running out of the building.

  “They killed a security guard,” a distraught young woman sobbed, pointing inside.

  Arriving at the entrance, they peered cautiously through a gap in the door. A few visitors crouched fearfully in one corner, not daring to move. A guard lay dead on the small staircase to the left, beside the elevator for disabled visitors. The unfortunate (and probably woefully underpaid) man hadn’t even managed to get to his radio to report the intruders.

  Ducking low, Tom and Scott entered the foyer; Scott crossed immediately to the guard. He checked for signs of life, then took out his phone and tried to dial 911, but the line was dead. “They’re blocking the mobile network,” he said to Tom. He reached for the guard’s radio. “Hello? Central?” he said. The radio returned nothing but crackling static and humming. “Shit!” He searched the guard for weapons, finding only a taser, which he took. He shook his head angrily, and Tom understood that the man was dead, and there were no other weapons to be had.

  “Where did they go?” Tom whispered to the group cowering in the corner.

  An elderly man pointed to the right and said, “That way, down to the basement.”

  Tom nodded his thanks and signaled to them to get outside fast.

  “Reinforcements could take a while,” Scott said to Tom. “These guys are pros. They’ve blocked everything.”

  “What are they after?”

  “Looks to me like they’re heading for the secret archive.”

  “I thought that was a myth.”

  “That’s the idea.” Scott smiled.

  “Well, then, let’s go. What are we waiting for?”

  “Tom!” Scott hissed after his nephew, who was already heading down the stairs to the basement. Hothead, he thought, taking a deep breath and going after him.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Tom heard a distant noise. He dashed onward, following the long white corridor until he reached the end. He could feel the adrenaline surging through him: he was in battle mode. It had been a long time since he’d been in action. But it’s like riding a bicycle, he thought.

  At the end of the corridor, Tom saw a sign on the wall, describing an underground tunnel linking the Castle with the National Museum of Natural History on the other side of the Mall.

  Tom edged the door open until he had a gap wide enough to see through. About five yards away, one of the intruders stood next to a small stairway, which led down to a narrow, rusted gate. Behind it was a tunnel leading into darkness.

  Meanwhile, Scott had caught up with him. Tom used hand signals to indicate stop, one man, right side, five yards.

  Scott handed Tom the taser, then crouched beside the door and grasped the handle. Tom positioned himself to spring.

  The soldier never saw it coming. Scott swung the door open as Tom launched himself toward the man. He fired the taser, then slid between the man’s legs and brought him down. Back on his feet, Tom booted the convulsing man hard beneath the chin, taking him out of action for good.

  “Clear,” Tom whispered to his uncle as he began taking the soldier’s weapons and other gear.

  “There’s supposed to be an entrance to the archive in the middle of that tunnel,” Scott whispered, nodding toward the gate.

  Tom handed the pistol, a Glock, to Scott and kept the tactical knife and a silenced FN P90 for himself. He slung the strap of the small machine pistol over his shoulder, tested the flashlight, handed two spare magazines to Scott and pushed two for himself into the back pocket of his jeans. He cocked the machine pistol, smiled encouragingly at his uncle and disappeared into the darkness.

  “Tom, this isn’t a simulator. You screw up here and it’s game over for real,” Scott said behind him. He glanced down at the Glock, then ducked his head and followed his nephew into the tunnel.

  Scott was right; the archive was the soldiers’ target. Halfway down the 250-yard-long tunnel, a modern security door with a retinal scanner stood open. A man in a white coat lay motionless on the floor, blocking the door. Tom checked the man’s pulse and sighed, shaking his head. The man had probably been forced to open the door before he’d been killed. Keeping low, Tom and Scott stepped over the lifeless body and pressed on into the secret archive that lay beneath the Smithsonian Institute.

  5

  13th century B.C., Mount Sinai, Egypt

  The man stood on the summit of the mountain and gazed down into the valley. He listened to the whistling of the wind and contemplated the rugged landscape all around him, nothing but rocks and sand. There could be no life up there, and yet he had come to the summit to hear the word of God. Who was he to be chosen to hear His voice? Who was he to lead the chosen people into the Promised Land? For he alone had been permitted to climb the mountain and to meet his God once more.

  He was Moses, the son of a Levite family, set adrift on the Nile in a reed basket and then found and raised by the daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Why had God revealed Himself to him and given him the task of freeing the Israelites from slavery? Whatever challenge Moses might face, God was on his side: the Israelites had been spared the plagues, the sea had parted before them, the desert could do them no harm, the battle against the Amalekites had been won. And every time, it was because God had protected Moses and his people. When they realized that they were the chosen ones, they had rejoiced, but had then become overconfident, neglecting to show the necessary humility. Some had become angry that they were not all allowed to meet their God at the summit, that only Moses was allowed to ascend. Now, here he stood to hear the commandments of the Lord—commandments that were new not only to him, but which he knew would not be accepted by the people. But they were the commandments of the Creator, the Ten Commandments that represented not only moral law, but also regulated the civil life of the people.

  It was not the Ten Commandments that frightened Moses, nor the two stone tablets upon which were inscribed the ten rules by which his people were now supposed to live. It was the third tablet that troubled him, for it represented the true test of God. If the Ten Commandments were the rules of God the people had to obey, the third stone tablet was the temptation that showed how faithful they were, and whether they deserved to be the chosen race. Long after God had spoken to Moses, he remained where he stood on the summit. He was troubled by the message that had just been revealed to him, but a paralyzing fear consumed him when he thought of
returning to his people with the rules of the Lord and the tablet of eternal temptation.

  Finally, he summoned his courage. Placing the three tablets carefully in the linen bag he had brought, he began the descent to the valley, where his people would be waiting impatiently for his return and God’s message. With every step that brought him closer to his people, his doubts and fears increased. Would his God continue to help them pass the tests they faced? Was the worst behind them? Would the Creator continue to shelter him with His hand, or would He turn His back? Would He watch to see if they could manage to follow the commandments and resist temptation?

  Moses knew, of course, that he would not be alone. Many of the people were behind him. Many of those busily assembling the Ark of the Covenant and erecting the Tabernacle trusted him blindly. They would follow him and humbly accept the rules of the Lord, first among them his brother Aaron and Joshua, the commander of the army. But there were many who looked at Moses’ role with resentment, who neither saw the true God nor wanted to follow Him. Could his people really have turned to a false god while he had climbed Mount Sinai to receive the commandments, as God had prophesied they would? These reflections and doubts, this responsibility weighed heavily on Moses—and when he reached the valley, he saw the sad truth: the people danced around a golden calf and prayed to the graven image. They had gone astray in no time at all.

  A feeling of wrath overcame Moses, and driven by his anger, he took the first of the stone tablets he carried and smashed it against a rock. The songs of the people grew louder and louder, in rapturous tribute to their false idol. Moses felt that none of them deserved to see the true God’s laws even once, and he shattered the second stone tablet as well. Then Joshua came to him and reassured him. The Levites had proved they were faithful to God; as for the credulous folk, they would be led back to the true faith by the sword. Moses and Joshua set to gathering the broken pieces of the two stone tablets. The Ark of the Covenant was finished and the pieces would be stored inside it, alongside the intact tablet—the one that shimmered emerald green.

  6

  Beneath the Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.

  “Go on, get in!” the leader of the mercenaries ordered. One of his men pushed the last of the seven archivists into one of the glass book vaults that stood inside the Smithsonian’s hangar-like secret archive. The hall was the size of several football fields and equipped with thousands of yards of high, heavy-duty shelving. In the center were three of these book vaults—hermetically sealed glass containers, each with its own atmospheric controls and an airlock through which the archivists could enter. The air supply, temperature and oxygen levels of each vault could be regulated individually, to protect the ancient documents inside from decay. An overhead crane, with which heavy objects could be transported throughout the cavernous hall, hung just below the ceiling.

  Tom and Scott entered the hangar through a gallery at the far end, and Tom stood awestruck for a moment. He had never seen anything like it in his life. Grinning ear to ear, he turned to Scott and whispered: “Is the Ark of the Covenant somewhere in here?”

  “Sure. Back there on the left, row three, shelf four,” Scott murmured back, smiling grimly.

  “I imagine your friends will have about ten minutes left after we shut off the air supply, at most. Then you can watch them all turn blue,” said the leader imperiously, his silenced pistol pressed to the kneeling archivist’s head. The man looked fearfully at his colleagues inside the vault, hammering on the glass wall, their plea written on their faces. “Where can we find this?” The leader held a sheet of paper in front of the kneeling man’s face. The elderly archivist squinted at the image and shook his head. His entire body trembled.

  “I don’t know. I’ve worked here for forty years, but I’ve never seen—”

  He didn’t even hear the hissing sound of the pistol when the mercenary leader, irritated, pulled the trigger. His blood poured across the floor, and his lifeless body slumped to the side.

  “Find it. Now. Go!” he snapped at his men, and they ran off in all directions.

  Tom and Scott looked at each other in dismay. They had crept down from the gallery and closer to the scene, and had overheard everything. Along the way, they had run into another of the mercenaries and had wasted no time in taking him out.

  I know that voice, Tom thought. “The guy. It’s Isaac Hagen,” he whispered to his uncle.

  They retreated a short distance to avoid detection.

  “You know that madman?” Scott asked.

  “Yeah. Two years ago, Madeira. I told you about it.”

  “That stunt on the cable car?”

  Tom nodded. “The guy’s a total maniac. We’ve got to get the hostages out. If we don’t act fast, they’ll suffocate.” Tom looked at his watch and set a timer for eight minutes. “Wait here.” Quietly and cautiously, he climbed to the top of one of the rows of shelving to get a better view over the hall. Only the emergency lighting was switched on and he couldn’t see the far end, but the three vaults in the center glowed like gold ingots in the dim light. The overhead crane was parked not far from the front of the first of the glass vaults, into which the archivists had been herded. The crane had a cable hoist with a heavy hook dangling from it. Tom could also see a control room overlooking everything, at about the level of the vaults. Only one mercenary was inside. Tom ducked out of sight when the man turned in his direction.

  Back at floor level, he whispered to his uncle: “I’ve got an idea. There’s a control room over there with one guy inside. Take him out, and try to activate the air supply to the vaults. That will win us a little time.”

  “Okay. I’ll do my best,” Scott said with a nod. He seemed a little out of breath. “Just a bit rusty.”

  Tom explained the rest of his plan, and the two men bumped fists. “Wait for my signal,” Tom whispered, and they crept off in different directions.

  Turning a corner, Tom almost ran into the back of a mercenary standing in front of a shelf. He acted instantly: leaving the P90 dangling on its strap, he rammed his fist into the man’s kidney and followed it up with a chokehold. Within seconds, the man fell unconscious. Tom dragged his body around the corner and stowed it under a shelf, then crossed two more rows of shelves to reach the center aisle. The rest of the men were searching in the other half of the hall, and didn’t seem to be expecting any trouble from the police just yet. Tom was able to move with relative freedom. Reaching his goal directly beneath the crane hook, he climbed the shelves and lay flat on top. From there, he could see the control room; he watched as his uncle expertly took out the mercenary inside. Now Scott had a P90, too.

  So much for rusty. He’s still got it. Tom smiled.

  A few moments later, Scott signaled that he couldn’t control the air supply from there, and gave Tom the sign for Plan B. Tom nodded. He took the rope he’d taken from an emergency box earlier, tossed a loop over the crane hook and hauled the crane toward him. He let the two ends of the rope fall to the floor and climbed back down. At floor level, he pulled one end of the rope around an upright of the shelf on the left and the other around its counterpart on the right, then knotted them together in the exact center of the aisle. The rope formed a taut triangle between the hook and the two shelves.

  Now Tom crept toward the glass vault. Two of the hostages inside were still knocking weakly against the thick panes of their glass prison, but no sound penetrated outside. The rest were sitting on the floor, exhausted and frightened. They had already resigned themselves to their fate, and were waiting for death. Tom looked around cautiously, then approached the glass wall. He signaled to the people inside to take cover. Then he took a few steps back and looked over his shoulder, checking he was still in the clear.

  He raised the P90 and aimed at the vault. Shocked faces inside stared back at him. They shook their heads in bewilderment. “NOW!” Tom yelled as loudly as he could, and fired the P90. At the same moment, the crane started to move. Scott steered it forward, letting
its hoist out a little as it went. They only had a few moments to carry out their plan; Tom’s shout and the shooting had naturally not gone unnoticed.

  Drawn by the noise, Hagen called his remaining men together.

  “Go and find whoever that is. Bring him to me,” he ordered, and the men rushed off. They were at the far end of the hall, but they were highly trained and could probably manage 150 yards in under twenty-five seconds, even in combat gear.

  The glass walls were too thick for bullets to penetrate, but the pane had been weakened and destabilized by the shots. When the crane came to a halt just above the vault holding the hostages, Tom turned and fired at the rope that held the hook back. The bullets shredded the knot and the hook swung on its cable like a wrecking ball, striking it at precisely the spot that Tom had weakened. The glass wall shattered.

  The four men at the far end of the hall were now sprinting back toward the center. Scott, with a view of almost the entire hall, shouted a warning: “Heads up, Tom. You’re about to have company.” Then he aimed his P90 at one of the men and opened fire. The man went down. Scott ducked into cover, escaping the return fire from one of the soldiers. He crawled out of the control room and ran down the stairs to help Tom.

  Hagen’s fury grew. Had he overlooked someone? How could the police already be there? They had shut down every network in a two-mile radius. Who dared to throw a wrench in his foolproof plan? For now, he held back and stayed out of sight.

  The hostages could hardly believe their good fortune. As they clambered out of the destroyed vault, Tom pointed them toward the exit at the back of the hall. They ran the length of the center aisle and escaped over the walkway where Tom and Scott had come in. Tom put a new clip in his P90, then lay down in a dark corner and waited. He spotted one of the mercenaries, who had slowed down and now peered cautiously around a corner. The bright light from the vault gave Tom a clear shot at the man, and he took him down with a single bullet. Scott took out another.