Chapter Sixty-One
Novikov and his team of mercenaries marched forward along the road, marveling at the sight.
The city was truly amazing. When he found out that Wilde was a graduate student looking to do research in the middle of the desert, he had thought it a flimsy cover.
Now, as he stared at it in bewilderment, he wasn’t so sure.
He also knew a good deal when he saw it.
His employers paid him to do a job, which was eliminating Wilde and his team.
He would do that job, and then like a good businessman, he was going to take full advantage of the discovery down here.
Novikov would let the men take as much as they wanted, and he would do the same.
The doors to the city alone would see him set for life.
He knew there must be more riches inside, likely enough for all of them.
They would stay quiet about their find, and return multiple times, taking all they could.
Eventually, his employers would discover what was down here, and that was fine.
By then he would have all he needed and then some.
But first he needed to eliminate the last impediment to his retirement.
He had no idea if any of his quarry had survived the fall from the explosion, but if they had, he felt certain he knew where to find them.
The road ran up toward a palace in the distance, and that was where Wilde was sure to be.
If he was still alive, his body would soon litter the ground, becoming just another corpse in a sea of the ancient dead.
He fully expected an ambush this time, and would be disappointed if there wasn’t one, so he sent his men ahead with a word of caution.
Novikov hoped that Wilde was still alive.
He wanted to kill the man himself. It was true that he had led him to a treasure that would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams, but he had also made a fool out of him several times.
He would pay for that, and so would any of his friends who were still alive.
As his men moved toward the palace gate, Novikov crept around the walls of the palace itself.
A few hundred meters away, he found a place where a tower had fallen and crashed into the wall, knocking it down to a height of about five meters.
He unslung the rope he had brought and fashioned a loop before tossing it up onto the wall.
After several attempts, it snagged on something that would support his weight, and he was able to pull himself up and over the other side into the courtyard.
There were several windows leading into one of the wings of the palace and he scaled the wall and climbed inside.
Withdrawing his MP-443 Grach 9mm pistol, he silently went about checking rooms and finding them empty.
He retraced his steps and found himself in a large room filled with corpses and capped with a magnificent dome.
Novikov appreciated beauty, but he appreciated wealth more, and so he kept pushing forward into the other wing.
Passing by the large doorway that must have marked the entrance to the palace, he could make out the shape of a figure behind the gate.
It was the man with the bushy red beard whom he had seen in Cairo, and it appeared he was waiting to ambush his men as they approached the gate.
Good, Novikov thought to himself. He would likely take out one or two before they killed him, which would reduce the number of ways they needed to split their fortune, and the number of people with knowledge of the discovery.
He left the man in place and slunk by through the corridor.
Several meters down the hallway he began to hear voices, and he moved ever slower, not wanting to alert his prey.
He had no idea if they were armed, and he would need some leverage.
Sticking to the shadows, he could clearly see the forms of a handful of people up ahead illuminated by an opening in the ceiling.
They were having a discussion, and beyond them was a pool of black. The oil.
Novikov crept closer. The girl, Metry, was nearest to him, which was perfect. She would be the least dangerous, and he could use her against the rest. He quickly moved behind another column, closing the distance to the girl.
She was almost in reach when a gunshot rang out, and everyone began to turn in the direction of the sound. With lightning-quick reflexes, Novikov shot out from the shadows and grabbed the girl.
“Ana, look out!” Wilde yelled, but he was too late.