Scorpion gripped the rifle, his normally cold blood burning. He raised it to his eye, matched the sights against Austin’s silver hair and exhaled. When his body was still, Scorpion pulled the trigger.
The shot rang out, straight and true, hitting Austin in the center of his back and killing him instantly. He slumped forward in the chair.
Scorpion took a breath and scanned the room for Austin’s partner. He had to be somewhere close. He swung the rifle from side to side.
As Scorpion scanned the rest of the chamber, the door to the control room flew open with a bang as the chair was shoved through it by another figure. The chair rolled across the stone floor and Scorpion saw his mistake. It was Hassan he’d killed. Not Austin.
He aimed the rifle at the figure pushing the chair but was jumped before he could fire.
Scorpion swung around and saw that it was Austin who’d grabbed him. He brought the rifle up, but the barrel hit the corner of the wall before he could bring it on target. The space was too constricted. He lunged forward, headbutted Austin and tossed the rifle away, pulling out a knife.
Scorpion had just shot Hassan dead and was now fighting like a man possessed. Kurt aimed the pistol, holding it close to his body. Scorpion held his knife and made a move toward Kurt.
Kurt fired, hitting Scorpion in the arm that held the knife. Scorpion fell b
ack, dropping the knife. He grabbed onto the scaffolding with his uninjured hand. The knife clattered to the ground beneath them.
“Surrender!” Kurt demanded.
Scorpion ignored him and pulled another weapon from his pocket, a set of brass knuckles with a triangular knife attached to the front. Hassan had given it to him upon his promotion. The knife shape was meant to represent the reborn power of the pharaohs and the Pyramids. All of the Osiris assassins were given one.
He slipped it onto his fingers and clenched his fist in a ball.
“Don’t!” Austin shouted.
Scorpion lunged forward and Kurt fired again, hitting him in the other shoulder. Scorpion reeled and barely kept his balance. He lunged again and this time Kurt shot him in the calf.
Scorpion hung on by sheer determination. If he could just reach Austin, they could embrace in death.
Kurt could see the obsession in Scorpion’s face. “Don’t you ever give up?” he shouted.
Scorpion grinned. “Never!”
He lunged again, but Kurt fired without hesitation, hitting Scorpion’s unwounded thigh. Scorpion’s leap was cut short. He fell down the shaft, slamming against the top of the car and tumbling off it and onto the cavern floor.
He died looking up into the darkness.
66
By the time Kurt and Joe returned to Cairo, the clandestine part of Osiris International was coming apart. A database had been found that showed the criminal side of its actions. Payoffs, bribes, threats. Names of operatives. Names of foreign assets.
The commercial side would continue but, according to Edo, would likely be nationalized, as most of the investors turned out to be criminals.
Kurt was concerned for Renata and found her in a hospital, conscious and recovering and a bit confused. “I dreamt of crocodiles,” she said.
“That was no dream,” Kurt replied.
He explained how the antidote worked and how they’d found it. And he remained with her until an Italian medical team arrived and took her to the airport, where she was to be shuttled back to Italy for observation.
Next, he checked in with the Trouts. They explained the trouble they’d faced in France.
“Gamay even started tearing apart Villeneuve’s paintings,” Paul said, “because she thought he might’ve hidden the secret inside one of them. Two of the works held nothing. But then someone who called himself Scorpion got the third painting away from us.”
“I appreciate your effort,” Kurt said, “but I have to ask, what made you think that D’Campion’s translation would be hidden in a painting?”
“There was something in Villeneuve’s letters to D’Campion that made it sound like he was leaving a clue for his old friend.”
“In his letters?”