The Pharaoh's Secret Read Online Free Page A

master,Constantine Bracko, a stocky man with pile-driver arms, salt-and-pepper hair and stubble on his face like coarse sandpaper.
    With his hand on the wheel, he waited for an answer. “Well?”
    â€œThe ship is still there,” the first mate shouted. “Matching our turn. And still gaining.”
    â€œShut off all our lights,” Bracko ordered. Another crewman closed a series of master switches and the
Torino
went dark. With the ship blacked out, Bracko changed course yet again.
    â€œThis won’t do us much good if they have radar or night vision goggles,” the first mate said.
    â€œIt’ll buy us some time,” Bracko replied.
    â€œMaybe it’s the customs service?” another crewman asked. “Or the Italian Coast Guard?”
    Bracko shook his head. “We should be so lucky.”
    The first mate knew what that meant. “Mafia?”
    Bracko nodded. “We should have paid. We’re smuggling in their waters. They want their cut.”
    Thinking he could slip by in the dark of night, Bracko had taken a chance. His roll of the dice had come out badly. “Break out the weapons,” he said. “We have to fight.”
    â€œBut Constantine,” the first mate said. “That will go badly with what we’re carrying.”
    The
Torino
’s deck was loaded with shipping containers, but hidden in most of them were pressurized tanks as large as city buses filled with liquefied propane. They were smuggling other things as well, including twenty barrels of some mysterious substance brought on board by a customer out of Egypt, but because of the rampant fuel taxes throughout Europe it was the propane that brought in the big money.
    â€œEven smugglers have taxes to pay,” Bracko muttered tohimself. Between protection money, transit money and docking fees, the criminal syndicates were as bad as the governments. “Now we’ll pay double. Money
and
cargo. Maybe even triple, if they want to make an example of us.”
    The first mate nodded. He had no wish to pay for someone else’s fuel with his life. “I’ll get the guns,” he said.
    Bracko tossed him a key. “Wake the men. We fight or we die.”
    The crewman took off for the weapons locker and the berths on the lower deck. As he disappeared, another figure entered the wheelhouse. A passenger who went by the odd-sounding name Ammon Ta. Bracko and the crew called him the Egyptian.
    Thin and spindly, with deep-set eyes, a shaven head and caramel-colored skin, there was little about the man that seemed imposing to Bracko. In fact, he wondered why anyone had chosen so unformidable an escort to accompany what he only assumed to be barrels of hashish or some other drug.
    â€œWhy has the ship been darkened?” Ammon Ta asked bluntly. “Why are we changing course?”
    â€œCan’t you guess?”
    After a moment of calculation, the Egyptian seemed to understand. He pulled a 9mm pistol from his belt, held it limply and stepped to the door, where he gazed out into the dark void of the sea.
    â€œBehind us,” Bracko said.
    Even as Bracko spoke, he was proven wrong. From just off the port bow, two beams of light snapped on, one painting the bridge with a blinding glare, the other lighting up the rail.
    Two rubber boats raced in. Bracko instinctively turned the ship toward them, but it was no use, they swung wide and turned back, quickly matching his course and speed.
    Grappling hooks were thrown up, catching the three metal cables that acted as the safety rail. Seconds later, two groups of armed men began climbing up and onto the
Torino
.
    Covering fire rang out from the boats.
    â€œGet down!” Bracko shouted.
    But even as a spread of bullets shattered one bridge window and ricocheted off the wall, the Egyptian didn’t dive for cover. Instead, he stepped calmly behind the thick bulkhead, glanced outside and snapped off several shots from the pistol in his