Free The Forbidden Tomb by Chris Kuzneski

screeched to a halt in front of the bar. Two large men jumped from the car and stormed toward the front door. It was pretty obvious that they weren’t there to drink.
    Simon saw them through the window and cursed. Then he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the rear exit. There was no time to explain his situation; not if they wanted to live. ‘Like I said, a lot has changed. We gotta go . . .
now
!’
    The thugs ran through the front door as Sarah and Simon fled out the back.
    ‘There!’ the first thug shouted in Arabic as he pointed toward their escape. The men gave chase, knocking over tables and chairs as they thundered through the saloon like a herd of buffalo.
    Clearly frightened, Simon burst through the rear exit of the bar and sprinted down an alley that reeked of cat piss and garbage. Sarah matched him stride for stride.
    ‘Where are we going?’ she yelled.
    ‘Just keep running,’ he shouted.
    The exit door flew open behind them as the first thug slammed into it. He was a bear of a man, with muscular arms and fists the size of melons. Remarkably, the second goon was even bigger, as if he had been fed steaks and steroids from the time of his hatching – because there was no way in hell anyone had given birth to him.
    He was simply too damn big.
    Simon reached the end of the alley and broke sharply to the right, down the busy street. Sarah followed suit, glancing over her shoulder to check out the thugs, who were blessed with less speed than size. Unfortunately, her joy was short-lived. Even on a dead run, she spotted something troubling: the black sedan from the bar was weaving through traffic and heading toward them at a high rate of speed.
    ‘Shit!’ she screamed as she struggled to grab her gun. It was tucked in her belt underneath her shirt. ‘We have company!’
    ‘More?’ Simon wasn’t happy with the news. He glanced back and saw the car. It was closing fast. ‘Run faster, Sarah!’
    ‘Screw you, Simon!’
    At that moment, she was tempted to ditch Simon and cut her losses. After all, they were chasing him, not her, and the last thing she needed was to get entangled in someone else’s mess. But a split second before she bailed, she heard the blare of a horn followed by a familiar voice.
    ‘Sarah,’ Cobb shouted, ‘get in the damn car!’
    She turned to see Cobb staring back at her from the driver’s seat of the black sedan. The thugs had abandoned it in front of the bar, no more than twenty feet from Cobb’s position across the street. With the keys inside and the motor running, stealing the car required less effort than hailing a cab.
    Plus, there was no need to leave a tip.
    Cobb slowed down just enough for her to open the rear passenger door. This time, it was Sarah who grabbed Simon by the arm. Diving into the back, she pulled him inside the car and on top of her. He reached back and pulled the door shut.
    Meanwhile, Cobb casually checked the side mirror. He saw the goons emerge from the alley and scan the street for their prey.
    They did not look happy.
    ‘You’re good,’ said Cobb as the second thug punched a wall in anger. It didn’t seem to faze him in the least. ‘But stay low for another minute.’
    Sarah nodded as she struggled to catch her breath.
    Cobb remained quiet until he stopped at a red light several blocks away. Only then did he lean back and glance at the duo sprawled on the floor. ‘Hey, Sarah?’
    ‘Yeah, Jack.’
    Cobb glared at her. ‘Who’s your friend?’

10
     
    Cobb drove in awkward silence to the far side of town where he found a rough neighborhood to ditch the car. Until he knew more, the location satisfied his two most pressing concerns: it was far from the iron-fisted thugs, and it was nowhere near the hotel where he and Sarah were staying.
    Before making his exit, he wiped the steering wheel and door handles clean of any fingerprints. Then he left the keys in the ignition and calmly walked away.
    ‘Keep moving,’ he told the others.
    Stealing