Free The Pharaoh's Secret by Clive Cussler, Graham Brown Page A

interested in her mind.”
    Joe raised an eyebrow and then casually took another sip of his coffee—a move that said,
Sure you are
.
    “I’m serious,” Kurt insisted. “I have some questions I want to ask her.”
    “Beginning with ‘What’s your number?’” Joe guessed. “Followed shortly by ‘Your cabin or mine?’”
    Kurt couldn’t help but laugh. “No,” he insisted. “She said a few things when I first arrived at the operating room that seemed odd to me. She seemed to know something about the guy who tried to kill us. Not to mention the fact that she called the incident an attack right from the beginning, right from that radio call we intercepted.”
    Joe offered a more calculating look. “What are you getting at?”
    Kurt shrugged as if it were obvious. “A freighter burning offshore, dark smoke drifting over the island, people falling down dead because of it: that’s a disaster. An accident. I’d even call it a catastrophe. But an attack?”
    “Those
are
strong words,” Joe said.
    “As strong as this coffee,” Kurt said.
    Joe gazed out into the distance. “I think I see where you’re going with this. And while I normally like to be the voice of reason, I’ve been wondering how she knew enough to gather a bunch of people together and seal off an entire room quickly enough to avoid the fate of everyone else in the hospital. Even for a doctor, that’s an awfully fast response.”
    Kurt nodded. “But it’s the kind of response someone expecting trouble might’ve already had in mind.”
    “A contingency plan.”
    “Or standard operating procedure.”
    Kurt looked around. They were being watched by a trio of Italian sailors. It was a cursory honor guard of sorts and the sailors didn’t seem all that interested in the duty. Two of them were leaning against the rail, talking quietly to each other, at the far edge of the deck. The third guard stood closer, smoking a cigarette, beside a small mechanical crane. “Think you can distract the guards?”
    “Only if you promise to sneak past them, stir things up and get us into so much trouble that they decide to throw us off the boat,” Joe said.
    Kurt raised a hand as if he were taking an oath. “I solemnly swear.”
    “All right, then,” Joe said, finishing the rest of his coffee. “Here we go.”
    As Kurt watched, Joe stood up and sauntered over toward the third chaperone, the only one near enough to actually matter. A conversation was quickly struck up, complete with Joe making hand gestures to keep the guard’s eyes busy.
    Kurt stood and made his way forward, easing back into the shadows beside a closed hatchway and leaning against the bulkhead. When Joe pointed toward something high up in the superstructure, the guard tilted his head and squinted into the sunlight as Kurt pulled the hatch open, slipped inside and closed it silently behind him.
    Fortunately, the passageway was empty. It didn’t surprise him. The supply ship was a large vessel, six hundred feet long, mostly empty space and probably crewed by less than two hundred men. Most of the passageways would be empty; the real challenge was to find the one that would take him to the infirmary, where he suspected Dr. Ambrosini would be found.
    He started down the hall, heading toward the bow, where the decontamination procedures and testing had been performed. The sick bay had to be close by. If he found it, he’d knock on the door, fake a sore throat or maybe appendicitis. Something he hadn’t done since trying to get out of school in the eighth grade.
    He grabbed a small box of parts that had been left outside the machine shop. Years in the Navy and traveling around the world with NUMA had taught him many things, one of which was that if you didn’t want anyone to stop and chat, walk briskly, avoid eye contact and, if at all possible, carry something that looks like it needs to be delivered ASAP.
    The tactic worked like a charm as he passed a group of sailors without receiving a