Iolanthe was farther away and thus more sheltered from the blast—she was only thrown back fifteen feet by the concussion wave, where she hit the ground hard, banging her head, knocked out cold.
Tumbling to the ground on top of Wizard, Lily felt a wave of searing heat hit the back of her body—like a slap to her bare skin—then she smelled something burning, but the sensation didn’t last long, because an instant later, she blacked out.
In fact, the only person to survive the attack completely unscathed had been Wizard—thanks to Lily’s last- second tackle—which put him below the blast zone.
His ears ringing, he raised his head, to see Lily lying on top of him, her shirt on fire!
He wriggled out from under her and quickly used his jacket to extinguish her flaming shirt. Then he picked her up—unconscious and limp—and stood there openmouthed amid the carnage: smoke, the damaged cars, and the bloody remains of Ashmont’s Royal Marines.
There came a shrill scream, and Wizard spun.
The real tourists in the real buses nearby had seen the horrific blasts and, fearing a terrorist incident like the one that had occurred at Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple in 1997, stampeded back into their coaches.
Wizard’s eyes swept the area and landed on Iolanthe and the rucksack on the ground beside her.
Carrying Lily on his hip, Wizard raced over to Iolanthe’s body and scooped up the rucksack with the Pillar inside it. Then he swung into one of Ashmont’s Suburbans, gunned the engine, and sped out of the lot.
“Sky Monster! Sky Monster!” Wizard yelled into his radio as he sped away from Abu Simbel, heading south. He had a clear signal. Ashmont’s jamming device must have been destroyed in the suicide blasts.
“Wizard! Where’ve you been! I’ve been trying to contact you guys for the last twenty min—”
“Sky Monster, it’s all gone sour!” Wizard blurted. “The British blindsided us and then got blindsided themselves! Now Lily’s out cold and Jack was sealed inside the shrine and Alby, Pooh Bear, and Astro were left to die in the lake with the crocodiles! Oh, Alby—”
“Alby’s fine,”another voice came in over the airwaves.
Jack’s voice.
Jack was walking quickly around the far side of the pyramidal island, skirting its lower edge, followed by the others.
“He’s with me. So are Pooh, Astro, and Zoe. We’re all safe. What happened, Wizard?”
Wizard’s voice said,“Four men, Japanese, just blew themselves up near Ashmont’s escape cars at the dock. It was an ambush. They were waiting. It was like they wanted to destroy the Pillar. I’m in one of the British escape cars now, heading south, away from the town.”
“What about Iolanthe and the Pillar?”
“She was knocked to the ground, so I took the Pillar. Not sure if she’s dead or not.”
“OK,” Jack said. “I want you to get as far away from there as you can, to a spot where Sky Monster can grab you. Sky Monster, Stretch: we need you to give us a boat-drop so we can get back to the shore and catch up with Wizard—”
Sky Monster’s voice came in.“Er, Huntsman, I don’t think that’s going to be possible—”
Circling in the sky high above Abu Simbel, Sky Monster peered down at the vast body of Lake Nasser and the highway leading into the town from the north. Stretch sat in the copilot’s seat beside him, also gazing down at the landscape.
“—This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Sky Monster said. “It’s why I’ve been trying to get in contact. Thatsecond convoy we saw earlier is now only about three miles out from the town, approaching fast from the north and it’s not just comprised of tourist coaches. The coaches are cover. It’s a military convoy: rapid-strike cars, armored jeeps, Humvees, and troop trucks. My guess, it’s the Egyptian Army—tipped off by someone. They’re gonna hit your town in about four minutes.”
Sky Monster and Stretch looked down at the highway coming from the north, a thin ribbon of black overlaid upon the dull yellow of the desert.
There they saw the convoy speeding along it.
Tourist coaches led the way, kicking up a tail cloud of dust behind them as they hit the shoulder of the highway, a cloud that concealed dozens of military vehicles: trucks, Humvees, and machinegun-mounted jeeps. All up, the convoy looked like it possessed about fifty vehicles and maybe three hundred men.
“This is seriously deep shit,” Sky Monster breathed.
JACK SAID,“OK then. The plan stays the same. Wizard, you run: get out of there; take the highway and head south for the Sudanese border. Sky Monster can scoop you up somewhere down there. We’ll follow as best we can and try to catch up.”
“Okay…”Wizard said doubtfully.
Sky Monster said,“Huntsman, standby. I’m sending you two packages. Couple of early Christmas presents.”
From his rocky island, Jack looked up to see the dark shape of The Halicarnassus bank around in the dawn sky.
Then he saw the big 747 swing low, barely a hundred feet above the lake, and as it roared by something dropped from its rear loading ramp—something with a parachute attached to it, arresting its fall. Perfectly released, the speeding object landed with a great splash about fifty yards out from Jack’s rocky island.
As soon as it hit the water, the object sloughed its outer casing and inflated rapidly—revealing itself to be a brand-new Zodiac complete with outboard engine.
