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Adam tilted his head back to look up at him as the big man took in the tangled pile of his groaning cousins at Adam’s feet.
“I think I’ll call you Muscles,” Adam commented.
Muscles replied with a fist to Adam’s face.
?
Adam ended up with about four Al-Saboors piled on top of him. He scored a few more blows to his jaw and ribs before someone who sounded like they were in charge barreled into the chapel and hollered. Adam was hauled up off the floor, and his hands were roughly tied behind his back as the senior Al-Saboor—distinguished by the threads of gray in his dark hair—grimaced with unhappy exasperation at the scene.
With an irritated wave of his hand, Al-Saboor the First ordered them out of the chapel. Adam followed Constance and Sayyid in a grim procession as they were led through the shadows of the colonnade to where a spill of rubble formed a precarious track up to the top level of the temple.
His face hurt. So did his ribs. The cut on his still-healing hand was sore—and his brain was working furiously. This was no chance robbery. The men who surrounded him were hired thugs—which meant the guy who had hired them couldn’t be far away.
There was still no sign of Ellie and Neil. Adam dared to hope that the two of them might have escaped… until he was shoved down a crumbling half-flight of stairs and heard their voices from around the corner ahead of him.
“I’m terribly sorry, but we are professional archaeologists in the middle of a survey and this chapel is meant to be closed.”
That was Neil—and he sounded nervous as hell.
He heard Ellie next, and her words sent a frisson of fear through his blood.
“I had wondered where you were in Saqqara.”
Adam closed his eyes, already knowing whose tones he would hear in response.
“An unfortunate but necessary detour,” came the familiar, implacable reply.
Jacobs.
Constance and Sayyid were herded around the turn ahead of him. Muscles planted a hand between Adam’s shoulder blades, shoving him into stumbling down the last steps, off-balance thanks to his bound hands.
Sun glared down over a limestone courtyard framed by thick stone walls. Ellie crouched on a square platform that dominated the center of the space, with Neil hovering uneasily beside her.
Jacobs stood before them, looking for all the world as though he hadn’t nearly been buried alive in the catastrophic collapse of a legendary city a couple weeks before.
Muscles propelled Adam the rest of the way into the courtyard, then shoved him to his knees.
Neil’s jaw dropped with shock and dismay. Ellie’s gaze danced over him worriedly, cataloging the bruises Adam could feel forming on his jaw and cheek before stopping to linger on the blood dripping from his split lip.
He flashed her a determined smile before his view was cut off by a pair of black trousers.
Adam looked up to meet Jacobs’ cold stare. “I was wondering when you’d turn up.”
“Mr. Bates,” Jacobs returned smoothly. His gaze dropped to Adam’s belt, and Adam let out a groan.
“Come on!” he protested. “It’s not like I can even…”
His voice trailed off as Jacobs plucked the machete from Adam’s belt.
“…Use it,” Adam finished mournfully.
Jacobs really was a bastard.
“Excuse me! Pardon! Coming through!” Dawson’s voice immediately grated on Adam’s nerves. The professor awkwardly pushed his way through the crowd of Al-Saboors, stumbling to a halt at Adam’s side.
He put his hands on his knees, panting slightly. He was already sweating.
The professor turned his head—and noticed Adam kneeling beside him. He stumbled back with alarm, reaching up to catch his pith helmet before it fell off his head.
