Chapter 31

A moment’s shock was followed by a blur of action. Agent Fry pushed Maddie and Keith aside as he swept Keith’s ice axe off the floor and swung at Derek. A shot rang out and the agent spun against the wall with blood from his arm splattering the door behind them. The agent grasped his wounded arm.

“Damn! Why did you do that?” Derek said leveling the gun at the agent again. But instead of firing a second bullet he swung toward Keith. “Why did you do that?” he demanded.

Keith ignored the question and turned his back on Derek. He and Maddie knelt beside Agent Fry to tend to his wound.

“It’s not that bad,” Fry said.

“There’s salve and bandages in my pack,” Keith said. Maddie scrambled to get them as Derek kicked the ice axe farther away and continued to rant to no one in particular as they bound the wound.

“Of all the stupid things to do! Idiots!”

“I think it went through the muscle, but it doesn’t feel like the bone is broken,” Keith said as Fry grimaced under his touch.

“What?” Derek said. “Do you think I want to kill people? Hasn’t all this meant anything to you? I’m not a terrorist. Nobody hurt at the libraries. No death threats. You just push until I have to do something and look what happens.”

“That sounds like what you said when we were married: ‘See what yo made me do?’ Well look what you did to Keith,” Maddie said.

“And my driver lying dead in Adana,” Fry affirmed.

“Those weren’t my fault,” Derek said. “No one was supposed to be hurt.”

“So you let people like Sophie and Najat do the dirty work,” Maddie said. “I’m glad Keith broke the key. Now we’ll have to just leave and you can surrender to the agents.”

“Why did you do it?” Derek asked, turning again to Keith. “You’ve waited all your life to see what was behind that door. And you ruin the key just to keep me from seeing it?”

“I guess it was the wrong key,” Keith said blandly. He and Maddie got Fry back to his feet and stood facing Derek.

“It’s a good thing we have another then, isn’t it?” said another voice from the tunnel. Yousef stepped out into the light of the room from the shadows where he had been watching with a rifle pointed at Derek. Derek did not lower his gun, but shifted his aim slightly toward Maddie.

“Yousef,” he said. “I thought you were lost again.”

“Drop your gun, Derek,” Yousef said. “I will kill you.”

“Do you think you can kill me before I kill your sister?”

“You killed Sophie,” Yousef said.

“Sophie?” Derek exclaimed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know as well as I do that no one made Sophie do anything. Sophie chose what she wanted to do.”

“I loved her.”

“She was crazy. We’re all better off without her,” Derek said. Keith was certain Derek was making matters worse by denigrating Sophie. If Derek had been talking about Maddie that way, Keith would be furious. Yousef was becoming more agitated.

“She loved me! We were going to get married and get away from you once and for all.”

“Sophie was using you.”

“You are going to die like she did,” Yousef yelled. His voice echoed in the chamber. Derek seemed to figure out that he was making things worse, but his aim on Maddie didn’t waver. Keith was trying unsuccessfully to move in front of her, but was afraid any sudden move would cause one of the men to lose control.

“Yousef, I’m sorry old friend. I didn’t know. Really,” Derek said. “You know I’ve always tried to do right by you. Look what we’ve accomplished. We’re here. We’ve found your father’s hidden treasure. Let’s look at what’s behind door number one before we do something crazy. You have a key, don’t you?” Derek asked.

“It takes a third degree master to forge a key,” Keith said.

“Yes,” said Maddie’s brother. “Like my grandfather.” He pulled a key on a leather thong from around his neck. Even from across the chamber, Keith could see that it was a match for his own broken key.

“Joey,” Maddie said, taking a step toward the center of the chamber. Derek’s gun did not waver from her, nor Yousef’s from Derek. “Please don’t do this. We don’t need what’s behind the door. Don’t give it to Derek.”

“You thought Gramps was just crazy. But when you went to college, I spent all my time listening to him. I knew all about the Guild by the time I was 17. I knew Gramps had stolen something and he was so ashamed that he couldn’t go back there. He kept saying over and over that he’d give me the key if I’d take the map back to the Guild. But he never showed me either one until I was in college. Then I had to promise that I would take them back. It’s all he could talk about.”