The Pharaoh's Secret by Clive Cussler

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 second glance. They disappeared behind himjust as Kurt found a stairwell and dropped down one level, before continuing forward.
    Things were going fine until he realized he was lost. Instead of the medical center, he was finding only storerooms and locked compartments.
    â€œSome explorer you are,” he muttered to himself. As he tried to figure out which way to go, a man and woman in white lab coats shuffled down the stairs, talking quietly between themselves.
    Kurt let them pass and then followed. “First rule of being lost,” he told himself. “Follow someone who seems to know where they’re going.”
    He trailed them down two more flights of stairs and along another gangway until they disappeared through a hatch that closed softly behind them.
    Kurt eased up beside it. He saw nothing on the door that suggested it was anything other than another storeroom, but when he opened the door a fraction and peeked through, he discovered how wrong he was.
    A cavernous room spread out before him, lit from above by stark-white lights. It looked like a cargo bay, but it was empty except for hundreds and hundreds of bodies lying in cots or on mats laid down on the cold steel floor. Some wore bathing suits, as if they’d been collected from the beach, others were in casual shorts and T-shirts, and still others were in more official-looking clothes, including gray scrubs that matched those Kurt had seen on the staff at the hospital. None of them were moving.
    Kurt pulled the door open wider and stepped through, moving toward this mass of people. It was not their presence here that surprised him—after all, someone had to collect the dead and helicopters had been taking off and landing all day long. It was thefact that many of the victims were now attached to electrodes, monitors and other instruments. Some had IVs hooked up to them, and still others were being poked and prodded by the medical staff.
    One figure went into spasms as a technician jabbed him with electricity and then became still as the current was shut off.
    For a moment, no one noticed Kurt—after all, he was dressed like a crewman and they were too busy doing whatever it was they were doing. But as he moved into the room and recognized Cody Williams and two other members of the NUMA team, Kurt gave himself away. One of them was being injected with something even as a set of electrodes was pulled from his head. Cody was being given the shock treatment.
    â€œWhat the hell is going on here!?” Kurt shouted.
    A dozen faces turned his way. Suddenly, everyone knew he didn’t belong. “Who are you?” one of them asked.
    â€œWho the hell are you?” Kurt demanded. “And what kind of sick experiments are you doing on these people?”
    Kurt’s booming voice rang through the cavernous hold. His angry demeanor shocked the medical personnel. A few of them muttered to each other in whispered tones. Someone said something that sounded German to him, while still another shouted for Security.
    Instantly, a group of Italian military police appeared. They moved toward him from two sides.
    â€œWhoever you are, you’re not