“Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Gretchen blurted out.
“Old friend,” Juan said.
Austin looked her over. “I don’t suppose your name is Sophie?”
She stared at him, nonplussed, before saying, “Naomi.”
Austin shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”
Juan grinned at the exchange, then turned back to Austin. “What are you really doing here?”
Austin pointed toward the men they were fighting. “Those men. They have something to do with the disaster on Lampedusa.”
“Is NUMA investigating that?”
“By way of another government,” Austin said.
Juan nodded. “Sounds like we’ve both got our hands full. Anything I can do to help?”
Even though he’d been busy, Juan had heard of the tragedy at Lampedusa. For the past few days it had been competing with the destruction at the Monaco Grand Prix for airtime in the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Given the high-profile nature of the emergency, he couldn’t be too surprised NUMA was on the case.
More shots came their way. All three of them pressed deeper into the recess under the lowest shelf. When they returned fire, the assailants pulled back once more.
“Not sure,” Austin said. “It’s all connected to some Egyptian artifacts I hoped to find here.”
“Good luck finding anything in this place,” Juan said. “We’ve been looking for a book Napoleon had on St. Helena.”
Gretchen shot him a warning glare about sharing confidential info, but Juan ignored it.
“An old copy of The Odyssey?” Austin said. “With some handwritten notes in the margin?”
“That’s the one. Have you seen it?”
Austin pointed toward their adversaries. “That way.”
For now, the gunfire dwindled to the occasional random shot. Together with Austin, Juan and Gretchen crouched down on one end of the aisle, while their enemies guarded the two corners where the aisle intersected the next row. There was little hope for either side to gain any ground. “They seem intent on keeping us from heading that way,” Juan noted.
“I’ve got a solution,” Austin said. He looked up and whistled to Zavala.
Juan followed his eyes and saw Zavala, who had climbed all the way to the ceiling to reach what looked like a heat and smoke detector. He made it to the highest point on the upper shelf but couldn’t reach the sensor. He moved a box out of the way and stretched, an effort that put him out in the open. One of the gunmen saw him and fired. Bullets began punching holes in the ceiling around him.
Juan turned and felled the shooter with a single round.
With the coast clear, Zavala reached for the sensor again and pressed a Taser against it. The heat of the snapping and sparking high-voltage electricity was instantly interpreted as a potential fire. Alarms screeched, strobes flashed, and jets of carbon dioxide blasted out into the open space of the warehouse.
The assailants waited only seconds before fleeing with whatever they’d been able to recover. Juan thought they had the right idea. Even though the carbon dioxide stopped pumping shortly after Zavala pulled the Taser away from the sensor, the authorities would be coming.
“Forty feet past that intersection,” Austin said. “First shelf on the left. I’d hurry, if I were you.”
Juan offered a hand. “’Til next time.”
Austin shook it. “Over drinks instead of bullets.”
With that, Juan and Gretchen sprinted toward the location Austin had indicated.
“We’re outside the front door,” MacD said in Juan’s ear.
“Hold there,” Juan replied. “We’ll be out in a minute.”