Jake Atlas and the Tomb of the Emerald Snake by Rob Lloyd Jones

Author:Rob Lloyd Jones [Jones, Rob Lloyd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781406370553
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2017-01-05T05:00:00+00:00

24

I gripped the wire tighter as the extraction drone carried us over the edge of the desert. My arms trembled on the line, not from the effort of holding on – the wire was clipped to my belt – but from fear. It was a relief to be heading away from Giza, and the police and guns, and the whole hunted-for-terrorism thing – but I wished our escape route wasn’t so high.

Above, the drone buzzed and hummed, a giant metal spider with rotors spinning on each leg and lights blinking on its body. Mum must have programmed a route into the machine, because it seemed to know where it was going. I couldn’t help wondering exactly how it was holding us up.

“We’re safe, Jake,” Mum said, noticing my grip on the wire. “The drone is calibrated to hold our weight.”

“You just fought a giant snake, Jake,” Pan said. “How can you be so scared of heights?”

It wasn’t the height that scared me. It was falling from the height and decorating the desert with splatter marks that used to be my body.

The drone carried us in the direction of the dawn sun. Tourists snapped photos of us from a hot air balloon as we flew past. They were headed to the pyramids, but they’d be lucky to see them now after what we’d done.

Behind us, the cloud of dust and sand that rose from the Giza Plateau glinted and shimmered in the dawn light, as if someone had hurled the contents of a treasure chest into the morning sky. We swept over a highway and saw a stream of police cars, fire engines and news vans racing to the scene of the chaos.

“Our names and photographs will be on every newspaper and TV channel in the world,” Mum said. “We will be hunted by the police.”

“But why?”

“Because you blew up an ancient tomb, Jake. Whoever Kit is working for will make sure the police know we are to blame. We have to leave the country as quickly as—”

“Leave?” I said. “But what about Dad?”

“That is what he would want. To protect you.”

“We’re not in danger, though,” Pan said. “Kit wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Stop worrying about Kit. If what you said about the woman with the snake case is true, then your father is in more danger than I realized.”

“Who is she?” Pan asked.

“We’ll get to that. But even Kit is out of his depth with this one, and he’s one of the best hunters in the world.”

“You mean treasure hunters?” I asked. For a moment I forgot about how high we were and I focused on what Mum was saying. “That’s what you are, isn’t it, Mum? You’re a treasure hunter.”

“I haven’t been for a long time. I will explain, I promise, once you are both safe and out of the country.”

Her voice was like steel, but there was something softer in her eyes. Keeping one hand on the wire, she slid the other into her combat suit and pulled her Isis amulet out on its chain.

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