The Pharaoh's Secret by Clive Cussler

Pyramids
    1130 hours
    The quiet of the White Desert was broken by the staccato beat of helicopter blades as a French-made SA-342 Gazelle raced above the scalloped sand dunes at five hundred feet.
    The copter, clad in a desert-camouflage pattern, was an older model. It had once belonged to the Egyptian military before its transfer, at a marginal price, to the current owner. As it crossed the largest of the towering dunes, it turned sideways and slowed.
    The odd style of flight allowed Tariq Shakir to watch a group of vehicles racing across the blistering sands down below. There were seven in all, but only five were moving. Two of the vehicles had collided badly and were now stopped dead in a trough between the last two dunes.
    Shakir raised his expensive mirrored sunglasses and held up apair of binoculars. “Two of them are out,” he said to another passenger. “Have the men go pick them up. The rest are still going strong.”
    The remaining vehicles climbed the last immense dune, carving lines in the smooth surface, tires spitting sand, four-wheel-drive systems straining to the limit. One of them seemed to have left the pack behind, perhaps having found firmer sand and a better path to the summit.
    â€œNumber four,” a voice informed Shakir via his headphones. “I told you he would not be outdone.”
    Shakir glanced into the aft section of the helicopter’s cabin. A short man in black fatigues sat there, grinning from ear to ear.
    â€œDon’t be so sure, Hassan,” Shakir admonished. “The race is not always to the swift.”
    With that, Shakir pressed the radio’s talk switch. “It’s time,” he said. “Allow the others to catch him and then shut them all down. We shall see who has spirit and who is prone to giving in.”
    This call was received by a chase car trailing the group of racers. A technician listening in did as ordered, quickly tapping several keys on his laptop before hitting ENTER .
    Out on the dunes, the leading SUV began to smoke. It slowed rapidly and then stalled completely. The others gained on it, spreading out and preparing to speed past the unlucky driver en route to the far side of the dune and the finish line of this strange race, which was itself the culmination of a grueling month of tests to see whom Shakir would choose to join the upper echelon of his growing organization.
    â€œQuite unfair of you,” Hassan shouted from the aft section of the cabin.
    â€œLife is unfair,” Shakir replied. “If anything, I have just leveledthe playing field. Now we shall see who is a real man and who is unworthy.”
    Out on the sand, the other vehicles stalled in rapid succession and soon the noise of roaring engines and grinding transmissions was replaced with cursing and slamming doors. The drivers, drenched in sweat, clad in grimy clothes and looking as if they’d been through war or hell or both, clambered out of their machines in stunned disbelief.
    One opened the hood of his vehicle to see if he could fix the problem. Another kicked the quarter panel, leaving a nasty dent in the sheet metal of the expensive Mercedes SUV. Others committed similar acts of frustration. Fatigue and exhaustion seemed to have sapped their strength of mind.
    â€œThey’re giving up,” Shakir said.
    â€œNot all of them,” Hassan replied.
    Down on the sand, one of the men had made the choice Shakir was hoping for. He’d looked at the others, gauged the distance to the top of the dune and then taken off, running.
    Several seconds passed before the others realized what he intended: to finish the race on foot and win the prize. The finish line was no more than five hundred yards away and, once he crested the dune, it would be mostly downhill.
    The others chased after him and soon five men were charging up the dune, over the crest and down the other side.
    In some ways, descending the soft sand was harder than climbing up it. The