“Is the president going to resign?” someone yelled.
“The pres—the president will make a statement concerning this—this fabrication later today,” the press secretary stammered. “That’s all I can say right now.”
“That’s the official line, that it’s a fabrication?”
“It is, yes.”
“It’s a fabrication, or it’s the official line?”
Another voice chipped in with a loud aside of “If it’s a fake, it’ll win the Oscar for special effects.” Laughter erupted around the room.
“Will the president resign?” someone else boomed. The question was repeated with minor variations from what seemed like the entire press corps. The press secretary visibly quailed.
Nina stepped back from the TV. “Gotcha,” she whispered as she switched it off. If Dalton had Sophia’s recording, then the only way a copy could have been made was …
A reflection in the blank screen told her she was not alone.
“Ay up,” said a familiar voice. “Don’t I get a kiss hello?”
“Eddie!” Nina screamed in delight as she spun to see Chase sitting casually on a chair in the corner, looking as if he’d just come back from the 7-Eleven rather than the dead. She ran to him. “Oh my God, oh my God! Is it really you?”
“Course it’s bloody me! What, you think I’m a zombie? Ow, don’t hug me there, ow!” He grimaced and pushed her off his chest. “I’ve got a busted rib and a fucked-up lung, so don’t go poking at ’em!”
“What happened?” Nina asked, her emotions whirling. “I thought you were dead!” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, God, I thought you were dead …”
“Yeah, I did too, for a bit. When Sophia shot me she hit a rib, but I still got a fragment in the lung. I don’t remember too much, just trying to keep my head above the water, but I think I ended up a couple of miles downstream, where someone found me. Got taken to a hospital, and they patched me up.”
“What happened to Sophia?”
“Now, that I do remember. I, uh, used her as an air bag. She hit a couple of rocks on the way down.”
“Is she dead?” Nina asked hopefully.
“Dunno. After we hit the water, I lost her. But if she isn’t, I doubt she’ll be running any marathons for a while. I definitely heard a couple of bits of her go snap. See, I told you there weren’t any feelings left between us.”
“Throwing your ex off a cliff’s kind of an extreme way of proving it. So when did you get back to New York?”
“Couple of days ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” she shrilled.
“First thing I did was check that you were okay!” he said, holding her arms so she couldn’t hit him. “But I had something to sort out first.” He glanced at the TV. “Looks like it worked.”
Her outrage faded. “But how did you get the recording? Dalton took the only copy.”
He grinned. “He took Sophia’s only copy. You know when I went into that bank in Zurich to check if she’d already been there?”
She nodded. “Yeah?”
“Well, it occurred to me that seeing as she was legally dead and she’d named me as her next of kin or whatever, that’d mean I had the right to open her deposit box. Took a bit of wheedling, but they eventually let me look inside. And there it was. So …”
“You made a copy.”
“Yup. Had to buy a memory stick off some clerk, but I made a copy. And it even survived falling off a cliff into freezing water.” He held up a small orange flash drive. “Might have it framed, actually.”
“So you put a copy of the recording on the Internet.”
“I put lots and lots of copies of the recording on the Internet. Got in touch with some old mates. Then this morning, all at the same time, they sent it out to every news agency, all the TV stations, papers, YouTube, all of those places. Spammed the world so everybody’d see it. And it looks like they did.” Another smile. “Ain’t technology grand?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d made a copy?”
“I didn’t have time. Sophia and Ribbsley turned up at the bank right after I left, remember? If I’d been another couple of minutes farting about, she’d have caught me.”
Nina raised an eyebrow. “And they didn’t tell her that you’d just been rifling through her safe-deposit box?”
“Well, you know those Swiss banks. Very discreet.”
She laughed, for the first time in three weeks, then kissed him, long and hard. “So now what?” she asked.
“Well, we can sit back and watch Dalton get fucked in slow motion.”
“Eddie, that’s gross.”
“I don’t mean with Sophia!” he hastily qualified. “I mean on the news. There’s no way he’ll be able to slime his way out of this one. He’ll have to resign; otherwise he’ll get impeached. That’s something I always found funny about you Yanks. Your politicians can lie, cheat, steal, kill, and they’ll still probably stay in office. But one whiff of dodgy sex, and bam, they’re up shit creek! You’re such bloody puritans.”
She huffed in mock offense. “Oh, you think I’m a puritan, do you?”
“Well, not so much since I bought you that book …”
They both laughed, Nina taking his hands in hers and lifting them—then looking at her engagement ring. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I think a ring’d suit you too.”
He considered the idea, then a broad smile spread across his square face. “I think it might. What, right now?”
Nina could hardly contain her rising excitement. “Yeah, right now. Come on!” She jumped up, helping Chase stand. He winced at the pain in his chest—but it didn’t take the smile off his face.
They hurried down to the street. “Taxi!” Nina yelled, waving down a yellow cab.
“Where are we going?” Chase asked.
“Oh, crap, good point. New York’s got a twenty-four-hour waiting period on marriages. Oh, I know!” The cab stopped and they climbed in. “Take us to Connecticut!”
The driver, a central Asian man with a stubbly beard, gave her a dubious look. “Where in Connecticut?”
“The nearest place with a justice of the peace!”
“It’s your dollar,” said the driver with a shrug, starting the meter. “Hey, you heard about the president?”
Nina and Chase smiled at each other. “Yeah, we have,” Nina said, laughing.
A lost king’s past holds the key to
the world’s future….
An archaeological dig is preparing to open the Hall of Records, a repository of ancient knowledge hidden beneath the Great Sphinx of Egypt. But on the night of the unveiling, student Macy Sharif encounters a religious cult already raiding the Hall to find the location of the mythical Pyramid of Osiris. Framed by corrupt officials, she goes on the run, trying to reach the only people who can save her before she is silenced—permanently. Discredited, jobless, and broke, Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase have problems of their own—until Macy’s plea for help sends them on a deadly quest across the globe.
READ ON FOR AN EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK
On sale September 2010
Macy moved closer, silently mouthing the words as she translated the text. The ancient language had been taught to her by her grandfather, along with Egyptian history and mythology, his hobby eventually influencing her choice of degrees. The new scroll said more about the Hall of Records than the IHA had seen: not just its position, but its contents. Something about a map chamber, a zodiac, that revealed the location of …
“The Pyramid of Osiris?” Macy whispered in disbelief. That was nothing but another of her grandfather’s myths, surely? Osiris was a legend predating even the First Dynasty of almost five thousand years ago, and legends didn’t have big-ass tombs built for them—only pharaohs did.
But that was what the papyrus said. The Pyramid of Osiris, the tomb of the god-king. No suggestion that it was a myth; the text seemed as factually descriptive as it was about the Hall of Records. “Wh
oa,” she said as she realized what that meant. If the Pyramid of Osiris was real, then so was the man buried inside it. Not a legendary god, but a flesh-and-blood ruler, until now lost in time. If his tomb could be found, it would be one of the greatest discoveries in history.
She looked at the plans on the table. The position of the east–west entrance tunnel to the Hall of Records and the IHA excavation were both clearly marked—as was another, longer tunnel from the north.
It crossed under what was now the modern road and ran, she realized, directly beneath the tent in which she was standing.
Macy turned to the wooden cubicle. The panel facing her was hinged, a roughly cut hole acting as a handle. She eased it open.
Now she knew where the three men had gone: down. A ladder descended into a shaft, dim lights revealing the bottom more than twenty feet below. The hose expelling the generator’s exhaust fumes ran up one corner, the machine now clearly audible.
As were voices.
Getting closer.
Excitement fled Macy, replaced by fear. Someone was running their own secret dig, trying to beat the IHA team into the Hall of Records, trying to find the Pyramid of Osiris for themselves.
Which meant that if she was caught in here … she was in trouble.
What should she do? Tell someone—Berkeley or Hamdi? But Gamal was obviously in on it, and they would believe him over her. She needed proof.
Weight in her thigh pocket. The camera.
She pulled it out and switched it on. The wait for the lens to extend and the screen to light up had never seemed so long.
A rattling sound from the shaft. Someone climbing the ladder.
Throat tight with rising panic, Macy took a picture of the four papyrus pages, then tipped the camera down to capture the blueprint. Click—
“What the fuck?” The shout came from below, the accent American. The guy with the snakeskin jacket. He had seen the flash.
Another shout. The guard outside. Macy heard his footsteps thudding toward the tent. The clattering of the ladder was louder, faster, as the man hurried up it.
She ran—
The guard threw open the tent flap—just as Macy burst through, shoving him aside and sprinting for the temple. She was through the plastic netting before he regained his balance.
“Hey!” she shouted, hoping somebody from the IHA dig would hear her, but her voice was drowned out by the light show’s narration. Behind, Shaban screamed orders to catch her.
Fright spurred her on. She rounded the ruin, the shadowed maze of the Temple of the Sphinx spread out below, ominously lit in shards of red and green. Someone was on the walkway.
“Dr. Hamdi!” Macy cried. “Dr. Hamdi, help!”
Hamdi stopped, looking bewildered as she leapt over the gap to land in front of him. “What is it, miss—Macy, isn’t it?”
“Back there!” she gasped. “They’re digging, they’re trying to rob the Hall of Records!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
Macy looked back as the guard ran around the side of the upper temple, slithering to an uncertain halt when he saw Hamdi. “That guy with the scar, Shaban, he’s in charge! He’s got a fourth scroll—I took a picture!” She thumbed a button to bring up the image. “Look!”
Hamdi’s expression changed from confusion to shock. “I see. Come with me.” He took her by the arm.
And gripped, painfully tightly.
“Hey, what—” Macy said, trying to pull free. He squeezed harder. “Let go!”
He ignored her. The guy in the snakeskin jacket ran into view. “Bring her up here!” he yelled.
Hamdi pulled Macy toward the gap. She thrashed at his face, but he deflected her blows with his free hand. The guard ran toward them.
She fired the camera in Hamdi’s face. He flinched, dazzled by the flash—and Macy smashed the camera’s hard edge against the bridge of his nose. Another strike to his forehead, and she wrenched herself from his grip.
The guard leapt across the gap, blocking the way to the Sphinx. Instead, she ran along the walkway—and saw the two guards from the compound gate rushing at her.
They were all in on it!
She changed direction, jumping onto the Temple of the Sphinx’s northern wall and running along it. The ancient, weathered stone was uneven beneath her feet.
“Get after her!” the American shouted. The first guard followed her on the wall. The two men ahead also changed direction, intending to leap over the ditch separating the temple from the compound’s upper level and tackle her.
The wall was more than twelve feet high, too far to jump down….
Instead she flung herself off the wall at an angle—just barely reaching the top of a ruined stone pillar five feet below, then springing off that, legs flailing, into the darkness beneath. Pain exploded in both feet as she hit the ground and fell, her phone and some loose coins flying from a pocket and skittering away.
The guard jumped off the wall after her.
The lighting changed, the red highlights on the lower block suddenly vanishing. The man’s outstretched foot missed its top. His other shin cracked into the stone’s edge, sending him spinning to the unyielding ground. He let out a keening wail as he clutched his injured leg.
Macy wasn’t feeling much better, gasping in pain as she stood. She was not far from a passage leading to one of the temple’s original entrances. Ankles throbbing, she limped into the deeper darkness behind the high eastern wall.
She turned the first corner, looking back. A guard was on the north wall, but his attention was on his wounded comrade. He hadn’t seen her. Around the second turn—
And crashing to a stop against metal bars.
Shit! She’d known there was a gate to keep tourists out of the temple, but it was taller than she’d thought, too high for her to climb. Beyond it she saw the seated audience, but they were looking up at the brilliantly lit Sphinx, not the unimposing ruin in front of it, and wouldn’t hear any shouts for help over the soundtrack’s bombastic crescendo.
Macy could hear other shouts, though. Her pursuers were in the temple.
And she was in a dead end.
The shouts got closer.
The inner wall facing the gate was somewhat lower than the others—and in the light shining through the bars she could pick out footholds. She scrambled up. All the past hours of gym practice for the cheerleading squad no longer seemed such a chore.
She looked over the top of the wall—to see the guy in the snakeskin jacket only ten feet away on the other side, other men spreading out across the temple floor. One ran into the entrance to the passage.
Trapped …
She pulled herself up and lay flat along the wall’s top, holding her breath as her heart pounded. The running man rounded the corner, reached the gate, looked through it. Nobody fleeing the temple, just tourists gawping at the display.
“Does anyone see her?” called the American, shining a tiny but bright LED flashlight between the ruined pillars. The shouted replies were all negative.
Hamdi and Shaban hurried to him. “She can’t have got out,” said Hamdi, one hand clutched to his nose. “The entrances on this side are all blocked.”
“Who is she?” Shaban demanded angrily.
“One of the IHA team. Macy Sharif. She’s just a student.”
“Student or not, she could ruin the entire plan if she gets out of here,” said Shaban.
“We gotta find her,” the American added. “Fast.”
“What are you going to do with her, Mr. Diamondback?” asked Hamdi.
“Whaddya think?” There was a metallic sound that froze Macy’s blood. A gun’s hammer being cocked.
“You’re going to …” Hamdi tailed off, shocked.
“I’m sure as hell not spendin’ the next twenty years in an Egyptian jail ’Cause of some li’l whore of a student.”
“Dr. Hamdi,” said Shaban, “if she gets away, you and Gamal will have to handle Berkeley. Bobby, we need to send pe
ople to watch her hotel, the airport, anyone she might go to for help. She’s American?” Hamdi nodded. “Use our contacts there to find out where she lives—and where her family lives. Send people to watch their homes, tap their phones. We have to silence her.”
“Count on it,” said Diamondback. A second click—another gun.
Macy trembled, a terrified nausea churning within her. They were going to kill her! Every instinct told her to run, but she didn’t dare move.
One of the guards called out from the temple’s southern end, reporting that the other entrance passage was empty. Diamondback shone his light across the courtyard. “What about those stones there, by the wall? Could she climb ’em?” He walked toward them, the heels of his cowboy boots clip-clopping on the stone flags.
“Go with him,” said Shaban. For a moment, Macy thought he was talking to Hamdi, before realizing it was one of the guards.
The one who had come into the passage after her.
There was nobody between her and the east wall….
Adrenaline overcame her fear. She sprang up and ran along the wall, jumping up to a higher block.
“Hey!”
Diamondback had seen her.
Macy gasped in fright, expecting a gunshot—but it didn’t come. The sound and light show was ending, and a shot would be heard by hundreds of people. She climbed another block, finding herself at the edge of the east wall. The ground was over twenty feet below.
Diamondback scaled the wall on which she’d been hiding as effortlessly as a lizard. The guard ran back into the passage. Macy turned, crouched—and dropped. Fingers clutching the weathered stone, she slithered down the wall, toes rasping for purchase.
She let go….
More pain as she hit the ground and fell on her back, but she was too scared to let it stop her. She rolled and took off across the dusty expanse. The audience was dispersing, milling toward the nearby exit in the outer fence….
Behind her, the guard climbed the metal gate as Diamondback reached the highest part of the wall, eyes scanning for her, locking on—then losing her again as she shoved into the crowd. Someone hollered in protest, but Macy ignored him and ducked low, weaving between the clumps of tourists. If she could reach the exit, the edge of Cairo’s urban sprawl was just yards beyond the fence …