Neither complained. Storm said nothing because there was no point. Strike said nothing because, whether she acknowledged it or not, she always felt like she was in a kind of unspoken competition with Storm: who was tougher? Who was the better agent? Who could withstand more? Even if he was unaware of the contest, she didn’t want to let him win.
As they neared what had been glinting in the distance, they saw it was not just a stray piece of metal lying in the sun. It was a settlement of some sort—a grouping of tents, some of them quite large, with trucks scattered around them. Storm kept his eye on it, watched as men in white and off-white clothing scurried from tent to tent, trying to stay in the sun as little as possible. He counted perhaps two dozen men, though it was difficult to account for duplicates at that distance.
They appeared to be doing work of some sort. What their purpose was, Storm couldn’t guess. He saw one open-sided tent where several items, some of them quite large, had been secured in crates, perhaps for transport.
When they got to within perhaps a half a mile, Storm could hear excited shouting. The sound carried through the distance, and even though the words did not, Storm could surmise they had been spotted. There was more shouting, and when they got to within a few hundred yards, Storm saw a camel-mounted greeting party coming out to intercept them.
It was around that time when Storm was finally able to guess what was going on there. He saw an ancient block sandstone structure sticking out of the ground. It had an entrance that led underground. Most of the activity that wasn’t focused on Storm and Strike seemed to be centered around that entrance.
“Any thoughts?” Strike said.
“It looks like some kind of archaeological dig to me.”
“I agree. And ordinarily I would say that means they won’t be belligerent toward us. Except I see guns on several of those men.”
“Only because they’re more scared of us than we are of them,” Storm said. “Why don’t you start talking to them? Hearing a woman’s voice will calm them. I’m going to raise my hands real high, but I want you to keep yours under your burka, on the trigger of that little cannon you’re carrying. Just in case. We good?”
“Got it,” Strike said.
She began calling out in loud, friendly Arabic: “Good day, my friends. We are but peaceful travelers. We mean you no harm. Lower your weapons, please. Again, we come in peace.”
Storm studied the muzzles trained on them and the guns behind them. They were old guns, probably inaccurate to start with and poorly maintained on top of it. Sand wreaked havoc on a weapon, especially one that wasn’t properly cleaned. Even if these clowns wanted to shoot Storm and Strike, they’d probably fail.
Eventually, Strike’s words had their intended effect. Storm watched as the muzzles lowered. They were close enough to be able to see the smiles on the men’s faces.
And that one of them wasn’t a man.
She also clearly wasn’t Egyptian. Storm could see wisps of blond hair escaping from her loosely worn hijab. And freckles across the bridge of her nose. And bright blue eyes. And a certain posture and confidence that suggested a very attractive young woman was hidden underneath the swaddles of cloth that hid her from the sun and, at the moment, most of Storm’s inquisitive examination.
“Hello, there,” Storm said in English, directing his words toward her. “My name is…Talbot. Terry Talbot. And this is my partner. Her name is Sullivan. Sally Sullivan.”
“Oh, hello,” she said. “I’m Dr. Katie Comely.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Storm said, smiling.
“A little too pleased, I’d say,” Strike grumbled under her breath, shooting him a look that could have been used to make the opening incision for heart surgery. Storm returned her glare with a blank face, a front affected throughout the world by men who are desperately trying to pretend they did not notice the attractiveness of another woman in their midst.
They had gotten close enough that their camels were now regarding each other at least as closely as the humans. Antony let out a groan and was again starting to slobber. Luckily, the humans seemed to be friendlier in their greeting. Storm watched as Dr. Comely’s eyes went wide for a second, and then seemed to fill with understanding.
“Are you with the I-A-P-L?”
“Sorry?” Storm said.
“The International Art Protection League. I just…I saw the gun sticking out of your pack there, and I—”
Strike was about to correct her, when Storm jumped in. “Yes. Yes, we’re with the International Art Protection League. Sorry, normally when people refer to us by our acronym, they say ‘i-apple,’ kind of like iPhone, but, yes, we have guns. And camels. And we are here to protect you. Your art. You and your art.”
“I’m so, so relieved you’re here,” Comely said. “We’ve been having the worst problems with bandits. They’ve stolen so many of our finds, I just can’t even begin to…”
She turned and yelled to a man who was just coming out of camp on his camel. “Professor, it’s the art protection people!”
Katie was smiling like she was a devout pilgrim and Storm and Strike were the Second Coming.
“May I present Dr. Stanford Raynes,” she said.
The man road his camel with a jerky hesitance. He was tall and thin and had a haughty, academic air that Storm immediately disliked. Still, he smiled and again exchanged names.
“Won’t you join us in camp?” Katie said.
“It would be our pleasure,” Storm said, spitting out the words before Strike could find the language that went with her scowl.
“Wonderful, wonderful. You can even help us extract our latest find from the tombs. It is potentially very, very exciting. But it’s also sort of heavy,” Katie said, turning her full attention to Storm. “Not that it would be a problem for you. You look like you could lift a tank. You must work out a lot, Mr. Talbot.”
“I’ve been known to,” Storm said.
Strike now had murder in her eyes, but she said nothing.
“Well, come on then,” Katie said. “We’ll have a rest while we wait for that big ball of fire to go away, but then there’s much to be done.”
CHAPTER 18
SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
O
n the far wall of Ahmed’s office, there was a large painting of a scene from “The Three Apples,” one of the tales related by Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights.
In it, a fisherman discovers an ornate trunk, which he sells to the caliph, the ruler of all Islam. When the caliph opens the trunk, he finds the body of a young woman, hacked to pieces. The caliph dispatches his wazir—his chief advisor—to find the murderer, giving the wazir three days to accomplish this task or else face death himself.
On the third day, the wazir has failed and is about to be executed when two men appear, both claiming to be the murderer. The story unfolds from there with a series of turns, each more unexpected than the next, made all the more extraordinary when you remember the teller of the tale, Scheherazade, was trying to save herself from beheading by a merciless king.
To modern scholars, “The Three Apples” is one of the earliest known examples of a thriller in literature, relying as it did on an unreliable narrator and a multitude of plot twists to enthrall readers.
To Ahmed, it was a reminder that no one can be trusted and nothing is as it seems.
Which was fitting, because the painting wasn’t just a painting.
It was also a door that led to a secret place, a chamber tall enough for a man to stand in, deep enough to stash anything of value. One of Ahmed’s ancestors had created it, to hide who-knows-what from who-knows-whom.
Ahmed had actually played in it as a boy. He’d steal some halva from the kitchen, fill an amphora with water, and scurry in early in the morning, before his father had finished his breakfast. Then, sufficiently provisioned,
Ahmed would spend the day in there, spying on his father. The painting was transparent from the inside in a few places, allowing Ahmed to see out even though no one could see in. He would stay there, very quietly, listening intently to the conversations that passed between the men who came in.
Ahmed called the compartment aman, Arabic for safe.
Eventually, his father discovered what Ahmed was doing. But rather than scold his son, he praised the boy’s cleverness. He bid Ahmed to cease entering aman surreptitiously. But, every now and then, he would invite his son in to eavesdrop on an important conversation.
Now pay attention to this, he’d say. This man is going to ask me to sell to him for a hundred gineih a unit. I will tell him such thing is not possible, that no one could sell for so little, that I will not be able to feed my family on that amount. I will plead and be quite pitiful. Eventually, he will acquiesce and accept a hundred-and-twenty-five, never knowing that it only cost me fifty.
Other times, it would be: This man will begin by begging me for a special deal. He will cry about his own poverty. I will berate him for his weakness and then pretend to give him a very special price of a hundred and fifty gineih. He will say that his own children will go hungry. As a magnanimous gesture, I will give it to him for a hundred-and-twenty-five gineih. It still only cost me fifty.
Ahmed was amazed how often his father’s predictions turned out to be accurate. He learned much about the world of men and business while secreted away in aman.
He never guessed that, someday, he would use the chamber to hide a store of something called promethium, a substance that could be used to make a weapon more powerful than anything his father could have dreamed of.
Nor did Ahmed guess that there were would be times he would ask members of his own security force to hide in there. Just in case. And only because Ahmed was not as gifted as his father at anticipating what visitors to the office might say and do.
And because those visitors tended to be more dangerous than the ones Ahmed’s father had entertained.
Ahmed was looking at that painting, thinking of the lessons of “The Three Apples,” remembering those long hours he had whiled away inside as a boy, when his phone rang.
“Yes?” he said in Arabic.
Ahmed’s side of the conversation went as follows:
“Yes, I’m ready. I am always ready. You know that….
“Any time you like. Would you like it to be tomorrow? I can make it tomorrow….
“Yes, of course I will have the money. Have I ever failed you?…
“And we are agreed on the price?…
“No, no, no. That is not acceptable. Not at all. These complications you speak of, these are not my problem….
“Well, so kill them if you have to kill them. What do you expect me to do, weep at their funeral? They mean nothing to me….
“Well, then I will suggest to you the desert is a wonderful place to dispose of a body. You are aware of the saying we have about that, yes?”
Ahmed then laughed and said, “No, no. It is this: sand only surrenders that which it wants to. You take care of your problems. I’ll take care of mine. I will see you in the morning, Allah be praised.”
CHAPTER 19
WEST OF LUXOR, Egypt
K
atie Comely’s cheeks were flushed, and for once it wasn’t only because of the heat.
“I just don’t understand where your objections are coming from,” she was saying to Professor Raynes. “These people are the answer to our dreams. Did you see the size of that guy? He could fit three Egyptians in his pocket. More importantly, did you see the size of his gun? And the woman looks like she can handle herself, too. Certainly a lot better than a bunch of so-called guards that run away the second someone gives them a cross look.”
Katie and the professor had retired to his tent. The heat of the day was upon them. Outside, the mercury was climbing toward fifty degrees Celsius, more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Inside Raynes’s tent, a solar-powered air-conditioning unit pumped in cool air that provided a hedge against the oppressiveness of the desert. Much of the cold leaked down through the wooden floor that Raynes had installed to lift his tent off the sand. The result was that the tent was merely lukewarm, as opposed to sweltering.
Still, it was a lot more posh than most of the archaeological digs Katie had been on. Raynes had all the latest equipment, plus generators to run it all. It helped give the camp at least a veneer of civilization amid the brutality of their surroundings.
“All I’m saying is, I’m not sure I trust these people, Katie,” Professor Raynes said.
“How could you say that? They’re from i-apple. They’re here to protect us.”
“Yes, yes, I know we think they’re from i-apple. But normally people from the International Art Protection League don’t just show up out of nowhere, on camels, without warning. They call ahead. They come in trucks. These people, they could be anyone.”
Katie put her hands on her hips. “Why would they say they’re from i-apple if they’re not from i-apple? That just seems like a random thing to go claiming. If you’re that worried, call up your contact in Bern.”
“I will, I will,” the professor said.
“It’s just, we’re so close. I’ve got Bouchard ready to move. He’s coming out tonight.”
She had taken to naming her mummy Bouchard, after Pierre-François Bouchard, the French army officer who found the Rosetta Stone—the discovery that was considered to have launched the entire field of Egyptology. Until Katie was able to get the mummy back to the lab, she would get no closer to knowing his real name. Which of the many previously unfound ancient kings of Egypt was he?
“I know how much he means to you,” the professor said, softening his tone.
“Anyone who says they want to help? As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care if they are charlatans in some way we don’t yet realize. If they protect us, I’ll buy whatever snake oil they want to sell us or—”
“Katie, are you sure that’s wise?”
“I just…I lost Khufu and if I lose this too…I mean, this is my whole—” she began, then stopped because she realized she was about to cry.
“Katie, Katie,” the professor cooed.
He stood, walked around behind her, and began rubbing her shoulders. It was the first time he had ever touched her in a way that couldn’t be considered professional. She had a mind to fight it, to shrug it off, and to chastise him for it. She knew about his crush. It was wrong on many levels.
But then she reminded herself she needed all the help she could get. There were worse things than accepting an unsolicited back rub. If that’s what kept him on her side, she would allow it.
TWO TENTS OVER, there were no back rubs going on.
“Oh, Mr. Talbot, you’re so big and strong,” Clara Strike said in a mocking rendition of Katie Comely’s soprano voice. “You look like you could lift anything. As a matter of fact, why don’t you come over here and lift up my skirt?”
“Oh, stop.”
“And when you’re done, what do you say we dig around in whatever you find there? I bet we could really do some wonderful excavating.”
“What are you suggesting?” Storm asked.
“What am I suggesting?” Strike said, returning to her normal tone. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m saying she wants to play a game of hide the hieroglyph with you, and from the way you’re looking at her, the feeling is more than a little mutual.”
“Come on now,” Storm said. “You’re just being silly.”
“Silly, am I? Sorry; so it was just a coincidence that we went into the desert a newly and happily married couple—Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, on their honeymoon, riding the most romantic camels in all of Egypt, deeply in love—and the next thing I know I’m actually an old maid, schlepping over sand dunes with some guy named Tommy Talb
ot.”
“Terry Talbot. I told you I didn’t like the name Sullivan.”
“So you divorced me, just like that? The institution of marriage is that meaningless to you?”
“I didn’t div—
“I just don’t know what I’m going to say to all our friends who came to the wedding. And all the money my parents spent. Can you return a wedding dress that’s only been worn once?”
“Can I remind you we were not actually married?”
“Not anymore, apparently,” Strike sniffed, holding her chin up high.
“I was improvising, okay? I also told her we were international defenders of art, whatever the hell that means. I can’t be held accountable that the young woman happens to be impressed with my physique.”
“Yes, yes. I know. You’re sooooo ruggedly handsome.”
Storm brought a bandana to his face, dampening it with the sweat that was forming on his brow and lip. “Look, we’re here, okay? And I don’t know if you noticed, but this appears to be the only thing in the target-zone radius that’s not a pile of sand. The promethium might well have been discovered here.”
“By a bunch of archaeologists?”
“Or maybe by the people who were here before the archaeologists, I don’t know. But, as you so vividly pointed out, there is a lot of excavation going on here. People who dig in the Earth tend to find things down there. Maybe things like promethium.”