All of them heard the sound of cars arriving.
It was unlikely to be good news. Ky’s heart sank.
As one, they turned to see who was coming.
One of the first to leave a vehicle was Inspector Hassan, his expression curiously apologetic. One of the others was well known to almost all of them. His bland fleshy face expressionless, Heinrich Zimmer got out of another. There were two other men with them, neither of whom Ky knew, one of which by his ill-fitting dark suit was a bureaucrat.
What the hell was this?
“Professor Farrar?” the Inspector said, “I’ve no doubt you know Dr. Zimmer?”
Ky nodded, his face expressionless. He kept his swearing subvocal, under his breath.
Now was not the time to explain to Raissa what fuck meant.
Although it was in his head.
She was endlessly curious about vernacular and slang, which got awkward now and then and he kept the smile that thought brought him to himself. But the memory had the effect of lightening his mood.
“Are you transporting antiquities?” the Inspector asked with a sigh.
Ky looked at them incredulously, and the sarcasm was clear in his voice. “I’m an archaeologist, Inspector, approved by the Egyptian authorities and certified by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, of course I’m transporting antiquities. You have asked us to leave. I’m taking them there.”
With another sigh, the Inspector said, “I’m afraid you aren’t. Dr. Zimmer is concerned you may try to remove antiquities from the country. And since you are flying I’m afraid we cannot take the chance. If you will show me where they are I will assure you they will remain safe. After they are inspected and catalogued we will ship them to you in Cairo ourselves.”
For a moment Ky just stared from Zimmer to Inspector Hassan, his jaw tight, fury and disbelief at war with each other but he knew there was nothing he could do. Nothing. Not with Hassan there.
“It would be a good idea,” Zimmer suggested, “to search their luggage as well, in case they are trying to smuggle something out that way.”
There was a bad case of the pot calling the kettle black.
“You sonovabitch,” Ky said and bit back the rest of what he was going to say.
Quietly in the background he heard Raissa ask, “What does that word mean?”
Ryan snorted a laugh and said, obligingly. “He said he’s a son of a female dog.”
“Oh,” she said, apparently innocently, nodding as if that explained everything. Then frowned. “How could he be the son of anything else, since only females have puppies?”
She never looked at Zimmer.
Even Ky’s fury lightened as Zimmer’s face turned dark with fury at the insult, although he could take none from her apparently innocent inquiry.
Still, uncharacteristically, the man stayed silent, his eyes on their luggage. There was an expectant look on Zimmer’s face but Ky didn’t know why.
In a short time the cases with their finds had been opened and their luggage picked through thoroughly by the bureaucrat to assure nothing was there that shouldn’t have been. As Ky had expected. So why had Zimmer thought differently?
The cases with their finds were packed up and loaded in the cars. Ky watched with helpless fury, sick at heart.
Crestfallen, Zimmer just stared, looking at all of them, shaking his head slightly, clearly confused.
Something hadn’t gone as he’d expected. It was clear he’d thought they’d find something in the luggage but they hadn’t.
Ky remembered the brief period when the luggage had been in the lobby of the hotel, unattended, while they packed the more precious antiquities in the car.
Had Zimmer tried to have something slipped into their luggage? If so, he hadn’t been successful.
For a moment Zimmer glanced from one to the other of them, as if contemplating searching them.
His eyes lingered on Raissa for a moment and Ky went still, his jaw tightening, remembering the look on Zimmer’s face that day at the dig.
Feeling those eyes on her, Raissa looked at the fleshy blond man, met his eyes as they looked over her body, lingered on her breasts, his expression avid. Something in that look turned her stomach and made her wish she could take another shower.
She returned the look steadily.
“Touch me,” she said, her voice low and tight, “and I will feed you the hand that you touched me with. Personally. Inspector? Do I have to suffer such an indignity?”
Her eyes were level. It was clear hers wasn’t an idle threat, her jaw was locked tight as she glared at the other archaeologist.
The Inspector gave the Zimmer a warning look.
“Professor Zimmer,” he said, sharply.
The blond man met her eyes and Raissa met his.
What she saw in them shocked her silent, stunned her and made her shiver to the depths of her soul.
There was a deep black hate in those oddly dark brown eyes. She didn’t know him, how could he hate her so much, so deeply and why? There was something there, though, something disturbingly familiar, something predatory…
Meeting that flat dark gaze, though, she didn’t flinch, she didn’t dare.
Something seemed to shimmer in the air around them.
With an effort, Ky didn’t look at Raissa, sensing her tension but knowing better than to be caught in a trap set by Zimmer.
“Inspector,” he said, sharply, to get those eyes off Raissa, “are we finished?”
Nodding, Hassan looked to the others. The bureaucrat nodded.
Hassan took Zimmer’s arm. Firmly.
Reluctantly, Zimmer turned toward the cars, his dark eyes in his fair face furious and frustrated but there was satisfaction there as well as he looked at the boxes in the trunk of the car. He had what he wanted, their finds, the rest had been just entertainment.
He nodded his head sharply once as he looked at Ky, smiled triumphantly, and got in the car.
They drove away.
Ky swore softly, watching at the cars turned the corner, then added, bitterly, “They got everything.”
“What does that word mean?” Raissa asked, looking at Ryan for explanation.
Nearly choking with laughter, Ryan said. “Well, some people say it’s an abbreviation for―for unlawful carnal knowledge.”
“Carnal? You mean sex?” Raissa asked, frowning at first, then startled and more than a little entertained by the idea. “Why does he keep saying it as if it were a bad thing?”
Colloquialisms still baffled her. That one made no sense.
John had turned and was leaning his head against the plane he was laughing so hard, knowing what was coming.
Eyeing him curiously, Raissa looked back at Ryan for answers, knowing he would give them to her.
Turning, Ky gave Ryan a warning look, seeing the glint in the grad student’s eyes.
“Because he ain’t getting any,” Ryan said, blithely, grinning. “And he’s frustrated.”
“Ah,” Raissa said, eyes twinkling, as if that explained everything
Very carefully, remembering their kiss of the morning, she said nothing but worked hard at smothering laughter.
She didn’t once look at Ky but her mouth twitched despite all her best efforts.
Ky closed his eyes, fighting his own amusement at the conversation, thinking of everything they’d lost.
“They got everything,” he repeated, staring after the vehicles as they disappeared from sight around the corner.
He couldn’t understand Ryan’s lightheartedness. How could he be so careless about it?
“Well, Boss,” Ryan explained, patiently, seeing his expression. “They didn’t get everything, Not exactly.”
Raissa was grinning, now, too, her blue eyes twinkling with mischief.
Ky looked from one to the other.
Grinning, Raissa raised his borrowed shirt up a little to reveal the thick package taped to her slender belly beneath the loose shirt, the mischief in her smile lighting her brilliant blue eyes.
“And I helped,” Ryan said, proudly, grinning. “Given the bum’s rush we were getting, it just seemed likely we might run into problems. So we packaged up the good stuff.”
“Everything with text,” Raissa said. “Papyri, even the pottery shards. Remember my old employer, the antiquities smuggler? That’s what gave me the idea.”
Her eyes sparkled.
“It’s just a good thing she has such great tits,” Ryan said. “If she was flat-chested we’d never have gotten away with it.”
The light in her eyes dancing, Raissa’s eyes met Ky’s.
Ky yanked her to him and planted a solid, smacking kiss right on that grinning mouth he was so pleased.
A little startled but clearly delighted, she just laughed up at him, her blue eyes sparkling as she laughed.
“Do I get one, too, Boss?” Ryan asked, grinning.
Ky just gave him a look.
“Let’s get everything packed in the plane, people,” he said.
When he turned away, Ryan gave Raissa a look and raised his hand.
She shook her head in amusement before giving him the high five back―whether for their success or the kiss, she wasn’t quite sure―and laughed silently.
John just shook his head as Komi grinned.
Given the circumstances, if this were to be Raissa’s first flight, Ky wanted to make it special and give her the best view in the house.
After giving Raissa strict instructions to touch nothing, he allowed her to sit in the empty co-pilot’s seat while he explained to her what he was doing as he prepared for flight. Then he got the plane rolling and smiled at her avid fascination as she pressed her nose to the side window to look out at how fast they were going and then sat up hard against the seat belt to look out over the nose of the plane.
He saw her quick look of alarm as the plane left the ground, the slight dip unsettling to most first time flyers but she looked at him quickly for reassurance and then relaxed a little.
Then she was plastered to the window again to look out at the land as it dropped away from beneath them. Her nearly childlike fascination and pleasure in flying made him smile.
Catching him looking at her, she laughed, only a little abashed.
Raissa couldn’t get enough of it, looking down at the land passing so far below her. It was like a God’s eye view. Everything was so tiny, the great expanse of the Nile was nothing more than a bright ribbon of light. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was incredible.
To tease her, Ky tilted the plane briefly to give her a better view.
She started, yelped and gasped a little as the plane banked and then she looked back at him over her shoulder, glanced at the gauges and glared at him before laughing and shaking her head.
All of it amazed her, seeing the birds flying beneath them, the villages, cities and towns passing so far below.
Looking down over the city of Cairo as they flew over the outskirts, she could only stare in disbelief and amazement at the bustling city.
With nothing in their luggage except their clothes, Ky sent John and Komi to the hotel to get their rooms settled, taking Ryan and Raissa with him to the Egyptian Museum.
If there was one place he could go for help and get it, it was here in this place where he’d spent so much time in his youth.
He loved this place.
The Museum was an impressive building, both beautiful and imposing, the façade a magnificent archway surrounded by reddish stone that stretched away in two long wings to each side. A broad green mall spread in front of it, crowded with tourists, students, and researchers, some on a break for lunch, others enjoying the sunshine.
As a visiting professor and working archaeologist, Ky had rights and privileges the general public did not. His badge gave him and by extension, Ryan and Raissa, privileges others didn’t have.
He led them through the building, searching for a particular office.
Raissa just stared around her in wonder at the huge statues that had once graced a Pharaoh’s tomb, antiquities from multiple ages, shaking her head in astonishment and sorrow. Gold and jewels, coffers full of precious gems, the things that people buried in the tombs to represent what they would need on their journey through the underworld to the afterlife, were all laid out on display.
The office wasn’t huge but it wasn’t small. Just about every surface was covered with books and files. Professional certificates, newspaper articles and magazine covers graced the walls.
Ky had called on ahead to be certain Dr. Hawass would be in and available when they arrived. They were old, old friends, from a time when Ky had been a graduate student here.
Tapping lightly at the door, Ky looked in as Dr. Tareq Hawass looked up and smiled.
A handsome man of middling height and middling years, he had a fine-boned Arabic face, sparkling dark-brown eyes, thick black hair going to gray at the temples and an air of refined elegance.
“Ky, my friend,” he exclaimed, effusively, smiling as he rose to greet them, his hand extended in welcome.”It’s good to see you again! I’ve been reading your reports from the site. Quite remarkable. Small steps but it is progress.”
Smiling in return, Ky went to meet him, took the offered hand for a firm shake.
“Tareq, you remember Ryan Mitchell, my grad student and research assistant?”
With a nod, Hawass said, graciously, “I do, indeed.”
His eyes shifted to Raissa.
“But I don’t remember this lovely young woman,” he said, taking her hand, smiling.
Tareq raised her hand to his lips in a courtly gesture, flirting outrageously as he did with any pretty young woman.
Completely enchanted, Raissa smiled back at him with real warmth.
“She’s far too pretty for you, my friend,” Tareq said, giving her a wink.
Amused, Raissa glanced over her shoulder at Ky.
“You can’t have her, Tareq,” Ky said, “she’s mine. Meet my new translator, Raissa Campion. She’s very good, better even than Geoffrey.”
“Knowing you, she would have to be,” Tareq said, and lifted an eyebrow, impressed. “Better than Geoffrey? Well, then. Will we be making the pilgrimage later?”
Puzzled, Raissa looked from one to the other of them.
In an aside to Raissa, with a sly wink Tareq said, “He always takes new people to see the wall from Narmer’s tomb. If it was indeed Narmer’s tomb from which the wall was stolen. There is some debate about that, of course, since the tomb itself has never been found. We were lucky to recover the wall.”