Authors: Kathryn Le Veque
Fox stepped in
when things got heated and the policeman couldn’t move fast enough in the
opposite direction. As Alia continued to struggle to calm everybody down, Beni
came racing from the Middle Kingdom gallery with Morgan’s shoes in one hand and
her big black Dolce & Gabbana purse in the other.
Morgan took the
shoes and slipped them on, reaching out to take her purse. But the moment she
grabbed it, her eyes widened and she swiftly open the purse up.
“Oh, my God,”
she hissed.
Fox looked at
her. “What’s wrong?”
She looked up at
him with such shock that it physically rocked him. “The journal,” she gasped.
“It’s not in here.”
Fox’s face
turned shades of red and he suddenly turned to the group people wrestling and
shouting the lobby. He lifted his big arms to get everyone’s attention.
“Nobody is going
anywhere!” he bellowed, then looked to Alia with an expression of vengeance she
would never forget. “Lock this place down.”
She did.
November 27,
1922
Mrs.
Arak has explained to us that ancient Egyptian kings were seen as gods, all
sons of Mother Isis. He also explained that most kings were brothers and
fathers of one another, which I find odd and uncomfortable. Dear Louis
believes that the kings of Egypt were great sinners, but even so I am
increasingly enamoured with this country!
~ FS
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fox got out of
the shower to find Morgan huddled up on the couch in their hotel bedroom,
sobbing softly as she gazed out over the moon-lit Nile.
He sighed
faintly, a towel wrapped around his waist as he dried his black hair with
another. He paused, watching her sniffle into a tissue as she looked out into
the moonlit Egyptian night. He wasn’t sure what to say to her, knowing her
heart was broken. With another sigh, he tossed the hair-drying towel back into
the bathroom and went over to her.
There were three
bright lights on in the room. He turned off two of them as he made his way over
to her, creating a romantic dim atmosphere in the bedroom. He went to his
knees beside the couch, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face against
her soft shoulder.
“Why don’t we go
for a moonlit ride along the Nile?” he asked softly, kissing the exposed skin
on her shoulder. “We can find a cozy little romantic restaurant somewhere and
have dinner.”
She sniffled in
to the tissue, her eyes running over with tears. “I can’t believe someone stole
it,” she whispered. “Why would they take it? It doesn’t mean anything to anyone
other than me.”
He hugged her
gently, kissing the side of her head as she wept softly. “I don’t know, love,”
he murmured. “Alia and her people searched the museum from top to bottom and it
wasn’t there. It’s possible that someone stole it out of your purse and ran off
when you were distracted with the security guards. I just don’t know why
someone would take a ninety year old journal.”
She wiped at her
eyes as she turned to him. “My wallet was in there, my credit cards, and those
weren’t taken. Nothing else but the journal.”
He nodded. “I
know,” he wiped at a stray tear on her temple. “The thief probably doesn’t even
know what he has. He probably just grabbed the first thing he could and ran.”
She agreed with
him. “This is my profession, you know,” she cast him a long glance. “You’d
think that I would evaluate this more clinically. I’m sure it was just a theft
of convenience and I made it easy for them by dumping my stuff to go run after
that mugger.”
He lifted an
eyebrow. “You can’t beat yourself up because you reacted the way you are
trained; you saw a crime and you went to help.”
She
half-shrugged, half-nodded, and wiped her nose with the wadded tissue. “They’ll
probably try to sell it,” she said. “Maybe in the Cairo bazaar or on the black
market. Maybe we should check all of the antique stores in the area. It’s not
like the Cairo police are going to do anything about this since I’m on their
shit list now.”
He chuckled
softly. “I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” he kissed her dimpled cheek,
wet with tears. “Alia’s already put out the word to all of the dealers she
knows in the city and she probably has more contacts than the police do. But
I’m more concerned right now with getting some food in you and getting a good
night’s sleep. We can’t do anything tonight about it, anyway.”
She sniffled
sadly, turning back to the view of the moonlit city. She leaned back against him
and he pulled her close against his naked chest.
“I’m really glad
you’re here,” she whispered.
He kissed her
head, her neck. “I’m glad I’m here, too,” he said. “Speaking of which, I didn’t
have a chance to tell you what we found out about the Claw of the Apes.”
As he hoped, it
distracted her. He hadn’t mentioned it before now because she had been so
distraught about losing the journal, but now seemed like the perfect time.
“What did you
find out?” she asked, perking up somewhat.
He wriggled his
eyebrows and stood up, going to his suitcase to get some clothes. “Very
interesting stuff,” he told her, digging into the bag. “Did you hear us talking
about The Mamas Tablet?”
She nodded.
“What about it?”
“Well,” he began
as he pulled out his boxer briefs and dropped the towel. “There is a place in
Upper Egypt called
Khmsh
ʼ
Şāb
ʻ
Mn
ʼ
Ābl
, or Five
Fingers of the Ape.”
“Really?” her
eyes widened and her tears disappeared. “What is it?”
He pulled on the
underwear and went in search of his pants. “It’s an ancient burial ground for
the soldiers who manned the fortresses along the upper Nile. It’s actually a
canyon with five small offshoots, like fingers. They ancients used to call it
Five Fingers of the Ape, or as I suspect, the Claw of the Ape.”
She was awed.
“So we have a starting point,” she jumped up and ran to find her lap top. “Did
you look it up on the map?”
He shook his
head as he pulled on a pair of casual jeans. “I haven’t had the opportunity
yet.”
Morgan found her
lap top buried in her suitcase and she pulled it out, booting it up. Setting it
down on the desk as she pulled up a chair, waiting for the icon screen to come
up, she watched Fox as he finished dressing by pulling a stylish shirt on.
However, he left it unbuttoned, exposing his magnificent chest, as he went over
to the desk and leaned over her, watching the screen come alive. Morgan could
feel the heat from his body.
“Uh…,” she
clicked on the internet icon as he hovered. “We’re not going anywhere if you
walk around like that.”
“Walk around
like what?”
“Half-naked. You
know what that does to me.”
He grinned and
began to nuzzle her neck. “Good,” he nibbled on her tender flesh. “My mojo is
working on you.”
She laughed. “Of
course it’s working on me.”
He continued to
nuzzle her neck and shoulder, coming to a sudden halt when confronted by an
angry bruise on the top of her left shoulder. He sighed heavily.
“What in the
bloody hell is this?” he asked.
She had no idea
what he meant until she got up and looked in the mirror. Then she shrugged and
went to sit back down in front of the computer.
“One of the
museum guards belted me with his night stick,” she said. “I took it away from
him and hit him over the head with it.”
He stared at
her. “Are you always so casual about a fight?”
She looked at
him, meeting his black-eyed gaze. “I’m a cop,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s
part of the job.”
He sighed
faintly, resting his chin on her undamaged shoulder. “I’m going to have to get
used to this, aren’t I?”
She nodded, eyes
glued to the computer screen. “Yes.”
“What if I don’t
like it?”
She grinned.
“Like or not, you’re going to have to deal with it.”
He made a face.
“What if I want you to work in a nice, safe little job?”
“Then you’re
going to be disappointed.”
He grunted with
some frustration. “But you’re such a tiny little thing, love,” he didn’t want
to start a fight with her. “You can’t be more than an inch or two over five
feet. I’m scared to death that you’re going to get hurt.”
She was typing
furiously. “I’m five feet two inches tall, one hundred and six pounds of tiger
meat,” she told him frankly. “I can take down a man twice my size, including
you. Do you want to find out?”
He laughed at
her. “No, I don’t,” he assured her as he began nuzzling her neck again. “At
least, not in the manner you’re speaking of.”
Chills ran down
her spine and she shivered, smiling because he was nuzzling and snickering at
the same time. “Smart man,” she muttered.
He heard her.
“Speaking of smart, didn’t you tell me that you had a degree in Law?”
She nodded as
she stopped typing and started reading something on the screen. “I got my
undergrad in Political Science and my Masters in Law,” she replied. “Why?”
“Then why not
become a barrister? That’s a nice, safe job and you’d still be helping people.”
She stopped
reading and looked at him. “You’re not going to let this rest, are you?”
He kissed her
dimpled cheek. “Only because I love you.”
She pursed her
lips at him. “I love my job, Fox. You’re going to have to accept that for
now.”
He grinned,
kissed her on the nose, and shut his mouth. She turned back around and they
began reading the computer screen together.
She had produced
an earth mapping website that brought up satellite images of the world. Morgan
zeroed in on Egypt and together they mapped their way down the Nile until they
reached Edfu, which Fox was very familiar with. Even further south was the
Upper Nubian Desert and Fox began to map out the area around Amada. Morgan
eventually got up from the chair, giving the computer over to him so he could
scrutinize the landscape.
Using the
measuring tool on the mapping program, he was able to reduce his search area
significantly. Although the topography had changed significantly in four
thousand years, he couldn’t imagine an entire canyon would be swallowed up by
the desert. He studied the screen closely as Morgan went into the bathroom to
shower and change. By the time she came out, wrapped up in a big white towel,
he was still seated in front of the computer.
Morgan went to
her suitcase and began to pull out an outfit. She alternately dug around in
the suitcase and watched the back of Fox’s head.
“Find it yet?”
she finally asked.
He nodded slowly
but didn’t speak. Curious, Morgan left her clothes laid out on the bed and went
to stand next to him, trying to see what he was seeing. It was then that she
noticed he had the copies of the papyrus spread out on the desk next to him
along with the leather-bound notepad where he kept all of his notes.
“What are you
doing?” she asked.
He grunted
softly as if she had broken his train of thought. Then he shifted, looked at
her, and wrapped an enormous arm around her waist before looking back to the
screen.
“I am trying to
piece together these clues using satellite images,” he told her, pointing to
the computer screen with the pencil. “Here’s what I believe to be the Five
Fingers of the Ape. See it here?”
She peered
closely at the screen; it looked like desert to her, the way the erosion
patterns and drainage patterns made feathery lines over the sand. But she
could see the area he was speaking of; it did indeed look like an oddly –shaped
hand with five fingers. She put her finger on the computer screen, right on top
of it.
“This?” she
asked.
“Right.”
She pulled her
finger away. “It really does look like a hand,” she agreed, then looked at the
notes and papyrus copies he had spread out. “Isn’t the next step the city of
Ranthor?”
He nodded.
“Yes,” he was evidently swept up in his thoughts. “On a good day at a normal
pace, one could cross between twelve and twenty miles of the desert on foot.
The papyrus says that it takes ten days as the sun sets to reach the holy city
of Ranthor, which puts us somewhere in the middle of the God-forsaken Nubian
Desert. Not a rat or a bird lives in that desolate area; there’s no oasis or
natural springs that I know of. It puts the holy city out in the middle of
nowhere, literally.”
Morgan gazed at
the screen. “What does it mean ‘ten days as the sun sets’?”
He shrugged.
“I’m presuming it means that you travel east each day due east until the sun
sets.”