They’d made love in the shower. Twice. Washed. Frequently. And managed somehow to open the sofa bed and fall on the clean sheets before going back to devour each other again. Isis had fallen asleep as if she’d run into a wall. Which, God help him, she had. The fact that she’d been able to match him stroke for stroke was, all things considered, nothing short of amazing. Hell,
she
was amazing.
In sleep she’d curled her body against him. A position he had grown to love, one arm and a leg curved around his body. Holding him to her. There was no hold necessary, no hold as strong as his feelings for her.
Thorne hadn’t wasted time sleeping. He’d have time for that later. For now, he wanted to absorb her with all his senses.
Whoever was at the door could wait a moment. Thorne stood looking down at her, memorizing the way her waist curved into the sweet round of her hip. The plump weight of her breasts beneath his hand. The soft pink of her nipples. He needed to memorize this moment in case he was never allowed to be this lucky again.
He’d been trained from a young age to keep a stiff upper lip, to show no emotion, to do his duty. Those lessons hadn’t taken effect until Garrett killed himself. Then all the fun and fuckup he was, was wiped away. He’d left school, signed up with MI5, and done his best to get killed in every way, shape, and form to make up for his screwed-up youth, without realizing it—until he’d met Isis.
She was everything that was good, while he was—Thorne shoved that realization aside. It was what it was.
He
was what he was.
Once she was imprinted on his brain looking just this way, he tightened the towel and padded to the front door.
Peering through the peephole first, he flung open the door. “Heustis?”
“This was quicker than calling and arranging transport. Here, your pal upstairs said to give you this.” He handed Thorne the cane he’d forgotten and tossed him a can of cola. “The spillway has been turned off, at least temporarily, until the authorities decide what to do. We have Brengard and Dr. Najid in custody; they’re screaming for their attorneys. Unfortunately, they’re not screaming nearly loudly enough for said attorneys to be
called in,” the Mossad operative said dryly. “The Egyptians have allowed a combined team of your people and my people to ask questions.”
A hell of a lot more effective. Thorne cocked a brow. “ ‘Allowed’?”
Heustis grinned. “What do you English say? Finders keepers? We scooped them up. When we’re done with them, we’ll consider handing them over to the locals.” His smile was feral.
“Where they’ll be given a slap on the wrist and sent on their way.”
The other man shook his head. “I’m sure the Egyptian police appreciate our interrogation techniques, which will have saved them time and effort. So much can happen with a hostage situation—”
The prisoners would be moved to Israel, bypassing the lax Egyptian legal system, Thorne thought with grim satisfaction. “What about Yermalof?”
“In the wind, but we have word he’s visiting a lady friend in Alexandria. Your people went to pick him up there. We’re holding the other two at a safe house. Want in on the talks?”
“I do. More so when Yermalof shows. Is Najid the mastermind?”
“Seems like.” Heustis gave his slipping towel a mild look. “Are you planning to stand there naked all afternoon, or would you like to dress and finish this op off so we can all go home?”
“Give me a minute—”
“Can I come with you?” Isis asked from the bedroom
doorway. She too was wrapped in a towel. It looked a hell of a lot better on her than it did on him.
“Only fair. Get dressed.”
She disappeared into the bedroom. “Give us five minutes.”
“Car’s downstairs. Oh, Thorne?” When Thorne turned back, the other man handed him a polymer-framed, standard Jericho pistol. “Thought you might like the use of my backup.”
Magazine loaded, double action, semiauto, short recoil. Thorne hefted the weight. “Thanks, appreciate it.”
It took Isis an astoundingly short ten minutes to get dressed and put on makeup she didn’t need. “I feel human now.”
“You look good enough to eat.”
“Thank you, I’ve been eaten, and have feasted in return, but that’s enough sex for you for a while. I want to go and poke a sharp stick at Dylan. Your cane might do the trick.”
“Feel free.”
“You sit in front. I can stretch out in the back,” Isis offered, switching places when Thorne opened the front door of the plain beige sedan for her. He popped the back door and waited until she was inside, then handed her the soda he’d almost forgotten in his pocket.
“How far?” he asked Heustis.
“Twenty minutes, give or take. Can you fill me in on what went down since I saw you last?”
“I’m using Husani’s phone to call my father,” Isis told him, already punching out the numbers.
Thorne did a quick summary of past events to get the
Mossad operative up to speed, listening to Isis’s quiet conversation in the backseat, not with her father, but apparently with her cousin. Her conversation was shorter than his CliffsNotes report to Heustis.
He was just up to the avalanche sealing them inside the upper chamber when Isis chimed in: “Sorry to interrupt for a second—Acadia and Zak are going to bring my father here, probably tomorrow. We decided that it doesn’t matter what he remembers or doesn’t. He deserves to see Cleo.”
“Agreed.” Although Isis would be back in Seattle herself by then. “Scorpions and snakes and God only knows what else, but we had—”
Isis’s elbow bumped the back of his head as she leaned over the seat. “Acadia asked me about the clues my father left—and I was listing them, when I suddenly realized, we forgot my father’s other clue!”
Thorne turned to look at her glowing face and gleaming eyes. His heart double-clutched. God, she was pretty. He smiled at her enthusiasm. “What clue?”
“Seeing the cane Husani gave you reminded me of the broken walking stick my father left with him. It’s identical to that one.”
“And?” Broken and apparently useless, it had been left at the souk. “Hand it back here. I just had an idea.”
Puzzled, Thorne lifted the carved walking stick over the seat back. He caught Heustis’s eye and the other man shrugged. “Let me know when you have something to share with the class,” Thorne told Isis, turning back to face the front again. “The chopper came over the ridge,
and—” He recounted their movements up to their entrance into Cleopatra’s tomb.
“Sorry to interrupt your fascinating story again,” Isis said excitedly, leaning one elbow over the back of Thorne’s seat, “but you might want to take a look at this. But before you do, brace yourself.” She handed his cane back across the seat. But this time it was tightly wrapped in a dirty white ribbon.
“Is this the stuff that was wrapped around the basket with the tassel in it?” Thorne took it from her and laid it across his lap. “Where did it come from?”
“I had the ribbon in here.” She tapped her camera bag on her hip. “Seeing this cane, I suddenly remembered the ribbon. It had a design on it that I never gave a second thought to. But then I vaguely remembered reading something years ago—and my brain put two and two together and came up with five. Quick! Turn it so it’s vertical.”
Thorne shifted his feet so he could angle the wrapped stick on the floor. For a moment he simply stared at the writing that spiraled neatly down the stick. The filthy ribbon with the abstract design had become a perfectly legible cypher when wrapped around the article with the exact correct dimensions. The walking stick was the clue. “Bloody hell. This is a
scytale
! Your father left us a usable clue after all.”
“We
did
need the cane he left.” Isis leaned both elbows over his seat back so that her still-damp, fragrant hair brushed his cheek. “But this is the same, since they’re mass-produced. I’m sorry, Connor. Are you shocked?”
“Shocked?” Heustis asked, pulling into an abandoned
parking lot behind a small warehouse and cutting the engine. “What does it tell you?”
No one made any move to exit the vehicle.
“The principal players. From the bottom.” Thorne started evenly reading off the names. “Brengard. Boris Yermalof. Dr. Khalifa Najid—and the Earl of Kilgetty.”
“Who?” the Mossad operative asked, puzzled.
“The head of the black market ring we’ve been trying to apprehend for the past five fucking years is my
father
.”
THORNE WAS GRIM-FACED AS
they entered the warehouse through a side door. Both men were armed. He’d handed Isis his cane when they got out of the car. Even though she was pretty sure he’d done so because he didn’t want anyone inside to see he was less than fighting fit, she considered the gesture tacit permission to use it on Dylan should the opportunity present itself.
Never prone to violence, she decided she could make an exception for the slimy-snake-turncoat-turd and was
eager
for that opportunity to present itself.
Thorne had already cautioned her to stay behind them, but he put his arm out, slowing her steps just as a reminder. They passed from blinding sunlight to shadowy interior.
Inside, the huge metal warehouse was as hot and unpleasant as being inside an oven. In the far corner, a bright light was trained on a man tied to a metal chair; the rest of the space was almost midnight-dark. Isis saw that the high windows had all been painted black, blocking natural light once the door was closed behind them.
Her hand rested on her camera bag. The place was atmospheric, threatening, and scary as hell. She could shoot some amazing images here.
Maybe later.
A man cradling an Uzi in his arms like a baby stepped out of the shadows. “Your Lordship,” he said with faint British mockery, and with what Isis presumed was a smile curving his lips for a second.
Lordship?
“Cloud,” Thorne greeted him briskly as Heustis melted into the darkness. “Who’s up first?” He jerked his chin in the general direction of the distant lights.
“Starting on the help and working our way up. The others are being held over there.” Cloud used the nose of his big-ass gun to point in the opposite direction, where Isis could just make out small groups of people but couldn’t identify who was who.
“We have seven of them here,” the other man added, all business. “Just got word a sec ago that Yermalof was caught with his”—the man’s eyes flicked to Isis—“in flagrante delicto. He’ll be joining us soon.”
Thorne’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Who’s in charge?”
“Ran Beck. Want to have a word?”
“I do. Let me read him in on a new development first.”
“Right. He’s over there sitting on Najid.”
“Come along,” he told her. As if she’d wander off on her own.
“Your Lordship?”
“I don’t use my titles.”
Isis grabbed his arm to slow him down a little. “Titles,
plural
?”
“This is neither the time nor the place.”
“We had this conversation in the right time and place and you told me you—”
“Here’s Brengard.” They approached the first cluster of four men, who were gathered around Dylan. He was trussed up attractively like a turkey, lying on his side on the floor, legs curled up behind him, ankles tied neatly to his wrists. Even in the dim lighting she saw his face was red with anger. And sweaty, she hoped, with fear.
Thorne clearly knew the men, and after a brief greeting he introduced them to Isis. “She’d like a private word.”
“Ten feet do it?” a short, wiry guy asked. Thorne nodded.
Taking her chin in his hand, his face in deep shadow, he looked down at her and said evenly, “Leave enough of him to answer questions when you’re done.”
Dear God, he trusted her to control her anger around the man who’d tried to kill her father? And steal his legacy? Thorne knew her better than she knew herself, because seeing Dylan made her feel homicidal.
Dylan writhed on the floor. “Wait a damn minute! I demand my rights! I’m an American citizen—you can’t—”
For a moment she contemplated kicking him in the balls, but then he wouldn’t do much but whimper and groan and that wasn’t going to get her any answers. She
walked around his thrashing legs to crouch near his head. She planted the heavy cane vertically beside her. “Thorne wouldn’t let me bring a gun in here, even though I sort of promised not to shoot you in the balls before I asked questions.”
“You crazy bitch!”
Anger vibrated from her head to her toes, and she curled her fingers into tight fists at her side. “Why did you betray my father? No, not why.
Why
was because of the fame and money. Maybe
how
is a better question. You worked for my father for more than five years. Built up a trust. He thought of you as the son he never had.”
Dylan made a rude noise that bumped her anger up another notch. “Thorne said leave enough to interrogate. Perhaps you don’t need your teeth all that badly.”
“The professor is a doddering old fool. He found Cleo’s fucking tomb a
year
ago, Isis! Forgot, and came
back
! We’d already packed and shipped half the artifacts for sale, and placed the rest in a warehouse near Abusir so everything could be unpacked and artfully displayed when I found Cleo’s tomb in a couple of weeks. We couldn’t take the risk he’d suddenly remembered. Yermalof took out the team, moved everyone. Stupid fuck was supposed to die with the others.”
Dylan hadn’t just wanted her father’s fame and fortune. He’d wanted her father
dead
. “Sorry he inconvenienced you. You’ll be discredited, of course. Humiliated. Your bank accounts seized—”
Dylan laughed. “Humiliated? Maybe. But I have more money than they’ll ever find, and all I’ll get here is a slap
on the wrist, and I’ll give my promise to be a good boy in the future. Whatever way they cut it, I’ll be credited with discovery of that tomb, and Professor Magee will still be a laughingstock.”
“But you’re tied up
here
,” Isis reminded him, her fingers tightening on the walking stick. His eyes flickered whitely to her hand, and back to her face. “Anyone know where you are right now, Dylan?” She summoned the coldly cruel delivery of some long-forgotten movie bad guy.