The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (135 page)

“We’ve got a problem,” Stark said, stirring Bunny out of her semi-sleep.

“What?” Prenner asked, his tone as starched as his uniform. How the guy could go all night and not wrinkle his jacket went against all that was right.

Stark pointed to the screen. “Mr. Saramais has been receiving numerous payments—from numerous countries and agencies.”

Bunny scanned the bank account list. Several names popped up. The Bahamas Commonwealth Bank. Probably one of the most famous CIA front companies out there. She turned to Emily.

The woman gritted her teeth, flipping open her phone. “On it.”

Another account that stood out was the New Hong Kong Import Company. Bunny had seen the name before. Like how they had traced funds from that Chinese front company to the team that had attacked them in Russia.

Another line item was from the Iranian government—directly. No cover or front there. Just the Islamic Republic of Iran Treasury.

“What are all these payments for?” Bunny asked, a question that she felt was rhetorical, except Stark answered it.

“Research,” he stated. “Or at least that’s what the grants say.”

“On what?” Bunny thought out loud. The Viking study probably cost a grand total of a couple hundred thousand dollars. The totals on this ledge added up into the millions, tens of millions.

Stark stretched out his fingers, cracking the knuckles. “That is going to take me a while. Saramias has got his own shell companies, plus a Swiss
and
Cayman Island account.”

“I guess if you are trying to hide from the Disciples, you would need a ton of capital,” Prenner suggested.

But what if Saramias wasn’t hiding from the Disciples? What if Saramias was out there as bait? A lure that she had just advised Rebecca to take?

“We’ve got to warn them,” Bunny stated.

Prenner shook his head. “We agreed to radio silence until they leave Egypt.”

Bunny bit the edge of her fingernail. It turned out it was just as hard to be on this side of the radio as it was in the field. As she rubbed the scar that came around her rib and ended at her sternum, she realized maybe not quite as hard as out in the field, but pretty damned close.

* * *

Rebecca adjusted her
jibab
so that it completely covered her clothes. The long, flowing black robe obscured any figure Rebecca might have liked to think she had.

Talli held out another garment. “This is your
niqab
.”

“I thought it was a burka?” Davidson asked.

Rebecca shook her head, studying the hat-like garment that would cover her head and face. “No, a burka is a single garment. It isn’t worn nearly as common in Egypt as it is in Saudi Arabia.” Rebecca took the
niqab
. “This way, once inside, a women can easily take off the
niqab
yet still be modestly dressed from the neck down.”

“Modest?” Lopez snorted, sucking down his third shake. “More like get thee to a nunnery.”

“I think that is the point,” Rebecca stated. She knew dressing in the local fashion was important. It was important to blend in. To mask her very Western features. Still, she hesitated to put on the
niqab
. Many woman around the world voluntarily covered their hair and face as a matter of their religion. Many others didn’t do it voluntarily. In countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, they could be beaten or whipped for showing their face to non-related males.

“You could stay with Lopez,” Brandt suggested.

Rebecca shot him a look. Like she’d pass up the chance to ask Saramias what the hell was going on? Yeah, right. Besides, she had just nearly gotten squeezed to death by a python. A veil shouldn’t be that big a deal. As Rebecca donned her
niqab
, the little girl next to her did as well. Even though the child was going to stay with Lopez in the getaway car, it was best to keep her identity under wraps.

“Don’t worry,” Rebecca murmured to Vakasa as she lowered the eye veil. The girl gave a thumbs-up as she adjusted the veil to fit properly. It appeared she’d worn one of these before.

Rebecca wasn’t quite so comfortable veiling up the only part of her body that the
jibab
and
niqab
didn’t cover. But her blue eyes were a stand out in this part of the world. They had to be concealed.

Dropping the veil over her eyes, Rebecca felt a wave of claustrophobia. And she wasn’t even claustrophobic. She had read somewhere that wearing the eye veil was like wearing a dark pair of sunglasses. Um…They were wrong. A pair of sunglasses made you feel sexy. To her, the veil blanked out her identity.

Brandt put his arm around her and kissed the fabric. “You’re still beautiful.”

She shoved him away. “You say that to all the black-robed, indistinguishable women you meet.”

“If it helps any, I’m wearing a hat too,” Brandt said as Talli finished with the head garment. The scarf was a bright red with a white-checkered pattern, carried down from the days of Mesopotamia.

“It’s called a
keffiyah
,” Rebecca chided. “And it has a function to keep the heat and sun from the top of your head.”

Talli indicated to the flap on the side of the scarf. “Use this to guard your mouth and nose if we get into any sandy areas.”

“With any luck, we should be going into a building, then right back out to the airport,” Brandt said before turning to the men. “All right. In light of recent events, this is a country in unrest. We have got to lie low…Lopez?”

The corporal adjusted his
agal
, the rope that kept the fabric secured to the head. “Army crawl, Sarge. That’s my goal.”

Brandt seemed satisfied, nodding for them to move out. He took Rebecca’s hand, helping her down the short staircase to the hangar floor. If she’d thought the
jibab
was bad on the plane? Try wearing a black all-consuming garment in ninety-five-degree-plus weather. Rebecca was already sweating.

And was it just the eye veil, or did the car they were walking toward seem a bit…beat up?

“Lopez?” Brandt asked in that tone of his.

“What?” The corporal asked, pointing to the derelict car. “It’s a Chana CM8. The single most popular car on the road in Egypt.”

“How is it going to fit all of us?” Davidson asked.

Besides having more dents than Rebecca could count, the thing was narrow. Like, little, tiny Smart car narrow.

“It seats seven,” Lopez insisted. “Now get in.”

Brandt hesitated, though, which made everyone hesitate.

Finally, Lopez sighed. “Okay. Fine. It’s going to be a tight fit. But if we put Brandt up front. Davidson, Rebecca, and the girl in the next row. That leaves Talli and Levont in the backward-facing seat.” When everyone still hesitated, Lopez waved them on. “Now get.”

Surprisingly, Lopez was right. Once loaded in, they were rubbing elbows, but the doors shut and they were secure. Sort of. The engine rattled the entire car as it churned to life.

Brandt glared at his corporal, but Lopez just shrugged. “Army crawl, remember?”

Then the car pulled out onto the tarmac, passed through a gate to the road that led away from the Cairo airport. Lopez horned their way into the jam-packed traffic. It had been a while since Rebecca had been in Egypt. Lopez had been correct. Their beat-up, dusty, on-its-last-legs vehicle did fit right in. Cars in far worse shape flanked them.

“Told you,” Lopez said, giving her a wink. Too bad he couldn’t see the smile she flashed him, as it was hidden under the dark cloth of the
jibab
.

“How long?” Brandt asked.

The corporal indicted to the wall-to-wall cars. “We’re only twelve-point-four miles from Giza. However, in this traffic…” Lopez brightened. “Unless you want me to hop off this freeway and take the side streets.”

* * *

“That would be a definite
no
,” Brandt answered. Bad things happened to foreigners on the back streets of Cairo. Even armed ones. Under the current political climate? Perhaps even worse to the armed ones.

How Brandt wished he could have left the girl back at the plane. But going into a black-box situation like this? He needed all his men on deck. Which meant Vakasa and Rebecca had to come along. Like he could have really kept Rebecca away. She’d skydived into the Congo, for God’s sake. Trying to talk her out of going to a business suite was
not
going to happen.

As they eased their way out of the Cairo International Airport’s wake, the traffic let up a bit. Enough so Lopez had to lay on the horn and force his way between cars. Normally, Brandt would admonish him for such behavior, but in Cairo? That
was
the norm. Cairo drivers used the car horn like teenagers used their cell phones to text. Only, a hell of a lot louder.

Finally, they made their way west, turning left onto Ring Road.

“This part never gets old,” Rebecca said as they went over the long bridge. Brandt looked down to find they were crossing where the Nile forked. Yes, the water was pretty. A shimmering green with reeds lining the shores. Unfortunately, he knew that Nile crocodiles, notoriously even more aggressive than the Congo version, lurked just under the surface. Brandt was kind of done with rivers for a while. Even the Nile.

Lopez took the second exit after they crossed the Nile onto Salah Salem. The traffic became more cluttered as they entered the business district of Giza—Mohandesin.

“Look!” Vakasa said as she pointed out the window. In the far distance, you could make out the Great Pyramid. Or at least one of the pyramids. Brandt wasn’t sure which one. And really didn’t want Rebecca to go into a half hour lecture on them.

Instead, Brandt nodded politely as Vakasa babbled away in half a dozen languages.

“Visit?” she asked in English.

Brandt didn’t need her to take off her eye veil to know she was using her super-cute expression. He had three younger sisters, so he knew the look well. To think Rebecca suspected this typical little girl was the Messiah? He’d spent several days with her last week. Even out in the Congo, she knew who Justin Bieber was and could hum his songs.

He had worried that Rebecca would drop a true bombshell of information back at the plane, but this? This he had down cold.

“Maybe later,” Brandt half promised.

A few turns later, some of which Brandt wasn’t sure were entirely on purpose, Lopez pulled them into the underground parking lot of the German Industry & Commerce Tower. The structure looked pretty new. It didn’t have the same sand-etched surface as most of the other buildings they passed.

“Do we get to stop?” Rebecca asked from the backseat.

“Funny,” he replied. Although, thinking about it, he usually was asking her to exit vehicles at high speed. This time, though, he thought they could actually make a stop. Or at least a Hollywood stop.

Lopez tapped the breaks, rolling them to the curb. “Mysterious ex-Disciple exit.”

Brandt helped Rebecca out of the car as Talli and Levont unloaded the equipment. For their current urban surroundings, it looked like they’d brought out four large briefcases. Only, they weren’t exactly filled with papers.

As Lopez pulled them away from the curb, Vakasa flipped her eye veil up and waved good-bye to them with such enthusiasm that she wasn’t prepared when the corporal really hit the gas, sending her head over heel off the seat.

Brandt looked over to Rebecca. The question on his face pretty damned clear.

Her?
The Messiah?
Really?

Rebecca shrugged, or at least that was all he could tell with her covered head to foot in black.

“Davidson isn’t joining us?” Talli asked as he picked up one heavy-ass briefcase.

“No,” Brandt admitted. “He is setting up across the street to get our backs.” It was a good thing Talli had dark skin. Otherwise, it would be way too easy to notice his cheeks flush. Brandt threw him a bone. “Don’t worry. You are going up on the roof to guard our front.”

And hopefully you’ll be close enough you can actually hit something.

Talli crisply nodded, unaware of Brandt’s true feelings. Perhaps, after they ended this mission, it was time to send him back to sniper school or something. It wasn’t fair to him or the team to have one functional sniper and then Talli.

As their “sniper” headed to the freight elevator, Levont hit a button on a much more upscale keypad. Two other men joined them as they waited for the elevator. Both were dressed in Western-style business suites. Brandt was pretty sure they spoke Plattdeutsch, a lower-class version of German. Which made sense. The Germans had a vested interest in natural gas. Egypt was not blessed like some of its northern neighbors with huge oil reserves. No, Egypt’s main export was natural gas.

And since the Russians started jacking up the price of natural gas to Europe? Suddenly, Egypt had a whole new bargaining position.

The bell dinged. Brandt stepped out of the way for Rebecca, but Levont blocked him, indicating for the businessmen to enter.

Crap.
You are in Egypt, Brandt
.

Woman, especially such traditionally dressed women, walked
behind
their men. A fundamentalist man would never allow a woman to enter first.
Pull it together
.

He nodded to Levont, thanking him for the etiquette save. He also kept his hand firmly planted at his side. The instinct to put his palm on Rebecca’s back really gnawed at him. His mother would be so disappointed he wasn’t being a gentleman. Instead, he followed Levont into the elevator. Rebecca waited, then entered and put her back to the wall, bowing her head. She clearly had been to Egypt before. She seemed to know the customs better than he.

The other two men got off on the sixth floor. Levont punched the button for the penthouse, which given they were in Giza was only five more floors up. As they were lifted upward, Levont opened his briefcase and handed Brandt his gun. Quickly, he tucked it into his waistband, then straightened his clothes just before the elevator door opened.

To his surprise, they were greeted by an elderly gentleman dressed in Armani.