When he came to a wobbly stop, hands on his hips, taking in gulps of dirty air, his worries came creeping back before his breathing had regulated. Grey hoped a simple solution would present itself, that something would be learned from Jax’s contact that would make it all go away without a fight. Maybe Dorian could provide evidence of Al-Miri’s crimes, and the Egyptian authorities could take the matter into their own hands. Maybe he could procure more of the mysterious liquid that had started this insanity, and Veronica could expose it and the shadowy corporation that had manufactured it to the world. Maybe another solution altogether would present itself.
There were far too many maybes.
• • •
Jax woke at noon and couldn’t remember who the naked woman lying next to him was. He extracted his arm from her copper skin, leaned over to glimpse her face, and then saw the hotel shirt crumpled on the floor of his room.
How many martinis had he had? He patted his waist, then his eyes made a frantic sweep of the room. There it was, sitting on the bedside table. Stefan said a ten foot radius should be fine. Jax picked up the stupid thing and headed to the bathroom.
He washed, dressed and made coffee while the bartender stirred. He debated trying for another round, but the bartender looked at the clock and jumped out of bed.
Jax supposed he’d be here for a few nights. No need to press the issue. He did steal a kiss and a glance before she slipped into her uniform. Great body, immaculate skin, straight black hair falling across her breasts. Much warmer than the uptight Egyptian girls he remembered from past visits. This might not have happened ten years ago. Ah, how he loved to see a relaxation of social mores.
He walked to Islamic Cairo, his favorite section of the city. For sheer beauty and adventure, nothing beat the bazaars and beggars, mosques and madrasas, wailing muezzins and wafting exoticism of Islamic Cairo.
He felt the annoying tug of the shortwave on his belt as he walked. It was like being collared. He had already placed an order for a smaller jammer, to be picked up tomorrow from the back room of a tea shop in central Cairo, but he still had to deal with this situation, with these strange people, until he was sure the threat to his freedom was ended. Then, by God, he was never working in this country again. Strictly sub-Saharan Africa from now on, where, except for those pesky civil wars and dictators, everyone knew how to get along and go with the flow. Great people down there. Really. He missed them.
He had a feeling Dorian would come through for him. Dorian had gotten his start in Egypt robbing tombs. He’d sold the right artifacts to the right people, namely the Egyptian mafia, and his career as liaison and deal broker to the Egyptian underworld had taken off from there. Dorian would get the right word to the right corrupt person.
Jax ended up at The Citadel, eyes in perpetual motion along the way for anything or anyone out of place. He might as well take in a sight; he only had one thing to do until tonight anyway.
He climbed to the top and leaned on the ramparts. He took in the city below, the elegant minarets of the Mosque of Mohammad Ali piercing the blue sky behind him. Even in dire circumstance, he could still appreciate the little things about travel: every footstep taken beyond the known boundary, every hill topped, every city explored anew.
He was not the type to grow jaded; he savored the moment as he stared at the beautiful zigzag of the Pyramids in the distance, and it moved him.
He wheeled and climbed back down. Time to find some hardware.
• • •
“Cairo? Cairo? When were you going to tell me?”
Veronica squirmed in the call center in the lobby of the hotel. “It’s not complicated. My life’s in danger, Monique. How hard’s that to understand?”
“Your life’s in danger so you go to
Cairo
? We have police for that sort of thing.”
“No, we don’t. The police aren’t always there. You can’t sleep at night, every blind corner or empty hallway could be your last. It’s a terrible feeling.”
Monique was silent for a moment. “What exactly are you doing about this situation?”
“The less you know the better. God, that sounded like a cheap movie line, didn’t it? Most of it’s so unbelievable you’d just laugh, except none of it’s funny. Hopefully it’ll be over soon. I just wanted you to know where I was.”
“Darling, I… how are you holding up? I’m so sorry all this has happened.”
“I’m absolutely terrified. But this is bigger than any of us. I don’t think you realize—we could be the ones who bring the most revolutionary scientific discovery
ever
to public light.”
“Get a hold of yourself! Your life’s in danger, and you’re talking about something you haven’t even seen! Come home, dear. Please.”
“I have to do this.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Just be ready to move when I send copy.”
Veronica left the booth and paid the attendant. She gave a wistful glance in the opposite direction, to the enticing smells and sounds coming from the streets of Cairo. Grey would kill her if she ventured into the city by herself. Or would he? Was she imposing something onto him that he didn’t have?
No, he’d care about that. He just wouldn’t care about it for the reasons she wanted him to care about it.
Damn him. She was no fool. She knew he was operating on pure physical attraction, and that he felt guilty about it. Damn him, damn him, damn him. Who did he think he was? Guilt? Over her? God, there’s nothing like getting rejected by a good man.
Was he a good man? She wasn’t sure you could kill as many people as she felt sure Grey had killed and still be a good man. Somehow, with him, she thought that you could.
She got a mental glimpse of Grey in bed next to her, then she remembered the glimmer of doubt in his eyes when they had finished. She kicked a bottle across the street and reminded herself what she had learned about love’s true nature in her years researching biotech. Romance, sex, love, attraction, they were all one giant farce, nature’s slick ploy that served only to further the one true goal of the human species: the fulfillment of the biological imperative.
Nature was the enemy, and when she found this test tube, she was going to score one for the visitors.
• • •
Stefan went to the HSBC a block from the hotel. He’d bought a small gift bag in the hotel lobby, and before he left the bank he stuffed two grand worth of Euros into the bag and covered them with a T-shirt.
When he got back he stopped at the call center. He saw Veronica in one of the booths in the corner, her back to him. He chose a booth near the front and closed the door. He dialed the Bulgarian country code and then the exchange for Veliko Tarnovo.
Brother Alexander, the monk who’d met them at the monastery the night they fled the hill, answered on the third ring.
“It is good to hear from you,” the monk said in the Bulgarian dialect they had both grown up speaking.
“And you, old friend. I’m sorry to disturb you. I wanted to ensure there have been no repercussions at the monastery. I’m sorry to have put you at risk.”
“It is our privilege to harbor fellow Christians. There’s no need for concern. No one has approached the monastery.”
Stefan took a relieved breath. “And the package I gave you? It is safe?”
“It will be here when you return. I trust it’s nothing we would not wish to keep at the monastery.”
“Thank you. It is nothing, a personal item I salvaged from my house. I’m in your debt.”
“No,” the monk murmured. “We are all in debt to Christ. And how are you?”
“I’m fine. I hope to return soon.”
“Take care, Brother Stefan. I don’t know what danger you’re in, but remember that the flesh is fleeting. Do not neglect your soul.”
“I sometimes miss the days of our youth. Life was not so complicated then, my friend.”
“They are the same complications, in disguise. We just take them far more seriously.”
Stefan paid, then returned slowly to his room. Perhaps the flesh was fleeting, he thought.
And perhaps it was not.
V
iktor reviewed Grey’s file on Al-Miri, then found an Internet café on Khadrawy Street. The café attendant, a serious young man in his twenties named Ammon, spoke excellent English, and Viktor struck up a conversation. Amman, who worked the Internet café in the evenings to help pay his way through a university law degree, was an aspiring international attorney and eager to practice his English. When the café emptied, Viktor offered to pay Ammon to help with a certain research assignment, and Ammon said it would be good practice, he’d help for free.
Viktor asked Ammon to look for articles on Al-Miri or his company in Egyptian sources around the time of the name change to New Cellular. Ammon found mention of various expeditions by Al-Miri Haddara into the Western Desert, minor news stories covered by a few archaeological journals. The journals discussed how Mr. Haddara was searching for previously undiscovered meteoric craters that hit deep in the Western desert thousands of years ago. Apparently research had uncovered that certain types of igneous rock might have useful applications to biomedical research.
There was only one article with a photo of Al-Miri, at a symposium on biomedical gerontology six months after the name change. The symposium had been partially funded by New Cellular. Viktor had Ammon print this article.
Viktor thanked Ammon, left a large tip over his protestations, and wished him well with his law career.
His next stop: the Cairene police department. Viktor arrived at central police headquarters, a dull grey building stuck in the middle of some god-awful crowded section of downtown. Viktor flashed the detective’s card he’d been given the night before, and again presented his Interpol ID. Fifteen minutes later a brisk, handsome man in his forties stood in front of Viktor, taking in his height with suspicious eyes.
“Yes? I am Detective Kassem,” the man said, his thick Cairene accent mashing the English words into a clump. “How can I help?”
“My name is Viktor Radek. I work with Interpol, and I’m here concerning a report filed by the Bulgarian authorities concerning a triple murder with possible connections to Egypt.”
Viktor pushed a fax across the table to the detective. He studied it and shrugged. “And?”
“Do you know a Cairene businessman named Zahur Al-Miri Haddara? He’s the CEO of New Cellular Technologies, a biotech company in Cairo.”
“No.”
“Could you perform a criminal background check?”
Even though Grey’s check had come up clean, a local check could never hurt, and the Egyptian police had a reputation for not practicing full disclosure with international authorities.
“Our resources are not for random inquiries. There are proper channels for this. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“I was given your name because I was told you’re working this case. I have reason to believe this man might be connected to the Interpol inquiry you see before you. An Interpol inquiry is by definition not a random inquiry, and by definition an international police priority. If you don’t wish to help me, I can make a phone call to Interpol, who will in turn contact your supervisor.” Viktor pushed another piece of paper across the desk, a copy of the photo from the Internet café. “If you would run a background check on Mr. Haddara, Interpol will be very grateful.”
The detective snatched the piece of paper off the desk and walked away. He returned in fifteen minutes, and didn’t bother to sit. “This man has no record, and is a respectable citizen and businessman. What evidence do you have against him?”
Viktor tapped the desk. His hands were tied at this juncture. He had only Grey’s word as evidence, and he couldn’t risk bringing Grey’s name into the equation just yet. One could never tell with whom the loyalties of local police were aligned. “This man was in New York last week, and I have reliable eyewitnesses placing his employees near the scene of the crime in Bulgaria.” Viktor passed his own card to the detective. “If you discover anything of note concerning this man or his associates, please contact me.”
The detective gave a curt nod and retreated into the interior of the station.
• • •
The detective called Viktor at ten that evening, when Viktor was halfway through a bottle of absinthe he had picked up on Sharia Setta. The detective grudgingly admitted that he had double-checked Al-Miri’s background. Nothing questionable had been found, but when he passed the photo around the station, another detective recognized someone standing near Al-Miri. He recognized him because of his distinctly short and wide stature.
The name of this man was Nomti Qasem. The officer had recognized him because he’d arrested him in connection with the brutal assault of a man in a bar. It had apparently started as a bar fight, but Nomti had beaten the man to death and served two years in prison for it.
The detective’s background check on Nomti revealed a disturbing picture. This man, the detective told Viktor, likes to hurt people. He has slipped through the cracks of society, a violent criminal at best, a psychopath at worst.
Nomti Qasem’s story, as garnered from police files: an absence of birth or identification records suggested the childhood of a street urchin. He was arrested and jailed numerous times in his youth for a variety of offenses, ranging from assaults and robberies to a string of even more troubling arrests for cruelty to animals. Not an easy thing to get arrested for in Egypt, the detective said. A neighbor in the slum where Nomti once squatted had reported him to the police, and the police found the remains of dozens of animals in a field behind Nomti’s cardboard box.
Nomti was conscripted into the Egyptian military, and sent to a barbaric training camp reserved for juvenile offenders. He was written up numerous times for using unnecessary violence, and only lasted as long as he did because of the military’s occasional need for Nomti’s violent proclivities. He was dishonorably discharged after he brutally assaulted a new recruit who turned out to be the son of a Cairene politician.
After the military, Nomti joined a traveling carnival as a strongman, probably because a traveling carnival was the only employment he could find with a physical abnormality and a dishonorable discharge. This was on record because a year into that job he was arrested for the alleged rape and beating of one of the animal trainers. The trainer decided at the eleventh hour that her story had changed, and Nomti was merely fired. There were a few more minor arrests, a few missing years, and then the altercation that had led to his prison sentence. He was released eight years ago, and his arrest record quieted.