Wild Storm (17 page)

All he said was, “Strike, huh?”

“Don’t tell me you two are squabbling again.”

“I don’t know what we are at the moment,” Storm said. “Anyhow, why don’t you conjure up a helicopter and get me off this boat and on my way to Egypt? I’ll make sure to tell Ingrid’s people not to shoot it down.”

“Good plan. I told Strike you would meet tonight in Luxor. That’s the nearest big city to those coordinates. She’ll have the rest of the details about the operation for you there.”

Storm ended the call, then found Ingrid Karlsson, who was out on the foredeck watching the bow of her magnificent ship cut through the blue water of the Mediterranean.

“Egypt is a good place for you to be,” she said when he was through explaining where he was heading. “It seems that the Medina Society has used the recent political instability there to strengthen its foothold. I will keep the money flowing to my contacts and will be in touch if I learn anything. And if you need anything from me—anything at all—please know all you have to do is ask.”

“Of course. I appreciate your willingness to help.”

Karlsson surprised Storm by grabbing both of his hands in hers. She fixed her blue-gray eyes on his, looking at him with the same intensity she used to turn a Swedish shipping company into a multinational conglomerate.

“I often have railed against human beings pursuing their more savage instincts, and yet I…I do want vengeance,” she said. “I can’t even explain why it will give me comfort. But whoever did this to Brigitte must pay.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She gripped his hands even tighter. “And be careful of Jones. Please remember his nature.”

CHAPTER 17

LUXOR, Egypt

e smelled her before he saw her.

Clara Strike had this perfume that, as far as Derrick Storm was concerned, ought to have been regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as a psychotic drug. Storm had once read in Alice Clark’s book
Mating Rituals: A Field Guide to Relationships
that, much as in the animal kingdom, humans use their noses every bit as much as their eyes to pick a partner.

It sure worked when it came to Strike. Storm swore he could pick up even one molecule of her perfume, and he caught his first whiff of her even before he knew exactly where it was coming from.

Storm had been instructed to meet her in the bar at the Winter Palace hotel, the legendary British colonial–era establishment where Agatha Christie was said to have written
Death on the Nile
.

Storm felt like he could have used some of Hercule Poirot’s cleverness as he neared the hostess stand and the scent of Strike grew stronger. In addition to their perilous personal past, there were professional complexities as well. Unlike Storm, who worked for himself, Strike was a CIA asset, through and through.

The last time he had seen her was in an abandoned factory building in Bayonne, New Jersey. They had spoken of fresh starts, without saying exactly what that entailed. They had discussed a future, with no details as to when or how that future would take place. And then, in the midst of the mission, she had taken a bullet, albeit one that was stopped by her vest. It left Storm to chase a villain while Strike got whisked off for medical treatment. Then she had gone her way and he his, as usual. And—also, as usual—nothing had been solved.

He had gotten delayed in customs—traveling on his own passport was so tedious—and had not had time to check in before their rendezvous time, which had now arrived. The hostess led him through a large room whose furnishings looked like it hadn’t changed much since Queen Victoria’s time and whose chandeliers dripped with crystal. The next room was smaller, though no less opulent, and that was where Strike had selected a private sitting area.

She was dressed in what was clearly off-duty clothing: a yellow eyelet summer dress that cut off just above the knee, a garment that was both simple and, on Strike, spectacular. Her skin was a few shades darker than it normally would have been, suggesting she had either been on vacation or had just completed an assignment that involved less time than unusual under fluorescent lighting. Her wavy brown hair had acquired a few natural highlights from the sun.

When she saw Storm, she stood and gave him a smile that nearly stopped his heart. Maybe it was that the rational part of his brain—the part that reminded him how poisonous they sometimes were together—was temporarily disabled, but he forgot how much he missed her.

“Derrick!” she said.

She came near and brushed her lips against his cheek, bringing the full effect of her perfume on his olfactory nerves. It was enough to make him light-headed. She drew back to look at him, then laughed. She had left a lipstick smudge on his cheek, which she wiped off with her thumb.

“God, you look good, Storm,” she said. “It’s great to see you.”

She sat back in her chair, then crossed her legs. There were no more than a half-dozen other men in the room. With that one movement, she had captivated all of them. Storm selected a seat across from her. There was an antique chessboard between them.

“I didn’t tell Jones this, but I was thrilled when he told me you were heading out here,” she said. “We never really got the chance to catch up after Bayonne. I had really thought I was going to get some time after that, and maybe we could disappear for a little bit. I’ve been dying to go back to your place in Seychelles. Or another one of those weeks in Manhattan or, hell, anywhere. But then, you know, one thing led to another…”

He just nodded, unsure of what to say. How did he tell her that a week with her was the thing he most wanted and also the thing he most feared? The greatest love he had known had “Clara Strike” written on it, but so did the greatest heartbreak. She had died in his arms. It had been his fault. And she had let him live with that pain and guilt for years, never telling him that she was really alive and that it was all just Jedediah Jones’s fakery. He could never fully forgive her for letting him go through that. And yet he also understood it as being a kind of bizarre occupational hazard: the emotional collateral damage that seemed to be a part of every big job.

“I heard about that thing with you and the plane over Pennsylvania. Crazy. If you had waited, what, five minutes longer, that death spiral would have been terminal. Those are some lucky passengers. I know Jones had your identity withheld from the press. Still, I feel like someone ought to throw a ticker tape parade for you or something.”

A waiter appeared with a bottle of Château Carbonnieux Blanc, poured two glasses, then set the bottle in an ice bucket.

“I hope white is okay,” she said. “It was just so hot and I spent the day…well, in the heat. It felt so good to get back here and have a shower. I swear, I must have knocked off about thirty pounds of dirt and sand. I found this little dress in the bottom of my suitcase, and it was like, yes, something that isn’t either tactical clothing or a pantsuit. Between that and the air-conditioning, I feel like a new person.”

Storm hadn’t touched his wine. He hadn’t moved. It was all so much: Strike being here, so close. Her looking so good. Him wondering what it was all about. Things were seldom unambiguous with Strike. Even when she seemed like she was coming straight on, that was usually just to hide the part that was coming from an angle. And yet—contradiction alert—that was part of what made her so damn good at her job, which was one of the things he admired about her.

He realized she was staring at him. “Storm, are you going to say anything, or are you just going to sit there like a big, gorgeous idiot?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Storm said. “I just…I think the only sleep I’ve gotten in the last few days has been aboard something that was moving.”

“Isn’t it a little early in the evening to start trying to get me in bed with you?” she teased. “Jeez. At least get me a little tipsy first.”

He reached toward the chessboard in front of them, picked up the white pawn, and studied it. It was intricately carved ivory. An antique. Egypt had banned the ivory trade long ago. He placed it down two spaces ahead of where it had started, then raised an eyebrow at Strike.

“We haven’t played chess since that time in Istanbul,” she said.

“I’ve studied since then.”

“I hope so,” she said, selecting a black pawn one row over from Storm’s and moving it out two spaces.

“So I assume Jones has given you the coordinates?” he asked, making his next move.

“I’m fully briefed, yes.”

“So what do you say we have Jones airlift us a Humvee and head on out there tonight?” he asked, taking her pawn with his.

“Too good a chance we’d miss something at night,” she said, beginning the first in a series of moves whose strategy Storm did not immediately recognize. “Whatever we’re looking for—if, in fact, there’s even anything to find—might be very small. We already know it’s something that can’t be seen from satellite, which means it might be some kind of subtle geological feature. Or it could be something that someone has camouflaged from the satellites. We know that the Medina Society is aware Uncle Sam
has eyes in the sky that are always on them and they are known to
take countermeasures.

“Besides,” she finished, “the desert isn’t safe at night. Local intel says that outlaw activity has been out of control lately.”

“What are you afraid of? You’ve got big, strong me at your side.”

“
‘Big strong you’ isn’t impervious to bullets last time I checked. Do I need to remind you that there’s no place to hide in a desert? Besides, we’re not here to shoot up the countryside. This is a touchy time for the red, white, and blue in these parts.”

She was the first to move her knight out and was using it to decimate some of his early defenses until he finally knocked it out with a bishop. Then, two turns later, she turned around and captured it with her queen.

“I’m not here to hide,” Storm said.

“Then you need to change your thinking. If the guns-blazing approach worked with the Medina Society, we would have already wiped them out. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill, towel-head wack jobs, Derrick. They’re smart.”

“So how are you proposing we move in on this?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

He was maneuvering one of her rooks into a trap. She was going to lose it for sure. One, maybe two moves from now. “I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

“Camels,” she said.

His face fell. His left arm dropped to his side. “Aww, come on, seriously?”

“We have to go quietly. We go out there in whatever kind of big, fancy toy you want, and if anyone is out there, they’ll be able to see us coming from nine miles away. We have to maintain the façade of being poor nomads. And poor nomads in this part of the world still use camels.”

He looked down at the board. It turned out, while he thought he was trapping one of her rooks, she was really ensnaring one of his. He had to sacrifice it to save his queen.

“You know how I feel about those…things. They stink.”

“So do you sometimes. Look, there’s no choice. It’s already set up. We’re going to be meeting a truck with the camels just outside visual distance of the target zone. But once we’re inside, it’s camels.”

Storm made a face and a noise that was only slightly more mature, under the circumstances, than what a second-grader might have done.

“Okay, but at least tell me we get to have real weapons,” he said, watching as one of his knights fell to her queen.

“Oh, yeah. We’re fully outfitted. I don’t have a death wish, Storm. I’m just talking about exercising some caution in how we approach. We need to look like nomads from afar. What we keep hidden in our gear is a different matter.”

“Good. Because other than Dirty Harry, I’ve got nothing on me.”

“You and that gun,” she said, shaking her head. “Oh, by the way, checkmate.”

He looked down, alarmed. “Wait, no it’s not,” Storm said, staring desperately at the black and white spaces that surrounded his king, sure there had to be somewhere safe the piece could move.

She sighed, patiently letting him reach the conclusion that she had foreseen at least five moves earlier. Finally, he frowned and tipped over his king.

“Let’s get some sleep,” she said. “I’ve set a wake-up call for three
A.M.
I want to be in the target zone at first light. Hopefully we can find whatever there is to find before it gets to be a hundred and twenty degrees out there.”

“Sounds good to me. Let me go check in.”

“Oh, you don’t have a reservation.”

“Why not? Jones said—”

“I canceled it,” she said quickly. “What with the sequester and all, I felt it would be in the best interests of fiscal austerity for us to share a room.”

“So you’re saying this is my patriotic duty,” Storm said.

“It is.”

“Well,” Storm said, rising and offering Strike an arm. “In that case: God bless America.”

She accepted his escort. Then they retired to her room and exercised their right to pursue happiness in a most vigorous fashion.

THE STARS WERE JUST BEGINNING
to fade when an ancient, diesel-reeking livestock truck slowed to a stop by the side of a little-used road, air brakes hissing, suspension creaking.

In Arabic lettering on the side, Storm could make out
H. MASSRI PROPRIETOR
. In a much larger font were two words that Storm wished he had never seen put together:
CAMEL RENTAL
.

“Seriously?” Storm said. “Rent-a-camel?”

“Grow up,” Strike said under her breath as she waved at the driver.

“Hello, hello!” Massri said in cheerful, accented English. “You are Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, yes?”

“Sullivan?” Storm said. “You know, I’ve never liked the name Sullivan.”

“Grow up faster,” Strike said through clenched teeth, then in a louder, more chipper voice said, “Yes, yes, that’s us!”

Massri was already scurrying along the side of the truck, toward the trailer, where he opened up the back door to reveal two light brown, single-hump camels, one about seven feet high, and the other about six. A wall of stink poured out, assaulting their noses.

“Congratulations on your wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan. I am so pleased you have chosen to spend your honeymoon in this manner. It is my great honor to introduce you to Antony and Cleopatra. They are my most romantic camels.”

Massri led the shorter one out first. “This is Cleopatra. She is a very sweet girl. The best I have. You know, the word ‘camel’ comes from an Arabic word that means ‘beauty.’ Isn’t she beautiful? I have a mind to take her to the South Sinai Camel Festival, where I think she will have a most excellent chance to win a prize. You can go ahead and pet her if you like, Mrs. Sullivan.”

Massri had led the female camel down the ramp and handed her reins to Strike, who lightly pet Cleopatra’s muzzle. The camel responded by closing her eyes and stretching her neck to get her face closer to Strike’s.

“I can tell she likes you very much. Most excellent,” Massri said, then returned to the truck.

“And this is Antony,” he said, grabbing the animal’s halter and yanking. “He is also a most excellent camel. A champion camel in his own right. Very well trained. Very well bred. His father was one of the great racing camels of our time. This camel, he can run like the wind blows, Mr. Sullivan.”

Storm could see that was true—but only if it was a very still day. Antony was not running. Or walking. Or planning to leave the trailer without a fight. The animal’s rump was pinned against the back of the pen, and he kept it there even as Massri tugged his chin forward. Antony signaled his displeasure with a loud, growling belch.

“As you can see, I have already loaded the camels with everything you will need for a three-day journey in the desert,” Massri said. “They should not need water during that time. But if you should happen upon an oasis, it is okay to let the camels drink. They can drink up to forty gallons in three minutes.”