Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 03 - Cairo Caper (11 page)

Who were these guys? They had to be the dozen ninjas from the raid on the museum. I had counted ten gunmen on foot plus two driving the trucks making a dozen bandits. I mean how many black-suited, ski-masked gangs, twelve strong, could be running around Egypt, particularly the small parts of Egypt Roger and I were occupying. I’d never encountered a group like this in my life, now two days in a row. Way beyond coincidence. But the real question was who were these guys working for?

Mustafa led us away from Roger and the rest of our caravan. Chester obediently followed the tug on his lead.
Now
he listened.

I turned my head toward clopping on my left. Darcy’s camel pranced by in an ungulate electric slide. Darcy gracelessly bailed off in a flapping of robes, landing in a heap. She pushed herself off the sand like a wounded buffalo coming out of a bog and dashed to Roger’s inert form. Was I a faux-widow?

The urge to run to him overwhelmed me. I swung my left leg over the saddle, the ashtrays in my pockets immodestly flipping my skirt up to my waist. I prepared to launch. Yosemite stepped closer, his eyes, and worse, his AK focused on my heart. Three more bandits trained their AKs on me. I wavered. The deal breaker was Yosemite pivoting and aiming his AK at Roger. Perfect non-verbal communication. I chastely pushed my skirt between my legs before I repositioned myself in the saddle.

I peered over my shoulder. Roger’s pathetic two left shoes in the sand and Darcy’s robes covering the rest of him burned into my brain, a visual for the rest of my life. Darcy was a nut job and my enemy, but at least he had somebody. I sobbed quietly. I should be with him. Chester flicked his eyes at me then spit on Yosemite again, a much larger glob than before. I laughed through my tears. I really loved that beast.

Mustafa jerked the reins and Chester moved forward. I loved the beast a little less. I barely had time to duck my head. Mustafa had us on a ramp leading into one of the trucks. Some poorly painted-over Arabic lettering covered the side. My guess was originally it said something like You Haul It, Pay by the Day, Wreck It, You Pay Through the Nose.

Chester rocked to a stop and the door slammed behind us. Total scary darkness like I’d never experienced. It made hiding under the blanket with Tommy and his magic fingers after my senior prom – well, never mind – seem like high noon. The bottom line, it was seriously dark.

Fiona whimpered and pressed harder into me, which I wouldn’t have thought possible.

I counted… one Mississippi… two Mississippi. Somewhere I’d read counting could help gage how far you were taken, a skill I needed given the frequency of my kidnapping since knowing Roger.

The truck shimmied to a stop. The door whoomped open. Bright sunlight streamed in, painfully though I hadn’t removed my sunglasses. Mustafa stepped in and backed Chester down the ramp to the ubiquitous hot sand.

He motioned us to dismount. I refrained from suggesting, most unladylike, that he perform a physical impossibility. Instead I shook my head no. He snatched me off Chester’s back, threw me on the sand, and turned toward the camel with a posture that said
spit on me, please spit on me.
Chester read it loud and clear, looking away as though something in the distance was very interesting.

He grabbed Fiona and flung her over his shoulder. She wiggled and screamed.

“Lie still, you little fool,” Mustafa said.

“Oh lordy… that’s what Rudolph Valentino said to Agnes Ayres in
The Sheik
!”

She grinned at me as I got to my feet, winked, and passed out.

Mustafa patted her tushie as if he were burping a baby. She roused herself as he stood her on her wobbly legs. I couldn’t tell if she was faking.

Two bandits pushed us against an eight-foot high stack of crates. Each one bore the stamp of a black ball with a wick, the universal sign for explosives. Surely the boom-boxes weren’t meant for us. These guys had to be multi-tasking mercenaries.

One dude kicked my feet apart. He patted me down taking liberties. I was sure it was Yosmite.

I elbowed him. “Who do you think you are? David Cop-a-feel?” I said then fired my best
Kill Bill
kick at his groin.

He easily caught my foot and rapped my sweet spot with his AK. Okay that definitely took care of the last part of my body that wasn’t sore. I was now one hundred percent in pain but somehow that gave me strength. This sonofabitch was going to feel the wrath of the ashtray. Then, as if reading my mind and with the barrel of his AK under my chin, he reached into my pockets and removed my ashtrays. He dropped them in the sand and smashed them with his rifle butt.

Evidently my reputation had preceded me.

He jerked my purse from my shoulder and pawed through it. He held the MUDD up in the air like a prize but I could sense uncertainty. I grabbed at it. He held it away.

“For ladies!” I said in English and pointed below my waist.

Again non-verbal communication worked. He dropped the MUDD tampon like it was too hot to handle. I threw myself under it.

“My last one,” I said as I stood victorious with the radium tampon.

He flung my bag at me. I caught it like an NFL receiver and tucked the MUDD in the zippered side pocket.

I remembered Fiona and spun around. She stood about six feet from me, the longest distance since we met. Her lower lip quivered and tears ran down her cheeks. Researching erotica wasn’t exactly what she thought it would be.

Mustafa took over. He had two bandits prod us toward a tan military-style tent staked in the sand. He lifted the flap and shoved us inside. The relative darkness after the eyeball-searing brightness was a difficult adjustment for a non-desert dweller. Thin shafts of daylight crept through the gloominess where the top met the sides. A dim lantern stood on a folding table, casting feeble shadows.

The table was covered with spread-out maps. A heap of picks and shovels filled one corner. The bandits were up to a baker’s dozen. Seated on the other side of the table was a formidable figure dressed in the same black outfit as his compatriots but with his head covered by a hood, a hood that would have made an executioner proud. I looked for a guillotine.

Were these guys working for the Russian dork, Dorkovsky? Was that the dork himself under the hood?

The bandits pushed us to the ground in front of the Executioner.

I was sick and tired of being bounced around like a basketball at a high school tryout. “Hey! I’m an American citizen
and
a licensed real estate broker! Don’t you dare touch me!” To my amazement they let me pick myself up. I jerked Fiona to her feet then brushed my clothes making a show of my irritation.

The Executioner pulled off his hood revealing a devilishly handsome young Omar Sharif-type with flashing dark eyes and laser-whitened teeth.

Fiona gasped and whispered, “Do you think he’d like to help with my project?”

I doubted that erotic research was a thought in his head. He had allowed us to see his face. Not good. That could mean he had no intention of letting us go… alive.

“You fool!” The Executioner yelled at Mustafa. “You were to bring me Doctor Jolley, not these pitiful females. Can you do nothing right?” He nodded at a scimitar that leaned against the table. “Next time your head will roll.”

I thought the whole thing was a bit melodramatic. He needed to spend more money on script and less on props.

My confidence dropped several notches, if not a quantum level, when I noticed Mustafa quivering.

The Executioner sneered. “Lock these women in the storage tent. Put two guards on them. Make sure they have no weapons including ashtrays.”

Ashtrays? How did he know about ashtrays? Was he behind the hotel hit and the museum raid?

Fiona tugged on my sleeve, “Is he a sheik? Do you think he’ll have his way with us? And force us to be a part of his harem?”

Did I detect a note of hope in her voice?

He placed his hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet. His pinky ring caught my eye. It had to be another hallucination. The ring bore the logo from my old Miami Beach alma mater, Carl Hiaasen High School.

I shifted my attention from his hands to his face. He was studying me intently, way too intently.

Mustafa pushed me through the flap into the sunshine.

The Executioner’s ominous voice followed me. “I’ll deal with them later.”

Chapter Nineteen

Mustafa was silent and non-physical, both a welcome change, as he sealed us in the supply tent. Fiona and I opted to sit on a stunning, but incredibly dusty, Persian carpet. With splinter-laden wooden crates as the other choice, the decision was easy.

“Why didn’t they grab Darcy, too?” Fiona asked.

“Would you?”

“Good point.” She fiddled with her bootlaces. “The sheik is taken with you. I can tell. If you guys become an item, can I have Roger?”

“Reality check. He’s not a cinematic sheik. We’re in the clutches of gangsters in Morphsuits, not in the middle of a romantic movie. And no, you can’t have Roger.” Her sweet simple-mindedness was sorely trying my incredible patience.

She stuck out her lower lip. “I wish you’d tell me what this is all about. I was so grateful when you rescued me from the mob in Cairo, but the mob couldn’t be much worse than what’s happening here.” She rolled her hands together and picked at her cuticles. “I’d like to know why I’m being tossed around like a rag doll.”

“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

Her eyes doubled in size. “Who
are
you guys?”

Before I could explain it was a joke, the tent flap flew open and the Executioner strode in. He stood over us looking down from his six-foot height. He had a stubbly chin and, as much as I begrudged admitting it, a delicious grin.

He lasered his piercing eyes at me. I gulped. Then he smiled. “Wendy. What a charming name.”

“Don’t try good cop games with me. You don’t have a bad cop with you. I watch
Law and Order
.”

“But not the Discovery Channel,” he said.

Who was this dude? And how did he know so much about me? He seemed familiar and not just because he could be a model holding a forty-dollar glass of scotch in a travel mag ad. I rummaged around in my tomb-raider brain but came up empty.

“I once knew an American girl named Wendy.”

I didn’t know where this was going but I crossed my legs carelessly in an attempt to distract him so Fiona and I could bolt. I glanced down. This wasn’t going to work. My gams needed a waxing. In a few more days, they’d look like Chester’s.

He squatted next to me. His breath smelled of cigarettes. “You
are
Wendy Darlin?”

I stared at his hand. Then I knew. He was wearing
my
high school ring. So many years had passed. I was eighteen and full of fanciful ideas. Habib was an exchange student at FIU in Miami. I thought it would be a keen idea to give him my ring. Nothing romantic. It was all about casting a note adrift in a bottle. Would my ring find its way back to me? It had, for better or worse.

“Habib?”

“Shh!” he whispered. “How long has it been? Twenty years? More?”

I matched his whisper. “What are you doing in Egypt? I thought you’re Tunisian.”

“First and foremost I am
now
an Egyptologist trying to preserve the artifacts and history of the ancient dynasties.”

Habib had my ring but I didn’t know him, almost didn’t remember him. Could he be a killer? We were at his mercy. I had nothing to lose with the direct approach. “Did you try to kill Roger?”

“How can you think that about a man who has worn your ring for all these years?” He smiled. “Just the opposite. My mission for the Egyptian government is to protect Doctor Jolley until he locates the tomb. The army will move in to secure the site.”

I shook my head to clear it. All I accomplished was a cascade of sand from my hair over my face. “That makes no sense. You’re leading a band of men who attacked us and hurt Roger. If that’s your idea of protecting him…”

He glanced nearly imperceptibly at Fiona. “Do you trust her?”

“Implicitly.” Who knew if she was trustworthy? I wanted to hear his story and wasn’t going to let a little thing like not knowing Fiona from Adam’s housecat interfere.

Fiona appeared to have gone catatonic, staring at the roof of the tent, but probably was working Habib into her sensual thoughts and the outline of her erotic how-to manual.

His whisper was barely audible. “It’s complicated.”

I gave him my coldest stare. I’d heard men say that before, invariably followed by a lie.

A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. “As I said, I’m working for the government. I target operations that will rob Egypt and the world of its heritage. The biggest threat these days comes from the Russian oligarchs.”

“So you’re working for Dorkovsky.”

“No. The scent of a new find brings these blaggards out of the woodwork. We’re lucky that there are only two of them homing in on the concentrated efforts to find Cleopatra’s tomb. Dorkovsky is sniffing around, but he’ll try later. The guy I’m working undercover on is another oligarch named Sergei Sputum.”

“Who are these guys running around in black ski masks?”

“The English translation for their name is the Dark Force. They’re former Russian special forces who hire out to the highest bidder, which is often Sputum.”

This was making my head hurt. “I don’t get it. Why did you have the Dark Force try to kill Roger and attack the museum?”

“I didn’t. I’d been building my credibility with Sputum for months but he hadn’t brought me into his organization. The Dark Force took orders directly from Sputum on those two ops. When they failed, Sputum decided he needed me to handle Cleopatra’s tomb which, obviously, played right into my hands.”

I was skeptical about Habib’s innocence in all this. “So you didn’t know anything about them trying to kill Roger.”

“But I did.”

Aha!

“I had intelligence from electronic surveillance about the hit. Sputum ordered Mustafa, whose real name is Vladimir, to take out Roger because Sputum wanted to be the one to find the tomb and feared Roger would beat him to it.”