The Stolen Chalicel (41 page)

“Good morning,” he stammered. “Did you sleep well? Are you feeling better?”

“Actually, no.” She smiled ruefully. “Not with John on shore.”

Her hair had been freshly washed and hung in damp strands, creating a wet mark on the shoulders of her cotton shirt. She was dressed in white jeans and was barefoot. In the glare of the sun, she looked pale and still a little shaky.

Carter leaped to his feet and offered her a seat.

“They just brought me breakfast—homemade granola. Although I guess that’s an oxymoron. How do you ‘home make’ something when you are on a yacht? Unless, of course, it’s
home,
which I guess for VerPlanck it is.”

He realized he was babbling. Pretty women did that to him.

“I’m a little too nervous to eat right now,” Cordelia said with a smile.

“Let’s just hope if Moustaffa makes his move they can get that biological weapon,” Carter said, trying to sound a little more serious.

“I can’t quite believe we
want
him to try something.”

“I guess if he doesn’t we’ll never find the damn thing,” Carter pointed out.

“By the way,” Cordelia asked, turning to Carter, “what’s this I hear about you nearly catching Moustaffa back in Venice?”

“Oh, what an exaggeration!” He grinned, delighted. “Who told you that?”

“The British agent who was on board last night. They’re all very impressed. They want to recruit you.”

“Listen,” Carter said. “I’ll stick to mummies and museum curators—only the dead and the passive-aggressive. You can keep the homicidal maniacs.”

Cordelia laughed, but the smile faded quickly.

“Do you think Sinclair and Holly will be OK?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “If there is anyone I would put my money on, it’s John Sinclair.”

“What about Holly? I’m sure you’re worried.”

“Yeah, it’s been rough.”

“She saved me that night at the opera. I’m so grateful to her. You have no idea.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Carter said. “I’m not surprised.”

“Have you known her long?” Cordelia asked.

“About five years. Not that she pays much attention to me.”

“I’m sure she cares for you.”

“Not really. I’ve stopped kidding myself. She’s way out of my league.”

Carter glanced over. Cordelia was really very lovely, sitting there in the morning sun, her feet tucked up on the cushions beside her. He couldn’t help but think that Sinclair was insane to cheat on her the way he did. Cordelia was too good for him.

“Actually, I hate to mention it, but Sinclair still seems to have feelings for Holly. I understand they have some history together.”

“Oh Carter, no,” she assured him, her eyes wide with earnestness. “That was
years
ago. John has made it perfectly clear. They’re just friends now.”

When John Sinclair walked into the Sharm el-Sheikh Conference Center, he looked very much the part of a corporate CEO, carrying a file folder emblazoned with the logo of a major U.S. oil company.

“Name?” the security guard asked. “And may I see some government-issued ID?”

“Bob Anderson,” Sinclair said. “Comanche Oil.”

He slid a Texas driver’s license across the desk.

“Thank you, sir,” the guard said, waving him through the turnstile.

Sinclair walked inside to the hallway. It was going to be a long day—the first day of the World Economic Forum. Most of the conference would take place indoors, in the modern air-conditioned complex, away from the Egyptian heat. Today was the main event. There would be an opening address, a full day of meetings, and a formal dinner. The second day was for the working sessions, where participants hoped to make deals and hammer out future business relationships.

With the Middle East in the throes of a seismic power shift, attendance was going to be unusually high. Twelve heads of state would make an appearance tonight, including the presidents of France, China, and the United States; the prime ministers of Britain, India, Japan, Israel, Russia, and Spain; the chancellor of Germany; the king of Jordan; and the ruling prince of Saudi Arabia. There were business executives from 250 of the world’s largest multinationals and delegates from 70 countries.

It was eight a.m. The motorcades from the hotels would be arriving soon. Sinclair needed to be briefed at the security command center before the activity started. As he stood at the elevators, several traditionally garbed Arabs stepped out. Sinclair entered the elevator along with a large Chinese delegation and punched the button for the third floor, the security center.

Sinclair had never been to Sharm el-Sheikh and was astounded at the size of the complex. Many high-level meetings took place here: peace conferences, corporate gatherings. He had been told that press attendance at the World Economic Forum was much larger than in previous years. This morning reporters stood outside, four deep behind a cordon, thirty feet back from the door. Security personnel had been doubled, tripled even. Armor-clad SWAT teams now
patrolled the conference site. Their shiny helmets gave them the appearance of a swarm of black flies.

Lady Xandra Sommerset scanned her clearance badge at the electronic door of the conference center and passed through the security checkpoint. She had been prescreened under her false identity—that of a Belgian banker. As she walked through the room, no one even looked up.

In her current guise, even the most avid tabloid reader would not recognize her as an international celebrity. The flat shoes, serious navy blue suit, and ugly horn-rimmed glasses were perfect camouflage. Her brown hair was tied back into a messy ponytail, the earmark of an overworked female executive with little time for personal grooming.

But the most effective transformation was her body shape. Xandra was now middle-aged and frumpy—underneath her clothes, she had padded her midsection, expanding her waistline to very matronly proportions. In a stroke of genius, Lady X had achieved the impossible: she had managed to look plain.

Holly Graham was standing in the kitchen of the Sharm el-Sheikh Conference Center slicing carrots. She had been conscripted into the kitchen staff for the duration of the conference. Moustaffa had alerted his Egyptian henchmen, and there had been no problem getting her hired by the catering company. It was clear his underworld contacts were global. He now stood next to her, arranging salad and shrimp on individual plates for the luncheon.

Holly wished that
somebody
would recognize her. Moustaffa, however, was hoping for the exact opposite. He had radically altered his appearance, shaving off most of his eyebrows and plucking his hairline. There were two foam tablets in his cheeks to change the shape of his face. Dressed in baggy trousers and a huge white cook’s jacket, he looked much heavier than he was in real life. No one stopped him as he entered the kitchen.

He warned Holly that she was his insurance policy—a human shield. If anything untoward happened, she’d be the first to die.

John Sinclair scanned the monitors of the third-floor security post. There were high-resolution cameras in every hall and conference room. Face-recognition technology was sweeping the participants at ten-second intervals, running it through a central database of international underworld criminals. The sophisticated programs had been fine-tuned to identify the distinctive features of one man: Moustaffa.

So far, the hundreds of scans and checks had turned up nothing. Once or twice a monitor would beep, but closer examination of the person on the screen would reveal it was not the terrorist they were seeking. Nevertheless, Sinclair felt in his bones that Moustaffa was there.

The chief of security leaned over and pointed at the screen.

“That’s him,” he said.

“Really?”
Sinclair asked in disbelief.

“Positive. Look next to him.”

Sinclair leaned forward and examined the grainy monitor to see a woman standing nearby.

“That’s Holly!”
he said.

“Correct. We spotted her the moment she came in.”

“Get her out of there!”

“I’m afraid that is not possible, sir,” the intelligence chief said. “We don’t want Moustaffa to know we’re onto him. For now, she’s staying exactly where she is.”

Paul Oakley sat in on the session entitled “Public Health in the Middle East.” It was interesting. He would have liked to concentrate on the discussion. But that was not what he was there for.

The intelligence experts were convinced that Moustaffa was going to target the conference with a biological attack. Oakley had been told to keep his eyes open and not draw attention. He was to report anything he saw. Personally, he was praying that his professional expertise would
not
be needed.