Foreign Affairs (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)
Page 17
“Yes.”
Alexandra hesitated.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I just wish my dad had come up here,” she said. “He searched for something like this his whole life. He was so close. This is his find, not ours.”
“Agreed,” Deja said. “We’ll give him all the credit.”
Alexandra hugged her.
“Are you serious? Because if you are, that means a lot—”
“I’m dead serious,” Deja said.
The lid was sealed tighter than Alexandra expected. That was bad for getting it off, but good in that snakes and spiders probably hadn’t gotten in.
She pried it open with a knife, taking her time, being careful to not break it.
Inside was a perfectly preserved mummy casket.
Colorful.
Ornate.
Looking brand new.
With a solid-gold head.
“Cool.” Deja said.
“Cool?”
“Right.”
“This one is way bigger than Tut’s,” Alexandra said. “More intricate, too. You’re looking at the most significant archeological find in the last three thousand years and your reaction is, cool?”
Deja grinned.
“Right, cool,” she said. “That’s what I said and I’m sticking to it.”
Alexandra punched her in the arm.
“Okay, cool it is then,” she said. “That’s the first word spoken after this was found and that’s the word that will go down in the history books.”
Cool.
ALEXANDRA WIGGLED HER LIGHT on the burlap bag. “Do me a favor, will you? Take that bad boy and set him out in the front of the cave. We’ll lower him down when we leave and set him loose somewhere on our way back. Right now, I’m afraid we’re going to get distracted and step on him.”
“You want me to touch that thing?”
Alexandra picked up the bag and handed it to Deja.
“Here, have fun.”
Deja took it and headed towards the other end of the chamber.
“You owe me one,” she said.
“Put it on my tab.”
Deja carried the bag at the end of a straight arm, as far away from her body as she could. She worked her way to the front entrance of the cave and then bent down to scoot the bag through the hole.
Suddenly a face appeared in front of her.
The face of a man.
A dark face.
A mean face.
Just outside the hole.
He said something rough and loud and animated and pointed a gun at her eyes.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Day Seven—July 18
Sunday Afternoon
______________
WHILE PRARIE MADE A STOP in the museum restroom, something weird happened to Durand as he waited—he saw the caveman taxi driver, Anton Fornier, walking towards the exit, arm-in-arm with a very nice woman--a woman out of Fornier’s league, a woman who was non-caveman-like in every way, a sexy woman.
Durand ran over to say hello.
Then something even weirder happened.
The caveman wasn’t Fornier at all, he was a different caveman. Durand stopped short and realized something. The man had a striking resemblance to the hitman who planted three bullets in the boxer’s head. In fact, he had as much resemblance to the man as Fornier did.
When they pushed through the exit, Durand followed.
He didn’t like leaving Prarie alone, but had no choice.
The caveman and woman stopped at a sidewalk café and talked for an hour over coffee. It didn’t appear that the waiter knew who they were. The man paid cash.
From there, they took a walk down the Seine, a long walk.
Durand dropped behind as far as he could.
He had been on their tail too long.
Sooner or later one of them was bound to turn to the other and say, “Didn’t we see that guy somewhere an hour ago?”
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
It took another hour but they finally did something beautiful.
They walked to a parking lot, got in a car and took off.
The woman drove.
Durand jotted down her license plate number.
Got you.
Chapter Seventy
Day Seven—July 18
Sunday
______________
ON THE FLIGHT TO CAIRO, Teffinger tried to not grip the armrests too tight or let his forehead sweat too much. It must not have done any good because Fallon patted his arm and said, “Lots of people are afraid to fly. Don’t worry about it—you’re still a stud.”
He exhaled.
“Thanks.”
She smiled and added, “Ninety percent, anyway. Did you have a bad experience or something?”
Teffinger shrugged.
“Not really,” he said. “I guess it’s just a combination of not trusting machines and not trusting people, especially when there’s gravity involved. When I’m in something that’s moving, I need to be behind the wheel. I know what I’m looking at and what I’m thinking and all that. When someone else is driving, I have no idea what’s going through their mind.”
“You’re okay when I drive,” Fallon said.
Silence.
“Right?”
“Sure.”
“You liar, you’re not.”
“No, I am—90 percent.”
She punched him on the arm.
“So what did your chief say when you told him you wanted to go to Egypt?”
Teffinger grunted.
“The chief and I have an understanding,” he said. “I do stuff without telling him and then beg for forgiveness later.”
“So he doesn’t even know?”
Teffinger shook his head.
“He sleeps better that way.”
WHEN THEY GOT TO CAIRO, they realized they still weren’t in the right place. They really needed to be at the Valley of the Kings, because that was the area described in the notes—the 18-year-old notes, the ones Remy Lafayette had, the ones that meant something to him for some reason.
Although they weren’t at their final destination yet, no harm done. There hadn’t been a direct flight from Paris to Luxor in any event.
They hopped on a two-prop shuttle.
The pilot jumpstarted the engines and pointed the nose south towards Luxor.
THE AIRCRAFT BUCKED and rattled and twisted. “This thing’s falling apart,” Teffinger said. “I have a 20-year-old refrigerator that can fly better.”
“Relax.”
“I mean it. The wings are going to fall off.”
“Relax,” Fallon said, “before your stud factor goes down to 80 percent.”
Teffinger grunted.
“Where does it need to be, for bedroom privileges?”
“Eighty-five percent, minimum.”
“I better shut up then,” he said.
“Exactly.”
Below, the Nile cut a green swath of oasis through a dangerous, barren land. Teffinger thought he saw a crocodile sunning itself on a muddy bank, but wasn’t sure.
The right engine sputtered.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“The engine.”
No.
She didn’t.
“Eighty percent and dropping.”
Teffinger looked around. The aircraft had twenty or so seats and half were filled. No one else seemed nervous. They all seemed like they’d done this a hundred times and everything was normal.
Okay.
Calm down.
The engine sputtered again.
Teffinger tried to ignore it.
He must have had a look on his face because Fallon said, “Seventy-five percent.”
Then the engine conked out completely.
TEFFINGER PUT THE ARMRESTS into a death grip and waited for the engine to catch. The pilot was doing something animated with the controls and muttering under his breath.
&nb
sp; The plane started to lose altitude.
Then the engine caught.
The pilot exhaled loudly.
And the nose rose.
“I’ll swim the river back to Cairo before I get on this deathtrap again,” Teffinger said.
“I’m starting to see your point.” She looked at her watch. “We land in forty-five minutes.”
The engine sputtered again.
And conked out.
The plane dropped.
Come on you piece of crap.
Start.
But the engine didn’t start.
And the plane dropped farther.
And farther.
And farther.
The Nile was in good focus now. Teffinger could make out the swirls in the water and the details of the banks. Three people in a boat stared up. At this rate they’d crash in another minute.
The pilot turned.
Frantic.
And said something animated.
Teffinger didn’t understand the language but knew what he was saying.
They were going down.
Hold on.
He pulled his seatbelt as tight as it would go and told Fallon, “Get ready!”
She gripped his hand.
Hard.
Ten meters off the ground, the engine caught and the plane rose. The pilot shouted something ecstatic and waved his arms. Everyone in the plane cheered.
THEN THE ENGINE CUT OFF AGAIN.
The plane dropped.
It skipped on the surface of the Nile.
Then the river grabbed it.
Chapter Seventy-One
Day Seven—July 18
Sunday Morning
______________
THE MAN WOULD SHOOT HER IN THE FACE if she moved, Deja knew that, so she stayed still. The man waved the gun at the burlap, meaning for her to set the bag down.
She obeyed.
The man grabbed it and pulled it out the hole.
Then he bounced it up and down to feel the weight.
He looked at Deja, smiled, and said something.
This was his now.
He untied the top and reached in.
Then he screamed and pulled his hand out. The viper came with it, its fangs still planted in the man’s flesh. He recoiled backwards. Someone behind him shouted something. Then the man’s face dropped out of sight and the sound of two people screaming disappeared down the mountainside.
Deja scrambled backwards, not sure where the snake was.
Suddenly Alexandra appeared behind her.
“What’s going on?”
Deja told her.
Then Alexandra got down on her stomach, looked for the snake, didn’t see it, and slowly eased her way out the hole. She looked below and then told Deja, “Get your hat and two bottles of water. Leave everything else there.”
Deja did as she was told.
Then they climbed down.
TWO MEN WERE ON THE GROUND, broken and dead.
The burlap bag was next to them.
Empty.
A gun was next to it.
Two camels were tied to a rock twenty steps away, watching with curious eyes. Alexandra went through the men’s pockets, front and back, and said, “No cell phones. I don’t think they called anyone.”
“Who are they?”
“My guess? Locals, scouting around on the off chance that someone is out here finding treasure,” Alexandra said. “Either that or they were going to rape us. We need to get them out of here.”
Deja didn’t understand.
“We found the treasure,” she said. “Why don’t you just call your contacts at the government and let them handle everything at this point?”
Alexandra frowned.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“We have two dead bodies, for one thing.”
“So what? That’s their problem. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alexandra said. “They’re a complication and this needs to be complication-free.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Just trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
AT ALEXANDRA’S INSISTENCE, they draped the bodies over the backs of the camels, got in the saddles and rode ten kilometers west, where they stopped at the base of a cliff not too different from the one where the cave was.
They positioned the bodies at the base of the cliff, stripped the camels and let them loose.
“They’ll find their way back to the Nile.”
Then they walked back towards the cave.
The water disappeared halfway back.
They got headaches and felt nauseous.
They made it back, but barely—and the sun wasn’t letting up, not a bit.
“I don’t have enough strength to climb up,” Deja said.
Alexandra didn’t either, not even close.
They crawled into the shade, laid down in the dirt and closed their eyes.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Day Seven—July 18
Sunday Afternoon
______________
AFTER DURAND GOT A LICENSE PLATE NUMBER, he couldn’t find Prarie. She wasn’t at the end of a cell phone, because she was the only person in the world who didn’t have one, nor was she at the museum, her apartment, his apartment or the café.
Damn it.
Where was she?
Maybe she was in her apartment, but was too pissed to open the door.
He went back and knocked again.
No one answered.
“Prarie, I had an emergency, I’m sorry,” he said.
No answer came.
“Come on, open up, let me explain.”
No answer.
He went home and ran down the license plate number. The vehicle belonged to someone named Chantal Thomas, who had an address in a nice residential neighborhood south of the city. Durand grabbed a pair of binoculars, hopped in his car and swung by to see if there was another vehicle in the driveway, meaning the caveman’s. There wasn’t. In fact, Chantal’s car wasn’t there either.
Her house was nice.
The woman had money.
WHEN DURAND GOT BACK to his building, Prarie was sitting on the front steps. He sat down next to her, hugged her and said, “I had an emergency. I had to take off right away. I’m really sorry.”
She hugged him back.
“I figured something like that happened,” she said.
He explained in detail—he saw a caveman who might have been the guy who killed Luc Trickett. He had no choice but to follow.
She wasn’t mad and hadn’t been avoiding him, either. She’d used the opportunity to run a few errands and buy groceries.
Suddenly a cop car pulled up.
Two cops got out.
Durand instinctively covered his face.
The cops walked past him, into the building, and up the stairs.
Durand grabbed Prarie and walked away from the building. “Someone must have seen that sketch in the paper and called in with my name,” he said.
Prarie squeezed his hand.
“You can stay at my place tonight.”
Chapter Seventy-Three
Day Seven—July 18
Sunday Afternoon
______________
WHEN THE NILE GRABBED THE PLANE, Teffinger’s head shot forward and slammed into something. Within seconds, however, almost all movement stopped. He felt blood in his mouth but he wasn’t dead.
Fallon wasn’t either.
People were screaming.
The pilot was slumped over, not moving.
Water was pouring through the windshield.
“Can you swim?”
Fallon looked hysterical.
“No!”
“When we get in the water, I’m going to turn you away from me and grab you around the chest,” he said. “Your head will go under but it will come back up. Do you understand?”
“Nick! Don’t let me die!”
/> “I won’t.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the front of the plane. Water was coming in, but slowly, not with the force of a waterfall, not so fast that they couldn’t go against it. He kicked the rest of the glass out, muscled through, and pulled Fallon out onto the nose. He pulled off his shoes. The bank was forty meters away.
“Turn around!”
She did.
He wrapped his right arm around her chest and jumped into the water.
They went under.
Way under.
The water was cold and powerful.
Their heads punched up through the surface. He got as horizontal as he could and kicked with his legs towards the bank. His free arm couldn’t do much except keep them from sinking.
They got to the shore.
Alive.
“STAY HERE!” HE SAID.
Then he pulled off his pants and shirt, ran down the bank to where the plane had drifted, dove into the water and swam overhand towards it.
He couldn’t breathe when he got there.
He went through the windshield anyway.
Everyone was still inside, screaming.
The cabin was half filled with water, up to the armrests, and the plane was on the verge of going under.
A girl about eight was crying hysterically.
Teffinger unbuckled her seatbelt, swept her up with one arm and carried her to the front. He waved his hand.
“Come on! Get out! Everyone! Now!”
Then he muscled through the windshield, jumped into the water and swam for everything he was worth.
He got to shore.
The girl was coughing up water but didn’t need mouth-to-mouth.
“Stay here!” he said.
Then he ran down the bank and dived back in.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Day Seven—July 18
Sunday Afternoon
______________
DEJA WOKE UP GROGGY, HOT AND SORE, but most of all with a sandpaper tongue that felt like it had been lying out in the sun the whole time. She realized she had fallen asleep on the valley floor and looked for snakes. She saw none and shook Alexandra. “I need water or I’m going to die.”