Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 03 - Cairo Caper

by Barbara Silkstone

  Roger’s face morphed into his professor-giving-a-lecture mode. “It’s actually fairly simple. You start with a small radium core-”

  “What! You shit. Why didn’t you warn me? Am I going to glow in the dark?”

  “I know how nervous you get around radiation. I wanted you relaxed for our honeymoon.”

  “Earth to Roger, this is a faux honeymoon. I’m just your cover story.” I fluffed my sweaty hair and pulled tendrils from my neck.

  “Pepper face,” he smirked.

  I punched his shoulder.

  “Stop hitting me. Start acting lovey-dovey.”

  I punched his shoulder again, harder. “If this is such a good cover why are they shooting at us?” I grabbed the tampon MUDD gadget and stuck it back in my sticky makeup case.

  “Gentle with that. It’s linked to a satellite. You’ll throw the GPS off.” He massaged his shoulder.

  “You are a lunatic, you realize that?” I said.

  “I’m a genius. Similar but spelled different.” He blew me a kiss.

  “Here, take this.” He handed me a pocket-sized tourist map of Egypt.

  I opened it carefully, wondering what new gadget might fall out of the folds.

  He pointed to Alexandria and then moved his finger slightly to the west. “The Temple of Taporisis Magna,” he whispered.

  All we had to do was get from Cairo to the Temple, alive. The Egyptian Antiquities Society was sure this was the site of Cleopatra’s grave. Roger was commissioned to confirm the queen and her lover Mark Antony were entombed somewhere under the Temple.

  “If Cleo’s there we’ll find her,” I said.

  He frowned, shook his head, and put his finger to his lips.

  Mister Wonderful Archaeologist could be so bossy. I hated it when he pulled rank on me. Sure he had the pedigree, but I had a great smile.

  I handed him the map and went back to repairing my face. I cleaned the mascara tread marks from my forehead, slathered on moisturized sunscreen, and 100spf sunblock lip gloss.

  Our relationship was in the first trimester of our third case. If I survived this caper I might consider making it semi-permanent. The adrenalin high of tomb raiding had become an addiction.

  Roger was obsessed with answering the prayers of those who’ve lost something of great value. When he was a kid, his baby brother was kidnapped and never found. It was his vulnerable side that held my heart captive.

  We sipped our coffee in silence. It was good and strong. Sunlight pierced the doorway and made it impossible to see outside. Suddenly a figure blocked the light, sort of. I felt like a character from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. In my head I heard Sergio Leone playing music and spurs jingling as a shadowed figure stepped inside the doorway. Roger dropped his foot from the stool. His body tensed.

  Chapter Three

  The music stopped. The stranger was half as tall as Eastwood and dressed in a white linen suit complete with a vest. He walked directly toward us. Who was this guy? I jumped up and hefted an ashtray, my new weapon of choice, from the table. The sucker was plastic and wouldn’t stop a butterfly. Roger stood at my side, a questioning look on his kisser.

  The man extended his limp hand to Roger. With his tousled blonde hair and stylish manner, he reminded me of Niles from the Frasier television show. “You have to leave,” he said.

  That took the curls out of my hair. “Who the hell are you?”

  “My name is Petri Dische. I’m sorry for being abrupt. Let me rephrase. I’m inviting you to accompany me to the Museum. I’ve been searching everywhere for you. Your hotel is in chaos.”

  “Of all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the world, you have to walk into this one,” Roger said.

  “What the heck do you mean by that?” I asked, looking around the coffee shop.

  Roger grinned. “I always wanted to say that.”

  I thumped him on the shoulder.

  Dische smiled, his upper lip lifting a pencil-thin mustache. He moved the flap of his jacket and revealed a gun snug in a holster against his chest. “I work for Sir Sydney,” he said in a slight French accent. “He’s waiting; let’s not dawdle.”

  Roger checked his watch then looked suspiciously at Dische, “It’s early.”

  “Sir Sydney likes to be unpredictable. Walk this way.”

  I stepped behind Petri Dische putting a swish in my walk. Roger pinched my butt. I elbowed him.

  Dische spoke softly from the side of his mouth. “Stay close. Things are about to erupt in the Square. We need to get you honeymooners to safety in the Museum. We must take extra precautions as looters have mingled with the demonstrators.”

  The coral-colored two-storied Museum stood less than a hundred yards away. Crowds of young people gathered around the courtyard like a storm cloud, their voices a disquieting rumble. Our only protection was Dische, the guard Chihuahua.

  Roger, Dische, and I slipped past two military police, hands on holstered guns, and into the cool air of the Museum ground floor. I glanced at a large laminated floor plan mounted on an easel in the lobby. This floor held artifacts from the final two dynasties of Egypt, including pieces from the Valley of the Kings.

  I swallowed a lump of mob-fear, scrunched my shoulders and released. Tighten-relax was a meditation trick I learned at real estate school. I peeked at Roger. The archaeologist was in his element. The man spoke mummy, read hieroglyphics, and probably was oblivious to the crowds outside at this point.

  Petri Dische guided us to the gift shop entrance. “Sir Sydney’s office is on the second floor. Madame, this is where we leave you.”

  “You’re kidding. I’m part of this team.” Surely, they wouldn’t leave me here when the horde could break in at any second.

  “Sir Sydney prefers to meet with Doctor Jolley alone. You will enjoy the shopping.”

  Yeah, I’d love it if I wasn’t maimed or killed by the rabid mob. Not to mention I was being treated like some tagalong bimbo instead of Roger’s partner. My blood pressure skyrocketed. I felt like picking up that pipsqueak Dische by his ankles and banging his head on the floor.

  He turned to Roger. “Didn’t you tell her?”

  Roger was a geek-in-the-headlights. “Would you? Look at her.” He held his arms up in a shoulder-protecting move. “Wendy, trust me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  A quick scan of the nearly vacant hall told me no one was watching. Dische was looking the other way. I stomped on Roger’s right foot. “You are dead meat, Jolley.”

  My faux-husband limped off after Dische, clinging to the railing and mounting the polished stone steps to the upper floor leaving me alone and defenseless with rioters, hitmen, cayenne pepper spreaders, and who knew what else.

  Chapter Four

  The Cairo Museum holds one of the finest collections of ancient treasures in the world. Usually I would have loved to take in all the mummies, canopic jars, papyrus scrolls, and elaborate jewelry. Today all I cared about was arming myself.

  I stomped into the gift shop. A collection of glass ashtrays filled a shelf on the back wall. Proving that tackiness knows no borders, I found a pink-tinted mummy-shaped beauty and bought two, one for each of the pockets hidden in the folds of my skirt. They weren’t as large or as heavy as I would have liked, but I couldn’t chance them pulling my skirt down.

  I stepped out of the gift shop feeling a little less defenseless. On a normal day the museum would be packed, but the air hummed with tension and the building was barren of tourists. I stood in the lobby looking for a safe room in a mall of mummies laid out in glass display cases like an old-fashioned five and dime.

  Surely, the guards would be sent to the Royal Mummy Room if things erupted. I headed there. These mummies were among the rarest treasures on earth. Eleven bodies were on display including the newly discovered mummy of Hatshepsut.

  I took an uneasy breath and walked to within a foot of the long case that held the first female pharaoh, Hatshepsut. She was wrapped in linen and her head was bald. I stu
died the tattered remains of a woman who was once a king in a world where women were less than second-class. How did she wrest control and retain it for decades? If I could bottle her strength, I could sell it on the Internet. My teeth chattered. I guessed Hatshepsut wasn’t pleased with my scheme and sent a shiver my way.

  Our stay in Cairo had been less than a barrel of fun so far, but it seemed like a great adventure when Roger first got the call from Sir Sydney. The government’s Egyptian Antiquities Society was hot on the trail of Cleopatra’s tomb. If Roger and I could bring back a certain super-secret personal possession of Cleopatra, known only to Sir Sydney, then we would confirm the location of her grave and solve one of archaeology’s great mysteries. I imagined my name in history books. Wendy Darlin without the “g.”

  A sigh escaped my lips as I gazed at Hatshepsut, the forerunner of Cleopatra. Declaring herself Pharaoh, she dressed as a king and wore a false beard. What a dame.

  “She was. Wasn’t she?”

  I turned toward the voice. A tiny prim-looking thing in a tan safari jacket over a long beige skirt, with old-fashioned lace-up boots peeking out from under the hem, pushed a too-large pith helmet resting on the tops of her ears higher on her brow. Lank honey-brown hair drooped below the brim to the nape of her neck. She might have trimmed it herself, possibly with pinking shears.

  “Sorry. I was just agreeing with you. She was quite a… lady.”

  “I didn’t realize I was speaking out loud.”

  “This place has that effect on me too,” She extended her right hand. “Fiona Feelgood.”

  “Wendy Darlin.” I shook her hand wondering why I’d shared my name with a stranger. Maybe it was the smattering of friendly freckles on the bridge of her nose or her guileless smile. She looked to be in her early forties, small boned, and perky.

  “Are you from the States?”

  She nodded. “I’m traveling alone. Feeling a little nervous today. You notice the crowds in Tahrir Square?”

  “Might not be the best time to be an American tourist.”

  “Oh, but I’m not a tourist.” She carried a large courier’s bag with a leather strap across her chest. A thief could lift her and the bag in one hand.

  “Archaeologist?” I asked.

  “Oh goodness no. I’m an author. Well, I will be. I’m writing Erotica for Dummies.”

  That just about blew me out of my Ferragamo’s. She struck me as a younger version of an old maid schoolteacher. “Do you have training as a sex-therapist?”

  If she blushed any harder it would have been audible.

  “I’m more like a librarian doing sex research.” She paused. “Actually, I am a librarian doing sex research.” She drew herself up to her full four foot eleven, including boots, and set her jaw. “I’m embarking on a new life.”

  She did a little hop-dance crossing her legs and biting her lower lip. “Do you know if there’s a ladies’ room on this floor?”

  Angry voices reached my ears. I peeked out at the lobby. The number of security guards had doubled and they all had their hands on their side arms. That damn Roger, leaving me out here. If I got killed, the first thing on my to-do list as a ghost would be to haunt him.

  The ever-louder street noises didn’t seem to bother Fiona. Maybe she couldn’t hear them under the pith helmet. But she had a pressing problem. “I have to wee-wee. I know there are some restrooms upstairs but the area isn’t well lit and I’m afraid to go alone.”

  Accompanying a stranger, albeit a tiny female, down a dark hallway was not the smartest move. But as she hopped from one foot to the other, and her eyeballs turned yellow, I figured she was legit. Besides, I could use a potty-stop myself. I trailed her up the staircase looking over my shoulder to be sure we weren’t followed. I patted the schlocky ashtrays in my pockets for reassurance.

  Emergency lights, widely spaced along the corridor, provided an eerie yellow glow. Evidently the power had failed in this part of the building. Staring statues and glaring gods lined the walls.

  A room filled with cat mummies caught my attention. Fiona marched ahead, but I was drawn inside. Cats were considered guardians of the underworld and protectors of those in the afterlife. The dried feline bodies caused a wave of sadness to wash over me.

  I moved to the middle of the room where the weight of a stare on my back caused me to spin around. I locked on to the dark eye holes in the head of a long-necked cat mummy standing next to a wooden cat coffin. The plaque under the cat noted it had been entombed with its master, one of Cleopatra’s guards who had been slain protecting her in the early days of her reign. A tear ran down my cheek. I shook my head to break the strange connection I felt with the tiny figure.

  “Wendy!”

  Fiona’s shrill voice snapped me out of my mystic fog. She was standing cross-legged in the doorway, frantically beckoning to me.

  Before I could move, a cat brushed my ankle. I jumped and looked down. No cat there. As crazy as it seemed I swiveled my head toward the cat mummy. I could have sworn it winked. My imagination was working overtime.

  “Wendy, I really have to go.”

  Fiona and I trotted down the hall to the ladies loo, ignoring thousands of years of history along the way. The reverberation of her boots and my heels off the walls sounded like an African percussion band.

  I barreled through a door marked with a drawing of a woman in a long skirt with a scarf over her head. The lights were a notch down from the gloomy hallway. Fiona managed to squeeze by me and race into the nearest stall, I grabbed a potty two doors over.

  I locked the door then wrestled with my long skirt and the weight of two mummy-ashtrays in the pockets. I swathed it around my thighs and lifted it just as someone pushed on the stall door.

  A gravelly male voice, heavily accented in Arabic said, “Open the door!” I dropped my skirt, dragging the hem in the toilet. Ick. The curse of wearing a long skirt.

  “Wendy! Who is that?” Fiona called. “Is that a sex-maniac?”

  “Don’t sound so excited,” I said pressing against the door as it shuddered from a fist bashing on the other side.

  “Open up! I have something for you.”

  “Go away.” I fought to keep my voice from quavering.

  “Open up or I’ll… put it under the door.”

  “You do and I’ll step on it,” I yelled. He damn sure wasn’t delivering a pizza.

  Something let loose with a high-pitched howl. It sounded like a cat but meaner.

  I adjusted my skirt, bent down, and peeked under the stall door. Nothing. No male feet. No feet at all. Only the shadow of a cat. What happened to Gravel Voice?

  “Fiona, on the count of three hit your door and start running. I’ll be right beside you. One!”

  “I can’t get my Spanx up. I’m too sweaty!”

  Spanx, my foot. A girdle is a girdle, and a girdle in this heat is ridiculous. “Fiona, drop ‘em and start running!”

  “It’s the only pair I brought with me…”

  “Two. Three!” I kicked open the door. No one was there. I didn’t bother checking the shadows. “Run for it!”

  I imitated Fred Flintstone powering his stone-age car as I paddled my feet for all I was worth.

  Fiona galloped alongside me. “Was he good looking?”

  “Shut up and run!”

  We slip-skidded down the hall and onto the slick-as-glass stone staircase. We shot down the stairs like supercharged Slinkies.

  Roger, Dische, and a third man stood near the bottom in front of the two-story statues of Amenhotep III and his queen, Tiy. I bounced off Roger into the belly of the new guy, a chunky older version of Indiana Jones complete with battered hat and swashbuckling stance.

  I’d seen photos of our client, Sir Sydney Street. The belly belonged to him. So did the low-slung jowls and turkey wattle. The Indiana Jones similarities ended with the hat and stance. He glared at me with a cabbage-smelling wrinkle in his nose.

  Fiona flailed past me and skimmed under Sir Sydney. She gr
abbed the ankle of a beefy dude who was walking toward the group. He fell backwards, landing on his butt with a womph! Fiona came to a stop between Petri Dische’s skinny legs when he pushed his knees together.

  She righted her pith helmet and gave him a warm smile. “Thank you, sir.”

  Dische bowed from the waist and then helped her off the floor.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Roger whispered in my ear.

  “In Neverland with Peter Pan. Where do you think? The ladies’ room. Have you seen any strange men around here?”

  “You mean other than the one your little friend took down with an ankle-tackle?”

  Fiona’s victim struggled to his feet spewing English and Russian curses attacking her legitimacy and ancestry. He sounded like he’d been smoking since birth but not nearly as raspy as Gravel Voice. He came at Fiona pointing his fat index finger. “Who are you?”

  Tears filled my small fellow American’s eyes. Shaking, she hid behind Dische.

  I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable. I’d been shot at, cayenne peppered, treated like a bimbo, and attacked in a bathroom. The hem of my skirt was wet, yuck, make that double-yuck, and I still hadn’t had a chance to pee. Who the hell did this guy think he was?

  So I said, “Who the hell do you think you are? Holster that finger right now or I’ll Bobbitt it for you.”

  Sir Sydney stepped forward, put a hand on the Russian’s forearm then quickly removed it, and smiled weakly at the about-to-be-missing-a-digit loudmouth. “Allow me to introduce one of the Museum’s financial angels, Alexander Dorkovsky.”

  Ooops.

  Chapter Five

  He definitely wasn’t my idea of an angel. His zillion-dollar silk business suit and silk tie couldn’t disguise his hefty silk-shirted belly. Those worms had worked overtime to produce that much material. He had enough facial hair that his progress down the evolutionary chain must have stalled a couple of species ago.

  Though he was a jerk, my stomach was roiling at the thought of possibly messing things up for the Museum, so I meekly said, “This is Fiona Feelgood,” motioning to the pith helmet behind Dische.