Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 03 - Cairo Caper

by Barbara Silkstone

  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 bea
d 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.”

  His story was weak. “So why didn’t you stop the assassination attempt?”

  He smiled again, flashing those dazzling white teeth at me. “Mustafa didn’t want to risk his men on a bad idea, so at the last minute he subcontracted to some local talent. Or should I say lack of talent because the guy was known to us to be unreliable and the worst shot this side of the Suez Canal. My plan was to be on the next balcony ready to take him out if he showed up. His notoriously bad shooting skills gave me a nice cushion.”

  It would have made sense if Habib had shot the hit man, but he hadn’t. “So why didn’t you shoot him?”

  “I was stuck in the elevator at the Sphinx Hotel for a half-hour. I got to my balcony at the moment he caught your ashtray with his face. Nice throw. I was glad it wasn’t me.”

  “Where did the body go?”

  “My sweepers. I had them on standby to remove his body from the balcony after I shot him. They had to make a slight adjustment to their plans.”

  He almost had me convinced. Almost. “How about the museum raid?”

  “Again direct orders from Sputum to the Dark Force. Sputum had word that Sir Sydney had something that would help locate the tomb. He decided that with the confusion of the demonstration, he could get the object through a direct assault. When that didn’t work, he brought me in.”

  He ran his hand through his thick slightly wavy hair. “These monuments and artifacts of Egypt are the heritage of everyone. I am part of a modern priesthood of archaeologists and art conservators committed to protecting them.”

  The voices of the guards arguing in Russian outside the tent carried in.

  “Do the Dark Forcemen know I killed the assassin Mustafa hired?”

  “It is of no concern to them. Manslaughter with a household implement is seen as a woman’s eccentricity.” He smiled a sexy smile and patted my hand. “I hope you aren’t letting it bother you. He was a heartless sadistic killer.”

  He left his hand on mine. The heat on my face zoomed beyond anything that could be attributed to sunburn. He continued in what I now acknowledged was a sexy whisper. “They do not know I’ve spent time in the United States.”

  I glanced at my old ring. “How do you explain that?”

  Habib raised his hand, made a fist, and turned it in the air admiring the band. “Long ago I made a story to go with the ring. It was of a young and beautiful American tourist girl who fell under my spell in the shadow of the Great Sphinx and gave it to me as a remembrance.”

  “I didn’t fall under your spell. I–”

  “Keep your voice down. The story is a fable to account for your ring, a ring I wanted to wear.”

  My strong reaction surprised me. Was there a kernel of truth in his story about the girl falling under his spell? It was years ago and didn’t matter one way or the other now. But what was happening in the Egyptian desert did. “You are in charge of the Dark Force. Can you trust them?”

  “Of course not. They’re loyal to the deepest pockets. I’m in charge of them because Sputum said so. They aren’t particularly loyal to each other. It’s all about money and competence. Mustafa is on thin ice as their leader because of hiring the bumbling assassin and screwing up Doctor Jolley’s kidnapping. That’s what the guards are arguing about.”

  “You speak Russian?”

  “I speak six languages in addition to my native tongue. My best is American English. As you can hear, my accent and use of slang and idioms is perfect. My Russian is fluent but not quite as good as my American. I can communicate with the Dark Forcemen well, but the moment Sputum changes my status, they will do as he says.”

  My head spun. The Dark Force, my kidnapping, my ring, Habib. All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure of anything. “Habib. That is your name, isn’t it?”

  He squeezed my hand. “It means Beloved.”

  It was getting really hot in the tent. I pulled my hand away.

  “Were you following Roger and me in the market place? Was that you in the shadows?”

  “I’ve been with you since you arrived in Cairo. I am your guardian angel. But you must get back to Doctor Jolley as soon as possible. These men are under orders from Sputum to kill all of you once Cleopatra’s tomb is discovered. Sputum hired me to help Jolley succeed. After Sputum’s attempts to foil him failed, he decided the best course of action is to intervene after the fact. So he and his rival Dorkovsky realize they need Jolley’s help and are waiting like vultures.”

  He placed his hand on mine again then nodded toward Fiona, who hadn’t moved an inch since entering her trance. “You and the little dumpling must disappear by morning.”

  I glanced at my high school ring on his hand. Was it like a message in a bottle?

  He stared into my eyes. “The oligarchs want the entire medallion to put in a hidden collection. But the medallion is said to convey eternal love. In my heart I believe the two halves belong together in the tomb of Antony and Cleopatra. Love should be eternal.”

  The heat was in my nether region as well as my face.

  “Perhaps the ring has brought us together, again. I must confess I was delighted when Mustafa brought you instead of Doctor Jolley. I could have time with you… alone.”

  That brought me back to reality. I had given him my ring as a lark. Maybe there had been a subconscious teenage attraction but teenage years were long gone. Roger was my man. My face and nether region cooled down.

  He lifted my chin. “Fear not, sweet Wendy. I remember our days in Miami. You haven’t changed a bit. You have a good heart and a cheeky mouth.”

  Fiona stirred. Her green orbs un-glazed. She fished her journal and a pen out of her messenger’s bag. She had a hungry expression on her face and fixated on her sheik as she scribbled notes in her journal. I couldn’t wait to see how she worked Habib into Erotica for Dummies.

  He leaned close to Fiona and put his finger to his lips. “Say nothing. Your life depends on keeping our secret.”

  Her eyes darted from Habib to me, and back. “What secret?”

  Chapter Twenty

  The sun had dropped behind the dunes when Mustafa entered the tent and motioned us to follow. I shouldered my purse and smiled weakly at Fiona. We who are about to die salute you.

  Foolish of me to worry. What could possibly happen to two women held captive by a dozen ruthless Russian mercenaries who were temporarily being directed by a non-R
ussian but being paid by an oligarch? A tightly controlled situation. Nothing to worry about.

  Swaying on my broken heel I offered silent prayers to the desert gods. My negotiations included offering my Jaguar in trade for Habib being able to control the Dark Forcemen, then throwing in my Miami Beach condo for the matching sneaker and a doable getaway plan.

  The black horizon crashed into the clear moonless sky with thousands of glittering stars differentiating the heavens from the hell of the desert. The wind cut through my jacket, sending a chill through my body.

  A fire pit burned brightly about thirty yards from the tents. Mustafa illuminated the ground in front of us with a small powerful flashlight and led us to a silky carpet close to the fire. The cat wove back and forth between my ankles, but as always, wasn’t there.

  Mustafa surprised me when he said, “Sit. Please sit.”

  What was up with the courtesy? Maybe Habib was in control. The smell of roasting meat and mouthwatering spices reminded me I was starving.

  Fiona and I lowered ourselves into lotus positions. Mustafa squatted next to me and waved his finger. A Dark Forceman placed hammered metal plates in front of Fiona and me. Mustafa took two large meatballs from a hand-painted serving platter. He pointed at me as an invitation to follow his lead. I wondered how many zillions of bacteria roamed their greasy surface and how much lead had leached out of the paint on the platter. But being hungry enough to eat a camel and not wanting to insult him, I grabbed one and put it on my plate. Fiona did the same. We were ready for our Egyptian luau.

  Mustafa bit into a meatball and chewed with a satisfied moan. I bit into mine. I managed to contain my enthusiasm. The balls were a mixture of chopped meat and vegetables. The meat was gamey and tough, but better than starvation.

  I felt the presence of someone over my shoulder and looked up. It was Habib. He motioned to Mustafa to move away. He rose, wiped his fingers on his thighs and joined the Forcemen on the other side of the fire pit.

  Habib scrunched down between Fiona and me and said in a normal voice, “I hope this meal is pleasing to you and atones to some small extent for your inconvenience. Unfortunately we cannot release you until we’ve completed our mission. But you’ll be treated well. Help yourselves to more camel balls and try the camel milk tea.”