The Forbidden Tomb

46

Simon Dade trudged through the white sand, searching the faces in the conservatively dressed crowd. Though many of the beaches on the Mediterranean were private, owned and monitored by the resorts that dotted the coast, El Agami beach was open to the public and governed by local law, which meant women were forced to adhere to the strict standards of dress common in this part of the world.

That meant more burkas than bikinis.

And less skin than an Amish wedding.

Dade shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun as he scanned in both directions. Sarah had told him to meet her there at 1 p.m. He checked his watch and noted that it was already a quarter after. It wasn’t like Sarah to be late.

He was ready to loop back toward the buildings that lined the shore when his phone started to vibrate. He glanced down and saw a blocked number.

He lifted the phone to his ear. ‘Sarah?’

‘Simon,’ she replied.

He smiled at the sound of her voice. ‘I’ve been walking up and down the strand for fifteen minutes. Can you see me?’

‘Of course I can see you.’

He spun in a circle, still searching. ‘Where are you?’

‘Stop spinning,’ she demanded. ‘Look out into the Med.’

Dade did as he was told. He could see dozens of boats bobbing in the waves, everything from kayaks to catamarans. In the center of them all was a speedboat, with Sarah standing on the bow.

He grinned at the sight. ‘Where do you want to pick me up?’

‘Right here. I know you know how to swim.’

Before Dade could reply, she disconnected the call.

He knew from her tone she wasn’t joking.

Dade pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around his phone. For a moment he contemplated leaving them both on the shore, but the information stored in the device was too precious to be left behind. He would rather lose the names and numbers to water damage than risk them falling into the wrong hands.

He held his polo above the waves as he waded into the sea.

Cobb waited for Dade to pull himself onboard before he started the engines and steered the boat into open water, putting some distance between themselves and the surrounding vessels. Dade unwrapped his phone from his shirt and smiled. The bundle had been splashed a few times, but his phone appeared to be fine.

He looked up at Sarah. ‘You know, there are easier ways to get me out of my clothes. You could’ve just asked.’

It was an attempt at humor.

It didn’t work.

Sarah snatched the phone from his hand and flung it overboard.

Dade was so surprised he didn’t know how to react. ‘What the hell?’

She didn’t smile. ‘I had to make sure you were clean.’

He glanced at Cobb, then back at Sarah. ‘Clean? Is that why you put me through all of that — because you think I’m wearing a wire?’

Sarah ignored the query. She was there to ask questions, not answer them. ‘Who were the two men that chased us through the city?’

‘The two men? Do you mean last week?’

‘Of course I mean last week. Why, do you get chased through the city a lot?’

‘Not a lot,’ he joked, ‘but—’

‘Who are they?’ she demanded.

‘Trust me,’ he said, trying to keep his cool, ‘they have nothing to do with either one of you. It’s just a little problem I’m having.’

‘Really? They have nothing to do with us, huh?’ Spittle flew from her mouth as she vented her frustration. ‘If that’s the case, how do you explain this?’

She grabbed the photo of Tarek and thrust it toward Dade, narrowly missing his face by inches. He forced a smile and took a step back to focus on the image. Then she watched his eyes widen in fascination as he studied the mutilated corpse of the goon. In the photo, Tarek looked like he had been dropped into a food processor.

‘I’ve seen him look better,’ Dade admitted.

Then, as he took the time to think things through, his cool demeanor started to melt in the hot Egyptian sun. First he looked at the photo, then he glanced over at Cobb, who stared at him without a hint of amusement on his face, then back to the picture of his adversary. As he did, beads of sweat pooled on his upper lip.

Suddenly, he realized how far they were from shore.

‘Wait,’ Dade demanded. ‘How did you get this? Did you…?’

Sarah let the question linger. If he was willing to believe that she or Cobb had killed the goon, she wasn’t going to correct him.

At least not yet.

‘That’s not important,’ she said as she handed the photo to Cobb. ‘Right now, you need to explain what you’ve gotten us into.’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, you.’ She was tired of Dade’s evasive responses. She needed answers, and she was willing to do whatever was necessary to get them.

She lifted her shirt and pulled her Glock 19 from her waistband. ‘The only thing that connects him to me is you. So you see my problem — if someone sent him after me, there’s only one person it could be.’

Dade fell silent again.

To drive home her impatience, she aimed the gun at Dade. ‘Simon, I swear to God I’m not bluffing. One more chance before I get pissed: what the hell is going on?’

Dade took a deep breath. ‘His name is Farouk Tarek. He works — I mean, worked — for a local gangster named Hassan. Trust me, Hassan is bad news. He thinks he’s the King of Alexandria, and everyone else is his pawn.’

‘Including you?’ she asked.

Dade closed his eyes and slicked back his wet hair. ‘Yeah, I used to work for him. I didn’t like it, but he gave me no choice.’

‘Doing what?’ she asked.

‘I was his security consultant. Not personal security, mind you. I wasn’t willing to protect that bastard. I simply showed him how to get past everyone else’s security. I explained the blind spots, the workarounds, everything he needed to avoid detection.’

‘What was he targeting?’

‘Banks, businesses, ritzy homes — anywhere that might have hoards of cash or valuables.’ Dade glanced away. ‘You have to understand: it was my only way out of a bad situation. When you owe money to the wrong people, they don’t just tax you, they own you. You do whatever they want, or you don’t wake up in the morning.’

‘And Hassan is the wrong person to owe?’

Dade nodded. ‘One of the worst. But he gave me a choice: he’d forgive my debt in exchange for doing what I’m good at. I figured most of the stuff was insured anyway, and a clean in-and-out is much better than a messy smash-and-grab. I know they weren’t victimless crimes, but at least my way kept people from getting hurt.’

‘Except it didn’t, right?’ She had been around enough criminals in her life to know that something invariably went wrong. ‘Tell me what happened.’

Dade glanced away again. ‘There was this Saudi sheik. He had a big, extravagant house with minimal security. We knew that he and his bodyguards were leaving the country for a few days, so we timed our break-in for the first night. I figured we’d clean him out in a couple of hours, and he’d never know what hit him.’

‘Let me guess: he left a guard behind.’

‘Worse,’ Dade answered. ‘When the goons broke in, they found three housekeepers and a gardener. Normally they would have been staying in the servants’ quarters out back, but I guess they decided to pamper themselves in the mansion for a couple of days while the sheik was away. They weren’t a threat, but Hassan’s men didn’t hesitate. They just gunned them down and started packing up the loot.’

‘And?’ she demanded.

‘And what?’

‘What does that have to do with me?’

‘A week after the massacre, the police received a recording from a security camera mounted outside the property. It showed two men — both employees of Hassan — pulling up to the house in a van and leaving a couple of hours later. It wasn’t enough to get Hassan arrested, but it was enough to rattle his cage.’

Sarah worked out the rest on her own. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You sent the video to the police. You couldn’t let them get away with murder, and you thought the heat it brought would force Hassan to stop.’

‘That’s what I’d hoped,’ Dade admitted. ‘But somehow he figured out that I had set him up, and I’ve been running from him ever since.’

Sarah lowered her weapon. ‘You went from being one of his biggest assets to being his biggest liability. That’s why he sent the goons to kill you.’

Dade shook his head. ‘Killing isn’t enough for them. They could have done that to me on the street. No, Hassan wants to catch me alive so he can watch me suffer.’