Storm Clouds

by Steven Becker

  Mako started to worry after trying both TJ’s cell phone and the dive shop’s landline with the same result.

  “This is not good.” Alicia was always connected.

  “Your father? We could try his phone. Even if the people holding him answer it would be worth it.”

  Mako was turned sideways in his seat, watching the pyramids as they fell behind the car. When they disappeared, he dialed the number.

  “John Storm.”

  “Dad?”

  “Mako?”

  It was as emotional a reunion as the Storms were likely to have. “Sitrep?” Mako asked, not wanting to get into a personal conversation with others listening. In his mind’s eye he imagined seeing the phone torn from John’s hand and hearing the voices of his captors.

  “Escaped. En route to Key Largo.”

  “He got out,” Mako said to Gretchen. Mako thought about the intertwined relationships between them all. The combinations and motives were endless. He studied her face.

  “Good news.”

  Her expression was all business. There were no cracks in the veneer, either way. His thoughts drifted momentarily to the previous night and he cursed himself again for their romantic dalliance, hoping it would not cloud his judgment. John’s voice brought him back to reality. Mako put the phone on speaker so Gretchen could hear as well. If John trusted her, he had his reasons.

  “Who were they?” Gretchen asked.

  “Egyptians, working for Ahmed, the Minister of Tourism.”

  It was always good to have a common enemy. It made reconciliation much easier. Mako related the incident at the hotel.

  “Is Gretchen with you?”

  “Right here, John.”

  “Good.”

  “Why Key Largo?” Mako asked, thinking that with Alicia’s security measures, a face-to-face seemed unnecessary. There was still the chance that John and Alicia were at odds, and that could end badly.

  “What happened between you two?” Mako asked, while watching Gretchen. She was staring off into space as if she already knew.

  “You’re on a burner?”

  “Yeah, the minister’s got our phones and passports.”

  “Stop using the credit card.”

  “Roger, but the ATMs only give you barely enough cash to buy a beer.” Mako realized that John had tracked him through the false identity. He must have seen it missing from the stash below the firebox.

  “I’ll call you right back,” John said.

  Mako thought he heard the screech of tires as the call disconnected. His first reaction was that John had been followed, and he had a tense few minutes until his phone rang. It was a different number. The caller ID read Florida City.

  “We’re fairly secure now.”

  Mako realized that John had pulled off to buy a burner phone. Coming from a man who believed in redundant redundancies, the communications system was as good as it was going to get. “What’s the story?”

  “Ahmed, whether working alone or sanctioned by his superiors, is the problem. He could just as easily be trying to impress them as carrying out their orders. Probably a little of both.”

  From what Mako had seen, that made sense.

  “He’s using the CIA, who contracted Alicia to get the files I’m assuming you recovered.”

  Mako realized John had no idea he had been successful. “We did.”

  “Good. I’m guessing from your actions that Ahmed has them now?”

  “A copy of the map, yes. But there’s no ‘X marks the spot.’ I’m not sure they can figure it out from the information he has—we couldn’t.”

  “Don’t be so sure. They’ve got archeologists from a dozen countries working over there on other projects who would jump at the opportunity to help. They know how tenuous the government is. Any favor they can do, they will.” John paused. “Our government is no different.”

  “So, you’re trying to prevent what, exactly?” Mako asked. He understood the lay of the land now, but not his father’s motive.

  “We need to expose the minister. He needs the cache to stock the site. Creating the grave is one thing, and probably not the first fabricated archeological site in the country, but you can count on forgeries following. He won’t shy away from the money to be made on this. If it comes out the US helped him, our already shaky credibility is going down the drain. Instead of currying favor, we’re aiding a conspiracy to defraud the Egyptian people and the thousands of tourists who visit the site.”

  “And Alicia has no idea about this?”

  “Maybe a sense of it, but she gets blinded by the challenge.”

  Mako knew her tunnel vision was legendary.

  “That’s why I’m going down there to talk. This has to be done in person.”

  “Diplomat” was not a role that fit John Storm. Mako needed to contact Alicia before his father arrived.

  “Whatever happens, I’m heading your way,” John said.

  Mako needed a break to figure out what to do. “We’ve got to go.” He disconnected the call. If John needed him, he had his number.

  Mako looked at Gretchen. The pieces had started to fall into place, but they were back to the “What now?” question. Until Alicia called back, they were in limbo.

  “We should do the ATM thing again while we’re waiting,” Gretchen said.

  She was right. If John had tracked them down through the credit card, it wouldn’t take long for Ahmed, who probably knew by now they hadn’t left the country, to locate them too. “Good idea.”

  With instructions to find an ATM, Assam turned onto a side street. There was a pattern to the seemingly chaotic flow of pedestrians, bicycles, mule-driven carts, and an assortment of motorized vehicles. People were interacting with each other and there were even a few smiles. The area functioned more like a neighborhood than the other places they had been.

  Assam pulled over beside an ATM sign.

  Three stops later, Mako’s pockets were overflowing. Even after he split the bills with Gretchen, it was still obvious he was carrying rolls of cash. He stuffed the credit card back into the depths of his billfold. From here on, it would be used only in a life-or-death situation.

  That would be enough to take Mako and Gretchen to the end game, but Ahmad’s men had turned their passports over to the airline. They were not getting out of the country without them.

  Mako thought briefly about going to the American Embassy, but decided against it. By now, the Egyptian minister had surely put the word out that the couple was at large and wanted by the authorities. Once they had accomplished their goal, the embassy would be a safe haven.

  But for now, they were on their own.

  30

  Key Largo, Florida

  Assuming a straight line was the shortest distance between two points, John could not be further off course. But the seasoned agent was smarter than to go off half-cocked. That kind of stuff got you killed. Key Largo was not Egypt, but it was the smart play to settle things with Alicia before going after Mako. After escaping from the minister’s men, he realized that he and Alicia's immediate priorities were not that far apart. With Mako in Egypt, their disagreement over politics and policy had taken a backseat. At the least, they were aligned closely enough until Mako was found and the cache was uncovered. At that point he would have to decide on his loyalties.

  The two-hour flight to Miami had gone smoothly. He rented a car at the airport and started south. The call from Mako had been a surprise and welcome relief. Leaving Florida City, he started down the eighteen-mile, two-lane death stretch from the mainland to the Keys. The road was wide, had fences to keep out the local fauna, and a concrete divider down the center, but the desolate stretch of road through the Everglades was still prone to accidents. Back in the day, it had been a white-knuckle drive. Today, with his mind elsewhere, it passed quickly.

  Finally, John crossed the bridge bisecting Lake Surprise and entered Key Largo. The hour-and-a-half drive from Miami International had brought him into another world
of souvenir shops, bars, and tourist traps. This close to John Pennekamp State Park, which was composed of seventy square miles of pristine reef, dive shops were scattered liberally between the hotels, motels, and other businesses on both sides of US 1. John had spent time in Key West in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. For him, paradise started another thirty miles down the road, on the other side of the Channel 5 bridge.

  A few miles past the park entrance, John made a left turn off US 1 and entered a neighborhood defined by a series of man-made canals. Another left and then a right brought him to the crushed coral driveway of the dive center. TJ's truck was in the drive with a minivan parked alongside it. The minivan was clearly a rental, but that meant little in a place where every third car was one. John parked, grabbed his go bag, and headed around the side of the building to the living quarters. As he started up the stairs, a chill ran up his spine. Something was wrong. The door was open, a rarity in the subtropical clime. Even on cooler days, there was still the myriad of bloodthirsty bugs to keep at bay.

  His hand subconsciously slipped under his jacket and reached for his pistol. Though he loathed checking bags, it was the only way to arrive armed. And once again, this time it looked like the slight delay had been well worth the wait.

  With an eye toward trouble, he backed down the stairs. With his body pressed against the house and the gun in the low-ready position, he slid around the corner. The store was shuttered. John checked the van, which looked like a Starbucks dumpster on the inside. He moved back toward the stairs. Nothing aside from the door appeared out of place.

  The staircase was exposed, but there was no other way in. John took two steps and stopped. He saw no movement. The only sound came from the palm fronds being swept against each other by the wind. He fell into a rhythm and reached the landing unobserved in less than a minute.

  Leaning into the broken door, he listened. There were two possibilities to explain what he saw. One was that the smashed-in door was the result of a burglary with TJ and Alicia out on a charter. That explained the minivan parked out front. The other possibility, that TJ and Alicia were being held hostage—or worse—was the one he favored. Coincidences didn’t exist in John Storm’s world.

  Slowly, he extended a foot and pushed through the splintered wood. The kitchen and living area appeared untouched. His eyes stopped on the pair of doors leading to the War Room. One door was partially ajar, the lights were on, and he could hear chatter from within.

  31

  Alexandria, Egypt

  It had been good to hear his father’s voice and not only to know he was alright. John’s escape had reconfigured the mission equation from calculus to basic math. The lines between the good guys and the bad guys were becoming defined. But without Alicia, they were on their own. The credit card trail would lead anyone looking for them to Giza. Sticking around Cairo was a non-starter.

  Mako instructed Assam to head out of town.

  “The Faiyum Oasis is a few hours away. There is a waterfall and a little further a site that has the bones of whales with feet.”

  “That’s okay,” Mako said.

  “No, really, I have seen them.”

  They passed a sign for Alexandria.

  “The library in Alexandria,” Gretchen said. “If there’s anywhere that has what we’re looking for, it will be there.”

  Mako couldn’t fault her logic. He did the basic math and converted the kilometers to miles. If nothing else, being several hours away from Cairo would give them some room to regroup.

  Two hours later, the desert slowly receded behind them as they entered Alexandria. At first, it was the sight of the irrigated fields that reminded Mako of I-5 through California. Once they were closer to the city, clusters of trees became visible. It was certainly a welcome break from dusty Cairo to see a green park.

  Assam began his rolling dialogue as soon as they reached the city. He gave a not-so-brief history of the Alexandria starting with its founding by its namesake Alexander the Great.

  “Pompey’s Column.” To the right a singular column reached to the sky from atop a small hill.

  Assam gladly explained the history of the misnamed landmark. As Mako looked around the hilltop, he noticed the architectural influences here were more Greek and Roman, though they were heavily influenced by the ancient Egyptian styles.

  They drove around a bend and started downhill. Mako could see the historic harbor ahead. The construction obscuring much of the peninsula that led to the famous lighthouse did not stop Assam from continuing his history lesson. The spit of land partially enclosing the harbor had hosted more invasion attempts than anyone could count.

  They reached the water and traveled northeast along the Mediterranean coastline. Mako felt he was looking back in time at Miami Beach in the fifties—except, like everything in Egypt, it was bland and crowded. Traffic was stop-and-go as they entered the downtown area.

  “Library is up ahead,” Assam said.

  To Mako, the sprawling complex highlighted by the rounded façade of the main library had the appearance of a Smithsonian building transplanted here from the Capitol Mall. The distinctive ball that housed the planetarium was off to the side, along with several smaller buildings. Assam recited the history of the building, revealing that UNESCO and international patronage had financed the structure, 220 million dollars of which came from the United States. Assam thought the global participation was wonderful. Mako thought otherwise but knew without it the library wouldn’t exist.

  Traffic crept by the complex. They passed under a pedestrian bridge connecting the library to the University of Alexandria. Assam pulled to the curb and dropped them off. After agreeing on a pickup in two hours, Mako and Gretchen stepped onto the sidewalk. They crossed the street and stood behind a line of people waiting to go through security.

  Not wanting to be overheard, Mako and Gretchen were quiet as they waited. While Gretchen studied a pamphlet with the layout of the library, Mako glanced around them. The two-hour drive from Giza to the coast had hopefully distanced them from any pursuit. Mako looked up at the different scripts engraved on the building’s façade showing the effort for international unity. He couldn’t reconcile the feeling that the project didn’t fit. Nothing in Egypt that he had seen in the last few millennia was this grand—or new. The twenty-year-old structure seemed like a testament to international interference more than cooperation.

  Scanning the crowd, he was relieved to see nothing untoward. The scene was similar to any other museum. Groups of school-aged children were clustered together with their teachers and chaperones, along with small groups of tourists. The entire project functioned as a tourist attraction. Missing were the individual bookworms and academics one would expect to find at a library.

  The line slowly inched forward, and they soon passed through a security area with metal detectors and X-ray machines. Mako watched the red and green lights on the machines as people passed through, thinking that unlike some of the others he’d seen, these might actually work. Most they had passed through as they entered the different sites hadn’t.

  Once they were cleared, Gretchen grabbed his hand and led him past several tour groups forming in the large lobby. She clearly knew where she was going. They reached another cordoned-off area with a sign stating it was the entrance to the reading room.

  “Library’s through here. The map area is on the lowest level.”

  “Do you really think we’re going to find anything here?”

  She smiled at him. “You can’t win if you don’t enter.”

  Mako wasn’t convinced. “But everything here is in the public domain.”

  “Yes, but you need to apply the current context to them. Without perspiration there is no inspiration.”

  Mako shrugged. Her enthusiasm was encouraging, but made him realize how much Alicia actually did. He wondered again where she was. The short line moved quickly and they entered the reading room. Mako had seen the volume of the space from outside, but he was still
surprised at what lay in front of him.

  The library was laid out like a terraced garden, with each section having an area open to the glass-paneled roof. A wide staircase led to the lower floors. Behind it were closed-in areas whose ceilings created the floors above. Everything ahead of the stairs was open space.

  Gretchen led him past a display of an old printing press to the staircase. As they descended, Mako realized what was bothering him about the library. There was a vastness about the building, an emptiness that didn’t fit.

  From the lowest level—where they were headed—to the roof was eleven stories of mostly air, not books. Glancing down the aisles on the floors they passed as they descended, Mako noticed quite a bit of empty shelf space. The twenty-year-old building, billed as a world center for universal knowledge, was nowhere near full.

  They had entered at a point midway in the structure. Ground level was intended to represent the present, while the levels above were the future, and the levels below the past. The symbolism was lost on Mako as they descended several levels to the map area.

  The first thing he noticed was, again, the openness. The furniture and fixtures could have fit in an area half the size. Long, rectangular cabinets were placed alongside a row of round concrete columns that supported the floor above. Beyond were bookshelves empty enough that he could actually see through them.

  Gretchen must have noticed as well. “This is likely a bust. Place is pretty much a sham.”

  Mako pulled out a chair from a long, modern table. The furniture looked like it had come from a Scandinavian furniture store. “I’m kind of liking this place.” Mako hadn’t enjoyed this much personal space since arriving in country.

  Gretchen moved toward the metal cabinets housing the maps and read the labels. Mako, having decided that this was a waste of time, relaxed and people watched. His thoughts drifted elsewhere as Gretchen searched for whatever she thought could salvage the trip.

  Mako, trained to evaluate threats, found his eyes drifting to three men coming down the stairs. They were moving quickly and were clearly out of place.