by Ed Kovacs
“No rest for the wicked, Hassan. The blue moon will be at apex in about eighteen hours. And if I’m not mistaken, that’s when Simon Forte will play his hand.”
###
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo is one of the great museums of the world. A massive structure in the neoclassical style by French architect Marcel Dourgon, the museum was built in 1900 and exhibits over 120,000 objects. Sky Wilder had spent hundreds of hours over the years, often in breathless awe, examining elements of the staggering collection: mummies of Pharaohs from the 18th-20th Dynasties, including Ramses III; 3500 objects from the well-known tomb of Tutankhamen; literally thousands of statues, many of them huge, dating from prehistory through the Roman occupation; furniture, jewelry and sarcophagi from every age.
Today, Wilder once again returned to the research library, closed to the public, where a donation to an underpaid clerk ensured that he received unfettered access to the microfilm collection. He poured over the entire Hui catalog on microfilm, every stelae, artifact and papyrus. He double- and triple-checked. About two-thirds of the cataloged objects were on display and he examined them to confirm he hadn’t missed anything.
A little before four, Hassan found him looking haggard and deflated in the microfilm room. Sky needed a sounding board, and since Hassan was already deeply involved, he gave him the nuts and bolts of what had transpired with Forte in the last two weeks.
“The records are clear that a man and a woman speaking together have to recite the phrases found on Hui’s three tablets. Then, somehow, the Book of Spells will be revealed. However, the immortality formula must be concocted and consumed at the apex of a blue moon in Scorpio.”
“And pay taxes for all eternity. No thanks.”
“The records are also clear on what ingredients comprise the formula, but not the amounts or how the elixir must be prepared. That information will be in the Book of Spells.” Sky rubbed his eyes. “I must be crazy, this is all too ridiculous.”
“Not to an Egyptian. Every child knows how magic has played a part in our history. In Egypt, the belief in magic is older than the belief in God. But right now, my belief is that you look like hell. Maybe you need to get some food.”
“I’ll eat when this is over.”
“Or, you can eat tonight. Here’s your ticket to the ball, Doctor Pete Vander Zalm, Toronto, Canada,” said Hassan as he handed over an invitation. “And Simon Forte will definitely be there.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He’s scheduled to give a brief speech at ten. Don’t forget you’re in Egypt, things begin later here.”
“That doesn’t make sense, I have to be missing something. Ten o'clock is one hour and seventeen minutes before the blue moon apex. Why would Forte be in a penguin suit in a ballroom and not wearing his wizard robes in Hui’s secret chamber, preparing for the big event?”
“What I learned from my businessman father is that you do what you have to do to close the deal.”
“So he needs to be at the gala. Maybe it involves one of the ingredients for the elixir.” Sky grabbed a print-out sheet.
“Like toad’s teeth or something like that?” asked Hassan.
They read the ingredient list together: lapis lazuli, gold, silver, turquoise, crystal, carnelian, beetle, dried dung from a bitch in heat, distilled salt, flowers of the ankham plant, juice of a young pomegranate, a small furnace for intense heat, dew distilled one thousand times, mud taken from the east bank of the Nile at midnight on the Spring Solstice... the list went on with another twenty items.
“I don’t see anything here that Forte could only find at the party tonight.”
“How good is the quality of the microfilm?” asked Hassan.
“So-so. The original papyrus of the ingredient list isn’t on display, it’s locked in a storeroom somewhere, so I wasn’t able to double-check it.”
“Let’s go have a look,” said Hassan, jiggling a large set of keys.
###
It took them an hour to find the original papyrus, well over three thousand years old, of Hui’s ingredient list for the immortality elixir. The priceless papyrus was sealed in special Mylar and they laid it out on a large drafting-like table and began cross-referencing with the microfilm print-out.
As they examined the hieroglyphics, Sky noticed something. ”Wait a second, this wasn’t on the microfilm.” He traced his finger near the ancient characters.
“Hair, toes, and fresh blood of a Great Leader?”
“No,” corrected Hassan, “Hair, toenails, and fresh blood of the wife of a Great Leader.”
They looked at each other alarmed. “Someone altered the microfilm and has kept this original papyrus locked away. Let me see that invitation list.” As Hassan fumbled for it Sky asked, “Is your President’s wife going to be there tonight?”
“Yes, but so will your president’s wife.”
“What?!” Sky looked at the list. He didn’t know the First Lady sat on the board of UNHCR. She was the featured speaker.
###
Fort Belvoir, Virginia sits about fifteen miles south of Washington, D.C. The IBM electric wall clock in Col. Tom Yamaguchi’s office read 10:22. He’d been up to his ears in phone calls, e-mail, and investigators since the Lear jet had gone down.
Now that General Klaymen’s remains had been tentatively identified, Yamaguchi was acting-commander of Military Archive Historical Group. He felt he had a slight chance to be promoted to general and given permanent command due to his grasp of the rather arcane arenas MAHG specialized in, or he might be given the command without a promotion, meaning a colonel would be filling a general's billet. For now, he struggled to figure out exactly what the hell Klaymen had been up to in the days before his death.
MAHG shared the army base with the Defense Logistics Agency, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command and INSCOM, the Intelligence and Security Command. Three officers from the latter unit, acting unofficially, suddenly walked into Yamaguchi’s office, interrupting him.
“Can I help you?” Yamaguchi didn’t recognize the three men and his secretary hadn’t buzzed him.
“Colonel, there’s something we have to show you.” One of the men closed the door while another opened a laptop and placed it in front of the startled Yamaguchi.
“What the hell is going on here, who are you?!”
“Just look at this, sir.”
A DVD played back high quality color footage taken from a security camera—a camera right here in Yamaguchi’s office—showing the colonel sitting at his desk.
“Our fiber-optic pinhole camera is in the wall right over there, sir.”
At least they’re polite, thought Yamaguchi as he racked his brain, trying to think of what he did wrong. Something tied to the general’s death, obviously, but what? Or maybe... dammit, they’ve got me on tape talking to Joan. Joan was a fresh little staff sergeant he’d been having an affair with for the last two months.
But the video and its accompanying crisp sound quality didn’t involve clandestine activity of the carnal kind. It showed the special secure phone on his desk ring.
“Yamaguchi here.”
A tone sounded, then the soundtrack went dead, the rest of the tone obviously edited out.
“Have you identified the covert operative the General brought in to help Wilder?” The voice was Rene Bailey’s.
On the laptop screen, Yamaguchi’s posture shifted and his voice went slightly higher. “My hunch was right, it’s a woman. Had a helluva time cracking her identity, but her name is Captain Diana Hunt. The General sheep-dipped her and he’s pulling a scam like she’s been sent TDY up to Alaska. You can pull her file yourself.”
As the colonel sat watching himself on the laptop, he couldn’t believe his eyes and ears. “This isn’t possible!”
“What’s the General’s location?” purred Rene.
“Unknown. He doesn’t want to be found. But he’s booked a C-21 out of Davis-Monthan—”
“This is a fake, you�
��re framing me!” Yamaguchi lunged for a partially open desk drawer and grabbed his nine-millimeter as the first soldier slammed into him.
“Get him!”
They sprawled on the ground, but Yamaguchi, built like a bulldog, broke free and turned the gun... on himself.
“Get the gun!”
A second soldier grabbed the pistol and stripped it from the colonel’s fingers just before he could squeeze off a round into his temple. The men handcuffed him and stuck a handkerchief into his mouth.
“You believe this! The sucker was programmed to kill himself if he got caught.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it before,” said the more nonplussed of the military spooks. The three who stood over Yamaguchi formed a secret cell of the WOR. “Somebody scrambled his eggs pretty good.”
“Think the docs can deprogram him?”
“Well, we got the cue phrase, but would you ever trust this guy as far as you could spit? He’ll be lucky if they don’t wipe his memory as a security precaution. Pension time for this dude.”
CHAPTER 27
The Mena House Hotel is one of the elegant old hotels of the world with the added bonus of having the Pyramids sitting on the other side of their golf course. Location location location. Resting on forty acres of jasmine-scented gardens, the structure initially served as a royal lodge for an Egyptian king. Reincarnated as a hotel in 1886, the luxurious digs have accommodated the powerful, the rich and the famous for far longer than 1001 nights. General Montgomery encamped in Suite 706 during the North Africa campaign of World War II, and the end of the 1973 Egypt-Israeli War was negotiated in the hotel’s hallowed halls.
A battle of another kind brewed tonight, as Sky Wilder entered the bustling, magnificent hotel lobby, its entire ceiling an intricately carved arabesque with four wooden octagonal recessed domes in the center anchoring a massive crystal chandelier. Wearing a Calvin Klein tuxedo courtesy of Hassan, he padded over the ivory-colored polished marble floors and ruddy Oriental carpets like a man without a care, the warm spring evening a balm to his nerves.
Security people lurked everywhere. Though smiling, Wilder mumbled a curse as he caught sight of Michelle Stark and a co-worker, both wearing their game faces, as they entered the lobby. He silently chastised himself for overlooking the fact that DSS would be part of the security detail for the American side. He smoothly ducked behind a square pillar. As Michelle inquired about something at the front desk, Wilder walked toward the grand ballroom, past the artwork of African refugee children, to tempt fate.
###
The cream of Egyptian society mixed with the Cairo-based foreign diplomatic crowd in the ornate ballroom, its walls pocked with a series of cozy, recessed archway alcoves, its ceiling heavy with golden-hued chandeliers.
A small orchestra entertained from the raised stage, and with cocktails long over and dinner ending, a few couples took to the dance floor to tango, including Simon Forte and Rene Bailey. They moved together like a well-oiled machine, but then tango is all attitude, and they both had plenty of that, staring into each others eyes, ignoring the less important in the room, meaning everyone else.
Wilder made no attempt to disguise himself. He carried only the concealed weapon of $100,000 in cold hard cash as he passed the phalanx of Secret Service and Egyptian security staff wielding hand-held metal detectors. Through a well-placed girlfriend, Hassan had secured him a seat up front, a few tables over from where the First Lady now sat. But he never made it that far.
“Excuse me—”
A hand grabbed his arm, and he spun to see... Diana Hunt resplendent in a Vera Wang that cost somebody about ten grand and discreetly covered a small bandage between her shoulder blades.
“Diana!” Sky lit up like lumineria in a Santa Fe shopping mall at Christmas and moved to embrace her. She quickly stepped back, avoiding his grasp as she smiled demurely.
“Good to see you again... Dr. Vander Zalm,” she said reading his name tag. She took his arm and led him casually into the nearest archway alcove. “At first I thought you might be dead, but then I ‘saw’ us together in a banquet room, and here we are.”
“And I thought you might be... I don’t even want to say what I thought.” He leaned in and kissed her. She looked stunning, more beautiful than ever.
It took them a few minutes to play catch-up: how she had cut out the microchip and narrowly escaped Burma, only to have a Thai hit team try to wipe her in Mae Hong Son. Standard psychic-spy chit-chat.
“I sent Dang back to Mae Hong Son on the slim chance that you might turn up.”
“He helped me take out the Thai killers. Saved my life, actually. And I found out why he pushed for radio checks. Tasnee had ordered him to do that, she was worried sick about you. Embarrassing to be so wrong about someone, but I told you I don’t claim to be one hundred percent accurate. Maybe you should be the psychic?”
“Doesn’t pay enough.” He brought her up to speed regarding his own escapades and his theory on Forte’s next step.
Diana had a little trouble with it. “You think he’s going to shoot the First Lady in front of this crowd, then take a blood sample while he clips her hair and nails?”
“It’s all I’ve got. That and my two feet. Let’s dance, that way my dream will come true.”
She smiled, remembering the dream he told her about them dancing under the Pyramids. “Forte’s out there. What’s your plan?”
“Full frontal assault.”
Coming back to Egypt hadn’t been difficult for Diana after all. It was the journey that mattered, not the destination. She had come into her own in a way she’d never experienced, fully confident, comfortable, and on her own terms. She loved being in the field doing something she believed in. Believing in the work made all the difference.
The dalliance in the hot pool with Sky had been a healing, and a long time in coming. She now felt in control of her destiny, not dominated or manipulated by any Simon Fortes. Forte had controlled her sexually and connived her into becoming a whore for her country. All kinds of kinkiness for the Stars and Stripes. When she woke up to the icy realization she had prostituted herself and destroyed lives only to advance Forte’s interests, she’d abruptly left DISC. The outrage that she had done it at all, for any reason, sunk in soon thereafter.
So she fled to the physical and inner recesses of super-secret RV work for the army. A cocooning that nurtured the birth of the new person she’d become. No longer did the notion of facing Fakhry and the ugly memories of what happened between them cause her fear; she looked forward to it. It would be the last of the demons to purge. The shame that had crippled her simply evaporated, spoiled milk dried up in the sun, then blown away on the wind.
###
The dance floor grew crowded with the sound of a lovely waltz. Diana was the better dancer, so she led, and they flowed with the music like they had danced together for years. Keeping an eye on their target, they shifted position, then a split-second maneuver bumped them into a twirling Forte and Rene.
The power couple flushed with shock, the color drained from Forte’s face like he’d seen ghosts, and Wilder latched onto his forearm so his adversary couldn’t spin away.
“Simon, good to see you again!” Sky smiled big for the sake of anyone watching. “I just want to tell you something my mom used to say: ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall.’ And tonight, you take the fall.”
Sky and Diana danced off, leaving the stunned couple standing there.
The music stopped and as people took their seats, the speechifying began from the podium. Dr. Fakhry basked in the glow of the spotlight and applause, all warm and fuzzy toward Forte, the man who had provided it all, the man who had compromised him so completely, the man who right now looked a bit unhinged.
Sky and Diana watched from separate tables as Forte motioned over one of his bodyguards, whispered something and sent the man scurrying away. Wilder didn’t think the Secret Service would allow Forte’s bodyguards to be armed, but he knew they wer
e up to something.
Wilder didn't know Forte had a special relationship with one of the Secret Service agents present, an African-American whose job was to protect the First Lady. Standing only three meters from Simon Forte’s table at that very moment, was Marcus Townsend.
###
In short order, Fakhry introduced the main donor and patron of the evening, who had contributed $100,000. Forte stood at his table to hearty applause as an audio tech in a cheap tuxedo handed him a live mike. A gorgeous Egyptian teen in a Nefertiti-like get-up accepted his cashier’s check and waved it at the crowd.
An excellent speaker who easily memorized long passages and seldom used notes, Forte’s head was swimming and he couldn’t remember a single word of his speech.
“Thank you ladies and gentlemen, it’s great to be back in my favorite country, Egypt.” He bought himself a cheap round of applause with the line as he tried to recover. “You’ll have to forgive me, I’m not feeling that well, perhaps I’m getting too old to tango. I’d like to say what a pleasure it is to be involved in such a worthy cause, and I’d like to thank Doctor Fakhry for all his efforts. It’s my honor to play some small role, and... be part of such a worthy cause. Thank you.”
As the polite applause died, Fakhry launched into a long-winded monologue, but Forte turned livid, his face a bright red. I was supposed to speak for five minutes, not twenty seconds. I forgot to acknowledge the First Lady! And I repeated myself! Then Forte’s raging thoughts turned to his nemeses, Sky Wilder and Diana Hunt. Are they freelancing or are they here in force? Can the plan move ahead? Or will Rene and I be fleeing for our freedom?
###
The First Lady took the podium, and in spite of jet lag, spoke eloquently and sincerely about the plight of refugees and the massive scope of the problem.
Wilder didn’t get to hear all of her speech because he found himself being tapped on the shoulder by Michelle Stark, who looked like acid reflux had just set in. She motioned for him to come with her, but he shook his head no. Then the goon next to her stepped forward.
Sky spoke softly to Michelle, “If you’re not careful you’ll interrupt the First Lady’s speech. You may want to hear what’s coming.”