by R. J. Jagger
Jonk stared ahead with an attractive face, the kind that made women stare. The only flaw to that face was his left eye, the blind one, which had a raven-black pupil, fully dilated, in contrast to his normal hazel one. A scar ran down his forehead, across that eye, and then a little farther below. As scars went it was long but wasn’t deep, or jagged, or crooked, or highly-contrasting. It was more in the nature of a thin ruler line, hardly perceptible. Some people said it gave him character. He could take it or leave it. He really didn’t care about it any more.
He had no idea what Poon wanted.
It had to be big, though, to send the go-fast at night.
Big meant money.
Money.
Money.
Money.
Money meant power.
And power meant everything.
Women.
Luxury.
Stature.
Most importantly, it meant the ability to not waste precious moments of life on mundane things like reporting to some stupid nine-to-five job just to stay alive.
Screw mundane.
Mundane was overrated.
THE SLAPPING OF THE HULL against the waves grated on his nerves. He wasn’t particularly fond of water at this point in his life. Every time he’d come close to dying, it had always been in water.
That’s where he lost his left eye.
In water.
THE SIXTY-FIVE KILOMETER TRIP to Macau—Asia’s casino-infested strip of sin, gambling and decadence—took hardly any time. Fifteen minutes after being picked up by a Ferrari at the dock, Jonk was in the penthouse suite of the Cotai Storm Hotel & Casino, one of Poon’s many holdings.
“Jonk, my man,” Poon said, slapping him on the back. “Come in my friend, come in.”
Poon looked the same as always.
Fifty.
Short.
Thin.
Balding.
Intense.
“Come on, I’ll beat you at pinball,” Poon said, heading for the game room. Walking past the bedroom, Jonk looked in to see if he’d see what he thought he’d see. Sure enough, there on the bed was an unconscious woman, young, spread out, wearing only white cotton panties, a bought-and-paid-for play toy.
“You still have your vices,” he said.
Poon turned and smiled.
“A man needs vices,” he said. “You want to play with her?”
“Maybe next time.”
“That’s what you always say.”
In the game room, Poon tested the flippers, set a ball in motion and said, “You’re probably wondering why you’re here.”
“It’s crossed my mind,” Jonk said.
“How many jobs have you done for me?” Poon said. “I mean, big ones.”
Jonk tilted his head.
“I don’t know, six or seven, maybe.”
Poon smiled.
“Wrong,” Poon said. “You haven’t done any big ones. Everything you’ve done so far was nothing. This is going to be your first real job.”
“How real?”
“Real enough to retire on, in luxury,” Poon said. “To do it properly, I’m going to have to tell you some stuff.”
“Fine.”
“Private stuff,” Poon said.
“I understand.”
“Stuff that doesn’t go from you to anyone else, not tomorrow, not in ten years,” Poon said.
“You know I can be trusted.”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Poon said. “First, I want to be sure we have an understanding that if you double-cross me, if you do anything you shouldn’t, you’ll die a horrible, very painful, very slow death.” The smile fell off Poon’s face and he locked eyes with Jonk. “Do we both understand what I’m talking about?”
Jonk’s chest tightened.
The man meant it.
No question.
He nodded.
“I’d never screw you,” he said. “You know that by now.”
“If that’s true then I’m going to be very happy and you’re going to be very rich.” He turned and said, “Follow me, I want to show you something.”
3
Day 1—September 21
Monday Night
THE TELESCOPE IN CONDOR’S BEDROOM was aimed through the small window of a commercial building a good distance away. From what Teffinger could tell, the window was situated near the ceiling, too high to see through from inside the room, probably installed for venting or sunlight. There were no other windows to the room. On the back wall was a mirror that reflected into the space. In the middle of the room was an attractive woman bound in a standing, spread-eagle position. Black leather cuffs were on each of her wrists, attached to chains that stretched tightly to the ceiling.
Cuffs were also on her ankles, secured with short chains bolted to the floor.
She faced the mirror.
Her hair was short, stylish and black.
Her breasts were ample.
Her nipples were pierced, as was her navel.
A tattoo of a dragon started on her stomach, wrapped around her ass and down her right thigh, ending slightly above her knee.
She looked to be about twenty-five.
A second woman appeared and kissed the bound woman on the mouth, long and deep, then pulled back and licked her neck.
THE NEW WOMAN had long, thick blond hair.
Not blond-blond.
Dirty blond.
She was naked except for black high-heels that brought a definition to her calves and thighs. Her ass was taut and round. As nice as her body was, when she turned and her face appeared, Teffinger felt his world shift ever so slightly.
She had the face he’d been looking for.
He needed to meet her.
He needed to find out all about her.
Not in a week, right now, tonight.
He needed to get over to the building and wait outside until she came out.
Suddenly something weird happened—she looked into the mirror and directly into his eyes. He pulled back, embarrassed, before realizing how stupid he was. She couldn’t see this far with the naked eye, not to mention that he was in the dark. When he brought his eye back to the telescope, the woman had a black mask on.
Damn it.
He needed to see more of her face.
He hadn’t memorized it yet.
Then something grabbed his attention, namely a small tattoo just above the woman’s private area, about the size of a dollar folded in half.
What was it?
A flower?
A butterfly?
It was all black, that was about the best he could make out.
He searched for more ink and found none.
The interior of the room got slightly brighter, as if someone outside the view of the telescope had turned on a light or positioned a reflector to film whatever it was that was about to happen.
Then it began.
The blond ran her fingers slowly down her captive’s arms, teasingly, then played with her nipples and stomach, working her into an ever-increasing state.
Teffinger watched her every move.
Mesmerized.
She dropped to her knees and tongued the bound woman between her legs.
There was no denying the pleasure was real.
She knew what she was doing.
This wasn’t her first time.
Teffinger’s cock tightened.
He heard a faint sound from somewhere downstairs, almost imperceptible but enough to focus on for a few heartbeats. It vanished as quickly as it came.
The blond pleasured her captive for a long time.
Long enough to make her twist and turn and pull at her bonds and bring her to a screaming orgasm.
Damn.
Then the blond stood up, tweaked the woman’s nipples and disappeared to the side.
TEFFINGER LOOKED AT HIS WATCH and was shocked at the time. He needed to quit screwing around and find the souvenirs, right now, this second, then get the hell out of there
before it all went south.
Thunder cracked, closer than before.
One more look.
That’s all he’d take, just one more look.
He put his eye back to the telescope.
Good timing, too, because the blond walked back into view. Teffinger focused on her tattoo once again and was able to make it out, finally—some type of foreign writing.
What’d it say?
A light drizzle suddenly appeared, blurring the night and bringing it in and out of focus.
Damn it.
The blond took a position behind her captive and played with her hair for a few moments. Then she reached around to the front, put her hands around the woman’s throat and squeezed.
The woman didn’t react.
Not at first.
Then she tried to pull away.
It did no good.
She struggled.
Violently.
Panicked.
More and more animated.
Then, without warning, the blond moved her hands down to the woman’s breasts and caressed them. If it was supposed to calm the woman it failed, because she twisted and fought and didn’t want to be there any more.
Then it began again.
The blond grabbed the woman’s throat from behind and squeezed.
And squeezed.
And squeezed
The rain got thicker.
The view got muddier.
A minute passed.
The woman struggled violently.
Another minute passed.
And another.
Then all movement left the woman’s body, her head fell to the side and she hung limp from her wrists.
SUDDENLY A SOUND came from downstairs. Teffinger pulled away from the telescope and concentrated. A door slammed and a downstairs light flicked on.
Lightning flashed.
Close.
Close enough to illuminate the room.
Thunder exploded.
So loud and violent that Teffinger jumped.
4
Day 1—September 21
Monday Night
POON LED JONK into a large corner room with lots of glass and a stunning view of the strip’s neon nightscape. Several pinball machines occupied one wall. Above them hung a Picasso. An old, rusty motor scooter sat on a pedestal against the other wall. It had electrical tape wrapped on the handlebars where the grips should be. “That’s from my first job,” Poon said. “Age ten, delivering groceries. It still runs. It reminds me where I came from. It keeps me hungry.”
A contemporary desk sat in the middle of the room.
On it were two laptops.
“I run most of my empire from these,” Poon said, sitting down. “This one isn’t connected to the Internet and never will be. Better security that way.”
He stuck in a flash drive, pulled up a photograph of an ancient Egyptian mask and swung the screen around so Jonk could see it better.
“Do you know what this is?” Poon asked.
No.
He didn’t.
“Let me tell you a little story,” Poon said. “Five years ago, a tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings. It was the tomb of a pharaoh from the Eighteenth Dynasty, around 1375 BC, during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom. Unfortunately, the tomb had been looted early on, probably within the first six months, and almost everything that had any intrinsic value back in that period of time was taken. Three years ago a Paris woman by the name Prarie Lafayette—who was the niece of a famous archeologist named Remy Lafayette—and an Egyptian archeologist named Alexandra Reed, found the looted contents of that tomb in a high cave located west of the Valley of the Kings. Are you following me so far?”
“Roughly,” Jonk said. “Where’s the Valley of the Kings?”
“You never heard of the Valley of the Kings?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Jonk said. “I just don’t know where it’s at.”
“It’s in Egypt.”
“Okay.”
“Near Luxor, the west side of the Nile.”
“Okay.”
“THIS IS ALL JUST BACKGROUND, you don’t need to memorize it,” Poon said. “Anyway, one of the jars in the cave turned out to be filled with documents, apparently authored by some rich guy who masterminded the robbery in the first place. In those notes, he talks about a pharaoh who ruled about 1500 B.C. He was an incredibly important person in his time and ruled for more than twenty years, meaning he had accumulated a considerable wealth. His tomb had never been found, to this day. The notes talk about his tomb. They describe it as being located in an area south of the Valley of the Queens. That’s an area no one had really explored. This was the first known hint as to where he might have been buried.”
“I didn’t know you were into this kind of stuff,” Jonk said.
“I wasn’t always,” Poon said.
“It’s interesting.”
Poon smiled.
“Interesting is one word for it,” he said. “Lucrative is another. Dangerous is yet another. The Egyptian government engaged the services of the two women who found the first tomb—Prarie Lafayette and Alexandra Reed—to find this new one. They assembled a small team. One of the members of the team was a Cairo man named Amaury, who was Prarie’s boyfriend at the time, but more importantly was a black market trader. They searched for two years, found nothing and called it off.”
“So it’s still out there somewhere,” Jonk said.
“Yes and no.”
“What’s that mean?”
“ABOUT ONE YEAR INTO THE SEARCH, Amaury figured out where the tomb was or, to phrase it more properly, came up with a solid theory where to dig. He didn’t tell anyone, not even his girlfriend Prarie. Instead, he spent another year out there in the desert sun, looking in all the wrong places and pretending he was giving them his best.”
“He’s more of a snake than I am,” Jonk said.
Poon tilted his head.
Considering it.
“He’s your equal, no more or less,” he said.
Jonk laughed.
“In any event,” Poon said, “after the search ended, Amaury bided his time for six months to be absolutely sure the area was dead. Then he went back, this time with his new girlfriend. His theory turned out to be correct. They found the tomb.”
“Wow.”
Right.
Wow.
Wow indeed.
“It was probably the most significant archeological find in the last thousand years,” Jonk said. “Do you know how tombs were constructed back in that day?”
No.
Not even close.
“THEY WERE DIVIDED into a number of separate and distinct chambers. The chambers were separated by solid walls, called blockings. Amaury got lucky and hit the main chamber, the one with the mummified remains of the pharaoh, on the first dig. What he found was quite extraordinary. The most significant piece was this gilded cartonnage mask right here,” Poon said, tapping the laptop. “Do you know how mummification works?”
No.
Not a clue.
“I know how women work, that’s it,” Jonk said.
Poon smiled.
“Then you’ve cracked the secret code,” he said. “Mummification entails a number of wrappings held together with a resin. For important mummifications, jewels would be embedded in the resin. In this case there were lots of jewels. Amaury pried every one of them out with a knife. For all practical purposes, the processes destroyed the remains. From a historical purpose, that was too bad. But that’s what happened.”
Jonk pushed hair out of his face.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Hold on, we’re getting there,” Poon said. “The other thing of interest about tombs, in case you care, is that they usually contained an inventory list that was scribed at the time of the burial. The inventory list for this particular tomb was located in the main chamber. It indicates that there are seven chambers in all and describe
s what is in each one. Like I said before, this guy had accumulated a considerable wealth. Although the treasures in the main chamber were almost beyond imagination, according to the inventory list, the other chambers were just as rich.”
“Rich, like what?”
“Rich like jewels and gems,” Poon said, “but even more importantly, jars and jars filled with gold coins. The main chamber of this tomb, in and of itself, had 2,232 gold coins. Each one is inscribed with the markings of the time. Each one, today, is worth a fortune.” Poon pulled up a photograph on the laptop. “This is what they look like.”
Jonk studied the picture and said, “Cool.”
Right.
Cool.
“AMAURY AND HIS GIRLFRIEND emptied the first chamber and then reburied it,” Poon said. “They didn’t want to press their luck by going into the other chambers at that time. They wanted to get at least part of the treasure secure rather than risk being spotted and potentially loosing it all.”
Jonk nodded.
Good thinking.
That’s what he would have done.
“I had purchased a number of black-market pieces from Amaury over the years,” Poon said. “Amaury’s first phone call, when he got back to Cairo, was to me. He told me what he had. I purchased the entire lot, every single item. That was a good deal for Amaury, because if he had to sell things piecemeal, the word would eventually get out and the Egyptian government would start hunting for him. It was a good deal for me, because first of all, I got everything for a fraction of what it’s worth, but more importantly because the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts.”
“Lucky you,” Jonk said.
“Lucky me for a while,” Poon said. “I didn’t guard it like I should have. Someone stole it right out from under my nose, not everything, not the jars or senet games or the bigger pieces, but the mask, the coins, the gems and a handful of small statues. Part of what I want is to get it back. The other part of what I want should be obvious.”
“That’s where I come in,” Jonk said.
Poon nodded.
Right.
“That’s where you come in. Both parts. Your cut is 20 percent of what you recover, paid in kind, meaning for every ten coins you recover, you keep two. We’ll have to come up with a monetary figure for your 20 percent of the mask, and we’ll figure out a fair way to split up the gems and minerals.”