The Staff of Moses (Oliver Lucas Adventures)

by Andrew Linke

  But did Oliver really want to give up?

  He sipped at his coffee and watched boats cruise up and down the rippling water of the Nile. The longer he sat there, the more Oliver felt the grip of an adventure closing around him like the coils of a python. He had spent the last decade searching for clues to uncover a conspiracy of global proportions stretching back centuries into the past. When that quest had destroyed his career he had turned to treasure hunting and adventure photography as a means of supporting his personal quest. Over the years he had come to love the danger of traveling to long lost places and tracking down forgotten relics. It went against his nature to turn his back on an adventure like this just because a new complication had arisen.

  He finished his coffee, pulled out his phone, and used a virtual phone app to send a text to the burner cell phone number that Senator Wheeler had provided in the briefcase:

  Complication. ~$500k to recover first objective.

  He followed that with:

  Call via Skype ASAP. Username: lucasacquisitions. Do not use phone.

  He checked that the Skype app was running on his phone and he was logged in under the appropriate account, then stood and strode out of the café, glancing towards where Diana sat at the bar and jerking his head for her to follow.

  When they were aboard the elevator he quickly filled her in on what had passed between him and Rais Karim in the coffee bar.

  “I didn’t hear much of the conversation, but I’m pretty sure your man was alone.” She replied when he was finished. “None of the people who entered the bar before him left after he did.”

  “The question is whether he is more or less dangerous for working alone.”

  Diana nodded quietly.

  The elevator stopped at their floor and the doors slid open just as his phone started to buzz. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw it was a Skype call coming in over the hotel’s wifi. Oliver didn’t recognize the username, a string of letters and numbers that could just as well have held special meaning for someone or have been pounded out on a keyboard as the Senator fumbled through creating an account in under five minutes. Oliver was impressed that the response had come so quickly. He tapped the answer key and held the phone to his head.

  “Oliver here.”

  “Is this a secure line?” The voice on the other end wasn’t the Senator. Probably some aid tasked with watching the Senator’s phone when he was unable to carry it, Oliver thought.

  “As secure as you can get in Egypt. Public key crypto end to end, though you never know if Microsoft has bowed to political pressure and given the NSA or locals here a backdoor.”

  The voice hesitated, then replied, “I’ll take that to mean yes. Please hold.”

  Oliver pulled his keycard from his pocket and ran it through the reader on his room’s door. The little LED above the handle winked to green and he pushed the door open. He glanced quickly about the room, saw that everything was as he had left it, then stepped aside and waved Diana into the room.

  The Senator’s voice came through his phone as he pushed the door shut and turned the lock. “Oliver, boy, this you?”

  “Sure is, Senator. I take it you got my message?”

  “Yes. What’s this horse shit about a half million? You trying to squeeze more cash out of me?”

  “No sir.” Oliver responded.

  He went on to give Senator Wheeler an abbreviated version of the story that Rais Karim had told him in the coffee shop downstairs. When he reached the part about the mercenaries breaking into the vault, then putting the contents up for sale on the open black market, Oliver could have sworn that he heard a sharp intake of breath echo across the data packets from the other end of the connection.

  “I don’t have to tell you that this is disappointing, kid.”

  “I’m sure it is. Will you be sending the money?”

  “Hell no! I just had to release my tax returns from the last fifteen years to the press to prove to them that I’m not some sort of crook. There’s no way I can hide a transfer of that magnitude.”

  “I understand.”

  “There’s no way you can snatch the scrolls from the mercenaries and keep going after the staff?”

  “That sort of thing is far from my line of work, Senator. You hired me because I’m experienced at solving ancient riddles and tracking down artifacts hidden in caves full of ancient traps. I’m not prepared to get into a shootout with a private army.”

  “Of course, of course...” The Senator was silent for several moments. Oliver let him stew and took the time to unzip his boots and kick them off. After nearly a minute the Senator said, “This is most disappointing”

  “Understandably so, sir.”

  “So I take it you’re coming home now?”

  Oliver replied immediately, keeping his tone level and businesslike, lest the Senator catch the lie in his voice. “Not right away. An old friend of mine is in town doing some research. I think I’ll spend some time with her, maybe go on a tour of the pyramids, then come back in a few days.”

  “Keep your head down. If you do happen upon a way to track down that staff, be sure to contact me.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  There was a loud “boink” and the connection went dead.

  Oliver looked at the phone in his hand. He had just made the first move of a dangerous game. If it went well he would find the staff and be able to keep it for himself. If not, then the Senator was guaranteed to track him down and put his head on a stake.

  “What exactly am I supposed to be researching?”

  Oliver turned to see Diana laying face down on his bed, bare feet sticking up behind her, pert chin supported on interlaced fingers. Oliver smiled and placed his phone on the table before sinking into one of the chairs by the window. He drummed his fingers on the table a few times, then said, “Promise you won’t get angry?”

  “I’ll do nothing of the sort.”

  “Then at least promise that if you don’t like what I’m about to do you’ll say so. This could be dangerous and I don’t want you to even leave the hotel unless you’re sure you can handle it.”

  Diana smiled and rolled herself into a seated position on the bed. “I’m all in on this adventure, Oliver. Now tell me the plan.”

  So he went ahead and explained his plan. Diana was initially skeptical. She pointed out several holes, some of which Oliver had already anticipated and accepted as necessary risks, which he was grateful to her for spotting. They sussed out the details over the next couple hours, playing through all possible failure points and coming to the conclusion that it was their best option, assuming that they didn’t want to give up on the scroll.

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Oliver asked her that evening as they rode the elevator down to the lobby where a taxi was waiting to take them to a traditional Egyptian restaurant the concierge had recommend. “You could stay here in the hotel and I could just bring you the images.”

  Diana grinned impishly and looked up at him through the lenses and thick glass frames of her newly fitted glasses. “And let you have all the fun?”

  Chapter Seven

  Rais Karim called early the next morning as Oliver and Diana sat together on the balcony of Diana’s room eating breakfast. Oliver slipped his smartphone from a vest pocket and stabbed blindly at the device’s blank screen with his thumb a few times before he realized that the ringing phone was the cheap clamshell model laying on the table. Before he could correct his mistake Diana had dropped her fork and grabbed the phone from its place between their breakfast plates.

  “Oliver’s phone.” She chirped.

  Oliver was briefly annoyed, but not surprised. Diana had agreed to his plan, even insisted on taking a more active role in it, and now she wanted to demonstrate to the other players that she had entered the game.

  Listening to their conversation while he finished his breakfast, Oliver was impressed at how quickly Diana slipped into the role of international treasure hunter,
going toe to toe with a brutal intelligence agent and holding her ground. She explained that she was an antiquities expert Oliver had hired to authenticate and, if necessary, translate the scroll. From what he could hear, Oliver got the impression that Rais Karim was not happy with this plan. He heard Karim shouting that he had personally seen the scroll before it was stolen from and been privy to expert analysis that proved its authenticity. That was, after all, why it had been in the secret vault in the first place. Diana pointed out that she and Oliver didn’t question his integrity, only that of the mercenaries, who had already proven themselves untrustworthy in putting the scrolls up for sale in the first place. That seemed to calm Rais and, after about five minutes of tense discussion, Diana ended the call and tossed the phone onto the table.

  “He’s a tenacious old bird.” She said.

  “You don’t rise to power in a secret military agency without being tenacious.” Oliver replied.

  Diana shrugged in agreement and explained that Rais was getting in contact with the sellers to confirm the meeting location and inform them that she would be coming along to examine the scrolls prior to purchase.

  According to the agreement they had worked out, Diana would be present at the meeting to authenticate the scroll. She would require access to it in a clean environment where they would not be disturbed, so that she could view the scroll and confirm that it was written in the proper dialect of ancient Hieratic script. Once that was done, Oliver would contact their employer and arrange for a transfer of funds. If she wasn’t satisfied with the scroll’s authenticity the deal would be off, but they would, of course, make no mention of the failed transaction to any other potential buyers.

  “Now we just hope that they don’t overreact and kill us when we don’t buy the scroll.” Diana said.

  “They won’t. The market for illegal antiquities is hot, but these are military contractors, not professional relic dealers. Go back a few years and they would have probably never double-crossed their employer. This whole mess probably started just because Egypt is filled with buyers hoping to exploit the chaos of a major change in governance and these mercenaries thought they could sell a couple of the items in the vault without getting caught.”

  Diana nodded and chewed on the last of her breakfast thoughtfully. Oliver had the distinct impression that something was on her mind, and he thought he had a decent guess what it might be. “You’re worried what the Senator will do if word of this meeting gets back to him.”

  Diana nodded.

  “Even if he hears about it, I’ll just say I wanted to get a look at the scroll for curiosity’s sake. There’s no way he’ll find out about the recorder unless one of us tells him.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Oliver grinned and reached for the phone, which had started to rattle across the surface of the table as it rang. Before opening it he caught Diana’s eye and nodded, “I’m right. Everything will work out fine.”

  Oliver answered the phone. Rais Karim sounded surprised to be speaking to Oliver again as he said, “The meeting is arranged.”

  “When and where?”

  “One hour. There’s an antiquities dealer on Al Maqases in the El-Gamaleya district. It is the only one on the street and not far from a popular souk, so you should have no difficulty finding it.”

  “Will you be there?”

  “Certainly not. I want as little to do with those bastards as possible. Verify the scroll, buy it, and get the hell out of my country, Mr. Lucas.”

  The phone went dead.

  Oliver looked at the phone in his hand bemusedly, then stood from his chair and tossed the phone onto the table.

  “We’re on.” He said.

  He pulled his handgun from his waistband and checked that it was loaded with around chambered. He didn’t like carrying the weapon into meetings, but the way Oliver saw it, this meeting would either go quickly and without incident or rapidly unravel into the sort of situation in which he and Diana might have to shoot their way out and make for the nearest airport.

  “Bring your passport and some cash, just in case we have to run.”

  “Do you think this will turn dangerous?”

  Oliver slipped the gun back into his belt and shrugged on a tan blazer that almost, but not quite, matched his khaki pants. “I don’t think so. My gut tells me that Karim and the mercenaries don’t want any trouble, since he isn’t officially involved with national security anymore. If he weren’t trying to lay low I think that those contractors would already have been found dead in the street.”

  “How do you think he’ll react to the plan?”

  “Probably be angry. Maybe track us down and argue the authenticity of the scroll with us after the meeting, but I don’t think he’ll get violent. Again, he’s not official anymore.”

  “Alright. Give me five minutes to get ready and I’ll meet you in the hall.”

  Oliver took that as a hint to leave and hopped over the railing between their balconies, then slipped into his own room to make some final preparations of his own.

  They rode the elevator down to the lobby and the concierge immediately pointed them towards the taxi that Oliver had ordered from his room phone. Oliver gave the taxi driver a slip of paper with the address of the antique dealer and they settled back for the ride through the crowded streets.

  The streets of Cairo were crowded, despite the early hour. The narrow streets were hopelessly packed, especially in the places where there were no sidewalks and the vehicles had to compete with pedestrians and animals. A wide selection of cars from the past fifty years were jammed bumper to bumper as they crept through streets that twisted at odd angles between buildings that had stood in this city since before Oliver’s homeland had been settled by European colonists. The pedestrians were likewise a brightly colored mix of business people and youths in Western-style dress, men and women wearing all manners of traditional clothing, traditional being defined as everything from long robes to pants and shirts that differed from their Western counterparts only in the pattern of their cut, and obvious tourists in loud shirts toting large cameras. The main avenues had been widened and paved over with tar. These weren’t crowded so terribly. The side streets, however, were still paved in an assortment of cobblestone and brick and were so narrow that the taxi’s mirrors occasionally scraped against the stone of buildings on either side.

  Oliver briefly considered paying the taxi driver, getting out, and ordering his phone to give him walking directions to the meeting place, but he restrained himself. Instead he took advantage of the drive to pull out his phone and post several tweets informing Amber of their plans. The final message said, Sellers are supposedly from Leonidas Security, keep in mind if things go bad. He switched to a web browser and tried to track down information about Leonidas Security, but could find nothing but the bare facts that it was a private security contractor headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The corporate website did little to explain what, exactly, the company did to secure its clients, and offered no contact information. Apparently if you were to sort of person who might need Leonidas Security’s services, they would contact you.

  Forty-five minutes after leaving the hotel the taxi deposited them in front of a dusty stone building with windows of thick, possibly bullet proof, glass under a wide green awning. Faded gold Arabic lettering scrawled across the awning. Oliver’s command of written Arabic was more shaky than the spoken language, but he got the impression that the text proclaimed this to be a bookshop specializing in antiquities. Diana confirmed this and went to look in through the window while Oliver paid the driver and offered him a generous tip to remain parked in front of the shop until they returned. The driver agreed to this proposal and spun the volume of his radio up a bit before levering his seat back.

  “Crowded street. Several people browsing in the shop. Looks like they plan on letting us out of here alive.” Diana remarked as Oliver stepped up to the window.

  “The customers could be working with the
mercenaries, but I agree with you. They probably picked this place to make the deal appear legitimate. Place like this you probably see someone walking in or out with a scroll a couple times a month.”

  Oliver opened the door and waved for Diana to enter ahead of him. He glanced out at the street one more time, satisfying himself that the crowds were thick enough that even a mercenary turned black market antiquity dealer would hesitate to shoot them if the deal fell through, then he followed Diana into the shop.

  The walls of the shop were stacked high with bookshelves filled with codexes bound leather and cloth. Tall glass fronted display cases held an assortment of scrolls, some partially unrolled to display the writing on their aged surfaces, others shrouded in heavy cloth to protect them from the light. Scattered throughout the middle of the shop were a variety of glass topped display cases, some of older vintage with oiled wood sides and other, newer models, with sleek metal frames and built in humidity control units. These cabinets contained more delicate books, their spines and covers cracked with age, scraps of parchment held flat under thick plates of glass tinted to block ultraviolet rays, and rolled up scrolls, some sealed in tubes with tightly fitted caps at the end, each with a paper placard beside it describing the contents of the scroll in Arabic, English, and French. There were no price tags apparent and Oliver knew without looking that none of these books would have a price penciled in at the top corner of the cover page. To every appearance this was a legitimate, and serious, antique dealership.

  The proprietor was a short man with a thin fringe of gray hair around the back and sides of his scalp. When Oliver entered the store he was perched on a tall stool behind the counter discussing a leather-bound codex with a customer in a rapid flow of Arabic. Oliver listened to their conversation as he took in the contents of a display case near the door. The proprietor was pointing out the merits of the book and recounting its chain of ownership back to the private library for which it was ordered three hundred years before, while the customer pointed out the flaws in the binding, scuffs on the case, and general ignobility of the original owner. After a few moments they appeared to reach a mutually satisfactory assessment of the book’s value. Hands were shaken, money exchange, and the book lovingly wrapped in a strip of white cotton before being sealed in a waterproof bag. The purchaser slipped the book into an inner pocket of his jacket and shook the proprietor's hand again before stepping out into the street.