Channeling Cleopatra (21 page)

"Your pilot's license, ma'am?"

"Is on file," she said airily.

Duke cheered her silently.

The guy shrugged. Go figure rich
bitches.

That was all there was to
it. One word from the lady, and she/Duke and the bike were loaded
aboard.
Hey, all right,
Duke said as they climbed into the pilot's seat. Gretchen felt
a little skeptical, a little scared, but also thrilled. First a
motorcycle and now an airplane!

By the time they landed on
Kefalos, she was full of internal giggles of pride.
I
am feeling just like
Mrs. Emma Peel from the
Avengers
stories of the television,
ja?

The Kefalos airstrip was all but deserted,
and Gretchen made the landing without much nervousness.

Well, now for the moment of
truth,
Duke said.
Cross your fingers that Chimera's here. Probably is. I mean,
what's he going to do in the middle of a disaster in Egypt? Bandage
knees?

Chimera
—
or half of Chimera
—
was once a very fine surgeon of the
eyes. No doubt there are many eyes injured in such a
catastrophe.

No doubt. But we'll have to hope the doc
didn't decide to jump in and be helpful just yet.

Duke was frustrated that Gretchen needed
extra muscle to unload the bike from the plane.

I am not a weakling,
she protested.
It is a
large machine, and I am a small woman. I have been working out
regularly.

Sorry, I'm just not used to having a
different body.

And I am not used to having
a mind that thinks I should be able to do such things,
she replied tartly.

They checked in with the Greek air traffic
manager at the strip, who looked a little shocked but very
appreciative at Mrs. Wolfe's new image. He told them that Mr. Wolfe
had departed some time ago for Alexandria with several of the
senior management executives and had arranged to pick up Dr. Faruk
on Mykonos en route. Dr. Chimera was not among them and was still
on the island, according to the log.

They rode down the winding road, past the
whitewashed buildings that terraced the mountainside, their red
roofs and brightly painted doors faded by the moonlight gilding the
sea. The ride down to the beach didn't take long, and it was there
they found Chimera, deep in conversation with a young girl who
seemed to be crying.

Duke recognized her.
That's Maddy, one of the lab techs. What's eating
her, do you suppose?

The headlamp of the bike caught the gleam of
the tears on her face before Gretchen doused the light and walked
it over to where Chimera and the girl sat on a low wall.

"Gretchen!" Chimera said, sounding both
surprised and relieved to see her.

Maddy's eyes grew wide and scared.

"What's the matter, honey?" Duke asked
without waiting for Gretchen to translate it into her own speech
patterns.

Chimera suddenly became very still and
looked up expectantly.

"Who are you?" Maddy asked.

"This is Mr. Wolfe's wife, Gretchen,
Madelaine," Chimera said.

"No," the girl said, her voice so high and
tight that it hurt to hear it. "I know that. I've seen Mrs. Wolfe.
Who else are you?"

Chimera regarded her uneasily, "You know of
the blending?"

"That's what I was trying to tell you. I
monitored the whole thing."

"Then you know that Mrs. Wolfe is blended
with Queen Cleopatra?"

"Uh . . . there was a little hitch there,
Doc," Duke said again.

"Oh,
no,"
Madelaine said. "Oh, Duke, I am
so sorry. If I had known what he was going to do, I would have
tried to stop him!"

"What who was going to do, Maddy?" Duke
asked. Gretchen was fuming inside her own body, but he reminded her
that he was the one skilled in interrogation of suspects, and Maddy
was looking more suspicious by the minute.

Gretchen put in her own question,
nevertheless. "You mean that you knew the donor code Dr. Chimera
blended with me was not Cleopatra's, but this—this Old Frau
Hubbard's?" she asked.

"No. Yes. I mean, yes, I knew that, but not
at once. I had no idea what they meant to do. The contessa told me
only that she wanted to privately monitor the scientific
information regarding the Cleopatra specimen passing between Dr.
Chimera and Dr. Hubbard. She said she was protecting her investment
and that she and Dr. Faruk—Gabriella—had a much better use for the
specimen than to indulge the fantasy of some rich housefrau.
Gabriella has been trying to rouse the women of Egypt to be more
autonomous and has been rescuing and providing a safe house for
other Middle Eastern women seeking to escape oppressive conditions
among their own families in their own homelands. She even provided
the weapon Malik Massad's sister Farida hid beneath her abaya when
she assassinated her brother for ordering the murder of her
husband. Meanwhile, Dr. Faruk hid Farida's children and had them
sent to the contessa, who sent them on to relatives in the west,
though of course they couldn't save Farida."

"What?"
Chimera and Gretchen/Duke asked at once.

But Madelaine was continuing, "So I thought
it was all right. Gabriella said that if she could also become
Cleopatra and gain the queen's knowledge of what lay beneath
Alexandria, she would have some leverage with the government for
restoring its wealth. She thought she could probably even get
herself put into some high office and make real changes. But I
never knew she and the contessa were going to hurt anybody.
Honestly."

"They hurt someone, the contessa and Dr.
Faruk?"

"Yes, Dr. Faruk said Duke was carrying the
specimen, and there was an accident. Oh, she acted very sorry and
brought the contessa's doctor from Mykonos, but he had a terrible
head injury and should have been taken to a hospital. Instead, the
doctor and Dr. Faruk operated on him there. I didn't realize who it
was until they had finished and I had checked the donor sample. I
went to tell Dr. Faruk that it was the wrong one, and that's when I
realized it belonged to Duke. I didn't reveal that I knew you,
Duke, because I realized the plotting was deeper than I had known.
Dr. Faruk was mad, I think, that she hadn't gotten Cleopatra's
donation after all, and she decided to play a trick on you, Dr.
Chimera, by sending Duke's DNA—"

"A trick on Chimera?" Gretchen fumed in high
Teutonic indignation. "What about me?"

"Yeah," Duke said. "Not to mention me!" Then
he realized the girl had stopped only because they had interrupted.
Her face was still quivering with anxiety and guilt. He felt
something inside his own little corner of Gretchen try to crawl off
into a corner and hide, then he told it to get its ass out there
and face the music. "There's something else though, isn't there,
Maddy?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. I would have tried to stop
him if I knew, but while Dr. Faruk was taking the specimen to
Mykonos to be brought to Dr. Chimera, Dr. Benoit had to go to the
lavatory. Another guest had come—that horrible Mr. Rasmussen. I'm
afraid of him. So is Nessa, Dr. Benoit. I think she's going to
leave Mykonos . . ."

Duke knew she was getting off track and
nodded encouragingly. "Why?"

"Well, the door to my office was open, and I saw
his reflection, Mr. Rasmussen's I mean, on my computer screen as he
walked past the doorway toward the room where Duke was. And then,
in a few moments, I heard the doctor come back and groan and say
something like, 'Oh, no.' When I went to see what was the matter,
she told me. Duke was—is—you are, I mean . . ."

"Dead," he said, Gretchen's voice giving the
word a flat, hard intonation that sounded even more final in
German. "I guess rumors of my recovery were highly exaggerated,
huh?"

He turned off then, as if being told of his
death had killed something in him—in the part of him that still
existed inside Gretchen. Distantly, he heard her speaking with
Chimera and Maddy: Chimera asking did she want to reverse the
process and Gretchen mumbling something noncommittal but negative,
Maddy whining and crying some more. What finally broke through to
him was when Chimera said, "Very well, as you wish. You go to
Alexandria, tell Wilhelm what happened, and let Leda know about . .
. what happened, at the same time obtaining the other specimen from
her. In the meantime, Maddy," and it was this last part that really
cut through to Duke as if he had suddenly been switched back on
again, "what did they do with Duke's body?"

CHAPTER 20

Ducking to avoid the wing, Leda waddled
toward the little plane as the passengers were disembarking. There
was Wolfie—good old Wolfie—and right behind him the other person
she most wanted to see, Gabriella!

Before they could exchange greetings,
however, the runway manager grabbed her arm from behind and handed
her a cordless phone. "For you, Dr. Hubbard. It's Dr. Welsh from
the site."

Leda's heart leapt.
Pete had found Dad! What a relief! What a
blessing! Thank you, Bast!

"Punkin, you'd better hightail it out of
Egypt fast if you don't want to spend the rest of your days in a
really wet jail cell. Namid has called out the gendarmes, and
they're after you for violating the antiquities act"

"Huh? How did you find out?"

"Never mind, just move it. I'll call Nucore
HQ on Kefalos if I hear anything about Duke."

Gosh, he was cooperative. Perhaps he was
trying to get rid of her? But no, there was a vehicle outside on
the road now.

Wolfe and Gabriella were within earshot, and
she pulled his ear to her mouth and said, "Dr. Namid, the inspector
of antiquities, is trying to have me arrested because he thinks I
took an artifact I was examining. The truth is, it's still in
Egypt. It's in the hole that swallowed the beluga. But I don't have
time to explain that."

"Don't worry," Wolfe said, patting her
shoulder. "It is good you're leaving. I'll straighten it out. Namid
has been difficult to deal with all along. I will need to speak to
his superiors again. I'll notify you on Kefalos when it's safe for
you to return."

"Leda, you're leaving?" Gabriella shouted.
She looked like hell. Even in the darkness, Leda could see the deep
shadows under her eyes and the way the curl in her hair had
flattened. "I wanted so much to talk to you!" Gabriella enveloped
her in a big enthusiastic hug that Leda pulled away from just as
the headlights of the probable police vehicle swung through the
gate.

"Later!" she shouted, and climbed aboard.
With the pilot's help, she pulled the ramp up after her. Wolfe gave
the pilot a frantic signal, and she started the engines again and
began to taxi down the runway. The vehicle tried to catch up and
block the plane's takeoff, but Wolfe blocked the vehicle. This
wasn't exactly the way to endear himself to Namid for a cozy chat
about why the antiquities inspector was being unfair, but then,
Wolfe had said he didn't intend to talk with the unreasonable Namid
anyway.

Leda didn't stay awake long enough to see
the quake damage from the air. She slept all the way to Kefalos.
Once there, she didn't bother trying to phone but stumbled down the
hill to Chimera's villa and knocked on the door. The night was
balmy and calm, and her friend took a long time to answer, though
lights were visible in the lab area. She napped briefly against the
red door while waiting.

Had she been more alert, she would have seen
the troubled expression on Chimera's face.

"Come in, Leda. One of your beers remains in
the fridge."

"No, I just need some sleep," she said.

"Of course. But first we have something to
tell you."

"It can't wait?"

"It could, yes. It concerns your
father."

"What about him? Do you know where he is? Is
he okay?"

"You should sit down."

"Okay, but really, how is he?"

"He's not himself at all," Chimera said.

"In what way?" she asked, fearing what was
coming even without having any idea what to expect.

"He is blended into Gretchen Wolfe," Chimera
said in a quiet, guilt-ridden voice. Leda's reaction was
unexpected.

"Dad?"
she asked and laughed. At first it was just a snort of
laughter and then another, and finally she was laughing so hard she
had tears running down her face and was gasping for breath and
still she couldn't stop laughing.

When she could speak again she giggled, "I'm
sorry—it's just so funny—he must be in hog heaven! Dad inside the
body of a much younger woman wealthy enough to buy any toy he
wants. Hoo boy!"

"They did not seem to find it as amusing as
you do, Leda. Once his DNA was transferred, your father was
apparently murdered."

"What?" she asked sharply.

"We did not mean for it to come out so
harshly, Leda, but you must know. Gretchen, with your father, came
to see us just as one of the employees at this facility was
admitting to having assisted with the interception of your
communications with us regarding Cleopatra's material."

Chimera explained what the girl, Madelaine,
had told them. "We will go in the morning to the contessa and ask
her to give us the body of your father."

"Not by yourself, you won't," Leda said.
"That bitch and her snake of a niece owe me big time, but for all
we know, the contessa could have you killed, too."

Chimera waved away her objection. "Not so.
We are necessary to her plans and those of her confederates,
according to Madelaine. We will take some of the security force
with us. And of course, you are welcome to come if you wish
but—"