Grains of Truth (20 page)

Oh, well, at least he was here now and she could relax and try to swallow a few bites before tackling the nerve-racking job she’d created for herself. Since embarking upon this madness, she’d basically stopped eating, as well as sleeping. In addition to all the stress, Julia remained extremely careful about what she put in her mouth. One near-death experience due to invasive microscopic creatures was more than enough.

The bad news was that this was bound to soon have a serious deleterious impact on her mental capacity—if it hadn’t already. The good news was that she could once again easily zip all her pants. One can never be too rich or too thin, she thought to herself, giggling out loud. Unfortunately, her inexplicable mirth occurred during a lull in the conversation and Henrietta’s head swiveled in her direction with a decided look of concern.

“Sorry to be late,” said Mohamed smoothly as he slipped into the chair next to Julia. “Natalia was impressed with the quarry today and had many questions about it.”

“I’ll bet,” muttered Julia. Natalia and her mother were among a cast of hundreds, probably thousands, who threw themselves at the dreamy-eyed men they encountered on their tours. This one happened to be young, rich and particularly well-endowed. Who could blame Mohamed for enjoying the attention? No doubt she had lots more questions for him, which could take all night.

Not tonight, honey. He has other plans. 

Turning away from Mohamed, Julia gave Alexander an overly-sweet smile as she inquired, “And how did you enjoy the sights today, Alex?”

Her demeanor towards him had thawed considerably, he observed with skepticism. Their paths had crossed a couple of times, and they’d enjoyed an impromptu afternoon tea in a friendly group at one of the hotels on the corniche. Interesting.

He returned the saccharin smile with a tight one. “Quite fascinating. How the ancients managed to produce those multi-ton obelisks is a real mystery. The logistics of mining granite on such a large scale and transporting it without machinery is a remarkable accomplishment.”

The remainder of the meal passed in convivial conversation with those around the table. Even the predatory Fiona somehow managed not to blatantly offend anyone. Mohamed excused himself when the coffee arrived, proclaiming the need to make arrangements for the rest of the evening.

“Don’t worry, Julia, everything is under control,” he assured her as they passed on the staircase twenty minutes later. He slipped her an envelope. “My friend on the desk came through. Bryant is joining me, along with Gregor and Christina and a couple of the other passengers, at ten o’clock. I’m taking them to a nightclub that features the best belly dancer in Aswan. We will be off the boat late into the night. Inshallah.”

“No. No Inshallah on this one, Mohamed. You make sure to keep him away. Damn sure.” Knowing as she did how much Mohamed loved belly dancing, Julia had no doubt he planned to be off the boat half the night.

She could only hope that Alex darling would be equally enthralled.

Chapter 24

Julia watched from the rail on the upper deck as the rowdy group, mostly men except for Christina and the insidious Fiona, walked across the gangway onto shore. All Mohamed needed to do now was to keep them away long enough for her to complete her little burgling project. Restlessly, she plopped down in a lounge chair with a book, to wait for the other passengers to retire to their cabins. It wouldn’t do to be caught breaking and entering.

By eleven-thirty she was finding it impossible to concentrate, becoming increasingly agitated to get on with the evening’s criminal activities. Did these people never sleep? The last surviving trouble-makers were an older married couple from India. After all their years together, what in the world could they possibly have to talk about in such annoying animation?

At last they departed, her glare of disapproval prodding them on from over the top of her book. Slapping it shut, she went to her cabin and quickly changed into jeans and a large, shapeless blouse. A cotton scarf wrapped around her head covered her hair and most of her face. All was quiet in the corridor, so she slipped from her cabin and glided toward Alexander’s. Fortunately, it was on the same level as hers, the last one on the other side of the central stairway. After what seemed a century of trying to get the key to work in the lock, she entered and almost fainted with relief to be inside. Not now, she told herself severely, you can faint later. Just get on with it.

The cabin was an exact replica of her own.

Somehow, she’d managed to persuade herself that discovering anything incriminating before the call to Brad might help circumvent the terrorist plot. Mohamed remained unconvinced. She searched the room thoroughly, being careful to leave everything exactly as she found it. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. No sign of poor Zed’s wretched bag—or the alleged gun. Damn.

She withdrew a card from her pocket that Mohamed had managed to procure, along with the cabin key, and entered the numbers scrawled on the face of it onto the keypad of the safe. It clicked open on the first try. Huh. Nice to know how easily members of the crew could open the cabin safes. Unfortunately, it contained only cash and a slim, old-fashioned address book. No guns. No bags belonging to murdered secret agents.

Oh, hell, she thought in frustration, I need to get out of here. Pocketing the card, she closed the safe and hurried to the door. As she reached for the knob, she heard a key being inserted in the lock on the other side. She snatched her hand away and watched in horrified fascination as the knob began to turn.

Maybe, she thought frantically, it’s the cabin boy.

Maybe not.

Wildly, she looked around for a place to hide, to escape. Not enough time to reach the open window and jump into the river. Turning toward the bathroom, she ducked her head as the door opened and Alexander Bryant entered his cabin.

His movements were ominously swift and chillingly sure. Out of the corner of her eye she stared with pure mortal terror as he deftly closed the door with one hand while pulling a gun from inside his jacket with the other.

Speechless, head still bent, her eyes locked on the sheen of the barrel as he directed, “Don’t move a muscle or make the slightest sound.”

~

An expression of pure delight lit Mohamed’s features as he watched “Princess Tazzia” ripple the coins encircling her enticingly exposed and well-muscled abdomen. 

Gregor grinned as he leaned in. “Wow. And va-va-voom.”

Reluctantly turning to the Belgian to reply, Mohamed felt an unpleasant jolt to find an empty chair. “Where’s Alex?”

Gregor shrugged. “Went to the men’s room.”

Mohamed nearly turned over his chair as he got up. The man was nowhere to be found. One of the boys begging from the tourists outside the entrance of the Oasis Club said a man fitting Alex’s description left a while ago. He dropped a few coins in the boy’s grimy palm and hastily returned to the group.

“Gregor, I must leave. Something has come up. Will you please see that everyone returns to the boat safely?”

“Sure, what’s up?” the Belgian called after Mohamed’s already retreating back.

He raced along the corniche, dodging tourists, peddlers and scrounging dogs. I let him get away. The words rang in his ears, over and over, like a broken record.

He’d known this was a mistake. Mohamed cursed himself for allowing Julia to undertake this foolish scheme. The man was dangerous. He carried a gun. He was a notorious arms dealer. In all that was holy, he wished he’d dissuaded her from this stupid plan.

His pace did not slow as he approached the narrow gangway. The turbaned heads of several boatmen turned as he flew past, startled to see him move in such unusual haste. Going to Julia’s cabin was out of the question so he went to his own, grabbing up the phone to dial her number. No answer. He struggled to suppress mounting alarm, left his cabin and tore up the stairs to the upper deck. His eyes raked the area for sight of her. Nothing. What now?

~

Julia’s head wobbled like a hula girl on a dashboard as her frenzied brain sought an excuse to extract herself from the line of fire. That was going to be damned difficult as he stood less than three feet away.

“Step back slowly and sit on the bed with your hands on your knees.” The gun didn’t waver. “And don’t even think of doing anything foolish.”

Too late for that acerbic bit of advice. She sank down onto the bed, hands on knees like a good criminal caught in the act, to watch him back guardedly to the couch beneath the open window. Lights on the other side of the river twinkled behind him. He sat warily, lips compressed in a grim line.

“All right, Julia. Tell me exactly what this is all about.” His eyes had turned to an opaque gray.

She wanted to wipe away the beads of sweat that had sprung up on her forehead but didn’t dare raise a hand. “Oh, Alex,” she said with a nervous laugh, “it was meant to be a joke. Like the stuffed T-shirt prank the other night.” It sounded lame, even to her ears.

“Don’t insult my intelligence. Please. Let me tell you what I already know and then you can take it from there.” His cool tone contradicted her awareness of his body, coiled tight as a spring, ready to respond instantly to any misstep on her part.

“You were seen with the man in the market in Kom Ombo just before his murder. You were also observed, prior to that, in conversation with a questionable character in Esna. You and your friend Mohamed have been behaving like a couple of subversives and I want to know now—right this minute—what your connection to the dead man was. Or I’ll turn you over to the local police.”

Slack-jawed and glassy-eyed at the unexpected threat, fear temporarily forgotten, Julia gasped. “You’ll turn me over to the police? That’s a good one. You’re the one carrying an illegal weapon. You’re the arms dealer who supplies terrorists with the means to kill thousands of innocent people. And…,” she choked as she caught herself in the nick of time before accusing him outright of shooting Zed in cold-blood. The man was, after all, pointing a gun in her general direction.

Narrowing those cold, hard eyes, he slowly lowered the gun, resting it on his tensed thigh. He eyed her speculatively before responding in a deceptively reasonable voice. “You’re quite well-informed. Tell me more.”

Julia bristled with indignation. “I’m not gonna tell you anything, Mr. Bryant. I may be guilty of bad judgment for illicitly entering your cabin, but I don’t think you’ll risk exposure by calling in the police.” She folded her arms defiantly. “Or anyone else.”  

She did have a point.

Silence drifted down between them.

She found his eventual response disconcerting. Sighing wearily, he shook his head and replaced the gun in the holster inside his jacket. He leaned back and spread both arms out across the back of the sofa. “All right. I’ll make a few educated guesses. You’re probably working for some ill-informed, ill-prepared branch of the secret service. You must’ve been sent here to make contact with an agent who’s been collecting information on militants in the area. How’m I doin’ so far?”

Julia glared mutinously as he continued. “The man killed in Kom Ombo was either your contact or a messenger. Now that he’s dead, you don’t know what to do. Communicating directly with headquarters is not only difficult, it could prove fatal. You’ve managed to discover a few things about my background that’s led you to believe I’m involved with the bad guys. You decided to search my cabin in hopes of finding evidence to that effect.”

Julia saw a light flash in his eye as another idea evidently dawned on him. “Or possibly you even suspect that I pulled the trigger.”

She frowned down at her hands in confusion. What could she say? It was as if he could read her like a book.

His voice softened as he added, “And I’ll bet the farm you’re not a professional spook. How in the world did you get involved in this mess, Julia?”

This was, of course, the question Mohamed asked her when she’d initially confessed. And the question she’d kept asking herself, again and again, since seeing Zed’s body in the dirt. To her mortification, a big fat tear formed at the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. The situation was becoming more complicated and treacherous by the second. But she could not cry in front of this man, this…this killer. She simply could not.

Alexander felt a long-dormant stirring deep inside. Here before him sat this beautiful, usually intelligent woman, on the verge of breaking into tears. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to restrain himself from the impulse that throbbed throughout his body. The desire to take her in his arms and hold her tight almost superseded reason. Almost.

The information he’d learned from Jalal earlier that afternoon had left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable and undecided regarding Julia Grant. The militants—the bad guys—were onto her. He had no idea how far they would go if they learned that she in fact was an agent, albeit an unlikely one. Her life could be on the line here, and he was tempted to tell her just that. First, he urgently needed to convince her that they were on the same side.

Julia struggled for control, saved ironically by the passing of a boisterous party boat on the river, music blaring and blazing with lights.

“Listen to me, Julia. I am not an arms dealer, not in the literal sense of the term. My business is strictly confined to that of an advisor on practice and procedure for defense, and recommendations for the appropriate hardware. Those services are never offered to militants or terrorists.” The gray eyes, bent on persuasion, fixed on hers with a compelling force, as if he could will her to accept his words as truth.