African Ice (25 page)

“That bastard,” Travis vented. “He's running his own operation under the guise of an established mining company. So it was definitely Kerrigan who gave Mugumba the orders to kill us and to wipe out the previous expedition.”

“Or expeditions. Who knows how long this prick has been looking for this formation. We could be his third, fourth, tenth, who knows?” Sam added.

“We know one thing for sure,” Alain said quietly. “He's a cold-blooded murderer who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal.” He paused for a moment, intent on his fingertips. “And you two,” he said, looking to Sam and Travis, “are the only ones who know where they are.”

“Is there anything we've done since we arrived in Cairo that could lead him to us?” Samantha asked, moving away from the window. “The money you gave Greg Adamson for piecing Troy back together, was that from Kerrigan's account?”

“Yes, but I eliminated any paper trail. I withdrew the funds from the Swiss account, but routed them through the Caymans, then the Bahamas before making the deposit into Greg's account. The things you can do with satellite technology and a Chase Manhattan customer card.”

“Smart thinking, Travis.” Sam smiled at him. “Anything else?” Both men shook their heads. The trio had spent most of their time in Cairo sequestered in the apartment, and a few thousand dollars in cash had enticed their Lear pilot to file an erroneous flight plan, leaving that as a dead end. Any trail that Kerrigan and his men could pick up in the Congo would go cold long before it showed the way to Cairo.

“You mentioned using the Internet to watch for an announcement by Gem-Star in the
New York Times
,” Travis said, motioning to the computer that sat on the desk only a few feet away. “Can Kerrigan get a fix on the location where you're signing on to the Internet?”

“He could if I hadn't spoofed my IP address in case Kerrigan put a sniffer out,” she responded.

“What the hell did you just say?”

“I set up a proxy; it's a kind of firewall that protects my Internet signature from anyone who knows my IP address and is looking for me.”

“Without it, they could track you here?”

“With the right tools, yes,” she said. “Kerrigan probably has a person somewhere monitoring things electronically, and the first thing he'd do if he's looking for us is put a sniffer out on all our IP addresses.”

“What are the chances they pick Cairo off the map as the most likely place for us to go?” Alain asked Travis.

“That's a possibility. The choices coming out of northern Congo are limited. Casablanca, Tangiers, Abu Dhabi, or Tripoli. And Cairo, of course. If they're smart, they'll make an educated guess.”

“And where would that put them?”

Travis shrugged. “Most likely Cairo.” His eyes met hers and the words did not need to be said. They were in a precarious situation. Armed, but short on ammunition. Waiting to be ambushed without knowing whom their attackers would be. Unable to access their private bank accounts or use their credit cards. Waiting. Just waiting for Kerrigan to make his move.

Flight 843 from London touched down on Cairo's steaming tarmac just before noon. The business-class passengers deplaned first and Patrick Kerrigan led the way. He scanned the crowded terminal, knowing a driver from the hotel would be present to pick him up. The sign was in Arabic, but he recognized the characters that formed his name, introduced himself and slipped into the limo. The car was air-conditioned and quiet, blocking out most of the omnipresent horn honking that greeted every visitor to Cairo. He watched the city through the windows, marveling at what a cesspool it had become. Sixteen million people jammed into a space large enough to fit one million could produce nothing but a disaster. The air was heavy with the acrid stench of diesel and gas fumes, mixed with the fetid exhaust from the factories. Kerrigan kept the windows tightly closed as they entered the congested quarters of Al-Abidin and neared the Semiramis Hotel. It was a moderate defense against the toxic air, mostly ineffective.

The limo swung south onto Sari Kurnis an-Nil and then turned away from the river toward the Semiramis Inter Continental Hotel. The driver waved to the security guards and cruised up the sweeping drive to the front entrance, jumped from the car and opened the passenger door. Kerrigan tipped the man and entered the hotel lobby. A friendly blast of cool air hit him as he strode through the foyer, glancing at the terraced fountains and huge pillars that stretched thirty feet to the sculptured ceiling. He checked in and was shown to the most luxurious of the hotel's seventy-three suites. He flipped open his laptop and connected to the net. Six new messages awaited retrieval. Four were from Internet companies that somehow managed to breach his firewalls with their stupid giveaway offers and he immediately deleted them. One was from Gem-Star's corporate office, the other from Liam O'Donnell. He ignored the Gem-Star e-mail and opened O'Donnell's communiqué.

His hired killer was en route from Ireland with three of his men and would arrive at six o'clock Cairo time. They constituted the first of two teams; the second group of three mercenaries were to remain in Belfast until needed. Kerrigan checked his watch—five hours until their arrival. He phoned down to the front desk and checked on the reservations for Liam and his men. One suite and three additional rooms were confirmed. He opened the Gem-Star file and perused it. His secretary was wondering why she couldn't contact him at his London hotel, and could he please phone in? He placed an international call, knowing he'd get her voice mail as Cairo was seven hours ahead of New York, putting the Big Apple time at six A.M. His secretary was dedicated, but not
that
dedicated. He let her know he'd call in later and hung up. He placed another overseas call, this time to the Washington, D.C., area. A man answered on the second ring.

“It's me,” Kerrigan said. “Anything yet?”

“Wait a minute while I scramble the call,” his contact at the National Security Agency said, and for a moment the line went blank. “Okay, we're clean on this end, you okay over there?”

“Hotel phone, but no one's interested in what I'm up to over here. It should be all right.”

“Okay.” The voice sounded hesitant. “I traced the latest debit from your Swiss account to a branch of the National Bank of the Cayman Islands. The money was forwarded from that account fifteen minutes later to the Bahamas, but I've run into some snags. I've got the transit number, but I can't access the actual account information.”

“Why not?” Kerrigan asked, already irritated.

“They used a Canadian bank, the CIBC, and their security measures are state of the art. It's going to take a while to hack into their system.”

“I pay you a lot of money to get information for me. Please get it.”

“Yes, sir. As quickly as possible.”

“Any hits on her e-mail?”

“No. She's either not signing on to the Internet, or she's put some sort of proxy in place. Either way, she's invisible right now.”

“Keep monitoring her IP address and concentrate on Cairo. Get a list of every local server and plug into them. If she comes online, I want to know when and where.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kerrigan hung up and dialed an inside line at the Central Intelligence Agency at Langley. He received the same information from his CIA mole as he had from the man employed with the NSA. Kerrigan reiterated the instructions about tracing Samantha's IP address and terminated the call. He stood in the center of the room for a few minutes, trying to place himself in Carlson's shoes. What would they do? Where would they go? He felt reasonably sure that Liam O'Donnell was correct in his assumption that they were in Cairo. But where? He strode over to the window and looked down over the madness that stretched almost to the pyramids of Giza. Sixteen million people, and he was looking for three or four. Needles in the haystack, and this was one mother of a haystack.

He turned from the window and changed out of his business casual into a black tux. He slipped a thin billfold into his breast pocket and took the elevator to the main floor. The casino entrance was just off the lobby and he entered, asking for the baccarat tables. One of the casino managers appeared from nowhere and insisted on personally escorting him to the private gaming rooms and seating him opposite the dealer. Kerrigan extracted his billfold and placed a note on the table. The pit boss nodded at the new player and placed the equivalent of two hundred fifty thousand U.S. dollars in Egyptian pounds on the table. He slid the money across to Kerrigan.

“Good luck, sir,” he said politely. Kerrigan just nodded and looked to the cards being dealt. He had at least five hours to kill, and a quarter million dollars would either carry him through or make him some serious money. He didn't care which.

Liam O'Donnell and his men were scheduled from London to Cairo aboard a British Airways A-340 Airbus. The flight was rough, with violent turbulence at 35,000 feet. The pilot opted to try 31,000 feet, but that almost proved disastrous. As the warm air rising from the Mediterranean collided with the cold Atlantic breezes, it threatened to tear the plane apart. Cabin service was suspended, then oxygen masks dropped from the overhead consoles, sending frightened passengers into a frenzy. Liam watched in bewilderment as act after act of extreme cowardice confronted him. The woman beside him screamed hysterically until he gave her a stiff elbow to her temple, knocking her senseless. A few of the calmer, more rational passengers actually clapped when he shut her up. They were midway through the flight before the pilot managed to drop below the opposing air masses and get the plane back under control. His seatmate slept until they began their descent into Cairo.

Once on the ground, O'Donnell moved efficiently through customs. The remainder of the first team joined him at the luggage carousel. They retrieved their bags and left the airport in a Mercedes taxi, giving the driver the address to the Semiramis Hotel. His watch, corrected to Cairo time, read just after seven P.M. when they checked in to the hotel. The desk clerk informed Mr. O'Donnell that Mr. Kerrigan was at the baccarat table in the casino and to please change into something formal and join him. O'Donnell found his room, threw his luggage on the bed, changed into some freshly pressed dress pants and headed out.

He found his boss easily enough. A small crowd had gathered at the entrance to the baccarat area, watching the high-stakes action. Kerrigan sat at a forty-five degree angle to the gateway, allowing him a peripheral view of the gawkers. He noticed O'Donnell immediately, and waved for him to enter. The guard posted at the break in the ropes hesitated for a moment, reluctant to let the Irishman in without a tux, but a quick flick of the pit boss's wrist and he moved aside. O'Donnell moved to Kerrigan's side and watched the hand play out. Kerrigan held eight and a half points, a winner unless the banker drew nine. He slid a pile of chips into the betting area and closed his bid. The banker declared eight and he raked in the pot. He motioned to the pit boss to cash him in and credit it to his room. He tipped the banker handsomely and left the room with O'Donnell.

“It looked like you had about one hundred thousand dollars in chips,” O'Donnell said as they walked through the jumble of slot machines toward the door. “Not bad.”

“Unless you consider that I started with two-fifty. Chump change.” They didn't speak again until they reached Kerrigan's suite and both men settled into the easy chairs with a scotch in hand. “Who did you bring with you?”

“Brent, Tony and Paul,” Liam answered. “They have better skills for close-in fighting. Street to street—the kind of stuff you get in a congested city. They're out picking up their weapons.”

“Brandt came through okay?” Kerrigan asked, referring to a nefarious German they had used on numerous occasions to arm themselves in foreign countries.

“As usual. He has a depot in the Masakin Al-Waila Al-Kabir district, in the northeast section of the city. It's two blocks from the Meteorological Services, and get this—one block from the National Guard headquarters.”

“Brandt's got balls all right,” Kerrigan said. “He should for what we pay him.”

O'Donnell nodded. “Any hits on Carlson's location?”

“Not yet, but it won't be long. We've traced a withdrawal she made from the expedition's Swiss account three days ago to the Cayman Islands and then to Grand Bahama. The Canadian bankers on the island are rigorous, almost impenetrable, in their security. Almost. My men in Washington will find out where the money was transferred to when it left the Bahamas.”

“So it's just a matter of time,” Liam said.

“Yes. Once your men are armed, keep them ready,” Kerrigan answered. “And speaking of being armed, the feedback I got from the soldiers who survived the jungle firefight was that our targets left with nothing but a few guns. No boxes of any sort.”

“No ammunition.” O'Donnell saw where Kerrigan was leading. “I'll check with Brandt as to where Carlson and her team will most likely find someone to sell them ammunition, and have my men watch for them to show up. There probably won't be more than a handful of places to buy clips for automatic weapons.”

Kerrigan nodded and watched his team leader leave the upscale suite. He finished his scotch and poured another one, this time decanting the liquor until the ice cubes began to float. He sipped it slowly, enjoying the burning sensation on his throat. He moved to the window and stared out at the Nile River. It was murky, almost dark brown, and seemed stagnant, incapable of supporting life. Yet from this overused, exploited river an entire nation thrived. Millions of people and animals, crops and trees existed in the harsh desert environment that typified northern Africa for one reason only. The Nile. But it was an enigma. It gave hope, then took it away. It receded, then flooded. It was alive, an entity that knew it held the power of life or death over the living organisms that amassed on its banks as it meandered through the wastelands to the Mediterranean Sea. From the dark liquid, at first disgusting and putrid, came life. The silt and crud suspended in the water could be filtered and the water purified. Appearances were indeed deceiving.