Grains of Truth (21 page)

“Then what are you doing here?” she asked in a voice heavy with doubt.

He subjected her to that penetrating stare for a few seconds longer before answering. “Because you seem to be involved in all this, I’ll tell you, but only what you need to know—for your own safety. As you’re aware, I’m a retired Army officer, and, yes, now a military advisor and consultant. During my service I spent several years in England working with British Intelligence. I live near London now, and have maintained relationships with a few of my former British colleagues.”

He paused, considering how much more to divulge. “Occasionally, I’m asked to undertake fact-finding missions for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. My position and reputation allow me access to situations that would be difficult for their regular operatives to infiltrate quickly.”

He spoke in a low, steady voice. His eyes never left hers for a second. She found his explanation peculiarly unsettling and at the same time reassuring.

“Recent intelligence has led the Brits to believe that a terrorist operation is in planning here in Egypt. MI-6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, has requested that I look into it—unofficially. Fact-finding, that’s all. No selling of arms to terrorists. No assassinations. For the record, I did not kill the man in Kom Ombo. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

A sharp knock at the door sent Julia’s heart to her throat. 

“Commander Bryant, are you there? Is everything all right?” Mohamed’s muffled voice came from the corridor, heavy with concern.

Julia instinctively knew the concern was for her and not the cabin’s regular occupant. Alexander sprang to the door as he cautioned her to keep still. He reached it in three long strides, opening it halfway. 

“Come in,” he ordered authoritatively, standing aside to give Mohamed clear sight of Julia sitting ramrod straight on the bed.

With no thought whatsoever for his own safety, he brushed past Alexander, grabbed Julia by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. 

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she breathed, nodding her head. 

Alexander watched the interaction between them with interest as he closed the door. “Everyone is fine, Mohamed. Let’s all just try to keep our cool.” He leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest, assessing the situation.

Christ, he thought, what the hell have I gotten myself into here? He scrutinized the pair, oblivious for the moment of anything save one another.

“We need to talk. But not here. It’s not safe. Julia, you leave first. Go to your cabin and pull yourself together. We’ll meet you up on the deck in ten minutes. Go now,” Alex ordered.

And she went. Without another word.

Mohamed regarded the other man while examining his own resentment with interest. What was going on here? Julia rarely took direction this meekly, from anyone. Something must have happened to alleviate her suspicions concerning the arms dealer.

He continued to study him while Alex glanced at his watch then commanded, “Let’s go.” 

When they stepped out into the corridor, they found a cabin boy loitering outside the door with a stack of towels across his arm.

“Sorry to cause concern. Only a touch of ‘pharaoh’s curse,’” Alex said in a voice convincingly tinged with embarrassment. “Nothing to worry about. Come along, I’ll buy you a drink.”

The boy smiled and bobbed his head as the two men walked away.

Chapter 25

Julia stomped back to her cabin and jerked open the door. “He must think I’m a complete fool,” she muttered as she ripped the scarf from her head. Turning on the tap at the bathroom sink, she splashed cold water on her burning face.

“Not that I give a damn.” She could care less what he thought of her. Or could she?

Everything had become so damn confusing. There were many layers of truth here, she reminded herself—very little black and white—only layer upon layer of ambiguous shades of gray. Nonetheless, there remained one inescapable truth: The terrorists were plotting their brutal attack, and she would do everything within her power to prevent it, regardless of what Mohamed or Alexander Bryant said.

She snatched up a towel and rubbed her cheeks with a vengeance. After an attempt at taming her hair and jabbing on some lipstick, she forced herself to try to calm down. By the time she reached the top of the stairs, her roller-coaster emotions had plummeted to a new low.

She spotted them in a fore corner and paused to catch her breath.

A few short hours ago Alex had been the unequivocal enemy. Now it appeared he’d become an ally. They stood side-by-side, watching her cross the deck, and the differences between the two men couldn’t have been more pronounced. Mohamed, the charming scholar, aware of—but choosing not to participate in—the perfidious politics swirling around him; a man of peace, in touch with his emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. Alexander represented the quintessential tightly-controlled, self-disciplined soldier; a warrior accustomed to giving orders. Orders that sometimes cost others their lives.

How could it be that she had simultaneous—and deeply intense—feelings for two such dissimilar men? Oh, my god! Her body jerked at the realization. I really do have feelings for him.

She didn’t mean Mohamed.

Her fingers came up to touch her cheek, irritated from the scratchy towel, as she joined them at the rail.

“Your face is red,” Mohamed said needlessly.

“Yes,” she replied gloomily, “in more ways than one. But we have more important things to talk about.”

Alex coughed, covering his mouth to hide an uncharacteristic grin. “I’ve brought Mohamed up to date with the same information we shared earlier.”

Mohamed nodded with apparent acceptance of the truth of what he’d been told. Interesting, thought Julia, that he seems this easily convinced. We both appear to be susceptible to “the Commander’s” authoritative air. Well, maybe that’s a good thing. Without question, he has far greater experience at this sort of thing than we do. If we could establish a basic level of trust, it would only increase the chance of stopping the attacks.

On the other hand, he may be a double-dealing, lying, snake-in-the-grass.

“All right, Julia,” Alex interrupted her troubled thoughts. “It’s time you filled me in on what your role is in this maneuver.”

Julia glanced at Mohamed and found his reproachful eyes on her. She cleared her throat and chose her words with care. “Your earlier assessment of the situation was mostly correct. Obviously, I’m not a professional ‘spook,’ as you called it. I was approached—recruited, if you will—by U.S. Intelligence to collect a communication on their behalf.” 

Alex noted her discomfiture as she conspicuously avoided looking back in Mohamed’s direction. “They chose me because I’ve made several recent trips here and Egyptian Intelligence has exempted me from suspicion as an agent. I picked up the message, coded of course, and have already forwarded it on. No idea what it contained. End of story.”

She turned to look out over the river while Alex studied her profile. Tight muscles around her mouth and the set line of her jaw aroused a tingling feeling of skepticism.

“But that’s not all, is it, Julia? What is it you’re not telling me?”

“Alexander, you are a very, very bad boy!” The shrill admonishment came from the lips of an incensed Fiona as she bore down on the triumvirate. “How could you leave me alone and unprotected in that den of iniquity?”

With ill-concealed aggravation, Alex turned away to face the on-coming assault, but not before saying under his breath, “We’ll have to continue this later. Meet me here tomorrow morning at seven.”

That would give him time to consider his options.

Fiona seized his arm, ignoring Julia and Mohamed as if they didn’t exist, and literally dragged the commanding ex-military officer away as easily as a poodle on a lead. It was all Julia could do not to burst out into loud, hysterical laughter. She covered her mouth with both hands and sputtered as she leaned over the rail, feeling real hysteria begin to build in the pit of her churning stomach.

“Control yourself, Julia. Please.” Lines of irritation etched gloomy grooves across Mohamed’s brow.

She gulped air. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Things have become much too complicated. Complicated and scary.”

He nodded, leaning with his back and elbows against the rail, watching Alex watch the two of them as the insufferable woman continued to reprimand him. “Do you think he’s to be trusted?”

“I have no idea. But, one way or the other, we’ll find out in the morning when I call San Francisco. After that, we’ll come straight back to the boat, collect our luggage, and get the hell out of here.” 

~

“It is a most inconvenient time for this,” complained Mohamed. He trailed Julia’s stalking figure along the corniche toward the Old Cataract Hotel at half-past five the next morning. Like most of his fellow countrymen, he was a creature of the night. “I hate rising this early, especially when it involves something as distasteful as this. We will probably not be allowed to enter the hotel grounds in any case, much less be able to place the call. Security there is very tight.”

The Old Cataract, as he well knew, was considered one of the finest hotels in Egypt, a bastion of elegance situated on well-guarded grounds and surrounded by a high, gated wall. 

“Well, we’ll have to think of something. There’s not a chance in hell I won’t be making that call on schedule.”

“You have been cursing a great deal lately, Julia. It’s most unbecoming.”

“Trust me, if I don’t get to that phone on time, you’ll hear words you never even knew existed. Not to mention everyone else within twenty miles of here.” She advanced with determination up to the uniformed man, asleep on a stool in the guardhouse inside a heavy wrought-iron gate.

Startled awake, the guard instinctively reached for a battered rifle propped against the wall. Mohamed spoke to him in soothing Arabic tones. The man shook his head from side-to-side with an unpleasant look on his face. Being awakened at this ungodly hour, even if he was technically on duty, hadn’t gone over well.

“Tell him we’re checking in,” Julia said through a forced smile.

After more head shaking and some arm waving, Mohamed slipped several bills into the man’s moist outstretched hand and steered Julia by the elbow through the gate and up the gravel drive. They entered through a large revolving glass door and walked quickly down a grand entrance hall to the reception desk. An immaculately suited desk clerk greeted them as Mohamed inquired in Arabic for directions to the phone booths. A lengthy conversation ensued that did not seem to bode well for their mission.

The clerk turned to address Julia in polite, precise English. “I am sorry, Madame. It is the policy of the hotel that the phone booths are for guests only.”

She flashed her best smile. “My name is Julia Grant and I’ll be checking into the hotel tomorrow. I have a reservation. I would be most grateful if you would extend me this courtesy. It’s urgent that I place a call to the United States. My mother is ill and I must speak with her doctor as soon as possible.”

Mohamed’s jaw dropped. The clerk, visibly enthralled by the tall, elegant woman and overwhelmed at the thought of her gratitude, bowed his head as if to royalty. “Of course, Madame Grant. Please follow me.”

“So much for hotel policy,” grumbled Mohamed, following them around a corner and down another long hall. They encountered no one else along the way. Because everyone with any sense is still asleep, he thought moodily. He also made a mental note to speak to Julia at the earliest possible opportunity regarding her shocking proficiency at concocting such a spontaneous, bald-faced lie.

Cursing and now lying. What was happening to his angel?

“Please let me know if you require any further assistance, Madame.” The clerk all but clicked his heels as he bowed again before departing back the way they’d come. A mistake must have been made somewhere because he knew for sure he held no reservation in Madame Grant’s name.

~

Alexander returned to the boat following an early morning walk after a restless night. He was making circuits around the upper deck, deep in thought, when he saw Julia and Mohamed emerge from the gangway and turn along the corniche, heading south.

“Oh, Christ,” he said under his breath, “what are those two up to now?” Without wasting a second, he sprinted down the stairs to follow the scheming, exasperating pair at a cautious distance.

Chapter 26

Debra Manning sniffed disdainfully as she removed dirty cups from the debris on the coffee table in Brad Caldwell’s office. Disapproval radiated from her like a corona.

Well, she’s got it right, thought Brad irritably. What a goddamn fiasco. The meeting had been a long and contentious one. The message from Zed caused a predictable uproar. Even their small group couldn’t agree on how best to share the information within the dysfunctional U.S. Intelligence agencies, so how the hell were they going to decide how to pass it along to all the other countries involved?

And how were they supposed to verify the mind-boggling plot? Their undercover agent, whose presence had supposedly been unknown to Egyptian Intelligence, was dead. His unconfirmed communiqué had been passed on by a civilian with no credentials whatsoever.