Shiva (35 page)

And was it just the eye veil
,
or did the car they were walking toward seem a bit
…
beat up?

“
Lopez?
”
Brandt asked in that tone of his.

“
What?
”
The corporal asked
,
pointing to the derelict car.
“
It
’
s a Chana CM8. The single most popular car on the road in Egypt.
”

“
How is it going to fit all of us?
”
Davidson asked.

Besides having more dents than Rebecca could count, the thing was narrow. Like
,
little, tiny Smart car narrow.

“
It seats seven,
”
Lopez insisted.
“
Now get in.
”

Brandt hesitated
,
though, which made everyone hesitate.

Finally
,
Lopez sighed.
“
Okay. Fine. It
’
s going to be a tight fit. But if we put Brandt up front. Davidson, Rebecca, and the girl in the next row. That leaves Talli and Levont in the backward
-
facing seat.
”
When everyone still hesitated, Lopez waved them on.
“
Now get.
”

Surprisingly
,
Lopez was right. Once loaded in, they were rubbing elbows, but the doors shut and they were secure. Sort of. The engine rattled the entire car as it churned to life.

Brandt glared at his corporal, but Lopez just shrugged.
“
Army crawl, remember?
”

Then the car pulled out onto the tarmac, passed through a gate to the road that led away from the Cairo airport. Lopez horned their way into the jam-packed traffic. It had been a while since Rebecca had been in Egypt. Lopez had been correct. Their beat-up, dusty, on
-
its
-
last
-
legs vehicle did fit right in. Cars in far worse shape flanked them.

“
Told you,
”
Lopez said
,
giving her a wink. To
o
bad he couldn
’
t see the smile she flashed him
,
as it was hidden under the dark cloth of the
jibab
.

“
How long?
”
Brandt asked.

The corporal indicted to the wall-to-wall cars.
“
We
’
re only twelve
-
point
-
four miles from Giza
.
H
owever
,
in this traffic…
”
Lopez brightened.
“
Unless you want me to hop off this freeway and take the side streets.
”

* * *

“
That would be a definite
no
,
”
Brandt answered. Bad things happened to foreigners on the back streets of Cairo. Even armed ones. Under the current political climate? Perhaps even worse to the armed ones.

How Brandt wished he could have left the girl back at the plane. But going into a black
-
box situation like this? He needed all his men on deck. Which meant Vakasa and Rebecca had to come along. Like he could have really kept Rebecca away. She
’
d skydived into the Congo
,
for God
’
s sake. Trying to talk her out of going to a business suite was
not
going to happen.

As they eased their way out of the Cairo
I
nternational
A
irport
’
s wake, the traffic let up a bit. Enough so Lopez had to lay on the horn and force his way between cars. Normally
,
Brandt would admonish him for such behavior, but in Cairo? That
was
the norm. Cairo drivers used the car horn like teenager
s
used their cell
phones to text. Only
,
a hell of a lot louder.

Finally
,
they made their way west, turning left onto Ring Road.

“
This part never gets old,
”
Rebecca said as they went over the long bridge. Brandt looked down to find they were crossing where the Nile forked. Yes
,
the water was pretty. A shimmering green with reeds lining the shores. Unfortunately
,
he knew that Nile crocodiles, notoriously even more aggressive than the Congo version, lurked just under the surface. Brandt was kind of done with rivers for a while. Even the Nile.

Lopez took the second exit after they crossed the Nile onto
Salah Salem
. The traffic became more cluttered as they entered the business district of Giza
—
Mohandesin
.

“
Look!
”
Vakasa said as she pointed out the window. In the far distance
,
you could make out the Great Pyramid. Or at least one of the pyramids
.
Brandt wasn
’
t sure which one. And really didn
’
t want Rebecca to go into a half hour lecture on them.

Instead
,
Brandt nodded politely as Vakasa babbled away in half a dozen languages.

“
Visit?
”
she asked in English.

Brandt didn
’
t need her to take off her eye veil to know she was using her super
-
cute expression. He had three younger sisters
,
so he knew the look well. To think Rebecca suspected this typical little girl was the Messiah? He
’
d spent several days with her last week. Even out in the Congo
,
she knew who Justin Bieber was and could hum his songs.

He had worried that Rebecca would drop a true bombshell of information back at the plane, but this? This he had down cold.

“
Maybe later,
”
Brandt half
promised.

A few turns later, some of which Brandt wasn
’
t sure were entirely on purpose, Lopez pulled them into the underground parking lot of the German Industry & Commerce Tower. The structure looked pretty new. It didn
’
t have the same sand
-
etched surface as most of the other buildings they passed.

“
Do we get to stop?
”
Rebecca asked from the backseat.

“
Funny,
”
he replied. Although
,
thinking about it, he usually was asking her to exit vehicles at high speed. This time
,
though, he thought they could actually make a stop. Or at least a Hollywood stop.

Lopez tapped the breaks, rolling them to the curb.
“
Mysterious
e
x-Disciple exit.
”

Brandt helped Rebecca out of the car as Talli and Levont unloaded the equipment. For their current urban surroundings
,
it looked like they
’
d
brought out four large briefcases. Only
,
they weren
’
t exactly filled with papers.

As Lopez pulled them away from the curb, Vakasa flipped her eye veil up and waved good
-
bye
to them
with such enthusiasm that she wasn
’
t prepared when the corporal really hit the gas, sending her head over heel off the seat.

Brandt looked over to Rebecca. The question on his face pretty damned clear.

Her
?
The Messiah?
Really
?

Rebecca shrugged
,
or at least that was all he could tell with her covered head to foot in black.

“
Davidson isn
’
t joining us?
”
Talli asked as he picked up one heavy
-
ass briefcase.

“
No,
”
Brandt admitted.
“
He is setting up across the street to get our backs.
”
It was a good thing Talli had dark skin
.
O
therwise
,
it would be way
too
easy to notice his cheeks flush. Brandt threw him a bone.
“
Don
’
t worry. You are going up on the roof to guard our front.
”

And hopefully you
’
ll be close enough you can actually hit something.

Talli crisply nodded, unaware of Brandt
’
s true feelings. Perhaps
,
after they ended this mission
,
it was time to send him back to sniper school or something. It wasn
’
t fair to him or the team to have one functional sniper and then Talli.

As their
“
sniper
”
headed to the freight elevator, Levont hit a button on a much more upscale keypad. Two other men joined them as they waited for the elevator. Both were dressed in Western-style business suites. Brandt was pretty sure they spoke
Plattdeutsch
, a lower
-
class version of German. Which made sense. The Germans had a vested interest in natural gas. Egypt was not blessed like some of its northern neighbors with huge oil reserves. No, Egypt
’
s main export was natural gas.

And since the Russians started jacking up the price of natural gas to Europe? Suddenly
,
Egypt had a whole new bargaining position.

The bell dinged. Brandt stepped out of the way for Rebecca, but Levont blocked him, indicating for the businessmen to enter.

Crap.
You are in Egypt, Brandt
.

Woman, especially such traditionally dressed women
,
walked
behind
their men. A fundamentalist man would never allow a wom
a
n to enter first.
Pull it together
.

He nodded to Levont, thanking him for the etiquette save. He also kept his hand firmly planted at his side. The instinct to put his palm on Rebecca
’
s back really gnawed at him. His mother would be so disappointed he wasn
’
t being a gentlem
a
n. Instead
,
he followed Levont into the elevator. Rebecca waited, then entered and put her back to the wall, bowing her head. She clearly had been to Egypt before. She seemed to know the customs better than he.

The other two men got off on the sixth floor. Levont punched the button for the penthouse, which given they were in Giza was only five more floors up. As they were lifted upward, Levont opened his briefcase and handed Brandt his gun. Quickly
,
he tucked it into his waistband
,
then straightened his clothes just before the elevator door opened.

To his surprise
,
they were greeted by an elderly gentleman dressed in Armani.

“
Ah, Dr. Rebecca Monroe, to finally meet!
”
he exclaimed in a thick Middle
Eastern accent.

* * *

Rebecca really, really hated it when people knew who she was. Since he knew her to be American, it made no real point to continue to wear the
niqab
. She pulled
off
the garmet, shaking out her ponytail as the man guided them into the affluent office.

The desk was made of solid mahogany and the floor covered in
a
thick Oriental carpet. The view through the office windows was a full 360 degrees of Giza. To the west
,
you could make out the pyramids and Sphinx. To the east
,
Cairo sprawled out into the distant smoggy desert. The Nile
lay
between the two. To think this view had been enjoyed by businessmen and pharaohs. The ancient capital of Egypt was due south at Memphis. Civilization had called this region home for millennia.