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Outside the Black Pyramid, Dahshur, Egypt
AS THEY MADE their way back out into the daylight, Rose kept looking back at the pyramid, expecting it to sigh and slump down, collapsing into rubble and clouds of dust, like in the movies. But it didn’t. She didn’t think she’d get the image of that drooping ceiling slab out of her mind for years, if ever. She anticipated it would be front and center of several future nightmares. Had Crowley really been confident his gambit would pay off or was he genuinely gambling with their lives back there? Then again, he had a point about waiting for someone else to come. If Leonard was so concerned by their investigation that he was prepared to brain them and lock them in a sealed chamber, it made sense he wouldn’t have their best interests at heart on his return. Not to mention that poor soul with his heart removed, hidden under the bones. No way could Leonard have missed that, so if he knew about it, surely he had something to do with it.
Regardless, Rose simply wanted to get away. What had Lily got herself into? This whole situation was far more dangerous and complicated than Rose had ever considered. She expected maybe some crooked antiquities dealers, not heart-removing cultists of ancient gods.
“I want to find Leonard,” Crowley said, scanning the area around the pyramid with angry eyes.
Tourists milled around, cars and buses moved nearby, but she couldn’t see the dark-skinned fellow in his pale cliché of a costume.
“Surely he’s long gone,” Rose said.
Crowley scowled, but reluctantly agreed. “Keep an eye out for him, anywhere. Back in Cairo, even. Seriously, if I ever set eyes on that guy again, I want to settle the score.”
He winced as he talked, kept pressing a hand to the dried blood on the side of his head. He had obviously been more seriously hurt than she had. For her, it had been little more than a glancing blow that knocked her down. Crowley had copped a far greater blow. She would have to watch him for signs of concussion.
“So I guess we head to Cairo and try to track down this Kasim,” Crowley said.
Rose began to nod in agreement, then paused, smiling. “Or maybe not.” She pointed.
Across the way a tour bus was parked; bright blue and yellow lettering along the side read Sacred Tours Cairo. A man stood by the door, chatting casually with people as they disembarked.
Crowley laughed. “Short. Fat. Thick mustache. Can’t tell if he’s greasy from this far away, but I’ll bet he is.”
“I’ll let you know,” Rose said. “I think maybe I should talk to him alone.”
“You think because he’s greasy he’ll be sleazy?” Crowley asked with a grin.
“Well, I hadn’t thought of that, actually.” She gestured at his head. “But you know, the blood and all. Might put him off answering any questions.”
“That’s a good point. You’ve quite an impressive lump above your eyebrow too, you know. We should find something to ice it with.”
She smiled. Always trying to look after her, trying to be the provider of care and intel and plans. She knew he didn’t mean it that way, but he could be such an infuriating man at times. “I’ll worry about that later. You go and find somewhere to wash yourself off and I’ll talk to Kasim.”
“Okay. But I’ll be nearby.”
She rolled her eyes, but smiled to show she was only poking fun. Infuriating though he could be, it came from a place of genuine care and she couldn’t hold that against him. “All right. I’ll come and find you soon.”
Rose headed across to Kasim’s bus. From the description she realized she had been expecting someone old and unpleasant, but it was obviously Kenny’s prejudice shining through. Kasim, his identity confirmed by an embroidered patch on the pocket of his shirt, was a young guy. He was overweight, but not morbidly, and had a wide friendly face, set off well by his neatly groomed mustache. He had green eyes that glittered in the sun as he turned to face her. “Hello, can I help you?”
“I hope so. I’m searching for my sister, who’s been missing for a while now. I’m very worried.” She took the photo of Lily from her bag and held it out.
Kasim took the photo and nodded immediately. “Yes, I remember her. Iris Brown. I met her...” He paused, looking up at nothing as he mentally calculated. “Five days ago,” he decided. “At the end of my tour as I was giving the group a last chance for photographs before we boarded the bus again. She had just come from inside the pyramid. Friendly lady, I was enjoying her company. I thought we were hitting it off fairly well, you know? Until her boyfriend showed up.”
“Her boyfriend?”
Kasim shrugged. “Well, I assume it was her boyfriend. Tall, thin, hair tied up on top. The guy was courteous, but he seemed...” Kasim made a circular gesture with his hand as he searched for the word in English. “Possessive? I think that’s the best description.”
“I know the type,” Rose said, a rueful smile on her face.
“Your sister, you say? I can see that.” Kasim looked her up and down, not impolitely. “I don’t know if I can help you find her, though. She asked a lot of intelligent questions about the pyramid at first. I was enjoying the conversation. You can imagine, I have the same superficial conversations a dozen times a day usually.”
“At first?” Rose asked.
“Yes. After a few minutes the questions got strange.”
“Strange how?”
“She was asking about things I’d never heard of... far-fetched legends about Anubis worship and sacrifice. I mean, this is my job, yes? I’ve heard about most of the weird things people think about our culture. But her questions were really out there. Then she asked about ancient Egyptian seafaring.”
Rose nearly did a double-take. She hadn’t expected that.
Kasim saw her reaction, smiled. “Exactly! You see what I mean? She got really strange. She specifically wanted to know if they could have crossed the Atlantic.”
“Ancient Egyptians?”
“Yes. When I told her that I had no idea about any of that, she abruptly ended the conversation.”
Rose understood the man’s confusion. What had Lily expected to hear? How had she got from Anubis cults to ancient people crossing such a vast expanse of ocean? And why?
“I’m really worried about my sister,” she said. “I’m desperate to track her down. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“No, not really. I’m sorry.” Kasim paused, then looked up, his expression hopeful. “Although I do remember hearing one thing. As she and her guy friend were walking away, I heard him say, ‘It’s a long flight to Colorado.’ I remember thinking at the time that going from here to Colorado seemed strange given Iris was so obviously British. Her accent English like yours, you know?”
Rose smiled. “That is unusual. I have no idea why she would go to Colorado.”
“Neither do I,” Kasim said. “But then, I know as much about Colorado as I know about the surface of the moon, so perhaps there is a connection.”
Unless that’s the airport Lily mentioned to Leonard, Rose wondered.
“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your time.”
“You’re welcome. I hope you find your sister. And maybe you’ll come and take my tour some day? I’m the best there is!”
“Maybe I will.”
She walked away from the nice young man, lost in thought. Colorado? It wasn’t much of a lead, but perhaps it was better than nothing. Crowley was good at thinking about this stuff, maybe he would spot a connection.
She saw Crowley in the shadow of the pyramid. He had a bottle of water he’d bought somewhere and was washing the dried blood off his head, gingerly testing the wound with his fingertips. She told him about all she had learned, little though it was.
“Don’t write it off,” Crowley said. “It’s a good lead.”
“Is it, though?”
“Sure. Anything is good if it’s a genuine lead. When a trail goes cold, that’s it. Dead. But all the time there’s something to follow up, we’re in business. An avalanche can be triggered by the tiniest stone moving.”
Rose smiled, encouraged by his enthusiasm even if she wasn’t entirely convinced by it.
“I called Cameron while I waited too,” Crowley said. “...............He still hasn’t had any success hacking Lily’s fake identity, but says he’s getting somewhere slowly. It’s laborious work. Maybe the Colorado lead will help.” He tapped out a message to his army intel buddy as he spoke, then looked up with a smile.
“So it sounds like our next move is to Colorado,” Rose said. “Shall we head back to Cairo and book flights? Where to exactly?”
Crowley shrugged. “Denver, maybe. Let’s see what Cameron suggests.”
“I wish I could see the connection.”
They climbed into their car and Crowley started the engine. “It’s just another puzzle to solve.”
They drove in silence for a long while, Rose lost in thought about the events in the pyramid, the possibilities ahead of them. She assumed Crowley was thinking similar things until she noticed an odd look on his face. They had made most of the journey back to Cairo, one long and uninteresting road, but now Crowley watched the rear view mirror with a frown, glanced regularly to the side mirrors.
Rose sensed his tension. “Jake, what’s wrong?”
“We’re being followed.”