Storm Clouds Read online

  “What is Mako doing in Egypt?” she asked, taking a sip from the cup of tea. It had been two hours since his phone had last blipped active on the world map. Since then she had asked herself that question a hundred times.

  “We need to find a way to reach him.”

  “Why not go to the contact there? That guy Ahmed?” TJ asked.

  Alicia sat back and took another sip of tea, hoping it would help her waning focus. She had blindly accepted the contract without questioning the CIA’s motive in recovering the files. But the two-faceted contract, to find the files and turn them over, had gained complexity when John was taken. Whoever held the elder Storm wanted the files as well.

  Alicia knew the papers related to Egypt, and with Hoover’s involvement their time period was clear. It didn’t take a Stanford education to add things up. But that was all conjecture. What she needed was to see what they contained.

  Thinking the problem through crystalized her priorities. “We need to find John. That will bring Mako back into the fold. We can save this.”

  “You know any number of governments or people could be mixed up in it,” TJ said.

  Alicia didn’t want to admit it, but there were an endless number of possibilities. She cleared one of the screens on the wall and started making a list. It was the usual suspects, but she had to start somewhere. Russia and China were on top.

  “What if it’s a black-market ring?” TJ asked.

  “Thanks for that.” Alicia deleted the two lines, leaving the screen blank. She already knew the United States and Egypt were involved, but both countries would be acting through intermediaries. Under each country she listed a handful of names.

  “Let’s get to work.”

  Alicia started with half the names, leaving TJ with the rest. The dealers were only the tip of a billion-dollar-a-year iceberg, but she had to start somewhere. Even if they were not directly involved, rumors had to be bubbling up about a new find. Though they might only be whispers, it would give her a place to start.

  They were fortunate it was late afternoon on the East Coast, which made it the middle of the night in Egypt. That would hopefully put things on hold at the scene until she could figure things out. Those in the art world were notoriously late risers, allowing Alicia to reach her contacts from England to the West Coast.

  The initial inquiries came back negative. These were the larger auction houses and legitimate dealers—a long shot, but worth trying. The next level was private galleries and collectors, a more diverse group.

  Several emails bounced back with autoresponders—probably dead ends. With her standard inquiries failing to provide anything, she dug deeper.

  Wolfgang Messer was the last name on her list, and she had little hope the small-time dealer could help. Her algorithm tracked his credit cards, international calls, and passport. The screen remained blank and she turned away.

  “Hey. You got a hit,” TJ said.

  Alicia glanced back at the wall of monitors, superstitiously averting her eyes from the one with Messer’s name. A single entry had appeared and she focused on it.

  The data came from the European Union’s passport agency. The activity showed that Messer had just entered Cairo.

  17

  Luxor, Egypt

  Mako sought the refuge of the hotel bar. There were few constants in the world of international intrigue, but bars as reliable escapes generally could be counted on. He took a seat near the middle of the empty bar and chatted with the bartender. He wasn’t there to get drunk, or find company. Procrastination and avoidance were his reasons.

  Research had always been his Achille’s heel. His lack of discipline, as his evaluations consistently showed, was one of the things that had held him back. The other was his disinclination to follow rules, which was directly tied to the first problem. Standard missions were not something Mako was good at and he knew it. But in his own way he was successful, though it had come at a cost. The Storm name and his father’s connections had gotten him started with the Agency, but now he had burned so many bridges it was impossible to cross the river. He needed Alicia for that.

  Mako looked around the mostly empty room. It was fairly posh. Plush furnishings were scattered across the white marble floor. A black marble bar top and dark wood accents completed the Egyptian theme. The hotel was huge and the bar and lounge capable of serving several hundred people. Both were near empty now, but it wasn’t hard to picture what it looked like before the revolution had gutted the tourist industry. Watching the staff linger around with nothing to do, he saw firsthand the collateral damage caused by politicians. And these were the lucky ones who still had jobs.

  Mako was at a crossroads. Gretchen remained a mystery, but an intriguing one. The more time he spent around her, the more he liked her. The problem, aside from her lack of training, was that he didn’t know what her end game was. Just because she was allied with John didn’t mean she was trustworthy.

  Both his father and Gretchen had been adamant about leaving Alicia out of this.

  Mako had almost broken down and called Alicia, but had deliberately left his phone back in his room. Rubbing the condensation on the cold bottle of Stella in small swirly patterns, he pondered the latest woman to enter his life. The beer was good and cold, but unfortunately this was a scotch conversation he was having with himself. Johnny Walker would have been preferable, but alcohol in Egypt was prohibitively expensive. A single shot of scotch would have cost an inch-high stack of Egyptian pounds, or in the neighborhood of thirty-five US dollars. The company credit card was off limits until he came to a decision.

  John’s safety was a concern, but he doubted his father was in any real danger. Simply put, right now he was worth more alive than dead. It was a cold feeling, thinking about his father like that, but he knew it was how the elder Storm would be thinking about himself. Mako knew his father would be disappointed if he compromised the mission to save him. John would have called it needless.

  That led him to the larger question: What was the mission?

  The contract had been to recover the Hoover-era Egyptian files. With Alicia’s help, Mako had found them and was ready to make the transfer when the water had muddied and the sharks showed up. The attempts on John’s life had failed. That might lead one to think that his own life was in jeopardy now, but the playing field had changed. Again.

  He had come to Egypt for leverage and that was what he needed to focus on. The files were a roadmap to a secreted cache of antiquities that he needed to find in order to save his father.

  His thoughts circled back to Gretchen. He knew there was a degree of lust in the equation that he could not allow to affect the solution. Though she had been sympathetic to John, Mako knew she had her own agenda. There were only two ways he could see to uncover it. He either needed to find the cache and see what happened, or bring Alicia into his confidence.

  Enjoying his bit of freedom, Mako picked up the empty bottle and signaled the bartender for a refill. Gretchen was in her room taking a bath. She was going to join him for dinner later.

  Halfway through the second beer he started to come to grips with the inevitable. He had known it all along, but the petulant part of him didn’t want to acknowledge he was reliant on Alicia. Her and TJ’s resources and skills would exponentially improve his odds of finding the cache.

  “Use” would be his new mantra.

  Mako finished his beer and signaled the bartender he was ready for the check. As he waited for the standard-issue leather folio, he wondered when John’s credit card would run out of juice. The bartender approached with a smile and set a pen down next to the folio. Standard procedure for a false identity was to prepay a card. That was the easy way. John understood that for a deep cover, a credit history was essential. Mako wouldn’t have been surprised if his new identity had a family and owned a house somewhere. Mako withdrew the card from the small pocket and traced the numbers before replacing the card in his billfold.

  Mako signed the check, leavi
ng a large tip—a standard practice of his—and finished the beer. Nodding to the bartender, he got up and was about to leave when a woman entered. Surprisingly, he barely noticed. The oversight didn’t last long, as everyone in the bar turned toward her.

  Mako’s taste in women could be called eclectic. Some said it was a result of his ravenous appetite, but most people didn’t understand. There was something in the way certain women carried themselves that appealed to him. Many men looked at women and tried to judge by the way they walked if they would be good in bed. Mako played that game too, but when it came to real attraction, it was the challenge, the chase, that got his blood boiling.

  The woman who had just entered checked every box. Her skin was the café au lait color of the locals and she wore a traditional headscarf. Her long skirt and loose blouse could have been worn in either a mosque or a Western bar such as this.

  She walked straight to the bar and sat down three stools away from where Mako stood.

  He was intrigued. All worries about Alicia were displaced by this woman, who appeared to be alone. In Western countries there would be nothing unusual in this, but in the Middle East it was rare. Mako sat back down, caught the bartender’s eye, and made a small circle with his index finger. The bartender was also focused on the woman and nodded at Mako, understanding the universal sign that he wanted to buy a round.

  Mako averted his gaze as the bartender approached the woman. He felt goosebumps on his arm when she nodded in his direction. Taking that as a signal that it was okay to approach, he moved toward her, leaving one stool in between. It was a tactic he had honed over the years. Many men in this situation would take the adjacent seat to get closer. Mako knew allowing her some space was a better approach. If things developed, the single stool wouldn’t remain a barrier, but for now it would give her some degree of comfort.

  “Mako Storm.” He held back the “at your service” line that was always on the tip of his tongue.

  She held out her hand. “Rashi.”

  Mako’s observational powers were on full alert as he extended his hand. Her nails were well kept, but not professionally done. As he took her hand, he noticed the small callouses.

  “Are you an archeologist?” he asked. It might have sounded like a reach, but the signs were there. Her looks said she was a local, but her air of confidence told him she had probably been educated elsewhere. Her hands indicated that she did some kind of mix between desk and field work. And it was Luxor. The place attracted Egyptologists like ants to a picnic.

  “Very good. Are you a tourist?”

  Mako took no offense. “Yes.”

  The bartender approached and set a glass in front of her. “Sparkling water, ma’am. Compliments of the gentleman.” He gave Mako a sideways wink.

  “If I had known, I would have ordered their best bottle.” She smiled and raised her glass in a toast.

  Mako shrugged and smiled, appreciating her sense of humor. So far his instincts had been right on. “What brings you to Luxor?”

  She took a sip. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “The new tomb?” The news had been everywhere.

  “This could be the most significant find since Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered almost a hundred years ago.”

  Mako nodded for her to continue.

  “A sealed tomb is rare, very rare. As the dynasties progressed, the pharaohs started to take great pains to conceal their burial sites. Despite their efforts, most were still looted in antiquity. Those that survived the ancient grave robbers fell victim to the voracious appetites of the first European plunderers. Did you know they used to use dynamite to open the graves? Strip-mined our history.”

  There was a tinge of bitterness in her voice. Mako saw her passion and decided on a different tack. “If it were up to you, how would you proceed?”

  She took another sip and seemed to relax. “It’s a process. Every step must be documented and recorded.”

  “Sounds time consuming.” Mako decided that archeology was not for him.

  “That tomb has been sealed for thousands of years. What’s a few weeks?”

  Mako wondered if the discovery could somehow be connected to the contract, the FBI files, and his father’s abduction. He had seen the location of the discovery near the Valley of the Kings earlier. The map on his phone might hold the key to whether the new tomb was related to the files, but he was reluctant to leave the woman to do any research.

  “I suppose, but aren’t you anxious to see what’s inside?”

  Her expression changed to a devilish grin. “Really, I’m dying to know.”

  Mako decided to capitalize on her enthusiasm. “What do you expect?”

  A studious look came over her. “Do you know the history of the valley?”

  He gazed into her eyes as she spoke, fascinated both by their depth and by her alluring accent. Her voice alone would have him walking over coals. Mako wondered if his scholastic enterprises would have ended differently if all his teachers had been as beautiful.

  “The New Kingdom dates back to 1500 BC. The pharaohs of the period, the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth dynasties, were buried in the Valley of the Kings. Many of the tombs were robbed, both in antiquity and in modern times. Even King Tutankhamun's tomb showed signs that it had been resealed.” She rattled off a list of unpronounceable names from other tombs.

  Still, even with the history lesson, she held his interest.

  “Five graves of known pharaohs are still missing. And then there is the great Queen Nefertiti.”

  The name and her image on the famous carved bust that he’d seen in the FBI file had sparked the imagination of many men. “Nefertiti’s grave is missing?” He tried to remember what Alaa had told them earlier. “Wouldn’t she be buried in the Valley of the Queens?” Similar to the Valley of the Kings, their spouses were treated with slightly less pomp in a nearby valley.

  “So, I got your attention then, didn’t I? Things get muddy with Akhenaten. Nefertiti was his wife, and mother of King Tutankhamun, but she was also rumored to have ruled under the name Smenkhkare. If that were the case, she would have earned burial in the Valley of the Kings.”

  “I thought the Egyptians were fanatical record keepers.”

  “Yes, but many are missing. There are still large gaps. Maybe this find will close some.”

  “Do you think this could be Nefertiti’s tomb?” The stakes had just gone through the roof if it were, and the coincidence couldn’t be ignored.

  “Nefertiti lived in interesting times. Her husband, Akhenaten, was known as the heretic pharaoh. He changed the religion from worshiping many gods to worshiping only Aten, the sun god. Messing with people’s gods is never popular. Tutankhamun and future rulers restored the old ways, but at the expense of the dynasty. Tutankhamun’s early death and the lack of a successor started a new dynasty, one that erased the previous rulers from the history books.”

  “Why on the cliff? The rest of the graves are subterranean.”

  “Nefertiti was a strong woman and would have believed she was entitled to be buried in the Valley of the Kings. She was also crafty and apparently forward thinking. Work on the tombs in the valley would start when a ruler became pharaoh. She might not have had the luxury of an uncontested reign like her predecessors. As a pragmatic woman, she would have skipped the adornments and been more concerned with what she would need on her trip to the afterlife than what she left behind.

  “A cavern similar to what we just discovered would be the answer,” Rashi said.

  Mako was distracted by a flash of auburn hair. Gretchen had entered the bar and spotted him. She was on her way over. Mako, fearing that he would be cast into the pit of despair by two beautiful women fighting over him, sought to extricate himself from the situation. He was just about to say a hurried goodbye to Rashi and slip away, but Gretchen was faster.

  She walked right past Mako. “Rashida Mustafa, a pleasure to meet you.”

  18

  Bethesda, Marylandr />
  John had no idea where he was. He had been drifting in and out of consciousness, waking several times over the last hours—or was it days? This was the first time he was awake with any kind of cognizance to evaluate his situation.

  Searching his memory, he had little recollection of what had occurred. What he did have was hammering in his head like a bad hangover. He understood that the first thing he needed to do was to buy some time. Before he closed his eyes he panned the room, but not to find anything in particular. Understanding his environment was the first step in escape.

  On the sliding scale of life-threatening locations, a residential living room was as good as it got, the other end of the spectrum being an empty industrial warehouse. That iconic scene of murder and torture in many TV shows was used for a reason. John had been on both sides of that coin and was glad today he was not facing cold concrete and steel, but carpet and a sofa.

  When he cracked his eyes open again, he began to recognize things. The furniture was familiar. The few pictures were his. The fireplace, his hidey-hole, showed no overt sign of tampering, though he would have to get closer to see if his telltale was in place. As he lowered his eyelids again to feign sleep, he noticed two sets of footwear, both male, parked in front of the chairs across from him.

  Knowing his location was the first step. Next, he evaluated himself. As the years had passed, these body scans highlighted not just injuries, but the aches and pains of age. Not many seventy-year-old bodies were pain free, and John had suffered from many injuries—some accidents, most not. Understanding what his body was still capable of was a frustrating, but necessary, exercise. There weren’t many septuagenarians in his condition. He could still squat heavy and run with men half his age. Agility was his limiting factor. Getting up from the couch without pain was a win most days.