Storm Clouds Page 3

  “You’re not going to shoot me, so put away the gun and let’s get out of here before the men come back,” Mako said.

  When she averted her eyes, he knew he’d won. Finally he felt the pressure from the gun released and he breathed deeply. “Come on.”

  Taking the lead, Mako grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the back door of the bar. They entered and walked the length of the bar to the front door, where Mako stopped and scanned the street before exiting. “You have a car?”

  She took the lead now. Mako followed her to a side street where, as if on cue, a gray Audi’s lights flashed. The woman headed for the driver’s side and Mako to the passenger’s. Once they were settled, she scanned the street and pulled out.

  “Hopefully, that’ll do it,” Mako said.

  Alicia’s shrill voice was in his ear. “Not so fast, hot stuff. How do you think they found her? It’s either her car or her phone.” Having her and TJ on his comms reminded him of the cartoon guy with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.

  Mako cursed to himself, hoping that at least he’d bought some time. “Where can we make the exchange?”

  “We could have done it back there if you weren’t so thick-headed. You give me the files, and I’ll initiate the wire transfer. Simple.”

  “Don’t give her anything until we have confirmation,” Alicia said.

  “As long as I’ve been in this game, one thing is for sure. Nothing is simple. I’m heading to Walter Reed. Can I trouble you for a lift?”

  The nation’s largest military hospital was possibly one of the safest places he could go. And if it wasn’t, help would be close at hand. Mako also wanted to sneak a look at the files. “We make the transfer there.”

  An odd expression passed over the woman’s face. Mako removed his earpiece, hoping to put her at ease. She nodded.

  “I’m Gretchen.”

  “Mako Storm, at your service.” He couldn’t resist.

  She gave him a sideways glance. “Right, Mako Storm. We need to have a chat.”

  Mako smiled. Her gaze moved between the road and mirrors as she turned off Wisconsin Avenue, which was the most direct but busiest route, and started to navigate the narrow side streets. Her attention was fixed on the road, which allowed Mako to observe her. He had noticed that she was pretty earlier, but now he allowed himself time to study her. Gretchen’s features were long and angular, almost Germanic, with ginger hair spilling down her back. Add in her height and build that he’d noticed earlier, and Mako knew he had to be careful.

  “Can you turn your phone off and that earbud thing? I don’t think your handler should hear this.”

  They were quiet for a minute while she navigated the rush hour traffic. It might have been intended or not, but he reacted to her use of the word “handler.” Finding the power button on the earpiece, he shut the unit off, then did the same to his phone. There was surely no harm in listening, and he had to admit it was a relief to not have the TJ and Alicia eavesdropping on everything he did.

  4

  Cairo, Egypt

  The first droplets of sweat beaded on his forehead, making Ahmed feel decidedly uncomfortable. The cause wasn’t the fall heat, which he was used to, but rather the hard looks and the uniforms of the men sitting across from him. He lifted his arms away from his body to prevent any telltale marks on his shirt. These men respected power—nothing else.

  The Egyptian president, who also held the titles of Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and his Chief of Staff—the two most powerful men in Egypt—sat across from him. Surrounding seats were filled by lesser but still powerful ministers, most in military uniforms. The revolution of 2011 and the subsequent removal of the Muslim Brotherhood from power in 2013 had only reinforced the military’s power. The men gathered around the table had a stranglehold over the country and, by extension, its economy.

  Under the guise of ensuring a democratic process, the military had taken over the major management and leadership roles in the economy, making them more powerful than their epaulets would indicate.

  The primary reason—or excuse—for the military to inject itself into the economy was to cover its costs. The scheme also allowed officers and ministers to supplement their meager government incomes. The population, relieved to see the Muslim Brotherhood leave power, accepted the control of the military in exchange for open elections. Little did they know that their fairly-elected president, who by law was also Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, would lead them into a political quagmire they hadn’t anticipated. Though he didn’t have the power to declare war without parliamentary approval, having direct control of a military that operated within its own borders was one small step from fascism.

  Alongside power comes responsibility, and there being a big difference in simply having power and using it responsibly, things went off the rails. A general in the army, someone trained to blow things up and kill people, was usually not the best choice to lead a sector of the economy. The worldwide recession of 2008 had flattened the growth in tourism; the revolution killed it. Accounting for a large chunk of the economy, the government was desperate to revive the sector.

  “It is your job to fix this.” The president leveled his gaze at Ahmed.

  The difficulty was crystal clear. Egypt’s current political climate had damaged the inflow of tourist dollars. Archeologist Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 had been a turning point in Egyptian archeology in several ways. Aside from the obvious, the find had kickstarted the tourist industry.

  Prior to the discovery of what was widely referred to as King Tut’s tomb, the “archeologists” were little more than looters. Deals were negotiated with Egyptian officials, who were more concerned with lining their pockets than retaining the country’s history. Some of what was found remained in country, but many of the prime pieces were now hidden in wealthy estates across the world. Times had changed, but there had been and still remained a strong demand for antiquities—with or without provenance. Many experts had long suspected that even the hallowed institutions financing the costs of the digs had recouped their expenses by selling off a portion of what was recovered.

  Pre-Carter, dynamite had been used to excavate and blast away the monolithic blocks that plugged the holes of the tombs. Pharaohs’ “goods” were then packed and shipped out of Egypt as soon as could be managed. Carter had meticulously excavated and recorded every item in Tutankhamun’s tomb. It took ten years to complete the work. The riches in the previously untouched grave easily made the time worthwhile. From that point on, the trend toward real archeology was irreversible.

  In place of the more destructive measures, tomb excavations were now primarily dug by hand—much in the way they were filled millennia ago. Many second-tier countries used manual labor in place of equipment to maximize employment. The practice, though slow, was good for the process and the people, though for a minister who was under scrutiny to produce results, it was too slow.

  While each man around the table laid out their own self-serving plan to save tourism and bring money back to Egypt, Ahmed sat back and sipped the bitter, and now lukewarm, tea. He started to refine his plan. In his mind, what Egypt needed was a stunning new discovery.

  He wouldn’t share his idea. Not with these men. As his predecessor had shown, giving away too much knowledge made you dispensable. The previous minister, Zahi Hawass, had been accused of corruption, shoddy science, and having uncomfortably close connections with the deposed president. The charges were true, but Hawass had also done much to repatriate Egypt’s antiquities. Many key discoveries were made on his watch. This became a double-edged sword, as the archeologists’ demands for more jobs and better pay never materialized, making Hawass’ position untenable. After he was fired, the Ministry of Antiquities had been merged into the Ministry of Tourism, which Ahmed headed. A hard job had gotten harder.

  Hawass was an archeologist first. Ahmed was not. Unsaddled by the pedigree
that required a code of ethics, Ahmed had no problem bending the truth to achieve his goals.

  The history was well known. The thirty graves that had been discovered in the narrow valley had been dug, decorated, loaded with goods, and sealed during a transition dynasty in Egyptian history. It was a period where co-rulers were established to aid in succession. Names were uncertain, and offspring and heirs loosely documented. Even the exact time frame of the nine-year reign of the young Tutankhamun was disputed, although sometime during a range of thirty years had been accepted. Tutankhamun’s grave was significant, not because he was a powerful ruler, but because it had been untouched. The discovery of that tomb had touched off a decades-long explosion in tourism.

  Ahmed planned to trump that by revealing the holy grail of missing graves—the final resting place of Queen Nefertiti.

  He smiled. In itself, that find would be the biggest of the century. It would be exciting and generate interest, but chances were that like many of the other, earlier discoveries, her tomb had been looted in antiquity. So the discovery of the grave was not enough. He needed to create a virgin site loaded with relics to create a real sensation.

  Once found, filling the grave with authentic relics would be a challenge. The Egyptian Museum had a stockpile of antiquities, but these were well protected and carefully documented. He had hoped the warehouses would be an easier source of treasures but, though the security was lax, so was their organization. The “found” relics would be scrutinized and needed to be not only authentic, but from the correct time period.

  To meet the last requirement, the all-too-happy-to-comply Americans were ready to assist in locating the lost files that were rumored to show the location of a trove of suitable relics.

  This meeting accelerated Ahmed’s plan. He had intended to find the lost cache first, then reveal the grave, but the expressions of the men sitting around him showed he had better act now.

  With the support of these men and the military behind them, Ahmed had considerable power, which gave him the ability to act without being questioned. A generous cut to the men around the table would keep everyone happy.

  He had already justified his plan by rationalizing that the revival in tourism would benefit the Egyptian people. But there was an opportunity to create generational wealth. His life was quite literally on the line and to make the risk worth it, he needed an additional layer to enrich himself. Forgeries would handle that nicely.

  The room fell silent and Ahmed realized all eyes were on him. He chose to hold his cards close and flatter the men with platitudes.

  “It will be done.” Though there had been no consensus, the way these men thought, each general would believe Ahmed had accepted their individual plans. Egos soothed, they rose and exited the room, leaving Ahmed sitting alone.

  The men were satisfied for now, but he knew he had to perform—and fast. Ahmed rose, hopeful that his legs didn’t collapse and betray his nervousness. He left the room and exited the building. His driver was waiting where he’d dropped off Ahmed in the circular driveway of the Presidential Palace. Relieved, Ahmed climbed into the backseat and ordered the driver to take him to his next stop.

  The car started toward the main road. Ahmed tried to relax as they passed through the compound, an oasis of sorts in the middle of the desert. As they passed through the security gate, he sat back for the thirty-mile drive to Cairo. The first dozen miles were uneventful—almost peaceful. But as they approached the city, more identifiable by the layer of smog hanging over it than by any skyline or landmarks, the traffic inevitably picked up and they were soon jockeying for position in the fifth lane of a four-lane road.

  The traffic in Cairo unsettled Ahmed. He’d spent several years abroad, mainly in Germany. Though he should have been used to the free-for-all, he preferred order to chaos, and Egyptian roads tended very much to the latter. Lane dividers meant nothing. Traffic lights were virtually nonexistent or, if they were present and working, generally ignored. The staccato blast of horns penetrated the air-conditioned car. The only commonality between the vehicles was that they all had wheels, though many were horse- or mule-drawn carts.

  Instead of heading to his offices, Ahmed instructed the driver to a different location. He had a deal to make.

  Ahmed’s driver suddenly cut the wheel hard to avoid a motorcycle-powered pickup. Braced in the backseat, Ahmed shook his head, wondering how the driver could see anything beyond the blue tarp overflowing the truck’s small utility bed.

  Leaving the main road, the traffic merged down to what looked to be one skinny lane, but in Cairo meant vehicles driving both ways. The steady stream of worn and makeshift tarps covering the trash-laden vehicles didn’t help, either, as they climbed the winding roads to Garbage City.

  Architecturally, the area was similar to most of Cairo. The effects of the 1992 earthquake were visible with fallen and broken brick walls, the rubble still in place sitting in piles of the flat concrete slabs now serving as roofs. In the middle of the desert lumber was scarce and expensive. The few trees were grouped along the thin riverbed of the Nile. Some parklike areas had strips of grass, or more commonly crops, but there was no wood for building for hundreds of miles. Masonry products were dictated by necessity.

  It was the same everywhere he looked. Posts and beams were constructed of steel-reinforced concrete with redbrick infill. Stucco was uncommon, used on either the very old or very expensive buildings. It made for a depressing panorama.

  The government vehicle’s air conditioning strained to counteract the effect of the cloud of hot, polluted air hanging over the city. It did a passable job of filtering the smell of the trash being sorted on the ground floors of the gutted buildings they passed. It took Ahmed a few minutes to acclimate to the odors.

  As most markets do when allowed to function freely, Garbage City had established its own economy. With limited and unreliable municipal trash service, property owners and landlords were happy to pay for their garbage to disappear. A semi-organized system had evolved to collect the waste and bring it to one of the many buildings in Garbage City, where it was sorted.

  From trash pickup to the end product—pork—the entire system was monetized. After being sorted, what could be recycled was sold to local specialists, then the organic trash was fed to pigs, which were then sold as pork. Due to the nature of the final product, Coptic Christians held an exclusive on the garbage economy.

  Egypt and Cairo were close to ninety percent Muslim, but with a population near nine million, there were almost a million people in the city who sought out the often hard-to-find meat. With the exception of the 2009 swine flu scare, where President Mubarak had all Cairo’s pigs slaughtered, the industry was stable and profitable.

  Ahmed scrunched his nose to limit the stench as he exited the car. He knew in a few minutes it wouldn’t seem nearly as revolting, but for now the pungent smells assaulted his senses. He passed shops and stepped around groups of people sitting in chairs, who had taken over the narrow sidewalk, forcing him to walk in the gutter. Thankfully, considering the purpose of the neighborhood, by Cairo’s standards the streets were clean.

  Ahmed walked with purpose. Though dressed in head coverings and robes in the same fashion as the city’s Muslims, the Coptic Christians kept their heads down. Still shy from their treatment under the Muslim Brotherhood, they averted their eyes from the well-dressed man, who had the appearance of a wealthy businessman or a government official. Either were a rare sight here.

  Ahmed reached the open storefront he was looking for and stepped over a broken threshold into a space similar to countless others. A portly man with a weathered face looked up from the pile of trash in front of him.

  “Kosma.” Ahmed greeted the man as he walked through the open doorway.

  “My friend. What brings you to my world?” Kosma asked, smiling.

  Ahmed knew it amused the man to see a high-ranking government official in his enterprise, but he stood it stoically. He needed the Garbage King. It
seemed that whatever the industry, the shrewd or strongest rose to the top. In this case it was Kosma, who ruled the neighborhood and associated enterprises like a mob boss at the docks.

  “I need your special skills,” Ahmed said.

  In addition to ruling his garbage empire, Kosma was the best forger in Egypt.

  5

  Key Largo, Florida

  Alicia smashed her hand on the table and threw down her headset. She regretted the childlike behavior, knowing Mako would have been happy to see the emotional response from his normally stone-faced analyst.

  Mako was a project. He had seemed to mature over the years, but these unexpected breaches in protocol showed a regression. Alicia was mad at herself for not anticipating this. She should have expected it. Mako’s behavior was always affected by women, whether those around him or those he was chasing.

  Alicia didn’t know what Gretchen looked like, but she guessed from Mako’s behavior that she was attractive. Despite going off the reservation—in this case removing his comms—he did have an often-backward knack for getting things done. A knack that annoyed her beyond the boundaries of their work. His impulsiveness often led to collateral damage, but in the end, getting the job done was all that mattered to the uber-pragmatic Alicia Phong.

  Alicia was smart enough to know her own flaws. Despite her stoic character, it infuriated her that she couldn’t adapt to Mako’s impulsiveness. She’d struggled with her emotions, or sometimes lack of them, for most of her thirty-five years. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area by a tiger mom, she had been pushed so hard to excel that she never learned the subtleties of human interaction. Her upbringing was typical of her neighborhood and her few friends, so she never questioned her lack of social skills. Dragged through every extracurricular activity that might aid in her acceptance to Stanford, the school of choice for her mom, she was admitted, and only then, in the company of its nerdy student body, realized she was different.