Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 02 - London Broil Read online

  Wendy and the Lost Boys

  London Broil

  Cairo Caper

  The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and Three-Quarters

  Zo White and the Seven Morphs

  Cold Case Morphs

  The Adventures of a Love Investigator

  Criminally Funny Fables Boxed Set

  Cairo Caper

  Wendy Darlin Tomb Raider Book Three

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  A loud pop from the other side of the bathroom door startled me so badly that my mascara brush careened up my eyelid and left a racing stripe on my forehead.

  If Mister World Famous Archaeologist Roger Jolley thought a bottle of champagne in our honeymoon suite would mellow me, he couldn’t be more wrong. Black gunk hung on my eyelashes. Sometime during the flight from London to Cairo the contents of my mascara cylinder had melted into one big gooey lump.

  I ran the brush against my lashes. It hung on my upper fringe like a kindergartener clinging to his mother’s leg. I braced my pinky on my cheek and tugged. Another loud pop gave me a second racing stripe. My forehead resembled the hood of Herbie the Love Bug.

  I stuffed the brush back into the tube and put the makeup case in my purse. Roger wouldn’t be opening two bottles unless he was planning on giving me a champagne bath. Hmmm. What the heck was he doing? I banged the door open.

  He stage-whispered, “Get down.” He wasn’t in sight. His voice increased to a stage-yell, “Dammit, Wendy, get down!”

  Something whizzed by my ear. I hit the floor and scanned the room. Roger lay in front of the peach-colored sofa just this side of an oak coffee table about ten feet from the balcony door. Had he been shot? My heart caught in my throat as a chunk of mascara scraped my eyeball. Blinking it away I cut my eyes to the balcony looking for the shooter. I sensed a presence but saw no one. Using my elbows, I belly-wiggled to Roger.

  “Stay put!” He pushed himself up and leapt toward the balcony. The gunman stepped into view. Roger gave a head fake and dove the other way. The assassin got off a shot but missed.

  Lying on my side, I stretched my right arm out to the coffee table and grabbed a glass ashtray the size of a hubcap and the weight of a Manhattan phone book. I swung back and pitched the ashtray full-force, pain zinging through my shoulder.

  The ashtray thunked the shooter in his nose, knocking him back against the railing. He windmilled then tumbled over.

  I belly-wiggled to the patio in case the hitman brought a date.

  Roger crouched, checking the sides of the balcony. The patio was killer-less. I scrambled to my knees and then stood, peering over the wrought iron railing. Morning sunlight glared from the muddy surface of the Nile. Six floors down a body in white sprawled in a splat of blood. My first official kill as a tomb raider and it was an ashtray-rubout. How embarrassing.

  Roger tried to stand. I put my hand on his shoulder and pressed him back down. He passes out at the sight of blood, a real problem when he was an army medic. He tolerates my fear of getting my face wet and I protect him from plasma.

  “Don’t look. Blood,” I said.

  The color drained from his face.

  I pushed past him. “How’s this honeymoon working out for you?” I grabbed my purse and threw a scarf over my head. “Get your shoes on. Grab your passport. Let’s make like Houdini before the Cairo cops get here. Out! Out! Out!”

  Yanking the door open, I stuck my head out and checked both ways before I ran into any bullets. A room service waiter stood in astonishment with a tray in his hands, and a bullet hole in the wall above his head. The fragments of a crystal sconce littered his platter. His eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the floor.

  A room door creaked opened between us and the elevator. I caught a bad vibe. It could be another shooter. I slammed Roger into an alcove alongside a potted palm. Our hiding place smelled of mold and other primeval ooze. At the fast count of ten I peaked out.

  An elderly gent with Coke-bottle glasses stared at the waiter and blotted his lips with a handkerchief. He cut his eyes to me and stepped back inside his room closing the door with a bang.

  “Let’s go!” I said.

  We dashed along the blue-carpeted corridor of the hotel, and skidded to a halt at the elevator. The Sphinx was a classic old Egyptian hotel with an elevator dating back to Caesar’s time. The lift worked on the hour, every other hour. I hoped this was the right hour. I didn’t want to hit six flights of stairs in my red Salvatore Ferragamo peep-toe pumps.

  Roger joined me in the lift. We exchanged wide-eyed looks as I silently prayed for a safe descent. Gears ground and the ancient box lowered slower than dialup. We hit the first floor with a light bounce. The metal doors partially opened. I wedged through and ran toward the hotel lobby.

  The half dozen guests milling around cast curious glances at the staccato sound of my heels on the marble floor. I fought to untangle my ankle-length, loose-fitting skirt and long-sleeved shirt.

  The staff scattered, studiously ignoring my hasty exit. The desk clerk busied himself with his fingernails. The bellhop examined an empty luggage rack. The concierge scowled as I streaked passed his desk. Maybe my black eye smears were a local insult.

  I skidded to a stop in the foyer, peeked out, and glanced to the left ready to deny the body on the pavement was my handiwork. The doorman was wearing sunglasses, so I couldn’t be sure he was even looking my way. I was expecting a crowd and the wail of an ambulance. Nothing.

  Roger came up behind me and hid his eyes in my shoulder. “A lot of blood?”

  “A smidge, no… a splat. But here’s the kicker, no body. No corpse.”

  He stepped in front of me without looking toward the splat. “What the hell?”

  I looked around. Men in business suits and flowing galabia robe thingies scurried along stepping right on the bloody pavement.

  Roger tugged at my arm. “Let’s get out of here. There’s a small café near the Museum. We can wait there until noon. I’ve got a feeling someone doesn’t want me to meet with Sir Sydney Street.”

  Mister Understatement forged ahead blending into the Cairo street crowd with his archaeologist’s tan, dark brown hair, brown trousers, brown shirt, and brown suit coat. Someday I’d get him drunk and dress him in baby blue.

  The wide road reminded me of Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. Mid-rise apartments lined both sides of the road. The island dividing the road had palm trees and low bushes with pebbles instead of grass. The drifting sand on the street made for a slippery run. I was sure I could hear my six-hundred dollar shoes getting shredded.

  A sudden cool breeze sliced through the heat, caught my scarf, and lifted it from my head, exposing my wavy blonde hair. People stared at me. I popped on my Ralph Lauren sunglasses feeling like a slow moving target at a carnival shooting gallery.

  Roger took my hand and pulled me along as we squeezed through the sardine-spaced pedestrians. Shouts came from Tahrir Square less than a block away. The yelling built to a scary level. I slipped my purse strap over my head across my chest and clutched the bag to my side. Besides my money, credit cards, and passport, it held the important stuff… my makeup.

  Pow! Firecrackers? I pressed Roger’s hand in a white-knuckled grip. A group of men in galabias were run-walking in the opposite direction from where we were headed. They picked up speed as another firecracker sounded from the square.

  “Roger! Let’s follow them!”

  “What?” he yelled over his shoulder. His voice was drowned by deal-makers and hawkers negotiating with tourists.

  We made our way around a herd of white goats and two black Mercedes sedans. I followed my guy down what would have been a charming side alley, if I wasn’t panting in a panic. The smell of freshly baked bread and yummy fruits reminded me we hadn’t had breakfast. A table of touristy mini-pyramids crowded next to a cart of aromatic spices. We were in one of the oldest open-air markets in Egypt.

  Vaulting in front of Roger, I tried to m
ake myself heard. A high-heeled leap is not the easiest maneuver, especially in a crowded market. I tripped over a waist-high basket of pomegranates sending the fruit, Roger, and me sprawling.

  Raising his head from the stones he shot me a murderous glare.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” I grabbed a fistful of silk scarves that hung from a display board. The plank came down with a plunk knocking us both flat again.

  Using one another for support we managed to get vertical. I pulled straw from my skirt, plucked a sliver of grass from my lips, and a pomegranate from my pocket.

  “This time act casual or I will kill you myself,” Roger said.

  A dude in a full-length purple galabia and a matching baseball cap stepped in front of me. He carried a tray of jewelry with the barrel of a revolver sticking out from a pile of beads.

  “Down!” A warning came from behind us.

  Roger and I dropped to the ground. A green glass bottle sailed over our heads and hit the peddler in the noggin.

  When I grabbed the edge of a cart to pull myself up, I buried us in an avalanche of Louis Vuitton luggage. I squeezed my head between a roll-aboard and a messenger bag in time to see a second seller bend over Bottle Head who lay twitching on the cobblestones. The pile next to me stirred. Roger was conscious.

  The second seller saw me trying to emerge from the rubble and growled. He pulled a wicked curved dagger from his cloak and charged. A left brown wingtip shot from between two medium-sized suitcases and nailed him in the knee. He fell forward on the edge of the pile, howling. I got to my feet and crowned him with a two-suiter. The howling stopped.

  Roger’s head made a gopher-style appearance out of a bunch of shave kits. “I don’t know who’s doing what to who, excuse me, whom, but we don’t need to be hanging around.”

  I helped Roger to his feet. He threw a fistful of money at the luggage vendor and we took off. I kept peeking over my shoulder. I couldn’t spot anybody following us.

  We stopped at an intersecting alley and peeked around the corner. We’d had our quota of ambushes for the day, maybe for the entire month. A whoosh of scarlet dust plumed from the little back street. Powdered blood?

  I held my breath and snuck a peek. Two men were pouring a huge sack of red spice on the ground creating a crimson cloud that spread before and on us. A third guy was scooping it into smaller retail-sized bags. We choked through the dust and sneezed violently. Cayenne pepper.

  Roger slipped down a backstreet pulling me behind him. I was flying blind and having trouble breathing. A small child screamed. I was a blond Medusa with tears pouring from my eyes, mascara racing stripes on my forehead. This was way beyond a bad hair day.

  “Here,” Roger yanked a neatly folded handkerchief from the top pocket of his Safari jacket and handed it to me. “Don’t rub. Just blot.”

  He could be so sweet when he tried. I wished he’d try more often.

  I dabbed at my spicy cheeks. The color on the handkerchief told me I looked like a Dorito.

  We returned to the spice street quickening our pace only to be stopped again.

  “Americans? Yes? I have anise seed for you. It’s good for your health. Helps the stomach.” A young guy with bedroom eyes and a friendly smile blocked our path.

  “Shokran. No thank you,” Roger said as we eased on by.

  The salesman waved us along with a cheerful smile. “Ahlan Biki!”

  Through the corner of my eye I glimpsed the shadowy image of someone in black behind us. I smashed Roger against a wall of colorful carpets and plastered myself next to him expecting gunshots. When I peeked out, our tail had vanished. A sprinkle of pepper dropped from my eyelashes into my right eye. It was about time for a meltdown.

  Chapter Two

  My guy tugged me along to the end of the alley. He stopped and pointed to the Smiling Camel Café, an obvious tourist haven with signs in four languages in the window. A matched pair of security guards in khaki uniforms bearing the coffee house logo bookended the entrance, automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. As we passed them they eyeballed me, then each other, and broke out laughing.

  We zipped inside the dimly lit coffee joint. The caffeine in the air was strong enough to wipe out the headache building behind my weepy eyes. Roger limped toward a small table in the darkest corner. He was acting pretty cool considering someone was using us for target practice.

  The world-famous archaeologist flopped into a chair facing the door. He propped his right foot onto the chair next to him.

  I examine his pant leg fearing I’d see blood. “Did you get shot in the leg?”

  I leaned closer. “Are your shoes on the wrong feet?”

  A sheepish expression flitted across his face.

  “Are you wearing two left shoes?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped.

  Bad enough he always wore those plug ugly brown wingtips, even at sea, but now he had two left-foot brown wingtips on. His right foot looked bizarre pointing in the wrong direction.

  I pinned him with my best stare. “Your wife has a right to know your deepest secrets.”

  “Yes, I am wearing two left shoes.” He set his mouth like a kid lining up his words. “I grabbed two shoes when we ran out of the hotel room. They just happened to both be lefties. I always pack three pairs of these.”

  Roger was a serial brown wing-tipper. How could I not know this about my own faux spouse? This was worse than not knowing your husband was Jack the Ripper.

  “Where’s your hat?”

  “In our room,” he said.

  “Good place for it.”

  The security guards peered into the café and smirked at me. Time to do some repair work. I reached in my purse, took a mirrored compact and a wet-wipe from my makeup case. A strange tampon-shaped gadget lay at the bottom of the case, globs of mascara clinging to its sides. “What the hell is this? I don’t use tampons.” I pulled it out and stuck in under Roger’s nose. “Care to share any more secrets with me, my dear husband?”

  Roger glanced around. “Lower that before somebody sees it. It’s a Multi-phasic Unidirectional Density Diviner or MUDD as it’s commonly known.” He palmed the gadget.

  “Commonly known to who, excuse me, whom? What the hell is this thing?”

  “A new technology a thousand times more powerful than the devices the Egyptian Antiquities Society is using to try to locate Cleopatra’s grave. It’s commonly known as MUDD to me and my friend Ozzie who invented it. It can determine the shapes of objects as deep as a quarter-mile in the earth. And it can detect minute particles of pure gold.”

  I wasn’t sure I was buying that even though it was too heavy to be a tampon. It weighed more than a vibrator, not that I had any direct knowledge of those things.

  “Why is it in my purse?”

  “It looks like a girlie thing.”

  “Yeah until you lift it, but we’ve been through that. How does it work?”

  Roger’s face morphed into his professor-giving-a-lecture mode. “It’s actually fairly simple. You start with a small radium core-”

  “What! You shit. Why didn’t you warn me? Am I going to glow in the dark?”

  “I know how nervous you get around radiation. I wanted you relaxed for our honeymoon.”

  “Earth to Roger, this is a faux honeymoon. I’m just your cover story.” I fluffed my sweaty hair and pulled tendrils from my neck.

  “Pepper face,” he smirked.

  I punched his shoulder.

  “Stop hitting me. Start acting lovey-dovey.”

  I punched his shoulder again, harder. “If this is such a good cover why are they shooting at us?” I grabbed the tampon MUDD gadget and stuck it back in my sticky makeup case.

  “Gentle with that. It’s linked to a satellite. You’ll throw the GPS off.” He massaged his shoulder.

  “You are a lunatic, you realize that?” I said.

  “I’m a genius. Similar but spelled different.” He blew me a kiss.

  “Here, take this.�
�� He handed me a pocket-sized tourist map of Egypt.

  I opened it carefully, wondering what new gadget might fall out of the folds.

  He pointed to Alexandria and then moved his finger slightly to the west. “The Temple of Taporisis Magna,” he whispered.

  All we had to do was get from Cairo to the Temple, alive. The Egyptian Antiquities Society was sure this was the site of Cleopatra’s grave. Roger was commissioned to confirm the queen and her lover Mark Antony were entombed somewhere under the Temple.

  “If Cleo’s there we’ll find her,” I said.

  He frowned, shook his head, and put his finger to his lips.

  Mister Wonderful Archaeologist could be so bossy. I hated it when he pulled rank on me. Sure he had the pedigree, but I had a great smile.

  I handed him the map and went back to repairing my face. I cleaned the mascara tread marks from my forehead, slathered on moisturized sunscreen, and 100spf sunblock lip gloss.

  Our relationship was in the first trimester of our third case. If I survived this caper I might consider making it semi-permanent. The adrenalin high of tomb raiding had become an addiction.

  Roger was obsessed with answering the prayers of those who’ve lost something of great value. When he was a kid, his baby brother was kidnapped and never found. It was his vulnerable side that held my heart captive.

  We sipped our coffee in silence. It was good and strong. Sunlight pierced the doorway and made it impossible to see outside. Suddenly a figure blocked the light, sort of. I felt like a character from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. In my head I heard Sergio Leone playing music and spurs jingling as a shadowed figure stepped inside the doorway. Roger dropped his foot from the stool. His body tensed.

  Chapter Three

  The music stopped. The stranger was half as tall as Eastwood and dressed in a white linen suit complete with a vest. He walked directly toward us. Who was this guy? I jumped up and hefted an ashtray, my new weapon of choice, from the table. The sucker was plastic and wouldn’t stop a butterfly. Roger stood at my side, a questioning look on his kisser.