King's Crusade (Seventeen) (6 page)

Jackson’s eyebrows rose. ‘Egypt?’ he said skeptically. ‘That’s kind of a broad statement.’

She stared at him impassively.

He sighed. ‘How long is this likely to take? I’ve got work commitments that I’ll need to reschedule if I accept Reznak’s offer.’

‘Two weeks at the most.’ Alexa would be surprised if it took them longer than that to find the missing artifacts.

Jackson watched her silently. ‘Okay, I’ll bite,’ he finally said gruffly. ‘But tell Reznak the deal’s off if I see something I don’t like. He’s been involved in some strange business in the past.’ He grabbed a cup from the draining board, poured hot coffee into it, and splashed in some milk from the open carton on the counter.

Alexa hid a grimace.

‘You want some?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow, mistaking her expression.

‘No, thank you.’

‘I’ll need a few days to organize things,’ he said, sipping the drink.

Alexa noted the hardened skin over the knuckles of the hand holding the cup. He obviously still boxed.

His brow furrowed as he stared at the floor. ‘I have to cancel appointments with my post-grad students at Harvard and—’

Alexa glanced at her Timex. ‘You have an hour.’

Jackson choked and spluttered. ‘What?’ he exclaimed distractedly when he got his breath back. A drop of coffee slid down his chest. The liquid was the same color as his freckles. He reached for a dish cloth and wiped his chin before dabbing at the stray droplet rolling toward the open zip of his low riding jeans.

Alexa blinked and tore her gaze away from his fingers. ‘Our flight leaves at two.’

He looked up and scowled. ‘You were so damn sure I was gonna say yes?’ he said accusingly.

‘No,’ she said with a shrug.

He mumbled something unsavory under his breath and stalked out of the room.

Sixty minutes later, they walked out into the cold morning air. Jackson carried a large duffel bag on his shoulder. Alexa had watched with faint interest as he strode around his apartment, unconsciously muttering to himself while he examined and discarded various textbooks. He finally packed a small selection in the bag, along with some clothes and toiletries. Before they left, he made a series of terse phone calls to his colleagues at Harvard. He frowned at her almost continuously while he spoke.

Alexa negotiated the snowdrifts in front of the tower block with practiced ease and headed swiftly down a public alley. Jackson followed more cautiously in her footsteps. She reached a parking bay, opened the door of her car, and climbed in the driver’s seat.

Jackson stopped and stared from the sidewalk.

She leaned across the console and opened the passenger door. ‘Get in.’

He pointed at the low, black sports car. ‘What the hell is that?’

‘It’s a Maserati,’ she replied curtly. The vehicle was the most expensive thing she owned in the world, besides her apartment. It had been especially designed for her by the Italian carmaker.

‘Do you drive it or does it fly?’ said Jackson, boots still firmly planted in the snow.

She looked pointedly at her watch. ‘We’re going to miss our flight.’

He sighed, climbed in the passenger seat, and threw the duffel bag in the back. ‘This thing looks fast.’ He gazed warily at the sleek dashboard.

A sly smile crossed Alexa’s lips. ‘It is.’

She engaged the transmission and sent the Maserati squealing out of the parking bay a second after he clipped in his safety belt. There was a muffled gasp at her side. She hid a grin and changed gears as the car shot down the road. The engine roared under the hood.

A set of traffic lights appeared ahead of them. She took the corner sharply onto the next avenue and caught a glimpse of a small, saffron-robed figure standing on the pavement to the right. It was a young Asian man with a bald head and a cryptic smile.

It was not the way that he was dressed that drew her attention. Instead, it was his absolute stillness among the sea of jostling bodies that immediately captured her gaze.

Alexa blinked and looked over her shoulder. The figure had disappeared. She glanced at the rearview and side mirrors as she sped away.

‘What is it?’ said Jackson. He looked back the way they had come, his puzzled stare shifting from the road behind them to her.

‘Nothing,’ she murmured. She was certain she had not imagined the stranger.

She took the Callahan Tunnel beneath Boston Harbor and reached the outskirts of Logan International Airport ten minutes later. Jackson glanced at her when she ignored the motorway exit to the main terminal buildings and headed for a small complex to the north of the grounds. She guided the Maserati inside a hangar and parked next to a sleek Gulfstream jet.

‘I presumed when you said we were gonna be late that we were flying economy,’ Jackson muttered dully at her side after several seconds.

Alexa glanced at him. ‘Reznak’s lending us his plane.’ She stepped out of the car, grabbed her backpack, and handed him the duffel bag. He took it from her grasp reluctantly, his gaze still fixed on the aircraft.

The cabin door opened and a tall, thin, middle-aged man dressed in a pilot’s uniform stepped out. ‘Miss King,’ he said warmly. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you.’ His gaze moved to the man at her side. ‘Mr. Jackson? Come this way please.’ He indicated the interior of the aircraft with a welcoming hand.

Alexa’s lips curved in a small smile as she studied the older man. Tom Garibaldi Fawkes had worked for Dimitri Reznak under a variety of guises for as long as she could remember. A retired member of the Order of Crovir Hunters, he was a constant, serene presence in the background whenever she visited Reznak’s estate in central Europe. He had taught her how to use a gun.

A second man appeared behind the pilot. Although shorter and younger looking than Fawkes, Sidney Carrington was another Crovir immortal who had been in Reznak’s service for centuries. His eyes brightened when he saw the Maserati, and he caught the keys she threw at him without looking away from the sports car.

‘You want me to park it in the usual spot?’ said Carrington, his face wrinkling with a grin. A pale line ran from the angle of his mouth to his right ear, the remnant of an old battle scar.

‘Yes,’ said Alexa. Her eyes narrowed at his expression. ‘If there’s scratch on it when I get back, I’ll shoot you,’ she added.

Carrington’s grin widened. ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He nodded at Jackson briefly and crossed the tarmac toward the Maserati, whistling a happy tune under his breath. He would drive the car back to New York for her.

Alexa watched him climb behind the wheel. ‘Why does he always think I’m joking when I say that?’

The pilot smiled. ‘He probably thinks Reznak will save him if you do try to carry out your threat.’

While Fawkes filed a flight plan with the control tower, Alexa showed Jackson where to stow his luggage. They settled at a table as the aircraft started to roll down a runway. He took the seat opposite hers and looked around the plush interior of the cabin with guarded interest. ‘Reznak’s organization must be loaded if their executives can afford to travel in this style,’ he said.

She took a memory stick from her pocket and plugged it in the onboard computer. ‘This is his personal jet.’

Jackson’s eyes glazed over. ‘Holy cow,’ he whispered. His gaze switched to the files on the display. His expression cleared. ‘So, you finally gonna tell me why we’re going to Egypt?’

Alexa spent the next twenty minutes giving him a condensed account of Reznak’s discovery in North Africa. Images from the excavation site flickered across the screen while she spoke; she had already viewed the pictures once and deleted the shots that showed the engraved trishula in the floor of the second cave.

A strange feeling had stolen over her when she first saw the photographs. For a moment, she had a brief insight into Reznak’s compulsion to uncover her past. It was odd to see her birthmark in a place she had never visited. It felt like a violation of her person.

‘What was in the clay pots?’ asked Jackson, his gaze riveted to the image on the monitor.

Alexa studied him curiously. The expression in his eyes was one she would never have imagined seeing on the face of an academic. It reflected absolute focus and single-minded ferocity, as if the enigma before him was an enemy he had to defeat. It reminded her oddly of her own mindset in battle.

She was beginning to get an inkling of why her godfather had chosen Jackson for this task, despite the fact that he had personally sacked the man for breaching the terms of his contract during a dig a decade previously.

‘They were empty,’ she said finally in reply to his question.

It was a barefaced but necessary lie. She herself found it hard to believe that the clay pots had held the hearts of two immortals who had perished more than four millennia ago. Apart from mentioning it briefly, Reznak had refused to expand on the topic any further, much to her annoyance.

A distracted frown appeared on Jackson’s face. ‘Has he had the cuneiform scripts translated?’ His fingers moved on the keyboard, and he scrolled down the images of the engravings on the walls of the second cave.

‘Some of them, yes,’ said Alexa.

‘Oh.’ His eyes gleamed with intellectual fervor. ‘Do you have the transcriptions?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘They have nothing to do with our mission.’

Jackson scowled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Our task is to find out who looted the first cave and retrieve the missing artifacts,’ said Alexa.

‘Why does he need me for that? I’m not a detective.’

‘He believes your eyes and brain will be helpful to me,’ she said steadily.

‘I was gonna mention that next,’ said Jackson, features locked in a grim expression. ‘What do you mean “we”? And “our” mission?’

‘It’s exactly as it sounds,’ said Alexa. ‘I’ve been assigned the job as well.’

Jackson’s eyebrows rose. He studied her from head to toe, his gaze somewhat derogatory. ‘I’m sorry if I sound rude, but if I’m the brain, what are you?’

‘I’m the muscle,’ she replied with a mirthless smile.

Chapter Four

T
welve hours later, they landed
in the city of Aswan, in south Egypt. While Fawkes arranged for the jet to be refueled for his return trip to the States, Alexa and Jackson made their way to the tan Jeep Wrangler that awaited them. She took the keys from the rental company rep, while Jackson placed their bags in the rear of the vehicle and hopped in the passenger seat.

Alexa climbed behind the steering wheel, started the engine, and rolled onto the highway, heading east. As they passed the Aswan Dam and the dark blue waters of Lake Nasser, she became aware of Jackson’s watchful gaze.

‘What?’ she asked tersely. She was irritable after their flight. Normally a sound sleeper, her slumber on the plane had been fitful, and she had awoken feeling less than fresh. Jackson, on the other hand, had lain back in his seat and zoned out for a solid eight hours. Only the occasional faint snore had indicated that he was still alive. Alexa had never met anyone so relaxed. It annoyed her for some unfathomable reason.

Jackson stirred in the passenger seat and shook his head slightly. ‘I still don’t see it. You’re like, what? Five-foot-eight and a hundred and thirty pounds? Hardly the beefed up image I have in mind for a bodyguard.’

She turned a steely stare on him. ‘I could break your arm to demonstrate.’

Jackson grinned. ‘Yeah, right.’

Alexa gritted her teeth. Shooting the man would achieve nothing, she told herself.

An hour passed. The Eastern Desert mountains appeared on the horizon. As the Jeep ate away the miles that separated them from the far off peaks, the landscape grew more barren. Acacias and wormwood scrubs dotted the wide-open space; except for the occasional Barbary sheep and desert hare, they did not see a living thing for miles.

Almost two hours after they left Aswan, she guided the vehicle off a gravel road and headed into the desert.

It was early afternoon when they spotted the narrow mountain shelf where Reznak’s team had set up camp during the excavation. Instead of driving up to the site, Alexa went around the south end of the foothill until she located the entrance to the canyon the tomb raiders had used to gain access to the caves. She braked half a mile later.

They stepped out of the vehicle and stared up the sheer wall of the mountain.

‘That’s how they got in?’ said Jackson skeptically.

Alexa nodded.

They could just about see the opening carved in the granite rock face a good four hundred feet above them. Reznak had had the passage enlarged to facilitate the removal of the sections of the second cave he had transported to his research lab in Europe. A tall pile of rubble littered the ground at the base of the mountain.

Alexa turned and studied the valley for a silent moment. She started to walk north, her gaze focused on the dry riverbed. Twenty feet later, she paused and stared at the desert floor. She crouched down, curled her palm around a handful of yellow sand, and let the particles sift through her fingers. A shadow fell across her.

‘What are you looking for?’ asked Jackson.

‘Track marks,’ she said, scanning the canyon floor ahead. ‘Reznak saw some the last time he was here.’ She sensed his surprise.

‘Didn’t you say that he discovered the caves more than a month ago?’ said Jackson.

‘Yes.’ Alexa rose to her feet and headed due north again.

He followed in her footsteps. ‘You’d be damn lucky to find any traces of a vehicle after all this time. This place doesn’t look like it’s seen any rain for months.’

She stopped abruptly, her gaze riveted to the ground. ‘You’re wrong.’

‘I am?’ said Jackson.

Alexa dropped on her haunches and touched a dark smudge in the dust. She brought her hand to her nose, rubbed the thin smear between her fingertips, and sniffed. ‘Engine oil,’ she said after a few seconds.

He stared at her before looking at the ground. ‘You’re kidding,’ he said dully.

With Jackson guiding while she drove, Alexa followed the oil trail out of the canyon and headed north across the desert. Ten miles later, she saw something glimmering in the distance to her right. She stopped the Jeep, removed a pair of binoculars from her bag, and stared through them at the far-off object.