Relentless (19 page)

He shook his head. “No. I cannot see August attending afternoon tea, or a soirée in Dr. Najid’s social circles. This would be highly unlikely.”

Thorne saw that the older man was tiring, and got to his feet, tugging Isis with him.

“We’ll go now,” Isis said, then walked over to wrap her arms gently around the older man’s shoulders. She rested her check against his for a few moments, then kissed him and stepped back. She slid her hand back into Thorne’s. “If you need anything, Husani will contact us.”

NINE

T
hey got back in the car. Isis didn’t ask where they were going. Right then she didn’t give a damn. She was hot and sweaty and scared. Turning up the AC to high, she directed the vent on her chest.

“I’d rather these people get what they so desperately want,” she said bitterly as cold air hit her damp shirt. “What’s their agenda? They left my father for dead; they almost killed Beniti. God—they almost killed
you
.”

“What are you saying?” Thorne asked, starting the Jeep and pulling into the street. He seemed distracted, and even more curt than usual, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirrors now and then. Isis knew a car was following them. She’d seen it in her side mirror as they crossed the bridge. She knew he knew it was there. There didn’t seem to be any point discussing it. His gun had been in the seat between them the whole time.

The knots in her shoulders had knots.

He cut in front of a flatbed truck carrying metal pipes, then wove between five cars in quick succession. She liked the look of his large hand on the steering
wheel; it looked competent and strong. Neither of which she felt right then. The bright sunlight accented the thin, shiny white scars across his fingers.

“You want to find Cleopatra and hand her over to thieves and murderers?”

“Yes. No.” She took off her glasses to rub her eyes. “Of course not.” She put her glasses back on. “But if doing so will stop this insane cat-and-mouse chase, then maybe that would be the wisest course of action.” It would literally kill her father to know someone else would get credit for the discovery of the century.

But they’d all be
alive,
and he could spend the rest of his life whining about it. Her shoulders slumped. “I want to find Cleo, and I want the bad guys to leave us alone.” She knew she sounded petulant, but it was the truth.

“It’s good to want things. One’s not going to happen if we continue along the path that’s already set. It’s obvious they—whoever the hell they are—believe you know where the tomb is. Whether they know your father doesn’t remember, or whether they don’t give a flying fuck what he remembers or doesn’t remember, you’re the one in Cairo asking questions. It’s just not clear to me whether they’re trying to kill you, or prevent you from reaching that tomb.”

“Now you believe there
is
a tomb?”

“I believe that whoever these arseholes are,
they
believe it’s real. That’s good enough for me.”

“You were the one they attacked in the underpass.”

“And I suspect that once they killed me they’d help themselves to you, and force you to take them to the tomb.”

“But I don’t—
Kidnap
me, you mean?”

“It’s what I’d do.”

“And then kill me when I couldn’t do as they wanted.”

“What I’d do,” he repeated. “We’re going to ditch this vehicle in two-point-seven miles and find something else. Gather your stuff and be prepared to move fast.”

“All I have to my name is what I’m wearing and my camera.”

“Then keep your clothes on and your eyes sharp.” His voice was neutral, his fingers on the wheel relaxed. Only his eyes showed heightened awareness, like a circling hawk. Isis rubbed her arms.

When her phone rang she jumped as if someone had poked her.

“Are you going to answer that?”

She shook her head. “After all this? Are you kidding me?”

“It might be your father calling back because he remembered something.”

“God—of course.” She scrabbled in her bag for the phone. “Daddy?”

“Isis, this is Acadia. We have Uncle August, and he’s fine. Is Thorne with you?”

Isis’s heart went manic at her cousin’s words. “Yes. Let me put you on speaker.” Her fingers were clumsy as she searched for the right button. “What happened?”

“Cresthaven called us about half an ago when you didn’t answer your phone. An orderly discovered two men in your father’s room. The police have them in custody. Hang on, let the guys talk. Honey—”

“No! He’s my father.” Fear and anger tangled up
inside her, causing Isis’s heart to race and her palms to sweat. “Talk to
me
!”

“Two Egyptian nationals broke into the professor’s room,” Zak Stark told them evenly. “Their attempt to inject him was foiled by the armed security man I had stationed outside his door, and a sharp-eyed orderly. August was scared, but unharmed.”

Isis had dozens of questions, but they raced around in her head like rats in a maze.

“I thought you were in South America?” Thorne said evenly.

“We’re en route back to Seattle as we speak. My security people have August at our home in Queen Anne Hill; security has been amped up. No one can access him there.”

“Why didn’t I know you’d posted people to protect him?” Isis demanded. “Not that I’m not grateful, but how did you know to do that?”

“Honey,” Zak said gently, “your father was attacked after he made a major discovery. I just thought it prudent to watch his back until Thorne could ascertain the facts.”

Knowing her father was safe was her top priority, but it had stupidly never occurred to Isis that the people who’d left him for dead in Egypt would travel halfway around the world to finish the job. Bile rose in her throat, and she pressed her palm to her chest. It was hard to draw breath as fear and guilt ate at her. “Thank you. God, Zak, thank you. He’s all I have. If anything—” Her voice broke. “Thank you. I’ll come home, and—”

“Wise idea. Yes.” Thorne inserted his voice hard and no-nonsense. “I’m taking her back to Cairo as we speak, and will put her on a plane bound stateside. I’ll continue on here as planned.”

“Excellent idea,” Zak said firmly, the drone of the plane’s engines faint in the background. “Let Thorne deal with the situation, Isis. Your father will be happy to have you with him.”

“He would,” Isis agreed, torn. “But he’d rather I was here finding Cleo than sitting around holding his hand in Seattle.”

“We’ve had some activity of our own over here,” Thorne said dryly. “I’ll have London read you in, so you know what’s going on on our end. Right now we have a situation to deal with.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Watch your six, and protect the professor. These people aren’t playing nice, and they’re determined.”

“Yeah. Got that,” Zak said, his tone grim. “I’ll expect that intel in the next fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Curling her numb fingers around the small phone, Isis listened to dead air for a full minute before she disconnected on her end. “I should’ve thought they’d try to get to him. Why didn’t I—”

“Because you were already running on empty,” he told her, fingers flashing on his own phone as he drove, texted, and talked. Thorne took multitasking to another level. Somehow he even managed to keep an eye on the rearview
mirror. Isis was too numb to worry about barely missed bumpers and madly honking horns as he slalomed the Jeep through heavy traffic.

She automatically turned to look back as well. The blue car was weaving and dodging through traffic, and now only three car lengths behind them.

“Don’t beat up on yourself. The situation was averted, and the professor is as safe at Stark’s place as he would be in Fort Knox.” He stuck the phone in his pocket, picked up the gun on the seat beside him, and tightened his fingers on the wheel.

“Brace yourself; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” He floored the engine and the Jeep leapt forward like a racehorse from the starting gate.

THORNE FIGURED THAT EVERY
damned one of the twenty million people living in Cairo was driving on the main road toward the city. He briefly checked the rearview and saw his tail intact. Returning his attention to the congested highway, he cursed. Every sodding one of them was in his way.

“For Christ’s sake.” A dark-haired man cruising at about seventy with a car full of unseat-belted children swerved in front of him. No blinker. Thorne eased into the next lane, avoiding the man’s fender by an inch. His military training allowed him to keep a cool head. High speeds and heavy traffic, combined with the sheer ineptitude of the majority of drivers, upped the ante of the harrowing chase.

He heard Isis’s quick, shallow breaths. At least she was breathing—and it was his job to keep it that way.

Locals refused to wear down their car batteries by using headlights against the settling dusky skies. Thorne flipped his on, gaining an immediate advantage. He could see who he was about to hit. People wove through the three lanes as if there were no rules. Vehicles competed with street dogs, animals, carts, and pedestrians. Everyone ignored traffic lights as if they weren’t there. People on foot played chicken to cross the road. He who was bigger, or had his nose out front, had the right of way.

Thorne laid his hand on the horn and kept it there. There were no rules.

Drivers here broke the law of physics, since it seemed they wanted to occupy the same space at the same time. Thorne crossed three lanes of traffic at right angles and got nothing more than a few honking horns for his trouble. He narrowly missed a donkey cart piled high with cauliflowers, only to clip the edge of the bumper in front of him. The driver yelled obscenities out his open window.

A glance in the rearview mirror showed the blue Mercedes hard on his heels. Isis braced her white-knuckled hands on the dashboard, her feet applying invisible brakes on the passenger floorboard. “Breathe before you hyperventilate. We have no time to haul your ass back to the hospital. In. Out through your nose. Good girl. Now get out the map.”

Isis dragged in a shuddering breath, then popped the
glove compartment. “For someone who doesn’t have a clue where he is,” she said, straightening her smudged glasses with a huff, “you seem to have the city memorized.”

“I don’t.” The setting sun in his eyes made the mad race that much more dangerous. “Tell m—” A bullet hit the rear window, shattering it. The safety glass didn’t break, but the mass of small opaque bits of glass became impossible to see through.

“Fuck. Get down!” She didn’t move fast enough. Life or death. Thorne used his gun hand to press down on the crown of her head until she was below the protective seat back.

Horns blared as the Mercedes slammed into the rear bumper of the Jeep with a teeth-jarring jolt and the crunch of metal. Theirs. The Jeep was of reinforced steel and built like a tank, and while Doug Heustis had assured him the windows were bulletproof, Thorne wasn’t prepared to stop and test the validity of the Mossad operative’s claim.

Another bullet slammed into the window frame inches from his head. Opening the window to shoot back was a stupid move, so Thorne pressed down on the accelerator, giving the engine the last bit of juice. “Isis! Give me directions to—fuck,
anywhere
!”

He twisted the steering wheel hard left, slamming the front wheel into the Mercedes, bulldozing it aside. “In three or four exits.” Keeping up this cat-and-mouse bullshit was dangerous to innocent bystanders. And
he didn’t like the way Isis’s cheeks paled. “We have to regroup. Come up with a plan. Having the advantage puts me in control. Us.
We
get control. Come on, darling, find us an exit.”

Isis peered over the dash to ascertain where they were, then returned to her safe slouch, using a finger to trace the route despite the speed they were going. “Head toward May 15 Bridge. Keep right at the fork.”

“I’m going to change lanes at the last possible second to take that exit, so hang on.”

“When am I
not
freaking hanging on?” she asked rhetorically, bracing her hands and feet. The dented Mercedes came alongside, the car obviously built with a few extras, just like the Jeep. Thorne’s window spiderwebbed with a dull thud and crack. Isis let out a shocked shriek as she saw the bullet, clearly visible, embedded inches from his head.