Sin and Sacrifice (20 page)

The tasks kept him busy
until they landed on the private airstrip where a waiting car
whisked them away to a hospital on the outskirts of Port Said. Even
here they had pull. Christian would have made sure to get Rhett out
of the public eye and have him treated by a physician who could be
trusted to keep his mouth shut. They had discovered in flight that
Rhett had not been mortally wounded, which notched down the anxiety
several levels.

When they walked into the
secure, isolated hospital room, Dracht was not surprised to see
Rhett sitting up on the bed yanking at the IV line. He had a
bandage over the top half of his left shoulder with a small spot of
blood seeping through the pristine, white gauze. A flesh covered
bandage protected what he supposed was the other wound Rhett had
acquired saving Evelyn from the safe house.

Two close calls.

“
What the hell happened?”
Dracht asked while Dragar went closer to investigate.

Christian stood up from a
chair in the corner and hovered near the other side of the bed with
his hands in his pockets after the greetings.

“
She shot me, that's what
happened,” Rhett said with a snort.

“
Evelyn
shot you?” Dracht asked. Of all the scenarios
he'd imagined, that was not one of them.

“
That's right.”

“
The kicker, is that he
gave her
lessons
in the desert, thinking to help--”

“
Shut up, Christian,”
Rhett growled.

At any other time, Dracht
might have thrown his head back and laughed. The recent death in
the basement and Rhett having been shot by the woman he was
protecting subdued his humor.

“
I guess you didn't teach
her how to shoot to kill?” Dragar asked, clapping Rhett on the
shoulder once he seemed sure the man wasn't dying.

“
I taught her just fine.
If she wouldn't have closed her eyes when she pulled the trigger I
might be in the morgue right now,” Rhett said with
disgust.

“
Do you think she would
have really killed you?” Dracht asked, growing more serious at the
question.

“
I don't think so. I think
she was scared and wanted to slow me down.” Rhett didn't seem
disgusted so much at Evelyn as with himself.

Dracht regarded Rhett with
a sharper eye. “Why did she shoot you to begin with?”

“
Because she saw the
tattoo.” Rhett twisted his torso around so Dracht and Dragar could
see the way the 'patch' had peeled away from his skin. Half of the
Templar tattoo was visible.

“
I don't understand,”
Dragar said. “Why would that send her into flight?”

“
She apparently knows
something about it. I couldn't get what she knew out of her.
Situation was too tense,” Rhett answered.

“
How could she know? That
secret has been carried down through the centuries. Only rumors
exist outside the Church and our group,” Dracht said. He wasn't
sure what to think that some random woman knew about their status.
Even people that had seen the tattoos didn't know what they really
meant. The legend of the Templars had died out hundreds of years
ago.

“
I don't know, Dracht. But
I'm not spending the whole night in here while she's out there on
the run and vulnerable. She's been withholding information that we
need to help them,” Rhett said, standing up off the edge of the
bed.

He swayed, and Dracht put a
hand on his other shoulder, urging him to sit down. “You need at
least one night of rest, Rhett. Don't push yourself.”

“
It's a flesh wound. No
good will come of me sitting here all night while she puts more
distance between us,” Rhett insisted.

“
How will you know where
she's gone?” Dragar asked. “I don't think she'll be stupid enough
to use her own identification to flee Egypt.”

“
Because I put a bug on
her while she was asleep.” Rhett sat down and reached across his
chest to smear the edges of the bandage firmly against his skin.
The IV dangled from the bed where he'd ripped it out.

“
Why don't you let us pick
her up--”

“
No,
I want to do it,” Rhett insisted, standing up
again.

He wasn't as steady on his
feet as he should have been. Dracht and Dragar exchanged glances
before Dragar left the room.

“
Nothing good is going to
come of you rushing after her right now. If you pass out somewhere,
it'll take us too long to find you,” Dracht said, buying
time.

Rhett went to the armoire
against the wall and jerked the handle, swinging the door wide.
There was a shirt in there that Christian had probably brought
earlier. Rhett snatched it off the hanger and shoved his good arm
through the sleeve, going slower with the other.

Dracht knew Rhett well
enough to know that he wouldn't slow down or stop until he either
passed out or was made to pass out. The wound wasn't lethal, but
Rhett had lost enough blood to make him woozy. That meant he'd be
less attuned to his surroundings and more apt to be off his game.
Mistakes often meant death in their business, and he wasn't willing
to take that chance.

Dragar came in with the
doctor on his heels. Before Rhett understood their intent, the
doctor stabbed a needle into his arm and depressed the
syringe.

“
.. what the hell.” Rhett
snarled and yanked his arm away.

Christian and Dracht caught
Rhett as he sagged, cursing a blue streak under his breath that
faded as unconsciousness claimed him.

Between them, they had no
trouble manhandling him back into the hospital bed.

“
Sorry old boy, but it's
for the best.” Dracht felt not one lick of guilt for their
actions.

Dragar shook hands with the
doctor and Dracht followed suit. The physician exited after
assuring them Rhett would be well looked after.

Tomorrow they wouldn't have
as easy of a time holding him back.

Chapter Nine

The small, seedy bar sat at
least four blocks away from the shooting. It was the third one on
her stop to nowhere, a late night haunt catering to nocturnal
tourists. Gloomy, with a long bar against one wall, seating
scattered intermittently and pool tables at the back, it had
conflicting orange-green color accents and a floor that felt sticky
to walk across, even in shoes.

With shaking hands, Evelyn
ordered another shot of whiskey and tried to calm the frantic pace
of her pulse. Images of Rhett flying back from the impact of her
bullet had burned themselves onto the back of her eyelids, forcing
her to relive the horror like a film reel on repeat.

She knew he wasn't dead,
not with the bullet punching a hole through his shoulder instead of
his heart. It had been the very last act of a desperate woman to
save herself from certain death. Evelyn hadn't wanted to shoot him.
Had
not
wanted to
pull the trigger. She remembered pinching her eyes closed at one
point and then had seen him go down after being struck.

And it irked her to no end
that she was relieved he would survive even after his
betrayal.

Damn Rhett.
Damn him.

The bitter deception he'd
perpetrated was hard to wash down, even with the burn of the
alcohol. At the same time, she wondered how bad she'd laid him up,
if at all, and whether he was going to come after her.

Of course he
was.

It was only a matter of
time.

She wasn't even positive
the bullet had gone
through
him, perhaps only winging him like the last one
had. His swift recovery from that incident was downright depressing
when she was the one trying to flee him.

Dragging the band out of
the ponytail, she ran her fingers through her hair and propped her
elbow on the counter. She considered her options while the liquor
slipped through her system.

Staying in Egypt was far
too risky, and returning to Athens posed a problem because of
travel issues. Even in her state of upset, she recognized that she
couldn't very well use her passport or her I.D. She couldn't use
Galiana's, either. Likely they had hers flagged, too. The Templars
probably had every airport monitored in a fifty mile
radius.

She thought about trying to
take a boat across and dismissed the idea out of hand. Aristo
worked for them and would turn her in if she showed up asking for
passage. How many others were on their payroll?

What she needed was to be
in touch with her sisters. Thoughts of them in the hands of the
Templars made her stomach clench. Undecided whether they'd been
captured and were being held as bait or were on the run like
herself, she glanced along the bar to the woman sitting one stool
down. She reminded Evelyn of a showgirl past her prime, with too
much make-up, big hair, bright red lips and a misplaced debutante
air.

Lola, of Copacabana fame,
came to mind.

What held her attention
however, was the purse sitting on the stool between them that gaped
open while 'Lola' dug through for a lighter that she produced with
a drunken coo of triumph. Specifically, the passport and wallet
within easy view, which gave her ideas she shouldn't be
having.

Evelyn was no ordinary
thief. She wasn't a thief at all.

But desperation made her
bold. Lifting her shot glass, she leaned a little to close the
distance between her and the woman when she offered up a
toast.

“
To all night bars,”
Evelyn said, pretending to be tipsier than she was.

'Lola' billowed a lungful
of smoke her way and picked up her own glass, more than willing
apparently to toast a stranger. “Honey, we couldn' live wit'out
'em,” the lady slurred.

Evelyn made sure that the
tink of their glasses was hard enough to slosh liquor all down the
woman's gauzy shirt.

“
Oh, I'm sorry! Must have
had a few more than I thought. Here, let me help,” Evelyn said,
setting her almost empty glass down while she slid off her stool
and gathered up a few napkins.

“
Crap, it's soaked
through,” the woman said, setting down her glass with a
thump.

It was in the seconds where
the stranger glanced through the dim room for the restrooms that
Evelyn snitched out the wallet and the passport. She tucked them
under her shirt, into the waistband of her pants. The bartender was
too busy breaking up an argument over by the pool tables to notice
and everyone else either couldn't see due to low lighting or were
in the wrong vantage point.

Although she and the
stranger had different color hair and eyes, Evelyn knew she could
get around that with the addition of a hat and a pair of
sunglasses. Women changed their hair color all the time, and at
least she and the woman had similar bone structure to make the ruse
less obvious.

“
I'll order us another
drink and I'll pay for your shirt,” Evelyn offered, dabbing up what
spilled on the counter with a napkin.

“
Soun's right. Hold my
seat now.” 'Lola' grabbed up her purse by the straps and Evelyn
held her breath, hoping she wouldn't look through it right
then.

She didn't. Staggering
off, the woman headed for the short hallway and the neon
Ladies
sign she must
have glimpsed in her search.

Evelyn only waited until
she'd disappeared out of sight to pay for her own drinks and depart
the bar. Half expecting the bartender to suddenly call her out, she
sank into the obscurity of the still crowded street. At some point,
the woman she'd left at the bar was going to discover the theft and
call the authorities. Or maybe, if she was lucky, the lady would
think she'd simply lost them.

Hailing a cab, Evelyn gave
the driver her destination and breathed a small sigh of relief when
no one shouted her name or tried to stop her.

At the airport, feeling too
exposed under the glow of florescent overhead lighting, she bought
a floppy brimmed hat, a pair of reading glasses and a cheap purse
to stuff the wallet and passport into. Sunglasses, considering it
was still dark outside, might have been too conspicuous.

In the bathroom, she
scraped her hair back into a hasty knot, securing it with a thin
band she'd had in her jeans pocket. It helped disguise that her
tawny, auburn streaked hair wasn't quite as light as the woman in
the photo. Evelyn also decided that it made her own cheekbones look
sharper, closer to a match for the identification that didn't
belong to her.

As long as the clerk didn't
pick apart the differences, she thought she could pass through
undetected.

Still, she was nervous when
she approached the desk a few minutes later. The hat provided her
with a small amount of privacy in the way she glanced furtively
around, checking for familiar faces, or even people who seemed too
interested in her. Trying to be discreet, she was unprepared when
the clerk asked her where she wanted to go.

“
Excuse me?” Evelyn said,
snapping a glance back.