Thieves Like Us 01 - Thieves Like Us (8 page)

‘I don’t believe he’s mad,’ said Coldhardt, tucking the envelope away without bothering to check its contents. ‘He’s just very well informed.’

‘Who by?’

‘By
whom
.’ Coldhardt smiled wanly. ‘You’ll travel to Cairo first thing tomorrow morning. In the meantime, shall we enjoy the party a little longer?’

‘Yes,’ said Con without hesitation, flinging open the door.

‘Why not?’ Tye muttered, feeling her blisters burn beneath the elegant strap of her shoe.

But she found Coldhardt had paused just outside
the door. At the end of the corridor, the woman in green was deep in conversation with an attentive couple.

Coldhardt held a polite hand over his mouth and cleared his throat noisily.

The woman looked up, saw him and excused herself brusquely.

‘Nathaniel,’ she said, her tongue lingering over the word as she leaned in to press a kiss on each cheek. The accent of her English was heavy, as exotic as her dark, glittering eyes. ‘I thought I spied you earlier.’

‘Good evening, Samraj.’

Con and Tye exchanged startled looks. So
this
was Demnos’s rival. Their opponent. Their target.

‘Allow me to introduce my niece, Constance, and her friend –’

‘You’ve acted unwisely, Nathaniel,’ said Samraj, ignoring both Tye and Con completely. ‘Been terribly irresponsible.’

‘I have?’

A light danced in her eyes. ‘Leaving an old friend to mix with bores all night when you could have been entertaining me yourself. I shan’t forgive you this neglect, you know.’

‘Oh?’ Coldhardt took her hand and raised it to his lips. He pressed a kiss against the very tip of her fingers, an oddly intimate gesture, his eyes meeting the yellow diamonds of the snake bracelet coiled round her arm.

Con’s pale eyes had turned almost as hard; Tye knew well that she didn’t take kindly to being ignored. ‘Uncle, dear, we really must be going. There’s so much
to prepare before my trip tomorrow.’

Now Samraj turned to face her, amusement on her handsome features. ‘You are going somewhere, my dear?’

‘Back to Paris,’ said Con unflinchingly. ‘I must write up an account of this
memorable
event for my newspaper.’

‘Of course you must,’ she said softly.

‘Then if you’ll excuse us, Samraj?’ Coldhardt was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief as if wiping his lips after a meal. ‘It seems I must neglect you once more.’

‘And just as the evening was getting interesting.’ Now she glanced at Tye with ill-concealed disdain. ‘We’ll all meet again soon, I am sure.’

And as Tye nodded and turned to follow the others, she knew one thing with certainty: Samraj was speaking the truth as well.

If you had to be squeezed in five to a car, Jonah reflected, it might as well be a flash convertible on a blazing hot day, somewhere exotic. And cruising along the road from Cairo to Sakkara was better than squashing up inside a crappy white van in a prison car park, at any rate. Maybe things
were
looking up.

They were heading west now in their hire car after a long stretch north. The road was flanked by fields of fig palms. A large, crumbling pyramid was looming ever closer in a fine, smoky haze.

‘Step pyramid,’ said Motti, beside him. ‘Says here it’s the first of its kind. Built by our old pal Imhotep.’

‘Maybe we should knock on the door, see if he’s at home,’ said Con sourly. She had bagged the front seat beside Tye as ever, her long, pale legs pushed up against the dash.

‘I need a pee,’ Patch complained.

‘Hey, and the desert needs irrigating,’ said Motti. ‘Drop the Cyclops here, Tye. They were meant for each other.’

‘Don’t take your hangover out on Patch,’ said Tye, with the air of someone well used to talking to brick walls. She was wearing pale cotton trousers, and a
little pink shirt that looked great against her dark skin and the deep blue sky.

The others had taken it for granted, but Jonah couldn’t get over how she’d switched from piloting an eight-seater Beech King Air 350 to driving a hired BMW without effort or complaint, and given such a smooth ride in both – especially in the kamikaze insanity of the Cairo traffic. But nagging at the back of his mind was the thought of all she must have done to
get
so good, to come to Coldhardt’s attention. He wondered how she’d got into smuggling so young. Whether she’d had a choice. What her choices were now.

‘This job better not be like that crypt we had to get into in Lima,’ Motti said suddenly, prompting a round of pained and noisy remembrance from the others. ‘I mean, sure, it was a pretty crystal, but those ancients knew a bit too much about self-defence if you ask me.’

‘Thought my hair was gonna turn white,’ said Patch with a shudder.

‘I can’t believe we got out of that one with all our fingers intact,’ said Con. ‘And no way am I ever dressing up as a leper again …’

Jonah chose not to question them; he wasn’t sure if they were trying to wind him up again. And in any case, for now he just wanted to enjoy the view and the sunshine. Staring out of the window, he drifted off into his own thoughts.

The day had kicked off at 6.30am with a wake-up call from Con. She’d told him to get his ass out of bed, pack some light clothes and get downstairs. They were going to Egypt, to track down some old relics
linked to Ophiuchus in some newly discovered tomb, stuff that might or might not be linked in to the secret of eternal life.

Jonah’s money was on ‘might not’. But the job didn’t sound too scary. Just nuts.

He’d been given a perfectly forged passport under the name Johann Sypher, ‘just in case’ he needed to show it to anyone, and Con led him out on to the chateau’s private runway. Jonah had a grin on his face a mile wide as he watched the twin-engine turbo-prop plane glide out of its hangar. He’d always wanted to fly. Up till now, he’d never even been abroad.

‘Coldhardt not coming with us?’ he asked.

The mention of his name brought a glacial frown to Con’s face. ‘Why would he? The job is simple. A child could do it.’

He smiled innocently. ‘So how
was
last night?’

‘Just get on board,’ she told him.

The five-hour flight from Geneva to Cairo passed quietly. Con and Patch wasted little time crashing out in the luxury seats. But Jonah was too excited to shift his eyes from the circular windows. He could hear Motti crouched over a thin sheaf of plans and papers and a seltzer, puzzling something out and muttering about the injustices of life. It seemed to have been a late night. Jonah had wisely gone to bed around one, when Motti was already on to his sixth beer and fourth tournament of
Fatal Conflict
against Patch. The sound of electronic gunfire had carried faintly to his room like distant thunder, as clouds swallowed the moon through his window like a bad omen.

‘We’re here,’ Tye announced, jerking Jonah from
his memories as a big welcome sign came into view.

Guards in dark uniforms loitered near the entrance with bored faces and big guns. The landscape had been bleached of all colour by the fierce sun. Tourists milled about in roped-off areas, lingered in front of impressive tombs. But there were wide tracts of sandy desolation too, and excavations in progress. Figures in white djellabas and turbans drifted about the mounds and rubble, working or overseeing others.

‘If this place is so old, how can there be anything left to uncover?’ Jonah asked.

‘Egypt’s dead were buried here for more than three thousand years,’ Tye informed him. ‘They’ve been excavating for maybe a couple of hundred.’

He blushed. ‘OK, when you put it that way …’

‘I’ll get us access all areas,’ said Con.

‘Can you ask if we can use their toilet, too?’ Patch called.

Con gave him a withering look as she got out of the car. Patch stared back dreamily as she smoothed out her short denim skirt and black top and walked over to the guards. She started talking confidently and fluently in a language Jonah didn’t recognise.

‘Is that Arabic or something?’

‘Duh!’ said Motti. ‘What else is she gonna speak in Egypt?’

Jonah was impressed. ‘How many languages does she speak?’

‘Fluent in eight,’ said Tye. ‘Good working knowledge of eleven more.’

‘Including “goddess”,’ Patch added.

A few minutes later Con got back in the car,
looking pleased with herself. ‘We can drive through to the dig office. The guard’s calling through to Professor Allein now – he’s the team leader. We’re archaeology students with special clearance.’

‘Got it,’ said Tye.

They drove on along the bumpy, dusty track, Con reeling off directions. The office was a battered old Portakabin, its weatherproofing dried out and cracked by the sun. A thin, balding man in a linen suit, his tanned face scored with deep wrinkles, was frowning down his long nose at them.

‘I don’t have time to speak to students,’ he said in a thick French accent. But when Con started gabbling at him in his own tongue, he smiled broadly and said something back.

‘The professor says he’s about to make an important phone call,’ Con reported. ‘He is sorry he was rude. He thought we were all English.’

Tye muttered something that was probably deeply offensive in Creole.

As Con continued her chat, Motti shrugged. ‘Whatever. Saves
us
having to speak to old Leather Face.’

‘Not quite,’ said Patch. ‘I gotta ask him one thing.’ But the way he staggered out of the car, clutching his crotch with his legs held tight together was eloquence itself, and the old man wearily gestured he go inside the cabin.

‘Interesting,’ Con reported after a high-speed flurry of
français
. ‘The tomb of Ophiuchus was found to be full of anachronistic stuff.’

‘What, spiders, you mean?’ Tye ventured.

Jonah shook his head. ‘Not arachno,
anachro
. They found objects there from the wrong period of history.’

‘I was just kidding,’ Tye snapped at him. Motti looked away, saying nothing.

The professor was speaking again. ‘They’ve recovered items from many different cultures and centuries,’ Con translated, ‘placed there long after the tomb was first sealed. The experts are baffled – this would suggest tomb raiders have got inside the tomb, and yet nothing valuable has been removed. This other stuff has been added to what was already there – treasures dating right up to the fifteenth century.’ She paused again. ‘The smaller objects have been cleared out and placed in a museum lockup until they can be examined thoroughly.’

‘Better than some goddamn crypt,’ grumbled Motti.

Con paused while the professor went on, her face slowly clouding. ‘Oh, but one thing
was
missing. A corpse. They can find no trace there was ever a body here.’

‘Then Demnos was right,’ Tye realised.

‘A tomb with no body, and stuff dumped here regularly for thousands of years?’ Jonah nodded thoughtfully. ‘Sounds like the storehouse theory is bang on.’

‘Con, ask him for a list of the stuff,’ said Motti.

Con did so, but the professor went tight-lipped and shook his head. He tapped his watch, nodded cordially at the others, made to duck back inside his office. But Con took him by the arm, smiled, started to stare deep into his eyes …

Just then Patch appeared in the doorway, relief all
over his face. He pushed past the professor, who was jolted back into puzzled awareness. Con was about to try again but the professor said a polite but firm goodbye and closed the door on them both a moment later.

‘Patch, you idiot.’ Con folded her arms crossly, which drew his eye like lightning to the deepening line of her cleavage. ‘I was going to get the list of the contents of that tomb!’

‘No point,’ said Patch. He reached into his baggy orange shorts, tugged out a folded, slightly soggy wad of paper and offered it to her. ‘I already got it.’

Con surveyed it dubiously.

‘It’s just water what’s made the ink run,’ said Patch, blushing red. ‘It is, honest!’

‘Yeah, Con,’ sniggered Motti, ‘don’t take the piss.’

‘You think it’s so funny,
you
look it over,’ said Con, turning her back on both of them. ‘I am not touching anything that has been down Patch’s trousers!’

‘And another dream dies,’ sighed Patch, passing the papers to Motti.

They all piled back into the car, and Tye roared away. By the time the professor realised his precious list was missing, they were already on the home straits to the city.

Cairo was a maze of streets and lanes and different quarters. Tye steered them through half-finished suburbs, old neighbourhoods where the houses crowded close together as if for comfort, sprawling sweeps of brown, boxy blocks. There was a sense of decay all around, as if the city itself was worn ragged by the endless bustle and bother of its people. Even the
slicker downtown offices showed signs of neglect, the proud steel letters of their logos pitted and discoloured by the fine blown sand and polluted air. Jonah’s throat was burning after only twenty minutes, and Tye had wisely raised the roof on the convertible.

But that and even the pumping stereo couldn’t hope to shut out the incredible noise as they stop-started through the dense five-lane traffic. Jonah found it terrifying – cars swung out without warning, drove directly at you. Horns honked and headlights flashed. Sometimes Tye would swerve aside, sometimes she’d stand her ground, like there was some logic to this mental metal ballet only those behind the wheel could understand. Bikes, pedestrians, donkey carts – they all added to the full-on chaos. A traffic cop stood in the middle of the street with a white hat and whistle, apparently ignorant of the madness all around him, contentedly chewing on a tangerine.

Somehow they made it unscathed to a hotel, a decent enough building but with bags of overripe rubbish piled up against the scuffed walls. Motti asked for two twin rooms for the five of them.

‘What gives?’ said Jonah. ‘Coldhardt’s expense account not stretch to separate beds?’

‘Protection,’ Motti told him, heading for the lift. ‘This ain’t no holiday, geek. We got to expect trouble at any time. And there’s safety in numbers.’