Hawke cleared his throat and pushed back into his chair. “You must be Snowcat, then?”
The woman looked up at him sharply. For a second she looked startled, but then she smiled and relaxed a little. “Yes, but how did you know?”
“Easy. First, you counted something on your fingers.”
She looked confused. “Yes — I was telling him my room number, sixty-six.”
“And you used your little finger for the six, instead of your thumb, which told me you were Russian.”
She opened her mouth slightly in surprise. “I never even thought…”
“Forget about it,” he continued. “If you’re going to worry about something giving you away then you should spend some more time on how you walk.”
“On how I walk?”
“I can tell from the way you walked over here you have a small firearm in your right-hand pocket — am I right?”
“Well…” she looked a little embarrassed now. She nodded her head. “Yes, yes I do — but how did you know?”
“Simple — your right stride is shorter than your left, and your right arm is swinging less than your left arm. Both of these things tell me you have a weapon in the right-hand pocket of your trousers.”
She looked confused. “My what?’
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Pants.”
“Oh… then yes. If you mean pants then say pants.”
“No, I meant trousers so I said trousers. Pants are what go under your trousers… Anyway, my guess is you’re carrying something super compact like a Beretta Pico or maybe a Sig P238.”
She smiled and looked in his eyes. “Well there, Mr Hawke, you are wrong.” She flicked her eyes over the room to ensure they were alone and then pulled the weapon from her pocket for a second before sliding it back again.
“Ah — of course — the Makarov. Should have known better — Russian.”
“Reliable, accurate and lethal.”
Hawke nodded. “It’s an excellent pistol, I agree.”
Snowcat’s smiled faded. “I was talking about me, Englishman.”
Hawke made no reply, but stayed alert as she rose from her seat and wandered closer to him. She sat beside him, so close he could smell her perfume — foreign, exotic.
“Why did you ask me to meet you here in Cairo?” she asked.
“Because I’m working here,” he said flatly.
“You mean you’re tailing Maxim Vetrov, perhaps?” she said with a half smile.
Hawke thought about lying, but saw no point. “Yes. You know him?”
She nodded. “Of course. He is known to my government — he is a very powerful and dangerous man, and before you ask, yes I do know all about the Map of Immortality.”
For a moment he was stunned and not sure how to respond. This woman had honey-trap written all over her in bright, flashing neon, and he knew he had to be careful about what he told her, on the other hand, no one was supposed to know about a map which had remained buried in a lost tomb in Greece for the last few thousand years.
Now he was confronted with a choice — be straight with her or be guarded. If she knew anything about his wife’s murder he couldn’t risk her walking, so he went with being straight.
“You know about the map?”
“Of course. We have Maxim Vetrov under more surveillance than an airport and we’ve known about his search for the map for a long time. We’ve also been watching you since you decided to turn Geneva into a rally track.”
Hawke cracked a smile and nodded in admiration. “I should have known.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself — you are a soldier, not a spy.”
“Where is Vetrov now — do you know?”
She shook her head. “We don’t know. He took off from Venice some time ago and is flying south, we think. We presume he is heading to Egypt.”
“Have you heard of Dario Mazzarro?” Hawke asked her.
She shook her head, and Hawke smiled. For once he had more information.
“He’s the only man in the world who can translate the map properly, and Vetrov snatched him from Venice before taking off. If that weren’t bad enough, he took two of my people hostage, an American CIA man named Karlsson and a woman named Lea Donovan who means a great deal to me.”
“I see… I will need to report this to my superiors and…”
Without any warning, half a dozen men burst through the revolving doors of the hotel lobby and opened fire with submachine guns. The bullets smashed into marble, wood and glass, and in seconds had turned a peaceful, relaxed place into a horrifying scene of bloody carnage where people screamed and ran through the dust and chaos for their lives.
Hawke and Snowcat immediately thought the same thing — a terrorist attack — but this changed when the men made an obvious move toward their table and fired on them personally.
They dived for cover behind the leather couch they’d been sitting on and Snowcat extracted the Makarov and took aim over the top of the cushions using a rubber plant for cover. She took out two of the men in a second, causing Hawke to raise an eyebrow of appreciation.
They turned to each other and at the same time said: “They must have followed you!”
“Hey, they never followed me!” Snowcat said. “This is an outrageous slur on a Russian agent…”
“Well don’t look at me!” Hawke said in reply. “I didn’t let anyone follow me here, either!”
“Oh, fine,” Snowcat said. “Then we agree that the fairies brought them here, no?”
Hawke rolled his eyes.
“However they got here,” he said firmly, “it’s time we got out of here, agreed?”
Snowcat nodded and after firing a few more warning shots in the direction of the armed men, they slipped out through the door at the rear of the lobby. They searched for a way out, and after running along a utility corridor lined with elevator shafts they burst through a fire escape and emerged into a bright Cairo day.
“Which way now?” Hawke asked.
“Follow me,” Snowcat said, pocketing the Makarov.
Behind them, the sound of enemy gunfire drew closer.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kosma Zhuravlev seemed to be enjoying his work as he dragged Dr Dario Mazzarro through the plush carpet of Vetrov’s airborne office and dumped him like a sack of potatoes at the Russian billionaire’s desk.
Vetrov stared at the Italian academic for a few moments with a look of cold contempt in his eyes before speaking.
“Welcome to my airplane, Dr Mazzarro. I apologize that we have not been properly introduced yet, but my man here was under strict orders to keep you safe from any interference that might be offered at the hands of these people here, or their friends.” As he spoke, he pointed disrespectfully with his chin at Lea Donovan and Bradley Karlsson, both now gagged and bound on Vetrov’s white leather couch.
Mazzarro struggled to his feet and stared at the horribly scarred face of the man behind the desk.
“Where are my manners…” Vetrov said, almost to himself. “Kosma, get our guest a seat, and a some refreshments… Dr Mazzarro, what would you like — whisky, perhaps, or wine — some water?”
“I…I — who are you?”
“Forgive me. My name is Maxim Vetrov, and we have more in common than you might think.”
Kosma put a chair down opposite the desk as Vetrov swivelled in his seat and poured two big glasses of Scottish single malt whisky. He handed one to Mazzarro and took a large sip of his own.
“I don’t understand what you want with me, Mr Vetrov,” Mazzarro said, flicking his head nervously at Lea and Karlsson for a moment. Lea wanted to urge him not to help Vetrov but she was helpless to do anything.
Vetrov smiled at him. “Of course you do, Dario. As I say, you and I share a great deal in common. My father, like your father, spent his life in the search for the greatest secret our planet holds — a secret the planet has been keeping from us from the very beginning… a secret kept from us by not just Mother Nature — am I right?”