Luka had drawn an arrow to indicate that his thoughts were continued on the next page, one of his habits, if this journal was any indication. With a dry rustle of paper the only sound in the room, Jada flipped the page.
“Amazing,” Luka had written. “In Temple of Sobek-labyrinth of Sobek-but Sobek’s worshippers give Mistress of the Laby. greater tribute than they give to their god? Why?”
“Damn good question,” Sully growled.
“Even better question if we knew what honey he’s referring to,” Drake replied.
“You don’t think he just means regular honey?” Jada asked.
Drake glanced at her. “Do you? I mean, all jokes about anything called a ‘honey chamber’ aside-okay, it sounds like a special room Elvis would take his babes in Graceland-but if the other gods are being offered this honey, too, it’s probably not the Winnie-the-Pooh variety.”
Sully gave him a sidelong glance but ignored the babble. “Jada, didn’t you say the worshippers of Sobek actually decorated living alligators with gold and gems?”
Jada nodded.
“So they’ve got gold and gems,” Sully said. “Enough gold that they can make new-what, armor?-for generations of alligators to represent their god. The gems they can maybe pry off, use again, but if they’re making gold plating for the gators, they might be making a new one each generation.”
“How did they get that much gold?” Drake said. “This place isn’t exactly El Dorado.”
Jada sighed. “We’re not getting any answers from this thing,” she said, flipping another page.
“Maybe not,” Drake said. “But at least we’re getting a better idea of what the questions should be.”
Jada turned another page and hesitated. A note had been scrawled hastily there, and when she quickly flipped ahead, she found that the rest were empty. She went back to the final scribble in the journal. It had been written weeks ago, but in a way it was her father’s last message to her.
“Talk to Welch,” Luka had written. “Golden touch? Maybe Daedalus. Where’d he go? That’s the question. Henriksen doesn’t care about the Three Labyrinths, he’s after the treasure of the Fourth.”
“Fourth?” Drake read aloud. “Didn’t he say, right at the beginning, that Daedalus designed three labyrinths?”
“Welch,” Jada said. “That’s got to be Ian Welch, Gretchen’s brother.”
“Call him, Sully,” Drake said. “We need to see this guy tonight. Henriksen’s trying to kill everyone who might know whatever it is Luka found out.”
“There’s no big secret in here,” Jada protested, waving the journal. “They trashed his room looking for it, but whatever he found, it’s not here.”
“Henriksen must think it is,” Sully said, going to sit at the edge of the bed and picking up the phone.
“Jada,” Drake said softly, “we might not have it figured out, but your father wouldn’t have hidden this stuff if he didn’t think there was something important in what he’s written.”
“You’re right,” she said, crouching down to smooth out the map Sully had opened on the bed. Jada shook her head. “But whatever it is, we’d better figure it out before Henriksen does.”
“If he hasn’t already,” Drake said. “It could be that he already has all the secrets and wants to make sure nobody else does.”
Sully dialed the phone, referring to a scrap of paper he’d pulled from his wallet.
Jada flipped open the journal, turning again to that last page. Drake didn’t like the furrow of her brow.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Just reading it again. ‘Talk to Welch.’ Is that a message to me? An instruction? Or is it a note to himself, like his one-task to-do list? If so, then whatever mystery he unraveled, he might’ve told Ian Welch. It would’ve been right before he left Egypt to head back to New York to continue his research.”
Sully had a quick conversation on the phone, and Jada kept her voice low.
Drake frowned. “You’re saying maybe we can’t trust Welch?”
“I’m saying my father seems to have trusted him, and now he’s dead. I’m saying we should be careful.”
Sully hung up the phone. They turned to look at him.
“Guess we’ll find out soon enough whose side Welch is on,” Sully rasped. “We’re meeting him for a drink in Fayoum City in two hours.”
8
The sun went down as Drake drove them into Fayoum City, the sky becoming a vast indigo field of stars. They passed the ancient waterwheels that kept the narrow canals moving in the city, then crossed a bridge into the city proper.
Drake tapped the brake when he spotted a police car parked beside a building that resembled an upside-down pyramid. In some parts of Egypt it was customary for Westerners to be accompanied by police in the larger cities. Chigaru had assured them that the insignias he had pasted on the bumper and the dashboard would keep most cops away. Either he had been as good as his word or this particular cop didn’t feel like rousting Westerners. The police car remained where it was, and Drake kept driving.
The desk clerk at Auberge du Lac had given them directions, which meant Drake wasn’t sure if they would end up in the right place until he actually had pulled into the parking lot. He had half expected the little man in the red jacket to send them the wrong way on purpose, but the directions turned out to be impeccable. The only distraction was the small black van that had picked them up as they passed the waterwheels and stuck with them as they drove through the city.
“You see it?” Drake asked.
Sully, in the passenger seat, glanced back. “Got it.”
“Keep an eye on it.”
Jada stole a quick glance as well. Though she said nothing, her body language spoke volumes, and when they turned onto Halma Street and the van kept going, she visibly exhaled. Drake felt the same relief but couldn’t shake the feeling that they had been observed almost from the moment of their arrival in Egypt. It was impossible, of course. They had driven across wide expanses of nothing where a pursuing vehicle would have been impossible to miss. Even so, he felt the pressure of malign eyes on them as he drove.
The restaurant was tucked into the corner of the lobby of the Queen’s Hotel, whose general shabbiness was a persuasive argument for why Luka had chosen to stay outside the city. Despite the dingy interior of the hotel, the restaurant seemed almost cheerful. The rich aroma of spices and cooking meat filled the place, and Drake found his stomach rumbling as he realized how long it had been since he had had a proper meal.
“I could eat a horse,” Sully murmured as they entered, scanning the place for Ian Welch.
“From the looks of the place, change that to camel and you might get your wish,” Jada muttered.
Drake spotted a thin, edgy-looking man-one of the few Westerners they’d seen thus far in the city-sitting by himself at a corner table, his clothing and overall mien giving him away as American. Welch had chosen a table set apart from most of the dining room, the better to discuss things they would all rather not have overheard.
“I don’t know,” Drake whispered to the others. “Add enough spices and camel might be pretty tasty.”
A uniformed waiter walked toward them, but Sully waved him off, making a beeline for Welch. Drake and Jada followed, and Drake noticed her glancing about the restaurant uneasily.
“Feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone,” she said into his ear, her hot breath on his neck. “Lilting Middle Eastern music and an entire restaurant of people staring at me.”
“This isn’t Cairo,” Drake said. “And it’s no tourist destination. They don’t see a lot of Westerners here and even fewer pretty young women with streaks of magenta in their hair.”
Even with the dim lighting of the restaurant, he could see Jada blush.
“It’s not very manly to even know the word ‘magenta,’ never mind being able to recognize the color,” she said.
“I’m a new breed,” Drake assured her.
They arrived at the table smiling, but Ian Welch’s grim expression sobered them both. He looked nothing like his younger sister with an unruly mop of dark hair, round spectacles, and a deep tan acquired from months in the desert. Wiry and intense, Welch shook hands with all three of them as introductions were made, but his focus was on Jada.