10
Drake woke on Saturday morning surprised not to have been rousted by the police during the night. He was even more amazed when he turned on the television and saw nothing about the violence outside the Queen’s Hotel on the news. Sully had spent the night in Jada’s room, presumably sleeping in a chair-though he might have taken a pillow into the bathtub and curled up there; it wouldn’t have been the first time-and when Drake phoned the room, he answered on the first ring.
“Any cops or reporters down your way?” Drake asked him.
“None. Weird, don’t you think?”
Drake did think. “Does Tyr Henriksen have enough money to pay a restaurant full of people to keep their mouths shut?”
“Either that or pay off the Fayoum City police,” Sully agreed.
“Why would he do that?” Drake asked.
“It’s pretty clear he thinks we know something he doesn’t want anyone knowing. If the cops question us, we might tell them.”
“We wouldn’t. Unless we had to,” Drake replied.
“He doesn’t know that.”
“True.”
“How you doing on your morning beauty regimen?” Sully growled. “Jada’s feeling pretty vulnerable. She doesn’t want to spend a minute here she doesn’t have to.”
“Just Jada?” Drake asked.
“You ready?” Sully replied, ignoring the question. “I’ve got some dates and fuul down here.”
“Watch what you’re calling me.”
“Funny,” Sully said drily.
“I just woke up. Give me twenty minutes. We should check out. Whatever happens today, tonight we find a hotel in Cairo.”
“Agreed.”
Drake didn’t actually make it downstairs until a little more than half an hour later, but Sully and Jada must have only been a few minutes ahead of him because they were at the front desk when he walked up. Once they had checked out and settled the bill, they headed outside to the car, all of them blinking back the sunlight and glancing around for the cadre of local cops they expected to descend on them. Still, nothing happened. It was as if the events of the night before had never taken place.
“Did you ask about Olivia?” Drake said, glancing at Sully and ignoring the sharp look the question earned him from Jada.
“She’s registered. We couldn’t exactly ask if she came back to her room last night, and it’s not likely the same clerk on duty, anyway,” Sully said. “I rang her room, but no answer, and we didn’t feel like knocking on the door.”
Drake nodded. There had been too many surprises lately, and he wouldn’t have wanted to knock on Olivia’s door this morning, either. The way she’d vanished, she was either in on it or in even more trouble than they were.
“So, I take it we’re not going to take spooky-ninja-assassin’s advice and go home?” Drake asked.
Jada glanced at him. “No one’s keeping you here, Nate.”
“Hey,” Drake said, holding up his hands in surrender. “We can’t pretend those guys weren’t intimidating. I’d feel better if I knew who they were and what the hell they were doing saving our asses.”
“ If that’s what they were doing,” Sully said. “Looked to me like they were killing Henriksen’s guys. Was that to save Jada or just because they were Henriksen’s guys?”
“If they were Henriksen’s guys,” Drake said.
“Please,” Jada said, waving a dismissive hand. “Olivia may have confused you guys with her damsel-in-distress thing, but I know her. She’s a part of this.”
“Even if she isn’t, she put the blame on Henriksen, too,” Sully reminded them. “Either she was really afraid of him, which means he’s behind it all, or she’s in on it with him, which still means he’s behind it all.”
“I guess we’re in agreement on Henriksen being behind it all,” Drake said.
Jada punched him in the arm.
He said, “ow.”
“Just drive the car, would you?” Sully said, sighing. “It’s not the morning for goofing around.”
Drake frowned. “People tried to kill us again last night. There were hooded assassins-and I mean really, really skilled hooded assassins. As freaked as I am, I think it’s the perfect morning for goofing around.”
Jada stopped short ten feet from the Volvo wagon.
Sully glanced at her. “Hey. You okay?”
She turned to Drake, stood on tiptoe, and kissed his cheek. “I thanked Sully last night. I don’t think I thanked you. For saving my life, I mean.”
Drake wanted to remind her that she’d done a pretty good job of helping save her own life, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment.
Sully smiled. “Well, that shut him up, at least.”
The clock in the Volvo had given up attempting to tell time sometime before they acquired the car, but Drake guessed it was around half past nine when they arrived in a cloud of dust at the Temple of Sobek. Though the temple had been partially excavated years ago, their interest lay beyond it, on a stretch of crenellated desert that seemed at first glance indistinguishable from any other patch of Egyptian dirt.
Only as they drove past the temple excavation and continued toward the site of the labyrinth dig did the idiosyncrasies of the land become plain. A field of tents had been erected in what looked more like a military operation than a scientific encampment. Jeeps and other vehicles suited for the desert were parked in neat rows, though not a single line delineated appropriate parking spaces. Beyond the vehicles and tents there was a great depression in the land where the desert had settled down on top of the ruins of the labyrinth. The depression hinted at the large circular design.
On the eastern edge of the excavation site, a portion of the labyrinth’s walls had been dug out. Another work in progress had been covered by an awning, but Drake could make out what appeared to be the formidable stone entrance to the labyrinth. A small swarm of workers did the delicate work of slowly revealing the outer wall, but from both of the open sections of the labyrinth, buckets of earth were being carried out one by one and sifted through. Other workers carried wooden beams in through the openings, presumably to bolster the walls and ceilings that were being exposed for the first time in eons.
“It’s bigger than I expected,” Jada said.
“The operation or the labyrinth?” Sully asked.
“Both.”
Drake studied the outline of the labyrinth again. “That may not even be all of it. There are probably lower levels, shafts and traps, other twists. These things are never as simple as they seem.”
Jada glanced at the strange ripples of the desert on top of the labyrinth, indicating its basic design. “It doesn’t seem simple at all.”
Sully agreed. “When they were trying to dig out for the lake they were going to put in-” He pointed at the initial excavation point, the broken wall. “-probably right there, the sand started to pour down into the labyrinth. Looks like the level of the desert sank above it; otherwise we wouldn’t even be seeing this much. But most of the ceilings are still intact, so the dig team isn’t going to assume that the design they’re seeing on top is the actual map of the maze.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Drake replied. “As complicated as it looks, that’s only the start.”
Most of the workers ignored them as they parked the car behind the row of others and got out. There were several vehicles there that obviously didn’t belong: luxury vehicles among the faded old trucks and vans of the workers and the Jeeps of the foremen and archaeologists. Drake took note, but then he saw a pair of men in long blue shirts and loose cotton trousers. One had a beige and blue turban, but neither wore the traditional outer robe, the galabeya, so common among the desert dwellers.
“Excuse me,” Drake said. “Can you tell us where to find Ian Welch?”
The man in the turban went on as if they were invisible and had not spoken, but the other man stopped and studied them, perhaps wondering if they worked for his employers. He chose to be careful about who he ignored, smiling and nodding and gesturing them onward toward a row of tents.