That Time in Cairo by Logan Ryles (books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

Silence filled the room as the morbid quality of the words sank in.

Edric nodded slowly, then sat down at the end of the table. “At least a dozen tombs of the pharaohs have yet to be found,” he said. “When King Tut’s tomb was discovered in nineteen twenty-two, they valued the contents at tens of millions.”

Wolfgang let out a low whistle. “Plenty to kill for.”

Edric nodded. “Grave robberies have accounted for the destruction of numerous ancient artifacts and national treasures in Egypt. The Egyptian government wants to be sure that whatever tomb is documented on the scroll isn’t the next victim.”

“So, they hired us to catch a book thief?” Kevin laughed.

“You could say that,” Edric said. “Only, this book thief is well armed, probably not alone, and lost in the biggest desert on the planet.”

Wolfgang fingered the dripping condensation on the outside of the Sprite can, evaluating the story and searching for inconsistencies or missing information. Then he grinned. “Well, procurement is in our name, right? Let’s go procure a grave map.”

2

SPIRE’s Gulfstream G550 waited on the tarmac at a small private airport north of Saint Louis. Wolfgang held the door of the Uber for Megan and offered her a warm smile. She nodded her thanks but said nothing as she hurried up the steps into the plane, her petite frame looking little larger than that of a child next to the big aircraft.

Wolfgang felt something sink inside of him as she disappeared inside.

“Hey, Wolf. Give me a hand?” Lyle said from the back of a utility van parked nearby. His nose was wrinkled up to hold the glasses on his face, and he beckoned.

Wolfgang hurried to the back of the van and looked in to see a box half the size of a coffin resting inside. “What the hell is this?”

Lyle grinned. “New toys.” He jumped inside and pushed the box out.

Wolfgang caught the edge, and they lifted it up.

“Watch out. It’s heavy,” Lyle said.

The air whistled between Wolfgang’s teeth as he stumbled backward. “You don’t say . . . It feels like a case of bricks!”

The box must have weighed close to two hundred pounds and was packed so tight that even as Wolfgang struggled to regain his balance, nothing shifted inside. They wrestled it out of the van and up the steps into the waiting airplane. Lyle motioned toward the rear of the aircraft, and they stumbled past the plush leather seats, dragging the crate over headrests and slamming into Kevin along the way.

“Look out there, wiz,” Kevin snapped, a drink in one hand.

Lyle shot Kevin a salty glare, then they set the case down just outside the plane’s aft cabin.

A door clicked shut, then Edric emerged from the cockpit and motioned to the seats. “Lift off,” he said.

Wolfgang slid into a seat, catching his breath and buckling his seatbelt. The aircraft’s engines whined and spun to life, and a few minutes later, they shot skyward.

Lyle sat on top of his box, his short legs hovering an inch off the floor as he sipped water from a bottle. Wolfgang cast the box another curious look, then dismissed the mystery as his eyes landed on Megan again. She sat at the lone table, bent over a map of Cairo with a red pen in one hand. He recalled her studying maps of Paris prior to their last operation and remembered how helpful it would’ve been if he’d done the same.

I should join her.

“All right. Huddle up.” Edric took a seat close to the group and accepted a gin and tonic from Kevin.

Wolfgang leaned forward and flexed his fingers. Memories from his last operation with Charlie Team flooded his mind and primed his body to spring into action again. Paris had been a stress-filled nightmare at the time, but now all Wolfgang could think about was feeling that rush of adrenaline again.

“The Egyptians have determined that the scroll went missing someplace in their Western Desert region,” Edric said. “That area constitutes about 263,000 square miles, and two-thirds of the country.”

“Well, that’s helpful,” Kevin snorted.

Edric sipped his drink. “It’s a desolate place. Entire battalions of World War Two soldiers lost themselves in that desert, and it would be easy for us to do the same. So, the question is, how do we find our needle in that haystack?”

Wolfgang rubbed his chin and watched Edric. Charlie Team’s leader rested his injured arm on one knee and leaned back, swirling his drink and watching his team with the faintest hint of a smirk.

He already knows how. He just wants us to figure it out.

Wolfgang scanned the team. Kevin was making a show of puckering his lips and glaring at the premium carpet in between gulps of whiskey. Megan shuffled through maps until she uncovered one of Greater Egypt, then tapped the Western Desert region with her pen. Lyle sat back and tried to hide a grin.

He knows, too. Figures. He probably hacked Edric’s brain.

Kevin snapped his fingers. “Satellite! Lyle can hack a satellite again, and we’ll just scan the desert.”

Lyle shook his head. “After Paris, I’m having difficulty gaining access to any useful satellites. Most of them don’t have the sort of high-powered, live cameras we need. Also, security has been . . . upgraded.”

Edric grunted. “And besides, what exactly would you be looking for? Two guys with guns holding up a scroll in the middle of the desert?”

Kevin blushed and turned to the minibar to refresh his drink.

Wolfgang rubbed his chin, picturing the vast wasteland in his mind. Two-hundred-sixty-three thousand square miles . . . It was just too big. Impossibly big. It would be difficult to find an aircraft carrier in that expanse, let alone a book thief who didn’t want to be found.

“Roadblocks?” Megan asked.

She looked up, still rolling the pen between her fingers.

She’s guessing.

“What are we, warlords?” Edric said. “Come on, guys. It’s not that hard.”

“We don’t find them,” Wolfgang said.

Everybody looked his way, and he sat forward.

“It’s not possible. The desert is too big. For all we know, they aren’t