ELEVEN
I will procure two men to go with y—” Husani’s gaze flickered over Isis’s shoulder. His face hardened. “Brengard approaches on your right. He is already schooling his features as if surprised to encounter you.”
They’d accompanied her friend to the souk the next morning so they could pick up a new car. Isis half turned, moving closer to Thorne. She saw herself reflected in his sunglasses. Once again the humidity had turned her hair into a dark cloud of out-of-control curls around her shoulders. Husani plopped a wide-brimmed straw hat on her head, and she twisted the unruly mass into a knot, stuffing it beneath the crown to bare her neck to any stray breeze. There wasn’t one, but she lived in hope.
Even the hours of delicious lovemaking the night before couldn’t compensate for her lack of sleep. She felt sweaty and disheveled and decidedly grumpy. Thorne looked cool, calm, and annoyingly affable.
They’d stopped only long enough to buy more new clothes—something not in Isis’s budget. At least Thorne was a cheap date. Thank God he was happy in jeans and a navy blue T-shirt, which did lovely things stretched over his broad chest. She grabbed jeans and a purple T-shirt with her namesake Isis, wings spread across her boobs.
Everything she owned in the world was slung across her chest in her camera bag.
“Do you believe in coincidences?” Through her darkened glasses she watched Dylan’s approach. Thorne, too, tracked him as he wove his way through the throng of people, heading directly for Husani’s shop.
“Never.”
She looked up at Thorne. His features had turned grim, dark, and immovable. A different man than the tender lover she’d discovered the night before. “Neither do—”
“Isis? My God. Is that you?”
She turned to face her father’s protégé. “Dylan. What a… surprise.” Just seeing him pissed her off, and she deliberately kept her tone borderline rude. He was no more surprised to see her than she was to see him, and she hated that they were playing this fake social game. Was he the moron who’d shot at them last night and tried to run them off the road?
“It’s great to see you!” When he looked as though he was going to pull her in for a hug, Thorne blocked him, taking Isis’s hand and tugging her against him. She liked feeling his hard body against hers, even if they were in the middle of the souk with Dylan blocking the way. Husani came to stand on her other side. It was sweet of the two men to want to protect her, but Dylan wasn’t likely to do anything in a public market. Thorne gave the other man a cool nod. “Thorne, Isis’s fiancé. You must be Brengard.”
Dylan’s gaze flickered from him back to Isis. “This is a surprise. This is the last place I’d expect to see you, what with your father…”
Isis liked that Thorne didn’t pretend he didn’t know who Dylan was, or mangle the other man’s name just to prove a point. She, however, wasn’t quite as evolved. She pushed her glasses up her nose with her giving-the-bird finger. “He’s doing much better, thanks for asking.”
Dylan flinched at her sarcasm. “If you’d give me a minute, I was just about to. How is the professor?”
“Fighting fit, and in top form,” Thorne inserted smoothly.
Dylan looked momentarily nonplussed, but regrouped quickly. He was like a damned cat, always landing on his feet. Isis had known he was a little too smooth, but she hadn’t realized until this very second that he wasn’t smooth, he was slick.
“That’s… That’s good to know. Is he here with you?” He glanced around somewhat nervously, as if expecting her father to jump out of one of the nearby baskets.
“No, he’s getting ready to go to London for his exhibit.” He would be, if he remembered the event was about to take place. Which he didn’t, having freaking Alzheimer’s. Of course Dylan would know that if he’d really paid any attention to her father or cared about him. Isis’s entire body bristled with resentment. Directed at whom, she wasn’t quite sure, but since Dylan was standing in front of her, he’d do.
Dylan frowned. “Ah.” He glanced from Thorne to Isis. “Fiancé?”
“It’s very recent,” she said dryly. Like a nanosecond ago. “You look well.” He did, annoyingly. Tanned, fit, and ridiculously handsome. A Ken doll, dressed in ironed khakis and his usual affectation: a brown felt Indiana Jones fedora. Indiana Jones could cream his ass with his whip hand tied behind his back. Thorne could do it with both hands tied behind his back and his eyes closed. Isis would buy tickets for that match.
“Seriously, how’s the professor after that incident?” He fingered a length of purple silk piled haphazardly on the table. To avoid eye contact? Oh, yeah. He quickly dug into his breast pocket, took out mirrored aviator shades, and slid them on, effectively blocking where he was looking and the expression in his eyes.
Ass. “Curious as to why you haven’t inquired after his health in all this time,” Isis told him coolly.
Dylan’s face darkened. “I was quite ill, and then he returned to Seattle…”
“That’s right, you weren’t able to go with him on that last dig. What was it? Food poisoning?” Her face, reflected clearly in his glasses, showed her disbelief. She’d never been good at poker. What she thought came through loud and clear in her expressions. Fortunately she didn’t care if Dylan saw them or not.
“Right, bad fish. Awful.”
Thorne glanced down at her with a small frown, then directed his X-ray eyes at Dylan, like a death ray right through his sunglasses. “I heard it was the flu.” His tone was cool and clipped.
“Right, right. Both, actually. It was touch and go.”
“One has to be careful what one eats here, that’s for sure. Are you here on a dig?” Thorne asked conversationally.
Dylan moved into the shade of the awning, out of the hot sun. “I am. I came to hire a few more men…” He glanced over at Husani, who gave him a stony look in return. There’d never been any love lost between them. Husani had a keen nose for bullshit. Now that she’d gotten a whiff of it off Dylan, it was easy to sense. What exactly had she seen in him beyond his Ken doll looks?
“Oh?” Isis said curiously. If the son of a bitch was anywhere near her father’s site she’d—she’d sic Thorne on him. “Must be something important to work here at this time of the year. Who’s lead on the dig?”
“I am.”
“Really?” She made sure her contempt of that notion came across loud and clear. “And where is it?”
“Abusir,” he answered smoothly, trying to brush a fly off his cheek. Unintimidated, it stayed put, as flies here had a tendency to do. Apparently the fly knew bullshit when he smelled it.
She narrowed her eyes, jaw tight. “Abusir?”
Thorne squeezed her hand when her entire body jerked in reaction. “And what’s there?” he asked her calmly.
“A two-thousand-year-old temple to the god Osiris,” she said through gritted teeth, giving Dylan a death stare. “It’s an ancient site at the third-century BCE Taposiris Magna temple.
“My father dug there a year ago and found nothing of note,” she continued. “What a strange coincidence that you’re back in the exact same place without him, especially since I believe you were the one who said it was a ‘colossal’ waste of time.”
“We were off by half a mile,” Dylan said with a defensive shrug. “And even if he had found this particular tomb, he never went deep enough. Besides, he dug elsewhere that year, remember? He had several digs going at the same time. I told him then, and I’m telling you now. He spread himself too thin, spread our resources too thin… You must admit patience was never the professor’s strong suit.”
“Here’s a good idea,” she snapped. “You don’t talk about my father, and I don’t punch you in the nose for stealing his find.”
Dylan rotated his shoulders, a sign he was uncomfortable. “You were never prone to violence, babe. What’s wrong with you? You know how this business works.” He leaned against the heavy metal pole supporting the awning, the picture of nonchalance and innocence as he tucked his fingers in the front pockets of his loose khaki pants. “The professor had thirty years to find the tomb. Now it’s my turn.”
“Using everything he taught you, and stealing his claims and maps?”
Dylan picked the fly off his sweaty chin, dropping it to the ground, then stepped on it. “How—Don’t start accusing me just because your father is washed-up. It’s early days, yet, but I believe I’ve found Queen Cleopatra’s tomb. I’m sorry, Isis. I was going to call and let you know as a courtesy to your father.”
“Were you?” Her fingers ached, and she realized she was holding so tightly to Thorne’s hand that her fingers had gone bloodless and numb. She loosened her grip a little. “What made you decide to revisit the site?” He was a moron. There was absolutely nothing in those tombs. She’d been with her father when he and Dylan had discovered them. Empty, nada. Not a scarab.
The fact that Dylan was back in that location was odd. He was an opportunist, not a fool. Digs were expensive, the red tape extensive. If he was there it was because he believed he would discover something of value—which meant that when he’d worked for her father, he’d discovered something and not passed on the knowledge.
“Radar survey identified three underground sites, not just the one. The area was untouched, ripe for excavation.”
Ripe to rape and pillage, he meant. “And what? You hit the jackpot? Did you find her actual tomb?” Anger clarified her senses, heightened her need to protect her father. Get rid of the skunk bastard they’d trusted. Thorne could help her hide Dylan’s body.
“We found ten nobles’ tombs nearby—”
“Interesting, but not Cleo.” Would he tell her if he had? The answer to that was yes. If he’d excavated and pulled out all the artifacts and documented them. The answer was no if he’d barely started and didn’t want her poking a stick into the wheels of his dig. She could go back to the ministry and reopen her father’s claim.
“Twenty-some coins with her face and name inscribed on them. I also discovered a ceramic fragment of a mask I believe was of Mark Antony.”
“You found Mark Antony’s death mask?” If this was true, Dylan had made the discovery of the century. Her father’s discovery. Her stomach knotted.
Dylan shrugged. “It has the cleft chin of the Roman general—”
She made a rude noise. “Maybe it was a prop for Richard Burton’s role as Antony in the movie,” she suggested, trying to unclamp her tight jaw.
“Denial is a waste of time. Your father had his day in the sun; now I’m having mine. And if you think for a moment that I didn’t cover all my bases with the MSA, you’re mistaken. The professor’s rights to those sites ran out weeks ago.” The Ministry of State for Antiquities was responsible for regulating, conserving, and protecting all antiquities and archaeological excavations in Egypt. Dylan had always had an excellent rapport with the members of the Administrative Council. Her father had not. “Where’s the money coming from, Dylan? Who’s bankrolling you?”
“I have several sponsors. Just as the professor had.” He pushed away from the pole, making the tassels lining the top edge of the awning dance in the harsh sunlight.
“I’m trying to figure out,” Thorne inserted, voice deceptively quiet, “what the f*ck your angle is, Brengard. One minute you’re sucking up to an old flame, next you’re doing everything in your piss-poor arsenal to tick her off. Not smart.” He deliberately moved into Dylan’s space. “Piss her off, and you piss me off. We’ve been here less than forty-eight hours, and we’ve been chased, shot at, and run off the road. What do you have to do with that?”
Dylan’s mouth tightened and he took a step back. “Absolutely nothing. I didn’t even know Isis was here until a second ago, and I resent your insinuation that I—”
Isis sensed Thorne’s simmering anger, and was rather sorry that he remained rooted in place. His animosity was—to her, anyway—crystal clear. “If I discover you had anything to do with putting Isis in any danger, I’ll rip your balls off and stuff them down your throat.”
Stunned at how something said in such a calm voice could make every hair on her body quiver, Isis demanded of Dylan, “Have you been following us?”
“What on earth would I follow you for? I’ve found Cleopatra’s tomb, Isis. You have nothing I want.”
“Fortunate.” Thorne lifted their clasped hands to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. “Because Isis has everything I want, and I don’t share.”
“THAT WAS SCARILY IMPRESSIVE.” Isis’s cheery tones followed him as they got into another Mossad-supplied vehicle parked in the garage near the mosque. She took off the straw hat, tossed it in the backseat, then ran her fingers through her hair as he got in on the driver’s side. The last thing she acted like was scared. His ego warmed as he acknowledged that she sounded, if anything, impressed.
“I did my job.” His job as an MI5 operative, not a Lodestone agent. He buckled up and indicated she do the same.
“You threatened him and staked a claim in two seconds flat.” She fastened her seat belt while he went through the compartment under his floor mat. A second Glock. Couple of clips. Knife. Thorne left everything, but shoved the clips in his pockets.
“About that,” he said flatly. “I’m sure it doesn’t need pointing out, but I come from a long line of cold bastards. I don’t do warm and fuzzy.”
She turned big brown eyes on him. “And you’re telling me this non–news flash—why?”
“I don’t want you getting the wrong idea.” He didn’t want to give himself the wrong idea, either. Her future happiness had nothing to do with him. Couldn’t have anything to do with him. He was all about his job. Without MI5 he didn’t know what the f*ck to do with himself, and he couldn’t do Isis Magee as a temporary filler until he was back at the agency. There were rules. And he’d abide by them. Even if they were of his own making.
She gave him a narrow-eyed glance. “What kind of wrong idea? That you were serious back there? Trust me, I didn’t—don’t.”
Bugger it. She was hurt, and why the f*ck wouldn’t she be? A woman like Isis Magee only saw the good in people. He’d lost his halo a long time ago—with no apology. But she deserved the white-picket-fence fantasy she’d planned, so long as she didn’t picture him at her outdoor BBQ wearing a checked apron and holding hamburger tongs. His gut clenched at the image.
Better to get any illusions settled, bruised feelings or not. “Glad we are on the same page.” Gazing ahead, he heard her shift on the seat. “As much as I enjoy the sex, when this is over, I’m going back to my job at MI5.” Sure, he felt like a shit for being so blunt, but the cards had to be on the table before she started embroidering him into her rosy, happily-ever-after needlepoint. This was not a conversation he’d ever had with any other woman he’d been intimate with. They all knew the score and didn’t need it spelled out for them. Isis was different. “Operatives must remain unencumbered for obvious reasons.”
Isis flushed, her skin moist from the heat. Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, she turned to face him. Without blinking an eye, she lobbed his plain speaking right back. “I enjoy the sex, too. No worries—I have zero expectations. You’re a warrior, not a hunter-gatherer.” Her lips tilted but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Your bachelorhood is safe with me. I promise, I won’t drag you kicking and screaming to the altar.”
Uncomfortable at the picture she presented, he spoke somewhat defensively. “Marriage isn’t in the cards for me. Never has been.”
“You’ve made your point, Thorne.” There was a bite to her voice now as she adjusted the air vent. “With a sledgehammer. I get it. There’s no need to flog a dead horse.”
Isis’s annoyance angered him, creating a desire for her to understand. And what? Give her f*cking blessing for him being an ass?
Last night Isis had taken Thorne to another level of sexual awareness, her damn touch imprinting itself on his skin. He shivered in memory. Mentally, physically, she’d forged a connection he’d never experienced before. Her caress, her openness, her willingness to be a partner as they’d joined in the best sex of his life.
Still. He wasn’t marrying her. Coldhearted now, he imagined by looking at his father that he’d only get chillier with age. Then Isis would be miserable, they’d divorce, and she’d be left with shattered dreams. Better to keep away from the get-go. As soon as his doctors signed off on him, he’d be back in the thick of things.
“I don’t think anyone has ever threatened Dylan that way. I must admit, I enjoyed seeing him squirm.” She neatly changed the subject, cutting him loose.
Thorne didn’t like feeling like a right bastard for stating the simple truth, but he didn’t want to hurt her. He couldn’t let it go. “I like you. The time we’ve spent together.”
“No happy ending, Thorne.” Her voice, matter-of-fact, challenged him.
“Right, then.” He turned on the engine, cranking up the air, then gestured for her to hand over her glasses. She did, and he cleaned the lenses with the bottom of his shirt. “I never say anything I don’t mean, and never make threats I don’t intend to follow through.” He handed her back her glasses.
“Thanks. I think you may be the one flogging that dead horse. Things over here are crystal clear.”
No crying, no pouting. Digging in his pocket he took out a fifty-piastre coin. “Call where you want to go.”
“What are my choices?” Her brow arched. “Back to bed?”
Expecting a small debate on the virtues of marriage, he was pleased to find her reacting sensibly instead of emotionally. And hell, if sex was still an option, she probably wasn’t too pissed about the matrimony thing.
His views left no room for argument.
Isis enjoyed taking charge of things, so maybe she appreciated having the situation spelled out, with no room for misinterpretation.
“Unfortunately,” he said in a dry tone, “that wasn’t one of the choices. Heads, Valley of the Scorpions. Tails, Abusir to see what Dickhead has really found.”
“Heads.”
Thorne flipped the coin, then slapped it on the back of his hand. “Tails.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I still believe Cleo’s resting in the Valley. There first, then when I see Dylan again, if I’m incarcerated for his murder, I’ll know where she is one way or the other.”
“Valley it is then.” The air-conditioning kicked in, blasting like a furnace inside the already broiling vehicle. “If Brengard’s responsible for all that crap yesterday?” he continued as if they hadn’t paused to make choices. “Bloody right I’ll hurt him.” Just because he wasn’t offering marriage didn’t mean he had no feelings for Isis. And when it came to her protection, he fought to win. “Are you all right, after seeing him?”
“I’m fine…”
He gave her an incredulous look.
“Honestly? Not really.” Isis wriggled in her seat to get more comfortable, her back against her door, her knee curled on the seat. “That encounter left me shaking. Look.” She held out a flat hand, not a shake in sight, but her voice was tight, and after dropping her hand into her lap, she curled her fingers into a fist.
“I’m annoyed. Scared. Incensed. He knew I was here. I know he did. And if so, how? People leave at this time of year. Go where it’s cooler. This is the worst season to dig. I’m suspicious times two.”
“He needs something from you.”
“What? I don’t have anything. If I did, I’d be the one financing a dig. Okay, I wouldn’t be able to do that, but in theory. I’d be the one digging. With my bare hands if I had to.”
So far her father’s “clues” had given then bugger-all. Thorne doubted even the professor’s mind could be jogged with the random items he’d left. A tassel from a minister’s carpet. A broken stick… Not a shitload to go on.
“He claims to have a crew and sponsors,” Isis continued, incensed. “He didn’t put that together yesterday! That takes months to set up. Which means the slimy bastard was working this site while my father was working somewhere else. Thorne, this has to be my father’s find. Dylan wouldn’t have had time to verify a potential dig and get the backing that quickly all on his own.”
The air pouring out of the vents grew cooler. The Range Rover was another souped-up vehicle with bulletproof everything. F*cking annoying as hell that it was a necessity at all, but obliging of the Israelis to be so accommodating, considering his vehicular track record on this trip.
“Has he really found Cleo?” Isis shrugged. “Who knows? I can contact the director of MSA, see where Dylan’s excavating—if he’ll tell me. He and my father never exactly saw eye to eye.” Her voice was dry. “But he might tell me if indeed my father’s permissions were revoked and why…”
“You sure Brengard isn’t just flat-out lying?”
“I believe Dylan—he’s working a site. He probably does have a legitimate claim to excavate wherever the hell he is. Husani and his father are our friends. If Dylan went to them to hire on more men, he’d know they’d check on my father’s behalf to make sure he was on the up-and-up. They worked with him when my father was around, and while they didn’t actually come right out and say so, I know they never liked Dylan.”
“Good instincts.”
She frowned, apparently at her own lack of instinct about the man. “Apparently.”
“We’ll call the minister and confirm that. Also confirm exactly what Brengard’s location is. Either he’s located Cleo’s tomb at the Abusir site, or he hasn’t. Your amulet tells me it was found near the dam. Perhaps your father told you he purchased it so that if anyone asked you about it, that’s exactly what you’d tell them. All I know was where it was found. I have no idea what archaeological significance it might have. A hundred miles separate the two locations. One thing we know for sure: Cleopatra wasn’t buried in two places at once.”
She leveled her gaze at him, the knots of her fists turning whiter. “Do you think he suspected I’d come back to see what my father found the last time? Maybe he had someone watching for me at the airport?”
“Maybe.” Thorne pulled out of a side street and merged into the free-for-all that was normal traffic. Lifting his hip, he took out his phone and handed it to her. “Call the ministry and get that ball rolling, unless you want to stop by their offices?”
“No, a call should do it.” Isis took the phone and keyed in the number, clearly from memory. “It’ll take—what? A couple of hours to get out to the dam? Half the day will be gone by the time we get there.”
He’d give her this, an afternoon to at least see where her amulet had been found. Then he was putting her on a plane back to Seattle, if he had to hogtie her to do it. He’d hire Doug Heustis to accompany her, instruct him to sit on her if necessary.
His preference was to make a U-turn and take her to the airport right now. But he knew Isis-bullheaded-Magee well enough now to know she’d refuse to go.
No. He had to show her what she needed to see, then he’d use all his negotiating skills to make her see things his way. The trip there and back would take the better part of the day. But he’d still have time to get her on an evening flight.
Thorne headed west as Isis talked to someone at the MSA, then handed him his phone. Since he’d overheard the conversation there was no need to recap. Brengard had all the correct permissions filed.
“If he really has found Cleo,” Isis said tightly, “I’m going to have to do him serious bodily harm. Son of a bitch did steal my father’s maps. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved in the attack—our attacks, plural—and also responsible for putting Beniti al-Atrash in the hospital. And if he’s glomming on to my father’s dig with an Egyptian fly’s tenacity, then perhaps he had a part in my father’s attack three months ago as well.”
Oh, Thorne didn’t doubt that one for a minute.
She massaged her forehead, then took off her glasses to rub her eyes. “It seems surreal, but someone’s responsible for everything that’s happened, and he sure fits the bill.”
He kept a firm grip on the steering wheel, weaving in and out of traffic. There was less time than she thought. “We know where he wasn’t during those few days—in any hospital. So his whereabouts are unaccounted for. So, yes, I’d put my money on him being neck deep in all this.”
A mixture of betrayal and fierce anger flitted across her features. “My father trusted him. Hell, I trusted him. Dad shared everything with Dylan, past, present, and future—”
“He didn’t tell him about the carpet tassel clue.”
She leaned her elbow on the window and cupped her forehead in her hand. “You know that sounds ridiculous, right?” she said with a return to her pithy self. “That we know of,” she answered his rhetorical question.
“Do you still feel as strongly that her tomb is about to reside at the bottom of a lake, and not thirty miles from Alexandria as Brengard claims?”
“That’s what my gut feeling is. But honestly? That’s not based on anything tangible.”
“My reading on your amulet is about the only solid clue we have, and that says, unequivocally, that it was found in the Valley of the Scorpions.”
She patted her back pocket. “Yes, but it doesn’t say Queen Cleopatra’s tomb.” She curled her leg beneath her and faced him with a heavy sigh. “Dylan is a braggart and an opportunist. But if he’s lying, he’ll soon be found out. He won’t be able to keep a find like this quiet for long. Even with everything that’s been going on with my father these last few months, I would’ve heard something from someone.
“Everyone in the universe knows how badly my father wanted to find Cleo’s last resting place. Someone would’ve taken great pleasure in rubbing his nose in the fact that somebody else did what he’s spent a lifetime trying to do. But I haven’t heard a scintilla of a hint of a whisper. All of which means that somehow, some way, Dylan has greased palms or kissed butts. He would have had to name the find in his paperwork—and considering he was connected to my father and the number of times he claimed to have found Cleopatra’s tomb, the news would have spread faster through the archaeological community than fleas on market rats.”
Thorne frowned. He needed specifics if he was going to plan out their next move. “How long before he makes a public announcement?”
“Excavating a tomb won’t be quick. Even he’s not stupid enough to make a false claim until he’s absolutely sure of what he’s found. It would have to be something big and definitive—her sarcophagus would do it. We can go there tomorrow, see what he’s doing—”
“What we don’t have time for is to wait to see what’s on the valley floor before it becomes a lake next week.”
“But if there’s a chance, even a small chance, that my father was in the Valley of the Scorpions three months ago, or a year ago, and this amulet was taken from there… then the lake project will be forced to wait. Right?”
He shrugged. “It took four years to move the Temple of Abu Simbel to higher ground.”
“But it was moved.”
He suspected that if necessary, Isis would supervise the move personally if the tomb were found. But he also suspected that in six days the valley would be a pleasant recreational lake beneath the cofferdam, and all this supposition would be moot. “Do you want to visit Dr. Najid at his office?”
She shook her head. “I’d like to go out to the site first. Just to… see.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
“GOD. WE WON’T BE able to stop this, will we?” Despite her dark glasses, Isis shaded her eyes against the intensely bright sunlight reflecting off the pale sand. The heat seeped through her shoes and burned her legs beneath thin cotton pants. Very few people were stupid enough to be outside when it was this hot, and the shiny new settlement was a ghost town of pristine, empty buildings and emptier streets.
Perspiration and the humidity caused her hair to puff up and curl around her neck and shoulders. She scooped the mass up in one hand to shove under her hat.
Thorne, too, shaded his eyes as he looked across to the other side of the deep valley, where mirror images of the buildings and green strips of grass and trees waited for tourists and locals alike to enjoy. Docks strategically placed along the edge of the ravine looked oddly surreal jutting several hundred feet over sand, marking where the level of the lake would reach in a week. “It won’t be easy,” he admitted.
He’d pointed out where he “saw” the GPS location of her amulet’s original resting place: across the deep valley and snugged into the hillside, in a skinny ridge that snaked along the eastern wall and looked from here like piles of rocks. To see anything she’d need powerful binoculars. Everything was the same sand-colored sand.
There was no frantic activity with large machinery, or the thousands of people who’d been involved with the preparation for the flooding of the valley. Their work was done. On the hilly rim circling the mile-long Valley of the Scorpions were the new hotels, restaurants, and shops, the paved streets, parks, the recreational buildings for boat rentals and ski equipment—empty now, but all with a future ringside seat to the second-largest man-made lake in Egypt.
They’d passed the hydroelectric plant several miles back, and the faint throb could be heard even here. The graceful, multiple arches of the cement buttress cofferdam wall held the water in the upper dam. Leaking moisture quickly evaporated in the stifling heat, leaving a sweat stain on the gray surface.
Behind them the blank eyes of hotel and shop windows looked out over the valley of sand and rock, but in a week a hundred million acre-feet of sparkling blue water would fill the valley. Feluccas would unfurl white sails, speedboats and skiers would cut through the water, and swimmers would lounge on the man-made beaches, already curved, groomed, and ready, hundreds of feet above the floor of the valley.
Isis put a hand on his arm. “Let’s go back to Husani and get the men and supplies and come back first thing in the morning when it’s cooler. We’ll go down to reconnoiter, see what we can see, and go from there.” She bit her lip when Thorne made no comment. “You’re right. We should stop by and see Dr. Najid first. At least we can get the stopping process in motion.”
“He won’t be predisposed to stop a multibillion-dollar project without concrete proof. I suggest we take a breath and regroup. If you’re up to it, we’ll go down since I know exactly where we need to be. We can drive most of the way, I don’t think it would be much of a walk to reach the place. You take plenty of pictures, and then we’ll go and see him. Good enough?”
Isis took off her hat to swipe at the sweat running down her temple, using the large red and blue cotton scarf tucked in her belt. “Good idea. She’s down there. Waiting.” Plopping the hat back on her head, she squeezed his muscled forearm and grinned up at him. “I can feel it.”