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that?"
'Perhaps," Chimera said. "But they do not seem surprised or alarmed to see us here or worried
that we will remember them and warn Mr. McCallum. In fact, if we are not mistaken, the
spurious Brother Jones winked at us earlier, from which we gathered he was not contrite for
his part in stealing our data."
'Andrew wouldn't have had anything to do with that. He's a major stockholder."
'As was Rasmussen," Gretchen reminded her.
'You got me there. But I still think he owes us an explanation. Personally, I think we should
turn this thing around and go back to Cairo and see what the authorities are doing about
Gabriella. Nobody has done anything very television productionish, that I can see since we've
been on the boat. I'd say it was more of a pleasure cruise for them except they don't seem to
be having a particularly good time either. I asked Andrew what the authorities had said about
Gabriella when we were at dinner, and he got distracted all of a sudden." Which was funny
when they'd been sharing every reaction and thought well, mostly hers, come to think of
it for the last week or so. Suddenly he was too distracted to tell her what he'd found out
about something so important?
'We'll go with you," Wolfe said. He still looked peaked and wobbly but determined. He was
not the kind of guy who was used to being helpless, and he hadn't cared for it.
'Yes," Gretchen said. "If any of us are to vanish, we will vanish all together and so will not
really vanish at all as we will each know where are the others, ja? You betcha." The final two
words were in her Duke voice.
And so they opened the cabin door to see the sun peeking over the eastern shore of the Nile.
On their first day they had traveled from Alex to Cairo, then by car to Giza to view the
pyramids, continuing by road to Abu Sir and Saqqara to view the Step Pyramid designed by
the great Imhotep for King Djoser. "Rosetau," Cleopatra had murmured. It once had been
another name for the necropolis of Memphis at Saqqara, but had come to mean the entrance to
the Other World at the boundaries of the sky, the place where Osiris's body was supposed to
be buried. For a Greek and a well-educated woman, Leda thought, Cleopatra took Egyptian
magic and religion quite seriously.
Leda had allowed Cleopatra some rein to play tour guide to the crew, but to her surprise most
of them seemed more interested in wandering off alone or in couples or small groups to
contemplate the various mysteries without her guidance. And truthfully, except that the
monuments had been newer in Cleopatra's time, the queen had little insight into their history
or origins. More research had been done since then than was done before, and the pyramids
were ancient long before Cleo's time.
As the sun rose over the stern of the boat, so did something else the heads of a group of
people Leda had not seen before. They looked like well-heeled tourists for the most part, with
one very notable exception.
'Leda!" Mike Angeles greeted her.
'Hey, Mike. We can't go on meeting like this," she said, taking three giant steps backward
thinking of the magnetism that had drawn them together at the beginning of their last
encounter.
The medium-sized, dark-haired, and still fairly hunky man grinned back at her. "No problem.
Actually, I wanted to talk to your boyfriend. And to Gabriella." He looked around her and
then, in a different voice said, "Where is she? What have you done with her?"
'Who?"
'My love," he said, looking as if he'd cut her down if she didn't produce Cleopatra instantly.
"She is no longer with you."
It was safe to draw closer then, she realized, and she stepped away from her three friends until
she was within whispering range. "Nice to see you, too, Antony. I haven't done anything with
her. She's off on a self-appointed mission. We need to talk. Out of earshot from the Sierra
Club types you brought along."
He cocked an eyebrow at her, inquiring.
'But I have to talk to Andrew first. Meet me on the top deck in a half hour?"
He nodded and headed for the teak-and-brass staircase leading topside.
The new tourists glanced at her at first blandly, then with a bit more interest. Assessment. That
was the word. They assessed her. And as she saw that, she saw that they were an unlikely
group of casual tourists. Each and every tanned and thirty-to-fiftyish, T-shirted man and
woman among them had the eye of a commanding officer who expected unquestioning
deference, if not obedience. Until the blending with Cleopatra, Leda had never been that sort
of person. True, she knew what was due her in terms of respect for authority but hers had
always been borrowed authority, and mostly she relied on reason and fairness to gain the
cooperation of her so-called inferiors. These were the sort of people from whom her authority
had been borrowed.
Andrew appeared, his hand outstretched to shake the hands of these new guests. He fit right
in, something she would not have guessed from their recent association. Though she should
have. Cleopatra was right about that.
Gathering all of the queenly bearing she could, she turned to him and said, "We need a word
with you, Andrew." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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