Renata nodded. “I’ll have AISE and Interpol run a check,” she said. “It’s a small island. She can’t be that hard to run down. If nothing turns up immediatel
y, I’ll go wider. Maybe it’s a code name or the designation on an account or a computer program—something.”
“She could even be Joe’s sniper,” Kurt said.
“Why not?” Renata said. “This is the modern world. A girl can grow up to be whatever she wants.”
Kurt nodded grimly and took another sip of the scotch. The cold fire of the liquor, combined with the numbing sensation of the icy glass against his forehead, had brought the pain down to a tolerable level. He felt his mind clearing. “It all comes back to something in that museum. Kensington said the men were looking for artifacts from Egypt—he called them trinkets—but who knows if he was telling the truth. We need to take a look. Which means Joe and I will be going to the party.”
“I do look good in tails,” Joe said.
“Don’t break out your tux just yet. We’re going to be a little underdressed. After what happened tonight, we don’t want to make ourselves obvious targets.”
“I sense a disguise in my future,” Joe said.
“Better than a disguise,” Kurt said without elaborating.
“I’m shocked to hear that this party is still going on,” Renata said.
Kurt agreed. “So am I. But things have a way of working backward sometimes. From what I’ve heard, the incident has boosted interest, not diminished it. Almost as if the danger were making people more excited. So instead of canceling, they’ve tripled security and invited a few more potential buyers.”
“And we’re just going to walk up and ring the doorbell?” Joe asked. “While the triple force of crack security teams look the other way?”
“Even better,” Kurt replied. “They’re going to escort us inside personally.”
21
Southern Libya
The cockpit of the old DC-3 shuddered continuously as the aircraft crossed the desert at an altitude of five hundred feet, while traveling at nearly two hundred knots. Based on the vibration, Paul Trout estimated the propellers were out of sync or perhaps slightly unbalanced. He morbidly wondered if one of them was about to come off the hub and fly off into the waiting desert or slice into the cabin like a vengeful can opener.
As usual, Gamay shared none of his fears. She was in the right seat, where the copilot would normally sit. Enjoying the view out the window and the thrill of traveling so quickly at such a low altitude.
Reza, their host, stood with Paul just behind the pilots’ seats.
“Do we have to fly so fast?” Paul asked. “And so close to the ground?”
“It’s better this way,” Reza insisted. “Otherwise, the rebels have an easier time shooting at us.”
That was not the kind of answer Paul was looking for. “Rebels?”
“We’re still in a low-level state of civil war,” he said. “We have militias, who alternately work with us or oppose us; foreign agents, especially from Egypt; the Muslim brotherhood; even members of Gaddafi’s old regime—all fighting for power. Libya is a very complicated place these days.”
Suddenly, Paul wished they’d stayed an extra day in Tunisia and flown home to the States. He could be sitting on his porch, smoking a pipe and listening to the radio instead of risking his life out here.
“Don’t worry,” Reza said. “They would be fools to waste a missile on such an old plane as this. Usually they just take potshots at us with their rifles. And they haven’t hit us yet.”
With that, Reza reached around Paul and knocked on the wooden trim that lined the bulkhead. Like everything else in the DC-3, it was literally from another era, worn almost to the core where people had brushed against it stepping in and out of the cockpit for the past fifty years.
The controls were in the same state. Big, bulky metal levers with grooves worn in them where men and women had handled them for decades. The pilot’s yoke was the old half steering wheel type, it was even bent in the middle. The one in front of Gamay looked little better.
“Maybe we should have driven,” Paul said.
“The journey is eight hours by truck,” Reza replied. “Only ninety minutes by air. And it’s much cooler up here.”
Ninety minutes, Paul thought, checking his watch. Thank goodness. That meant they were almost there.
Still cruising at high speed, they crossed a series of rocky folds that rose out of the sand like a sea monster’s back emerging from the ocean. They continued south and made a circle around what looked like a dry salt bed, before lining up for a final approach to a dirt strip that ran beside what Paul assumed was an oil field, complete with towers, derricks and several large buildings.