Kairo gave his mother a few more instructions while Izzie offered some sweet reassurances that they would take care of the rest of things. When the call ended, Kairo lifted worried eyes to him, and Ed nodded. This was about more than Dr. Max Sutton now. This was also about keeping Kairo’s mom safe.
“I’ll call Charlie. Tell him we need to load up and head to Egypt.”
2
MAX SUTTON
As someone ripped the bag off his head, Max sucked in fresh air that didn’t smell like dirty sweat socks and onions. Bright light blinded him, searing his poor eyes. He squeezed them shut and shifted in the rickety seat they’d dropped him in. The assholes hadn’t bound his hands yet, but the muzzle of the gun pressed to his shoulder made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere.
He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light. Not counting the person behind him, he could make out at least two other blurry figures.
“You know, I’ve seen this movie before, and I gotta say the dramatics are wasted on me,” Max drawled, opening his eyes enough to make out a tall man leaning with his shoulders against the wall and his arms loosely folded over his chest. A shorter but beefier man stood next to him with his hands resting on his hips and a frown on his bearded face. “Black bag on the head? So clichéd. It’s like you think I’ve never been to Cairo. Like I wasn’t going to recognize sounds and smells around the Khan el-Khalili souq or when you cut by the Mosque of Al-Hakim because the road suddenly turned smooth. I swear your driver was drunk or just didn’t want me to figure shit out, but I know we can’t be more than a block or two from Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street.”
He didn’t get any further in his rambling. Tall Man let out an irritated sigh and jerked his head at the person standing behind Max. Pain exploded across the back of Max’s head as the bastard probably hit him with the butt of his gun.
This was creeping up his list of bad days. It had definitely cracked the top ten, but top five? Not yet. But then, the day was young. He could still find himself tossed into shark-infested waters.
“Done?” Tall Man asked in a mocking tone. “Do I have your full attention now?”
Max winced and rubbed his head. “I don’t know about full, but I’d say you’ve got as much as you’re likely to get.”
“Well, if you want to live through this, Dr. Sutton, I suggest you give me your full and undivided attention.” The fucker had an accent that he couldn’t quite place. He wasn’t native Egyptian, but he had darker coloring overall that made Max want to say that he was at least Eastern European. His henchman, with the sour expression, appeared to be a local and was likely to be the chaotic driver.
“Has the offer improved? Because the last offer was pretty shitty, and I thought I made it clear to your boss that I wasn’t interested in what you’re selling.”
Tall Man straightened and strolled over so that he was now within arm’s reach. Not that Max was planning to do anything about it. His heart was racing, and a cold sweat covered his palms. They outnumbered him three to one, and he didn’t have any weapons other than his mouth, which ran far too much.
“The offer has improved,” his captor countered with false enthusiasm. “Now, he’s willing to trade your life for the Tomb of Kazemde. All you need to do is give directions to our dig team, and we’ll handle the rest.”
Max snorted. “You’ve got to be fucking joking me. You want me to trade my reputation for my life? The entire archeological world knows I’m close to uncovering the Tomb of Kazemde. I’m the one putting the pieces together. If the artifacts suddenly go missing,” he said, waving both of his hands in the air as if it were some kind of miraculous event, “everyone is going to be pointing fingers at me. My reputation will be shit. And that’s assuming the government doesn’t toss my lily-white ass in prison. One way or another, I’m dead. It’s just a matter of me picking my poison.”
Tall Man unwound his arms and held his hands out in front of him. “It doesn’t have to be that way. You give us the location, and our people move in ahead of you. We clean it out and cover our tracks enough to make it appear that it was always empty. Or at the very least, that grave robbers beat you to the score. Then it’s not your fault. No one will blame you, and I’m sure the government will give it only a cursory investigation before letting you go.”