The Anubis Plague полностью

George was thinking. His eyes were glassy, looking through the wall rather than at it. When his posture changed, and he blinked back into the world here and now, Zahra knew he had thought of someone.

He confirmed as much. “I may know one man. If he’s still alive…”

“Who?”

He looked at her. “You know him, Zahra.”

“I do?” Zahra tried to remember the people she had met in Cairo over the years, both in her present life and the past. She couldn’t pick out anyone that could help in a situation like this.

George revealed the man. “Waleed Badawi.”

Zahra snorted. “Uncle Wally? You’re kidding me, right?”

She remembered her Uncle Waleed as a crazy son-of-a-bitch, someone her mother never liked to talk about much. By all accounts, he was as intelligent as his half-sister — Zahra’s mother, Hanan.

But instead of going into academics or the sciences, Uncle “Wally” had gone into the unofficial business of importing and exporting.

Zahra hadn’t even known the man was still alive — her father had fallen out of touch with him shortly after her mother’s passing.

“No, I’m not kidding, and he’s, um, he’s not really your uncle.”

She gave an exhausted laugh. “Now, you’re going to tell me Grandma and Grandpa weren’t really my grandparents, aren’t you?”

He shook his head. “No, but Waleed really isn’t your uncle. We just had you guys call him uncle to make it easier on you whenever he came stateside to visit.”

It made sense. If she and Baahir were conditioned to call the man “Uncle,” then it was understandable that the man could be trusted. That was Zahra’s assessment, right or wrong.

“And you’re sure we can trust him?”

“Absolutely.” He wiped his eyes and faced his daughter. “Zahra, Waleed is the man who smuggled your mother out of Egypt all those years ago. If there is one person in Egypt we can trust, it’s him.”

Zahra stood, knowing what she had to do. “Let’s hope he’s still around.”

She pulled out her cellphone and clicked away.

“What are you doing?” George asked.

“Texting a friend — well, an acquaintance — with a plane. I need to get to Cairo, ASAP.”

“And this friend can get you to Egypt on a whim — just like that?”

“For the right amount of money, yes.” Zahra looked up at him. “Cork hasn’t let me down yet.”

“Cork? Your pilot-friend’s name is Cork?”

She nodded. “It’s a long story.”

George got up and left the kitchen. Zahra could hear him head down the hall and into his bedroom. A minute later, he returned with something.

“Here,” he said, holding out a photo.

Zahra took it and looked it over. It was a picture of her, Baahir, her mom and dad, and Uncle Wally back in New York City. They had posed for the photo somewhere in Central Park, though Zahra was a bit fuzzy as to exactly where.

The ballfields?

“If you find Waleed, give him this and tell him everything that’s happened.”

As soon as Baahir had arrived, he quickly took over the entire operation beneath The Pharaoh's Lounge. If a priceless artifact was going to be dissected — in a cave, no less — then it was he who was going to do it, much to the chagrin of the old-timers already in place. He didn’t care what anyone else said, and Khaliq didn’t seem to mind.

“Do it,” Khaliq had said, eyeing his people.

Those two words gave Baahir anything he wanted, including a better place to rest. Instead of sharing one of several communal cots, he was given his own, as well as whatever books Khaliq’s aboveground men could scrounge up. There was also a computer filled with terabytes of information, but it had no internet connection. Khaliq had made sure that the people working below had no way of contacting the outside world.

Which made Baahir think… Are all of these people here willingly?

Maybe, just maybe, when the time was right, he could use that little tidbit to his advantage. He’d also have to ask some questions and discern the radically devoted from those forced into loyalty.

Like him.

And then, there was the status of his sister. Baahir looked up and pictured Zahra coming to his rescue with an army beside her. He saw the stairs, down which she would descend with a group of trained killers, men, and women who could rescue all of them.

He imagined it, a slight smile coming to his face. He willed it to be true, but he also couldn’t shake the feeling that what Khaliq had told him earlier might be true. That Zahra was not coming to the rescue.

Because Zahra was dead.

His smile vanished. He knew his sister, knew what she was capable of. But he also knew people like Khaliq. And he had been prepared — just looking around this place reminded him of that.

He had been prepared for all of it. And, he had no reason to lie to Baahir. Khaliq had told him that his sister was dead.

Zahra might not be coming at all.