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Exchanging concerned glances with Rhys, I slowed and rolled my window partly down.
They were all men, I noticed men, a couple of goats, and a donkey. The women of the village stood in
the background, properly swathed, while the men surrounded us, shaking their heads and insisting&
something . I was more impatient than frightened they were all smiling sunny, gap-toothed smiles and,
to be honest, I thought we could take them.
But I resented the delay. Lex felt so close&
"Cannot go past," a child stated loudly, weaving through the others to stand near my window. He held
out his hand forbaksheesh , payment for his translation I guess. "The road, it is closed."
Like this evenwas a road.
The pull was definitely coming from beyond here. "Thanks anyway," I said, easing very, very gently onto
the accelerator.
Thefellahin backed quickly away, apparently accustomed to crazy tourists but they also shouted louder
and waved with more determination. "La'! La'!"
No, no.
That's when I noticed that the women in the backgroundweren't smiling, not even their eyes. I braked
again.
Something was up.
I reached into another of my cargo pockets and pulled out a ten-dollar bill, then pressed it against the
glass of my window.Now I had their attention.
"Who asked you to divert the tourists tonight?" I asked the boy. "Who said to tell us the road is closed?"
He eyed the money. Then he glanced at me, then back to the money and shook his head.
"Fifty," he challenged. "Fifty American dollar."
The scamp didn't realize that he'd given all the answer I needed that someone had, in fact, bribed
them.
"Shukran," I said as thanks, and passed him out the ten.
He looked decidedly disappointed but at least the ladies in the background were smiling. Let's hear it
for not getting pushed around by the suits.
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The boys chased our car for a few yards as I pulled carefully away.
Because of that little encounter I was less than surprised, as the track dead-ended at the edge of the
desert, to see no less than a dozen cars already parked there.
Expensive cars.
Not far beyond them stood morefellahin with, of all things, camels.
"Comitatus?" guessed Rhys correctly, I think.
"So much for secrecy," I murmured, braking before we reached them. And yet the belligerence I'd felt
toward Hani's men apparently wasn't a one-shot instance. "But I'm not turning back. Not on your& "
Oh. Except itcould very easily be on his life, and Catrina's, too. I said, "If you'd like to drop me off and
head out to a safe distance& "
"'Not on your life," echoed Rhys. "Unless Catrina "
"Oh, we can trustCatrina not to strand us."
"Not to strand the chalice, in any case," she said from the back seat. "The priest, he says that these are
the men who destroyed the tapestries at Fontevrault, yes?"
"Not the exact same men, probably," I hedged. "But the same organization."
"Then I do not intend to stay behind."
So, feeling unnervingly exposed, I drove us the rest of the way to the end of the track and pulled the
Chevy Metro to an incongruous stop beside a silver Aston Martin.
"What is it about you and tapestries?" I asked, under my breath.
"They are one of the few forms of legitimate woman's art from the Middle Ages," she snapped back,
with a strong note ofduh in her voice.
I was confused by a fleeting moment in which I actually approved of her but I got past it.
Two of the men had begun to lead their camels in our direction, but they stopped to confer with each
other when they saw Cat and me get out of the car. Clearly we were not the gender they were expecting
this evening. But at least nobody was attacking us. Yet.
I glanced across the desert, past some odd little hills and toward the three distant pyramids ofGiza.
The same pyramids I'd gazed at, from a different angle, while Lex was&
I closed my eyes to a rush of sensuous warmth at the memory, and the tug beneath my heart grew more
powerful. More desperate.
"It's this way," I said, hurrying toward the camel drivers. "I don't know where we are, but Lex "
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"AbuSir," said Rhys and Catrina, in unison.
" is definitely this way, and what's Abusir?"
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