Just before he reaches the bottom step, Bosque smoothly steps over the low wall and disappears. It is as quick as a conjuring trick, and Billie stops short, staring at the blank space where Bosque had stood a second before. She steps over the wall herself and pauses there for a moment, reaching down to collect three of the pebbles at her feet. She sets them atop the wall and then turns back to the sheer cliff rising above her. It is heavily shadowed and it’s these shadows that have concealed the narrow gap, a fissure splitting the high wall of the valley in two. It is the smallest of wadis, the chasms that form the landscape of this part of Egypt, each cut by the merciless flash floods of the rainy season.
The rift in the rock is hardly large enough for a goat to fit, and as Billie moves into the passage, her shoulders brush the sides. The walls press so closely around her there is no other way to move but forward. Once or twice, her path is almost blocked by piles of stones, but Bosque has not come back, so she knows he must be ahead of her. She pushes through, scrambling over the piles and ducking under outcroppings until the wadi widens just a little, opening to an area perhaps six feet across. There is no sign of Bosque. She examines the ground until she finds a mark, the fresh scrape of a sole at the bottom of a cliff, and realizes there is a narrow path, maybe eight inches wide, edging upwards along the cliff face. She slings her bag to her back and sets her feet as she faces the rock wall. There are tiny handholds, nothing more thanlittle gaps in the stone where she can put a fingertip to help her balance. She is smart enough not to look down. Some of the rock is rotten, crumbling away under her feet as she moves. She edges along the cliff until she is ten or twelve feet above the ground. The path seems to stop dead, falling away into nothingness, and Billie perches, willing her breath to slow as she takes stock. Her foothold is solid enough, but the rock wall turns sharply to the left and the path does not follow. There is a little outcropping about a foot above and two feet out. She will have to jump for it. Missing is not an option.
She pulls in one slow breath, rolling her shoulders down and back as she loosens her knees. Then she pushes up, explosively, vaulting herself across the gap and up to the outcropping. She lands sloppily, but she’s safe, and she scrambles to stand, happy to find that she is on a proper path at last—three feet wide and sheltered by an overhanging bit of rock. The path winds around the face of the cliff, following the wadi, and Billie moves fast. She is filthy, smudged with dust and sweat, her hands bloody from the various slips and scrapes, but she is enjoying herself.
She even enjoys herself when she comes around a curve and finds Bosque standing in the middle of the path, revolver raised to the level of her heart.
There is no reason to pretend she doesn’t know exactly who he is and exactly why he is here. A casual tourist might have gotten lost in the Valley of the Kings, but there is nothing casual about the rock climbing she has just done.
“Buenos días, señor Bosque.”
“Your accent is good, but I prefer English,” he tells her.His own accent is pure Oxbridge. “I suppose you’ve been following me since Cairo?”
“Yep. That was a nice trick with the train. I almost missed you.”
He shrugs but the gun doesn’t waver. “I knew your people would get onto me eventually. I thought it was worth taking a few precautions.”
“My people?”
His grin is humorless and unpleasant. “Interpol.”
“Ah. Yes. Interpol,” she says, nodding seriously.
His mouth thins, and she realizes her flippancy has annoyed him. “Don’t try to pretend you’re not Interpol.”
“Okay, but I’m not, actually. People have really strange ideas about Interpol. They don’t make arrests, you know. They pretty much just hang around the office. I don’t even think they have guns.”
“Then who are you?”
“I’m employed by a completely different organization.” She holds three fingers up. “Scout’s honor.”
“I was hoping to do this quickly, but it might be helpful to know exactly who is tracking me. So, I’m sorry to say, you’re not going to enjoy this next bit very much.” He jerks the gun. “Inside.”
She realizes then that they’ve been standing outside a narrow gap in the cliff wall, this one leading into a cave. The first few feet of the cave are tight, but it turns and widens into a full room, twenty by ten she estimates, with a ceiling eight or nine feet overhead. Not enormous, but big enough for Bosque’s purposes. The turn in the passage has blocked out the morninglight, but Bosque has lit a lantern. The light is battery-powered, cold and flat, and the room deserves better. It is a treasure trove, stacked with slim wooden cases she knows are filled with paintings. And one of them must beLeda, waiting all these years to go home. Next to the large, flat boxes are small crates that must hold the Egyptological trophies his grandfather collected, ushabti and papyri and jewels for a pharaoh’s queen.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” she tells him cheerfully. “It’s homey.”
“Shut up.” His tone is rough, but she can see he is sweating. Whatever he is planning for her, he is not hardened enough to take pleasure in it. He stinks of desperation, and desperation is unpredictable, dangerous. Billie knows she has to take control of the situation. She doesn’t look around, but uses her peripheral vision to scan for possible weapons. There is nothing within arm’s reach except a wooden case which must contain one of the paintings, and she doesn’t dare use it for fear of damaging the art inside. A slender crowbar is propped against the opposite wall, but between her and the bar is Bosque, still holding his gun—a gun she has to prevent him from firing. If nothing else, the noise would deafen them both, but she is thinking about the rotten rock she has passed and wondering how safe the cave is.
“Your grandfather must have had a hell of a time finding this place,” she says.
He doesn’t bother to hide his surprise. “You’ve done your homework.”
“Not me personally,” she says modestly. “We have a wholedepartment for that. But yes. We know all about Grandpa Albrecht. Tell me, does it bother you having a Nazi in the family? Because I’d be really, really bummed about that.”
“I told you to shut up,” he says, moving like he means to hit her.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” she says in a different voice, soft and lethal.
“I think you’re forgetting who has the gun,” he tells her. She doesn’t believe the bravado. It feels forced, and she knows every minute she lets him hold a gun on her is another chance for him to fire it.
She gestures towards the weapon. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t look entirely comfortable with that. You can put it down if you like. I won’t take it and I’m not going anywhere.”
He laughs and the gun wavers a little. “I don’t think so.”
She shrugs. “It was worth a try.” She looks around the cave. “So, what are you going to do with me? Shoot me and leave me here? Risky. There are jackals in these hills. They’ll smell the rotting meat and come in for a snack. That might attract attention. And a gunshot is risky in the first place. Did you see that seam of rotten rock outside? This valley has been falling apart for about eight thousand years. You could get caught in a rockfall and injured or killed. And again, the jackals would smell the blood, and that’s not pretty. Basically, it always comes back to the jackals.”
“You seem really relaxed about the possibility of dying,” he tells her.