Leila Gaad chuckled. “Have you ever met Herbert Fanger?”
“Not yet,” he admitted.
“He’s the most unlikely-looking spy imaginable.”
“They make the best kind.”
“No, really! He’s fat and over forty, but he still imagines himself a ladies’ man. He wears outlandish clothes, with loud colors most men wouldn’t be caught dead in, even these days. He’s hardly my idea of an unobtrusive secret agent.”
“From what we hear, he’s retired. He used the code name Sphinx while he was gathering information and passing it to Russia.”
“If he’s retired, why do you want to talk to him?”
“Because he knows a great deal, especially about the agents with whom he used to work. Some of those are retired now too, but others are still active, spying for one country or another.”
“Where do I come in?” she asked suspiciously. “I’ve already swum the Nile and climbed the Great Pyramid for you, but I’m not going to betray Herbert Fanger to British Intelligence. He’s a funny little man but I like him. What he was ten years ago is over and done with.”
“At least you can introduce me, can’t you?”
“I suppose so,” she agreed reluctantly.
“Was he one of those at the pool?”
“Heavens, no! He’d never show up in bathing trunks. I imagine he’s in the lounge watching television.”
“Television, this far from Cairo?”
“It’s closed-circuit, just for the resort. They show old movies.”
Herbert Fanger was in the lounge as she’d predicted, but he wasn’t watching old movies on television. He was deep in conversation with Bollinger, the resort manager. They separated when Rand and Leila entered the large room, and Bollinger said, “Well, Mr. Rand! Has she been showing you our place?”
“I’m doubly impressed now that I’ve seen it.”
“Come back in the autumn when we’re fully open. Then you’ll really see something!”
“Could I get a room for tonight? It’s a long drive back to Cairo.”
Bollinger frowned and consulted his memory. “Let me see... The indigo suite is still vacant, if you’d like that.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll get you the key. You can have the special rate, even though you’re not part of the conference.”
As he hurried away, Leila introduced Fanger. “Professor Herbert Fanger, perhaps the world’s leading authority on Cleopatra and her era.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Rand said.
Fanger was wearing a bright-red sports shirt and checkered pants that did nothing to hide his protruding stomach. Seeing him, Rand had to admit he made a most unlikely-looking spy. “We were just talking about the place,” he told Rand. “What do you think it cost?”
“I couldn’t begin to guess.”
“Tell them, Felix,” he said as the manager returned with Rand’s key.
Bollinger answered with a trace of pride. “With the irrigation and landscaping, plus cleaning up the bay, it will come close to seven million dollars. The highest cost per unit of any resort hotel.”
Rand was impressed. But after a few more moments of chatting he remembered the reason for his trip.
“Could I speak to you in private, Professor, about some research I’m doing?”
“Regarding Cleopatra?”
“Regarding the Sphinx.”
There was a flicker of something in Fanger’s eyes. He excused himself and went with Rand. When they were out of earshot he said, “You’re British Intelligence, aren’t you? Bollinger told me.”
“Concealed communications, to be exact. I know this country, so they sent me to talk with you.”
“I’ve been retired since the mid-sixties.”
“We know that. It took us that long to track you down. We’re not after you, but you must have a great many names in your mind. We’d be willing to make a deal for those names.”
Fanger’s eyes flickered again. “I might be interested. I don’t know. Coming here and talking to me openly could have been a mistake.”
“You mean there’s someone here who—”
“Look, Rand, I’m forty-seven years old and about that many pounds overweight. I retired before I got myself killed, and I don’t know that I want to take any risks now. Espionage is a young man’s game, always was. Your own Somerset Maugham quit it after World War One to write books. I quit it to chase women.”
“Having any luck?”
“Here?” he snorted. “I think Leila’s a twenty-eight-year-old virgin and the French one is pure bitch. Not much choice.”
“Exactly what is the purpose of this conference?”
“Simply to discuss recent advances in archeology. Each of five nations sent a representative, and of course the University thought Leila and I should attend, too. There’s nothing sinister about it — of that I can assure you!” But his eyes weren’t quite so certain.
“Then why the armed guards patrolling the grounds?”
“You’d have to ask Bollinger — though I imagine he’d tell you there are occasional thieving nomads in the region. Without guards this place would be too tempting.”
“How far is it to the nearest town?”
“More than a hundred miles overland to Aswan — nothing closer except native villages and lots of sand.”
“An odd place to hold a conference. An odder place to build a plush resort.”
“Once the Suez Canal is back in full operation, Bollinger expects to get most of his clientele by boat — wealthy yachtsmen and the like. Who knows? He might make a go of it. Once it’s cleaned up, Foul Bay could make a natural anchorage.”
They had strolled out of the building and around the cluster of white structures still in various stages of completion. Rand realized the trend of the conversation had got away from him. He’d not traveled all the way from London to discuss a resort hotel with Herbert Fanger. But then suddenly Leila reappeared with another of the male conferees — a distinguished white-haired man with a neatly trimmed Vandyke beard. Rand remembered seeing him lounging by the pool. Now he reached out to shake hands as Leila introduced him.
“Oh, Mr. Rand, here’s a countryman of yours. Dr. Wayne Evans, from Oxford.”
The bearded Dr. Evans grinned cheerfully. “Pleased to meet you, Rand. I always have to explain that I’m not a medical doctor and I’m not with the University. I simply live in Oxford and write books on various aspects of archeology.”
“A pleasure to meet you in any event,” Rand said. He saw that Fanger had taken advantage of the interruption to get away, but there would be time for him later. “I’ve been trying to get a straight answer as to what this conference is all about, but everyone seems rather vague about it.”
Dr. Evans chuckled.
“The best way to explain it is for you to sit in at our morning session. You may find it deadly dull, but at least you’ll know as much as the rest of us.”
“I’d enjoy it,” Rand said. He watched Evans go down the walk, taking the path that led to the pool and then changing his mind and heading for the lounge. Then Rand turned his attention to Leila, who’d remained at his side.
“As long as you’re here you can escort me to dinner tonight,” she said. “Then your long drive won’t have been a total waste.”
He reacted to her impish smile with a grin of his own. “How do you know it’s been a waste so far?”
“Because I’ve known Herbert Fanger for three years and never gotten a straight answer out of him yet. I don’t imagine you did much better.”
“You’re quite correct,” he admitted. “Come on, let’s eat.”
He checked in at the indigo suite he’d been assigned and found it not nearly as depressing as he’d expected from the color. Like the black suite, the dominant color had been liberally bordered in white, and the effect proved to be quite pleasant. He was beginning to think that the End of the Rainbow might catch on, if anyone could afford to stay there.