At first blush, Seymour looked more like an accountant than a CIA asset. Skinny and balding, his diminutive frame was covered by an impeccable linen suit. His loud tie matched both his suspenders and the handkerchief that he was using to dab his brow. There was also the matter of his accent, which was definitely non-American.
‘Kiwi?’ Cobb asked.
‘Guilty as charged,’ Seymour said. ‘Born and raised in Christchurch, on the eastern side of the island. Have you ever been?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘The closest I’ve been is Australia.’
‘Scared of hobbits, are you?’
It was Seymour’s attempt at a joke.
Cobb didn’t laugh. ‘No.’
Sarah, on the other hand, found the whole exchange incredibly entertaining. Still, she knew better than to let the awkwardness linger for too long. ‘Seymour started in the New Zealand Intelligence Corps. Based on his record, MI6 requested that he be loaned out to help with their caseload. That’s how he came to our attention. A few years later he was retired from duty in England and given an official cover in Helsinki through a joint effort with the CIA.’
‘Doing what?’ Cobb wondered.
Seymour smiled. ‘Believe it or not, they had me posing as an auditor for the Internal Revenue Service. I was supposedly there to ensure that those with dual citizenship had filed their tax returns correctly.’
‘Hard to imagine,’ Cobb joked. If he had all night, he couldn’t have thought of a more perfect cover. ‘What brought you to Egypt?’
‘The climate — I find the cold intolerable.’ Seymour smiled as he looked around the pyramid complex. Despite his claims, he continued to mop the sweat from his face. ‘What a lovely day. Getting out of the apartment is such a nice change of pace. Pity I don’t do it more often. Excursions like this are a welcomed treat.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. But I have to ask: if your apartment is in Cairo, why meet all the way out here?’
Seymour had anticipated the question. ‘First, you can’t walk across the street in Cairo right now without someone wondering what you’re up to. The bombing in Alexandria saw to that. Everyone’s on high alert — the authorities and the general public. Coming out here was the best way to stay off the radar. Here, none of us stands out.’
Cobb was tempted to make a crack about Seymour’s choice of attire, because it definitely stood out, but he ultimately decided to keep the comment to himself.
‘More importantly,’ he continued, ‘I asked to meet you here because Giza was one of the last places in Egypt where your target, Cyril Manjani, was seen alive.’
56
The first thing that Jasmine noticed was the ringing in her head. The unavoidable tone enveloped her, drowning out not only sounds but her senses as well.
She instinctively brought her hands to her ears, hoping to block out the incessant noise. When her fingers touched the bandage that covered her temple, a creeping sensation of pain began to take hold. It was a deep, steady throbbing that blended perfectly with the cacophony inside her skull. She knew they were one and the same.
Lying in the dark, she moved her hands around her head, searching for the source of her suffering. The cloth dressing was dry so at least she wasn’t bleeding. She strained to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt heavy. The simple act of blinking required tremendous effort, and even then her dimly lit surroundings were little more than a blur.
The thick cobwebs in her mind made it tough to focus.
Just breathe, she thought.
The air was warm and dry. Every breath felt gritty against the parched lining of her throat. She could smell the faintest wisp of smoke, and she knew that flame, not electricity, was lighting the room.
She licked her cracked lips and forced herself to swallow.
Her stomach rolled unnaturally. It wasn’t hunger; more like her body’s desperate attempt to fend off a foreign toxin. She fought hard against the nausea, hoping it would pass as she continued to gather her wits.
It took some time before she could open her eyes, and once she did, she confirmed her suspicions about the smoke. High above the room, a heavy clay pot of burning oil dangled from a rope of braided reeds. The flickering light was faint and could barely reach the nearest wall. The rest of the space was shrouded in darkness.
Jasmine’s mind raced as she tried to recall the last thing she could remember.
A solitary hut in the desert.
Walking desperately through the sand.
The nomads that came to her aid.
And the monsters that killed them.
The muscles in her arms and shoulders ached and her joints were stiff, as if they hadn’t been used for days. A dull burning spread throughout her body as she drew her blistered feet toward her chest. The sound of iron chains being dragged across the stone floor left her troubled and confused. She reached down her legs and felt the cold metal that bound each ankle.
She couldn’t imagine why she had been shackled.
Or could she?
Slowly, pieces of her adventure started to reemerge.
She knew she had been searching for something deep under the city of Alexandria. She remembered crawling through an unmarked opening into the hidden space beyond, all the while trespassing into areas that were off-limits to anyone but the Egyptian authorities. She quickly considered the very real possibility that she had been imprisoned for her actions. She dismissed the notion just as quickly, knowing that even the Ministry of State for Antiquities wouldn’t throw an American in a dungeon for a minor offense. And they certainly wouldn’t kill a bunch of nomads to recapture her.
No, there had to be another explanation.
As she tried to replay the events in her head, she could hear Garcia’s voice in her ear, telling her that they weren’t alone in the cisterns. She remembered Cobb and McNutt doubling back to investigate while she and Sarah pressed on. Eventually Sarah left her side and headed further into the darkness while she stayed behind to continue her examination of the wall. Then she saw a shadow on the wall and—
Oh my God. I was attacked in the tunnels.
Memories of the assault came flooding back to her.
There was nothing she could have done to stop it.
The assailant had been big and strong and agile.
She was overwhelmed in a matter of seconds.
Haunted by the feeling of helplessness, she staggered to her feet and studied the wall ahead. It wasn’t made of cut stone blocks like the walls of the cisterns. It looked more like poured cement, though the crumbling texture meant that it had aged considerably. She thought back to the support pillars she had found in the tunnel and wondered if this too was Roman concrete.
As she stepped closer, she saw that it wasn’t cement or concrete of any kind. Instead, the wall was comprised of tightly packed sun-dried bricks — similar to the construction of the desert hut but more uniform and refined. The mortar between them was nearly invisible, giving the wall a monolithic feel.
From experience, she knew that such materials were common not only in Egypt, but throughout the Middle East as well. The only distinguishing feature of the brick was the acrid scent it left on her fingers.
For some reason, it reminded her of the sea.
Even more confusing was the strange sense that she had been transported back in time. The art of drying clay and mud into rough blocks has been practiced for thousands of years. It went hand in hand with the ancient style of oil lamp she had already noticed. Even the iron fetters fastened around her ankles appeared to be forged by hand, rather than stamped by modern machinery.
This place — whatever it was — hadn’t changed in centuries.