“Cheers on the one-word syllable,” I tell the soldier, climbing to my feet and brushing the sand from my bum.I’m not looking forward to finding wherever else it may have gotten into.“Had you not said anything, I might’ve kept going.”
The soldier blinks at me but once again doesn’t respond. I grimace.Damn Brits—no sense of humor.
The second young man comes to stand next to him. He’s taller than I first thought, a head more than my own five-feet-six-inches. His brown eyes—deep and rich, like aged leather—are kind behind the pristine, black-rimmed lenses. They’re soft, unlike the other sharp angles of him. He clears his throat.
“That’s quite enough, Williams,” the man says, his voice deeper than expected. He surprises me further by speaking with a British accent similar to the soldier’s, if not more polished.
The soldier immediately lowers the gun and places it back in its holster.
The second man pushes his glasses up his nose, his gaze flicking across me with mild curiosity. I fold my arms over my chest, suddenly aware that my cream-colored button-up is practically sheer from my unplanned swim in the Osireion.
Meeting my eyes again, the man runs a hand through his hair. “Apologies for that. My name is Bes Belzoni. I’m an emissary from the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo.”
The hell you are.
He holds out his hand for me to shake. I don’t move.Not falling for that again.
“I was fed the same line earlier today, and it nearly got me killed. So, forgive me if I don’t trust you.”
“And who fed you this line?” the young man—Bes—asks.
“The man waiting for me at Luxor,” I clarify, working to douse my temper. “A man who also claimed to know my nonna and offered me the curator’s name. Unless you can provide me with something more substantial than that”—I start to bend toward my pack, grateful I left the gun near the top—“I fear our conversation is coming to a close.”
In response, Bes reaches into his pocket. My pulse stutters at what he might procure, when he offers me a slip of paper. I pause.A telegram, maybe.
I snatch it from him and move out of arm’s length again. He raises his hands wordlessly.
Unfolding it, I read the message to myself:
My granddaughter Amelia will be waiting at the airfield in Luxor on August third around nine hundred hours. She will no doubt be suspicious of you but I hope showing her this telegram from me will help.
The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are heaven’s lieutenants.
Lucia Fiore
I snicker.That’s Nonna, alright.The Shakespeare quote, while terribly antiquated, is one we’ve used before in letters to each other when she’s been away, to ensure their authenticity.
That doesn’t mean this Bes fellow obtained the telegram because he works for the museum.
I raise a brow at him. “You could’ve stolen this.”
One side of lips tip up and he scoffs. “Your tita was right about you, at least.”
He reaches into his shirt pocket next, taking out a thick, cream-colored card and offering that to me as well.
I scrutinize what I deduce to be a museum identification card, the edges of the thick paper worn. The heading at the top reads, in French, “Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte, Musée du Caire”, with what I imagine to be the equivalent in Arabic scrawled underneath. Handwritten in ink below that is his name—Bes Belzoni—and title—magasinier, or storekeeper. I skip over his department, searching instead for the museum director’s signature and the circular ink stamp of the crown. I find both exactly where they should be.
If this man isn’t who he says he is, he’s gone to great lengths to cover it up.
Handing him the card back, I keep the telegram.
He tucks the card back into his shirt pocket, then runs a hand through his hair. “Apologies for the delay. We were a tad late to the airfield in Luxor, you see, and by the time we arrived there, you were already gone.”
My mind takes a moment to catch up to what he said. He talks so damned fast I have to pay attention to every word. Or perhaps, after the day I’ve had, I’m only imagining it. Either way, I’m already exhausted by him.
“A tad late?” I wonder “Well, that makes me almostdyingalright.” I take a step toward him, anger sparking in my blood. “I’ve been through hell and high-water in every sense of the phrase, and all you have to say for yourself is you’resorryyou werelate?”
Bes splays out his hands in front of him, as if trying to calm a feral animal. “Let’s keep calm here. You’re clearly distressed…”
