No Rules(86)

It was a sobering thought. Evan didn’t know her at all. He’d only known her father, and no matter how her father had felt about her, they hadn’t known each other since she’d been a child. That was a lot of trust to place in a genetic link she’d barely acknowledged in the past fifteen years.

For the first time she realized she might have a lot to live up to as her father’s daughter. She hoped she was up to the task.

She expected Evan to take a few hours to get back to them, but it had barely been an hour when the phone rang. Donovan pulled free of her arms with an apologetic look as he answered it, putting the call on speaker.

“The Bank of Alexandria in Luxor, eight a.m. Mr. Mohammed Azim will be expecting you, Jess.”

“Thank you.”

Donovan smiled and shook his head in amazement.

“Donovan?” Evan said.

“Right here.”

“This is a loan. I want that money back.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get those hostages soon.”

“Will do.” He ended the call, then smiled at her. “Ask and ye shall receive. You’re pretty damn amazing, Jess.”

He didn’t look concerned. “You told Evan we’d get those students soon. Can we?”

“We don’t have any choice.”

She wondered if she’d ever be able to look at obstacles that way—I have to do it, therefore, I will. Maybe it was time to try.

“We have a couple hours until the bank opens,” he said, thumbing the phone. “I’m going to call the others and fill them in.” He looked up. “Then I’m taking you back to bed.”

There weren’t any obstacles to that, but she liked his determination all the same.

…

He also arranged for a rental car to be delivered to the hotel, and it was waiting for them when they left two hours later. They stopped on the way to the bank and bought a briefcase and two inexpensive backpacks, then walked in and asked for Mr. Azim. Donovan had decided that casual clothes and backpacks would blend in better than business suits and briefcases in the tourist atmosphere of Luxor, and Jess had to agree. Still, she was nervous when they walked out, each carrying 500,000 dollars in their backpack.

Mr. Atallah called conveniently as they left the bank. Jess sounded appropriately eager to complete her purchase, and promised to be there in half an hour, allowing them time to change back into the abaya for her and thobe for him.

They were two minutes late. The young man named Majid was waiting for them and ushered them back to Mr. Atallah’s sumptuous office where he was waiting for them.

He stood, gesturing expansively. “Mrs. Hassan, please join me in a cup of tea.”

All she wanted was to complete the exchange and get out of there, but there seemed to be no choice. Mr. Atallah was big on manners and propriety, and she assumed Suzanne Hassan would be, too. She smiled graciously as they sat, accepting his invitation.

“It is wonderful to see you again,” he said.

“And you.” She sipped her tea, wondering what she could do to move this along.

“Perhaps one day I will make the acquaintance of your husband so that we might share our love of Egyptian antiquities.”

She imagined he would prefer to share her fictitious husband’s money. “I have no doubt you will, Mr. Atallah. I think he will insist upon it after seeing his gift.”

“Ah yes, I hope so. I think we have much in common.” He sipped his tea, too, apparently willing to pass an hour on pleasantries. Evan’s instructions to rescue the students quickly plucked at her patience. And as dignified as Mr. Atallah was, his gaze had strayed several times to the silver briefcase Donovan set close to his feet.

“I confess, I am anxious to see the vase,” she told him.

“Of course, forgive me for keeping you waiting.”

Once again they waited for Majid to do the honors, this time rolling in a tall wooden crate on a handcart. Mr. Atallah removed the front panel that had obviously already been pried loose, then stood back.

Jess had set aside her tea and risen to her feet without being conscious of it. Now she stepped toward the creamy-white vase that stood revealed inside the crate. Sinking to her knees, she stared in awe at the two-foot-tall stone amphora.

If it had once worn the dust of millennia, it had been cleaned off. The hieroglyphics she’d seen on Mr. Atallah’s computer were starkly black against the off-white stone and looked freshly painted, even though she was sure they were not. The stone itself was dull, as hand-crafted alabaster should be, rather than polished by machine cutting. Modern consumers preferred the gloss of machine-tooled stone, but machines didn’t cut alabaster as thinly as hand carving could.