Everything to Gain: An Asset, Inc. Novel

Chapter 4

4

As my feet moved on their own, I replayed the string of pictures from the dream.

An ID badge hung around my neck. I hadn’t seen the name or had a clear recollection of any facial features on it. Airplanes and airports. Some of the signs were in English, others in Arabic, Sudanese, and French. There was a limo, long and glossy black with a uniformed driver, waiting for me outside the terminal.

On a congested street in Cairo, with the airport some distance behind us, there was a flash of light and a rumble. The scene outside the windshield of the limo rolled in a circle once, twice, three times before the car came to rest upside down, the spider-webbed windshield coated with the driver’s blood. My sunglasses had been knocked off. There was a burning pain in my shoulder and my belly. The seatbelt. I struggled to find the buckle, then the button to release it. My fingers slipped and fumbled. I put my good arm over my head to break my fall to the roof of the ruined car. Turning around, I grabbed my purse with one hand, pulled the door handle with the other. It opened easily. Hands reached in to pull me out.

I asked about the driver, asked what happened, though I knew. My voice, loud and high-pitched, sounded a little hysterical to my own ears. There were two men, and they each took one of my arms and directed me toward a van. A third man stood by the open rear doors. They were unconcerned about the driver of the limo, the pedestrians injured in the blast, or the shopkeepers trying to protect their wares from the looters always present and willing to take advantage of any opportunity to score merchandise in order to sell for a quick profit. A buzz began in the back of my brain. It wasn’t coming from outside of me because the bomb that exploded in front of, or maybe underneath, the limo had temporarily taken most of my hearing. When I began to pull back, to find some purchase on the debris-littered street, the men lifted me up and half-tossed me into the cargo space of the van. I kicked out, my sneakers connecting with the one holding the door open. His grunt was little satisfaction, as was the punch I threw, catching one of my escorts in the mouth. His own fist landed on the side of my head, and stars burst in my vision before it went dark.

Pausing in my trek through the sand, I bent over and braced my hands on my knees. The headache that disappeared the previous night with water and rest returned as if to remind me the a*******n was real. The car bomb had been planned. They’d discovered my arrival and thought to give me first-hand experience of the information I requested, and they refused to hand over. And why would they? With money came power, and greed wasn’t far behind. Power meant control and wealth on their end, and addiction from the client end fueled the machine. The bigger the machine, the greater the number of components. Drugs. Weapons and ammunition. Metals and gems. The skin trade.

Flexing the fingers on my right hand, I noticed the scrapes on my knuckles from the punch in the back of the van had healed enough that they didn’t break open. Exhaling a long breath, I straightened. I had been walking east for roughly an hour. Though the ball of nuclear fusion that allowed life as we know it to exist on this planet had yet to make its appearance over the horizon in front of me, the sky had lightened, nearly a reverse of the previous night’s show at dusk. I looked up and could discern only a handful of stars from the fading black. Rubbing the throb on the side of my head, whether from thirst or the memory of getting hit I wasn’t sure, I searched in front of me for a sign of civilization.

As the first rays of sunlight burst up and over the dunes, they caught something metallic. Though I have perfect vision, since I wore no glasses or contacts, I squinted, as if that would give the object more detail. I watched for a while and saw another. They moved slowly on a track across the expanse of desert. Whether it was the Suez Highway that would need to be plowed regularly to remove the sand from the concrete, or what passed for a rural road in this part of the world, it meant people and help. I hesitated a moment, remembering the last time I thought I was being helped. I guessed Cairo was at least two days behind me. I couldn’t last another day out here with no shelter, no water. I flexed the fingers on my right hand again and started toward the road.

Judging by the angle of the sun, it was mid-morning by the time I reached the wide, relatively flat stretch of concrete, about the width of a runway, and lined with periodic posts topped with reflectors. The two slow-moving vehicles that alerted me to this discovery were long gone. Glancing one way and then the other, I noticed no travelers close, as yet, that I could flag down. I didn’t know if I had crossed the border from Egypt into Suez. Even if I had my cell phone, without a tower, Google Earth or my GPS wouldn’t be much help. Deciding I could see farther if I stayed where I was, on top of the dune next to the road rather than down on the concrete, I sat on the hot sand. Drawing up my knees, I wrapped my arms around them and fixed my gaze forward, willing a kind driver to come soon.

As the minutes ticked by, and nothing in the landscaped changed, except the ever-shifting grains of sand, subtly growing shadows cast by the dunes, and the floating movement of the sun, I returned to the flashes of memory my mind churned up from the recent past. My brief monologues with the vultures had been in English. The multilingual signs in the airports were just as easily read. So, I knew at least three languages and had an affinity for scientific facts. The badge I wore around my neck was an impression, so not clear enough to see a name or face or company that issued it… it wasn’t a passport. I could feel the sunburned skin between my eyebrows protest at the scowl, so I deliberately relaxed my face. I had to relax again when my brows popped up. A press pass? Was I a journalist? If so, who sent me to Egypt? Was I on assignment, or on my own? If it was the former, wouldn’t someone be looking for me if I didn’t check in? If it was the latter, I was screwed.

A spark of light lit on the road. I watched its progress. Standing, I made my way as gracefully as possible down the twenty-foot dune and stood next to one of the reflector-topped posts. The white of the truck and the reflection off the windshield blended with the grey-white concrete and pale sand. I heard the engine before I could make out it was an International SUV that had rolled off the assembly line some time ago. Hoping they were friendly, I waved my arms over my head. A smile bloomed on my face as I heard the transmission downshift.

When the vehicle rolled to a stop, I peered in the open driver’s side window. A man about sixty with black hair, dark skin, a trim mustache, and two gold-capped teeth that winked when he smiled, rested his arm on the door. He spoke rapidly in Sudanese, some dialect I wasn’t completely familiar with. I must have looked confused, as he switched languages and tried again. It gave me the moment I needed to devise a story as to how I had ended up in the middle of nowhere, with no vehicle, luggage, ID, or water.

In fluent Egyptian Arabic, I answered that I’d had a terrible argument with my companion, and when he’d stopped so I could relieve myself on the other side of the dune, he’d taken off and left me there. I assured the driver that if he could get me to Suez, I would locate my companion at the hotel we’d reserved and be able to compensate him in local currency for the ride. His gaze tracked down my body, telling me he would consider a different kind of compensation. When he nodded and gestured toward the passenger side, I skirted around the front of the ancient SUV and climbed in. I decided the odds of being in the car with a stranger were better than remaining in the desert.

The vehicle had passed its prime sometime in the previous decade. Springs poked up through the threadbare upholstered seat. The windows were rolled down, as the AC hadn’t worked since the driver acquired the vehicle. But the stereo did, and a cassette in the dash played drums accompanied by a flute and melodic chanting. Between the wind rushing through the open windows and the music, conversation was blessedly sparse.

He introduced himself, then pulled a bottle from under the seat. Placing the cork between his teeth, and watching me more than the road, he pulled the cork free and handed it to me. I eyed it skeptically, then took the label-free bottle, lifting it in a gesture of thanks. A quick sniff as I brought it to my lips confirmed it was alcohol. If nothing else, it would have killed any germs the driver had and might get the saliva glands working in my dry mouth. The burn of the rotgut liquor had tears pricking my eyes. I smiled around the mouthful and swallowed. I handed the bottle back and did my best to cover the cough. In a show of solidarity, the driver toasted me and took his own swallow before replacing the cork and setting the bottle on the seat between us.

After several miles, and the unchanging scenery, I rested my head back against the top of the seat. I wouldn’t let myself sleep. My gaze drifted up and landed on the visor. I knew I was female and in relatively good physical shape. Whatever formal education I had received, I seemed to have retained most of it. Besides my dark hair that had blown constantly across my face, I had no recollection of what I looked like. I wet my lips with a tongue that had lost the burn of the alcohol. Reaching up, I flipped down the visor.

The small, dirty mirror reflected back light brown eyes. A straight nose, rounded cheeks, and full lips all carried a shade of red I knew would peel.

My action caught the attention of my friendly chauffer, Armand, and he asked how long I had been waiting for a ride.

“Since yesterday. I’ve always protected my skin, but my companion took off with everything I own, including my hat and sunscreen.”

“And you’re sure you’ll be able to find your companion in Suez?”

I smiled, recognizing skepticism in his voice, and flipped up the visor. “You’ll be rewarded for getting me safely to town.”

We shared the bottle a second time, and he offered a brief history of the region. I realized I knew the major points Armand talked about and felt as if he was giving me a quiz to determine how naïve I was and, therefore, how much he could take advantage of the situation.

As we closed the distance to Suez, there were more vehicles on the road. Many of them weren’t new, and after several minutes in traffic, I could understand why. Like in most large cities around the world, traffic laws in Suez were suggestions drivers often chose to ignore. That led to fender benders, and the cars and trucks carried those battle scars. Some streets were littered with trash, hosted boarded-up buildings, and questionable citizens who perched on concrete steps or lounged against newer vehicles. As we drove closer to the city center, men in business suits and women in a variety of Western and Middle Eastern dress occupied street-side cafés. Shops had their doors propped open. Clean sidewalks and the occasional bench for public transportation made it appear as if it could have been any metropolitan area anywhere on the globe. I sat up straighter in the seat, my mind forming and discarding plans on how I was going to shake loose my new friend and get out of the country when I had no ID and no money.

We cruised the streets of Suez, since I told him I didn’t remember the name of the hotel, only the picture from the website. What I was searching for was a busy restaurant or café attached to an upscale hotel or inn.

“There,” I said, and pointed out through the windshield.

A quaint two-story building with white and pale pink awnings over the windows and the front door took up about half the city block. The white sign, with pale pink rosebuds in the corners, announced the name as “The Boutique Inn” in red Arabic letters. On the north side of the structure, along an alley, were twelve tables, two rows of six, behind a three-foot high white iron fence with large ceramic flowerpots serving as posts between the sections of fencing.

“It will only take me a moment,” I informed him, recognizing I knew this inn and its café. I couldn’t say how or from where I had seen this building, but I knew I was supposed to come here.

“My luck is holding,” I continued, now pointing at a parking space across the street from the front entrance of The Boutique Inn. “Not only did you come along and save me from the desert heat, but there’s the perfect place for you to wait.” I smiled at him as he nudged in front of a bicycle cart full of fruit and candy to take the space on the side of the busy road.

I pulled the latch to open the door, then pushed forcefully with my shoulder when it stuck. Once free of the ancient International, I waved, moved behind the vehicle, and looked both ways before jogging across the street. Taking a calming breath, I pulled the glass door open and stepped into the cool space of the lobby.