Noah’s heart thudded as he edged the door open.No one.
Not a footstep.Not a shuffle.
Just the sound of his own breath.
No one had followed him here.He’d been keeping an eye out for a shadow since he’d left Cairo anyway.
He hesitated, then slipped into the building.Where guards had sat before, there was only dust.
He followed the hallway toward the cell where Stephen had been kept.He could practically visualize him there, chains around his hands and feet.
But the cell was empty.The only trace that anyone had been here recently was the refuse pit, which stank even worse than before.
Where was Fisher?
Lord Helton had said he’d dealt with him.Noah hadn’t had time to ask for details.
A small square of paper lay in the center of the cell.Noah approached it with caution, his senses alert.He lifted the paper and unfolded it.One line, handwritten in a bold and elegant hand:“They will never believe you.”
Noah crumpled the paper in his fist.
Whatever game Fisher was playing, he was winning.
He’s five steps ahead of me.
He should have killed Fisher in Jerusalem when Jack suggested it.
Outside the cell, Noah found a staircase, then followed it to the flat roof.A buzzard flapped its wings as Noah stepped out and startled, jumping back.
He chided himself.The buzzard flapped again, then rasped a hiss, guarding a dead rat in its claw.
Finding his way back outside, he stared at the building.
He needed to think like Stephen.
But how?
Noah tore his hat from his head, then threw it onto the passenger seat of the motorcar.Even though no one was near him, he felt hunted.
The serene breeze of the desert swept past him.
Nothing about what had happened was coincidence.
Fisher must have known that his uncle was the head of the Aleaqrab.How he’d learned of Noah’s connection to El-Masry, he didn’t know.But it couldn’t be a coincidence that was the organization Stephen had sent Noah to investigate.
Neither was the timing of Ginger’s involvement with the CID.
Whoever Peter Osborne was, he was no friend to Noah.
Osborne was proof that Noah wasn’t the only one being toyed with.Ginger was being threatened too.And who knew who else …
He froze, his blood running cold.
What was it one of Masry’s friends had said the previous night?
“Our German friend said the device was safely delivered.”
German friend.
