The Giza Cipher (Shane Riley Adventure Thrillers Book 2), page 7
Isaiah sat still, not arguing.
"But I'm going to reiterate that point, just to be clear. I do not work with other people. It's too messy, too… squishy. Got it?"
"Got it," Isaiah said.
CHAPTER 18
JACK
Jack still couldn't fully calm his nerves. As he sat behind his computer desk in his office at the university, he couldn't help but feel he was being watched. He looked at every corner of his office with suspicion. If he had been hacked, had they come in here to do it? Had they stolen from him?
He didn't see anything out of place, but that didn't mean he felt comfortable at all. Not to mention the fact that he had just been attacked, apprehended in the men's restroom after giving his lecture.
They're still here, he thought.
"Please, focus," Natia said, pacing the room in front of him. The office was not small, though it wasn't substantial either. It was standard fare for academics who ran a track or had tenure at a university to have an office like this. A simple window letting in some natural light on one side, a door on the other, and a couple hundred square feet inside to put whatever was necessary to get the job done.
He had decorated his office like his father used to decorate his own home office many years ago. The furniture was nice – nothing real, but it appeared classic and classy. Bookshelves that matched, filled with his favorite poems and textbooks, another with academic journals and his publications, and a table spanning most of the floor space beyond his desk. There was a chair pulled up to the other side of his desk he used for meetings with students, but Natia didn't seem interested in sitting.
He noticed she was glancing out the door every few seconds, part of her ongoing watch.
"You think they'll come back?" he asked.
"Of course they will, it's only a matter of time. Which is why we need to focus. Anything you need here you should get, then we can move somewhere else. I would hope most of your work is online?"
He swallowed, then nodded quickly. "Yes – backed up, at least. I use a service the university provides, which is –"
"Which is the reason you got hacked," she said bluntly. "Universities like yours think they're better than publicly available technology, when in fact they're just quickly rolled up programs created in the IT department by some guy named John with a ponytail. Most of the time, they're poor knockoffs of the real thing, and more often than not they're even worse."
"I thought you said I got hacked while trying to upload the first draft to my publisher's dashboard?"
"The encrypted tunnel created from your computer –" she eyed his laptop on his desk, "and the publisher's network is where the breach happened. Best I can tell, anyway. I'm not a hacker."
"No… you're an assassin."
"I'm a contractor," she emphasized the word contractor. "I take jobs. Sometimes I have to… kill people."
Jack almost rolled his eyes. What's the difference? "Anyway, you know more about this stuff than I do, so if you say it was the university network, fine. Doesn't matter, they have my work. More importantly, they've targeted me as someone who knows something they want. That about sums it up?"
"It does, actually."
Jack rubbed his temples harder as Natia paced, her hyper-vigilant state only causing him more distress. "Who are these people? And why do they want me?"
"I'll explain what I know on the plane."
"On the plane?" Jack asked.
Natia turned and looked at him. "You know we can't stay here, right? I already explained that."
"You said that," Jack snapped, looking up from his desk. "You just have yet to explain much of anything. First of all – why disguise yourself? You had me thinking you were some young coed just here because you were interested in my work."
She smirked. "Am I not young?" she asked.
He swallowed, suddenly feeling his cheeks flush. "No, I mean –"
"When you're in a line of work like mine," she said, interrupting, "you find disguises are just part of the game. While it's unlikely I would have been recognized by anyone there, it's a precaution that is worth all the effort. I doubt those men who attacked you knew me, but they do now. Or, at least, this version of me. The next time we meet, they won't recognize me at all."
He nodded. "And all that talk of my work. I mean, hell, you were flirting with me."
Her smile widened. "Again, all part of the game, professor. Now, if you don't mind, we really need to go."
Jack shut his laptop, slid it into its sleeve, and unplugged it from its power block. "Where exactly are we going?"
He hadn't planned on traveling this summer, and though the semester was effectively over and he was free, the life of a college professor usually required him to stay back a few days to shore up final details, late assignments, and get a few days of focused time on any publications he had coming up. Since the only publication he was working on at the moment was the very draft that Natia claimed had been intercepted by this organization, Jack had no other matters to attend to at the university.
Still, he had never been one to just drop everything and traipse around the world. Especially not with a contract killer as his partner.
No, not partner, he corrected. More like… what is she to me? Nothing, not yet. He shook his head, visibly agitated as he worked through the details of their arrangement. Or what would soon be their arrangement.
She snapped her fingers. "Professor? Jack? You still with me?"
He nodded again, tucking the laptop into its sleeve and holding it under his armpit as he walked around the side of the desk. She glanced out the door of his office once more, satisfied they were still free from prying eyes or any forthcoming attacks.
"Cairo," she said. "I have another asset hopefully meeting us there. I want to get eyes on this group, see what they're doing, who's running this operation."
Jack let out a sigh. "I'm not military, not here. I'm not qualified for any of this. Why take me along at all?"
She glanced down at his computer, then back up at his face. "Jack, you don't understand. They won't stop. The men that found you in the restroom – there are countless more just like them."
"You're afraid they'll kill me if you're not here to protect me?" he asked with a wry smile.
The humor was completely lost on her. "They don't want to kill you, Jack. They want what you know. What they think you know. Whether you know something or not, they won't be satisfied until they… interrogate you."
Jack gulped. Somehow she made that sound worse than being simply shot by these guys and left for dead. He absolutely did not want to be tied to a chair, fingernails pulled out one by one, as they searched for an answer to some question he was almost sure he didn't have the answer to.
He wanted to debate, to talk it through, but Natia was growing more and more restless by the door. She had stopped pacing, now intently waiting for him to join her by the door. She hadn't posed any of this as a question – he knew the truth. It wasn't a question, it wasn't a request.
It was a demand, an order. Sure, she would likely be able to protect him if he stuck with her, but he was under no illusion that she was just doing it out of the kindness of her heart. She wanted something as well. He wasn't quite sure what – all she told him was that she was following this organization, trying to figure out who they were and what they were after. But it was abundantly clear they were after something Natia also wanted.
Was it money? What were her motivations? Was she hoping to cash in on the same prize they were after, and by getting to him first gaining leverage? Perhaps that's what this was, after all. She'd already duped him once, perhaps she was actually pretending to play nice so she could kidnap him out from under this organization's nose.
He didn't know what to think, so he decided to put any thinking on his agenda for later. Natia hadn't been threatening to him, as mysterious and enigmatic as she may be. He knew these men would try to harm him – that much was already clear. She hadn't done the same; on the contrary, she had saved him from the two men in the bathroom. It told him that at least for now, she could still be trusted.
He stepped forward, joining her at the door, giving one final nod.
"Fine," he said softly. "Let's go to Cairo."
CHAPTER 19
SHANE
Shane could almost feel his body aging. Aches and pains had been summoned to the surface by the attacks on him and Isaiah. Though he had not been shot – this time anyway – his body had reacted poorly. He cracked his neck, then rotated his upper body to crack his back in a few places. None of it helped.
At some point during the attack on his flat, he must have gone down on something hard, the edge of the table or chair or something. One of his ribs felt broken. He knew it wasn't, but wear and tear like this on his body felt far worse than it used to. He remembered during his time with special forces, feeling as though he could jump off a building and walk away. He was spry, young, fit.
Now, he just felt old.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the 1,000 mg of ibuprofen he had just dry-swallowed to take effect. He felt Isaiah looking at him oddly, as if waiting for him to tell him what to do.
"Did Natia tell you where we're supposed to go? What she wants us to do?" Shane asked. "Did she give you any instructions whatsoever?"
Above all else, he was frustrated. Frustrated that this young man walked into his life, assumed he could help him, then brought hell down on both their heads. Shane had saved Isaiah's life as much as he had saved his own – in other words, he didn't do it just because he was a nice guy. He just didn't want to die today.
"Cairo. Tomorrow."
Shane popped one eye open, squinting back at the kid. "Tomorrow. Really.”
Neither word was a question, and Isaiah didn't take it as such. He simply continued on. "That's where they'll be. Natia and... she said she had someone else whose help she had enlisted. I'm not quite sure who it is, or what their skill set is. Maybe they're like you?"
He opened his other eye, but kept squinting through one. "No one’s like me."
"You mean no one has rules like you?" Isaiah said. Shane could hear his voice trembling, either from fear or anticipation that Shane would retaliate with his change of tone. "You only work alone, and you don't retrieve people?"
"Sure, that works."
"Will you go to Cairo tomorrow with me?"
Shane stared hard at the kid, barely noticing the destroyed state his flat was in around them. He wanted to keep moving, to keep away from whoever these mercenaries were from the cult-like organization they all hailed from. He knew they weren't going to stop – that at this very moment they were making plans to continue pressing the attack, to hunt down Shane and Isaiah.
He also knew that every moment he spent here, he put Jason at risk. He liked the guy – but it didn't matter. Jason didn't deserve to be brought into this as collateral damage. To become collateral damage.
"I'll go to Cairo. You stay here."
"But they'll kill me!"
Shane let out a breath, annoyed. "Yeah, you're probably right."
"So… I can go with you?"
"Sure, kid."
Shane had no plans to take Isaiah with him. He needed to figure out a way to ditch the kid without making it obvious Isaiah would no longer be protected.
"What time are we supposed to be in Cairo tomorrow? They don't run flights all night, you know."
Isaiah shrugged. "She didn't say. I figured we just get to Cairo as soon as possible, and she… would find us."
Shane nodded. He didn't know Natia very well, but that was absolutely the way she would handle this. His job was to get to Cairo, nothing else. She would take it from there. His mind was working, already putting a plan together. They'd get to the airport as soon as possible, book the first flight to Cairo, as circuitous as need be to both throw off their attackers and get to Cairo quickly since he knew there were no direct flights capable of spanning the distance anyway.
But at the airport, once the tickets had been purchased, he would—
Scratch that. He would purchase their tickets online, tonight, ensuring that there was a credit card transaction trail for the cult to follow. He would use his and Isaiah's real names, making it blatantly obvious they were both headed to Egypt.
And that's where their journey together would end. Shane would simply arrive at the airport three hours early, get through security, and wait at the gate with both his and Isaiah's tickets. Without his boarding pass, Isaiah would be stuck at security.
Yes, that would work. He stood up from the folding chair and offered Isaiah a spot on the messy futon Jason kept open in the back office. "Get some sleep," he said. "Lie down in one of the booths out there. I doubt we'll have any more company tonight, but I'll sleep with one eye open."
"Okay," was all Isaiah could muster. He stood, shakily, then stumbled over to the futon. The kid was passed out in less than a minute.
Shane walked out of the office and back into the destroyed bar area. He found a booth that looked intact enough to hold his weight, then collapsed into it. As he lay down, his nerves still not quite ready to let him rest, he ran through the plan again.
It was good, he thought. I'll grab tickets now on my phone. Get through security tomorrow, and Isaiah will have no choice but to wait behind. The mercenaries will follow me to Cairo, thinking we're both there.
There was the small issue of having to explain to Natia why he had arrived in Cairo alone, but that was a problem for future Shane. He pulled his phone out and began scanning the airline's website.
CHAPTER 20
SHANE
Shane's plan had worked flawlessly. He’d slept for three hours, awoke quietly, and detached himself from the booth—the short, hard bench doing nothing to help his aches and pains from the battles the night before—and snuck out of Jason's pub.
That had been an easy task; there was still a gaping hole in the front of it where the door had been, and the only trouble he had was getting under and around the police tape they used to cordon off the area until their investigation continued today.
He’d quickly hailed a rideshare to the airport, got there three hours before the flight was scheduled to take off, and got through security with ease. The airport was small, and it was not busy this time of year. There were no holidays, busy travel dates, and it wasn't the weekend.
He found plenty of options to wait at his gate for the flight, as there was no one there yet, but he opted for a short row of seats that had no armrests, where he could sprawl out the length of them and catch a bit more rest. He awoke as the gate attendee began announcing the flight would be boarding in about half an hour. He rubbed his eyes, sitting up, smirking at the small crowd that was gathering by the gate.
Good work, Riley, he told himself. Isaiah is probably just getting to security, wondering where I am.
He stood up and headed toward the restroom as he saw a familiar face smiling and waving at him.
What the hell?
It was Isaiah, looking fresh, content, and confident as he strolled toward him past the security checkpoint.
How had he gotten through?
Shane had purchased the tickets himself, never giving Isaiah the boarding pass. He walked through security, showing his own boarding pass, and slept at the gate for the past three hours, confident that Isaiah was stuck on the other side.
He cleared his throat, stopping in front of the restroom as Isaiah ran toward him.
"Good morning, Mr. Riley," the kid said, exuberance on his face. "I was able to sleep surprisingly well. And while I'm certainly worried, I feel so much more confident knowing I have you with me."
Shane squinted back at him. "You… got through security?" he asked, incredulous.
Isaiah frowned. "I wondered if it was a test. You know, to see if I was worthy of coming along."
Shane slowly shook his head.
"Well, it wasn't hard. I just walked up to the counter and showed them my ID, said there was a boarding pass waiting for me."
Shane tried not to let his expression give away what he was feeling. He was feeling like an idiot. Feeling old.
I forgot to factor in how modern airports work, he realized.
"Was that… was that not the plan?" Isaiah asked, suddenly looking shifty.
"Yes," Shane said, clearing his throat again. "That was… exactly what I intended. I needed to make sure you were actually ready."
Of course Isaiah would be able to just walk up to the counter, flash his ID, and get the boarding pass that was purchased in his name. He hadn't had the kid's birthdate when he booked the ticket, but he knew his full name. That had been enough to purchase it. They would have asked him at the counter for his birthdate, which would have matched what it said on the ID. Not exactly expert-level cryptography and espionage.
"I need to hit the head," Shane said. "Our gate's right there. Boarding in 20 minutes or so."
Isaiah nodded, turned, and started walking toward the gate. Shane shook his head and entered the restroom.
He relieved himself and examined his face as he washed his hands. Not getting any younger, Riley. There were lines around his eyes that had never been there, marking his face in a permanent squint. His brow was more furrowed, with a bit more skin hanging loosely on his cheeks. Still, he was physically fit—aside from the extra 10 or 15 pounds.
Okay, 20 pounds.
He drank a lot of ginger beer, but had decided long ago it was better than the alcoholic alternative of regular beer. Plus, he liked when people guessed why he might be sober. Usually, people associated guys like him—ex-military, special forces, strong silent types—with cool stories. Histories of trauma or childhood abuse, a father who drank, a mother who was an alcoholic. Someone in the family who had overdone it at Thanksgiving, or just a terrible experience in college.
