sponsors for an expedition.
Might give us some ideas as to a short-list of suspects?'
'The Getty Museum,' she said, and he' smiled.
'Cross one from the list. They don't go around tossing grenades in the
streets of Cairo. Who else was there on the list?, 'Gotthold Ernst von
Schiller.'
'Hamburg. Heavy industry. Metal and alloy refineries.
Base mineral production.'Nicholas nodded. 'Who was the third name on the
list?'
'Peter Walsh,' she said. 'The Texan.'
'That's the one,' he nodded. 'Lives in Fort Worth.
Fast-food'franchising. Mail order retail.' There were very few
collectors with the substance to compete with the major institutions
when it came to making significant of antiquities or to financing
archaeological acquisitions exploration. Nicholas knew them all, for it
was a mutually antagonistic circle of no more than a couple of dozen
men.
He had competed with each of them at one time or ano& on the auction
floors of Sotheby's and Christie's, not to mention other less salubrious
venues where 'fresh' antiquities were sold. The adjective 'fresh' was
used in the context of 'fresh out of the ground'.
'Those are two beady-eyed bandits. They would probably eat their own
children if they felt peckish. What would they do if they thought you
stood in their way to the tomb of Mamose? Do you know if either of them
contacted Duraid after the book was published, the way I did?'
'I don't know. They may have.'
'I cannot imagine that either of those beauties would have missed such
an easy trick. We must believe that they both know that Duraid had
something going on. We will put their names on our list of suspects.'
Then he inspected her plate. 'Enough? Another spoonful of egg? No? Very
well, let's go down to the museum and see what Mrs. Street has found for
us to work on.'
When they walked into his study, she was impressed by the amount of
organization that he had accomplished in such a short time. He must have
been busy at it all last night, turning the room into a military-type
headquarters.
In the centre of the room stood a large easel and blackboard which were
pinned a set of overlapping satellite photographs. She went across to
study them, and then glanced at the other material pinned on the board.
Along with a large-scale map covering the same area of southwestern
Ethiopia as the satellite photographs there were lists of names and
addresses, lists of equipment and stores which he had obviously used on
previous African expeditions, sheets of calculations of distance and
what looked like a preliminary financial budget. At the top of the board
was a schedule headed 'Ethiopia - General Information'. There were five
closely typed sheets, so she did not read through the entire schedule,
but she was impressed by his thoroughness in preparation.
Royan determined to study all this material at the earliest opportunity,
but now she crossed to one of the two chairs he had set up at a table
