Wolfgang and Kevin shook their heads, and Megan nodded. “All right. Let’s catch a book thief.”
4
Wolfgang broke to the right, shoving his hands into his pants pockets and relaxing under the setting sun. The suited business people, bustling city officials, and robed Muslims that passed on all sides didn’t even glance his way as he covered the blocks and closed in on the museum.
Giza was a truly diverse place, and while Wolfgang was certainly in the minority, he was far from the only white male walking the streets with no apparent destination in mind. Tourists blended with the locals and the business travelers, wielding cameras and pointing at the most ordinary things. Europe, Asia, and America were all represented by throngs of families and individuals, all eagerly seeking the most ideal places to snap photographs for social media.
This would be an easier place to blend into than Paris had been, Wolfgang decided. He would stick to the sidewalks, keep his sunglasses on, and remain casual, while hoping that the book thief wouldn’t be as subtle.
“Hey, Charlie Three, don’t eat the meat,” Kevin spoke suddenly, his voice booming through Wolfgang’s earpiece.
“I’m sorry?” Wolfgang said.
“The street meat. Don’t eat it.”
Wolfgang hadn’t even thought about food, but as if on cue, the rich scent of roasting lamb wafted toward him, and his stomach growled.
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
Wolfgang squinted, then a slow smile spread across his face. “Did it disagree with you, Kev?”
Unidentified laughter rippled through the coms.
“It always disagrees with him,” Lyle said. “Hey, Kev, tell Wolfgang about that time in Manila.”
A grumble of curses filled the com. “Forget I said anything. Just trying to help out the new guy.”
“Don’t be so salty, bro,” Megan said. “We’ve all been in shitty situations.”
Edric cleared his throat. “Okay, we’ve had our fun. Sharpen up, now.”
Wolfgang bypassed the slow-roasting lamb vendor and turned eastward. The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities lay on the east bank of the Nile River, in the shadow of downtown Cairo. According to the brief Google search Wolfgang had performed on the plane, the museum housed over 120,000 artifacts and was originally built in the early twentieth century by an Italian construction company.
Wolfgang merged with a crowd of tourists and pressed his way across another bustling intersection as he tasted a slight dampness in the air. A hundred yards later, a bridge appeared, stretching across the Nile River with a pedestrian sidewalk on one side. A large sign in the middle of the bridge announced the end of Giza city limits and the beginning of Cairo. Wolfgang tilted his head back and looked to either side, admiring the tall buildings constructed on both banks of the water. For all intents and purposes, Giza and Cairo were the same metropolis, both with their cores situated near the river.
He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, then stepped onto the bridge. The setting sun gleamed against the slow-moving waters of the ancient river, and Wolfgang paused a moment to admire the beautiful landscape. It was at once ancient and modern, simple and mysterious. He imagined boats built of bound reeds drifting through the waters, and he recalled the ancient Bible tale of the Hebrew leader Moses turning the entire river to blood with a strike of his staff.
Staring at the river now, the gravity of the story hit him like it never had before, and he thought about the millions of ordinary people like him who had stood next to this river and thought about their lives. In the context of something so ancient and unchanging, how meaningless everything else felt. How temporary.
“Hey, hotshot!” Megan said. “Let’s move. You’re not a tourist.”
Wolfgang looked for Megan but couldn’t see her in the crowd. He hurried forward, crossing the bridge a few minutes later and stepping onto the east bank. The mass of the Egyptian Museum rose out of the buildings to his left, and he quickly found his post in its shadow. Wide streets full of rushing cars surrounded the museum on four sides, but there was a park in front of the main entrance, complete with sidewalks cutting through heavily irrigated grass.
Wolfgang found a bench with an unobstructed view of the entrance and surrounding streets and took a seat. “This is Charlie Three. I’ve assumed a position to the southeast of the main entrance.”
“Roger that, Charlie One,” Edric said. “Charlie One, Two, what are your positions?”
“Charlie One, east of the building, side entrance,” Megan said.
“Charlie Two, north of the building, back entrance,” Kevin said.
“Very good,” Edric said. “Settle in. The target won’t leave until after sunset.”
The last two hours of the day dragged by in slow motion. Wolfgang watched pedestrians pass by, some talking on cell phones, others listening to music on tiny earbuds. Better than half the people wore Muslim garb, and most of the women were accompanied closely by male escorts.
Tourists clogged the entrance of the museum, surging in and out, and snapping photos with obnoxious enthusiasm while their children shouted and cried, running up and down the steps and touching everything. It was funny, Wolfgang thought. The Western world viewed the Middle East as an unruly, uncivilized place. Yet, by far, the most unruly and uncivilized things he’d seen so far were Western tourists.
He leaned back and soaked in the warmth of the fading sun. It had already sunk behind the tall downtown towers of Giza, and he wondered what it would feel like once the sun was gone altogether. He’d heard that the desert was cold and windy at night, and this time of year, it could only be more so. Maybe he should have brought his peacoat.
His stomach growled, not for the first time, and he looked around for a street vendor. There were none close by, and he redirected his gaze at the museum, then took out his phone and glanced at a high-resolution image of Dr. Pollins, studying every detail of her features. It was going to be a one in a million chance
