Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Jack
Cairo, Egypt
The hiss of steam filled the air beside the train as Jack stepped off onto the platform in Cairo, squinting into the crowd.
Porters in red fezzes darted between travelers with crates and luggage trunks, calling in Arabic over the cacophony of voices and footsteps, while young boys darted between the arriving passengers, offering their services in exchange for baksheesh.
Jack adjusted the strap of his satchel over his shoulder, then met the gaze of a young man leaning against a far wall watching him with dark, solemn eyes.
The hint of a smile tugged at the young man’s mouth, then he straightened, sweeping the long black hair from his forehead.
He was clean-shaven and thin but well-groomed, sharply dressed, and even conventionally handsome.
Little remained of the scraggly Bedouin boy who’d once been such a useful little spy—and only the wooden prosthetic in the place of his left hand remained as a heartbreaking souvenir from those days.
Jack breathed out a sigh of relief and started toward him. “And here I was worried Alastair hadn’t gotten my message,” Jack said when he reached him. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Khalib.”
Khalib chuckled and gave Jack a skeptical once-over. “I’m not certain I can say the same.” His English was nearly flawless, only the slightest hint of an Arabic accent and spoken with a British intonation. “Alastair may insist on de-licing you before he lets you stay.”
Jack scratched his beard and offered a grim smile. “I might take him up on it.”
They started through the train station, and Jack checked over his shoulder. Sure enough, the man who’d been following him since Luxor was there. He didn’t bother hanging by the shadows or acting with any pretense. No doubt one of Prescott’s men.
This was what life had been like when he was a younger man living in America, having to watch his back and wondering when Prescott Federline might decide Jack was enough of a threat to get rid of him.
Those who knew about the Blackwell Society usually worked for it—for Prescott.
Most others didn’t live long after finding out the truth.
Jack was an exception to that—only because of Kit and, later, Alice.
Kit had done everything to protect Jack from her father, and she was the only one who’d held any sway with him.
After she’d fled, trying to escape the wide net of control Prescott cast, Prescott had recruited Alice to Blackwell.
He’d had the audacity to call it a favor to Jack.
Jack knew the truth though. He’d tried to convince Alice of it too. The only reason Prescott wanted Alice to work for him was so he could keep some measure of control of Jack. By keeping Jack’s beloved sister under his thumb, Prescott bought himself the security of Jack’s silence about Blackwell.
But now, twenty years after Jack thought he’d left all that behind, here Prescott was, pulling those puppet strings again.
“You have a shadow,” Khalib said, interrupting Jack’s thoughts.
Jack tore his gaze away and looked forward again as they exited the train station.
“Why do you think I called Alastair?” Outside the station, the mild February weather was a relief, but that’s where the calm ended—the wide palm-lined boulevards were jammed with motorcars and carriages, horses clopping, and horns honking, the scents of dust, spice, and sweat mixing on the bustling streets.
Too much noise.
Too many people.
A perfect place for spies to mingle with British colonial officers, tourists to blend with wary-eyed Egyptian nationalists, and smugglers to hide amongst antique and trinket shops.
The constant simmering of unrest only fed into the thrum of disquiet inside Jack, and the belt that had existed around his chest for years on end now tightened like a vise around his lungs.
I hate Cairo.
The thought persisted as Khalib led him to a waiting motorcar, then continued as they turned away from the European-inspired building facades toward the narrower and older streets of Old Cairo.
His friend, Alastair Taylor, had found both peace and freedom by settling here rather than in Anglo Cairo, where most English and Europeans made their homes.
As the streets gave way to narrow, dizzying alleyways that Khalib handled with impressive expertise, Jack looked over his shoulder.
Knowing Khalib, he likely had a better route in mind than Jack did if Prescott’s tail had managed to follow.
He’d trained for this sort of thing extensively with Alastair, who gave all the orphaned Egyptian boys he took in not only a fine education but also skills that might help any endeavor they wanted to pursue.
In Khalib’s case, those skills had all been in clandestine work.
He’d idolized Noah Benson, Jack’s closest friend and a gifted wartime spy.
Noah’s decision to settle in England permanently with his wife, Ginger, had been difficult for Khalib.
And though Noah and Ginger came to Egypt during the winter season every few years, Jack sensed the young man’s continued sense of loss at the closeness he’d once shared with Noah, despite Alastair stepping in to raise Khalib.
Then again, Jack felt the same loss—perhaps even more.
His friendship with Noah had mostly recovered since the war’s end, but neither of them could completely forget that Jack had married Ginger when Noah had gone missing in order to save Ginger from destitution and to help her raise her and Noah’s son, Alexander.
Or the fact that Jack had fallen in love with Ginger during that time.
He’d been emotionally unbalanced, still reeling after Kit’s death and Noah’s disappearance, and what he’d found with Ginger had been unexpected and profoundly deep.
But he’d lost her once Noah returned—not that he could blame her.
And now … to think the possibility existed that he’d mourned in vain for Kit too.
Jack clenched his jaw, the threat of a headache pulsing behind his burning eyelids.
A sharp turn threw his stomach in a nauseating way, and he grimaced as Khalib stopped the car suddenly, then backed up straight into a pile of crates stacked near a building.
The crates collapsed with a crash, banging to the ground around them, bouncing off the sides of the car—and they pulled into what appeared to be an old horse barn.
As Khalib killed the engine, a few boys appeared from the shadows near them, then slammed a wooden gate shut over the entrance they’d crashed through.
Jack stared at the gate, his heart thudding. He hadn’t missed this. “Was the tail that close behind us?”
Khalib nodded grimly, then set a steady hand on Jack’s shoulder and squeezed. “But he won’t find us now.”
“You certainly still know how to make an entrance, Jack.”
Alastair’s voice came from Jack’s left and he turned, squinting deeper into the dark.
Alastair emerged a moment later—the picture of a polished English gentleman, a pipe in one hand.
More grey at the temples than the last time Jack had seen him though, and his dark curly hair was trim, like the moustache he sported.
He grinned at Jack, the sweet scent of pipe tobacco filling the air between them.
“And you still have more tricks up your sleeve than anyone I’ve ever met.” Jack offered a smile, then opened the door and swung his legs out of the car and stood. He’d only taken one step forward when he saw Alastair’s eyes flick over him with uncertainty, a frown in his expression.
“The desert wasn’t kind to you this time. Did you find what you were looking for at last?”
“Not yet. But something found me. Someone.” Jack tossed a wary gaze around them. He wouldn’t talk about Prescott in front of Khalib, no matter how trustworthy he was. For his own safety.
Alastair was one thing—Jack’s friendship with him ran long and deep.
And Alastair traded secrets almost as skillfully as Blackwell did.
On a much smaller scale, of course. Alastair had narrowed his level of expertise and contacts almost exclusively to Egypt, with a few closely placed connections throughout Arabia.
The difference was that Alastair did his best to ensure the information ended up in the hands of the worthiest cause.
If anyone could help Jack find Kit and Alice while avoiding being tracked by Prescott Federline, it was Alastair. But Alastair risked exposing his own contacts and allies in the process.
Alastair gave one nod, then gestured toward a darker area of the barn. “We can follow this tunnel to my house. Have some tea.”
They didn’t speak any further until Jack was seated in Alastair’s sitting room.
If there was a more secure place in Cairo, Jack didn’t know of it.
Alastair had more than one safe house, some of them connected by tunnels.
His own personal residence, though, was known to only a handful of people, Jack being one of them.
He stretched his legs in front of him, sitting back on the sofa. “How’s the wife?” Jack asked Alastair with a tired smile.
Alastair handed him a teacup, then sat at an armchair across from Jack. “Useful. Busy with all the excessive nonsense the wives of the diplomats adore. We see each other every few weeks, but I expect it might be more soon. Unrest seems to be stirring everywhere.”
Jack nodded absentmindedly. Normally, he’d be interested in Alastair’s take on the political changes in Europe and elsewhere, but he had too much to worry about to divert the conversation to that topic or to be genuinely interested in Alastair’s wife.
That Alastair had married at all had been a shock to his closest friends—especially considering whom he’d married: Lucy Whitman, Ginger’s often snobbish younger sister.