Countdown in Cairo by Noel Hynd Page B

before the building was empty now, and the woman was gone.
    A wave of relaxation spread over the car’s passenger. Several minutes passed.
    “Thank you,” Nagib said.
    “We are cousins now,” Rashaad said.
    “We need to get access to the building,” Nagib said.
    Rashaad nodded. “Maybe tomorrow. Now, we leave. We don’t want to be here if the police come back.”
    Nagib agreed. The car pulled away from its watch a few minutes later.

TEN
    The next morning Alex had a right-hand window seat on the train for her three-hour trip to New York. She had booked the seating intentionally; she wore her Baby Glock on her right side, so it would be better concealed and guarded. As the train raced northward, Alex watched the East Coast of the United States roll past her: Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, and Newark. Old cities that seemed almost antique and quaint—old for North America anyway.
    She thought of Venezuela. Earlier that year, she had gone there to investigate a problem for philanthropist Joseph Collins, who was financing a group of missionaries in a remote town called Barranco Lajoya. Their work was being sabotaged by outsiders. Alex had stayed in the village for several weeks until an unnamed armed militia attacked, slaughtering many of the residents, destroying the village, and driving survivors to other locations. The reason for the attack remained unknown and still haunted her.
    Forcibly, she shifted her thoughts away from Barranco Lajoya and pondered the potential move to New York, a more pleasant development. She had already decided that, all things being equal, it would be a good move for her, both professionally and personally.
    A new venue, a new chapter. New people, new challenges.
    To some degree, a new life.
    The train arrived punctually at 11:30 a.m. She carried only a small overnight bag, a duffel that she slung over her shoulder. She had worn good walking shoes. New York, Paris, and London were her favorite cities for walking and picking up the feel of the metropolis. So she walked easily from Penn Station up to the Gotham. She checked in and unpacked.
    By 2:00 p.m. she had ventured out again on foot. Although the weather was brisk, she didn’t mind the exercise and wore the proper footwear for a two-mile walk directly uptown, taking a path through Central Park, where the trees were already bare. She noticed in passing that a few of the stores were done up for Thanksgiving but most were already well into Christmas. The holidays hit a bittersweet chord within her; the absence of a family, the loss of a fiancé. Best to keep going, keep the chin up, and not dwell upon it.
    After forty-five minutes, she had arrived at the home of Joseph Collins, or, at least, his luxury apartment building at Fifth Avenue and 95 th Street. There he made do with a duplex worth twenty million dollars—by the jaded estimates of Manhattan real estate.
    The building had once housed several Rockefellers and a Kennedy or two. William Randolph Hearst had once bought a floor there for a mistress, and Winston Churchill had stayed there for two months with friends after being voted out of office in the late 1940s. It still housed numerous heavy hitters of the New York financial and industrial community.
    The building was the work of the famous New York architect Rosario Candela, a prolific designer of impeccable apartment buildings in Manhattan between World Wars I and II. With its polished granite entrance, flanked by three doormen in subdued dark green uniforms, this was among the most luxurious apartment houses in Manhattan. The façade was sheathed entirely in limestone, and the entrance details were pure Art Deco. The front doorway told all anyone needed to know. Carved through a granite slab, topped by finials, were the letters that announced the address: 1240 PARK AVENUE .
    Inside, the lobby was as Alex remembered it from previous visits: dark, lush, and wide, with comfortable sitting areas and plush carpets on