Serpent of Moses by Don Hoesel Page B

Venezuela to track down a man you could just call—a man who, to be honest, may not show at all?”
    Esperanza could not begrudge the man his questions. After all, hadn’t she asked some of the same ones during her long flight? However, hearing those questions come from a man who had spent the last several minutes robbing her of many of the tools she customarily used to get what she wanted brought the irritation to genuine anger and in less time than was normally the case.
    After letting the director’s question hang there for a moment, she too leaned into the desk, closing the distance between them. “I’m here because I’m going to say some things to an absentee archaeologist that just might make his ears bleed,” she answered, her accent thick with frustration.
    She waited a beat to make sure she had Sturdivant’s attention. Seeing that she did, she continued, “I swear to you, if he shows up here and you don’t call me to let me know, I will show up at your office door again. And I promise you that that visit will not go as swimmingly as this one has.”
    She’d said every word with a calmness that would have been appropriate for a discussion of traffic patterns around Hyde Park, yet there was no mistaking the genuine threat in each syllable. She suspected that Milo Sturdivant knew she wasn’t bluffing.
    Which was why he did something for the first time in her presence: he smiled.
    “I can certainly do that,” he said, the barest hint of apology in his tone. “As soon as I hear from Dr. Hawthorne— if I hear from him—I will call you and let you know.”
    In that instant, the menace that had taken over Esperanza’s whole being vanished, replaced by the smile with which she’d entered the room.
    “That would be wonderful,” she said, sliding her card across the desk. Then, to further reward his acquiescence, she rose and started for the door. She had just reached it when a thought struck her. “By the way, how much are you set to pay Jack for whatever it is he’s bringing to you?”
    When Milo Sturdivant provided the answer, Esperanza felt everything shift. Less than sixty seconds later she was in the hallway calling Jack.

    The Egyptian resisted the urge to run a hand over the back of his head, as he had a number of times since waking. He knew the wound had clotted and his hand would not return blood, which meant that, for now at least, it was not a concern.
    He’d pulled what he could from the pockets of Benton and Phillips, which wasn’t much, but he had a tidy sum of his own—enough to track Martin Templeton to the ends of the earth if need be.
    The heat had cleared the streets of most of its traffic, which allowed Imolene to make good progress toward the area of town with the few shops that offered him a chance of renting a car that would take him to Al Bayda.
    The dirt road ran into a stone wall twenty yards ahead, with an adjoining road following the length of the wall in both directions. He took the path leading to the left and followed the cut-through until it emptied into a busier thoroughfare. Here, the Egyptian stopped to collect himself and to readjust the heavy pack slung over his shoulder.
    He could see all three of the businesses on his list and selected one based on the fact that it was the only one with a car parked out front. Resettling his pack, he started toward the store, pausing when he reached the car—a Yugo that seemed held together by rust. Grunting, he gave some thought as to how he would fit his large frame into it. In the end he decided that necessity outweighed comfort.
    The interior of the shop was dark and smelled vaguely of garlic. The Egyptian took a position behind another man who had arrived before him and exchanged a look with the proprietor, a middle-aged Libyan with thinning hair and a faded but vicious-looking scar that began below his right ear and traveled down his neck, disappearing beneath his shirt.
    “I only have the one vehicle,” the man said to