“Where’s Helen?” George called out when he returned to the yacht’s lounge. The motors were running, with Elliot at the wheel, turning the ship back toward the harbor as the sun started its long descent over the spires and mosques, over the scintillating glass dome of the newly completed Alexandrian library. In the lounge he found Victor and Mary watching the LCD screen, catching up on CNN. Behind the bar sat the dark-skinned Italian, Nina Osseni, with short curly hair and piercing green eyes. She wore a tank top that exposed her shoulder tattoos: Egyptian symbols, the two eyes of Horus, left and right. She leaned over in a pose at once seductive and restrained.
She was young but perfectly suited to Waxman’s needs. He had recruited her right out of Annapolis, where she had been planning for a career at the FBI. She knew seven languages besides her native Italian, including Egyptian and Saudi; she was skilled in hand-to-hand combat; proficient in most firearms, with a specialty in handguns; and to top it all, her psychic scores were off the charts.
“Haven’t seen Mrs. Crowe yet,” Nina said. “But we have another.. situation.” She showed him two small dime-shaped objects with wires sticking out of them. “Found these on the boat just after the last sweep. We must have been careless.”
Waxman bristled. “What else?”
Nina angled the silver-plated Dell laptop slightly so that only Waxman could see the screen. It displayed a familiar man, the one on the pier, in his gray suit. “I took this with the zoom lens while you were talking with the Crowe kid. He’s on shore, trying to be discreet.”
Waxman smiled. “Not too good at it. You run the facial-recognition program against our database?”‘
“Of course.”
“And?”
“It’s Wilhelm Miles.”
“Ah, Miles.” Waxman filled his drink, took a long sip. “Must be the son. The father took ill last year.”
“Died two weeks ago,” Nina said.
“Very good. So, this is indeed a lucky break. Gives us the edge.” He met Nina’s eyes. “You know what to do?”
Nina’s upper lip curled slightly and her eyes sparkled. “Looking forward to it.”
She closed the laptop, nodded to Elliot and Victor, who were busy talking about the dive, and left the room. Waxman walked outside and watched the approaching shore, keeping his focus on the waving flags over the Qaitbey fortress. He blinked, narrowed his eyes and, in the heat, imagined the Pharos, imagined it as Caleb had seen it-nearly complete, with the scaffolding tracking up along the sides, the great mirror settling into place, and Sostratus at the base, arms folded, smirking with the knowledge of a secret he alone held.
But not for much longer.
Waxman thought of his most valued passenger, down in the recompression chamber. Two thousand years was long enough. Some secrets were not meant to last.