That Time in Cairo Read online

  That Time in Cairo

  A Wolfgang Pierce Novella

  Logan Ryles

  Contents

  Also by Logan Ryles

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Wolfgang Returns in…

  That Time in Moscow

  Ready for more?

  About the Author

  Also by Logan Ryles

  End Page

  Copyright © 2021 by Logan Ryles. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  THAT TIME IN CAIRO is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Control Number:

  Published by Ryker Morgan Publishing.

  Cover design by German Creative.

  Also by Logan Ryles

  The Wolfgang Pierce Novella Series

  Prequel: That Time in Appalachia (coming soon)

  Book 1: That Time in Paris

  Book 2: That Time in Cairo

  Book 3: That Time in Moscow (coming May 7)

  Book 4: That Time in Rio (coming May 21)

  Book 5: That Time in Tokyo (coming June 4)

  Book 6: That Time in Sydney (coming June 18)

  The Reed Montgomery Thriller Series

  Prequel: Sandbox, a short story (read for free at LoganRyles.com)

  Book 1: Overwatch

  Book 2: Hunt to Kill

  Book 3: Total War

  Book 4: Smoke & Mirrors

  Book 5: Survivor

  Book 6: Death Cycle (coming soon)

  Book 7: Sundown (coming soon)

  Visit LoganRyles.com to receive a free copy of Sandbox.

  “Egypt is full of dreams, mysteries, memories.”

  - Janet Erskine Stuart

  1

  September, 2011

  Even in late summer, Buffalo was cool. Sharp wind drifted off Lake Erie and tore through the city like the revenging hand of God, searching for anybody who may be guilty of being comfortable. Only weeks from now, the snow would start, and a month after that, it would clog Buffalo, piled high against every building. For now, standing outside was still bearable, but the shortening days and sharpening wind were an omen of what lay ahead.

  Wolfgang stood thirty yards from the building with his hands jammed into the pockets of a light windbreaker. From his vantage point on the sidewalk, he could see through the smeared windows and into the dingy interior of Jordan Fletcher Home for Children. Harried workers ran back and forth, dressed in scrubs featuring safari animals, while children played in any number of small rooms with colorful walls.

  These were the outcasts—the orphans and the lonely—children who were between foster homes or awaiting an impending adoption mired in red tape. Wolfgang knew their stories because he was one of them, and so was Collins.

  Through the third story of the shabby building, Wolfgang could see her room. It was small, with a mechanical bed lifted into a seat. Collins’s room was more akin to a hospital room than a child’s bedroom. Sure, the same bright paints adorned the walls, and the same toys littered the floor, but Collins didn’t run and play like the other children. She didn’t laugh as loud or walk as fast.

  And she never would.

  Wolfgang found a park bench that faced the facility. The wooden slats of the bench creaked under his weight, but it felt good to sit. He watched the little room on the third floor. From this angle, he could just make out the top of the bed and the small, curly-haired head that rested against a pillow. Eyes shut. Cheeks pale.

  Another blast of lake wind tore down the street, crashing around Wolfgang’s windbreaker like water over rock, but he didn’t move. He didn’t even shudder. Wolfgang just watched the room, thinking of Collins, and for the dozenth time that year, he told himself to get up and go inside. Go to her room . . . sweep her up in a hug. Tell his baby sister that he loved her.

  But he couldn’t.

  He closed his eyes and heard the crash of glass against hardwood. He heard the yell of a drunken man out for blood. The scream of a panicked woman shielding her children. The broken sob of a little girl, her breaths ragged and filled with pain.

  “Throw that runt out!” the man had screamed. “No child of mine is defective!”

  More glass shattered. More household items flew like artillery shells, exploding against marred drywall, already battered by a hundred such engagements.

  And so it went, two, sometimes three nights a week—as often as the man found the bottle, and the bottle found the floor, and the little girl cried and sheltered behind her bruised mother while her older brother cowered in the shadows . . . and did nothing.

  Wolfgang opened his eyes. They stung with cold tears as the wind intensified. He couldn’t see Collins’s head now, but he imagined he could. He imagined he could hear her breaths, each one filled with pain as the ravages of her disease clutched her body.

  He stood up, leaning into the wind and hurrying across the street, then stopped in front of the smudged glass entrance and stared at the handle. Wolfgang turned to the right and approached the donation slot next to the door. He dug a thick envelope from beneath the windbreaker, packed with anonymous cash, and crammed it through the slot. Casting another furtive glance at the window, three floors up, he whispered to Collins as he always did. “I love you, and one day, I’ll make it right.”

  Wolfgang’s phone buzzed. He turned from the building and retrieved it, grateful for the distraction. There was a text message from a contact labeled simply as E.

  headquarters. 12 hours.

  A flood of excitement filled him—enough to burn away the cold, but never quite enough to burn away the guilt. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and held out his hand for the nearest taxi.

  Buffalo might’ve been in the throes of premature fall, but in Saint Louis, summer was still alive and well. Wolfgang found Charlie Team waiting for him on the fourteenth floor of the Bank of America Plaza, and he scrubbed his shoes on the mat outside the door before ducking inside.

  “Wolfgang! Better late than never,” Edric called from the far side of the room.

  Wolfgang blushed, glancing around the room to see Lyle sitting behind a computer at the table and Kevin standing next to the minibar, mixing a cocktail. Megan sat by herself next to the window, right where she had the first time he’d met her four months prior. She leaned against the wall with her legs crossed and stared out at the gleaming Gateway Arch only a half mile away. She wore yoga pants and a loose-fitting shirt that fell an inch short of her waistline. She was beautiful in a simple, elegant way. He loved that.

  “Like a drink, Wolf?” Kevin’s commanding voice boomed from the minibar, and the big man offered Wolfgang a reserved nod.

  “A Sprite would be great,” Wolfgang said.

  Kevin reached for the soda as Wolfgang settled into a chair. This was Charlie Team—an elite detachment of SPIRE, a company specializing in professional espionage services. They worked for whoever could pay their hefty fees, conducting specialized undercover missions around the globe. Their diverse capabilities were prominently advertised in their name:
Sabotage, Procurement, Infiltration, Retaliation, and Entrapment. SPIRE did it all.

  Wolfgang joined Charlie Team earlier that summer after working for SPIRE as an independent operator for three years, conducting corporate espionage and entrapment rackets in mostly American cities. Now his missions would carry him around the globe. In June, the team had barely survived a delicate operation in Paris, which almost cost a great deal more than their own lives. Wolfgang thrived on that mission, winning the respect of the rest of the team, but failing to win everything he really wanted.

  As Megan sat next to the window, he heard her words play back from moments before they left Paris. “I like you, Wolfgang. But you should know . . . I’ll never become involved with somebody on my team again.”

  Wolfgang looked away, shoving his feelings deep inside a mental box and locking them there. Megan was right, after all. They were a team. They had a job to do. Getting involved with each other didn’t play a part in that.

  “Here you go.” Kevin offered Wolfgang the Sprite with another reserved nod.

  Kevin was Megan’s half-brother, and prior to the Paris mission, he was about as friendly with Wolfgang as a dog with a burglar. Wolfgang could still feel the awkward tension between them, fueled predominantly by Kevin’s suspicions that Wolfgang was making a play for his sister, but at least Kevin was handing him drinks now instead of throwing punches. Wolfgang could appreciate the progress.

  “Thanks, Kev.”

  Wolfgang sipped the soda as Edric approached his favored whiteboard and produced a red marker. Edric’s right arm rode in a sling, almost recovered from his two-point break in Damascus a few months prior, but still limited in mobility. The injury had hamstrung Edric in Paris, and Wolfgang wondered how much it would limit them on whatever mission lay ahead.

  “I hope guys had a nice break. We’re back at it, and we’re going someplace warm.”

  Edric started scratching on the board, and Wolfgang wondered why he bothered. It seemed needlessly time-consuming and repetitious.

  “Cairo,” Edric said, stepping back. “We’re going to Cairo.”

  Edric grinned at the room as if he were awaiting a standing ovation, but Cairo wasn’t exactly the warm, exotic locale Wolfgang had imagined. Nassau or Fiji would’ve hit the spot. Havana, even. Cairo?

  Edric sighed, then turned to the board and drew a large triangle. “Cairo,” he said. “Great Pyramids?”

  Lyle started slow-clapping, and the others quickly joined in. Edric rolled his eyes and motioned to the table. “You’re all jerks. Gather up.”

  Megan, Kevin, and Wolfgang joined Lyle at the table.

  “Three weeks ago,” Edric said, “a construction worker laboring on an apartment building in the Libyan village of Al Jawf uncovered a stone case that housed an ancient papyrus scroll inscribed with hieroglyphics. It seems he didn’t really know what he’d found, but he thought it might be valuable, so he went into town and found an American W.H.O. worker and tried to sell it. The American had enough education to recognize the extreme age of the scroll and bought it from him, then called Libyan authorities.”

  Edric wrote on the board the entire time he spoke, sketching words such as scroll and W.H.O. and connecting them with a mess of lines that, at first glance, made the entire story appear to be the structure of an elaborate bank heist.

  “The Libyans deployed some researchers to take a look, and they determined the scroll to date back to around one thousand B.C., possibly a relic of the Library of Alexandria. Obviously a valuable find.”

  “Why do I detect the sordid stench of impending corruption?” Kevin asked.

  Edric just smirked. “The Libyans confiscated the scroll from the W.H.O. worker and contacted Egyptian authorities. Apparently, Libya hasn’t got much interest in ancient literature, but they thought they could make a quick buck. After some haggling, Egypt agreed to purchase the scroll. They sent scientists to authenticate it, then placed it in a protective, vacuum-sealed case . . .”

  “And lost it,” Megan finished.

  Edric jabbed the marker at her. “Bingo. Someplace between Al Jawf and Cairo—amid a thousand kilometers of Sahara desert—the case went missing, along with its escorts.”

  “They drove straight through the desert?” Megan asked.

  “Yep. The research team from Cairo hasn’t been seen or heard from in six days, but one of the Land Rovers used in convoy turned up in southern Egypt earlier this week, riddled with bullet holes.”

  “Shit,” Kevin muttered.

  “What’s the value of the scroll?” Wolfgang asked.

  Edric shrugged. “The Egyptians bought it for one hundred twelve thousand Libyan dinars. About twenty-five thousand dollars, US.”

  “Not a lot to kill for,” Wolfgang said.

  “No, not really,” Edric said. “Except the Egyptians believe the scroll was worth more than ancient porn. Almost none of it was readable without restoration, but what snippets they gathered indicate the document to be some kind of burial record. The map to a tomb, if you will.”

  Silence filled the room as the morbid quality of the words sank in.

  Edric nodded slowly, then sat down at the end of the table. “At least a dozen tombs of the pharaohs have yet to be found,” he said. “When King Tut’s tomb was discovered in nineteen twenty-two, they valued the contents at tens of millions.”

  Wolfgang let out a low whistle. “Plenty to kill for.”

  Edric nodded. “Grave robberies have accounted for the destruction of numerous ancient artifacts and national treasures in Egypt. The Egyptian government wants to be sure that whatever tomb is documented on the scroll isn’t the next victim.”

  “So, they hired us to catch a book thief?” Kevin laughed.

  “You could say that,” Edric said. “Only, this book thief is well armed, probably not alone, and lost in the biggest desert on the planet.”

  Wolfgang fingered the dripping condensation on the outside of the Sprite can, evaluating the story and searching for inconsistencies or missing information. Then he grinned. “Well, procurement is in our name, right? Let’s go procure a grave map.”

  2

  SPIRE’s Gulfstream G550 waited on the tarmac at a small private airport north of Saint Louis. Wolfgang held the door of the Uber for Megan and offered her a warm smile. She nodded her thanks but said nothing as she hurried up the steps into the plane, her petite frame looking little larger than that of a child next to the big aircraft.

  Wolfgang felt something sink inside of him as she disappeared inside.

  “Hey, Wolf. Give me a hand?” Lyle said from the back of a utility van parked nearby. His nose was wrinkled up to hold the glasses on his face, and he beckoned.

  Wolfgang hurried to the back of the van and looked in to see a box half the size of a coffin resting inside. “What the hell is this?”

  Lyle grinned. “New toys.” He jumped inside and pushed the box out.

  Wolfgang caught the edge, and they lifted it up.

  “Watch out. It’s heavy,” Lyle said.

  The air whistled between Wolfgang’s teeth as he stumbled backward. “You don’t say . . . It feels like a case of bricks!”

  The box must have weighed close to two hundred pounds and was packed so tight that even as Wolfgang struggled to regain his balance, nothing shifted inside. They wrestled it out of the van and up the steps into the waiting airplane. Lyle motioned toward the rear of the aircraft, and they stumbled past the plush leather seats, dragging the crate over headrests and slamming into Kevin along the way.

  “Look out there, wiz,” Kevin snapped, a drink in one hand.

  Lyle shot Kevin a salty glare, then they set the case down just outside the plane’s aft cabin.

  A door clicked shut, then Edric emerged from the cockpit and motioned to the seats. “Lift off,” he said.

  Wolfgang slid into a seat, catching his breath and buckling his seatbelt. The aircraft’s engines whined and spun to life, and a few minutes later, they shot skyward. />
  Lyle sat on top of his box, his short legs hovering an inch off the floor as he sipped water from a bottle. Wolfgang cast the box another curious look, then dismissed the mystery as his eyes landed on Megan again. She sat at the lone table, bent over a map of Cairo with a red pen in one hand. He recalled her studying maps of Paris prior to their last operation and remembered how helpful it would’ve been if he’d done the same.

  I should join her.

  “All right. Huddle up.” Edric took a seat close to the group and accepted a gin and tonic from Kevin.

  Wolfgang leaned forward and flexed his fingers. Memories from his last operation with Charlie Team flooded his mind and primed his body to spring into action again. Paris had been a stress-filled nightmare at the time, but now all Wolfgang could think about was feeling that rush of adrenaline again.

  “The Egyptians have determined that the scroll went missing someplace in their Western Desert region,” Edric said. “That area constitutes about 263,000 square miles, and two-thirds of the country.”

  “Well, that’s helpful,” Kevin snorted.

  Edric sipped his drink. “It’s a desolate place. Entire battalions of World War Two soldiers lost themselves in that desert, and it would be easy for us to do the same. So, the question is, how do we find our needle in that haystack?”

  Wolfgang rubbed his chin and watched Edric. Charlie Team’s leader rested his injured arm on one knee and leaned back, swirling his drink and watching his team with the faintest hint of a smirk.