The Arab Fall (A James Acton Thriller, Book #6) (James Acton Thrillers) by J. Robert Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page A

and gold with a fistful of sapphires and rubies,
in a design meant to elongate the neck, the choker style popular with his
beloved Cleopatra, and still very much so in high society since there was no
new pharaoh to define their own style, Octavian having killed Cleopatra’s son,
Caesarian. It was the end of an era. The end of the Pharaoh’s. The end of
Egypt.
    He
sighed, returning his attention to the necklace, a necklace that was, in fact,
a design he could appreciate, a design he recognized.
    For he
had made it.
    And he
knew for a fact it was buried with his late Pharaoh’s body, he himself having
been brought in to consult on the burial as to what the finest jewels were to
bury with their fallen god. He felt a rage build in his heart as he stared at
the piece, dumbfounded. His brothers and others they had gathered over the two
moons that had passed since the sealing of the burial tomb had watched over it
day and night.
    Someone
had betrayed them.
    “Where
did you get this?” he asked his shopkeeper, Kontar.
    Kontar
pointed at the necklace. “It’s one of yours, isn’t it?”
    Tarik
nodded.
    Kontar
frowned, grasping at the narrow goatee he sported in an attempt to appear a
higher caste than he actually was. “As soon as I saw it, I knew. Of course I
should know it, since I know all your work. But this one. Isn’t this…?” He
apparently dared not finish the sentence.
    Tarik
nodded again, running his fingers over the piece, feeling the surge of energy
from what was once a living god whose perfect, divine skin it had graced
perhaps only days before.
    “Where
did you get it?” he repeated.
    Kontar
turned his nose up. “A most disagreeable creature. I’ve seen him before as he
has tried to sell his ill-gotten gains. I’ve always turned him away before,
knowing who and what he was, but this time, when he showed me what he had, I
couldn’t.” Kontar sighed, running his own fingers over the piece. “It is so
lovely, and I am certain she would have loved it had she been able to see it.”
    “She is
a god. Of course she was able to see it.”
    “Yes, of
course, I am certain you are right,” scrambled Kontar, touching his forehead
and looking up in apology. “It is so difficult to think in terms of the divine,
that I sometimes forget they are all knowing and all seeing. Forgive me.”
    “It is
not I of whom you must ask forgiveness. Ask it in your prayers tonight.” Tarik
pointed at the necklace. “Who is this ‘disagreeable creature?’”
    “His
name is Shakir. He lives in the lower quarter, a pickpocket, lowlife. But never
before have I seen him with a piece such as this. Usually just trinkets. Small
items that locals would wear, not royalty.”
    “You
will take me to him.”
    “Me?
You? You mean you want to go to”—Kontar paused, the look of horror on his face
almost comical—“the lower quarter?”
    Tarik
nodded. “We must get to the bottom of this, and in order to do so, we must go
where the answers are.”
    And
right now, those all appeared to be in the lower quarter with a petty thief
named Shakir.
     

 
     
    Nubian Desert, Egypt, University College London Dig Site
    Two Days Before the Liberty Island Attack
     
    “So where did you find it?” asked Laura, her expert eyes scanning
the level area for any hint of something of interest. Her beloved James was at
her side, his hands on his hips as he too examined the rather plain sight, the
sand blown smooth by the wind, not a hint of vegetation, and beyond a grouping
of rocks that stretched from left to right for about fifty feet, there was
nothing.
    “By the
rocks,” said Chaney, pointing. He rushed over to a spot between two decent
sized rocks and jabbed his finger at a spot on the ground. “Right here. There
was just a bit of it showing when I found it. I had to dig it out with my
hands.”
    James
approached the spot carefully, examining the surroundings, as did Laura. There
was nothing obviously special about the spot, except its