The Lucifer Gospel by Paul Christopher Read Free Book Online

Scouts.”
    “Oh, sure.”
    “It’s true. I got a merit badge. I was also in the marines for a few years.”
    “I’m not sure I believe any of this.”
    “Believe what you like. All I know is that guy looked like he was about to chop you in half.”
    “And instead he chopped Baqir in half.”
    “I was too late. I’m sorry about that. I would give anything to have been able to prevent that.”
    “Maybe you wouldn’t have to be sorry if you hadn’t gone there looking for a gun.”
    “Maybe, maybe not.”
    “How can you be that callous? A child is dead.”
    “I didn’t kill him, that son of a bitch with the sword did. A son of a bitch who was chasing you, I might add, not me.”
    “Which brings me back to my original point—why would he be chasing me?”
    “Something to do with the expedition?”
    “Like what? I’m supposed to be a technical illustrator and cartographer. I’ll be drawing site diagrams and artifacts. It’s not like it’s very high up the ladder.”
    “Some old enemy?”
    “I don’t have any enemies like that.”
    Hilts thought for a moment. “Who hired you?”
    “Adamson’s office in California.”
    “Was there an interview?”
    “Over the phone. The placement office at NYU sent them a bunch of possibles. They short-listed me, I sent in my résumé along with a list of references, and then I had a five-minute phone interview.”
    “Who did you talk to?”
    “A guy named Forrest, one of Adamson’s personnel people.”
    “Same person who hired me.”
    “Is it important?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I don’t like mysteries.”
    “Neither do I.”
    “So why was the guy after me?” She shook her head. “He must have been following us for quite a while. As soon as you and I got separated he was onto me. As though he’d been waiting for me.”
    “That’s impossible. No one knew we were coming.”
    “So you say.” Finn shrugged.
    “I’m lying?”
    “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
    “Why would I lie?” he answered.
    “I don’t think this is going to get us anywhere.”
    “Apparently not.” They fell into a long silence. Finally Hilts spoke again. “Aliyah,” he said, nodding to himself.
    “What?”
    “Not what, who. Aliyah is the woman I borrowed the motorcycle from. She was the one who told me where to find a gun in the City of the Dead. She knew where I was going.”
    “You think she told somebody?”
    “I can’t think of anyone else.”
    “Why would she do something like that?”
    He grimaced. “For money. It’s the only reason she does anything.”
    “On whose behalf?”
    “Adamson’s?”
    “He hires us, then he kills us?” Finn shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. And it still doesn’t explain why that man was specifically after me.”
    “Maybe he wasn’t,” said Hilts, lifting his shoulder. He ran a finger through the condensation on the outside of his glass. “Maybe he planned to come after you first, and when he was finished with you he’d be waiting for me back at the bike. He’d be rid of both of us, just like whoever hired him to do the job wanted.”
    “And how do we find out who that was?”
    Hilts picked up his glass at last and held it up in a mock toast. “By getting up bright and early tomorrow and flying into enemy territory.”
     
     
     

8
     
     
    She dreamed she saw Baqir dying again and woke up in her room, the light curtains across the balcony doors blowing inward with a soft sound like ghostly wings. She lay alone in the dark listening to the distant sounds of the city and the traffic on the Corniche El Nil far below. How much death and dying had the Nile seen in all the years it had flowed through this place, on its way to Alexandria and the sea?
    The curtains whispered again and she sat up a little, pulling the sheet up around her shoulders against the chill. She checked the glowing dial on her watch. Three a.m. She remembered a song her father had played to her mother once, very late one