Channeling Cleopatra Read Online Free PDF Page A

of them, they acted like he was some
pimple-faced kid who'd been held back twenty grades or so. The
instructor, a beefy young guy about ten years younger than Leda,
called him Pops a lot. Duke was used to that. As usual, the boys
who thought they knew everything weren't even in the loop. He knew
what this mission of Leda's was all about, and why her old man was
the only one she was willing to trust to watch her back. It sounded
far-fetched to him—Cleopatra, for pity's sake! But it was important
to Leda, to Chimera, and apparently to Wolfe's wife, though he
wasn't supposed to know that part. It was the clencher for him
though. Any lady who would go to that kind of extremes to make
herself sexier for her man was all right with him.
    So what the other security cops thought of
the rookie was their mistake. He was used to smart-ass younger guys
being cocky little shits who thought he'd slow them down.
    And, to give them credit,
they were faster
with the computerized surveillance equipment used to monitor the
Nucore campus.
    Duke thought that stuff just caused the
troops to relax their vigilance, but he kept his mouth shut and
paid attention. He was relieved when the class was over, and Leda
and he transferred, along with Chimera, to the Nucore facility on
the isolated Greek island of Kefalos, which was the staging area
for the Alexandria project.
    The island had once been owned by what the
Kid referred to as a "shipping maggot" whose taste for privacy
matched Nucore's security requirements. Outwardly, the island
seemed much like other Greek islands. The postcard village of
white, square houses with red roofs staggered along the beach and
clung to the side of the hill that was the highest place on the
island. The hill was actually the top of an ancient volcano, and
ringing the rim were the ruins of an old Knights Templar citadel, a
monastery, and the former owner's mansion and shipping offices.
Olive trees twisted toward the sky, turquoise waters lapped white,
sandy beaches, and the little birds sang from the clotheslines, tra
la. Some of the islanders who had worked for the shipping magnate
now worked for Nucore instead and stayed as they always had in some
of the red-roofed houses. The other houses had been renovated and
sheltered other Nucore technicians and employees as well as a few
middle-management types. There was even a vineyard or two, which
Duke found a redeeming feature.
    Here on Kefalos, the security classes were
more specific. The chief of security was one Theophilus Agelakos.
Agelakos took the attitude that Duke was cute. "So, you go along to
Egypt with your daughter, eh? Her poppa make sure she is not
carried off to the tent of some pasha."
    "Nah, I just want to make sure I get enough
camels for her," Duke said, trying to laugh it off. "And be there
to . . . uh . . . take her back when the pasha finds out what he's
got himself into."
    "Very amusing!" Agelakos said. "No need to
explain. We understand family here."
    Duke had a certain understanding of it, too,
from criminal elements he had contact with in Portland, but he
didn't want to wreck his amusing-old-duffer image by mentioning
it.
    "This is maybe not a job for a man such as
yourself," Agelakos said. "In Egypt it is not protected as we are
here. We have not the alarm systems to guard the company holdings.
Much is in the open, on the water, and along the dam."
    "Dam?"
    "Oh yes, the company has built for the
Egyptian government a great cofferdam that has completely emptied
the harbor and some of the area beyond."
    "Why?" Duke asked.
    "Because the government,
with the help of Nucore's money, hopes to uncover, raise, and
reconstruct above sea level the most important structures of the
ancient city: the lighthouse of Pharos, the palace of Cleopatra,
perhaps the ruins of the Egyptian Navy and the Great Library's
storehouse, continuing the work of the underwater archaeology teams
of the late twentieth century. It will be like your American Disney
parks—visit