Star of Egypt Read Online Free PDF Page B

or whatever was handy.
    The sensation of emerging from the depths of the
Star of Egypt
was also unsettling, as it was already long past dusk. The wind had turned the lowering temperature into a formidable chill
     factor, and whipped at the men’s clothing as they came back up on deck. Below, the Arab workers and the Sparta men hunched
     against the wind in heavy coats. The cordoned area was now ringed in yellow service lights. Near the main door of the warehouse
     one man had a hot plate and a coffeepot going. Slayton was made aware of the insufficiency of his jacket, but Willis did not
     seem to mind the cold. Considering that his usual stomping ground was the sun-baked Egyptian desert, it seemed unfair.
    Willis led Slayton back to the ramp almost automatically, like a butler, but as Slayton started down he reached out and stayed
     him with a hand on his shoulder.
    “Mr. Rademacher, I see no reason whatsoever to tell the others. I will support whatever you say as regards the safety of the
     exhibits. Might I also add that the presence of someone in your capacity working on this comforts me. Good night to you, sir.”
     He turned briskly and was gone, presumably to settle down with a dense text and a hot toddy.
    Slayton could not help grinning to himself. “Good night, Professor.”
    His check-in with Groth’s contingent was a matter of dancing through preset moves, giving directives he knew full well were
     bullshit, yet required if he were to maintain his façade. Penetrating the whole group, and, to his more immediate end, verifying
     the presence of Rashid Haman, would take time. Groth’s men would dismiss Slayton as FBI or CIA. Slayton gave them a mental
     once-over and decided that seeking Haman among the guards was stupid. That was that.
    Slayton’s skin was tingling with the cold by the time he reached the Triumph. His key, however, stopped short of the lock
     as he bent, eyes suddenly coming into very sharp focus, and concentrated on the juncture of window and roof. Even in the dim
     light he could make out thin white scratches on the insulating rubber strip.
    Slayton moved to the opposite door and, after a quick similar inspection, opened it. At first glance the interior of the car
     appeared unviolated, but he noticed smudges of dirt on the carpeting, on the side that had held no passengers for weeks. He
     switched on the interior light.
    The driver’s side window had been professionally jacked, and only the faint marks on the insulation told the tare. That eliminated
     burglary; a thief would have jacked-and-snapped the door handle, or just broken the window. Slayton’s gaze immediately flew
     down. There were no tracers or detonation leads attached to the doorwells.
    It was the first move in an agonizing touchy process.
    He gave the engine what they referred to in the Department as a “British bomb school once-over,” and checked out the boot
     and chassis. Twenty minutes later, satisfied that the Triumph had been entered but not rigged, he popped open the glove compartment.
     The nickel-plated .45 automatic lay as he had left it, but away from the driver’s side door, safety on.
    He inspected it in the light. No prints. Then he snapped back the action and a shell popped out. It dropped and lay on the
     carpeting, its brass gleaming dully.
    Whoever had entered the car had done the same thing, evidently unable to tell by mere weight whether or not the gun was loaded.
     Their inspection had left a slug in a chamber that Slayton had left empty, the slug that had just been ejected.
    Slayton pocketed the stray shell and replaced the gun in the glove compartment. There was nothing in the Triumph that would
     identify who he really was, or compromise him in any way. The car was “document-naked,” and the registration and papers would
     bear out whatever story he cared to spin. There were personals within, but of a totally nonincriminating nature. The Triumph
     was clean for Slayton.
    Yet someone had checked