Free The Templar Cross by Paul Christopher Page A

first sip of the thick bittersweet brew. They’d been sitting at their table for ten minutes and not a single customer had entered the gift shop, but the man in the white shirt didn’t seem at all concerned.
    “Japrisot was a smart cop,” said Holliday at last. “If you saw that number on the wall, then so did he.”
    “What are you saying?” Rafi asked.
    “Japrisot knows that Valador was smuggling stuff, antiquities and now gold bars. He also knows that the Egyptian Antiquities Police aren’t immune from corruption. He’d get bogged down in bureaucracy if he tried to track down this guy on his home turf. We don’t have that problem.”
    “So we do his work for him?” Rafi said.
    “Why not?” Holliday answered. “What does he have to lose?”
    “So what do we do now?”
    “We sit, drink coffee and talk about zee women, oui ?” Holliday grinned, doing an awful imitation of Japrisot.
    “You sound like Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther ,” Rafi said and laughed.
    “Shut up and drink your coffee.”
    After two and a half hours Holliday was beginning to feel sympathy for cops on stakeouts. His guts were in an uproar from too much coffee. His eyes burned from the insistent glare of the sun and itched from the dust. To top it all off he had to pee.
    “Something’s happening,” said Rafi urgently.
    Holliday blinked, suddenly aware that he’d been dozing, a full cup of coffee cooling in front of him. He blinked again and looked across at the gift shop. The man in the white shirt was hauling down the steel mesh screen in front of his store. Holliday dropped a handful of bills on the table and stood up.
    “Back to the cab,” he said. They walked up the street to where Faraj was dozing, a newspaper spread over his face. Holliday woke him up while Rafi watched through the rear window of the Lada.
    “He’s getting onto his scooter,” said Rafi.
    “Which way is he going?”
    “This way, I think. He’ll go right by us.”
    “Follow the scooter,” ordered Holliday. Behind them he heard the sewing machine whine of a two-cycle engine starting up.
    “Scooter?” Faraj asked.
    Holliday made a gesture with his hands like someone twisting the throttle on a motorcycle.
    “Vroom, vroom. Scooter.”
    “Ah,” said Faraj. “Vroom. Scooter, yes. Excellent, certainly.”
    The man from the gift shop rattled past them.
    “Follow!” Holliday yelled and pointed toward their quarry. Faraj finally got it. He switched on the engine, ground the gears and went after the scooter.
    “Following, excellent!” Faraj laughed, racing through the traffic, careening side to side like a wildman surfer riding a wave, pedestrians leaping out of the way, cart drivers screaming oaths in Arabic, other drivers honking. Ahead of them, barely in sight, the scooter chattered through the twisting back streets without a backward glance. They kept up the chase for twenty hectic minutes, threading their way toward the ocean.
    “Where in hell is he going?” Rafi muttered, craning his neck, hoping for some recognizable landmark. They came out onto a broad avenue and he glimpsed a street sign telling him they were now on Gamal Abdel Nasser Road and heading west. Then the scooter turned right into another maze of streets.
    Faraj turned around in his seat, beaming, completely ignoring the crush of traffic directly ahead. “Winston Churchill!”
    Holliday leaned forward and physically turned the young man’s head forward. “Watch the road!”
    “Winston Churchill!” Faraj crowed a second time. “Al Capone! MI-6! Bond, James Bond! Pussy Galore! Excellent, certainly!”
    “He’s gone mad,” said Rafi.
    “Maybe not,” said Holliday as they swung around a bright yellow three-car tram that looked like it belonged in the 1950s. Half a dozen half-naked boys were getting a free ride on the back bumper. A minute or so later the taxi came out onto a palm-filled square. Across the street, almost on the beach, was a small ornate hotel with a