Free The Templar Cross by Paul Christopher Page B

Sofitel sign on the roof. They watched as the scooter roared across the square and pulled to a stop in front of the hotel. Faraj parked the taxi on the far side of the street and pointed at the building. He turned around in his seat.
    “Winston Churchill. Somerset Maugham,” he said proudly.
    “It’s the Hotel Cecil,” said Holliday, laughing. “Faraj is right. Churchill stayed here during the war and so did Maugham. MI- 6 had a bunch of suites permanently rented.”
    “What’s our friend on the scooter up to?” Rafi asked.
    The man in the white shirt finished parking the scooter, wheeling it up into the shade offered by the hotel, then walked around the corner. He approached the hotel doorman, an older gentleman in a brown and gold uniform complete with a fez. He handed the doorman something and the old gentleman disappeared into the hotel. The man in the white shirt lit a cigarette and waited under the entrance awning, looking out into the square.
    A few moments later a brand-new cobalt blue Citroën C6 luxury sedan pulled up in front of the hotel and a valet parker leapt out and opened the driver’s-side door for the man from the gift shop. More money changed hands and the man got behind the wheel.
    “Interesting,” said Holliday. “It would appear that Mr. Abu Ibrahim leads a double life.”
    “He didn’t buy that selling knickknacks,” said Rafi as the valet closed the door.
    Faraj began to sing to himself.
    “Stor-y, for-me? I never realized just how much I loathed Lindsay Lohan,” muttered Rafi.
    The Citroën moved off.
    Holliday tapped Faraj on the shoulder.
    “Follow!”
    Faraj, still singing, followed.

8
    They followed the big Citroën east on the Shari 26 July to the Corniche Road along the long shallow crescent of crowded white sand beaches. On the city side of the road there were rows of bright white high-rise hotels built like a protective wall hiding the crumbling eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings of Old Alexandria.
    At first Holliday worried that the gift shop owner would spot them in his rearview mirror but he quickly realized just how many of the bumble-bee taxis were on the road, all perfectly interchangeable, all black and yellow, all the same Soviet-era vintage Ladas, all dirty, one as banged up and battered as another.
    Eventually the Corniche and the ramparts of resort hotels ran out and they continued west on the Shari al-Gaysh, a ten-lane divided highway that continued along the water, then veered south as they reached the oddly named Miami Beach district. The road dropped down to two lanes and the beaches weren’t quite as white or quite as crowded, with stacks of green plastic lounge chairs piled up and waiting to be rented. There was another crop of slightly less sumptuous hotels along Montaza Beach, and finally a welcome swatch of empty green marshland opposite the beach at El Maamora.
    “Where’s our man going?” Rafi asked, looking out the grimy side window of the car. Farther out on the water they could see pleasure boats and the occasional brightly painted fishing trawler riding easily over the moderate waves. The sea was benign as a postcard photo, rolling calmly onto the beach in peaceful tumbling waves.
    “Who knows?” Holliday said. “We keep on going the way we’re going, we’ll wind up at the Suez Canal.”
    “Suez?” Faraj said, turning around in his seat with his ever-present smile. “No. No. No Suez! Abu Qir, Abu Qir!”
    “Abu Qir?” Rafi said. “I seem to remember there’s some sort of Roman ruins underwater there. Not much in the way of smuggling opportunities.”
    “Horatio Nelson. Kiss me Hardy! Boom, boom, Napoleon!” Faraj said enthusiastically.
    “What’s he going on about now?” Rafi said.
    “This kid knows his history,” said Holliday, impressed. “Aboukir was where Nelson fought the Battle of the Nile and destroyed the French fleet, August first, 1798. Abu Qir is why the Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum, not the