Free Star of Egypt by Buck Sanders Page B

dropped it in his lap. The positives
     were heavily grainy.
    “Are these blowups?” said Slayton.
    “Yeah. Unfortunately I had to use my James Bond camera.” It was the way she referred to her 16-mm subminiature Minolta. She
     saw him squinting, and leaned closer, pointing. “The men unloading the boxes are Americans. The trucks—there were two—checked
     out as rentals out of Albany, New York.”
    “Where is this?”
    “Okay, only orientation I could get was against the boat. Ship, I mean. Here.” She pointed out several shots that emphasized
     a warehouse door, a garage-sized affair set into a cul-de-sac beyond the rear portion of the
Star of-Egypt
. Beyond that, Slayton could make out, in fuzzy relief, what had to be the cordoned-off section of the docks where the Seth-Olet
     tour had unloaded.
    He felt like smacking his head. Right next door!
    “What do those boxes tell you, Ben?”
    He saw no point in lying. “They look to me like grenade crates, crates for M-16’s or LAW rockets.” He stopped and looked directly
     at Wilma. Her enthusiasm flagged just slightly.
    “I know, I know,” she said. “Which brings it into the jurisdiction of not only the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
     but also U.S. Customs, which both translate as Treasury, which translates as you… and do I have to give up my pictures?”
    She and Slayton had had this conversation before, in varying degrees of seriousness, throughout their relationship. But he
     needed whatever else she had.
    “I’d like to take them, but not for the reasons you think. These could help me immensely. So,” he piled them back into the
     folder and placed the folder between them, “… let’s skip the part where you deny having duplicates, okay? Otherwise you wouldn’t
     bait me by asking if you could keep them.”
    “Rats,” she said. “You rise so eagerly to the offered carrot, you know, and sometimes it’s fun to watch. I knew I was onto
     something.” But she did not yet feel the piercing sense of urgency that Slayton was contending with. “They’re yours,” she
     said.
    “On one condition,” Slayton finished.
    She looked taken aback. “No way. I’ve got several. First board: exclusive story rights if and when.”
    That was normal, and Slayton nodded, as usual.
    “Second board: I’m not going to stop my investigation just because you’re starting yours.”
    “Fair enough.” She would, anyway.
    “Third board: you’ve got to tell me what you know about that ship in exchange before I give you what I’ve got on the passengers.
     I have a sneaking feeling they’re connected somehow.”
    She had watched him react to the photographs, and the reactions to the shots of the dock area were mainly ones of familiarity.
     She, too had skipped steps in the conversation. The dazzling blue eyes were all business.
    “Alright,” Slayton said simply. “For that I’ll need time, though.”
    Wilma had heard that one before, so she said, “Word of honor.”
    “Uh-oh, caught again. Okay. I promise, alright?”
    “Fine.” She excused herself, presumably to dash to the bathroom.
    He returned his attention to the pictures. Perhaps there had been a door, or egress of some kind, behind the junked machinery.
     It would surely provide for the quick escape of the assailant he never had gotten the chance to identify. What if Seth-Olet
     crates had been removed from one part of the warehouse to an adjacent section, all the time men were loading and unloading?
    It made elementary sense, if one could see past the fact there were some thirty workers and guards in the Seth-Olet section,
     none of whom were asleep. Seth-Olet boxes could be taken next door, broken down, and trucked away while everyone’s attention
     was on the safety of the artifacts.
    Shauna Ramsey had noticed tampering with some of the crates, and consulted him.
    He grimaced into the maddeningly fuzzy photographs. Somewhere in there were the faces of Rashid Haman’s domestic army,