The Gospel of Esther: a Will Silence Adventure

I wish to tell you about Phoebe. She is of good intellect and of the most beautiful countenance. There is grace in her every step, and a light in her eyes that rivals that of the moon. Many men have attempted to win her for themselves, to bend her to their will, but all have failed before her strong spirit. She rejects that women must submit to their husbands and to men and teaches that they should instead be equal, for the beauty and grace of the LORD is mirrored in all creatures equally.

The Christians call her a temptress, arrogant and false and though they know her to be a sister of Yeshua, they will have nothing to do with her. I believe that they recognise her wisdom and the power of her words and that they are afraid of her. I am indeed afraid that one day they might decide to put an end to her life, since she will not be silenced by their words alone.

Phoebe vowed that she will not be conquered and that no man shall ever be her master. And yet she entertains a stream of lovers, both men and women with whom she lays when lust overcomes her. Many of the Christians call her a sinner, but she says that the LORD has given her the ability to give and receive pleasure not in order to tempt her, but as a gift.

I want to believe that she is right.

***
Lily sat on the bed, her knees drawn to her chest, and tried to ignore the crescendo of lust drifting up to her room. It was not easy, and despite being by herself, she could feel her cheeks burning at this rather shameless display of ecstasy. Salwa’s moans were increasing in intensity –again – and became louder and more frequent, thus illustrating the thrusts of a male lover rather accurately, before ending in a high-pitched scream. With a groan, Lily pressed her face into a pillow, but she did not succeed in drowning out a renewed string of lustful pants. She would have never suspected Faisal, the shy scholar whose only pleasure was to talk about shards, to be such a ferocious lover.

It occurred to her that Will in the room across the hall would be party to the same sounds of pleasure. She found the thought strangely troubling. It could have been him in Faisal’s place right now, him giving Salwa pleasure like this, him and that annoying woman, Zoe Brigandeau. It could have been him, kissing, caressing…fucking these two beautiful women…Lily swallowed and pressed the edges of the pillow harder over her ears. Why did her stomach feel this way when she thought about William Silence being with other women? What was wrong with her? She whimpered, and silently cursed Zoe. The thief’s faint scent still seemed to linger in the air, reminding her of the taste of her soft lips, of her confusion earlier. Braun was definitely right about her. That woman was nothing but trouble.

And Will? Was he really the bold seducer that Braun had made him out to be? But what about tonight? Lily felt the butterflies rise in her stomach again. Will had lied to her and taken her for a naïve little fool. That was all. She would not let them laugh about her anymore. So he had turned Zoe down tonight. So what? It was all part of a game, was it not? Trying to forget about him, about his kiss, the way she had felt in his arms, Lily curled up on her bed and tried to find sleep.

Will raised an eyebrow as he read on. Phoebe sounded like quite a woman -one he'd have enjoyed meeting himself. Lily's translation was crisp and clear, without a hint of editorializing anywhere, so it was natural to wonder what the innocent, beautiful young academic made of the contents itself.

He flicked back through Lily's notes. There was a description of a young bride, overcome by the size of her new husband's manhood and placing it in her mouth in delight. Had that stirred something in demure little Lily? Had she blushed as she dutifully transcribed the text, and imagined kneeling before Will, unbuckling his belt to let her eyes feast on the huge, thick cock underneath...?

Will groaned. All this vivid imagining was doing very little to relieve his stiff, gigantic erection. Lily was just down the hall. He could picture her now, lying naked or in cute, clinging pyjamas, with no choice but to listen to the obscene chorus of panting, husky moans and full-throated screams of pleasure drifting up from below. How much of this could a redblooded girl take? If Will made an appearance at the critical moment, Lily might discover all for herself that the tall, strong adventurer had uses that went far beyond rescuer.

But no. Maybe Zoe was rubbing off on him, and he was enjoying the game of seduction too much. Maybe, and more likely, Will just felt that Lily Jones deserved a break after an unusually intense evening. In any case, he knew what form his dreams would take.

With a grin, Will stripped his clothes off and sprawled out on the bed. In a few moments, he was breathing deeply and regularly. An old campaigner, he'd never had any problems falling asleep.

Zoe reluctantly opened her eyes as the first hesitant rays of sunlight crept through the open window. The air was still cool, but she knew that the heat would soon become unbearable again. She sighed. Her gaze was met by a naked man lying on his side, his head in his hand, watching her with a dreamy smile. He was dark-haired, handsome, leanly muscled and, as far as Zoe remembered, quite talented.

“That’s not what I expected for my wedding night”, he said softly.

Zoe motioned with her head towards a woman who was still sleeping sprawled across the other side of the large hotel bed. Her blonde hair was scattered around her head like liquid gold and a small mole graced the porcelain skin of her back.

“I bet neither did your bride”, Zoe replied. Extending one hand she caressed her arm lightly, savouring the soft warmth radiating from the beautiful young bride. The blonde woman stirred in her sleep, but did not wake.

“I think we wore the duchess out”, the young man said. Reaching out for Zoe who was leaning up on one elbow, leaving her bedmate to marvel at her nudity, he added: “I blame you.”

“A dutiful young wife”, Zoe laughed. “And so talented that I am almost jealous to leave her to you.” Her dark eyes sparkled with mischief.

The newly-wed officer threw a loving glance at the sleeping blonde woman beside them. “Indeed. Hard to believe that she was a virgin still last night.”

Zoe raised an eyebrow. If he really believed that, there was much his wife could still teach him. But the thought seemed to make him happy, so she left it at that and smiled.

Pointing at his impressive erection, he whispered: “You are not planning to leave me here in this state, mademoiselle de Valois?” Zoe lightly wrapped her hand around his throbbing sex. Anne de Valois was her favourite persona for occasions like these, and the young officer clearly appreciated the fantasy of having bedded two noble young ladies, one more radiant than the other, and on his wedding night. He closed his eyes and moaned softly as Zoe began to caress him playfully.

“Duty calls”, Zoe quipped. He groaned in protest, trapping her hand under his. The thought of facing the archaeologist again did not fill her with much enthusiasm, but she knew that they would have to move before Braun and his troupe of henchmen crawled out of their hole once again.

“And besides, your new mother-in-law might not be as keen as your bride on this idea of a dowry. If she sees me here, you might find yourself not only without an estate, but suddenly without even that smart uniform that turned the poor duchess’ head in the first place.”

The young officer reluctantly let go of her hand. “I hope to see you again, mademoiselle”, he said, placing a kiss on the inside of her wrist. “And I am sure so is Lady Theresa.”


***

“Where were you?”

Lily jumped up from the low table where she had sat cross-legged, sipping a cup of strong Turkish coffee. She looked sleepless and tired, her face flushed. Zoe smiled. The poor thing would have had a lot to think – and dream – about during the previous night. Will was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the lucky couple.

„I brought a few provisions. “

Delicately she lowered a delicate, very expensive-looking golden necklace and a diamond bracelet onto the table in front of Lily. If the duchess would miss them at all, she would find solace in the fact that the few pieces of jewellery had paid for something quite valuable: curiosity in her own desire.

Lily recoiled from the table as if Zoe had released a poisonous scorpion.

“You stole these!”

“Don’t worry, chérie. It was in the very least a fair bargain, and their former owner has much to be thankful for.” Zoe started to get annoyed. Did this irritating stickler of an archaeologist really think that she would be able to bribe Egyptian policemen with moral superiority? But Lily looked appalled.

“There is only one type of woman that would describe such an…exchange as a bargain and quite frankly, it’s not the kind I would like to travel with.”

Zoe’s eyes were blazing, but her voice was dangerously low now.

“You mean…a prostituée?”

Lily, her arms crossed in front of her chest, looked defiantly at the thief. Yes, exactly. A whore. A whore with no consideration for morals or the feelings of others. She thought of Will, of the scene she had witnessed in the garden the previous evening, of Zoe’s offer to him, of his obvious desire for her, even if he had turned her down. Tears threatened to well up in her eyes again, but she would rather cut off her own arm instead of crying in front of this horrible woman.

“Exactly.” Her reply was sharper than intended, but had Zoe not made it very clear that she did not consider such labels meaningless? But this time, the dark-haired thief did not laugh at her. Her beautiful face did not betray much of what she was thinking, but Lily could tell that she was hurt. Her lips tightened. Good. Why would she care? “I think we should call it quits”, she added. For the first time she felt that she had the upper hand over the Frenchwoman, and it felt bloody good. There was no way that she would leave, but at least she would have realised that neither Will nor Faisal nor herself were in need of a thieving, promiscuous travel companion.

Zoe considered her for a moment, and said: “Fine.” Lily frowned. Was she joking?

“Give Will my best. Tell him that I wish him the best of luck. He’ll need it.” The thief scooped up a small leather bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I’ll see you around.” With that, she walked out of the garden, past a sleepy Salwa who had stuck her head out the lower window, wondering what was going on.

Lily stared at the graceful figure of Zoe Brigandeau from behind, leaving. What? Was she serious? And if so, why did it leave her with a bad feeling in her stomach? What would Will say? Would he miss her? That last thought made her frown again. “Bye”, she whispered. “And good riddance.”

Van der Sluys had had fun in Cairo, in the past. The old Imperial days, when Britain had been paying top dollar to put down riot after riot, and didn't care too much as to how order was restored. He hadn't been back in a while but these sandy, flea-ridden places never changed too much in his experience.

And at the moment, the city was abuzz with rumour and gossip about the flying machine that had been seen over the Citadel, over the raid on Ibn Muwadi's bookshop and gunbattles in Hanan's coffee shop. A lot of talk about Will Silence.

Van der Sluys had heard of Silence. Few in the trade had not. They'd never met, bar a near-miss in Ceylon a couple of years ago, but van der Sluys had never liked what he'd heard. A smirking golden boy adventurer, a closet idealist. By all accounts he enjoyed fighting and fucking as much as the wildest Pathan mercenary or gun-toting Danish berserker, but he acted like he was better than everyone else in the life, and each new adventure somehow just seemed to burnish his reputation instead of dragging it through the mud.

What irritated the Dutchman most was the way this tourist, this weekend warrior, seemed to have cast a spell over everyone. He'd known hardbitten gighters go silent and look fearfully at the door when Silence's name was mentioned. The toughest man he knew, the boxer Red Joey Molina, whom van der Sluys had once seen bite a man's nose off, just went pale and shook his head urgently whenever van der Sluys brought Silence up. Rumour had it that the two had had a run-in once in New Orleans, when Silence had taken it upon himself to interfere in a private matter between Joey and a girl he'd taken an interest in who had been foolish enough to try and spurn his advances.

Joey refused to disclose what Silence had done to him, though he spoke at a noticeably higher pitch now, had put on weight, and didn't show much interest in girls at all any more.

So van der Sluys wouldn't complain if this particular job gave him a chance to finally wipe that smirk off Silence's face, but that was small change compared to the real object of this exercise (Pretorius and his stupid fucking gospel be dammned). Zoe Brigandeau.

Just knowing that she was out there somewhere in this teeming metropolis made his throat go dry. He and the boys were staying at a hostel, near the centre of town. He was watching the people come and go through the decorative iron grill of their balcony trellis.

"You ever seen the Pyramids, boss?"

Tony was speaking. A new recruit, kid from New York. American, like Silence. Stupid fucking question.

"Why would I want to see the Pyramids?"

"I just heard about them all my life. And we're in Cairo now! I thought maybe we could..."

Van der Sluys' incredulous stare cut him off. The others were laughing at the new kid, but van der Sluys wasn't smiling.

"Listen, kid," he growled. "I ain't never seen the fucking Pyramids. Why would I? If you can't fuck it and you can't hurt it and you can't drink it, it ain't exactly of much interest to a real man now, is it?"

He was an inch from Tony's face, a wickedly sharp knife suddenly in his hands. Tony's eyes went wide. He was not yet used to van der Sluys' unpredictable temper. But then, you never got used to van der Sluys' unpredictable temper.

"Boss! Boss!"

Jones rushed into the room, quite possibly saving Tony's life. Jones was a softspoken, polite and dependable Welshman. Some kind of trouble back home meant that he could never return to Great Britain. Van der Sluys had always assumed that said trouble had something to do with Jones' notable predilection for causing pain, beyond the levels even van der Sluys enjoyed. He'd take it out on small animals if nothing else came to hand.

Van der Sluys didn't give a damn. Men as gifted as Jones were hard to find, whereas whores and dogs were ten a penny.

"I've seen her, boss," Jones said, returning to his usual whisper. "I've seen Zoe Brigandeau."

"Did she see you?"

Jones shook his head.

Was he sure? Van der Sluys would have asked that of any of his other men. They were all skilled professionals, but this was Zoe Brigandeau, as full of wiles and tricks as a bag full of vipers. But Jones knew the score. If he said he hadn't been made, he hadn't.

"She seemed... different."

"What?"

"Different. Maybe... upset?"

Human emotions always seemed a bit of a puzzle to Jones so he could expand no further on this. Van der Sluys found it hard to imagine many things upsetting Zoe Brigandeau, although he'd spent years coming up with ways that he could hurt her. But he was feeling too excited to waste time wondering about that. He flippd his knife back into his boot, Tony already forgotten.

"Let's go get this bitch and her book, boys."


Will Silence awoke to find his room filled with sunlight. He yawned and stretched before rolling out of bed to perform the rigorous set of martial arts exercises that kept his hard, strong body in its supple, tightly muscled condition.

But his mind wasn't on the breathing exercises, the stretches and push-ups. His mind moved between the two stunning beauties who had come so suddenly but not unwelcomely into his life.

Exercise over, he threw a shirt and a pair of pants on and padded downstairs to where Lily sat in the garden, looking more lovely than ever in the dappled shade of the portico, but strangely pale.

"Morning, Lily" he said cheerfully. "Any sign of our wandering girl?"

When Will came into the garden, Lily looked up from her cup and could not help but feel elated. It was hard not to throw herself in his arms, but after last night, that was out of the question. Her cheeks coloured at the memory of the scene she had made the previous evening, of their kiss, of her open affection and desire for him. Hopefully he was enough of a gentleman not to mention any of that, ever again.

"Morning, Lily. Any sign of our wandering girl?"

Lily had played out the answer to this question over and over in her head since she had watched Zoe’s graceful derrière disappear from the garden. In most of these imagined scenes, she had been confident, calmly derisive, when she told Will that Zoe had decided to try her luck elsewhere. In her head she had been standing close to Will, expressing very little interest in where that thieving woman might have gone, and much interest in appearing seductive and playful. In these same daydreams, Will had told her that he didn't mind that Zoe was gone, that in fact he was glad that they would now have time for themselves, before lancing himself in an incoherent string of apologies for his silly behaviour the previous night. In some versions, he then asked if he was allowed to kiss her again.

Now, with him standing before her, insouciant and in a cheerfully good mood, looking gorgeous and not at all apologetic, all Lily managed was an insecure smile.

Nervously tucking a strand of hair behind one ear, she finally said: “Well, I think she might have…left?”

Very aware that this statement did not provide much in way of an explanation, she pushed the empty coffee cup around the small table, hoping to gain a bit of time. Like an accusation, the jewellery that Zoe had stolen was lying in a small heap on the wooden surface. Somehow Lily felt responsible for the thief’s departure. And Zoe’s comments of the previous night were still very much lingering in her mind. Was she really just such an ungrateful goody two shoes? But they had hurt her! Not every woman could be so…so…constantly seductive and ready to pounce as Zoe Brigandeau was. It was not fair. And Will had led her to believe that he liked her, and not just to get his hands under her skirt. But well, Lily just had no luck with men, why should he be any different?

Without noticing it she started to push the little porcelain cup around with more rigor. And Zoe had just left! She had left, ventured into town because she just could not get herself sufficiently under control to spend one single night without company! How hard could it be? She had risked being apprehended by the police, by Braun’s gang, risked their whole enterprise for a bit of…well…Lily blushed. A bit of bed sport! Yes. She frowned. And Will Silence probably thought that such behaviour was only acceptable, but desirable, too! Maybe it was better that Zoe was finally gone. Yes, surely it was better.

When she looked up, Will was still standing there, and Lily blushed again.

“I think Zoe did not want to stay with us anymore…”, she stammered. Would Will be angry?

“She was a bit upset, wasn’t she?”

Salwa had stuck her head through the window again and stretched, exposing her lean and very much nude upper body to her companions in the garden. Lily stared, and then looked away. Why did Salwa have to be so very direct all the time?

“But there you go. I guess you will have to make do without her, don’t you? Pity, I kind of liked her.” With that, the Syrian forger disappeared back into the room, leaving Lily uncomfortably exposed to Will’s glance and the questions Zoe’s disappearance and Salwa’s comments might still raise.

***
Zoe sat cross-legged on one of the worn cushions at the street corner close to the souk, clutching a glass of hot, sugary tea. She was wearing dark sunglasses and a headscarf that was loosely wrapped around her hair, shielding her from the sun and making her look less like a tourist, and more like a well-off Egyptian. She had found the light linen tunic and the trousers in a shop close to the coffeehouse. Her feet were clad with stitched slippers, nothing fancy, but comfortable enough. She decided that once back in Paris, she would dress in nothing but her favourite silk lingerie and pearls for at least a week. God, how she wanted to get out of this place. Unless…

Her glance fell to the leather bag she had placed in front of her on the table. When would they realise that it was gone?

Bringing the glass to her lips, she took a sip of hot tea. Lily was of course the only one who was even able to notice that one part of the priceless codex was missing, the part about Phoebe. Zoe smiled. Well, maybe that uptight archaeologist would be as glad about Phoebe’s departure as she had been about her own?

Lily. Zoe was not easily vexed by anything. Her time in a Catholic school had taught her to laugh about even the most pointed scolding and verbal abuse. Beatings, too, yes, but she had been called all kinds of bad things by so many people so many times that it surprised her how much Lily’s insipid comment had hit home. Une prostituée. Zoe had never been one to judge on prostitutes, or whores of any order, and the profession had always seemed more honest to her than many others. Men and women called her a whore in anger, in ecstasy, in desperation. People had shouted the word, moaned it, sobbed and screamed it out. So what was it about Liliana Jones that rendered her use of the intended insult so much more hurtful?

If Zoe was honest, she had hoped that Will and Lily had become her companions. That despite the differences they had, despite their competition for the same artefact, despite their bickering they had become interested in one another, in a way. That was the reason she had not yet taken off with the gospel and handed it over to her employer. That was the reason that even now, she carried only one small part of the text. Zoe wanted them to come after her.

She took another sip of tea and smiled. And they would. And once they were reunited, she would make Lily writhe and sob with pleasure, she would make her beg for more, scream her name. Liliana Jones would come around to realise that all she was craving, all that she had ever wanted, was to submit to her and Will, and to admit that being a “whore” was not necessarily a bad thing.

Will's gaze travelled up to the window to appreciatively take in Salwa's nude, bronze upper body leaning out, her fine breasts pressed together by the sill. She cared nothing for the fact that Lily and himself observed her, if anything mildly pleased by the attention. He had to second-guess himself. What had he been thinking, turning down this girl and the equally spectacular Zoe Brigandeau last night?

Then his gaze returned to Lily, staring down at the table, blushing fiercely and looking like she was trying to roll herself into a ball of embarassment and discomfort. It was for this shy, delicate, gorgeous, auburn-haired little creature that he'd turned down the offer of a lifetime, and he'd unhesitatingly do it again. All he needed was the memory of her kisses the night before -hesitant little butterfly kisses at first, milk and honey kisses that had melted into something far hotter, spicier and more urgent, until she'd had to take deep, trembling pants of breath in between kisses. Lily had felt that liquid fire flowing through her veins, that almost frightening, vertiginous lust rush through her.

Liliana Jones and Zoe Brigandeau. A girl of soft silver and a girl of furious gold. Such a wondrous treasure they made. He'd pictured them lying naked together time after time, Zoe's perfect golden tan and glossy dark hair a sweet contrast with Lily's creamy skin and auburn locks, Zoe smoothing over Lily's bridal night nerves with quick, soft kisses while Will knelt over them and slowly removed the clothes one by one from Lily's supple, lithe body...

He recalled himself to the present. Lily, looking all the more adorably beautiful for the deeply guilty way she bit her lower lip, was staring down at the table. There lay a golden necklace and a diamond bracelet -valuable, costly things, if Will was any judge.

"She just left? For good?"

That didn't sound like Zoe. Or rather, it did sound like Zoe, Lord knew, but not under the circumstances. Zoe was done with neither him nor Lily. He knew this for a certainty. And women like Zoe Brigandeau, not that there were any other women like her, did not give up until they got what they wanted. Salwa had said she was upset...

"Did you say something to her? And does this have anything to do with your new acquisitions here?"

He slid gracefully into the chair opposite Lily and took both her slender wrists in his hands, gently, but with an unshakable firmness, to look her in her deep blue eyes while he spoke.

***

The truth was, he'd have preferred more of a chase. Hunting was a sport van der Sluys enjoyed. Last time he'd been in Egypt he'd hunted the tender-footed little desert gazelles -slender, graceful and swift creatures. He'd loved letting them exhaust themselves, sometimes providing them with illusories of escape or hiding places. He liked his prey to have experienced the maximum of terror and confusion by the time he made the kill.

That, regrettably, couldn't be a possibility with Zoe Brigandeau. Much as he'd have loved to finally put some proper fear into those insolent large dark eyes, he'd underestimated Zoe before and paid the price. She was fast and she was cunning. If he wasted his chance to strike now, while she was distracted, she could disappear into the throngs of Cairo and he might never see her again.

So he simply posted men all around the street and strode up to her table. A secret smile was on those full, tantalising lips at that very moment, as though she was thinking one of those mysterious, honey-sweet thoughts that only women seemed to have. Soon wipe that smile off, van der Sluys thought.

One meaty hand swiped the bag off the table, the other clamped down on her shoulder in an irresistible grip.

"Miss Brigandeau," he said, almost pleasantly. "Come with me."

"She just left? For good?"

Lily squirmed in her seat. Part of her was incredibly annoyed with herself for feeling so guilty. But she also knew that without Zoe, getting out of Cairo might prove slightly more difficult. Eluding the authorities was after all what the elegant thief pretty much did for a living. She glanced at Will again and bit her lip. Surely he would think the same. Surely he would curse his bad luck, and the fact that he was to babysit an anxious, clumsy academic and her precious gospel all by himself.

“Well…”, she began. “I think…maybe yes.” But her whisper, directed more at her battered coffee cup than at her interlocutor, was too soft to be heard. Maybe she had only said it inside her head.

"Did you say something to her? And does this have anything to do with your new acquisitions here?"

Damn Salwa! Of course he would think that, after the comment that the young Syrian woman had made so insouciantly. Lily said nothing, but half-angrily pushed the necklace and the bracelet away with her index finger, as if the jewellery was to blame for everything that had transpired.

When he sat down across from her and took her wrists into his hands, Lily was forced to let go of both the cup and the anger directed at Zoe’s loot. From under lowered lashes she finally looked up at Will, with an expression that was meant to be confident, but turned out slightly sheepish.

“I did see her this morning…” Her eyes trailed from his face to a spot on the table. “She was in a good mood, and had obviously” – she stretched the word with contempt – “just come back from one of her…nightly adventures.” Her cheeks coloured slightly, and she still didn’t look at Will. Then, to her horror, soft moans emerged from the lower room again. Obviously Faisal had woken up, too. Too startled to continue, Lily stared at Will, shaking her head in despair, her eyes widening.

“Look, Will, I am sorry, okay? I am sorry. But I am just not…like all of you! You probably think that I am a dry, boring old maid, but you know what? I am just here for the Gospel! That is all! I don’t care about all this other stuff you and her and Faisal and Salwa are maybe in it for. I just don’t! Why did this have to become so complicated? Can you tell me that? Zoe just doesn’t understand it.” She looked at him, realising that she had almost started to shout at him. And had still not answered his question. She wanted to wiggle her wrists from his grip, but his hold on her was firm, and, in some strange way comforting.

Lily motioned towards the glinting jewellery on the table with a slight movement of her head. “She stole these!” The thin line of her lips clearly showed her disapproval. “Or maybe he paid her with it…for whatever services she rendered.” That was a mean thing to say, and Lily immediately regretted it. “But when I confronted her she said she would rather leave. And she did.”

Tears welling up in her eyes again she fell silent, clearly pouting. After a pause, interrupted only by a high-pitched moan from Salwa, she added: “And you’re welcome to regret that you are now stuck with me.”

***
At the sound of his voice she jumped, an expression of shock on her delicate features. Zoe was incredibly proud of her own self-discipline and the total control she usually had over her body and her emotions, but the sudden and unexpected appearance of the man she least longed to see in this world briefly derailed her.

The moment did not last long.

“I would say that this is a pleasant surprise, van der Sluys, but we both know that that would be a lie.” She delicately put her tea glass back onto the table, her hand steady and her voice calm. His grip was painful, and she tried to pull away from him without too much obvious effort. In vain.

She knew that after her little stunt in Vienna, her fellow agent had had a bit of a rough patch. It had taken him a while to get back in Pretorius’ good graces, and more importantly still, to regain his reputation in the scene. But van der Sluys had always been a bit of a sadist, nurturing a hunger for inflicting pain and a strong penchant for violence, and both helped to rebuild a reputation that made even the harder guys shiver with fear. Zoe also knew that van der Sluys had never forgiven her.

But what did she have to fear as long as her employer still held his hand over her? Even van der Sluys would not dare to cross Pretorius.

“Why would I want to come with you?” Then she looked up at him, her dark eyes glinting. “I’m on assignment, chéri. And you know better than to interfere in my business. Our shared friend sent me to retrieve something for him, and you and me both know that he does not appreciate those who upset his plans.” Again, she tried to shake off his hand as if ridding herself of an annoying fly. “I suggest you fuck off, van der Sluys.”

Lily's pulse was fluttering wildly, erratically under his fingers. Her deep, large eyes were vulnerable and hurt and guilty and startled and fearful -the eyes of some blue-eyed, innocent forest fawn or nymph. And she might flee back into the trees at any moment. All of that passion and desire simmering under her demure, shy demeanor and happy-go-lucky smile, all of the boundless potential for pleasure in her delicate, exquisitely shapely body would go untapped, or go to waste on some boring, dry husband.

“Look, Will, I am sorry, okay? I am sorry. But I am just not…like all of you! You probably think that I am a dry, boring old maid, but you know what? I am just here for the Gospel! That is all! I don’t care about all this other stuff you and her and Faisal and Salwa are maybe in it for. I just don’t! Why did this have to become so complicated? Can you tell me that? Zoe just doesn’t understand it.”

Salwa's moans, punctuating Lily's speech, were slowly rising in both pitch and volume. Will could picture Faisal, still new to the intimate arts but strong and eager and more than willing to learn, slowly increasing the tempo, thrust after thrust, until he had Salwa sounding out like a desert songbird. It made him think of all the things he wanted to do to Lily. He'd be able to make her scream and moan with pleasure until all of Cairo could hear her. She would stand bent over in the window above a crowd, shameless and naked as the day she was born, and let him take her there and then.

“She stole these! Or maybe he paid her with it…for whatever services she rendered. But when I confronted her she said she would rather leave. And she did.”

The crack about how Zoe might have obtained the jewellery was not like Lily, however much the darkhaired thief might anger her. Will could tell that she regretted it, too, by the way her eyes widened slightly and the tiny moue her lips made. He didn't think he needed any further explanation for why Zoe had left, although he had to hope that this wasn't the last they'd see of one another.

Just that possibility brought him down considerably. He liked Zoe an awful lot. Not just because she was wild, uninhibited, playful and beautiful -unbeatable combination though that was. Not just because of her stunning combination of rich dark blue eyes and long, smooth black hair, or the coolly considering look she could give a man over one slim shoulder, her perfectly shaped rear end swaying enticingly as she walked away. Not even because they still hadn't brought their interactions on the rooftop above the coffeeshop to what might be deemed their logical conclusion.

No, he'd miss Zoe because of the way he'd started to think of himself, Zoe and Lily as a natural trio. Playmates and adventurers together, wreaking havoc across the Mediterranean, drinking confusion to the schemes of bullies and fanatics, and enjoying themselves and each other immoderately.

“And you’re welcome to regret that you are now stuck with me.”

There were tears sparkling in Lily's radiant eyes. It couldn't be easy, coming from a sheltered academic environment to be confronted with larger-than-life figures like Zoe Brigandeau, Will Silence and their enemies. Will saw now how out-of-place and confused she must feel. He spoke over the inevitable pants and little cries in Arabic coming from the window above them.

"Lily, that's just ridiculous. Getting to be with you could never, ever be a cause for regret. You're the sexiest, the sweetest, and the smartest woman I've met. Don't you get it? You've got it all the wrong way round. We're the ones tagging along on your adventure. You're the one stuck with us."

He gave her hands a squeeze, and smiled at her wryly.

"Zoe and I have the time of our lives dodging bullets and blowing things up, but you're the one doing the real work. I read some of the Gospel last night, when I couldn't sleep. It seems to me like it's the kind of thing the world needs to know. Don't you think?"


***

Van der Sluys chuckled.

"Yeah?" he said. "Got some bad news for you, whore."

He tightened his grip on her delicate wrist, holding her hard enough to bruise. With his other hand, he rummaged through her bag.

"Boss has decided you're unreliable. You should have gone straight to Geneva when you had the Gospel in your hands, instead of fucking around with this Vassar bitch and Will fucking Silence."

His hand inside the bag encountered a sheaf of dry, rustling papyrus. A little more slender than he'd have expected the Gospel to be, but what did he know about the stupid book?

"Huh. Maybe you were going to deliver it after all. Or maybe you were going to try and hike up the payment, or auction it off. Don't matter now."

His heart was pumping, the scar on his face livid with fresh blood. He gestured, and Tony and Jones fell in to either side of the table. Tony's eyes wandered appreciatively up and down Zoe's shapely form and van der Sluys crushed a momentary urge to shoot him there and then. Instead, he made a mental note to have the detached, dispassionate Jones keep watch over Zoe Brigandeau. Jones could be relied on to keep his own strange lusts in check -at least until van der Sluys gave the order. And that order he'd give.

"No," van der Sluys concluded. "Now you're coming with us."

Lily blushed violently. She did not want to, but she just could not help it. No matter how much of a player Will Silence probably was, hearing such compliments from his mouth was impossible for her to just brush of as opportunistic flattery. The sexiest woman…? She gave him a brave little smile. He could not really mean that. If Lily would have composed a list of attributes that least described her, “sexy” would have been leading the list.

"Zoe and I have the time of our lives dodging bullets and blowing things up, but you're the one doing the real work. I read some of the Gospel last night, when I couldn't sleep. It seems to me like it's the kind of thing the world needs to know. Don't you think?"

She sat up and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, sniffling slightly while trying to keep up her smile.

Maybe his comments were a bit patronising. But he was right. No matter what her own personal issues were with the present circumstances and the moral failings of her companions, the gospel was too important to fall victim to such trivialities. “You are right. The Gospel does need to be translated and published.” She felt better already. Speaking about the codex made her feel more confident. This was something she was comfortable with, something she knew she was pretty damn good at. “And speaking of which, let me get it. I worked on a few more pages last night.” She looked up at him shyly. “I think you might them interesting – “

Lily did not manage to finish her sentence. Salwa’s screams and Faisal’s moans that rose to a crescendo of flowery Arabic words of passion that she knew Will would understand just as much as she did. Her cheeks were burning, and she had trouble keeping a straight face. Jumping up from her chair she muttered hastily: “I’ll be right back”, before vanishing inside the house.

***

Zoe stared at him. Had that old goat Pretorius really double-crossed her?

There was the possibility that van der Sluys was bluffing. That he had somehow gotten wind of her mission and decided to get the Gospel for himself, boast in front of Pretorius and claim the reward. It was just as likely that he did not care at all about neither the assignment nor the codex, and that all he wanted was to fuck up her reputation with the boss in Geneva. Yes, none of these options were impossible, and Zoe knew that his hate for her knew no bounds.

However - would he really risk Pretorious’ rather dangerous anger for petty revenge? And more importantly, how did he know about Will and Lily if not from the slimy little weasel McAllister? Zoe’s fist tightened in van der Sluys’ grip. The Dutchman was good, but not that good. Not good enough to get all of that information in 48 hours all by himself.

Her thoughts were racing. She watched him paw at her bag, and search its insides. When he carelessly pulled out the invaluable sheet of papyrus, she tensed. If Lily was here now, she would have strangled him with her bare hands. The image made her smile. The Dutchman would not even know what had hit him.

Lily. Her concentration snapped back like a tight rubber band. Van der Sluys knew about her, just as he knew about Will – what he obviously did not seem to know was what a book liked like. He did not realise that he was not actually holding the entire Gospel of Esther, and that the remainder was still with her two former companions. Zoe decided that she would have to make sure that this stayed that way. The thought of van der Sluys' brutal hands on Lily made her cringe. No matter how annoying the little archaeologist was, she did not deserve that.

Her face was a mask of cool derision. “You calling me a whore is rather a sad version of sour grapes, isn’t it, van der Sluys?” She looked him directly in the eye, a provocative pout on her ripe lips. “After all, you never managed to get your hands on any of this – “ She made a small gesture with her free hand that described all of her charms surprisingly well. “And you never will, no matter how much you pay.” With a grin, she addressed one of van der Sluys’ companions, a young, excited looking kid that had trouble keeping his eyes off the inviting swell of her breasts.

“Did your boss ever tell you about the tub in Vienna? You should see what a few ice cubes can do to a man – “

She fell silent as the grip on her wrist tightened. The expression on the Dutchman’s face was one of mounting fury. Zoe had seen – several times – what van der Sluys was capable of, and she realised that it was not a good idea to taunt him while he had the upper hand.

"No. Now you're coming with us." Van der Sluys' voice was like crackling ice.

Zoe pulled back against his grip. Fuck no, she did not want to come with him. People that "came" with him normally turned up over several days, in neat little bags. But her chances of escape were slim. People had started to stop and stare. This was not good. Zoe felt a slight tingle running down her spine. Was that fear? But the dark-haired thief would have never admitted fear, not even to herself.

Normally she would have risked a scene. A woman like her pretty much always emerged the victor from a good skirmish between gentlemen, all out to save a beautiful lady in distress. But this time things were slightly different. The police was after her, the Egyptian authorities had declared her fair game, and chances were that van der Sluys and his men had no problems simply killing a few bystanders if they got in their way.

She had no chance, but to concede, at least for now, to win a bit of time. Turning to face van der Sluys again, she tilted her head, giving him her most dazzling smile.

“Fine. Let’s see how long you can keep your paws on me this time.”

Lily's crimson blush rendered her delicate, piquant face more adorable than ever. Will could only imagine that she was flushing from head to toe. She virtually leapt out of her seat to go and find the pages she was talking about, allowing him the charming sight of her pert, mouthwatering rear as she walked away.

Will leaned back in his chair, enjoying the golden Egyptian sunlight filling the garden and the quiet that had succeeded the moans and screams from the upper room. Faisal and Salwa seemed to have pleasured each other into exhaustion, at least for the time being. All was well.


***

Zoe didn't cause a scene. Van der Sluys wouldn't have cared -he'd shot his share of Arabs in the past and wouldn't be against racking up a few more notches on his gun. Perhaps she realised that, since she let him haul her out of her seat and walked between him and Jones along the street.

Tony and the others fell in behind him, Tony taking advantage of his position to ogle Zoe's swaying ass. Van der Sluys felt a proprietorial rage. And Zoe had mentioned the bathtub. Nobody but nobody knew that story. Tony was going to be asking around.

He abruptly wheeled Zoe around to face him. Why did she still not seem frightened? Why was her face still so calm and unruffled? The desert sun made van der Sluys' face turn red as brick -but Zoe's skin remained its perpetual smooth, silky ivory colour. Her smile to him had been a dazzling taunt, a slap in his face.

"I'm gonna hurt you. A lot. All the way to Geneva, I'm gonna punish every fucking inch of your body, slut. And if your friends come after you... I'm gonna hurt them too. I hope they do, you know. I know all about Will Silence, and this Dr Jones? Probably some dried up old slit, but I'll make her scream again. The only way you can make things at all easier on yourself is by showing me so fucking respect."

He didn't even realize that he was bellowing the last words, that Tony behind him was flinching as though in sympathy.

Their destination was Cairo Station, in the centre of town. Huge throngs of shuffling, shouting Egyptians crowded the platforms, many of them bearing Ramadan lanterns. It was the holiday season, and many labourers were going back home to celebrate Ramadan with their families. Van der Sluys sneered as he watched them.

"Jones, get us a carriage to ourself. Don't care how much it costs. Pretorius is picking up the bill. And we don't want to be disturbed, do we?"

Zoe’s heart did a small, unpleasant skip and the tingle at the back of her neck got stronger, but her face betrayed nothing of the fear that was crawling up her legs and arms with clammy, cold fingers. Yes, fear had started to materialise. It was an unpleasant feeling, leaving a strange, sharp taste in her mouth.

But ever since she had been a little girl, Zoe Brigandeau had fought back fear by simply yelling at it. By leaning over the hard, wooden cot in boarding school and screaming at the monsters whispering and hiding underneath. By snatching the cane from Sister Juliette and returning the vicious beating she had been distributing. Granted, the method had serious pitfalls, and did not always yield the results she desired, but habit was a powerful force. A mocking half-smile curved her beautiful lips at his sudden, rather frustrated, outbreak.

“Respect? Give me one reason why I should respect you.” Even now, Zoe managed to make pairing up the word in the same sentence as his name sound ridiculous. “You sound like the Catholic nuns back in boarding school. All bark and no bite.” She leant in a little and whispered in his ear. “I only respect those who earn it and so far, you have given me nothing to work with, van der Sluys.”

He stared back at her, but said nothing. Not one of his men even chuckled. Zoe sensed that this was probably a very, very bad sign. Merde. Zoe cursed her big mouth. The kid who had been staring at her breasts earlier looked positively terrified. If she did end up alone with the Dutchman, she would probably find out why.

While they walked on, Zoe again thought about Lily facing this sadistic bastard. She thought about the treacherous leaf of parchment she had taken. Damn! If Lily noticed the missing page in time, they might just be stupid enough to follow her. Van der Sluys was not Braun. He did not have any principles or ideologies to act by. No moral guidelines. Zoe had never thought that there would be a moment when she would miss the crazed bigots that made up the crème de la crème of Braun’s gang, but at least she was sure that they would never seriously hurt Lily. Not like this. Not like van der Sluys would. The Dutch agent was a man who tortured and killed for sport, who enjoyed sticking blades into people more than using his sad, little prick. He would kill Will simply for the pleasure of boasting about it later, and he would destroy the sweet, little, vulnerable Dr Liliana Jones, simply because he could.

They arrived at the train station. Scanning the environs, Zoe made an assessment of how likely it was that she would manage to just slip into the crowd, but again – if van der Sluys was backed by Pretorius, a few dead Egyptians would not be an obstacle to his success. Putain! If she ever got her fingers on McAllister, the little rat would pay for cutting her loose.

***
Lily came running down the staircase, and appeared in the door to the garden, panting and breathless, holding up the sheets of the gospel with one arm.

“Will! She has…she…” The slender archaeologist was unable to speak immediately. “That thieving strumpet!” All of her earlier inhibitions were gone. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes wide with a complicated mixture of anger and panic, she leant against the frame of the door, close to tears. “She took Phoebe, Will! She took Phoebe!”

"She... what?"

Will was about to ask who Phoebe was (the identity of the thieving strumpet needed no clarification. Then he remembered the section of Lily's notes he had read last night. Jesus' sister Phoebe. Coupled with the parchment in Lily's hand, it was not hard to put two and two together.

He could almost have smiled. By stealing just those pages, rather than the entire Gospel, Zoe could not have made her message clearer. It seemed that she wanted to be chased. Who would have that in just one respect, Zoe would turn out to be quite an old-fashioned kind of girl? Then again, Will seriously doubted that there was anything old-fashioned about the end to the chase, featuring the three of them, that Zoe had in mind.

He didn't smile, though. Zoe's intentions were one thing but it was clear from Lily's panic, anger and distress that bedroom mischief was the absolute last thing on her mind. She could barely support herself, her gorgeous eyes swimming with tear.

"Okay," Will said. "She won't have gotten far. Phoebe will be reunited with Esther by the end of the day. I promise."

Cairo was a city teeming with humanity, but Will had tracked prey though the trackless jungles of the Amazon and the deepest slums of Delhi. Besides, a woman as self-possessed, richly attired and beautiful as Zoe Brigandeau was like a pebble cast in a still pond -she spread ripples everywhere she went.


***

Van der Sluys barged past a knot of Ramadan celebrators, almost up-ending one of their stupid lanterns. Jones had booked an entire first-class carriage. He motioned for Tony and Kurt to sit in the compartment nearest the rest of the train -they'd let him know if anyone tried to come in.

Meanwhile, he sat down with Zoe in a compartment near the centre of the carriage. He motioned to Jones to stand outside on guard.

He took a moment to stare at Zoe. Already, his rage was starting to become replaced by the old desire, the extraordinary hunger for that luscious, slender body that he'd felt the very first time he'd seen her.

"Strip", he told her abruptly. "Strip your clothes off."

Lily stared at Will. “You…you promise?” This was Cairo! And Zoe had at least an hour on them already, if not longer. She could be anywhere by now. She and Phoebe both.

“Phoebe is…she is crucial to the Gospel. Without her…” Lily helplessly tried to grapple for words that would make it clear to a layman that the missing pages endangered the whole project of publishing the Gospel of Esther, that the academic bloodhounds this publication would draw out from under every stone would eat her alive for it if Phoebe was not there. Lily waved the remaining codex in the air, as if this would best illustrate to Will Silence how much was at stake. “I cannot believe that she did that. Why would she do that?”

Then, without another explanation, she went inside, running up the stairs two, three steps at a time, and barged into Faisal’s and Salwa’s room without even knocking. Salwa was still in bed, a beautifully stitched blanket covering her from the breasts down. Faisal was nowhere to be seen. The beautiful Syrian gasped. “Lily? What…what is wrong?”

Lily launched herself into a convoluted explanation of how Zoe was a horrible, lying woman, never to be trusted, and how she, Lily, would never make that mistake again. Salwa’s eyes widened at her rant, she only nodded quietly every now and then, though once or twice, Lily thought to hear her stifle a…a moan?

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Eyvah, habibti, ye…y…yes. I am listening.”

Lily waved the gospel like a fighting banner. “You need to forge something for me. And fast. Phoebe is gone.”

Another hurried nod, and a suppressed whimper.

"Are you ill?" Lily looked quizzically at Salwa.

"Me? No."

“Well…you need to get up.”

“I…w…will, just…one moment, yes, a quick moment lo…longer.”

“I need you to do a quick copy of Phoebe. Just good enough to fool a thief without expertise.”

“Sure. Phoebe. A…a…thief.”

Salwa obviously had trouble concentrating. “What is wrong with you?” Lily demanded. The forger was leaning up on her elbows, looking flushed and flustered. “Me? No….nothing.” Another stifled sigh from her lips. Lily frowned, too impatient to insist. “Fine. Just please…do this for me?” Salwa, biting her lips with strange urgency, could only nod. The slender archaeologist waved the gospel at her again. “And you need to do it from memory.”

Then she left.

With a deep sigh, Salwa sank back into the pillows. “Habibi…” she sighed, lifting the thin blanket slightly and smiling at Faisal. “Come on, we have work to do.”


***

Zoe stared at van der Sluys, her eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?” She sat across from him in the spacious compartment, her arms crossed in front of her chest. After his threats, his uncontrolled rage and his anger, all his face now betrayed was badly concealed desire. Zoe had to stifle a laugh. “Is this your idea of a romantic getaway? A little kidnapping and manhandling instead of dinner and a trip to the pictures?” His eyes were flitting across her face and her body with the hunger of a teenage schoolboy. Zoe almost scoffed. Was this the real reason behind all of this? Maybe van der Sluys had developed a secret crush on his nemesis, and did not know how to tell her. Pretorius sacking her, the gospel, all of these things just weak excuses, and not really true?

The beautiful thief leant back in her seat, shifting slightly to give the Dutchman another glimpse at her curves underneath the linen tunic. Just to show him – again - what he would never get his hands on. “Maybe you have been around dim-witted ruffians for too long to understand how these things work.” Motioning towards the door of the compartment in front of which Zoe knew the unemotional Welshman was standing guard, she gave him another of her provocative half-smiles. “Did he advise you on how to court a lady, van der Sluys? If so, I would understand how you ended up with this idea, but seriously - you should fire him…” She leant forward slightly with a coquettish little tilt of her head. “I am not going to strip for you, chéri. Not ever in a thousand years.”

"A beautiful European lady? With... ?"

When the shopkeeper's gesture succinctly captured Zoe's impressive cleavage, Will knew he was getting somewhere.

It had been a long, frustrating and dusty afternoon. The first step had been enlisting Hanan's extensive network of friends and relatives, which had put him on a trail of various sightings around town. Lily had occupied the time by calling down maledictions on Zoe Brigandeau, darkly muttering her intentions for the gorgeous thief when she caught her, and abruptly hurrying back to the safehouse to supervise a perplexed Salwa on some project.

She hadn't been there when Will had interviewed an aristocratic pair who'd seen Zoe the night before -a newly married duchess and her acid-tongued mother. The mother, who had not approved of Will, was extremely anxious to talk to Zoe in connection with a very valuable braclet and necklace that had gone missing after an encounter between Zoe, her daughter and her son-in-law the night before.

The blushing bride was rather quieter, seemed heavy-eyed and sleepy and did not seem particularly upset about her missing jewellery. She looked particularly dreamy and far away when Zoe was mentioned and, as Will was taking his leave, abruptly piped up to say that if he did find Zoe, he should be sure to mention how eager she was to see her again.

Lily hadn't been there. That was probably just as well, Will reflected, although he did wonder what her reaction to the state Zoe had left the young duchess in might have been. But she'd probably have given the jewellery back, which would have led to a whole host of inconvenient questions and legal difficulties. Besides, Will had a shrewd idea that she'd rather have her memories of her unconventional wedding night than a few ancestral trinkets.

But now the trail was finally getting warm.

"Oh yes. She was in my shop. Had coffee. Very pretty lady. A man came up to her and she left with him."

The shopkeeper looked regretful.

"A pig of a man. Scarred. Ugly. Fat. Didn't deserve a woman like that. Must be rich."

"Mmm," Will nodded. "Or about to be."


Another of Pretorius' mercs, from the sounds of it. Could Zoe really have double-crossed them? Will didn't believe it, for all Lily's fuming imprecautions. For a start, it would make no sense to steal only part of the Gospel from them. But this newcomer sounded like trouble. Perhaps Zoe was stringing him along, trying to keep him from Lily and the Gospel. Perhaps he'd forced her to come with him.

Inquiries established that Zoe and a group of men had been heading for the train station. Will hired a local urchin to run back to the safehouse and ask Lily to meet him at the station. He headed there himself at a jog. He had a bad feeling about all of this.


***

Van der Sluys felt an incredulous rage. Still, Zoe was cool and in control, letting him get just a glimpse of those tempting curves under her tunic. Any other woman he knew would have trembling in terror at this point.

He brought a wicked, notched knife into his hand.

"You don't understand," he said. "I wasn't giving you an option. You can take your clothes off for me. Or I can cut them off you. And I won't be gentle about it."

Lily was sitting in the garden, watching Salwa work on the copy of Phoebe’s account. Will had not wanted her to come, and that was just as well. She was still furious at that thieving, promiscuous woman, and part of her almost hoped that Will would fail in finding her – for the simple reason that this would finally prove to him that Zoe was not the carefree adventurer she knew he wanted to see in her, but a backstabbing thief, and nothing else.

Lily had the sinking feeling that Will thought of her as a shy nuisance with no sense of humour, and she almost regretted having ranted about Zoe so much in front of him. He would see for himself that she was nothing but a liar, and all she, Lily, should do was to sit back and let him come to this painfully obvious conclusion himself.

“…the last line?”

She looked up. Salwa was holding a small brush in her hand and smiling at her.

“Habibti, I asked if this is the last line?”

Lily looked at the words Salwa had written down, neat, exact letters, and nodded. “I want to believe that she is right…yes, that’s it. That’s the last line.” The beautiful Syrian woman looked at Lily, tilting her head. “Do you think that she is right?”

“What do you mean?”

“That sensual pleasure is a gift from God?”

Lily blushed. “I…suppose? But I am no philosopher. I care about the artefact.” Salwa gave her one of her quiet, smiling looks. Faisal, now dressed again, sat next to his lover and looked once again painfully uncomfortable. Whenever his eyes met those of the young archaeologist, he blushed violently and looked away.

“If it is a gift from God, one should not squander it”, Lily said almost angrily. “But treasure it.”

“Indeed.” Salwa, still smiling, put her mind to the task before her again.

Another hour passed. Lily tried to calm herself, knowing full well that with every minute that passed, Phoebe would be further out of reach. How would Will ever find her – and the thief - in a city like Cairo? A woman like Zoe, who was able to vanish like a ghost should she wish it? Every now and then she glanced at the gate, as if she could make all of them reappear with her will alone.

“Miss! Miss!”

Lily at first did not see who was calling out to her, because the messenger was so very small. But as the garden gate swung open, a child appeared.

“Miss, you need to come to the main train station.”

“Just in time”, Salwa said, lifting the papyrus. “Tell me if it worked, habibti, you know how vain I am about my work.”

Lily nodded. The Syrian forger had done an exceptional job.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

***
Trying a smile but keeping her eyes trained on the knife in his hand, Zoe did not show any signs of wanting to comply with his rude request.
“Why would I even go through the trouble?” she quipped. “It’s not like you would know what to do once I am undressed, do you?” There was the faintest tremble in her voice, but she hoped that van der Sluys did not have the sensitivity to notice such nuances in her emotions. “And quite frankly – even if you did – I have already seen that there is not much you could offer me.” Her gaze suggestively dropped to his crotch before she raised it to look at him again.

Zoe bit her lip. It was probably a bad idea to provoke a man as violent and short-tempered as van der Sluys, but she simply could not help herself. Who the hell did he think he was? She looked out of the window. The train still had not moved, and it looked like the platform was still bustling with people trying to get on board. Surely even a man as mad as the Dutch agent would not dare to seriously hurt her while their train was still in the station. Her whole body tensed in anticipation of his reaction. “Come on, van der Sluys”, she said, almost apologetically. “Let bygones be bygones and be civil to each other, shall we?”

It was the train to Alexandria. Will could have little doubt now -whatever her original intentions were, Zoe was bound out of town. And he had a feeling that it wasn't of her own free will.

"Thank you," he told the ticket salesman. "One other thing. An extremely pretty girl with red hair is going to come in here in a few minutes looking upset, angry and confused. Please tell her the same thing you told me."

The ticket salesman sighed.

"This is Cairo, habibi. Thousands of people come through this station every day. Many of them are girls. And many of them are pretty girls."

Will shook his head.

"Not like this one, pal, not like this one."


***

Van der Sluys almost lashed out at once at Zoe's gibe, but he restrained himself. It wouldn't do to damage that gorgeous face, not given the uses it could have. When he was done with the Brigandeau woman -when he'd broken her, he intended to get his money's worth. There were men who would pay a great deal for a girl with a body and a face like Zoe Brigandeau's.

Her quick glance to the window brought his wrathful urges under control. He looked out himself, and froze for a moment. There, striding purposefully towards the train, was the tall form of Will Silence.

"There's your playmate now. As always, the white knight charging to the rescue," van der Sluys said. This was too good. He'd been thinking that he'd have to leave Cairo without the pleasure of killing Will Silence, but it seemed not. Crushing Will Silence at the same time that he broke and humiliated Zoe Brigandeau... this was far, far better than the tepid delights of the holiday he'd been enjoying in Lisbon.

"Jones! Take Manny and Fritz. Silence is getting on the train. Don't let him see you coming."

Van der Sluys clasped Zoe's chin in one brutish, grasping hand.

"I've never denied Silence is good, you know," he told her, staring into her eyes. He dragged his fingers ruthlessly through her long dark hair, hoping to make her flinch at his touch. "But he believes his own legend. Overconfident. He shouldn't have come alone."

Lily squeezed her way passed a few passengers, fell over a large suitcase with a curse and tried to keep up with the child who was making a beeline for one of the overcrowded ticket booths. Unorderly lines of people were standing around, shouting and shoving, and Lily, with a sigh, decided that this was not the time for polite queuing.

“Excuse me…” She slipped past two elderly ladies. “I am very sorry…” A close call as she almost fell around the neck of a British officer who gave her a disapproving frown. “So sorry…” Inwardly, Lily cursed both Zoe and Will for putting her in yet another rather uncomfortable situation. “I really didn’t mean to…oh, so sorry.” She decided that she would return to Vassar as soon as she had Phoebe back, no matter what.

When she finally reached the ticket sales window, she peered through, trying to sound as confident and cheerful as possible: “Excuse me sir, I was told by a friend to talk to you? About the whereabouts of, uhm, a certain lady called Phoebe?” The man in front of her stared blankly at her and Lily wondered if her Arabic was too stiff and scholastic for him to understand. But probably it was simply the sheer ridiculousness of her question. “A man must have come through here just a short while ago? He is rather tall and, well, foreign-looking? Handsome, in a way, but mainly quite obnoxious?”

Lily sighed. What a stupid instruction to give her! But when she looked around, the street urchin who had brought her here and told her to ask the ticket seller for Phoebe was gone. Did Will really expect her to get anywhere in this crowd? It was the eve of Eid, and hundreds, maybe thousands of people thronged the platforms and the station. If Zoe had made a run for it using a train, she would be as easy to find as a needle in a haystack.

There were hundreds of people shoving each other, trying to elbow their way to one of the overcrowded ticket booths, and already two men tried to stick their heads past her, waving a few bills and shouting out the names of their destinations. Determinedly blocking out either, she tried again: “I am looking for Phoebe? William Silence sent me?” She looked at the salesman with a guilty, shy smile, still very conscious of how silly her request must sound to him.

***
Zoe followed his gaze and smiled faintly. Will. He had indeed found her. Despite the pickle that she was in, she could not help but admire his dexterity. But she was not happy to see him.

Van der Sluys’ cold sneer proved her right. If Will knew that she was here, but did not know that she was not alone, he was walking straight into a trap – and she knew that the Dutchman had no other interest in him than the triumph of adding another notch to his knife.

When he barked out his orders to the men waiting in front of the compartment door, Zoe was tempted to shout out of the window to warn Will of the danger, but van der Sluys was quicker. His grip was stronger than she had anticipated.

“Look, van der Sluys, Will is of no interest to you or Pretorius. Why involve a troublemaker like him? He is only here to get the gospel back. I’ll tell him that I already sold it, and he’ll be on his way.” Trying not to flinch at the discomfort his touch caused her, she purred: “And once he is gone, we can tend to our working relationship.”

The ticket-seller looked blank, but something seemed to stir behind rheumy eyes at the mention of Will Silence.

"Ahh, yes, yes," he says. "The tall man. He said a very beautiful girl would come by...," he shakes his head admiringly, his gaze taking in the delicate features of Lily's face. "In this, he was guilty of an unpardonable understatement, perhaps because he feared that I would steal you away from him. Alas that I am so old! Twenty years ago I would have been able to satisfy you and fend off your strong and virile friend... but now, I'm afraid I would have the energy for just one of the necessary two."

Teeth flash in a mischevious grin as the old ticket-seller scans Lily's face, perhaps hoping his crudeness will be rewarded with a blush. He turns serious.

"Forgive me. I am a coarse old man. Your friend is over there."

His pointing finger indicated a distant platform. Through a momentary break in the crowds, Lily caught just a glimpse of Will climbing aboard a train, and then a thick hand descending on to his shoulder and pulling him violently inside. She could make nothing out of the result of the struggle.


***


They had been ready for Will, and they were professionals. As Will's eyes were still adjusting to the change in light, a hand latched on to his shoulder and pulled him forward, its owner throwing a punch that doubled him up, winded. As he lean against the wall of the train corridor, trying to catch his breath, his attacker, a large man in a crumpled Homburg hat, followed up with a series of sledgehammer body blows.

Will was not caught by surprise for very long. He hooked the big man's ankles with a sweeping kick and brought him down, leaping lithely over his bulk -only to find himself faced with a smaller man blocking the corridor, holding a gun. Glancing behind him, he found a sharp-nosed thug with another gun also levelled.

"I'm afraid not, Mr Silence," said the smaller man, his clipped voice rounded with a soft Welsh accent. "Will you come with us, please?"

Will shrugged. "You're the one with the gun."

"I'd heard you enjoy your little jokes."

"They pass the time."

"I see. I have my own methods for passing the time, with which you may soon become acquainted."

"Is it stamp-collecting?"

"Haha."


***


Van der Sluys had made a discovery, and it was a source of simultaneous gall and sly triumph.

Zoe was concerned about Silence. She was concealing it masterfully, but the concern was readable in those enigmatic dark blue eyes of hers. She wanted to warn him off, wanted to spare him. That was a chink in her armour, and it was something he could exploit.

But it was galling. What did that smirking lady's man have that he didn't have? Why did Zoe react as though Will Silence had become a legitimate partner in crime, a genuine ally, as she'd once convinced van der Sluys she regarded him? Why was he not simply counted among the dozens of male dupes she must have used and discarded in her wake? It was infuriating. But it could be useful. He had to remind himself of that.

Manny, a new black eye swelling on his face, entered the compartment first. Silence preceded Jones and Fritz, both of them covering him with their pistols.

"Ham radio?" he was saying to Jones, bafflingly. "I could see that. No? Sandcastle-building? Oh hi, Zoe. I came to rescue you."

Will Silence nonchalantly indicated the men holding him at gunpoint.

"It didn't really work out, though. Who's your friend?"

Lily managed a stiff smile at the ticket seller’s attempt at flattery, rolling her eyes only mentally. Of course Will would have buttered you up like that, she thought sourly.

“Oh, I would say that Will’s main talents are not his strength and virility” – she stressed the words mockingly – “But rather his unbelievably big mouth.”

Looking into the direction he pointed out to her, she finally caught a glimpse of Will walking down a platform and preparing to get onto the waiting train. She squinted. A meaty fist suddenly darted out of the train door and grabbed Will’s shirt, roughly pulling him aboard. Then he was gone. Lily turned back to the ticket seller, who, like her, had witnessed the scene. Her delicate face pale, her eyes wide with panic, she stared at him.

“What the…did you see that?” Her heart was suddenly beating very fast. Will! She looked back in the direction of the platform from which Will had vanished, and turned again towards the ticket seller, unable to say anything. What was she supposed to do? Behind her, impatient travellers were starting to shove and mutter angrily. “He…they…what do I do now?”

The old man gave her a sympathetic nod and shoved a ticket in her direction. Alexandria, first class. Lily hastily rummaged around in her leather bag, and realised that she did not have any money. “Oh no…”, she mouthed, crestfallen and increasingly unhinged. Her fingers closed around a small, cold object, and she realised it was the golden necklace. “Here, I don’t have anything else.” She threw the expensive piece of jewellery onto the counter – her intention had been to give it back to its owner – and turned on her heel, grabbing the ticket, leaving an open-mouthed ticket seller to deal with his next customer.

Panicking, she shoved cursing passengers aside while running as fast as she could in the direction of the spot she had seen Will being pulled into the carriage. That Zoe woman had set a trap for him! She had not been operating alone, and she had never intended to give up the Gospel. The slender archaeologist jumped over suit cases and bags, fell over a large cage, upsetting the colourful bird inside, and got back on her feet, profusely apologising to the enraged parrot’s owner. Oh Will! What if Zoe would kill him?

A croaky voice announced the pending departure of the train to Alexandria. Lily had no time to lose.

***
„Will”, Zoe said, sounding bored. “Fancy seeing you here. And I thought I had finally gotten rid of you.”

Noticing the black eye on Manny’s (or was it Fritz?) face, she smiled wryly. It looked like Will already had left his mark on this unpleasant congregation.

Pointing at the Dutchman in front of her, she said: “Will, meet my colleague van der Sluys.” She hesitated, raising her eyebrows mockingly. “Tiens, van der Sluys, all this time and so many amusing joint adventures and I still don’t know your first name!”

Trying to sound as casual as she possibly could under the circumstances, she made a throwaway gesture of introduction between the two men. “Van der Sluys, meet the notorious William Silence. Trust me when I say that I did not invite him to this little party.”

A voice outside announced that the train was about to depart. Zoe scanned the corridor and frowned. It looked like there was no one else. Had van der Sluys been right and had Will indeed come alone? Where was the lovely Dr Jones? Had Will and her parted ways? But this was not important now, and the last thing Zoe wanted was to draw attention to the fact that the weakest link in their operation was now completely without protection, somewhere in Cairo.

With a cheerful smile she shook her head. “Can you believe that the charming van der Sluys and his men here went through all this trouble only to tell me that I have been fired?” Tilting her head in mock distress, it looked like she was making small talk with a couple of old friends. “Old Pretorius has never been one to spare expenses for his employees.”

This wasn't how van der Sluys pictured it at all.

Zoe Brigandeau should have been near-fainting with fear at this point. She knew him for what he was: a killer. And Silence... Silence should have been praying for his life, pleading for the mercy... at the very least, gritting his teeth in sullen rage, looking like he was beaten for once in his golden boy existence.

But instead he and Zoe were chatting casually among themselves, making occasional reference to van der Sluys as though he were some rather dim six year-old they were looking after for the afternoon.

"Manny," he said. "Beat the shit out of him."

Manny stepped forward, nothing loath to obey the order after the black eye Silence had given him, but Jones gave van der Sluys a startled look and van der Sluys instantly knew why. Men like Pretorius and his slimy little lieutenant gave orders like that but that wasn't van der Sluys' style at all. If someone needed a beating, he'd administer it himself -and his scarred, meaty fists bore testimony to it.

So why hadn't he hit Silence himself? Van der Sluys didn't let himself wonder about that very long. It was just possible it was because there was a glint to Will Silence's cool grey gaze, a hint of steel underneath his easy drawl and relaxed, lithe pose, that suggested to the thinking man that it would be a very bad idea to land on him. It was, of course, unthinkable that Will Silence scared van der Sluys. How could he be scared of a man he had completely within his power?

Manny had driven his fist into Silence's hard midriff and doubled him over, then knocking him to the floor with a blow to the face and delivering a series of swift hard kicks to his face and torso.

"That's enough for now," van der Sluys said.

And that was all wrong too. He'd reacted on instinct, trying to undo the initial mistake of ordering Manny to carry out the beating and regain his standing in the eyes of his men, but now he just looked indecisive. He wanted to scream, to batter his fists on the walls of the compartment. It was the Brigandeau woman, her and Silence. But they weren't going to take this away from him.

The train rumbled into movement.

Silence was recovering, taking a breath and propping himself up into a sitting position. He drew a hand across his forehead, wiping a slick of blood away.

"That's not a bad left hook you've got there, son," he observed to Manny. Manny grunted.

"But you're telegraphing your attacks," Silence continued.

This appeared to sting Manny's pride.

"Din'' see you dodge 'em," he mumbled.

"What good would it have done me? Your man over there had me covered with a gun. I mean, I'm good, but I can't dodge bullets. But I'm serious -you've got potential. I've seen Ellroy fight, in Chicago, and you've got his moves."

"Ellroy? No kiddin'?" asked Manny, gratified.

"Shut up!" van der Sluys exploded. This wasn't how it had been meant to go down. Manny, chastened, turned to him. Van der Sluys took a breath.

"Manny. Take Fritz and Tony and go keep watch outside our carriage. We want to make sure there are no surprises on this trip. Jones. You stay here. If either of these two tries anything, you shoot. Zoe first. Gut-shot. Nice and slow death, Zoe."

That made him feel better. Fritz and a chastened Manny filed out. Van der Sluys felt more in control again. His thoughts returned to Zoe. God, she'd be the most incredible fuck. Those sumptuous tits, that firm ass just aching for a spanking from a real man. He'd turn her over his knee. He'd cow her, make her into an obedient little slut, and he'd make Will Silence watch the whole thing.

He grabbed Zoe by one slender shoulder, fingers bruising the soft, flawless skin under her tunic, and grinned at her, exposing yellow, lopsided teeth.

"Where were we?" he asked. Holding her steady, he reached out a hand and simply tore, ripping the fabric of her tunic and baring her to her trousers. His avid gaze took in what lay beneath.

Lily stumbled on board the train in the very last minute, falling headfirst into the waggon, just as the doors closed and the whistle sounded outside on the platform.

Still on her hands and knees, she looked up. Oh. Seven pairs of eyes were trained on her, and judging by the disapprovingly raised eyebrows and the rather severe sunburn, they all belonged to Brits travelling first class to Alexandria. She smiled apologetically, realising that she must look like a stray urchin, and not a fellow traveller. Maybe some good old American charme would sway them.

“Sorry, I was so excited to go to Alexandria, you see.” She stood up, and clumsily patted down her rather dusty front. “I heard it’s very pretty there.” Her bright smile remained unreturned. “Right”, she said, blushing, and to no one in particular. “Well, safe travels, eh?” Those bloody English. It was time they realised how antiquated their tiresome class consciousness was. Trying to be as inconspicuous as she possibly could, the slender archaeologist edged out of the line of sight.

Bent over against the wall of the waggon corridor, she tried to catch her breath. “Will Silence”, she muttered. “If that Brigandeau woman has not killed you yet, I might do it for her.”

She had seen Will being pulled into the train by a large, brutish-looking guy, just two waggons down. Who would have thought that the classy Zoe Brigandeau would align herself with such gangsters? Lily frowned. Well, it was no wonder, really. After all, she was nothing but a lying thief herself.

Lily tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She needed a plan, and fast. How was she to pluck Will from the spidery fingers of that two-faced harlot?

***

Something was not quite right with van der Sluys. The Dutchman seemed undecided, hesitant even, on what to do with Will. Zoe wondered why and even more so if this was a good, or a bad thing. She had witnessed him kill his opponents, slowly, torturously, bit by bit. Often he had played with them beforehand, leading them to believe that their compliance, their begging and their whimpering would maybe, just maybe, save their sorry selves. But van der Sluys was not usually a man with a conscience, or fear, and the word “mercy” simply was not part of his limited vocabulary.

Then why? Zoe could see that his men were similarly confused. Manny gaped at him like the brainless gorilla he seemed to be. But van der Sluys did not say anything else.

She flinched when the meat-fisted lackey landed the first blow, and then the next one, bringing Will to his knees. While Zoe had killed before, she abhorred the brute, mindless violence of her fellow agent. Biting her lip, she looked away, trying not to show even a hint of compassion, knowing that van der Sluys usually jumped at even the slightest sliver of emotional weakness, gleefully grating and prodding at it.

Not so this time. He seemed strangely agitated, when really, he should have been his calm, victorious self. Zoe did not feel relief, however. A small, agitating voice in the back of her mind reminded her of the many times van der Sluys had suddenly snapped. If he was not happy now, with Will on the floor and her helpless in his care, what did it take to bring a smile back on that scarred face?

Maybe it was time for a bit of cooperation to win some time, a bit of cowering and pleading with him, something to turn his ugly frown upside down?

Her dark blue eyes widened in theatrical distress as he ordered the Welshman to shoot her first should either of his captives try to resist. That seemed to work. It looked like van der Sluys was cheering up already. Oh Will, please don’t fuck this up. Keep your big mouth shut, just this once.

It was pretty clear that the only way out of here were deception and pretending to be the scared little hussy he wanted her to be. Luckily for both her and Will, there were very few people who could claim to be such an achieved master at both.

She could not suppress a wry smile at Will’s banter with Manny, while he was still wiping the blood from his face. That man…if there was one good reason for her to get Will out of van der Sluys’ clutches alive and relatively intact, it was the prospect of being able to toy with him, just a little.

She could not really finish her thought, however. Van der Sluys’ cold gaze had shifted from his most recent hostage to her. And before Zoe knew what was happening, he ripped off the thin linen tunic, exposing an expensive-looking white bra, her last souvenir from her encounter with the young duchess. This was getting ugly, and fast. Her fear was not entirely faked anymore.

Trying to sound mildly offended, not terrified, she purred: “Is that necessary, van der Sluys? Is that how you treat a lady?” She tilted her head, one finger playfully tracing her lower lip, trying not to wrench her shoulder out of his iron grip. “Why don’t you get rid of that goon” – she motioned with her head into Jones’ direction – “and of him” – a nod towards Will – “so we can have a little more privacy, non?”

After all, a man with his pants down was a defenceless man. Zoe hoped that she would get a chance to prove this age-old wisdom once again.

Yes. Yes, this was better, more like the way things should be. Silence had shut up at long last and fear had finally crept into Zoe's deep blue eyes. Underneath her tunic, a spotless white bra was doing its best to restrain her firm, large young breasts above a perfectly flat, flawless stomach. Now she was posing for him, playful, flirtatious, riding a tide of terror. He'd see her drown in that tide over the course of this trip.

"White?" he asked, ignoring her words. He took hold of one of the cup between a thick thumb and forefinger, peeling it back to expose the round smooth breast underneath, before suddenly releasing so that her cleavage jiggled. "But everyone knows you're very far from a virgin."

She was a whore -and yet he'd never had her. That thought filled him with rage again.

"But no. I want Jones here, and I want Will Silence to watch. I want gallant Mr Silence, Mr Chivalry, Mr Knight in Shining Armour..."

Behind van der Sluys' back, Will made a mock-embarrassed gesture of protest, as though modestly waving these titles away.

"I want him to see how degraded and broken a woman can get. I want that to be the last thing he sees."

Van der Sluys hand now clamped down on Zoe's trousers and he wrenched them away, leaving Zoe in nothing but his underwear. He slapped her panty-clad derriere with terrific force, then drew out his gun, holding the barrel against her lush mouth.

"This is a loaded gun, whore," he told her. "On your knees. Start sucking it. Show me what you know. But," he cocked the gun, "Let's hope I don't come too early."


***

The carriage was half-empty. This was a bullshit detail. When Tony had signed on with the infamous van der Sluys crew, he had pictured journeys to mysterious locations across the globe, desperate gunfights, glamorous and exotic women competing to suck his dick, and enough money to buy his old Brooklyn neighbourhood.

But so far, he'd seen nothing of Egypt but dirty tenements and sandblasted streets. There'd been no money so far, and the closest to a desperate gunfight he'd personally experienced was surrounding and threatening an unarmed women. She had been glamorous and exotic, in fact she'd been the sultriest, sexiest thing Tony had ever clapped eyes on, and she had given him a smoky side-long look like maybe she would suck his dick, and that she'd know how to do it too.

But of course that bastard van der Sluys turned out to have a real hard-on for her, and not the kind she'd inspired in Tony, and so he wasn't even allowed watch her throughout the journey. That fucking Dutchman. And now he was sitting with Manny, the big dumb hulk from the Midwest, and Fritz the fidgety, wiry Austrian, who always seemed to have some fucking problem with anything anyone said. Fritz claimed to be a Communist and would go on about Das Kapital and the Bolshevik struggle, so what the fuck he thought he was doing working for a man like Pretorius was a total mystery. Tony personally thought he claimed to be a Commie because it gave him another excuse to start fights with people.

The three were occupying the compartment nearest to van der Sluys' carriage, with orders to stop anyone trying to enter. Tony was casting a lacklustre gaze on the corridor when he saw her.

A girl, slim and petite yet with a perfectly formed set of curves and an instinctivey lithe, graceful way of carrying herself. Soft auburn hair spilled down to her chin from underneath a battered sunhat. A pair of rosy lips seemd perpetually on the verge of breaking into a pout or a dimpled smile even now, when their owner looked distressed and fearful and confused. She didn't look, like that Brigandeau womah had, like she'd already be able to give a blow-job capable of reducing a man to his knees. But she looked ripe and ready for some very lucky man to teach her a use for those soft lips beyond pouts and smiles, and many other things besides, and something suggested that, despite her shyly innocent air, she'd prove to be the most eager and ardent little student a teacher could ever.

In his distraction, he hadn't been paying attention to Manny. The big man, piqued, raised his voice. The rumbling words must have been audible in the corridor outside.

"I said I like that Silence guy."

Tony gave a distracted shushing gesture, still looking at the girl.

"Well, I do," Manny said plaintively. "I don' even mind that he hit me, not no more. It seems like a real shame that the boss is gonna kill him."

"Shut up!" Fritz exclaimed, leaning forward, more intense than ever. "People might be able to hear you. How fucking dumb are you, you stupid hick?"

"You can' talk to me that way," said Manny. He appealed to Tony. "Tony, tell 'im that he can' talk to me that way."

But Tony wasn't listening. The other two hadn't seen the girl. Had she heard what Manny had said? His gaze returned to her like filings to a magnet.

Feeling his hands grope her was unpleasant enough, but Zoe had dealt with many rather unpleasant men during her many assignments. She was able to detach herself from it. But humiliation was a different matter. Humiliation did not sit well with her. “Suck…that?”

Her dark blue eyes were blazing, her lips curled in disgust, but there was nothing – at least nothing reasonable – that she could do now. If she was to gain any time to come up with a plan of escape, even a plan that would involve only herself, she needed to make this little game of chicken count.

Slowly, Zoe sunk to her knees, her eyes fixed not on the gun, but on van der Sluys’ face. She batted her lashes a bit, even managed a stray tear. Her fear was real enough, but Zoe knew that van der Sluys needed to have tangible, enjoyable proof of that.

With trembling fingers, she guided the barrel of the cocked gun into her mouth, her ruby lips closing around the metal tube almost lovingly. Inside her, rage and hate were boiling, but Zoe had learned to be patient, and to control her emotions perfectly until they would find a satisfactory outlet. Van der Sluys’ dirty sneer was an image she would nurture with care until she would be able to wipe it off his ugly face. But her delicate features did not betray anything but fearful devotion to the task at hand.

Her eyes still on the man holding the gun the barrel slid from her mouth, wet with her saliva, and the tip of her tongue darted out from between parted lips to run along the length of the weapon with obscene abandon. Zoe would make him jealous of his fucking gun. She would make him want to replace it with something a bit more vulnerable.

She cupped the hand holding the gun, playfully caressing the finger curled around the trigger as she would have a pair of heavy, taut balls. If Zoe was sure of one thing, it was that he would not simply blow her head off, spilling her brains all over the expensive compartment seat, when he was clearly just getting started.


***
Lily tensed when she heard them mention Will’s name, closely followed by the announcement of “their boss’” intention to kill him. Had the situation been different Lily would have let herself enjoy the image of that ragtag group of lowlifes refer to the classy Zoe Brigandeau as their “boss”, probably sauntering around her like a puppy-eyed pack of street mutts. If that was what her gang looked like, it had been so much better to get rid of her! But first things first – if the French thief planned on killing Will right here on the train, Lily would have to think of a plan fast. (And she did not quite understand why Zoe would want to get rid of the adventurer anyway. In the coffeehouse it had seemed like she was rather fond – too fond – of Will, but maybe that had only been a charade, too. Lily sighed. Men! Why did they still, after so many years of steady evolution, fall for women like her?)

Still half-lost in thought, she stared over at the man seated closest to the carriage door, a young man who, as she noted with a panicked blush, had obviously been eyeing her with suspicious intensity. Damn! Lily looked away, hoping against hope that he had not noticed her watching them. What if Zoe had alerted them against her arrival? What if these men were waiting there just for her? She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and counted to ten, willing herself not to briskly walk in the other direction in panic. If they were indeed there for her, it was too late anyway. Lily reluctantly opened her eyes and squinted at the carriage door.

There he was, still looking at her. The slender archaeologist tried a shy smile, hoping that it would convince him of her insignificance and inoffensiveness. He did not look all that mean. Lily tilted her head a little, smiling more widely, still unsure how to save Will. But maybe Zoe’s gang was not as watertight as she believed it to be?

Van der Sluys felt an immediate, gratifying thrill at the blaze of anger and horror that swept across Zoe's delicate, luminously beautiful face. Other men would have done anything to avoid such an expression, would have been brought to their knees in remorse at the idea that they were responsible for such a beautiful woman's distress.

That had never been a problem for van der Sluys. He was ugly, inside and out. Women weren't ever going to gasp in admiration or feel their panties moisten at the sight of his scarred face, broken nose and gap-toothed grin. He wasn't a tall, athletic charmer like Silence and the truth was he didn't want to be -if he could have made himself any uglier or any more foul, he would have. Because real power was looking and acting the way he did, and forcing beautiful women to suck him off and bend over for him, even when they found him physically repulsive. Silence could keep his charm, his gray-eyed good looks, his hard body -not that van der Sluys didn't intend to destroy all three before killing the American.

Seeming to yield to the inevitable, Zoe sank to her knees, a tear glistening on one of her long dark eyelashes. She reached out her hands to bring the gun barrel into her mouth. The fear on her face was intoxicating, aphrodisiac.

"Oh yes," van der Sluys said, as her lips clamped down on the barrel. "Just like a Walletjes whore. You're a pro, darling, a real champion. Of course, I imagine you've had practise."

He couldn't resist glancing over at where Silence was standing against the wall, Jones keeping a close eye on him. He needed Silence there for him, needed him to see how easy it was crush his thieving little friend.

"Were you a beneficiary? Did our Zoe ever suck your cock? Maybe just to pass the time, or to make some small change. It's not like she wouldn't have been going down on every leprous beggar in the Cairo slums at the time, anyway. It's not like she's fussy, when she feels like getting some cock in her mouth."

To his disappointment, Silence didn't respond or even look angry, just rolled his eyes dismissively. It made van der Sluys want to pull the gun from between Zoe's lips and shoot him there and then -but perhaps that was exactly the kind of quick, clean death that Silence would want now. Instead, van der Sluys returned his attention to Zoe.

She was licking the sides of the gun with a sensuous abandon, licking the cold, saliva-slick metal as though it were warm, living flesh under her tongue. Despite himself, van der Sluys let out a little grunt of arousal. He'd intended this exercise purely to humiliate Zoe, to demonstrate to her and Silence who was really in control, but he'd hardly expected her to demonstrate such breathtaking talent and enthusiasm. He felt that curious upside-down sensation, that feeling that Zoe had suddenly and improbably turned the tables on him. Most of all, he felt the urge to undo his fly, take out his hard cock and have her lavish her skills on the real thing.

But no. He wasn't going to let his manhood within reach of those even, flashing white teeth. Not until he was sure that all the bite had been knocked out of Zoe Brigandeau. Letting out another grunt of frustration, he wrapped his free hand around Zoe's head, forcing her head forward on to the gun barrel.

"That's it," he said.


***


Tony squared his shoulders, and wiped some sand off the sleeve of his jacket. Producing a mirror and comb, he swept the comb through his slicked back dark hair and admired the effect in the mirror. Manny and Fritz, sulking on opposite sides of the compartment, paid no attention. Then Tony stepped outside.

His first objective, he assured himself, was to make sure their gorgeous fellow-passenger hadn't heard anything of their conversation, and to explain it away if she had. A psycho like Jones or van der Sluys would probably want her killed, but Tony wasn't going to do that. She looked sweet and innocently playful -all she'd need was the explanation that it was just some stupid joke. Maybe they could have a good laugh about it.

And then... Tony's thoughts went wild. But he had to start things off first. God, she was beautiful. Reminding himself that he was a wild, dangerous badman, the right hand of van der Sluys himself, he walked out into the corridor.

His opening line was going to be something at once suave, funny and confident -something that screamed 'man of the world, prepared to take a delicate, lost female traveller under his wing.'

"Hi! Are you... have you... in Egypt... long? I never got to see the Pyramids, you know. Umm. I'm Tony. What's yours?"

Zoe had to concentrate quite hard to stay focussed on her current task through all of van der Sluys’ big-mouthed drivel about her being a whore with quite some experience in cock-sucking. The urge to retort with a hard-hitting comment on her own expertise was overwhelming, but Zoe knew better than to rise to the revolting Dutchman’s taunts. Fuck yes, she knew how to administer a decent blowjob, how to reduce any man to a trembling, stammering, maybe even sobbing heap of pure pleasure. What was so bad about that? None of her bedfellows, friend or foe, had ever complained about her devotion to quality work.

Walletjes whore? None of them came even close to what she, Zoe Brigandeau, could do for a man. Having been party to quite a few passionate episodes in the notorious district herself, she was well placed to judge the performance of the ladies van der Sluys was referring to. But she also knew, first-hand, what the Dutchman had been capable of doing to them, and what he had done, without even a sliver of hesitation. Again Zoe tried to think of nothing but the immediate future: the compartment, the sadistic Welshman, Will, the low rumble of the train carriage, the gun.

The metal warmed between her lips, and she closed her eyes feigning fearful abandon, wishing that she could close her ears, too. She wondered how Will would react to the thinly veiled threats and provocations van der Sluys was throwing his way, and, she had to admit, she also felt curious if she was able to impress the American with her little demonstration of her obvious talent. And why not? There was nothing like the prospect of later rewards to motivate men like Silence. If they would make it out of van der Sluys’ clutches alive and unscathed, she would need to unwind, one way or another.

It were these thoughts that raced through her mind when she suddenly felt her captor’s hand against her head, pushing her violently forward, thus forcing the metal barrel deeper down her throat. She had not expected this. Suddenly the half-bored, half-feigned sultriness turned into real, actual fear. Zoe chocked quite violently, her eyes flew open, panicked tears gathered in her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. The dark khol left black streaks on her face, only adding to her desolate appearance. She scrambled, her fingers helplessly scratching the hand holding the gun, trying to force van der Sluys’ to pull back, but his grip was iron. For the first time since the Dutchman had brought down his hand on her shoulder in the Cairo coffeehouse, Zoe Brigandeau felt the ice cold, clammy fingers of pure terror clasping around her throat, and right at this moment, it felt like they were going to suffocate her.

***
The moment Lily realised that the dark-haired gangster was walking towards her, she panicked. Throwing hasty glances over her shoulder she assessed her exit route, wondering if the stiff-lipped Brits at the end of the carriage would consider acknowledging her presence if a crazed gunman was after her. Probably not. She watched him, cockily slicking back his hair as he walked, her heart racing. Was he going to kill her? Hurt her? Or would he maybe just threaten her a bit, make her go away? Lily decided that she would simply pretend that she hadn’t heard anything.

Wiping her sweaty palms against her trousers, she tried her very best to look sweet and casual, straining her lips into another smile. He was young, and did not look all that fierce, but Lily was sure that he simply did not feel the need to. After all, what kind of an opponent was she?

The thought of him reporting back on the fearful little whimpering academic he had found outside the carriage in turn brought back the colour to her cheeks. No! She would not give Zoe that last satisfaction. Standing just a little bit straighter, Lily decided to at least try and be brave.

"Hi! Are you... have you... in Egypt... long? I never got to see the Pyramids, you know. Umm. I'm Tony. What's yours?"

Lily’s eyes widened and in her first astonishment, she could not stifle a small giggle. Well, she had to give it to him, she had not expected that. It did not look like he was bluffing either. Was he coming on to her?

“I am Li….sa”, she said, blushing at her own stupidity. If she wanted to remain undetected, it was probably better not to hand Zoe’s henchmen her name on a platter. Holding out her hand towards the man standing somewhat uncomfortably before her, she added: “Lisa Olson. From Boston. Nice to meet you.” His gauche shyness had immediately boosted her own confidence.

“No, I haven’t been to Egypt long, but it is so pretty, don’t you think? We don’t get much sun up in Boston.” She laughed light-heartedly, and it sounded almost genuine. Hell, she was good at this. “I’m on holiday here.” She pointed over her shoulder into the vague direction of the compartments further down the carriage. "Just managed to escape my boring aunt. All she lets me see are mummies and old shards.” Lily gave him another sweet smile, rolling her eyes in giddy annoyance. “But what are you doing here? Are you a tourist? You look like your holiday is so much more exciting than mine!”