Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) Page 3

  When he wasn’t fantasizing about the fantastic adventure before him.

  Two weeks there, plus four days in London, then he would be back on a ship heading back to her and Egypt. Roughly five weeks.

  As she settled into the backseat of the car, she looked out the window as her driver headed back to the townhouse. She shifted uncomfortably and felt under her thigh and found the small leather-bound photo of her and Tater that Rowan packed in his briefcase. Somehow it had gotten left in the car.

  As she looked out at the outer ring of Cairo, Ella realized it wasn’t the disappointment of having to let Rowan go alone, although that had been massive. After allowing herself to look forward to the trip, it was a jolt to adjust to being left behind.

  And she didn’t do well with left behind.

  No, it was something else. It was the sour foreboding feeling that curled up in the pit of her stomach and challenged her to ignore it. A feeling of something coming, something that couldn’t be stopped—as surely as Rowan’s train was eating up the mile after mile of ground that now separated them.

  She glanced at the leather portrait in her hand.

  Something bad.

  ***

  She was magnificent. Eighty-seven hundred deadweight tons of steam-propelled, jaw-dropping power and beauty. Brand spanking new this year. As Rowan stood on the dock waiting to board he couldn’t help but ruminate on the fact that fifteen years from now this magnificent ship—newly commissioned the HMS Rajputana—would be torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Iceland during the Second World War. It was all he could do not to pat his pocket for his smartphone—which he’d been without for nearly three years now—in anticipation of snapping a picture of it.

  Who would he show?

  “She’s a beauty, eh?”

  Rowan turned to smile at the older gentleman he’d seen on the train ride from Cairo. A bluff, red-faced man, Rowan thought he had Irishman written all over him. His hair, though neatly combed, was long and touched the top of his collar. For all that, he didn’t look unkempt. His eyes were sharp, Rowan noticed.

  “She certainly is,” Rowan said. “This isn’t her maiden?”

  The man shook his head. “Nay. She was launched earlier this year. I was hoping we’d get a ride on her. Tommy O’Faoilin.” He stuck out his hand and Rowan shook it.

  “Rowan Pierce.”

  “Ah, the professor.”

  “How did you…?”

  “Oh, I got a little gander at the passenger list earlier. Like to know me surroundings, ya ken?”

  Rowan smiled pleasantly. He remembered the man traveled with a large party—a woman he assumed was his wife, and three men who could be his sons or employees. Or even bodyguards.

  “What brings you out of Cairo, Professor?”

  “I’m giving a lecture at the British Museum.” Rowan couldn’t help enjoying the sounds of the words as he said them.

  “My, that is posh. Good on you. One of those archaeologist fellows?”

  “Sort of. I teach at the American University.”

  “Sure, I pegged you for a Yank straightaway. Told me wife, Beverly, ‘He’s got that just-washed look about him.’” Tommy threw back his head and laughed at his own wit. Rowan noticed ‘Beverly’ glanced over at the sound from where she stood with the three men.

  Their eyes met and she smiled, but there was something in her expression that bothered Rowan. Something he could not place. Later, after an exhausting self-tour of the ship, as he was dressing for dinner after a quick clean up in his tiny stateroom, it came to him.

  Fear. What he had seen in her eyes was fear.

  ***

  Ella rode back to the townhouse wishing the Studebaker had air conditioning. Her clothes weren’t designed to wick away moisture or do anything but absorb it and weigh her down. Plus, whoever said cotton could breathe wasn’t wearing ten pounds of it in a one hundred-plus degree Egyptian summer.

  When she entered the dining room, Halima was on the floor holding Tater. The baby’s face was flushed and petulant but Ella could see by the wooden toys in front of them that he was feeling better.

  “Look, darling,” Halima cooed, her face peaceful and loving with her cranky charge, “Mummy is home.”

  Tater glanced at Ella and arched his back. Immediately, he began to whine. Ella dropped her purse on the dining table and knelt down. She put the back of her hand against his forehead although he hadn’t had a fever.

  “How’s he feeling?” she asked.

  “Better, I think. He ate his lunch and napped.”

  “That’s good.”

  Ella reached for Tater. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her neck. She breathed in his little-boy scent and felt the weight that had pressed in on her the whole ride back from the train station ease and then dissipate.

  “Better than a teddy bear,” she murmured into his neck, kissing his cheek.

  “Effendi is safely off to Port Said?” Halima said, standing up and straightening her skirt.

  “Yep,” Ella said. “It’s just us three again.”

  “Musket-turds,” Tater murmured, his eyes closing sleepily.

  “That’s right, Tater Tot,” Ella said, pleased to see he remembered and that he felt well enough to try to say it. “The three Musketeers. That’s you and me and Daddy.”

  Ella smiled at him, the foreboding feeling gone now for as long as she held her child in her arms.

  ***

  Rowan barely had time to notice the layout and style of the Rajputana’s formal dining room before he saw Tommy O’Faoilin waving to him from one of the center tables. That was fine with Rowan. He’d have too many opportunities as it was for dining alone.

  As he approached the couple—just Tommy and his wife—Rowan tugged on the cuffs of his formal jacket. He hated the whole dress-for-dinner-bullshit but had long resigned himself to playing the game for as long as he and Ella were in the nineteen twenties. He noticed Tommy had played fast and loose with the dress code. He wore a plain suit, his gut straining against the matching vest as he sat at the table. Beverly, on the other hand, was stylish and classic in her long evening dress. He could see now that she had once been a beauty—could still qualify for one even at her age, which he guessed to be early fifties.

  Her hair was dark gold and long, coiled and pinned up in the style of the time. Diamond earbobs hung from her ears and her bright blue eyes sparkled with the champagne she’d drunk.

  “O’Faoilin,” Rowan said, shaking hands with the man. He nodded to Beverly. “Ma’am,” he said. There were so many landmines during this time about how to address people. The fact they were Irish and clearly not upper crust was a relief to Rowan. Even if he got it wrong, they weren’t likely to take offense.

  “Pierce, have a seat. Join us.”

  “I’m obliged,” Rowan said, sitting. A dining steward appeared with a clean wine glass and put it at Rowan’s place setting. “Your sons not eating?”

  “My…” O’Faoilin frowned, then his face broke into a smirk. “Oy, they’re me boys,” he said, laughing, “not me sons.”

  “Okay,” Rowan said, looking at Beverly and inviting clarification.

  “They are my husband’s employees,” she said softly. “Not our children.”

  “Oh, okay. Have you ordered?”

  “So have you, mate,” O’Faoilin said. “There’s only the one dish tonight. Cod with spuds.”

  Only probably not described that way on the menu, Rowan thought with a wry grin.

  “So, going to give a speech at the British Museum,” O’Faoilin said. “Verra impressive. And you with no family to soak up the honor?”

  “Just me, I’m afraid.” Rowan wasn’t sure whether O’Faoilin was asking if he had family or just none to accompany him. It didn’t matter. This guy would be decent company for one night, and after that Rowan intended to mingle or spend the bulk of the two-week trip going over his speech and making notes for the book.

  “What is your speech about, Profess
or Pierce?” Beverly asked.

  Rowan noticed she slurred the slightest bit when she spoke. Not for the first time he wondered how a fat Irish bumpkin like O’Faoilin could be married to a woman who obviously came from a refined background.

  “I already told ya what it was about,” O’Faoilin said to her tersely.

  Rowan looked at him in surprise. The jolly affect seemed to have vanished in the time it took an axe to fall.

  “I’m just making small talk, Tommy,” Beverly said, her voice now just above a whisper.

  “I’m happy to talk about it,” Rowan said, glancing between the two and hoping to soften what felt like a tense moment.

  “Ya shouldn’t need to talk about it if the stupid bitch would mind how much she drinks. And how she speaks to me.”

  At first, Rowan wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. The sight of Beverly shriveling up into herself made no mistake though of what O’Faoilin had said.

  “Whoa, steady on, pal,” Rowan said. “There’s no cause for that kind of language.”

  “I’m not yer bleeding pal, Yank, and I’ll use any kind of language I like to me own wife.”

  As soon as he said the words, Rowan saw the dark bruises on Beverly’s arm and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen them from across the room. Was he just so starstruck with the whole ship-from-the-past thing that he’d gone blind?

  He tried to catch Beverly’s eye but she was staring steadfastly at the tablecloth now.

  “Mrs. O’Faoilin …Beverly…you don’t have to put up with this. I would be happy to give you my cabin for the duration of the trip—”

  “Are you out of your fecking mind?” O’Faoilin stood and threw his napkin down. Out of the corner of his eye, Rowan saw the man’s bodyguards advancing on the table. Beverly scooted her chair back as if to leave and O’Faoilin leaned over and gripped her arm. “Make one more move and I’ll break it again,” he hissed.

  Rowan was on his feet at the same time he felt the biggest of the three men lay hands on him. At six-foot-four he wasn’t small, and he shrugged off the man’s grip easily.

  “I’ll be needing you to escort our new friend here back to his cabin, boys. Seems he’s had a bit too much to drink and is offending the Missus with his insinuations.”

  Rowan watched O’Faoilin turn to the nearby table of diners and pour on the charm. “And don’t we all know how forward the Americans can be!”

  Rowan watched the diners smile tolerantly and turn back to their dinners.

  “I’ll have the captain pay you a visit, O’Faoilin,” Rowan said. “Men like you ought to be horse-whipped.”

  O’Faoilin reseated himself. “Be that as it may, Yank, the Missus and I would now like to finish our meal in peace.” Rowan watched the man tear a piece of bread in half and reach for his wine glass as if there was no more to be said on the matter. His wife continued to stare at the tablecloth, her hands in her lap.

  Rowan felt a surge of anger flood through him. Could he help her if she refused it?

  He debated going to a table of his own, but he didn’t think he could sit in the dining room and eat a meal knowing the poor woman was cowering just a few feet away, terrified and anticipating more abuse once they went back to their room. Besides, it was pretty clear the Three Stooges here were up for knocking a few tables over should he decline the invitation to exit with them.

  “This isn’t finished, O’Faoilin,” he said, turning on his heel and marching to the door, the three men close behind him.

  The dining area took up most of the Lido Deck, which featured a slim walkway that circled the entire level. It was hugged by a waist-high railing that was the only barrier to the choppy Mediterranean Sea below.

  Once outside, Rowan snarled at his escort. “Back off.” He turned to walk back toward the bulwark and the level where his cabin was, but as soon as he did he felt one of the men grab him from behind and whip him around as if he weighed half what he did.

  “No chance,” a second man said in a heavily accented voice, pushing his face close to Rowan’s. He looked Slavic or Russian, with a broad forehead and small dark eyes that darted wildly about.

  Rowan struggled to free himself, but the man holding him was quickly aided by the Slav and the third man who together dragged Rowan backward into the dark recesses of an overhanging steam funnel.

  He jerked his arm from the grip of the man behind him and slammed his fist into the Slav’s leering face. The man’s head snapped back and he staggered backward into the funnel, cracking his head on it when he did. Rowan twisted around and slammed his head into the chin of one of the men attempting to hold him. Blood exploded from the man’s mouth and he went down hard. Grunting loudly, the third man, his eyes glittering in the darkness, launched himself at Rowan, knocking him onto his back. The two slid across the deck, Rowan on the bottom fighting to get his arms up to jam his fingers into the man’s eyes or nostrils.

  “Outta the way, ya bugger!” someone yelled from behind his assailant. When the man scrambled to his feet, Rowan twisted away, narrowly escaping the knife that thumped into the wooden deck.

  Before he could get to his feet he felt hands on his jacket pulling him back. He slipped free of the coat but a hammer-grip of hands clutched at his arms and neck and forced him backward. The man he’d head-butted had one arm around Rowan’s neck and one around his waist. He spun Rowan to face the Slav, who Rowan saw was pulling on a set of brass knuckles. Straining to cover his unprotected abdomen, Rowan’s shift forced the first punch into his hip instead of his stomach or face.

  The second, third and fourth punches, however, were painfully on target and happened in such quick succession it was hard to believe he wasn’t being pummeled by more than one man. The pain emanated up from his diaphragm and down both arms and legs. In a fog of pain and panic, Rowan registered that his ribs were cracked just before the man holding him from behind grabbed a fistful of his hair and jerked his head back, exposing his windpipe.

  “Use your knife,” he heard the Slav say. “Be quick about it! Someone’s coming!”

  The next thing Rowan felt was the stinging shock of a single strip of fiery agony scream its way across his throat before the blessed blackness of the night enveloped him completely.

  3

  Cairo 1925

  Years later, Ella would remember the day they came and that she’d somehow known what was coming long before they even spoke. Hours before she came to the door and saw the US Ambassador’s messenger standing on her doorstep, dread and doom riffling off him in redolent, almost visible waves, she had somehow known he would come—and knew what he would say.

  Lost at sea.

  It hadn’t been four full days since she’d seen his train off before she was looking at the same valise and overcoat she’d last seen in Rowan’s possession on the platform.

  Could he be any place comfortable without his overcoat?

  She marveled in stunned grief at how it takes two weeks to sail from Port Said to London, but she could have a useless suitcase and a coat flown to her in less than two days. It seemed that the ship made an unscheduled port in light of Rowan’s disappearance.

  She sat in the salon of the townhouse, Halima to one side of her, her hand firmly clasped in Ella’s. Tater, for once, was mercifully napping. The Ambassador’s emissary looked as miserable as Halima and Ella felt. A young man from Indiana, he was clearly low man on the totem pole to be delegated to the delivery of bad news, Ella thought. She imagined he must be pretty committed to a life of public service—or perhaps just the desire for what some would consider the most exotic and desirable government posting in the world.

  “How?” Of course she didn’t believe it. Not for one minute. But as soon as she heard the facts, she’d be able to point out to everyone else how they’d made the error.

  The news of my death has been grossly exaggerated.

  “I…he just disappeared. Not accounted for. They’ve looked everywhere and he never retuned to his cabin.”

&nb
sp; “When?”

  “The first night at sea. That is to say, he never spent the first night there.”

  “They’re saying he fell overboard?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I am so sorry. The US government is so sorry.”

  “And he definitely boarded the ship?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Several people saw him board. Several people saw him at dinner that night.”

  “Where is he supposed to have gone overboard?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The nearest port.”

  “Uh…that would be…I’m not sure. It was between dinner and breakfast when the porter came to make up Professor Pierce’s cabin.”

  “So you’ve got a window of about twelve hours? He was lost sometime during that time?”

  “I…I suppose so.”

  “Can I ask you how difficult it is to fall overboard? Are there no railings on this ship?”

  Ella felt Halima squeeze her hand and she knew her friend was trying to calm her, to beg her to take a breath.

  “It’s nearly impossible, Ma’am,” the young man said. His eyes flicked casually to his wristwatch. “The rails are higher than a man’s waist.”

  “So he probably didn’t accidentally fall over,” Ella said, her voice dull, her eyes blank. “He’d have to have intentionally vaulted over them. Or been pushed.”

  “There’s no sign of…that is to say…” The young man stuttered and looked to Halima as if she were the sane one of the duo. His eyes pleaded with her.

  “Do you have a card?” Halima asked him.

  Quickly, he pulled one from his breast pocket and stood in one movement.

  Halima took the card. “We will contact the embassy shortly if we have more questions,” she said, standing to escort him out.

  Ella watched the two leave the room. The sun from the bright autumn day streamed into the salon, making the crewelwork on the couch pillows glow like jewels.