Favoured Friends

Part 15/?

Summary: An invitation to the National Egyptology Conference quickly becomes deadly race for the mythic Ichriem against an old rival of Sydney's - the assassin known only as 'the Viper'.

Note: This is a round robin originally posted at the Relic Hunter Yahoo Group. Although I'm posting it, I did not write the entire thing. This part was written by LeiLani ( dawnleilani@yahoo.com )

Also, I have Support Services. That means that, if you want, you can put me on Author Alert and receive notice when other stories of mine are posted, even if you haven't paid yourself.

Posted: Tuesday, September 17, 2002

The capital of the United Kingdom and one of the world's largest cities, London was never quiet. Sydney wondered if someone coined the term perpetual motion after a visit here. It was an old city, surviving the ravages of time, plagues, and in the most recent centuries, bombs and terrorism. Her eyes flitted through the teeming crowd. She alone knew what the Viper looked like. She had a feeling the killer didn't know she'd caught a glimpse of him on two occasions now. His anonymity was compromised. He could no longer hide behind his well-orchestrated misdirection.

Lloyd and his counterparts were working blind. Technically, Sydney should tell him, give him a description. And I did, she defended mentally. I just didn't tell him everything. When she learned about Nigel's abduction, her mind brought peripheral awareness squarely into the center of her consciousness, and she constructed a picture from what she saw. He must have been in his early forties, but the man was ageless in appearance. He might have been twenty or fifty. His dark hair was then cut short, in a fairly nondescript style, his face devoid of beard, his dark eyes averted in the fashion of a businessman distracted by the day-to-day grind.

Her fingers clutched a small notebook, where she'd managed to sketch a rough approximation of her target.

Target…

A few hours with Derek Lloyd and she was thinking in operative terms.

If her artistic talents were normally confined to the reproduction of valuable artifacts, now she prayed for the ability to translate that into a portrait. All of her memory and her desperation were poured into the pencil drawings. Nigel's life might depend on those drawings.

Not for the first time, she wondered how much she could trust Lloyd. If she were hunting a relic, and only hunting a relic, she wouldn't feel any compunctions about keeping information to herself. But Derek Lloyd was a government employee, a member of the intelligence community. Lloyd was notorious for focusing on his own interests and the interests of his department.

Sydney's hand reached back to apply pressure to her wound. She wasn't sure how much her body would take without giving out. Like it or not, she was still human, with human limitations. If it came to choosing between Nigel's life and capturing an international criminal, would Lloyd protect Nigel? She had her doubts. She couldn't afford to sit this one out. Sucking in her breath, pushed herself to focus on spotting the enemy.

The Viper was out there, she knew it. She hated being in London while Nigel was secreted away in Egypt, but she had to play the game or risk losing him forever. The killer was watching her, watching Lloyd, observing, planning, his intent to destroy her after a long game of cat-and-mouse.

Her mouth drew into a grim line. It doesn't matter, you bastard. In this case, you have things backward. I am the cat and you are my prey. And when I get to you, I don't intend to leave a single whisker intact.

Someone jostled against her and she gasped in pain, momentarily doubled over by the impact.

When she straightened, a hand caught her elbow and a deep, pleasant voice asked, "Are you all right, Miss?"

She forced a smile, forced her body and mind not to react.

"I'm fine," she lied, carefully studying the enemy. Lloyd was next to her, instantly expressing his concern, but she was immersed in memorization. "Just an attack of travelers' stomach." She gauged the Viper's response. Did he realize she'd recognized him instantly? If so, he gave no outward sign whatsoever. She phrased things carefully, praying that Lloyd didn't give them away. The Viper knew full well that her problem had nothing to do with her stomach, but she wanted to keep her secret intact for as long as possible.

"Are you certain? You don't look at all well. My driver is here. Perhaps we could take you to your hotel? We're heading downtown. The Braedon Green is right on the way."

Sydney felt the color drain from her face. Lloyd froze, understanding the implications.

"All right, then, pleasantries are hereby canceled. I want Nigel." Sydney cursed her voice for wavering. She fought waves of dizziness that threatened to engulf her at any moment. "You're exposed, Viper. We know who you are, and so do my companion's friends. You're surrounded."

The Viper smiled, bringing her fingers to his lips. "We both know it doesn't work like that. You want your little friend, I get Ichriem and his sibling's millions."

Lloyd nodded, pursing his lips. "Since everybody knows everybody now, I need to level the playing field on one count. What, exactly, is Ichriem?"

The Viper chuckled. "Possibly the only object, outside King Tut's gold sarcophagus, worth more than twenty times the Bailey fortune. It is a solid gold statue, approximately one meter high and embedded with a collection of flawless gems to shame those in the Tower of London. There is a legend saying that a mere touch reveals your soul mate, but legend doesn't interest me. What interests me is a buyer who has offered me the tidy sum of a half billion dollars to retrieve it. I suppose that my buyer is a romantic at heart."

Sydney inclined her head. "With that kind of money, why did you even bother with Nigel? Eleven million is nothing next to half a billion." She knew the answer before she heard it.

"You know that, of course. I can think of no better way to avenge my loss to you than to take what you hold most dear."

End Part Fifteen