Scorpion Scheme Page 5

  I gasped.

  The cat hissed back at me while Tucker laughed, and in my head, I heard the Austin Powers bad guy yelling, "Five hundred miiiillion dollars!"

  "So the Kruger—"

  Tucker touched his index finger to his lips.

  I glanced from side to side. No other pedestrian appeared to be listening through the patter of raindrops, and the cat couldn't speak.

  Still, I lowered my voice and handed the phone back to him. "You think this is related to Mr. Becker? The most likely explanation is, the stash is a myth, and Phillip Becker ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time."

  "That's the most likely explanation," Tucker agreed. "And yet, it's not the most interesting explanation. We came here for adventure, Hope."

  We stared at each other. His brown eyes gleamed back at me as the evening sun peeked from behind a cloud.

  Finally, I said, "I don't like this kind of adventure. I'd rather play with unvaccinated cats. Did anyone claim responsibility for the IED?"

  "No. The BBC reported on it, but they didn't say who was responsible."

  "Strange, right?" As far as I know, terrorists usually can't wait to claim responsibility. A few of them can end up vying for credit.

  Who would blow up a bus and fail to brag about it? And why?

  "Doesn't mean it has anything to do with that." I waved my hand at his phone, my stand-in for the Kruger Millions.

  Tucker nodded seriously. "Of course not."

  Still, neither of us spoke as we caught the M1, which turned out to be the Cairo Metro's Line 1, and started bumping our way toward KMT hospital to visit Phillip and Gizelda Becker and the Mombergs.

  "Why's it called KMT hospital, anyway?" I asked Tucker.

  "It has something to do with Egypt. Hang on."

  We both flipped through our phones, but I found the Wikipedia article first. "Oh, it's the ancient name for Egypt, km.t, which means black land, because the Nile would flood the riverbanks, fertilizing the land before it receded."

  "Yeah. Did you see the hieroglyphs?" Tucker showed me a cute one that included a bird. "The modern name for Egypt is Miṣr."

  "Cool." I didn't want to get Tucker's blood pressure up by pointing out the coincidence that KMT Hospital starts with the same letters as Kruger Millions.

  7

  "Becker?" said the KMT hospital's front desk clerk, a lovely woman with shiny, black hair down to her elbows, although her prominent incisors and darting eyes made me think of a rabbit misplaced behind a ward desk.

  "Yes." I glanced at the time on my phone. The security guards had X-rayed our back packs and waved us through the metal detector, but Gizelda Becker still hadn't answered my latest texts.

  Tucker drew a half-circle on my back in a wordless gesture that I knew meant calmamente.

  I shook him off. Who wants to be calm?

  The clerk frowned and clicked a few keyboard buttons before she scrolled down the screen. "Are you certain that's the name?"

  "Yes, of course. Phillip Becker. KMT Hospital."

  I didn't detect any Kruger Millions at KMT Hospital. The fluorescent lights flickered, and a fly landed on the desk counter in all its fuzzy black-bodied glory.

  I tried not to recoil. I've occasionally seen flies buzz around Canadian hospitals. And dirty windows and peeling paint abound at St. Joe's, too. Excellent staff keep working despite pathetic surroundings. Definite step down from the Cairo International Hospital's grand foyer, though.

  I attempted to smile while displaying all of my teeth. The intensive care units are closed systems. You need a code to get in. We couldn't barge into the ICU with the security guards on standby. Time to play Ms. Nice Girl. "Look. Let me call his daughter, okay? She's expecting us."

  The clerk flushed. She looked young and new and very uncomfortable. "Ma'am."

  I hate people calling me ma'am. I'm not married yet. I started dialling.

  "Please. Ma'am!"

  Her voice caught my ear. I hung up before Ms. Becker could answer.

  The clerk gazed at me with large, liquid—teary?—eyes. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "He's—not there."

  "What?" It was my turn to verify. "Phillip Becker, 87 years old, the father of Gizelda Becker?"

  "In the ICU. Yes."

  I paused. Her voice shook, and I understood why she didn't want us barging into the unit. Phillip Becker had died.

  Really? Why hadn't Gizelda called me?

  I cursed myself for my self-centred thinking. Gizelda Becker's father had died from an IED. Her top priority wasn't alerting me or Tucker.

  "Oh. Thanks for warning me."

  Tucker took my hand. "Yes, it was very kind of you. We appreciate it."

  We stood beside the desk, trying to figure out what to do next. A security guard, stationed by the entrance maybe fifty feet away, watched both of us.

  I swallowed hard. My animosity crumbled into fatigue. "I better text her again. To let her know we're here, if she's willing to see us."

  Tucker nodded and pressed his arm unobtrusively against mine as I messaged her.

  I shook my head. "I want to give her our condolences, but she could be in the ICU, or on the floor, or even back in her hotel. I mean, we don't even know when he died."

  "We can try to find out," said Tucker softly.

  My shoulders sagged. Jet lag. Shock. Despair. Whatever you called it, it was kicking me in the teeth. "I texted her around 2 that I was coming, and she said okay. So I think he was alive then."

  "Great. And it's 7:27 now, so we've got a timeline."

  Crazy how Tucker felt optimistic about a 5.5 hour time gap. I shook my head. "I know you want to see the Mombergs. Maybe we should split up."

  Tucker circled his arm around me, and I felt him taking in the dusty computers and dirty floors. "Let's stick together. We'll see the Mombergs later."

  "Good." The word slipped out of my throat, and Tucker grinned at me even as I said, "I don't like any of this. The IED. Mr. Becker. The Mombergs. What are we even doing in Egypt?"

  "We're doing an elective and travelling the world."

  "Yes, but why did they invite us? We're nobodies."

  "Well, one of us is famous." Tucker winked at me, using his closest eye since we were already sandwiched hip to hip, still under the guards' watchful gaze.

  I sighed. You'd think no one would pay attention to a resident doctor from a country best known for hockey and Tim Hortons, but as my little brother Kevin pointed out, my side gig of crime-busting has acquired a small cult following. Kevin's reported fake Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts masquerading as me, but he can't stop memes, Pinterest boards of photos and articles, or "fan" accounts like @detectivedocterz.

  "You've got hits as far away as the Middle East, Tokyo, and even one in Antarctica," Kevin told me a week ago.

  "Antarctica? That one's got to be fake news."

  Kevin shrugged. "Why? They're as bored as everyone else. Maybe more."

  "Thanks a lot!" I started to punch his shoulder, remembered that he was cleaning up my online act for free, and stopped in mid-air.

  "I'm telling you, Hope, your fans want to hear from you. You better start using social media, or everyone else is gonna do it for you."

  Kevin was angling for me to hire him as a social media consultant. But he was right, my followers could have played a role in Sarquet Industries' recruitment process. Once everything calmed down, I vowed to meet Isabelle face to face and shake the truth out of her.

  In the meantime, I ignored my D class Internet fame. George Takei pointed out, "Social media is like ancient Egypt: writing things on walls and worshiping cats." If my nine-year-old little brother could cover it, I wouldn't get too excited about it.

  "While we're waiting for Gizelda, we could grab a bite to eat," said Tucker.

  My stomach was gnawing on its own lining, but it seemed disrespectful to chow down right after Mr. Becker had died. I shook my head.

&nbs
p; "Okay," said Tucker, "let’s buy her flowers. We can leave them in his room, even if she doesn’t want to talk to us."

  "Good idea. We just need to make sure that she's still here. Otherwise, we need to figure out where she's staying."

  The desk clerk helped us out by calling up to the ICU. Yes, Ms. Becker was clearing out her father's things, but still in the building.

  So we swooped down to the gift shop, with me trying not to wince at the price of a slightly wilted bouquet of yellow roses.

  "The money will go to the hospital," said Tucker. He added under his breath, gazing at the dirty tile floor, "They need it."

  In the elevator up to the third floor ICU, Tucker watched me check my phone and come up empty. "Don’t worry about it. Like I said, we'll leave the roses at the nursing station if we have to. What's the worst that can happen? We'll brighten their day."

  He waved the flowers at me until I laughed and took them, cradling them in my arms like a baby.

  Soon we faced the frosted, locked ICU doors. Tucker hit the speaker on the right and spoke to the nurse about Ms. Becker.

  "Oh," piped a female nurse, "she's meeting a friend in our waiting area. The code is 27379 if you want to come in and say hello."

  Tucker plugged in the numbers in the keypad on the wall. The doors slid open automatically.

  I glanced to the left and saw a water cooler outside the public bathrooms. Good news, since you can't drink the tap water in Egypt, and it was stressing me out to buy bottled water and dispose of single use plastics.

  "Here's the waiting room." Tucker pointed to an alcove to our right with chairs lined along three sides.

  The room was small but freshly painted, with a bookshelf on the left wall and a TV mounted in the corner. Even though night had fallen, I appreciated how the windows let the street light in to help illuminate a print of irises on the right wall.

  No sign of Ms. Becker, though. I frowned at the silent phone in my free hand.

  I turned to Tucker. "Do you think we just missed her?"

  "It’s possible," he said slowly, right before the women's bathroom door opposite us swung open.

  Out stepped a bespectacled man in a suit with short-cropped curly black hair, olive skin, and a slightly bulbous nose. A guy coming out of the woman's bathroom would've startled me enough in a Muslim country, but I recognized the woman following on his heels, a senior citizen with a chignon of greying brown hair.

  My mouth fell open. "Ms. Becker?"

  8

  Gizelda Becker gasped and took a step backwards, her bum bumping the bathroom door inward.

  The man, who was a step ahead of her, threw his arms out as if to shield her.

  The movement drew his black suit jacket open, and I gawked at the familiar black cobra fanny pack clipped to his waist.

  I pointed at the bag. "Hey. Isn't that—"

  The man swept his jacket closed and tried to button it over the fanny pack as he headed out the frosted doors. "All will be well, Ms. Becker. Good evening. Peace be with you."

  Where the heck was he going? I turned to Gizelda and thrust the roses at her. "I'm so sorry about your father."

  She automatically accepted the bouquet, even though her mouth still gaped open.

  "I'll be back in a second, after I talk to your—friend." The frosted doors sealed behind him.

  I could feel Tucker's confusion, but I didn't have time to explain beyond an urgent look.

  How many men wear any sort of fanny pack, let alone one emblazoned with a cobra?

  Even an IED couldn't erase it from my memory. I'd unbuckled it from around Mr. Becker's waist, and within hours of his death, his daughter had handed that cobra bag over to a stranger.

  I needed to know why.

  "No. No!" Gizelda cried behind me.

  "It's okay, Tucker will help you with the flowers," I called over my shoulder as I slipped into the hallway and followed that man. His soles echoed off the tile floor in the otherwise empty corridor.

  "Hello!"

  He didn't turn around, but his head twitched to listen to my sneakers thumping behind him.

  "Sir, I'm Dr. Hope Sze."

  He couldn't run, or didn't want to run, in black leather dress shoes, but he stepped up the pace.

  "I just have a few questions."

  He turned for the elevator at the end of the hall.

  I broke into a run. "It'll only take a few minutes! Please."

  He punched the elevator button repeatedly, but I knew that wouldn't net him a fast getaway in a decrepit hospital.

  "Marhaba!" I called, closing in. Cobra Guy had spoken good English to Ms. Becker, but I might as well try out my fledgling Arabic, even if I reminded myself of white people screaming "Ni hao!" at me across the street.

  At 5'2" and a quarter, no one considers me physically intimidating. Even my little bro is gaining on me. But Cobra Guy's eyes widened in fear before he broke for the stairs across from the elevator.

  "No, I just want to talk to you. Please!"

  "Hope!" Tucker thundered behind me.

  "Can't talk. Running!" I shouted as I shoved open the stair door and rushed down each step. Good thing we were only on the third floor.

  "Hope! Afwan!"

  If anything, Tucker's Arabic ratcheted Cobra Guy up to sprint mode.

  "Stay with her!" I howled at Tucker, and gunned it.

  I heard the third floor door swing open above me. Tucker had ignored me and abandoned Gizelda, but I couldn't waste the breath to tell him off.

  Still, irritation meant I fell a few crucial seconds behind. Yeah, must've been that, and not me being less fit than a thirtyish guy in a suit.

  I banged open the stair door on the first floor and pelted after him, shocked at the number of people crowding the lobby. Did KMT have a second stage of visiting hours? How many family members hung out in a hospital at dinner time?

  Cobra Guy darted around a family of six. The mother cried out and yanked a toddler up to her chest. The father berated Cobra Guy but made no move to stop him.

  "Excuse me!" I called.

  The family clustered together in the middle of the hall, still focused on the guy, three kids wailing, one dad cursing, all of them blocking my way.

  "Marhaba! Shokran! Please, I want to talk to him!" I wove around them, side-stepping a stroller and multiple small shoes.

  Another guy glanced up from his cell phone before he walk-texted directly into my path.

  "It's important!" I snapped, edging against the wall to sneak around him. Cobra Guy had nearly reached the security guards.

  "Hope!" Tucker bellowed behind me.

  "He's getting away, Tucker!"

  "Do you need help?" asked an older man with an impressive beard.

  "Yes, I want to talk to the man in the suit. Please!"

  Beard Man frowned and surveyed the crowd, meditating on my words.

  I lowered my voice. "It's about my friend who passed away."

  Beard Man raised his hands in the air and issued a short speech.

  The crowd chattered amongst themselves, but slowly, reluctantly, they parted toward the edges of the hallway.

  Moses parted the Red Sea; Beard Man parted the hospital horde.

  "Thank you so much, sir. Much appreciated. Excuse me! Thank you."

  Tucker caught up with me, and I huffed, "I swear I'm not crazy."

  "I trust you," he said. That's exactly why I love him.

  We dashed down the hall, which ended in a three-way juncture, one of which exited to the outside.

  I gambled on the exit and rushed through the outer doors. "Hello! Sir. Please!"

  A white checker-boarded taxi squealed away from the curb with Cobra Guy barely visible in the passenger seat.

  9

  Back upstairs, we discovered Gizelda Becker deep in conversation with another man.

  What the heck? Did she have an unending supply of men? This one was twice the age of Cobra Guy, though.

  I surveyed the deeply-tanned, salt-a
nd-pepper-haired, barrel-shaped man, who looked like an ex football player plus four decades, shoehorned into a suit. I couldn't make out his eyes behind tinted glasses. Then I recognized that narrow Becker nose.

  I slowed down. Tucker tugged my hand, hauling me forward and waving at them.

  The guy glanced up, frowning. Gizelda wheeled toward us, waving the roses in her left hand.

  I stopped short, assessing the faint resemblance between this man and Gizelda, in addition to the noses. Maybe it was the way they stood, their shoulders hunched together. Maybe it was their chins. Even though he was taller and stockier than her, something about them matched.

  "Dr. Tucker. Dr. Sze," she said, pointing at us with her bouquet.

  "These are … our father's doctors?" said the man, with the same accent. He frowned harder, probably because we looked too young and foreign, but he held out his hand to Tucker.

  Tucker turned to me.

  The man belatedly decided to shake hands with me first and pivoted with his hand still extended. His grip was warm and slightly rough, but he didn't squeeze my hand too hard, and his cologne didn’t make me hold my breath, so I nodded and tried to smile. "Please accept our condolences. We offered your father pre-hospital care. Hi, I'm Dr. Hope Sze."

  Tucker took the man’s hand next. "I’m so sorry for your loss. Please call me Tucker, short for Dr. John Tucker. We're Canadian resident doctors visiting Egypt."

  "Thank you." The man grimaced and rubbed his left cheek. "Our poor father. We appreciate all you've done. My name is Luke Becker. Phillip's son. Gizelda's brother."

  "Oh. I didn't see you on the bus. Did I miss you?" I glanced at his sister, but she'd pulled out her phone, thumbing through her texts as she held the flowers with her other hand.

  "I was in Johannesburg. I grabbed the first flight as soon as I heard about my father and the IED. I just arrived from the airport."

  "I'm so sorry," I said to both of them.

  Gizelda nodded briefly before fixing back on her phone.

  Luke pressed his lips together and adjusted what might have been a Rolex before touching his navy tie, drawing attention to his well-cut charcoal suit, gleaming black leather shoes, and gold wedding band.