Lee Child - MatchUp

Nabila took him into a large room crammed with rows of desks. It looked similar to a hundred other detective bullpens Hauck had seen in the States, down to the Siemens computers. Men in open shirts, jackets off. The temperature in the eighties, but the electric fans made the room comfortable.

“Welcome to Alexandria,” Nabila said, pointing him to her desk. “First time here?”

“It is.”

It didn’t escape Hauck’s notice that Nabila was the only female detective in the room.

“It’s everyone’s first time in Alexandria these days. Since the Arab Spring, Egypt has kind of been on lockdown to the world. There’s a cruise ship in the port. First one in two years. We used to get two a week.” They sat at Nabila’s desk, which was crowded with folders and computer printouts. “Now all tourists want to do is go to Cairo, see the Nile and the pyramids for a day, and then get out as fast as they can. May I offer you some tea?”

“No, thanks. I had some at the hotel. Mind if I take off my jacket?” He didn’t want to offend Inspector Honsi by breaking local protocol.

“Of course not. It’s not as hot here as everyone expects, since we’re on the coast, but it’s definitely a warm day. And I’m sure you are probably used to air-conditioning. Where are you from in the States?”

“Greenwich,” he replied. “It’s in Connecticut. Near New York.”

“I know where Connecticut is,” she said.

Inspector Honsi was pretty, her dark hair streaked with traces of blond highlights pulled back beneath her headscarf, one of a hundred mixes of the old and the modern he’d seen here in just a day. She had smooth, coffee-colored skin, and sharp, dark almond-shaped eyes. He didn’t know if the glances the male detectives sent their way were because Nabila was pretty, or because they wanted to be sure an American minded his manners around an Egyptian woman.

“You’ve studied American geography?” he said, smiling.

She laughed. “I spent two years studying criminology in D.C. American University. I became a basketball fan there. And I fell in love with hockey. The Capitals. Imagine, an Egyptian. Here, you’re lucky to get enough ice to put in your drink. Mr. Hauck, did I understand correctly that you’re a police inspector?”

“I was.” For twenty years, he’d been a detective both in New York City, and in Greenwich, where he’d been head of Violent Crime. “Now I’m a partner in a private security firm. And please call me Ty.” He took out his wallet and slid his card across the desk.

“Talon,” she noted. “Offices in Greenwich, New York, London, and Dubai. Sounds like a lot of employees?”

“It’s a good size. We do a lot of forensic stuff in finance, IT. Some field protection work as well.”

“And you are here to look into the disappearance of Stephanie Winters. I’m told you have some connection to the family?”

“Not personally,” he explained. “My boss told me to come. Ms. Winters’s father is a client of Talon.”

“Talon must have a lot of clout,” she said. “I was told by Chief Inspector Farnoush to make myself available to you and share what we know. Your boss talked to my boss, so to speak. The men upstairs. And here we are. Did you travel here from the States?”

“I happened to be in Tel Aviv on a money-laundering investigation. Fake antiquities out of Syria. The money was going somewhere in Connecticut. By the way, I was told there was another American consultant coming in?”

“Later today,” the inspector said. She opened a drawer, pulled out a thick file, and slipped on her glasses. Pretty stylish. Fendi or Prada or some Italian brand. She opened the folder and her manner changed.

She looked defensive.

“I’ve been in your seat many times. Enough to know no one loves people looking over your shoulder,” he said.

“You’ll see we are pretty thorough. Not quite the third-world police investigators you expect.”

Yes, definitely defensive.

She snapped the file shut and slid it near Hauck on the desk. “This is all we know. Ms. Winters was an intern at the Alexandria National Museum. I understand she was receiving her master’s in archaeology at Columbia University.”

“That’s about as much as I know too.”

He paged through the file. Photos. Evidence forms. Interview transcripts. Depositions. Much like they had in the States. Most of the documents were in English. He assumed this had been done for the benefit of Stephanie Winters’s family.

Clipped to the front of the file was Stephanie Winters’s ID photo from the museum. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was attractive. Straight blond hair. Wide eyes. A strong and confident smile. She looked eager and ready to go.

And smart.

Hauck’s managing partner, Tom Foley, had told him that Stephanie was top of her class. A young woman who’d had every reason to be pleased with her life.

Then she’d vanished.

The Winters family had resources and contacts. They’d pulled every string they had with the Egyptian government and the U.S. State Department.

And came up empty.

“She went missing when?” he asked.

“Two months ago.” Nabila didn’t have to look at the file to know. “The parents are divorced, as you know, but they’ve both been here several times. I understand their frustration. She was last seen in an Internet café on Mustafa Kamel Street. I’m told she had some interest in a young man who works there. A Croat. She was, by all accounts, an excellent student and a committed worker. According to Doctor Razi at the museum, they were doing work in satellite cartography. Do you know what that is?”

“You’re talking to someone who barely got through eighth-grade earth science,” he said with a smile.

“Electromagnetic cartography can map out formations of ruins that are still underground. All Egypt is built on layers and layers of such ruins. Greek. Hellenistic. Roman. Ottoman. Dig anywhere, we say here, you will find something.”

“You might say we cops believe that sounds true for anywhere,” he said.

“The world over. It is true. But here we are sitting atop buried civilizations. A graveyard of history. Watch your step, you may trip over Cleopatra’s chariot wheel. I am kidding, of course. Anyway, we checked, regarding the girl. We don’t have street cameras here, the way you have in the United States and London. But we interviewed everyone. Her roommates, her colleagues. We went through her apartment and office. We checked for hairs and DNA. We exhausted all our leads. Nothing.”

“No chance she just ran off with someone?”

He had to ask, though it didn’t seem likely.

“Without word? At work, Stephanie never missed a day. She and her parents would speak several times a week. And she was in constant contact with her brother and her sister on her WhatsApp account. They were all anxious, as you might imagine, a young American woman here in Egypt. Attractive. And Jewish, too, I was told.”

“I was going to mention that,” he said. “I don’t know what the climate for that kind of hatred is, here. I know in Cairo—”

“In Cairo the temperature is even higher, as we say. For what is going on in the world. In the second and third century, Alexandria had the largest Jewish population in the world.” She shrugged. “Even now, we have a reputation as a tolerant, multicultural city. There is still a small Jewish population here. But in today’s world, violence can happen anywhere.”

He had seen the aftermath of hatred more times than he cared to remember. “You’re right. May I take a good look at this file in a room here?”

“You can keep it. I’ve made copies for both of you.” Nabila glanced at the clock on the wall. “I already e-mailed one to your colleague, who is due to arrive soon.”