Lee Child - MatchUp

“I’ve never met him,” he admitted. “I was only asked to make sure things went smoothly for this guy. My boss told me he could be pretty unconventional. I assume he’s a forensic guy?”

“Not a guy,” the inspector said with surprise. “A woman. Were you not briefed?”

“Obviously not. It all happened pretty quickly. I was just asked to get down here as fast as I could, and get up to speed when I landed in Alexandria.”

“Then I think you are in for a surprise,” the inspector said. She smiled openly. “This young lady was sent by the Winters family, not by the police. I think you’ll find she has an interesting specialty.”

“And what is that?”

Nabila Honsi rose and slipped her purse over her shoulder.

“Apparently, she can speak to the dead.”

THE LUFTHANSA FLIGHT FROM FRANKFURT to Alexandria pulled up to the gate at Borg El Arab International Airport an hour late. Hauck was used to delays, used to waiting, but the drive from Alexandria out to the airport had been longer than he expected and he was ready for the plane to taxi up.

He watched men in light-colored business suits and open shirts, carrying val pacs and briefcases, who looked like they might well be in commercial fields like oil, textiles, or import/export, exit from the first-class compartment.

They were almost all native Egyptians.

Trailing behind them were two young Americans, perhaps in their twenties. The pale woman was wearing yoga pants and a denim jacket over her tank top. Her short dark hair stood up in spikes, though he wondered if that was deliberate or a result of hours on the plane. The man was in battered jeans and a cut-off UNC sweatshirt, and he wheeled a cheap carry-on suitcase behind him.

He looked past them, waiting for his colleague to emerge.

Every woman he’d met who claimed to deal with the occult had either been overly made up and glitzy, or of the gauze skirt and sandals type.

Nearly always middle-aged.

The two young Americans stepped up to Nabila Honsi, who held a sign reading HARPER CONNELLY.

“I’m Harper,” the woman said. She looked first at Nabila, next at Hauck, as if she were recording them mentally.

“See, Harper, I told you they’d be meeting us,” the man said. He had dark hair, too, and his face was scarred with the evidence of long-ago acne.

They grew up poor, Hauck thought.

“I thought you’d be at baggage claim,” the young woman said.

“You’ve been sent by the Winterses?” Hauck said, unable to conceal his surprise.

It didn’t seem to bother her. “Mrs. Winter. This is Tolliver Lang. My brother. And manager.”

“Your manager?” Hauck said, meeting Nabila’s surprised gaze.

They’d both noticed the different last names.

Was this woman married? He’d noticed no rings.

Nabila jumped into the conversational gap. “I’m Inspector Honsi of the Alexandria police. I worked on Stephanie Winters’s case. And this is Ty Hauck. He’s from the Talon Company in the States. The Winters family asked Mr. Hauck to join us while you are here.”

“Ms. Winters’s father asked me to come along,” Hauck added. “I’ve just flown in myself earlier today, from Tel Aviv. You came in from the States?”

“The longest flight we’ve ever been on,” Tolliver said, stretching. His southern accent seemed more marked than his sister’s. “A whole lot longer than from Los Angeles to Atlanta. That was our previous record.”

“You’re a lawyer?” Harper asked Hauck.

“Ex-policeman. But I have no official capacity in Egypt. I’m only here to make sure it’s easy for you to do your job.”

“We don’t need help,” she said evenly. “We’re quite good at what we do.”

“I’m sure you are. I meant help with the local bureaucracy,” he explained.

He gave a slight wink to Nabila. This young woman was beyond cocky.

“I know it’s been a long trip,” Nabila said. “I’ll take you to the hotel. We put you at the Four Seasons at the Winterses’ request. I’m pretty sure you’ll find it comfortable. You’re staying there as well, Ty?”

“I am.”

“Good. I’m sure you’ll all want to shower and relax a few hours.”

“Definitely a shower,” Harper said, after a glance at her brother. “But we slept on the plane. I’d like to get started.” She pulled her knapsack over her shoulder as if to say, Let’s go .

Nabila looked at her with surprise. “Right away?”

They started to walk to the exit.

“Yes, we have to be in Charlotte on Friday,” Tolliver said, falling in beside his sister.

Hauck said, “You have another case there?”

Harper nodded. “It’s not an urgent one, like this. It’s pretty certain the man was killed in an accident somewhere along his route home. He’s missing, and so is his car. Plus he’d been drinking. But his family wants the body.”

She spoke quite calmly, and he began to wonder what it would take to rattle her.

“You can converse with the dead?” he asked, after they climbed into a white, unmarked Ford sedan.

Tolliver and Harper sat in back. Hauck in front next to Nabila, who drove.

“Not converse,” Harper said, gazing out the window at the Egyptian landscape. “Their bones call to me, so I can locate them. Then I see how they died.”

“And what is it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“How they communicate with you,” he asked.

“They want to be found. I feel the hum. Kind of like the wind blowing through a wind harp, if you know what I mean. It can be overwhelming.” She looked bleak, and much older, for a long moment. “This place is distracting. There are so many dead crowded here. Layers and layers and layers.” She fell silent and closed her eyes. After a moment, she began to move in tiny ways, her head tilting, hand twitching.

Creepy as hell.

He didn’t know if she was a fraud or, just remotely possible, the real thing. But she was good at selling herself. He glanced over at Nabila, but she was concentrating on the road, keeping her face neutral.

“Harper’s solved many important cases,” Tolliver said matter-of-factly. “Just last week we were in Knoxville, Tennessee, working with the police there.”

“You found a body?”

“We didn’t find one there. It was a bad case. A kid. But we had a strong case in Atlanta before that. Harper found a woman who’d been missing for ten years.”

“And how did your sister get this power?” he asked, unable to keep the hint of skepticism from his voice.

Harper’s eyes flew open.

They looked a fainter shade of gray than they had earlier.

“Lightning,” she said.

“Really?” He couldn’t hide the incredulity in his voice.

“I was struck by lightning as a teenager. I lived. Most people don’t. Tolliver started my heart again.” She took her brother’s hand. “Since then I’ve had this power. It was hard to deal with.” She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “I can see you don’t believe me, Mr. Hauck. Many of the police are skeptical. At least, at first.”

“I’m no longer a policeman,” he said. “But I’ll be interested to see you at work.”

Which was the truth.

“Don’t be so Western, Ty,” Nabila chided him.

He figured she was trying to lighten the atmosphere.

“In Alexandria, we are all in a partnership with the dead. As I said, our city is built on prior civilizations. The dead are alive to us here. In America, when you dig, you strike oil or water. Here, we find two-thousand-year-old ruins. Even the person who founded this city, Alexander the Great—the legend is buried here somewhere. Though no one knows where.”