Hatch Read online

  “Well, there are lots of Egyptian databases,” Killian replied, “but they won’t be complete. Remember. Lots of people, lots of tribes, don’t really worry about recordkeeping. Some of the … more remote tribes, I guess you could call them, don’t even bother coming into the cities. Therefore, they don’t have paperwork. Most of them really don’t want it either.”

  “Well, these guys appear to be running businesses of some kind, but whether they were legit or not is a whole different story,” Hatch suggested.

  “Meaning, your leg breakers?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “That’s the impression I got.”

  “In which case they probably don’t have any legal standing, maybe not even IDs, because, if they did, it would be pretty easy to track them down.”

  “I was hoping we could do it anyway.” Hatch laughed.

  “We’ll get what we can. Talk to you in a bit.” And, with that, Killian disconnected.

  Hatch looked over at Corbin. “Killian’s not all that confident that we’ll find out much about the guys who shook us down.”

  “No, I’m not either,” Corbin agreed. “Yet it would be interesting if we could get some idea of what’s going on. I mean, if our two Americans have just gone missing, what’s the point of all this cloak-and-dagger stuff?”

  “Unless they went missing with some help.” Hatch looked over at his friend.

  “And, in that case, they didn’t go willingly.”

  “Which I think we’re pretty well agreed on, aren’t we? Or do you still have doubts?”

  “The problem is, we don’t have any proof either way,” Corbin noted seriously. “All we have, so far, is the fact that two people are missing, and nobody seems to give a crap.”

  “That part is what I find interesting—the fact that nobody gives a crap,” Hatch stated. “When you think about it, that’s really one of the biggest eye-openers here.”

  “Which means that the Egyptian government and the locals didn’t like them,” Corbin noted, with a concluding nod.

  “Which is also interesting because what would be the reasons for that?” Hatch murmured.

  “One could be that they interfered in something local. Or what if they were stealing or doing something with these local artifacts that people here would consider their own.”

  “Well, Millie and Marcus are unearthing them, and they must have hired a lot of local people to do the grunt work, … so that makes them employers. Honestly, things are tough here these days. I would think a lot of people in this area would like to have that work.”

  “So, that’s one thing we need to track down then. Where’s Marcus’s foreman? What’s he doing while his boss is gone? Does he even know, or, better yet, did he have anything to do with it?” At that, Corbin leaned forward and worked away on his laptop. “I’ve got a name.” Corbin focused on his screen, reading something. “He’s also an experienced dig supervisor. Looks like he does a lot of hiring.”

  Hatch stretched and shrugged. “Which could just mean he knows a lot of locals.”

  Corbin raised his gaze from his laptop, studying his buddy for a long moment. “And what do you mean by that?”

  “Both good guys and bad guys.” Hatch bounded to his feet, then looked out the window. “It’s dark out there, but the sun sets earlier in the summer here than we Americans are used to. Perfect time to pay him a visit.”

  “Always.” Corbin snapped closed the laptop, then picked up his wallet. He quickly shoved it into his pocket. “Let’s go.”

  “I presume the foreman is on watch duty.”

  “Yeah, possibly, but he’s also gotta have somebody else to take shifts with him.” Corbin held up his cell. “I’ve got two other names. Chances are these guys worked with Millie and Marcus pretty consistently.”

  “Somebody,” Hatch noted, “had to be running supplies. To successfully work at any of these digs, there’s got to be a whole industry here to support that dig.”

  “There is, and, yes, you’re right. We need to talk to a few of them.”

  Out on the streets, the night air was a little cooler. It was still hot and muggy, but at least some of the dust had settled. Hatch looked over at Corbin. “We need some wheels.”

  “Already ordered,” he said cheerfully, looking at his friend. “It just may not be what you’re expecting.” With that, he laughed and led him to another corner. There they found two dirt bikes.

  “Well, that’s one option,” Hatch said in a pleased tone. He hopped onto the back of one, and, with Corbin on the other, they slowly drove through town, looking for the address that Corbin had up on GPS. When they pulled onto the side of the road near the intended house, they hopped off, parked their bikes, and walked around the corner to what appeared to be a front door, then knocked. This time the front door opened on its own accord, and they noted that it led to a series of other doors.

  “That explains the stray number in his address,” Corbin stated. “Yet it didn’t make this sound like it was a series of condos.”

  “I don’t think it’s condos,” Hatch suggested. “Apartments maybe.”

  When the door in question opened, he asked the woman standing there for the foreman. She looked at him in surprise, shook her head. “Haven’t seen him today at all.”

  At that, Corbin made a point of looking at his watch. “When do you expect him home?”

  She shrugged. “Things aren’t easy for him right now,” she said softly. “I thought he would have been home by now.”

  “When did you see him last?” Hatch stepped in closer.

  She stared at him, frowning. “This morning. Why?”

  He shook his head. “We’re just trying to figure out where he is. We need to talk to him.”

  She frowned. “His boss … Everything is a mess right now.” She raised her hands in frustration.

  He nodded slowly. “I do understand,” he murmured. “We’re here trying to find his boss.”

  The woman stared at him, then nodded. “Yes, that would make sense.” She motioned at their clothing. “You don’t look like you work here.”

  He smiled. “No, we don’t, but Millie …” he improvised, “is a friend of mine.”

  “The daughter?” And then, as if that confirmed something else, she nodded. “That makes sense too. She’s a lovely woman.”

  “Can you tell us anything about Marcus and Millie?” he asked quietly.

  She looked at him, bewildered. “They just left,” she replied. “We all have bills to pay, but they just packed up and left.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand why they would do that. I am so sorry but mostly just disappointed. We can’t just pack up and leave, like they did. This is our home, and people depend on this, on us.” She waved her arm widely at the town.

  “Listen. We don’t think they packed up and left,” he noted. “We think they were taken.”

  At that, she stopped short, her gaze going wide, as she clapped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t speak.

  “Do you have any idea who would do something like that?” Hatch asked.

  Immediately she shook her head, but it was obvious that she wasn’t aware enough to even say anything.

  He waited for her to collect her wits, her mind clearly spinning. “Do you have any idea why something like that might have happened?”

  Again she shook her head.

  He studied her carefully but didn’t see any deceit. “Now you know why we need to talk to your husband.”

  She nodded slowly. “I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him all day.”

  “If he—” Then Hatch quickly rephrased his thought. “When he comes back, could you have him give us a call?” He handed her a card.

  She looked down at the name, frowned, and then nodded slowly. “Yes. I know he’s looking for work. We need work in order to make some money. With this entire dig shut down, the locals are in real trouble. Likely another half-dozen digs are going on all around them, but Marcus would have paid whoever he needed to in ord
er to keep his dig going.”

  Hatch nodded carefully. “If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  She looked at him, smiling gratefully. “Thank you.” She backed into the house. “I appreciate that.” She clutched the card in her hand, like he had thrown her a lifeline.

  He stepped back, looked at Corbin, and they slowly slipped away from the house. “What are your thoughts about that?”

  “I think there’s a damn good chance we could be looking for a fourth missing person,” Corbin murmured. “I mean, if they’ve already taken the next person in line of command, someone who would technically know something, it would be the foreman.”

  They shared a look, as they surveyed the area.

  “This isn’t a wealthy area,” Corbin noted.

  “No, but they have a place to live and steady dig work, it seems,” Hatch commented. “And the wife is obviously worried, which means he would normally be home by now, and he’s not.”

  “She’s just not saying what’s going on or why.”

  “But how can she?” Hatch murmured. “She doesn’t know anything.”

  “And now that we’ve told her about the potential that Millie and Marcus were kidnapped and are being held somewhere, she has to be thinking about her own family too. Like maybe that’s where her husband is or maybe that’s what’ll happen to her and her family if she’s not quiet.”

  “Fear is a great intimidator.”

  “And not having a job or an income to raise a family on is also a huge motivator,” Corbin added.

  “So it’s quite possible that the foreman was in on it too,” Hatch stated pointedly. “But there’s really no way to know at this point. And, if anybody found out, and it came back on the foreman, he would lose his job because Marcus would demand loyalty.”

  “Well, if you arrange to have your boss kidnapped, that typically doesn’t go over so well.” Corbin cracked a smile.

  “No, but you and I both know what it’s like to have bosses we don’t like.” Hatch stopped at that point, reaching their rides, and got onto his. “We should have asked her what Marcus was like as an employer,” he noted.

  While they were considering whether they should return to her door again, a side door opened, and a woman slipped out. She wore a head covering, but it was obviously the same woman. Hatch and Corbin looked at each other and slid off their bikes, as she raced down the street. Following at a sedate pace, they watched as she headed into one of the shops.

  Standing outside, Hatch and Corbin tried to stay hidden, as they attempted to see who all was in there. A man stood off to the side, and he and the foreman’s wife got into a deep conversation, though it never went loud enough that Hatch or Corbin could hear anything. The shop itself was closed and locked. Hatch looked over at Corbin. “Ideas?”

  “Well, I assume that we could just burst in there and find out the truth of what’s going on,” Corbin suggested, “but that’s not likely to go over very well.”

  “Yeah,” Hatch agreed. “Not likely to go over at all.”

  “Something is going on. … Either she’s looking for assistance or she is telling somebody that we’re looking for her husband.”

  “This guy could be a family member,” Hatch pointed out, as he nodded.

  “I know, and I get it. I’m not saying that she’s guilty of anything. But this could be an immediate ‘get the information and race out the front door’ situation.”

  “Or, in this case, the side door,” Hatch quipped.

  Corbin acknowledged his comment, while they waited for the woman to be done. When she slipped back out of the shop and headed home at a hurried yet slower pace, Corbin immediately stepped up and fell in beside her. “So do you want to tell us where you just went to tell people that we were looking for Marcus and Millie?”

  She gasped and stared at him in horror.

  He nodded. “Yeah, we saw you. We don’t want to make any trouble for you, but we really want to know who and what that was all about.”

  She immediately shook her head, then tried to walk faster, turning and looking around to see if anybody would help her. Thankfully the streets were deserted.

  “Well, you could cry out,” Hatch explained. “You could do all kinds of things, but it won’t go well if you do.”

  Her face paled, and he shook his head.

  “No, we won’t hurt you,” Hatch promised, “but we’re serious. We’re trying to find Millie and Marcus, before something bad happens to them, and I want to know what’s going on here. Let’s start with why you felt you had to run down there and tell this guy about us immediately.” Hatch gestured toward the shop with this thumb. She started to shake, and Hatch noticed the money in her hand. “He paid you for that information, didn’t he?” he murmured.

  She stared at him in shock. And then her bottom lip trembled.

  “You were petrified, but you didn’t want to get caught with information that you hadn’t handed over. Got it,” Hatch said.

  She stared at him. “I didn’t tell you anything,” she whispered. “Why would you say that?”

  “It’s easy enough to read what’s going on in your world.” Hatch gave his own headshake. “Yet it won’t be helpful to us.”

  Back at her house again, she stepped inside, and he and Corbin followed, and she didn’t like that one bit. She glanced around nervously.

  “Oh, I know. You don’t want me in here, and I get that,” Hatch stated. “However, you have information that I need. I’ll get it eventually, so you’d be better off just telling me what it is.”

  She shook her head and then cried out, “I can’t. He told me that I shouldn’t talk to anybody.”

  “And yet you went running up to talk to that guy in the shop.”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” she replied bitterly. “He said that I’m supposed to tell him if anything happened or if anybody came looking for my husband.”

  “And you don’t know where your husband is?”

  She shook her head. “No, and, if he doesn’t come home, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  Upstairs, he heard a baby crying. “Is that one yours?”

  She nodded. “Yes, my son.”

  “And you’re afraid that something has happened to your husband, aren’t you?”

  She whispered again, “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

  She frowned. “Because I don’t know you,” she stated bluntly. “I don’t know anything about you.”

  “You worked with your husband helping Marcus, didn’t you?” She stared at him again, shocked at his words. “I can tell that your English is very good, so you probably helped him with supplies and running interference with the locals.”

  “My husband is a local,” she explained. “We’ve lived here all our lives.”

  “How did you hook up with Marcus then?”

  “My husband was on other digs, with other archaeologists, but Marcus snatched him away. The money was good for a while, but lately, for the past few months, he’s had to take less,” she murmured. “That was already hard, but we didn’t know what was going on.”

  “Was Marcus different to you, … or did he act different recently?”

  She nodded in agreement. “Yes, but again we didn’t know why. We just tried to stay calm and to hope that it would all work itself out. He has a temper, you know?” she murmured.

  “What did you do for him?”

  She nodded. “I kept his books.”

  “Were there any irregularities in the accounting?” She looked at him, confused. “When you said, you kept his books, what did you mean?”

  She motioned off to the side. “I entered all the receipts and the bills of the day. The governments, the grants, … all that had to be kept neat and tidy for them to see at any time.”

  “Of course,” Hatch noted. “And was everything proper?”

  She nodded immediately. “Yes, of course, that’s the requirement. He had everything really ready, as required for in
spection.”

  “Right.” Hatch nodded. “So you read and write English as well?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Many of us do. We take English in school here, and I’ve always worked with it somewhat.”

  “Okay, and what about Millie? Did you have anything to do with her?”

  She shook her head. “She would bring me receipts, but her father hired me. Her father signed my paycheck.” At that, she chewed her bottom lip.

  “Now you’re worried about getting a paycheck, aren’t you?”

  “Of course,” she snapped. “Not much work is here. Particularly for the type of work that I do.”

  “Which is literally just making notations in the books?”

  She nodded again and then frowned. “You seem to think that I do something else.”

  “No, not necessarily,” Hatch replied, “but there’s an awful lot more to bookkeeping than just entering some figures.”

  “Of course there is,” she said, “but that’s all he wanted me to do. He does the rest himself.”

  “Ah.” Hatch smiled. “And do you know where he keeps all that paperwork?”

  She nodded. “Yes, it’s here with me.”

  “And may we see it?”

  She immediately shook her head. “No, I can’t do that. That would be a violation of everything I did for him.”

  “Meaning that you’re supposed to keep it all private?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” She shrugged. “All our suppliers, the prices we pay, … it’s all in there.”

  “Ah, then your competitors might take some of your suppliers away. Is that it?”

  She nodded. “It’s a very cutthroat business,” she murmured, “and the only way to make any money is to keep the margins tight.”

  “Of course,” Hatch murmured. “But we still need to take a look at the books to make sure nothing is there that would help us find Millie and Marcus. Has anybody else seen the books?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. They are inspected once a year, sometimes twice. But, so far this calendar year, nobody has been here.”

  “And when was the last inspection?”

  She frowned, as she thought about it. “A few months back, so it’s coming up on time.”

  “And do you normally just hand over the books?”