Episode 6-Trust Me

Episode 6

Trust Me

The next couple of hours were a whirlwind.  E was told to pack a bag, which bothered her since she didn’t bring a bag in the first place.  This seemed to irritate both brothers, which in turn, irritated E.  Nevertheless, Sam took her to a large second closet in his room and slid it open revealing a wide range of clothes.  Everything from designer jeans to expansive evening and dinner wear decorated the large closet.  Sam told her to pick anything she needed and handed her one of his suitcases.

“Why does a man have a closet full of expensive women’s clothing?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

Sam gave her a sly grin.  “Let’s just say they’re lost and found.”

E found some clothes, mostly jeans and shorts, and socks, the necessities. Although she did pack one long black dress with a deep slit up the right side and a low cut front.  That was more wishful thinking than anything else.

Then they were in the limo and on their way to JFK International.

“So,” E broke the silence and grabbed the attention of both Karl and Sam.  “What the hell is going on?”

Sam blinked twice.  “I thought it was self explanatory?”

E took a deep breath and contained her anger, remembering that these two were still her boss.  “Okay I just met you yesterday and I met him,” she nodded towards Karl, “one hour and fifteen minutes ago, right before a giant and an Egyptian blew up half your apartment for an ankle.”

“It’s an Ankh,” Sam snorted.  “Although, I guess I see your point.”

“So what is the cup and how do you know it’s in Cairo?” E questioned.

“The Cup of Osiris,” Sam began with the simplest answer.  “Osiris is one of the ancient Egyptian Gods.  Osiris was the God of Agriculture.  He is also the giver of beer.”

E looked confused.  “The Egyptians had beer?”

Sam chuckled.  “Everyone had beer.  In fact, there is a pretty credible anthropological study that says society as we know it came from beer.  You see, in ancient Mesopotamia-”

“Sam” Karl cut him off.  He could see his brother was about to digress.  “Stay on point, bud.”

Sam stopped himself.  “Oh yeah, where was I?”

E raised her eyebrow.  “Osiris?”

Sam’s face lit up.  “Oh yes, of course.  So, Osiris fell for one of the other Gods, Isis, but Osiris’s brother, Set, is jealous of their love and challenges him to a duel.”

“With swords?”  E asked, enthralled.

Sam frowned.  “No, with puppets.  Of course with swords or whatever other weapon Gods dueled with.”

E frowned at his sarcasm and Karl quietly interjected.  “Mean Sam.”

Sam stopped himself, Karl’s words bringing his scattering back together.  “Well, it was a stupid question.”

E had to wonder where the man who had seduced her the night before had gone.  Had the drinks really clouded her judgment that much?  Was this mad man the same person? One thing was for sure, she now understood, without a shadow of a doubt, that why Karl had quit his job and come home.

Sam looked back to E to continue.  “Anyway, the night before the duel, in the interest of fair play, Set invited Osiris for a drink.  The legend says that Set presented Osiris with a pre fight gift, a finely crafted drinking cup.”

E raised an eyebrow.  “So let me guess, Set poisoned him?”

Sam shrugged.  “Not really sure, there are tons of versions of the story, some say poison, some say drugged, others say he just got too drunk and Set knew he would.”

“Either way, I’m guessing he lost the duel.” E said knowingly.

Sam smiled at the comment.  “Now you’re with me.  Damn straight he lost, was killed and became the God of Death as well.  Later the bastard son of Osiris and Isis would rise up and take vengeance for Osiris by killing Set, but none of that really matters to us.”

“So this cup you are trying to find is the cup that Set gave to Osiris, the cup that he got drunk from?” E questioned, putting it together.

Sam’s smile widened.  “The Cup of Osiris.  You got it.”

“So how do you know it’s in Cairo?” E asked finally.

“Cairo, like a lot of other Egyptian cities was founded from military outposts.  A general would set up shop there and civilians would flock in to provide services to the soldiers, and before you knew it, you had a city.  Cairo was different, though. They weren’t just there to set up a military outpost, they were there to hide something.” Sam explained.

“The cup,” E said with a smile, getting excited by the story.

Sam clapped.  “You got it, sister!  While they built up they built down, under the Babylon fortress in Old Cairo, a secret tomb.”

E smiled and took it in.  It was quite a fantastic story, Gods and love triangles and hatred, woven together perfectly so that even though the tale made no sense, it still somehow seemed right.

“So why do you think the cup is under the fortress?” She asked finally.

Sam scoffed.  “I know, I always know.”

E blinked.  “Alright then, what do a renegade Egyptian and a Mongolian arms dealer have to do with the cup?”

Sam opened his mouth to speak, then paused.  He took a second to reflect, his face curling in irritated concentration and then he looked at her and said.  “I have no idea.”

The car arrived at the airport and was shown onto the field like V.I.Ps.  E marveled at this.  She had to go through many different airports in her line of work.  Each time proved more irritating then the last, but never had she just skipped the security check and been personally driven onto the tarmac.

The car stopped near a private jet.  They exited and Sam was already on his way to the jet, walking ahead of them like an excited puppy.  The staff of the plane grabbed his bags from the trunk of the car.  Karl got out and told the staff he would carry his own luggage.  E watched this and smiled, gaining a certain amount of respect.

She hung back until Karl came around.  She had some questions she wanted to ask him.  “Is he always like that?”

Karl raised an eyebrow as the two walked toward the plane together.  “Like what?”

“You know,” She said trying to be sensitive.  “All that mad scientist talk in the car.”

Karl grinned.  “You tell me.”

She could tell what he was getting at.  “Look, he wasn’t like that the first night, he knew all the right things to say.  He was just, I don’t know, different.”

Karl nodded.  “I know, Sam’s ADD is pretty bad.  He has a hard time focusing or staying on any one subject.  He can only pull it together when he’s researching or …”

 E looked at him quizzically.  “Or?”

Karl turned and smiled.  “Or trying to get a woman to sleep with him.”

E frowned and ignored the last part.  “So this is the reason for the quests?”

Karl chuckled.  “So Dan warned you about us, huh?”

E shook her head.  “He didn’t have to, you two are infamous throughout the company.  No one will work with you two.”

Karl smiled at her.  “And yet, you’re here.  Why is that?”

E thought of her lonely one bedroom apartment and her lack of friends or romantic prospects and couldn’t help but smile.  “I guess I needed a change.”

****

The plane ride from New York to Cairo was more than long.  Karl and E chatted after they took off while the two beautiful stewardesses took turns turning down Sam’s advances.

E found Sam’s change interesting.  His passes at the two women were perfectly timed and his words rolled off his silver tongue in a way that E marveled at the women’s ability to turn him down.

Her main interest, however, was Karl.  He was soft spoken and hard lined but had the face of an old soldier with more scars than he cared to talk about.  His eyes, on the other hand where hawk-like and no matter how into the conversation with E he became, she could tell he was also always watching Sam.  He was, without a doubt, Sam’s caretaker.

She could feel he was attracted to her and she shared the feeling Karl was her type in every way, with the exception of the fact that she knew, without a doubt, that to commit to Karl was to commit to Sam.

It wasn’t long before sleep took the three of them.

E slowly began to wake from a perfect dreamless sleep, she heard the two stewardesses talking back and forth in Arabic.  Unfortunately, she wasn’t as fluent in Arabic as she was in other languages.  They seemed to be resolved to do something and to agree that now was a good time to do it.

E listened harder, stirring and focusing on the fast words tumbling out of their mouths, trying to use her brain to translate.  What were they talking about?  Something about parachuting or skydiving?  Then the one took her coat off and revealed a small parachute harnessed around her body.  The one with her coat still on said something about the sexy one.  E assumed they were referring to Sam…

E sat up and squinted at them, they both turned to her and froze.

“Did you just say ‘killed’?” E asked.

The next part happened so fast it was hard for E to follow.

****

Karl had been awake for some time but continued to feign sleep.  He watched as the two stewardesses seemed to converse in hurried Arabic.  He couldn’t understand what they were saying but he had an idea.  Then, when he saw the one drop her coat to reveal a thin, covert parachute backpack, he knew they were all in trouble.  He was seconds from making his move when he felt Ethel sit up next to him and ask them.  “Did you just say ‘killed’?”

The one closest to Karl with her coat still on raised her hand and a medium sized throwing knife slid from its hiding place in her sleeve and into her palm.

She hurled it with deadly perfection at E’s head.

Karl’s reflexes were put to the test as he lashed out his hand and snatched the blade out of the air.  He caught the thing by the blade and it cut into his palm.

He ignored the pain.

Karl was already in motion and the two would-be assassins were caught completely by surprise.  Karl wheeled into a high back-spin kick.  His heel connecting with the ones temple, the blow was hard and absolute.  She spiraled through the air crashing into the sleeping Sam.

Sam woke screaming as the unconscious body dropped on top of him, “WHAT THE HELL?!”

Karl turned as the second assassin charged, knife in hand, she stabbed for his abdomen.  Karl dropped the blade he had caught to free up his hand.  He caught her wrist and placed a hard front-kick to the woman’s mid section.

She flew across the plane and crashed into the exit door.

“Seriously, what is going on?!”  Sam screamed as he stood and whirled.

Karl focused on the assassin.  “Who are you?  Who sent you?”

She began to speak Arabic at an alarming rate, E still sitting and near shock tried to translate.  “She’s saying you’re dead.  That we are all dead…”

Karl maintained focus on the woman.  “It’s over, you have no options left.”

The assassin stood and laughed then grabbed a safety bar and stood to the side of the door before using her other hand to grip the emergency hatch release lever.

Karl’s eyes widened.  “Wait!  Don’t!”  was all he could manage to say before she torqued  the lever, popping the hatch and breaking the seal on the pressurized cabin, sending the door spinning into the air.  The plane shook and the sudden rush of air flooded the cabin, sucking everything toward the opening.  Sam leapt, just in time to grab the base of the chair he had slept in.  It was bolted to the plane and wasn’t going anywhere.

Karl managed to catch Sam’s foot as the air pressure lifted him into the air.  E had no idea what was going on and was pulled from her seat.  She screamed as Karl reached out and caught her hand as she flew past him.  The three hung there in mid-air as the plane suddenly began to dive to get low enough to balance the pressure.

Karl looked up and saw his brother’s grip slipping.  They wouldn’t make it low enough before they would all be pulled through the opening and fall to their deaths.  Karl had to think fast.  He looked back toward the stewardess who remained standing right next to the door holding on and laughing as she watched the three’s hope diminish.

Karl had an idea.

He looked down at E who now floated there in front of him, her eyes begging him not to let go.

“Do you trust me?!” Karl Yelled to her.

“I just met you!” She yelled back.

Karl frowned.  “That’s gonna have to do.”

Karl took a deep breath and let go…

TO BE CONTINUED…