Death on Tour - Janice Hamrick [104]
He nodded. “I think she figured out Fiona and Flora right away. She may not have known the extent of their plans. In fact, I don’t see how she could have, but having found the statue, she knew enough to ruin their trip and possibly get them arrested. They couldn’t take that risk. She was a dead woman the instant she opened their bag.”
“And what about Mohammad? Did they ever catch him?”
“Almost immediately. He might have escaped if he’d left Karnak and never looked back, but he wasn’t prepared to do that. He wasn’t even carrying his passport, much less any money. He decided to sneak back onto the ship to get his things, and of course the police were waiting for him.”
I digested this. “You know, he might have been involved in the smuggling, but he never wanted anyone hurt. He really seemed appalled by Fiona and Flora’s activities.”
“Yes, murder was never supposed to be part of the plan. And from his point of view, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. He wasn’t in the same league with them in terms of ruthlessness, not that it will matter much when it comes to prison time over there.”
I thought back to the conversation at Karnak. “Fiona and Flora seemed to know him pretty well.”
Alan smiled his attractive smile. I thought he looked exceptionally good on my back porch. “This wasn’t the first time they’d worked for him.”
“They worked for him? After hearing them talk to him at Karnak, I thought it was the other way around.”
“Oh no. This was Mohammad’s deal all along. He came up with the plan, he made the contacts, he arranged the transfers. Then all he needed was someone who could play the part of a tourist and collect the items. It was very clever, deciding to use tour groups for smuggling purposes. Very low risk.”
“Low risk? You’re kidding, right?”
“Not at all. You’ve seen how tour groups are treated. One big happy family. Luggage scooped up all together, identities vouched for by the tour guide. If the luggage is inspected at all, it’s very cursory. And everyone expects to see all kinds of fake Egyptian crap in tourist luggage. How easy would it be to throw in one or two real pieces? It would take an expert eye to notice one authentic item in a load of fakes.”
I blushed a little. “I suspected DJ, as a matter of fact. He was buying so much worthless stuff. And once I read Millie’s journal and started thinking about smuggling, he moved to the top of my list. I feel bad about it.”
“Well, you had company. I thought the same thing for a while.” He reached down to pet Belle. “It was an easy mistake to make, or at least I hope it was. Anyway, Mohammad was WorldPal’s chief director in Egypt, and he was ideally placed to set up exchanges and contacts. We were even paying him to scout out locations and make local contacts. In fact, if he hadn’t gotten greedy, he could have done it for years.”
“Greedy?”
“He thought he found the ultimate smugglers in Fiona and Flora. Looking over our records, they’ve been on at least two other WorldPal Egyptian tours. And from what has come out in the investigation, they were apparently quite good at fencing stolen items. With their abilities, I think Mohammad was planning to repeat his little scam indefinitely. Everyone was getting rich, and it was seemingly foolproof. He had no idea Anni had become suspicious and had contacted me.”
“It just seemed so elaborate. All those people involved. I don’t see how he could have kept it going without getting caught.”
“To be honest, I think the previous trips were on a much smaller scale—I suspect they just took out one or two small items. But Fiona and Flora had decided to retire and apparently they told him this would be their last trip. He decided that he would arrange as many exchanges as he could. If the statue that got Millie killed was the only goal, they would have gotten away with it. But Mohammad had something set up in nearly every place we stopped, and they couldn’t handle it. I’m sure you noticed that Flora was getting a little … confused at times.”
“I wondered about that. I thought it