Mysterious Cairo Read Online Free Page A

Mrs. Burban seemed a lot more animated, but nothing like the minx who had entered my office earlier. Though she was still frightfully attractive, she was less the fox now and more the she-wolf. I took note, but continued to listen.
    "When we entered the lab, I was grabbed from behind by a couple of Max's goons. One held my mouth shut and the other had my arms. But nothing covered my eyes.
    "I could see what they'd done to my father. They'd beaten him, and cut him, and they had him hooked up to some sort of electrical device. But I could tell he hadn't given them whatever it was they wanted. And Max ... Max just sat there smiling. He looked at my father, and then at me, and then back to my father. I had never recognized true evil until then."
    Jennie swallowed a sob and continued. I have to say, at that point, I was ready to believe just about anything. Even though she'd walked into my office ready to vamp me or do just about anything to get me to work for her, now, when it really mattered, I could tell she wouldn't resort to tears as a means to an end. She wasn't up to toying with my emotions that way.
    I respected that.
    "Max stood and sauntered over to my father, twirling a riding crop in one hand, the other hand deep in a suit pocket. I tried, but I couldn't hear what he whispered to my father, but it made his swollen eyes open and he stared at me and then swore — the first time I'd ever heard him swear — up and down at Max.
    "Max ignored him, and stared at me. I became aware that my robe was open and all I had underneath was a silk teddy. The way my 'Uncle Maxie' looked at me made me feel ... unclean. I struggled against the guards and started to cry.
    "I've had a lot of time to think about that evening, and I'm sure that that was what did it for my father. He saw his only daughter — the only thing in the world left of his beloved wife — struggling in the arms of two giant goons, being appraised like a slab of meat by a bipedal snake. He gave in."
    Jennie sighed and took out a cigarette. I offered to light it, but she just shook her head and toyed with it between her index finger and thumb. The way she stared at it, I developed an uncomfortable feeling with what it must be like to be under a hostile microscope. Finally, she continued.
    "Two weeks later, Max had his formula — but at a cost. My father, who must have felt tremendous guilt over what he had given the world, tried to hang himself. He was foiled, however, by one of the very scientists who had turned him in originally. Still, he had done enough damage to be critical — he was paralyzed from the neck down.
    "But he had done his job."
    A single tear leaked from an emerald eye and ran down a marble face. Again, Jennie seemed not to notice her own feeling. She shuddered, and carefully put the cigarette back in her purse.
    "That was when he became the hostage."
    The rest I could guess; it was typical of these "Terran villains." Unable—or unwilling—to find a female who possessed a perversion equal to their own, they somehow blackmail innocent women into debauchery, or, in this case, marriage. In order to guarantee her father's medical care, Jennie had to submit to the indignity of ... marrying Maxwell R. Burban. Being a loving daughter and, apparently, a guilt-ridden one, she did so.
    The necklace, a wedding present, was an additional guarantee. If Jennie tried to take revenge on her new husband—at least a final sort of revenge, for I was of the opinion that Jennie did everything else possible — the necklace would kill her. She didn't know where Max had gotten it, and she really didn't feel like discussing it.
    Anyway, soon after marrying Burban, now "Husband Maxie" got an invitation to join with Dr. Mobius in dominating "the Tenth Empire of the Nile." Apparently, Max had been supplying Mobius with Terran contacts all throughout his thirty-some-odd-years as a High Lord. Burban, his interest piqued, agreed to join in.
    Knowing the hatred that his wife