Love & Chaos 2: A New Pharaoh for Egypt

Chapter 15

Destination Ahead

Zia

"Alright, ladies and gents," came Carter's voice over the loud speakers. "Welcome to Cairo, Egypt!"

Zia groaned and rolled out of bed, looking out the porthole window as they descended. Sure enough, there was Cairo. They would be meeting with Amos Kane in a few hours, but first they had to figure out where to set up camp for the next month. This was it. This was where their journey really began.

"You ready?" Sadie asked from across the room.

She sighed, sitting up. "Yeah, ready as I'll ever be."

"So, what time are we meeting with Mr. Kane?" asked Liz, taking a bite of toast. She was certainly in a better mood after hanging out with Leo the previous night, which meant that they all had a substantially lower chance of getting their heads bitten off that day.

Carter sipped his coffee before replying, "At one o'clock for lunch. He's been in touch, says he's ready to take us to the first Nome."

"Amazing," the Poseidon girl replied through a mouthful of bread.

Zia couldn't help but notice how comfortable they'd gotten with one another in the past couple of weeks. Half the girls hadn't bothered to put on bras yet that morning, no one had a problem talking with their mouth full or skipping the concept of brushing hair or teeth until after they'd already eaten. They were taking food off one another's plates, sharing glasses of orange juice, and still wearing the pajamas. It was fine and all, except that Zachary Goode hadn't so much as bothered with a shirt that particular morning, and he was attracting quite a bit of attention from most of the girls.

"So, that's in five hours," Leo pointed out. "What do we do until then?"

"Finish breakfast, get washed up, then park our boat somewhere a little ways away from the city. Now, this is Egypt, so I've printed out some notes on the culture for everyone to look over and familiarize themselves with. Remember that we are going into these people's home country and asking them to do something that's incredibly ridiculous, given that they're either Muslim or Christian. The old gods mean nothing anymore to them. But," Annabeth added to lighten it up, "there are a good portion of them who have pharaoh blood in them, which of course makes them - "

"Magicians," Carter finished. "Egyptians are very respectful, and it would do us well not to force anything upon them. The point is to make them see that we only want to help, not cause an uprising. The government will take a little longer to infiltrate, but given that we've got eyes in the UN - "

"They'll be doing a hell of a lot of convincing on their end while we do the recruiting on ours. Diplomacy is going to be key," Zachary continued on. "Which I think is why we are so deeply intertwined in this. I've contacted some CIA agents who've been in Cairo for a while now, and they're willing to help us with anything so long as The Circle is involved. And of course, there's the CTC and CTITF, who are all about taking down the organization once and for all. Then, we put in a sort of protection over the rest - "

"Of the mortals who aren't fighting. Similar technique as with Camp Jupiter, with their own Terminus statues for an extra measure of safety." Reyna pulled out her own stack of papers, passing them around. "These are some rituals that will easily put a protection charm over the mortals, which should keep them out of Chaos' line of sight. So, once we set up base, I'm sure we'll be alright. Now, it's important to keep in mind that our overall goal will be - "

"To reestablish the Egyptian empire. We will have to find someone to stand as a pharaoh, which we would have figured to be Amos Kane, but we know from Iskandar, the Chief Lector is not at all the same thing as a Pharaoh. Rather, they are the head of magicians and an advisor for the Pharaoh. That will be a later established issue, though, of course. For now, we just need to follow these plans and schedules that I've laid out for us." It was Liz's turn to pass papers around. "It's just a loose format, but I'm hoping - "