(Revised)

In San Francisco, the SSC women made plans for their undercover activities involving the exhibit of ancient Egyptian artifacts at the De Wolfe Museum, an exhibit which would include the forged Nefertiti items and other forged artifacts. Beth was absent because she remained in Las Vegas with her lover Hans. Alan thought Vincent Prize was planning a major theft of artifacts from the exhibit, and not only because of the value of the items; he believed that Vincent took pleasure in causing problems for Interpol and the U.S. Justice Department. The group discussed ways to stop Tasha's latest scams from succeeding.

Tasha looked forward to the debut of her cosmetics line, now called All Natural Egyptian Cosmetics, at a major beauty products trade show in San Francisco that would coincide with the timing of the museum exhibit. She hoped to leverage the publicity from her "descendant of
Nefertiti" at the exhibit with the marketing of the cosmetics line. However, she was so busy working on her memoirs that she left the trade show planning up to three of her stressed and overworked associates, Dr. Jen Errick, Garth and Cleopatra. Although they griped about it
privately, they put their heads together to decide how best to market the cosmetics line to store buyers. They decided to attract more traffic to her booth with free food, her Special Recipe Onion Rings. After brainstorming it, they also came up with the idea of a free gift that would include every enviro-green-buzzword they could think of, the "Bonus Organic Free-Trade Vegetable-Dyed Cotton Biodegradable Multi-Tote Bag."

After he was released from the hospital, Hans moved to an isolated house near Las Vegas. Beth remained in a Vegas hotel but spent most of her time with him, and their affair deepened in intensity. Hans began to relax, perhaps too much.  He told Beth his real name, Hans Richter, and some details about his life. Both of them continued to try to ignore the fact that they were on opposite sides of the law and that an eventual showdown was unavoidable.

Instead, Hans and Beth behaved as if they were on a dreamlike vacation; they went sightseeing, went riding often at a horse ranch, and spent every night together at his house. They listened to music, and he charmed her by revealing his musical talent and playing piano works of Debussy and Ravel. Throughout it all, Hans maintained a powerful erotic hold over Beth. For her part, Beth loved him, but less than he loved her. She began to resist his urging for a more permanent relationship, now that she knew who he really was and how he had made the money to live in such an upscale way.  She also began to feel a nagging guilt about being involved with him.

Then Beth received an oblique order from Alan to return to San Francisco to fulfill her security duties at the museum exhibit. She admitted the truth to herself then; it  meant she would have to break up with Hans, otherwise she would be fired from the SSC as a security risk. The thought of leaving a man who loved her so much filled her with despair, but she thought she had a solution. She gathered her courage and decided to risk Hans' anger. Tearfully she urged him to betray his underworld organization and come over to her side so they could remain together. He refused, revealing to her during a lacerating argument just how experienced and hardened he was, and she left him. Each of them felt cruelly hurt and crushed by the other.

Beth then returned to San Francisco. Hysterical with grief, she was brought under control by Alan, who debriefed her on the intel she had gotten from Hans and assured her she still had a job to do with the SSC.

Alan made meticulous plans, and gave the Cell members their museum undercover assignments: security work for Jesse, photography for Belle, artifact authentication for Vicki, home communications monitoring for Beth, museum tour guide work for Marcia and Cher, and a cleaning woman disguise for Claudia. Alan kept his own role a secret. Then he began the methodical process of out-thinking his adversary. He speculated that the first thing Vincent would try to steal would be Tutankhamen's Book of the Dead. Alan suspected that this action would be a diversion from the theft of the as-yet-unknown artifact Vincent really wanted.

Tasha and her entourage set out in their specially built Hummezine on the road trip from Nevada to San Francisco, bringing along fruit snacks and some of their specially bred baby Giant Nutria in pet carriers; they hoped to sell the nutria to a Silicon Valley bio-technology startup company for genetic manipulation with mink genes. Tasha adroitly lied to the handsome young State Agricultural Inspector at the California border, insisting they were not transporting any fresh produce and that the animals in the pet carriers were purebred cats en route to a cat show. They went sightseeing along the way, going to the town of Zzyzx among other interesting places, and decided it would be fun to investigate landmarks on historic Route 66.

Hans had a nervous breakdown after Beth left him. While riding alone in the desert he met a mysterious woman named Angel, who appeared out of nowhere on a magnificent white Andalusian horse. She comforted him and tried to inspire him, although she was unable to be optimistic about his future. A couple of days later, Vincent attempted to kill Hans in a drive-by shooting at the Las Vegas house.  Furious, Hans grabbed his Remington rifle, jumped into his BMW 550i and pursued Vincent at high speed. Hans was moments away from shooting Vincent and his two associates when a sign from Angel caused him to reconsider; he allowed Vincent and his men to escape. 

Having had a slight change of heart,  Hans then requested a secret meeting with Alan in the Nevada desert. Alan agreed and flew there alone in his Cessna 350 Corvalis aircraft. The meeting was somewhat hostile.  Hans carried two guns, and was tense and short-tempered. He evaded most of Alan's questions. However,  he did give Alan some useful forgery exposure technology. He also dropped some hints that made Alan think there was another, unknown group of anti-Suleimanites somewhere who were secretly working against Tasha. Finally, Hans gave Alan a tiny sound recording chip which he said would be important to the museum exhibit, although he refused to say how.

Two of Vincent Prize's underlings, Sergio Peccato and Cuthbert Cathcart, staged an elaborate rehearsal in rural Nevada for Vincent's planned theft of rare and valuable antique cars from an auto museum in San Francisco. They practiced on cars from Vincent's private collection: autos from the 1930s period, a Buick Aero LaSalle, Buick Roadmaster 80-C, Duesenberg Phaeton and Auburn Salon Cabriolet.

The journey of Tasha and her entourage was interrupted briefly when they heard a strange noise on top of their vehicle and discovered that they had a scary stowaway, a giant Albino Burmese Python hiding under the tarp. They decided it had been attracted by the scent of Tasha's irresistible onion rings. Luckily it slithered away without harming them. Tasha began to have a caffeine fit and demanded that her crew find her a Starbucks store on the double.