Samir Fahmi

Samir is the youngest son of Ahmed and Reem Fahmi, two Egyptian emigrants to England. He has an older brother and his first-born older sister. He was born in London, England. He is an art and artifact smuggler and a grad student at Oxford University, where he is an Egyptian archaeology student.

Samir was always bright, but his talents and interests generally lie in unprofitable areas. While doing well in subjects like statistics and chemistry, he never found them particular interesting. Instead, Samir had a deep passion for history, language, and the ancient world. As a kid, he devoured books on ancient history and mythology, and his reading and writing abilities surpassed that of most of his peers.

As he went through his primary and secondary education, his outlook didn’t change, and he continued to throw himself into his history and language classes. When it was time for him to look at colleges, he had already decided his future was as an archaeologist. This, of course, troubled his parents, who wanted him to go into finance or medicine. They thought his liberal arts degree wouldn’t be worth the price.

Ultimately, they were right. Samir loved his classes, and continued with his education, finishing college and enrolling at Cambridge University for his undergraduate degree, and Oxford for his graduate years.

His parents, however, decide not to fund what they believe is a useless education. Samir’s sister, who is in law school, needs the money more, they argue, and will likely repay them in the future for their help. Samir can’t really argue. He also isn’t really surprised.

But Samir’s already in the hole, and he’s set himself down a narrow path. And so, he continues his education, taking out loans as he needs to and living paycheck to paycheck. One summer, however, he signs up for a particular dig, working in Saqqarah. The dig is going slowly, but surely, as the team starts pulling up small artifacts -- beads, small pots; nothing of major significance, but enough to keep the dig going. Samir is tasked with cleaning and categorizing their finds, and, as an epigraphist, transcribe any inscriptions found to paper.

The dig is par for the course. That all changes, however, a week before the dig ends. Given Egypt's strict alcohol laws, the crew only knows a handful of places to get a drink. Roughly once a week, the members take turns going into Cairo and buying a few cases of beer and handles of liquor to bring back to the site. One Friday night, Samir is a few drinks in and wondering where the dig coordinator is -- largely because he owes Samir for the expansive bottle of bourbon he bought him.

Samir approaches his tent, and is already opening it before hearing the voices on the other side. In the tent, he's face-to-face with the coordinator, as well as three strange men he hasn't seen at the site before. There's a wad of cash in the coordinator's hand, a brief case of beads and jewelry on the table, and a gun in Samir's face. Not wanting to be shot in head, and looking to make some extra cash, he deescalates the situation by offering to help. 

Samir ends up stumbling into an art smuggling ring larger than he first imagined. His quick wits and familiarity with Egyptian/Near Eastern archaeology make him quite valuable in this new world, since he is able to access, authenticate, and appraise, and also has direct connections to several dig sites across Egypt and the Middle East.

For all intents and purposes, life is finally good. He's finishing his dissertation, paying off his loans, and blowing the rest of it on whatever he wants.

This is until, for a second time, Samir is again in the very wrong place at the very wrong time. He's in Turkey, meeting with one of his regular clients, a smuggler that operated between Europe and the Middle East. It was a standard affair: they were to meet in the upstairs of a hidden lounge, where Samir would examine the artifacts, appraise them, and make an offer on behalf of his employer.
After he's acquired the goods, he excuses himself to lock the cuneiform tablets in his hotel room and confer with his boss. Before his boss even picks up the line, Samir hears a strange noise from behind the door. He panics, having the sense that something is horribly wrong, and that he should high-tail it out of there. When he hears talking, however, he opens the door in spite of himself. On the other side is Gijs, removing a knife from Samir's client, and Jaakko, who already has a pistol on him.

But the former's attention is on the briefcase in Samir's hand. He asks what Samir has, and Samir opens it, explaining that they're Sumerian tablets, covered in Cuneiform, and worth a couple thousand dollars each. Gijs, despite complaints from Jaakko, is oddly fascinated by the tablets, and also intrigued by the prospect of a new enterprise. He says he knows art dealers and collectors, and that he would make it worth Samir's while if he left one team for another. Jaakko seems to be looking for an excuse to kill him, and Samir really doesn't think it's an offer. And so, Samir is suddenly in charge of his own operation, working under the (loose) direction of Gijs...While also working on his dissertation. Of course.

Samir is bright, witty, and charming. He is fun to talk to, full of old tales and myths, and well as his own stories from his travels and time spent on archaeological sites. Combined with his good looks, he comes across as dashing, adventurous, intrepid. He likes to spend his newfound wealth, frequenting bars and taverns, visiting fancy restaurants, and accumulating up an expensive wardrobe. Despite his philandering and artifact smuggling, he really isn't the dandy he likes to pretend he is. He's ruined many dates by talking too much about his research, or retelling some weird Egyptian myth, or complaining about some historical inaccuracy in a movie. He also gets squeamish around violence. He can work a gun, but he generally chickens out when he needs to use it. He generally relies on the protection of the more tactically talented of the [] gang. His areas of expertise are the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, Egyptian epigraphy, and hieroglyphs. In addition, he's very familiar with Sumerian and Persian art and culture. He also has a lot of tangential knowledge on the Greco-Roman world, and took Latin during his high school and undergraduate years.

At five-foot-eleven, Samir is a little taller than average. Working on dig sites keeps him fit, but he's hardly well-built. However, he has a pretty face, a head full of dark, curly hair, and big, brown eyes (T30). Handsome enough to get himself into trouble.

His unique position provides Gijs with another stream of revenue, but a wealth of information. Because of Gijs’ reputation, many don’t place Samir as one of his men, and Samir uses this to get dirt that other members of the group don’t have access to.