05 - The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (6 page)

Both of us were babbling. We both felt so relieved that he wasn’t chasing us—and so embarrassed that we had run away from him.

“Your father sent me to get you,” Ahmed said, his dark eyes trained on me. “I
didn’t think I’d have to chase you through the whole museum.”

“Sorry,” Sari and I said in unison.

I felt like a complete jerk. I’m sure Sari did, too.

“Daddy came back to the hotel and saw Gabe’s note?” Sari asked, straightening
her hair with her hand as she moved away from the wall.

“Yes.” Ahmed nodded.

“He got back from the hospital awfully fast,” Sari said, glancing at her
wrist watch.

“Yes,” Ahmed replied again. “Come. I will take you back to the hotel. He is
waiting for you there.”

We followed him in silence, Sari and I walking side by side a few steps
behind him.

As we made our way down the long stairway, we glanced sheepishly at each
other. We were both feeling really foolish for running away like that.

A short while later, we were back on the crowded, noisy sidewalk, an unending
stream of cars honking past, all moving in starts and stops, drivers hanging out
of car windows, shouting and shaking their fists.

Ahmed checked to make sure we were with him, then turned right and began
leading the way through the crowd. The sun was high over the buildings now. The
air was hot and humid.

“Hey, wait—” I called.

Ahmed turned back, but kept walking.

“We’re going the wrong way,” I called to him, shouting over the cries of a
street peddler behind a cart of vegetables. “The hotel is back that way.” I
pointed.

Ahmed shook his head. “My car is just up there.”

“We’re driving back to the hotel?” Sari asked, her voice revealing her
surprise.

“It’s only two blocks,” I said to Ahmed. “Sari and I could walk back by
ourselves if you want. You really don’t have to take us.”

“It is no trouble,” Ahmed replied, and he placed his hands firmly, one on my
shoulder, one on Sari’s, and continued to guide us to his car.

We crossed the street and continued walking. The sidewalk grew even more
crowded. A man swinging a leather briefcase accidentally clipped my shoulder with it. I cried out in pain.

Sari laughed.

“You have a great sense of humor,” I muttered sarcastically.

“I know,” she replied.

“If we’d walked, we would have been at the hotel already,” I said.

Ahmed must have overheard, because he said, “The car’s in the next block.”

We made our way quickly through the crowds. A short while later, Ahmed
stopped at a small, four-door station wagon. It was covered with dust, and the
fender on the driver’s side was crunched.

He pulled open the back door, and Sari and I piled in. “Ow,” I complained.
The leather seats were burning hot.

“The wheel is hot, too,” Ahmed said, climbing in and fastening his seat belt.
He touched the steering wheel a few times with both hands, trying to get used to
the heat. “They should invent a car that stays cool inside when it is parked.”

The engine started on the second try, and he pulled away from the curb and
into the line of traffic.

Immediately, he began honking the horn at the car in front of us. We moved
slowly, stopping every few seconds, through the narrow street.

“I wonder why Daddy didn’t come to get us,” Sari said to me, her eyes on the
crowds passing by the dusty car window.

“He said he would wait for you at the hotel,” Ahmed replied from the front
seat.

He made a sudden sharp turn onto a wider avenue and began to pick up speed.

It took me a long while to realize that we were heading in the wrong
direction—
away
from our hotel. “Uh… Ahmed… I think the hotel is
back that way,” I said, pointing toward the back window.

“I believe you are mistaken,” he replied softly, staring straight ahead
through the windshield. “We will be there shortly.”

“No. Really,” I insisted.

One thing about me is I have a really good sense of direction. Mom and Dad
always say they don’t need a map when I’m around. I almost always know when I’m
heading the wrong way.

Sari turned to glance at me, an expression of concern beginning to tighten
her features.

“Settle back and enjoy the ride,” Ahmed said, staring at me through the
rearview mirror. “Have you fastened your seat belts? Better do it right now.”

He had a smile on his face, but his voice was cold. His words sounded like a
threat.

“Ahmed, we’ve gone too far,” I insisted, starting to feel really afraid.

Outside the window, the buildings were lower, more rundown. We seemed to be
heading away from the downtown area.

“Just settle back,” he replied with growing impatience. “I know where I’m
going.”

Sari and I exchanged glances. She looked as worried as I did. We both
realized that Ahmed was lying to us. He wasn’t taking us to the hotel. He was
taking us out of town.

We were being kidnapped.

Seeing Ahmed’s eyes on me in the rearview mirror, I fiddled with the seat
belt, pretending to fasten it. As I did this, I leaned close to Sari and
whispered in her ear, “Next time he stops.”

At first she didn’t get my meaning. But then I saw that she understood.

We both sat tensely, eyes on the door handles, waiting in silence.

“Your father is a very smart man,” Ahmed said, staring at Sari in the mirror.

“I know,” Sari replied in a tiny voice.

The traffic slowed, then stopped.

“Now!” I screamed.

We both grabbed for the door handles.

I pushed my door open and flung myself out of the car.

Horns were honking in front of me and behind me. I could hear Ahmed’s
surprised shout.

Leaving the car door open, I turned to see that Sari had made it to the
street, too. She turned to me as she slammed her door shut, her eyes wide with fear.

Without a word, we started to run.

The car horns seemed to grow louder as we headed into a narrow side street.
We were running side by side, following the narrow brick street as it curved
between two rows of tall, white stucco buildings.

I feel like a rat in a maze, I thought.

The street grew even narrower. Then it emptied into a wide circle filled with
a small market of fruit and vegetable stands.

“Is he following us?” Sari cried, a few steps behind me now.

I turned back and searched for him, my eyes darting through the small crowd
attending the market.

I saw several people in flowing white robes. Two women entered the market,
dressed in black, carrying a basket loaded high with bananas. A boy on a bicycle
swerved to keep from running straight into them.

“I don’t see him,” I called back to Sari.

But we kept running just to make sure.

I’d never been so scared in my life.

Please,
please,
I begged silently, don’t let him be following us.
Don’t let him catch us!

Turning a corner, we found ourselves on a wide, busy avenue. A truck bounced
past, pulling a trailer filled with horses. The sidewalk was crowded with shoppers and
businesspeople.

Sari and I pushed our way through them, trying to lose ourselves in the
crowd.

Finally, we came to a stop near the entrance of what appeared to be a large
department store. Breathing hard, I rested my hands on my knees, leaned forward,
and tried to catch my breath.

“We’ve lost him,” Sari said, staring back in the direction from which we’d
come.

“Yeah. We’re okay,” I said happily. I smiled at her, but she didn’t return
the smile.

Her face was filled with fear. Her eyes continued to stare into the crowd.
One hand tugged nervously at a strand of her hair.

“We’re okay,” I repeated. “We got away.”

“There’s only one problem,” she said quietly, her eyes still on the crowd
bustling toward us on the sidewalk.

“Huh? Problem?”

“Now we’re lost,” she replied, finally turning to face me. “We’re lost, Gabe.
We don’t know where we are.”

I suddenly had a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I started to utter a
frightened cry.

But I forced myself to hold it in.

I forced myself to pretend I wasn’t afraid.

Sari had always been the brave one, the winner, the champ. And I was always
the wimp. But now I could see that she was really scared. This was my chance to be the cool
one, my chance to show her who was really the champ.

“No problem,” I told her, gazing up at the tall glass and concrete buildings.
“We’ll just ask somebody to direct us to the hotel.”

“But no one speaks English!” she cried, sounding as if she were about to cry.

“Uh… no problem,” I said, a little less cheerily. “I’m sure someone…”

“We’re lost,” she repeated miserably, shaking her head. “Totally lost.”

And then I saw the answer to our problem parked at the curb. It was a taxi,
an empty taxi.

“Come on,” I said, tugging her arm. I pulled her to the taxi. The driver, a
thin, young man with a wide black mustache and stringy black hair falling out of
a small gray cap, turned around in surprise as Sari and I climbed into the back
seat.

“The Cairo Center Hotel,” I said, glancing reassuringly at Sari.

The driver stared back at me blankly, as if he didn’t understand.

“Please take us to the Cairo Center Hotel,” I repeated slowly and clearly.

And then he tossed back his head, opened his mouth, and started to laugh.

The driver laughed till tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

Sari grabbed my arm. “He’s working for Ahmed,” she whispered, squeezing my
wrist. “We’ve walked right into a trap!”

“Huh?” I felt a stab of fear in my chest.

I didn’t think she was right.

She
couldn’t
be right!

But I didn’t know what else to think.

I grabbed the door handle and started to leap out of the taxi. But the driver
raised a hand, signaling for me to stop.

“Gabe—
go
!” Sari pushed me hard from behind.

“Cairo Center Hotel?” the driver asked suddenly, wiping the tears from his
eyes with a finger. Then he pointed through the windshield. “Cairo Center
Hotel?”

Sari and I both followed his finger.

There was the hotel. Right across the street.

He started to laugh again, shaking his head.

“Thanks,” I shouted, and climbed out.

Sari scrambled out behind me, a wide, relieved smile on her face. “I don’t
think it’s
that
funny,” I told her. “The cab driver has a strange sense
of humor.”

I turned back. The driver was still staring at us, a broad smile on his face.

“Come on,” she urged, tugging at my arm. “We have to tell Daddy about Ahmed.”

But to our surprise, our hotel room was empty. My note was still on the table
where I had left it. Nothing had been moved or touched.

“He hasn’t been back here,” Sari said, picking up my note and crumpling it
into a ball in her hand. “Ahmed lied—about everything.”

I flopped down on the couch with a loud sigh. “I wonder what’s going on,” I
said unhappily. “I just don’t get it.”

Sari and I both screamed as the door to the room flew open.

“Daddy!” Sari cried, running to hug him.

I was sure glad it was Uncle Ben, and not Ahmed.

“Daddy, the strangest thing—” Sari started.

Uncle Ben had his arm around her shoulder. As he led her across the room
toward the couch, I could see that he had a really dazed expression on his face.

“Yes, it’s strange,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Both of my workers…”

“Huh? Are they okay?” Sari asked.

“No. Not really,” Uncle Ben replied, dropping onto the arm of the armchair,
staring hard but not really focusing on me. “They’re both… in a state of
shock. I guess that’s how to describe it.”

“They were in an accident? In the pyramid?” I asked.

Uncle Ben scratched the bald spot at the back of his head. “I don’t really
know. They can’t talk. They’re both… speechless. I think something—or
someone—frightened them. Scared them speechless. The doctors are completely
confused. They said that—”

“Daddy, Ahmed tried to kidnap us!” Sari interrupted, squeezing his hand.

“What? Ahmed?” He narrowed his eyes, his forehead wrinkling up in confusion.
“What do you mean?”

“Ahmed. The guy at the pyramid. The one who wears the white suits with the
red bandanna and always carries the clipboard,” Sari explained.

“He told us you sent him to get us,” I said. “He came to the museum—”

“Museum?” Uncle Ben climbed to his feet. “What were you doing at the museum?
I thought I told you—”

“We had to get out of here,” Sari said, putting a hand on her dad’s shoulder,
trying to calm him. “Gabe wanted to see mummies, so we went to the museum. But
Ahmed came and took us to his car. He said he was taking us to you at the hotel.”

“But he was driving the wrong way,” I continued the story. “So we jumped out
and ran away.”

“Ahmed?” Uncle Ben kept repeating the name, as if he just couldn’t believe
it. “He came to me with excellent credentials and references,” he said. “He’s a
cryptographer. He studies ancient Egyptian. He’s mainly interested in the wall
writings and symbols we uncover.”

“So why did he come for us?” I asked.

“Where was he going to take us?” Sari asked.

“I don’t know,” Uncle Ben said. “But I certainly intend to find out.” He
hugged Sari. “What a mystery,” he continued. “You’re both okay?”

“Yeah. We’re okay,” I replied.

“I’ve got to get to the pyramid,” he said, letting go of Sari and walking to
the window. “I gave my workers the day off. But I’ve got to get to the bottom of
this.”

Clouds rolled over the sun. The room suddenly grew darker.

“I’ll order up some room service for you,” Uncle Ben said, a thoughtful
expression on his face. “Will you two be okay here till I get back tonight?”