The Curse (20 page)

Somewhere between a woman jumping in front of a subway in New York and a man flying off the side of a medieval tower, I lost my own common sense.

I couldn't have played into Rafi's hand any better than with my own big mouth and arrogance.

I needed to get back in control.

I took a taxi back to the Hyatt hotel where Rafi had dropped me off earlier, and then registered.

After I visited my room, I went back down to the lobby and left by the side exit again. I walked a block before I got into another taxi that took me to an inexpensive hotel where I stayed when I first came to Egypt as a poor student to see firsthand some of the wonders of the ages.

Called Queen of the Nile, the hotel was safe, clean—at least it was a dozen years ago—and the only thing glamorous about it was the name.

By the time I reached the hotel, I was too tired and angry to care whether I had been followed.

41

The Queen of the Nile was located in a district that had both apartment and business buildings. It had an unusual setup—the lobby was on the ground floor, but the guest rooms were on floors fourteen to seventeen with residential apartments in between.

It hadn't changed at all since the last time I stayed there. Even the front desk clerk who pretended he remembered me from the past when I said I had stayed there was the same.

Getting off the elevator that seemed breathless and gasping after it lugged me all the way up to the seventeenth floor, I was happy to see that the emergency device in case of fire, earthquake, or whatever hadn't changed either: instead of having in a glass case a button that sets off an alarm, a key hung on a hook in the case.

In case of emergency, you broke the glass, grabbed the key, and used it to unlock the stairway door so you could run down seventeen flights of stairs. I took a picture of the key at the time because it was such a unique “emergency” system.

Being tracked and harassed from New York to England and now Cairo by computers, security cameras, and God knows what else, I could appreciate the low-tech device. I just wished the rest of my life was so simple.

I sat outside on the small balcony, drinking tea that I had delivered to my room, waiting for my phone to ring. I was a pawn waiting for the next move, reminding myself that just like lambs, pawns were also often sacrificed to win.

The city of Cairo was spread out below me, a golden haze in the background that I preferred to think of as dust from the surrounding desert rather than pollution. I gazed around, thinking about the magic and mystery of Egypt—the people whom I found to be quite friendly and generous, the pyramids that were magical, the archaeological sites that have been uncovered, and the ones still buried and waiting to be discovered by treasure seekers with trembling hands.

For a moment I forgot all about the troubles dogging me and focused on the splendors in front of me as the chant of a muezzin broadcasted from a minaret calling the faithful to prayer floated to me across the rooftops.

It didn't matter that the call was recorded and sent over loudspeakers—it was still mysterious and exotic.

I was glad that I had come back to the Queen of the Nile rather than staying at a modern hotel. It had so much more character and charm, and the rooms were simple but clean. The place was also peaceful and quiet, especially up here on the top floor. Even the crier summoning Muslims to prayer five times a day added to the alluring atmosphere of the place.

I lost track of time until I heard the muted knock on my door. I opened it and found a small cloth bag hanging from the door handle. Inside the bag I found a cell phone and an envelope.

I knew right away what the envelope contained—the third payment—all in hundred-dollar bills.

Crisp, new, neatly pressed hundreds.

It took me ten minutes, my loupe, years of examining objets d'art, and comparing the bundle of nice, new bills with a used hundred that I got from the hotel front desk clerk to find out that the whole lot of them were counterfeits, including the bills I had with me from New York.

I was livid.

Kaseem had dumped funny money on me.

I had been too broke back home to give the bills a close examination. Not that it mattered that I had passed counterfeit bills in the States—considering what the prison term would be in Egypt for doing it, and the condition of the prisons, I'd never live long enough to serve a second term in the United States.

What was the man trying to do?

A better question was how I had gotten myself into a position where every time I turned around since meeting him I was facing five to life.

Just as puzzling—
why funny money?

It hardly seemed worth it to pay me what must be chump change to a man like Kaseem who's the head of a political party that attracts rich people.

Ten minutes later I got a call from Kaseem.

“I provided the phone because yours will be monitored,” he said.

“Maybe you should also provide some truthful answers. You've lied to me about everything. My passport's been pulled and you can go to hell if you think I'll help you with anything.”

“Miss Dupre—”

“I'm going to turn this phone over to the police and let them use it to track the number you called from.”

“That won't do any good. My phone will be destroyed at the end of this call. For your own sake, you must listen to me.”

He was right. I had to at least listen to him.

“Talk,” I said.

“I'm sure by now you know that I am an Egyptian patriot.”

I bit my lip to keep from calling him a damn neo-Nazi on the run from his country's government.

“Regardless of what you think of my politics, no one accuses me of wanting anything but the best for my country.”

“Why don't you save the campaign speech for the next election. What are you going to do to get me out of the mess you've shoved me into?”

“I didn't intend for bad things to happen—”

“Yeah, right.”

“But we must deal with the situation. I have been contacted by the thieves who stole the scarab from Fatima. They have stated a price that is acceptable, but I have to make sure that the scarab is the real one and not one of the many forgeries floating around the city.”

“And that's where I come in.”

“Yes. You have received your third payment. However, I will double it if you examine the scarab.”

I made a vague listening response and didn't point out to the lying bastard that he could afford to give a suitcase full of money since it was counterfeit.

“Once the scarab is in my hands, I will again double your reward.”

Generous to a fault.

“And if the scarab turns out to be a fake?”

“Naturally, that wouldn't be your fault. You would be paid anyway.”

“What do I do with the money? Use it to stay in hotels because I can't leave the country?”

“Neither. Once I have the Heart of Egypt in my hand, I will turn it over to the people of Egypt. When that happens, any attempts by the authorities to manipulate you will collapse.”

“I see.” I didn't see, and was straining to keep my mouth shut to find out if I could learn any more from him.

“I regret the situation about your passport, but that will be straightened out. In the meantime, you are being well paid for—”

I lost it. “You dumped counterfeit money on me. Is that what you call being well paid?”

“Counterfeit?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes. Every damn one of them.

“That can't be.”

“Literally dripping wet from the printing press. You know what, Mr. Kaseem, I'm getting you out of my life. Don't call me again.”

I hung up and turned off my phone and went back out to the balcony in the hopes that the fresh air and peaceful atmosphere could help make some sense of the situation.

Kaseem's plan was that I would come to Egypt and authenticate an artifact for him, an artifact that the Egypt government also wanted.

At some point, I was to meet with killers and thieves, examine the piece, and get away without being murdered.

And if I managed to stay alive and jumped all the hurdles, I would be rewarded with funny money and share a cell with God knows who or what in a Cairo jail.

All the downsides were easy to see. What I couldn't grasp was an easy way out of what I had gotten myself into.

If I went to Rafi and the police, they would simply make me do the same thing that Kaseem wanted from me. For free.

And I was certain that the Egyptian police would be much less efficient at keeping me alive than Kaseem would—at least until Kaseem got with he wanted. Besides, if I double-crossed him, he'd simply kill me and get another expert.

I wasn't between a rock and a hard spot, but swimming frantically between a shark and a crocodile.

No matter which way I turned I was damned.

Stuck in a foreign country.

With no help from the American Embassy.

As usual when I have nowhere else to turn, I do what comes natural to me: I put one foot in front of the other and take cautious steps ahead, but also am ready to bolt and run if I have to.

So plunging ahead, I decided I had to leave my room and find out more about the scarab.

My first stop would be the Egyptian Museum. And I didn't dare leave the counterfeit money to be found by Egyptian police during a search or by a hotel maid cleaning up the room.

I cut a leg off of a pair of panty hose, spread the funny money inside it, tied it around my waist, and put my blouse on over it—an old traveler's trick for instantly creating a money belt.

In the Middle East, I always respect a tradition of modesty in female dress, so the improvised money belt wasn't noticeable by the time I got fully dressed in a loose fitting blouse and a long skirt with pockets.

42

I gave the taxi driver waiting in front of the hotel the name of a tourist hotel within walking distance from the Egyptian Museum, rather than the museum itself so I wouldn't signal my destination. For all I knew, every taxi driver in the city worked for Rafi or Kaseem.

We had driven for several minutes when I realized we were not heading for the museum area.

“Hey!” I snapped at him. “Wrong way.”

He turned in the seat and smiled, saying, “It's okay, okay,” and held up a small piece of paper with the sign of the Golden Nile on it. “Camel Market. It's okay.”

That seemed to be the limit of his English.

It wasn't okay with me, but I had two choices.

I could throw myself out of the taxi when it slowed going through an intersection or even when we came to an actual stop, which was usually in a confused herd of vehicles, and probably get run over by other cars on the jammed streets.

Or I could stick my head out the window and start screaming the next time we passed a traffic cop. I had no idea what good that would do me to shout in English at a cop who couldn't even follow the cab.

Dead or alive, I would attract a lot of attention. Not a good idea when I was carrying a life sentence in a stuffed panty hose leg.

I needed Kaseem and real money.

He needed me.

I sat back and hoped I didn't get murdered.

43

I'd never been to the Camel Market at Imbaba, a suburb of Cairo, but had heard of it. That camels were still traded in the modern city whose metro area was bulging with twenty million people seemed amazing until you drove a few miles up or down the Nile and realized that as soon as you left the city you had taken a time machine back to medieval days.

The taxi let me off a short walk from the market, with the driver using a little pidgin English and sign language to let me know he'd wait.

His belief that I was coming back was reassuring.

The market resided in a field, a large empty space in view of severe concrete apartment buildings. Men dressed in turbans and galabiyahs stood around in groups and haggled over prices while camels stood around or laid about, hobbled and complaining. Camel feed was piled on top of a long single-story building in order to keep the animals from devouring it.

The dust, stink, and noise was a pleasant relief from the dust, stink, and noise of the modern city.

A man dressed the same as the haggling camel merchants in the market came up beside me.

“I didn't know the money was counterfeit,” Kaseem said.

“Uh-huh.” I wanted to believe him. I needed to believe him.

“I was actually also swindled, for a much larger sum. Someone owed me quite a bit of money and chose to pay me in Iran's second official currency.”

“Come again?”

He chuckled without humor. “The Iranians pride themselves on producing the finest U.S. hundred-dollar bills. I'm surprised you caught the fraud, though I'm glad that you did. The felon who cheated me will now have to pay twice. Just as you are being paid double.”

He slipped me a thick envelope. “Here is your money. Did you bring the counterfeit bills with you?”

“As a matter of fact, I did, but I'll need to slip into a bathroom to retrieve them.”

“I'll take you to one, but it won't be up to your Western standards.”

I didn't buy his story about being ripped off.

During the taxi ride it had occurred to me that if he didn't have the millions necessary to ransom the scarab, counterfeit money seemed to be a perfect substitution.

Maybe he had been testing the money on me.

As we walked, he asked, “Have you ever been to the Camel Market before?”

“No, the closest thing I've seen are the camel races in Dubai.”

“Ah, yes, in oil-rich Dubai millions are paid for camels that are raced or win beauty contests. The animals here will sell for a few hundred dollars apiece, a little more for the ones with the most meat on them. They're brought here to be sold to butchers.”

“To be eaten?”

“Camel meat is cheaper than beef or lamb, and is especially important to poor people who can't afford the choicer meats. Many of the animals were herded here by tribesmen, often a thirsty journey involving hundreds of miles.”