The Exodus Quest (23 page)

FORTY-TWO

I

The windscreen of Naguib’s Lada had misted up from the storm. He couldn’t see a thing. He opened the windows a slit, put on the heaters, sat there brooding on his meeting with Tarek and the
ghaffirs
, the implications of what he’d learned. This was getting way over his head. He needed to put it to his boss.

‘Can’t this wait till morning?’ sighed Gamal. ‘I’m in the middle of something.’

‘It may be important.’

‘Well? What?’

‘I think there’s something going on in Amarna.’

‘Not this again!’ said Gamal. ‘The universe doesn’t revolve around you, you realize?’

‘That girl we found, she had an Amarna artefact on her. I think she found something here, perhaps an undiscovered site. You know Captain Khaled, the senior tourist policeman here? He’s banned the local
ghaffirs
from—’

‘Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Stop right there. Are you about to suggest what I think you’re about to suggest?’

‘I’m just saying, I think he knows something. I think we ought to look into it.’

‘Into the tourist police?’ demanded Gamal. ‘Are you crazy? Haven’t you learned your lesson from Minya?’

‘That was different. That was the army.’

‘Listen to me. You’ve only still got a job thanks to your friends. Go down this road again, they won’t step in a second time, believe me. No one will.’

‘But I only—’

‘Don’t you ever listen? I don’t want to hear another word! Understand? Not another damned word!’

‘Yes, sir,’ sighed Naguib. ‘I understand.’

II

Claire found Griffin shifting papers from the filing cabinets into cardboard boxes for Michael and Nathan to carry out to the pick-up. ‘Well?’ he asked sourly. ‘How’s our guest?’

‘He needs a proper doctor.’

Griffin nodded. ‘We’re booked on tonight’s flight to Frankfurt out of Cairo. I’ll have Ramiz let him out the moment we’re in the air.’

‘Where is everyone?’

‘Back at the hotel, packing. We need to get there too.’ He checked his watch. ‘I can give you five minutes to get your stuff together.’

‘It’s all at the hotel.’

‘Good.’ He packed the last box, slammed the drawer closed. ‘Then let’s get moving.’ They went out to the pick-up, bumped their way out. Claire glanced anxiously back at the magazine.

‘What is it?’ asked Griffin, sensing her disquiet.

‘He said something to me. About those hostages down in Assiut.’

‘He’s playing tricks with your mind. I warned you not to talk to him.’

Claire looked around. Mickey and Nathan were jolting around in the back, laughing like children. She thought that about them often, how like children they were. It wasn’t their fault that bad things were going on here. They’d taken it for granted they could trust Peterson, because he was a man of God. She couldn’t blame them for that: she’d done the same herself. And they were her comrades, her friends, whatever that Frenchman said. Her first loyalty had to be to them. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, putting Augustin forcibly from her mind. ‘You did.’

III

The weather turned with astonishing rapidity. One moment, sunshine was falling hot through the window onto Knox’s cheek. The next, the sky was covered by thick black clouds and the temperature was plummeting. Rain played a few opening riffs on the Toyota’s roof, then started drumming hard. Their headlights sprang on; their wipers started flick-flacking. They slowed with the traffic around them, picking their way through the fat puddles that formed quickly on the road.

Peterson indicated, then turned off the Nile road along a winding, narrow lane. They lurched from pothole to pothole, sending up huge splashes of spray. The deluge grew more violent, the clouds so black it might have been midnight. After twenty minutes or so they slowed to a crawl, briefly sped up again, then pulled off the lane over a shale verge and onto cloying wet sand. Peterson ratcheted the handbrake, turned off his lights, wipers and ignition, snapped free his seat belt. He opened his door, paused for a deep breath, then hurried out.

Knox sat up, cramps and pins and needles in both legs. A flicker of lightning revealed Peterson splashing his way back along the road, forearm over his head as a makeshift umbrella. Knox gave him a few moments, then opened the door and launched himself out after him into the full fury of the storm.

IV

Claire watched mesmerized the news on the hotel lobby TV, her packed bags by her feet.

‘Hurry up,’ said Griffin. ‘We’re on the clock.’

‘Look,’ she said.

He stared puzzled up at the screen. ‘Look at what?’

She hesitated a moment. There were too many people milling around. Then she said quietly: ‘Our …
guest
told me this woman was a friend of his. He said Knox had sent her photographs of what we’d found.’

‘Are you crazy?’ hissed Griffin. ‘You can’t talk about that here.’

‘Just look, will you. Don’t you see it?’

Griffin turned back to the screen. ‘See what?’

‘Her posture. The mosaic.’

Colour drained from his complexion. ‘Oh, hell,’ he muttered. He shook his head. ‘No. It’s coincidence, that’s all. It has to be.’

‘That’s what I was telling myself,’ agreed Claire. ‘But it’s not coincidence. It’s just not. She’s trying to send a message.’

‘We need to get out, Claire,’ pleaded Griffin. ‘We need to get to Cairo, catch our plane. I’ll explain everything once we’re—’

‘I’m not coming,’ said Claire.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I’m going back to the site. I’m going to let Pascal out. I’m going to show him the mosaic.’

‘I’m sorry, Claire. I can’t let you do that.’

She turned to face him, arms folded. ‘And how exactly do you plan to stop me?’ His eyes flickered to the pick-up, his students piling their luggage onto the back as if wondering if he could enlist them to help abduct her. ‘I’ll make a scene,’ she warned. ‘I swear I will. I can speak Arabic, remember? I’ll tell everyone what you’ve been up to.’

‘What
we’ve
been up to,’ he reminded her.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘What we’ve been up to.’

Moisture glowed on his upper lip. He wiped it away with a finger. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Try me.’

His expression changed, he tried to wheedle instead. ‘At least let me get the guys out first.’

‘Give me the magazine key and all his stuff. I’ll give you time to catch your plane.’

‘The Egyptians will want someone to blame for this, Claire. They’ll have no one but you.’

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘Then come with us. I swear, the moment we’re in the air, I’ll get Pascal released, I’ll make sure he knows everything he needs to know.’

‘It might be too late by then.’

A horn tooted outside. Griffin couldn’t hold Claire’s gaze, he looked away in shame and confusion. ‘It’s not just me I’ve got to think of,’ he said. ‘They’re just kids. They need to be looked after.’

‘I know,’ nodded Claire. She held out her hand for the key and Augustin’s belongings. ‘You’d best get going,’ she said.

FORTY-THREE

I

Knox tailed Peterson to a high wall with a neat row of well-spaced date palms standing like sentries in front. Fatima’s Hermopolis compound, as he’d expected. He kept a good distance behind, but even so Peterson may have sensed something because he suddenly whirled and glared into the darkness. Knox froze, trusting the deluge to hide him. Peterson turned forwards again, reached the main gate, oil lamps fluttering weakly either side, a sign inviting visitors to ring the bell. But Peterson had no intention of doing that. He hurried past, reached the end of the wall, turned down the side, splashing over the waterlogged sand, looking for another way in. The back gate was evidently locked from the inside and wouldn’t open. He completed a full circuit, paused in the shelter of a date palm. After a few moments’ reflection, he wedged his boot between the wall and the tree-trunk, lifted himself up, looked over the top to make sure there was no one there, that he could drop down safely on the other side. He hooked a leg over the top, straddled it, lowered himself down before letting go and landing with a splash and a grunt and a clatter. But then only silence.

Knox considered ringing the front bell, raising the alarm. Peterson would have one hell of a time explaining himself. But it wouldn’t be a picnic for Knox either; and he couldn’t risk getting banged back up in gaol. So he wedged his foot like Peterson had done, grabbed hold of the top, hauled himself over. Peterson had had a minute’s head start, but Knox had local knowledge. He took a short cut between the lecture hall and kitchens, reached the courtyard with the sleeping quarters. All the lights were off, but he spotted Peterson beneath an awning when he turned on a pocket torch to consult his print-outs, work out which was Gaille’s bedroom. Something clattered inside the kitchens. There was a muffled curse. A cry of exasperation went up. ‘Stay where you are,’ yelled a man, as doors flew open all around the courtyard. ‘Put your hands on your head.’ An ambush. Peterson turned and fled, all the policemen chasing after him, shouting orders, waving torches, leaving Gaille’s French windows tantalizingly open.

Knox hurried forwards in out of the rain, shoes squelching on the terracotta tiles. Her laptop was open on her desk. He yanked out its leads, packed it into its case, slung it over his shoulder, was making for the French windows when he heard footsteps, saw the beam of a flashlight. He dropped to the floor, rolled beneath the desk. Two policemen came in, stomping their feet. ‘Tonight it rains,’ grumbled the first. ‘Nothing but sun for six damned months, and tonight it rains like the world’s on fire.’

‘I’d better call our friend in Alexandria,’ grunted his companion. ‘He’ll want news.’

‘Not
this
news,’ muttered the other. ‘I think he’ll …’ He trailed off. Knox noticed the glazed slug’s trail of mud he’d laid on the floor, leading directly to him. He sprang out from beneath the desk, startling the policemen, barging between them, out through the French windows into the courtyard. Other policemen were returning bedraggled and empty-handed from their chase. Knox ran the other way, towards the rear of the compound. The back gate was bolted top and bottom. The top bolt slid easily but the bottom one was stiff. He had to jiggle it before it would open. Footsteps splashed behind him. Torch-beams picked him out. He hauled the door towards him but it clogged on the bloated earth. He squeezed through but it snapped closed again, snagging the laptop so that he had to twist it sideways to pull it free. But then he was out in the desert, laptop slapping his backside as he ran.

The rain continued to hammer. He glanced back. Torches flashing, people shouting. A low fence ahead, he hurdled it in one stride, but his feet slid from beneath him on landing. Lightning illuminated an SCA sign as he picked himself up, trousers sticking wetly to his legs. He headed towards it, looking for anything familiar; conditions had been very different on his last visit. He heard gates open. An engine roared, headlights sprang on full-beam, casting his shadow out ahead, making the fat raindrops glint like jewels. He foolishly glanced around, ruining his night vision, then clattered headlong into a protective railing, tumbled over it, clinging on to avoid falling into a pit, hauled himself to safety. A ladder was tied to the wall. He climbed down into darkness, fumbling in vain for some way out.

A vehicle pulled up above. Doors slammed, people shouted. A torch shone down, briefly illuminating a corridor to his left. He hurried down it, blindly feeling the walls, the ancient windows and niches in them informing him he was in the animal catacombs. He twisted and turned, looking upwards for a glimpse of the sky, a ventilation shaft through which he could escape. Torchlight ahead. He turned back. Light that way too.

He felt the walls, found a window, climbed through it into a cell, half-filled with debris and sand. An eerie place, made all the more so by the fluttering approach of a torch. A mummified baboon stared glassily from a niche in the far wall. Baboons had been revered around here as the personification of Thoth, Egyptian god of writing, associated by the Greeks with Hermes, which was how Hermopolis had got its name. Hundreds of thousands of baboons had been buried in these catacombs, which stretched for miles.

Heavy wheezing outside, the rasp of a lighter, the orange pulse of a cigarette. Knox pressed himself against the wall. A man’s backside appeared in the mouth of the cell as he sat down to enjoy a smoke.

II

Augustin had just about given up hope of being released that night when he heard footsteps approaching and then a tentative knock on the magazine door. ‘Mister Pascal? Are you in there?’

‘Claire?’ He pushed himself aching to his feet. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought you’d left.’

‘I came back.’ A pause, an intake of breath. ‘Listen, you are telling me the truth, aren’t you? I mean, that your friend’s a hostage; that finding the mosaic might help her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Only I’m likely to get in a lot of trouble for—’

‘I’m telling you the truth, Claire. I swear it. And my name’s Augustin.’

A key turned in the lock. The door opened. Claire was standing there in the moonlight, her hands clasped in front, looking very scared and very young, for all her height. ‘I’m in a foreign country,’ she said. ‘I’ve broken the law. At least, the law’s been broken, and I’m going to be the only person the authorities have available to punish. I don’t have any family back home to make a fuss. I don’t have any friends here. Mister Griffin as good as told me that he’ll disown me once he gets everyone back to America. It’s not that he wants to, you understand, it’s just that he’ll have no choice. So I’m scared. I’m really scared. I’m not good at being on my own. I’m not good under pressure. If I tell you where this thing is, I’ll need someone to help me through what happens next. Someone who’ll fight for me the way you’ve been fighting for your friend.’

‘I’ll fight for you,’ said Augustin.

She dropped her eyes. ‘You’d say anything to get out of here. I can’t blame you for that, but it’s true.’

He made his way slowly across to her, not wanting to spook her. He put one hand on her shoulder, lifted her chin with his other, until she finally met his gaze. ‘I’m not a good man, Claire,’ he told her, looking deep into her eyes. ‘I’m the first to admit it. I have all kinds of vices. But I have one virtue. I stand by my friends, whatever it takes. Help me now, you’ll be my friend for life. I swear this to you. And you can believe it.’

Her expression clouded for a moment. But then a smile spread radiantly across her face. She handed him his wallet and phone. ‘Then come with me,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you what you’re looking for.’

III

The sump was filling quickly, water snaking down the walls, soaking into the floor, puddles growing into pools, mirroring the acid anxiety eating away inside Gaille. ‘Light a match,’ grunted Stafford. ‘I got something.’

It sputtered when she struck it; the moisture had got everywhere. She nursed it carefully into life, held it down low. Stafford paddled away water so that they could all see. A carved brick at the foot of the wall. A
talatat
. They all looked at it a moment, then at each other, wondering what it signified. The burning match scorched Gaille’s fingers, she yelped and let it go, the darkness returned.

‘Dig it out,’ suggested Lily. ‘Maybe there’s something behind.’

They went at it in shifts, their progress thwarted by a large stone buried in the rubble immediately in front of it. But they kept going, and soon were able to jiggle it back and forth like a loose tooth, feel its outline. There was another brick to its left, a third below. Perhaps a whole wall. It was Gaille who at last gouged out enough of the sodden ancient mortar to lever out the brick. They’d all hoped the water would start draining away at once, but it stayed obstinately where it was.

She reached into the hole where the
talatat
had been, encountered solid wall behind. But when she scratched at it, it came away beneath her fingernails like plaster.

They took it in turns to dig, but the water level was rising all the time. It wasn’t long before they had to take deep breaths and duck their heads underwater even to get at it at all. ‘It’s no good,’ wailed Lily. ‘We’re getting nowhere.’

‘We have to keep going,’ insisted Gaille. ‘We just have to.’ And the alternative was clear in the strained cracking of her voice.