The Lost Army of Cambyses (17 page)

a load of silly superstition if you ask me.' He

opened his cigarette pack but, finding it empty,

scrunched it up into a ball and threw it into the

corner of the room. 'I do believe in evil, though.

Something dark that grabs hold of a man's mind

and heart and turns him into a monster. I've seen it.

And it's evil that we're up against here. Pure evil.'

He leaned forward and began massaging his

eyes with his thumbs.

'Allah guide us,' he muttered. 'Allah give us

strength.'

Later, after eating a couple of boiled eggs and

some cheese for his breakfast, Khalifa crossed the

river and hopped onto a service taxi, staying with

it as far as Dra Abu el-Naga, where he got off,

paid the twenty-five piastre fare and began

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walking up the road towards the Temple of

Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri.

The temple had always been one of his favourite

monuments. A breathtaking complex of halls and

terraces and colonnades, it was cut into the living

rock at the base of a hundred-metre cliff face.

Every time he saw it he was staggered by its

audacity. It was one of the wonders of Luxor. Of

the whole of Egypt. Of the world.

A tarnished wonder, though. In 1997 sixty-two

people, tourists mostly, had been massacred there

by fundamentalists. Khalifa had been interviewing

someone in a nearby village at the time and had

been among the first policemen on the scene. For

months afterwards he had woken in the night,

sweat-covered, hearing again the squelch of his

feet on the blood-covered floors. Now, whenever

he saw the temple, his appreciation was marred by

a shiver of nausea.

He walked on until he came to a point where a

row of dusty souvenir shops sprang up on the

right-hand side of the road. Their owners stood in

front of them, calling out to passing tourists, urg-

ing them to come and inspect their postcards and

jewellery and sunhats and alabaster carvings, each

insisting that his particular wares were by far the

cheapest and best in Egypt. One bustled up to

Khalifa brandishing a T-shirt with a garish hiero-

glyph motif on the front, but the detective waved

him away and, turning off to the right, crossed a

tarmacked car park and came to a halt in front of

a mobile lavatory.

'Suleiman!' he called. 'Hey, Suleiman, are you

there?'

142

A small man in a pale green djellaba emerged,

limping slightly. A long scar ran diagonally across

his forehead, starting beside his left eye and dis-

appearing up beneath his hairline.

'Inspector Khalifa, is that you?'

'Salaam Alekum.
How are you, my friend?'

'Kwayyis, hamdu-lillah,'
smiled the man. 'Well,

thanks be to Allah. Will you have tea?'

'Thank you.'

'Sit, sit!'

The man waved Khalifa to a bench in the shade

of a nearby building and set about boiling a kettle

behind the trailer. When it was ready he poured

out two glasses and carried them across, picking

his way carefully over the uneven ground as

though fearful of tripping. He handed one glass to

Khalifa and sat, setting his own glass down on the

bench beside him. Khalifa took the man's hand

and pressed a plastic bag into it.

'Some cigarettes.'

Suleiman fumbled in the bag and removed a

carton of Cleopatras.

'You shouldn't have, Inspector. It's me who

owes you.'

'You don't owe me anything.'

'Apart from my life.'

Four years ago Suleiman al-Rashid had been

working as a guard at the temple. When the

fundamentalists came, he had been shot in

the head trying to shield a group of Swiss women

and children. In the aftermath of the attack every-

one assumed he was dead, until Khalifa found a

faint pulse and called the medics over to help him.

It had been touch and go for several weeks, but

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eventually he had pulled through. His injuries had

left him blind, however, and he had been unable to

resume his job as a guard. Now he ran one of the

site toilets.

'How's the head?' Khalifa asked.

Suleiman shrugged and rubbed his temples. 'So-

so,' he said. 'Today it aches a bit.'

'You see the doctor regularly?'

'Doctors! Pah! Scum!'

'If it's hurting you should get it checked.'

'I'm fine as I am, thank you.'

Suleiman was a proud man and Khalifa knew

better than to press the point. Instead he asked

him about his wife and family, and teased him

because his team, el-Ahli, had lost to his, Khalifa's,

team, el-Zamalek, in the recent Cairo derby. Then

they fell silent. Khalifa sat watching a group of

tourists descending from their coach.

'I need your help, Suleiman,' he said eventually.

'Of course, Inspector. Anything. You know you

only have to ask.'

Khalifa sipped his tea. He felt bad about involv-

ing his friend, playing on his sense of obligation.

He'd been through enough already. But he needed

information. And Suleiman always kept his ear to

the ground.

'I think something has been found,' he said. 'A

tomb, or a cache. Something important. No-one's

talking, which isn't surprising, except it's not just

greed that's keeping them quiet, it's fear. People

are terrified.' He finished his tea. 'Have you heard

anything?'

His companion said nothing, just continued

rubbing his temples.

144

'I don't like asking you, believe me. But one

man's been killed already and I don't want anyone

else to be.'

Still Suleiman said nothing.

'Is there a new tomb?' asked Khalifa. 'Not much

goes on around here that you don't hear about.'

Suleiman adjusted his position and, picking up

his tea, began sipping it slowly.

'I've heard things,' he said, staring straight

ahead of him. 'Nothing definite. Like you say,

people are frightened.'

He turned his head suddenly, looking towards

the hills, running his sightless eyes across the

shimmering walls of yellow-brown rock.

'You think we're being watched?' asked Khalifa,

following the direction of Suleiman's gaze.

'I know we're being watched, Inspector. They're

everywhere. Like ants.'

'Who's everywhere? What do you know,

Suleiman? What have you heard?'

Suleiman continued to sip his tea. His eyes,

Khalifa noticed, had started to water.

'Rumours,' he muttered eventually. 'Hints. A

word here, a word there.'

'Saying?'

Suleiman's voice dropped to a whisper. 'That

they've found a tomb.'

'And?'

'And there's something extraordinary in it.

Something priceless.'

Khalifa swirled the tea dregs around the bottom

of his glass. 'Any idea where?'

Suleiman nodded towards the hills. 'Out there

somewhere.'

145

'Out there is a very big area. Anything more

specific?'

A shake of the head.

'Sure?'

'Sure.'

A long pause. The tarmac of the car park un-

dulated in the heat. From somewhere behind them

came the braying of a donkey. Nearby a European

couple were haggling with a taxi driver over the

fare down to the river.

'Why's everyone so frightened, Suleiman?'

asked Khalifa gently. 'Who's got to them?'

Silence.

'Who am I dealing with here?'

Suleiman came to his feet, picking up the two

empty glasses. He seemed not to have heard the

question.

'Suleiman? Who are these people?'

The attendant began making his way back

towards the toilet trailer. When he spoke he didn't

turn his head.

'Sayf al-Tha'r,' he said. 'It is Sayf al-Tha'r they

are afraid of. I'm sorry, Inspector, I have work to

do. It was good of you to come.'

He clambered up the trailer steps and dis-

appeared inside, closing the door behind him.

Khalifa lit a cigarette and leaned back against the

wall. 'Sayf al-Tha'r,' he whispered. 'Why did I know

it would be you?'

146

ABU SIMBEL

The young Egyptian mingled with the crowd, his

baseball cap pulled low about his eyes. He looked

no different from the other tourists milling around

the feet of the four giant statues, except that he

seemed to be muttering to himself and to take little

interest in the huge seated figures rearing over-

head. Rather, his attention was focused on the

three white-uniformed guards sitting on a bench

nearby. He glanced at his watch, swung his knap-

sack off his shoulder and began undoing the

straps.

It was mid-morning. Two coaches of American

tourists had just arrived, disgorging a stream of

passengers onto the tarmac, all of them wearing

yellow T-shirts. Postcard sellers and trinket

hawkers swarmed around them.

The young man now had his knapsack open. He

dropped to one knee and fiddled inside it. To his

left a group of Japanese tourists were grouped

around their guide, who was holding a fly whisk

in the air so they could see where she was.

'The great temple was built by the Pharaoh

Ramesses II in the thirteenth century BC,' she

shouted, 'and was dedicated to the gods Re-

Harakhty, Amun and Ptah . . .'

One of the three guards was looking at the

muttering figure. His two companions were smok-

ing and talking together.

'The four seated statues represent the King-God

Ramesses. Each is over twenty metres high . . .'

The American tourists had started to arrive,

laughing and chattering. One of them had a video

147

camera and was issuing instructions to his wife,

telling her to go forward, move to the left, look

up, smile. The young Egyptian stood again, one

arm still inside the rucksack. The guard continued

to stare at him, then nudged his companions, who

ceased their conversation and looked towards him

too.

'The smaller statues between the legs of

Ramesses represent the king's mother, Muttuya,

his favourite wife, Nefertari, and some of his

children . . .'

The young man's voice suddenly grew louder.

Several people turned to look at him. He closed his

eyes briefly and then, smiling broadly, withdrew

his arm from the bag, a Heckler and Koch sub-

machine gun clutched in his hand. In the same

movement he swept his cap from his head, reveal-

ing a deep vertical scar running between his

eyebrows.

'Sayf al-Tha'r!' he cried and, pointing the gun

into the crowd, pulled the trigger. There was a

click, but no gunfire.

The three policemen leaped to their feet, grap-

pling with their rifles. Everyone else just stood

where they were, horrified, rooted to the spot. For

a moment everything was still while the gunman

clawed frantically at his weapon, then he snatched

at the trigger again and this time the Heckler and

Koch fired. There was a furious cracking sound

and bullets scythed into the crowd, tearing flesh,

snapping bone, spattering the sand with blood.

People began running madly, some away from the

gunman, others, confused, directly towards him,

screams of pain and terror filling the air. The man

148

with the video crumpled; the three guards were

thrown backwards and down. Above the roar of

his gun and cries of distress the young man could

be heard singing and laughing.

The barrage continued for perhaps ten seconds,

enough to leave a field of bodies at the feet of the

great statues. Then the Heckler and Koch jammed

again and the air was curiously silent. The gun-

man fought with his weapon for a moment, and

then, throwing it aside, fled into the desert.

He didn't get far. Five of the trinket sellers

chased after him and, dragging him to the ground,

began kicking him with their bare feet, his head

jerking back and forth like a ball.

'Sayf al-Tha'r,' he cried, laughing, blood burst-

ing from his nose and mouth. 'Sayf al-Tha'r!'