The Lost Army of Cambyses (34 page)

'How do you mean?'

'Just what I say. I don't start digging again.'

'You're excavating somewhere else?'

'Maybe. Not in Egypt, though.'

He stared down at his feet, lips taut and pale.

His fist, she noticed, had clenched into a ball, as

though he was about to punch someone. She

wriggled from his arms and swivelled so she was

sitting astride the rock, looking at the side of his

face.

'I don't understand, Daniel. "What do you mean

you're not digging in Egypt again?'

'I mean, Tara,' he said, 'that to all intents and

purposes my career as an Egyptian archaeologist is

finished. It's over. Caput. Fucked.'

The bitterness in his tone was unmistakable

now. He glanced up at her, eyes black as if all the

light and life had been sucked out of them, then

dropped his head.

'They took away my concession,' he muttered.

'The bastards took away my concession. And

given the circumstances it's unlikely I'll ever get it

back.'

'Oh my God!' Tara had grown up surrounded

by archaeologists and knew what a crushing blow

this would be for him. She took his hand and

stroked it protectively. 'What happened? Tell me.'

He pulled on the cheroot again and then threw

it aside, his face twisting into a grimace as though

288

there was something distasteful in his mouth.

'Not much to tell, really. We'd found traces of

what looked like an ancient retaining wall on our

site and I wanted to dig along it and find out

where it went. Unfortunately it ran out of our con-

cession and into the one beside ours, which

belonged to a Polish team. It's a complete no-no

trespassing on someone else's concession, but they

weren't due on site for another couple of weeks so

I thought, fuck it, and dug on. I should have con-

tacted them, or spoken to the Egyptians about it,

but . . . well, I couldn't wait. I had to know where

the wall went, you see. I couldn't stop myself.'

The fingers of his free hand had started drum-

ming agitatedly on the surface of the rock.

'When the Poles arrived there was an almighty

fucking row. The head of their mission said I was

irresponsible, had no respect for the past. I've

devoted my whole life to Egypt, Tara. No-one has

more respect for its history than me. When he said

those things I just lost control. Attacked him.

Literally. They had to pull me off him. I thought I

was going to kill him. Of course, he reported me.

The Polish embassy made a formal complaint,

took it right to the top – result: my concession was

revoked. Not only that, I'm banned from working

with any other mission anywhere in Egypt.

"Unbalanced." That's what they called me. "A

danger to himself and his colleagues." "A

liability." Fucking idiots. I'd like to shoot all of

them. Every bloody one.'

He was speaking fast now, his breath coming in

short angry bursts, his shoulders trembling. He

shook his hand free of hers and, standing, walked

289

forward to the front of the ridge, staring down at

the valley below. Despite the darkness its pale

floor was still clear, winding away northwards like

a river of milk. Gradually his breathing calmed

and his shoulders slumped.

'I'm sorry,' he mumbled. 'I just get so . . .'

He rubbed his temples and sighed deeply. There

was a long silence, broken only by the popping of

the wind.

'That was eighteen months ago,' he said eventu-

ally. 'I've stayed on doing tours, selling a few

watercolours, hoping maybe things would change,

but they haven't. And they won't. Somewhere

down there there's an intact tomb waiting to be

discovered and I'm not allowed to look for it. I'll

never be allowed to look for it. Have you any idea

how hard that is? How frustrating? Jesus.'

He hung his head.

'I don't know what to say,' she said helplessly.

'I'm so sorry. I know how much this place means

to you.'

He shrugged. 'The same thing happened to

Carter, you know. In 1905. He was sacked from

the Antiquities Service for getting into a fight with

some French tourists up at Saqqara. Ended up

working as a tourist guide and painter. So in a

sense my dream of being the new Carter has come

true. Albeit not quite in the way I'd envisaged.'

The bitterness was gone now, and the anger,

replaced by a weary despair. Tara stood and came

up behind him, wrapping her arms around his

waist. He allowed her to hold him.

'And do you know what the real joke is?' he

whispered. 'The ancient retaining wall turned out

290

to have been built by Belzoni in the nineteenth

century. My entire world goes down the pan for a

wall built less than two hundred years ago by

another fucking archaeologist!' He laughed,

although it was a cold, hollow sound, devoid of

humour.

'I'm just so sorry,' she repeated.

'Are you?' He turned so they were facing each

other. 'I would have thought you'd be glad. Poetic

justice and all that.'

'Of course I'm not glad, Daniel. I've never

wished you harm.'

She looked up at him, holding his eyes, then

came up on tiptoe and kissed him gently on the

lips.

'I want you,' she said simply. 'I want you now,

here, under the stars. Above the world. While we

have the chance.'

He gazed down at her and then he put his arms

around her and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her

passionately, his tongue circling her mouth, his

hands running down across her backside. She

could feel him hardening against her, the pressure

sending a tingle through her stomach. He broke

away and took her hand.

'I know somewhere,' he said.

He picked up her knapsack and they started

along a narrow path that ran back along the top

of the ridge, leading them deeper into the hills.

The plain dropped away behind them, the world

was silent aside from the clink of rocks beneath

their feet. After twenty minutes they reached a

point where the path dropped suddenly onto a

broad, flat disc of gravel on which four shapes

291

were sitting, curved, like commas on an otherwise

blank page. As they approached Tara realized they

were small walls, about ten feet long, coming up

to the height of her knees.

'Windbreaks,' explained Daniel. 'In ancient

times the patrols who guarded these hills would

shelter behind them.'

He stooped and picked up what looked like a

flat stone.

'See,' he said, holding the object up in the

moonlight. 'Pottery.'

They went to the largest of the walls and, with-

out a word, knelt behind it, facing each other. A

breeze played against the upper part of their

bodies. From the waist down, the air was still and

warm, as though they were kneeling in a pool of

water. They held each other's eyes for a moment

and then, reaching forward, Daniel slowly undid

the buttons of her shirt, her breasts coming free

and glowing pale in the moonlight, the nipples

hard, straining. He leaned forward and kissed

them. She threw back her head, closed her eyes

and groaned with pleasure, everything else for the

moment forgotten.

292

27

CAIRO

It was almost seven before Khalifa finally got back

to Tauba's office. The detective was sitting behind

his desk in a pool of lamplight, typing two-

fingered on a battered-looking manual typewriter,

the floor around him scattered with a thin carpet

of cigarette ash, as though there had been a light

snowfall in his corner of the office.

Khalifa handed back the key to Iqbar's shop and

filled him in about the girl and the artefacts.

Tauba whistled.

'I know it's not procedure,' Khalifa added, 'but

I've left the objects with a friend of mine at the

museum. He'll look at them and send them down

first thing tomorrow morning. I hope you don't

mind.'

Tauba waved his hand dismissively. 'No

problem. I wouldn't have done anything with

them before then anyway.'

'The girl gave a pretty good description of

Iqbar's attackers,' Khalifa said. 'It looks like two

293

of them were Sayf al-Tha'r's men.'

'Fucking great.'

'The third one wasn't Egyptian. European by

the sound of it, maybe American. Big, with some

sort of scar or birthmark down the left side . . .'

'Dravic.'

'You know him?'

'Every police force in the Near East knows

Casper Dravic. I'm surprised you haven't heard of

him. A real piece of shit. German.'

He shouted across the room to one of his

colleagues, who began rummaging through a

filing cabinet.

'That would certainly tie in with Sayf al-Tha'r,'

said Tauba. 'So far as we know, Dravic has been

working for him for the last few years, authenti-

cating antiquities, smuggling them out of the

country. Sayf al-Tha'r wouldn't dare set foot in

Egypt himself, so he stays in the Sudan while

Dravic handles everything at this end.'

Tauba's colleague deposited three bulging

red folders on his desk. Tauba opened the top

one.

'Dravic,' he said, taking out a large black and

white photograph and passing it across.

'Handsome,' grunted Khalifa.

'He did a couple of months in Tura a while back

for possession of antiquities, but we've never been

able to tie him down to anything big. He's clever.

Gets other people to do his dirty work. And

because he's with Sayf al-Tha'r no-one's going to

come forward and give evidence against him. A

girl he'd raped did once and that's what happened

to her.'

294

Tauba threw another photograph across the

desk.

'God Almighty,' whispered Khalifa.

'Like I said, a real piece of shit.'

Tauba pushed back his chair and crossed his

legs on the corner of the desk, lighting a cigarette.

Khalifa flicked through the files.

'I went to see that guy at the British embassy,' he

said after a while.

'And?'

'Nothing really. Didn't tell me anything new. I

had the impression he was keeping something

from me, though. Any idea why he'd do that?'

'Why the hell do you think?' Tauba snorted.

'They've never forgiven us for nationalizing Suez

and telling them to fuck off back to their own

country. If they can put a spanner in the works

they will.'

'It was more than that. He knows something

about this case. And he doesn't want me to know

that he knows.'

Tauba's eyes narrowed. 'You're saying the

British embassy is involved in this?'

'To be honest, I don't know what I'm saying any

more.' Khalifa sighed wearily, leaning forward

and rubbing his eyes. 'There's something going on

here, but I just can't see what it is. I just can't

bloody see what it is. Dammit!'

Charles Squires slipped his glasses onto his

nose and began perusing the menu. For almost

two minutes he sat in absorbed silence before

295

eventually laying it aside with a nod of

satisfaction.

'The quail, I think. Yes, the quail is always very

good here. And to start, well, the seafood pancake

sounds most intriguing. Jemal?'

'I'm not hungry.'

'Oh come, come. We can't have you wasting

away. You must eat something.'

'I came here to talk, not to eat.'

Squires tutted disapprovingly and turned to the

figure on his left, an overweight man with a bald-

ing head and an improbably large Rolex watch on

his wrist.

'What about you, Massey? Surely you're not

going to leave me to eat on my own?'

The American peered down at his menu,

rubbing a handkerchief over the back of his neck,

which, despite the restaurant's air-conditioning,

was wet with sweat.

'Have they got steak here?' he asked, his accent

deep south.

Squires pointed to the menu. 'I think you'll find