On Moustafa’s insistence, they placed a call to the Citadel to leave a message for Sergeant Todd saying where they were going. They had enough of a head start that they could hopefully get this done quietly before the blundering police came and started shooting up the entire island.
The question foremost in his mind was—when would they come?
But he had plenty of other questions competing for his attention.
First off, was the custodian really gone or was he subdued somewhere? Or perhaps he was part of the Apaches’ growing criminal gang? Few Egyptians came to al-Rawdah Island and no virtually no foreigners. There wasn’t even a bridge to it; they had to hire a boatman. It would be a good place to hide out.
“How shall we handle this, boss?” Moustafa asked, his pistol at the ready and a rifle strapped across his back.
“Go up and knock on the door, I suppose.” Mr. Wall replied. He gripped a German-model submachine gun he had smuggled from Europe.
“That would be falling into their trap,” Moustafa said.
“We already did that when we stepped foot on this island.”
Moustafa nodded. Yes, they had. He had known this and yet he had followed Mr. Wall here on this insane mission because he wanted to know the solution to this mystery as much as his boss did. Plus he was hoping to meet that man Vincent again. That little Frenchman thought he could beat him with a few tricky moves and kicks? Well, he had a surprise in store for that fellow!
“All right, Mr. Wall, but let’s skirt over to the right where those bushes are. We can get closer without being seen.”
A soft step behind them and to the right made them pause. They pressed themselves against the earth and peered through the greenery.
An Egyptian with a rifle moved between the palm trees, peering at the underbrush. They kept still. The figure drew closer. It would only be a matter of moments before he would see them. Moustafa and Mr. Wall lay behind a thicket from which grew a thick palm tree. His boss started to edge to one side of it. Moustafa moved to the other side.
The guard kept moving, drawing closer to Mr. Wall’s position.
“I give up, don’t shoot,” Moustafa said.
The guard spun around, taking a moment to spot him in the thicket. Moustafa raised his hands.
“Don’t shoot! I’m standing up now. I am unarmed.”
“What are you doing here? Where was that other man with—”
The handle of Mr. Wall’s cane took him right in the back of the head and he fell to the ground with a thud.
“Right here, my good fellow,” Mr. Wall said.
“What on earth are you two doing there?” a woman’s voice called out.
They spun around.
“Cordelia!” Mr. Wall shouted.
The police commandant’s sister stood not five paces behind them, a parasol in one hand and a frown upon her face.
“Augustus, I demand an explanation. Why did you abandon us and go gallivanting off with your Soudanese servant? And where is my brother? I heard—”
Her frown turned to an expression of shock when she saw the guns and the body.
“What on Earth—” she began.
She did not get to finish because she was rudely interrupted by a bullet.
It emerged from the doorway to the Nilometer, which had opened a crack. The bullet whizzed right between the three of them to plant itself in the trunk of a palm tree not far from Cordelia.
Mr. Wall spun and fired a burst from his submachine gun. The bullets thudded into the thick wooded door and cracked off the stone frame. Moustafa grabbed Cordelia and dragged her behind a more distant tree. Mr. Wall followed, giving the door another burst to keep whoever hid there quiet.
“To your right!” Cordelia shouted.
Moustafa didn’t see the Egyptian with the pistol rise from the underbrush until Mr. Wall was already cutting him apart with a long burst. His boss turned and ran to them.
“Got that one. I don’t know about the one behind the door,” Mr. Wall said when he made it to them. “There’s more coming, I’m sure of it.”
Moustafa unslung his rifle as his boss turned to Cordelia.
“How did you get here?” he asked.
“I overheard you saying you were going to al-Rawdah Island. Then I overheard Sergeant Todd speaking with an officer about my brother having gone missing. So I pretended to have a headache, got away from Aunt Pearl, and followed you.”
“And straight into danger? Foolish woman!”
“Foolish enough to save your life.”
“Well thank you for that but now I have to save yours. Moustafa, take her to the shore, commandeer a boat, and get out of here. I’ll keep them busy.”
“Alone?”
“Go!”
Moustafa hated to leave him, but they had to get Cordelia out of danger. He grabbed her by the wrist.
“Unhand me!”
Moustafa didn’t bother arguing, he simply dragged her along.
“We’ll be open to enemy fire if we get out on the water,” she said, panting as he ran through the palm grove with her.
“Enemy fire? Did even the women go to the Great War?”
“As a nurse, yes. The Germans shelled my hospital on more than one occasion. We shouldn’t go out on the water.”
“Don’t worry. Mr. Wall will make enough of a racket that they will pay no attention to us. Let’s get the first boat we see.”
“The boat I came on is just ahead. The boatman was altogether too familiar.”
“I will break the hand he touched you with, madam,” Moustafa said, his words almost drowned out by a burst of submachine gun fire behind them. At least one rifle thudded in reply.
“He didn’t touch me, just sort of wiggled about in my presence.”
“Then I will break whatever he wiggled,” Moustafa promised.
The shore appeared through the trees. Moustafa stopped and crouched. Cordelia crouched beside him, leaning on her parasol, out of breath.
“Follow me and don’t expose yourself,” he whispered, letting her go so he could be ready with the rifle.
More shots rang out behind them.
“I’ll hide here. You go back and save Augustus,” she whispered.
“No.”
Moustafa didn’t feel like having more of a conversation with this inconvenient Englishwoman than that. He crept forward until he could see the beach. A boat was drawn up on the sand. It wasn’t the one they had come on, so it must have been Cordelia’s. A man in a faded jellaba sat with his back to him, smoking a cigarette as he gazed out across the river. Taking a final look around, Moustafa rose up, leveled the gun at him, and let out a soft whistle.
The boatman turned around, the cigarette falling out of his mouth as he saw the muzzle gazing at him from barely twenty yards away. Slowly he raised his hands.
“Stay where you are,” he told him, then switched to English. “Cordelia, you can come out now.”
Cordelia emerged from the underbrush, looking pale.
She was not alone. A European with a smug grin held a pistol to her head.
Vincent.
Moustafa groaned and dropped his rifle.
Just then, the dull thud of an explosion reverberated through the trees.
21
Edmond had just given Faisal some candy when the firing broke out.
They were sitting on one of the lower levels of the Nilometer, near the water, and so the first shots came faintly to their ears.
Edmond shouted to Albert and the silent Egyptian, who were playing cards nearby. They grabbed their guns and hurried up the stairs that spiraled around the well.
“What’s happening?” Faisal asked.
“Police,” Edmond said, getting up and drawing a pistol. “Or worse. Stay here. If there are any problems, you can go down another level and there’s a back exit hidden behind that tapestry hanging down there. You know the one?”
Faisal nodded.
As soon as Edmond hurried up the stairway, Fai
sal snuck after him. Edmond didn’t look back. He was too busy shouting orders in French to the men above.
When Faisal got to the ground floor, he saw Albert and the silent Egyptian taking turns firing out the doorway. They ducked back as a rain of bullets smacked against the wood. A couple broke through, careening off the curved stone walls and flying all around the inside of the building. Faisal screamed as one pinked off the stair right in front of him, spitting up fragments of stone that hit him in the forehead.
His scream made Edmond turn around.
“I told you to stay out of danger!” the Apache leader shouted.
“I want to see what’s going on.”
Another burst hit the door. Edmond and Faisal threw themselves on the floor.
That wasn’t a normal gun, Faisal realized. That sounded like one of those fast guns the soldiers had. The Englishman had one too. Could he be here?
For a minute the firing stopped. Faisal poked his head up over the top of the staircase.
“Are you all right?” he asked Edmond.
“Yes, are you?”
He felt his forehead. No blood. “Yes.”
They smiled at each other.
“Go downstairs,” Edmond said. More firing crackled through the palm grove outside.
Faisal scurried downstairs. He stopped short when he saw Hakim down there. His two baboons stood right behind him.
The animal trainer glared at him.
“You brought them here.”
“Me? How could I?”
Hakim grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
“You did. You warned them in the Citadel.”
“They wouldn’t have believed me. And you had people watching the whole time.”
Hakim hesitated. Faisal could tell he was baffled at how Faisal could have warned them, but his suspicious nature assured him that Faisal was the culprit.
Hakim shook him. “Tell me how you did it!”
A shout in French made Hakim turn. Edmond came running down the stairs, rage on his face.
And that saved Edmond’s life.
An ear-splitting roar and an explosion. Fragments of the door flew out into the open space above the well, followed by the torn bodies of Albert and Abasi. They plunged into the well below with a splash.
The force of the explosion threw Edmond off the stairs. He landed hard on the floor.
Marius came up from below, limping because of his bandaged foot. Yves came up too. He must have entered through the back passage because Faisal hadn’t seen him in the building before.
They nearly got knocked over as the two baboons, screeching in terror from the explosion, scampered down the stairs. Hakim ran after them, shouting for them to come back.
Faisal looked back up at the smoke and dust that obscured the upper floor. A figure emerged out of it, firing as he went.
The Englishman!
Faisal let out a cheer that got drowned out by the roar of the Englishman’s fast gun.
Marius took several bullets in the chest and tumbled down the stairs. Yves fired back with a pistol, forcing the Englishman behind a pillar. Edmond leaped up from the floor, grabbed Faisal, and ran down the stairs, practically dragging the boy behind him. Bullets snapped off the stone above their heads.
Why was the Englishman shooting at him?
Then he realized that in his new clothes, the Englishman hadn’t recognized him.
Suddenly Edmond didn’t need to drag him anymore. He ran just as fast as the Frenchman did.
More shots rang out above. Yves came down behind them, firing as he went. The landings were wide enough and the pillars all around were broad enough that there was plenty of cover. Faisal couldn’t see the Englishman anymore.
Yves stopped firing. All Faisal could hear was the ringing in his ears and the splashing of the water below, stirred up by the two bodies that had just fallen into it.
Edmond had dropped his gun when he had fallen, and turned to a nearby table to grab a pistol lying there. Yves started reloading his own pistol.
Thus both were occupied when a strange metal ball came rolling down the stairs. A squawk from Yves told him what he had already figured out—that metal ball needed to go somewhere else.
Faisal gave it a kick, and his heart clenched as he saw it fly over the empty space of the well to hit a pillar on the opposite side and come right back at him.
But it didn’t have enough speed, and arced down into the well.
Yves and Edmond had already thrown themselves on the floor. Faisal didn’t have time to.
A loud bang echoed through the Nilometer, followed by a plume of water. Faisal jumped back as it drenched him.
Edmond shook the water off himself like a dog and rose laughing.
“Good boy!” he shouted. Faisal grinned.
Wait, why was he taking compliments from the people who were fighting the Englishman? Everything in his life was getting turned around!
Then he remembered the two prisoners in the level below. Had they been killed? Had he saved his own life only to kill those two Europeans?
Yves peeked up the well shaft and fired a couple of shots before ducking back, chased by the Englishman’s bullets. Yves and Edmond exchanged a few words in French. Edmond put a finger to his lips and moved over to the other side of one of the pillars. He pointed to himself and pointed upwards, then pointed to Yves and pointed upwards.
They were going to play a trick on the Englishman! Edmond would fire, and when the Englishman returned fire Yves would get him.
Faisal froze. What could he do? Shout a warning? With all the blasts and shooting going on, everyone’s ears rang so much the Englishman would probably not even hear him.
Edmond ducked around the pillar and fired two shots. This was returned by a burst of fire from above. Yves ducked around the other side of the pillar, raising his gun.
Faisal pushed him over the edge. He landed in the water a floor below.
Edmond looked at him. Faisal had expected him to be angry, but he looked more hurt than angry.
He looked disappointed too.
Faisal bit his lip and backed away, unsure what Edmond would do.
But Edmond was too busy with the Englishman. They started trading shots, each protected by their own pillar. Every time Edmond got behind the cover he glanced over at Faisal, keeping an eye on him.
Faisal didn’t know what to do. Should he push Edmond into the water too? And where were Hakim and the others?
This was ridiculous. Of course he had to help the Englishman. These people had kidnapped him!
He waited until Edmond started firing again and moved up behind him.
Too slow. He got to Edmond just as he ducked back behind the pillar. They ended up bumping into each other. Edmond grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I-I-”
A burst from upstairs cut off any answer Faisal might give.
“Out with it!” Edmond demanded. “Why did you do that to Yves? No Apache betrays another.”
Faisal kicked him in the shin. “I’m not an Apache!”
“You little—”
Edmond grabbed him, raising his pistol like he was going to strike him with the butt of the weapon. Faisal made a desperate decision and threw himself right at the Apache leader. While he was much smaller than Edmond, the surprise and force with which he hit made the man stumble back a couple of steps.
Right into the line of fire.
Edmond and Faisal both flinched. But no fire came.
They looked up at the level above. The Englishman stood there, his weapon gone and his hands raised above his head. He had his back to them.
Then Moustafa and the Englishwoman moved into view, looking grim. Vincent came right behind them, holding a gun to their backs.
When Moustafa recognized Faisal, he gave him a glare more burning than the noonday sun. The Englishman turned and noticed him too, but Faisal couldn’t tell what exp
ression he had. It was a curious one, that was soon masked. Faisal decided it would be safer to pretend not to know them.
Edmond pushed him away.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he said, jabbing a finger at him.
“Sorry,” Faisal found himself saying.
Edmond paced up the stairs. Faisal tensed. Was he going to kill the Englishman now?
Then he saw Yves come up the stairs, dripping wet and with murder in his eyes, and he knew that he had as much to worry about as the Englishman did.
22
Augustus supposed he had been in tighter spots before—during the war and in some of his other cases—but he couldn’t quite bring a worse situation to mind. He had two guns pointed at him and the younger sister of the police commandant was a fellow prisoner.
Even if he somehow got out of this he’d be a dead man. Or at least an imprisoned one.
And what was Faisal doing here, looking like he had just robbed a clothing shop? The boy had even bathed.
He was still shaking out the cobwebs of his memories. While fighting the Apaches he had been transported back to the front, where he thought he was firing into a crater at a bunch of Germans. An incongruous sound had snapped him out of it—a woman’s voice.
Cordelia’s voice.
Now why would that have such an effect on him?
The approach of an obviously angry Frenchman brought his thoughts to more immediate matters.
“Edmond Depré, I presume?”
“Indeed. And you are the great Sir Augustus Wall, formerly known as—”
“Enough of that.”
Edmond smiled. “So your servant and your sweetheart don’t know, eh?”
“He is not my servant, and she is not my sweetheart.”
“Perhaps not, but she is the sister of Sir Thomas Russell. Would you like to see him? He’s downstairs.”
A sharp intake of breath on Cordelia’s part showed she had paid attention during her French lessons at school.
“If you’ve hurt him …” Augustus said.
Edmond shook his head and grinned. “I haven’t, not yet.”
The Case of the Shifting Sarcophagus Page 22