The Cairo Puzzle

by Laurence O'Bryan

  She stopped, stared, as she reached the darker area in the stone wall. If it was an exit, it was unlike one she’d ever seen. It was a large square area of dark stone, with a crack down the center. There was no obvious way through. She went up to the crack in the stone, tried to peer through it, but there was nothing to be seen. She banged the stone hard with her fist in frustration. An echo sounded from the stone.

  77

  I raced down the stairs. Multiple shouts rang out from above. I didn’t bother to look around. I tried the handle on the next door. It opened. There was a corridor ahead. It was in darkness. I ran into it.

  In the distance I could see another Ausfahrt sign, with no Arabic this time. It sent a dim glow down the corridor, showing doors on either side and a set of elevator doors at the far end. My lungs were burning now. My legs felt weak. Could I make it to the elevator, before they caught up with me?

  A shout behind me, then another, told me it was going to be a close thing. I raced on, without looking back. Anxiety was spurring me on with each step.

  God only knew what these people would do to me if they caught me. I spied the steel elevator door button to the right of the doors. I pushed myself harder, my arms swinging, jacket bouncing on my chest. I had to get to the button.

  Then it was fifty feet away. Then twenty. I held my hand out.

  But before I reached it, as if summoned by my will, the elevator doors binged and started to open.

  78

  Xena sat down. She needed a rest, and she needed to work out what she to do next. She’d walked to the end of the hall again. She sat with her back against one of the pillars. It felt cold behind her.

  She turned the torch off. How long would the batteries last? They could go at any time. She’d been in many difficult situations, some even underground. She’d had to escape through narrow tunnels in Manhattan, and from being buried alive when her nunnery was captured by Islamists, but every time she had managed to burrow a way out.

  Was this the moment when her luck ran out?

  A distant noise, like an intake of breath, made her switch the torch on. There was nothing to be seen. She turned it off again, made her hands into fists.

  The fact that the Cannibal Hymn was written on the back of each of the statues made her feel strong, connected to this place. If she could, she would go and tell her old teachers in the nunnery that they were right, that the gift of Jesus, the sharing of his body and his blood, was more than just a metaphor. It was his central message.

  To partake of the Kingdom of Heaven, you must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the gods.

  That was when she heard it again. This time the breathing noise was nearer. She switched on the torch.

  79

  Henry rubbed his eyes. It was three-thirty in the morning, Sunday morning, London time. He should have handed over the situation in Cairo ninety minutes ago.

  He’d handed over everything else. But he couldn’t on this part of the operation. He felt responsible. Responsible for getting Isabel into all this. Responsible for Sean going missing too. If Henry hadn’t arranged for Sean to speak at the conference in Nuremberg, then hadn’t agreed to Isabel using security services search facilities to look for private planes leaving Nuremberg after Sean had disappeared, she wouldn’t even have gone to Cairo.

  The other duty officer was at a desk opposite him in the control room in Whitehall. He was typing at his keyboard, glancing occasionally at Henry. He was most likely writing a report about Henry, probably asking for him to be removed from any future work on the series of incidents involving Sean and Isabel Ryan.

  He was probably right, too.

  If Isabel had uncovered a network in Egypt, connected to the plot in Nuremberg, it was more than likely these were the people pulling the strings behind much of what the Ryans had uncovered.

  That would all go down as a plus on his record, countering any negatives.

  As long as Isabel Ryan returned safely, the mission ended without loss of life and this Yacoub character was stopped in whatever he was planning to do, especially in his attempt to gain power in Egypt.

  Which was the reason why Henry had to stay all night and have multiple reports written up on him if necessary.

  His earphones crackled.

  “Permission to engage, sir.” The Royal Marine Commando unit were in position. The unit, based on HMS Albion, which was coordinating patrols off the eastern coast of Libya, was better equipped and trained to undertake the task ahead, against possible stiff resistance.

  Performing an armed search and recovery mission in the capital of a foreign state required surgical precision. Permission to carry out the mission had been granted only after Henry had promised they’d be no more than one hour on the ground, that Egyptian special forces would accompany them, and that their role would be described only as a supply and support mission, should the media find out.

  One hour was not a long time. But it would be enough.

  “Permission granted. Code green.” Henry spoke softly, looking across at his colleague. He was fiddling at his earphones, clearly listening in.

  His hands raised from the keyboard and he looked directly at Henry. Then he smiled. The signal was clear. If the unit succeeded Henry’s career would be saved. If it didn’t, he’d be filling and shredding at the Milton Keynes security services historical review unit within a week.

  Another crackle sounded from his headphones.

  “One man down. Unit two, engage.” The sound of gunfire came clearly into Henry’s ears. Rapid and repeated bursts of gunfire.

  80

  I jabbed at the buttons, my fingers pumping at them, as if by pressing many times the doors would close quicker. I didn’t care which direction I went in either. Three guards in black uniforms with bird insignias were running towards me. Behind them, a woman in a green medical uniform was following.

  The doors of the lift closed. We were heading down. I looked at numbers on the panel. There were ten floors. The building had only two floors above ground. That meant the stairwell I’d been on didn’t go down to all the underground levels.

  I’d pressed the number four. I stood back as the doors opened, not knowing what to expect. They opened on a small room with only bare rock walls. My hand hovered over the buttons. If I went up, and those people following me had pressed the button calling the elevator, in a few seconds the door would open on their floor and they’d have me.

  I had to try the other levels. I pressed three.

  The door pinged open again on another small room. I held the doors this time as I peered around. It looked as if it had been constructed as a test point in the rock underneath the research center. This room was bigger than the one above and the far wall was rough and had small round holes all over it, as if it had been used for testing something.

  I pressed two. This opened into a longer room, reaching maybe fifty feet in front of me, into a far wall barely lit by the light coming out of the elevator.

  I stepped back, pressed the one. This was it. My last chance. The door pinged open. A long passage, wide enough for three people to walk abreast, had been cut into the bedrock. The walls were rough gray. They looked as if they’d been cut in great slices, as if whoever had made them had been using some giant butter knife, capable of cutting through limestone.

  In the distance the passage bent to the left. It was lit though, with bulbs at regular intervals. And they were on.

  Anxiety had made my hands into fists, and I held them tight at my side. A part of me said, go back, but I had to see what was down here. I couldn’t turn around now. I walked forward.

  The door binged closed behind me and the elevator made a clunking sound as it started back up. I had to move fast. I half ran to where the passage turned. As I came towards the bend I saw the walls changing. It seemed as if they were cut into a softer rock now, paler limestone.

  As I neared the bend, a shout echoed from behind. I didn’t look back. I
ran on.

  81

  Xena stood. A shadow, moving fast across the floor, was all she had seen, but she knew it meant trouble. She pointed the torch around the area by the door, focusing the dim light on each part of the door in turn.

  There was no obvious handle or clear way through. But there were holes in the wall on either side. They could have been torch holes, or hand holds for people climbing the wall. She looked up. The roof, a series of stone beams, was twenty feet above her. She shone the torch upwards.

  There was a ledge up above, cut into the stone wall above the door. She looked at the holes. She could climb up.

  She put the torch in her deep trouser pocket. She left it on, so the light came out through the dark cotton, illuminating the wall. It wasn’t ideal. But she couldn’t do this in the dark.

  She put her foot in the first hole, about knee height off the ground. She reached up to a hole above her head, put a hand into it. Her other foot went into another hole.

  As she went up she heard a rustling on the floor below. She didn’t dare look down. When she reached the level of the ledge she had to go above it, then use a hole above as a hand hold to clamber onto it.

  The ledge was as wide as her body, and bare, except for what looked like a bowl above the center of the door. She crawled towards it.

  It wasn’t just a bowl. It was black inside. Perhaps it had been filled with oil and lit when the hall was in use. She looked up. The roof above was stained black. She lay out on the ledge, then turned the torch to the floor below. Her mouth opened.

  Two areas of dark shadow were moving around the floor, as if they were ghosts. She peered down, trying to make out what the shadows meant. Then she knew. At the back of one of the shadows, giant ants were scurrying to join the shadow. As they joined, they disappeared into the mass of ants.

  The shadows merged, stopped below where she had climbed up the wall.

  A shiver ran through her.

  A part of the shadow went up the wall, as if others below were supporting the ones above. The shadow seemed to be reaching for the first hole she had used to climb up.

  She drew back along the ledge, looked around for a weapon, then looked back down. The ants hadn’t reached the next hole. The smooth wall had defeated them. She lay back, closed her eyes. How was she going to get out of this place?

  82

  I stopped as soon as I got around the corner. In front of me there was a cave-like room with an opening on the far wall. The rock around us was various shades of gray.

  The far opening was wide enough for ten men to get through side by side, but the roof of the cave was only a few feet above my head. Was this an underground entrance to the pyramid complex?

  I walked fast towards the opening in the far wall. Beyond it was a ramp, angled downwards. Someone had put wooden rails on the left hand side. The angle was about forty-five degrees. You could run down it, but you would be lucky to be able to stop at the end. The roof of the ramp was a little shorter than my height.

  I went to the left, started down using the wooden rails. Maybe there was another way out here. Or maybe I’d find out what the hell Yacoub was digging for.

  A string of widely spaced lights lit the ramp with a phosphorescent glow. As I went down the air was heavy, hot. Sweat was prickling all over my body. A grinding noise echoed. At the bottom of the ramp, a glow of light pulled me forward.

  I wondered for a moment if I was just walking deeper into trouble, but I knew I had no choice. The effects of the drug they’d given me hadn’t fully worn off, but the knowledge that they could do anything to me, including kill me in my sleep, had sent a strong desire to get away from these people, whatever it took.

  I tried to keep quiet, as I went down, but it was difficult, as the wooden bands nailed into the walkway squeaked as I stepped on them. As I neared the bottom of the ramp, which must have been a hundred feet long, a flat stone area came into view. Another cave.

  I slowed as I approached. There were lights on down there and the grinding noise was louder now. I bent down as I came near the end, trying to see into the cave below.

  That was when Yacoub’s two nieces appeared at the bottom. Each of them was holding a black Heckler & Koch machine pistol.

  “Come down, Isabel,” said Aisha.

  I stood still for a few seconds, wondering if I should try to run back up. It’s not easy shooting someone above you who is moving. So they’d told me a long time ago. But did I want to risk my life on their shooting prowess?

  Another figure appeared, beside Aisha and Sawda. It was Mustafa, Yacoub’s brother. He waved at me.

  “Come,” he said. “Meet your husband.”

  83

  Henry’s earphones crackled. He had a visual on his screen, a green tinged live feed from the infrared headsets the unit were using in the pre-dawn darkness on the edge of Cairo.

  “Ground floor secure, alpha one.” A long crackle interfered with the next words from the special forces team leader.

  “Repeat,” said Henry. All he could see on the screen was a room with elevator doors.

  “We need to go down, sir. From what our local contact has told us, they’ve had reports of multiple underground levels at this location. Loss of contact is likely. Permission to proceed requested.”

  Henry drummed his fingers on the desk. He looked up. His colleague was observing him from across the room.

  “Granted, code green.” He took a sip from the plastic cup of water on his desk.

  If he got this wrong, the United Kingdom’s reputation was on the line. The last thing the government needed right now was the accusation of another failed foreign adventure.

  84

  I ran forward. I couldn’t stop myself. There was a body strapped to a steel hospital gurney in the center of the cave. A drip line was attached to one arm.

  Aisha and Sawda blocked my path. They tried to take hold of my arms. I swung them wildly. Two security men appeared. As I tried to dodge Aisha and Sawda they reached for me.

  “Let me go,” I screamed.

  But my arms were held tight. I kicked out, caught Sawda in the thigh. My other foot was kicked out from under me. I fell back, held up only by the two security men. The pushed me back to my feet.

  “Your husband is not dead, Mrs. Ryan. Not yet, anyway. But if you keep causing trouble he will be,” said Mustafa, who was standing in front of me. He gestured at the two security men.

  They gripped me tighter.

  He said something in Arabic. The men pushed me towards the gurney. Hope and fear mixed inside me in stomach clenching waves. I wanted to see who this was. And I dreaded seeing who it was.

  I looked away as the thought of what I might see struck me, but I turned my head back an instant later. I had to see. I had to know.

  Then I knew.

  “What have you done to him?” I screamed, as I looked at Sean’s face. It was pale, thin. He looked ill, like a survivor from a concentration camp. There were purple bruises on his cheeks.

  “He’s alive, Mrs. Ryan. And having him here has helped us. We found out some time back that your husband has the same blood type of the family of the ancient pharaohs, A2, with the very uncommon genotype MN.”

  “What the hell has that got to do with anything?” My arm wriggled from the guard’s grip. I raised my fist in front of me in frustration. It was shaking. One of the guards grabbed it, pressed that arm behind my back, painfully.

  “Stop,” I yelled.

  Mustafa nodded, then pointed across the cave. Rocks were strewn around beneath the far wall. A passage lay between them heading into the wall. It looked as if it had only recently been dug. There were electric drills lying on the floor, connected by cables to a bright yellow power unit. I remembered the grinding noise I’d heard when I was coming down the stairs.

  “What sort of shit are you pulling down here? Sean’s blood can’t help you with anything. Let him go, for god’s sake. You can’t get away
with this.”

  “Oh, but we can, and we will,” said a voice behind me. I turned. It was Yacoub, but there was someone else with him. They were coming down into the room from the stairway.

  85

  Henry watched his screen intently. His face was only away inches from it. Communications had been cut off with the team leader, but as only five of the team had gone down, there were still another five above ground.

  The sergeant in charge of the second section was mumbling into his microphone.

  “Speak up, man,” said Henry. “What the hell are you saying?”

  “Sir, there’s gunfire echoing up the elevator shaft. If the elevator doesn’t come back up in the next few minutes we’ll open these doors and abseil down.”

  The screen was filled with the black carbon helmets and padded body suits of the team as they clustered around the elevator doors.

  “Gunfire outside the building again, sir. Exit route may be compromised.”

  Henry pulled back from the screen. This was not going as well as he’d hoped. If they were under fire below ground and above, there could be casualties soon. It was going to take some explaining, especially if they didn’t come back with the Ryans alive.

  The elevator doors binged. The angry grunt from the sergeant echoed in Henry’s ears. As the headcam he was watching through angled down he understood why. The entire five man team were lying on the floor of the elevator. Behind them, the steel clad wall of the elevator was pockmarked with bullet holes and plastered with blood.

  They hadn’t stood a chance. Someone had fired into the elevator as soon as the doors had opened. Had they even got any shots off in retaliation?

  “Permission to go down alone, sir,” said the sergeant in his ear.

  He hesitated for only a moment.