by Gregg Loomis
“Who the hell . . . ?”
“Answering it could well provide an answer.”
At first Lang thought the caller had a wrong number. There was that instant’s pause before the anticipated hang-up.
But there was no hang-up. Instead, Miles’s voice, disgustingly cheery, boomed through the line. “Lang! Understand there was a little excitement around the Reilly household this morning!”
Lang was wondering how anyone could be so damn chipper at this hour before he realized it probably wasn’t this hour wherever Miles was. “You could say that.”
“My, but aren’t you the sourpuss, for someone who has just cheated death! Thought you’d like to know: one of our guys followed the car that tossed the Molotov cocktail. Got the license plate.”
“Let me guess—the plate, the car or both were stolen.”
“How perceptive for one so grouchy at being awoken from his slumbers!”
Lang picked up his coffee cup from the a table, confirming it was empty. “You didn’t call just to tell me that assassins frequently don’t use their own automobiles.”
“Quite so. But your security guy isn’t a bad shot.”
“Meaning?”
“A patrolman just called in to the APD a report of a man dead in a stolen Ford Taurus. I must say, these people have no taste in automobilia. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a clunker like that.”
Lang was wondering if there might be a teeny-weeny little bit of coffee left in the pot after all. He held up the cup, motioning to Gurt, who was at his elbow, listening as best she could to the conversation. “I suppose you’re going to tell me the deceased is the would-be arsonist.”
“According to what my guy heard on the police scanner, the back window of the car appeared to have been shot out, the dead guy bled out from a bullet wound in the back of his neck and there was a can half-full of gasoline in the backseat. I doubt he was on his way from the filling station to top off his lawnmower. Oh yeah, one more detail. He appears to be Asian, no ID on the body.”
Gurt stood in the kitchen door, Manfred still draped over one arm, the other hand holding a demonstrably empty coffee pot.
“That’s interesting to know, Miles.”
“I thought a few facts like that might speed your decision on my little proposition.”
“It does Miles, it does.”
“Well?”
“I’m definitely leaning in that direction.”
“Lang, do something! Think of your family. They may not miss next time.”
“The thought had occurred to me. You’ll have your answer before the day is out.”
With parting salutations, the conversation ended.
Gurt was facing Lang. “Wherever you have to go, whatever you have to do, make them stop it before one of us gets hurt.”
That was a decision Lang had already made, Gurt’s agreement or not. He just wanted her blessing before he called Miles back.
El Nozha Airport
Alexandria, Egypt
Three days later
The Gulfstream 550’s tires met the runway with a satinlike kiss, a tribute to the piloting skills of its flight crew. Lang was pushed forward in his seat as the engines howled into reverse thrust and the plane came to a near stop before turning sedately onto a taxiway like an elderly dowager leaving the dance floor.
He took his BlackBerry from his pocket and called home. It would be far too early in the morning, eight hours earlier, for Gurt to have hers turned on, but the “missed call” message and his number would let her know he had arrived safely.
Lang had been watching the city as it spread out beneath him on final approach. Mostly sand-colored buildings surrounding green spaces, hardly the sophisticated international metropolis of ancient history. He rubbed eyes, gritty from the lack of sleep that always accompanied air travel. The main terminal, a low squat building, suckled aircraft of Air Arabia, Olympic, Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa. Thankful he would not have to transit what he remembered as the tiny, crowded, ill-smelling and generally filthy arrival lounge, he settled back into his seat to await the arrival of the inevitable officialdom.
The customs and immigration crew had apparently been waiting on the private aviation tarmac. The Gulfstream’s door had hardly wheezed open when two khaki-clad officials climbed the short staircase and began reviewing the general declarations proffered by the plane’s copilot. The deference with which the aircraft’s crew and passengers were treated was far different from the arrogance that Lang recalled being shown across the field in the passenger terminal. But then, the occupants of a sixty-million-dollar private jet were more likely to be powerful people than, say, a merchant arriving from Cairo to visit relatives. Powerful or not, the language of international bureaucracy—paper—was inspected, exchanged and slipped into folders from which it likely would never emerge. Lang purchased the requisite visa stamp for the passport Miles had furnished along with matching Visa card, Mastercard and driver’s permit while explaining the two immunologists with him would not be leaving the aircraft but would depart for Sudan as soon as he left the plane. The disappointment shown at the lost revenues mostly dissipated when Lang thanked the two uniformed men for their prompt and courteous service, slipping an American twenty-dollar bill into both open hands.
With a minimum of luck, these two would be satisfied that the passports did not contain a stamp from Israel, a real problem requiring Higher Egyptian Authority, and be gone shortly.
“We’re in a bit of a hurry.” Lang smiled. “I am expected at an archaeological excavation that is waiting for me before further exploration can take place. I hope you can speed the customs inspection process.”
For another pair of twenties, indeed they could. The “inspection” consisted of brief glances about the aircraft’s cabin without moving a step farther.
Lang had learned long ago that in this part of the world, government officials expected to supplement their salaries. In fact, the value of political appointments in the Arab world had little to do with the pay attached; it had to do with the opportunities to extract baksheesh. Customs inspectors, particularly those along the Sinai’s border with Israel, became wealthy men.
Walking back to the small bedroom at the rear of the plane, Lang picked up a single suitcase. He reached under the mattress on which he had mostly tossed and turned the night before and pulled out the Browning HP in a leather holster. Clipping the holster to the belt in the small of his back, he probed the bedclothes again, this time producing a box of 9 mm ammunition, which he dumped loose into a jacket pocket before tossing the box into a waste basket.
Suitcase in hand, he walked to the aircraft’s open door, surprised at the blast of heat that met him even at this time of year. He was thankful he would not be here in July or August. At the bottom of the steps a sleek Mercedes glistened in the midmorning sun. He gave the briefest of waves to the pilot and copilot standing at the cockpit door and then to the pretty flight attendant who had served him and his two companions three meals since departing Atlanta.
Twenty minutes later, the Mercedes was purring along the Eastern Harbor. To his left, Lang could see turreted Fort Qaitbey, built at the tip of the western edge of a peninsula in the fourteenth century on the site of the famed Pharos Lighthouse with recycled stones from the ruins of the wonder of the ancient world. Between the road and the water, a golden crescent of beach framed colorful fishing boats gently swaying at their moorings. Lang noted there were a great deal more empty anchor buoys than ships. The bulk of the fleet must already have been at sea.
To Lang’s right, three- and four-story limestone buildings lined the waterfront, none of particular interest until the car eased into a parking spot in front of Le Metropole Hotel. The facade looked like the sort of North African fortress Gary Cooper, assisted to a small degree by the French Foreign Legion, might have defended in the 1939 version of Beau Geste.
As a uniformed bellhop opened the back door and Lang slid out, the driver, a swarthy man with a n
eatly manicured beard, spoke the first words of the trip. “Tell the concierge when you need the car and it will be here in five minutes. Here is my card with my cell-phone number. The service is available 24-7.”
“Thanks.” Lang proffered several bills as a tip.
Without looking at the money, the man shook his head. “Not necessary.”
Stunned, Lang watched the car merge into the brown haze generated by a mix of cars, trucks and scooters. In his travels, he rarely could recall a professional chauffeur declining a tip. In this part of the world, unheard of.
Unless . . .
Miles.
Miles had insisted on making the hotel reservations at Agency expense and arranging for a driver. A grin crept across Lang’s face as the realization dawned. Miles had arranged for much more. Lang was not alone here.
“Your only bag, sir?” the bellhop wanted to know.
Lang’s attention returned to the hotel. “Yeah, I’ll take it, thanks.”
Pressing a few dollars into the bellhop’s hand to atone for what would be viewed as unwarranted stinginess, Lang walked through revolving doors into a lobby that was a mixture of desert oasis, sheik’s palace and exuberant if less-than-tasteful decor. Plastic date palms drooped under the weight of plastic dates against walls painted with life-size scenes of heroic-looking Bedouins riding camels far too clean and mannerly to be realistic. In the background, painted, burkashrouded women obediently tended to domestic tasks, drawing water from a well and preparing meals over open fires.
To the Western eye, even more unrealistic than the camels.
Lang pretended to study the artwork as he took in the occupants of the lobby. Two men in low chairs were in intense conversation, a little table between them on which were two small coffee cups and an overflowing ashtray. The only other person other than hotel staff was hidden behind an Arabic newspaper. Pretending confusion between the registration desk and the concierge’s, Lang managed a view of the reader, a swarthy Arab.
“This way, sir,” a uniformed employee called from the registration desk as though shepherding a lost child.
Lang proffered the passport with the recently purchased visa. “Dr. Henry Roth,” he announced. “I believe I have reservations.”
The man behind the desk ran one hand over hair that could have been slicked back with axle grease. The other hand edged a finger down a list.
He spoke in British-accented English. “Oh, yes, here it is: Henry Roth. You will be staying with us tonight and tomorrow night?”
“Possibly longer, if I can. I’m not sure yet.”
The expression of distress would have credited an actor. “Oh, dear. I fear we are quite full after tomorrow.”
He studied a computer screen as though it might hold the solution to the problem, a solution Lang knew was elsewhere.
Reaching into a pocket, Lang palmed a fifty, placing his hand on the marble countertop so only the man behind it could see. “I trust you will do your best.”
As the desk clerk reached for the bill, Lang slowly withdrew the money, returning it to his pocket. “Your best is all I can ask.”
There was a meaningful moment of eye contact before the man behind the desk inhaled deeply. “I assure you, my best is what you will get.”
Turning, the desk clerk faced an old-fashioned letter box behind him, the square holes in which letters and room keys were kept.
He selected a key. “I see you have a message.”
He handed over both the key, attached to a heavy bronze tag, and a folded piece of paper. “If you will let me have a credit card and sign the register here . . .”
He pushed a registration form across the marble. Lang scribbled a signature that matched the one on his passport. As the clerk entered the information into the computer, Lang unfolded and read the read the handwritten note.
Dr. Roth:
You may find me at the Catholic cemetery of Terra Santa.
Rossi
Lang smiled. Antonio Rossi, curator of the Archaeological Museum in Rome, a man he had known briefly during the affair that had ended so badly in the ancient Roman necropolis under the Vatican. Except the archaeologist had known Lang as a Mr. Joel Couch, an American from Indianapolis. But it had taken only a single e-mail to remind him that no matter the name, the American had saved him from an assassin’s bullet at Herculaneum.
At Lang’s request, Rossi had taken over one of the endless digs going on in Alexandria, his credentials satisfying the rigorous requirements of Zahi Hawass, the photogenic if dictatorial general secretary of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
For centuries, if not millennia, Egypt’s artifacts had been plundered. From the poaching of towering obelisks by the Romans to the relatively minor pilfering of mummies and small statues by Sir John Soane for his private, three-house museum in London in the eighteenth century, all had been available for whatever conquering power had the desire and the means to cart them off.
No more. Dr. Hawass zealously guarded his country’s ancient treasures, even demanding vociferously if futilely for the return of some of the major items: the Rosetta Stone and a colossus of Ramses II from the British Museum, the swan-necked bust of Nefertiti from Berlin, a collection of sarcophagi from the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, statuary from the Louvre.
Other than native laborers, a person in Egypt needed an archaeology pedigree, accreditation and a vita Dr. Hawass approved to even be on the site of a dig. Wealthy backers were helpful.
Lang had none of the above. Dr. Rossi did.
In his room, an overdone version of some caliph’s harem, Lang supposed, he took the usual check on precautions, enjoying a cold Stella larger from the minibar as he worked. The damn thing probably cost the Egyptian equivalent of five bucks, but what the hell, he was thirsty. Disassembling the phone, he made certain there was no listening device there. Nor were any to be found behind the electrical switch plates or any of the places where they could have been installed without tearing out Sheetrock. Lang had expected none but no one he knew had ever died from overcaution. He pulled the heavy drapes closed, pleased to note they were heavy satin, an excellent insulator against remote-listening devices.
Lang pulled on a pair of jeans and T-shirt and, after only a second’s thought, slipped the Browning in its holster onto his belt, sliding it to the small of his back. A short-sleeve shirt, unbuttoned, and shirttails hanging outside his pants concealed the weapon.
In front of the hotel, he chose one of the city’s yellow and black cabs rather than the more conspicuous Mercedes. The first thing he noticed was that all motor traffic, cars, trucks, scooters, had a common trait: they all belched out a brownish exhaust that joined the thickening layer just above the rooftops.
Within minutes, Lang witnessed the chaos of Egyptian driving. Cars charged the wrong way down one-way streets and backed up against traffic to make a missed turn. Red lights, stop signs and lane markings were deemed advisory only. Drivers’ intentions were communicated, if at all, by hand. Passengers exited moving buses and pedestrians paid as little heed to the rules of the road as did drivers.
After a trip that would have compared favorably with any Dodge ’Em carnival ride, the cabby turned down the radio long enough to say “Terra Santa.”
In jeans that had been prefaded just short of white, T-shirt, worn desert boots, and holding a broad-brimmed hat, Lang felt like an extra in an Indiana Jones movie. The costume was, however, a close replica of the clothing he had carefully noted in the most recent National Geographic article concerning desert exploration. He had originally opted for shorts rather than long pants until reading that their function was not only to protect skin from the merciless African sun but to serve as a potential shield against the scorpions who frequently inhabited Egyptian ruins.
Lang took a long glance around the cemetery as the taxi disappeared into the morning’s traffic. After falling into disuse as a burial ground, the discovery of the so-called Alabaster Tomb in 1906 had given archaeologists hope A
lexander’s final resting place had been discovered. A cylindrical shaft lined with white marble had led down into a single room hacked into the limestone, its shape possibly Macedonian. This was all they initially found. No other chambers had been discovered. The area eventually became a plant nursery and was forgotten until 1988 and ’89 when modern electromagnetic measuring revealed unexplained anomalies, cuts into the limestone large enough to have served as passages that could well have been sealed off intentionally or by an ancient earthquake.
Lang walked along a fence topped with razor wire until he came to a gate guarded by a large man seated on an uncomfortable-looking camp stool and wearing a holster on his belt. The guard lifted his eyes from the newspaper in his hands and looked Lang over suspiciously.
“Dr. Rossi . . . I’m here to see Dr. Rossi, Antonio Rossi.”
Without response, the guard produced what looked like a small radio and said something into it Lang could not understand. Lang stood in the increasing heat of the sun for a minute or two, shifting his weight, before Dr. Rossi appeared.
Lang checked his watch. Back in Atlanta, it would be close to Manfred’s time for school. He entered the number and was rewarded with his son’s voice.
“Where are you, Vati?” the child asked.
Ever-cautious about nonsecure communications, Lang replied simply, “A long way away.”
“Are you going to bring me something when you come back?”
“Only if your mother and Grumps say you’ve been a good boy.”
Manfred was only momentarily disquieted by the prospect of being ratted out by the dog. “I will, Vati, I will!”
Rossi was tall, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, military-style khakis and worn rubber knee boots. His face was the color and texture of old leather, wrinkled from years in the sun. A queue of white hair protruded from under the rear of the hat like the tail of some small, furry animal.