by Paul Sussman
Khalifa finished his cigarette and lit another one, remembering how he'd read the Greek settlements book for an essay he'd written at university. He stared out of the window for a moment, the landscape flat, dark and empty apart from the occasional lights of a far-off house or village, then returned his attention to the papers in front of him.
From the outset Dravic's academic achievements had been overshadowed by a tendency to violence. At the age of twelve he had put out a fellow pupil's eye during a playground fight, only narrowly escaping criminal proceedings after the intervention of the local Party supremo, a friend of his father's. Three years later he had been implicated in the murder of a vagrant who had been found burnt to death in a local park, and the year after in the gang rape of a young Jewish girl, on each occasion escaping punishment because of his father's connections. Khalifa shook his head, appalled.
The German had begun excavating in his early twenties, first in Syria, then Sudan and then Egypt, where he had worked for five consecutive seasons at Naukratis in the Delta. Despite persistent rumours of antiquities smuggling and worse, no charge against him had ever been sustained, and his career had flourished. There was a photograph of him shaking hands with President Sadat and another of him being presented with an award by Erich Honecker.
He had seemed destined for great things. Then, however, had come the incident with the dig volunteer. Although it had occurred in Egypt, the girl had been German, and that's where he'd been tried. He'd got away with it, but this time the mud had stuck. His research fellowship had been revoked, his dig concessions cancelled, he had stopped publishing.
That was two decades ago. Since then he had earned his living on the antiquities market, putting his expertise to use procuring and authenticating items for various wealthy patrons. In 1994 he had been arrested in Alexandria for possession of stolen antiquities and had served three months in Cairo's Tura prison, where the last known photo of him had been taken. Khalifa held it up – a black-and-white prison mug shot, the German standing against a wall holding a card with a number on it to his chest, scowling at the camera, huge and malevolent. Khalifa shivered.
After his release from Tura, Dravic had gone underground, entering and leaving the country illegally, organizing the smuggling of artefacts and their sale on the black markets of Europe and the Far East. Despite warrants for his arrest in seven countries, and numerous sightings, he'd always managed to keep one step ahead of the law.
Details of his recent movements were sketchy. All that was known was that he'd started working for Sayf al-Tha'r in the mid-1990s, and had been with him ever since. There were rumours of secret Swiss bank accounts, links with neo-Nazi organizations, even covert involvement with Western intelligence agencies, but most of it was hearsay. After 1994 the German had kept a low profile. One thing was certain, however – he was about as bad as they got.
Khalifa worked his way through to the end of the file, then stood to stretch his legs, wandering up to the far end of the carriage, where the two backpackers had put away their cards and were now listening to a cassette player. He nodded a greeting and asked them where they were going. They ignored him – probably worried I'm trying to sell them something, he thought, smiling to himself – and with a shrug he wandered back to his seat, lit another Cleopatra and got started on the pathologist's report on old man Iqbar. The backpackers' music seemed to blend with the rhythm of the train's wheels, as though both were part of the same tune. He could feel his eyes drooping.
Just south of Beni Suef the train juddered to a halt. It remained stationary for five minutes, emitting a soft hissing sound as though catching its breath, and then started moving again. Another minute passed and then he heard the door of the carriage open behind him. There was a pause, then a shout and a crash. The music from the cassette player stopped abruptly. He turned.
Three men in black djellabas were standing over the backpackers, whose cassette player lay smashed on the floor. One of the men grabbed the boy by the hair, yanked his head back and, in a movement so swift Khalifa barely saw it, slashed a knife across his throat. Blood jetted out over the carriage floor.
The detective leaped to his feet, reaching for his gun. Then he realized he'd left it in Luxor and so looked around wildly for something else to use as a weapon. Someone had left a pile of books on the seat opposite him. He began throwing them at the men.
'Police!' he yelled. 'Drop your weapons.'
They laughed and began moving towards him. He held his ground for a moment, then turned and ran, crashing through the door at the end of the carriage and into the next one along. There were more people here, including a group of children clutching brass lamps.
He ran forward between the seats, but snagged his foot on a can of edible oil and fell. A hand clasped his forehead and yanked his head backwards.
'God help me!' he coughed. 'Allah protect me!'
A face loomed right up against his, huge, big as a beach ball, half white, half purple.
'Poor little Ali,' chuckled the man. 'Ali, Ali, Ali!'
He was holding a trowel, diamond-shaped, its edges sharpened. With a bellow of laughter he drew it back and drilled it into Khalifa's neck—
He woke with a start.
The pathologist's report had slipped from his knees and lay scattered on the floor. Behind him he could hear the sound of the backpackers' cassette player. He looked round. They were both asleep, leaning against each other. Khalifa shook his head, relieved, and bent to gather up the report.
29
LUXOR, THE THEBAN HILLS
The snake came straight up the corridor towards them, eyes gleaming in the beam of the torch.
'Just keep very still,' Tara repeated.
'Oh Christ,' groaned Daniel. 'What is it?'
'Naja nigricollis,' she said. 'Black-necked cobra.'
'Is that bad?'
'Mm-hm.'
'How bad?'
'If one of us gets bitten we won't make it back down. They're very aggressive and very, very venomous. And they spit too. So no sudden movements.'
The snake's belly made a dry slithering sound as it swirled across the floor. Daniel tried to keep the torch on it.
'Fuck,' he shivered.
The cobra came to within a few paces of them and paused, rearing slightly, its hood distended, its eyes black and menacing. It was big, over two metres, its body thick and hose-like. Beside her Tara could feel Daniel beginning to shake.
'Try to keep calm,' she whispered. 'It'll be OK.'
The cobra swung to and fro for a moment and then dropped back to the floor and slithered forward again, right up to Daniel's boot, its black, pronged tongue seeming to lap at the dusty leather. It reared and began to explore his ankle, curling slowly around his leg.
'Turn the torch off,' said Tara.
'What?'
'Turn the torch off. Now. The light's exciting it.'
The snake's tongue was flicking up his calf. His breath was coming in short gasps.
'I can't,' he stammered. 'I can't be in the dark with it.'
'Do it!' she hissed.
'Oh Jesus.'
He flicked the switch and they were plunged into impenetrable blackness, as though their eyes had been bound with a length of thick velvet. The silence pressed in upon their ears, disturbed only by the swish of the cobra's tail and Daniel's rasping breath.
'It's going up my leg,' he choked.
'Just stay as still as you can.'
'It's going to bite me!'
'Not if you stay still.'
'It's all around my leg. I can't stand this, Tara. Please do something. Please!'
He was starting to panic. The snake would be able to feel his fear and that in turn would frighten it, making it more likely to bite.
'Tell me about Mery-amun,' she said desperately.
'Fuck Mery-amun!'
'Tell me about him!' she hissed.
He was panting with terror.
'Second son of King Amasis,' he gasped. 'Lived around
550 BC. High priest of Amun at Karnak. Jesus!'
'Keep talking!'
'Carter found an ostrakon with his name on it in the valley. Seemed to give the location of his tomb. Beside the Southern Path, twenty cubits from the Water in the Sky. We think Water in the Sky is a cliff at the top end of the valley.'
He fell silent. The air around them seemed to throb.
'What's happening?' she asked.
'I don't know. It's not on my leg any more. I can still feel it though.'
She was silent for a moment, thinking.
'Tara?'
'OK, I want you to turn the torch on again. But point it upwards. Not at the floor. Upwards. And do it very slowly. No jerky movements.'
A beat, and then a thin column of light speared up to the ceiling. By its glow she could just make out the cobra. It was between his legs, slightly in front, its head reared up almost to the level of his crotch.
'It likes you,' she said.
'I guess I'm that sort of guy,' he muttered through clenched teeth.
Slowly she dropped to her haunches. The snake's tail swished around the back of Daniel's boot.
'Lower the beam a bit. Carefully.'
The shaft of light slid across the ceiling and down onto the floor.
The cobra was swinging back and forth, its hood stretched wide, like a cupped hand. Not a good sign. It was getting agitated. Slowly she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, holding it away from her and fluttering it to attract the snake's attention. It rocked to and fro, looking first at the handkerchief, then at her, then at the handkerchief again. It continued swaying for a moment, then reared back and, with a sound like it was sneezing, launched a jet of venom at the white material. She felt globs of it spatter on her hand and arm, making the flesh burn.
'What's happening?' hissed Daniel, trying to look down without moving his head.
'Just stay still. I'm going to try and get it off.'
'You're not going to touch it, Tara! Please tell me you're not going to touch it!'
'It'll be fine. We've got a cobra at the zoo. I handle it all the time.'
Only with a snake hook, though, she thought to herself. And wearing protective gloves and goggles. She tried to block out memories of the time she'd been bitten and, continuing to flutter the handkerchief with her left hand, began moving her right one towards the cobra, aiming for the collar of blackish scales just beneath its head, trying not to tremble too much. Blood was pounding in her ears.
'Jesus Christ!' groaned Daniel.
She ignored him and concentrated all her attention on the snake. Twice it arched its head back and spat at the handkerchief, twice she stopped her right hand dead and snapped her eyes shut, waiting for several agonizing seconds before slowly opening them again and continuing to move her fingers towards the snake's neck, expecting at any moment to feel the snap of fangs puncturing her flesh. I have to get this just right, she thought. If I take it too low I'll leave it enough room to switch round and bite me. Too high and I'll end up putting my hand right into its jaws. I have to judge it perfectly.
'What's going on?' Daniel's voice was desperate.
'Almost there,' she whispered. 'Almost . . .'
Her hand was just a few inches from the cobra's neck. Droplets of sweat were stinging her eyes. The tips of her fingers were shaking so badly it looked like she was waving.
'Please, Tara, what's . . .'
The snake lunged. It went for the handkerchief rather than her hand and, driven purely by instinct, she snatched her left hand back while at the same time whipping her right one forward and up, grasping the cobra just below the head. It writhed furiously, tail lashing against Daniel's leg.
'Christ Almighty!' he screamed, leaping backwards, dropping the torch.
'It's all right,' she said, 'I've got it. I've got it.'
The cobra coiled and flailed around her arm, struggling furiously. It was strong, but her grip was firm and it was unable to break free. Trembling, Daniel picked up the torch and shone it at them. The snake's mouth had levered open in fury, revealing dripping, needle-like fangs.
'Jesus, I can't believe you just did that!'
'Neither can I.'
She moved past him back to the doorway and clambered outside, the cobra flipping about in her hand as though she was waving a streamer. Carefully she edged her way down the gully till she was almost at its mouth and then, dropping her arm, threw the snake out into the void. It spiralled through the air, like a thin line pencilled against the sky, and fell out of sight. She made her way back up the gully and into the tomb, breathing heavily.
'Right,' she said, sounding calmer than she felt, 'let's have a look what's in here, shall we?'
The chamber at the end of the corridor was rectangular in shape, small, no more than eight metres long by four across, its walls decorated with columns of black hieroglyphic text and vivid scenes in red, green and yellow. Around the bottom of the walls ran a continuous line of rearing serpents like the ones on the plaster fragment they'd found at Saqqara. The place was completely empty.
There was a metre drop from the level of the corridor to the chamber floor. Tara jumped down immediately. Daniel remained where he was for a moment, playing the torch back and forth across the floor, then jumped down too. He circled the torch around the floor again, then lifted the beam and slowly ran it over the walls, images appearing and disappearing as the light passed over them. He seemed uneasy, his gaze flicking constantly downwards and back towards the chamber entrance. Gradually, however, as his attention focused on the painted images – the brilliant colours, the strange faces, the teetering columns of hieroglyphs – he seemed to relax. A smile spread slowly across his face and his eyes began to sparkle.
'It's good,' he muttered to himself, nodding. 'Oh, it's very good.'
He shone the torch up at one of the painted scenes: a jackal-headed figure leading a man towards a set of scales, on the far side of which stood another figure, this one with the head of an ibis, a pen and tablet in its hand.
'What is it?' asked Tara.
'From the Book of the Dead,' he replied, gazing up at the scene. 'Anubis, god of the necropolis, leads the deceased to the scales of judgement. His heart is weighed and the result is written down by the god Thoth. It's a typical Egyptian tomb scene. Like that one . . .' He ran the torch along the wall to another image: a man, red-skinned and wearing a white kilt, extending his arms with what looked like a jar clasped in each hand. In front of him stood a woman, yellow-skinned, her head surmounted by a pair of bull's horns with between them a circular disc.
'The deceased making offerings to the goddess Isis. Red for the man's skin, yellow for the woman's. Wonderfully painted. Look at the precision of the lines, the richness of the colours. I can't believe I . . . It's just incredible.'
He stared up, spellbound.
'What about these figures?' asked Tara, pointing to a scene on one of the side walls: two men with intricately braided wigs and beards facing each other, one sitting, one kneeling. 'They look different.'
Daniel shone the torch at them.
'You're right,' he said. 'Stylistically they're Persian, not Egyptian. You can tell by the way they wear their hair and beards. Go to the ruins of Susa or Persepolis and you'll find this sort of tableau everywhere. You don't see them in Egyptian tombs, though. Same with this one.' He flicked the torch round to an image on the opposite wall: a bearded man in a white robe standing in front of a table piled high with fruit.