by Paul Sussman
His voice tailed away. Somewhere out on the street someone was banging a drum. There was a long silence.
'Perhaps I should leave you, Inspector,' said Omar quietly, standing. 'It is not right to intrude upon your grief like this.' He began moving towards the door.
'The piece,' said Khalifa.
'Sorry?'
'The piece of wall. Did you see it?'
'Yes,' said Omar. 'I saw it.'
'Snakes along the bottom? Hieroglyphs?'
Omar nodded.
'The signs. The hieroglyphic signs. Can you remember any of them?'
Omar thought for a moment and then, coming forward, took Khalifa's pen and drew on the piece of paper in front of him. The detective looked down.
'You're sure this is what you saw?'
'I think so. Do you know what it is?'
'Mer,' said Khalifa. 'The sign for a pyramid.'
He stared down for a moment longer and then, folding the paper, put it in his pocket.
'Thank you, Omar,' he said. 'I know how difficult it was for you to come here today.'
'Just find my friends, Inspector. That's all I ask. Just find my friends.'
For a moment it looked as if he was going to extend his hand, but in the end he just nodded curtly and left the room.
Khalifa spent twenty minutes filling Sariya in on what had happened in Cairo and getting the details of Suleiman's death. Then, as requested, he went upstairs to see the chief inspector.
Normally Hassani liked to keep him waiting for at least a few minutes before admitting him to his office. Today, however, he was ushered straight in. Not only that, but for once he was given a halfway decent chair to sit on.
'I'll have a progress report on the case typed up by noon,' he began, hoping to pre-empt the inevitable questions about where the report was. Hassani, however, waved his hand dismissively.
'Don't worry about that. I've got some good news, Yusuf.'
He sat back in his chair and jutted out his chin, adopting much the same pose as President Mubarak in the photograph above him.
'I'm pleased to inform you,' he said portentously, 'that your promotion application has been approved. Congratulations.'
He smiled, although something about his expression suggested he wasn't quite as pleased as he was trying to look.
'You're joking,' said Khalifa.
The smile faded slightly.
'I never tell jokes. I'm a policeman.'
'Yes, sir. Sorry.' He didn't know what to say. It was the last thing he'd been expecting.
'I want you to take the rest of the day off, go home, tell the wife, celebrate. Then tomorrow I'm sending you up to a conference in Ismailiya.'
'Ismailiya?'
'Some hokum about urban policing in the twenty-first century. Three days of it, God help you. These are the sort of things you have to put up with if you want to get on in the force.'
Khalifa said nothing. He was delighted, of course. At the same time, however, there was something . . .
'What about the case?' he asked.
Again that dismissive wave of the hand, that not-quite-genuine smile.
'Don't worry about the case, Yusuf. It can wait for a couple of days. Go up to Ismailiya, do the conference, then when you get back you can pick it up again. It'll wait.'
'I can't just leave it, sir.'
'Relax! You've been promoted! Enjoy it!'
'I know, but . . .'
Hassani started laughing. A loud, boisterous laugh that filled the room and drowned out Khalifa's words.
'Here's a turn-up for the books, eh! Me telling one of my men to work a bit less hard! I hope you're not going to tell anyone. It could ruin my reputation!'
Khalifa smiled, but wouldn't be deflected. 'Three people have been murdered, sir. Two more have disappeared. I've got a definite link with Sayf al-Tha'r, and possibly the British embassy as well. I can't just drop this.'
Hassani continued to chuckle. In his eyes, however, Khalifa could see annoyance. Annoyance bordering on anger.
'Don't you want this promotion?' he asked.
'Sir?'
'It's just that you don't seem particularly happy about it. Or particularly grateful.'
He stressed the last word, as though urging Khalifa to take note of it.
'I am grateful, sir. But people's lives are in danger. I can't just disappear to Ismailiya for three days.'
Hassani nodded. 'Think we can't take care of things here without you, is that it?'
'No, sir. I just—'
'Think the force won't be able to operate in your absence?'
'Sir—'
'Think you're the only one who's interested in law and order and right and wrong?'
His voice was getting louder. A vein was pulsing up in his neck. 'Well, let me tell you, Khalifa, I've spent my entire life working for the good of this country and I'm not going to sit here and listen to a little shit like you make out you're the only one who cares.' He was breathing heavily. 'Now you've got what you wanted. You've got your fucking promotion. And tomorrow, if you know what's good for you, you're going to Ismailiya. And that's the end of it.'
He pushed himself away from the desk, got to his feet and strode to the window, where he stood looking out with his back to Khalifa, cracking his knuckles. Khalifa lit a cigarette, not bothering to ask permission.
'Who got to you, sir?' he said quietly.
Hassani didn't reply.
'That's what this promotion's about, isn't it? Somebody got to you. Somebody wants me off this case.'
Still Hassani was silent.
'It's a trade-off. I get the new job and in return I forget about the investigation. That's the deal, isn't it? That's the bribe.'
Hassani's fingers were cracking so loudly it seemed as though they were going to break.
Slowly he turned round.
'I don't like you, Khalifa,' he growled. 'I never have and I never will. You're arrogant, you're insubordinate, you're a fucking pain in the arse.' He took a step forward, jaw set, like a fighter stepping into the ring. 'You're also the best detective we've got on this force. Don't think I don't know that. And although you might not believe it, I've never wished you any harm. So listen to me, and listen closely: take this promotion, go to Ismailiya, forget about the case. Because trust me, if you don't, there's nothing I can do to protect you.'
He held Khalifa's eyes for a moment and then turned back towards the window.
'And shut the door behind you,' he said.
31
THE WESTERN DESERT
The first thing Tara noticed was the heat. It was as though she was drifting upwards from the depths of a cool lake, and with every fathom she rose the water around her grew hotter and hotter until eventually she surfaced into what felt like a raging inferno. She was sure that if she stayed up there she would be burnt alive and, flipping over, she tried to swim back down again, back into the cool, dark depths below. Her body, however, seemed to have assumed an irresistible buoyancy and, try as she might, she couldn't get herself more than a few inches below the surface. She struggled for a while, fighting to propel herself downwards, but it was no good and eventually she gave up and, rolling onto her back, floated resignedly upwards into the flames. Her eyes blinked open.
She was lying inside a tent. Beside her, gazing down, was Daniel. He reached out and stroked her hair.
'Welcome back,' he said.
Her head ached and her mouth felt dry and thick, as though it was full of paper. She lay still for a while and then struggled into a sitting position. Two metres away, in front of the tent doorway, sat a man with a gun cradled in his lap.
'Where are we?' she mumbled.
'In the middle of the western desert,' replied Daniel. 'In the Great Sand Sea. I'd guess about midway between Siwa and al-Farafra.'
She was struggling to breathe it was so hot. The air seared her mouth and throat, as though she was drinking lava. She couldn't see much through the tent door, just a lot of sand rising up in fr
ont of her. From somewhere nearby she could hear shouting and the putter of generators. She was painfully thirsty.
'What time is it?'
He glanced at his watch.
'Eleven.'
'I was in the boot of a car,' she said, trying to marshal her thoughts. 'And then a helicopter.'
'I don't remember anything about the journey.' He shrugged. 'Just the tomb.'
He reached up gingerly and touched the side of his head. The blood she had seen on his face and neck had been wiped away, if indeed she hadn't just dreamed it. She moved her hand along the matted floor and grasped his fingers.
'I'm so sorry, Daniel,' she said. 'I should never have got you involved in this.'
'I got myself involved.' He smiled. 'It's not your fault.'
'I should have just left the piece of wall at Saqqara, like you said.'
Leaning forward, he kissed her forehead. 'Maybe. But think of all the fun we'd have missed if you had. I never had this much excitement digging.' He ran his hands through his hair. 'And, anyway, this way we get to be around when they make the greatest discovery in the history of archaeology. I reckon that's worth a little bump on the head.'
She knew he was trying to cheer her up and did her best to respond. The truth was, however, that she felt sick and frightened and hopeless and, despite the jokes, knew Daniel felt exactly the same. She could see it in his eyes and the listless slump of his shoulders.
'They're going to kill us, aren't they?'
'Not necessarily. There's a good chance that once they've found the army—'
She looked him in the eyes. 'They're going to kill us, aren't they?'
He was silent for a moment and then looked down at the floor. 'Yes,' he said. 'I expect they probably are.'
They lapsed into silence. Daniel hunched forward, clasping his arms around his legs, resting his chin on his knees. Tara stood and stretched, head throbbing. The guard continued to stare at them, expressionless. He was making no effort to cover them with his gun and for a moment she had a wild notion that they could overpower him and escape. Almost immediately she dismissed the thought. Even if they did get out of the tent where would they go? They were in the middle of a desert. The guard, she realized, was just for show. Their real captors were the sand and the heat. She felt like crying, but her eyes were too dry for tears.
'I'm thirsty,' she mumbled.
Daniel lifted his head and addressed the guard. 'Ehna aatzanin. Aazin mayya.'
The guard stared at them for a moment and then, without taking his eyes off them, shouted to someone outside. A few minutes later a man came into the tent with an earthenware jar, which he handed to Tara. She lifted it to her lips and drank. The water was warm and tasted of clay, but she gulped at it nonetheless, finishing half the jar before passing it to Daniel, who drank too. A helicopter thudded overhead, causing the material of the tent to billow and ripple.
The morning dragged by. The heat, if anything, grew even more intense, drying the sweat on Tara's face and neck almost as soon as it formed. Daniel dozed for a while, head resting in her lap. More helicopters passed overhead.
After about an hour their guard was changed and they were brought food – raw vegetables, cheese, pieces of flat, unleavened bread, sour and dry and difficult to swallow. She tried to force it down, but had no appetite. Neither did Daniel and most of the food went uneaten. The new guard was as silent and impassive as his predecessor.
She must have fallen asleep because when she woke again the food had been removed and the original guard was back. She caught and held his eye, trying to make some sort of connection with him. He just stared at her, his expression cold and unyielding, and after a while she dropped her gaze.
'There's no point trying to communicate,' said Daniel. 'So far as they're concerned, we're no better than animals. Worse. We're Kufr. Heathens.'
She lay down again, her back to the guard, and closed her eyes. She tried to think of her flat, of the reptile house, of Jenny, of crisp December afternoons in Brockwell Park. Anything to take her away from the present. She couldn't hold the images. They would drift into her head, but then dissipate again as soon as she reached out to them. And behind them, always, would be the face of Dravic, gazing out at her with that repugnant leer. She tossed and turned and then sat up again and buried her face in her hands, despairing.
Eventually, some time in the early afternoon, when the sun was at its zenith and the air in the tent was so hot she didn't think she could stand it any more, the door flap flew back and a head poked through. Something was said to their guard, who stood and, pointing his gun at them, motioned them outside. They looked at each other and then, coming to their feet, stepped past him and out into the sunlight, their eyes narrowing to thin slits against the glare. Their tent was part of a large encampment pitched in the middle of a valley between high dunes, the one to the left sloping steeply upwards, the other, to the right, rising more gently. Everywhere were piles of oil drums, ropes, bales of straw and wooden packing crates. A helicopter swept in low overhead, a net holding more crates and drums suspended beneath it, dropping down into the valley and landing on a flat area of sand, where a dozen black-robed figures swarmed around it, unloading the equipment and carrying it away.
Tara barely noticed any of this, however, for the thing that immediately caught her eye was neither the helicopter nor the encampment but rather a vast, pyramid-shaped rock rearing up ahead of her. Her line of vision was partly blocked by the tents and crates so she could see only the upper part of it, but even that was enough to give an indication of its huge size. There was something faintly threatening about it sitting there in the middle of the desert, black and solid against the surrounding sands, and a shiver rippled down her spine. The men, she noticed, were doing their best to avoid looking at it.
They set off through the camp, one guard walking in front, two behind, emerging from its northern end and climbing to the top of a steep sandy mound, where Dravic was standing beneath an umbrella, a straw sunhat perched on his head.
'I hope you both slept well,' he said, chuckling, as they were led up to him.
'Fuck you,' snarled Daniel.
From the summit of the mound they were afforded an uninterrupted view straight up the valley, which curved gently northwards into the distance, like a trough between tidal waves of sand. The huge rock was directly in front of them, its entire bulk now visible, erupting from the flank of the left-hand dune like a needle-head jutting through soft yellow material. Beneath it, dwarfed by the towering mass above them, were a crowd of men wielding spades and tourias, while from its base five long tubes snaked out, running up the side of the dune and disappearing over the top. The chug of generators was much louder now, filling the air with a heavy rhythmic flutter, like the beating of thousands of wings.
'I thought you might like to see,' said Dravic. 'After all, it's not as if you'll have the chance to tell anyone.'
Again that insidious throaty chuckle. Tara could feel him staring at her, eyes roving lasciviously across her body. She shivered with disgust and moved back a step, placing Daniel between them. Dravic grunted and turned away, looking back up the valley. He removed a cigar from his shirt pocket and jammed it into his mouth.