by Paul Sussman
He leaned forward and slurped his tea. There was a brief silence.
'There is that one in the garage,' said Rania from behind her computer.
The slurping stopped.
'The new one that was delivered on Monday. It's all filled up and ready to go.'
'Yes, but that's no good,' said Abdul. 'It's booked out.'
'No it's not,' said Rania.
'I'm sure it is,' insisted Abdul, glaring at her. 'Booked out to that group of Italians.'
He spoke slowly and deliberately, emphasizing the words, as if prompting an actor who'd forgotten her lines.
'I don't think it is, Mr Wassami. Hang on, I'll look on the computer.'
'There's really no . . .'
Her fingers were already clattering over the keyboard.
'There!' she said triumphantly. 'I knew it wasn't. No-one's using it for another five days. Which is just how long your friend needs it for. Isn't that lucky?'
She smiled broadly, as did Abdul, although he clearly had to work at the expression.
'Yes, dear, marvellous.' He sighed, and buried his face in his hands. 'Thick as a slice of bloody basbousa.'
The four-by-four, a Toyota, was in a garage in the next street but one. White, cuboid, solid, with bull-bars across the front, two spare wheels bolted to the rear and a row of eight jerrycans slotted into the heavy steel roof-rack, it was exactly what Khalifa wanted. Abdul drove it out and parked it by the kerb.
'You will be careful with it, won't you?' he pleaded, clutching the steering wheel protectively. 'It's brand-new. I've only had it two days. Please tell me you'll be careful with it.'
'Of course I will.'
'It cost forty thousand dollars. And that was with a discount. Forty thousand. I must be mad letting you have it. Stark raving mad.'
He clambered out and walked Khalifa round the vehicle, pointing out the various features, stressing and re-stressing how anxious he was to get it back in one piece.
'It's four-wheel drive, obviously. Manual gearing, water-cooled engine, electric fuel pump. About as top of the range as you can get.' He sounded like a car salesman. 'It's fully equipped with fuel cans, water containers, toolbox, traction mats, first-aid kit, compass. Everything you'd expect, basically. There are also blankets, maps, emergency rations, flares, binoculars and . . .' Reaching into the glove compartment he removed what looked like a large mobile phone with a stubby aerial and a liquid crystal display on the front. '. . . a portable GPS unit.'
'GPS?'
'Global Positioning by Satellite. It tells you your precise position at any given moment and, if you punch in the co-ordinates of a point you're trying to reach, it'll tell you how far away it is and on what bearing. There's an instruction manual in the compartment. They're perfectly simple. Even I can use one.'
He replaced the unit and, reluctantly, handed the keys over.
'And I'm not paying for the petrol.'
'I didn't expect you to, Abdul,' said Khalifa, climbing in.
'So long as that's understood. The petrol's down to you. And take this.'
He pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and handed it over.
'If there are any problems, anything at all, any strange noises or anything, I want you to stop, pull over, turn off the engine and call me immediately. OK?'
'Will it work in the desert?'
'As far as I can tell it works everywhere except in Cairo. Now just tell me one more time: you will be careful.'
'I will be careful,' said Khalifa, starting the engine.
'And you'll be back in five days.'
'Less, I hope. Thanks again, Abdul. You're a good man.'
'I'm a madman. Forty thousand dollars!'
The car started to move off. Abdul waddled along beside it.
'I didn't even ask which desert you're going to.'
'The western desert.'
'The oases?'
'Beyond the oases. The Great Sand Sea.'
Abdul clutched at the window. 'Hang on, you didn't say anything about the Sand Sea! God Almighty, the place is a car graveyard. You can't take my—'
'Thanks again, Abdul! You're a true friend!'
Khalifa gunned the engine and roared off down the street. Abdul ran after him, but his obesity was against it and after only a few paces he wobbled to a halt. In the rear-view mirror Khalifa saw him standing in the middle of the road gesticulating wildly. He beeped twice and swung round the corner out of sight.
36
THE WESTERN DESERT
The helicopter roared across the camp and landed on a flat patch of sand fifty metres beyond it. As soon as it was down its side door slid open and two people jumped out, a man and a boy. The man stood for a moment looking around him and then fell to his knees and kissed the sand.
'Egypt!' he cried, his voice drowned out by the roar of the engines. 'My land, my home! I have returned!'
He remained prostrated for several seconds, embracing the desert, and then stood and set off towards the camp, the boy at his side.
Ahead all was frantic activity. A stream of crates was being carried away up the valley, while other containers, heavier, were being lugged back into the camp and piled up along its perimeter. Black-robed figures swarmed everywhere.
So intent were the workers on their labour that the new arrivals were almost at the tents before anyone noticed them. Three men rolling an oil drum looked up, saw them and immediately stopped what they were doing and raised their arms into the air.
'Sayf al-Tha'r!' they cried. 'He is here! Sayf al-Tha'r!'
The cry spread rapidly and soon men everywhere were laying aside their burdens and running to greet their master.
'Sayf al-Tha'r!' they screamed. 'He has returned! Sayf al-Tha'r!'
The object of their attention continued through the camp, expressionless, the crowd surging behind and to either side of him like the tail of a comet. Word of his arrival flew forward to those working at the excavations, and they too dropped their tools and streamed back towards the camp, shouting and waving their arms. The guards on the dune-tops fired their guns into the air, ecstatic.
Reaching the mound on the far side of the camp Sayf al-Tha'r climbed to its summit, the boy Mehmet still at his side, and gazed down at the scene below. Work had continued throughout the night and a vast crater now cut into the valley like a deep wound. Swathes of plastic sheeting had been laid along its upper edge and were piled with heaps of artefacts – shields, swords, spears, helmets, armour. Beneath, in the trench itself, as though the earth had split open and spewed forth its entrails, lay a seething confusion of emaciated bodies, human and animal, their skin brown and crinkled, like wrapping paper. There was something apocalyptic about the scene, as though it was the end of the world and the dead had come forth to face their final judgement. Appropriate, thought Sayf al-Tha'r, for the hour was indeed at hand when men would be judged. He gazed down for a long moment and then raised his arms triumphantly.
'Allah u akbar,' he roared, his voice echoing across the desert. 'God is great!'
'Allah u akbar!' responded the crowd beneath him. 'Praise be to God.'
The cry was repeated several times, accompanied by gunfire from the dune-tops above, and then, with a wave of his arms, Sayf al-Tha'r signalled that the men should return to work. They scattered immediately. He watched as they resumed their labours, stripping, loading, carrying and stacking, and then, sending Mehmet back down to the camp, he descended to the excavations and moved towards Dravic, who was standing beneath an umbrella supervising the packing of the artefacts.
'Sorry I didn't have time to come and applaud you,' said the German. 'I've been busy down here.'
If he noticed the sarcasm, Sayf al-Tha'r did not acknowledge it. He stood quietly just beyond the shade of the umbrella, in the full glare of the sun, gazing out over the mass of twisted corpses. Now that he was close he could see that many had been mangled in the hurry to strip them of their possessions. Limbs had been ripped from torsos, hands snapped away, heads k
nocked loose, dried flesh torn.
'Was it necessary to destroy them like this?' he asked.
'No,' sniffed Dravic. 'We could have done it by the book and spent a week uncovering each one. In which case we'd be leaving here with a couple of spears and that's about it.'
Again, Sayf al-Tha'r did not rise to the sarcasm. Instead he leaned forward and picked up a sword, turning it over in his hand, admiring its graceful lines and intricately moulded pommel. He'd only ever seen its like in museums, locked away in glass cases, beyond reach. Now there were hundreds laid out before him. Thousands. And those only a fraction of what was still hidden beneath the sands. The enormity of the find was almost too much to take in. It was more than he could have imagined in his wildest dreams. The answer to his prayers.
'Do we know how far it extends yet?'
Dravic puffed on his cigar. 'I've got men out digging test trenches. We've found the front end, almost a kilometre up the valley. We're still looking for the rear. It's fucking huge.' He wiped his arm across his forehead. 'When does the camel train arrive?' he asked.
'The day after tomorrow. Perhaps sooner.'
'I still say we should start flying some of this stuff out now.'
Sayf al-Tha'r shook his head. 'We can't risk a stream of helicopters going back and forth across the border. It would attract attention.'
'We flew in the men and equipment OK,' said the German.
'We were lucky. We needed to start work immediately and Allah granted us his favour. He may not do so again. We will wait for the camel train and take everything out on that. It is safer. We're patrolling the area?'
'We've got dune bikes doing sweeps out to fifty kilometres.'
'And?'
'What do you think? We're in the middle of a fucking desert. It's not like someone's just going to wander past accidentally.'
They fell silent. Sayf al-Tha'r laid aside the sword and picked up a small jasper amulet. It was no bigger than a thumbnail but beautifully carved, in the shape of Osiris, god of the underworld. He rubbed it gently between his fingers.
'We have five, maybe six days,' he said. 'How much of the army can we get out in that time?'
Dravic sucked on his cigar. 'A fraction of it. Less than a fraction. We're working round the clock and we've still only uncovered this small section. It's getting easier as we move northwards because the bodies seem to be nearer the surface, but we're still only going to be able to clear a tiny part of it. But then that's all we need, isn't it? The stuff we've already got will raise millions. We'll be dominating the antiquities market for the next hundred years.'
'And the rest of it? Preparations are being made?'
'We're working backwards from the front. Don't worry, it's all under control. And now, if you don't mind, I've got work to do.'
He jammed his cigar into his mouth and strode off towards the sand-vacuums. Sayf al-Tha'r gazed after him, a fog of distaste clouding his eyes, and then, still clasping the amulet, made his way around the edge of the excavation until he came to the great pyramid-shaped outcrop, squatting down in the shade at its foot.
It saddened him to think of what they were going to do to the army. If there had been another option he would have taken it, but there wasn't. The risk of someone else finding it was too great. They had to cover themselves. It went against his natural inclinations, but there was no choice. It had to be. Like killing. It had to be.
He sat back against the stone, rubbing the amulet between finger and thumb, surveying the lake of bodies. One, he noticed, buried up to the waist so that its torso was upright, seemed to be staring straight at him. He looked away and back again, but still the corpse's sightless eyes were turned in his direction, its dried lips pulled back from its teeth so that it appeared to be snarling. There was hatred in that face, fury, and for some reason he sensed that it was directed at him. He held its gaze for a moment and then, uncomfortable, stood and moved away. As he did so he glanced down at the amulet, only to discover that somehow it had snapped in half in his hand. He gazed at it for a moment, and then, with a grunt, cast it away into the trench.
37
CAIRO
Through the smoked glass of the limousine window Squires gazed over at two lanes of stationary traffic. Beside him was a small Peugeot with nine people squeezed inside it, a family by the looks of it, and beyond that a truck piled high with cauliflowers. Occasionally one of the three lanes would creep forward and he would find himself momentarily staring out at a new neighbour. Almost immediately the other lanes would advance too and the familiar configuration of limousine, Peugeot, truck would be restored, as though they were drums in an enormous fruit machine which, whenever it was activated, would rotate slowly only to return always to the same position.
'And what time was this?' he said into the mobile phone.
A crackly voice echoed down the line.
'You've no idea how? Or when?'
Again, a crackly echo. A boy selling bottles of perfume came up and knocked on the window. The chauffeur leaned out, shouted and the boy moved on.
'And his family?'
The response came through in a cough of static.
There was a long pause.
'Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk. We shall just have to adapt. Do what you can to find him and keep me informed.'
Squires switched off the mobile and returned it to his jacket pocket. Although he seemed calm there was something in the narrow set of his eyes that suggested disquiet.
'It seems our friend the detective has disappeared,' he said.
'Jesus fuck!' Massey slammed a fleshy hand onto the seat between them. 'I thought Jemal was having him watched.'
'It seems he managed to give them the slip.'
'I said we should have got rid of him. Didn't I say it?'
'You most certainly did, old boy.'
'Fuck, fuck, fuck!'
The American was slamming his hand harder and harder against the seat, leaving deep indentations in the leather. He continued to hit it for several seconds more before slumping backwards, breathing heavily.
'When?'
'They're not sure.' Squires sighed. 'Apparently his wife and children went out at seven this morning. By ten he still hadn't appeared so they kicked the door in and he wasn't there.'
'Amateurs!' spat Massey. 'Amateurs!'
From behind came a loud blaring as a bus driver hammered furiously, pointlessly, on his hooter.
'It seems he was at a library yesterday,' said Squires. 'Looking through maps of the western desert.'
'Jesus! So he knows about the army.'
'It looks that way.'
'Has he told anyone? Press? Antiquities Service?'
Squires shrugged. 'I'd say on balance he hasn't or we'd have heard something by now.'
'So what's he doing?'
'I really couldn't say. Going out there on his own, by the looks of things. I fear we might have to make our move rather earlier than we'd planned.'
For once Massey didn't argue.