by Peter Vegas
SAM WOKE THINKING KAREEM HAD turned a light on. It turned out to be the sun, streaming through a small skylight in the roof. But that wasn’t what had woken him. It was the silence.
The truck had stopped.
Sam felt like he had been asleep for hours, but the cell phone told him it was only just after seven. The sunroof lit the space like a weak lightbulb, but as he looked around, Sam spotted three smaller light sources coming from the back door. Tiny holes that looked suspiciously as if they’d been made by bullets. One of them, conveniently created at head height, made the perfect peephole. The first thing Sam saw when he looked through it was the imposing shape of the truck driver lumbering toward him with a plastic bag. Sam darted back to his spot by the fridge as the door opened.
“Here . . . for you,” Kareem said. The bag kicked up small clouds of dust as it skidded across the floorboards.
Sam’s eyes widened as he saw the contents. Water, a chocolate bar, and chips. “Thanks,” he said, but the door was already slamming shut. Sam sensed Kareem wasn’t too happy to be carrying human cargo.
* * *
SAM WAS JUST FINISHING HIS breakfast of champions when the truck stopped again. This time, when the door opened, Kareem was holding a microwave oven.
“What do you want with alchemy?” he asked as he slid the box into the truck.
“Alchemy. What’s that?” asked Sam
“Those symbols,” said Kareem, pointing to the piece of paper with the triangles. “They’re alchemy symbols. Earth, air, water, fire.”
Even though Sam had stored his clues in the plastic bag, they had still managed to get damp, so he had laid them out on the floor of the truck to dry.
Kareem pulled a pen from his pocket. “Here, I write them down for you.”
“What is alchemy exactly?” asked Sam as Kareem scribbled under the triangles.
“Gold—that’s what it’s about. Turning lead into gold.” Kareem smiled. “You wonder how I know about alchemy?” Sam didn’t. He was trying to work out how this new information fit into his uncle’s disappearance. “When I am young and stupid I think I will get rich quick by making gold from lead.”
“Did it work?”
Kareem shook his head. “Of course not. Now I am old and stupid and I get rich very, very slowly by driving truck.” This last admission seemed more for his own benefit than Sam’s, but the conversation had softened the old man a fraction. “I make a few more stops, okay?” he said as he swung the door closed. “Then I take you to Al Minya.”
Despite the thaw in the relationship, Sam wasn’t invited to sit up front. As more stops were made, he was left in the back with his sketchbook and his thoughts. If alchemy was about gold, was gold the secret behind Jasper’s mission? That might explain the metal detector. As the day wore on, the back of the truck warmed up. By the time Sam finished his drawing of the sewer rats, the car horns and street babble of Cairo had subsided, leaving only the monotonous roar of the truck’s engine as it powered down the open road.
* * *
SAM WAS ASLEEP AGAIN WHEN Mary rang.
“Hi, it’s me. Did I wake you again?”
“No,” he lied.
“I got your text last night. Did you get away okay?”
Sam grinned. He could afford to now that the terrors of the sewer were behind him. “Yeah. I got away okay.”
“So where are you now?” Mary sounded concerned. “Sam, you know I would have helped you get to Amarna.”
“I know. Look, Mary . . . I’m in this, and I have no choice. But I don’t want to get you into trouble.” Sam didn’t bother adding that he was still just a little suspicious of Mary’s eagerness to help him.
“It’s no trouble, Sam. I want to help. I’m bored here in Cairo anyway. Where are you now?”
As soon as he mentioned Al Minya, she cut him off.
“Al Minya. That’s interesting. That’s why I was calling you. Bassem’s friend went to the Port Records office in Alexandria. He greased a few palms with silver, which is the way you get things done in Egypt, and he found out your uncle was only interested in ships that sailed from Cairo to Al Minya.”
“Well, that’s great. That’s where I’m headed.”
“I know,” said Mary, “but here’s the strange bit. He was only interested in ships from 1942.”
“Nineteen forty-two.” Sam repeated it slowly. It felt familiar for some reason, but before he had a chance to take it further, his thoughts were interrupted by a dull beeping sound coming from his phone.
“Mary, look, sorry, I’m going to have to go.”
There was a moment of silence before Mary spoke. “Sam Force. You’re making a habit of cutting me off.”
“No, no, it’s not like that. It’s my phone. The battery is running low.”
“I should have thought of that,” replied Mary. “Given you a spare or something. Sorry.”
“That’s okay, but I need to conserve the power. This is the only way we can stay in touch.” Despite not wanting to get Mary more involved in his troubles, the idea of being cut off from her was a daunting prospect. He was unsure of her motivations, but he was sure that she’d been a big help so far. “Let’s just text till I can get a new battery.”
Mary didn’t sound convinced. “How are you going to do that?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe Kareem can help me.”
“Who’s Kareem? Honestly, Sam, for a guy who doesn’t have any friends in Egypt, you seem pretty popular.”
Sam laughed. “Look, I’ll talk . . . I mean text soon, okay?”
“Cool,” said Mary. The line went dead.
Getting a new battery was important, but there was something more pressing. Sam pulled out the first clue he’d found: Panehesy, one thousand, nine hundred and forty-two. Written out as a word he hadn’t recognized it as a date, but after the conversation with Mary it seemed obvious. Jasper wasn’t interested in Akhenaten’s high priest. He was searching for a ship that had traveled up the Nile in 1942.
Sam let out a yell of delight and punched the box beside him. The clues were revealing themselves. He was a long way from understanding the full picture, but he was heading in the right direction. He was sure of that.
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER THE TRUCK pulled into a gas station, and Sam seized the chance to deal with his dying phone battery. As Kareem filled the tank, Sam called out to him, asking if he had a cable to charge a mobile from his cigarette lighter. The man said he didn’t, so Sam asked to be allowed to go and buy one. It took all his negotiating skills, mixed with some good old-fashioned whining, to talk Kareem into letting him out of the truck. The fact that the place was empty, combined with Sam’s thinly veiled threats of also badly needing to use the restroom, convinced the grumpy driver to open the back door.
He was down to his last twenty bucks. Sam had no idea if it was enough for a mobile phone charger cable, but a quick look around the dingy shop told him his chances of finding one were remote anyway.
The shelves held the bare necessities for man and machine. A few cans of oil, packets of spark plugs, rice, soup, and cigarettes. The only thing there seemed to be plenty of were free brochures that were jammed into racks against the window.
Sam waited for the woman behind the counter to get off the phone. There was a chance she might have some mobile phone accessories stored in the back.
Despite the fact the phone conversation was in Egyptian, the girl’s tone told Sam the call wasn’t work related. After trying unsuccessfully to get her attention, Sam realized he would have to wait for the call to run its course, so he took a look at the wall of brochures. They were mostly for motels. All of them were cashing in on Egypt’s famous past with stupid names like the Sphinx Inn, King Tut’s Motel, the Mighty Nefertiti, and Pharaoh Palms.
“Can I help you? Hello? Boy. I said, can I help you?”
Sam heard the woman behind the counter the second time. The verbal exchange that followed was short and sweet. No, they didn’t se
ll phone accessories, but as Sam hurried back to the truck, he went with something much more valuable.
The answer to another clue.
* * *
THE SUN HAD SET AND Sam was back in darkness when the high-pitched beeping woke him. The green glow coming from his phone told him a text had arrived.
SAM. THE POLICE KNOW YOU ARE ON THAT TRUCK. THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU!
Sam stared at the message until the screen switched off. Sitting there in his vibrating black box, he tried to kick-start his head. The police? Why? How?
He pushed a button on the phone to light the screen again. The battery reading was at 2 percent. Did he risk a call to Mary to find out more?
He didn’t. Instead, he used the glow to guide him down to the bullet peephole.
Small dots of yellow light betrayed the presence of cars and trucks stretching for miles behind. They were on a long, straight road. Surely he’d be able to see trouble coming.
And then he did.
It was a long way off. Perhaps it had been behind a truck, and that’s why he hadn’t spotted it straightaway, but now the small blue flashing light stood out in contrast to the weak yellow line it was weaving its way through.
The police were coming for him, and he was locked in the back of a moving truck with nowhere to run.
Sam ran anyway, to the front of the truck, banged on the wall, and called out for Kareem to stop.
He either didn’t hear or chose not to.
The truck rolled on.
Another text arrived. SAM. YOU HAVE TO GET ON THE ROOF.
What was she talking about?
The truck lurched, and Sam smashed against one of the boxes. The impact sent the phone flying out of his hand and into the corner. When he retrieved it, another text had arrived: GET ON THE ROOF, SAM. NOW!!!!!!
As he stared at the row of exclamation marks, the first faint sounds of the police car siren reached him. Then the screen went black. The battery was dead.
Get on the roof. Why? How?
The how hit Sam in the head. Literally. One of the smaller boxes that had been sitting on top of the fridge slid off as Kareem veered into a new lane.
The boxes. Of course. He could build a stairway up to the sunroof. Only problem was, he would have to do it fast and in total darkness.
Sam groped his way toward the front of the truck where he remembered seeing a box containing an oven. He slid it next to the fridge and used it to get up, taking the microwave with him.
The whole unit wobbled as Kareem changed lanes yet again. The guy was suddenly driving like he was on a slalom ski course, and Sam wondered if it had something to do with the boys in blue behind them.
It was time for the final stage of the escape plan. Sam couldn’t reach the sunroof from the top of the fridge. He needed a bit of extra height. That was where the microwave came in. It was small and unstable, and if Kareem chose to make an evasive maneuver in the next thirty seconds, things would go very bad. But crouched there in the darkness, Sam knew there was no point trying to second-guess the big guy up front, so he went for it.
The fridge had been almost directly under the sunroof. By Sam’s reckoning, with the microwave dead center, all he had to do was get on it and reach up. He reckoned wrong. Sam’s hands touched the smooth metal of the roof, then the truck drifted slightly to one side. It wasn’t much, but with nothing to hold, Sam toppled over.
He landed heavily on a corner of the fridge box where the point dug into his shoulder. It felt like he’d been stabbed. Sam cried out as he slipped off the fridge. He hit the oven headfirst and the dark interior of the truck filled with stars. But he knew he’d been lucky. The oven had broken his fall. If he’d gone all the way to the floor, his escape attempt would have ended there.
With his head spinning and bolts of pain shooting through him, Sam considered giving the whole thing up. Was the risk worth it? How was getting onto the roof of a speeding truck going to help? He had almost run out of time anyway. The bleating siren told him the police were closing in fast.
In the end, Sam decided if he was going to go down, he would do it trying to escape. He got back on top of the fridge, moved the microwave close to the edge, and stepped up.
This time, grabbing hands made contact with the frame of the sunroof.
Sam ran his fingers around the edge until he found the two screws holding it in place. He undid them, and the plastic panel swung down. Now all he had to do was get through it.
Even using the microwave, it was still a stretch to the sunroof. Sam could get his arms through, but not quite far enough to pull himself up. He was about to jump up when the truck swerved across three lanes toward an off-ramp. The move sent the boxes under Sam’s feet toppling over, leaving him hanging from the roof like a human chandelier. He dug his fingers into the frame of the sunroof, but he was slipping. In a matter of seconds he’d fall.
The truck swerved back the other way as Kareem straightened it up. The motion swung Sam like a pendulum. He felt himself rising up, and as he did he seized the opportunity to shove his elbows through the sunroof. It was a tight fit, and as Sam wriggled out onto the roof of the truck, he discovered he was swapping a precarious situation for an even worse one.
The interior of the truck had been an island of calm compared to the gale-force winds now blasting him in the face. Kareem had taken them off the motorway, but he hadn’t slowed down. The frame of sunroof was the only thing stopping Sam from being blown to his death. Despite the roar of the wind Sam could still hear the high-pitched whine of the siren. The police car had followed them up the off-ramp. There was no way Kareem didn’t know he was being followed now, but Sam didn’t think it was his loyalty to his passenger that had prompted the getaway attempt. Maybe there was more to the kitchen appliances than met the eye.
The truck picked up speed, making it even harder for Sam to keep a grip. He had made it onto the roof, but why? What on earth had Mary been thinking? Surely she didn’t expect him to jump. Even if he made it without breaking his neck, the police were so close now they would see him.
The wind was getting stronger. But weirdly, Sam noticed, it now seemed to be coming at him from every direction. The noise was changing as well. The roar of the wind was starting to sound almost mechanical. Curiosity and fear forced Sam to risk raising his head so he could get a better look behind.
The police car was gone. Well, not gone, but Sam’s view of it had been blocked.
And now he knew why he’d been told to get on the roof.
Just a few feet behind the truck and a little higher off the ground than Sam, was Mary, sitting in a big plastic bubble.
12
COME FLY WITH ME
THE WAY SAM SAW IT, there was a good chance he was about to be hacked to death by the rotors of a helicopter. He tried to take some comfort from the fact that Mary, sitting in the cockpit, didn’t seem too worried. But she wasn’t the one pinned to the roof of a speeding truck.
The chopper rose above head-chopping height and drifted over the truck. The side door opened and a flimsy metal ladder rolled out. Mary was in the doorway, urging Sam to climb up. What he felt like screaming at her was: No! You come down!
With one hand locked to the frame of the sunroof, Sam made a grab for the ladder, but it whipped past, just out of arm’s reach. Fighting against the wind, he got onto his knees and tried again. The ladder swung and twisted around him as if they were playing a game of tag. Balancing on a few boxes suddenly seemed like child’s play.
The chopper backed off, straightened up, and came in again directly from behind. This was it. Sam knew he wouldn’t get a better chance. As the ladder drifted over the back of the truck, he let go of the sunroof and committed both hands to the capture.
He’d been so focused on the ladder, Sam hadn’t noticed that the police car had overtaken the truck. It pulled ahead, then swerved in front of the truck, forcing Kareem to hit the brakes. This happened just as Sam grabbed for the ladder. The truck’s sudden drop in speed
meant the ladder came at Sam faster than he had been expecting. Rather than grabbing it neatly with two hands, one of the rungs smashed into his nose, and the ladder continued past him.
Sam threw his hands up for protection. It was an instinctive move and a lucky one, because as the bottom of the ladder swept past, his hands caught the last rung.
Sam’s arms felt like they were being pulled out of their sockets as he was ripped off the roof of the truck. Barely aware of what was happening, Sam clung to the ladder. He caught a glimpse of the truck and police car below, then blackness as the helicopter left the road and moved out into the desert.
Sam swung through the dark on the end of the ladder like a trapeze artist. He might have even enjoyed the thrill if he hadn’t been losing his grip. And he didn’t have the strength to pull himself up. All he could do was hold on and pray the helicopter landed quickly.
His eyes were shut tight because of the wind blasting him in the face, so when the hand grabbed him, he freaked out. He hadn’t felt the ladder being winched up, and he opened his eyes as Mary pulled him into the chopper. Sam fell back on the bench seat as Mary slid the door shut.
“You look terrible,” she yelled above the noise of the helicopter turbines.
In the dim cabin light Sam surveyed the carnage. His face and shirt were covered in blood thanks to the whack on the nose from the ladder. He looked like a victim from a B-grade slasher movie. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said.
Mary pulled a small first aid kit from under the seat and took out a packet of wet wipes. “Sorry, that’s all I have right now.”
Sam ignored them. “Mary, what just happened?”
He knew she’d heard him, but instead of answering, she opened the packet herself and began trying to wipe some of the blood off Sam’s shirt. He should have been grateful. After all, she’d just saved him. But the whole situation was way too weird.
Her cleaning efforts started to annoy him. He shoved her hand away. “I don’t need to get clean, Mary. I want answers!”
Mary looked hurt by his outburst, but Sam didn’t care. He wanted to understand what was going on. “How did you find me?”