by Perrin Briar
“We know there’s a secret entrance in here,” Jordan said. “Tell us where it is and you and your friends won’t be hurt any further. If you scream or yell you’re going to lose your tongue. Do you understand?”
The guard, eyes big and wide, nodded. Jordan pulled the sock out of his mouth. The guard poked his tongue out, rasping to get rid of the fibres on it.
“Thank you,” he said. “I thought I was going to-”
Jordan smacked the guard across the cheek with his open palm. The guard’s head snapped to the side, spittle dripping from his split lip.
“The location,” Jordan said. “Speak.”
The guard looked from Jordan to his raised hand.
“I don’t know-” he said.
Smack!
A pair of prints like amorous lovers’ hands lay across the guard’s cheeks.
“They didn’t tell us!” the guard said. “We don’t even know what we’re guarding!”
Smack!
The blow drove the guard to the floor. He sobbed, his shoulders heaving.
“I’ve only been a guard a few days!” he said. “I didn’t even want this job!”
Ori stepped forward and knelt before the guard.
“Dabir?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Do I know you?” Dabir said.
“No,” Ori said. “But I know you. How did you become a guard?”
“For saving the king’s life,” Dabir said. “I just happened to be passing by when I noticed the Moon Door was open at the king’s mansion. I went inside and found one of the house staff tied up on the floor.”
“Dalia,” Ori said.
Dabir blinked.
“Yes,” he said. “How did you know?”
“You were meant to meet Dalia that night at 10pm,” Ori said. “Why didn’t you?”
Dabir’s eyes boggled.
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Oh, but you do,” Ori said. “You’ve been seeing Dalia for quite some time. Why were you late that night?”
Dabir’s eyes flicked from Ori to Jordan.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, more confident this time.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Anne said. “He doesn’t know anything.”
“Chances are good they would never have told lowly guards what they were really protecting,” Ori said. “Guards are better fed than most, but many would be tempted to earn a little extra if it meant giving up a secret.”
“Then why isn’t the entrance here?” Jordan said. “You said it would be.”
“It should be!” Ori said.
“You said King Faisal is very careful,” Anne said, a finger pressed to her lips.
“Incredibly,” Ori said.
“Then isn’t it possible he could have set up fake rooms too?” Anne said. “So if anyone heard about them they would be unlikely to discover them in any case?”
Jordan nodded.
“That makes sense,” he said.
“It’s possible they may have created some decoys,” Ori conceded.
“Great,” Jordan said, throwing up his hands. “Now what do we do?”
“Now we get in via another entrance,” Ori said.
“How will we know they aren’t guarding a decoy entrance too?” Jordan said.
“We don’t,” Ori said. “Not until we get inside the room and have a look around.”
Jordan shook his head.
“I don’t like this,” he said.
“Of course you don’t,” Ori said. “Who likes doing what we’re doing?”
“So we should get to the other guarded entrance we found?” Anne said.
“How long before their replacements turn up?” Jordan said.
“Every four hours,” Ori said.
“These guards don’t have radios,” Jordan said. “I presume they don’t check in with one another. At least, we can hope they don’t.”
“How long do we have left?” Anne said.
“About three hours,” Jordan said.
“We either try now or quit,” Ori said. “If we don’t try another entrance now these guards will wake up and report what happened to them. The king will double the guard and we’ll never get through them. We have to do this tonight. It’s our only chance.”
Jordan took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“What do you think, Anne?” Jordan said.
Anne took a moment to assess the situation. She looked up.
“We give it a try,” she said.
“You’re sure?” Jordan said.
“Yes,” Anne said. “We’ll check out the other room, and if there’s no entrance, that’s it. We’ll leave Port Fouad for good.”
14.
Jordan peered around the door at the outside world. The street was empty, lit by soft ethereal candlelight. As far as Jordan could tell there was no one waiting for them.
“Jessie,” Jordan said into his radio. “It’s a negative here. We’re heading to the previous location. Can you find it?”
“Affirmative,” Jessie said.
“We might have a few flies following us,” Jordan said. “Keep an eye on our backs.”
“I will, over,” Jessie said, all business. “For your information, there has been no change to the guard duty on the other entrance. They’re just standing there, not moving.”
“Can you see how many there are?” Jordan said.
“Yes,” Jessie said. “Two.”
“Good,” Jordan said. “Do you think you can take one of them out?”
There was a pause.
“I think so,” Jessie said. “I could definitely hit one, maybe two, but they probably won’t be killing shots.”
“We don’t need to kill them,” Jordan said. “Only incapacitate them.”
“Roger,” Jessie said.
Jordan put the radio back in his pocket and began to jog through the streets, running around those who stood chatting with neighbours.
A teenage boy blew out a puff of smoke in a self-conscious manner. It was a cheap cigarette, the smoke almost black. But when there were so many things that had gone in the world, the smoker was lucky to have anything at all to pollute his lungs with.
Anne kept pace with Jordan, but Ori fell back, panting and struggling to keep up. Up ahead a group of children kicked a beaten football between them. One took a shot. Jordan ducked as the ball sailed overhead. The goalie dived but missed the ball. The scorer cheered.
Jordan took a right at the next crossroads. The buildings here were older than the other sections of the city. They were not built in uniformed lines, but huddled up on one another like a gaggle of witches around a cauldron.
Jordan slowed to a walk, his hands on his head to expand his lungs and repay his oxygen debt. Anne did the same, the sweat accumulating in the muggy temperature. It was a full minute before Ori caught up with them.
Jordan poked his head around the corner and spied the pair of guards before a large door.
“Jessie?” Jordan said
“Roger,” Jessie said.
“We’re in place,” Jordan said.
“Shall I fire?” Jessie said.
“On my count,” Jordan said. “One, two, three!”
Jordan ran out from the corner and heard a rasping whistle like tearing paper, as a bullet zipped through the air and struck a guard. He cried out and fell to the steps. The other guard was slow to react, and took a bullet in the arm, spinning him around.
Jordan was on the second guard first, and pummelled him with his fist before he could raise his halberd. Anne was on the first man to be shot. She drew back her fist, but he was already unconscious. She pushed open the door behind them and dragged her man into the room.
“Good work,” Jordan said into his radio. He turned to Ori and pointed to the blood on the stairs. “Ori.”
Ori unstoppered his water bottle and doused the steps liberally. He picked up a discarded guard’s hat and used
it to spread the blood. He followed Jordan into the room, looking out on the world as he closed the door.
A small boy sat on a plastic tricycle with his mouth hanging open, watching the doors close.
The room had the same musty aroma as the first one they had searched, like it had been used to store a mountain of manuscripts. The room was larger than the first, but the design was the same. There were a series of columns around the room, cylindrical supports for the tall roof. Anne paid special attention to them, pressing and prying as if a secret switch would unlock them, but none presented itself. There was also a fireplace at the back of the room. They pressed and pried at that too.
“Another dummy room?” Jordan said.
“Seems that way,” Ori said. “Of all the rotten luck.”
Anne was silent, peering at the fireplace.
“What is it, Anne?” Jordan said.
“How cold would you say it gets here in Port Fouad, Ori?” Anne said.
“Not very,” Ori said with a shrug. “I remember it getting down to ten degrees once.”
“Celsius?” Anne said. “That’s not very cold.”
“Some European merchants had fireplaces installed to remind them of home,” Ori said. “They weren’t meant to be used.”
“They never turned them on?” Anne said, peering up at the lack of a hole in the fireplace.
“I wouldn’t know,” Ori said. “I’ve never been rich enough to have one.”
“What district are we in?” Anne said.
“Of the city?” Ori said. “The housing district. Why?”
“Would foreigners usually be expected to live in this district?” Anne said.
“Almost certainly not,” Ori said, beginning to understand what Anne was driving at.
Anne traced her fingers over the intricately carved vine and leaf design, finding small flakes of gold where it had been applied. It was not a traditional British design, but Egyptian, attempting to mimic the west’s aesthetic but not quite meeting it, like a language learner struggling to transfer his native expressions into English.
“You think the secret entrance has something to do with this fireplace?” Jordan said. “Doesn’t seem very clever. Anyone could have guessed it was here.”
“You’re thinking of the modern world,” Anne said. “Back then they might have considered it inspired. We’re talking over a hundred years ago.”
Anne’s arm reached up into the fireplace. Her fingers found something. It was round and smooth. She frowned in thought. There was a solid thunk as something popped up from the base of the fireplace.
“Jordan, give me a hand with this,” Anne said.
Together they pried up a rotten piece of wood revealing a square hole below. It was too dark to make out the bottom.
“Hello?” Anne said to the darkness.
There was a slight echo. It was not a long drop. Jordan took a small torch out of his pocket and waved it at the darkness, finding a dirty wall and grimy ladder.
“The adventure continues,” Anne said.
15.
Anne lowered herself into the hole. Her feet found the bottom no more than six feet down.
Six feet under.
“Torch,” Anne said.
Jordan handed it down to her. Anne turned it on the darkness. The tunnel stretched out before her into dark oblivion. The dirt walls were reinforced by wooden struts at regular intervals like the muscles in a snake’s throat.
“Doesn’t look like it’s blocked,” Anne said.
The tunnel had a low ceiling. They had to hunch over, almost crawling on all fours. The air smelled of dirt.
“Watch your head here,” Anne said. “It’s quite low.”
Ori’s breath hitched in his throat. Anne suspected the man was afraid of enclosed spaces. Under the circumstances it wasn’t an irrational fear. Anne had never suffered from claustrophobia before, but even she could feel its grip clutching at her heart.
Just as she began to think the tunnel didn’t have an end, Anne’s foot bumped into something solid. She reached up and felt the rungs of another ladder. She began to climb, pulling her head down and reaching up with her hand in anticipation of the top she knew would be there. Her hand bumped into something hard and flat.
Anne ran her hand over it. Then she pulled back sharply and hissed through her teeth. She pulled the splinters out of the fleshy part of her index finger and reached for the roof again, this time using just her fingertips.
There was a flat panel that ran underneath the hatch, very similar to that of the one she had found in the fireplace at the other end of the tunnel. She searched for the smooth circle she expected to be there. She found it and pressed it. The hatch above her popped up.
Anne hated relying on luck, but for this part of the operation there was little else she could do. They would emerge into a room. What that room looked like, where it was located, or who would be in it, was anyone’s guess.
Anne held her breath and pushed the hatch up. Something on the other side pushed back.
Please don’t be someone’s foot, please don’t be someone’s foot, please don’t be someone’s foot.
Anne reached up around the hatch and felt a rough material. She slid her hand under it and pushed it aside. It was a thick carpet, of obvious quality. She peered around at the darkness around her. Her instincts told her it was a small room.
She climbed out of the hole and swept the room with her torch. The light glinted off a large pair of gleaming yellow eyes, and she shirked back, almost falling down the hole. She opened her eyes and looked again, finding the eyes unmoving. It was a lion’s head mounted to the wall. Beside it was a stag and a bear.
Anne swept the rest of the room with her torch and found an empty double bed and a desk with an electric lamp.
Jordan and Ori climbed out of the hole behind her. Jordan took out his radio.
“We’re in,” he said in a whisper.
“Roger,” Jessie said, the signal a raspy hiss.
Ori began unbuttoning his jacket, revealing an orange and green shirt.
“Standby,” Jordan said. “We’re heading into the lion’s den now.”
16.
The grunts and muffled groans were audible even through the thick door. It was all for show, Tarek knew, but still his grip on his halberd grew tight. The sounds built to a crescendo and then all at once died down.
Then there were muffled voices from the two speakers inside. After another moment, the door opened and a woman wearing a silk dress came out. She had a thick fur shawl draped around her shoulders, which only emphasised the sexiness of the lady wearing it.
Tarek licked his lips in anticipation of what he’d be enjoying in less than an hour. The moment he got off work he would run to her apartment, open the door, and she would be standing there, still wearing the silk dress and fur shawl, gifts from the king. She would even still smell like the king, as he had asked her not to wash after she had been with him, so he might feel like a royal himself. It was the guard’s job to satisfy her the way the king was incapable of doing. It was a responsibility Tarek was very keen to accept.
Tarek watched her shapely rear as she wandered down the corridor. She looked back at him over her shoulder the way he liked, with a small cheeky smile on her lips. Tarek’s mouth felt dry. Any moment he was going to burst out of his uniform.
It made him feel good to know the king was a mere aperitif to him, the main course. He disliked considering if there was a dessert course that came after himself, so much so in fact that after he had left one night he stuck around until the following morning to see if there were any other suitors. He was pleased to find there were none.
The king provided what the young guard never could: food, safety, and a well-appointed apartment on the docks. In return he asked for so little; a little earthly pleasure with her body now and then. Tarek couldn’t blame her for the decision she had made. If the tables were turned he would have done the same. But that didn’t mean he had to like i
t.
As usual, the king’s snores came from the bedroom within a few minutes of his mistress leaving. Tarek would have gladly entered the bedroom and slaughtered the king where he lie, planting evidence to make it look like someone else had committed the crime, except that he was on duty with the most straight-laced old fart in the entire company. He would never even entertain such an idea.
A servant came walking down the underground corridor. He was tall with black hair and dark features.
“Sleeping pill for the king,” the servant said.
“We were not told of any sleeping pills,” Tarek said.
“Are you sure?” the servant said.
“Listen,” Tarek said, gesturing to the door and the snores that came from behind it. “Does it sound like he needs a pill to help him sleep?”
“I was expressly told he needed it tonight, to help with his nerves,” the servant said.
“Who made the order?” Tarek said.
“Captain Malouf,” the servant said.
“Malouf?” Tarek said, turning to the old guard. “Do you know a Malouf?”
The old guard shook his head.
“I’ll go back and return with the order,” the servant said.
“You do that,” Tarek said.
The servant performed a half-turn away from the guards. Tarek caught sight of the man’s uniform. It was short in the arms with a smudge of blood on the cuffs.
“Hey, wait,” Tarek said.
The servant spun back at him, hurling the silver plate at Tarek’s face, smashing him in the nose. Then the servant launched himself at the old guard, grabbing his halberd and wrestling with him.
“Now!” the servant shouted. “Quick!”
A man and woman came running through the darkened tunnel at them. The man seized the halberd in Tarek’s hands and used his momentum to spin him around and pull the pole up under Tarek’s neck. Tarek struggled, but the man holding him was too strong.
Meanwhile, the woman ran at the old guard. Tarek heard a grunt, and a body fall to the ground. Black spots flashed in Tarek’s vision. His final thought before passing out wasn’t of his missed appointment with his sexy lady that evening, but of the king’s fate. Nothing good was about to happen to him.