Stolen Souls

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  They followed for over an hour at a slow pace, for the old man who walked beside Sekhemib seemed unable to walk as quickly as he would probably have liked. Sekhemib seemed to be strolling casually as the old man struggled to keep up with him. Through the very infrequent breaches in the crowd, the three Westerners could see the old man chattering away at Sekhemib cheerfully, while Sekhemib, his face fixed before him, seemed to be ignoring his companion.

  They came at last to the wharves along the Nile. The wharves stretched for miles along the entire western boundary of the city, and continued on the opposite bank of the river off into the distance. Cairo had been built on the Nile's eastern bank, but the centuries of almost continuous urban growth had sent populations sprawling onto the land on the other side of the river as well. Like all dock areas of all cities situated beside bodies of water, the wharf district of Cairo was redolent of industry and humanity, mixing into an overwhelmingly unpleasant stench.

  They watched as Sekhemib and the old man approached a low lying barge which was tied to a wooden post beside a narrow, decaying walkway of splintering planks. Six burly men lounged in front of the barge, baking their already blackened and overdeveloped muscles in the hot sun, but their air of relaxation turned into one of attentive respect as Sekhemib and the old man approached them. One of the six men, apparently the foreman of the watch crew, nodded politely to the old man and appeared to eye Sekhemib quizzically. The old man and the foreman spoke for a few moments, with the old man doing most of the talking and the foreman restricting his conversation to grunts, nods, and a few desultory words of agreement.

  Sam, Roderick, and Sawhill positioned themselves partially beside and partially behind the end bale of a large shipment of cotton wick stood some fifty yards away from the barge. "Sam," Sawhill whispered, "look there, on the barge."

  Sam squinted through his sweat-fogged glasses. "Are those the crates from the museum?"

  "I don't think so," Sawhill muttered. "No, of course not. They just took the mummies, remember? They must have bought coffins for the four—I mean the six, after . . ." He did not finish the sentence. The sound of Gus Rudd's insane screams and the sight of Suzanne Melendez's still twitching, mangled body on the floor of the morgue was sufficiently fresh in all of their minds without any need for a reference to them.

  "Yes," Sam agreed. He thought for a moment. "Look, if this is where the mummies are, then eventually they're going to have to move them somewhere less open, less conspicuous. We know at least part of what they intend to do—"

  "Bring those things back to life," Roderick muttered, shaking his head.

  "Yes, precisely. They won't do that here. I'll wager that they're going to sail this barge up the Nile, south toward Nubia—"

  "Nubia?" Sawhill asked. "Where's Nubia?"

  "Eh—sorry, I meant south toward the Sudan. I'll bet that if we follow the barge, we'll find Harriet being held wherever the barge docks."

  Sawhill considered this and nodded. "Makes sense. Makes sense. Can we find out where it's going?"

  Sam moved behind the cotton bale and pulled little Faz with him. He knelt down and, taking the child by the shoulders, said, "Faz, how are you at finding things out?"

  "Effendi?" the boy replied, confused.

  "You see that barge over there, with the men standing in front of it?"

  He looked. "Yes, effendi."

  "We have to know when that barge is leaving the wharf and where it is going, but we must not let anyone know that we wish to know. Can you go over there and listen to the conversation those men are having without letting them know you're listening?"

  Faz smiled. "It is an easy thing, effendi." The child scampered off toward the barge.

  The three Westerners watched from behind the cotton bale as the child ran over to the barge and grabbed a small melon from a pushcart which an old woman was laboriously moving along the wharfside. Her head was bent into her effort and she did not notice the theft. Faz tossed the melon up and caught it as if it were a ball, and then seated himself casually upon a mooring post some five feet away from the barge. Sekhemib glanced at him, and immediately dismissed his presence as irrelevant. Faz did not look at the men upon whom he was eavesdropping; rather, he sat quietly and happily devoured the melon.

  A few minutes passed. Sam, Roderick, and Sawhill watched impatiently as the old man continued to speak, the foreman continued to nod, the little boy continued to eat, and Sekhemib gazed distractedly off at the horizon. At last they saw the foreman give what seemed to be a final bowing nod to the old man, and then he and Sekhemib turned and began to walk back in the direction from which they had come. Silently but in obvious haste, Sawhill moved to the far side of the cotton bale, followed quickly by Sam and Roderick. They waited until Sekhemib and the old man had passed by before walking back away from the river's edge. "Shouldn't we follow them?" Roderick asked.

  "Not necessary," Sam replied. "We know where their precious cargo is. It's the mummies we have to keep close to, not them." He turned to see Faz running toward them, his bare, calloused feet seeming to click upon the hot wood. "Well?" Sam asked. "What did you hear?"

  "The old one was giving the strong one instructions to pay his men for another day's guarding," the boy said breathlessly. "He said the men are to stay until sunrise, and then they can go.

  "Did they speak of the destination of the barge?"

  "No, effendi. I heard nothing else."

  After Sam relayed the information to the others, Sawhill said, "Well, at least we know when they're going to move the barge."

  "Yes," Roderick said. "Ask the boy when we can get the guns."

  Sam turned back to Faz. "Tell me, little one, can we obtain the weapons tonight?"

  "Oh, yes, effendi," he chirped. "No problem. I go see Khalid right now, okay?" His last word was in English, another apparent foreign adoption.

  "Yes. We will be back in our hotel. You get word to us there as soon as possible."

  "I shall, effendi," the boy said and then ran off with that mad enthusiasm which only children exhibit.

  Sam grinned slightly as he watched the boy disappear into the crowd and then turned to his companions. "He says we can get the weapons tonight."

  "Good," Sawhill said, biting his lower lip. "How do you suggest we follow the barge? Maybe we should follow it by land, along the side of the river. Those things move pretty slow, by the looks of them."

  Sam shook his head. "No. We might not be able to keep them in sight while we're in urban areas, and if they sail far enough south to go past the settled parts of the country, they'd be able to spot us in a minute."

  "Okay. So? What shall we do?"

  Sam thought for a moment. "Roderick, how's our money supply?"

  "You mean right here?"

  "No, I mean generally."

  "Oh, well, it's unlimited, to all intents and purposes. I can cash another draft in the bank back by the hotel. Why?"

  "I think," he said slowly, "that we should rent a boat, an excursion ship of some sort, one which would arouse no suspicion on the river. Excursion boats sail up and down the Nile every day, so no one would think it unusual."

  "That's good," Sawhill nodded. "Can you manage that, Sam? I mean, is your Arabic up to a business transaction?"

  Sam laughed. "What do you think my conversations with Faz have been? It's all a matter of knowing the currency and making the terms clear. Sure, I can handle it."

  "Okay, good." Sawhill sighed. "Now all I have to do is figure out how to wait until dawn without going crazy."

  Neither Sam nor Roderick made a reply. Sam was impelled to this mission by a loyalty to his colleague Harriet Langly and a moral commitment to prevent the murderous cult from succeeding, thriving. Roderick was there because of an uncharacteristic sense of responsibility, something which surprised him more than anyone else. Had he not ignored his uncle, had he not wanted more than the croesus-like wealth he already had, the seven mummies might yet be gathering dust in the attic at Chudley. An
d so he had shouldered a burden which he could as easily have avoided.

  But Thomas Sawhill had been driven to Egypt by love and despair. He had loved Harriet for quite a while, but he had never realized, until this tragic situation had descended upon them, how central she had become to his life, to his very existence. Were he not on the brink of emotional collapse, he might have speculated on the fact that for the first time he had come to realize that the old hyperbole about loving someone more than life was more than poetry. He was willing to die attempting to save Harriet Langly.

  And he very well might.

  CHAPTER 15

  No bride on the morning of her wedding day was as exuberant as was Ahmed Hadji as the ropes were cast off and the small rebuilt outboard motor began laboriously to push the barge against the current, up the Nile. The shouts of the dockworkers and the sound of the motors and the buzzing of the insects seemed to blend in his mind into a general background paean of praise and thanksgiving, and he hummed contentedly along with the musicless melody. The day had come! At last, the day had come! By this time tomorrow he would be like the Lord Sekhemib, he would be immortal, he would be invulnerable. Millions of years. A life of millions of years.

  He was standing at the front end of the barge—to call it a bow would be a disservice to true boats—watching as the urban congestion of Cairo became increasingly more sparse. There were no truly unpopulated areas along the Nile River, not at least until one passed beyond the first cataract, but the incredible, oppressive concentration of people which was to be found in the northern part of the ancient land was not repeated in the southern. Once the barge passed the town of Bensi Hasan, a few miles north of the ruins of Akhetaton, the river banks would be bordered by villages, and the tension Hadji had felt for so long would begin to decline.

  Hadji glanced behind him. There, sitting comfortably upon a folded rug, was his old benefactor Haleel Haftoori. It was Haftoori who had noticed him, had recruited him, had trained, taught, and cherished him. He owed the old man a debt so great that it could never be paid. When Hadji became eternal this night, it would be because of the old man's choice of him to head the priesthood of Thoth in their ancient faith. A priesthood with but one priest, to be sure; but one was all that was needed. As long as his name was spoken, Thoth lived. There was power in the name of a god.

  Sekhemib was standing beside Haftoori, ignoring the ceaseless chatter which the old man was emitting. His long black hair flowed in the wind as the barge trudged up the Nile, and Sekhemib seemed to be almost oblivious to his surroundings. Hadji could well imagine the thoughts which were going through the mind of the ancient priest. Tonight he would have his love Meret back again, and his friends Yuya and Senmut, Khumara, Herihor, and Wenet. Tonight these seven immortals, all of whom until oh so recently had been nothing more than mummies moldering in their coffins, would be once again together, alive, powerful, together after three thousand five hundred years of death. The four mummies still slept in their rotted wrappings. Meret and Yuya, killed by the policeman far away, were decaying in the two boxes which he, Hadji, had procured for them in New York City; but it was all temporary, as Sekhemib said, a brief sleep, barely a single heart beat in the long life of the universe.

  Hadji licked his lips excitedly. And then, when all seven stood together, the priests and priestesses of Anubis, Isis, Set, Ra, Bast, Horus, and Thoth, then they would join as one to become the great tekenu of the god, and Anubis would come to them, and he, Ahmed Hadji, would bask in the radiance of the divinity He smiled and sighed. "Anet hrauthen 'Anpu," he whispered. Homage to you, Anubis.

  He turned back to the river which stretched out before them. The mother Nile, he thought, the bosom which has suckled Egypt for six thousand years. And now our mother bears us south to the ruins of our temple, to the presence of the god, to life eternal. Millions of years, a life of millions of years.

  Hadji took a quick circumspective look around. All was as it should be, all was as planned. The bodies of the six holy ones were resting in their temporary homes. The woman, the American who was soon to be the tekenu of the lady Meret, was bound and gagged and imprisoned in the large basket which stood beside the crates. Sekhemib and Haftoori were here. He, Ahmed Hadji, was here. Around them the people of Egypt toiled and sweated in the hot sun, and the river was filled with boats and barges: merchants moving goods, tourists taking a pleasant excursion up the Nile, in boats such as the dahabeah which sailed along behind the barge. All was well. He looked back at the river before him, and began to whistle cheerfully.

  Egypt had never developed a true maritime tradition. Though the Mediterranean Sea lay across her northern border, Egypt's shipping had always been largely up and down the river which bisected the land. Thus the dahabeah, the most common of the many boats which moved gracefully along the river surface, had been able to develop an elegance born of simplicity and an absence of concern over storms and waves. The dahabeah which sailed peacefully behind the barge was typical of such boats. It was a long, narrow craft which rested low in the water. Two masts thrust upward into the sky, supporting two triangular sails which billowed slightly in the gentle wind. From the stern of the boat a low-ceilinged cabin, little more than a wood and canvas canopy enclosing the deck, stretched forward half way to the bow. In that cabin Roderick Fowles was busily engaged in loading guns.

  "Ever fired a pistol or a rifle?" he asked Samuel Goldhaber.

  "I'm afraid not," was the reply. "I'm not a hunter, and I was too young for World War Two and too old for Korea." Sam put a match to the bowl of his pipe and watched the blue smoke hang in the air for a moment before it was swept away by the currents of air. "I wouldn't have thought that you knew much about guns either, Roderick."

  "I don't, really. But we always go grouse hunting in the fall, and I've always enjoyed shooting skeet, so I have some small acquaintance with firearms." He smiled. "Of course, the servants always loaded the weapons for me. I've never actually seen a bullet before. Have you?"

  "No," Sam replied. "But they seem to fit, so you must be doing it right."

  "Hope so." He frowned. "I can't help but wish that your policeman friend were here with us."

  "I know, but I doubt he would have come even if he'd been able to."

  "What do you mean?" Roderick put down the pistol and picked up a rifle clip for one of the old M-14 automatics they had purchased. The rifles looked to be twenty years old, but still serviceable.

  "I think the whole business with Gus left him too upset, too drained emotionally, to be of much use to anyone for a while. Don't misunderstand me. Jasper is a brave man. But nothing in his experience in war or in police work prepared him for anything like this." Sam looked out from the cabin toward the bow of the dahabeah where Thomas Sawhill stood, his eyes fixed on the barge which labored along in front of them, the folds of his kaftan fluttering about his calves. "Look at Tom," Sam said. "He's an emotional wreck, just like Jasper. But Jasper has his brother back, physically at least. Tom is still in the waiting and hoping stage."

  Roderick continued to load the weapons. "What do you think will happen to the chief's brother? Do you think he'll ever recover?"

  "Emotionally? I don't know. Perhaps, but I don't think so, not completely, anyway. I don't know if he'll ever be able even to understand it all."

  Roderick laughed humorlessly. "He's not alone in that. I don't understand this myself."

  Sam nodded, still watching Sawhill. "I don't either. I accept it as fact, but I can't say that I understand it. The whole thing runs contrary to everything I've ever known or believed. But we're on this boat on the trail of a walking dead man, and I saw what happened to Gus. and Suzanne"—he shivered slightly at the memory—"so I can't just dismiss it. 'More things in heaven and earth ...' and all that."

  "Hmm?"

  "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio."

  Roderick frowned. "Who's Horatio?"

  Sam laughed, astounded once again, a
s he had been so often, at the breadth of Roderick's ignorance. "It's a quote from Hamlet."

  "Oh, yes, Shakespeare. I've seen a few of his plays." Sam rose to his feet. "I'm going out to see how Tom's doing. You sure you don't need any help?"

  "None at all. This helps pass the time." He began to push bullets into a clip for an M-14.

  Sam walked forward in the boat toward the bow and placed his hand gently on Sawhill's shoulder. His friend spun around tensely and his eyes glared at Sam for a fraction of a second before relaxing into the weary, bloodshot visage which had been so characteristic of Sawhill for so many days. "Don't sneak up on me, Sam," he muttered.

  He's like a coiled spring, Sam thought. He's ready to snap. "Any activity on the barge?"

  "Not really. I can't see too well from this distance, but they don't seem to be doing much of anything." The dahabeah was trailing the barge at a distance of about a quarter of a mile, close enough to keep it in sight, far enough to be inconspicuous. "Damn it, Sam, we should have some binoculars."

  "Yeah, I didn't think of that."

  "Can't we pull closer to them, just for a while at least? I can't see if Harriet's on board."

  Sam shook his head. "It wouldn't be wise, Tom. We shouldn't take any chances, not now."

  Sawhill sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Sam, I think I'm losing my grip."

  Sam patted him gently on the back. "Hold on, Tom. By tonight it will all be over." One way or the other, he thought, but did not say the words.

  Through the long morning and afternoon into the early evening the barge chugged up the river with the dahabeah maintaining its distance. The ruined wonders of ancient Egypt drifted past them on all sides, but no one on the barge and no one on the dahabeah paid them much attention. Only Sekhemib seemed at all moved by the sight of the world he had known lying in shattered, fading heaps, but even he was too preoccupied with the coming events to give thought to the ruins.