by Overton, Max
"Very true. I am relieved that you are not acting precipitately. Now, why have you dragged me down here? Interrogation is your purview, not mine."
"Dr Hanser is spinning me a tale of some golden scarab that disguises itself as a rock. She claims you will support her in this far-fetched idea."
"I think she is confusing the written account on the chamber walls with reality," Bashir said. "Such a thing was claimed to exist in the times of the pharaohs."
"So there is no truth to it?" Sarraj sighed. "Dr Hanser, it seems we must resume our interrogation."
"Ask him where the rock is," Dani blurted.
"What rock is this, Dr Hanser?"
"You know damn well. The one you took off me in Damascus."
"Ah, that one. Why do you want to know? It is only a rock."
"Give it back to me and I'll prove it is far more."
Bashir glanced at Sarraj. "How would you do that?"
"You've read the transcripts of the account. In the same way Scarab proved it to Elder Jeheshua outside Zarw."
"What is she talking about?" Sarraj asked.
Bashir stared hard at Dani. "You are not the Scarab woman, Dr Hanser. How would you do this?"
"Why should you care as long as it's done? Sarraj wants proof; I'm prepared to furnish it."
"What is she talking about?" Sarraj asked again.
"According to the account, the golden scarab was a talisman of great power that enabled the Scarab woman to find her way in the trackless desert, search out hidden things, conjure up water, even raise the dead. Obvious hyperbole, but she also claimed it could hide itself as a rock. Scarab had the gods demonstrate this power to one of the Hebrew elders. Now Dr Hanser claims to have found the golden scarab but says it is hiding again as a rock. She says she will demonstrate its power, like the Scarab woman did."
"You have the rock?" Sarraj asked. "I would very much like to see it."
"Yes." Bashir beckoned to Nazim. "Where is the rock we confiscated?"
"I gave it to you, Minister. If you recall, I brought it to your hotel room, acting on your instructions, several days ago."
"Then where is it now?"
"I must presume still in your room."
"I don't recall seeing it there. Are you sure?"
Dani leaned closer to Daffyd. "I can feel it," she whispered. "When he stepped closer to the table."
"What are you talking about lass?"
"The golden scarab. I can feel it. I'd know it anywhere and when Nazim the organiser stepped forward, I felt its power."
"Close enough for you to use it?"
"Use? As in...? I don't know."
"Try, lass. We need a bloody miracle."
Dani closed her eyes and concentrated, feeling pulsing warmth emanate from the man near the table. She reached out mentally and stroked the source of the power, tears oozing from the corners of her eyes as she welcomed it back into her life. "Atum, Nine of Iunu, help me. Help us both, I pray. Protect us from harm and help us escape our enemies." She opened her eyes to see Bashir, Nazim and Sarraj staring at her.
"What did you say, Dr Hanser?" Sarraj asked.
"You spoke out loud, lass," Daffyd muttered.
Dani felt a moment's chagrin and then said, "To hell with it. Nine of Iunu--I beg your help." She stood up, her chains rattling. "Come on Dafs, we're out of here."
"Restrain them," Sarraj ordered.
The guard moved forward and grabbed at Daffyd, shoving him back in his seat. He turned to Dani and reached for her. His feet tangled and he tripped and fell onto the table. Sarraj and Bashir fell backward as the wood veneer split under the guard's weight and the metal beneath buckled. The ring bolts sprang free, and both Dani and Daffyd stood with their handcuffed hands and pendant chains swinging free.
"Come on," Dani said, starting toward the door.
Daffyd followed but Sarraj stood in his way. The colonel pulled out a gun and levelled it at first Daffyd, and then Dani.
"Sit down," Sarraj snapped.
Daffyd stepped to the right and the gun swung to follow him. Dani stepped forward, chain swinging and clipped Sarraj on the side of the head. He staggered and loosed a shot, the report deafening in the enclosed space. The bullet whined past Dani and she heard a yell of pain. Glancing to her side she saw Bashir sitting on the floor clutching his left bicep. A grunt swung her attention back to where Daffyd grappled with Sarraj, holding onto his gun arm. A step closer, and Dani brought her ring bolt down hard on the army man's head. He collapsed silently, and Daffyd let him fall to the floor.
Nazim stood by the door whence he had backed as soon as Dani had moved. He now watched her apprehensively, his hands open and in plain sight.
"I mean you no harm, Dr Hanser," Nazim said softly.
"Then stand out of our way and you won't get hurt."
Nazim nodded and moved aside, but Bashir called out to him. "Stop them, you fool. They're unarmed."
Daffyd darted past and looked out into the corridor, both ways. "Which way is out?" he asked.
Dani looked at Nazim. "Where is it?"
"Safe. You want it?"
"Yes."
"Someone's coming," Daffyd called from the corridor. "Several people. Hurry."
Nazim dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out a small object, gold gleaming through his spread fingers. "Here."
Dani swallowed, her eyes fixed on the golden scarab and her hand reached for it. Daffyd burst back into the room and yelled, "We've got to go. Now." Without looking at Nazim he grabbed Dani and yanked her into the corridor just as a soldier came around a corner twenty yards away.
"The scarab!" Dani yelled. "It's back there. I've got to...oh, shit."
A bullet sprayed concrete chips from the wall as it whined past them and they ran, chains dragging and bouncing. Other shots followed, zipping past their heads, ricocheting in the narrow corridor, but none hit them. They heard shouting and running footsteps, and ducked through a doorway, across an empty room and into another corridor running parallel with the first.
"Which way?" Daffyd asked. "Left or right?"
"I left the scarab back there," Dani moaned. "Nazim was going to give it to me."
"Left it is." Daffyd grabbed Dani's hand and started down the corridor. It met another at right angles and Daffyd guided them to the right this time, finally bursting through another door into a room with a dozen desks at which sat typists and clerks in army uniform. On the far side of the large room were open windows through which a street could be seen, with traffic and pedestrians.
Daffyd ducked back into the corridor, but Dani pushed him into the room. "Bluff it out. Just walk through as if you belonged here." She set off, nodding politely at a young man, ignoring another that addressed her in Arabic. Everyone in the room was looking at them, and one man picked up a telephone and spoke urgently into it.
"Walk faster, lass," Daffyd murmured. He pushed past her to a window and sat on the sill, swinging his legs over.
A man leapt up from his desk and confronted Dani, who pushed him aside, holding her chain loosely, swinging it menacingly. He scowled but just watched as Dani joined Daffyd at the window. Behind them, armed soldiers burst into the room.
"Stop them!"
Daffyd grinned and leapt down to the pavement outside, dragging Dani with him. They scrambled to their feet and ran, dodging through the traffic and into the alleys of the Luxor bazaar.
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* * *
Chapter Thirty
"Find them!" Colonel Sarraj howled. "Whatever you have to do, do it. I don't care if you kill them, just get them back."
Soldiers ran to do his bidding, setting the whole barracks on its ear. The building was searched, and quickly news arrived of the fugitives escape through the clerks' room and into the streets where they were swallowed up in the lanes and alleys of Luxor. Soldiers were sent out into the city, but with fresh instructions.
"I want them alive. And put those damn clerks on a charge--they let them es
cape." Sarraj stamped off to the communications room to contact the police and transport facilities, determined the fugitives would not remain at large for long.
Bashir sat in a chair in the interrogation room, being attended to by an army medic. Sarraj's bullet had pierced his left upper arm and exited without damage to arteries or bone. The medic cleaned the wound out thoroughly and started bandaging it, while Bashir glowered at Nazim.
"Whose side are you on? What were you thinking of, offering Dr Hanser the rock?"
"I assure you I only have your interests at heart, Minister--as always."
"You lied to me. You said I had the rock, whereas you had it all the time."
"I did not lie, Minister. I brought the rock to your room, if you remember. It is reasonable to suppose it is still there. Perhaps under your bed, unless the cleaning woman has removed it."
"But you have it," Bashir said. He lifted his left arm to point but winced and contented himself with nodding in Nazim's direction. "You took it out of your pocket and offered it to Dr Hanser. I saw you."
"This?" Nazim took the rock out and tossed it in his hand before holding it up between forefinger and thumb. "This is just a river rock I found locally."
Bashir frowned and motioned the medic away. He waited until the man had left the room before continuing. "If it is not the rock, why did you offer it to Dr Hanser? What possible interest could she have in it?"
Nazim returned the rock to his jacket pocket. "You examined the rock closely, didn't you, Minister? Did you find any evidence that it was really a golden scarab like the one in the account?"
"No." Bashir decided not to mention his unsuccessful attempts at breaking the stone's disguise through prayer. If it really was a golden scarab, the inefficacy of Allah's name disturbed him. "As far as I'm concerned, it is merely a worthless rock."
"Yet Dr Hanser believes it is more," Nazim said. "Is she, in fact, deluded?"
"Who knows, and with her gone, who cares? You still haven't answered me. Why did you bring that rock and offer it to her?"
"Those are two different questions. You told me earlier the rock was missing, yet if the possibility ever arose that we needed to attract Dr Hanser to us, we would need it--or something that she might believe was it. So I obtained a replica."
"But if she sees it, she will know it's not her rock--her golden scarab."
"And yet she saw it just now, and believed. You forget the power of her delusion, Minister. Such was her need for it that I only had to suggest this was it for her to recognise it."
"Which brings us to why you offered it to her. Did you bring it with that express purpose?"
"How could I, Minister? We were summoned by the Colonel, and while you may have known why, I did not until we arrived here. As to why I offered it--well, Sarraj had shot you, he and the guard had been laid low by two chained prisoners and I--I am not a fighting man. I thought to trick her and perhaps hold onto her until help could arrive, but her companion dragged her away. She believed I had the stone and would have taken it, giving me a chance to grab her."
"Quick thinking, Nazim, yet you risked the only thing we have that she wants."
"It was not the real rock, Minister. Remember? It is lost."
"Ah...yes. And now they are lost too."
Bashir held onto the splintered and buckled table and got shakily to his feet. "I don't know how they managed to break free, but that madman will kill them, Nazim, and I'm starting to think we cannot find the tomb without them. The river search using the vague description in the account is hopeless, yet Dr Hanser came to Egypt to look for her golden scarab. I believe she knows where the tomb is and will beat us all there unless we can stop her." He mused for a few moments. "We need them, Nazim, alive and unharmed. They can guide us to the tomb."
"Our resources are a lot less than those of the Colonel, Minister. He will find them, and it will be up to you to keep them unharmed."
"I cannot be everywhere, and I am injured. Put Lieutenant Al-Din onto it. Let him earn his keep."
Nazim made notes in his notebook, and hesitated, debating whether to share the insights he had gained when talking to Dr Zewali at the museum. The main question he had to answer was whether he could reasonably find the tomb on his own or whether he needed help--he had the knowledge, but Bashir and Sarraj had the resources. He sighed and decided a morsel of information might keep the minister focussed.
"When I was at the museum looking for maps, I found out something that might aid our search."
"Well, go on, Nazim. Don't waste my time."
"While I was waiting for the maps to come out of storage, I read some of the text translations on the wall and noticed..."
"Did you find the maps you were looking for?"
"No, Minister. As I was saying, I noticed that the symbol for 'pylon' is very similar to the one we were led to believe translated as 'notch'. I copied it down carefully and checked with the photographs we took. I believe 'pylon' is a better translation than 'notch'."
"Pylon? Do you mean a power pylon?"
"No, Minister. They did not have electricity in pharaonic times. A pylon is the term given to the gateway of a temple and is made up of two truncated towers with a lower central portion. It looks similar to a notch or valley."
"You have lost me. Why is this of interest?"
"We have been looking for a notch in the cliff top--a notch which may have eroded away over the centuries. A pylon, however..."
"May still be there!" Bashir rounded on his secretary excitedly. "By the Prophet, Nazim, you are proving your worth yet again."
"Thank you, Minister, though it may be too early to judge the worth of my discovery. A building may crumble as easily as a cliff."
"Ahh...well, it's worth looking, I suppose. Traces may remain. We must send word to Sarraj, we'll need his help."
"Another thing Al-Din can do," Nazim said.
Bashir and Nazim made their way out of the kicked ant-nest that was the Luxor army barracks and made their way back to the hotel. Once there, Bashir retired to his room where, liberally dosed with painkillers, he rested. Nazim went looking for Jamal Al-Din first of all, and gave him his instructions.
"What if he doesn't listen to me?" Al-Din queried. "I mean, he's a colonel and I'm only a..."
"Be persuasive. It is important we keep them alive and unharmed--the woman in particular. Intimate that Minister Bashir would count it a personal favour if he was consulted before any decision was made pertaining to her fate. Remind him that precipitate action may cost us everything, whereas revenge is just as satisfying when delayed. And don't forget to tell him about our discovery. We will need his help on that very soon."
Al-Din looked dubious but agreed to do his best. He hurried off to find the Colonel's search party, while Nazim repaired to the hotel lounge with a pot of coffee and sticky date pastries to consider the events of the morning.
If I did not know it before, I know it now--that rock is the golden scarab . Nazim took it out of his pocket and stared at its rounded contours. It still looks like sandstone . He wetted it with a drop of coffee and rubbed, but its disguise remained intact. I was going to give it to her but I didn't. Why not? I offered it, but as she reached for it I changed my mind. Bashir believed my tale of subterfuge, but I know that was not the reason. I want it. I want the power this thing could give me. Nazim thought back to the moment of the escape. He had hardly believed what he saw--a small woman overcome a burly guard, the metal table break and release their chains, and an armed man thrown aside. Was that the power of the scarab? Did she reach out with her mind and take control of it, even though it was hidden in my pocket ?
He recalled the intensity of her stare when she saw the rock--the golden scarab--in his hand. There was no doubt in her mind--she believed this to be her scarab. How then do I use this knowledge? Could I bargain with her? Offer her the scarab in return for a portion of the tomb's riches ?
Nazim suspected that monetary gain was not uppermost in the Englishwoma
n's mind. What then? What does she want? Fame as the discoverer of Scarab's tomb ? It was all very frustrating trying to guess the motives of a foreigner, and a woman as well.
* * *
Colonel Sarraj accepted the presence of Lieutenant Al-Din without comment, and allowed him to follow along as he strode from one checkpoint to another, haranguing the soldiers at his disposal. Men had raced into the alleyways and narrow streets of the Luxor bazaar scant minutes after the foreigners had entered them, but they seemed to have vanished without trace. An English man and woman should have stood out, but the only westerners his men had apprehended had been innocent tourists. He had several officers now engaged in soothing ruffled feelings and apologising for the misguided enthusiasm of some of the men under their command.
"Find them!" Sarraj roared at a local captain. "How hard can it be to find an English man and woman in the bazaar? Start a house to house search."
"Uh, Colonel...we don't have the men for that." The captain quailed at the look in the colonel's eyes and stammered, "The...the police, sir. We c...could borrow s...some men."
"Then why are you still here? Get on with it."
The captain saluted and raced off, shouting orders. Sarraj called another officer to him and ordered him to set up roadblocks around the bazaar. Everyone leaving the area must show their identification and women were to be searched.
"Search women, sir? We can't do that, there would be a riot."
"Not every woman, just Europeans."
"There will still be trouble, sir."
"Just do it."
There was trouble, just as the officer predicted, but it did not come from the handful of European tourists in the bazaar and adjoining streets. They readily produced identification and passed through the roadblocks without incident, but the inhabitants of the area objected to the high-handed methods of police and army as they started the house to house search.
Men of the household remonstrated, the women screamed imprecations and children bawled, attracting crowds who jostled and pushed police lines, shouting and jeering. Reinforcements arrived, but most of those were now needed to control the growing mob, slowing down the speed of the search. Sarraj grew more agitated and ordered every available man into the line, even pulling policemen on point duty away from their duties, which rapidly led to traffic jams throughout the city. By mid-afternoon, there had been numerous incidents, some involving shots being fired in the air--though luckily no one had been injured. The bazaar itself had been closed, shop and stall-holders shutting up shop in the face of growing violence.