by Layton Green
The detective asked them to wait again, and disappeared. When he returned his face was troubled. He announced that they could find no listed home address for either Mr. Haddara or Mr. Qasem. He said this was very strange, and that perhaps their residence was attached to the corporation. “Come,” he said. “We will visit this New Cellular Technologies. Right now.”
Detective Kassem drove them through the swirl of Cairo at night, the lights and traffic and noise and people even more intense than in the daytime. Veronica couldn’t deal with both the stress of losing Grey and racing through the insanity of Cairo. She wanted the entire city to stop moving.
Corporate headquarters for New Cellular Technologies was a two-story concrete building set amidst a dense urban forest of identical buildings. They walked to the front door and the detective rang the bell and pounded on it. He kept pounding until an elderly security guard with sleep-filled eyes opened the door. The detective spoke to him in a harsh voice, and the guard’s eyes widened. He ushered them inside.
After a brief conversation the detective turned to Viktor. “No one more is here tonight. No one entered the building after the close. I go to search. You may follow.”
The detective led them through the faded corridors and empty cubicles of a typical office building. “I don’t like this,” Viktor said. “There should be more security.”
Veronica’s heart sank lower with each footstep. The building was empty, and the offices had the stale feel of unimportance. They returned to the ground floor, and the guard led them to a set of stairs. They descended and found themselves in a warehouse-sized laboratory. The detective started walking around the room. Viktor floated off on his own, and Veronica followed Stefan as he inspected the equipment.
“These instruments are wrong,” Stefan said. They navigated the entire room, and he said in a low voice, “This isn’t the right lab. They don’t have it here.”
She could only fix him with a numb stare.
– 54 –
Grey woke to moving darkness. The blackness disoriented him, but he knew he was on a road. He could feel the bumps and hear the passing of other vehicles. He groaned and tried to move.
That failed. He was sitting with his hands cuffed behind his back to a horizontal pole; he could wrap his hands around the cool metal. He tried to slide the cuffs back and forth, but they only moved a few inches. After yanking on his bonds and getting nowhere, he leaned his head back and felt a hard surface. He guessed he was in the back of a large truck, maybe a semi, chained to some sort of railing.
He whispered, “Jax?”
No answer, and he risked a louder whisper. Still no answer. His eyes did not adjust; the darkness was complete.
What did he remember? He remembered the gruesome lifeless face of Jax’s contact, and then a group of men surrounding them, all with handguns. Someone had hit him in the back of the head, probably with the butt of a gun. The rest was darkness.
After a few minutes he heard someone else stirring. “Jax?”
A loud groan. “Yeah, cuz. Are we in a truck?”
“A truck or van. We’re definitely on a road.”
He heard Jax yank on his handcuffs. “Any word from Stefan?”
“No,” Grey said. “You didn’t see anything?”
“They knocked me out right after you.” Jax was quiet, then said in a soft voice, “Dorian didn’t look so well.”
“I’m sorry about your friend.”
“He was more an acquaintance. But still… hell of a way to go.”
“How do you think they found him?”
“He wasn’t underground like I am, at least not here in Egypt. He was visible, had lots of muscle. Organized muscle.”
“Looks like they do too.”
“Yeah. I never thought they’d dare touch Dorian.”
“Stefan must have gotten away,” Grey said. “If it was just Veronica left, I think they’d kill the three of us and not bother with her.”
“Yep. Stefan’s the one with the science in his head.”
“Then we’re going to a safe house.” Grey let out a slow breath. “And not to watch tv.”
Jax cursed.
The vehicle slowed and then stopped. They heard doors opening, loud voices, booted footsteps. Then nothing.
Grey flexed his limbs to keep the blood flowing. He kept expecting the back door to open, or the truck to start again, but the passing seconds of silence turned into minutes, and then hours.
Grey thought of Viktor and Veronica, and hoped Stefan had reached them. He also hoped Viktor had gone straight to the police, and wasn’t planning anything heroic. Not that they had any way of finding them.
Jax tried to initiate conversation, but trailed off when he couldn’t get Grey to join in. He mumbled something Grey didn’t hear, and then fell silent.
There was nothing but darkness.
• • •
Stefan motioned to Veronica. She followed him to the center of the lab. He pointed at a large device, sitting amidst a bank of computers, that looked like a cross between a transistor radio and a sophisticated microwave.
“Cellular frequency identification device,” Stefan said.
“Jax’s problem?”
“Most likely.” Stefan glanced towards Viktor and the detective. “Watch for him.” He hovered over the device and his hands fluttered. Veronica stood in front of Stefan and watched as Viktor discussed something with the detective.
A few moments later Stefan straightened. He was cupping a small chip in his hands, and he pocketed it.
“You have it?”
He nodded.
Her face brightened. “Can we use it? Try and track them?”
“I tried. It’s protected, and it would be too late by the time we broke it.”
She turned away.
Viktor waved them over. The detective was looking at an open book that resembled a ledger.
“We found bill of lading receipts for a warehouse in Siwa Oasis,” Viktor said.
“Where’s that?” Veronica asked.
The detective looked up. “A tiny settlement in the northwest corner of the Western Desert. I do not understand why there are receipts for this place. Unfortunately they are not described. Only transport fee is shown.”
“Can you call the local police?” Stefan said.
The detective shrugged. “There is nothing else to do tonight. I have reported your friends missing. Next morning I call Siwa police, and return here. I call you when I know something.”
“That’s where they’ll take them,” Stefan said. “That’s got to be where the other lab is.”
“How do I get to Siwa?” Viktor said.
“You can arrange for a guide in the morning,” the detective said. “I suggest—”
“Tonight,” Viktor said. “Now.”
The detective gave a harsh laugh. “Siwa is full day journey, in the middle of Sahara desert. Now, at night, impossible.”
Detective Kassem refused to discuss the situation further, despite protestations from Veronica and Stefan and a cold stare from Viktor. Kassem dropped them at Viktor’s place at three in the morning, a swanky five-star hotel in the Garden City district, an area Veronica knew was populated by embassies.
They realized trying to find a guide at this hour was futile. Viktor paid for extra rooms for Veronica and Stefan, and Veronica again wondered where Viktor got his money.
Viktor pointed at his watch. “Six a.m. Downstairs.”
Veronica slunk into bed and stared at the ceiling, doing everything she could not to think about where Grey was.
She failed miserably.
• • •
Veronica spent the early morning in an agonizing wait for the phone call from Detective Kassem. She met Stefan in the hotel restaurant and hovered over her coffee like a dispirited wraith, not fully there, unable to focus.
Viktor appeared, face bleak, clenching his phone in his fist. “The police in Siwa know nothing. They say this warehouse is legitimate.”
“Did they actually go there and check it out?” Veronica said. “Find out what they were transporting?”
“Kassem said he’ll try to follow up today or tomorrow.”
“Not good enough.”
“No. He also returned to New Cellular this morning. No one, of course, knew anything. He was told Haddar and Nomti are on an extended business trip to the United States. They’re not expected back for another week.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“He said he’ll continue to watch New Cellular, and inform us immediately if he finds anything.”
She sank onto her bed. “The police aren’t going to believe any of this if we tell the whole story, and even if they did they won’t act soon enough.” She looked at Stefan and then Viktor. “We have to go to this Siwa Oasis. Now.”
Stefan bobbed his head, and Viktor folded his arms. “I couldn’t agree more.”
– 55 –
Grey woke to the noise of the engine starting. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep. They rode for what Grey guessed to be an hour, then stopped again. Grey heard grunting and a screeching noise, and light flooded in.
A wide rear door had rolled up, like the back door on a moving truck. Grey saw Jax squinting into the light, disheveled but alert, and noticed he was handcuffed to a metal rod bolted to the side of the truck. He looked behind his own back and saw the same.
Outside the truck a block of dilapidated warehouses lined a garbage-strewn alley. An overpowering stench of dead fish and refuse caused him to breathe through his mouth.
Six men appeared, and Grey noticed a familiar cleft lip on the one in front. Four stood with pistols at the ready as the other two entered the truck. They unhooked Grey and Jax from the metal rod, then immediately replaced the handcuffs, this time in front. Grey could have taken his man during the transfer, but they had been smart: the two who unhooked them weren’t carrying guns. Even if Grey overpowered them, he would have no weapon, and no way to exit the truck.
As the men led them out of the truck the sun became a seventh enemy, a blinding sniper covering Grey’s entire field of vision. He squinted and lowered his head. On the other side of the truck the alley ended at a small dock, and Grey saw the muscular sprawl of the Nile. Their captors took them to a large wooden sailboat, a felucca, banked on the shore behind a row of palms.
They herded them onto the boat and into a small glass compartment in the rear, just in front of the pilot. They posted two guards outside the door.
“We can’t be going far like this,” Grey said. “They must have wanted to avoid the bridge patrols.”
“Wherever we’re going,” Jax said, “we need to get away before we get there.”
“They want us alive for now, which might give us some play.”
“This whole thing is bogus. Damn Dorian, bless his poor Irish heart. You don’t cross people willing to give up their souls. You really don’t cross people who already have.”
Grey peered out of the glass door. “It looks like we’re heading straight across the river. I think it’s now or never. They’ll put us back in a truck, or worse, on the other side.”
“I’m all ears.”
Grey scanned the boat. Two guards with guns just outside the door. The other four men, also carrying firearms, sat at the prow of the boat, chatting or watching the water.
Grey glanced into the muddy waters of the Nile. It was a hypnotic river, with thousands of years of history lurking in its depths. When he looked up the far shore was coming into focus.
“We have to take a chance,” Grey said. “No one wants to shoot the prisoner they’re not supposed to shoot.”
“What’ve you got in mind?”
Grey outlined his plan. Jax blanched and said, “That’s the best you can come up with?”
“You want to switch roles?”
“Hell no. If we do get away, better find a Radio Shack. Dollars to doughnuts you’ve got a nice little companion chip stuck in your head.”
“Thanks. You ready?”
Jax walked to the glass door and tapped. The guards backed away and kept their guns on the door. Jax kept knocking. One of the guards gestured for him to back away, and Jax did, all the way to the rear of the compartment, next to Grey. The guard opened the door.
“Need the restroom, pal. I can’t hold it any more. We’ve been in that truck god knows how long. I just need two minutes.”
Jax added a few hand motions to ensure the guards understood him. Grey recognized one of the guards from Veronica’s apartment: the man with the birthmark on his face. Grey bit down on his tongue to stay calm. Birthmark Man said something to the other guard. They both backed up, guns at the ready, ten feet from the door.
Birthmark Man nodded for Jax to come forward. When Jax opened the door, Birthmark Man pointed towards the side of the boat, a few feet from the door.
The second guard still had his gun trained on Grey. They’re careful, Grey thought. Trained. Jax stepped to the side of the boat and reached for the front of his pants. He leaned over as he started to unzip.
Then he dove into the water.
All six men started shouting and moving at once. Grey didn’t hesitate. He sprang towards the man with the gun trained on him, who had looked away for a brief moment during the commotion. He looked back at Grey before Grey reached him, but it was too late. Grey threw a snap kick into his groin and wrenched the gun out of his grasp. The man buckled, and Grey hit him over the head with the gun.
Grey shot two more of his captors before they gathered themselves, then scurried backwards along the narrow walkway on the side of the compartment leading to the pilot. Grey covered himself with fire, but a bullet got through and he felt a starburst of pain in his right shoulder.
It was almost a best case scenario. He’d been hit, but in an acceptable place, his non-shooting arm. Part of his plan hinged on his assumption that they were under orders not to kill them yet: a serious weakness when Grey was fully prepared to kill every last one of them.
Grey made it down the walkway and saw a startled man gripping the steering wheel. He trained his gun on the pilot and started shouting. He got behind the pilot, reached around his throat with one hand and pressed the gun into his back with the other. He kept the pilot between himself and the four men rushing towards him, guns at the ready, down the narrow walkway. He fired, and they stayed back.
His plan had worked so far, but a number of things were wrong that he hadn’t had time to process. The gunfire had sounded too weak. Not muted like a silencer, but a different sound altogether, more of a thwap. His shoulder hurt like hell, but he wasn’t bleeding, and it felt more like a gigantic needle had pierced him, rather than a bullet.
He looked down at the gun he’d taken from the guard, then swore.
It was a tranquilizer.
His knees were already buckling from the anesthesia. Before he succumbed he saw two men pulling Jax from the water. Jax was already limp. They must have shot him as he swam.
He then saw a scene that brought a prickle of cold to his rapidly numbing body. The felucca had drawn close enough to the far shore for Grey to see a small plane resting on a barren airstrip, ominous in implication. Two men stood by the front of the plane, arms folded, watching them approach. One of them was a tall and lean white man, wearing aviator glasses and a white T-shirt tucked into jeans.
The other was Nomti.
– 56 –
Veronica’s mind lurched back and forth among worry for Grey, fear they were being pursued, and awe at the starkly beautiful landscape passing by the battered Land Cruiser.
The guide was a squirrely little man with quick eyes and a bent nose. He sounded competent, he didn’t ask questions, and most of all, he was available. While negotiating the journey, they understood why the detective had scoffed at leaving in the middle of the night. Unless one wanted to make the two-day journey via Alexandria, the only way to get to Siwa was a day-long journey through some of the most forbidding open desert on t
he planet, impossible without a hardy four-wheel drive and a guide who knew the way like it was a matter of life and death—which it was.
The guide interspersed the numbing silence of the Western Desert with occasional factoids, such as how Saharan sand dunes can reach as high as six hundred feet and can wipe out an entire settlement during a sand storm, and how vast underground aquifers far beneath the desert well up into sporadic depressions and oases between the Nile Valley and the Libyan border, sustaining a modicum of life.
The elephant in the desert was that everyone knew it was Stefan they wanted most, and he was sitting right beside them. They might have bought some time by leaving Cairo, or they might not have. Maybe Al-Miri’s men were right behind them, watching them. They could be waiting on them at this Siwa place.
This was insanity, but Veronica didn’t know what else to do. She wasn’t leaving Grey at the mercy of those sadistic bastards. She knew in her gut that by the time the police found him, if ever, he’d be dead.
Every molecule in her brain screamed at her to let Viktor and Stefan go without her. But it was too late for that. They might need her help, and she wasn’t sure she’d be safer anyplace else anyway.
This whole thing was surreal. It simply wasn’t happening.
Only it was.
• • •
Hours later, both the beauty and monotony of the desert had left Veronica in a state of numb amazement. Besides tiny Bahariya Oasis, a two minute blip on the journey, they had not seen another person, vehicle or sign of civilization. The parched air stung her throat and filled her nostrils with a crisp purity. The unending red and gold sands, a symphony of windswept geometry on a scale almost hard to believe, left her with a feeling of insignificance. Veronica had no idea how the guide kept track of where they were going.
When they were well into the desert Viktor drew them close and relayed what he’d learned from Professor Hilton and the police. When he told them about Nomti’s background, Veronica wrapped her arms around her knees and stared into the desert.