by Layton Green
OK. Assumption of the risk, though.
Of course. Want to tell me where u r?
Andie’s hands hovered over the keypad for a very long time. If she were wrong or if someone were listening, then she could doom herself by giving away her location. She took her bottom lip between her teeth and told herself she was doing the right thing.
You can already guess the country. HEAX. Let me know when you’re here and I’ll give you more.
Understood. Be there as soon as I can. If you don’t hear from me in a few days . . . then you probably won’t.
In the lobby of the pension the next morning, Andie hovered over an Egyptian coffee as thick and sweet as maple syrup, so strong it felt like mainlining a shot of adrenaline. The door to the outside was propped open, letting in a cool morning breeze before the sun blasted the city.
The lobby, which doubled as a café, had dingy red carpeting and smudged photos of Abu Simbel, Siwa Oasis, and the pyramids displayed on the walls. Halfway through her coffee, a young couple strolled arm in arm down the staircase and took one of the adjoining tables. They spoke French, and Andie eyed them as she asked for the check. Why had they sat so close to her?
The combination of paranoia and caffeine left her shaking with nerves as she grabbed her backpack, left the hotel, and walked hurriedly down the street, glancing over her shoulder every few steps. Though it was too hot for her jacket, she had her hijab in place, along with black jeans and a white T-shirt.
The clue to her location she had given Cal, HEAX, was the International Civil Aviation Organization symbol for El Nouzha, Alexandria’s other principal airport. As opposed to the more familiar IATA codes—used for reservations and baggage tags—ICAO codes were simply a different standardized form of international airport recognition. Just another layer to throw her pursuers off, should anyone be scanning the internet.
Even if Cal had jumped on a flight last night, she figured she had at least a full day to figure out where to rendezvous before he arrived.
If he arrived.
Her next port of call was the Alexandria National Museum, which her research and the hotel receptionist informed her was the best source of information on the city’s history.
The museum was a ten-block walk due east from her hotel, about a mile south of the library. Within minutes, the facade she recognized from a flyer in the lobby came into view: a three-story white Italianate mansion plopped like a lost pearl amid a sea of dilapidated apartment blocks. The gated compound included a garden with a handful of Egyptian sculptures scattered on the lawn, as if left outside after a frat party.
She climbed the curved staircase that led to the entrance, bought a ticket, and found herself in a foyer with gray marble columns. According to her information booklet, the museum was a restored palace focusing on the history of Alexandria from antiquity to modern times.
Though Egypt’s pharaonic era predated the city—Alexander the Great laid the groundwork around 330 BCE—Andie began her tour by heading downstairs, to the exhibits from the time of the god-kings. Dark-blue walls symbolized the journey to the afterlife, and the pursed lips and curved eyes of an eerie sandstone bust of Akhenaten, husband of Nefertiti and probable father of Tutankhamen, drew her eye as she wandered the floor. After finding nothing of interest among the wealth of artifacts, as well as no sign of life from the Star Phone, she headed down another staircase to a chilly subterranean chamber, where a statue of the jackal god, Anubis, lorded over two painted sarcophagi. On another day, she would have lingered over the exhibits, but she had come with a purpose, and the secluded basement made her nervous.
Back on the ground floor, working her way through the centuries, she turned a corner and came face-to-face with a diorite sphinx that stopped her in her tracks. Excited, she pointed the Star Phone at it, circling to hit it from every angle, but nothing affected the device. She also noticed an exhibit on the ruins of the Serapeum, which included a photo of two huge sphinxes right inside the city. Remembering that the Serapeum might have housed a portion of the library’s collection, she decided that would be her next destination, if nothing else turned up.
She continued browsing the impressive collection of Greco-Roman relics, then continued upstairs to the Coptic, Islamic, and modern eras. Her frustration grew until, just past a series of black-and-white photos of nineteenth-century Alexandria, she found an exhibit highlighting the discovery of the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa in 1900, a trilevel funerary site considered one of the wonders of the medieval world.
The builders of the catacombs had tunneled through a hundred feet of solid rock in the second century AD to construct the underground complex, and the placard’s description caused a tingle of excitement to spread through her.
The catacombs are riddled with loculi—cavities in the stone walls reserved for family burials—and include a chamber called a triclinium, where relatives could sit on stone couches and enjoy refreshments while paying respects to the dead. Some theorize the subterranean galleries might have given rise to the apocryphal legend of the Hall of Records, perhaps as a metaphorical veneration of ancestral knowledge that persists through the centuries and into the afterlife.
The Star Phone revealed no further secrets, but Andie studied the photos and the text of the exhibit for a long time, thinking about how much the phrasing of the placard imitated the themes of her search.
Knowledge of the ancients persisting through time.
The collective wisdom of planet Earth, lost and suppressed until only myth remains.
After finishing her tour, Andie left the museum deep in thought, intrigued by the Serapeum but debating whether to visit the catacombs first. So far, the Star Phone had illuminated two sphinxes, and the only connection to the Hall of Records was her own interpretation of the message. Yet something about it rang true. Dr. Corwin loved patterns and meanings hidden beneath the surface, and had always approached his work on the cosmos as if it were all one grand puzzle to be solved. He used to love telling Andie over coffee about the veiled themes and clues embedded in his lectures, and even his scientific papers.
She sat on a bench in the garden and pulled out her prepaid phone. According to Google Maps, the catacombs were nearly an hour’s walk to the southwest, still in the thick of the city, not far from the ruins of the Serapeum. Instead of choosing between the two ancient sites, she decided to walk over to the library to see if its collection on either of the locations contained another clue.
The library was nearby. Though the day was growing late, the evening sun caused lines of sweat to trickle down her back. She loosened the hijab as she walked. The route took her past the El-Nabih cistern ruins, through a busy commercial section full of cafés and bookstores that ran alongside the university, and then straight onto the grounds of the library. Just as she was about to cross the courtyard leading to the entrance, she glanced up at the elevated walkway and froze when she saw a very tall woman with ebony skin and chiseled features talking on her cell phone. The woman was staring down at the entrance as if keeping an eye out for someone.
It was the same woman from London. Zawadi. There was no doubt in Andie’s mind.
Her heart hammering against her chest, Andie ducked behind a concrete pillar and debated what to do. How had they found her? Could it possibly be a coincidence?
Wishful thinking.
She risked another glance and saw Zawadi hurrying down the walkway with her long stride. After she disappeared inside the building, Andie took the opening. She darted back into the street and aimed for the largest crowd of people she could find. After slowing to a fast walk, she made two more turns and jumped into a cab parked outside a hotel. The driver was a middle-aged man with glasses perched on a thin nose, a bead of moisture on his top lip, and a red-and-white checkered keffiyeh draped loosely around his neck.
“Are you free?” she asked the driver.
“Yes, please. Your destination?”
Andie paused for a beat, then went with her gut. “The Catacomb
s of Kom el-Shoqafa.”
“You are sure? We may not arrive before the close.”
“It’s okay. Do your best.”
He darted into the traffic, then apologized over and over as they hit a series of roadblocks caused by congestion. The entire way, Andie sat low in the seat and kept a constant eye out for signs of pursuit. She did not think Zawadi had noticed her, but her presence in the city caused Andie’s pulse to quicken and a lump of dread to settle deep in her chest.
A sidewalk market that had spilled into the street cut off their route. Everything from hubcaps to used clothing to goat heads hung from wires stretched between stalls in the hot sun. The driver cursed and veered into a lane so narrow Andie thought the car would scrape the sides of the flimsy wooden shacks lining the road, built into the sides of concrete towers in various stages of ruin. The slum only worsened as they drove through. Andie swallowed at the families living in caves scooped out of sections of collapsed buildings, mothers drying clothes on piles of rubble as their children clambered atop mounds of garbage.
After they cleared the slums, the city opened up, and soon they were climbing a dusty hill ringed by midrise concrete apartments with men sitting at tables out front smoking shisha. At the apex of the hill was a courtyard with low Roman columns denoting the entrance to the catacombs.
Fifteen minutes until closing time. Andie asked the driver to wait, but he apologized yet again and said he had to rush to the airport. With a final nervous glance behind her, and no easy escape route in case someone had followed, she walked through the iron entrance gate. A bored guard waved her in. Half a dozen tourists were still milling about, and a feral cat slunk beside her as she made her way across the sunbaked courtyard to a flat-topped mausoleum.
Wondering where to find the ticket booth, she noticed a sign in front of the entrance to the catacombs. She drew closer and read the English translation.
CLOSED FOR REPAIR
Great. There was no telling how long that would take. A day, a week, a month? She asked the guard, but he claimed to have no idea. Whatever the duration, it was time that Andie didn’t have.
After taking a few steps away from the mausoleum, she took out the Star Phone. As soon as she focused the lens on the pyramidal piece of stone adorning the top of the doorway, the device activated, conjuring a familiar three-dimensional image.
Another sphinx, looming at the entrance to the catacombs.
Guarding another secret.
20
In the wealthy suburb of Kafr Abdou, known for its shady palm-lined boulevards and quiet cafés, a world apart from the grime and chaos of the urban sprawl ringing Alexandria, Omer lowered his binoculars from his perch atop a rooftop patio.
A satisfied smile lifted the corners of his lips. Under a false alias—procured on the city’s black market as soon as he arrived—Omer had rented a top-floor penthouse across the street from Allenby Garden. If Omer stood at the very corner of the glass-walled balcony, faced northeast, and trained the binoculars just right, he had a view overlooking the entrance to his former organization’s safe house in Alexandria.
Are you listening, Ascendants? Soon you will hear me roar.
Omer entered the penthouse through a set of double French doors, heading straight for the private elevator. The fruits of his eighteen-hour vigil had just ripened. When he arrived in the city, he had found no trace of the target. This did not surprise him. Alexandria was a vast metropolis of five million people, most of it off the grid, a quagmire of derelict neighborhoods and sprawling bazaars. Entire districts lacked proper street signs, or had not yet been mapped. A nightmare scenario for locating someone who did not wish to be found.
Even if Omer still had access to all his resources, Alexandria existed in a different technological universe from western Europe. After the Arab Spring, in an attempt to deter terrorism, the Egyptian government had issued edicts to bolster scrutiny of its citizens. Yet the edict was taking time to implement, and would still fall far short of the Big Brother surveillance used in London.
Still, if the target remained in Alexandria long enough, Omer felt confident he could locate her. She was an amateur, a Westerner, and would have limited options. On the other hand, if she came and moved on quickly, he might lose the trail.
Which was why he didn’t plan on spinning his wheels to locate the target himself. He might not know Andie’s current location, but he knew who wanted to find her, and where they were. He would let his former colleagues do his work for him.
As suspected, they were right behind him. He had just seen Kumal enter the safe house with a travel bag. Omer guessed he would link up with one or more of the agents local to the region, perhaps Ahmed or Mirette. Though not as physically impressive as some of the others, Kumal was intelligent and extremely resourceful, and should not be underestimated.
When he reached the ground floor, Omer nodded to the doorman and stepped into the brutal midday sun. He was already dressed for the mission: wrapped neck to toe in a white bisht, a flowing Arab cloak, worn over a thawb. A gray keffiyeh covered his head, kept in place by a black igal made of goat hair. A typical outfit for a devout local Muslim or a visiting Arab businessman. His attire left only the oval of his face exposed, and even that was recessed within the voluminous keffiyeh, and further concealed by a false beard and sunglasses.
A bisht was also an excellent choice of attire for concealing weapons. Omer took full advantage by bringing two boot knives and a Tariq semiautomatic pistol he had purchased from the same black-market source, a British veteran of the Iraq War, who ran a brothel near the Western Harbour.
Outside, a private driver awaited in a black Citroën that Omer had hired for the week. The Citroën was perfect—nothing too fancy in case they needed to follow someone on the sly inside the city.
After climbing into the back seat, he ordered the driver to circle the block and park down the street from the safe house. Once in position, Omer waited patiently behind the tinted windows of the Citroën, listening to an international news podcast as he kept a sharp eye on the door.
Less than an hour later, Kumal emerged wearing dark slacks, a linen shirt, and a russet Sikh turban wrapped around his head. He stepped into a waiting green sedan that wound its way through the neighborhood, then drove along the coast on El-Gaish Road into the heart of the city. Omer’s driver did an excellent job of trailing him as they looped onto Suez Canal Road near the Bibliotheca Alexandrina—dangerous territory—and headed south before veering east on Abou Quer. Moments later, the sedan slowed to a stop at the entrance to the Alexandria National Museum, a handsome Italianate mansion that Omer had never visited.
This excited him. He guessed Kumal had tracked the target to this place and wanted to know what she had done, to whom she had spoken, and when she had left. Omer knew she wasn’t still inside, because the target would recognize Kumal’s face from the V&A Museum, and they would not take her against her will in broad daylight. Not here.
Omer released a small breath. If they had known her exact location, Kumal wouldn’t have bothered to stop at the museum. The window of opportunity was still open. Omer had no idea why the target had come to Alexandria or where she had gone, but he felt confident that if she had not left the city, his former colleagues would hunt her down within days, if not hours.
And then Omer, like a vulture circling above a fight to the death on the savanna, would swoop in to collect his prize.
21
Two miles north of the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa, just south of the bow curve of the Eastern Harbour, the battered remnants of El-Tahrir Square’s grandiose architecture devolved into Alexandria’s main souk district, a human beehive of buyers and sellers shouting, haggling, and cajoling over the price of every foodstuff and household good imaginable. Andie experienced sensory overload as she burrowed into the nest of backstreets and alleyways, inhaling the aromas of exotic spices and sizzling animal fat, incense and shisha. The more pleasant smells were undercut by cat urine and stinking
offal and the unwelcome perfume of thousands of busy people rubbing shoulders in a confined space during the heat of the afternoon.
Feeling claustrophobic, longing for the warm sea breeze that beckoned a few blocks to the north, Andie pressed through the bazaar, aiming for the destination she had scouted that morning—right after she woke up and saw the message from Cal that he had arrived in the city.
The previous day, standing at the entrance to the catacombs, Andie had decided not to attempt to enter the ruins alone at night. Not until she read up on them and knew what she was getting into. Not with the sighting of Zawadi less than an hour prior.
Just before she had fallen asleep, lying in bed wondering if her fear of going in alone had affected her decision, she answered her own question.
Hell, yes, I’m scared. What kind of lunatic wouldn’t be?
It was 5 p.m. She had asked Cal to meet her at six, when the crush of humanity in the souk would be at its peak. The souk was not a tourist bazaar, catering to cruise ships or wealthy Europeans. The streets and stalls were packed with local Egyptians going about their daily business. After Cal had described his clothing—jeans and a gray Clippers T-shirt with a blue logo—it had given her the idea to meet him in the souk. She could spot him from a block away, and if things went south, she thought her hijab would garner more sympathy from the crowd than Cal’s Western attire. Even if not, she preferred the chaos of the bazaar to a more isolated location. If she didn’t like the vibe, she could disappear before he saw her.
For the meeting spot, she had given him the name of a silversmith at the end of a covered lane in Zinqat As Sittat, “the Alley of the Women.” Yet instead of waiting at the silversmith, she was standing outside the entrance to a tea shop halfway down the dead-end lane, waiting for Cal to show.
Throngs of women, some veiled and some not, flowed into and out of the stalls and shops lining the alley. There were dressmakers, bakeries, herbalists, spice vendors, florists. Right on cue, two minutes after six, Andie saw a man fitting Cal’s description appear at the entrance to the alley, dressed as promised. He was taller than she had expected, standing half a foot above most of the crowd and drawing stares.