by Layton Green
Sensing they were about to get shot in the back and then dragged to a waiting vehicle, Andie felt as if she might vomit as she screamed again, “Help! Someone help us!”
A gunshot rang out, causing her to flinch. But she felt nothing, and Cal hadn’t slowed. Their attacker didn’t seem the type to miss at close range, even in the moonlight. Another gunshot caused her to glance over her shoulder, revealing a scene that both gave her hope and confused her.
Though he had never uttered a sound of discomfort, the dark-haired man was holding his bloodied right arm and diving behind a waist-high pillar. Two more gunshots caused chips of stone to fly off the ruined column. Andie whipped her head to the left. At the edge of the courtyard, she saw a tall woman, her complexion as inky as the night sky, taking aim with a compact handgun. When their attacker finally managed to return fire, the woman spun with the economy of a leopard stalking its prey, then melted into the darkness behind a concrete sarcophagus.
When Cal jerked her arm forward, Andie realized she was gawking at the scene.
Zawadi?
“Let’s go!” Cal said in a rough whisper. “This is our chance.”
She didn’t need to hear it twice. After snapping out of her paralysis, she sprinted into the darkness, through the open iron gate at the entrance. The guard was nowhere in sight, and the door to the guard shack was closed. An ominous sign. She didn’t want to know what was inside.
Andie and Cal looked side to side as they ran, searching for a place to hide in case whoever survived came after them, or more assailants were waiting on the street. Yet no one appeared when they reached the road at the top of the hill. More gunshots filled the courtyard, farther away than before. They fled down the cracked pavement, fearing a dead end if they tried to cut through the courtyards of the tall apartment buildings ringing the hill.
“Let’s try for the main road,” she said as she ran. “More choices.”
“Okay,” Cal said.
Andie let gravity do the work as she dashed down the hill, running so fast she feared falling face-first if she hit a loose stone or a patch of gravel. Cal was ten feet behind her, breathing heavily.
When they reached the road at the bottom, Andie looked back and saw no one following them. The gunshots had stopped too—which could just mean the survivor was chasing them. There was obviously dissension in the ranks, judging by the dead man at the bottom of the shaft, and Andie feared Zawadi no less than the dark-haired man.
Andie slowed enough for Cal to catch up. Soon they saw signs of life all around, pedestrians and an open coffee shop and even a gang of rough-looking youths, whose presence filled her with immeasurable relief. Still, she did not relish trying to escape the maze of streets and alleys in a dodgy neighborhood, at night and on foot, and she thanked the universe for small miracles when a black-and-white taxi pulled alongside them, the driver leaning his head out to ask if they needed a ride.
Andie gripped the cloth seat as the taxi wound away from the catacombs and through a maze of inner-city neighborhoods so bleak she wondered if they had not exchanged one crisis for another. They entered a particularly grim patch with neither street signs nor electricity, prowled by roving gangs of youths and stray dogs. The potholed alleys were barely wide enough for the sedan to squeeze through, strewn with trash and parked mopeds and laundry hanging overhead. She began to wonder if they were being kidnapped by someone else. When they questioned the driver, he assured them it was the fastest route, and she sat white-knuckled in the back seat until they exited the poverty-stricken neighborhood and emerged onto a busy multilane highway.
Soon they were speeding toward the harbor. Knowing she couldn’t return to her pension, Andie asked the driver to take them to a major hotel chain, to buy some time to think. Both she and Cal had most of their belongings in their backpacks on the seat between them. The rest, some odd clothes and toiletries, could be left behind.
The radio was blaring an electronic mix of Egyptian folk music, which was grating on her nerves. Andie gripped the Star Phone. As with the sphinxes, the display of the two new symbols in the crypt had been temporary. Once she stopped pointing the device at the tip of the spear, the image had reverted back to the scroll and the alphanumeric GPS code.
Another marker.
Yet as she stared down at the empty cursor spaces, willing the device to divulge its secrets, she had to believe they were close to the end of this particular journey. How many steps would there be, she wondered, before the endgame?
How many mysteries to uncover?
“That woman was the same one I saw in London,” Andie said.
Cal started. “The one who killed the professor?”
“I’m sure of it, unless she has a twin. I think her name’s Zawadi.”
“She is rather unforgettable. Does this mean she’s on our side?”
“I think they’re fighting amongst themselves for some reason. I don’t trust any of them.”
“Probably a good policy. About London, though . . . you didn’t actually see her kill him, right? What if she showed up later?”
“Walking out of his apartment just after the murder? I think Professor Rickman knew her and let her inside, and it got him killed.”
“I suppose. But what if there’s a power play going on inside the Leap Year Society? If we find someone who could help us, it might improve our chances of staying alive.”
“And get you closer to your story?” she snapped.
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“If it puts our lives in danger more than they already are, then yeah. Anyway, why would anyone help us?”
“I don’t know,” he said, letting his head fall back against the headrest in exhaustion. “I’m just exploring ideas.”
Andie did the same, pressing her hands to her temples and closing her eyes as she slumped in the seat. The stress of the night, compounded on top of everything else, washed over her like a tidal wave. “Sorry. I’m not thinking straight right now.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to take our chances with a fancy hotel? Bubble bath, clean sheets, stocked minibar?”
“I’ll settle for a hot shower and a cup of coffee.”
Andie soon got her wish. After spotting a budget hotel on the way to the harbor, about ten blocks off the water, they told the driver there was a change in plans and tipped him well for plucking them out of danger.
A pair of Siamese cats lounged on the rose-colored carpeting in the lobby of Cleopatra’s Chalet. Yes, the obsequious man behind the counter told them, they had a business center with free internet. Yes, they had hot water and coffee and sugar for the gentleman. No, a credit card was not required, and they accepted cash deposits for incidentals.
Sold, Andie thought.
As much as they both wanted to crash, they knew they had no time to spare. Cal speculated their pursuers had traced Andie forward from the airport, or from the call with her father. Either way, they couldn’t afford the luxury of a full night’s rest.
After her shower, Andie changed T-shirts and slipped into the same jeans as before. At least she had washed away the grime of the city.
“How do you like your coffee?” Cal asked when she emerged. “A little milk? Sugar?”
“I prefer if gravity can’t escape,” she answered as she entered the bedroom.
“What?”
“Thick and black.”
Andie sat on the bed, which reeked of cigarettes, as Cal brewed a pot. The hotel was not in the best area and was laughably cheap, less than thirty bucks a night. This would account for the smell and the small family of orange cockroaches she had spotted in the room. She had to chase two out of the shower before she entered, and one almost dropped on her from the ceiling.
“Ready to head to the war room?” he asked, handing her a paper cup of coffee.
She took a greedy sip. “I am now.”
“It’s pretty terrible.”
“I don’t even care.”
Downstairs, the “twenty-f
our-hour business center” turned out to be a brown-walled cubicle with a concrete floor and a single desktop computer that looked as if it might predate Windows. Cal still had his laptop, but they didn’t want to risk using it unless they had to, even with the protective software Dane had installed.
Cal brought another chair from the lobby. “At least we have the place to ourselves,” he said, closing the door behind him.
The arthritic computer shuddered to life when she depressed the power button. Two minutes later, an interminable wait to Andie, the home screen popped up.
She set a piece of paper on the desk between them. It was a rough sketch she had made of the two new symbols above the scroll that the Star Phone had displayed in the catacombs.
An ouroboros sun rising over water.
The cross and loop of the ankh, the ancient Egyptian symbol of life.
“Here’s my theory,” she said. “Together with the scroll, I think the three symbols represent locations in the city. What if, in keeping with the GPS theme, we’re supposed to trilaterate a location among them?”
Cal put his palms on the desk as he leaned over the drawing. “It’s clever,” he said slowly. “In fact, I’d say it’s a pretty damn good guess.”
“Besides the obvious one—the scroll representing the library—I have no idea where the ankh might be, or what the rising sun represents. Any ideas?”
“Not offhand,” he said, “but hold on.” He left the room and returned with a stack of guidebooks and pamphlets from the lobby. “I’ll look through these while you search. Maybe something will jump out.”
“Okay,” she said, already typing in the search bar.
All through the night, taking turns on the computer when someone’s eyes got too bleary, popping out every hour or so for more coffee, they researched the meaning of the symbols and tried to correlate their findings with specific locations in the city. Thankfully, no other guests appeared in the middle of the night to use the computer. Neither did Zawadi nor the dark-haired man burst into the room brandishing a firearm, the thought of which made Andie loath to leave the shabby little hotel. Cleopatra’s Chalet felt as safe as a womb compared to stepping back into the exposed streets of the city.
Hours later, they felt good about what they had discovered.
The most prominent ankh in the city, as far as they could tell, belonged to a statue in a park in the Anfushi district. A squiggly piece of land straddling the Eastern and Western Harbours, known for its mosques and a necropolis, the neighborhood was only a short cab ride away. The statue itself, unearthed from the waters offshore, like so many other Alexandrian treasures, was a bronze cast of Cleopatra holding a large ankh upright in her right hand. In addition to being the most prominent ankh they could find, the involvement of the legendary queen seemed a fitting ode.
The third symbol, the ouroboros sun rising over water, proved more challenging. Tying it to Egyptian iconography was the easy part. The ouroboros had symbolized renewal and purification for millennia. A good choice, she thought, to form a sun, which itself represented both Ra—the classic sun god—as well as Aten, the original name for the incarnation of the sun itself, later deified in its own right. During the New Kingdom, pharaoh Akhenaten had taken the worship of Aten a step further, abandoning polytheism and instating Aten as the sole creator god.
Sometimes Ra and Aten were syncretized. Sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes they were depicted together, and sometimes apart.
There were others too. While Ra objectified the daytime sun, Horus symbolized the sunrise, and Amun symbolized the sun in the underworld. And sometimes, in certain art and motifs, the sun was simply the sun.
The symbol might even refer to a site outside Alexandria, for instance the ancient city of Heliopolis. Obelisks, often built to catch the first rays of the sun in honor of its life-giving power, were another option. Yet one of Alexandria’s most important obelisks now rested in London, another at the Vatican.
It was all very confusing, and they didn’t have time to consult an Egyptologist. In the end, they decided to stay in the city, pick the most prominent edifice they could find, and run with it. They agreed the ruins of the Serapeum presented their best option for the ouroboros. Founded by Ptolemy I around 300 BCE, destroyed by a Christian mob seven centuries later, the temple was dedicated to the Greco-Egyptian sun god Serapis. Plus Andie had already discovered that the Serapeum was the reputed landing site for many of the works of the Library of Alexandria.
All the pieces seemed to fit.
“So we’ve got our three points,” Cal said. “The library, the ankh in Anfushi, and the temple. Or at least we think we do. How do we triangulate them?”
“We don’t. We trilaterate.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Triangulation uses angles. Trilateration is, well, more sophisticated. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll handle it.”
As she worked, he paced behind her and said, “So the Star Phone is some kind of map or puzzle that leads to the location of the Enneagon . . . and the Enneagon itself is a device or new technology Dr. Corwin developed? Something game-changing enough to drive these people into a frenzy.”
She gave a grim nod.
“If the Enneagon is really what they’re after . . . have you considered giving the Star Phone to them? In exchange for your life?”
“What do you think?”
“That you’ve made your bed, for better or worse. And that even if you gave it up, they probably think you know too much.”
“Good answer.”
He put his palms up. “Just checking.”
“If we can find the Enneagon first, we’ll use it as leverage to free Dr. Corwin or hold someone responsible for his death. And you’ll have your story.”
“And after that? You think they’ll just let it go?”
She swallowed. “I haven’t gotten that far.”
“Me either,” he muttered.
Though Andie knew what free websites and calculation tools to use, the sluggish computer was maddening. It took her far longer than she had intended—they had agreed staying off their phones and Cal’s laptop was a good idea—but at last she was able to use the GPS coordinates of the three locations to derive a fourth one in the geometric center of the others. She pointed it out on the map to Cal.
“Smack in the middle of the city,” he said. “El Attarin neighborhood. Do you know it?”
“No.” She zoomed in as close as she could. As best she could tell, the location was a place of business called Misr Petroleum. She frowned. “A gas station?”
Cal raised his palms. “They can put a QR-type code on almost anything, right?”
“Sure, but it wouldn’t mean something.”
Just to be safe, Andie selected five more sites they thought best represented the sun rising over water, then performed similar calculations. With the new information in hand, they choked down cold cereal and stale pastries at the continental buffet in the lobby, downed another cup of coffee, grabbed their bags, and emerged from the hotel squinting like newborn babes in the morning sun.
They caught a taxi within minutes. Exhausted but hopeful, they sat quietly during the drive to the gas station, eyes latched on to the road for signs of anyone following them. Andie took the time to retie her hijab.
“Here?” the driver said as they approached a busy corner in a nondescript commercial sector of the city. Across the street was the gas station they had glimpsed on Google Maps. The grimy exterior and attendants in blue shirts with blue-and-yellow logos looked identical to dozens of others they had passed.
“Thanks,” Andie said, paying before she stepped out.
The streets were packed with cars, trucks spewing noxious fumes, bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, and pedestrians risking their lives to dash across the street. She realized it was 8:30 a.m. The middle of rush hour.
After ten minutes of feeling foolish waving the Star Phone around, seeing nothing that felt remotely right, they gave up and tried t
he second place on the list.
And the third.
And the fourth and the fifth.
“Something’s wrong,” Andie muttered over a table in a shisha joint with hookahs embedded in the centers of the tables. The casual lounge shared space with an internet café in the back. They were ensconced in a quiet corner, hidden from street view by a faux alabaster pillar. Each time the front door opened, they craned their necks to get a nervous glimpse of the new customer.
“Every second we stay in this city feels like borrowed time,” Cal said.
“What are we missing? The scroll has got to be the library. I feel reasonably good about the ankh, but the ouroboros sun . . . not so much.”
Cal tapped his fingers against the side of his teacup. Both of them, feeling strung out by coffee, opted for an inexpensive koshary tea. Mostly they had come inside to get off the street, and in case they needed a computer for research. “Let’s talk about the ankh. What exactly does it represent?”
“Life and immortality mostly, but it’s all over the place. The enigmas of heaven and earth, male and female genitalia, the sun coming over the horizon. It was used to mark necropoli and provide divine protection for temple walls, believing the ankh was the key—one interpretation of the curious shape—to the afterlife.”
Cal thought for a moment, and then his fingers stopped tapping against the teacup. “Did you say they once marked necropoli?”
“All the time, inside and out.”
Cal sat back in his seat, his jaw slack with disbelief.
“What?” she said.
“I may not have your big brain, but I’m pretty good at seeing the obvious. We might be overthinking this. Let’s say the first symbol is still the library, and the ankh represents a necropolis—we know one of those around here pretty intimately, wouldn’t you say?”
“The catacombs,” she murmured. “Okay, that’s one interpretation . . . Oh my God, I see where you’re going. What if the three symbols represent places the Star Phone has already led me in the city?” She thrust her palms on the table. “It makes perfect sense. A final trilateration of the stages of the journey. But how does the rising sun fit with the National Museum?”