The Lucifer Gospel fr-2

by Paul Christopher

  “Ya’la! Ya’la!” a little boy beside her yelled, dragging her across the market. Small hands pushed her from behind, and ahead Baqir scouted the next alley. Less than a minute later, gasping and exhausted, Finn stumbled out into the court where she and Hilts had left the Norton. Baqir, grinning broadly, eyes flashing, pumped his fist triumphantly into the air. Finn made her way over to the bike and leaned on it, chest heaving. Relief welled up in her with a wracking sob. Suddenly her new sidekick screamed.

  “Shoef!”

  She turned in time to see the gleaming arc of the machete cutting through the air and slicing into Baqir’s neck at the shoulder, butchering down through muscle, bone, and heart. The light went out in the young thief’s eyes before he knew what was happening, and he fell dead to the dusty ground. The swordsman slid the blade away from the crumpled body, smiling hugely. His own blood was heavy on the upper arm of his old morning coat, his dark eyes blazing.

  He grunted something loudly that sounded like “Kus umak!” and began to stride toward her as best he could, dragging his right foot and swinging the bloody machete like a club. Baqir’s gang fled, screaming in terror as the ghastly apparition moved steadily forward-all except Finn’s little protector, who stood loyally beside her, visibly shaking, his small hand on her sleeve. The child took one step forward and spit onto the ground. He swore at the swordsman in a squeaking voice, bent down, and hurled a chunk of rubble.

  “Sharmut!” shrieked the little boy, tears of rage streaking through the caked dirt and grime on his face.

  The piece of rock struck the man on his uninjured shoulder and bounced off harmlessly. Smiling, he came on. Finn grabbed the child and pulled him back, forcing him behind her. The man raised the machete, Baqir’s glistening blood dripping from the blade down onto his hand. Finn’s heart seemed to stop beating and she felt a calm, deadly coldness overtake her. She saw Baqir falling into the dirt again like some useless thing, abandoned. The grotesque creature with the bleeding sword in his hand would pay. She searched the terrible face approaching her, wondering if there was any hope that she could use her teeth to rip out his throat before she died.

  “W’aleikum sallam.” The words were soft, and close. The man with the machete in his hand stopped, surprised by the voice. He turned slightly, so that the three closely spaced rounds struck him high in the ribs. The bullets shattered the curved bones guarding his chest into a hundred spiked, razorlike fragments that tore through both lungs and heart, lifting the man off his feet, tossing him backward like a rag. Two of the three bullets ricocheting through the meat of his chest finally found their way out of his body, exploding through the right shoulder blade and blowing out the center of his spine in a misty halo of blood and bone and scraps of fabric from the old, pin-striped morning coat. The dead swordsman’s body hit the ground with a sound like a heavy sack of turnips dropping on the dirt.

  Finn looked. Hilts stood there for an instant longer, the small square shape of the South African RAP automatic held outward at arm’s length, gripped firmly in a simple one-handed grip with no theatrics. The moment passed and he flipped up the safety, then stuffed the weapon into his waistband and covered it with his T-shirt.

  He bent, quickly scooping up the three.40-caliber shell casings and pushing them into his pocket. In three steps he was beside the motorcycle. He took a folded wad of Egyptian pounds out of his jeans and pressed them into the hands of the little boy still standing with Finn, staring at the blasted swordsman with childish awe. He squeezed the boy’s hand tightly around the money, then whispered briefly into his ear. The child stared up at Hilts and nodded. The money vanished beneath his ragged, dirty robe.

  “Imshee, imshee!” said Hilts. The boy looked quickly up at Finn, tears still hot in his eyes, then kissed her hand and ran. The child stopped for an instant beside the dead swordsman, kicked dirt onto his face and spit, then clutched the blood-soaked handle of the machete and dragged it away with him, leaving a thin, telltale trace as the point furrowed through the hard-packed earth. In the distance Finn could hear the faint sounds of whistles blowing.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” said Hilts. He pushed his two Nikons into the carrier bag, handed over Finn’s helmet and slipped on his own. He swung onto the motorcycle. “Come on.”

  Finn climbed on behind him. The sirens were closer now. “Tell me how to say ’thank you’ again,” she said quietly.

  “Shukran,” Hilts answered.

  She looked at the frail young body of Baqir, sprawled in the dirt. A huge pool of dusty blood surrounded his head and shoulders, and already the flies were gathering.

  “Shukran, Baqir,” she whispered softly, and pulled down her visor. Hilts fired up the engine, revved it once, and then they raced away, leaving the City of the Dead behind them.

  7

  Hilts delivered the Norton back to its owner then walked back along the tree-shaded street to where he’d dropped Finn off at the Hotel Longchamps. She sat at a secluded table in one corner of the second-floor terrace, sipping a cup of American coffee and looking out over the upscale neighborhood on the island of Zamalek. Here there was nothing of the terrible scenes she had just witnessed. No crowds, ho haze of choking dust, just the quiet movement of traffic on the pleasant street below, the rustle of a breeze in the trees and a distant glimpse of the river a few blocks away. It could just as easily have been somewhere in Westchester or Mount Vernon. The City of the Dead was nothing more than a distant whispered nightmare in a place like this. Beside her, Hilts sat down, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. He ordered a tall glass of iced tea and then ignored it for a long while.

  Finn spoke at last. “I just saw a little boy murdered and I saw you shoot a man to death and you made it look like target practice. You made it look as though it wasn’t the first time. The police are looking for whoever killed that man and I’m involved and I want to know just what the hell is going on.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What about that man who was chasing after me? Who was he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He couldn’t have known I’d be there unless you told him.”

  “I never saw him before. All I know is that one of Baqir’s kids found me and told me you were in trouble and I came after you.”

  “With a gun.”

  “That’s right, with a gun.”

  “Explain that.”

  “That’s why I went to the City of the Dead in the first place. It’s not as easy as it used to be to just put a handgun in your luggage and bring it through customs.”

  “I thought you were there to take pictures.”

  “I was.”

  “So if I phoned National Geographic they’d know what I was talking about.”

  “Talk to a guy named Russ Tamblyn.”

  “You still haven’t explained about the gun.”

  “It was necessary.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t trust Adamson for one thing, and I don’t like our so-called liaison with the Libyan government.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “A man named Mustapha Hisnawi. He’s supposed to be some kind of archaeologist, but from what I hear he’s also a full-tilt colonel in the Haiat amn al Jamahiriya: the Jamahiriya Security Organization. The Libyan Secret Police.”

  “Where do you come by that kind of information?”

  “I’ve got a lot of friends, and like I told you, I read a lot.”

  “You seem to shoot a lot too.”

  “From time to time.”

  “Where did you learn that particular skill? Not from reading books.”

  “Boy Scouts.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “It’s true. I got a merit badge. I was also in the marines for a few years.”

  “I’m not sure I believe any of this.”

  “Believe what you like. All I know is that guy looked like he was about to chop you in half.”

  “And instead he chopped Baqir in half.”
>
  “I was too late. I’m sorry about that. I would give anything to have been able to prevent that.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t have to be sorry if you hadn’t gone there looking for a gun.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “How can you be that callous? A child is dead.”

  “I didn’t kill him, that son of a bitch with the sword did. A son of a bitch who was chasing you, I might add, not me.”

  “Which brings me back to my original point-why would he be chasing me?”

  “Something to do with the expedition?”

  “Like what? I’m supposed to be a technical illustrator and cartographer. I’ll be drawing site diagrams and artifacts. It’s not like it’s very high up the ladder.”

  “Some old enemy?”

  “I don’t have any enemies like that.”

  Hilts thought for a moment. “Who hired you?”

  “Adamson’s office in California.”

  “Was there an interview?”

  “Over the phone. The placement office at NYU sent them a bunch of possibles. They short-listed me, I sent in my rйsumй along with a list of references, and then I had a five-minute phone interview.”

  “Who did you talk to?”

  “A guy named Forrest, one of Adamson’s personnel people.”

  “Same person who hired me.”

  “Is it important?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t like mysteries.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “So why was the guy after me?” She shook her head. “He must have been following us for quite a while. As soon as you and I got separated he was onto me. As though he’d been waiting for me.”

  “That’s impossible. No one knew we were coming.”

  “So you say.” Finn shrugged.

  “I’m lying?”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “Why would I lie?” he answered.

  “I don’t think this is going to get us anywhere.”

  “Apparently not.” They fell into a long silence. Finally Hilts spoke again. “Aliyah,” he said, nodding to himself.

  “What?”

  “Not what, who. Aliyah is the woman I borrowed the motorcycle from. She was the one who told me where to find a gun in the City of the Dead. She knew where I was going.”

  “You think she told somebody?”

  “I can’t think of anyone else.”

  “Why would she do something like that?”

  He grimaced. “For money. It’s the only reason she does anything.”

  “On whose behalf?”

  “Adamson’s?”

  “He hires us, then he kills us?” Finn shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. And it still doesn’t explain why that man was specifically after me.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t,” said Hilts, lifting his shoulder. He ran a finger through the condensation on the outside of his glass. “Maybe he planned to come after you first, and when he was finished with you he’d be waiting for me back at the bike. He’d be rid of both of us, just like whoever hired him to do the job wanted.”

  “And how do we find out who that was?”

  Hilts picked up his glass at last and held it up in a mock toast. “By getting up bright and early tomorrow and flying into enemy territory.”

  8

  She dreamed she saw Baqir dying again and woke up in her room, the light curtains across the balcony doors blowing inward with a soft sound like ghostly wings. She lay alone in the dark listening to the distant sounds of the city and the traffic on the Corniche El Nil far below. How much death and dying had the Nile seen in all the years it had flowed through this place, on its way to Alexandria and the sea?

  The curtains whispered again and she sat up a little, pulling the sheet up around her shoulders against the chill. She checked the glowing dial on her watch. Three a.m. She remembered a song her father had played to her mother once, very late one Christmas Eve when she was young, plinking it out on the old stand-up piano in one corner of the living room that nobody ever played. She’d only heard it that one time but the memory was as bright and clear as the love and affection that had prompted her father to sing it:

  It’s three o’clock in the morning

  We’ve danced the whole night thru,

  And daylight soon will be dawning,

  Just one more waltz with you.

  That melody so entrancing,

  Seems to be made for us two,

  I could just keep right on dancing

  Forever, dear, with you.

  A long way from death and the banks of the Nile. Suddenly, lying there, she realized she wasn’t alone in the room. A shadow shifted, and as she stared into the far corner the shadow became a shape, and the shape became a man. He cleared his throat and a match flared for a moment, lighting up a round, sweating face wearing glasses. A man in his sixties perhaps, thin hair the yellow white of nicotine. He had fat lips and a small chin. The cigarette he was smoking was oval. She smelled strong, dark tobacco. She had an image of Hilts with the small black pistol in his hand, but Hilts was a couple of floors down. She glanced toward the bedside table. Wallet, keys, the disposable camera she’d never got around to using. Nothing even vaguely resembling a weapon. Not to mention the fact that she slept in the nude. She pushed back against the padded headboard and drew the sheet up a little higher. How the hell had he managed to get in? Like every other hotel in the world these days, the Hilton used electronic key cards.

  “I bribed a chambermaid, they all have master keys,” said a voice from the darkness, reading her mind. The cigarette glowed and reflected off the man’s wire-framed spectacles. “If you stay in Egypt long enough you’ll come to realize that everyone in this country can be bribed. Baksheesh of a sort.” The man’s accent had once been British but had long since become something pale and distant, the lonely voice of the expatriate. “There are several different kinds, you know. There is the baksheesh of the beggar in which the person who offers alms obtains God’s grace, then there is the-”

  Finn cut him off. “Can you tell me what you’re doing in my bedroom, and maybe who you are?”

  “I haven’t introduced myself, have I? Beg pardon. The name is Simpson, Arthur Simpson. I’d give you my card but I seem to have run out.” He took another puff on his evil-smelling cigarette, then crossed his legs and tapped the ash into his trouser cuff. “I’m a guide of sorts. Tours of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx, interpreting for Germans and Swiss, deciphering hieroglyphics for old dears from Upper Tooting.”

  Finn stared into the darkness. He sounded like John Cleese doing some sort of bizarre monologue from an old Monty Python episode. “You still haven’t told me why you’re in my hotel room.”

  Simpson laughed quietly. “Your virtue is un-threatened, Miss Ryan, I can assure you. I’m far too old for that sort of thing.”

  “That’s no answer,” said Finn.

  “Not an answer.” Simpson sighed. “Simply a statement of fact, I’m afraid.” He paused and dragged deeply on his cigarette. Finn saw that he was much older than she’d thought originally. His rotundness disguised an unhealthy complexion and dark circles under the eyes. His lips were chapped and dry and there was a sprinkle of day-old gray bristle on his chin. Finally he spoke again. “Actually, Miss Ryan, I’m here to warn you.”

  “What about?”

  Simpson changed the subject again. “I knew your father, you know.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We were at Cambridge together.”

  Finn stared across the room. The fact that her father had gone to Cambridge on a GI Bill fellowship to do postgraduate work wasn’t the kind of information one could just pick up anywhere. On the other hand, it wasn’t a state secret either. “He never mentioned an Arthur Simpson that I can remember.”

  “We shared a set for two years.”

  “Set?”

  “Rooms at Magdalene. As in a set of rooms. Dodgy u
niversity doublespeak, I’m afraid. You can get degrees in the subject. Semiotics or semantics or some such nonsense.”

  “Why don’t you try getting to the point so you can get out of here.”

  “Yes, quite. Well, as I said, I knew your father and he knew me, which was much more to the point. You might even say that we became colleagues.”

  “You were an archaeologist?”

  “Good lord, no! I was a spy.”

  Finn pulled the sheet higher. The fact that her father had worked for the CIA using his role as a research and field archaeologist as a blind was certainly not everyday information. “What does that have to do with my dad?”

  “Don’t be coy, dear, it doesn’t suit you, or serve the memory of your father. You know as well as I do what he was up to in all those jungles he visited.”

  “Get on with your story,” said Finn.

  Simpson stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and immediately pulled out his crumpled pack and lit another one using a battered old Ronson. He snapped the lighter closed with a hard flat click, then began to talk again.

  And Finn listened.

  9

  The twin-engined Cessna Caravan droned on through the overheated early-afternoon air high above the vast, rippling dunescape of the Libyan Desert. Hilts sat in the pilot’s seat, manning the controls and whistling softly under his breath. Beside him was Finn Ryan, her sunglasses protecting her eyes from the almost impossible glare. Behind them were the two other passengers, Achmed the driver, head back against the gray leather seat, eyes closed and mouth open, snoring loudly, and beside him, face buried in a book, the monk, Fr. Jean-Baptiste Laval. He was in his early forties. He wore his graying hair in a buzz cut and had a powerful physique that didn’t seem to fit with his chosen way of life. He looked more like a marine than an expert in Coptic inscriptions. The old, leather-bound book in his hands had the title Vita S. Antoni along the spine in gold-the Life of Saint Anthony. Behind the two men the cargo bay was packed with the last load of fresh supplies for the dig.