by Parker Bilal
A few hours later found Makana steering the Thunderbird down the last stretch towards the coast. In the back seat Sindbad was sleeping, dreaming of the feast he imagined awaited him in Cairo. Next to him in the passenger seat Cody sat and stared sullenly out at the landscape.
Marwan had been happy: his task was taken care of and he was in on another high-profile incident. Makana could see him working out what this would mean to him personally, how it would improve his chances of promotion. And Okasha had Kasabian’s killer. He had promised Cody that his father’s body would be transported back to Cairo and then repatriated by the embassy. He would take care of all the details. Cody sat on the front steps of the villa as they carried Frank Cassidy out on a stretcher.
‘He was a good man,’ Makana heard him say, ‘but sometimes being good just isn’t enough.’
To Makana it seemed that whenever he tried to help someone he ended up hurting them. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the image of the exploding fireball in front of him. He knew now that he would never be free of that feeling of guilt that he had carried with him all these years. Nasra’s and Muna’s deaths had changed him for ever. They would always weigh heavily upon him. He understood that in some way he had hoped that Bilquis would take the guilt from him. She couldn’t, of course. Nobody could. He realised that now, only now it was too late.
Below them, the sea appeared, a deep indigo blue that seemed full of promise. They dropped down towards the crossroads, where he stopped for a moment before swinging the wheel west and turning towards Cairo. Makana was in no mood for conversation. A part of him was curious to know what exactly the helicopter had been carrying. After all, it would be interesting to know how many of the old masterpieces had perished in the explosion. Was it a fascination with beauty or a desire for immortality that drove men to possess these objects? Perhaps it was just plain greed. Whatever it was, like moths drawn to a flame, it had cost Kasabian his life and now Samari and Kane theirs too, along with all the others they had taken with them. As for those items which had not been destroyed, he didn’t want to think about what would happen to them; didn’t want to know who would profit. He could imagine, and that was bad enough. Instead he lit another Cleopatra and focused his eyes on the road.
Ahead of them the sky grew ominously dark as thick ochre clouds gathered in the distance. A wall of dust rising up from the ground was sweeping towards them across the horizon. There was a haboob coming. He put his foot down and felt the big engine respond as they gathered speed and headed straight into the dust storm.
A Note on the Author
Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub. The Burning Gates is his fourth Makana Investigation. Born in London, Mahjoub has passed through Sudan, Egypt, Denmark and Britain, before settling in Barcelona.
By the Same Author
(writing as Jamal Mahjoub)
Navigation of a Rainmaker
Wings of Dust
In the Hour of Signs
The Carrier
Travelling with Djinns
The Drift Latitudes
Nubian Indigo
The Makana Mysteries
The Golden Scales
Dogstar Rising
The Ghost Runner
Copyright © 2015 by Jamal Mahjoub
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eISBN: 978-1-62040-896-4
First published in the United States in 2015
This electronic edition published in February 2015
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