Star of Egypt

by Buck Sanders

  Back near the walls, Slayton checked idly for windows and doors. Since this was a port at which duties were regularly levied, ingress and egress as regarded the warehouses was stringently regulated. He wandered among the debris of dock construction. The warehouse had been cleared out prior to the arrival of the Star, though it had been in the midst of building additional facilities for the dock area. Against the wall lay truckloads of construction material. Lumber, cans of paints and chemicals, cinder blocks and such littered the periphery of the neat, secure’ arrangement of Egyptian cargo.

  Slayton checked the ceiling. An acrobat might be able to scale up and across the girder work and undog one of the vents up there. But the man would be obvious in the additional lighting. Maybe, thought Slayton. Maybe, given—of course—a professional.

  In the chaotic noise of the warehouse—the basic grating din of men and machinery seemed amplified—Slayton did not notice, at first, the sound of the forklift. It was clearly separated from the main area of activity.

  He was standing in the dead end of a dark corridor formed by an eleven-foot-high stack of unused cinder-blocks and bricks on one side, and retired or out-of-service heavy-moving machinery on the other, against a corner of the warehouse. Slayton heard the independent grumble of a moving forklift, closer to his position than the rest, but could not fix on it. He saw no movement, and the sound seemed pervasive.

  Then, above him, the cinder-block wall began slowly to bow outward, toward him.

  The first bricks jarred loose from the top of the stack and exploded in gray, dusty chunks to Slayton’s left, cutting off escape to the open mouth of the corridor. Each of the damn things weighed at least fifty pounds. As he hugged the warehouse wall, the neat geometry of the stacked blocks wedged outward and collapsed, in an avalanche of gray stone. Choking cement dust rolled up as Slayton fell back, coughing, against an ancient electric cart clotted with black grease, dead and unusable.

  If he had taken more than a microsecond to decide and act, he would have had his own pyramid of crushed cinder blocks. Through the dust he saw the twin prongs of a heavy-duty fork-lift retreat for a second thrust.

  He could not leap through the gap—instead, he scrambled up the wall.

  Slayton jumped over the chunks of broken brick. The jarring of the line of stacked blocks had disrupted their neat order, and now miniscule hand- and footholds were available on the smooth, stone surface. With mountaineering agility, Slayton countered his own weight against himself, using the momentum that, had he delayed, would have caused him to fall. It required fast coordination of arms and legs, and a single slip would lose the game. The only way to avoid the wall was to go over it.

  Which became difficult as the forklift impacted against the stack again. He felt the wall move. The top of the stack was a couple of feet distant, and he struggled to close that gap as he felt the entire wall before him push him backwards.

  Slayton grabbed a handhold on the top of the stack as the forklift roared and upset the pile. As soon as he got a firm grip with his arms, he repositioned his feet and, as he fell back with the collapsing, disintegrating pile of blocks, he put everything into his legs and pushed off from the wall, arching and twisting across the newly open space.

  His timing was good, but of necessity the jump was sloppy. He meant to make the top of a disused tractor provided with a cage for the driver, which was the widest area his fleeting eye could pick as a landing pad. He crashed into the cage sideways, his fingers managing to grip the mesh as momentum wrenched his body around. The pain in his fingers was unbelievable, and he yelled above the noise of the machine. It was doubtful whether the others in the vast warehouse were even aware of what was happening back in that dark corner.

  His hold lasted only a necessary second. He came free and landed in a crouch on the now-formidable pile of broken cinder blocks as the forklift backed up for a third run. This time he heard the impact of steel prongs on stone. He saw the row directly in his path of escape begin to tilt.

  He leapt clear of the stone debris and ran, full out, under the collapsing wall. It folded down into noisy destruction, filling the spaces as soon as his feet left them, and as he reached the end of the corridor, he dived, sliding on the dirty concrete floor and out into the open.

  In a second, Slayton was back on his feet and rushing around the cinder block stack, toward the calculated position of the forklift. He did not regret leaving his pistol behind in the Triumph, as he felt he would not need a gun for what was to come.

  The forklift engine was still stuttering away, preparatory to stalling. The machine had been abandoned, tilted slightly by being run onto a pile of the rubble it had produced.

  Not cutting speed, Slayton caromed around it, checking back down the corridor he had just left. No movement, nothing. He rechecked the way he had come, and after that, the time lag was too great to allow spotting his assailant. The man possessed excellent diversion and timing sense, and had melted away in the minimum amount of time required.

  “Shit,” Slayton said to the forklift, reaching in and switching it off. The noise in the warehouse did not decrease noticeably.

  He trudged casually back to the area of activity. His business suit was encrusted with sludge and dirt from the warehouse floor, and finely dusted with cement powder. His hands were bleeding freely from the knuckle joints, and he had a scrape on his forehead, which was oozing blood. He became aware of a juicy thumper of a headache slowly swelling behind his left eye.

  Slayton felt positive now about the presence, in the group, of Haman. In a strange way, he felt relieved.

  The two Arabs with the cable were the first to spot him, and they rushed over, jabbering, offering assistance. One unhesitatingly ripped a sleeve from his sweat-stained workshirt to serve as a makeshift bandage for Slayton’s bleeding hands. He accepted Slayton’s murmured thanks with a huge smile, revealing teeth edged in brown, and with much exaggerated bowing and talk.

  Three more workmen hurried over, two in the wake of a taller man with a classically Arabic hooked nose and a set of blazing, black, diamond-chip eyes. He had high, wide cheekbones and a pointed chin, and among these three points his face assumed a passive, yet somehow gargoylelike expression. But his voice was not high and reedy, like many of his fellows—rather, it surprised even Slayton by being a mellow baritone colored by a faint British accent: “Sir, are you seriously injured? What happened?”

  He turned briefly to spray some shotgunned Arabic toward his companions, who retreated, still running an unending row of unintelligible glottals.

  “I am Ahmed Sadi. I am in charge of these men. Who among them is responsible for this terrible accident?” His tone seemed to come from another time, a time when impertinence was answered with flogging.

  Slayton’s voice was a bit rough-edged. “I’m Rademacher.”

  “Ah, yes, security man. Tell me, Mr. Rademacher, what has happened?” Other curious workers were beginning to drift toward the gathering.

  “I have to talk to you,” said Slayton.

  Sadi barked orders, and the men withdrew to resume their tasks. He and Slayton stood alone in the wide space between the stored artifacts and the area where all the action had occurred scant minutes before.

  “Tell me, Mr. Rademacher, can you enlighten me in any way as to your predicament?”

  “Ahmed, I need to know about your crew. The men—how much do you know about your crew?”

  “Some of them are my brothers. I trust them with my life, and they trust me with theirs. Some are friends of decades. I trust them also.”

  “Are any of them new, or is there anyone you don’t have a lot of background on?”

  “Several are comparatively new, but I would not work with strangers.”

  “Who?”

  Ahmed made a gesture of commiseration. “Bassam, Ben Silam, a handful of others. Is it important?”

  “Yes.”

  He thought for a second, and his unusually wide smile split his face again. “It sha
ll be done! Those men will be brought before you and shall not return to work until you are satisfied in your inquiries! There can be no simple compensation for an accident such as this.”

  “Not exactly true,” said Slayton. “None of those men would have a belt on them, would they?”

  Ahmed’s brow furrowed. “A belt?”

  “A drink. Something strong.”

  “Ah!” His face lit up. He dug furiously within his utility jacket and extracted a tarnished flask, which he uncapped by flipping the lid back with his thumb. He pushed it toward Slayton, who eyed it momentarily, but accepted.

  Slayton was expecting something as Arabic as Ahmed’s manner, but instead was surprised by the licorice taste. He recognized it at once.

  “Ouzo…?” he said, puzzled. It was a fiery Greek liquor, traditionally served cold. “Warm ouzo?” He caught his breath.

  “My education has taken me to many, many ports, sir,” said Ahmed, as if that were some kind of answer.

  “Yeah. Well—” The liquor burned its way down and Slayton hesitated, rather than gasping, “—I thank you. I’d like to speak to those men tomorrow morning, when you’re finished lugging and stowing.”

  It took Ahmed a second to catch the idiom. “What? Oh, yes, of course!” He pocketed the flask. “You may question them now, if you wish.”

  If anyone vanished between now and tomorrow morning, Slayton thought, his job would be even easier. But clear identification was only in the imagination of the attacker; Slayton had not been able to spot the driver of the forklift. No, let the cards play themselves—from now on he was on his guard, primed for anything, including another attempt on his life.

  “Tomorrow will be fine,” he said. “I’ve got to go clean up—you understand.”

  “Of course, sir! I’ll see you out.”

  Together the pair headed back through the warehouse, drawing curious stares and provoking quick bursts of conversation among the workers hefting Egyptian antiquities to and fro.

  As Slayton walked, the pain still numbing his face and hands, the cold not helping much, he was brutally aware that Ahmed Sadi, thanks to his magnanimity, had set himself up as a prime suspect. He had the entire work crew under his thumb—they would obviously do anything he ordered them to. He was brash and generous in the way of practiced and clandestine killers; he was a hell-raising Arabic soul gilded with a Cambridge accent and a bizarre taste for Greek liquor. He had the cocky confidence of a man who has had to dispatch several other men in the course of a violent and colorful life—much like Barney Kaufman. Someone with the outward mien of Ahmed Sadi could easily be Rashid Haman.

  Slayton’s appearance brought raised eyebrows from Stack-man, as he passed through, covered with dust and blood.

  “Good night Stackman,” Slayton said as he passed the checkpoint, and left it at that.

  5

  “Hello, Wilma?”

  “Ben? Ben, is that you? Where are you?”

  “Playing with my jolly old computer terminal in Washington, as usual, doing my bit for the national security.” Slayton, splayed out chin-deep in a too-small hotel bathtub full of steaming water, languorously draped the washcloth back over his eyes. He knew Wilma’s paper had billeted her in a hotel some five miles away, and he had routed his call through Washington, D.C. courtesy of some Treasury Department string-pulling.

  “Is that it?”

  “No, as usual, I have a favor to ask. Besides what I normally request.”

  “Smartass.”

  “Since you’re down there covering the Egyptological team, I want to get your impressions of them. Then, when you get back up to the Post, I want you to research them. How long would it take you to run up a good accounting of where each of the team’s main members came by their experience—in other words, what recommends them for duty like this? Okay?”

  Slayton planned to run the team through the computer, and through records, but Wilma’s extracurricular research was a way of guaranteeing he would not miss anything outside the normal credits that were sure to surface. She often went beyond the boundaries afforded by cold documentation, turning up interesting and, sometimes, crucial trivia. The long-distance gimmick was a cursory way to insure she would not be on the lookout for him in Baltimore.

  “It should take about a day to do it right. I suppose you need this yesterday?”

  “As usual. But, say, before the opening of the exhibit.”

  “You’ll have it in two days. I’ve got stuff to do up here, you know. What do I get for all this selfless effort on behalf of you keeping your employment, anyway?”

  Slayton chuckled, the low sound reverberating off the bathroom tiles. “My undying admiration. Important recognition of your singular intellect. All the orgasms you can handle in one session.”

  “No go unless you throw in dinner, too.”

  “Where?”

  “The Coat of Arms.”

  “Done.” He was smiling, despite his headache.

  “I think I’ve been had,” she said, her voice trailing away to indicate that she enjoyed the prospect, at least, of being had by Ben Slayton.

  “Appreciate it,” said Slayton. “But you know that.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re going to work your buns off in recompense.”

  “Oh, all right,” he said in the petulant drone of a chastised schoolboy, and they both laughed.

  In fact, Slayton was nearly totally rejuvenated. Later, aboard the Star of Egypt, he would hold brief court with Ahmed Sadi’s men. He would also be waiting for another contact after last night’s, another attempt on his life, if it took that to draw Rashid Haman out. The essence of defeating a trap, thought Slayton, was not avoiding it, but recognizing the danger. If there is a snake in your path, you kill it—you don’t forsake the path.

  At least, that was the way he hoped it worked.

  Four light knocks came on his room door. The tub was steamy and comfortable, and he had almost dozed off. His body woke him up, and a vital second was used in determining whether he had dreamed the knocks, or if they were, in fact, real. After a pause, he heard them again.

  He found a towel. The loaded .45 was equally within reach. If this was it, he had to stay off-center from the door.

  With the gun in one hand, he spoke around the corner from the closet. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Rademacher?” A woman’s voice.

  “You got him,” he said, moving to the peephole. It was Shauna Ramsey.

  “Are you busy? May I come in?”

  “Just a second!” He dumped the pistol into a drawer alongside a Gideon bible and found his pants. He pulled a fresh white shirt from the closet, and made a point of buttoning a single button, in the middle, after he had opened the door.

  Shauna Ramsey definitely did not dress to impress conclaves of solemn archeologists. This morning, she was clad in a fetching black skirt and bolero-vest combination, offset by an elegant golden blouse. One could get lost, Slayton thought, in all that wonderful black hair.

  “I’ve disturbed your bath,” she said as a courtesy.

  “A welcome interruption, Doctor,” Slayton replied, treading carefully. “What’s on your mind?”

  She appeared suddenly perturbed. “Well—you are involved with the security and safety of the exhibit.” She said it as though she was not sure.

  “Something the matter?”

  “I’m not sure.” She moved over to the desk with liquid, graceful strides, and leaned back against it, folding her arms. At last she said, “I think someone has been tampering with the crated artifacts. It’s rather nebulous right now—nothing I can specifically put a finger on. But in case I do, I want you to know about it now, and perhaps help me to verify, or deny.”

  “That does sound rather uncertain.”

  “We were doing some inspections. Some things are not coming out of the packages the way we put them in. I cannot get more concrete than that right now.” She bit her lip.

  “I suggest that you show me precisely what is cau
sing the suspicions. You wouldn’t be on the alert unless it was something serious.” He paused, then looked at her directly. “Would you?”

  “Well, I did also want to speak with you. I can give you the official Shauna Ramsey ten-pence primer on Egyptological artifacts. You surprised Gordie, you know?”

  “Professor Willis?”

  “He’s so used to dealing with bumpkins. And I’m up to here, my very eyelids, in dealing with Arabs. You’re something of a life preserver, if you know what I mean.”

  “I love compliments,” Slayton smiled warmly back at her. “And you have all of mine. Tell you what: in exchange for your help on the Seth-Olet end of things, I’ll give you the underground tour of America’s capital city. I’m not as sharp on this stuff as Professor Willis may think.”

  She was lightly abstracted, looking toward the floor. “I think you’ll do well with a quick cribbing session.” She was drawn to his rumpled and sexy appearance.

  “I’m known for being a quick study,” he submitted, sitting conversationally on the bed across from her.

  “And I accept the underground tour.” She squinted at him in mock gravity. “Is it dangerous?”

  “I, madam, am the only survivor of such outings.”

  “Good. Danger is better than being bored to death.” Her tone spoke of midnight dips in cool lagoons and reckless driving on hairpin highways. The magnetism Slayton had recognized on their first meeting was asserting itself as powerfully as ever.

  But Slayton thought, business first. Business before. He secured his wayward shirt. “I presume you’ve breakfasted already?”

  “In fact, I’ve not.” It was an enigma to Slayton how such women became scientists, when under the right circumstances everything they said was a suggestion that was more than a bit wanton. Then, he realized the operative phrase was under the right circumstances. Given that, everybody was wanton!