The Christos Mosaic

by Vincent Czyz

  After Drew had changed into a collared shirt with buttons, Ashraf led the way down a stairway that creaked under his thumping feet. The streets were crowded with Egyptians and tourists. The air smelled mildly of sea. Juice shops that encouraged customers to concoct their own blends were heaped with crates of fruit—strawberries, bananas, oranges. Souvenir shops overflowed with cheap replicas of statues and ceramics; Alexandria was another Egyptian city trying to cash in on the dusty gold shadow of its past.

  A few minutes’ walk brought them to Saad Zaghloul Street, one of the main thoroughfares. Tables from a café with the usual open front cluttered the sidewalk. Men drinking Turkish coffee or Egyptian tea, smoking sheeshas or playing backgammon crowded the tables. Steam from a huge urn behind a counter crawled along a ceiling of pressed tin and smeared the yellow light of a hanging lamp.

  “Wait here.”

  Ashraf threaded his way among the round tables, nodding or offering a few words of greeting. He spoke briefly to a man who pointed at the tin ceiling. Ashraf walked back to Drew and beckoned with a hand. “Follow me.” The Egyptian took only a few steps along the sidewalk before stopping in front of a door and ringing a buzzer.

  Drew looked up and saw there was office space over the café. Light had turned a pair of windows incandescent. North Africans tended to be nocturnal, but it was still strange to see what appeared to be a business office open at this hour.

  After a brief exchange in Arabic through the intercom, a solid clack followed a loud buzz.

  Ashraf led the way up a dim stairway, his hand following a wrought-iron railing. The door he knocked on when they got to the third floor was beautifully worked but old and warped. Grain grayed by exposure to the sea air showed through where paint had worn away.

  A voice shouted in Arabic through the door. Ashraf replied curtly. The antique door opened a crack. Ashraf made a gesture of impatience backed up with a few terse words, and the door swung inward.

  The room, lit by a single overhead fixture and a battered, art deco desk lamp, was cramped and filthy, as though mechanics with greasy hands had touched everything in it. A modern air conditioner, narrow and long, hummed over the door. On a desk backed against a wall were stacks of money—euros, dollars, Egyptian pounds. Behind the desk was a light-skinned Egyptian in a white turban. One of his eyes was clouded over by a milky film. The other was a disconcertingly pale green.

  A pair of bodyguards held submachine guns with long silencers on the muzzles as though the weapons were as much a part of an office as a fax machine. They each grabbed one of Drew’s arms and frisked him thoroughly with their free hands.

  Ashraf complained in Arabic.

  The man with an eye that peered through a veil of jellyfish flesh came around from behind the desk and greeted Ashraf warmly. “These days,” he said in English, “you can’t be too careful, my friend.”

  Finding nothing on Drew, the bodyguards retreated to opposite sides of the desk.

  “We need a boat.” Ashraf continued in English. “Tonight.”

  “To where?”

  “Turkey. Kash is probably best.”

  Kash was a resort town on the coast, almost due north of Alexandria.

  Sayid nodded. “You’ll need two boats. Mustafa can’t take you into Turkish waters.” A black phone with a dial instead of buttons sat on the desk, a squat relic of another era, but Sayid made the call from a cell phone. At the end of a brief conversation, he nodded, and Drew picked out the word “Shukran.” Thank you.

  Closing the mobile, Sayid looked up at Ashraf. “Twelve thousand US.”

  Ashraf glanced at Drew. Drew nodded.

  “Mustafa will be ready to take you in one hour. Do you know where his boat is?”

  Ashraf nodded.

  “Then there is only the matter of payment and our business is concluded. Half to me. Half to Mustafa.”

  Drew pulled a stack of dollars out of the money belt concealed under his shirt and counted out six thousand. He and Zafer had brought $25,000 of what the Turk called Bat money.

  “Bat money?” Drew had asked.

  “You know … to get us out of a fucked-up situation,” Zafer had answered. “We keep it in our Bat money belts.”

  Drew would have burned all of it—the Bat money and every dollar they’d gotten for the Habakkuk Scroll—if it would bring Zafer back.

  Out in the street again, Drew looked enviously at tourists who had no idea what lay above a coffee shop in this city. How, he wondered, was he going to get out of this underworld with an Egyptian he barely knew as his Virgil?

  He glanced at Ashraf. “There’s one other thing we have to do before we leave tonight.”

  9: 13

  KILLING AN ARAB

  NOT THREE QUARTERS OF AN HOUR after Ashraf and his Turkish-American friend with long hair had left, Sayid’s buzzer rang again. His bodyguard Jihan answered the intercom.

  “Buraq sent us.”

  Buraq was the owner of the coffeehouse downstairs. Sayid noted the Arabic had been spoken with an accent he could not place. Not Egyptian. Sayid nodded.

  Jihan hit the buzzer to unlock the door downstairs, and a few minutes later, the knock came at the warped office door.

  Jihan opened the door enough to see a foreigner with fair hair cut to stubble and strange blue eyes that could have belonged to a ghost or a djinn. The foreigner’s face seemed to be nothing but the hard lines of bone underneath. “What are you looking for?”

  “I need a boat out of Alexandria. The price is not important.” His Arabic was clear and fluent, and now Sayid could make out the accent: French.

  He nodded.

  Omar, the other bodyguard, raised his machine pistol warily since Sayid had never done business with this man before.

  “Hands up,” Jihan commanded.

  The foreigner complied.

  Jihan let his submachine gun hang by the strap while he reached under the foreigner’s arms to frisk him. The foreigner struck with frightening speed, and Sayid watched Jihan reel from the blow. The Frenchman guided him into Omar. Omar stepped to the side so that the wall could stop Jihan, but before he could fire, he caught two bullets in the chest. Less than a second later, so did Jihan.

  The silenced barrel then swung toward Sayid, who had opened the desk drawer but hadn’t had time to pull out the Beretta 9mm he kept there.

  Another foreigner—huge, black-haired, grim-faced—stepped into the office, pistol drawn. “Close the drawer and stand up.” He gestured with his pistol. “Now step away from the desk. Don’t worry. We need you alive.”

  The Frenchman put one more slug into each of the fallen bodyguards— at the base of the skull.

  “Now then … I am looking for an American. Dark skin, long hair.”

  “No. No one like that today.”

  “Alexandria is not a big city, Sayid. There are only a few men who could arrange a boat on an hour or two’s notice.”

  Sayid shrugged. “Maybe he’s coming, but he hasn’t been here yet. If you wait a day or two, he might.”

  The Frenchman with eerily pale eyes aimed his pistol at Sayid’s knee. “Do you want to be a cripple for the rest of your life?”

  Sayid looked to the other foreigner as if he could get a better offer from him.

  “I don’t speak Arabic, but you ought to tell him what he wants to know.”

  Sayid knew if he told the foreigners what they wanted to know, they’d kill him. Why leave him behind and take the chance he might alert the American? If he didn’t tell them, they would shoot him in both knees and perhaps a few other places. If he still refused to speak, they’d shrug and believe him. By that time, he might bleed to death, and he would undoubtedly be a cripple.

  “I will take you,” he said in English. He thought he might gain a modicum of sympathy; it was easier to kill a dirty Arab than a friendly Arab who spoke English. “The boathouse is hard to find. You will need a guide.”

  “What do you think, Gary?”

  The big one shrugg
ed. “He hasn’t had time to set us up.”

  “Let’s go,” the Frenchman said. He had switched to English. “If you take us into an ambush, I’ll make sure you’re the first one to die.”

  9: 14

  THE WESTERN HARBOR

  PORT OF ALEXANDRIA was written in both English and Arabic atop a massive gateway that housed three floors of offices. Its surface mostly glass, it was crowned with either stone or a good imitation that had been artfully etched with scenes from the days of the pharaohs. Fluted columns with Egyptian capitals rounded the corners, replacing seams where the eye expected sheets of glass to meet. Beyond the gate loomed the silhouette of an ocean liner. The whole area was swarming with officials and police.

  “How the hell do we get past all that?” Drew watched the gateway slide past through the windows of Ashraf’s Range Rover.

  Ashraf glanced over at him and smiled. “Alexandria is one big port.”

  Drew’s hand kept returning to the stubble on his head in a kind of fascination. The back of his neck vulnerable to the breeze was an unfamiliar sensation. The barber Ashraf had taken him to had shaved most of his hair down to the scalp, but had left a couple of inches on top. Drew was consistently startled when he caught his reflection in a car or a shop window.

  Ashraf, relieved that the haircut was their last task before leaving, had laughed as Drew’s tresses fell to the floor. “I am sorry Zafer is not here to see this.”

  For at least a mile past the port gate, the waterfront was hemmed in by a cement wall studded with iron bars tipped like pikes. When this barrier ran out, it was replaced by low tin fencing that Drew could have hopped with a running start. The dilapidated buildings beyond looked like garages. In the spaces between these oversized shacks, Drew could see water glinting in the moonlight.

  Ashraf turned off the coast road onto a side street of crumbling tenements. The cars parked here had dents, spotty paint jobs, fenders rotted by salt air. One had two flat tires. After finding a space for his Rover, Ashraf cut the engine. Although he’d gone to Sayid’s unarmed, Ashraf had since strapped on a waist holster that held an automatic pistol and slipped a huge knife into a boot sheath, which he covered with a pant leg. A canvas satchel, no doubt holding more weaponry, was slung over his shoulder. Grabbing the handle of what could have been an instrument case, maybe about four and a half feet long, Ashraf pulled it out of the back seat. “Let’s go.”

  A battered tram rumbled by, and the two men crossed the coast road as its last car disappeared around a bend.

  The sidewalk was old and cracked, its edges lost in loose, black soil.

  About two hundred yards from where they’d parked, a young Egyptian stood outside a tin fence that looked like a good push would knock it over. The boy opened a squeaking gate and motioned them in. He closed the gate behind them and snapped a padlock in place—a wasted gesture it seemed to Drew.

  Dressed in pants with rolled cuffs, a T-shirt and sandals, he patted his chest. “Walid.” He smiled at Drew. His light-complexioned face showed the kind of excitement you might expect from someone next in line for a roller coaster.

  Drew didn’t know what was in the rectangular case Ashraf was carrying, but he had a feeling it was lot scarier than a roller coaster.

  Walid spoke to Ashraf in Arabic and opened a side door to the boathouse.

  An older man, his jaw rough with razor stubble, held both arms open and welcomed them in English. He and Ashraf embraced warmly.

  “This is Mustafa.”

  Mustafa and Drew shook hands.

  The ex-commando handed Mustafa $6,000 of Drew’s money, which went into a trouser pocket.

  Mustafa grinned at Drew. “We are ready.” He barked at Walid and jerked his thumb in the direction of open water. “Go with Walid. I will be there in a moment.” He shooed Ashraf and Drew with a hand.

  The boat was forty-five or fifty feet long, its hull a blue that might once have been turquoise, its bow an upswept curve. SADAT had been painted in white across the stern. Probably a trawler though Drew couldn’t be sure. His boating experience was limited to the ferries in Istanbul and his annual diving expeditions in the Mediterranean.

  Not ten meters from the Sadat, a wreck lay on its side. Its bow, facing the shore, reminiscent of an upturned nose sticking out of the water. Waves slapped gently against the wooden hulk.

  Walid gestured toward the gangplank of the Sadat.

  Glancing up, Drew saw someone through the windows of the wheelhouse. Someone else screamed for Mustafa.

  9: 15

  THE LAST TO DIE

  FIVE MEN STOPPED at the padlocked gate outside of Mustafa’s boathouse. Two of the men, whose names Sayid now knew, held Sayid by his arms. His wrists bound, he was considering what would happen if he shouted as loudly as he could. There was a good possibility they would shoot him. But since he might still be of some use, it was possible they would club him with the butt of a pistol.

  “MU-STAH-FAHHHHHHHHH!”

  Raymond elbowed Sayid viciously in the gut.

  The Egyptian sank to his knees.

  Shouting in French to the ex-legionnaires he’d brought with him, Raymond ordered them over the fence. “If the boat is gone, bring me prisoners. If it is still there, kill whomever you find. Remember it is God’s work you do.”

  Submachine guns slung around their necks, they vaulted the wobbly sheet of tin and disappeared on either side of the boathouse.

  Gary and Raymond hoisted Sayid by his shoulders and legs and tossed him over the rusting fence. Hitting the ground slammed the residual air out of his lungs, and he struggled to breathe.

  Raymond pointed his pistol at Sayid’s forehead.

  The Egyptian, still preoccupied with breathing, had pulled himself to his knees.

  Gary held up a restraining hand. “What if this is the wrong boathouse?”

  Raymond pulled Sayid to a sitting position. “Kevlar his ankles.”

  Sayid glanced up and saw, arcing toward him, the pistol butt he had anticipated.

  Drew heard the Sadat’s engines rumble awake as Mustafa came bounding out of the boathouse.

  Ashraf stuck a huge hand into his satchel and held out a submachine gun. “This is an HK MP5. Do you know how to use it?”

  “Zafer taught me,” he lied. He didn’t want to be left unarmed.

  “Remember, it will jump in your hands. You will shoot high and pull to one side if you hold the trigger more than half a second. You have thirty rounds to a magazine, but you will shoot nearly twelve rounds every second.”

  Ashraf had taped the magazines together so that one was upside down. When the first ran out, the unit could be ejected, flipped over, and the second rammed home. He gave Drew three pairs. The extra weight of long silencer on the gun’s muzzle would not only hush the weapon, the extra weight would dampen its tendency to rise when fired.

  Tightening his grip on the MP5 to steady his hands, Drew kneeled down behind the starboard gunwale. It barely came to his hip, and it was wood—not enough to stop a 9 mm.

  Two shadows stepped out from either side of the boathouse.

  Suppressed, automatic-weapons fire erupted in bursts. Walid stumbled backwards and fell into the water. He’d only untied one rope.

  Mustafa, leaping off the concrete quay, splashed into the sea.

  Drew returned fire, and a stream of brass shells clattered onto the deck. With only a feeble bulb over the boathouse door for light and the shadow he was aiming at a good thirty yards away, all he managed to do was stitch a side of the boathouse with holes. Drew fired two more bursts, practicing his aim and keeping the man pinned, while Mustafa climbed the aluminum ladder.

  Glancing to his right, Drew saw a man in Ashraf’s line of fire sprawled face-down in the boatyard. How many more were there?

  Peripherally, Drew caught movement on his left. He aimed the MP5 and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The gun’s breech was open, the slide caught by the lip of the empty magazine.

  “Change cli
ps!” Ashraf hissed.

  Drew heard the staccato belch of the Egyptian’s weapon; Ashraf was covering for him.

  Drew hit the magazine release and caught the clip as it fell. He flipped it over and jammed it in.

  By the time he’d reloaded, Mustafa had hauled himself over the gunwale.

  The sinister popping of automatic-weapons started up again. Bullets raked the wheelhouse, shattering the windows and raining glass on the deck. Rounds struck so close to Drew that splinters peppered his chest. As he ducked down and rolled a few feet, he recognized the insistent tingle in his groin as the urge to pee.

  The shots had come from an adjacent boathouse. Ashraf had returned fire in the direction of the muzzle flashes and maybe saved Drew’s life.

  “Move!” The Egyptian gestured frantically at Drew.

  Of course, Drew thought, change position.

  Mustafa, wielding a machete, whacked the rope securing them to an iron stump on the quay. The sliced end disappeared over the side like a beheaded snake.

  Mustafa shouted for Ihab, the man in the wheelhouse.

  The Sadat, its engines idling, began to drift, exposing the starboard side to the shore. A little farther and it would bump into the half-sunk wreck.

  Mustafa kneeled behind a steel drum on deck and shouted into his phone.

  Ashraf emptied two magazines, let them clatter to the deck, and slammed home another.

  Drew fired where he’d last seen Sicarii, flipped his clip, and risked a glance at Mustafa. Mustafa had given up on the phone and was swearing in Arabic.

  Ashraf scrambled on all fours to Drew. “We must protect Mustafa. He will have to steer the boat.” He handed Drew three more magazines. Shoot at the second boathouse, then you must move.”

  Shots raked the gunwale; Drew and Ashraf flattened out against the deck.

  The wheelhouse was hit again, metallic whines and twangs ringing in the air.

  As soon as the Sicarii’s guns had gone silent, Drew and Ashraf straightened up, took a knee, and began firing.