by Warren Adler
When he saw her running toward him, he expected it was some gesture of contrition, but her face was pale, and a stiffness in the way she held her body as she came closer told him otherwise. She was out of breath as she reached him.
“What is it?” he cried, running to meet her.
She reached out and grabbed his hand, dragging him in the direction of the boat. They ran through the palm grove at the riverbank. He saw the mast poking above the bulrushes. Hassan squatted gloomily on the deck. Anwar, like a discarded wet bundle, lay beside him, not moving. Si’s first impression was that he was dead, but then he coughed, and his thin little shoulders shook with sobs. Si jumped into the boat.
It was then that he noticed the waterlogged, bloated dead dog, its coat encrusted with mud, its snout open, its dead eyes frozen in a paroxysm of terror. Hassan looked up at Si lugubriously.
“They drowned him. They held him by his hind legs over the boat and put his head in the water. There was nothing I could do. Nothing.” He bit his lip to stop it from trembling.
“Who?” Si asked, but it was a question that needed no answer. Them! Of course, he knew.
“They wanted to know where you were, where you were going. Anwar nearly went mad. They would put the dog’s head under water. ‘Tell them,’ Anwar shouted. Tell them, what? There were three of them. Mean, cruel men. Finally, they would not bring the dog up.” He looked toward the shivering Anwar. “‘Give them the map, Papa,’ the boy had cried. What was I to do?”
Si patted the man’s shoulder.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “It’s all right.”
Abdel kneeled on the deck and stroked the whimpering boy’s back.
“The next time, it will be the boy,” Hassan said. “They made me promise that I would tell them everything. What could I do? They held the boy as they held the dog.” He shook his head sadly, obviously confused by events. “So you see. There is little choice now.”
“I know,” Si whispered, sure now of his own choice. And theirs, as well. “You must go back,” he said. “They will keep their promise.” He looked around him at the deserted shore, knowing that they were out there, watching. “They must see that you have left me ashore and gone on. And they must see that it is my decision.”
Hassan looked disconsolately at the dead dog. Si understood their loss. The dog was part of the harmony of their lives, with his own place in their extended family.
“And you must take Abdel with you,” Si said. Hearing that, she disengaged from the boy and stood up. Her nostrils flared with anger.
“That is not for you to say,” she snapped.
“I’m sorry. I’ve thought about it. It can do you no good. These people are killers. I have no clue to why they are doing this, but that is a piece of the puzzle I am determined to find…” He looked at the dead dog. “Remember Herra. Mrs. Vivanti. Now this. I have no right to expose you.”
“That’s not it,” she cried, exploding with anger. “You don’t want me anymore. Now that you are about to find her. Your precious Isis… I hate her.”
Her reaction confused him further.
“Dammit,” he shouted. “You just get the hell out of my life.”
He jumped over the gunwale into the bulrushes and pushed the prow free from the bank. The force of his push slid the boat quickly into the river tide. Reacting instinctively, as if a felucca out of control was an affront to the river, Hassan grabbed the tiller, paid out the sail until it billowed over them, and swiftly cut into the tide on a downstream course. Moving with the tide, the wind in her favor, the felucca slid swiftly away, the figures on her deck fading into the distance as seen through the blinding mist of his tears.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Long ago, Zakki had learned to distrust elation, as he had learned to distrust love, friendship, honor, and loyalty. Elation, with its mindless promise of reward and optimism, was an enemy. Yet he could not deny himself its tiny luxury now that he scented culmination. Soon he would be able to concentrate on the full measure of his revenge, the mechanism of its inflicted horrors.
Death, he had learned, bore only the promise of an infinite void, the end of pain and fear. He had also learned to distrust, perhaps to disbelieve their precious Allah. Allah was the hashish of guilt. He wondered if he had freed himself from that scourge.
Allah would not save her from the infliction of his special revenge, a form of maiming that would require for her a lifetime, a long lifetime, he hoped, of endless remorse. He had dreamed of cutting out her tongue, plucking out her eyes, puncturing her eardrums, locking her into the prison of herself forever. Such fantasies satisfied him, left him limp with a special kind of ecstasy.
Below him, from his vantage in the first-class compartment, surrounded by his handpicked men, he watched the thin green strip of the Nile moving on its inexorable course. In the distance, in the clear air, he could see the high dam and, below that, the earlier dam and the first cataract with its little patches of islands. Kitchener’s. Elephantine.
There the Aga Khan was buried in his elaborate tomb, a further waste of his subjects’ wealth, which they had weighed out in diamonds to match his absurd corpulence. How Farouk had envied him. “I would have done much better than that bastard,” the king had bragged, patting his huge, swollen belly. But the Aga Khan was a proclaimed deity, which rankled Farouk. “The god business has always been better than the king business.”
Poor Farouk. He had actually tried that ploy, getting himself appointed a direct descendant of the prophet Mohammed, a genealogical absurdity. Unfortunately, the idea came too late. If it had been done at the beginning of his reign, it would have changed the course of history. Perhaps, even he, Zakki, would have also believed it and lived out his life as a lackey to the king-god. A painful nostalgia gripped him. Perhaps it might have been better, after all.
The plane banked and circled, moving out over the desert, and finally to its approach to the Aswan airport. There was no doubt in his mind now that the boy had picked up the scent, a vindication of his own instincts. Unfortunately, the communications made it impossible to learn how things were going from 750 miles away. He had demanded frequent responses and, as always, he suspected that there were gaps in the reportage. He had, therefore, despite his infirmities, come to see for himself. Besides, in the scenario of his vengeance, he had to be there.
His villa in Aswan was used infrequently. It was a huge structure, surrounded by a high wall. It was built from blocks hewn from the timeless stone quarries nearby, from the same hard rock used to build the ancient temples and pyramids. Primarily, it served a pleasure palace for officials and businessmen who had traded their integrity for Zakki’s largesse.
He was, after all, a protected species. Someone had to ply the hashish trade, take the risks, coordinate the complexities. Wasn’t hashish as essential as bread? It gave the illusion of satisfaction. In a special way, Zakki also had convinced himself and others that he was a national hero. After all, he had kept the price down, kept the dream weed in reach of the masses. The laws created by governments were for show, not for obedience.
A wheelchair met Zakki at the bottom of the ramp, sparing him the effort to reach the cars, and soon they were speeding toward the villa.
“The boy?” Zakki asked Ahmed, who sat up front beside the driver.
“He is still traveling upriver,” Ahmed said, turning. “On a barge carrying wheat sacks.” He took a map out of his pocket and gave it to Zakki. He studied it carefully.
“What are these marks?”
“Archaeological sites.”
“And he is still looking for that man? Ezzat?”
“Yes.”
They had explained earlier what they had done to get the information, an overreaction to his own impatience. Where is the young man going, he demanded to know. And why? He berated the clumsiness of his own men. Typical Egyptian inefficiency. It had
been Farouk’s favorite complaint.
Despite himself, he was intrigued by the young man’s moves, admiring his logic and tenacity. Farrah’s boy, he smirked, remembering his own humiliation, knowing, too, that he would soon have to devise a special fate for him as well. That, of course, would be a simple matter. In this case, an eye for an eye would do nicely. Revenge in kind would provide him with the greatest satisfaction.
“We must keep our distance,” Zakki warned. “Let him think he has lost us.”
The dark-skinned man nodded.
“The destination of the barge is Aswan,” he said. Then he looked at his watch. “It should arrive at dawn.” Leaning over, he pointed to a site on the map.
“We have men waiting there.”
Zakki studied it and nodded assent. He could sense that the end was coming.
***
He spent the night as always, sitting in his chaise on the terrace, avoiding the nightmare terrors of the darkness, trying to plumb the secrets of his triumphs and keep the snake of his agony at bay.
Impatience, it seemed, made the dawn hesitate. His men, he knew, would be on the quay waiting, an elaborate operation, now a test of ingenuity and will. He tried to probe the mystery of the young man’s tenacity. His obsession seemed without motivation on the surface, a missile guided by an unseen hand. Perhaps, he thought, this was what was meant by providence. Or was it Farrah’s blood returning to find nourishment in her roots? Such speculations amused him.
Ahmed’s familiar step broke the silence. He was moving at twice his normal speed, footfalls pounding the stone, previewing the urgency. When he appeared in the half-light, his face glistened behind a mask of perspiration.
“He was not on the barge,” he announced, somberly, accustomed to being the conduit for any news, good or bad. Zakki would not suffer obfuscation, rejecting the elaborate facade of Arab subterfuge.
“We saw him get on board in Edfu. We followed the barge by land on both banks. It did not dock anywhere.”
Zakki’s mind groped at questions. Ahmed would be accurate to the letter, supplying only facts. He had neither the subtlety nor the deviousness to form self-serving conclusions. Not that Zakki would have believed them. After all, he trusted no one, and would trust no other interpretation than his own. Command demanded that. Power depended on it. Ahmed simply obeyed.
“And the bargeman?” Zakki prompted. He felt the snake of agony tighten its grip.
“At first he denied that the young man was ever on the barge, afraid that he would lose his job. It took some persuasion to get to that point.” Ahmed grinned. “We had to break both his legs. But he swore he did not see him after he had ordered him to get to the front of the barge and make a spot for himself among the wheat sacks. He operated the barge from the rear and it was dark.”
“The young man said nothing, gave no hint?” Zakki asked, determined to keep his rage in check.
Ahmed shook his head vigorously. Zakki leaned back against the chaise and looked up at the lightening sky. The stars were rapidly losing their luster. To lose sight of Farrah’s son, his beacon, now verged on the catastrophic. His breath grew short. His heart palpitated and beads of icy sweat poured out of his soft, heavy body.
“Are you certain?” Zakki hissed. Ahmed cleared his throat, nervously.
“First we broke his legs,” Ahmed said. “Finally, the man fainted.”
“And now?”
“He is on the bottom of the Nile.”
It was, he knew, futile to berate Ahmed. The poor bastard had proven his loyalty. And he had assured Zakki that the men were busy along the entire length of the Nile from Edfu to Aswan. Was it possible that the young man had outsmarted him? Was he destined always to suffer Farrah’s humiliation?
With great difficulty, he rose from the chaise and shuffled through the glass doors, followed by the gloomy Ahmed to the drawing room. Earlier, he had placed the map in a drawer of a desk. Now he drew it out and opened it, studying it carefully. With his finger, he traced the Nile from Edfu to Aswan.
“Did they bother to check here?” He pointed at a mark, indicating the archaeological site at Edfu.
Ahmed lowered his eyes, revealing his answer. So, Zakki thought, when the young man came back to the boat, they assumed that nothing of moment had occurred at the site, and since he was in the snare again, what did it matter?
His mind cleared and the drying perspiration cooled him. He had to assume, too, that the bargeman was telling the truth. The barge was, he was sure, quite long, piled high with wheat sacks, and the night was dark. The hum of the motor would mask any other sounds, particularly if the young man was determined to keep his actions hidden.
Ahmed forlornly leaned against the wall. He had lit a cigarette and was puffing deeply, letting the smoke curl from his lips.
Suddenly, Zakki felt a throb of excitement and the snake of agony relieved its pressure. Apparently, the young man had learned something of importance at Edfu and was no longer in any doubt of his destination. And he had sent away the girl. More confirmation. But where was he headed? Zakki looked at the map until his eyes could barely focus. Beyond Edfu, the river made a sharp bend at Kom Ombo. Coming upriver in the dark would make most landmarks valueless to an unseasoned eye. The banks would be bathed in darkness. Only the thump of the motor and the gentle turning of the barge would provide evidence of movement and hint at the change of direction.
Zakki’s basic assumptions had been confirmed every step of the way. Farrah’s son needed to find Isis. Zakki could understand the concept of need. No logic could define it. Need was need, mindless, driven, powered by a mysterious force, like a car’s engine with a stuck accelerator, heading relentlessly forward or backward, moving only for the sake of itself, beyond reason or explanation… And yet, he had begun to suspect that need, even need, was finite.
Such thoughts could frighten him. What happens when need burns out? Love. Hate. Revenge. Good. Evil. The need for these could end, disintegrate in the cosmos of the mind. What else would sustain him, give him nourishment? The end of need was death. He tore his mind from dwelling on such a catastrophe now. He must husband what remained of his need.
Suppose the boy’s need should falter, just at the rim of the caldron. He must concentrate now on the boy. His beacon!
He had never assumed that the young man was clever, but he knew that need had a subtle effect on cunning. Cunning could explode into craft. So he has reached that stage, Zakki surmised, sure now that Farrah’s boy, like a hunter’s pointer, was nearing his prey.
“Of course,” he said suddenly, rising slowly from the table, the map held to the light. “Here,” he pointed to Ahmed with his stubby finger. “The river makes its wide bend to the west, an unmistakable turning. A subtle landmark. He would need no other beacon.” He banged on the table with his fist. “Here. Right here. We must go there. At once.”
Ahmed followed Zakki’s finger. Bending, he peered at the spot. He could not read.
“Kom Ombo,” Zakki said, dead certain of his intuition. “I am sure of it.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Si had moved the wheat sacks, piling them in such a way as to make a burrow on the forward deck of the barge. He could view both banks of the Nile through spaces in the sacks without exposing his head. The little bargeman suffered from his own paranoia. He feared an inspector would spot the passenger. “No passengers” was a strictly enforced rule, and it had taken a formidable sum to induce the bargeman’s risk.
“You must not be seen,” he had warned, explaining how Si might circumvent the potential problem. He lay now, sprawled in his burrow, on a pallet of wheat sacks, surprisingly comfortable and looking up at the star-filled patch of sky and waiting for the barge to sail.
The self-righteous martyrdom he had felt in forcing Abdel (he deliberately avoided thinking of her as Samya) to leave had quickly turned to loneliness. He had
n’t expected it to be so corrosive to his concentration. Now that he had determined to proceed, he needed all his mental energies for the pursuit of Isis. He tried to summon up a picture of Isis, peering into the vast canopy of stars, as if he could create her outline in the constellations.
Longing shattered the sparse image. All his feeble effort could do was recreate the face of Abdel. He smiled ruefully, remembering the silent grace of her movements, the shallow breathing of her body beside him. Trying to shake the pervasiveness of her image, he argued himself into the assurance that he was protecting her. This thought triggered additional guilt. Isis! Would he be the instrument of her death? Or worse?
How different his life would have been if his mother had died suddenly. He would have graduated from Cornell, blithely ignorant of any dark, maternal secret, pursuing a far less dramatic objective. Yet compared to this, anything else was bland, colorless, without meaning.
He had always envied people with certitude and goals, especially those among his classmates who knew what they were after, or thought they knew. The rest, like him, merely floated on an endless river, going from nowhere to nowhere. He had told himself that this was only the normal uncertainty of youth, that life would create its own natural goals. Well, he had one now.
And after? Well, he would cross that bridge when, and if, he came to it.
Despite the dry warm night, he shivered, and listened to every sound. Water flapped rhythmically against the barge’s wooden hull, rocking it gently like a giant cradle. The inevitable bark of a wild dog split the air with its shrill appeal. Human sounds faded. He heard the low neigh of a donkey and the light baa of a sheep.
At last, he heard the first click of the barge’s motor, its hacking first gasps, and soon the steady turnover as it nosed forward away from the shore. It was too dark to see any but the barest outlines of the shore. He forced himself to maximum alertness as he mapped in his mind the barge’s movement, sensing its turns as it reached the river’s center and puffed its way upstream.