Smart kid. She noticed the apprehensive look on my face.
“No, certainly not. But I’d like to poke out one of your father’s eyes for taking my passport.”
That got a jaw drop from Dalila and a harsh burst of laughter from Lana.
“You’re mean,” Dalila said.
“True … I get that way when someone goes out of their way to step on me.”
Dalila looked to her father and then back to me. “He has a hard job to do,” she said in a serious tone.
Cry me a river.
Her English was really good, without even the trace of accent that Rafi had. The girl was sweet and obviously loved her father very much. Which made her a poor judge of character.
I noticed that her face was paler than it should be and I couldn’t see any hair where her scarf had pulled back a bit. She was bald underneath. Chemotherapy bald.
I immediately felt a pang for her. Children shouldn’t have to fight for their lives.
“Dalila, I’m certain your father is a very fine policeman. However, police officers do make mistakes and he’s made one about me. He’s wasting his time harassing me because he’s convinced that I know more about something than I do.”
I turned from the girl and spoke directly to Rafi, who had been keeping a blank face.
“Why don’t you give me my passport, turn this car around, and take me back to the airport? I’ll go someplace where I’m welcomed, and you’ll have more free time to catch art thieves like you’re supposed to do.”
“I didn’t order your passport seized; my supervisor did.”
He said it with too much sincerity. He was lying, of course.
“But he might release it if we reached an accommodation.”
“I already told you. I won’t disclose the name of my client. It’s none of your business and the core of mine.”
“We know you’re representing Mounir Kaseem. But what do you know about him?”
I shrugged. “He’s a scholar of ancient Egyptian history. He told me he wants to make sure one of your country’s prize treasures finds its way back here.” I gave him a look. “Are you going to tell me he wants the scarab for himself?”
“Not at all. He told you the truth about wanting the scarab returned to Egypt. And he wasn’t lying when he said he was a scholar of our ancient history, though not a university one.”
“Great. Then we have nothing to argue about. Give me back my passport and I’ll leave you and Kaseem to deal with the scarab.”
“What’s more important is what he didn’t tell you.”
Dalila turned around, sitting on her knees to face us, and held her chin with her hands. Her big brown eyes beamed with curiosity.
“There’s always a catch, isn’t there?” I told her.
She just stared at me.
I sighed. “Okay, what’s the catch?”
“In a sense, Kaseem is an old Nazi, but one of the Egyptian variety. He was an army general, commander of a tank corps, and head of a military officers group who attempted to seize control of the country about fifteen years ago.”
“Islamic extremists?” I asked.
“No, quite the opposite. Just as Hitler had a fascination for the mystical part of German history—the knights and heroes of Wagnerian operas or Teutonic myth—Kaseem’s vision of Egypt has to with the days of the mighty pharaohs. He formed a secret organization of military officers, high-ranking public servants, and some wealthy men.
“Called the Golden Nile, the group believed Egypt was crippled by the continuous struggle of extremist religious groups against a government that lacked a vision of Egypt’s potential greatness. They hatched a plot to seize the government with a coup, stamp out the religious opposition, and lead Egypt’s eighty million people into a golden age.”
“So, he’s in exile because he’s politically dangerous to the present administration?”
Rafi frowned. “He’s politically to the right of Genghis Khan and dangerous to the world at large. He wants to make Egypt, the largest Arab country, a nuclear power and unite the entire Arab world. Your government fears that if he rose to power here, he would destabilize the entire region.”
“So what’s the punch line to all this?”
“We believe Kaseem wants the scarab—not to hand over to the our museum—but to use it as a symbol of his quest for power. In fact, the Heart of Egypt is the emblem of his Golden Nile party.”
I could have told him that I had long ago been burned out, disgusted, and repulsed by politics and politicians so that I cared less about who ran Egypt or just about anywhere else in the world.
But I digested what Rafi had just told me.
Kaseem and his neo-Nazi Golden Nile movement wanted to use the scarab as their symbolic weapon of power. That didn’t bother me much. I’m sure that if the present administration gets their hands on it first, they’ll pose with it as a symbol of their power.
I didn’t volunteer any of my cynical thoughts to Rafi.
“What do you want from me?” I asked Rafi, and then to Dalila, “You can interpret that as me asking your father, ‘How do I get back my passport?’”
“Your cooperation,” Rafi answered. “We believe Kaseem is in contact with the thieves who took the scarab and will be contacting you and giving you instructions. When he does, all you have to do is inform us. Agreed?”
“Of course.”
He gave me an appraising look and asked his daughter, “What do you think, Dalila? Do you believe her?”
“I like her. But she’s lying.”
Sweet little child.
“Drop me off at my hotel. I need to get rid of an awful headache caused by jet lag … and police brutality.”
40
I entered through the front door of the Hyatt hotel and left from a side exit. I had no intention of staying somewhere that I could be found so easily. Besides, I was planning to take the next plane out of Cairo.
Nothing is impossible if you are clever enough, I assured myself as a taxi dropped me off at the American Embassy.
An hour later, after filling out enough forms to deforest Central Park, I was called into the office of Mr. Flem, the passport clerk.
He didn’t bother turning from the computer screen he was staring at to say hello. I could see that he was involved in a very tense diplomatic situation—a game of solitaire.
He turned to acknowledge my presence on the planet after a notice popped up on his computer screen advising him that he had lost the game.
“One moment please,” he said.
His fingers flew on the keyboard for what I hoped was a printout of a new passport for me.
Earlier while I had waited to be called in, I saw him smile and fawn over an American in a much more expensive suit than he himself wore and sternly address an Egyptian clerk who no doubt used his small paycheck to support a family.
Obviously Mr. Flem was the kiss-up, kick-down type who kissed up to superiors and kicked the unfortunates below him.
I wasn’t sure if I should intimidate the weasel-looking little bureaucrat or butter him up. I decided to try sugar rather than vinegar, giving him a seductive smile in the hopes that it might make the weasel really think he could actually appeal to a woman.
“I’m really grateful that you’re acting so quickly on replacing my passport,” I said. “I have to get back to New York because of a family emergency. My little Morty is ill.”
He didn’t look up from the computer screen as he spoke. “You reported your passport stolen.”
“Yes.”
“That is not the information we received. The foreign ministry has advised us that your passport has been seized by the government because you are on a watch list.” He looked up and said in a deliberate voice, “You lied on an official government form. That is perjury.”
So much for sugar.
“Excuse me, my passport was stolen by an inspector of the antiquities department in order to get me to do his bidding.”
He glan
ced back to the computer. “That’s not the information I have.”
“Really? Did you get your information from reading the back of those cards you’ve been playing?”
That dropped his jaw and got his bureaucratic dander up.
“Miss Dupre, you are—”
“An American citizen and a taxpayer”—not completely true—“and my passport was taken illegally.” I leaned on his desk. “Tell me what reason that lying computer gives for seizing my passport?”
He read information I couldn’t see and turned back to me.
“You are on a watch list.”
“Meaning what? Does it say that I’m a terrorist? Murderer? What are the legal grounds for taking my passport?”
“You are in a foreign country—”
“I noticed that the moment I got off the plane.”
“You don’t have legal rights.”
“That’s great. We spend billions of dollars on embassies and more billions on aid to Egypt itself so they can do what they like to Americans and you just sit around on your hands and let them!”
“Madam—you are being insulting.”
“No. I’m being desperate. I demand a new passport.”
“Regulations require that we review the basis for the seizure before issuing another.”
“How long will that take?”
“Seven to ten days.”
“That’s insane.
“Those are the rules.”
“You can pick up the phone and call over to the foreign office. They won’t be able to give you legitimate grounds for keeping my passport.”
“Those are the rules,” he repeated.
I could see that when he stood on the rules, he grew in stature—at least in his own eyes.
I resented the smug attitude of the bureaucratic little bastard.
“By the time you people get through screwing around with your book of rules, I might end up in the Egyptian version of a homeless shelter—the gutter.”
I could see from the glow in his eyes that he was about to play his trump card.
“Has it occurred to you, Miss Dupre, that even if you were able to bully a new passport from this embassy—which you will not—that it would be seized when you returned to the airport to fly out?”
No, it hadn’t occurred to me.
“You have been a terrific help,” I said.
“I will be the one that has to clear the reissuance of your passport.” He smirked. “I can see right now that it’s going to take much longer than the usual seven to ten days.”
I shrugged, defeated. “Great. My passport gets taken for an undefined reason by an unidentified foreign government agency and you are perfectly willing to put on your boots and jump on my battered body.”
I smiled down at him. “Why don’t you look up Kafkaesque bureaucratic jerk while you’re losing at cards?”
* * *
THERE IS NO QUESTION about it—I have a big mouth and a habit of sticking my foot into it.
I could have sweetened Mr. Flem into helping me, but instead, I antagonized him.
Completely stupid.
Somewhere between a woman jumping in front of a subway in New York and a man flying off the side of a medieval tower, I lost my own common sense.
I couldn’t have played into Rafi’s hand any better than with my own big mouth and arrogance.
I needed to get back in control.
I took a taxi back to the Hyatt hotel where Rafi had dropped me off earlier, and then registered.
After I visited my room, I went back down to the lobby and left by the side exit again. I walked a block before I got into another taxi that took me to an inexpensive hotel where I stayed when I first came to Egypt as a poor student to see firsthand some of the wonders of the ages.
Called Queen of the Nile, the hotel was safe, clean—at least it was a dozen years ago—and the only thing glamorous about it was the name.
By the time I reached the hotel, I was too tired and angry to care whether I had been followed.
41
The Queen of the Nile was located in a district that had both apartment and business buildings. It had an unusual setup—the lobby was on the ground floor, but the guest rooms were on floors fourteen to seventeen with residential apartments in between.
It hadn’t changed at all since the last time I stayed there. Even the front desk clerk who pretended he remembered me from the past when I said I had stayed there was the same.
Getting off the elevator that seemed breathless and gasping after it lugged me all the way up to the seventeenth floor, I was happy to see that the emergency device in case of fire, earthquake, or whatever hadn’t changed either: instead of having in a glass case a button that sets off an alarm, a key hung on a hook in the case.
In case of emergency, you broke the glass, grabbed the key, and used it to unlock the stairway door so you could run down seventeen flights of stairs. I took a picture of the key at the time because it was such a unique “emergency” system.
Being tracked and harassed from New York to England and now Cairo by computers, security cameras, and God knows what else, I could appreciate the low-tech device. I just wished the rest of my life was so simple.
I sat outside on the small balcony, drinking tea that I had delivered to my room, waiting for my phone to ring. I was a pawn waiting for the next move, reminding myself that just like lambs, pawns were also often sacrificed to win.
The city of Cairo was spread out below me, a golden haze in the background that I preferred to think of as dust from the surrounding desert rather than pollution. I gazed around, thinking about the magic and mystery of Egypt—the people whom I found to be quite friendly and generous, the pyramids that were magical, the archaeological sites that have been uncovered, and the ones still buried and waiting to be discovered by treasure seekers with trembling hands.
For a moment I forgot all about the troubles dogging me and focused on the splendors in front of me as the chant of a muezzin broadcasted from a minaret calling the faithful to prayer floated to me across the rooftops.
It didn’t matter that the call was recorded and sent over loudspeakers—it was still mysterious and exotic.
I was glad that I had come back to the Queen of the Nile rather than staying at a modern hotel. It had so much more character and charm, and the rooms were simple but clean. The place was also peaceful and quiet, especially up here on the top floor. Even the crier summoning Muslims to prayer five times a day added to the alluring atmosphere of the place.
I lost track of time until I heard the muted knock on my door. I opened it and found a small cloth bag hanging from the door handle. Inside the bag I found a cell phone and an envelope.
I knew right away what the envelope contained—the third payment—all in hundred-dollar bills.
Crisp, new, neatly pressed hundreds.
It took me ten minutes, my loupe, years of examining objets d’art, and comparing the bundle of nice, new bills with a used hundred that I got from the hotel front desk clerk to find out that the whole lot of them were counterfeits, including the bills I had with me from New York.
I was livid.
Kaseem had dumped funny money on me.
I had been too broke back home to give the bills a close examination. Not that it mattered that I had passed counterfeit bills in the States—considering what the prison term would be in Egypt for doing it, and the condition of the prisons, I’d never live long enough to serve a second term in the United States.
What was the man trying to do?
A better question was how I had gotten myself into a position where every time I turned around since meeting him I was facing five to life.
Just as puzzling—why funny money?
It hardly seemed worth it to pay me what must be chump change to a man like Kaseem who’s the head of a political party that attracts rich people.
Ten minutes later I got a call from Kaseem.
“I provided the phone because yours
will be monitored,” he said.
“Maybe you should also provide some truthful answers. You’ve lied to me about everything. My passport’s been pulled and you can go to hell if you think I’ll help you with anything.”
“Miss Dupre—”
“I’m going to turn this phone over to the police and let them use it to track the number you called from.”
“That won’t do any good. My phone will be destroyed at the end of this call. For your own sake, you must listen to me.”
He was right. I had to at least listen to him.
“Talk,” I said.
“I’m sure by now you know that I am an Egyptian patriot.”
I bit my lip to keep from calling him a damn neo-Nazi on the run from his country’s government.
“Regardless of what you think of my politics, no one accuses me of wanting anything but the best for my country.”
“Why don’t you save the campaign speech for the next election. What are you going to do to get me out of the mess you’ve shoved me into?”
“I didn’t intend for bad things to happen—”
“Yeah, right.”
“But we must deal with the situation. I have been contacted by the thieves who stole the scarab from Fatima. They have stated a price that is acceptable, but I have to make sure that the scarab is the real one and not one of the many forgeries floating around the city.”
“And that’s where I come in.”
“Yes. You have received your third payment. However, I will double it if you examine the scarab.”
I made a vague listening response and didn’t point out to the lying bastard that he could afford to give a suitcase full of money since it was counterfeit.
“Once the scarab is in my hands, I will again double your reward.”
Generous to a fault.
“And if the scarab turns out to be a fake?”
“Naturally, that wouldn’t be your fault. You would be paid anyway.”
“What do I do with the money? Use it to stay in hotels because I can’t leave the country?”
“Neither. Once I have the Heart of Egypt in my hand, I will turn it over to the people of Egypt. When that happens, any attempts by the authorities to manipulate you will collapse.”
The Curse Page 15