The Lost Army of Cambyses (19 page)

as with any other great faith there was an element

of anger in it. Khalifa remembered how the imam

at their local mosque, in his Friday
khutbar,

would rail against the Zionists and the Americans

157

and the Egyptian government, warning how

the
Kufr
were trying to destroy the
ummah,
the Moslem community. No doubt his words had

planted seeds in Ali's mind.

If he was honest they had planted seeds in

Khalifa's mind too, for much of what the imam

said was true. There was evil and corruption in

the world. What the Israelis were doing to the

Palestinians was unforgivable. The poor and

needy were ignored while the rich lined their

pockets.

Khalifa, however, had never been able to make

the connection between this and the use of

violence. Ali, on the other hand, had slowly begun

to build that bridge.

It had started innocently enough. With conver-

sations, reading, occasional meetings. Ali had

begun attending rallies, handing out leaflets, even

speaking in public himself. He had spent less and

less time with his history books, more and more

with religious works. 'What is history without

truth?' he had said to Khalifa once. 'And truth is

to be found not in the deeds of men, but the word

of God.'

Much of what he did had been good and it was

this that had persuaded Khalifa there was no need

to fear the changes that were being wrought

within him. He had collected money for the poor,

spent time teaching illiterate children, spoken out

on behalf of those who would otherwise have had

no voice.

All the while, however, there was a slow

hardening of his rhetoric, a ratcheting up of the

anger within him. He had become involved with

158

fundamentalist organizations, joining first one,

then another, each a little more extreme than the

previous one, getting sucked deeper and deeper

into the whirlpool, the line between faith and fury

becoming increasingly blurred. Until eventually,

inevitably, he had come to Sayf al-Tha'r.

Sayf al-Tha'r. The name was seared into

Khalifa's mind like a brand on an ox's back. It was

he who had corrupted Ali. He who had made him

do the things he did. He, ultimately, who had sent

him to his death that terrible day fourteen years

ago.

And now with this case things had come full

circle. Now he was no longer just investigating a

death. Now he was seeking to avenge one too.

Sayf al-Tha'r. He'd known it would be him. He'd

known it. The past always catches up eventually,

however fast you try to run.

An urgent hooting dragged him back to the

present. He had strayed out onto the road and a

tourist coach was bearing down on him, horn

blaring. He hopped back to the side of the tarmac,

looking for the two camel riders, but they had dis-

appeared round a bend. He lit a cigarette, waited

for the coach to pass, then continued on his way,

the road ahead shimmering in the midday heat.

CAIRO

'I should never have left you,' said Daniel.

'This morning or six years ago?'

He looked at her.

159

'I was referring specifically to this morning.'

They were back in his hotel room, Tara on the

couch, legs drawn up to her chin, Daniel standing

beside the window. She'd had a whisky but was

still trembling, the memory of her recent

experiences fresh in her mind.

'I had to meet someone at the museum,' he con-

tinued. 'It took longer than I expected. I should have

warned you about the backstreets around here.

They can be dangerous for foreigners, especially

women. There are thieves, pickpockets . . .'

'These weren't pickpockets,' said Tara, resting

her forehead against her knees. 'I knew them.'

Daniel raised his eyebrows.

'One of them at least,' she said. 'I saw him at

Saqqara the day I found Dad's body. And then

later at the hotel. And he wasn't Egyptian.'

'You're saying someone's following you

deliberately?'

'Yes.'

He was silent for a moment, and then, crossing

to the sofa, sat and took her hand.

'Look, Tara, you've had a bad couple of days.

First your father, now this. I think maybe you're

reading too much into—'

She snatched her hand away. 'Don't patronize

me, Daniel. This isn't some hysterical fantasy. This

man is following me. I don't know why, but he's

following me.'

She came to her feet and went over to the

window, standing where Daniel had stood, look-

ing out across the jumbled rooftops. The air was

hot and she could feel trickles of perspiration run-

ning down her chest.

160

'He said something about a missing piece. He

kept asking me where it was. He seems to think

I've got something of his. God knows what, but he

seems to think I've got it.' She turned. 'And

he thought my father had it too. He was in the dig

house. And possibly in my father's apartment. He

left a smell of cigar smoke. There's something

going on, Daniel. You have to believe me.

Something bad.'

He said nothing, just sat on the couch staring at

her intently, brown-black eyes sweeping across her

face. He pulled a cheroot from his shirt pocket and

lit it.

'There's something going on,' she repeated,

turning away again. 'Please believe me.'

There was a brief silence and then she heard him

stand and come over to her. He laid his hand on

her shoulder. She shrugged it off, but he put it

back and this time she let it rest. She could feel the

strength of him burning through his palm.

'I do believe you, Tara,' he said gently.

He turned her and took her in his arms. For a

moment she resisted, but only a moment. He felt

so strong, so secure. She buried her face in his

shoulder, tears welling in her eyes.

'I don't know what to do, Daniel. I don't know

what's going on. Someone's trying to kill me and I

don't even know why. I tried to tell them at the

embassy, but they didn't believe me. They thought

I was imagining things, but I'm not. I'm not.'

'OK, OK,' he said. 'Everything's going to be

fine.'

He tightened his arms around her and she

allowed him to do it, knowing how dangerous it

161

was to be so close to him, yet unable to help her-

self. There was a loud beeping from outside as a

car nudged its way through the crowd.

They stayed like that for some time before he

gently eased her away, brushing his finger beneath

her eyes to wipe away the tear stains.

'There were three of them, you say.'

She nodded. 'Two Egyptians and one white

guy,' she said. 'The white guy was huge and had a

birthmark on his face. Like I said, I've seen him

before. At Saqqara and outside my hotel.'

'And what exactly did he say to you again?'

'He asked me where it was. He kept saying,

"Where is it? Where is the missing piece?" '

'That was it?'

'He said something about hieroglyphs.'

Daniel's eyes narrowed. 'Hieroglyphs?'

'Yes. He said, "Where are they? Where are the

hieroglyphs?"'

'He definitely used that word? Hieroglyphs?

You're sure?'

'I think so, yes. Everything was a blur.'

He drew slowly on the cheroot, ribbons of blue-

grey smoke spiralling from the corner of his mouth.

'Hieroglyphs?' he said, more to himself than to

her. 'Hieroglyphs? What hieroglyphs?' He took

another pull on the cheroot and wandered across

the room. 'You haven't bought anything since you

came to Egypt? No antiquities or anything?'

'I haven't had time.'

'And you say this man was at your father's dig

house?'

'Yes. I'm sure of it.'

He fell silent, rubbing his temples, thinking. A

162

wasp flew in through the window and settled on

the rim of Tara's whisky glass. Silence.

'Well, they obviously think you have something

that belongs to them,' he said eventually. 'And pre-

sumably they think you have it because they think

your father had it before you. So we have to

answer two questions: first, what is this object?

And second, why did they think your father had it

in the first place?'

He went over to the couch and sat down, lost in

thought. She remembered him like this from their

time together, how he would sit in a sort of trance

thinking through a problem, mind whirring like a

machine, his expression half-grimace, half-smile,

as though he was pained by the process, yet enjoy-

ing it too. He was silent for a whole minute before

coming to his feet again.

'Come on.'

He picked up his cheroots and moved towards

the door.

'Where? The police?'

He grunted. 'Not if you want any answers.

They'll just take a statement and forget about it. I

know what they're like.'

'So where, then?'

He reached the door and threw it open.

'Saqqara. Your father's dig house. That's where

we'll start. Coming?'

She looked into his eyes. There was so much she

recognized there – the strength, the determination,

the power. There was something else as well, how-

ever. Something she hadn't seen in him before. It

was a moment before she was able to pin it down

– guilt.

163

'Yes,' she said, picking up her knapsack and fol-

lowing him out into the corridor. 'I'm coming.'

LUXOR

On his way home from Deir el-Bahri, Khalifa

stopped off to see Dr Masri al-Masri, Director of

Antiquities for Western Thebes.

Al-Masri was a legend in the Antiquities

Service. He had joined as a young man and, given

that he was now almost seventy, should by rights

have occupied a higher position than he did. He'd

been offered more exalted posts, on numerous

occasions, but had always turned them down. He

was a native of this part of the world and felt a

particular affinity with its monuments. He'd

devoted his life to their preservation and pro-

tection, and although he held no formal academic

qualifications, was universally referred to as the

Doctor, both out of respect and, also, fear. Al-

Masri's temper, it was said, was worse than that of

Seth, the Egyptian god of thunder.

He was in a meeting when Khalifa arrived, so

the detective sat down on a wall outside his office

and lit a cigarette, gazing across the road at the

scattered remains of the mortuary temple of

Amenhotep III. From over his shoulder came the

sound of bitter argument.

There had been a time when Khalifa himself had

wanted to join the Antiquities Service. Would have

joined it had Ali not been taken from them, leav-

ing him with the sole responsibility of caring for

164

their mother. He'd been at university at the time

and for a while had tried to continue his studies,

earning money on the side working as a tour

guide. It hadn't been enough, however, especially

after he'd married Zenab and she had become