The Lost Army of Cambyses (22 page)

against a bench and, seizing it, ran back to the

side of the house, shrinking against the wall. The

thud of feet grew louder. He raised the
touria,
took

a couple of breaths, and then swung it as hard as he

could, just as one of their pursuers scrambled into

view around the corner. The metal head smashed

into the man's face with a sickening crack, throwing

him backwards into the undergrowth, his hand still

182

gripping his Heckler and Koch. Daniel leaped for-

ward and prised the gun away.

'Now!' he cried. 'While we've got the chance!'

They ran to the edge of the terrace and jumped,

hitting the slope together and scrabbling down-

wards in a shower of dust, Tara still clutching her

knapsack. There was a stretch of sand at the

bottom, then a track, then the village, strung out

along the edge of a dense palm grove. A car was

bumping towards them and Daniel ran for it, flag-

ging it down. The driver slowed and, seeing the gun,

skidded to a halt. Shots rang out from above. Daniel

turned and fired. There were screams and the

villagers began to scatter. He fired again, keeping his

finger on the trigger, raking the escarpment until the

gun's magazine was empty. He threw the weapon

aside and turned back to the car. The driver had

scrambled out, leaving the keys in the ignition and

the engine turning. Daniel leaped behind the wheel.

'Get in!' he yelled at Tara. 'Get in!'

She dived into the passenger side and he

stamped his foot on the accelerator, the wheels

churning up a spray of gravel as the car careered

down the track. A bullet shattered one of the rear

side windows, another punctured the bonnet.

They hit a pot-hole and skidded, and for a

moment it looked as if they were going to hit

a wall, but he managed to bring them back under

control and they sped away, the sputter of gunfire

echoing behind them, the dig house lost behind a

curtain of dust.

'I don't know what the fuck's in that box of

yours,' Daniel panted, 'but after all this I hope it

was worth it!'

183

18

LUXOR

By the time Khalifa got home midway through the

afternoon he was so exhausted he could barely

keep his eyes open.

As soon as he came through the door his son

leaped on him. 'Dad! Dad! Can I have a trumpet

for Abu Haggag?'

The Feast of Abu el-Haggag was due to start in a

couple of days. For weeks Ali and his schoolmates

had been decorating a float for the children's

procession and the boy could barely contain his

excitement about the forthcoming festivities.

'Can I?' he cried, tugging at Khalifa's jacket.

'Mustafa's got one. And Said.'

Khalifa picked him up and ruffled his hair. 'Of

course you can.'

Ali bounced up and down in his arms,

delighted.

'Mum!' he cried. 'Dad says I can have a trumpet

for Abu Haggag!'

Khalifa slung the boy over his shoulder and,

184

picking his way around the building materials in

the front hall, went through into the living room.

Zenab was sitting on the sofa holding the baby.

Beside her were her sister Sama and Sama's

husband Hosni. Khalifa groaned inwardly.

'Hello, Sama. Hello, Hosni,' he said, putting his

son down.

Hosni stood and the two men embraced. Ali ran

round and hid behind the sofa.

'They've just come back from Cairo,' said

Zenab, a faintly accusing tone in her voice. She

was always going on at Khalifa to take her up to

the capital for a few days, but somehow he never

got around to arranging the trip. And, anyway,

they would be hard pressed to afford it.

'We flew,' said Sama, showing off. 'It's so much

faster than the train.'

'Business,' added Hosni. 'Had to meet a new

supplier.'

Hosni worked in edible oils and rarely talked

about anything else.

'I tell you, we're struggling to keep up with

demand at the moment,' he went on. 'People have

to eat and to eat they have to have edible oil. It's a

captive market.'

Khalifa assumed an expression that he hoped

conveyed enthusiasm.

'I don't know if Zenab's told you, but we're

about to launch a brand-new sesame oil. It's a bit

more expensive than your normal oil, but the

quality is exceptional. I could send round a couple

of cans if you like.'

'Thank you,' said Khalifa. 'We'd like that very

much, wouldn't we, Zenab.'

185

He looked towards his wife, who smirked. It

always amused her when he tried to sound

interested in Hosni's work.

'Come on, Sama,' she said, standing. 'Let's leave

the men to talk. Would you like a glass of
karka-

day,
Hosni?'

'Love one.'

'Yusuf?'

'Please.'

The sisters disappeared into the kitchen. Khalifa

and Hosni sat trying to avoid each other's gaze,

embarrassed. There was a long silence.

'So how's the police force?' asked Hosni eventu-

ally. 'Catch any murderers today?'

His brother-in-law was even less interested in

Khalifa's work than Khalifa was in his. In truth he

rather looked down on the detective. Working every

hour God gave and for such a meagre wage! Zenab

had definitely married beneath her. OK, she could

have done worse. But she could have done a lot bet-

ter as well. Someone in edible oils, for instance. That

was where the future lay. A captive market. And

with that new sesame oil things could really take off.

'No, not today,' Khalifa was saying.

'Sorry?'

'I didn't catch any murderers today.'

'Oh, right,' said Hosni. 'Good. Or rather bad.'

He paused, confused, trying to recover the thread

of the conversation. 'Hey, I hear you put in a pro-

motion application. Think you'll get it?'

Khalifa shrugged.
'Insha-Allah.
If Allah is

willing.'

'I would have thought it was more a case of if

your boss is willing!'

186

Hosni laughed loudly at his joke, slapping the

arm of the sofa.

'Sama!' he called. 'Hey, Sama! Yusuf said he'd

get a promotion if Allah was willing and I said it

was more a case of if his boss was willing.'

There was a loud braying from the kitchen,

Sama evidently finding the comment as amusing

as her husband did. Ali had come up behind the

sofa and was preparing to hit Hosni on the head

with a cushion. Khalifa glared at him and the boy

disappeared again.

'So how's the fountain going?' asked Hosni after

another long silence, struggling for something to

say.

'Oh, not bad. Fancy a look?'

'Why not.'

The two men went out into the hallway and

stood among the clutter of cement bags and paint

pots, looking down at the rather sorry-looking

plastic pond from which, hoped Khalifa, a

fountain of water would one day spout.

'It's a bit cramped,' observed Hosni.

'There'll be more space when all this rubbish is

cleared away.'

'Where's the water coming from?'

'We'll plumb it in from the kitchen.'

Hosni scratched his chin, bemused by the

whole venture. 'I don't know why you don't

just . . .'

He was interrupted by Ali, who chose that

moment to come running out after them, knock-

ing over a pot of paintbrushes rinsing in white

spirit. A viscous grey-white liquid spread across

the concrete floor.

187

'Dammit, Ali,' snapped Khalifa. 'Zenab! Bring

out a cloth, will you?'

His wife looked out at the mess. 'I'm not ruin-

ing one of my cloths mopping that up. Use some

newspaper.'

'I haven't got any newspaper.'

'I've got an old
al-Ahram
in my bag,' said

Hosni. 'You can use that.'

He fetched the paper from the other room and

began laying it sheet by sheet on the pool of white

spirit.

'You see,' he said, 'it's soaking it up.

Wonderfully absorbent.'

He detached another sheet and went to put it

down. As he did so, Khalifa grabbed his arm:

'Wait!'

The detective fell to his knees.

'What date is this paper?'

'Um . . .'

'What date!'

There was an urgency to his voice.

'Yesterday's,' said Hosni, flustered.

One of Khalifa's knees was in the puddle of

spirit, but he seemed unaware of it. He was leaning

forward intently, reading something in the bottom

right-hand corner of the page, his finger flashing

back and forth along the lines of script. Ali came

and knelt beside him, running his own finger over

the sodden newsprint, imitating his father.

'Yesterday,' Khalifa said to himself when he'd

finished the article. 'Yesterday. Let's see: Nayar's

killed on Friday, they go up the same day . . .

Dammit!' he cried, leaping to his feet, a dark stain

now spreading slowly across his knee.

188

'Dammit,' cried Ali, jumping up after him.

'What?' said Hosni. 'What is it?'

Khalifa ignored him and hurried through into

the kitchen, his exhaustion suddenly forgotten.

'Zenab, I have to go out.'

'Go out? Where?'

'Cairo.'

'Cairo!'

For a moment it looked like she was going to

make a fuss. Then, however, she came forward

and kissed him on the forehead.

'I'll get you some clean trousers.'

In the hallway Hosni was looking down at the

article Khalifa had been reading. There was a

photograph of an ugly old man with an eye-patch

and, above it, the caption: 'Cairo Antique Dealer

Brutally Murdered'. He shook his head. That sort

of thing never happened in edible oils.

189

19

CAIRO

Neither of them spoke on the way back to Cairo.

Daniel concentrated on the driving, eyes flicking

nervously up to the rear-view mirror to check they

weren't being followed. Tara just stared down at

the bag on her lap. Only when they reached the

main Cairo–Giza road and turned right through a

scrum of traffic towards the city centre did Daniel

break the silence.

'I'm sorry, Tara, but you just don't understand

how dangerous this is. Those men – they were

followers of Sayf al-Tha'r. The scar on the fore-

head, that's their mark.'

She was fiddling distractedly with the knapsack

zip. 'Who is this Sayf al-Tha'r? I keep hearing the

name.'

'A fundamentalist leader,' said Daniel, swerving

to avoid a cyclist wobbling along with a tray of

pastries on his head. 'The name means Sword

of Vengeance. Preaches a mixture of Egyptian

nationalism and extremist Islam. No-one knows

190

much about him except that he appeared on the

scene back in the late Eighties and has been killing

people ever since, Westerners mostly. Blew up the

American ambassador a year or so ago. The govern-

ment's got a million-dollar bounty on his head.'

He glanced across at her, smiling humourlessly.

'Well done, Tara. You've just made an enemy of

the most dangerous man in Egypt. Jesus.'

They drove on in silence for another couple of

kilometres, the city closing in all around them,

before eventually crossing a flyover and hitting

gridlock. They sat for five minutes, then, cursing,

Daniel swung off to the left, pushing his way

through the oncoming lanes of traffic and parking

up in a garbage-filled side street. They got out.

'We should try and get off the street,' he said,

glancing around. 'It's too exposed. I don't think

they followed us, but you never know. They've got

people everywhere.'

They began walking, coming to a line of railings

enclosing what Tara initially thought was a large

park, but then realized was actually a zoo. There

was an entrance thirty metres along and, taking

her arm, Daniel steered her towards it.

'Let's go in here. We're less likely to be seen.

And there's a payphone we can use.'

They paid the twenty piastre entry charge and

pushed through the turnstiles. The noise of the city

seemed to drop away behind them and suddenly

everything was quiet. Birds were chattering in the

trees, families strolling together, young lovers sit-

ting on benches, hand in hand. From somewhere

nearby came the babble of running water.

They set off down a shady walkway, eyes

191

jerking back and forth for any sign of pursuit.

They passed a rhinoceros enclosure, a monkey

house, a sea-lion pool and a lake full of flamingos

before eventually coming to a dusty banyan tree

with a stone bench beneath it, on which they sat.

There was a telephone booth five metres away and,

opposite, a morose-looking elephant in a cage, its leg

shackled to the bars with a heavy chain. Daniel

scanned the surrounding walkways, then took her

knapsack, opened it and removed the box.