by David Wood
The carriage was empty.
He let go, dodging a wild swing from the driver’s whip as it whistled above his head, and veered back into the street. Bones had pulled ahead of him and was now just a few steps away from catching the next carriage in line. Maddock looked past his friend, counting the remaining caleches. There were six in all, the one in the lead now a good fifty yards ahead. Reasoning that the thief would probably have gone to the head of the line, he abandoned his original plan to check each carriage in turn, and instead pounded up the street, giving the carriages a wide berth.
Maddock was in better than average physical shape, but the hot climate and the additional burden of the SCUBA equipment in his bag were taking a toll. Perspiration streamed from his forehead, stinging his eyes. Despite his best efforts to regulate his breathing, his lungs burned with the need for more oxygen. He halved the distance to the lead carriage in less than ten seconds, passing three of the horse drawn vehicles, but with each successive step, his fatigue increased. A dark corona was blurring the periphery of his vision, a sure sign that heat exhaustion was creeping up on him.
Suddenly, the lead carriage veered left, cutting across his path even though it was a good fifteen yards ahead of him. The second carriage followed, forcing him to slow to avoid a collision. It took a moment for him to grasp that this wasn’t some new defensive tactic but rather a change forced by the street itself, which as near as he could tell turned sharply to the left, running alongside the Coptic church he had earlier glimpsed. Maddock adjusted course, angling to intercept the lead carriage. The driver turned toward him, whip in hand, but this time Maddock was ready. As he got within striking distance, he unslung his bag and hefted it onto his left shoulder, using it as a shield. The whip struck the bag with a single impotent thwock as Maddock scrambled up onto the footboard and then broadsided the driver, slamming the bag into him and blasting him off the elevated platform and onto the sidewalk below.
Maddock’s satisfaction was short-lived however. As he whirled to face the covered coach seat, he saw that, while there was a passenger—undoubtedly one of the escaping thieves—the case containing Uma was not there. Undeterred, Maddock leapt over the driver’s seat, ramming his knee into the passenger’s gut before the man could even think about fighting back. He then shoved the shade canopy down, clearing the obstruction to get a look at the second carriage.
The Pelican case was not there, either.
Further back, Bones was systematically working his way up from the rear, checking the caleches Maddock had bypassed, but to no better effect. He met Maddock’s stare and shook his head angrily. “Where the hell is it?”
Maddock had no answer but he wasn’t ready to give up. Maybe the carriages had been a bluff, a diversion to send the two of them on a wild goose chase. The Pelican case was awkward and heavy enough to make escape on foot an iffy proposition. If the thief was running, he couldn’t have gotten far. Maddock swept his gaze back down the street toward the train station. He didn’t see the thief, but he did see the red Peugeot, and its driver. She was leaning out the window, looking up at him inquisitively and shouting something. He couldn’t hear her over the tumult of honking horns, but he could make a rough guess. Did you catch him? Did you find it?
Her question answered his own. She hadn’t seen the thief, which meant he had not made his escape anywhere within her line of sight.
Maddock swung his gaze back to the line of now-motionless caleches, looking to the other side, which had mostly been hidden from his view during the pursuit. Once past the train station, the road ran parallel to the train tracks up to the point where it turned away at a ninety-degree angle. The tracks kept going, past the church heading north, but Maddock now saw that the turn wasn’t a turn at all, but a T-junction. To the left, the wide avenue meandered west, bearing most of the traffic that had slipped past the Peugeot, but the street also continued in the other direction, past a marked railroad crossing, to disappear into the urban landscape.
A single carriage was heading down that street.
“There he is!” Maddock shouted, stabbing a finger toward the retreating vehicle before scrambling down from his perch to take up the pursuit once again. If he was wrong and Uma wasn’t in the carriage, then all would be lost, but his instincts told him otherwise. He bounded across the railroad tracks and ran flat out. Bones appeared beside him, having evidently forced his way between two of the carriages, and pulled away. His long legs gave him a slight advantage in a running race, but Maddock suspected it was the other man’s anger at losing Uma that fueled his furious sprint. Ahead, the carriage made a right turn, swinging down a side street. Bones reached the same corner a few seconds later, and Maddock was right behind him.
Maddock immediately felt an oppressive sense of claustrophobia. The street was narrow, barely a single lane wide, and the buildings to either side rose up like sheer walls, three stories high, with balconies extending out overhead. Worse, he couldn’t see past the carriage to the far end, if there even was one.
Was this a trap?
Before he could give voice to this new concern, Bones caught hold of the back end of the carriage and then, after another step or two brought himself—and the horse-drawn vehicle—to a dead stop. The caleche jolted and the sound of hooves skittering on dusty cobblestones filled the air, but Bones didn’t budge.
Maddock reached him a moment later, sidling into the gap between the carriage and the brick wall on the left. As he passed, he pulled down the canopy to expose the interior. The passenger seat was empty, but removing the shade cover gave him an unobstructed view of the street ahead. The driver was still shaking the reins, trying to motivate the horse to overcome the resistance from Bones’ “brakes,” but just beyond the animal, a lone Egyptian in a powder blue jellabiyah and white turban was continuing on foot. He was trying to run, but his efforts were hampered by the burden he was carrying in his right hand.
The mere sight of the missing case invigorated Maddock like a shot of pure oxygen. He wriggled past the carriage and then sprinted the remaining few yards to tackle the thief with one outflung arm. As the man went sprawling, face first, he lost his grip on the stolen Pelican case which skidded noisily along the cobble pavement for another ten feet. Maddock kept going, reaching down to snag the case’s handle, but as he rose back to his full height, he realized why the carriage had turned down the narrow alley in the first place. Thirty feet ahead to his right, the wall opened into what he guessed was a garage entrance. The interior space beyond was hidden in shadow, but in the instant that Maddock glimpsed it, four men stepped out into the light.
They looked Egyptian, but unlike the thieves and carriage drivers, they wore western attire—chinos and untucked long-sleeved dress shirts. They were also a good deal more physically imposing than the thieves and most of the other locals Maddock had seen, and judging by the hard stares they were giving him, were accustomed to using their size to intimidate others. Maddock didn’t know if there was such a thing as the Egyptian Mafia, but if there was, these men were definitely enforcers. Whoever or whatever they were, it was plainly evident that the thief had been hoping to find refuge with them. Even now, prone on the pavement, he was jabbering at them. In unison, fists balled in preparation to do violence. the four men advanced toward Maddock.
Maddock knew that if he struck first, and struck hard, he might be able to sideline two of the men—provided they weren’t as tough as they appeared—but that would still leave him at a numerical disadvantage. He would have liked his odds a lot better with Bones to back him up, but his partner was still on the other side of the stalled carriage. Breaking contact—the military euphemism for turning tail and running like hell—was clearly the better choice, but with the added burden of the Pelican case and his dive gear, he probably wouldn’t be able to outrun them. Then again, he didn’t actually need to outrun them.
“Bones! A little help here!” He spun on his heel and started running back toward the carriage.
Wi
th the canopy lowered, Bones’ head and shoulders were visible, but Bones wasn’t looking forward at Maddock’s situation. His focus was on something happening back at the entrance to the street.
“Sorry, dude,” Bones replied without turning. “You’re gonna have to take a number.”
As Maddock wriggled past the caleche, he saw what had arrested Bones’ attention. A group of men in jellabiyahs—almost certainly the rest of the gang of thieves—were arrayed in a line across the street, blocking the path of escape.
Maddock swore under his breath, but as soon as he was in the open again, he turned and gave the carriage a hard shove. The unexpected jolt took both the driver and the horse by surprise, the latter starting forward as the carriage’s traces pushed against its harness. He doubted it would do much to slow the four toughs behind them, but at least it would give him and Bones a little more room to maneuver.
Bones finally glanced over, nodding his approval when he saw that Maddock had recovered the case. “You got her?”
“Yep.”
“Good. Now if we can just get past the welcoming committee, we can head to the buffet, and after that, maybe hit the tables, play some Blackjack... Oh, wait. We’re not at that Luxor.”
Maddock ignored the complaint, and nodded his head down the street. “Blow through these guys?”
Bones’ answer took the form of a chant from a childhood game. “Red rover, red rover. Gonna knock your ass over.”
On the last syllable, Bones threw back his head and let out a war whoop, then broke into a run, charging headlong toward the human barrier. Summoning up the energy for one more run, Maddock started after him, but no sooner was he moving when the blockade suddenly fell apart. The men scattered, scrambling to get out of the way of a car that had come up from behind them.
A familiar red car, with the distinctive rearing lion logo of the Peugeot automobile company.
Although it wasn’t moving very fast by highway speeds, it nevertheless clipped several of the thieves, spinning them out of the way. One man fell across the hood and stayed there, scrambling for something to hold onto as the car began accelerating.
Maddock and Bones both stopped short and then moved aside, pressing themselves against the wall as the sedan approached. When it was almost beside them, the driver slammed on the brakes, catapulting the unlucky hitchhiker down from his tenuous perch on the hood. The man rolled to a stop right in front of the four men from the garage who had succeeded in getting around the carriage. Evidently realizing that the car was there to provide rescue for the two Americans, the men broke into a tentative run.
Beside them, the passenger window began lowering, the Egyptian woman looking out at them, her earlier smile replaced by an urgent, if slightly horrified expression. “What are you waiting for? Get in.”
Bones moved first, opening the rear door and heaving his SCUBA bag inside. He then reached out a hand to Maddock. “Uma!”
Maddock got the message and passed the case back to his friend, then quickly opened the front passenger door and climbed inside. Even before he got the door shut, the woman threw the transmission into reverse and gunned the engine. She continued facing forward, using the mirrors to navigate a surprisingly straight line back down the street. The gang of thieves, who were only just beginning to recover from her arrival, scrambled for the periphery as it became evident that she had no intention of slowing for them or the blind intersection beyond. Maddock, realizing the same thing, braced himself for a possible collision as the sedan broke from the claustrophobic confines of the alley. At the last instant, the woman tapped the brakes and depressed the horn with her thumbs, trumpeting a warning.
The street was empty of vehicle traffic, but several of the caleches were lined up to one side of the turn. The Peugeot shot past them, the woman cranking the steering wheel to the left as soon as they were clear. The sedan swung away in a parabolic curve that ended when the vehicle was aligned with the street and facing back toward the rail crossing. The woman stomped the brake pedal, bringing the vehicle to a screeching halt, then quickly shifted to “drive” and accelerated away again.
The Peugeot sped down the street, slowing just a little at the railroad crossing. As the car rumbled over the tracks, the woman let out her breath in a long, relieved sigh, then glanced over at Maddock and flashed a weak smile. “Welcome to Luxor.”
Maddock laughed. “Thanks. And thanks for the assist. That was quite a surprise party. Does that kind of thing happen a lot around here?”
She shook her head. “No. Never. Tourism is very important to the local economy. An attack like this may frighten visitors away, and nobody wants that.” She paused a beat. “I suppose you’ll want to go to the police station.”
There was an odd undercurrent of reluctance in her voice. Ordinarily, Maddock would have preferred to avoid involving the authorities, especially if the attempted theft had been nothing more than a random attack, but the woman’s assertion that such crimes were rare gave him pause.
It hadn’t really felt like a random or opportunistic action. The attack had been elaborately staged, with several participants all working together in a coordinated effort. And Maddock couldn’t shake the feeling that the thieves had specifically targeted them.
But why?
He glanced back at Bones who had the Pelican case open on his lap in order to check for damage. “What do you think?”
“I think I don’t want to spend the rest of the day sitting in a police station looking at mug shots. Besides, with our luck, they’d probably lock us up for disturbing the peace and animal cruelty.” He snapped the case shut. “Uma’s in good shape. No harm, no foul. I say we get on with our day.”
Despite his misgivings, Maddock nodded in agreement. “I suppose you’re right. We’ll tell Dr. Majdy about it. Maybe he’ll know what to do.”
The woman uttered a short, abrupt laugh.
Maddock shot her an irritated look. “Did I say something funny?”
“‘He’ is me,” she said, grinning. “I am Dr. Majdy. But you must call me Nora.”
THREE
“You are Dr. Majdy?” Maddock asked. “Sorry, I just didn’t expect—”
“A woman?” Nora finished for him.
“Frankly, yes.” Maddock replied.
“Do you have a problem with that?” There was an edge to her voice, but her smile remained. Before he could respond, she continued, “Don’t worry. I’m used to it. But I’m as qualified as any male archaeologist in Egypt. Probably more qualified than a lot of them, though try getting any one of them to admit it.”
“I don’t have a problem with it,” he managed, belatedly. “I’ve worked with several female archaeologists.”
From the back seat, Bones gave a snort of laughter. “Worked with.”
Maddock ignored the jab and tried to choose his words carefully to avoid growing the rift any wider. “It was my understanding that the social climate here is somewhat... Ah...”
“Repressive toward women? It’s okay. You can say it. And you’re right. It’s why I have to wear this thing.” She flicked a finger against the fabric of her hijab. “At least when I’m in the city.”
The traffic was light—nothing like what Maddock and Bones had seen in Cairo during their brief transit from the airport to the train station—and Dr. Majdy—Nora—drove with an air of casual indifference, changing lanes to avoid carriages and tour buses without any trace of anxiety or hesitation. The shock of the earlier attack seemed already to have faded from her memory.
To their right, the seemingly unbroken wall of modern concrete buildings abruptly thinned out, revealing trees and a spectacular view of the Nile. Nora stayed on the road as it veered south, paralleling the river though their view of it was partially blocked by several large resort hotels.
“If I’m being perfectly honest,” she went on, “That’s why I asked for assistance from the Global Heritage Commission, rather than enlisting a local crew. Well, one of the reasons anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
She gave him a sidelong glance, then returned her attention to the road, just as the Peugeot entered a traffic circle. She curled the sedan about two-thirds of the way through the roundabout before turning onto another main thoroughfare, this one headed east, away from the river. The urban landscape continued to their right, but to the left lay a broad green field, bordered by more trees. But for the signs written in graceful Arabic script, Maddock might have believed they were in the tropics, rather than one of the hottest, driest places on earth—hotter even than the Sahara Desert
“How much do you know about archaeology in Egypt?”
“Probably not as much as I think I do,” Maddock replied. He thought his knowledge on the subject was respectable, but sensed he was about to get schooled.
Bones leaned forward. “I’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark about a bajillion times.”
Maddock rolled his eyes. At least he didn’t mention The Mummy, he thought.
He expected Nora to scoff at the reference, but she just nodded. “Exactly my point. Almost all of the significant work was done by foreigners. Maspero. Flinders Petrie. Howard Carter. Barbara Mertz. And that’s still true today because foreign archaeologists have resources that locals don’t. The University of Cairo has a world class archaeology program, but the only opportunities for field work are through the Ministry of Antiquities, and they only give permits to their cronies. It’s a closed system, mired in bureaucracy. It’s bad enough that I’m a woman, but I got my BA and post-graduate degrees in England, which means I’ll never be welcome in their clique.”
“But you still somehow managed to get a permit?”
For the first time since introducing herself, Nora’s smile slipped a little. “Not exactly.”
Maddock’s wariness returned. Rogue archaeology was fine for fictional characters like Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, but without official sanction, any exploration of a registered archaeological site would be a criminal act—essentially, grave robbing—to which he and Bones would be complicit. “You do have a permit?”
