by Peter Vegas
Sam opened his mouth to speak, but broke into a violent coughing fit. Mary picked up the jug on the bedside table and poured Sam a glass of water, which he drank greedily. It helped wash the burnt taste out of his mouth, which he guessed had been caused by the sleeping gas, or smoke, or whatever he’d been knocked out with.
“I am really sorry, Sam,” Mary repeated. “Bassem didn’t think the gas would reach you, but he said you had tried to block it out with wet rags. Smart move.”
Sam smiled as he thought of the soggy Nefertiti tea towels. He wondered if Ahmed would still try to sell them.
“We needed to rescue you in a hurry,” continued Mary, “and it was all we could come up with.”
“Yeah, but sleeping gas?” Sam took another sip of water, savoring the way it soothed his stinging throat. “Where did you get it?”
“Bassem likes to be prepared,” said Mary.
“Obviously.” Sam stared at the glass in his hand as he tried to process everything Mary had told him. He could feel her eyes on him. His head was spinning and his throat felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper. “So, what now?”
“You tell me,” said Mary. “We are here to help you.”
“You mean, you want to know where my uncle is.”
Mary looked frustrated, but it didn’t show when she spoke. “Yes, Sam, we want to find your uncle. I know you don’t believe me yet, but we are on the same side.”
The room fell silent. Sam took another sip of water. Could he trust her and the Egyptian giant? They had saved him, twice. “There are other people looking for my uncle, and the Panehesy. Two men were after me in Cairo. One of them is here in Al Minya.”
Mary nodded. “Even more reason for you to let us help. Do you know where your uncle is?”
Sam wasn’t prepared to play all his cards just yet. “I think so,” he said.
“And you think he’s located the Panehesy?”
Sam nodded.
“Okay. Well, you don’t have to say where. Just tell me what you need from us.”
Sam knew exactly what he needed. The same thing his uncle had used to get to the Panehesy. The clue had been the business card in the map book: AL MINYA 4X4 RENTALS. “I need transport into the desert,” said Sam. “Can you organize that?”
Mary nodded. “No problem. Bassem—”
Sam cut her off. “Let me guess. Bassem knows a guy.”
* * *
IT TURNED OUT THAT HE knew a couple of guys.
Bassem was out when the first one arrived. As Sam followed Mary downstairs to open the door, he checked out the safe house. The place was clean and modern, with brown floor tiles and off-white walls, but it was obvious no one lived there permanently. Most of the rooms were empty, and there were no signs of any personal items on the shelves or walls.
The man at the door was holding a large cardboard box. He walked in, dropped it in the hallway, and left without saying a word.
“You can tell he’s a friend of Bassem’s,” Sam said as Mary opened the box.
It was full of camping equipment. Clearly, Mary had been expecting it, because she pulled out a pair of military-issue desert boots and a lightweight brown jacket. “Here you go,” she said, tossing them to Sam. “You’re going to need these. I hope the boots fit. I measured while you were asleep.”
Sam looked at his bandaged feet. “Guess I should say thanks for this, too.”
A rumbling sound filled the hallway as the roller door in the garage opened. Sam and Mary entered as Bassem rolled in on an ultramodern quad bike, the kind ridden by endurance riders. Sam had seen them in magazines. This bike was painted in a flat desert brown color and had four spotlights mounted on the front. Bassem skidded to a stop on the polished concrete floor as another identical quad rolled in behind. The second rider left without saying a word. Sam was beginning to think the silent giant and his friends communicated telepathically.
Bassem got to work sorting the camping equipment into two loads for the bikes.
“So, what exactly is my uncle doing for your father?” asked Sam. He still wasn’t prepared to share everything he knew, but that wasn’t going to stop him from tapping Mary for more info.
“Pyramids,” she replied. “I guess you could say they’re a bit of a family obsession.”
Sam was confused. “I thought this was about alchemy. You know, the Secret Fire.” He threw that factoid in to show Mary he was clued up on the subject, even though his knowledge stretched back less than twenty-four hours.
“Secret Fire? That’s interesting,” said Mary. “Did you know that some scholars speculate that ‘pyramid’ means ‘the fire within’? There could be a link there.”
“Could be? You mean you don’t know?”
“Not really,” Mary admitted. “Look, my father has kept me in the dark about his research for most of my life.” She glanced at Bassem, who was still busy with the bikes. “He always said it was for my own protection.”
“So, what changed?” asked Sam. “How come you’re here?”
“I was supposed to keep an eye on your situation from Cairo. Father only agreed to that because Bassem was with me. But then I persuaded him we needed to come and help you.”
“So, we’ve got pyramids and alchemy. But how does Akhenaten fit in? Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
Sam thought back to his chat with Jenny. “The alchemy symbol for gold is the sun, and that was Akhenaten’s thing, right?”
“That’s right,” said Mary. “He banned all gods and made everyone worship the sun in Amarna.”
Sam nodded. “So maybe he took something to Amarna. Something from the pyramids. Something to do with alchemy.”
“My grandfather always thought the pyramids at Giza were empty shells,” said Mary. “I read it in one of the research papers he wrote when he was a student.”
“Your grandfather?”
“I told you this stuff was a family obsession. Jason Verulam was an Egyptologist before World War Two.”
“Did he die?”
“Yes, but not in the war. Although he might as well have. He came home from Egypt in some kind of shock and spent seventy-three years in a hospital bed, in a catatonic state. He only died this year.”
“Cata-what?”
“He was a vegetable. Couldn’t talk, move. It was like he was dead.”
“Sorry,” said Sam. “I know what it’s like to lose family.”
“No, Sam, it’s nothing like you losing your parents. I hardly knew my granddad. I didn’t know him at all, really. He was always just a body on the bed for me. But you know what’s interesting? After he died, my father found a key to a safe-deposit box, and the next day he got in touch with your uncle. I think my grandfather knew about the Panehesy.”
The conversation ended as Bassem signaled it was time to go by starting his bike and opening the garage door.
Mary grabbed one of the helmets on the second bike. “Come on,” she said, tossing it to Sam. “You’re riding with me.”
“And how come you get to drive?”
“You can have a go next time,” said Mary, strapping on her helmet.
“Oh sure, next time we’re in the desert looking for a missing World War Two ship, then I get to drive.”
Mary jumped onto the bike and hit the start button. As she revved the engine, she called out, “You’ll have to tell us whether we should go upriver or downriver from here.”
Sam still didn’t want to say too much, but he had to give in a little. “Up,” he said.
Mary nodded at Bassem. “Cool. We’ll get out of town, and then you can tell us more. If you trust me, that is,” she added with a wink.
* * *
THE OPPRESSIVE AFTERNOON HEAT HAD driven most people inside, which meant Bassem and Mary mainly had to contend with crazy car and truck drivers and not as many of the human dodge balls that are so common on Egyptian streets.
Sam’s previous quad experience totaled one hour in a field on a farm last year. It qu
ickly became obvious from the way Mary handled the bike that she had a lot more practice. Sam wasn’t so sure Bassem shared the same confidence in her abilities, because from the moment they left the safe house he kept turning to check on her. It took a while for Sam to work out he was actually checking behind them to make sure they weren’t being followed. After that Sam started doing the same thing, but not well enough it turned out, because it was Mary who spotted the tail.
“Don’t look, but we’re being followed,” Mary yelled.
“Does Bassem know?” Sam yelled back.
Up front Bassem appeared to be riding without a care in the world. He’d even dropped his left hand from the handlebar, so his arm was hanging at his side. An unremarkable act that went unnoticed by everyone except Mary and Sam, who saw that one finger of Bassem’s left hand was pointing at the intersection just ahead.
“Yep, he knows,” said Mary, and when Bassem opened the throttle and tore off up the road, she was right behind him.
Now that the game was on, Sam decided it was okay to turn and get a look at who was behind them: two men in matching black bike leathers on matching black dirt bikes. Their visors were down, so there was no way to know if one of them was the Short-Haired Man, and Sam was happy not to find out.
Bassem and Mary had gotten the jump on the bikers, who lost ground as they struggled to get around a truck full of goats. Sam lost sight of them as Mary took a hard left at the intersection.
They had pulled into a much narrower street with high brick walls lining each side. Bassem dismounted near the corner while Mary rode on a little farther before stopping. Then she and Sam turned to watch. This was where Mary’s minder had decided to make his stand, but Sam couldn’t work out how. Then the answer came when Bassem slid a long, telescopic steel rod out of the left arm of his leather jacket. The guy really did come prepared for anything.
The two bikes came around the corner single file. Bassem took one step back and flicked the rod up like a samurai presenting his sword to his opponent. As the first bike came toward him, he swung down and across in one smooth, vicious motion that caught the rider in the middle of his chest. He might as well have ridden into a brick wall.
As he flew backward and crashed onto the footpath, his bike rolled on as if it were happy to be free of its rider. The joy didn’t last long, however; the front wheel hit a gutter, and the bike somersaulted through the air like a mechanical dolphin, but without a graceful landing. Instead, there was the screeching of metal and splintering fiberglass as it hit the wall.
All this happened as the second rider came around the corner. He had only a couple of seconds to avoid a similar fate, but made good use of his time, veering wider than his mate and ducking to avoid the lethal sting of Bassem’s telescopic sword.
Having avoided certain injury, the rider raced on toward Mary and Sam, but the loss of his companion had left him with odds he didn’t like, and he sped on down the lane and disappeared around the next bend.
Bassem mounted his quad and motioned for Mary to do the same on hers.
“That was incredible,” said Sam as they cruised past the first rider sprawled out on the footpath. When they pulled up alongside Bassem, Sam intended to say something to the guy, but before he could, Bassem handed him two small apple-sized metal balls and took off down the main street.
“Grenades!? Why did he give me these?” asked Sam as Mary followed Bassem.
“Because he doesn’t think it’s over yet.”
17
HOT PURSUIT
BASSEM INCREASED THE PACE, AND as they raced through the streets, tantalizing glimpses of the Nile flashed between the buildings up ahead. Despite their speed Sam could feel the sun baking him through his jacket, but it wasn’t as intense as when they’d first left the safe house. But the drop in temperature had also brought the human dodge balls back out in force.
It was one of the crazy things Sam noticed in Cairo, and it appeared to be just as big in Al Minya: the endless supply of people prepared to throw their lives into the hands of others by making mad dashes across lanes full of speeding traffic. Perhaps it was the heat that made them want to get from A to B as fast as possible, and perhaps it was also the heat that fried any kind of sense out of them, because the majority of these street runners wouldn’t even wait for a decent gap in the traffic—they just ran. Sometimes they ran in groups, which at least made them easier to spot, but the really dangerous ones were the solo runners who could dart out into your lane from behind a truck at any time. For someone behind a wheel or handlebars it was either a fun way to test your reaction time or a nerve-fraying horror ride, depending on your state of mind. Mary dealt with Al Minya’s dodge balls well, but Sam was certain his role as backseat spotter was helping her along. He got so caught up in it that he stopped checking behind them. Luckily, Bassem hadn’t.
They were on a wide road running parallel with the Nile when Sam noticed they were reaching the outskirts of town. The buildings started getting shorter and dirtier. Human bowling pins were still taking their chances, but there weren’t as many. Soon they were passing small herds of goats and donkeys. Sam had seen the same thing in Cairo plenty of times, but the farther along the road they went, the more livestock they encountered. Then Sam saw why. They had arrived at the Al Minya Stock Market. Perhaps they weren’t heading out into the desert on the quads after all, he thought. Maybe Bassem was planning on taking them old school, on horses or camels, because Sam couldn’t see another reason for bringing them here.
Mary followed her minder across a parking lot that had been converted into a massive animal pen. Small herds of goats and donkeys had been roped off into separate blocks, each one tended by a sun-ravaged man. They navigated their way down the narrow aisles, between the live produce.
Bassem’s destination was a battered old truck loaded with goats. The bikes swung around behind it, and Sam assumed they were going to get off, but Bassem didn’t. Instead, he leaned across the handlebars and peered between the wooden slats as if he were inspecting the goats. Mary copied him, and Sam, not wanting to be the odd one out, did the same. It was only then that he saw Bassem had brought them to the perfect spot to view the market undetected. They hadn’t come to dump the bikes; they’d come to dump their tail.
Right on cue one of the black-clad bikers rode in through the gate. It had to be the second guy. He rolled slowly into the market, scanning the crowded square. Sitting there in full leathers on his slick dirt bike, he looked completely out of place. Sam couldn’t work out why the lone biker wasn’t attracting more stares from the old men scattered among the stock, but then it occurred to him this market had been here for hundreds of years. They’d probably seen it all.
The rider moved farther into the square, using his legs to roll the bike forward as he twisted his head left and right, searching for his prey. It seemed obvious to Sam that the guy was about to give up, and if he rode on, it would bring him straight to their hiding place. Why were they just sitting there watching? Shouldn’t they be getting clear of the place? Sam turned to ask Bassem what he had in mind, but he didn’t have to. The answer was in his hands: two hand grenades, like the ones he had given Sam.
“You can’t do that!” protested Sam in a whisper, but it was too late. As he spoke, Bassem pulled the pins and lobbed the two green balls up and over the top of the truck.
“Throw yours,” demanded Mary, but Sam had his eyes shut and his hands over his ears, ready for the blast. Mary dug her hands into Sam’s pockets, fished out his grenades, and repeated Bassem’s action. By the time they landed, the first two had already gone off, and chaos had exploded in the square.
High-pitched shrieks from goats, donkeys, and men combined. It was like a bomb going off on Noah’s Ark. A smoke bomb. Four of them. Sam opened his eyes, peered through the wooden slats, and caught a brief glimpse of the clouds of thick white and green smoke billowing into the air, and then all trace of the market was gone with only the earsplitting noise to tell the story.
Mary started her quad, and they moved off behind Bassem, sticking close because the drifting smoke had cut visibility down to a few feet. A family of stampeding goats charged for the same alleyway the quads were heading for, but they were the lucky few. Back at ground zero it was a densely packed mass of men and animals, and trapped in the middle of them was a very pissed off guy on a dirt bike.
The alley they were in ran the length of the market. As they got farther from the square, the smoke melted away and the cries and bleats faded. The end of the alley was the end of the market, and after that was just the desert. That’s where Bassem was leading them.
Mary gunned the quad as they hit the first sand dune. She guided the machine up the slope like an expert. As they crested the first rise, Bassem was already halfway down the other side. Mary took this as a challenge, squeezing more power out of the bike. She slotted into Bassem’s tracks and raced down the hill after him. Eager not to give the impression that the speed was freaking him out, Sam hadn’t been holding Mary too tightly, but now his instinct for self-preservation overruled his ego, and he gripped her a little firmer around the waist. By the third dune he was more relaxed and really starting to enjoy the ride.
* * *
THEY WERE RIDING A TAN-COLORED ocean with peaks and troughs of sand worn smooth by the wind. Sam had always wanted to ride quads in the desert, but it never quite happened. There was always a museum to see or a boring dig to help out on.
That was the thing about his vacations in Egypt: They felt like an extension of school. Jasper had always acted more like a teacher than family, and that hurt. In the background, Sam always had the nagging feeling that his uncle hadn’t really wanted to take on the role of guardian.
Sam pushed those thoughts from his mind. None of them mattered now. His uncle was in trouble, and time was running out. He had to find Jasper fast.
That’s when he began to worry about the direction they were going. Sam hadn’t told Mary the exact location of the Panehesy, only that it was upriver, but now they were heading away from the Nile. Sam decided to stay silent. Mary and Bassem hadn’t let him down yet, so there had to be a reason they were going this way.
