Still her eyes were shut, still she attempted to remove herself mentally from the situation, still she failed. She fell backward onto the deck and her soft flesh slapped noisily upon the cold wood. She felt her legs bend at the knees and then move upward, spreading widely apart as they moved. She felt her hands caress her vulva, felt them pulling her labial petals deftly apart, felt them move up and down within the moist entrance to her womb. Then she felt her hands fall numbly to her sides as she lay motionless and exposed.
God, she thought, God, God . . .
Sekhemib lifted his arm slowly and pointed down at the pitiful creature which lay motionless upon her back, motionless but for the terrified trembling which racked her frame. "Take her!" he commanded loudly in the ancient language.
The crew did not understand the words, but the gesture and the condition of the woman made clear the meaning. They pounced on her like a pack of wolves falling upon a wounded fawn.
CHAPTER 14
It was difficult to say which form of life was the dominant one on the streets of Cairo, human or insect. They both seemed to buzz about ubiquitously, incessantly, in numbers so vast as to startle even the most worldly-wise urbanite. There are times in any large metropolis when the streets are filled with people and other times when the city streets are relatively quiet, but not so in Cairo. One can stroll down Wall Street in New York City early in the morning and revel in the quiet seclusion amid the towering buildings; a stroll along the Strand in London in the wee hours of Sunday morning affords a peaceful respite from the hustle and bustle of the city; when the cafes of the left bank area of Paris finally close their doors and shutters to keep out the rays of the rising sun, there is peace; even that street of permanent carnival, the Kurfurstendamm in Berlin, slumbers at last as the first solar rays touch the broken steeple of the Kaiser Wilhelm Church; but Cairo never rests, Cairo never sleeps. As if from some vast subterranean hold, the city vomits forth people and insects and dogs and cats and birds incessantly, hour after hour, day after day, an endless line of humanity surrounded by an endless array of animal life, constantly moving and shouting and buzzing and filling the narrow medieval streets with the crowded boisterousness of permanent activity.
By any standard but that of Egypt, Cairo is an old city. When it was founded in A.D. 969 by the Fatimid general Juahar, London and Paris were mud holes, nomads still fished in the MoskvaRiver, and the Manahatta Indians still hunted wild turkeys along the banks of the Hudson. When the world's most important Moslem university was founded three years later in the great mosque of El Azhar, Berlin was still a collection of wooden huts, Vienna was a border town and the illiterate Scandinavians were still trying to decide if Odin or Christ was the more powerful deity. When the great citadel of Saladin—the great tower which still affords a commanding view of the sprawling metropolis—was built in 1179, most of Holland was still under water, and the rulers of England were still French-speaking vikings.
By the standards of general humanity, Cairo is old; but by the standards of Egypt, it is a parvenu, a recent arrival, a possibly temporary place of congregation for Egypt's teeming millions. Just south of Cairo are the ruins of the ancient capital of Memphis, which was old when the first alphabet was imported to Europe; just north of Cairo are the ruins of On, which the Greeks called Heliopolis, which was old when Memphis was young; just west of Cairo are the great pyramids of Giza, which were old before the Europeans had the wheel. The ruins of the ancient past surround Cairo, reminding the Cairenes that their city is young in the annals of mankind.
Like all Middle Eastern cities, Cairo grew erratically and irrationally. There is no city center per se, though the area around the palaces of the defunct dynasty of Mehemet Ali Pasha serves as a central reference point. A few Western-inspired skyscrapers thrust up oddly from the midst of the squat nineteenth-century buildings which house businesses, government offices, hashish houses, whore houses, and millions of people. The address numbers and street names follow no logical sequence, and a foreigner in Cairo for the first time is hard-pressed to find anything for which he is looking without paying the exorbitant fees charged by the cab drivers and street urchins who derive so large a portion of their livelihoods from the confusion and chaos which is Cairo.
Of course, the amount of money that was sufficient to feed an Egyptian family for a week was merely pocket money for the Earl of Selwyn. He, Thomas Sawhill, and Samuel Goldhaber had not even finished unpacking their bags at the Cairo Hilton when Roderick had begun to make inquiries as to the location of the offices of the National Institute of Reclamation. Neither the desk clerk nor the bellboy had ever heard of it, but that was not surprising. Given the true nature and purpose of the organization, it was not to be expected that its activities would be highly publicized.
As Roderick and Thomas Sawhill sat in their hotel suite trying to work out a course of action, Sam went out and enlisted the assistance of a sun-baked, half-naked, lice-ridden ragamuffin whose sole appellation seemed to be the given name Faz. Sam had no difficulty finding this local assistant, for he had not walked ten feet outside the hotel before he was surrounded by a throng of begging children. Faz was the loudest and the most aggressive, and Sam decided that he would serve the purpose well.
He took Faz into the outdoor café beside the hotel and bought him a bowl of soup and a soft drink. He smiled kindly at the boy, feeling a bit sad at the type of life the child must be living. Faz was obviously part of the vast underclass of Egyptian society, and the grinning, bright-eyed boy was, Sam knew, destined to a life of poverty, hard labor, malnourishment, disease, and early death. He forced himself to remember that this was the fate of the overwhelming bulk of the human race and quickly squelched any urges to take the child permanently under his wing.
He waited until the boy had finished eating before beginning to explain what he wanted, knowing that the boy's attention would be riveted on the food anyway. When the last drop of soup had been licked from the bowl and the last bit of Coca-Cola had been consumed, Faz sat back contentedly and said in his gutter Arabic, "Effendi is kind and generous. Allah will bless him."
"That is my hope," Sam replied. His knowledge of Arabic was deep, but like most scholars, his familiarity was restricted to its classic form, and he knew that he sounded as strange to the boy as the boy sounded to him. But language is but a medium for expression, and as long as each understood the other the differences were of no importance. "But now you must assist me, and for your assistance you shall be well paid."
"I am your servant, effendi," the boy said eagerly, his eyes lighting up at the thought of payment. This will probably be the best job the boy will ever have, Sam thought sadly.
"Faz, I need for you to locate an address for me and possibly to watch the people who come and go at that address, but you must do this without anyone knowing that you are doing it. It is very important that no one sees you or suspects you. Can you manage to do this?"
"Of course, effendi!" he replied proudly. "I have lived by my wits all my life. I once picked the pocket of a policeman as he was arresting me for picking pockets, and I bribed him with his own money!"
Sam repressed a chuckle. "Good. My friends and I are seeking the National Institute of Reclamation, which is said to be somewhere on the street of the potters, but we cannot find this street." He reached into his pocket and took out some of the large, tissuey paper money of the country. He peeled off five bills and handed them to Faz. "Here is five pounds. When you bring me the information I need, when you lead my friends and me to this institute, I will give you another five pounds, and if we need you to spy for us you will be paid yet again. Agreed?"
Faz was almost salivating over the money. Five Egyptian pounds translated into only $3.75 in American currency, but it was a small fortune to a child in a land where the per capita income was only $600 per year. "Allah has truly looked down with kindness upon this miserable servant," the child cackled gleefully. "May Allah bless effendi in all his generations."
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p; Sam smiled at the poetry in the mouths of even the most uneducated in this part of the world. "Now listen carefully, Faz. You must find the National Institute of Reclamation on the street of the potters and then return here. Tell the man at the desk that you have information for a man named Selwyn."
"Al-sewin," he repeated imperfectly.
"Close enough. I will tell him to call me when you return. Now be off, and go quickly." He had not yet finished his sentence when the boy leaped from his chair and scurried off into the human sea which thronged the street before the cafe.
Sam tossed a few coins onto the tabletop to pay for the boy's meal and then returned to the hotel, forcing himself to ignore the legion of children who followed him. It would be unwise to become known as an easy touch, for clandestine operation would be made rather difficult if he were followed everywhere by a crowd of beggars. He entered the hotel lobby and walked over to the desk. The desk clerk smiled at him. "Back so soon, Mister Goldhaber?"
"Yes. Listen, sometime today a little boy, a street boy, will come with information for the Earl of Selwyn. Please admit him and call us immediately."
"My pleasure, sir," the clerk said, forcing a smile. The prospect of an unwashed urchin in the lobby of his precious hotel was not a pleasant one; but the fees and gratuities which would be provided by a British nobleman outweighed the distaste the desk clerk felt for his social inferiors. "I shall call your suite immediately when the child arrives."
"Thank you," Sam said, and went over to the elevator. As he waited for the doors to swish open he reflected briefly upon the incredible economic inequity of the so-called developing countries. The world which he knew, even the luxurious world of this hotel building, was as far from the imagination of a child like Faz as was possible.
He told the elevator boy his floor number after he entered the elevator and stood quietly as they began the slow ascent. He exited the elevator and walked quickly to the door to their room, entering to find Roderick on the phone to room service and Sawhill pacing nervously back and forth in front of the window. Sawhill turned expectantly when he heard Sam enter. "Well?"
"I hired a spy," he said, smiling. "A street kid named Faz. He's off trying to find the institute right now, and I think he has enough savvy and street sense to do it without arousing any suspicion."
"Good, good," Sawhill said. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes.
"I thought you gave them up years ago."
"I did," Sawhill muttered as he lighted one. "Ten years ago." He offered no explanation as to why he has resumed the habit, but Sam could guess.
"I've sent for some victuals," Roderick said. "This bloody hotel has no menus in the rooms, so I told the clerk to use his own judgment. God knows what we'll get." He walked to the window and looked out at the sprawling city. "Horrible place, Cairo. It's hard to believe that my ancestor the ninth Earl spent years here."
"It was probably worse then than it is now," Sam remarked. "We at least have air-conditioning and running water in this hotel."
"Yeah, yeah," Sawhill said impatiently. "What will we do when we find out where the institute is?" He was in no mood for small talk or casual conversation. He had been a nervous wreck for the past week, ever since Interpol had contacted them to inform them about the incident in the French port city of Brest. It had taken a very imaginative and thoughtful European police officer to make the connection between the Liberian freighter, the American woman, the diminutive Arab dispensing bribes right and left, and the urgent report sent to them by the Greenfield Town Council through the FBI about the kidnapping of Harriet Langly. Even now there was no certainty that she was the woman who had been involved in the strange altercation with the gendarme; but the sudden loss of control by the policeman over his own body was enough to convince Sawhill that Sekhemib had been there. The American knew from personal experience what it was like to have self-control wrenched away by the will of the ancient priest.
Sam did not reply to Sawhill's question immediately. Instead, he reached into his suitcase, which still lay open but unpacked upon one of the beds, and took out a pile of clothes. "The first thing we're going to do is dress differently. Here." He tossed one folded garment to Roderick and a second to Sawhill. "I picked these up at the airport tourist shop."
Roderick held the garment by the top and allowed it to unfold itself downward. "Oh, I say! Local clothing?"
"Yes," Sam said. "It's called a galabia. Local style of kaftan. We can't very well walk around in Western clothes and expect not to be noticed."
Roderick held the simple eggshell-colored galabia up against his body and appraised himself in the mirror which hung above the bureau. Noticing his fair hair, he shook his head. "I don't know if this will make much difference."
"Better than nothing," Sam pointed out.
"Okay, okay, so we wear kaftans. Then what? What will we do when we find out where the institute is?" Sawhill repeated tensely.
The search thus far had been a long series of frustrations and false trails. It had taken them days back in the United States to get the necessary visas, and Sawhill became almost hysterical when he found that his passport had lapsed the year before. Another day was wasted renewing it. Another day and a half was taken up by the flight from New York to Cairo, with everything from the traffic on the Major Deegan Expressway to the backed-up air traffic over KennedyAirport seeming to conspire against them.
When they finally reached Cairo for the first time, they found that the official address for the institute was a warehouse near the wharves, empty, deserted, and apparently never really used. It had taken them more time to learn of the institute's location on the street of the potters, but they could then find no clue as to the location of that street. A false report to the effect that the ship had docked at Port Said led them to leave Cairo and travel north, where they were further diverted to Alexandria by yet another false report. After thus wasting precious time, they had returned to Cairo this morning, realizing at last that in this world of baksheesh and circumbendibus a local guide and confederate was a necessity, not a luxury. And so Sam had found Faz.
As Sawhill pulled the galabia over his head, he asked, "Well?"
"What will we do?" Sam said. "We have a number of courses of action open to us. We can try to work with the authorities and get arrest warrants—"
"And get ourselves locked away as lunatics," Roderick finished for him. "Next option?"
"We can use force, abduct someone of importance at the institute and hold him as an exchange for Harriet."
"No, that's no good," Sawhill muttered. "We don't have any weapons, and buying any here would be next to impossible. We'd land in jail, and I for one have no desire to see the inside of a Middle Eastern prison. Besides, I don't think that human life means very much to these people. We can't coerce them by kidnapping one of them."
"And I doubt that any sort of force would be effective against Sekhemib," Roderick added, "considering his rather unusual mental abilities."
"You have a gift for understatement," Sam said. "I know. I've been thinking about this and I've rejected both of these options."
"So?" Sawhill asked. "What should we do? I know I should have a plan of my own worked out, but I just can't think straight."
"I know, Tom," Sam said kindly. "It's hard to keep the mind working logically in the middle of all this insanity. But I have an idea."
"Shoot," Sawhill said.
"Well, when Faz returns with the information, I think Roderick should go there and pose as, say, an antique dealer with antiquities he might be willing to sell to the institute."
"Fine with me," Roderick commented, "but what purpose would that serve?"
"I'm not sure, really. But you might be able to pick up something of use, some information which might help us locate their real center of operation."
Sawhill frowned. "Sam, that isn't much of a plan!"
"That isn't all of it, either." He sat down in the large overstuffed chair which
stood beside the table. "This little fellow is willing and able to spy for us. Interpol told Jasper that the institute's chairman is named—what was the name again?"
"Haftoori," Roderick said, consulting a small notebook which he pulled from his pocked. "Haleel Haftoori."
"Right, Haftoori. If we can locate Haftoori, we can eventually locate the others because he is the head honcho of this cult of theirs. We have Faz follow him and get word to us when he leaves Cairo. Then we follow him to Harriet."
"But what if he doesn't leave Cairo?" Sawhill asked plaintively. "What if this holy place Hadji talked about is right here someplace? We could be sitting in front of his home, waiting for him to leave, while he's killing Harriet in his living room!"
"No, Rim, it can't be like that. Hadji's holy place has to be somewhere old, a lot older than Cairo or Alexandria or any of the other major cities here. None of them go back to ancient times. All the ancient cities are in ruins, and if there is an ancient holy place, it must be either somewhere in the ruins or somewhere out in the desert. That's where he's going to have to go."
"And what if he already has?" Roderick asked. "What if his presence isn't necessary for the cult to do whatever the hell they do? What if he isn't even part of the cult, what if he's just an ignorant figurehead? There are a lot of ifs involved, Sam."
"I know," he nodded, "and if any of them are correct, then we've failed, and Harriet is lost."
There was a depressing and ominous finality about these last few words, and the three men were silent for a few moments. Roderick broke the quiet at last by saying, "Well, I suppose we have to operate under the assumption that none of the ifs are correct. But I must say that I can't see much purpose in my posing as an antique dealer. That is to say, we don't want to attract attention to ourselves, do we?"
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