by Gregg Loomis
Gurt sidestepped onto a neighbor’s lawn. “Tell your ‘superiors’ they were right.”
The man was becoming exasperated. “Look, lady, I don’t want any trouble…”
“Then go away and take the man behind me with you.”
“No one is going to hurt you.”
The voice came from behind.
Gurt turned to look at the man in the overcoat. “Tell that to the man in the pond in the park down there.”
Overcoat’s face became blank. “What man?”
Gurt took a heavy breath. “The man your housekeeping department is going to have to remove before someone finds the body.”
Overcoat gave a chuckle that had about as much warmth as his partner’s smile. “Oh, that man! There’s no body, although there might be if he doesn’t recover from the tranquilizer dart in time to get out of the water before he freezes. Now, are you coming with us?”
He made a grab for Manfred, who yelped in fright.
Whether it was the sound, the motion or both, the child’s reaction caused another.
With a snarl, Grumps dove into Overcoat, sinking his teeth into the man’s ankle. With a shriek of pain, he hobbled backward, dog still attached, as he tried to pry Grumps loose.
Gurt no longer had to think, just act.
With a shove, she sent the tramp’s grocery cart slamming into his midsection, doubling him over with a whoosh of expelled air. Clinching her hands together above her head, she used the combined strength of both arms to bring them down on the back of his head. A few inches lower would have snapped his spine like a rotted stick of wood, but that was not her intent. Instead, she was content to smash his face into the rails of the grocery cart. She thought she heard the cartilage that was his nose snap, but she had no time to be certain.
Turning to where Overcoat was trying to both shake his leg free of the growling Grumps and land a kick with the other, she gave the grossly unbalanced man a shove that sent him sprawling on the icy ground. She took a step back and landed a kick of her own that, if it missed his crotch, was close enough for him to roll into a protective fetal ball.
Reaching down, she removed the Glock from his shoulder holster before stepping over to where the other man was still on the sidewalk groaning, hands to a face that was a bloody mask. She took his weapon, too.
“Grumps! Enough!”
An observer of the Marquess of Queensberry rules, Grumps let go with a parting bark.
“Grumps bit the bad man,” Manfred chortled gleefully.
For the moment, Gurt ignored him. “Gentlemen,” she called sweetly. “Gentlemen! I’ll have your attention before anyone gets seriously hurt.”
With eyes brimming equally with pain and hatred, they stared at her as she slowly unlocked the clip of each gun and thumbed the bullets onto the ground. Stooping, she retrieved each and dumped them into the pocket of her coat. “Please tell whoever sent you I am quite capable of taking care of myself. Any questions about that?”
She was not surprised there were none.
“Is good, then.” She tossed each man his empty pistol. “Our business is finished, yes?”
Again, no answer.
And the Chevy Suburban was gone.
Cemetery of Terra Santa
The last of those who had been trapped in the burial chamber were climbing the rope ladder out of it as Rossi put a friendly arm around Lang’s shoulders. “Once again, Mr. Couch, Dr. Roth, you have saved my life.”
Lang saw no reason to point out that in both instances it had been he, not the archaeologist, who had been the target of an assassination attempt. “Glad to be of service.”
“Do you suppose I shall ever learn who you really are?”
This time it was Lang who shrugged. “Does it matter?”
A parade of police cars squalled to a stop in the adjacent street, their sirens muttering to silence, lights flashing.
Rossi took a glance at the new arrivals. “I would guess you do not want to be involved with the authorities?”
“You would be right.”
“Then merge with the rest of the crew.” He seemed to hesitate a moment before reaching into a pocket and handing Lang the small plastic bag in which he had earlier placed the object tentatively identified as a button. “I guess the police will detain us with questions for the remainder of the day. I do not want to risk losing this before we can relate it to the dig. Could you deliver this to the museum for safekeeping?”
“Sure.”
Without examining it, Lang shoved the baggie into his pocket as he headed for the tent that served as headquarters and to the still-jabbering, milling crew.
No less than six cars emptied officers wearing the winter khaki of the municipal police and black of the assault-rifle-carrying Central Security Forces. They surrounded the area of the dig. Lang wasn’t going to just fade into the background as he had hoped.
Two men were in plain clothes. Rossi’s crew, both Italians and Egyptians, chattered in a polyglot tumult of languages and dialects. Piecing words and phrases together, Lang understood four men in Bedouin robes had appeared at the dig. Two had held the crew at gunpoint while the other two had detonated some sort of explosive. There were nearly as many versions of what had happened thereafter as there were those telling them.
Lang had left the QBZ in the mausoleum. There had been too many witnesses to his brief gun battle with the Asian in the robes. Even in the confusion that was likely to reign for hours, the police were going to seek him out at some point. His main concern was slipping away from the scene unnoticed before then. Although he had little doubt his forged passport back at the hotel would survive scrutiny, being detained had unhealthy implications. He was fairly certain the attempt to kill all those belowground had been aimed specifically at him, and at least two of the four who had made the effort were still at large. In the custody of the police, he would be an easy target.
Within minutes, Rossi was engaged in an animated conversation in English with one of the men in plain clothes while the other wore a dubious expression as he peered into the chamber below. Lang reached the tent, glancing around. He spied a camera, one used to photograph objects in situ. Slinging the camera’s strap around his neck, it took him only a few minutes to find a pen and pad. So equipped, he approached Rossi and his interrogator.
He shouldered his way between them, holding up his wallet so only the archaeologist could see he was showing nothing more than a driver’s license. “Dr. Rossi? I’m Ben Towles, Egyptian correspondent for the New York Times.”
As verification of his bona fides, Lang thrust the camera into Rossi’s face, snapping a picture before doing the same to the policeman. He had no idea if the paper even had such a position on its staff but he was fairly sure the Egyptian cop didn’t either. Rossi’s eyes opened wide in surprise, his expression showing he thought there was a chance Lang had gone nuts.
Lang didn’t give him an opportunity to express that or any other opinion. “I understand you were involved in a shooting just a few minutes ago. Do you think Muslim fundamentalists were involved?”
Rossi cleared his throat, giving himself an extra second to think. “Er, I do not know. I…”
The policeman was taking a few seconds of his own to recover from the surprise of having a reporter interrupt a police investigation. A member of Egypt’s own media would have expected to have his skull cracked for such impertinence, but the influence and power of American news was as world famous as its insolence. The last thing the officer wanted was a diplomatic incident on his hands.
He finally asserted himself, showing a badge. “And I,” he said in British-accented English, “am Major Hafel Saleem of the Alexandria security police. I have many questions for this man. You may ask yours when I am finished.”
“But I have a deadline,” Lang protested, shoving the major aside. “What kind of fascist regime does Egypt have? Have you never heard of freedom of the press?”
It was exactly the wrong thing to say, whi
ch of course was the right thing, under the circumstances.
Major Hafel Saleem’s eyes burned into Lang’s as the policeman grabbed him by the shirtfront. “You are not in America; you are in Egypt. Your precious ‘freedom of the press’ does not run police investigations here. I do.” He shoved Lang, sending him stumbling backward. “Now get out of my sight before I decide to have you arrested for interfering with a police investigation!”
Lang considered threatening a complaint to the American embassy or any of the things the American media is likely to do when confronted with a system where the Fourth Estate is treated as less than privileged. He decided he had achieved his goal and didn’t need an arrest or a beating to go with it. Doing his best imitation of sullen, he slunk away to the street to hail one of the city’s ubiquitous cabs.
Minutes later, the car was stalled in traffic, surrounded by exhaust fumes, noise and smells Lang did not want to even try to identify.
He hardly noticed. How in hell had those guys known where he was? He had taken a random cab to be less obvious than the Mercedes. During the ride, he had taken a look behind the taxi, making reasonably sure they were not followed. Admittedly, in Alexandria’s traffic, a tail would be as difficult to spot as to maintain. He had told no one where he was going. Even if Rossi’s message had been read before delivery to him… No, there had been no time or date.
Then what…? He was recalling every move he had made since arrival here.
The call to Manfred on the BlackBerry!
How careless can you get?
The thought brought him straight up in the cab’s seat. All cell phones, including this one, communicated with one or more relay facilities when taking or making a call. For that matter, the phone, even not in use, was constantly searching for the nearest relay station. Where there were a number of relays, as in a city, the search signals could be triangulated to place the particular cell phone in an area of a few square feet.
He took the BlackBerry from his shirt pocket, scowling at it accusingly. His first impulse was to throw the perfidious device out of the cab’s window. Second thought gave him a better idea. He leaned forward and changed the directions he had given the cabby.
The taxi pulled up in front of a DHL office whose red and yellow logo announced its ability to deliver anywhere worldwide. The criterion Lang had requested had been somewhat more simple: the closest shipping office, FedEx, UPS or DHL. The cab stopped at the curb, provoking a cacophony of angry horns, which the driver ignored along with the shouted insults and rude gestures of Alexandria’s ever-impatient drivers.
Minutes later, Lang was back in the cab, his BlackBerry on a voyage of its own. He could only hope the battery lasted long enough to complete its way to a weather station in Chilean Patagonia, that isolated end of the world where South America yields to Antarctica. He remembered the area from a map he had once perused. Spanish names that translated into things like Desolation Land, Gulf of Sorrows, Cape of Torments.
Just the places you’d want your enemies to visit.
Cemetery of Terra Santa
An hour later
Major Hafel Saleem of the Alexandria security police was frustrated. He had gotten 90 percent of the pertinent facts in the first twenty minutes of his arrival at the cemetery. The other 10 percent, perhaps the most important 10 percent, eluded him.
Four men in Bedouin attire had appeared at the site of a duly permitted archaeological dig. Nothing unusual about that. There were always these types of explorations going on around the city. The four men had suddenly produced weapons. Not as rare an event as the major would like to think. These desert nomads were frequently armed, if not with firearms, then with knives. Violence was not uncommon. Insults, real or imagined, to family, feuds, vengeance, it really didn’t matter. They killed or maimed each other on a regular basis. The only truly unusual facet of the incident was the unique automatic weapon in the burial chamber. Saleem had never seen one quite like it.
At one time it had been the major’s hope that Egypt’s Bedouins would eventually be so successful in killing each other, there would be none left. But alas, they moved to the city and took up city ways, peacefully stealing and cheating each other instead of killing.
But the men with the weapons at this site had not come to kill other Bedouins. In fact, the dead man and the one who had fallen into the hole weren’t Bedouins at all. Though the dead man, the one shot by the American, was beyond the major’s interrogation techniques, the living one was not. The fact he had broken a bone or two in the fall would ensure he would answer questions with less effort on the major’s part.
Saleem was confident that before calls to evening prayer blared from the mosques’ minarets, he would know who these men were, why they had attempted to either drown or suffocate a dozen or so people, and other matters of interest, particularly who the American was.
Antonio Rossi, the Italian in charge of this dig, had been cooperative but less than helpful. The American’s name was Henry Roth, supposedly an archaeologist from one of those big American universities, the one in California. Saleem had phoned this information into his staff for verification by Internet or otherwise, only to learn within minutes (1) there were several big universities in California, (2) none of them were currently involved in a dig in Alexandria, Egypt, (3) all but one had never heard of, much less employed, a Dr. Roth in their archaeological departments, and (4) the university that did employ a Dr. Roth (whose name was Harold, not Henry) insisted he had been on campus that very day.
The major’s Dr. Roth was a guise, then.
So, who was the American who had done the shooting and, if not one of the scientists, why was he here?
The suggestion that Dr. Rossi’s complicity in allowing the American, posing as a reporter, to vanish would prevent him from ever obtaining another permit to dig in Egypt had elicited only scraps of information, the most useful of which was that he, the American, had arrived today.
Assuming this elusive American had used the same name, all the police had to do was check the registrations reported by the city’s hotels.
This American might or might not have committed a crime, but he certainly had information Saleem wanted, information he would get once the American was found.
Le Metropole Hotel
At the same time
Lang entered the hotel and headed straight for the elevators. He had almost crossed the lobby when he noted the desk clerk frantically signaling to him. Lang detoured.
The clerk gave Lang an obsequiously oily smile. “Wonderful news, Dr. Roth! I have personally had some things… how do you Americans say? Moved around? Yes, moved around. I had things moved around and your room will be available the rest of the week.”
Lang had forgotten his earlier request. “I’ve had a change of plans. How quickly can you get my bill ready? It shouldn’t take long, as the room was prepaid.”
The smile vanished as if by magic, to be replaced by a petulant frown. “Dr. Roth, I and my staff…”
Lang held up a silencing hand, digging in a pocket with the other. “I can imagine the effort involved.” He produced a money clip and peeled off fifty American dollars. “Have my bill ready to pay by the time I get back here from my room and it’s still yours.”
How hard could that be? He’d only had a single beer from the minibar.
The return of the smile was like the sun peeking out from fading storm clouds. “Of course, Dr. Roth. Shall I send someone to fetch your luggage?”
“Not necessary!” Lang called over his shoulder as he dashed to beat the closing doors of an elevator.
In his room, he stuck a hand in his pocket, groping until he remembered the BlackBerry was no longer there. He cursed silently as he snatched his open bag from the closet and began to hurriedly repack the few items he had taken from it. That cop from the cemetery would be looking for Dr. Henry Roth in the near future, and Dr. Roth had sudden urgent business elsewhere.
His bag nearly packed, he glanced into the sp
acious bath. He would have loved a soothing shower, letting steaming hot water remove the grit of the dig as well as the patina of mud from the rising water. No time. He’d have to settle for washing his face and a quick change of clothes. No telling when the local fuzz might show up.
He splashed cold water on his face and, eyes closed, groped for a towel. He grabbed his discarded shirt and pants to cram them into his suitcase before zipping it shut. He felt something small and hard in a pocket. The thing Rossi had found in the corridor before the trouble had started.
He took it from the pocket, opened the baggie and dumped the object into his palm. Sure looked like a button, but he couldn’t be sure because of all the dirt caked on it. His curiosity battled against his desire for a speedy exit. He needed to leave now, but when would he have the chance to find out what he was really holding?
He stepped back into the bath, turned on the sink’s spigot and held the object under it. Using a thumbnail to help scrape away the grime, he soon saw metal tarnished the color of mint. No doubt it was a button, a brass button. On the front was the number twelve, surrounded by branches of… what? Olive? Laurel?
He was not sure he could have told the difference between the two if he had held real leaves in his hand, but the design was one he had seen before.
He turned it over, holding it up to the light to make out the letters. “Fonson amp; Co.” arched across the top. Under the loop by which the button would be attached, “Brux.”
But where?
No time now.
Returning the button to its bag and both to his pocket, he zipped the single suitcase shut. Then he picked up the room’s phone, entering the number for the front desk.
“Yes, Dr. Roth?”
“I’d like for you to make a call for me.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Lang took the limo driver’s card from his wallet, reading the number. “And would you tell him I need him in about five minutes?”
