‘It’s coming from somewhere down the valley,’ said Clay.
Before he could finish another flurry of shots reverberated through the hills. The woman was standing, too, looking down into the valley. The man made to start down in the direction of the shots but the woman reached out and grabbed his arm, held him fast. From here they could hear her voice, high-pitched, insistent. She was shouting at him.
Rania was up now, moving quickly across the barren ground. Clay drew his G21, chambered a round, followed. With every step closer, their chances got better. Rania knew this. The pair was fixed on whatever was happening below in the valley, and seemed unaware of their approach.
Clay and Rania were fifty metres away, crossing open ground, when the firing started again. This time it was intense and sustained, dozens of detonations echoing and dying among the rocks. The man shrugged off the woman’s hold, stepped to the lip of the hollow and raised his AK in one hand above his head. Then he started shouting. He waved his arms above his head, back and forth. The shooting lulled a moment, then intensified, filling the valley. The man pointed his AK skywards, let go a burst. Spent cartridges spilled around him. They were close enough now that they could hear him.
‘Brothers,’ he screamed, almost hoarse now. ‘Brothers, stop. What are you doing? Brothers, no.’
Clay stopped, went down on one knee, raised his weapon, steadied it on his forearm. Rania was ahead of him, off to one side. The man and the woman were still looking down into the valley, their backs turned. He had a clear shot. Thirty-five metres. He sighted, took a deep breath.
Just then the woman turned, faced them. She screamed. The man pivoted, started bringing his AK down and around.
F = M(dv/dt)
Time slowed. Seconds spun out into eternity.
Clay could see the man’s hand tense around the AK’s pistol grip, the tendons starting to flex, the woman’s shriek hanging there in the terse viscosity of the stilled air, the blood creeping winter-slow in his own veins, everything mountain-clear and definitive.
Clay tightened his finger down on the Glock’s trigger.
That was all it took. This smallest of movements. The force required miniscule – insufficient to lift a pen. Three times, one-fifth of a second apart.
The first round clipped the man’s shoulder. The second hit his right leg just above the knee. A spray of red mist erupted from high on his chest as the third bullet hit. The man toppled back to the ground, the AK cartwheeling over the stones.
The woman shouted something, darted towards the weapon. Clay fired again, hit the AK where it lay. The woman’s outstretched hand jerked back as two more rounds sent shattered stone whirring around her. Rania screamed for him to stop, sprinted forwards until she was steps away from the woman.
Below, the shooting had lulled, took on a cadenced rhythm, slow and methodical. Muffled screams filled the silence between detonations. Clay reached the edge of the ridge, looked down into the valley. The air was so clear he could see every detail. The sunlight shining on the fractured sandstone slopes. The broad valley opening up onto the deep green of the Nile valley. Hatshetsup’s temple, its ranked gods and carved pillars set in perfect geometry. Near the top of the first stairway he could see a cluster of people, three of them, lying motionless. Cameras, bags and hats littered the ground around them. Dark stains haloed the bodies, deep red against the near-white sandstone. His heart tripped, shuddered. Further up, near the first bank of pillars, a woman sat propped up against a column, looking out towards the Nile. Her face and the front of her dress were lit by the morning sun. Inside the temple, tourists were running in every direction. A collective scream surged across the hills.
Clay could see that there was no escape. The tourists were hemmed in by the high walls of the temple. A man in a black police uniform and wearing a red bandana around his head stood at the only exit, brandishing an AK47. Inside, four other men, similarly dressed, walked among the screaming tourists, shooting them one by one. The police were nowhere to be seen.
Clay stood on the ridge, waved his arms above his head and shouted down into the valley. He raised his gun, fired off three quick rounds. If the attackers could see him or hear him, they paid no attention. The killing continued, slow and methodical. Clay counted at least thirty bodies now. From here he could see at least as many tourists running or hiding in various parts of the temple. Unless the police arrived soon, they had no chance.
Clay looked down at the wounded man. He was pushing himself along the ground with his undamaged leg.
‘Brothers, no, please,’ the man whispered. He looked up at the woman: ‘You bitch. What have you done?’
The woman paid him no attention, backed away from Rania. Before Clay could react, she drew a long-bladed knife and put it to the boy’s throat. ‘Get back, both of you,’ she screamed.
Rania gasped, held her ground. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I only want my son back. I don’t care what you do. Just give me my son.’ From where she stood, Rania could not see what was unfolding in the temple.
The man’s eyes widened. ‘Fatimah, what are you doing?’ he shouted at the woman. ‘Put that down.’
Rania swung her head towards the man, stood there staring, open mouthed. ‘How could you?’ she said. ‘For God’s sake, why?’
Below, another tourist fell, hit in the legs. He screamed, started using his arms to push himself towards one of the pillars. A smear of bright-red blood painted the tiles behind him. The gunman moved on, picked a new target.
Clay glanced at Rania, levelled the G21 at the man. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
‘I … I did it for you,’ the man blurted. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be this way.’ He turned towards the valley. ‘Brothers,’ he screamed, vocal chords rupturing. ‘No. No. What have you done?’
‘Fool,’ said the woman. ‘Did you really think that hostages would be enough? Nothing can be achieved peacefully. The blood of the kuffar is the only way.’ Her resemblance to Rania was unsettling.
The boy was crying now, his wails loud against the screams from the temple, the slow, methodical, crack-crack of the AKs.
‘Bitch,’ yelled the man. ‘Put down that knife.’
The woman backed away, again touched the blade to the boy’s neck.
Rania took a step forwards, stopped dead. ‘Please,’ she said, hands raised before her. ‘Whatever you want, we can help you. Anything. Just give me my son.’
The woman took another step back. As she did, her foot caught a loose slate. She stumbled, opened her arms to catch her balance. Just then, the man reached into the fold of his cloak, drew out a handgun, started pivoting it towards the woman.
‘No!’ screamed Rania.
Clay fired just as the man raised his arm for a shot. The big .45 calibre slug blew the man’s face apart. Bone and brain and blood-matted hair splattered the ground.
‘Hamid!’ screamed Rania.
Clay turned and faced the woman. She was about the same distance away, side on. The boy was strapped to her chest, facing out, the knife across his throat. Clay raised the Glock, pointed it at the woman’s head. ‘Drop that knife, or the same thing happens to you.’
‘Why?’ said Rania, closing the distance between them. Tears welled in her eyes, poured across her face. Deep sobs shook her body. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘For Islam,’ she said, raising her eyes to the sky. ‘For justice. They murdered my father, poisoned my family.’
Below, the firing had died down. The occasional shot rang out across the hills, the attackers finishing off the wounded, searching out the last victims.
Rania dropped to her knees, put her hands together. ‘He is only a child. Innocent and pure. You speak of justice. Show it now. I beg you.’
The woman was smiling now, looking down at Rania, queen to slave, goddess to supplicant. But it was not a smile of benevolence. Her mouth was etched in cruelty. She tightened down on the blade. She was going to do it.
Clay filled his lungs, blanked
his mind. He put away the sounds of shooting still coming from the valley. He closed off Rania’s sobs, the cries of her son, the echoes of the dead and the dying, both real and remembered. He stilled all the tremors and ruptures of his soul. Then he exhaled, long and slow as he’d been taught, and pulled the trigger.
Force equals mass times acceleration. F = ma. Basic physics. The stuff you learn in high school. At that range, it took the fifteen-gram bullet less than eighteen one-thousandths of a second to reach its target, impacting the woman’s skull at a velocity of almost a thousand kilometres an hour.
The woman’s forehead disintegrated. Her body pitched over and sandbagged into the ground, the baby beneath her.
In the valley, the shooting had stopped. For a moment, silence came. The armed men were running back across the open ground towards the parking area.
Rania screamed, scrambled over to where the woman lay. The bullet had taken the top of her head away, scattered it over the crushed and powdered sandstone. Rania rolled the body over, tore at the carrier straps, wailing in desperation. Finally, she pulled her son free, cradled him to her breast.
Clay stood contemplating his work, the shattered bodies motionless but for the bloodstained clothing flapping in the breeze. He stepped over to where the woman lay and dropped his G21 and the two extra magazines to the ground next to her outstretched hand. Next to the dead man, he placed his two grenades. He stood, unarmed, looking out across the temple and the scattered bodies, these murders they had been unable to prevent. It was just gone nine-thirty. Forty-five minutes since the shooting had started, and still no police.
After a time, Rania’s sobs subsided and silence returned to the hills and the valley, this intended but long-since defiled resting place of kings.
Part V
17th November 1997. Luxor, Egypt. 23:10 hrs
I am not sure I can write. And yet I must.
Today I was reunited with my son. Today I was widowed, again.
Today I saw you, the man I love, reveal yourself for what you are: a brutal, clinical killer.
Today I was witness to a horrific massacre that will remain etched on the cracked-china surface of my consciousness until I die.
And yet Eugène lies here beside me, sleeping quietly. He has changed since I saw him last. His face is fuller, his arms and legs longer. His eyes are different, larger somehow, the colours of his irises more intense, deeply patterned. He looks so much like his father, may his soul rest in peace, despite what he has done. Even with all that has happened, what I feel now is joy. Deep, uninhibited joy. My son is alive, and he is home.
The events of the last days now seem as a continuum. Our journey here, following that hateful woman into the mosque, pretending to pray in the corner, seeing her emerge from one of the back rooms with Eugène, whisper her thanks to the imam. Following her into the hills, and then, seemingly centuries later, walking back across those same barren ridges with you beside me, silent and so far away. And then Mahmoud driving us north, across the river and back into Luxor, explaining that when he’d gone to the police, they would not believe him, had paid no attention to his warnings.
This evening, back at Mahmoud’s house, we heard on the television news that the terrorists fled the temple on foot and were found a few hours later in a cave in the hills, dead by their own hand. Leaflets were found at the scene of the ‘accident’ as it is already being called on national television, some thrust inside the wounds of the dead, proclaiming this the work of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya. God help us all.
As expected, all hell is breaking loose. The president himself is coming to Luxor tomorrow to visit the site – the same president who is now grooming his son to take over from him when he retires. The security services have been put on high alert across the country, and tourists are fleeing in droves, cutting short their holidays and going home. We saw them this evening, streaming from hotels into buses for the airport. The same is happening across the country. Mahmoud’s brother, who works in tourism, is despondent. It seems that, initially at least, GI has achieved its goal.
Tonight, after dinner, I spoke with Parveen. We were alone. She is very worried. Mahmoud speaks of nothing except a conspiracy within the police, their refusal to even consider his warnings, their complete absence from the temple as the massacre unfolded. She has tried to caution him, counsel prudence, but he is furious. We have put this lovely family into real danger, I know. I assured her that we were only here to retrieve my son, that we had nothing to do with the massacre, and quite the contrary, had tried to stop it. I did not tell her that, in my heart, I know we could have done more.
Now that we have Eugène, we will leave. Mahmoud is arranging this now. I pray to God to please look after these good people, protect and guide them.
And yet these murderers have killed and died in Allah’s name. How can this be? How could He have allowed this? Such hate must dwell in their souls, to do such a thing.
The future lies before me as a dark and unknown sea, vast and deep.
Panamax
The first roadblock had been thrown up on the outskirts of Luxor, not far from the airport. The road was clogged with dozens of buses packed with angry, scared tourists. It took them nearly an hour, inching along behind a queue of at least twenty buses, to reach the checkpoint. The police were searching each vehicle. Dazed tourists milled about the roadside, clutching cases, bags and each other. Mahmoud slowed the big truck as they approached the barrier.
Clay and Rania had decided to dress as Westerners, to blend in with the flood of outgoing tourists. Gone were the burqa and jelabia. Clay wore the shirt and trousers Atef had bought for him, Rania a floor-length dress and padded jacket: husband and wife with young son, quitting Egypt like everyone else. They had decided to head for Safaq on the Red Sea coast, just over 150 kilometres away. Airports were too dangerous, and they did not want to go north. They each had passports issued in different names, and by different countries. Explaining why they were travelling with a child named Al-Farouk would be difficult. Instead, Mahmoud had telephoned a friend who worked in a shipping company and secured them a place on a freighter from Suez bound for Maputo via Djibouti, Mogadishu and Mombasa. Ten thousand US dollars for the three of them. No names, no questions asked. The ship would berth in Safaq tomorrow to take on cargo and was leaving the next day.
The black-uniformed policeman raised his hand to his eyes, flashed his torch.
Mahmoud made to stop. Torchlight lit his face. ‘Say nothing,’ he said, leaning his head out of the side window.
The cop with the torch started towards them. He’d got halfway to the cab when he stopped and smiled. Then he stepped back and away, and called to his colleague to raise the barrier. As they passed, he waved to Mahmoud and speared him off a salute.
Mahmoud thrust his big, hairy forearm through the open window and returned the wave. ‘These, I know. I am sure they are good,’ he said, gearing up. ‘Al hamdillulah.’ He sounded as if he was trying to reassure himself.
Once past the airport, the road emptied. They ploughed on into an uncertain night. It wasn’t long until they encountered the next roadblock, on the highway coming into Qus.
‘It will be like this all the way to Safaqa,’ said Mahmoud, air-braking the truck, gearing down. They were flagged to a halt. A policeman wearing the same uniform that Clay had seen the terrorists wearing at the temple – black with sliver buttons and epaulettes – clambered onto the cab’s running board and waved a light into their eyes. Two similarly uniformed men stood in front of the truck, their weapons illuminated in the headlights, AK47s with double-taped magazines and folding stocks.
‘Destination?’ asked the policeman.
‘Safaqa,’ said Mahmoud, pointing back to the trailer. ‘Dates and vegetables.’
The cop ran the light over Clay’s face, held it a while on Rania. ‘And these?’
‘Friends,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Canadian and Swiss.’
‘Passports,’ said the cop.
C
lay handed over his: Mark Edwards, born in Vancouver. Rania passed over hers: Veronique Deschamps.
The cop opened each passport in turn, directed the beam of his torch onto the photograph pages. ‘You are leaving Egypt?’ he said in Arabic, looking up at Clay.
Clay feigned not understanding.
Mahmoud shrugged. ‘All the foreigners are leaving now.’
‘Of course,’ said the cop, handing back the passports. ‘Safe journey. Ma’a salaama.’
As they drew away, Clay pursed his lips, exhaled long. The feeling of being defenceless, unarmed, welled up inside him. What dangers might they face between here and wherever fate would take them? He raised his hand and felt for the neck knife under his shirt, resting in the hollow between his pectoral muscles, and pushed its plastic sheath flat into the hard bone of his sternum.
He looked across at Mahmoud, there in the darkness, Rania between them, little Eugène sleeping in her arms. This man who’d spent his life plying the roads of Egypt from as far as Alexandria to the border with Somalia and south, who’d raised a family, built a life with his wife of thirty-one years, had done it in peace, had lived without ever having to kill, without having to suffer the true and insistent accusations of murdered souls. Rania, too, was, in this sense, pure. Despite all the danger she’d faced, she’d always found a way to do it without killing. Something that felt like awe coalesced within him, threatened to fill some of the emptiness.
By the time they reached Safaq, Rigel had passed its apogee and was falling towards the still-dark horizon. The docks were quiet, night-lit. Mahmoud parked the truck outside one of the loading terminals and turned off the engine. The place was deserted.
‘Now we wait,’ he said, pointing to a door in the side of the terminal building. ‘Use the toilet, there. Then sleep.’ He motioned behind him. ‘Please, use the bed.’
Rania changed Eugène, fed him and retired to the sleeping compartment. She’d spoken little since leaving Luxor, and Clay left her to her silence. Clay and Mahmoud sat up front, sipping Mahmoud’s whisky. Dawn came, lit a blue, cloud-strung horizon. Slowly, the docks came to life. More trucks came, big eighteen-and twenty-two-wheelers, loading and unloading cargo. Cranes swung, catching the sunlight on their tube frames. Mid-morning, a freighter rounded the northern point of the harbour and slipped into a berth.
Absolution Page 30
