by Paul Sussman
‘It doesn’t seem real,’ she said, marvelling at the Eden-like beauty of the place. ‘It’s like something out of a fairy tale.’
Flin was turning round and round, his expression a mix of rapture and disbelief.
‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘There’s a fragment of inscription in the Louvre which refers to the oasis as wehat resut, the oasis of dreams. Now we’re here I can understand why.’
They continued onwards, the gorge steadily rising and widening, walls and statues and hieroglyph-covered blocks of stone looming everywhere. Some were perfectly preserved, others cracked and tilted and toppled by the slow bulldozering of tree roots and flash floods. The more they saw the clearer it became to Flin and Freya that what, from the tunnel entrance, had appeared a random confusion of masonry was not so random after all. Far from it – the stonework must once have formed an architecturally ordered environment of streets and avenues and buildings and courtyards, its basic pattern still just about discernible amid the jungle that had overwhelmed it.
‘Christ, it must have been amazing,’ said Flin, his voice quivering with excitement. ‘I always thought it was hyperbole when the texts describe Zerzura as a city, but that’s exactly what this was. Blows away everything we know about ancient Egyptian technology.’
They came into a meadow ablaze with poppies and cornflowers; ibises and white egrets strutted back and forth, cawing and pecking at the ground. The rock platform they had seen from the bottom end of the oasis was much closer now although still some distance away, rearing above the tree-tops like a gigantic stage, the monumental pylon gateway in Rudi Schmidt’s photograph clearly visible. They stopped and gazed at it, then walked on, following a stretch of weed-covered marble paving that ran across the centre of the meadow, twin rows of interspersed sphinxes and obelisks running to either side of them – some sort of processional way, thought Flin.
They had covered about half the meadow’s length when Freya stopped and grabbed Flin’s arm.
‘There,’ she said, pointing away to the right, to where a dense grove of palm trees crowded up against the side of the gorge. Just visible above their arching fronds, like a tattered white dorsal fin, was the tail of a plane, glimpses of its fuselage peeping through the trunks below.
‘Bingo,’ said Flin.
Another paved avenue, narrower if equally overgrown, ran off perpendicular to the one they were on. It seemed to lead directly to the grove and they turned onto it, passing a succession of giant granite scarab beetles before reaching the palm trees. They weaved their way through them and into a small, sun-dappled glade. The Antonov slumped in front of them: white and battered and eerily silent, draped with nets of ivy and bougainvillaea.
Although it had crash-landed and then tumbled the best part of a hundred metres into the gorge – the scars of its cartwheeling descent were still plainly visible on the rock face above – the plane was surprisingly well preserved. Its right-hand wing had sheared off completely and was nowhere to be seen, half of its left wing had gone as well and the propellers of its remaining engine were buckled and bent. A ragged hole gaped midway along the underside of the fuselage as if some large predator had taken a bite out of it. It was the right way up, though, lying flat on its belly, and while badly bruised and dented, was still pretty much in one piece, its tail fin rising defiantly through the trees, its nose pressed up against the face of a monumental sphinx.
They took in the scene, then approached the rear of the plane, stopping in front of three rectangular mounds lined up in the shadow of its tail. At the head of each a crude, makeshift cross was hammered into the earth.
‘Schmidt must have buried them,’ said Flin. ‘Hard to feel sorry for him given that he was smuggling 50 kilos of uranium to Saddam Hussein, but even so … Christ, it must have been horrible.’
Freya stood beside him, trying to imagine what Schmidt had gone through: alone, frightened, probably injured, scooping out shallow graves, dragging corpses from the plane …
‘How long do you think he was here for?’ she asked.
‘A while, by the look of it.’ Flin nodded towards the remains of a campfire, the ground around it scattered with empty tins. ‘I’m guessing he’d have waited at least a week to be rescued, probably longer. Then, when no one came, he decided to try and walk his way back to civilization. Although how the hell he got out of here I’ve no idea – certainly not the way we came in.’
They stared at the graves a while longer, then moved along the fuselage to the front exit. Flin put his head through the open door before clambering in and helping Freya up after him. It was gloomy inside and it took a moment for Freya’s eyes to adjust. When they did she let out a retching gasp, throwing her hand up to her mouth.
‘Oh God. Oh Jesus.’
Ten seats back from where they were standing was a man. Or rather the remains of one. He was sitting bolt upright, perfectly mummified in the dry desert atmosphere, eye sockets empty, skin leathery hard and the colour of liquorice, mouth clogged with cobwebs and stretched wide open as though frantically gasping for breath. Why he had been left there and not buried with the others was not immediately obvious. Only as they came closer did the reason become apparent: the force of the crash had shunted all the seats on the right-hand side of the cabin forwards and into each other, concertinaing them together and trapping the man’s legs just above the knees, holding him fast. It looked unbearably agonizing, the kneecaps crushed as though in the jaws of a vice, although it wasn’t this that appeared to have killed him. Rather it was the large metal case he was holding flat on his lap and which the movement of the seats had driven backwards into his stomach, mashing his internal organs, compressing his midriff into a space less than ten centimetres wide.
‘Do you think it was quick?’ asked Freya, looking away.
‘You’d hope so,’ said Flin. ‘For his sake.’
He dropped to his haunches and carefully examined the case. It was still secure and didn’t seem to have been damaged or tampered with. A quick search revealed three identical cases on the floor between the seats on the opposite side of the aisle. These too were still locked and in good condition.
‘All present and correct,’ he said. ‘And all in one piece. Come on, let’s get out. Molly’s people’ll be here in a couple of hours and they can deal with all this. We’ve done our bit.’
He touched a hand to Freya’s elbow and she turned, ready to move back to the exit. As she did her gaze again brushed across the corpse’s desiccated face. Only for the briefest of instants, but enough for her to notice movement, something shifting inside one of the eye sockets, squirming around. Initially she thought she had imagined it, then, her throat tightening in disgust, that it must be a worm or a maggot. Only when she forced herself to look closer did she see to her horror that it was actually a hornet: fat and yellow and as thick as her finger, creeping out of the corpse’s head and onto the bridge of its nose. Another one followed, and another, and then two more, a low buzzing sound suddenly emanating from inside the dead man’s skull.
Anything else she could have handled. Wasps and hornets, however, were her primal terror, had been since she was a kid, the one thing she could neither bear nor cope with. Letting out a scream, she started to back away, hands flapping in front of her. The movement startled the insects. The ones that had emerged lifted menacingly into the air, more and more spewed out of the nest behind, buzzing angrily. One got caught up in Freya’s hair, another banged against her cheek, increasing her hysteria, which in turn inflamed the swarm further.
‘Stay still!’ ordered Flin. ‘Just stand where you are!’
She ignored him. Wheeling round, she launched herself towards the exit, arms flailing. She only got halfway before her foot snagged on a tendril of creeper and she crashed to the floor, the commotion sending the hornets into a frenzy.
‘For Christ’s sake stay still,’ hissed Flin, easing himself along the aisle and dropping on top of her, shielding her with his arms and body. �
��The more you move, the more it agitates them.’
‘I have to get out!’ she wailed, bucking and writhing underneath him. ‘You don’t understand, I can’t … aaargh!’
A searing barb of pain lanced into the back of her neck.
‘Get them away! Please, get them away!’
He just grasped her wrists and locked his legs around hers as if they were wrestling, his cheek pressed against the back of her head, his full weight pushing down on her, pinning her to the floor. She felt one hornet crawling up inside her trouser leg, another creeping over her closed eyelid, two more on her lips, her worst nightmare made real, beyond her worst nightmare. But there were no more stings, and while it was all but unbearable to have them on her skin like that, she managed, with a supreme effort of will and the aid of Flin’s bodyweight on hers, to remain motionless. On and on it went, hornets battering them from all sides – how could there possibly have been this many of them crammed inside a single skull? – before, as unexpectedly as the swarm had materialized, it started to dissipate. The buzzing faded: the insects on her face and leg were suddenly no longer there. She remained flat on the floor, frozen, her eyes and mouth clamped shut, fearful that the least movement on her part would bring them rushing back again. Flin must have been thinking the same thing because it was a long time before she felt him raise his head and look around. There was a pause, then his weight lifted.
‘It’s OK,’ he said, reaching down and helping her to her feet. ‘They’ve gone.’
She pressed herself into his chest, trembling, the sting on her neck burning viciously.
‘It’s OK,’ he repeated, arms wrapping around her, his voice calm and reassuring. ‘You’re safe. There’s no danger. Everything’s fine.’
For a moment, just a moment, it seemed that he was right. Then, from outside, there came a low, malicious chuckle.
‘Unfortunately, Professor Brodie, that’s not really the case. Not really the case at all. From your point of view at least. From mine, on the other hand …’
The figures flitted through the undergrowth, two of them, moving swiftly, hugging the side of the gorge. Every fifty metres or so they stopped and squatted down behind whatever tree, bush, wall or statue presented itself, pausing a moment to listen and catch their breath before scurrying on again. Their brown robes merged seamlessly with the surroundings so that even the birds scarcely seemed to notice their passing, the one discordant note being an occasional flash of white Nike trainers as they hoisted their djellabas to clamber over rocks and leap streams. They didn’t speak, instead communicating with hand gestures and chirruping whistles, and seemed to know exactly where they were going, continuing down through the oasis until they had reached its midway point, whereupon they veered in towards the centre of the valley. They went even more cautiously now, working their way from one piece of cover to the next, looming briefly before melding back into the landscape. They came to a giant dum palm and one of them clambered nimbly up its trunk, hunkering down among the umbrellas of foliage at its crown. The other went a little further before also going to ground behind a colossal granite arm. They popped their heads up and nodded at each other, raising their rifles. Then, as a line of men appeared below, moving through the trees towards them, they ducked and were gone. It was as if they had never existed.
For a moment Flin and Freya remained locked together, too startled to move. Then, as one, they dropped down behind the seats, peering out through the nearest window. It was reasonably free of vegetation and they had a clear view of Romani Girgis standing in the clearing outside, immaculately dressed and grinning. He was flanked by the ginger-haired twins in their Armani suits and red-and-white El-Ahly football shirts, and two other men – one tall and bearded, the other thickset and lumpen, with a cigarette clamped between his teeth and a bushy, nicotine-stained moustache. There seemed to be others moving around in the background, although they couldn’t see exactly how many or what they were doing.
‘How the hell did they find it?’ whispered Freya.
‘God knows,’ said Flin, trying to get a better view of what was happening outside. ‘Maybe they already had people out here watching the rock, maybe they sent people out the moment Angleton saw us taking off … I’ve no fucking idea.’
‘What do we do?’
‘You will please come out,’ came Girgis’s voice as if answering her question, although he couldn’t possibly have heard her. ‘And you will please keep your hands where they can be seen.’
‘Shit,’ groaned Flin.
He looked frantically around, eyes wheeling up and down the cabin before coming to rest on the mummified corpse. It was still fully clothed, the designer shirt and jacket contrasting sharply with the shrunken, blackened body beneath. Peeping out from beneath the jacket was the butt of a pistol. Crawling over, Flin pulled it from the shoulder holster, broke out the clip and checked the mechanisms. Remarkably, it still seemed to be in working order.
‘You will please come out,’ came Girgis’s voice again. ‘There’s really nothing you can do, so why play games?’
‘Can we hold out?’ she asked. ‘Till Molly’s people get here?’
‘Two hours with a single Glock and a fifteen-round clip?’ Flin gave a derisive snort. ‘Not a hope. This isn’t a Hollywood movie we’re in here.’
‘So what? What do we do?’
He shook his head helplessly, eyes again scanning the Antonov’s interior. They settled on the three metal cases sitting between the seats behind him. He hesitated, then, laying the handgun on the floor, he leant across, grabbed the handle of the nearest case and hauled it over to him, struggling with the weight.
‘What are you doing?’
He ignored her question, fiddling with the case’s twin locks, trying, and failing, to get the lid open.
‘What are you doing?’ she repeated.
Still Flin didn’t reply. Instead, retrieving the Glock, he leant back, shielded Freya with one arm and fired off two shots, shattering the locks. He laid the gun aside again and yanked the case open. Inside, held tight in a nest of foam padding, were what looked like two silver cocktail shakers. He eased one out and, holding it in both hands to support the weight, came to his feet.
‘Professor Brodie?’ Girgis’s voice echoed in from outside, sounding more intrigued than alarmed. ‘Please tell me you haven’t shot yourself. I have men here who will be extremely disappointed if they’ve been denied the chance—’
Flin stretched across the seats and smacked the container hard against the window, making a loud thudding noise, cutting the Egyptian off mid-sentence.
‘Do you see this, Girgis?’ he shouted, hammering again, drawing the attention of those outside, making sure they could see what he was holding. ‘This is a canister of highly enriched uranium. Your highly enriched uranium. You come a step closer I’m going to open it up and empty it all over the inside of this plane. Same with the other canisters. You hear? Come an inch closer, I’ll turn this place into a radioactive oven!’
Freya had come up behind him, her fingers digging into his shoulder.
‘I thought you said uranium wasn’t dangerous!’ she hissed.
‘It isn’t,’ he replied, keeping his voice low. ‘But I’m counting on Girgis not knowing that – he’s a businessman, not a physicist. And even if he does know that, his men probably won’t. At the very least it’ll make them think twice before coming in here and blowing our heads off.’
He gave another hammer on the window, really pounding the Perspex, then clasped the canister’s screw-lid and gave it a turn, exaggerating the movement so that it was crystal clear what he was doing.
‘You watching, Girgis? Want to see some uranium? Find out what it smells like? Because so help me God you’re about to if you don’t back off! Roll up, roll up, to the great radioactive poisoning show!’
He gave the lid another turn, and another, and another, waiting for some reaction from outside. None came. Girgis and his men just stood there, their expressions
half amused, half bemused. There was a pause, the cheerful twitter of birds providing an incongruously melodic backdrop to the stand-off, then, suddenly, a peal of laughter. Not from Girgis, but from the trees behind him. Soft, vaguely feminine laughter.
‘Professor Brodie, you really are a hoot! Now why don’t you put that down and come outside and we can talk this through. We’re all friends here.’
CAIRO
Ibrahim Kemal was seventy-three years old, and for sixty-five of those seventy-three years he had fished the same short stretch of the Nile just north of Cairo. And in all those sixty-five years he had never, ever encountered a fish as big as the one he now felt tugging on the end of his line.
‘What the hell is it?’ asked his grandson, arms wrapped around the old man’s waist to steady him against the rocking of their boat. ‘A catfish? A perch?’
‘A whale more like,’ sputtered the old man, wincing as the line cut into the palms of his hands (a length of nylon with a hook on the end, that’s all he used, nothing fancy like a rod). ‘I landed a 150-pound perch when I was your age and it wasn’t half as heavy as this. It’s a whale, I tell you, a whale!’
He paid out some line, giving the fish a bit of slack, allowing it to run, then started heaving again. Their simple wooden skiff rocked alarmingly, wavelets of river water sloshing across the gunwales.
‘Maybe we should let it go,’ said the younger man. ‘It’s going to turn us over.’
‘It can take us down to the bottom for all I care!’ grunted Ibrahim, drawing the line in, hand over hand, eyes popping with the strain. ‘I’ve never lost a fish yet and I’m not about to start now.’
