The Amun Chamber

by Daniel Leston

  But this was past history.

  Now his thoughts were focused entirely on the woman.

  Trailing Manning’s guide back to this warren of filth had proven ridiculously easy. Not forty-five minutes after his escape, he hailed a cab just two blocks east of the fire, returning him to the main street outside the old monastery. There his patience and audacity were eventually rewarded. The woman came out at exactly five o’clock and boarded a municipal bus making a regular stop. Unnoticed by her, he also got on.

  As Heikal now drew alongside the clinic, he paused, taking a last look around. By his wristwatch it was just ten minutes before midnight, giving him ample time to accomplish his ends. Before dawn, he would call Oristano with useful information, of this he was certain. An hour alone with this woman and she would be begging to tell every word that passed between Manning and Oum Ghali.

  And over the rest of the night?

  Heikal unsheathed his dagger in the dim moonlight, his anticipation growing with each breath. It occurred to him he never actually saw the color of this woman’s hair beneath her headscarf. Would it be hoping too much, he wondered, to find it had a reddish hue? Probably. Yet she was unquestionably a most fortuitous gift. Not so young and beautiful as was the whore Nayra, to be sure, yet certainly comely enough to appease his torturing demon.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sal Oristano relaxed on a comfortable bench, rather enjoying his view of the stately palms and spacious grounds of Alexandria’s Anfushi Park. The sun’s rays were still pleasantly warm, playing off the tailored lawns and highlighting the tall granite columns marking the eastern entrance of the Ras el Tin Palace. He glanced at his watch as he lit a cigarette, noting it was already twenty minutes past one o’clock.

  He was no stranger to Alexandria. Several generations of his family were once part of the foreign establishment of Italians, Syrians, Jews, Greeks, Lebanese and Cypriots who once dominated Alexandria’s business community. Collectively called Levantines by the British, they had migrated en masse from Egypt shortly after the coming of Nassar’s revolution.

  Oristano’s parents were among these emigrants.

  Unlike the vast majority of Italians who fled Egypt in the mid-sixties, however, Sal’s father chose not to return to his native Italy. Instead, he relocated his small family in Greece, for he found the business climate there more to his liking. Nor did he sever all his intricate—and not always legal—business connections with Egypt, for he possessed the wisdom and foresight to simply bide his time until the excesses of Nassar’s new nationalism had run its course. Long range, this perceptive decision proved to be a profitable one, for his eldest son now reaped the rewards of his patience. Not only did this eventually pave the way for many of Sal’s present legitimate interests, but it also gave him the opportunity and contacts necessary to establish himself in the lucrative black-marketing of ancient artifacts.

  Oristano again looked at his wrist. By his estimate, the Rapide out of Cairo likely arrived at Ramleh Station some fifty minutes ago, meaning he could expect to see Heikal at almost any moment.

  While thinking on this, he saw with mild annoyance that the girl, Angela was now sauntering back towards him across the freshly mown grass. By the tilt of her head and the slump of her pretty shoulders she was less than thrilled with the day’s progress. Her apparent disappointment in the park’s subtle pleasures came as no surprise, for he held no illusions about her intellect or appreciation of beauty. Like a spoiled child needing endless diversions, she was quite incapable of entertaining herself for more than ten minutes at a time. But her shortcomings no longer bothered him, for though her sexual talents were considerable, he’d already decided they must part company. He, too, required fresh diversions—and her childish ways were fast become an irritant to his sensibilities.

  She curled up beside him, her look weary and pouting.

  “Back so soon, my pet?” he asked pleasantly. It was probably expecting too much to think she might have actually learned anything during her short walk through the ornate halls of the Ras el Tin.

  “There’s nothing to do here,” she replied with a sigh. “And I’m hungry.”

  He put his arm around her, brushing back the dark curls clinging to her sweaty brow. “I take it you didn’t enjoy touring the palace grounds?”

  “It was okay, I guess,” she said. Her eyes then shifted to the dock area, seeking out the young deckhand stationed close to the pay phone. As her gaze lingered there, she absently bit at her lower lip. “Pauley says all of this park was an island a long time ago. Do you believe that? Faro, I think he called it . . .”

  “Pharos Island,” he corrected, smiling in amusement. He was well aware of Angela’s lustful designs on Pauley, playfully tempting him whenever she thought he wasn’t watching. Now he intended to exploit this situation to his own purpose. Raising his arm, he gestured to the muscular youth.

  Pauley immediately sprinted over, already thoroughly briefed on the small favor he was to perform for his boss. Once the girl was turned over to his care, his job was to put her aboard a plane back to Greece. If he could coax a few hours of lovemaking out of her, then he had his employer’s complete blessing.

  “You need something, sir?”

  Oristano tossed him the set of keys belonging to the rented car parked by the wharf. As they both knew, Angela’s few possessions from the Medea were already packed in its trunk. “How about you take our poor, starving girl out for a bite to eat,” he said to the eager youth. “Think you can show her a good time?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “And maybe find her a nice stretch of beach somewhere, as well. Angela likes beaches, don’t you, my dear?”

  The girl fairly flew onto Pauley’s arm, delighted at the prospect. No less happy—and infinitely grateful—the young man grinned in appreciation before hurrying off with his prize. Oristano watched their departure with amused indifference until he noticed Heikal approaching along a gravel walk, at which point he dismissed the girl from his mind as if she’d never existed.

  “Your timing is excellent, Sabir,” he said amiably, inviting the big man to join him on the bench. “So, where are our friends now?”

  Heikal settled himself before replying.

  “They took four rooms at the Cecil on the Corniche at 26 July Street. Mine is two floors below. They were just entering the hotel restaurant when I left, so they might be driving out to Al Gami as early as another hour or two.”

  Oristano only nodded. Since Heikal’s early morning call, he’d given the entire problem of surveillance considerable thought. Beyond the fact that the daughter of Paul Cameron was someone Manning found of great interest, there was next to nothing around which to make plans. According to Heikal’s information, Cameron might well be the key to everything. Clearly, Manning saw a connection between him and the gold disk—and just as obviously, he expected to learn more from the man’s daughter. Now the trick was going to be learning exactly what was going on in Manning’s head. Nothing less would suffice.

  There was only one sure means of doing this.

  “Sabir, I believe it’s time we carried this a step further. How difficult will it be for you to gain entrance to the good professor’s room without his suspecting?”

  “Shouldn’t be any problem.”

  Oristano removed a clear plastic envelope from his shirt. Visible inside was a tiny transistorized listening device, one designed specifically for telephones. “I know you’ve installed these before. Once you get it placed, just return to your room and dial his number. The initial ring turns on a transmitter-receiver. From then on you’ll be able to listen in on all his calls—plus, of course, any conversation taking place inside his room, whether the phone is in use or not.”

  “In other words, voice activated . . .”

  “Precisely.”

  Heikal slipped it into his breast pocket. “I’ll need listening equipment. I assume you’ll want tapes made?”

  “Definitely. What’s your room
number.”

  “418.”

  “I’ll have someone from the Medea bring everything over within the hour. Set it up as soon as they leave for Al Gami.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Oristano now placed a firm hand on Heikal’s arm, preventing him from getting to his feet. His face was no longer pleasant. “I’ll have no more screw-ups,” he warned. “I cautioned you before on this. Do not underestimate Manning again! Hopefully, he believes you were killed—so don’t dissuade him of that belief, understand? Using Hassan was a regrettable mistake, one that almost cost us dearly. We can’t afford the luxury of making another!”

  * * *

  David reached Ruth Lefebvre by phone, arranging a meeting at her home. The woman was at first confused by his lack of specifics, but seemed genuinely pleased at the prospect of meeting the granddaughter of Lionel DeCaylus, a man she claimed to remember well. Six o’clock this evening would suit her just fine.

  Twenty minutes before the appointed hour, David pulled their rented car off the main highway onto the first of three paved exits leading into the resort suburb of Al Gami. The afternoon traffic through Alexandria’s western industrial center of Meks had proven less difficult than anticipated. They were going to be early, but he doubted she would mind. Off to their right they caught occasional glimpses of the Mediterranean, patches of blue filtering through lush groves of palm and banyan. Bathed in sunlight, the sea was only marginally darker than the cloudless sky, making it hard to delineated where one left off and the other began. Following Ruth’s verbal instructions, he turned onto a winding lane where older, European style homes fronted the ocean, eventually easing the car through a narrow gate. A hundred feet up a gravel drive stood a bricked, two-story house surrounded by tall trees. Once he parked, a tiny, bird-like woman appeared in the ivy-shaded doorway. Smiling, she waved to them in greeting.

  “Please, do come inside,” she called in a clear voice.

  When all introductions were out of the way, the five of them sat in her quaint sitting room while she poured tea from a polished silver service. Her delicate hands were long-boned and aristocratic, the paleness of her complexion suggesting she only rarely ventured beyond the walls of her secluded home. Behind her cushioned chair was a high casement window facing the sea, though no breeze stirred the thick brocade curtains.

  For a woman whose prime interests seemed to center almost entirely on matters of trivia, David found the clarity of her memory nothing short of amazing—so much so that he quickly found himself questioning the accuracy of her distant recollections. After a few pleasantries, he came straight to their reason for being there. “Perhaps you could start by first telling us something of when and how you first knew Lionel, Mrs. Lefebvre. I’m sure you were very young at the time.”

  “Certainly. But please, do call me Ruth. No need to be so formal.”

  “Ruth, then,” he obliged.

  “It was back in Cairo, of course,” she began. “I was perhaps eleven, or so, when Mr. DeCaylus first took to visiting with my father. We lived just off the American University grounds, don’t you know. As to how they first met and became such good friends, I really can’t say. I suspect it was simply their shared love of archaeology. And later, of course, there was the period they spent together at Tell El Amarna—but of that time, I’m afraid I really can’t give any firsthand information.”

  David didn’t like the sound of this.

  “And why is that, Ruth?”

  “Well, put quite simply, I wasn’t in the country. You see, in the fall of 1955 my father sent me to a private girl’s school in the north of England. It was only my absence that afforded him the opportunity to take time off from teaching and indulge himself with Mr. Burkhart. When I returned to Egypt some ten months later, it wasn’t to Cairo, but here to Alexandria.”

  “Early summer of l956 then?”

  “The first week or so in July, as I recall. Father was still on his sabbatical and had just purchased this very house. He wanted to devote more time to his studies, don’t you see, and to his writing, as well, which was always his great love. As much as he enjoyed the bustle of Cairo, he needed a place to escape the summer heat. Though he never said as much, I do think the weeks he spent at Tell El Amarna finally put to rest any latent desire to live the life of an archaeologist.”

  So far her memory coincided with the sparse information from Burkhart’s ledger. Since both men left the site in the last week of June, this explained where Cameron went and why. But what of Lionel?

  Much now hinged on his next question.

  “Ruth, can you recall when it was you last saw Lionel?”

  “Oh, definitely,” she replied without hesitation. “In fact, it was right here in this house, about five weeks after my return. I remember it very well because—”

  “In August? You’re certain?”

  His interruption briefly startled her.

  “Why, of course, young man. As I was about to say, I remember it well because it occurred on the day following my sixteenth birthday party, don’t you see. August 4th. Lionel and another gentleman spent the better part of the day visiting with my father. I served lemonade and leftover cake right out there on the veranda. It was a real treat for me, as you can imagine, because I hadn’t seen Lionel for well over a year.” She paused, her smile fading. “Then, too, I could hardly forget—you know, what with the poor man’s death following so soon thereafter. So very tragic, it was.”

  “Then you knew of his accident?”

  “His fall? Oh, my, yes. It upset my father terribly. Both of us, really. I never learned all the details, but the police asked him to identify the body. There was initially some question of who he actually was—something about his name, or nationality, or some such thing.” She turned and looked at Elizabeth. “But I’m sure you know all about this, you being his granddaughter and all.”

  The four of them exchanged puzzled glances as Ruth sipped again at her tea.

  It was Gobeir who voiced their confusion. “Excuse me, but are you saying the Alexandrian authorities approached your father? And just how, do you suppose, did they know to come to him for such assistance?”

  “Why because of the book, of course.”

  “Book?”

  She looked at him, appearing momentarily flustered. “Dear me, didn’t I mention this?” She set her cup down. “You see, Lionel regularly borrowed reading material from father’s library when we lived in Cairo. When he came here in August, he did so again. The book he took on that day was found in his room after the dreadful accident. Needless to say, the police saw my father’s name written inside the cover. Well-known as he was in the British community, I’m sure it was a rather simple matter to acquire this address.”

  Logical, thought David.

  Yet it was curious no mention of this was in his copy of the investigating officer’s report. It was a mistake, he now realized, to have assumed they had everything from the police files. Obviously, more needed to be dug out.

  “I know this is probably asking a lot,” he said, “but do you recall what kind of books Lionel borrowed from your father? The subject matter, perhaps?”

  “In Cairo, you mean?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. I simply never paid much attention.” She paused. “But if it helps in any way, I can show you the one he borrowed that last time in August.”

  “You remember which book it was?”

  “Oh, most certainly. Does this surprise you?” She got to her feet. “Just give me a moment and I’ll fetch it straightaway.”

  Ruth returned in mere minutes, placing it in David’s hand. Bound in engraved leather with gilt-edged pages, it was clearly a book of quality.

  “The reason I remember this so clearly,” she explained, “was my father’s great disappointment over its condition when it was returned by the police. Lionel never damaged any book like this before! As you can see, entire passages are underlined throughout. Why, there’s even a few scribbled notations. See, right there,
for example. And all in ink, mind you! There was simply no way for my father to erase—”

  “It’s his handwriting,” blurted Elizabeth. “David, I’m sure of it . . .”

  He agreed. The words were almost indecipherable, yet identical to the ragged scrawl of Lionel’s last letters. Unfortunately, the brief notations were nothing more than jotted references to yet other pages, nothing appearing the least bit enlightening. The book was basically a compilation of selected writings from the more famous pioneering archaeologists: Schilemann unearthing the royal graves at Mycenae; Wooley excavating the great ziggurat at Ur; Evans discovering the palace at Minos; Bingham’s chance find of the lost city of Machu Picchu—and a half dozen more, all pretty much in the same vein. By the passages he chose to underline, it was apparent where his interest lay. Lionel had picked up on what he perceived to be a recurring theme.

  David pointed this out to the others.

  “It seems he was intrigued by the number of times all these men were led to their greatest finds by simply heeding old myths and legends. See here, for example, where Wooley tells of the ziggurat. Lionel underlined the whole section. There were actually several likely mounds in the area, but Wooley purposely selected the only one considered taboo by the local villagers, the one believed to be haunted by winged gods. And it wasn’t just Wooley, either. He underlined where others wrote of similar experiences; Evans, Bingham, Francois—almost all of them used this principle to their advantage at one time or another.”

  Gobeir was less than impressed.

  “I really don’t see it as significant, old boy. I mean, any good archaeologist worth his salt pays heed to such things. Surely this couldn’t have been a revelation of any kind for Lionel.”