Sphinx

by Robin Cook

  “I’m sure I can. I remember the man, a Jeffrey Rice. He will be extremely interested that there is another statue like his, and I think he’ll be cooperative in exchange for the news.”

  “It is a tragedy,” said Erica, “that the statue could not be studied at the site it was found.”

  “Indeed,” said Dr. Lowery. “That’s the real problem with the black market. The treasure hunters destroy so much information.”

  “I’ve known about the black market, but I never realized its true power,” said Erica. “I’d really like to do something about it.”

  “That’s a wonderful goal. But the stakes are high, and as Abdul Hamdi learned too late, it is a deadly game.”

  Erica thanked Dr. Lowery for calling, and told him that she would soon be heading up to Luxor to get to work on her translations. Dr. Lowery told her to be careful and to enjoy herself.

  Hanging up, Erica relished the feeling of excitement. It made her remember why she had studied Egypt in the first place. Settling herself back to sleep, she felt all her initial enthusiasm for her trip return.

  Day 2

  CAIRO 7:55 A.M.

  Cairo awakened early. From the nearby villages the donkey carts laden with produce had begun their trek into the city before the eastern sky had even bleached from its nighttime blackness. The sounds were those of the wooden wheels, the jangle of the harness fittings, and the bells of the lambs and goats trotting into market. As the sun brightened the horizon, the animal carts were joined by a medley of petroleum-powered vehicles. Bakeries stirred and the air was filled with the delicious aroma of baking bread. By seven the taxis emerged like insects and the honking began. People appeared on the streets and the temperature climbed.

  Having left her balcony door ajar, Erica was soon assaulted by the sounds of the traffic on the El Tahrir Bridge and on the broad boulevard, Korneish el-Nil, that ran along the Nile in front of the Hilton. Rolling over, she looked out at the pale blue of the morning sky. She felt much better than she had expected. Glancing at her watch, she was surprised she had not slept longer. It wasn’t even quite eight o’clock.

  Erica pushed herself up to a sitting position. The fake scarab was lying on the table next to the phone. She picked it up and pressed it as if to test its reality. After a night’s rest the events of the previous day seemed like a dream.

  Ordering breakfast in her room, Erica began to plan her day. She decided to visit the Egyptian Museum and view some of the Old Kingdom exhibits, then head out to Saqqara, the necropolis of the Old Kingdom capital of Mennofer. She would avoid the usual tourist habit of rushing directly to the pyramids of Giza.

  Breakfast was simple: juice, melon, fresh croissants and honey, and sweet Arabic coffee. It was served elegantly on her splendid balcony. With the pyramids reflecting the sun in the distance and the Nile silently slipping by, Erica experienced a sense of euphoria.

  After pouring herself more coffee, Erica brought out her Nagel’s guide to Egypt and turned to the section on Saqqara. There was much too much to see in any one day, and she intended to plan her itinerary carefully. Suddenly she remembered Abdul Hamdi’s guidebook. It was still nestled deep within her canvas tote bag. Gingerly she opened the cover, which was no longer securely attached, and gazed at the name and address in the flyleaf: Nasif Malmud, 180 Shari El Tahir. It made her think of the cruel irony of Abdul Hamdi’s last words. “I travel a lot and might not be in Cairo at the time you leave.” She shook her head, realizing that the old man had been right. Turning to the section on Saqqara, she began to compare the older Baedeker with the newer Nagel’s.

  Overhead, a black falcon hovered on the wind, then plunged down on a rat scuttling through an alley.

  Nine floors below, Khalifa Khalil reached over in his rented Egyptian Fiat and pressed the light button. He waited patiently until it popped out. Leaning back, he lit his cigarette with obvious pleasure, inhaling deeply. He was an angular and muscular man with a large hooked nose that seemed to pull his mouth into a perpetual sneer. He moved with restrained grace, like a jungle cat. Glancing up at the balcony of 932, he could make out his quarry. With his powerful field glasses he could see Erica very well and allowed himself to enjoy the view of her legs. Very nice, he thought, congratulating himself on obtaining such a pleasurable assignment. Erica shifted her legs toward him, and he grinned: this gave him a distinctively startling appearance, because one of his upper front incisors had been broken in such a way that it came to a sharp point. In his customary black suit and black tie, many people thought he looked like a vampire.

  Khalifa was an unusually successful soldier of fortune, experiencing no problem with unemployment in the turbulent Middle East. He had been born in Damascus and raised in an orphanage. He had been trained as a commando in Iraq but had been phased out because he could not work with a team. He also lacked a conscience. He was a sociopathic killer who could be controlled only by money. Khalifa laughed happily when he thought that he was being paid the same for babysitting a beautiful American tourist as for running AK assault rifles to the Kurds in Turkey.

  Scanning Erica’s neighboring balconies, Khalifa saw nothing suspicious. His orders from the Frenchman had been simple. He was to protect Erica Baron from a possible murder attempt and catch the perpetrators. Swinging his binoculars away from the Hilton, he slowly scanned the people along the banks of the Nile. He knew it could be difficult to protect against a long-distance shot by a high-powered rifle. No one looked suspicious. By reflex his hand reassuringly patted the Stechkin semiautomatic pistol holstered beneath his left arm. It was his prized possession. He had taken it from a KGB agent he’d murdered in Syria for the Mossad.

  Turning back to Erica, Khalifa had trouble believing someone would want to kill such a fresh-looking girl. She was like a peach ready for picking, and he wondered if Yvon’s motives were strictly business.

  Suddenly the girl stood up, gathered her books, and disappeared within her room. Khalifa lowered the glasses to view the Hilton entrance. There was the usual line of taxis and early-morning activity.

  * * *

  Gamal Ibrahim struggled with the El Ahram newspaper, trying to fold over the first page. He was sitting in the rear seat of a taxi he’d hired for the day, parked in the Hilton driveway on the side opposite the entrance. The doorman had complained, but had relented when he saw Gamal’s Department of Antiquities identification. On the seat next to Gamal was a blown-up passport photo of Erica Baron. Each time a woman emerged from the hotel, Gamal would compare the face with the photo.

  Gamal himself was twenty-eight. He was a little more than five-feet-four and slightly overweight. Married with two children, aged one and three, he had been hired by the Department of Antiquities just prior to receiving his doctorate in public administration from the University of Cairo that spring. He started work in mid-July, but things had not gone as smoothly as he would have liked. The staff in the department was so large that the only assignments he had been given were odd jobs such as this one, following Erica Baron and reporting where she went. Gamal picked up Erica’s photo as two women emerged and entered a taxi. Gamal had never followed anyone, and he felt the job demeaning, but he was in no position to refuse, especially since he was to report directly to Ahmed Khazzan, the director. Gamal had lots of ideas for the department and felt that now he might have a chance to be heard.

  Dressing sensibly for the heat she expected at Saqqara, Erica put on a light beige cotton blouse with short sleeves and cotton pants of a slightly darker shade cut full with a drawstring waist. In her tote bag she deposited her Polaroid, her flashlight, and the 1929 Baedeker guidebook. After careful comparison she had agreed with Abdul Hamdi. The Baedeker was far better than Nagel’s.

  At the front desk she was able to retrieve her passport, which apparently had been
duly recorded. She was also introduced to her guide for the day, Anwar Selim. Erica did not want a guide, but the hotel had suggested it, and after being tormented by hecklers the day before, she had finally relented, agreeing to pay seven Egyptian pounds for the guide and ten for the taxi and driver. Anwar Selim was a gaunt man in his middle forties, who wore a metal pin with the number 113 on the lapel of his gray suit, proving he was a government-licensed guide.

  “I have a wonderful itinerary,” said Selim, who had an affectation of smiling in the middle of his sentences. “First we will visit the Great Pyramid in the coolness of the morning. Then—”

  “Thank you,” said Erica, interrupting. She backed away. Selim’s teeth were in sorry shape, and his breath was capable of stopping a charging rhinoceros. “I have already planned the day. I want to go to the Egyptian Museum first for a short visit, then go on to Saqqara.”

  “But Saqqara will be hot in the middle of the day,” protested Selim. His mouth was set in a hardened smile, the skin of his face taut from continuous exposure to Egyptian sun.

  “I’m sure it will be,” announced Erica, trying to cut off this dialogue, “but it is the itinerary I would like to follow.”

  Without altering his facial expression Selim opened the door of the battered taxi that had been retained for her. The driver was young, with a three-day stubble on his face.

  As they pulled away for the short hop to the museum, Khalifa put his field glasses on the floor of the car. He allowed Erica’s taxi to pull out into the street before he started his engine, wondering if there was some way he could get some information about the guide and the taxi driver. As he put his car into gear, he noted another taxi pull out from the Hilton directly behind Erica’s. Both cars turned right at the first intersection.

  Gamal had recognized Erica when she had appeared, without having to refer to the photo. Hastily he had written the guide’s number, 113, in the margin of his newspaper before telling his driver to follow Erica’s taxi.

  When they reached the Egyptian Museum, Selim helped Erica out of the car, and the taxi proceeded to the shade of a sycamore to wait. Gamal had his driver stop under a nearby tree that afforded a view of Erica’s taxi. Opening his newspaper, he went back to a long article on Sadat’s proposals for the West Bank.

  Khalifa parked outside the museum compound and purposely walked past Gamal’s taxi to see if he recognized the man. He did not. For Khalifa, Gamal’s movements were already suspicious, but following orders, he entered the museum behind Erica and her guide.

  Erica had walked into the famed museum with great enthusiasm, but even her knowledge and interest could not overcome the oppressive atmosphere. The priceless objects looked as out-of-place in the dusty rooms as they did in the Boston Museum on Huntington Avenue. The mysterious statues and stony faces had the look of death, not immortality. The guards were dressed in white uniforms and black berets, reminiscent of the colonial era. Sweepers with thatched brooms pushed the dust from room to room without ever carrying it away. The only workers who were really busy were the repairmen who stood in small roped-off areas plastering or doing simple carpentry with tools similar to those pictured in the ancient Egyptian murals.

  Erica tried to ignore the surroundings and concentrate on the more-renowned pieces. In room 32 she was astounded at the lifelike quality of the limestone statues of Rahotep, brother of Khufu, and Nofritis, his wife. They had a serene contemporary look. Erica was content to merely gaze at the faces, but her guide felt compelled to offer the full benefit of his knowledge. He told Erica what Rahotep had said to Khufu when he had first seen the statue. Erica knew it was pure fiction. Politely she told Selim to only answer her questions and that she was actually familiar with most of the objects.

  As Erica rounded the Rahotep statue, her eyes wandered across the entranceway of the gallery before returning to the back of the statue. An image of a dark man with a tooth that looked like a fang hovered in her mind, but when she turned again there was no figure in the doorway. It had happened so quickly that it gave her an uneasy feeling. The events of the previous day made her wary, and as she walked around the Rahotep statue she looked at the doorway several times but the dark figure did not reappear. Instead a very noisy group of French tourists entered the room.

  Motioning for Selim to leave, Erica stepped from room 32 into the long gallery that ran along the whole western edge of the building. The corridor was empty of people, but as she looked through a double arch to the northwest corner, Erica again saw a fleeting dark figure.

  With Selim trying to get her to view various famous objects along the way, Erica quickly walked down the long gallery toward the spot where it intersected a similar gallery on the north side of the museum. Exasperated, Selim doggedly followed the fast-paced American, who seemed to want to view the museum at the speed of light.

  She stopped abruptly just short of the intersection. Selim halted behind her, gazing around to see what could have caught her attention. She was standing next to a statue of Senmut, steward of Queen Hatshepsut, but rather than studying it, she was carefully looking around the corner into the north gallery.

  “If there is something in particular you’d like to see,” said Selim, “please—”

  Erica angrily motioned for Selim to be still. Stepping out into the middle of the gallery, Erica searched for the dark figure. She saw nothing, and felt a little foolish. A German couple walked by, arm in arm, arguing over the floor plan of the museum.

  “Miss Baron,” said Selim, obviously struggling to be patient, “I am very familiar with this museum. If there is something you’d like to see, just ask.”

  Erica took pity on the man and tried to think of something to ask him so he’d feel more useful.

  “Are there any Seti I artifacts in the museum?”

  Selim put his index finger on his nose, thinking. Then, without speaking, he lifted the finger in the air and motioned for Erica to follow. He led her up to the second floor to room 47 over the entrance foyer. He stood beside a large piece of exquisitely carved quartzite, labeled 388.1. “The lid to Seti I’s sarcophagus,” he said proudly.

  Erica looked at the piece of stone, mentally comparing it with the fabulous statue she’d seen the day before. It wasn’t much of a comparison. She also remembered that Seti I’s sarcophagus itself had been pirated off to London and rested in a small museum there. It was painfully obvious how much the black market shortchanged the Egyptian Museum.

  Selim waited until Erica looked up. He then pulled her by the hand to the entrance of another room, directing her to pay the guard at the door another fifteen plasters so that they could enter. Once in the room, Selim navigated between the long low glass cases until he reached one by the wall. “The mummy of Seti I,” said Selim smugly.

  Looking down at the dried-up face, Erica felt a little sick. It was the kind of image Hollywood makeup artists strove to imitate for countless horror movies, and she noticed that the ears had fragmented and that the head was no longer attached to the torso. Instead of ensuring immortality, the remains suggested that the horror of death was permanent.

  Glancing around at the other royal mummies contained within the room, Erica thought that instead of making ancient Egypt come alive, the petrified bodies emphasized the enormous time that had elapsed and the remoteness of ancient Egypt. She looked back at the face of Seti I. It looked nothing like the beautiful statue she’d seen the day before. There was no resemblance whatsoever. The statue had had a narrow jaw with a straight nose, whereas the mummy had a very wide jaw and a hawklike hooked nose. It gave her the creeps, and she shivered before turning away. Motioning to Selim to follow, she walked out of the room, eager to be leaving the dusty museum for the field.

  Erica’s taxi whisked her out into the Egyptian countryside, leaving the confusion
of Cairo behind. They drove south on the west bank of the Nile. Selim had tried to continue conversation by telling Erica what Ramses II had said to Moses, but had finally fallen silent. Erica did not want to hurt Selim’s feelings and had tried to ask him about his family, but the guide did not seem to want to talk about that. So they drove in silence, leaving Erica at peace to enjoy the view. She loved the color contrast between the sapphire blue of the Nile and the brilliant green of the irrigated fields. It was time for the date harvest, and they passed donkey loads of palm branches festooned with the red fruit. Opposite the industrial city of Hilwan, which was on the east side of the Nile, the asphalt road forked. Erica’s taxi careened to the right, its horn honking several times despite the fact that the road ahead was clear.

  Gamal was only five or six car lengths behind. He was literally on the edge of his seat, making small talk with his driver. He had removed his gray suit jacket in deference to the heat, which he knew was only going to get worse.

  Almost a quarter of a mile back, Khalifa had his radio blaring, and the discordant music filled the car. He was now convinced that Erica was already being followed, but the method was peculiar. The taxi was much too close. At the museum entrance he had gotten a good look at the occupant, who appeared to be a university student, but Khalifa had dealt with student terrorists. He knew that their simple appearance was often a cover for ruthlessness and daring.

  Erica’s taxi entered a grove of palms that grew so close together it gave the appearance of a coniferous forest. A cool shade replaced the stark sunlight. They came to a halt at a small brick village. On one side was a miniature mosque. On the other was an open area with an eighty-ton alabaster sphinx, lots of pieces of broken statuary, and a huge fallen limestone statue of Ramses II. At the edge of the clearing was a small refreshment stand called the Sphinx Café.