Firebird (6 page)

Fawzi moaned suddenly. ‘You know, the Khan used to be a pretty peaceful place. OK, there’s always been street grafters, but nothing real serious. But just lately there’s been a whole bunch of weird things happening. Take the ghoul, for example.’

‘What ghoul?’ I asked quickly.

‘The one as has been haunting the Khan at night. Every few months you hear that another kid has been pounced on and all the blood sucked out of his body. I met someone who’d seen it — a great spider thing he said it was, with one leg like a person’s and the other like a donkey’s. They reckon it hides out in the Underworld until it gets hungry, then it comes up thirsting for blood.’

Daisy looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I rolled my eyes in response. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘we can go into that another time. Right now I have just a few questions. Then we’ll leave you in peace.’

‘What about the dope?’

‘I don’t think we’ll need to worry too much about that.’ Fawzi grunted. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘These three guys,’ I said, ‘how were they dressed?’

‘They had
shamaghs
wrapped round their faces, but they weren’t ordinary ones. Most
shamaghs
are red or black.
Hajis
wear bright green ones, but these were olive green like the army wears in the desert. And that’s not all. These guys were dressed exactly alike in those waxed coats — you know, with the flaps over the shoulders. All black. Looked spooky, like a bunch of undertakers. Oh, and the one who gave the old fellow the farewell shot in the nut had like a little leather box tied to his arm — an amulet like the old—time holy men used to wear. I remember thinking it looked way out of place on the guy.’

‘I glanced at Daisy. ‘Would you recognize any of the killers again?’ she asked.

Fawzi closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. With the mass of swellings around the eye sockets he looked almost like one of those teddy bears that closed and opened its eyes when you tilted it over, I thought.

‘They were hooded, like I said,’ Fawzi continued, ‘and I never got a look at their faces —’

Suddenly the swing door opened and the male nurse put his head in. ‘Sorry, Special Agent,’ he said, ‘but you’ll have to wind it up. The patient’s lost a lot of blood, and you’ve already had too much time.’

Daisy put her notebook away and got up. She tossed her long plait of blonde hair backwards and pouted at him with her wonderful lips. She had a way of setting her mouth as if she was actually smiling through the pout, so that you couldn’t tell if she was mad at you or giving you the come on. It was a look so enticingly feminine that for a moment all of us — even the male nurse — watched her fascinated. A wave of raw yearning washed over me, so quick and powerful that I couldn’t prevent it. I felt a hotness growing in my groin and I struggled to forget how long it was since I’d actually had a woman. In some lights, I told myself, Special Agent Brooke might be not only pretty, but very, very attractive indeed.

‘Well, goodbye, Mr Fawzi,’ she said, ‘and thanks.’

‘But it goes no further than you,’ Fawzi whispered, ‘and you forget the dope, right?’

‘Right.’

After Daisy had gone, I laid the five deals of hashish on Fawzi’s counterpane.

‘Here, my friend,’ I said, ‘a present from the SID.
Enjoy
.
’

When we drove out of the gate in the white Fiat, I caught a glimpse of a tall Arab woman dressed in loose black robes from head to foot, standing in the shade of the concrete walls. She stared at me through holes in a vampire-like mask of the type some Bedouin tribes wore, and in a flash I was reminded of the woman I’d seen in the vision I’d had while touching Ibram’s dead hand. Then I was distracted by the buzz of Daisy’s mobile, and when I looked again, the woman was gone.

6

‘It’s for you,’ Daisy said, flipping the mobile into my hand, ‘Colonel Hammoudi.’

I fumbled with the controls cursing, and finally put the speaker to my mouth. ‘Sammy here, Colonel.’

‘Good.’ Hammoudi’s voice came back at me, metallic with rasping bass notes. ‘The US embassy’s just released the information that Ibram was staying at the Mena Palace Oberoi at Giza before he died. I want you to get up there and see if you can get anything from the staff, and find out if he left any baggage.’

‘Sir, I could do that job alone,’ I said. ‘It’s nearly five. I’m sure Miss Brooke here needs her beauty sleep.’

‘Oh please!’ Daisy said, her voice loaded, ‘and it’s
Special
Agent
Brooke to you.’

‘Nice try, Sammy,’ Hammoudi said, ‘but you work together. Those are the best terms I could get with the US ambassador.’

‘I read you, sir.’

‘Any joy with Fawzi?’

‘Said the gunmen were wearing long black coats and military-style
shamaghs
, and he confirmed that one of them was wearing an amulet. It’s sounding more and more like a Militant hit job.’

‘No shit?’ Hammoudi said, impatiently. ‘Anything else?’

‘Two things. Ibram was on the phone to a guy called Monod when he was stiffed. That name mean anything to you?’

‘Not off hand. I’ll run it through records. What was the other thing?’

‘Ibram’s last words. According to Fawzi he said “Firebird” just before he died.’

‘What in hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘Could mean anything or nothing. Ibram was coughing up blood at the time and in my experience that can lead to some
very
erratic behaviour. Anyway, the only Firebird I know is an American car. Maybe Fawzi got it wrong — the guy’s not exactly a fluent English speaker.’

‘OK, keep me posted.’

I handed the phone back to Daisy, who put it away in her bag one-handed still doing sixty along the Corniche. Suddenly a whole family — mother, father and two small kids — made a kamikaze rush across the road in front of us, and Daisy slammed on the brakes. She’d been driving one-handed and for a second I thought the car would go out of control, but it simply skidded with a squeal of tyres. For the second time that day, I was impressed with Daisy’s speed. I was about the world’s worst driver, and they’d run in front of us so abruptly I was certain I’d have ploughed straight into them.

‘Jesus H. Christ!’ she said. ‘Don’t you have subways here?’

‘A little item neglected when they planned this great city,’ I grinned, ‘I suppose they thought no one’d have to walk anymore.’

‘So what does the great Hammoudi have to say?’ she asked, inching the vehicle forward again.

‘Our orders are to hit the Mena Palace Oberoi hotel,’ I said. ‘That’s where Ibram holed up before he died. It’s at Giza, right at the foot of the pyramids — about a half-hour drive from here.’

‘Oh boy! So I get to see the pyramids at last!’ She looked so pleased with herself and so childishly enthusiastic that I almost felt sorry to disillusion her. Almost.

‘Not today you don’t, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘It’ll be nearly dark by the time we get there, and anyway they close the site at four o’clock.’

‘Just my luck,’ she said, ‘and I’m not your sweetheart.’

She pouted and was about to accelerate again when a motorcycle cut in front, carrying another family — a man and a woman and no less than three children, the tiniest of whom was sitting happily on the fuel tank. ‘Will you look at that!’ she gasped. ‘Five people on a motorcycle! Is that legal?’

‘No, but who cares!’

‘I’ve had it with this traffic,’ Daisy said, ‘this is like Dante’ s
Inferno
!
’

Earlier the streets had been almost empty, but now every motor vehicle in the city, it seemed, was either heading out for the evening or heading home. In Tahrir Square the cars were almost bumper to bumper and the air was heavy with gasoline fumes drifting nauseatingly in the heat. Cairene drivers like to drive at breakneck speed, and there was a deafening cacophony of motor horns as they vented their frustration on each other. I saw a whole bunch of them sticking their heads out of their windows, waving their arms, and carrying on a running battle of abuse.

Past Tahrir Square the traffic freed up and as we circled slowly back into the sun on to the Corniche, a shaft of light shone directly into my face, blinding me. ‘By the way,’ Daisy said, staring at me suddenly, ‘how
did
you get those green eyes?’

‘Crusader genes,’ I said. ‘Result of all that raping and pillaging your ancestors did here. Specially the raping.’

‘Come on. That’s bullshit.’

‘OK, maybe it is. If you want to know, my father was a Yank.’

‘I don’t believe it!’

‘Believe what you want. I have to live with it. My father was a USAF sergeant over here on some kind of attachment — I don’t know what. Mother was only sixteen when she met him and he was sort of brawny and handsome. She really fell for him. She lived in Aswan, and every time he came back he’d bring her presents. Swept her off her feet. It was frowned on by her family and the neighbours — big scandal, and even bigger when she got pregnant and I was born. Dad set us up in a flat and lived with us part of the time, but Ma was regarded as a whore and ostracized by the community. She didn’t care, she said, because she loved him so much. Then Dad’s posting came to an end and he pissed off and left us. He always promised Ma he’d come back for us, but he just dumped us without a cent. It was a long time afterwards that Ma got a letter explaining that he was already married and had three kids at home. He’d been married all the time. That killed Ma. They said she’d died of cancer, but I reckon it was a broken heart.’

I sighed and looked at the road, wondering as I’d always wondered whether that was the whole story. I’d been very young when my father had left, but I still remembered how he’d sat me on his knee and tousled my hair, saying ‘I’ll come back for you, Sammy, if it’s the last thing I ever do.’ The truth was that despite my mother’s later claims, I remembered him as a kind and considerate man who’d loved me. I could even remember the big sad face at the window of a train in Aswan station the day he’d gone for good. In the States I’d tried to find him again, but no one, not even the USAF Records Section, seemed to have heard of a Sergeant Desmond Redfield. He seemed to have disappeared without trace, and the wife and three kids he was supposed to have had — my half-brothers or sisters — had vanished too.

‘So now you hate Americans?’ Daisy asked.

‘I don’t hate Americans,’ I said, ‘I just hate hypocrites and people coming over here telling us our jobs. There’s good and bad everywhere.’

‘What happened to you in the end?’

‘It was bad enough to live with a woman who had no money and who everybody said was a whore. But after she died there was no one to look after me. No one wanted me, I belonged to no one. I wasn’t even an Egyptian — not full-blooded anyway. I went wild, drifted on to the streets, mixed with all the other rejects. I became a regular street rat — I mean I was smoking dope and drinking neat araq before I was ten. Got initiated into a gang and into everything — mugging, pick pocketing, burglary, fights — I carried a shiv as long as my arm. Always in the shit with the cops — I mean if it hadn’t been for my mother teaching me to read and write I’d have had no schooling at all.’

‘Quite a transition — street rat to SID officer.’ She glanced sideways at my sleazy jacket. ‘Though perhaps not. Street gangs — that explains the pierced upper ear, right?’

I fingered the upper fold of my right ear self-consciously, probing for the perforation I’d received at the age of twelve — the brand that would always make me different from others. I’d been right about her spotting it, and I’d have bet money she’d clocked the dagger I wore on my left arm, too. The woman was sharp as a needle. She’d disarmed me in a split second by reaching out for my pistol with a confidence that seemed almost psychic, and a speed that defied logic. Damn Hammoudi, I thought: why the hell had he agreed to this? Daisy had what the Bedouin called
guwwat
al
-
mulahazza
— an extraordinary perceptive ability. That and her unbelievable speed was a dangerous combination. Given half the chance she would blow my cover, and that was one thing Hammoudi and I couldn’t afford. If we were going to work together over the next few days, I’d have to watch my step.

I pulled my cap down firmly over the pierce mark. ‘Every gang has its own rituals. The earring in the upper right ear was ours.’

‘You should get yourself a bigger cap,’ she said, ‘or grow your hair longer. That’s what they’re designed to hide, isn’t it? Why not just have plastic surgery — it wouldn’t be much of a job these days. I mean, if you’re so ashamed of it, why keep it?’

‘Let’s say it’s because it reminds me of where I came from and who I really am.’

‘And that blade you’re wearing on your left arm. That a souvenir from your street kid days, too?’

I smiled and slid the razor sharp, double edged stiletto from under the cuff of my sweatshirt, showing Daisy its bone handle, intricately and beautifully carved. ‘How’d you guess?’

‘All the time I had a bead on you, you remained completely confident. Most people — even the most macho types — go apeshit when they look into the muzzle of a firearm they know could blow their brains out. But you behaved as if you still had the jump on me and that had to mean you’d got another weapon on you. Then I clocked a bulge in the leather of your jacket above the left wrist. Whatever was there was too small to be a gun, so it had to be a knife. That’s a pretty unpolice-like weapon. I never knew a cop who wore a knife before.’

‘Welcome to Egypt,’ I said, putting the blade away again. ‘It always helps to have a backup.’

‘You reckon you’re pretty fast with that stinger, huh?’

‘I could have stuck you any time, gun or no gun.’

‘Maybe we should try a contest sometime, for real.’

‘Sure. Didn’t you ever see that film
The
Magnificent
Seven
with Yul Brynner? There’s the scene where the cowboy challenges the knife thrower, saying he can draw his shooter quicker than the guy can nail him with his blade.’

‘Yeah, I saw it. The way I remember it, the cowboy won.’

By the time we reached the stone lions at the entrance to Tahrir Bridge, the traffic had already thinned out. The heat of the day had melted away and the sun was a rose coloured globe spinning gigantically between the sky scrapers over the Gezira. The Nile had become a red river with enough colours dancing around its edges to give you the feeling that it was as diaphanous as a rainbow. Even in Cairo, I loved this time of day. The light was so crystal clear that every object it illuminated seemed larger, more real, more intense. It gave me an odd, vaguely spiritual feeling that I wouldn’t have revealed to anyone in Cairo, not even Hammoudi, and certainly not Special Agent Hard-Ass Brooke of the FBI. I could understand how the ancient Egyptians had felt about the sunset. They saw the sun as a boat — the Bark of Millions of Years, they called it — which crossed the sky every day carrying the sun god Ra. The sunset was a gateway into the Underworld — a terrifying dark land where Ra and his crew had to fight battle after battle with demons and evil spirits in order to emerge victorious next morning at sunrise. Sometimes, I thought, I knew exactly how that felt.

We crossed al-Gala’a Bridge and entered the built up streets of western Cairo, where lights were already firing up in the apartment buildings. At the end of the great boulevard of Tahrir Street a huge, multi coloured flyer was stretched across the road, with writing and an emblem picked out in the last of the sunlight. ‘Phoenix Insurance International’, it read, ‘World Conference, Cairo, 1999’. The emblem, I noticed, was the scarlet image of a phoenix in cameo, rising from a ring of flames.

‘Phoenix,’ Daisy said suddenly.

‘Arizona?’ I said.

‘Jesus Christ!’ she snapped, mumbling something under her breath that I suspected was insulting. ‘The phoenix is a mythical bird that the ancient Greeks believed would erupt into flames every millennium or so, and renew itself from the ashes.’

‘So what?’ I said, playing dumb but knowing she’d hit the nail right on the head.

‘So the phoenix was known as the
Firebird
— and that was the last thing Ibram said, right?’

I
have
gone
forth
as
a
phoenix
,
in
the
hope
of
life
eternal
.

I paused, then looked at her, wondering whether it was worth continuing with the pretence. I decided it wasn’t, and relaxed. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘I know about the phoenix, except that that part of the myth is ancient Greek. The Firebird story is actually ancient Egyptian and existed millennia before the Greeks were even heard of.’

Daisy squinted at me suspiciously. ‘You told Hammoudi the only Firebird you knew was an American car!’