Sphinx (11 page)

 

It was an unfamiliar jangle that made Erica sit bolt upright. At first she had no idea where she was: there was a sound of water, and she was dressed only in her underpants. The harsh metallic sound recurred, and she realized she was in her hotel and that the phone was ringing. The sound of water was the shower, still running. She had fallen asleep on top of the bedspread with all the lights blazing.

Her mind was still foggy when she picked up the receiver. The operator said that her call to America was ready. After several distant sounds the phone went dead. She shouted hello several times; then, shrugging her shoulders, she hung up and went into the bathroom to turn off the shower. A casual glance in the mirror unnerved her. She looked terrible. Her eyes were red, her lids puffy, and the pimple on her chin had come to a head.

The phone rang again, and she ran back to the bedroom to pick it up.

“I'm so glad you called, dear. How was the trip?” Richard sounded pleased on the other end.

“Terrible,” said Erica.

“Terrible? What's wrong?” Richard was instantly alarmed. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine. It just hasn't been what I expected,” said Erica. At once, sensing Richard's overprotectiveness, she
decided that it probably had been a mistake to call him. But having already committed herself, she told him about the statue and the murder, about her terror, about Yvon and then Ahmed.

“My God,” said Richard, obviously aghast. “Erica, I want you to come home immediately, the next flight!” There was a pause. “Erica, did you hear me?”

Erica pushed her hair back. Richard's command had a negative effect. He was not in a position to give her orders, no matter what his motivation.

“I'm not ready to leave Egypt,” she said evenly.

“Look, Erica, you've made your point. There's no need to drag it out, especially if you are in danger.”

“I'm not in danger,” Erica said flatly, “and what point are you referring to?”

“Your independence. I understand. You don't have to continue your acting-out.”

“Richard, I don't think you understand. It's not that simple. I'm not acting-out. Ancient Egypt means a great deal to me. I've dreamed of visiting the pyramids since I was a child. I'm here because I want to be here.”

“Well, I think you are being foolish.”

“Frankly, I don't think this is a proper topic for a transatlantic call. You keep forgetting that besides being a woman I'm an Egyptologist. I've spent eight years of my life studying for my degree, and I'm vitally interested in what I'm doing. It's important to me.” Erica could feel herself getting angry all over again.

“More important than our relationship?” asked Richard somewhere between being hurt and being angry.

“As important as your medicine is to you.”

“Medicine and Egyptology are very different.”

“Of course, but what you forget is that people can approach Egyptology with the same commitment that you apply to medicine. But I'm not going to talk any more about this now, and I'm not coming back to Boston. Not yet.”

“Then I will come over to Egypt,” said Richard magnanimously.

“No,” said Erica simply.

“No?”

“That's what I said—no.
Do not come to Egypt.
Please. If you want to do something for me, phone my boss, Dr. Herbert Lowery, and ask him to call me here as soon as possible. Apparently it is much easier to call into Egypt than out.”

“I'd be happy to call Lowery, but are you sure you don't want me to join you?” asked Richard, amazed at the rebuff.

“I'm sure,” said Erica before saying good-bye and terminating the conversation.

 

When the phone rang again just after four A.M., Erica was not jolted as she had been earlier. However, she was afraid it was Richard calling back, and she let it ring several times, deciding exactly what she would say. But it wasn't Richard. It was Dr. Herbert Lowery.

“Erica, are you all right?”

“I'm fine, Dr. Lowery. Just fine.”

“Richard seemed very upset when he called about an hour ago. He said you wanted me to call.”

“That's right, Dr. Lowery. I can explain,” said Erica, sitting up to help herself wake up. “I wanted to talk to you about something astounding, and I was told that it was easier to call into Cairo than out. Did Richard tell you anything about my first day here?”

“No. He said you'd had some trouble. That was all.”

“Trouble is hardly the word,” said Erica. She quickly sketched the events of the day for Dr. Lowery. Then, with as much detail as she could remember, she described the Seti I statue.

“Unbelievable,” said Dr. Lowery when Erica had finished. “Actually, I have seen the Houston statue. The man who bought it is indecently rich, and he had both Leonard from the Met and me flown down to Houston in his 707 to authenticate it. We both agreed it was the finest sculpture ever found in Egypt. I thought it probably came from Abydos or Luxor. Its condition was astounding. It was hard to believe it had been buried for
three thousand years. Anyway, what you describe sounds like a mate.”

“Did the Houston statue have hieroglyphics cut into the base?” asked Erica.

“It did, indeed,” said Dr. Lowery. “It had some very typical religious exhortation, but it also had a very curious bit of hieroglyphics at the base.”

“So did the one I saw,” added Erica excitedly.

“It was very difficult to translate,” said Lowery, “but it said something like ‘Eternal peace granted to Seti I, who ruled after Tutankhamen.' ”

“Fantastic,” said Erica. “The one I saw also had the names Seti I and Tutankhamen. I was sure of it, but it's so weird.”

“I agree it doesn't make any sense for Tutankhamen's name to appear. In fact, Leonard and I wondered about the authenticity of the statue when we saw that. But there was no doubt it was real. Did you notice which of Seti I's names was used?”

“I think it was his name associated with the god Osiris,” said Erica. “Wait, I can tell you for sure.” Erica suddenly remembered the scarab Abdul Hamdi had given her. She ran over to the pants she'd draped over a chair. The scarab was still in the pocket.

“Yes, it was his Osiris name,” said Erica. “I remembered it was the same as I've seen on a clever fake scarab. Anyway, Dr. Lowery, could you possibly get a photo of the hieroglyphics on the Houston statue and send it to me?”

“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.

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.