The Curse (31 page)

What Kaseem was planning to do suddenly hit me—launch a full-scale coup, killing the head of state, and seizing the reins of power.

And I was sure I had figured out how he was going to do it—he was going to blow the giant head off of Ramses, all forty or fifty thousand pounds of it, with the debris killing everyone within a football field of the explosion.

He'd need a powerful blast, but modern explosives came in small packages that caused major damage.

A wonderful symbolic gesture, I thought—Ramses toppling another “foreign enemy” as he did a couple of thousand years ago when Egypt had been invaded. Throw the heart of King Tut into the scenario and it would appear that the ancient gods of Egypt had come back to strike down the enemies of the people on the Nile.

I wasn't sure how Kaseem would pull it off, but after the presidents were buried in rubble, I imagined him holding a press conference announcing that the curse of the pharaohs had destroyed the nation's enemies because he had brought home the Heart of Egypt.

Dying with curiosity as to whether I was right, unfortunately in an almost literal sense, I couldn't keep my mouth shut when Lana came by to check on us.

“It will never work,” I said.

She gave me a look that implied I was a dog that needed a good kicking.

“What are you talking about?”

I gestured at a large black box against the wall that I assumed was where the left Ramses statue sat on the other side. I had pinpointed the box as holding the bomb that would bring down the statue.

“They have bomb-sniffing dogs, rock-penetrating sound waves, and X-rays; you'll never bring down Ramses on the presidents. Even if you did, consider that you will have destroyed one of the most incredible pieces of Egyptian antiquity.”

Lana gave me a kick and walked away, muttering something in Arabic that I took to be “stupid woman.”

I caught Rafi's eye and he shook his head again and looked away.

Was I wrong?

Then what the hell was coming down?

“Tell me,” I said. “I have to know why I'm going to die.”

He turned his head away.

Dalila cried, “I don't want to die,” and hugged her father.

I shook my head, defeated and disgusted.

“Don't tell me. I'd rather die surprised.”

69

I dozed off and woke up when the doctor arrived to treat Rafi. He was changing the bandages when Lana came in with some soldiers.

The men went to the black box against the wall that I thought contained a bomb and opened the lid. They removed AK-47 assault rifles and began checking them and filling magazines with bullets.

One look at Lana and I could see she had taken something. She stared at me in that happy-crazy way and looked like she could float across the room. And maybe she could.

“You thought it was a big bomb, but it's much simpler,” she said. She gestured at Rafi being treated. “Let us say that General Kaseem designed his plans with surgical precision.”

“What will happen?” I asked.

“The two presidents will be killed, the general's shock troops will take command here and all over the country, television, radio, government buildings. He will proclaim himself president of Egypt … just as political coups have been done for thousands of years.”

“And then he won't need you,” I said. “You'll just become another one of his victims.”

Kaseem came in behind Lana. I didn't need an interpreter to tell me he was chewing her out, probably for talking to me. But she was high enough to shout back at the commander in chief.

While the squabbling was going on, Dalila left Rafi's side and brought me a plastic bottle of water. When she gave it to me, she slipped something into my free hand.

I squeezed it in my palm. It felt like an old-fashioned key, the ones that look like skeleton keys used to lock cabinets.

I realized what it was and got a sudden bolt of adrenaline.

A handcuff key.

70

I had used a handcuff key before. I had once cuffed Michelangelo to the bedposts when things got kinky.

If I was clever, I could get my wrist free from the pillar. But what was I supposed to do then? Grab an assault rifle and begin spraying bullets?

I hardly knew which end of a rifle to point, less how to figure out how to get it going if it took anything more than pressing the trigger.

Rafi spoke to Kaseem in Arabic, but Kaseem shot a glance at his soldiers and said to him, “Use English. I don't want them to hear.”

“Dalila is not supposed to be here. That was part of the bargain.”

“The bargain was for you to accept the implant. You violated that by interfering in my efforts to obtain the scarab.”

“Send her away with Maddy.” Rafi nodded at me. “She's no fool. Let her go with Dalila and she will promise not to go to the authorities.”

“I can't do that. I need your daughter to guarantee you will go through with the mission. As for the American—she will shoulder the blame if anything goes wrong.”

Kaseem walked away, talking to an aide who had a question.

Implant?
That was something put into a body. Noor said Rafi had given up a kidney and was about to give up a piece of his liver. That made him the donor for an implant, not the receiver.

And Lana had said Kaseem's plans were designed with surgical precision. Was that a play on words from the sarcastic bitch?

Kaseem and the others gathered at a TV screen in the next area. Through the opening between the two cavernlike rooms I could see enough of the TV to realize that the historic meeting between the two presidents had already started here at Abu Simbel.

I fumbled with the handcuff key as I pretended to be engrossed with the television story.

Lana floated away from the group around the TV and came toward me. She had her cattle prod in her hand, tapping it against her leg like a military officer tapping a commander's baton.

At first I thought she had come over to give me a jolt, but instead she pointed the prod across the room at Rafi's bare chest.

“Boom!” she said.

I didn't have the faintest idea what she was trying to get across and my face must have shown it because she ran to a table to my left. She set down her weapon and picked up what looked like a remote control to a television.

She danced around a little and pointed the remote at Rafi and said, “Boom! Boom! Boom!”

“Lana!”

Kaseem shouted her name loud enough to give the Ramses colossi a start.

She tossed the remote on the table and hurried to Kaseem.

For a moment I thought he was going to strike her. He was in a rage. I wished the hell I could understand what he was saying, but thought I had heard and seen enough from Lana to understand.

I caught Rafi's eye and mouthed the word “bomb” and patted my chest.

He nodded. Grimly.

Rafi was the bomb!

Rather than risk dying from giving up part of his liver after parting out a kidney, he had made a deal with the devil. God only knows how much Kaseem paid him to have a bomb implanted. Certainly enough for Dalila to have the best medical treatment available in the world and to have someone, probably Noor, raise her without financial worry.

But Kaseem had probably dropped funny money on him, too.

I had the cuff unlocked but no place to go.

It struck me that despite the pure insanity of the scheme, the killing of two presidents, Rafi had only one objective—to save his daughter from suffering a horrible death because she was born in a country where medical services for her condition weren't provided.

He was willing to do whatever it took to get his daughter the treatment she needed. He attempted to be honorable and get the money with the scarab, even to the point of trying to palm off the reproduction rather than letting Kaseem get his hands on the real antiquity.

I now realized what Kaseem's plan was for me.

He would frame me as part of the assassination plot. I was an American. That made me an easy target for the Egyptians to hate for killing their president and to throw the blame on when the next U. S. president wanted an explanation or blood.

Things started moving fast, with more communications coming in and more orders being issued by Kaseem.

A uniform was brought to Rafi and he was helped to his feet. He stood up a little hesitantly, but appeared to get his feet under him. I could see from the name tag on the uniform it was Rafi's own and more of Kaseem's scheme fell into place.

I tried to imagine how it would play out.

There would be a tight security wrap around the presidential event that would be impossible to breach. But the security people and government officials already in the cocoon would not be able to move around. And Rafi was inside the security perimeter—the interior of the dome contained the Ramses temple, with a complex set of corridors and chambers. It had the triangular layout of most Egyptian temples, but had an unusual number of chambers, literally a maze of them.

Rafi would enter from the unfinished area into the temple through one of the doors used to access the dome for maintenance. Once he was standing in a temple chamber, he became part of the security force.

All he had to do was stroll outside and get close enough to the presidents to blow them to hell when Kaseem pressed the wireless remote.

I had no idea what sort of bomb he was carrying, but I knew even a small ounce of explosive could cover a wide area, so he wouldn't have to be in spitting distance to bring down the two men.

Dressed in his officer's uniform, Rafi walked around a bit, getting his feet under him. And then he looked over at me.

Showtime.

71

Rafi met my eye and then stared at the table near me. I thought he was telling me to grab the cattle prod and wondered what he expected me to do with it against assault rifles, but as I watched him, he held up his hand in a fist and pressed his thumb against his index finger and then a sweeping motion over the scar on his abdomen.

Jesus—
he was telling me to get the remote and blow him up.

Bile surged in my throat and I gagged.

From the outer edge of the group of soldiers crowded around watching the monitors Lana turned and grinned when she saw the fright and repulsion on my face.

When I turned my attention back to Rafi, he was whispering to Dalila.

He looked up and caught my eye again.

As the noise level in the command center increased when the video monitors showed the two presidents coming to the pavilion, Rafi leaned toward me and spoke loud enough for me to hear.

“Run and get away before you press the button.”

I sat frozen, staring at him and Dalila, too petrified by fear and indecision to move.

Dalila suddenly stood up and came toward me. Rafi desperately wanted me to save her.

I jerked out of my stupor and rose, dropping the unlocked cuff behind me as cheers from the monitor screen erupted when the two presidents came face-to-face with each other in the pavilion.

Lana turned and saw me as I started for the table.

We made a race for it.

The cattle prod was closest to me and I grabbed it as she slammed into me, sending me spinning around, knocking over the table and sending everything on it flying.

She pointed her pistol point-blank at my face. Dalila reached up and grabbed Lana's gun arm, bringing it down. The pistol went off, the bullet striking the floor at my feet as I leaned forward and smacked Lana on the side of the head with the cattle prod, but I wasn't able to pull the prod's trigger to give her a shock. But I connected good, sending her stumbling backward.

A soldier was suddenly in front of me, his assault rifle pointed at my gut when I heard Kaseem shouting, literally screeching something in Arabic.

Everybody froze.

I don't know what he said, but the reaction of the soldiers in the cavern was instantaneous, as if he had pressed a button that stopped robots from moving.

My feet were planted, too.

Rafi was pointing something at Kaseem. At first I thought it was a gun, but then I realized Rafi had the remote that had been on the table with the prod.

He kept it pointed at Kaseem as the general spoke to him in a quiet, soothing tone of Arabic.

“Father!” Dalila cried out and started to bolt toward Rafi, but I grabbed her and held her back.

Rafi stared at his daughter with eyes full of love and pain, and then his eyes met mine. The message was to run because he was going to blow himself to hell to save us.

I pulled Dalila with me and quickly moved as Kaseem started toward Rafi and Rafi again pointed the remote at him as if it were a gun.

I didn't look back but ran with Dalila as if the hounds of hell were snapping at my heels and I was sure that they were.

Suddenly I wasn't running but blown forward, flying off my feet, as a powerful explosion erupted behind me.

72

Dust filled the air, choking me as I got onto hands and knees and finally wobbly feet under me.

I heard Dalila coughing before I saw her in the fog of tiny particles.

A few dozen feet beyond us was a dim light—not artificial light, but daylight.

Rafi said we were high up on the mountain, near the top of a seven-story-high statue of Ramses. The light made sense if the explosion had created an opening.

I helped the girl along, keeping her on her feet as we trudged for the light.

She was weak and coughing and I had to get both of us to the fresh air and the help I hoped was in shouting distance from what I assumed was a crack in the artificial mountain.

As we got closer to the opening, I realized that some sort of hatch had been blown partially open. The hatch would have been created during construction and perhaps used in maintenance over the decades since. The small door was about four feet high by four feet wide.

I pushed the hatch door open farther and could see blue sky, a short, flat platform, and a sand-colored, round, conical shape.