The Egyptian army officer was still speaking on the phone. He seemed to be talking for a very long time. He came out with a pen and a pad of paper, crouched to jot down the licence plate of Knox’s Jeep. Then he went back inside and read it out to whoever was at the other end of the phone.
The Jeep’s keys were in the ignition. For a crazy moment, Knox contemplated driving for it. If Hassan caught him, he was finished anyway. But though the Egyptian soldiers looked cheerful and relaxed enough, that would change in a heartbeat if he fled. The threat of suicide bombers was simply too high around here for them to take risks. He’d be shot dead before he made it fifty yards. So he forced himself to relax, to accept that his fate was out of his hands.
The officer replaced the handset carefully, composed himself, walked across. He wasn’t swaggering any more. He looked thoughtful, even apprehensive. He gestured to his men. Immediately, they became alert. He stooped a little to talk through the Jeep’s open window, tapping the spine of Knox’s passport against the knuckles of his left hand as he did so.
He said: ‘I am hearing whispers of a most remarkable story.’
Knox’s stomach squeezed. ‘What whispers?’
‘Of an incident involving Hassan al-Assyuti and some young foreigner.’
‘I know nothing about that,’ said Knox.
‘I’m glad,’ said the officer, squinting down the road to Sharm, as though expecting a vehicle to appear at any moment. ‘Because, if the rumours are true, the young foreigner in question has a very bleak future.’
Knox swallowed. ‘He was raping a girl,’ he blurted out. ‘What was I supposed to do?’
‘Contact the authorities.’
‘We were in the middle of the fucking sea.’
‘I’m sure you’ll have your chance to tell your side.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Knox. ‘I’ll be dead within an hour.’
The officer flushed. ‘You should have thought of that before, shouldn’t you?’
‘I should have covered my arse, you mean? Like you’re doing now?’
‘This isn’t my fight,’ scowled the officer.
Knox nodded. ‘People in my country, they think that all Egyptian men are cowards and thieves. I tell them they’re wrong. I tell them that Egyptian men are honourable and brave. But maybe I’ve been wrong.’
There was an angry muttering. One of the soldiers reached in the open window. The officer clamped his hand around his wrist. ‘No,’ he said.
‘But he—’
‘No.’
The soldier retreated, a little shamefaced, while the officer looked down thoughtfully at Knox, clearly uncertain what to do. A pair of headlights crested a hill behind. ‘Please,’ begged Knox. ‘Just give me a chance.’
The officer had noticed the approaching headlights too. His jaw tightened as he came to his decision. He tossed the passport onto the passenger seat, then signalled his men to stand aside. ‘Get out of Egypt,’ he advised. ‘It’s no longer safe for you.’
Knox let out a long breath. ‘I’m leaving tonight.’
‘Good. Now go before I change my mind.’
Knox put the Jeep into gear, accelerated away. His hands began shaking wildly as his body flooded with the euphoria of escape. He held himself back until he was a distance down the road, then he whooped and punched the air. He’d done a stupid, reckless thing, but it looked as though he’d got away with it.
III
Nessim, Hassan al-Assyuti’s head of security, arrived in Knox’s Sharm backpacker hotel to find the middle-aged concierge snoring raucously behind his desk. He came awake with a strangled shriek when Nessim slammed down the wooden access hatch.
‘Knox,’ said Nessim. ‘I’m looking for Daniel Knox.’
‘He’s not here,’ said the concierge, breathing heavily.
‘I know he’s not here,’ said Nessim coldly. ‘I want to see his room.’
‘But it’s his room!’ protested the concierge. ‘I can’t just show it to you.’
Nessim reached into his jacket pocket for his wallet, making sure that the concierge caught a glimpse of his shoulder holster while he was at it. He took out fifty Egyptian pounds and set them down on the counter. ‘This is me asking nicely,’ he said.
The concierge licked his lips. ‘Just this once, I suppose.’
Nessim followed the fat man upstairs, still brooding on what had happened on the boat, the humiliation of being bested by some beach-bum foreigner. At first, he’d thought that Knox would be easy to track down, but it wasn’t proving that simple. He’d had word back from a contact in the army that Knox had somehow bluffed his way through a checkpoint. When he’d heard about that, he’d felt a spike of intense anger and frustration. How simple it might have been! But he knew better than to make waves. Only a fool took on the army in Egypt; and Nessim wasn’t a fool.
The concierge unlocked and opened Knox’s door, looking around nervously lest other guests see what was happening. Nessim went inside. He had one night to capture Knox, and he had that only because Hassan was on morphine to manage his pain. When he woke in the morning he’d demand to know what progress had been made.
He’d want Knox.
Nessim fingered the shabby clothes hanging in the wardrobe, checked the side-pockets of the red canvas bag in the bottom, crouched to inspect the books lined up on the floor against the walls. A few comic novels and thrillers, but mostly academic works on Egypt and archaeology. There were CDs, too, some music, others for his laptop. He picked up a cone-bound document. The front page read, in both English and Arabic:
Mallawi Excavation First Season Notes Richard Mitchell and Daniel Knox
He flipped through it. Text and photographs of an excavation near an ancient Ptolemaic settlement a few kilometres from Mallawi in Middle Egypt. He put it back thoughtfully. Why would an Egyptologist be working as a dive instructor in Sharm? He checked a few more documents. Maps and photographs of reefs systems, as best as he could make out. He took the canvas bag from the wardrobe and packed all of Knox’s documents inside. Then he packed up Knox’s laptop too, and his work-related CDs and floppy disks. In the top drawer of Knox’s desk, he found photocopies of his passport and driver’s licence, presumably in case he lost the originals; and a strip of colour passport-sized photographs, no doubt for the myriad documents foreigners needed to work in Sinai. He scooped these up and tucked them away in his jacket pocket. Then he picked up the canvas bag and laptop to take away with him. The concierge gave a little whimper.
‘Yes?’ asked Nessim. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘No,’ said the concierge.
‘Good. A word of advice. I’d clear the rest of his stuff out, if I were you. I very much doubt your friend will be coming back any time soon.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ Nessim handed the man one of his business cards. ‘But call me if he does.’
I
The mosquitoes were in a malevolent mood that evening. Gaille had spiked two smouldering green coils onto their tin stands, had