Laughter of Dead Kings

TEN

T he sun sank slowly in the west, as it is wont to do, the muezzins sang the praises of God, and still John had not returned. Feisal kept running out onto the balcony. I kept trying not to look at the door. Schmidt tried his best to distract Ashraf, but eventually he was reduced to mentioning dinner. Ashraf declined his invitation to join us.

“I have an appointment this evening. I will meet you at your office tomorrow at eight, Feisal.”

It was an order. Feisal acknowledged it with a surly nod, and Ashraf strode out. I collected the messages we had received and for want of anything better to do, began rereading them in the forlorn hope that we had missed something. The note from the unknown American female provided nothing new. I picked up the one from the French archaeologist and wrinkled my brow over it. My French isn’t as good as Schmidt’s. It took me a while to decipher the crabbed handwriting.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s this about Karnak? ‘I have received permission to enter the temple tonight after the Son et Lumière and hope that you will be able to join me.’”

“Ah, that is most interessant,” said Schmidt, perking up. “It is a rare privilege, seldom granted, to see the temple by moonlight.”

Feisal looked up from his frowning contemplation of the floor. “Rare is right. How did LeBlanc manage that?”

“He apologizes for not notifying you earlier,” I went on. “He only learned of the plan this morning. Feisal, who is in a position to arrange this?”

“Not me. Not without permission from a higher authority.”

“Ashraf?”

“I suppose so. What are you getting at?”

“I’m not sure.” I grabbed hold of my head with both hands, as if that would keep the wild ideas flooding into my brain from leaking out. “Let me think. Ashraf must have been the one who set this up. He invited LeBlanc, and maybe a few others. He didn’t invite us, though.”

“That was not kind of him,” Schmidt said, pouting. “It is a rare opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime—”

“Exactly! So why didn’t he?”

Feisal opened his mouth. “Shut up,” I said distractedly. “Remember what I said before—that there had been no either/or in that message from the thieves? Something else was missing—a means of contact. They said they’d be in touch. Suppose they have been. Suppose that’s why Ashraf came to Luxor. To meet with one of them. At the temple of Karnak, late at night, when only a few people are around. But not us. He didn’t count on Schmidt’s wide circle of dear old friends. He doesn’t want us to be there.”

Feisal’s eyebrows wriggled. “Is paranoia rearing its ugly head?”

“Not raising its head, upstanding, yelling, and waving its arms. They have to make contact with him sooner or later. How else can they collect the ransom?”

Feisal said something under his breath. I turned on him. “What was that?”

“I said, wire transfer. You need to move up into the twenty-first century, Vicky.”

“Oh,” I said, momentarily deflated.

“No, she is right,” Schmidt declared. “He must confirm that he has received their message and will agree to their terms, nicht wahr? They would not give him a telephone number or a post restante, or any other address that could be traced. A personal meeting may be old-fashioned, but it is the safest way. When the actual exchange takes place, it will be carried out in the same manner.”

“Yes! And the ambience is perfect for the first meeting—dark and deserted, isolated—those vast spaces, huge statues and towering columns, people wandering romantically through the shadows—just enough people to make it look legitimate…” Feisal’s eyebrows continued to convey skepticism, but I had convinced myself. “If Ashraf were fool enough to bring along a squad of cops they would be spotted right away. He wouldn’t dare risk it, it would queer the deal and the next thing you know he’d get Tut’s head delivered to his door, and the price would go up.”

“Hmmm.” Feisal scratched his bristly chin. “Why didn’t he let us in on the program?”

I was pacing, waving my arms like Mr. Paranoia. It was all coming together. “Ego. The man’s an egomaniac. He thinks he can pull this off without us, take all the credit, maybe even persuade his contact to turn on his bosses and reach a private agreement. He doesn’t trust us. After all, what have we accomplished so far? Damn little. He gave us a chance, today, to prove we were making progress. We couldn’t because we still haven’t a clue.”

“Almost,” said Feisal slowly, “you convince me.”

“It can do no harm to proceed on that assumption,” Schmidt said, nodding at me. “We should certainly be present, if only for the experience.”

“And I’ll tell you who else will be present.” I was at full throttle, roaring along the track. “John. He read that note. He reached the same conclusion I—we—have. He skun out of here before Feisal and Ashraf arrived because he knew it would be more difficult to get away from four of us.”

“How can he gain entrance, though?” Schmidt asked. “LeBlanc said he will have told the guards to admit me and my party, so one must assume that only those on a select list will be allowed in.”

“There are ways,” Feisal said. “He could attend the Son et Lumière and not leave with the other viewers. There are plenty of places to hide. Or climb over the enclosure wall, or—”

“If anyone can find a way, John can,” I said. “So…we go?”

Feisal raised his shoulders in a shrug. “What have we to lose?”

I could think of several things. I refrained from enumerating them.

I t was obvious to me by then that wherever he might be, John had no intention of returning anytime soon, but Schmidt insisted on leaving a message at the desk telling him that we were having dinner at the hotel. Feisal appropriated John’s razor and certain items from his wardrobe, including a tie (regimental?), which was de rigueur in the restaurant. John hadn’t taken anything with him except his precious self, which might have suggested to a trusting soul that he had not left us in the lurch. It didn’t convince me. For all I knew, he might have a pied-à-terre and another wardrobe elsewhere in Luxor. Or he could be on a plane to Cairo, or Berlin, or Kathmandu.

We had time to kill (and Schmidt was paying), so we dallied over a five-course meal and drank a lot of wine. My initial enthusiasm had faded a bit and I began to wonder if I was on the wrong track. My scenario made perfectly good sense, but so do the plots of a lot of novels.

Schmidt, full of wine and sipping a brandy, had become a convert. He has a head like a rock, though, and it was he who brought up the unpleasant subject of possible pitfalls.

“We must make a plan,” he declared. “In case something goes amiss.”

“Something is sure to,” Feisal said morosely. He hadn’t had any wine.

“First,” said Schmidt, ignoring this, “we stick together, yes? We do not separate for any reason.”

“Fine so far,” I agreed. “Second?”

“We find Ashraf and follow him, but at a discreet distance, being sure he does not see us.”

Seemed to me we had already hit the first snag in the plan. Three people don’t lurk well, especially when Schmidt is one of the three.

“When he meets his contact,” Schmidt continued, “we stay at a distance, we do not interfere unless it appears that Ashraf may be in trouble. Then we follow the man he meets.”

“All of us?” I said dubiously.

“We must not be separated,” Schmidt insisted. “If by chance one of us is, she must return immediately to the entrance and wait.”

“What do you mean, she?”

“She or he,” Feisal said. “That goes for you too, Schmidt. All right, I think that covers the main points. The rest is in the hands of God.”

After dinner we went back upstairs to collect our gear. Schmidt left his bedroom door open, so when I heard him talking I felt no compunction about eavesdropping. I had no difficulty in deducing that it was Suzi on the other end. He kept saying “no” and “but” and sputtering.

“Where is she?” I asked, once he had broken the connection.

“In Luxor. She would not tell me where she is staying. She is not pleased with me. She asked why I did not inform her about Ali.”

“She’s really on top of things, isn’t she? What else?”

“She tells me nothing,” Schmidt said angrily. “It is all reproaches and demands and complaints. I am through with her. Gott sei Dank that I found out what sort of woman she was before I—er—”

“Oh, Schmidt,” I said. “Were you about to propose? I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize matters had gone that far.”

Schmidt squared his shoulders, insofar as they were capable of that shape. “There are other women in the world. I will forget her. Go, Vicky, and get ready to leave.”

“I am ready. Don’t I look respectable enough?”

Head on one side, Schmidt studied my ensemble, which was neat if not gaudy—navy pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt, sneakers (blue) and a (blue-and-green) striped scarf. “I like it better when you wear a pretty dress. But for tonight’s adventure, perhaps trousers are more suitable. A shawl, perhaps? The nights grow quickly cold.”

Picturing myself in a fringed shawl, I was moved to mirth. “Shawls are nuisances, Schmidt, they catch on things and slide off.”

“A jacket, then. Something,” said Schmidt pointedly, “with pockets.”

His jacket had plenty of them—another of those archaeologist-type garments. Many of the pockets bulged.

“What have you got in there?” I demanded, indicating the bulgiest pocket.

“A flashlight. Here is one for you.”

“Not a bad idea, Schmidt. Thanks.”

Before I could pursue my inquiries, Schmidt made shooing gestures. “Put it away and let us be off. We should arrive early in order not to miss Ashraf.”

T he moon was gibbous. Now there’s a word that resonates: gibbet, giblet, gibbering…

It means not quite full. Perfectly harmless word. And support for my hypothesis, that Ashraf had ordered the temple opened for purposes of his own. Full moon was the traditional time, when the brilliant Egyptian moonlight is at its brightest. There would be a lot of dark in there tonight.

Feisal had been rude enough to suggest that maybe Ashraf’s motive for violating tradition was personal or, as Schmidt would have said, romantic. He was a busy man, and if the lady he wanted to captivate had an equally full schedule (with, let us say, a husband), Ashraf would have to improvise.

“That’s disgusting,” I scolded. “Shame on you for implying Ashraf is a philanderer.”

“What a ladylike vocabulary you have,” Feisal scoffed. “And what a naive mind. Ashraf has women hanging off him.”

“Tsk, tsk,” said Schmidt. “He is a married man, is he not?”

“What does that have to do with it?”

Schmidt said, “Tsk, tsk.”

The last Son et Lumière attendees were leaving the temple when we got out of the taxi and headed for the entrance. Schmidt pulled me aside into the shadow of a sphinx—there was a row of them on either side of the path—and indicated two people going in the other direction.

“Suzi!” he hissed.

“Which one?” They were about the same height, wearing the unisex uniform of jeans and shirts, baseball caps and sneakers. I heard a fragment of what sounded like Swedish from one. The other laughed and put his or her arm around her or him. “Now you’re getting paranoid, Schmidt. Come on.”

The last of the lights inside the enclosure went out, leaving only a single source of illumination at the entrance. A uniformed guard was dragging a barricade across the opening. “The temple is closed,” he intoned.

I expected Schmidt to greet him by name, but apparently Schmidt didn’t know absolutely everybody in the world. The guard recognized Feisal, though, and when Schmidt announced himself, the guard nodded. “Yes, Dr. LeBlanc has given your name. This lady is with you? Enter.”

We passed through a pyloned gateway into an open court. It was a clutter of shapes. Column bases, more sphinxes, slabs of carved stone, and broken statues were outlined in black by the gibbous moon. A few dark forms moved slowly in and out of the shadows. There wasn’t a sound except for the faint crunch of gravel under our feet. When Schmidt let out a shout, I jumped clear off the ground.

One of the featureless forms trotted toward us and turned into a neat little man with a neat little goatee and neat gold-rimmed glasses. He and Schmidt embraced and exchanged enthusiastic exclamations in French. Schmidt introduced me and LeBlanc kissed my hand. His goatee tickled, but I didn’t mind. I like having my hand kissed.

“And you know Feisal, of course,” Schmidt went on.

Feisal got kissed on both cheeks. Very French and also very Egyptian.

“Feel free to go where you like,” LeBlanc said, speaking English for my benefit. “I would offer to show you around, but you know the temple as well as I, if not better.”

“You will want to greet your other guests,” Schmidt said. “Who else will be here?”

LeBlanc mentioned several names, none of which was familiar to me. “And the secretary general, of course. Without him I could not have arranged this favor.”

“Aha!” The word just popped out of me.

“Pardon?”

“Sorry. I was thinking of—of something else.”

“And why not?” LeBlanc smiled. Gold teeth matched his gold spectacle frames. “It is a spot for mystery and magic, for romance, for dreams. Enjoy!”

“See what I mean?” Feisal hissed into my ear. “In a setting like this Ashraf could have his wicked way with any female.”

“Not me.” I shivered involuntarily. “I can feel eyes, all those empty stone eyes, staring. Who’s that?”

Feisal followed my gesture. “Ramses the Second.”

“A dead king,” I muttered. “Dead kings, staring.”

“They couldn’t care less,” Feisal said. “Pull yourself together, Vicky. We’ve got to locate Ashraf.”

I pulled myself together and poked Schmidt, who was staring dreamily at Ramses the Second, who stared stonily back. “This is hopeless, Schmidt. I remember the plan of Karnak; it’s vast, enormous, unending. How are we going to find one man in all this?”

“‘Man tut was man kann,’” said Schmidt. Then, believe it or not, he giggled. “Tut! Tut!”

Feisal growled and I said, “I hope you didn’t do that on purpose.”

“No, no, it was a fortuitous joke, you understand. The quotation means, ‘One does what one can,’ and the German verb form ‘tut’ is the third-person—”

“We get it, Schmidt. Lead on.”

Schmidt led the way past Ramses (a much smaller figure next to him was female, presumably his queen) and through another gateway into a forest of stone. I had been in the Hypostyle Hall once before, but that had been in the daytime. At night, with only the moon to light them, the towering columns were even more overpowering. We were midgets, insects, next to those mammoth shapes. They surrounded us and diminished us. A few other insects crawled in and out of sight among them.

My idea of romance is a cozy little room with a fire on the hearth and a lot of soft cushions and a bottle of something on ice. Or maybe a secluded pool, surrounded by palms and hibiscus and vines waving gently in a tropical breeze. Or maybe…Whatever it was, it wasn’t a big dark stony place where the shadows whispered words I couldn’t quite hear.

“Romantic?” I said aloud.

“Shh.” Schmidt came to a halt and pointed. “There. Is that not—”

Pale light sifted down between the giant columns and glimmered off a head of fair hair.

“Not John,” I said.

“How can you be sure?”

“If it were John you wouldn’t see him at all. Probably some visiting archaeologist.”

We went on along the main axis, stopping to look down the intersecting aisles as we crossed them. The futility of our search became increasingly apparent to me; the few people we spotted were so diminished by distance and darkness, I couldn’t even tell whether they were men or women.

I caught hold of Schmidt’s sleeve. “This is only one part of the temple, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes, there are long sections beyond. Several more pylons, a temple of the Eighteenth—”

“Why wouldn’t Ashraf be meeting his contact there? This is an impossible place to search.”

“But it is perfect for a private rendezvous. One cannot be cornered,” said Schmidt triumphantly, “because there are no corners! And concealment can be attained in a split second.”

And one could go on playing hide-and-seek indefinitely. Every column looked like every other column and each was big enough to hide several people.

I didn’t have the heart to call a halt, though. Schmidt was having a wonderful time, tiptoeing and squinting at nothing in particular, and I was getting over my fit of nerves.

Then Schmidt let out a stifled shriek and disappeared.

I wasn’t looking at him when it happened. He had fallen behind Feisal and me—not far behind, only a few yards. Having concluded that nothing nasty was going to happen, I had relaxed my guard and was going through the motions, peering dutifully from one side to the other. I spun around. No Schmidt. Gone, just like that.

I ran back, yelling his name, and made a quick right turn into the next intersecting aisle. There was enough light for me to see some distance along the line of huge columns. At the far end, a long way off, was a human figure. It couldn’t be Schmidt, he couldn’t have got that far. Oh, God, I thought, please, no—not Schmidt…

A hand covered my mouth and a muscular arm pinned my arms to my sides. I kicked back, heard a grunt, and then a swear word. “Stop that,” Feisal muttered. “He’s okay, I found him.”

I went limp with relief. Feisal let me go. “Keep quiet,” he said softly. “This way.”

I hadn’t gone quite far enough. Schmidt was in the next aisle down. He was talking to someone. They were both hidden from view by one of the damned columns, and their voices were so low I couldn’t make out what they were saying until we stood on the other side of the column.

The other person was speaking. It’s hard to identify voices when they whisper; the speaker might have been male or female. The first words I heard were “…want to help. I’m on your side, you know.”

“Do you really mean it?” came next, in Schmidt’s version of a whisper.

For several long seconds there was no sound except for some heavy breathing. Feisal squeezed my arm. I looked up at him. He grinned and raised his finger to his lips.

I was sorely tempted to burst upon the pair with rude comments, but discretion dictated otherwise. No, I would wait to hear what Schmidt had to say. If he fell under the spell of Suzi again, we would have to deprogram him. The other person had to be Suzi; Schmidt hadn’t had time to make another conquest. She must have followed us from the hotel…Unless Schmidt had told her where we were going. Honestly, I thought, you can’t trust anybody.

Feisal put his mouth against my ear. “I’m going to follow her. Get hold of Schmidt and go back to the entrance.”

“He told us not to—”

He faded into the shadow and became invisible.

I had had enough. Reaching into my pocket, I took out Schmidt’s flashlight and switched it on. A faint sound behind me made me whirl in that direction; in the beam of light I thought I saw something duck back behind a column. Another sound from the opposite direction. Shadows raced from the light as I turned back to see Schmidt step into view. He raised his hand to shield his eyes.

“What—” he began.

I grabbed him by the collar with my free hand and shook him. “What do you mean, what? I’m the one who should say ‘What?’ How dare you scare me that way?”

“It was Suzi,” Schmidt said calmly. “She caught hold of me and pulled me behind that column. She is very strong for a woman. I was too surprised at first to resist, and then she persuaded me that I must listen to what she had to say. Where is Feisal? I told him not to leave you alone.”

“You left me alone.”

“It was not my fault, but I don’t blame you if you are angry.” Schmidt tried to appear penitent. He didn’t really succeed; the very curve of his mustache was smug. “I found out much of interest, and got back into her good graces. She begged my pardon and said she believed me; that she is on our side now.”

“Did you believe her?”

“Of course I did not. But it seemed to me wise to act as if I did. Vicky, she says John is here at Karnak. She saw him not five minutes ago. Turn off the flashlight and I will take you—”

“Damned if I will. I’ve had enough dark.”

“He will see us approaching.”

“No, he won’t because we aren’t going…Hmmm. Where was he when she saw him?”

Schmidt pointed down one of the endless aisles. “Going in that direction. What will you bet me that he is following Ashraf?”

“Ashraf is being followed by John who is being followed by Suzi who is being followed by Feisal and us? This is ludicrous, Schmidt. I’m going back to the entrance and you are coming with me.”

“Feisal is following Suzi?”

“Just come quietly, okay?”

There was only one way of making certain he did, and that was to start back myself. I knew my Schmidt wouldn’t leave me alone.

We had only gone a little way when a long, high-pitched cry echoed down the aisles. The sound was as shocking as an explosion in the pervasive silence, and it went on and on, broken by brief pauses which wrenched at the hearing almost as painfully as the cries themselves.

The flashlight beam wobbled violently as I pivoted, trying to locate the source. Schmidt tugged at my arm. “This way!”

“Schmidt, we can’t—”

But I knew we had to. Feisal was out there somewhere.

As we swerved around columns we ran into a man coming the other way—another way, anyhow, there weren’t any discernible directions in that maze. I directed my light at him in time to keep Schmidt from knocking him flat. He was even chubbier than Schmidt; they bounced off each other and rocked to a stop.

“Wolfgang!” Schmidt exclaimed.

“Schmidt! Is it you? Was ist gefallen? Wer hat geschriehen?”

“Ich weiss nicht. Kommen Sie mit.”

“Your flashlight, Schmidt,” I said breathlessly.

“Ach, ja, ich habe vergessen.”

He had, understandably, neglected to introduce Wolfgang; I deduced that he was a member of one of the archaeological groups working in the Luxor area. The screams had stopped, but after we’d gone a little way I began to hear voices. We weren’t the only ones who had responded. Some must have been closer to the scene than we, since already a small group of people had gathered around a figure seated on the ground, hands clutching his head. Everybody was talking at once, offering advice in a variety of languages.

“Don’t try to get up.”

“Lie down, you are bleeding.”

“Send for an ambulance!”

“Stand back, give him air.”

Among the spectators was Feisal. We trotted up to him and he spared us a quick glance. “It’s Ashraf. He’s not badly hurt. All right, friends, your assistance is appreciated but unnecessary. He slipped and hit his head, that’s all.”

“I was afraid it was you,” I mumbled.

“No, that was me screaming. I heard a muffled cry and the sound of a fall, and found him flat on the ground. I didn’t want to leave him alone while I went for help.”

“He didn’t slip, did he?”

“Later. Come on, Ashraf, let me give you a hand.”

“He may have concussion,” Schmidt said. “Should we not wait for a medical person?”

“He could die of old age before we got a stretcher in here,” Feisal said. “Are you offering to carry him?”

Ashraf lowered his hands and looked up at us. Blood trickled down his neck. “I don’t require to be carried. A slight accident, as Feisal said. I hope I have not spoiled this experience for you.”

He got slowly to his feet, waving Feisal away. The spectators made polite disclaimers, but they began to drift away singly and in pairs, returning to the entrance. The show was over, in any case. The light had faded. The gibbous moon was setting.

“Take my arm,” Feisal said. “Nobody’s looking, you needn’t show off any longer.”

“Go away,” Ashraf said through his teeth. “Leave me alone.”

Wolfgang, the only one of the outsiders left, took this personally. He chugged away, muttering and shaking his head.

“You too,” said Ashraf, squaring his manly shoulders and distributing an indiscriminate glare at the rest of us.

“Fat chance,” I said. “You owe us an explanation, Ashraf. Whom did you meet? Where did he go?”

“She,” Feisal said.

“What?” I stared at him.

“I saw her running away,” Feisal said. “She had a scarf pinned round her head and she was wearing a skirt. And don’t try to tell me it was a man in a head cloth and galabiya, I know the difference.”

“I suppose,” said Ashraf, “that if I told you I had an appointment with a lady friend—”

“We wouldn’t believe it,” I assured him. “So your contact was female.” I succumbed, I admit, to sexist prejudice.

For all his bravado, Ashraf wasn’t at his best. He sagged a little, and when Feisal put an arm round him he didn’t shrug it off. “It was clever,” Ashraf admitted. “I had come prepared to defend myself should it be necessary. Finding a woman lowered my guard.”

“Why did she hit you?” I asked.

“She didn’t. We were getting along nicely when someone came up behind me.” Ashraf showed his teeth in what was certainly not a friendly smile. “It was your friend Mr. Tregarth.”