The Deceit

43

Ryan drove the old Chevrolet north along the corniche, along the magnificent Nile, north out of Aswan, taking the Al Khatar road, leaving behind the towers of Elephantine and the mausoleum of the Aga Khan, perched absurdly on the opposite cliffs.

Albert sat in the back, his eyes bulging. Checking the mirror, Ryan could see there was something wrong with him: he was sweating, and wincing, as if at some inner pain. Ryan recalled the other symptoms: Albert’s headache at the hotel the night before, his complaints of tiredness in Philae. Was he ill? The hand that clutched the gun was trembling; but Albert still had that gun. And it was still levelled at Ryan’s neck, and sometimes at Helen, where she sat in the front passenger seat beside him.

‘Albert, what’s the point? Why are you doing this?’

The Copt smiled forlornly, and stroked his goatee. Then he caught Ryan’s gaze in the mirror. ‘It isn’t obvious? Think about it.’

Even his voice was quavery. Not the confident and eloquent man of before; he was liverish, nearly croaking. But he still had the gun.

‘You are going to sell it to the Israelis,’ said Helen. ‘You did all this for them. What was the point? You could have just taken it by force a month ago, saved yourself all this.’

‘No.’ Albert tutted. ‘Not the Israelis. Disappointing.’

Helen tried again. ‘Then who? Who? Why are you doing this? We have been through so much, we have helped each other, why turn on us?’

Albert did not reply, he just turned to stare out of the window, sweat trickling down his face, squinting hard, as if looking for something. It occurred to Ryan that Albert was seeking somewhere quiet, to kill them.

They were on an empty road now, the road north to Daraw, Edfu and Luxor. The last blue Co-op fuel station receded into the dust; a Bedouin man drove a camel alongside the road, whipping the beast with a merciless stick. Dogs yapped at nothing as they raced through the farmlands, past cane fields and wooden shacks. Ryan slowed the car to avoid a couple of kids, chasing the dogs.

‘Keep going,’ said Albert. ‘Go faster.’

They sped up. The countryside blurred. Only the Nile stayed with them. The old man of Egypt, sluggishly ferrying its Ethiopian silt to fertilize the fields of the north, to feed the millions of the Delta. The Nile built the Pyramids. The Nile was responsible for everything.

‘Here,’ said Albert. ‘Stop here.’

It was an oasis of nothingness, just anonymous riverside countryside. A good place to shoot people. Coconut palms sheltered a broken-down car; there wasn’t a human habitation to be seen. Vultures fussed and flustered over the corpse of a water buffalo that lay, bloated and grinning, on the riverbank. The smell was putrid. A small wooden boat drifted on its tether; lashed to another palm tree.

‘Give me the p-papyrus.’ Albert was stammering. ‘Give me, give, give me the papyrus. And get out of the … car.’

They got out. Helen dragged her bag with her; Ryan picked up his.

Albert stood in front of them. He smiled, but the smile was twisted. He touched his hand to his face again, as if he were protecting a broken tooth. Tiny specks of froth smeared his lips, like a cocaine addict overtalking; and his breathing was laboured and slow. But he still had the gun.

Albert stared at the sky just above Ryan. ‘Give me the p-p-papyrus. Now. Give. Give it. To me.’ Every word was an effort. Albert was blinking fast, shaking his head. ‘No!’

Albert was shouting. For no good reason. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Now he seemed to gain a modicum of control; he levelled the gun once more at Ryan’s legs. ‘I will kill you, I will. Give me it. Now.’

What options did they have? He was going to shoot them anyway. Ryan reached into his rucksack and pulled out the file containing the precious Macarius papyrus.

‘Why?’ said Helen, as Ryan sorted the fragile sheets. ‘Why do you want them?’

‘Because. You. Insult God.’

‘What?’

Albert coughed his answers, his eyes swivelling, left and right, leery and panicking. ‘You insult God. I am. Copt. A Copt. Copt. You insult, insult my faith. Give it.’

‘No,’ said Ryan.

The bullet streaked past Ryan’s face. He actually saw its burning course, or the flash of sun on the metal.

The gunshot agitated the vultures feasting on the corpse of the buffalo. They clapped and flustered, flapping into the air; dirty airborne rags with talons.

‘Give me now.’

Ryan yielded. He took the documents and handed them in their folder to Albert. Who reached for it. And missed. Albert’s hand clutched at air, at nothing; then he reached again, and this time grabbed the file successfully and took it from Ryan.

He couldn’t see it properly. Ryan realized that Albert was ill in some way, mentally or physically ill, in a fashion that affected his speech and blurred his sight. That was why he’d been staring at the sky above Ryan’s head.

Slowly and quietly, Ryan stepped sideways, then moved forward to take the document back, but Albert shot again. This time the shot missed by ten metres at least. He had shot at the last place he’d heard Ryan speak: he really was going blind, but he still had the gun.

‘Ryan?’

It was Helen. Albert twisted violently and shot at the sound of her voice, the bullet missing her by mere inches. Now people were gathering: a boy on a moped had stopped to watch; a taxi was slowing down, the taxi driver gawping, quite terrified, at the scene.

The facts dawned on Ryan. They didn’t need the papyrus. What were they doing, waiting to get shot? They had the movie in the camera. They had the solution in their hands. They couldn’t get to the car — Albert was in the way — but they could get to that wooden boat.

‘Come on!’ Ryan dragged Helen by the hand towards the riverbank.

Clutching their bags, they scrambled down to the Nile. Swiftly, desperately, Ryan unloosed the tether of the little motorboat and they jumped in. Up on the riverbank Albert sent two more shots into the air, but he was on his knees now, his hands shaking. The bullets went everywhere and nowhere.

Albert had dropped the papyrus. Three or four cars had pulled over.

Ryan yanked the starter rope of the decrepit outboard motor. One tug, then two: it coughed into life. Helen kicked the boat vigorously away from the muddy riverbank and they were away, fleeing downstream.

Peering through the river-haze Ryan could see the fallen figure of Albert surrounded by cars and people. Was that a policeman, trying to handcuff him?

They were too far away to tell. For ten minutes neither he nor Helen spoke; they motored north in horrified quietness, trailing silvery plaits of brown river water, meandering around the vast corners of the riverine shore.

Peasant fishermen gazed, mildly confused, then uninterested. Two tourists on a boat on the Nile? Probably lost. Life was too difficult to worry about such a thing. Back to work.

At last Helen said, ‘We have to get off this boat. The police will interview Albert.’

‘If he can speak.’

‘The police will talk to him,’ she said. ‘That kid on the little moto, he will have seen us: they will be looking for two Westerners in a little boat like this, we will not be hard to find.’

She was exactly right. Ryan scanned the next curve. The growing traffic on the riverside road showed they were near a town. It must be Kom Ombo — the City of Gold — with its great temple to Sobek, the crocodile god. There would be tourists here, if there were tourists anywhere between Luxor and Aswan. Maybe some backpackers, maybe some Russians undeterred by riots. And there would be cruise boats.

Yes. That was surely the answer. Going by train or plane was impossible: the airports and stations would be under surveillance. Travelling by road was equally risky: army checkpoints became ever more frequent the nearer you got to Luxor.

But a tourist cruise boat? That would be entirely anonymous. The few still operating would be desperate for business; and the cruise boats never got stopped. As long as they stayed on the boat, they could expect to reach Qena unmolested, and from there maybe they could hire a private vessel.

Ryan tillered the boat up to a small jetty. Rope tied, bags hauled, they climbed the steep riverside stairs, up the sandstone banks, and emerged onto the road.

As they watched for a taxi, Helen said, ‘This is not the answer. We do not have the answer.’

‘What?’

‘We have not solved it. I do not believe our solution. Something very important is still missing. Think about Sassoon. Would he really have killed himself because of a revelation like this? Really? The discovery is not entirely new. We have more facts, more proof — but it is not revolutionary. And what has happened to Albert?’ She shook her head. Angrily. ‘Has he been poisoned?’

A cab pulled over. The driver was a headscarved woman — extremely unusual. She looked their way as Ryan leaned towards her window, asking in Arabic, ‘Can you take us to the centre of town, to the main pier? We need a cruise boat.’

The woman nodded and they climbed in. The car joined the dinged and rusty traffic heading for the town centre. Donkey carts and Toyotas, bareboned horses and the odd gleaming limo. The car stalled at a clot of traffic. A man, squatting on the roadside, in a filthy turban and an even filthier djellaba, leered at Helen and her blonde hair.

Helen was oblivious. She spoke, staring straight ahead. ‘Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the Beast.’

‘What?’

‘Reckon the number. That is it, Ryan. That is what he is telling us. About the Greek words. It’s isopsephy. Numerology.’

‘I don’t get it.’

Helen turned. ‘Numerology. It is a code. The Greek words are not a curse or a chant or a spell: the letters mean numbers. That is why Macarius left that clue on the line directly before. He was telling us straight out. Reckon the number of the Beast. We have to reckon the number.’

Ryan felt the flush of excitement. Helen was quite possibly right. And if she was right, what did that mean? What revelation could be worse, for a Jewish scholar, than what they already knew? That Judaism and Christianity were fake?

‘Kom Ombo,’ said the taxi driver, gesturing. ‘You can take the boat.’