The Exodus Quest

FIFTY
I

Captain Khaled Osman clenched his fists as he stood at the window watching Naguib drive away. When his tail-lights had vanished into the storm, he turned to Faisal and Abdullah. 'Voices,' he said icily. 'Someone has been hearing voices. Men's voices. Women's voices. Foreigners' voices. Explain this to me, please.'

'It must be some mistake, sir,' whined Abdullah, backing away. 'A coincidence. Tourists. Journalists.'

'You're telling me you've allowed tourists and journalists into the site?'

Abdullah dropped his gaze. 'No, sir. But maybe they sneaked in while…' He trailed off, aware his boss wasn't buying it.

Khaled folded his arms, glaring back and forth between him and Faisal. 'You didn't do as I asked, did you?'

'We did, sir,' said Abdullah. 'I swear we did.'

'You killed them?'

Abdullah's complexion paled a notch. 'Kill them, sir?' he swallowed. 'You never told us to kill them.'

'What?'

'You told us to silence them, sir,' volunteered Faisal. 'That's exactly what we did.'

Khaled's face was stone. 'Silence them? And how precisely did you do that?'

'We spaced those planks out over the shaft,' nodded Faisal. 'We covered them with sheets and blankets. No one could possibly have heard them.'

'And yet someone has,' pointed out Khaled. 'And tomorrow morning the police are going out looking for them. They're going to hear their voices again.' He thrust his face into Faisal's. 'We're all going to hang because you disobeyed my direct order. How does that feel? Does that make you feel proud?'

'They won't come back till morning,' pointed out Nasser.

'Yes,' agreed Khaled. It was the first sensible thing anyone had said. He checked his watch. They still had time. 'Get pickaxes and rope,' he ordered. 'And anything else we need to open the place up and close it again.' He touched his Walther instinctively. Much though he cherished it, it wasn't the best tool for the job in hand. He opened up his locker, clipped two of his army souvenir grenades to his belt. 'Come on then,' he scowled, opening the door into the maelstrom. 'We've work to do.'

They ran through the deluge, clambered into the cab, then set off for the Royal Wadi, unaware of the passenger hitching a ride on their roof.