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FAYE AWOKE AT DAWN. The Muslims’ call to prayer, the adhan, rang out over the city from thousands of mosques in a gentle cacophony and brought her from her dreamless sleep, in each mosque a muezzin, or crier, intoning the adhan in a piercing, sonorous voice and sometimes using a loudspeaker, to create a deliberate discord. Five times a day the Muslims were called to prayer at daybreak, noon, midafternoon, sunset and after nightfall. The faithful would stop whatever they were doing, turn their faces to Mecca, and pray.
The call could wake the dead, not just the faithful.
Faye dragged herself from bed and throwing on a robe, she drew the curtains away from the window. Down below her, in the orangeness of dawn the city beckoned her. As if it were hers. There was something about Cairo; about all of Egypt, since they’d arrived...something achingly familiar as if she’d lived here before. A frown settled on her sleepy face. What a crazy notion.
She could already see people on the streets, animals and carts making their way toward the many marketplaces and bazaars, the smog from cooking pots rising in spirals to the sky, clean clothes flapping on the lines strung from one flimsy roof-dweller’s wall to that of another.
In the distance, wreathed in desert haze the Gizah pyramids stood sentinel as they had for nearly four thousand five hundred years. Standing there, looking at them, Faye had the eerie feeling that she was expected there.
A familiar voice, in her mind, said: Come, I am waiting.
Ankhesenaton. At last.
She couldn’t go back to bed. She woke Nick and after another brown-water shower the two of them went down for breakfast. Today she wore loose jeans and a white blouse.
Sharif had been right, the hotel’s menu catered to tourists and was greatly overpriced. They had pancakes and maple syrup, strong black coffee, and an assortment of fruits and melons, and the food was good. The dining room was quite empty, though. By coming down so early they’d beat the crowd.
“So,” Nick asked halfway through his pancakes, “do you still want to see the pyramids? Or would you rather see the city?”
She remembered what she’d glimpsed of Cairo on their car ride the day before—the narrow, dirty streets, the people and animals everywhere—and shook her head. “Not the city. That can wait.”
“Not even the Egyptian Museum? It’s right down the street here.”
The thought of seeing rooms and rooms of sarcophaguses and tomb relics didn’t appeal to her. Trappings of the long dead. She’d seen them all in books. Seen them in her dreams. And, before their trip was over, she had a suspicion that she’d be seeing enough tombs.
“They say it takes more than a day to see the museum. We only have a day. And you were right, we should see the pyramids,” she said softly. “Since we’re so close.”
Nick seemed satisfied. He took her hand in his, and after looking quickly around to be sure no one was watching, gave her a kiss on the lips.
“You know, I haven’t mentioned it to you, because it sounds a little strange, but you seem different lately. Ever since we landed.”
“How so?”
“I can’t put my finger on it. You’re always lost in thought. Someplace where I can’t reach you. It troubles me. And you’ve lost so much weight since the attack; even your face is narrower, your eyes brighter. Sometimes I think it’s my imagination but they appear darker. Even your skin.”
“Those are crazy thoughts.”
“Yeah, this whole insane odyssey’s affecting me. That’s what it is.”
She ignored his comment. “How do we get to the pyramids?” she asked.
“We could ask Mamdouh, if he’s on duty, for the best route. I’m sure he can direct us.”
“Good idea.”
Mamdouh wasn’t at the desk, but Hussein was sweeping up the floor and, setting his broom aside, ran up to them.
“Can I be servicing you, good people?” The boy’s English was as bad as ever, but understandable.
“We’re looking for Mamdouh,” Nick offered. “We want to see the Pyramids at Gizah and need directions.”
“Mamdouh not here.” Hussein slyly stole a look around, then grinned at them. An urchin in a blue robe. He rubbed his chin, his eyes crinkling up. He snapped his fingers. “But I know the way. I guide you to pyramids you seek. Cheap.”
“Don’t you have work to do here?” Nick asked, smiling. He was one of those men who liked children. And they knew it.
“Work done!” the boy exclaimed. “Shift over.”
“Well, I guess so,” Nick supplied when he saw that Faye didn’t object.
The boy clapped his hands together in unsuppressed glee. “Just let me get friend Sayed. To stay with desk, see.” Hussein ran off into another room. He returned with an older boy in western clothes, tall and gawky. They looked enough alike to be brothers.
“Now we go,” Hussein said, and was leading them toward the door when he remembered.
“Ooh, nearly forgot. Message. There be a message for you good people. From Sharif al-Hakim.” He poked around on a shelf behind the desk, brought out a small envelope and gave it to Faye.
The note was only four sentences:
Have a good time at the pyramids. Trust Hussein, he knows his way around. Do not—under any circumstance—take the bus. Plane booked. See you at six tomorrow morning. I will call for you.
Respectfully, Sharif al-Hakim
The handwriting was a delicate and tiny script. Almost artwork it was so beautiful.
She handed the scrap of paper to Nick.
“Strange note,” he imparted. “What’s this about not taking a bus?”
Faye experienced a curious foreboding but hid her misgivings.
“I don’t know. Could be because they’re so crowded? Egyptians are bad drivers? Who knows.” But she knew she’d heed the enigmatic Egyptian’s advice.
“No buses,” she informed the boy.
“No bus?” He appeared flustered for a moment, and Faye understood that was the form of transportation he’d had in mind for them. Another chill swept up her spine.
“Okey-dokey. No bus.”
She tucked the note away and along with her husband followed Hussein out into the sunny street. It was only a bit after eight but the heat was already a wall they had to walk through. Sweat broke out over every inch of her skin minutes after they left the hotel. She was glad she hadn’t worn makeup. She craved a shower immediately. A cold one.
It was unwise to take too many showers, though, she’d read that it could result in “Nile Fever,” an irritation of the sweat glands. So, as they slipped into the flow of people entering the city, she knew she’d have to get used to the heat and the sweat.
“Then this way.” Hussein hurried them on. “We go to Tahrir Square and take tram directly to Gizah along Gizah Road. Pyramids at end of ride. Few mile away only. Simple.”
They made their way past the Egyptian Museum, down the Shari’ al-Tahrir, piled onto a crowded streetcar full of robed women, animals, and crying babies after paying a few piastres each. The vehicle was overflowing.
One more person gets on this tram, Faye worried, as a couple of miles down the road a group of riders lunged at them, clinging to the outside like leeches, and the tires will explode.
The faces. Some light-skinned, some brown, some black. Western clothes, galabiyahs, and women swathed in black chadars mingled together.
Some of the people they encountered smiled at them, some ignored them, but some hid simmering hostility in their hooded eyes. As if they were enemies. That bothered Faye. What had she ever done to them?
They bumped along the famed Gizah Road, a broad elevated passageway built in the 1860s and lined with a variety of popular restaurants and disco bars, as Hussein, the perfect little guide, pointed out the sights of the city. The modern Cairo.
Throughout the city and over Gizah Bridge, across the western tip of Rawdah Island and into Gizah and the desert they rode, the stone monoliths towering above them. The streetcar stopped before a rocky plateau on which the pyramids stood. The parking lots were packed with cars, the tourists surging toward the pyramids reminding Faye of ants racing to anthills.
They fought their way off the tram and faced the pharaohs’ majestic tombs before them beneath Egypt’s glaring sun.
“The three pyramids of Gizah,” Nick announced, acting truly impressed, his eyes traveling skyward.
“Great Pyramid of the Pharaoh Khufu be four hundred and fifty-one feet tall,” Hussein boasted with pride at their side. “His son, Khafre’s Pyramid to left there and then the smallest one, Menkaure’s. These other lesser pyramids were for royal relatives, is believed.” He swung his eyes back to the largest of the pyramids reverently. “Eighty pyramids remain in Egypt, the Great Pyramid here the largest, of those built between the Third and Seventeenth Dynasties.”
The boy was well rehearsed, Faye thought.
They stood there in the shadows of the pyramids and discussed the sheer size of the things. Hussein had memorized the publicity brochures. He knew everything about them. At times it was hard to understand what he was trying to say, but they eventually figured it out. He didn’t seem hurt when they asked him to repeat. He was used to it.
“I’ve never seen anything so breathtakingly amazing as these man-made mountains,” Nick claimed. “I expected them to be big. I’ve seen pictures in books all my life, but nothing prepared me for the way I’m feeling right now. The largest one must be as high as a forty-story building. Is it all right if I take pictures of them?” He had his camera in his hands, waiting.
“Yes, click away, dear. I don’t think they’ll become indignant.”
Nick took pictures from every angle, then finally let the camera fall back on the strap around his neck. What a load of digital pictures they were going to have.
He peered up at the rugged rock tombs. “They always looked so smooth in the books, but they’re not, are they?” There were people climbing up the sides, the stones standing in as huge steps.
Faye knew something about the pyramids, too. “No, they’re not smooth. Once they were, though. The outer facing, smoother, stones were stolen away over the millennia for other building projects.
“And you know, the pyramids, contrary to popular belief and the movies,” she covered her eyes as she looked upward at them, “weren’t all built by slaves, but often by farmers and free Egyptians working for the gods. The pharaoh provided them with food, clothing, and shelter. They enjoyed themselves and their work.”
Nick looked at her. “I never knew that.”
“It’s true. They had everything they wanted or needed. Beer was handed out three times daily. They had five kinds of it and four kinds of wine, twelve varieties of bread. The workers usually lived, if they didn’t perish from accidents on the work site,” she explained, “to thirty-six or thirty-eight years of age; they liked pencil mustaches, and had nicknames such as Didi and Mimi— and, if they did a good job, could expect to be buried in modest tombs or shafts near to the pyramids and their pharaoh.
“And after a hard day’s work,” she winked at him, “they still had the time and energy to fool around a little, too.”
“That’s amazing,” her husband said. “How do you know all that?”
“Read about it. Archaeologists in a discovered site near here have gleaned all this and more from going through the ancient garbage dumps and cemeteries, examining skeletons, probing texts and studying the remains of beer jars, wine vats, and bakeries.”
“Unbelievable, isn’t it, that after all this time we can learn so much about those people from their garbage?”
“Yes, unbelievable.”
Around them the tourists who weren’t climbing the structures were standing in line for food and drink, hiring guides for the day, buying rides on, and pictures of themselves atop of donkeys or camels, purchasing souvenirs from the representatives of the communities—tourist traps—that had sprung up around the base of the pyramids. There were foreigners everywhere having their pictures taken in front of the tombs. In a few minutes time Faye had heard ten different languages besides Arabic. The world, it seemed, was all at the Gizah pyramids.
The three of them trudged through the sand to the renowned sphinx that guarded the end of the ceremonial causeway. Crumbling and time-worn, the huge human headed lion was still a sight to see. Faye just prayed it wouldn’t get up and move around.
“They believe it was carved from one piece of a natural outcropping of sandstone,” an Englishman behind them was expounding to his female friend.
“Imagine that,” the woman replied.
Then the pair began to discuss the discovery nearby: archaeologists had found a 3,200 year old underground tomb cut into a sand-covered slope of rock rising above the village of Abu Sir. The tomb, twelve feet square and five feet high, was decorated with animal-headed gods, representations of gateways, and inscriptions from the Book of the Gates, a book of spells to guide the soul through the underworld. The tomb consisted of a limestone-paved courtyard and a room cut into the rock at one level, then a series of four chambers underneath stretching deep into the desert hillside.
“The tomb was built for the ‘overseer of chariots’ and ‘messenger to foreign lands,’ a man named NakhMin, who served under Pharaoh Ramses II in the thirteenth century B.C. Seven miles from here. They think it might be the site of a previously unknown underground necropolis,” the Englishwoman was saying as the two moved out of earshot.
Faye and Nick had purchased wide-brimmed hats to protect their faces, bottles of fruit juice to quench their thirst, and sweets from one of the vendors. Everything they bought for themselves, they bought for their little friend. He seemed to enjoy it and was so grateful, Faye figured he was probably from a poor family. Up close his clothes were frayed and worn.
The three of them explored the pyramids in the scorching sun for what seemed like hours. Talking, laughing, touching the ancient stones, Fay waiting for Ankhesenaton to appear.
“Doesn’t it ever rain here?” Nick inquired of Hussein, as he wiped perspiration off his face and gazed at the clear lilac sky. Not a cloud in sight. Exactly like the day before.
“No rain. Seldom,” the boy informed him.
They climbed only part of the way up The Great Pyramid. Faye had never completely regained her strength since the attack and the coma, so Nick insisted that they take it easy. Especially in the heat. She wasn’t used to it. She’d had to twist his arm just to allow her to get as far as they did.
Afterward, as they rested in the huge pyramid’s shadow and ate a lunch of dolma wara inab, vine leaves stuffed with minced meat and rice—really very good—that Hussein had obtained for them, the boy asked if they’d like to follow the passage hacked into the heart of The Great Pyramid.
“There’s actually a shaft cut into the stone?” Nick looked at the boy.
“Yes, kind sir,” Hussein gushed. “Cut there by Egyptian Caliph Mamun in ninth century. You maybe want me fetch guide take us?” Hussein shaded his eyes from the sun and watched the two Americans expectantly.
“No,” Nick replied quickly before Faye could say anything. “My wife’s had enough exercise for one morning.”
Yes, go, a voice whispered in her head. I am waiting.
Faye touched her husband’s hand gently. “No, I want to go into the passageway.” She knew Nick suffered from claustrophobia. Not extreme, but bad enough for him to hate being in tight, small places. He usually avoided them.
“I have to go, in fact.” She gave her husband a look he couldn’t help but understand. “I’ll be careful, Nick. I’ll take my time. Hussein will accompany me. You can wait out here for us.”
“No way,” he stated. “You’re not going anywhere without me.” He still hated leaving her alone, fearing something terrible would happen again. “I’ll be there to drag you out when you keel over.”
“All right,” she agreed, a laugh slipping from her lips. “But be sure you catch me. Don’t want to hurt my new hat.” She put her hand on it, as Nick helped her to her feet.
Hussein led them to where the tour began and when there were enough tourists to satisfy a dark-skinned Egyptian in a kolah and a dirty, striped galabiyah they began the climb.
The hole was small, the tunnel steep as the group of about twelve of them started through it. It soon became so cramped they had to fold up like jackknives. Faye felt she was being buried alive. All those tons of dank stone weighing down upon them, mere flesh and blood. Faye grabbed Nick’s clammy hand; it trembled in hers, but otherwise he behaved as if nothing were wrong. She heard him groan a time or two when the going got extra tight.
“Watch heads,” the grim-faced guide spoke from somewhere up ahead of them. He sounded as if he had a cold, his voice was husky, and he was always clearing his throat. Too much tomb dust in his lungs. His strong flashlight kept sweeping backward to shine in their startled faces. A couple of the other tourists had flashlights as well. At least it wasn’t total darkness. That would have sent Nick into a conniption fit.
Their ghostly voices drifted through the corridors as they moved single file through the shaft. Nick and Faye were at the very end, Hussein before them, blabbering some nonsense or other. The kid talked more than any she’d ever known. Even if they couldn’t understand half of what he said, he kept on talking.
The heat seemed less than outside on the desert, but it was hard to breathe. Faye felt as if millions of dead eyes stared at her from the cracks between the tightly fitted stones. Spectral whispers circled around her head like gnats, and she couldn’t help but dwell on all the people that must have traveled through these same corridors. Thousands upon thousands perhaps. She suddenly decided she didn’t like being embedded in a five-foot tunnel.
The guide’s voice droned on. Telling them tidbits about the pyramid and its builder. Faye wasn’t listening. She was listening to the whispers.
They entered a lofty corridor with wooden treads leading upward, lit with fluorescent tubes. She and Nick breathed a sigh of relief at being able to stand straight again. Cigarette smoke hung in hazy pockets around them before dissolving back into the dank, still air.
The chamber was about thirty to forty feet long, and held only a roughly hewn red granite sarcophagus. No lid. No treasures. The tomb robbers had long ago stripped away whatever had been there.
“This be called King’s Chamber,” the guide explained. “Once it was blocked by stone. No more. Is found.” Two shafts no bigger than a man’s arm led through the walls and seemed the source of welcome fresh air. The guide turned and grinned, revealing bad teeth, as he pointed these out. “Entryways, eh, for dead king’s Ba?” He laughed and then went on.
A vivid image of the Ba-bird at her window back home flashed across Faye’s mind.
“Now we leave. This way. Step carefully.” The raspy voice faded away into the dark.
“The breeze,” she whispered to Nick, “feels great.” She wiped the sweat from her brow, her neck, with a handkerchief Hussein had given her. God, it was so hot. She felt dizzy for a moment, leaned her shoulder against the stones. The group moved on, leaving them. Hussein quickly became nervous.
“You all right, honey?” Nick asked in a pinched voice, his arms settling around her waist. He was holding up a hell of a lot better than she would have expected, but he wanted out of there, no two ways about it.
“Go—we go. We lose them.” Like an animal’s, Hussein’s eyes gleamed in the faint light that swiftly dissipated into velvet blackness. His teeth began to chatter. His claw-like hands clutched at her, pulling her away from the wall and back into the return tunnel.
So the urchin was terrified of the dark, eh? Or the ghosts?
“Let’s get out of here,” Nick pressed. They exited the large chamber, feeling with their hands along the stone tunnel, and began to follow the noise of the tour group ahead of them. The distant lights.
In the darkness there arose crying sounds. Behind them. In the chamber they’d just left. A woman, weeping as if her heart were breaking. Like nothing Faye had ever heard on this earth.
She believed it was Ankhesenaton’s voice.
Nick and Hussein froze beside her. Nick’s heart was beating so loudly she could almost hear it.
“What the hell is that?” he hissed, as the sobbing continued, growing louder.
“One of tourists, perhaps?” Hussein stuttered. “Bumped head, fell down?”
“I don’t think so,” Faye breathed. Her face tilted toward the anguished voice that was now speaking in a foreign tongue. A little like the Arabic she’d been hearing the last few days, but not exactly. She was sure it was Ankhesenaton.
Later she would question why she did what she did, but at the moment she obeyed mindlessly what some inner voice bade her to do.
“I have to go back,” she told Nick and Hussein. “I have to see who’s crying.” And then she was groping her way toward the King’s Chamber in the dark.
“Faye!” Nick screamed as the rocks began to fall. It was the only thing that saved her. Startled, she’d drawn back, pivoted to glance in her husband’s direction.
The passageway was blocked. She could go no further. The dust was choking her, so she fell backward a little.
Faye covered her eyes for a second, and when she opened them the woman was before her, haloed in a pulsating light, her tiny body half turned away. Her face was blurry and hidden by long ebony hair, and her radiant emerald gown was set off by a collar of precious gems. A large ostrich feather hung at her side, descending from slender fingers. Jewels sparkled faintly in the soft aura that surrounded her.
Was this the weeping woman?
“Ankhesenaton!” Faye exclaimed. “What is it?” She reached out and tried to touch her. Her fingers went through the figure as if it were thin air.
There was once a great injustice done to the family of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. The voice. They were butchered and their remains scattered in unholy pits, their burial unsanctified. Blasphemy. Their souls lost for all eternity.
You must find their tombs and prepare their remains so their souls will find peace.
This is asked of you.
Then the figure swung about slowly, raising high the feather.
She had no face.
Someone cried out next to Faye. A hand clasped her hand. Hussein.
The faceless creature melted into smoke and seeped away into the stones, taking the light with her.
“The goddess Maat,” the boy murmured with the greatest of reverence, bowing so low he almost brought Faye, on whom he still had a grip, down to the ground with him. “It was she.” His frail body was shaking. “Goddess of justice. Much power.
“She saved you, madam.”
“Saved me?” Faye echoed, still in a state of shock.
“Or you be crushed by rocks. Flat like pancake.” The boy’s voice was like the squeak of a mouse.
Then Nick was there, too, and she was in his arms. “Oh, my God, Faye. What was that thing? Are you hurt? I knew we shouldn’t have come! You could have been killed—we all could have been killed!” He was nearly hysterical. He’d almost lost her once; he couldn’t tolerate the thought of it almost happening again.
Suddenly a crowd of sympathetic people was around them. Light. The guide beside himself because he thought her near accident was his fault. He’d let them wander away. Had abandoned them in the perilous tunnels. He’d heard the rock slide, heard Faye and Hussein cry out.
She tried to tell the guide and the others that she, the three of them, were unharmed.
As soon as the guide was assured they were okay, he hastily herded the whole bunch of them out of the shafts, deposited them back on the desert, and then stomped off, swearing in Arabic.
Nick was fed up with sand, heat, and fear, and wanted to go back to the hotel where he thought they’d be safe. Hopefully.
“Let’s call it a day before anything else happens,” he said sourly.
Hussein seemed in complete agreement. He was still peering around for ghosts. Frightened. He wanted to leave.
Faye didn’t have the energy to argue. Seeing the thing in the tunnel had taken all the spunk out of her. She only wanted to hole up in a cool, dark place and mull over what the apparition had said. What it had meant.
Find their tombs and prepare their remains so that their souls will find peace.
It was true, some of Nefertiti’s family’s tombs had never been found, and the goddess had asked her to set right a terrible wrong. That was why she was here, because of those murders, those unsanctified burials ages ago. Their deaths were involved in some heinous crime. And the truth would shock the world.
“Okay, we’ll return to the hotel,” she consented. It was late afternoon. Buses and rattle trap cars—Egyptians had a thing about patching and repatching their old cars until they looked like junkyards on wheels—loaded with weary, short-tempered tourists arriving in droves.
As the three of them headed to the platform where the buses were pulling up, to catch transportation to the city, Faye caught sight of a stooped over Muslim with a long black beard, leaning on a cane, selling postcards and trinkets from the back of a wagon.
“Capture the pyramids forever!” he sang out. “Beautiful pictures of pharaoh’s tombs to send home to loved ones.” He waved his wares, beseeching them to buy. “You, pretty American lady and handsome man,” he was talking directly to Faye and Nick. “Come. I sell you for special price.
“Come, both of you,” his voice strident, almost urgent. His arms were gesturing at them wildly. “I have stamps, also.”
An old man, dark glasses, cane, in traditional Islamic garb. Blind? Then how could he know they were Americans? She started to move away and then was reminded of Islam’s rule of charity. Bakshish. There was something about the old one.
“Nick,” she grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop, “before we leave let’s pick up a couple of postcards of the pyramids. Here on the very site. For Josh, Jim, and Dave; the folks. They’ll get a kick out of them if we send them from Cairo.”
“Okay. I’ll get us a seat on that bus there, you and Hussein get the postcards.”
Reluctantly she watched Nick head toward the bus, while she and the boy walked over to the old Egyptian to haggle over the postcards.
“Get husband here, too. Have special postcard for him,” the old Muslim in the tattered robe was saying excitedly as they came up to the rear of the wagon. He pointed at Nick. There was a faded blue tattoo on the back of his hand.
Faye, ignoring his entreaties, had already picked the postcards out, and Hussein was paying the man, who apparently was blind. Hussein had to put the money firmly in his crippled hands.
The merchant handed Hussein a bag, and it was given to Faye who tucked it into her purse.
Nick was closer to the bus when it blew up than they were. Though not as close as if he would have been without the old Muslim’s interference. A bus packed with tourists, women, children. Nick was the one who caught bits of wild shrapnel. A piece sliced into his cheek and it bled.
After the explosion, bedlam reigned.
People screamed in agony, wailed in grief and anger. Sooty smoke rose to the cloudless sky; the stench of roasting flesh crept across the desert and mingled with the heat. Everyone rushed toward the burning bus, but it was too late. They could only stand there and helplessly watch the people trapped inside burn to death.
It happened that fast.
Faye ran to where Nick sat in the sand, cradling his wounded face and looking with horror on the burning bus as others screeched or scurried away to safety. Sometimes, Hussein told them later, there had been other bombs. Terrorists lurking, waiting to victimize people. Sometimes.
“I’m all right. Just a bad cut or two. A couple of Band-Aids are all I need,” Nick protested as Faye helped him to his feet, his eyes never leaving the bus. “God, those poor people.”
“What happened?” Faye was staring at the burning bus, too.
“Muslim extremists,” Hussein spat out, his angry eyes also on the flames. “They do this.” He looked at Faye and Nick with guilt and disgust on his young face. “They make us,” he thumped his skinny chest, “look like barbarians.” He sighed and hung his head, crying.
Faye glanced back. The old blind Muslim and his wagon were gone.
Hussein hailed a taxi to get them away from the chaos and destruction. Without a word, the three of them left the scene. A fire truck and an ambulance would be called out, Hussein promised as they bounced across the desert and back into the hot city. Much good that would do the pitiful souls in the bus. Their hunched, blackened forms could be seen plastered against the burnt windows as the taxi pulled away.
No one could have lived through that.
Faye had to give it to Nick. He didn’t say a thing about his earlier fears of terrorists. His warnings. The only thing he asked once they were at the hotel again, up in the bathroom tending to his injuries, was: “Now can we go home?”
Faye felt terrible that he had been hurt. She’d been fussing over him since it had happened. Guilty. It could have been worse. He could have been killed. All of them could have been killed.
If it hadn’t been for that old blind man....
Still, she had no choice. “No, Nick, I can’t.” Her gaze was determined, her back stiff. “You can if you want. I’d understand. You were the one hurt. And I’m so sorry; it’s my fault.” She held him close and kissed his bandaged head.
She told him what the ghost in the tunnel had revealed to her.
“So you see, I can’t leave. I have to finish this,” she said later as he lay on the bed after they’d made love. Her back was to him as he fought sleep, his face bruised around the bandage. Their lovemaking had been passionate; almost losing someone does that to a person. That sense of desperation. Of near loss.
She was before the window, gazing out at the city as the sun went down, her fingers pressed against the cool glass. Outside, Cairo was singing its praise to Allah. Tonight, that sounded beautiful to her. The true Muslims. The good ones. Music of the heart and soul.
“But, Faye,” he asserted fretfully, “someone, or something, tried to kill you in that pyramid today, and again with that bomb. It was meant for all of us. We were incredibly lucky.” He didn’t say anything about the fact that he’d been the one who’d ended up getting hurt. He knew he hadn’t been the real target. He’d only been in the way. “They, or it, want the past to remain a secret so badly it would see you dead before letting the truth come out.”
“I know that, Nick.
“But I believe they wouldn’t let me go home now even if I wanted to.” Her voice was sad.
“They?”
“The ones who brought me here. Ankhesenaton. Or the ones that don’t want me here. I’m not sure.” And she wasn’t. Not really.
Nick said nothing. He knew she was right. As always.
She grew silent for a moment, thinking about the faceless woman, the old Muslim with the postcards, then muttered, “But I also believe I’m protected somehow. No real harm will befall me, or you.”
“If we’re lucky,” he replied sarcastically.
She sighed. There was nothing she could say that would make it right. Because of her, Nick had almost died. He’d been hurt.
But when she swung around, he was asleep.
Poor Nick, the terrorist’s bombing had pushed him to the edge. Not to mention her adventure in the tomb. Now he saw Egypt as a vicious, ugly place. More dangerous even than it had been at home. A place they were better off fleeing. The sooner the better.
She’d just have to make him understand. But tomorrow, when he was rested. Calmer. When both of them were rested. Things would look better in the daylight.
Faye sighed aloud and tugged the curtains closed. The room fell into instant night. She came back to the bed and lay down beside her husband, clung to him. Tears slid down her cheeks. She loved him so much, but look at the danger she’d put him in. And it wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
****
SHE MUST HAVE FALLEN asleep, because when she opened her eyes the next time, rose, and went to the window, the city was sleeping, too. Dim, drowsy, it slumbered beneath her. Must be in the middle of the night. She had no idea why she’d awakened.
It was then, standing there in the dark, that she remembered the note from Sharif al-Hakim.
Do not—under any circumstance—take the bus.
And they hadn’t, until they’d been ready to leave. Again she found herself pondering: Had it been a coincidence or had Sharif al-Hakim known something? She had no answer.
She couldn’t reclaim sleep, so she decided to dig the postcards out of her purse and write messages on them. She could give them to the clerk at the front desk tomorrow morning to mail.
She sat at a scratched desk under a weak light and filled out the six postcards of different views of the Gizah pyramids, writing one to Josh and one to Jim at his parents’ place.
She would have sent one to Dave, too, but no telling where he was now. Canada somewhere. She’d bought him one, though, and now she wrote something safe about the day on the back. No sense in scaring any of them with the cave-in and the bomb. Spooks in the pyramids. Faye tucked Dave’s postcard away. The first of many. She’d save them and give them to him when she saw him next. A sort of personal Egyptian travelogue. He’d get a kick out of that.
Writing to them made her homesick. She missed Josh. Home and the bar. She looked down at her hand caressing the pen. She missed the feel of the guitar strings under her fingers—her music.
She’d almost brought her guitar along, but that would have just been something else to lug all over Egypt and something could have happened to it. Couldn’t take that chance, she’d had that guitar for over twenty years. She loved it; it was her baby. She sat there looking out at Cairo in its sparkling night clothes, diamond studded with lights, humming softly one of her own songs. One of the songs she’d been thinking of recording right before the attack at the bar.
She was brooding over what had happened that day in the pyramid. The voice that had called to her. The cave-in. Everything. Over and over. Couldn’t get any of it out of her mind.
She sat there and faced something she’d been avoiding all day. Perhaps it hadn’t been Ankhesenaton’s summons that she’d answered, but her enemies’. The faceless goddess had protected her, just as the blind Muslim had tried to protect her and Nick.
It brought up a problem. How was she going to tell the good voices from the bad, know when to follow and when not to?
She didn’t have a clue. It worried her. A lot. If that hadn’t been Ankhesenaton’s voice calling her, whose had it been?
She’d have to be more careful, that’s all. Much more careful.
Eventually she went back to bed to get the sleep she knew she’d need. Six o’clock would come soon enough and they’d be on their way. Finally. Flying out of Cairo. Good riddance. The sooner she did what was wanted of her, the sooner they could go home.
And they’d be safe again.