He’d waited hours outside the cathedral as darkness fell, listening to the murmurs of the sermon and the rapt cheers of forty thousand worshippers. Now he watched them flow past – some purified, some uplifted and affirmed, others, perhaps, more confused than ever. How many, he wondered, simply felt satisfied in their conformity? Could you even call it conformity, here, where Coptic Christians were such a minority? They had done what was expected of them, at least, and now, warm in their piety, were heading back to the contradictions of their lives. Was his own atheism, his empty disbelief, in any way superior to their faith? Surely believing in something was better than having nothing, just the eons of infinite nothingness that filled the so-called heavens.
Clay swallowed, breathed in the foul, cancerous air and crushed these pointless musings. He’d learned long ago, Crowbar his teacher, that it was the only way to stay alive. Think too much and people got killed.
Clay stood inside the darkened shell of a disused workshop on the street leading from the cathedral’s entrance down into Garbage City. After what he’d seen that afternoon, he was not taking any chances. Somehow those two cops he’d seen at Talaat Harb Square had known to be at the pyramids that afternoon. Whoever that woman had been, she’d risked a lot getting Clay that message. He had to assume that she knew what the message contained, and that when pressed by the cops, she’d talked. Everyone talks, eventually. It’s only ever a matter of when.
People streamed by. He scanned each face as it appeared under the streetlights outside the cathedral, then let it go. After a while, the crowd thinned. Only the stragglers remained. The service had been over for more than half an hour and he’d seen no sign of her.
He waited, there among the scraps of plastic and the neatly stacked piles of cardboard, the sortings and huskings of a megacity’s waste, unwilling to believe that after all they had been through, she hadn’t come. Another ten minutes passed. The trickle of penitents slowed, then died. The lights inside the cathedral winked out, one by one. They were closing the place up.
He hung his head, sank back against the wall. Sweat ran cold from his temples. After seeing the woman taken away by the cops, he’d decided to wait outside the cathedral and catch Rania on the way in, rather than risk going inside. He’d arrived well before time, had watched carefully, but had not seen her enter. He’d checked for alternate entrances, but there appeared to be only one. And now, hours later, he convinced himself that maybe he’d just missed her. Maybe Rania was still in there, still waiting for him. He had to check.
He’d just emerged from the workshop when a woman appeared in the now-darkened cathedral entranceway. Two little girls in pretty dresses skipped after her, holding her by the hand. It was the woman he’d seen at the pyramids ticket gate that afternoon. They turned towards him, walking briskly. His heart jumped.
Jesus. It was her.
He waited until she was close, close enough that he could hear her talking to the girls in Arabic, something about seeing their mother soon. She was thinner than he remembered, her face more drawn, as if worry had pulled a decade from her in just two years. He stepped out onto the street.
She stopped, gathered the girls to her, stared back at him.
He started to speak but she raised her index finger to her lips, shook her head. ‘We are being followed by two men,’ she said. ‘One is tall. The other…’ She wiped her hand across her face. ‘Like a moon. Please, Claymore. Stop them.’
‘Go to the main road outside Moqattam, at the bottom of the hill. I will find you.’ And before he could answer, she was gone, hurrying away into the darkened streets of Garbage City.
Clay moved back into the shadows and waited. He scanned the street behind her, back towards the cathedral entrance, but saw no one. Glancing around again, he caught sight of Rania and the girls as they flashed through the blush of a solitary streetlight. They emerged a few seconds later in a place where the street was lined with bales of bundled plastic waste, stacked head high. The plastic glowed like phosphorescent algae in a dark ocean, absorbing and throwing back the light from the windows above the street, and it was as if he were watching them in negative, three dark figures moving across a backlit city.
Another image flooded his brain, a small bundle disappearing into the depths – Grace and little Joseph, together, wrapped in white, that glowing phosphorescent trail as they sank. Clay closed his eyes, tried to push it away. He stumbled, reached out for the wall. They were almost to the end of the street now, moving through a well-lit intersection, Rania striding along, the girls running beside her. Her face caught the light as she turned and looked back towards him, and then she was gone, swallowed by the darkness.
If he fell any further back, he would risk losing her altogether. The cathedral entrance was quiet. There was no sign of Rania’s pursuers. The last of the cathedral lights dimmed and faded. He stepped out of his hide, moved quickly along the dark side of the street, skirting the stains of light. He reached the phosphorescence, slowed, ducked into another of the dark, now-empty open workshops and looked back the way he’d come. Still no one. Perhaps Rania had been mistaken, or maybe whoever had been following her had decided to abandon the pursuit, for now.
He took a deep breath and was about to step back into the street when two figures emerged from behind one of the bundles of plastic that lined the opposite side of the road. They stopped a moment, looked in Rania’s direction and pressed on. They were coming right towards him. The okes he’d seen at Talaat Harb Square, the ones who’d rushed past him as they chased Rania down the alley, the same cops who’d marched off that woman at the pyramids. They moved with intent, following Rania and the girls.
Clay waited until they were close, then stepped out into the street, blocking their way. ‘Masa al khaeer,’ he said. Good evening. ‘What’s the hurry, gents?’
The cops stopped, looking past Clay to where Rania and the girls had been.
‘Ma’afi mushkilla,’ said the moonfaced one. No problem. He made to keep going, but Clay stepped in front of him, blocking his way.
The tall one stared at Clay, narrowing his eyes. ‘You,’ he said.
‘Get out of the way,’ said Moonface, taking a step towards Clay. ‘Police.’
‘It’s him,’ said Tall.
Moonface stood a moment, a look of realisation spreading acrossi his face. ‘Welad wesha’a,’ he growled. Son of a bitch – so much more stinging in this part of the world.
Tall, who until now had been hanging back, stepped forwards and whispered something into his partner’s ear. Moonface’s eyes widened as he stared at Clay.
‘We know who you are,’ said Tall. ‘And why you are here.’
‘Mumtaz,’ said Clay. Excellent. ‘Let’s talk about it.’
‘Leave Egypt,’ said Tall. ‘Take the woman with you. If you do it now, no one will get hurt.’
Moonface glared at his colleague.
‘Nothing I want to do more,’ said Clay.
Moonface turned side on, hiding his right side. Clay could see his shoulder rise, rotate back. Gun, most likely, or knife. ‘Give us your weapon,’ he said. He was close to Clay now, hiding whatever was in his hand. His gut spilled out over his belt, strained the buttons on his shirt.
Tall was still hanging back, hands on his hips. ‘We know you are armed,’ he said. ‘Please cooperate, and no one will be hurt.’
‘Why are you following her?’ said Clay, stepping to within a pace of Moonface. Every second he kept them here put Rania further from danger.
‘We’re wasting time,’ said Moonface, lowering his weight, pivoting his right shoulder back. He raised an automatic pistol, held it close to his chest in a two-handed grip. ‘Give us your weapon,’ he said.
Clay opened his palm, raised his stump. ‘Tammam,’ he said. Okay. He reached slowly behind his back, pulled out the Glock. As it appeared, the two men took a half-step back.
Clay let the gun drop to the ground, moved a pace towards Moonface. The pistol’s muzzle was now only inches from his sternum. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how about the truth?’
‘Truth?’ said Moonface.
‘Who are you working for?’ said Clay.
Moonface glanced at his partner and laughed.
Clay knew he was out of time. Not just here, now, but more fundamentally. This was not a conscious thought, or even a distant echo. It came more as a side-effect, carried within the waves of adrenaline detonating in his system as he twisted his torso away from the pistol’s mouth and clapped his open right palm down onto Moonface’s gun hand, forcing the pistol side-on into his own chest, and driving the hard point of his stump into Moonface’s throat. Moonface screamed as Clay wrenched the pistol from his hand, tearing the second knuckle of his trigger finger from its socket. Clay turned the gun back towards his attacker’s face in a sharp jab, smashing the base of the pistol’s grip into his forehead. Moonface slumped to his knees with a groan.
By now, Tall had started to react. He was fumbling behind his back, going for his gun. There was no way to close the distance in time. Clay flung Moonface’s pistol at Tall’s face. Instinctively, the cop turned his head, closed his eyes. The gun hit the side of his skull, jerked his head back, skidded away across the garbage-strewn tarmac. Tall stumbled back, fell to the ground. As he did, his own gun clattered to the pavement. Dazed, he raised his hand to his head, stared a moment at the blood on his fingers.
He looked up at Clay. ‘Please…’ he said. ‘I…’
Clay crouched, reached for his Glock. He’d just taken hold of the grip when Tall scrambled to his feet and started to run.
By now Moonface had started to recover. Swaying on his knees, he reached towards his boot with his undamaged hand. Clay stepped left, balanced himself and let go a side-kick to Moonface’s head. The cop toppled over, arms at his sides, unconscious.
Tall was already halfway to the corner. Clay sprinted after him.
It was dark, the lanes were narrow, and Tall was fast. Within thirty seconds, the cop had opened up a fifty-metre lead. He was heading downhill, towards the City of the Dead. Halfway down a long, curving street lined with parked trucks, Tall darted into a side street. By the time Clay reached the corner, Tall had disappeared.
Clay kept going, jogging now, breathing hard. He came to a row of small local restaurants with open air benches that encroached onto the street. People milled about the counters and wandered the lane. Faces stared out at him as he checked right and left. Tall was gone. He’d lost him.
Clay checked back the way he’d come. A man emerged from one of the restaurants and started off in the other direction at a walk. His back was turned, his head wrapped in a keffiyeh. In the half-light Clay couldn’t make out his face, but the build looked right. Clay followed, closing the distance, keeping to the dark side of the street. At the next corner the man stopped. Clay watched as he looked left, right, then set off again at a quick walk.
If it was Tall, he showed no sign of knowing he was being followed, and with each passing minute his pace slowed. Soon he reached the City of the Dead, the first tombs, the first makeshift shelters, the dead and the living sharing the same ground. The man had just reached a particularly large and elaborate tomb, the resting place of some rich now-forgotten family, when he stopped. The lights of Cairo shone in the distance, yellow and diffuse through the smoke. Clay tucked in behind an adjacent tomb. Like the others, it was crumbling and derelict, and showed signs of recent occupation by squatters – scattered tins and bottles, rags spread over what appeared to be a cardboard sleeping place, a pile of shit in one corner, fetid and reeking.
The man hunched over, hands on knees, breathing heavily. After a while he straightened, lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply, exhaled long. He was looking the other way, towards the city. The street was deserted. Clay emerged from his hide and started towards the man at a fast walk. He was three paces away when the man spun around.
‘Stop,’ said Tall, pulling a knife from under his jacket. ‘Get back. You don’t need to…’
But Clay didn’t stop, didn’t break stride. He hit Tall square in the chest with a straight kick, sending him staggering. Tall jabbed out with the blade, getting off a couple of quick underhand stabs before Clay’s fist ploughed into his face. As the cop slumped back, Clay wrapped the man’s knife arm tight at the elbow, stepped across his body, and flung him over his hip. Tall crashed to the ground.
Looking back, he should have stopped there. If he’d been a better man he might have. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t. It all happened so fast there wasn’t time to pull away from it. Clay pushed his left shin down hard onto Tall’s head, crushing it to the ground.
‘Please,’ whimpered Tall. ‘I am trying—’
But before he could finish, Clay extended the cop’s knife arm, straightening it back against the natural bend of the elbow, and drove it down hard across the top of his right knee. Tall screamed as the ligaments in his elbow and shoulder ruptured. But his cries were short-lived. Half a second later, Clay raised his boot and smashed his heel into Tall’s face. The cop let out a gasp and went quiet.
Clay stood looking down at the man. Blood flowed from his shattered nose and the corner of his mouth. The knife lay in the dirt beside him, its blade glistening wet. Whoever he was, he was still breathing. Clay crouched beside him and went through his pockets. A wallet with a few thousand Egyptian pounds in it, a bank card, a faded photo of a young boy in a school uniform, another of the same boy with Tall and a plain-looking woman in a headscarf. An Egyptian police ID card. And in the front trouser pocket, a thick roll of cash – new US fifty-dollar bills, a lot of them. Payday? Not in US dollars. Not this kind of money. Cops, perhaps. But not normal ones.
Clay started towards the highway.
As the flood of adrenaline burned away and was replaced by the warm gush of dopamine, he knew that there was still time. Time to change this. All of it. Fractions of seconds, yes. Eons perhaps. Enough. All the time there ever was. And he also knew that the direction lay ahead. Down this street of tombs. Through the choking miasma of burning plastic and cadmium-thickened smoke. Past the stink of open sewers and makeshift tomb-homes and the bodies of rotting animals. Away from this place. Back, perhaps, to something he’d thought was lost.
He loped towards the main road. Had she waited? Or had she disappeared again, as she had so many times before? Dogs barked. Televisions droned, flickering blue from the windows of a thousand rooms. Somewhere behind him someone shouted into the night, called for help. Clay kept going. Could their destinies ever converge? Or was the evidence of three years a whole and blistering truth that he had wilfully ignored? And yet she had called him here. Called for his help. It did not matter why. He was blind. And he did not care.
He emerged from the City of the Dead onto the broad curve of the highway. The lights of the citadel and the Mohammed Ali mosque glowed in the distance. A black, starless sky weighed over the city. He started down the road, the first pain signals detonating in his brain. Cars sped by, a strobing countercurrent of white and red lights. The cops hadn’t called in backup. They’d had no radios. Neither was carrying a phone. He knew now that they were working off-line, outside the system.
A taxi rolled up beside him. The driver gave him a couple of shots on the horn. Clay raised his hand to his chest, the sign for no thanks, kept his head down, kept walking. The taxi slowed. Clay stopped, faced the vehicle. The rear window was coming down. Clay stepped back, reached to the small of his back, palmed the Glock’s handle.
A face appeared in the open window.
‘Get in,’ she said.