The Pharaoh Key

10

THE VESSEL, THE Egyptian Epiphany RiverShip II, had disembarked from the gleaming docks of Suez that morning and was now headed down the gulf, the minarets of the great mosque at the mouth of the Suez Canal dwindling to aft in the clear desert air. Gideon and Garza had hoped to find passage on a Nile River cruiser to Aswan, but at this late date everything was booked. So they’d done the next best thing and reserved a stateroom with two double beds on a small cruise ship making a circuit of the Red Sea. This had been followed by a hellish midnight taxi ride from Cairo to the city of Suez. By morning light, Gideon had found that the town was surprisingly modern and clean, not hectic like Cairo, although lacking Cairo’s charm and exuberance.

Gideon stood at the stern of the three-hundred-foot vessel, Garza next to him, each holding a warming bottle of Stella Lager, the ship leaving a creamy wake across the turquoise waters of the gulf. Gideon slipped a glance at his partner in crime. Garza was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, along with Ray-Bans and a cheap Panama hat bought at a Cairo bazaar. Gideon had taken care dressing the both of them, and it wasn’t until too late that he realized he’d made a miscalculation. He had assumed all cruise ships were stuffed full of rowdy, tacky, half-drunk yahoos. He hadn’t realized that the Egyptian Epiphany was on a semi-academic tour of ancient archaeological sites, and that most of its passengers were retired intellectual-minded Europeans who dressed well and kept to themselves. What saved him was a noisy group of ten or so Americans who had somehow won this cruise in a lottery; couldn’t care less about the lectures or video presentations; and spent most of their time in the bar, sundeck, or massage salon. Despite their laughing and their bluster, they were basically goodhearted and naive Midwesterners, and Gideon quickly switched his cover story to that of a tractor salesman from Milwaukee who had earned a trip to Egypt with his buddy by winning a sales incentive. The only problem left was Garza himself. He hadn’t gotten with the program and stood at the rail, looked distinctly unhappy.

As the boat steamed southward, a guide on the far side of the deck was describing the passing sights on the Sinai and Egyptian coasts to a large group, several of whom were actually taking notes.

“John Deere,” Gideon continued to the British couple standing next to him, holding watery gin-and-tonics, “made in America. None of this Chinese factory business.”

“Terrible how so many jobs are being sent to the Far East.”

“Not John Deere. We just celebrated our hundred and eightieth anniversary.”

“That’s remarkable.”

“I’ll say. John Deere was an inventor, and he got his start by inventing the self-scouring steel plow in 1837.”

“Is that so?”

“That is so.” Gideon had absorbed a raft of information from Wikipedia. “He took a Scottish steel saw blade and re-forged it into a slick-sided plow. The trick was the dirt didn’t stick to it, unlike iron or wooden plows—and, by God, that’s the plow that conquered the earth of the Midwestern plains! Now, me and my partner Manny here, we’re on the agricultural side of sales—”

Already he could see the couple was edging away, rapidly losing whatever enthusiasm they might initially have had for striking up a conversation with him. This was his goal: to mix with the other Americans when necessary, but to quickly establish with the other passengers a reputation as a garrulous tourist to be avoided. The journey on the Egyptian Epiphany II to Safaga was thirty-six hours, and there were several Egyptian soldiers on board, apparently to reassure the tourists against a terrorist attack. They could not afford to arouse suspicion.

“I’ve had about enough of this,” said Garza abruptly, turning away and striding down the walking track that circled the deck.

The couple took this as their cue to leave as well. “I think we’ll go dress for dinner,” the husband said. “Lovely to meet you.”

Gideon watched them depart, pleased with his own performance but mightily irritated with Garza. It had been a chore to get Garza to dress like an American tourist to begin with; discovering this hadn’t necessarily been the best cover only made things worse. But it wasn’t just the clothes: his perpetually suspicious look practically broadcast that this was someone with something to hide. If they were going to succeed, he really needed to straighten Garza out, the sooner the better.

He found Garza in their cabin directly behind the gift shop, already out of his costume and back in a white shirt and pressed khakis. He rose when Gideon came in, his face dark. “Listen, Gideon, this isn’t fun and games. You’re the one who keeps saying we shouldn’t stand out, and there you are, making a spectacle of yourself right on deck.”

Gideon stared at him. “You’re the one who stands out, sulking in a corner, not talking to anybody. And that outfit of yours, that white shirt and damn desert boots—it makes you look like an undercover Fed.”

“I look like who I am, nothing more. I don’t want to be a frigging tractor salesman from Dubuque. What the hell does it matter what people think?”

Gideon took a deep breath and tried to swallow his anger. If this expedition was going to succeed he, the more flexible of the pair, would have to meet Garza more than halfway. “Look. It’s true that right now a disguise may not matter all that much. But once we reach Shalateen—the jumping-off point for the Proscribed Zone, where there are Bedouin tribesmen instead of tourists and our very presence might be illegal—we’re going to have to look and act totally convincing.”

“As what?”

“I don’t know yet. We have to scope it out when we get to Shalateen. But we can’t just walk into the Hala’ib Triangle without a damn good cover story, dressed to play the part. Think of this as a rehearsal. Because we’re going to be lying all the way there. You need to get used to it.”

He could see his point was finally sinking in. The engineer ran a hand over his short black hair. “I can’t act worth shit and I know nothing about tractors.”

“Come on, Manuel! You spent an entire night researching the triangle. Spend another five minutes on John Deere, like I did.”

“Tractor salesmen. Why couldn’t we be petroleum engineers? I mean, Egypt has some oil production right here in the Suez.”

Gideon had to laugh. “And you don’t think that would arouse suspicion? I’ll leave the expedition logistics to you, but you leave the social engineering to me. Okay?”

A pause. “Okay.”

“Speaking of logistics, have you figured out just how we’re going to get the stuff out of Egypt? I mean, it’s true we don’t know what we’ll find—maybe a tomb, maybe an ancient library, maybe a fossilized Burger King—but whatever it is, we’re betting that there’s loot.”

“That’s exactly the issue: whatever it is. I can’t be certain how to smuggle it out of the country until I see what we find. But I’ve already made provisions. Depending on the size and weight, I’m hoping to pass it off as some type of tourist junk. If necessary, we can paint it in garish washable colors and ship it out as knickknacks or maybe replicas to a nonexistent distributor in the US.”

“You see? That’s a good plan. And that’s how we’ll succeed—with each of us playing to our strengths.”

They shook hands.

“Now put that damn Hawaiian shirt back on and let’s go up for dinner.”