The Pharaoh Key

14

THE WATER WAS warm and calm, and Gideon saw no sign of sharks. He kept up a slow pace, alternating among breaststroke, backstroke, and an easy crawl, careful not to tire himself out, moving with a current that was already taking him toward shore. After a while, he could see the mountains of the Eastern Desert rising in the west, their outline blotting out the stars, and an hour later he could make out the sound of light surf on a beach. Soon his feet touched sand and he stood up and waded to shore.

He dragged himself up the strand, exhausted. The moon had set, but the starlight was bright enough to cast a faint illumination over the landscape. It was a desolate place: a long, empty beach that curved like a scimitar between low reefs extending into the sea. The water was calm, the gentle waves hissing up the sand. There was no sign of life—not a bush or blade of grass—just sand and rock.

He coughed and spat out the salty taste in his mouth. The image of Garza going down in the dark water overwhelmed him. He couldn’t think about that—somehow, somehow, he told himself, Garza must have survived. How could a man like Garza die: his companion on many missions, a man who had survived again and again, a cat with nine lives? When the ship went down, the deck was covered with items that would have been left floating, from bales of hay to luggage and other things he could cling to. If Garza had managed to claw his way back to the surface, Gideon told himself, surely he would have found something…

Then he remembered the way the doomed ship had slipped so quickly beneath the surface; the boiling eruption of bubbles; the desperate shadows of drowning people calling out for help…

He staggered up the beach, peering into the darkness. “Manuel!” he called. “Manuel!” He saw something rolling in the surf and ran toward it, splashing through the water. A body. He grasped it by the clothing and turned it over—an elderly man, obviously drowned. A little farther on he saw other bodies turning gently in the surf.

“Manuel!”

He stumbled toward them, trying to see their faces in the dim light, turning them over—men, women, and a child. All were drowned. None were Garza.

He continued up the beach to the end, where a jagged reef stuck out into the water. All the bodies seemed concentrated in the one place. He turned and jogged back.

“Manuel!” he screamed, voice hoarse.

He passed the place where he had dragged himself out of the water, and continued south along the beach. Nothing. No survivors, no more bodies.

Exhausted, he could go no farther. He sank to his knees in the sand, gasping for breath. It seemed nobody had made it to shore alive from the disaster, at least not in this area.

He dragged himself beyond the wet sand and lay back, staring up at the stars: a castaway on an unknown shore. After a while he collected his thoughts and recovered his breath. He remembered his money belt and felt his waist, relieved to find it still there, packed with about twenty thousand Egyptian pounds and his passport. But that was all. He had no food and no water, and the rest of their money had gone down with the ferry. It was, he figured, about two in the morning. When the sun rose, the extreme heat and lack of water would become a problem. He would do well to travel at night. He could not afford to rest much longer.

Still he lay there awhile longer, gathering his willpower, and then heaved himself to his feet, swaying momentarily. His mind slowly cleared. If memory served, Manuel’s map had indicated that a road ran along the coastline southward to the town of Shalateen, the last vestige of civilization before the frontier of the Hala’ib Triangle.

He began to walk inland, hoping to intersect the road, the salt water in his clothes drying quickly. The air was almost chilly and he shivered, thinking that he’d better enjoy the cold while it lasted. The ground was flat and sandy, the distant mountains a serrated absence of stars. To his relief, in about a mile he hit the road: a single-lane strip of asphalt running straight as an arrow from north to south.

He paused on the roadway, thinking. If the ferry sank at around one in the morning, they would have traveled about two hundred miles, going at roughly ten knots. That meant Shalateen was another eighty miles to the south, more or less. Too far to walk. But then, he reasoned, he had no other choice but to try.

He headed south, walking down the center of the road. Images crowded into his mind: of the sinking; of Garza being thrown into the water and going under; of all the helpless, screaming, drowning people. That last gesture of Garza’s, making the ultimate sacrifice to save others—and the old grouch had done it instinctively, without even thinking twice. It made his own struggles with a terminal disease, his months of existential angst, feel foolish; trivial; self-centered.

Well, all that was over now. The expedition was finished. There was no way he could continue on his own. What he needed was to push away these heavy thoughts and focus on getting to Shalateen alive. Then he could go back to his cabin in the Jemez Mountains and live out his last few weeks in the place he loved most—to hell with the Phaistos location.

After he’d spent three hours walking, the sky began to lighten in the east. It spread across the sea horizon in a brightening pink band, and soon afterward a yellow sun boiled up over the water, casting an oven-like heat into his face. It was amazing how quickly the temperature passed through the comfort zone to unbearable heat. He had lost his head covering, and the sun as it rose quickly began to feel as if it were pressing down on his head like hot iron, turning the salt in his hair to bitter dust. The mountains rising on his right looked black and as sharp as needles.

The road ran across the sandy coastal plains, absorbing the heat of the sun and radiating it back in shimmering patterns. No cars came, and in the areas where sand had blown across the road there were no tire tracks. It looked like nothing had passed down the road in days.

Around what seemed like noon, Gideon began to feel light-headed. The shore lay about a mile off, and he realized that to stave off heatstroke he should make use of the water. He veered off the road and walked to the shore, arriving at an area of flat reefs and a beach of orange sand. He waded into the water, soaking his clothes and dunking his head, feeling the instant relief of the cool water even if it did little to assuage his rising thirst. As he began walking back toward the road, he heard a distant sound. A car? He began to run. To the north, he could see what looked like two decrepit buses lumbering down the highway, belching diesel smoke.

“Hey!” he cried, stumbling forward. “I’m here! Hey! Wait!” He waved his arms and shouted, running as fast as he could, but the two vehicles passed in the distance and soon dwindled into black dots on the southern horizon.

He reached the road and stood there, cursing at the vanishing buses. Now he bitterly regretted leaving the roadway. But at least this meant the road was traveled—albeit infrequently.

He trudged on. The dip in the water had temporarily assuaged his thirst, but it returned quickly. There was no shade anywhere, and he realized it was dangerous to keep walking—it would only increase his need for water. He sat down on a rock by the side of the highway and waited. Hours passed while the blazing sun inched across the sky and began to descend toward the jagged mountains. And then, in the northern distance, Gideon saw the wavering, uncertain image of what looked like a car at the vanishing point of the road. He stood up. It was a vehicle—in fact, several of them. They materialized into a jeep and two olive-drab army vehicles barreling down the roadway at high speed. He rushed to the middle of the road and waved his arms and began shouting as they approached.

The lead jeep saw him and the convoy slowed, then came to a stop in front of him. Gideon staggered up as a military officer in the jeep’s passenger seat got out, holding a canteen.

Gideon fumbled the canteen from the man’s proffered hand, unscrewed the cap, and gulped down the water, spilling it over himself.

“Easy, friend,” said the man in good English, grasping the canteen and pulling it away. “Wait a bit and then drink more.” He was dressed in desert camo, with a black beret on his head and two stars on his shoulder.

Gideon nodded, releasing the canteen. He felt better almost immediately.

“Are you from the ferry accident?” the officer asked.

“Yes,” he croaked. “Yes.”

The officer explained they were part of a rescue team that had been looking for survivors along the coast, with the Egyptian navy picking up survivors in the water.

“Did many survive?” Gideon asked, suddenly hopeful.

“Some.” The officer didn’t answer further. “We’re taking the survivors to Shalateen for treatment and to take statements. Do you have your passport?”

“My friend was on the boat,” Gideon said as he pulled out his passport. “Manuel Garza. Did you rescue him?”

The man spoke briefly to someone else in the jeep, then shook his head. “We have no one by that name. I am sorry.” He examined Gideon’s passport, then tucked it into his breast pocket, extending his hand. “I am Lieutenant al-Nimr,” he said.

Gideon shook it. “Gideon Crew.”

“I’ll keep your passport for now,” said the officer. “May I ask what were you doing on the ferry? It is not a normal method of tourist travel.”

“My friend and I are adventure travelers.”

“And your friend, his name is Garza?” He made a note on a small pad. “Manuel Garza?”

Gideon spelled it for him. “You’re sure no one by that name was rescued?”

“I am sure. Sorry. We will take your statement in Shalateen.”

The jeep started up, Gideon climbed into the back, and the convoy continued south. What seemed like forever, but could not have been more than two hours later, Gideon saw a lone sign appear in a wasteland of sand, written in English and Arabic, SHALATEEN. Moments later a brown, dusty settlement rose into view, low cement houses mingled with scattered acacia bushes, piles of garbage being picked at by goats, a tethered camel resting in some shade, and the twin minarets of a mosque rising into the sky. The convoy drove into town and pulled through a gate into what looked like an official compound, surrounded by naked cinder-block walls topped with concertina wire. They parked in the dirt lot before a large whitewashed building. The lieutenant and his driver got out and motioned to Gideon to do the same.

“When will I get my passport back?” Gideon asked.

“When we’ve taken your statement. Follow me.”

The lieutenant led him into a large open room with a rumbling air conditioner. Three other officers sat at a table at one end, and adjacent to that a man sat behind a desk. In front of the desk was a molded plastic chair. The lieutenant saluted the man behind the desk, spoke in Arabic, handed him Gideon’s passport, and left. The whole setup reminded Gideon of an interrogation room.

The man stood up with a big smile and offered his hand. “I am Captain Farouk. Please sit down.”

Gideon sat in the plastic chair proffered him. Pleading stupidity and ignorance was the way to go, he reasoned; if he proved to be a valuable witness, he might be detained for whatever legal proceedings would ensue. He couldn’t stay in this place any longer than absolutely necessary. He still felt shaken to the core by Garza’s death.

“Please tell us what happened,” said the captain, returning to his desk and folding his hands. An old reel-to-reel tape recorder was set up to one side, and he now turned it on.

Gideon gave a brief account of what had happened, omitting the part about seeing the captain stabbed and the crew deserting the vessel. He also omitted mentioning tossing the lumber in the water. He described how his friend was thrown from the deck when the ferry lurched upward in its death throes, adding the fact that he couldn’t swim. He’d been so frightened, he said, that he didn’t notice anything more.

It seemed all four men were taking notes. “What were you doing on the ferry?”

“We’re adventure travelers,” Gideon explained once again.

“And what is an adventure traveler?” the captain asked.

“Someone who wants to get off the tourist path. We like to go places where visitors don’t normally go, see places that no one else sees, travel by unusual means, mingle with local people.”

“I see. Well, I think that is all for now.”

Gideon said, “May I ask a question?”

“Certainly.”

“How many survivors were there?”

The captain looked at him steadily. “Of the forty or so on board, almost all survived, Allah be praised.”

“Um…” Gideon didn’t quite know how to respond to this obvious lie. There had been at least five hundred on that ferry. It seemed a cover-up was in progress. Well, he thought, there was nothing he could do about it. With Garza dead, it was none of his business.

“We had rescue boats on the scene almost immediately,” the captain said, “and picked up many people in the water. Others made it to shore. Fortunately there were only two or three deaths, your friend being one.”

Don’t argue, thought Gideon.

“The ferry was illegal,” said the captain, “operating without permits or inspections. We picked up the crew north of here and arrested them. They will be punished.”

“I see.” Gideon just wanted to get the hell out of there. “May I have my passport now?”

“Later.”

“When?”

“When we’ve processed your statement.”

“I’m not released now?”

“Not yet.”

Gideon cleared his throat. “I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday.”

The captain spoke in Arabic, and one of the officers at the table stood up. “Follow me,” the man said.

Gideon followed him out of the room, through dusty corridors, to a cafeteria buzzing with flies. A machine dispensed coffee and a cooler held an array of cellophane-wrapped meat pastries, bread, and cheese. “Please help yourself,” the officer said.

Gideon got himself a coffee with milk and sugar from the machine and took two pastries from the cooler. He sat at a fly-specked table while the officer waited at the door, watching him. When he was done eating, he rose. “What now?”

“Come this way.”

Gideon followed him once again through a maze of stifling concrete passageways to a door with a single meshed window. When the officer opened it, Gideon was surprised to see a large gym beyond with several dozen people in it, mostly women and children—evidently the survivors rescued from the boat. Forty out of five hundred. And most of these people, he noticed, were ones he and Garza had saved.

The door shut behind him and he heard the bolt shoot. He was locked in. The people around him looked frightened, confused, and miserable. And now some of the women recognized him and came over, murmuring in Arabic and pressing his hands in thanks.

“No, no. Don’t do that. Please.” He shook his head. “You’re mistaken, it wasn’t me. It was my friend.” Gideon knew if word got out that he had helped save them, he’d be drawn into this mess and God knew what might happen. But they couldn’t understand what he was saying and continued to cluster around him, pressing his hands, murmuring, some with tears streaming down their faces.

“No, no, really…” He stood up, trying to get away. “I want to be alone. Alone.” He looked around and saw, in the corner of the room, a man sitting on the floor, his back to the crowd, curled up, seemingly half dead. Gideon’s heart turned over in his chest; the man had no head covering, and even from behind his salt-and-pepper hair looked familiar. He strode over and placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. The figure looked up stiffly.

“Manuel! My God!”

With a weak smile Garza staggered to his feet, and they instinctively embraced.

“I thought you were dead!”

“Not dead,” Garza said in a weak voice. “Just almost dead. Christ. And I was sure you’d drowned…”

“How…how did you survive? I saw you go down.”

Holding him up, he led Garza to the wall and they sat down together, leaning against it.

“I did go down,” said Garza. “I thought it was over. But that sinking ship belched out a mass of air that must have carried me back up. At least, I think that’s what happened. When I broke the surface, there was stuff floating everywhere and the vessel was gone. I grabbed a bale of clothes and held on. About three hours later some fishing boats arrived, collected the survivors, and took us to an army base north of here. Then the army showed up and drove us here in buses. And you? What happened to you?”

“I swam to shore. They picked me up on the highway. Listen, Manuel, I have to tell you how impressed I was with what you did. When push came to shove, you were willing to give up your own life.”

Garza shook his head. “How could I have lived with myself if I’d left those children to drown?”

“Don’t make light of it. You’re a hero.”

“Well, I have to tell you, the fact you’re so surprised is a bit offensive to me.”

Here it was: the old, prickly Garza resurfacing. So much the better, thought Gideon. “No offense meant. But is it true? That you really can’t swim, I mean?”

Garza’s face abruptly changed expression. He looked away and down, his face darkening, and didn’t respond.

“I only ask because you’ve been on at least three ships that sank: the Rolvaag, the Batavia, and now this ferry. For a guy who can’t swim, you’ve had one hell of a run of bad luck. Why didn’t you ever learn?”

Garza gazed at him, his eyes narrowed. “None of your business.”

“I think it’s a legitimate question.”

“No, it isn’t,” Garza said in a low voice. “And don’t ask me again.”

Now, clearly, was not the time to press the man. “Why didn’t they tell me you’d survived?”

“I lost my passport and gave them a fake name. You do realize a cover-up is going on.”

“Yeah.”

“And they’re not going to let us go until the whole thing is officially put straight. They don’t want anyone talking.”

“They can’t just keep us. We’re Americans.”

“Why not? We don’t look like important people. Fact is, we look like bums, confirmed by our traveling on that scow.”

“We should demand to speak to the American embassy.”

Garza laughed. “Are you crazy? That’ll blow everything. We need to stay under the radar.”

“What the hell for? The expedition’s finished.”

Garza leaned in. “Why?”

“How can we continue? We’ve lost all our gear. Our maps. And a lot of our money.”

“How can we not continue? You’ve still got the money in your belt, and I’ve got mine.”

Gideon returned the look. “What about our maps?”

“I’ve got the exact location in longitude and latitude committed to memory.” Garza gripped him by the shoulders. “We’re almost there. Why the hell not go the rest of the way?”

Why not? Gideon thought to himself. Being reunited with Garza changed the equation considerably. “Just one thing.”

“Shoot.”

“We couldn’t have expected that ferry to sink. Who knows what’s still waiting for us up ahead? I’m on a clock, but you…” Gideon took a deep breath. “Anyway, promise me that, if this mission ever falls apart and we get separated for good, you’ll find a way of letting me know you’re alive.”

Garza considered this a moment. “Okay. If you promise to carry both our knapsacks from now on.”

“I’m not fooling around! I went through a pretty rough patch just now, thinking you were dead.”

“All right, all right. I promise.”

“That’s better. Now: how the hell are we going to get out of here?”

“Baksheesh,” said Garza. “How else?”

Gideon shook his head. “We can’t spare the money. And if they see we have money, that might raise even more questions. We’ll have to talk our way out.”

“Talk our way out,” Garza echoed. “Figures. To think I was almost relieved to see you again.”