The Pharaoh Key

16

THE FOLLOWING DAY, Gideon exited the hotel, returning a short time later with a bundle slung over his shoulders. He found Garza lying on his bed, dressed only in underwear and T-shirt, can of beer in hand. He rose when Gideon entered.

“Have a cold beer,” he said.

“Where the hell did you get beer?”

“Baksheesh.”

He rose and handed Gideon a can from a weeping six-pack, stored in a shady corner. Gideon cracked it. “Ahh, the hiss of paradise.” He took a deep swig and settled in the lone rickety chair. “So. Find out anything while I was gone?”

“Pretty much what we already know. The Hala’ib Triangle is a no-man’s-land, few roads, and certainly none leading where we want to go. Still, there’s a lot of smuggling across the Egypt-Sudan border along the eastern edge of the triangle, so people do get through. The western side where we’re headed is avoided by the smugglers, though. Anyway, that’s the rumor as far as I could comprehend it. I finally found a smuggler who seemed to have an idea of the conditions in the western part of the triangle.”

“So what’s the deal?”

“The only way to get in there is by camel.”

“What about dirt bikes? Or those dune buggies like they use in the Sahara?”

“You saw the satellite images. The Eastern Desert is nothing like the Sahara. It’s far more rugged. Dirt bikes are no good in deep sand, and dune buggies or Land Rovers can’t climb mountains. Even if we could find them, we can’t afford them. As you may have noticed, this town is full of camels and pretty much nothing else.”

“Okay. So we go by camel.”

“That’s what I figured. Given all the trading here—smuggling and legitimate—there are a lot of camel dealers around. Half a dozen, maybe, all set up on the western side of the town. My thinking is that we hire a small caravan, with a guide and camel drivers, take it about ninety miles to the foothills of the mountains. There we’ll dismiss the caravan and travel the rest of the way on foot, maybe fifteen miles, to ensure our final destination remains a secret.”

“Fifteen miles across the mountains? On foot? Sounds like suicide in this heat.”

“We’ll travel at night,” Garza said. “The key is to make those fifteen miles in a single night, carrying our water and supplies. There are valleys in the mountains we have to go through, the mist oases I told you about, and I’m hoping they’ll be cooler, with vegetation and perhaps water.”

“What about maps?”

“I scrounged up a couple of maps when I was looking for the beer.”

“And what if we get there and find nothing? How do we get back out?”

“We’ll cache water along the way and meet the caravan at a prearranged time and location later.”

Gideon shook his head. “Camels. Don’t they spit on you?”

“They bite, too,” Garza said.

“What joy.”

“And you. How well did you handle your morning assignments?”

“I’ve worked out our cover.” Gideon opened his bundle, took out a battered Nikon camera, and tossed it on the bed.

“What’s that for?”

“You’re a National Geographic magazine photographer. I’m a writer. We’re doing a story on Egypt’s most remote desert. The camera is old and doesn’t work, but it makes a nice clicking sound when you depress the shutter.”

“I’d rather be the writer and have you lug that piece of crap around.”

“Sorry.” Gideon reached into the sack and took out a bundle of clothes. “And here’s a new galabeya and headcloth for you.”

Garza looked at the clothes without reaching for them. “Looks like they have lice.”

“They’re freshly washed, I made sure of that.”

Garza gathered up the clothes, smelled them, and made a face.

“Go ahead. Put them on. Beats being a John Deere salesman.”

The camel dealers were located in a series of sandy paddocks amid a scattering of acacia trees, on either side of a bustling dirt road that headed out into the desert. A motley assortment of the beasts were staked out, seated and chewing their cuds. The camel traders occupied elaborate tents, with air-conditioning; hoses snaked from the grumbling external units into the interior.

“That one looks good,” Gideon said, pointing. “Big and prosperous.”

They approached the tent and a boy, evidently an employee of the camel dealer, hustled over. “You want camel?”

“Yes.”

“Come!”

They followed him into the tent, which was remarkably sumptuous inside, the floor carpeted in Persian rugs, with leather cushions for seats around low brass tables. A large man rose from a cushion in the rear and came striding over, hand outstretched.

“Please sit, my dear friends,” he said, in halting but more-than-passable English.

They sat around one of the low tables. Glass cups appeared, and the boy poured them all tea.

“Where you from?” the man asked.

“The States,” said Gideon.

“Wonderful!” He said something to the boy, who came back with a plate of dates. “You need camel?”

“Yes, for packing and riding, plus a handler and guide.” Gideon removed one of the maps Garza had purchased and spread it on the table. “We’re going to the base of Gebel Umm, here. It’s about ninety miles away.”

The man leaned over the map, scowling. “That is in the Hala’ib. Why you go there? Eastern Desert much better.”

“Because that’s where we want to go. Gebel Umm is what we want to photograph.” He gestured with the camera.

“I take you much better place, up here.” The large man pressed his finger on the mountains to the northwest of Shalateen. “There are caves, paintings on rock, big dunes, mountains, famous ruined mosque. Nothing in Hala’ib. Many snake. Khazraj Bedouin, maybe. You go here.” He stubbornly tapped his finger again to the north. “Famous Umayyad mosque ruins. Make good photograph!”

Gideon realized this was going nowhere. “Will you take us to Gebel Umm or not?”

After a long hesitation the man shook his head. “I am sorry. Too dangerous.”

Back out in the hot sun, Gideon squinted down the avenue that led among the camel dealers. “Try the next one?”

The same thing happened at that one, and the next, and the next. It was always the same story: Too dangerous. Snake. Sandstorm. No water.

They finally ended up at the far end of the camel market, beside the road headed into the desert. This establishment had the shabbiest tent of the lot and six scruffy camels tethered nearby. The tent was the only one without air-conditioning, and unlike the other dealerships, there was no boy to rush out and greet them as they approached.

Gideon grasped the opening of the tent. “Anyone home?”

A moment later a skinny man with a long beard came bursting through the flap. It looked as if he had just woken up. A few strands of hay were caught in his beard, and his smile revealed a row of red-stained teeth and lips. The other camel dealers had been friendly, but this man was positively voluble. After a brief hesitation, Gideon offered his hand. “Gideon Crew. This is Manuel Garza. We’re looking for camels.”

“Ibrahim Mekky at your service!” The man seized Gideon’s hand and began shaking it endlessly.

“Nice to meet you,” Gideon finally said, extracting his hand.

“We have the best camels here. They are not pretty, but they are tough!” Gideon was startled to hear the man speak excellent English with what sounded like the trace of a New York accent.

Mekky gave his beard a little shake to get the hay out. “Come, come have tea!” He gestured toward his dark and no doubt hellishly hot tent. After he issued the invite, he leaned over and spat a stream of red juice and fiber into the sand. He had evidently been chewing something.

“No, thank you,” said Gideon, “we’ve had too much tea already. We can deal out here.”

“Very good.”

“You speak English well, Mr. Mekky.”

“That’s because I lived in Queens. Astoria. Very nice there! I love America!” Another red-stained smile.

Gideon was roasting in the sun and didn’t want to waste more time chitchatting. He pulled out his map. “We want to go here. To the base of Gebel Umm.”

Mekky took the map and squinted at it. “Why there? If you go north—”

“No!” Garza interrupted. “We’re going to Gebel Umm. We don’t want to hear about rock paintings and ruined mosques.”

“Fine,” said Mekky, backing down with a smile, once again exposing his startling beet-red teeth. “No problem. We will go to Gebel Umm. I will guide you.”

“You’ll take us there and leave us. And then you’ll come back to get us in—” Gideon looked at Garza, made a quick estimation. “Two weeks. How well do you know the area?”

“Very well! We will need three camels for riding, two camels for packing. It will take four days, maybe five. What is the purpose of your trip?”

“I’m a writer,” said Gideon. “He’s a photographer. We work for National Geographic.”

“Ah! National Geographic! Wonderful! For you, I have special friend National Geographic price—”

“Just tell us the damn amount,” said Garza.

Mekky reached into a leather bag dangling inside his galabeya and removed a green nut. “May I offer you betel nut? It is always good to share betel nut before doing business.”

“No, thank you,” said Garza.

Mekky placed the nut in his mouth, cracked it with his teeth, tossed away the shells, and began chewing. He took a pinch of powder from a jar in his robes, inserted the pinch into the wad of nut, and began chewing that as well. He finished this complex operation by spitting out a vile stream of red fluid and, with his tongue, parking the wad in his cheek. “Forty thousand pounds.”

Gideon stared at him. “Forty thousand? Why, that’s…twenty-two hundred dollars! We don’t have that kind of money.”

“Mr. Gideon,” Mekky said, “you are talking about not one trip for me, but two! And dangerous. Very few who go in there ever return—”

“We know about the danger,” said Gideon. “And the snakes and heat and lack of water.”

“Then you know why it costs forty thousand pounds. But because it is National Geographic, I can do it for thirty-five.”

“Ten thousand,” said Gideon.

“Ten thousand? My friend, this is not right.”

“Twelve thousand.”

“Thirty thousand.”

“Eleven thousand.”

“Eleven?” the dealer said. “But that is less than your last offer!”

“I’m hot. The longer this takes, the lower my price goes. Think of it as a surcharge for suffering.”

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“Ten thousand.”

“Twenty-two thousand.”

“Nine thousand.”

“My friend, this is not how it’s done! You won’t find a camel guide like me in all of Egypt! We will need to carry feed for the camels, water, and food for us. My final rock-bottom price is twenty thousand—in advance, of course.”

Gideon was about to reply when a feminine voice rang out from the bustling street beyond. “Twenty thousand it is!”

Gideon turned to see a woman emerge from a battered Land Rover parked beside the thoroughfare. She looked Egyptian, wearing a headscarf and an Egyptian-patterned blue-and-black brocaded dress, but her face was sunburnt and her eyes blue. Her accent sounded vaguely English.

Mekky turned. “Twenty thousand pounds, madam?”

“That’s right. Twenty thousand. I need five camels, and I hear you’re the best guide in Egypt. I’m heading into the western Hala’ib.”

“Well, then! I am your man. It is done!” Mekky clapped his hands and turned to Gideon. “I am very sorry, my friend.” He underscored this with a stream of red juice spat into the sand.

“Hold on, here!” Garza said to the woman. “We were in the midst of a negotiation. You can’t cut in like that!”

The woman turned to him with a smile. “I just did.”