Island of the Sun (17 page)

“Germans,” Youssef said, pointing at the tract, with evident irritation in his voice.

“You don't like the refugees?” Eleanor's mom asked.

He shook his head and pointed a finger at the roof
of his van. “They do not respect Islam. We let them come here, we say you are welcome, we give them what they need to build houses, but we say you will respect Islam. They say they will respect Islam, but they do not.”

“You want them to convert?” Betty asked.

“No, no, no,” he said, waving his hand. “We do not force on anyone. But this our way.” He laid a hand on his chest. “Friday is a holy day. We close our shop and business. Refugees want to open business on Friday, and this is not pleasing. They eat and drink in the open during Ramadan. This is not pleasing. They do not respect Islam. And they have many crimes, also.”

“It's worse in Syria and Iraq,” Betty said. “Now that Israel has closed its borders.”

“Yes.” Youssef nodded his head deeply enough that Eleanor worried whether he could still see the road. “That is very bad situation. That is
not
Islam.”

Eleanor didn't understand all the politics, and she didn't understand how some people couldn't see they were all one planet facing the same threat—that they needed to work together. But maybe that was actually why things were so contentious here. If people were scared they might lose what they valued the most, maybe that made them try even harder to protect it, drawing lines along the edges of ancient conflicts and
resentments. No wonder most people hadn't figured out what was really going on with the Freeze. They were too busy contending with one another.

They left the refugee tract behind and drove into an urban area, lined with shops, restaurants, and movie theaters, with palm trees leaning gently over the street. Youssef took several turns and pulled onto a road that ran along the edge of an open expanse of desert. He then stopped in front of a café and pointed across the front passenger seat.

“There, you see?”

Eleanor followed the invisible line from the tip of his finger, between two buildings, to several triangles stabbing upward from the horizon. She hadn't noticed them, but there they were. Right there. The pyramids.

“You want to eat here, yes?” Youssef got out of the van and walked around to open the sliding door for them. “Good food. Good view.”

“Okay,” Luke said.

They piled out of the taxi and followed Youssef into the café, where another middle-aged man greeted them with a smile and a slight bow of his head. He wore a black apron around his waist and a white button-down shirt open at the collar, and he and Youssef embraced and kissed each other on both cheeks. They spoke together in Arabic, with smiles and laughter.

Then Youssef turned back toward them. “This is Samir, the brother of my wife.”

Samir nodded again. “Welcome. You are hungry. Come, please.” He opened his arm inward to his café.

“I'll leave you now,” Youssef said. “But Samir will call me if you want a hotel. I will take you to a good one. Anywhere you want to go. You are very nice.”

“Thank you, Youssef,” Eleanor's mom said.

He left, and Samir shepherded them through the café and settled them at a table on a back patio, shielded from the sun by a white canopy overhead. The spot did have an amazing view of the pyramids, off in the distance, and it occurred to Eleanor that the image before her had likely changed very little in the last five thousand years.

“One moment,” Samir said, and after he'd left them, Luke leaned over the table.

“What do you want to wager that hotel Youssef mentioned is owned by his uncle?” he said.

“No bet,” Betty said.

“Stop it—it's fine,” Eleanor's mom said. “I get the feeling that's how it works here. He seemed like a nice man.”

Luke frowned. “So did Amaru—”

“Amaru
was
a nice man,” Eleanor said, almost challenging him to dispute it. “He made a bad choice.”

“If you say so, kid,” Luke said. “That argument doesn't make me feel any better about nice-guy Youssef, though.”

“Can we eat something?” Finn asked. “I'm starving.”

He sounded like Julian, though Eleanor refrained from making that observation out loud. A moment later, Samir returned with menus, and also two pairs of binoculars.

“For the view,” he said, and pointed toward the pyramids.

“Thank you,” Eleanor's mom said.

Eleanor grabbed one of the pairs before anyone else could claim it and aimed it out across the sand. It took her a moment to adjust the dial and bring the view through the lenses into focus, and then another moment to land them on something to see.

But she wasn't hoping to get a better look at the pyramids, or the Sphinx. She was looking for the G.E.T.

They were everywhere. Vehicles. Tents. Agents. Every road leading there was blocked off, and dozens of structures had been built throughout the area, like a small city. It was a massive operation, all in and around the bases of the pyramids.

Eleanor brought the binoculars down and looked at everyone else around the table. “We're screwed,” she said.

T
HEY LOOKED AT ONE ANOTHER IN SILENCE, HAVING EACH
taken a turn with the binoculars and seen the state of things around where the ley lines intersected. They didn't know exactly where the Concentrator would be, but the fact that a small army of G.E.T. agents swarmed the entire site meant they wouldn't even be able to search for it, let alone get close enough for Eleanor to shut it down.

Samir returned, smiling. “What can I bring you?”

“We, uh . . . ,” Eleanor's mom began. “We haven't had a chance to look at the menu. What would you recommend?”

“You want me to bring my specialties?”

“That's fine,” Luke said.

“Of course,” he said, and hurried away.

“Boy,” Finn said. “Good thing we abandoned my dad and brother to stick to the mission.”

“I'd rather be here,” Betty said, “than be back there in G.E.T. custody, thank you very much.”

“Well, I'm glad you're happy,” Finn said.

“Hey,” Eleanor said. “That's not what she meant. I'm pretty sure your dad would
thank
Betty and the rest of us for getting you out of there. So we hit a snag—”

“A snag?” Luke pointed across the desert toward the pyramids. “You call that a snag, I don't even want to see what you'd consider a crisis.”

“We'll find a way,” Eleanor said, though she had no idea how or what it might be. She looked to her mom for support, but she was looking down, brow furrowed, idly scratching the vinyl tablecloth.

Samir returned bearing a tray of iced magenta drinks. “Karkade,” he said. “Hibiscus tea.”

He next brought platters of flatbread, hummus, baba ghanoush, with some white crumbly cheese, and falafel, and for the next several minutes, no one said a word. They ate and they drank, and when Samir came back to check on them, the food was already nearly gone.

“You enjoy it?” he asked.

“Very much,” Eleanor's mom said.

He smiled. “Very good. I bring you dessert?”

“I'm afraid we're on a budget,” Luke said.

“Then please,” Samir said. “Dessert is on the house.”

“Well, that's very kind of you,” Betty said.

He left again, and Eleanor's mom sighed, as much from being full as being discouraged, it seemed. “What are we going to do?” she asked. “We can't get anywhere near the site.”

No one answered her. The exhaustion Eleanor had sensed in them back on the plane lingered around the table, made worse by the bleakness of their predicament. But she would not be defeated.

“I think we should at least check it out,” she said. “Get a bit closer.”

“Closer is dangerous,” Luke said. “They've got to know we're coming. I think we can assume Watkins has put the word out, and they'll be ready for us.”

“That's why we need a plan,” Eleanor said. “Maybe just a couple of us can get close enough to find out if they've discovered the Concentrator.”

“Close?” Samir asked. He'd brought them a plate of baklava and some bowls of sweet rice pudding. “Close to what?”

“The pyramids,” Eleanor said.

“Ahhh,” he said, glancing up toward the horizon. As he turned back toward the kitchen, he said over his shoulder, “The UN thinks it is okay that the G.E.T. takes our history from us.”

“I say we do it.” Finn took a big bite of baklava. “That's why we're here.”

“It might be possible,” Luke said. “
Might
. But we can't have more than two of us going. And even then, it seems pretty risky.”

“Too risky,” Eleanor's mom said. “I'm not convinced.”

“Convinced of what?” Eleanor asked, irritation with her mom growing.

“That we can do this.”

“So then what?” Eleanor asked. “We just give up?”

“I didn't say that—”

“Yes, you did. But if we don't try, and try now, the mission is a bust. If they haven't found the Concentrator yet, they will eventually, and once they start tapping its energy, that's it. We're running out of time.”

“That doesn't mean we should lose our heads and go rushing into something,” Betty said.

“Then we don't rush in,” Eleanor said. “We get closer,
carefully
, and find out more. Then we make a plan.”

“Either way, we're going to be here for a little while,” Luke said. “Maybe we should find a hotel and
make this plan you're talking about.”

“Fine,” Eleanor's mom said, and when Samir returned, she asked him if he might call Youssef for a ride.

“He is almost here,” he said. “I call him a few minutes ago.”

Eleanor looked once more at the pyramids before they left the table and went to wait out in front of the café. The traffic seemed to move through the streets without pattern or rules, or at least none that Eleanor could discern. But no one got in an accident, either, which meant there had to be a method to it. Youssef pulled up, and as he leaped out of his van he smiled at them as if they were the oldest of friends, and his enthusiasm felt genuine.

“You liked the food?” he asked, opening the door to the van. “It is very good, yes?”

“Very good,” Luke echoed, the last to climb in.

Youssef scooted around to the driver's side, hopped behind the wheel, and eased the van into a slight gap in the traffic.

“You know a hotel?” Eleanor's mom asked.

“Yes,” Youssef said. “Very good hotel. It is my cousin's.”

Luke smirked. “You guys sure take care of each other.”

Eleanor wanted to jab him with her elbow.

“Oh, yes, of course.” Youssef looked back at them in his rearview window. “Family is everything, yes?”

The open and earnest way in which he said it drove the smirk from Luke's face and brought silence to the vehicle.

“Yes, it is,” Finn said.

Eleanor leaned forward. “Could you drive us closer to the pyramids first?” Her mom whipped a glare at her, but Eleanor knew they needed more information and kept going. “We know they're closed. We just want to get a closer look.”

“Certainly,” Youssef said.

“What are you doing?” Luke whispered.

“Let's just see,” Eleanor said. “If it looks bad, we don't even have to get out of the car.”

The others accepted that, grudgingly it seemed, and the cab drove them through the chaotic streets, and again Eleanor witnessed the disparity between the refugees who had nothing and the wealthy who had everything. It took some time, but eventually they reached the pyramids, which rose up like mountains above a chain-link G.E.T. fence.

Youssef brought the vehicle to a stop some distance from a large throng of people. They carried signs printed with
GET OUT G.E.T.
, and they shouted before
the gates of the encampment. There were at least a hundred of them, while dozens of guards stood watch on the other side of the fence, armed with guns and stationed at regular intervals.

“Protesters,” Youssef said. “They march every day.”

“Looks like the G.E.T. has a lot of security because of it,” Luke said, looking at Eleanor.

“Yes,” Youssef said, shaking his head.

But Eleanor and everyone else in the car knew what that meant. Because of the protesters, the high level of security meant it really would be impossible to get into the site and search for the Concentrator. They had come all the way to Egypt for nothing.

“Uh, guys?” Finn said.

He nodded toward one of the nearest guards, who was looking right at them and talking into a radio.

“I think we're ready to go to our hotel,” Betty said. “Quickly.”

“Very good,” Youssef said.

He pulled away from the encampment, and Eleanor looked through the back window, watching as the guard with the radio rushed away from the fence.

It was now safe to assume that not only was the encampment impenetrable, but the G.E.T. knew they were here and would be out looking for them. Perhaps her idea had been reckless, after all.

“Do not worry,” Youssef said. “I'll take you to hotel. Then I bring someone to meet you.”

“Who?” Eleanor's mom asked.

“A niece of Samir,” he said. “He heard you talk about the pyramids, and he called her. She is a . . . I don't know the word. She studies the pyramids.”

Eleanor looked at her mom. This could be good for them. This niece could somehow help them get closer to the Concentrator site. But it could also be bad for them, if she turned out to be affiliated with the G.E.T. Eleanor reassured herself that Youssef and Samir clearly didn't trust the G.E.T., and hopefully neither would a relative of theirs.

A few minutes later, they pulled up to a nice-looking hotel, quite new, made of white stone and glass, with round archways that grew wider before they closed at the top. Youssef walked them in and spoke with the concierge at the front desk, then told them he would return in one hour with Samir's niece and to meet them in the lobby. Then he left, and Eleanor's mom checked them in, crowding into just one room this time.

“We really need to watch what we spend,” she said. “Our money won't last forever.”

But the room was large, with two wide beds, angular furniture of modern and sterile design, and a carpet with no pile that still felt thick and plush.

“So who do you think this niece is?” Luke asked.

“I have no idea,” Eleanor's mom said.

“Do you think it's safe meeting with her?” Betty asked. “I feel like the fewer people know that we're here, the better.”

“You're right,” Eleanor said. “But she could be someone who can help us get onto the pyramid site. We're going to need all the help we can get. And we've been lucky with the people we've met so far.”

“Have we?” Finn asked. “How do you know they won't turn on us the way Amaru did?”

“Intuition,” Eleanor said.

“Alien intuition?” he asked. “That's worked out well.”

Eleanor was about to fire back at him, but she noticed that Betty, Luke, and even her mom didn't seem to have noticed Finn's jab, or weren't nearly as bothered by it as she was.

Luke threw himself down on one of the beds. “Whoever she is, I'm taking a nap until she gets here.” Almost as soon as he finished saying it, he was snoring.

Finn shouldered his backpack. “I'm going for a walk.”

Eleanor's mom reached out for him. “I really don't think you—”

“I just need a few minutes to myself, all right?” he
snapped, then softened. “I'm going to check out the hotel. That's it, I promise.”

Eleanor just stared at the wall. She would probably have wanted to go with him, had he not just made that alien comment.

Her mom nodded. “Okay, but don't be long.”

“Yeah,” Finn said, and left the room.

“That poor boy,” Betty said. “What do you think is going on with Julian and their dad?”

“That depends,” her mom said. “The G.E.T. put out that bulletin you read back in Fairbanks, calling us terrorists. But we don't actually know if they've pursued any criminal charges. Are there warrants for our arrest out there? Or are they worried we'll talk if the authorities take us in?”

“So you think the G.E.T. is just keeping them prisoner?” Eleanor asked. “They're not in a jail cell?”

“I doubt it,” her mom said. “The G.E.T. is above the law at this point. If Watkins does what Skinner did with us, he'll first try to convince Simon to sign on with the Preservation Protocol.”

“I can't see Dr. Powers doing that.”

“I can't either,” her mom said.

But Eleanor wasn't so sure about that, based on some of the comments Dr. Powers had made. All that talk about going from offensive to defensive.

The room had a television, and Eleanor turned it on to pass the time while they waited. The channels were mostly in Arabic, so she didn't understand much of it, but the images kept her distracted. At one point, she landed on a news program, and it showed aerial footage of the G.E.T. encampment near the pyramids.

“Mom, look.” Eleanor leaned forward and scanned the image for something relevant or useful. There were plenty of vehicles and several large structures and tents, with smaller ones between them, arranged in a loose grid. None of them appeared at first glance to be more significant than any other. But as she watched, she noticed most of the agent activity clustered around one particular tent. Two rows down and three in, toward the middle of the site. Eleanor pointed at it and said to her mom, “That one, maybe?”

“Perhaps,” her mom said. “There seems to be something going on in there.”

The show cut away to an anchor talking into a microphone, a crowd of those angry protesters behind him, and Eleanor leaned back again.

Finn returned a short time later. “Luke still sleeping?” he asked as the door shut behind him. “Are we meeting Youssef soon?” His voice sounded lighter than when he'd left. Maybe the time away had helped him calm down.

“Yes,” Eleanor's mom said. “We should probably go down.”

Eleanor walked over to Luke and shook his arm. “Hey, lazybones.”

He opened his eyes and stretched his arms upward, climbing out of what seemed like a pretty deep nap. “Okay, I'm up,” he said, and when he got to his feet, he smacked his mouth a couple of times. “So, we ready for this?”

“Ready as we'll ever be,” Betty said.

They left the room and walked down to the lobby, which was carpeted with enormous, intricately patterned rugs, while fronds and plants reached out from so many corners it gave the impression of a greenhouse atrium. They found a group of low, cushioned benches arranged in a semicircle and claimed them while they waited.

Some minutes later, Youssef strode into the lobby, eyes up and scanning. With him was a young woman in her twenties, wearing khaki cargo pants, a long-sleeved, white button-down shirt, and a teal head scarf that covered her hair and her neck. She was quite beautiful, with a narrow face, smooth features, and lips that pulled slightly downward without looking as though she were frowning.