The Cairo Code (74 page)

“They've disappeared too, sir.”

Captain Omar Rahman had taken off from the Royal Egyptian Air Force field at Almaza, northeast of Heliopolis. Twenty minutes later he banked the Bristol sharply, the aircraft jolting a little as he came in at three thousand feet over the cane fields above Memphis, where the rich Nile delta ended and the desert began. He was looking for marker lights in the silvery blackness of the sands below, telling him where to land.

He saw none.

It was odd, his passengers should have been down there by now, and he checked his watch. He was right on time. He nudged the control stick forward and the Bristol dropped lower. The terrain was endlessly flat, apart from the Sakkara pyramids, and he could easily make out their giant silhouettes, five or six miles away.

As Rahman scanned the ground again, ahead of him in the dark of the desert a light sprang on. Then another, and finally one more, the three lights marking out the shape of an “L.” He smiled. “Excellent! You made it, my friends.” He nudged the stick and the Bristol descended.

They had tried to follow Rachel's motorcycle across the desert from Giza, chasing the single tire track in the sand, until they saw the trail weave up towards the Sakkara pyramids. Weaver came to the end of the gravel road that led up to the site, and they saw the Moto Guzzi lying discarded on the ground. He grabbed the flashlight from the car, removed his pistol, and when they had climbed out, Halder went over and knelt as he examined the machine. “A bullet ruptured the tank. She must have run out of fuel.”

Weaver looked at the damage in the dim light, noticed dark stains on the machine, more of them on the ground nearby. He knelt, touched wet blood, his face darkening. “She's badly wounded by the looks of it. She could have tried to make it on foot to the landing zone.”

Beyond the pyramids, they saw nothing move in the endless moonlit desert. Halder gestured towards the entrance to the ruins. “We'd better have a look inside, just to be certain.”

A stone archway led into the pyramids site, crumbling sandstone walls falling away on either side. As Weaver played the light, they went through and along a darkened passageway.

It came out into an open courtyard, bathed in shadowy moonlight, ghostly quiet. The towering pyramid of Pharaoh Zoser rose up off to the right, and straight ahead were the ancient remains of a scattering of nobles' burial chambers, steps of solid rock leading down to the tomb entrances. They moved towards the nearest, and as soon as the torchlight hit the chamber's pitch-dark entrance mouth, a flock of bats erupted from the blackness. The flurry of wings died away, and it was still again.

“Give me the flashlight,” Halder said.

“What's wrong?”

“I think I see something.”

Weaver handed it over and Halder shone the cone of light on to the ground ahead.

“She's been here.” He pointed to several more dark patches of blood in the sand, a couple of meters away, between two of the other tombs.

Weaver nodded towards the steps leading down to the first. “Let's try this one.”

They heard the distant rasp of an aircraft engine overhead, and they both searched the night sky, but saw nothing. The sound of the engine grew closer. “I'll bet it's Deacon's pickup,” said Halder. “Maybe she's already made it to the landing area.”

“We'd still better make sure.” Shining the flashlight, Weaver scrambled down the steps towards the mouth of the tomb, and Halder moved after him.

•  •  •

Rahman came in low, his flaps already deployed, lining up the nose of the plane with the lights, trickles of sweat running down his face. Landing on a coarse desert strip was tricky enough at the best of times. In almost complete darkness, it was positively deadly. If he hit too much unseen debris he might damage the undercarriage, or slew into soft sand, and it might be impossible to take off again.

“Nice and easy does it.” He gently eased the stick forward a little, keeping his eyes on the L-shaped lights dead ahead. He was almost two hundred feet from the ground, getting ready to touch down, when he flicked on his landing lights.

The desert strip was sharply illuminated, and he scanned for any debris or obstacles. His blood turned to ice. Dozens of army trucks loomed to his left and right.

It was a trap.

“No,” he screamed, and pushed the throttles hard forward, at the same time taking in the flaps, pulling back on the stick, and the Bristol began to climb steeply, the engine snarling. Headlights sprang on below, and an almighty hail of machine-gun bullets and tracer fire erupted from the vehicles, ripping into the air around him.

The cockpit window shattered and a burst of lead hit him in the shoulder, spun him around, another burst ripping into his back. He shrieked, his body jerking forward on to the control stick.

He was already dead when the nose dipped violently, the black earth rushed up, and the Bristol screamed into the ground and exploded in a ball of orange flame.

•  •  •

They found her lying against one of the tomb walls, her tunic tied around her waist to cover the wound in her side. The material was drenched with crimson, and she looked like a little girl, lost and helpless. Her breathing was shallow, sweat ran down her face, and she was choking on her own blood. When she saw them her eyelids fluttered in recognition.

Weaver knelt beside her, his eyes welling with emotion. “Don't try to move. Take it easy.”

She seemed to drift in and out of consciousness, her voice hoarse. “I—I really think it might be better if you left me be, Harry.”

“You'll bleed to death.”

Halder moved beside her, gently loosened her tunic, examined the gaping wound the submachine gun had inflicted in her side. Then he looked into her eyes, touched her cheek, his voice anguished. “The firing pin on Kleist's weapon—why did you do it?”

Pain contorted her face, and she coughed up blood. “You—you both know why. And now it's time one of you returned the favor. Finish it here and now.”

A trickle of crimson spilled down her chin. “Let it end where it began.”

Weaver stood, desperation in his reply. “I'll get help—”

Halder gripped his arm, said hopelessly, “I'm afraid it's gone far beyond that.”

Rachel cried out, a terrible sound like that of an animal in torment, her eyes wet. “For pity's sake, have you no mercy? Will one of you
please
shoot me.”

She moaned again, looked delirious with pain, and her eyes closed tightly. Weaver couldn't bear it any longer, tugged out his pistol, stood over her. His hand shook as he aimed at her head, beads of perspiration running down his face, and for a long time he just stood there, his finger on the trigger, looking down at her, unable to act, and for the first time since childhood he felt like crying.

“Please . . .”

He heard a click, looked over at Halder, whose eyes were wet as he raised his gun.

The explosion rang around the stone walls.

•  •  •

They carried her body from the tomb, laid it on the sand, and then Weaver removed his tunic and covered her face. For a long time there was nothing but a harrowing silence between them, until Halder said in a trembling voice, “It was the only way, my friend. An act of mercy.”

Weaver's face was ashen. “I could have got help—”

“It still wouldn't have saved her. You know that, Harry.”

Weaver felt desolate, looked out towards the desert, saw a peppering of small bright fires, the burning wreckage of the aircraft. “It looks like Sanson got his reception committee to the landing strip.”

Halder's face was grim, and he took out his pistol, swallowed hard. “I guess we all go to hell in our own way. And now it's time you left me alone, and let me do the honorable thing.”

“Another death isn't going to make any difference. It's over, Jack. Put the gun away.”

“There's really no other way, I'm afraid. If you arrest me, then it's either a bullet or a noose. And I'd really rather not have to dangle from a rope.” Halder cocked the gun. “So if you don't mind, do me a favor and step away.”

Very deliberately, Weaver put out a hand, gripped the barrel. “I said put it away, Jack.”

“You're not making this any easier.”

“Take the car. Drive south, as far as you can. With luck, you can reach Luxor by morning. After that, God only knows.”

Halder was stunned into silence, and Weaver said, “Just leave, while you still have the chance, before Sanson's men get here.”

“They'll want to know what's happened to me.”

“Let me worry about the afterwards. Go. Before it's too late.”

Halder was almost overcome and knelt beside Rachel's body, pulled back the tunic, and touched her face. It was almost too much to bear. “Promise me you'll make sure she's given a proper burial.” He looked out towards the desert, his voice thick with emotion. “Somewhere out there. Where we were all happy together, before this madness started.”

Weaver nodded. “And now, you really had better go.”

There was a sudden rage in Halder's voice, and he looked on the verge of a breakdown. “What a terrible thing this lousy war has been. It's destroyed us all in the end.”

Weaver didn't reply, for there was really no answer, and Halder touched his arm in a final gesture. “Take care of yourself, Harry. I'm not sure we'll ever meet again, but even so, try to get through the rest of this in one piece.”

He climbed into the staff car, started up, gave a final wave, and then the olive-green Humber moved off into the darkness, faded like a departing spirit.

Weaver slumped on his knees in the sand. He cradled Rachel's head in his arms, buried his face in her hair, faintly aware of the noise of the car dying away. And then there was nothing but the sound of his own sobbing, and the vast and empty silence of the desert.

It was almost three in the morning when Weaver finished talking. The hotel lobby was empty, and the bar staff had gone home. The
khamsin
had stopped blowing hours ago, a heavy mist had crept in, covering the city in a ghostly veil, and somewhere out on the Nile a foghorn sounded. It faded, and he put down his glass. “Well, Carney, there you have your tale.”

I looked at him with amazement. “It's almost unbelievable.”

“Almost, certainly, but it's the God's honest truth. You'll keep to your promise not to publish anything until after I die? If you still want to write about it, that is.”

“Of course, you have my word. It's just that I wonder if anyone would believe such a story.” I hesitated. “May I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“How did you know about the body at the morgue? And what made you suspect that Halder might still be alive after all these years?”

“I have a lawyer friend in Cairo, an old man now, someone whom I hired many years ago to try to help me find Jack. Like you, he read the piece in the newspaper, and immediately contacted me. The name and the age of the dead man, along with his German nationality, seemed too much of a coincidence not to investigate. So I got on the first flight I could, arriving yesterday afternoon. Lucky to make it, too. Those winds shut the airport down less than ten minutes after we landed.”

“And you had no stronger evidence than that?”

“Some, but it went back a long time.”

“How long?”

“I discovered some years after the war that the Halders' family estate in New York had been sold through a Swiss bank attorney, in Zurich. Jack's parents were both dead so naturally I wondered who had authorized the sale. I contacted the bank but they refused to give me any information. You know the Swiss, they're paranoid about protecting their clients' secrecy, so my inquiries led absolutely nowhere, despite help from old intelligence contacts. Then out of the blue, some months later, I received a single postcard from Casablanca. It said simply,
‘All is well, Jack.' ”

“So he did escape and survive.”

Weaver nodded. “I tried to find him over the years, but it proved impossible. Franz Halder had been a much-liked and respected man, with lots of important contacts in the Middle East, people who would have been glad to help his son. Jack could have moved anywhere in the region. Besides, his father had been a wealthy man. I'm sure there was a little something salted away in a bank account somewhere, and with the proceeds from the estate, it would have helped him remain anonymous for the rest of his life.”

“Do you think Jack Halder learned the truth of what happened to his own son?”

“I've no doubt he did. I visited Pauli's grave in Berlin many years ago. The boy is buried with his mother.” Weaver paused. “You know what was odd? There were two fresh lilies on the gravestone, one for each of them. Apparently, the flowers were delivered from a Berlin florist's once a month. White lilies, exactly the kind my father grew for Halder's mother. I eventually discovered that the instructions came from the same bank in Zurich, which led me absolutely nowhere. The last time I visited the graves was five years ago. The fresh flowers were there, as before. Another fact that made me suspect that Jack might still be alive.”

I went to refill my glass, but the bottle in front of us was empty. I put it down again. “And the others. What happened to them?”

“Canaris I'm sure you know about. Soon after Sphinx failed, the Abwehr was dissolved and its functions taken over by the SD. He was arrested as part of the group that plotted against Hitler, and later hanged. It eventually came out that he'd been supplying important information to the Allies for years, through contacts in British intelligence.

“Schellenberg, true to form, carried on thinking up more insane plots. A week after Sphinx, he tried much the same trick, in Teheran this time, where Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin were meeting. Again, he came close to succeeding, but ultimately failed once more. He was captured by the Allies and sentenced at Nuremberg in 1949. He escaped the gallows but was sent to prison as a war criminal, then released two years later because of ill health, and died shortly after from lung cancer. Himmler was caught, too, trying to escape disguised as a private, but committed suicide before he could be brought to trial, by taking a vial of cyanide concealed in his mouth. As for the rest of them, Reggie Salter survived his wounds, believe it or not, but six months later he was found guilty of desertion and murder by a military court, and executed by firing squad. Harvey Deacon met the same fate, on charges of spying.”