The Khamsin Curse (21 page)

Dr Watson watched Gideon
extract his handgun. First those horrid reptiles and now this! This
isn’t what he imagined when he agreed to come to Egypt. What did he
imagine? A bit of chasing after glamorous foreign spies and trying
to decipher secret codes written on papyrus? He almost laughed, and
surely would have, but he heard another summoning whistle.

In the third priestly chamber
was Max Mallisham laid out exactly like the American – wrists and
ankles tied with black cloth, secured to four heavy stone blocks to
stop him moving.

“How did he die?” asked Gideon.
“I can’t see any obvious wound. I couldn’t see one on Jefferson Lee
either.”

Dr Watson bent over the corpse
and jerked back instantly. “There’s some sort of toxic smell. I
cannot tell what it is. It appears he was poisoned.” The small
chambers were windowless and bathed in shadow, reducing visibility
to a minimum. He peered closer at the face. “Oh, this is
interesting. It appears the mouth has been propped open with a
small stick so that something could be poured down the throat.”

Gideon bent over the body from
the other side and grimaced. “Yes, I see what you mean. And that
smell – I’ve smelled something similar. It’s like…”

The two men looked squarely at
each other and knew what the other was thinking but neither could
bring himself to voice it.

Dr Watson tried not to dry
retch. “My God! This is a beastly business!”

Gideon felt a nauseas wave of
heat wash over him and pushed quickly to his feet to get as far
from the body as possible; his breakfast performed a sickly
somersault. “Bloody awful!”

“Have you ever come across
anything like this? What sort of assassin are we dealing with? What
sort of vile, inhuman, disgusting monster are we up against?”

Gideon shook his head grimly.
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like this. Let’s go back
to the other chamber and check if Jefferson Lee died in the same
manner.”

They quickly discovered that
the two deaths had been identical.

“Did you check the other
chambers?” Dr Watson was now thinking about Herr Graf.

Gideon nodded. “They were
empty. What about the mammisi?”

“Empty. Were you thinking about
the missing German too?”

“Let’s get out of here. The
stench is churning my insides.” Gideon wasn’t thinking about Herr
Graf but someone much dearer to his heart. He hoped Jim was taking
care of the Countess and not in the way his dark side imagined. He
didn’t often give free reign to his fears but Jim never feared
stepping into the darkness. If the Egyptians needed a new god of
the Underworld, Jim would fit the bill.

They stepped into a pool of
sunlight and Dr Watson sneezed, not once but three times.

“Have you picked up a
cold?”

“No, I sneeze every now and
again for no reason. It must be an allergy to sand or dust.”

“I knew a chap who sneezed
every time he stepped into bright sunlight or looked directly at a
bright light.”

“Really?”

Gideon paused to suck back a
lungful of fresh air by the twin lion statues guarding the massive
propylon delineating the Inner and Outer courts while his eyes
measured the length of the stupendous colonnade. “Yes, it was quite
odd. An automatic nerve response to bright light. I can search this
area on my own. You head back to the Sekhmet and bring back some
crew members to help transport the dead bodies back to the ship.
It’s going to get hotter as the sun rises. We don’t want to leave
the bodies too long. A couple of deck chairs will serve as
trolleys. Keep your gun handy.”

They quickly parted ways.

Dr Watson was soon in the dead
heart of the island. Ahead of him unfolded the girdle wall.
Something queer seemed to be crawling slowly along the base of the
stones, moving awkwardly, dragging itself along.

Sweating heavily, he extracted
his service revolver and moved warily toward it. An encounter with
a crocodile was not something he fancied, not after last night, but
he couldn’t ignore it either.

The queer shadow seemed
strange, misshapen, bent. It reminded him of the disturbing shadows
from last night, distorted by the flaming torches, a writhing sea
of reptiles darting and flashing, snarling and snapping, and grown
men leaping onto divans like lunatics terrified out of their wits.
He was terrified too. He wasn’t afraid to admit it.

Egypt was a Land of Shadows. He
noticed that when they first went to the souk and then again at the
Citadel. There were more shadows in Egypt than London. More shadows
than anywhere he’d ever been. Maybe it was the sun. The sunlight
was stronger. The shadows were larger, darker, more menacing.

And everywhere you looked there
were all those strange drawings. Men with animal heads – jackals
and falcons and crocodiles. He gave a shudder. And it wasn’t
restricted just to men. The women were depicted weirdly too - cats
and cows and scorpions. And all those giant statues. The enigmatic
Sphinx. And not just one but a whole avenue of sphinxes with the
heads of rams. No wonder he felt unnerved. No wonder he kept
looking over his shoulder.

And now a double murder. It was
the last thing they needed.

He mustered courage, inched
closer, and felt a cold wave of disbelief wash over him. It was
Herr Graf.

13

Sebastian Moran was still
thinking about Lorna Baxter. It had been a while since he’d been
with a woman as keen to please as the American widow. As he trudged
about fifty yards ahead of the Acting High Commissioner, leaving
the useless prick further and further behind to eat his dust, his
thoughts drifted for the first time in his life to settling
down.

He never thought much about
America. But the American prairie was a place that would suit him
nicely. Wide open spaces, wide blue skies and lots of game to kill.
Coyote, cougar, rattle snake, bald eagle, bison. He pictured a
cabin in the hills and Lorna on the front porch.

He could probably do better
than a cabin. He could buy an entire ranch. Maybe he would have
Jefferson Lee as his neighbour. How would the Texas cattle king
fancy that prospect!

The mere thought forced a rare,
wry chuckle from his parched throat. He always was a contrary Irish
bastard!

He had managed to stash quite a
bit away following the death of the Professor. A stash he never
really intended to touch. He didn’t need much money. Drawing-rooms
in big fancy houses never really suited him. His father never
understood that. He never understood that he joined the army to
shoot things, not to get promoted. It was all about the kill. And
men were the ultimate prey.

When the Professor died
sudden-like at Reichenbach Falls he hurried back to London and
helped himself to the secret stash under the floorboards before
anyone heard the news. The Professor owed him wages anyway. He
hadn’t been paid for five months. It was more than he expected but
he’d earned it one way or another. He didn’t touch the really
valuable stuff in the safe. The Professor never trusted him with
the combination anyway and he didn’t want to make a mess of the
office with sticks of dynamite.

The Professor had always been
fond of his little baby brother, Jim. And he had always liked the
boy too. A smart lad; sharp as a tack. Another contrary Irishman.
He knew how to shoot straight too. Son of a gun! That’s what
Americans said. Son of a gun! Anyway, the boy could have been the
son he never had. He’d made a will last year and left it all to
Jim. When the boy turned up yesterday out of the blue it made his
old ticker stand still.

“Hello, you old Irish bastard,”
Jim said, smiling. “Fancy meeting you here!”

Jim was leading a regiment of
Irish Guards. He was so proud of the boy. He’d made good despite
being raised by a drunken old man who was worse than useless. A
tear came to his eye. He had to pretend he got some dust in it.
They walked around the island together, talking the way men do
about nothing in particular, smoking a cigarette every now and
then. There was no one around. He sensed the boy liked it that way,
same as he did.

Jim was taking care to chart
everything in his head. He knew the boy was up to something but he
had no idea what. Well, dammit! If it didn’t turn out to be a
woman! That rich countess! Now, there was a surprise!

Ha! If it wasn’t Jim who saved
the day last night! Jim couldn’t have planned it better if he had
sent those crocodiles in himself. He thought about it later. It was
the sort of thing the Professor would do. But, no, the look on
Jim’s face gave it away. The boy was gobsmacked. It worked to his
advantage though. He got the girl! He just took her by the hand.
And he must have helped himself to her charms all night. She still
wasn’t back on the ship this morning.

Well, if the boy needed
something to live for while popping Boers in the Transvaal
she
would be it!

He reached the farthest point
of the island on the south-east side. One thousand two hundred and
fifty feet give or take a few feet. He sat down under the shade of
a palm tree, had a drink of water from his canteen and waited for
Hayter to catch up. No sign of the missing men. No sign of the rich
countess either. Jim probably led her into the big place with the
huge walls. That’s the direction he’d seen him heading last night.
That’s when he got the idea to lead Lorna to the Temple of
Augustus. She was immensely grateful and not shy about expressing
her gratitude either.

It was odd that Mallisham and
Lee didn’t make it back to the ship. The fat German was another
matter. He was the sort who’d get lost in the British Museum. The
blonde niece was a pretty little thing. There was a time he would
have had her easy as pie. The prim types liked a bit of rough. But
he was past it now. Lorna was good. Hell! She was good!

Hayter was red in the face and
sweating like a pig. It always amazed him how the British managed
to rule half the world when they appointed useless pricks like Rex
Bootham and Gerald Hayter to oversee the colonies.

Hayter fell to his knees in a
pocket of shade the size of a handkerchief. His water bottle was
already empty. He hadn’t left a drop for the trek back to the ship
and the temperature was climbing fast now the haze had cleared. If
the prick expected him to share his canteen of water he was in for
some thirsty disappointment.

“Wait here,” he directed
curtly. “I’m going to scout the southern side of the island as far
as that stand of palms. Don’t go down to the water. There are some
hippopotamuses basking on the bank. They don’t take kindly to being
disturbed. And there may be some big angry crocs in the reeds
looking for their babies. Sit tight.”

Dr Watson offered Herr Graf a
drink from his canteen. The German was badly dehydrated and there
was a bloody gash on the side of his head where he must have fallen
against the stones in the dark. He was mumbling incoherently, not
making much sense. He couldn’t recall what happened after they all
set off from the Kiosk. The wind was ferocious. It knocked him
about. He let go of Ursula’s hand to wipe some spittle from his
lips and that’s the last he saw of her. Miss Clooney let go his
other hand and he never saw her again either. He stumbled around,
calling out their names. The wind was deafening. His pince-nez was
smeared with dust and sweat. He probably went round and round in
circles. He hit his head on something and collapsed. He remembered
searing pain and then he must have blanked out. When he opened his
eyes it was day, not night, and the sun was burning hot. He didn’t
have the energy to stand; his head was throbbing and there was a
lump the size of a quail’s egg. He was crawling on all fours;
looking through smeared lenses for scorpions and death adders…He
took another long welcome drink of water and allowed the doctor to
lead him to the ship.

Gut instinct told Gideon to
search the left-hand side of the colonnade first. A temple with a
roof was situated there. The open doorway faced west. It was in
total shadow. According to the map drawn by Moran, the temple
chamber was deeper than the priestly chambers attached to the Inner
Courtyard where he had found the bodies of Lee and Mallisham. No
sunlight penetrated beyond the high rectangular doorway. Armed with
the Smith & Wesson, he stepped cautiously into the
darkness.

“Unless you’re planning to
shoot yourself in the foot, you can re-house that gun.”

Gideon recognized the cocky
Irish accent in an instant. “Congratulations, you finally found a
black hole to crawl into. Where’s the Countess?”

“I’m here,” she said.

His heart did something
pleasantly weird. His muscles managed to unknot themselves. He drew
breath and strained to see where the voices were coming from.
Everything was the colour of charcoal. Shadow was piled on shadow,
dark on dark. An amorphous shape moved but he couldn’t make it out.
He re-housed his weapon and struck a lucifer.

She was sitting against the
wall, her knees drawn up. Jim’s red military jacket was around her
shoulders and so was his arm. For a brief moment, just before she
stood up, he imagined her hand was cupping Jim’s vitals. The match
barbecued his fingers and he dropped it.

They followed him out into the
light.

The first thing his eyes hit on
was the insignia on the jacket: Quis Separabit – Who Shall Separate
Us. Heroically it glittered like a bright star. He swallowed hard,
hoping it wasn’t a sign from the gods. He was never one to let his
imagination run away from him. Even as a boy, he preferred games
like chess and draughts to make-believe with toy soldiers. He
preferred non-fiction to fiction. When everyone was reading
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley, he was reading
Prometheus
Unbound
by Percy Shelley.