Latenight traffic with people returning home from the theater and movies was light, so there was no real reason for Jay to run the lights on P Street, but that‘s precisely what he continued to do. Moira put on speed to keep up with him; more than once she barely avoided being clipped by the cross-street traffic, tires squealing, horns blaring angrily.
Three blocks from her building they picked up a cop on a motorcycle. She flashed her high beams at Jay, but either he wasn‘t looking or he chose to ignore her because he kept running the red lights. All at once she saw the cop flash by her, heading toward the Audi in front of her.
— Shit, she muttered, putting on some more speed.
She was thinking of how she was going to explain her operative‘s repeated infractions when the cop drew up alongside the Audi. An instant later he‘d drawn his service revolver, aimed it squarely at the driver‘s window, and pulled the trigger twice in close succession.
The Audi bucked and swerved. Moira had only seconds to avoid slamming into the car, but she was fighting the immoderate speed of her own vehicle. At the periphery of her vision she saw the motorcycle cop peel off and head north at a cross street. The Audi, in the middle of a series of sickening pendulum-like swings, smashed into her, sending her car spinning.
The collision flipped the Audi over like a beetle on its hard, shiny back. Then, as if a monstrous fingertip had flicked it, it continued to roll over, but Moira lost track of it as her car struck a streetlight and careened into a parked car, staving in the offside front fender and door. A blizzard of shattered glass covered her as she was jerked forward, hit the deployed air bag then dizzyingly was slammed back against her seat.
Everything went black.
Climbing carefully over the rows of seat backs was like wading into a sea frozen solid with reef-struck bodies. It was the small broken bodies of the children that were hardest to pass by without heartbreak. Soraya murmured a prayer for each of the souls deprived of the full flight of life.
By the time she reached Delia‘s position, she realized that she‘d been holding her breath. She let it out now with a small hiss, the acrid odors of burned wiring, synthetic fabrics, and plastics invading her nostrils in full force.
She touched her friend on the shoulder and, mindful of her Egyptian observer, said softly, — Let‘s take a walk.
The observer made to follow them, but stopped at a subtle hand sign from Chalthoum. Outside, the desert light was blinding, even with sunglasses, but the heat was clean, the arid spice of the desert, the murderous sun a welcome respite from the death pit into which they‘d both sunk. Coming home to the desert, Soraya thought, was like returning to a longed-for lover: The sand whispered against your skin in intimate caress. In the desert you could see things coming at you. Which was why people like Amun lied, because the desert told the truth, always, in the history it covered and uncovered, in the bones of civilization from which the eternal sand had scoured away all lies. Too much truth, people like Amun believed, was a terrible thing, because it left you nothing to believe in, nothing to live for. She knew she understood him far better than he understood her. He believed otherwise, of course, but that was a useful delusion for him to hold close.
— Delia, what‘s really going on? Soraya asked when they‘d plodded some distance away from the al Mokhabarat sentries.
— Nothing I can substantiate at the moment. She looked around to make sure they were alone. Seeing Chalthoum staring after them, she said, — That man is creeping me out.
Soraya moved them farther away from the Egyptian‘s penetrating gaze.
— Don‘t worry, he can‘t overhear what we say. What‘s on your mind?
— Fucking sun. Squinting behind her sunglasses, Delia used her hands to shadow her face. -My lips are going to peel off before the night is over.
Soraya waited while the sun continued to throb in the sky and Delia‘s lips continued to burn.
— Fuck it, Delia said at last. -Five to two the crash wasn‘t caused by something inside the aircraft. She was an inveterate poker player; every situation was a matter of odds. She often transformed nouns into verbs, too.
— I instinct a particular explosive.
— So it was no accident. Soraya‘s blood ran cold. -You ruled out a bomb so, what, an air-to-air missile?
Delia shrugged. -Could be, but you read the transcript of the flight crew‘s last conversation with the tower at Cairo International. They saw no sign of a jet coming up on them.
— What about from underneath or behind?
— Sure, but then the radar would‘ve picked it up. Besides, according to the copilot, he saw something smaller even than a private jet coming up on them.
— But only at the last possible instant. The explosion took place before he had time to describe what it was.
— If you‘re right, that leads us toward a ground-to-air missile.
Delia nodded. -If we get lucky the black box will be intact, and its recorder might tell us more.
— When?
— You saw what a mess it is in there. It‘s going to take a while to ascertain whether it‘s even retrievable.
Soraya said in the dry, ominous whisper of the hot wind that reshapes the dunes, — A ground-to-air missile would bring an entire universe of very nasty possibilities into play.
— I know, Delia said. -Such as the involvement, either complicit or implicit, of the Egyptian government.
Soraya couldn‘t help but turn to look at Chalthoum. -Or al Mokhabarat.
MOIRA AWOKE to the ticking of her mother‘s heart. It was as loud as a grandfather clock and it terrified her. For a moment she lay in a fury of darkness, reliving the blur of sound and motion as the paramedics came, took her
