Daniel and Gabrielle both listened out just in case anything was said about the tomb incident. The first two items were about local politics and the third was about the United States. But then another item came on that caught them by surprise.
‘Police in Luxor are looking for a Western couple after an attempt was made on the life of Akil Mansoor, the Deputy Minister for Culture and Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Professor Mansoor was locked in a tomb together with the Western couple in an apparent attempt to kill him, but the three of them managed to escape. The couple, however, then abandoned Professor Mansoor and ran away when confronted by the police. Professor Mansoor is now recovering in hospital from the incident.’
Daniel sighed with relief at the news that Mansoor was okay. He exchanged eye contact with Gabrielle and saw that she shared his feelings.
‘The couple are Daniel Klein, an Englishman, believed to be an expert on Semitic languages, and Gabrielle Gusack, an Austrian professor of Egyptology. They are also being sought over other matters, concerning a recent death in England. Professor Klein is forty years old, brown haired and of average build. The woman is blonde, thirty- five years old and speaks with a slight Austrian accent.’
Even before they looked up from the radio, Daniel and Gabrielle knew that Walid and the other two were looking straight at them.
Chapter 50
‘We thought we should warn you. If she was trying to kill you then she might try again.’
The police captain was talking to Goliath, who had now fully regained consciousness. The doctors were treating his burns and the police were treating him with compassion and humanity. But he remained handcuffed to the bed frame as a precaution.
‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘You have no need to worry, of course. We will post extra guards outside your room and at the entrances to the hospital. If she does try to come here, she will be arrested before she gets anywhere near you. But we thought that you should be informed.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But having got that out of the way, the best way we can protect you is if you tell us the truth. Why did this woman try to kill you? And why were you driving the jeep that was rented by our Deputy Minister of Culture?’
At that moment a man in a suit entered the private hospital room, flanked by a couple of soldiers. The police captain and the uniformed officer by the bed both leapt to their feet in an obvious sign of deference to the visitor.
A vociferous exchange in Arabic followed; the new arrival appeared to be throwing his weight around and the police captain appeared to be pleading or at least arguing from a position of weakness. Eventually, both men calmed down and the police captain looked – and sounded – beaten.
He took out his evident frustration on a subordinate, barking an order to the unformed policeman, who produced a key and unlocked the handcuffs from Goliath’s wrist and the bed frame. Goliath rubbed his wrist while the uniformed policeman put away the handcuffs. The police captain looked embarrassed at his sudden loss of authority.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Goliath.
‘It would seem, Mr Carter, that you have friends in high places. I have been ordered to release you. You are, of course, free to go at any time. However I would strongly advise you to stay here in the hospital to continue with the silver nitrate treatment for the burns.’
Chapter 51
‘I’m telling you – we didn’t have anything to do with it,’ Gabrielle was saying in Arabic. ‘We were locked in the tomb and stuck there for several hours.’
Walid’s brother and son were looking at her like they wanted to believe her. But Walid himself was hard to read, like he had been around the block a few times and was a natural sceptic about everything except his religion.
‘Then how did you get out?’
‘We used a stone to smash a hole in the door. Then we used the key. That’s why Mansoor is in hospital. He cut his wrist on the metal of the door.’
‘Then why are the police looking for you? And why did you run away?’
‘Because the police started shooting at us! They didn’t even give us a chance to talk.’
She was worried that he was going to ask why the police would do that. This could be a problem. If she told him that the police thought they were carrying a contagious disease, he would hardly be inclined to carry them further. All she knew was that they hadn’t spread this news in the radio reports – presumably because they did not wish to start a panic. In the face of such restraint, it would hardly make sense to share the police’s belief with the very person they were still hoping would help them get to Cairo.
‘Okay, I know our police can sometimes be a bit… overzealous. But I still don’t understand why you abandoned Professor Mansoor.’
Daniel finally decided to step in. The reporter had already blown his cover and revealed that the Englishman was an expert on Semitic languages, so there was no reason not to show his fluent command of Arabic.
‘We didn’t actually abandon him. We left him temporarily because it was a five-kilometre walk to get help and he’d cut his wrist badly. We bandaged it up as best we could and then set off to get help.’
Walid did not seem surprised by the quality of Daniel’s Arabic. ‘Couldn’t you have called for help? Don’t you have mobile phones?’
‘We tried, but we couldn’t get a decent signal. Then when the police saw us – maybe because he wasn’t with us – they assumed that we’d done something to him and started firing. But you know he’s all right because they said so, and as they pointed out, we were locked in the tomb too. Whoever did it might have been trying to kill us.’
‘And what about what they said about you being responsible for a death in England?’
Daniel wasn’t sure which way the wind was blowing in Walid’s mind. He knew that his and Gabrielle’s fate lay in his hands. He had to say something more to sway him.
‘The man who died was Gabrielle’s uncle. He was a great professor. The police think it was a family dispute but we think he was killed by a jealous rival.’
Daniel wanted to convey a sense of aggrieved innocence and he sensed that offering a hint of high intrigue would create the kind of cover story that a man who led a mundane life would want to believe. As a former amateur magician he knew that getting the audience to want to believe was half the trick.
‘This sounds so…’
Daniel wondered if he had over -dramatized it, so he was relieved when Walid’s face mellowed. ‘I believe you. But I have a family to feed. If we get caught then I will be in trouble too… and that will hurt my family.’
Daniel sighed. ‘You’re right, of course. I cannot ask you to put yourself and your family at risk for us – especially after we took advantage of your hospitality and didn’t tell you the truth. If you can put us ashore, we will be on our way.’
Walid looked at him, surprised.
Daniel followed up quickly. ‘You can keep the money, of course. Consider it as payment for the trouble we’ve put you through.’
Walid met his eyes. They both knew what the other was thinking, as did Gabrielle. The radio report hadn’t said anything about a reward, but at some point a reward might still be offered. Daniel was offering to pay Walid for his silence. Even if a reward was offered that dwarfed the money already paid him, Walid would consider it dishonourable to betray them after accepting their money.
