Kenan held on to the major as the dark faces of the houses and market stalls flowed past them, leaping into view beneath the streetlamps and vanishing into the shadows a moment later. “Sir? What’s the plan?”
“I hate this crap. Why can’t it just be a straight fight? Why does it always have to be a chase? Huh?” Syfax raised his voice over the clattering of the hooves on the paving stones. “Plan? Arrest Chaou and Aknin. And anyone else working with them.”
“Like who? More police officers?”
“I don’t know. Anyone. Chaou could have contacts or partners in every town in the country. She has money and influence, and she travels everywhere. She’s the worst type of suspect to nail down. All we know is her bodyguard is a terrorist, and Port Chellah’s chief of police just killed a fellow officer for her. Right now, everyone’s a suspect.”
“Are you saying…the Marshal General? The military? The governors?” Kenan asked. “We can’t suspect everyone. That’s paranoid. That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, it is. But that’s the job.”
“So where are we going now?”
Syfax grinned. “A necropolis.”
After only a few wrong turns, they found their way out of the winding maze of the residential neighborhoods and down to the coastal road that shadowed the rail line. Passing the last few brick warehouses, their windows shattered and foundations bristling with weeds and uncut grass, Syfax turned his mare onto a narrow side street that angled down across the tracks to a flat gravelly strip of earth just behind the first few grassy dunes. The street became a winding lane that followed the contours of the land, weaving side to side with an occasional glimpse of the sparkling darkness of the ocean to their left beyond the dunes.
The first tomb stood on their right where the paved lane became a sandy path. It rose like a man-made hill of earth and stone, a round foundation sloping up to a rough cone covered in loose earth and a few wisps of grass shuddering in the wind. Syfax circled the tomb and found the only entrance still sealed with ancient stones and mortar. “Not here.” He kicked the mare into yet another mad dash along the edge of the beach.
Flanking the path were several crumbling stone columns covered in ancient carvings that could no longer be read, except for the vague human figures drawn near the bases. They rode beneath broad stone arches and petrified timbers suspended between the columns, and above the trees to their right the occasional broken tower stood black against the starry sky. A wolf howled and Syfax felt Kenan twisting around behind him, no doubt looking for the animal.
A paved street emerged briefly from the sand, an avenue of pale stones on which the mare’s hooves clicked and clacked loudly, the echoes shuddering between the columns and half-fallen walls that stood between nowhere and nothing, dividing the grassy dunes into meaningless courtyards and rooms. Once the honored dead of the Phoenician princes and priests had lain in this silent city by the sea, but when the Mazigh warlords and queens retook their country they had built a grander walled city for their fallen lords and ladies, leaving the old tombs by the sea all but forgotten. There had been no new additions to this neighborhood in over a thousand years, and treasure hunters had made paupers of the skeletal remains in the great mausoleums. Now, only homeless wanderers and miserable poets visited the dead, and many of them never left.
The second tomb loomed out of the darkness, its entrance black and gaping. Syfax shoved Kenan off and dropped down beside him. With his revolver drawn, he slipped around the wall and inside the burial chamber. The thin light of the stars cast a faint silvery glow over the floor just inside the doorway, but the rest of the space remained hidden. The major heard his footsteps echoing on all sides and in his mind an image of the room formed. Just another empty dome. Beside him, Kenan exhaled slowly, his breath curling in faint white wisps of vapor.
“I hear every single person in Espana has seen a ghost at least once in his life,” the corporal said. “Especially when it’s so cold you can see your breath.”
“In Espana, it’s always so cold you can see your breath. Come on.” Syfax jogged back to the horse and barely waited for Kenan to climb up behind him before they were off down the sandy streets of the dead city.
The light from the third tomb’s entrance cast a long golden banner across the backs of the dunes, illuminating the waving grasses and shivering bushes in the hard-packed sand. A single horse stood behind the mound, half- hidden in the shadows of a stunted and gnarled tree.
Syfax dropped to the ground, yanked Kenan down beside him, and led the mare away from the path, leaving the corporal to find something to hitch her to. The major strode silently up to the mausoleum and peeked around the front. Muffled voices were debating something inside, and judging from how long-winded one of the voices was, Syfax guessed the other person was getting an earful that wasn’t entirely complimentary.
When the corporal sidled up next to him, Syfax gestured around at the front door of the tomb. Kenan nodded. Syfax pulled out his service revolver with a frown. Damn it. The kid’s unarmed. He shoved his gun at the corporal and ignored Kenan’s confused expression.
Syfax drew the wide-bladed knife from his right boot and jogged out to the front of the tomb. Through the open entrance he glimpsed two figures, and one of them was definitely wearing a grey jacket with silver bars on the shoulder. Good enough for government work. He strode past the threshold and Kenan dashed in behind him brandishing the revolver. “Hands up! Royal Marshals! No one move!”
The two women froze. One was shorter and older wearing expensive shoes. The other was wearing a police captain’s uniform. Syfax relieved her of her sidearm. “Good evening, Captain Aknin. Have a seat.” He pointed at a large, jagged rock just behind her.
Captain Aknin sighed and raised her hands in a half-hearted gesture of surrender. “I think I’ll stand, sir.”
“I wasn’t asking.” He shoved her down onto the rock as he checked her revolver. “Kenan, search our other friend.”
“Yes, sir.” Kenan lowered his weapon and approached the older woman in the green dress and gold jacket. “Ambassador Chaou, yes? Where’s your gun, ma’am?” He quickly patted down her jacket pockets and slid his hand around her belt. “The gun you used to shoot the Crake ’s pilot, where is it?” The woman stood quite still, staring across at the major while Kenan searched her.
Syfax saw the twitch in her hand. “Kid, get back!”
The ambassador lurched back to put the seated police captain between her and Syfax. He saw her hand flash through her inner jacket and he heard the click of a revolver’s hammer. The gun emerged in a shaking hand, pointed loosely at the major.
“Officers! Please!” Her voice trembled. “No need for violence, surely. I am Barika Chaou, senior ambassador from Her Royal Highness Din Nasin to the Prince of Espana, His Royal Highness Argenti Valero. My associate here is Captain Aknin of the Port Chellah police.”
“I know all that.” Syfax rested his knife on the captain’s shoulder, his fingers gripping the woman’s collar with the blade close to her throat. He thumbed the hammer on his new revolver and leveled it at Chaou. “I also know you shot a pilot in the back and your bodyguard blew up a couple dozen civilians. And your buddy Aknin here killed one of her own officers tonight,” Syfax said. “It sort of makes me think you two aren’t really cut out for civil service. Drop the gun and show me your hands. Now.”
“No. I’m sorry, marshal. Major, is it?” The gun shook in her hand at her waist, the barrel pointed vaguely at Syfax’s belly and Aknin’s back.
“Major Zidane.” Syfax dropped his own gun as he lunged forward to grab the barrel of the ambassador’s revolver with his right hand while his left hand remained firmly planted on the knife and the captain’s collar.
The ambassador stumbled back but the major held the gun fixed in midair, and as the old woman fell backwards she pulled the trigger. Syfax tried to twist aside as he heard the cylinder turn and the bullwhip crack of the gunshot filled his ears. A hot sting sliced across his belly and Aknin’s head snapped forward. He shuffled back, releasing the revolver to grab at his stomach. Blinking and clutching his bloody shirt, he felt his breath still coming soft and easy. It just grazed me. I’m fine. He looked up and saw Chaou shoving Kenan back into the wall, her gun pressed to his stomach. The corporal’s gun lay on the floor. When did he drop that?
Then the ambassador was gone and Kenan was staring back at him with wide white eyes. He pointed at Aknin. “Her f-face!”
The major pulled back the captain’s head to see the gaping bloody hole where the woman’s nose and eye used to be. “Yeah, that’s not pretty.” Syfax snatched up his own gun as he lunged toward the open doorway. “Wake up, kid! Move it!”
Outside he heard the waves crash on the beach and hiss softly as they slipped back out into the ocean. A
