‘Their spiritual consciousness has elevated them above earthly desire,’ said John, in a voice I knew well. ‘I should think you’d approve, Vicky; you dislike crass materialism and vulgar acquisitiveness, don’t you?’
I was saved from replying by the arrival of our shipmates. Falling in step with Feisal I remarked, ‘You’re looking very pleased with yourself, Feisal. Are you going to tell me about that good news you mentioned, or is it still a secret?’
‘Not any longer.’ Feisal stopped and turned to face me. He thumped himself on the chest. ‘Greet, with proper respect, the assistant director of the institute.’
I caught his hand and shook it vigorously. ‘Congratulations! I’m absolutely delighted.’
Feisal kept hold of my hand as we walked on. ‘You’ll help me celebrate, perhaps. I promised to show you some of the night life of Luxor.’
‘That would be great. But why are you guiding this tour?’
‘I’m no quitter, as you Americans say. As soon as I get the last of this lot onto the plane in Cairo I’ll come back and take up my new position. In the meantime I will carry out my duties like a good little soldier. All right, friends, gather around; the temple of Karnak is not one temple but a complex of temples, built over many centuries. The Avenue of Sphinxes . . .’
People wandered off as we proceeded, some to stop and rest, others to inspect a particular area in more detail. Schmidt and I had paused to look at an obelisk and he was lecturing me about the career of Hatshepsut – ‘one of the first feminists, Vicky, she should be of interest to you’ – when I saw a familiar face that didn’t belong to our group. A familiar beard, rather.
‘I have been looking all over for you,’ Jean-Louis said grumpily.
‘What for?’ I asked. He certainly didn’t look like a man who has finally found the girl of his dreams.
‘To show you the temple, of course. Didn’t you ask that I do so?’
‘We are delighted to have you, of course,’ Schmidt exclaimed, before I could answer. Just as well; I would have said no, I hadn’t. However, I was familiar with the habit some people have of believing in their own fantasies. I must have made a hit with Jean-Louis. That would teach me not to go around oozing sympathy.
He’d worked on the Aton Temple project for three years before leaving it to take up Larry’s offer, and he knew Karnak as I know my own apartment. We finally managed to pry him away from that part of the temple and talked him into showing us boring tourist stuff like the Hypostyle Hall. ‘Impressive’ is an overused word, but it’s the only word for that cluster of mammoth columns. The only thing wrong with it was the tourists. One group had squatted in a circle and I recognized the seekers after truth we had seen entering the temple earlier. They were muttering to themselves and waving their hands. I heard somebody say something about auras.
‘Cretins,’ Jean-Louis muttered.
‘They do no harm,’ Schmidt said tolerantly.
Finally I decided I’d absorbed enough for one day and I cut Jean-Louis short in the middle of a translation of the annals of Thutmose III. He was reading the hieroglyphs off the wall. It was a wasted exhibition so far as I was concerned; how did I know he was reading them right?
Jean-Louis consulted his watch. ‘Yes, we must go. Mr Blenkiron has sent the car for us, it will be waiting.’
I spotted Suzi as we passed through the Hypostyle Hall. She waved and I waved back, but Jean-Louis didn’t stop. I deduced that we were late. When we emerged from the last – or first, depending on which way you were going – pylon into the Avenue of Sphinxes, John and Mary were waiting. She looked done in. I didn’t blame her; we had covered a lot of territory and still seen only part of the enormous complex.
That was when it happened. The force of the explosion threw me to the ground, or maybe it was Schmidt who threw me to the ground. He was on top of me when I got my breath and my wits back.
I decided I probably wasn’t dead. I wished I could be sure about Schmidt. The plump pink hand lying on the ground near my face was flaccid and unmoving. I tried to squirm out from under him. People were screaming and there were sounds like firecrackers.
The weight on my back lifted. I got to my hands and knees, then to my knees. John was bending over Schmidt, shaking him. Schmidt’s head rolled back and forth, then his eyes opened and he let out an anguished bellow. ‘Vicky? Vicky, wo bist du? Bist du verletzt? Ach, Gott – ’
‘You’ll do,’ John said, stepping back. ‘Stop shrieking, Schmidt, she’s not hurt.’
‘Speak for yourself.’ My shins and forearms had taken the brunt of the fall. Blood oozed from a few square feet of scraped skin. ‘What happened?’
Schmidt, crawled over to me and enveloped me in a hug. ‘It was a bomb, Vicky. Terrorists, setting off bombs and shooting. Gott sei Dank, you are not injured.’
I could see over his shoulder. The cloud of dust from the explosion was still settling. Other people had been bowled over but they didn’t appear to be badly hurt, for they were moving and cursing. All except one. The bloody cavern where his face had been was framed all around by sticky wisps of hair.
MARY HAD CRUMPLED to the ground in a huddle of green voile and tumbled brown curls. John dragged her to her feet. ‘Let’s get out of this.’
‘Shouldn’t we wait for the police?’ I squawked. I was trying not to throw up.
John didn’t bother to answer. Towing his stumbling bride, he was already on his way, leading the retreat as usual. Schmidt tugged at me. ‘He is right, there may be more shooting. Come, we can do nothing here.’
That seemed to be the general consensus. Screaming and shoving, people poured through the entrance. Their sheer numbers overwhelmed the guards, who appeared to be as shaken as the visitors. They were waving their rifles around in a disorganized manner, and one of them fired into the air. I think it was into the air. If it was intended to stop the stampede, it failed, the sound of gunfire made people even crazier. The crowd exploded into the parking lot, carrying us with them.
John materialized out of somewhere. He grabbed Schmidt by the collar. ‘This way.’
Ed was standing by the car. When he saw us coming he opened the back door and motioned vigorously with the large, heavy, lethal object he was holding in his right hand. ‘In. Move it!’
John still had Schmidt by the collar. He heaved him in, gave me a hard shove, and followed close on my heels, scooping said heels and the legs to which they were attached in with him. The door slammed and the car took off.
We got our arms and legs sorted out eventually. Ed had gotten in front with the driver. The gun was no longer in sight. Mary crouched in the corner; her eyes were open, but they had a fixed, glassy stare. Her pretty frock was crumpled and dusty. Perched on the jump seat opposite, John ran his fingers through his dishevelled hair. There wasn’t a mark on him, or on Schmidt, who had cleverly managed to fall on top of me. I was bleeding all over Larry’s expensive velvet upholstery.
I fully expected a visit, if not a reprimand, from the police. I should have known no such vulgarity would be perpetrated on a person like Larry. Schmidt was in my room trying to persuade me to let him wind yards of bandages around my scraped arms and legs when a servant knocked at the door and informed us that the master hoped we would join him on the terrace for drinks.
The others were already there. Mary had changed her dress. She was wearing white – and the Greek earrings. Larry began fussing over my injuries, but I cut his expressions of sympathy short. ‘Just scrapes and bruises. I’m fine. Unlike poor Jean-Louis. It was he, wasn’t it? I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t be sure.’
‘So I have been informed. He was carrying identification, of course.’ Always the perfect host, Larry handed me a glass before dropping into a chair. He covered his eyes with his hand. ‘I dread telling his parents. They were so proud of him.’
A tear rolled down Schmidt’s cheek. ‘It is furchtbar – frightful, terrible. Just when he had attained his fondest dream. What will you do now about the institute, Larry?’
Impeccably groomed, gracefully lounging, John drawled, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining, they say. This seems to be Feisal’s silver lining. Or are you going to appoint someone else as director?’
Even Larry had a hard time remaining courteous in the face of that outrageous speech. He answered shortly,
