rest of it talking with various officials. Occasionally I’d catch a glimpse of a mosque or a suq and once I actually saw the gates of the Cairo Museum as the limo passed it.
While John and Schmidt were shopping I called Mother and Dad and told them the reports of my nervous breakdown had been greatly exaggerated, but not as exaggerated as the story of my abduction and the news of my engagement. Despite her all-around relief, Mom was a little disappointed to find out that I wasn’t engaged to marry a millionaire. She was tactful enough not to say so, however. I managed to talk Dad out of flying to Cairo. My call had caught him just as he was about to leave for the airport.
It was a nerve-racking interlude, and not just because I kept wanting to punch out the ghouls who followed us with cameras and microphones shouting questions. The worst were the questions that focued on John’s supposed bereavement. They would have been cruel and contemptible if he had really cared about her. Under the circumstances they verged on emotional assault and battery, and I don’t know how he kept his temper. Mine came close to cracking more than once.
Even more nerve-racking were the interrogation sessions. Everybody from the CIA to Interpol to the SSI to the Salvation Army seemed intent on questioning us. It was tantamount to walking, not a tightrope, but a spiderweb strung over a pond full of piranhas. My head ached trying to keep track of the lies we’d invented.
One encounter stands out in my mind.
Following Schmidt’s advice, I had refused to be questioned except at the Embassy and in his company. John was there that day too. Everyone understood why we stuck together – or at least they thought they understood. Cliches, good old cliches – we had suffered together and survived together, and so on ad nauseam.
I had been expecting this particular meeting and had braced myself for it, so when Burckhardt rose to greet me I didn’t slug him or spit in his face or even throw anything at him.
‘You son of a bitch,’ I said, slapping his outstretched hand aside. ‘How you have the gall to face me after screwing up the way you did – ’
John and Schmidt descended on me murmuring soothing comments, and forced me into a chair. ‘No, I will not be quiet,’ I shouted. ‘I’m just getting started. God damn you, Burckhardt, if that’s your name, which I doubt, you and your security measures and your smug superiority and your total indifference to ordinary human decency almost got me killed. And furthermore . . .’
I hadn’t planned it that way, but my explosion turned out to be the smartest move I could have made. By the time I finished telling him what I thought of him he was too nervous to think straight.
‘We know now,’ he said, when I gave him a chance to talk, ‘that the individual referred to in the message was the man you had encountered in Sweden.’
‘Max,’ I snapped. ‘That was the name I knew him by. And no, I didn’t recognize him. He kept out of my way and he didn’t look at all the way I remembered him. The others – Hans and Rudi – weren’t on the boat.’
Burckhardt fumbled through his notes. ‘Dakin and Gurk – ’
‘Who? Speak up, Burckhardt, I’m bloody sick and tired of stupid questions.’
‘Uh. You knew them as Sweet and Bright.’
‘Oh, right. I’d never seen them before. I thought they were two of your people.’ I added, in case he’d missed the point, ‘You and your goddamm obsession with security! It’s no wonder the poor effed-up world is in the state it’s in, with people like you behind the scenes manipulating policy.’
‘Now, Vicky,’ Schmidt began.
‘Shut up, Schmidt. And you too, Burckhardt. I’ve answered the same questions fifty times and I’m not going to answer any more. And you can tell Karl Feder that when I get my hands on him – ’
‘Yes, yes,’ Burckhardt said quickly. ‘Would you like – uh – perhaps a glass of water?’
‘I am not hysterical,’ I shouted. ‘I am . . . I am leaving! Yes, leaving! Now.’
‘I think no more questions?’ said Tom the diplomat, trying to sound firm and professional.
I rounded on him. ‘Yes, and what about you? You’re supposed to be looking out for my rights.’
‘I am, I am,’ Tom said quickly. ‘Herr – uh – Burckhardt, I don’t believe it would be a good idea to continue. Not at the present time.’
‘Not at any time!’ I informed him. I was beginning to enjoy myself. ‘I am leaving. But before I do, I want to ask Burckhardt a question for a change. Just out of idle curiosity, who was the incompetent jerk who was supposed to be protecting me?’
‘It was not her fault,’ Burckhardt muttered. ‘She obeyed orders. She was told not to – ’
‘She?’
‘Would you like to speak with her? She asked for a chance to express her congratulations and apologies personally, but I did not think that advisable.’
‘You wouldn’t.’ I wanted to get the hell out of there, but curiosity got the better of me. ‘Where is she?’
In the next room, of course. That’s where these people live, in the next room – peeking through keyholes and eavesdropping on private conversations.
I didn’t recognize her at first. I didn’t recognize her the second time I looked either. Close-cropped sandy hair, a tailored suit . . . Not until she flashed that wide toothy grin did enlightenment dawn.
‘Suzi?’
She didn’t come any closer. ‘I wanted to express my regrets personally, Dr Bliss. I failed you, and I feel very bad about that. None of us had the slightest suspicion of Mr Blenkiron; I assumed that when you were with him you were okay.’
Her voice was quicker and harder than Suzi’s, with a flat Midwestern twang instead of a Southern drawl.
‘Criminy!’ Surprise had numbed my brain. Then I remembered something. ‘You were at the hotel that night – with Perry.’
She nodded, no longer smiling. ‘Trying to find you and Herr Schmidt. Foggington-Smythe knew nothing about my real purpose; I took him along as camouflage. You saw me?’
‘I saw you. Since I didn’t know whose side you were on I ran. All the way down the goddamn Nile!’ Renewed rage choked me. ‘That awful trip – scared out of my mind – worried about – thirst and exhaustion – fever – Feisal lying in that damned hospital with his legs full of bullet holes – get out of my way! I’m going to kill him!’
Burckhardt retreated behind the desk and John caught me by the arm. ‘You’ll excuse us, gentlemen and madam. She’s been through a lot lately.’
He and Schmidt towed me out. Suzi moved quickly to open the door for us. Her back was to Burckhardt and when she caught my eye she rolled hers and made an expressive face.
Then . . . Then her eyes moved, slowly and deliberately, from me to John. He had drawn my arm through his and his hand covered mine. He shouldn’t have done it, I shouldn’t have let him do it, but things like that happened occasionally; it was so hard to be on guard every moment.
Involuntarily I started to pull my hand away. His fingers tightened, holding mine fast, warning me not to react; but she’d observed both movements, and she tilted her head and widened her eyes, and there was Suzi again, and I knew as clearly as if she had spoken aloud that she was remembering a conversation between me and Larry the day at Sakkara. ‘He’s not so young,’ I had said, without thinking, and Larry had asked if I had known him before.
She looked me straight in the eye and smiled ‘Goodbye, Dr Bliss. Goodbye, Mr Tregarth. Good luck – to both of you.’
Funny, how everybody kept wishing me luck.
I began to believe we might get away with it after all. In fact there were rumours about ceremonies of honour and assorted medals. Feisal was going to be the new director of the institute and I didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d be standing on his own two feet when he assumed the position. He was recuperating much faster than the doctors had expected; when I leaned over to kiss him goodbye the last time we visited him, he pulled me down onto the bed and into his arms, and John had to detach me by force.
‘You’ll come back, won’t you?’ Feisal asked. ‘And let me show you Egypt without distractions?’
‘I hope so,’ I said. And to my surprise I found I meant it.
All in all, things were looking up. I wasn’t even dreaming. But John was.
He always quietened as soon as I touched him. But the night before we were to leave I forced myself to wait and watch while he thrashed around and groaned, and finally a few words became audible. He might have said more, but I couldn’t stand it any longer, and when I took hold of him he woke.
He lay quiet in my arms until his breathing was back to normal. Then he said, ‘There is one misapprehension
