When Schmidt let out a shout, I jumped clear off the ground.
One of the featureless forms trotted toward us and turned into a neat little man with a neat little goatee and neat gold-rimmed glasses. He and Schmidt embraced and exchanged enthusiastic exclamations in French. Schmidt introduced me and LeBlanc kissed my hand. His goatee tickled, but I didn’t mind. I like having my hand kissed.
“And you know Feisal, of course,” Schmidt went on.
Feisal got kissed on both cheeks. Very French and also very Egyptian.
“Feel free to go where you like,” LeBlanc said, speaking English for my benefit. “I would offer to show you around, but you know the temple as well as I, if not better.”
“You will want to greet your other guests,” Schmidt said. “Who else will be here?”
LeBlanc mentioned several names, none of which was familiar to me. “And the secretary general, of course. Without him I could not have arranged this favor.”
“Aha!” The word just popped out of me.
“Pardon?”
“Sorry. I was thinking of—of something else.”
“And why not?” LeBlanc smiled. Gold teeth matched his gold spectacle frames. “It is a spot for mystery and magic, for romance, for dreams. Enjoy!”
“See what I mean?” Feisal hissed into my ear. “In a setting like this Ashraf could have his wicked way with any female.”
“Not me.” I shivered involuntarily. “I can feel eyes, all those empty stone eyes, staring. Who’s that?”
Feisal followed my gesture. “Ramses the Second.”
“A dead king,” I muttered. “Dead kings, staring.”
“They couldn’t care less,” Feisal said. “Pull yourself together, Vicky. We’ve got to locate Ashraf.”
I pulled myself together and poked Schmidt, who was staring dreamily at Ramses the Second, who stared stonily back. “This is hopeless, Schmidt. I remember the plan of Karnak; it’s vast, enormous, unending. How are we going to find one man in all this?”
Feisal growled and I said, “I hope you didn’t do that on purpose.”
“No, no, it was a fortuitous joke, you understand. The quotation means, ‘One does what one can,’ and the German verb form
“We get it, Schmidt. Lead on.”
Schmidt led the way past Ramses (a much smaller figure next to him was female, presumably his queen) and through another gateway into a forest of stone. I had been in the Hypostyle Hall once before, but that had been in the daytime. At night, with only the moon to light them, the towering columns were even more overpowering. We were midgets, insects, next to those mammoth shapes. They surrounded us and diminished us. A few other insects crawled in and out of sight among them.
My idea of romance is a cozy little room with a fire on the hearth and a lot of soft cushions and a bottle of something on ice. Or maybe a secluded pool, surrounded by palms and hibiscus and vines waving gently in a tropical breeze. Or maybe…Whatever it was, it wasn’t a big dark stony place where the shadows whispered words I couldn’t quite hear.
“Romantic?” I said aloud.
“Shh.” Schmidt came to a halt and pointed. “There. Is that not—”
Pale light sifted down between the giant columns and glimmered off a head of fair hair.
“Not John,” I said.
“How can you be sure?”
“If it were John you wouldn’t see him at all. Probably some visiting archaeologist.”
We went on along the main axis, stopping to look down the intersecting aisles as we crossed them. The futility of our search became increasingly apparent to me; the few people we spotted were so diminished by distance and darkness, I couldn’t even tell whether they were men or women.
I caught hold of Schmidt’s sleeve. “This is only one part of the temple, isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes, there are long sections beyond. Several more pylons, a temple of the Eighteenth—”
“Why wouldn’t Ashraf be meeting his contact there? This is an impossible place to search.”
“But it is perfect for a private rendezvous. One cannot be cornered,” said Schmidt triumphantly, “because there are no corners! And concealment can be attained in a split second.”
And one could go on playing hide-and-seek indefinitely. Every column looked like every other column and each was big enough to hide several people.
I didn’t have the heart to call a halt, though. Schmidt was having a wonderful time, tiptoeing and squinting at nothing in particular, and I was getting over my fit of nerves.
Then Schmidt let out a stifled shriek and disappeared.
I wasn’t looking at him when it happened. He had fallen behind Feisal and me—not far behind, only a few yards. Having concluded that nothing nasty was going to happen, I had relaxed my guard and was going through the motions, peering dutifully from one side to the other. I spun around. No Schmidt. Gone, just like that.
I ran back, yelling his name, and made a quick right turn into the next intersecting aisle. There was enough light for me to see some distance along the line of huge columns. At the far end, a long way off, was a human figure. It couldn’t be Schmidt, he couldn’t have got that far. Oh, God, I thought, please, no—not Schmidt…
A hand covered my mouth and a muscular arm pinned my arms to my sides. I kicked back, heard a grunt, and then a swear word. “Stop that,” Feisal muttered. “He’s okay, I found him.”
I went limp with relief. Feisal let me go. “Keep quiet,” he said softly. “This way.”
I hadn’t gone quite far enough. Schmidt was in the next aisle down. He was talking to someone. They were both hidden from view by one of the damned columns, and their voices were so low I couldn’t make out what they were saying until we stood on the other side of the column.
The other person was speaking. It’s hard to identify voices when they whisper; the speaker might have been male or female. The first words I heard were “…want to help. I’m on your side, you know.”
“Do you really mean it?” came next, in Schmidt’s version of a whisper.
For several long seconds there was no sound except for some heavy breathing. Feisal squeezed my arm. I looked up at him. He grinned and raised his finger to his lips.
I was sorely tempted to burst upon the pair with rude comments, but discretion dictated otherwise. No, I would wait to hear what Schmidt had to say. If he fell under the spell of Suzi again, we would have to deprogram him. The other person had to be Suzi; Schmidt hadn’t had time to make another conquest. She must have followed us from the hotel…Unless Schmidt had told her where we were going. Honestly, I thought, you can’t trust anybody.
Feisal put his mouth against my ear. “I’m going to follow her. Get hold of Schmidt and go back to the entrance.”
“He told us not to—”
He faded into the shadow and became invisible.
I had had enough. Reaching into my pocket, I took out Schmidt’s flashlight and switched it on. A faint sound behind me made me whirl in that direction; in the beam of light I thought I saw something duck back behind a column. Another sound from the opposite direction. Shadows raced from the light as I turned back to see Schmidt step into view. He raised his hand to shield his eyes.
“What—” he began.
I grabbed him by the collar with my free hand and shook him. “What do you mean, what? I’m the one who should say ‘What?’ How dare you scare me that way?”
“It was Suzi,” Schmidt said calmly. “She caught hold of me and pulled me behind that column. She is very strong for a woman. I was too surprised at first to resist, and then she persuaded me that I must listen to what she had to say. Where is Feisal? I told him not to leave you alone.”
“You left me alone.”
“It was not my fault, but I don’t blame you if you are angry.” Schmidt tried to appear penitent. He didn’t really succeed; the very curve of his mustache was smug. “I found out much of interest, and got back into her good graces. She begged my pardon and said she believed me; that she is on our side now.”
