understood why Feisal had mentioned knives in the back.
“Oooh,” Saida cooed. “I do love you when you are being masterful.”
“Knock it off, Saida,” Feisal growled. “What are you doing here?”
“Here in Luxor or here in the Valley?” She studied his flushed face and sobered. “I suppose I can travel where I please? I tried to reach you this morning but you did not answer your phone. Then I called your office, and they told me you would be in the Valley this afternoon. When I arrived, Saleh was at the guard post. He graciously accompanied me.”
She stopped talking and looked inquiringly at him, as if inviting him to reply. The eyes were melting and the lashes were fluttering. Poor bemused Feisal was trying desperately to think of a way of dropping the subject, but I, immune to melting eyes and so on, realized we were in for it. She was not the lady to let him off the hook or quit excavating when she suspected something important lay just beneath the surface.
“All right, Saida,” I said. “Let’s stop playing games. What are you after?”
She burst into speech, eyes blazing and hands weaving patterns. “Honesty! Candor! The trust of the man who says he loves me! You insult my intelligence, Feisal. Do you think I am too stupid to put two and two and two and two together? For days you have been worried and afraid—”
Stung, Feisal interrupted at the top of his lungs. “What do you mean, afraid?”
Saida brushed the interruption aside with a sweeping gesture. “Your friends, your famous friends, who helped you to save Tetisheri, suddenly appear. They are interviewed by Ashraf, who does not waste time on social courtesies. They visit the museum and one of them, a lady who is not known to suffer from squeamishness, expresses a dislike of mummies. I begin to wonder. And then Ali, poor Ali, who had not an enemy in the world, disappears and is found dead. I begin to ask questions. It is not difficult to get answers if you know what questions to ask. Ali was not the only one to see that interesting van stop at the tomb. The others thought nothing of it, because no one told them they should! They believed it was an official visit. But it was not, was it, Feisal, because if it had been you would have told me about it. Me, of all people. Me, who has been nagging Ashraf for years to take better care of—”
Feisal covered her mouth with his hand. Over his fingers her eyes widened until the whites showed all around the dark pupils. She pushed his hand away.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “Tell me. Do not spare my feelings. Is he—did they—”
Schmidt’s resigned expression mirrored my own thought. Denial would have been futile. She’d insist on seeing for herself, and a flat refusal would only strengthen her suspicions.
Feisal’s silence had the same effect. He was the picture of guilt, shoulders bowed, head hanging. He was seeing not only exposure, but the loss of his beloved.
“They took him,” I said. “They’re holding him for ransom.”
Men think they rule the roost, but some women know better. Saida blew out a breath of relief. She had feared the worst—the destruction or mutilation of the mummy. “Well, then,” she said briskly, “we must get him back. And when we do, Feisal will be the hero, and Ashraf will look like a blithering idiot!”
I t was a pretty ambitious agenda, and I could see trouble brewing if Saida stuck to it. I started to point this out, but nobody heard me, since the lovers were wrapped in a passionate embrace and Schmidt was watching with romantic relish. Once the two had untangled themselves, Schmidt said, “Let us go somewhere for a nice lunch, eh?”
“We need to talk, Schmidt,” I said.
“Talking and eating are not mutually exclusive. In fact,” said Schmidt, “I think more clearly when I am eating.”
We found a restaurant across the street from one of the big temples—Medinet Habu, I think it was—where the proprietor greeted Feisal by name and promised to produce anything we wanted, so long as it was chicken or rice. We settled ourselves with various beverages at one of the long tables while he went off to cook it. Wary cats brushed against our ankles. The place was cool and shady and a little shabby, and the view was about as good as it could get: the great pylons of the temple, pale gold against an azure sky.
“Now,” said Saida, “tell me everything.”
Schmidt was more than happy to oblige, interrupting himself from time to time to tell the cats to be patient, there would be chicken. Saida listened attentively, her head cocked and her elbows on the table. When Schmidt wound down, she said, “So you have not the slightest idea where he might be?”
I thought she was referring to Tutankhamon until she turned those big brown eyes to me. “You feel that he has betrayed you?”
My first reaction was anger. Nobody else had been rude enough to suggest that John had made a fool of me, that his protestations of innocence had been false, that he was the one behind the whole scam. I hadn’t wanted to talk about it either. Meeting her sympathetic but steady gaze, I realized it was time I did.
“He’s certainly told me a pack of lies,” I said. “From the very beginning.”
“Are you sure?” Schmidt asked anxiously.
“Oh, yes.” The dealer in Berlin who wasn’t a dealer, the so-called monsignor who probably had nothing to do with the Vatican…
“But that does not prove he is guilty of stealing—” Schmidt began.
“Shh,” we all three hissed.
He continued, “…him. He—John—may be pursuing a Clue.”
“Without telling us?” Feisal demanded. He looked as if he too was relieved to be able to discuss what had been weighing on his mind.
“Candor is not one of his most conspicuous characteristics,” I said.
“He would not want to endanger us,” Schmidt insisted. “Especially Vicky.”
“You are such a bloody romantic, Schmidt,” Feisal growled. “Face it. He was always the most obvious suspect. He has the connections and the insane imagination. If I hadn’t provided him with an excuse to come to Luxor he’d have invented one, so he could be on the scene for the final negotiations.”
There was pain as well as anger in his voice. It hurts to think you have been betrayed by someone you trusted.
Only Schmidt, the bloody romantic, spoke up in John’s defense. “I will not believe it until he admits it.” He considered the statement and then added, “Perhaps not even then.”
“All right, let’s go over it again,” Feisal said wearily. “He was in the temple last night—”
“Along with a number of other dubious characters,” I interrupted. “Let’s not go over it again. We’ve got to stop speculating and guessing and concentrate on locating it…him. And I don’t mean John. Anybody got a bright idea?”
The food (chicken and rice) arrived, along with bowls of stewed tomatoes and bread and hummus. The genial host left, the cats came out from under the table, and we stared stupidly at one another until Saida banged her fist on the table.
“Vicky is right! To begin with, let us assume that he is still somewhere in the Luxor area.”
“That’s an unverified assumption,” Feisal said.
Saida gave him a scornful look. “We have to start somewhere, and it is a logical assumption, given the difficulties involved in transporting him elsewhere. The second assumption—”
Feisal opened his mouth. Saida raised her voice a notch and went on. “Which is also logical, is that he is still on the West Bank. Shall I explain to you why?”
“A conspicuous vehicle like that would have run a greater risk of being noticed on the streets of Luxor,” Feisal said in a bored voice.
“Very good,” Saida said condescendingly. “Whereas, on this side of the river, there are sparsely inhabited areas where, with caution, the vehicle could pull off the road, transfer its passenger, and remove the distinctive camouflage. Disappear, in other words.”
We’d considered some of those points before, but hearing them laid out in that incisive contralto carried greater conviction. Feisal wasn’t ready to admit it, though. “So you’ve narrowed it down to a few hundred square miles. That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Go to hell,” Saida said pleasantly. “To proceed. There are two general types of hiding places for such an object—a cave or abandoned tomb in the cliffs, or a room in a structure of some sort.”
I remembered my dream, of Tutankhamon laid out on a bed in a fancy hotel, with the air-conditioning going
