‘How dare you,’ she whispered. Suddenly, all she could think of was the missing file.
The gleam of triumph in his eyes turned cold.
‘Remember who owns you, ya Sharifa. I feel somewhat let down by your recent efforts at keeping in touch. Why didn’t you tell me about Girling’s assignation by the Pyramids? Who was he meeting? Tell me.’
‘You don’t own one hair of me. Not any more. We’re through.’
Al-Qadi looked at the walls and the ceiling, his eyes making a great show of her comfortable surroundings.’
‘Your father’s just a phone call away.’
Fear and anger had turned her legs to water.
‘What do you want from me?’ she stammered.
‘Since you’re not letting on who he’s been seeing, I thought we could have a little fun. Just you and me.’
Her hand came up to her mouth. ‘Oh God, no…’
She turned to run, but Al-Qadi was quicker. He grabbed a handful of her hair and began to march along the corridor to her bedroom. She yelped with the pain, but Al-Qadi offered no respite. He threw open the door, paused to sniff the scented aroma of her boudoir, then threw her onto her bed.
She felt his weight on the bed. She turned to find him kneeling beside her, one hand reaching for his belt, the other undoing his zip.
‘They’ve all had you,’ Al-Qadi said. ‘Now it’s my turn.’
Her slap caught Al-Qadi in the face. He fell backwards, his hands behind him to cushion his fall. He fell against her wicker clothes basket and sent it flying.
For several seconds, he lay there, surrounded by her dirty laundry. Then he was on his feet, scattering items of her clothing around the room like confetti. With a roar of half triumph, half rage, Al-Qadi produced Girling’s soiled jacket from the basket, the one he had seen him wear the previous night.
He stood there, transfixed for a moment before rushing at her, his momentum driving her back onto the bed. In a second he was upon her, the full force of his weight piling down onto her stomach, expelling the wind from her lungs. She opened her mouth to scream, but all sound died in her throat.
‘He’s supposed to be dead, you bitch! His car plunged into the river off the 26th of July Bridge last night.’
Al-Qadi pulled her shirt from the waistband of her Levi’s. His small, pudgy fingers dispensed with the buttons, ripping the garment open instead, one hand running over her breasts, the other plunging down towards her jeans.
She tried to draw breath, but she couldn’t. She was suffocating.
Al-Qadi jabbered, calling her every obscenity she had ever heard. She could see the lust in his eyes as he pulled at her trousers. She felt she had been struck down by a snake, its poison paralysing her muscles, but leaving her with a disturbing clarity of mind. She could do nothing without breath to her lungs.
The sweat of his palms allowed Al-Qadi to slip a hand under the waistband of her trousers. She felt the fingers inching their way lower, the blunt tips clawing at her underwear, past the elastic.
‘So good, so good.’ His spittle splashed her face. Something had snapped inside him. ‘Girling won’t get far.’ He licked her neck. ‘You whore! Did you think he would get away from me? That other ‘agnabi bastard bled like a pig when I shot him. Two bullets, that’s all.’ He laughed and shoved his hand down deeper. ‘But with Girling, I’m going to make it five.’
Suddenly, the air rushed into her throat, filling her lungs and banishing the paralysis. Al-Qadi had killed Stansell. Dear God. She lunged for the investigator’s crotch, took both his testicles in her hand and squeezed with all her strength.
Al-Qadi’s eyes bulged in their sockets, his mouth gaped, the fleshy lips curled back in agony. He rolled off her and her hand went to the back pocket of her jeans. She saw him going for the automatic inside his jacket. She felt the stock of the paper-knife in her hand and wrenched it from under her.
Despite the unyielding pain to his genitals, Al-Qadi pulled the gun from its holster. His face was grey. He brought the gun up to her head at the precise moment Sharifa plunged the ivory tip of the paper-knife into his chest.
‘I do not understand,’ Abdullah said. He was gazing into the middle distance, studying the outer defences of the airfield.
‘What?’
They were four hundred yards from the perimeter wire, two nomads riding at a lazy pace, rejoining their tribesmen in the desert after a morning at Qena’s market.
Abdullah spat on the sand, then gestured with a nod to the nearest of the watch-towers. They were spaced roughly half a kilometre apart.
‘There are two men in the tower, see, ‘agnabi? And one of them is watching us through long glasses.’
Girling raised his head level with the horizon. He had wrapped the headcloth to hide his face but for a narrow slit across the eyes. He saw a glint from the watch-tower. A pair of high-power binoculars reflecting the glare of the sun.
‘Don’t worry, God will grant us another tower, empty next time, insh’allah.’ Abdullah gestured ahead. ‘Do not show too much interest in them, ya majnoon, for if the soldiers become suspicious they will send trucks. And then it will be over for you.’
‘And for you also.’
‘Me they would never catch. But you…?’ He drew a finger across his throat and laughed.
Girling laughed, too. It helped to ease the tension.
Ten minutes later, they passed close to the next tower. It looked deserted. Suddenly, a head appeared above the parapet. The guard exchanged a series of greetings with Abdullah and Girling bit back his frustration.
‘Most curious,’ Abdullah whispered. ‘Normally, it is deserted.’
Prompted by Abdullah, the sentry explained that they were providing security for a military exercise on the base.
When they discovered that the third tower was also manned, Girling put a new plan to his guide. ‘We wait until nightfall and cross the perimeter under cover of darkness.’
Abdullah shook his head. ‘Impossible, ya majnoon. There is a minefield on the other side.’
‘A what?’
‘A minefield, ya majnoon.’
‘You never mentioned the minefield.’
Abdullah shrugged. ‘I did not think it important.’
Girling threw his water-bottle onto the sand. ‘Not important? How were we ever going to get to the ta’iraat with, a minefield between the perimeter fence and the runway?’ He swore under his breath. ‘I bet you knew about the bloody guards all along, too.’
Abdullah dismounted at the same time as Girling. The two men confronted each other between the camels. ‘Are you calling me a liar, ‘agnabi?’
‘I’m calling you a thief.’
Abdullah reached into his jellaba and pulled a knife. Girling faced him, aware that they were in full view of the guard in his watch-tower a few hundred yards away. He no longer cared. His anger was uncontrollable.
Abdullah’s arm moved like a striking snake. But instead of lunging, the bedouin sheathed his knife.
Abdullah looked at Girling for a moment, then tipped his head back, his body racked with sobs of laughter. ‘I should have told you about the minefield. So keep your money.’ He thrust a bundle of screwed-up notes into Girling’s hand.
The bedouin forced his camel to the ground and mounted it again. He looked down at Girling, who remained unmoved.
‘There is nothing more for you here, ‘agnabi. Come. We go back to Qena.’ He gestured to the watch-tower. ‘This is God’s Will. I knew about the minefield, yes, but I did not know about the guards.’
Girling got back onto his camel and stared at the watch-tower. ‘If I could just see what they’re protecting,’ he said.
They turned the camels round and headed back towards Qena.