“What do you know of the other men involved in the thefts?” Bak asked.
“I did business with Zuwapi, no one else.”
“You didn’t know the priest Meryamon or his friend
Nehi?”
“As far as I know, I never met either man.”
Karoya queried Bak with a glance. The more senior of the two nodded, and the younger officer hurried across the yard to disappear around the corner of the house, behind which lay the servants’ quarters.
At a command from Mose, the man in the pit scrambled out.
“Do you know the man who planned the thefts?” Bak asked. “The one who pulled the strings that made the other men dance?”
“Zuwapi did.”
Bak raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Did he tell you that?”
“Not in so many words, no. He was a prosperous mer chant, well placed in Hattusa, so I just assumed…” The words tailed off, doubt crept into Antef’s voice. “He did at times take a day or two to answer my questions. Too long, I thought, but…” He gave Bak a sharp look. “He was no more than a tool, as I was?”
“I don’t know,” Bak admitted, but deep down inside the suspicion hardened that someone other than the men he had snared had planned the robberies and issued the orders.
Karoya, holding Nehi by the arm, came around the corner of the dwelling. Bak watched Antef closely. The captain looked toward the redhead but gave no sign of recognition.
A patrolman appeared and took the prisoner back around the house. As Karoya approached across the yard, he shook his head, verifying Bak’s impression that Nehi had failed to rec ognize the seaman.
“Let’s speak again of Maruwa,” Bak said to the captain.
“How many times must I tell you? I know nothing of his death!”
“How certain are you that he didn’t notice the stolen ob jects mixed in with the rest of Zuwapi’s cargo?”
Antef spoke as if Bak were trying his patience. “He was as transparent as rainwater, Lieutenant, and as trusting. If he’d grown suspicious, the first thing he’d have done is come to me and tell me.”
“He wouldn’t have thought you guilty?”
“Why would he? The goods belonged to Zuwapi, not me.”
“If he’s telling the truth-and I believe he is,” Bak said,
“he’d have had no reason to slay Maruwa.”
Karoya, seated on the lower, furnace portion of a dormant kiln, looked ruefully toward the stable, where Antef had been taken. “I hate to think him innocent of all but smuggling.”
Bak took a careful drink from his beer jar, trying not to stir up the sediment. “Zuwapi also claims Maruwa noticed nothing.”
“If the man was as blind to the smuggling as they say, why was he slain?”
“I’ve slain no one!” Zuwapi stood in the pit, his feet and ankles buried in mud. Mose’s big hand gripped his neck, ready to shove him onto his knees.
Bak was not sure how seriously the Hittite took the threat, but he was fully prepared to prove to him how frightening immersion would be. “One of your partners in crime says you did.”
“Who? Antef?” The Hittite spat on the ground to show his contempt, whether for Bak or the captain was unclear. “He’s a liar. A liar and a sneak.” His expression grew sly. “I say you look at him. I’d not be surprised if he took their lives.”
“He’s told us he dealt solely with you, Zuwapi, and he had no knowledge of the men who stole the objects.”
“He wasn’t supposed to know them,” Zuwapi admitted,
“but he may’ve followed me, thinking to cut me out, to elim inate me as the man between.”
“You said before that you thought Nehi slew those men,”
Karoya reminded him.
“Did I?” Zuwapi lifted a foot, making a sucking sound in the mud. It was too runny to form into pots, but thick enough for Bak’s purpose. “He could have. He gives an impression of being weak, but he’d not be the first nor will he be the last to avoid a fight or suitable punishment by denying an accu sation-or pointing a finger at someone else.”
The Hittite would blame Maatkare Hatshepsut herself,
Bak thought, if he believed he could make himself appear innocent. “Why would you wish Maruwa dead, Zuwapi?”
“You tell me.”
Bak nodded to Mose, who struck the Hittite in the stom ach, forcing a whoosh of air from his mouth, and shoved his head toward the mud.
“No!” Zuwapi struggled like a snared snake. “You’ll smother me!”
“Answer my question,” Bak said.
“How can I? I didn’t slay him!” Mose eased the pressure slightly, allowing the Hittite to stand half bent over. “Antef swore he was too interested in the horses to pay attention to the rest of the cargo, and I believed him. If he’d thought oth erwise, I’d have spotted the lie.”
“If the three deaths weren’t so much alike, I’d have looked to Meryamon as Woserhet’s slayer. But since he was among the slain…” Bak let the words tail off as if he had been thinking aloud. “Who do you believe took Meryamon’s life?”
“Nehi.”
“Not another man? One stronger than any of you-and smarter? One who planned the robberies?”
Zuwapi stared at his interrogator, thinking hard, and a slow understanding crept onto his face. He muttered an oath in his own tongue. “One who’s cut himself off from us, you mean. Severing all ties, thinking we’ll take the blame while he…”
“Reaps the profits?” Bak laughed, as if he enjoyed the irony. “Who is he, Zuwapi?”
“I wish I knew,” the Hittite growled through gritted teeth.
“Are you going to allow him to walk away free and clear, leaving you and the others as sacrificial goats?”
“Believe me, if I knew his name, I’d tell you.”
“Oh, yes, I believe him.” Bak accepted a beer jar from
Psuro and broke out the plug. “He was too angry to lie, and can you blame him? While he and the others are put to death or suffer the hardships of a desert mine, a man no one seems to know will gain great wealth.”
“I fear we’ve reached a dead end, sir.” Karoya, looking glum, sat down on a low stool beneath the lean-to, took an open jar from Mose, and sipped from it. “If none of them knows who their leader was after three or more years, how can we hope to lay hands on him?”
“You told us Meryamon stayed away from Zuwapi’s storehouse,” Bak said. “Why was that?”
Nehi stood a couple of paces from the pit with Mose. The threat was obviously unnecessary. From the way his shoul ders slumped, the distraught look on his face, anyone could see that he had no will to resist. “He wanted never to be seen with the trader.”
“In other words, you served as the intermediary between
Meryamon and Zuwapi. You knew of Antef, though you weren’t supposed to.”
Nehi hung his head, nodded.
“Zuwapi, in turn, served as the intermediary between you and Antef.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I see,” Bak said, and indeed he did. The gang had been set up as a chain, with Meryamon dealing solely with Nehi who dealt with Zuwapi, who in turn dealt with Antef. “I thought at first that Zuwapi was the key man in this little group of robbers and smugglers. Instead…”
Nehi, staring at the ground beneath his feet, shook his head. “As far as I know, he served no purpose other than to take the objects I gave him and trade them to men far to the north.”
Bak caught the young man’s chin and jerked his head up, forcing him to meet his eyes. “Who planned the robberies,
Nehi? You? Have you led us to believe you’re a simple thief when in fact you’re the head of the gang?” The charge was ridiculous, but he had somehow to get Nehi to verify his suspicions.
“Me?” Nehi looked startled. “I’ve stolen objects from the lord Amon, I freely admit, but it wasn’t my idea.”
“Whose was it?”
“Meryamon’s,” he whispered.
Bak shoved the young man’s head higher, forcing him to stand on his toes. “It’s easy to blame a dead man.”
“I swear by all the gods! He told me what they planned to do and suggested I help. He spoke of immense wealth and a life of luxury in Ugarit or some other distant land.” Nehi be gan to sob. “Now look what I have. A promise of death for stealing from the god.”