‘He’ll never buy that.’
‘He’ll have to, won’t he?’
‘Not Schmidt.’
‘I cannot be held accountable for Schmidt’s unholy imagination. If you and I agree, what can he – ’ He broke off as Feisal and Larry hurried towards us. ‘Is it sprained?’ he inquired, adding doubtfully, ‘Perhaps Feisal could – er – carry you.’
The implication being that he couldn’t, and that even Feisal might have some difficulty lifting my enormous body. I straightened. ‘I just turned it. It’s fine.’
My assignation with Schmidt was more easily arranged. We debated it at the top of our lungs as the trailer bounced noisily over the rough track. Schmidt wanted to meet in the lounge so we could share Happy Hour with all his newfound friends. That was reassuring; it suggested he had accepted the coincidence story and wasn’t about to interrogate me about my real reasons for being on board. However, I figured I had better deliver a brief lecture on tact and discretion before I turned him loose on the world, and as I pointed out, he hadn’t had time to unpack yet. We agreed that I would come to his room after I had freshened up.
After I had locked and bolted my door I went, not to the bathroom, but to the safe. The note was still there.
I stamped my foot and swore. That didn’t accomplish anything, so I headed for the shower. Maybe my mysterious contact hadn’t had a chance to retrieve the message as yet. Still, it was not an auspicious omen and the cool water sloshing over my heated body didn’t settle the doubts that sloshed around in my heated brain. I was getting dressed when I heard the knock at the door.
Throwing on a robe, I hurried to answer it. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Hi.’
Alice was certainly a fast-change artist. She was wearing a flowered print dress and white low-heeled sandals. ‘I thought you might need something for that ankle,’ she explained. ‘I’ve found this liniment very effective.’
The bottle she offered me didn’t look like liniment. Her hand covered the label.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said slowly. ‘Come in.’
When I turned, after closing the door, she had settled herself in a chair, ankles crossed. The bottle, on the table beside her, proclaimed that its contents were hydrogen peroxide.
‘You?’ I squeaked unoriginally.
‘I admit I don’t look the part,’ Alice said coolly.
‘How did you know I wanted to see you? You didn’t get my note.’
Her brow furrowed. ‘Which note?’
I produced it. ‘You were upset, weren’t you,’ she murmured, after reading the hurried message.
‘Of course I was. That poor innocent kid – ’
‘Come now, you aren’t thinking clearly. Why do you suppose that note wasn’t collected earlier?’
‘My God.’ I dropped heavily onto the bed. ‘You mean Ali was – ’
‘An agent of the Egyptian security service.’ Alice’s expression darkened. ‘Which I am not. I agreed to help out with this particular job because I care deeply about the protection of antiquities and because an increase in anti-foreign feeling here could affect my work and that of others. He was the man assigned to look after you; I was only supposed to pass on messages.’
The news relieved one nightmare. Ali was just as young and just as dead, but at least he had been a professional, fully aware of the risks his job entailed.
‘I didn’t learn of his death until this afternoon,’ Alice went on. ‘I realized then that I had to talk to you, even though I had been told never, under any circumstances, to contact you directly. These people are stupidly obsessed with security, in my opinion, but to do them justice they may have been concerned with my safety as well as yours. I – ’
‘Holy shit, Alice!’ I stared at her in horror. ‘I didn’t think of that. And I should have. You’d better go. And stay far, far away from me in the future.’
‘Calm yourself, honey; I am not volunteering to take over Ali’s job. I’m exactly what I seem to be – an ageing, overweight archaeologist who’s never fired a gun or taken a karate lesson. If you had to depend on me to protect you, you’d be a sitting duck. But we’d better discuss this situation and decide what to do about it.’ She reached into her shirt pocket. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’
‘No, go right ahead.’ I looked around for an ashtray. Alice laughed.
‘That’s a slip, Vicky. I don’t know why you’re pretending to be a smoker, but you’d better learn how to do it right. You haven’t used the ashtray and you don’t even inhale.’
‘It was not one of my brighter ideas,’ I admitted. ‘So what are we going to do?’
‘Wait, I suppose.’ Alice frowned thoughtfully at her lighter. ‘They will have learned of Ali’s death by now and will, one assumes, arrange for a replacement. The change of schedule worries me, though. My job was to pass on the information Ali gave me when I went ashore, but we’ve already skipped two of the scheduled stops and we’ll miss a third tomorrow; I won’t be able to communicate again until we get to Abydos.’
‘You have no other means of reaching the people in charge? Damn, that’s stupid! What if there were an emergency?’
‘There has been an emergency,’ Alice said wryly. ‘Two, in fact; the lines of communication have been cut in both directions. However, I’ve suspected all along that I was only a minor cog in the machinery – a backup, if you will, for the transmission of information. There must be at least one other agent on board – another professional, not a willing but incompetent amateur like me.’
Wishful thinking? I hoped not. Burckhardt had used the plural when he promised me protection. ‘Who?’ I asked.
‘If I knew I wouldn’t be talking to you.’ Alice rubbed her forehead, as if it ached. It probably did. She went on, ‘I gather from the spy thrillers I’ve read that this is standard procedure. Minimal contacts, maximum anonymity.’
I’d read a few of the damned things myself. Ali had known me and Alice. If they had questioned him before they killed him . . . There wouldn’t necessarily be any marks on his body. Up-to-date torturers have all kinds of neat scientific devices at their disposal, including drugs.
‘It couldn’t be Anton, could it?’
Her words made it as far as my ears but my brain refused to acknowledge them. ‘What?’ I gasped.
‘They’ll have to replace Ali,’ Alice said. ‘Anton turned up this morning, out of the blue – ’
‘No! Are you crazy, or what? Schmidt isn’t . . .’ I stopped to catch my breath. ‘The timing is too tight, Alice. They couldn’t have learned of Ali’s death until early this morning. Schmidt was already in Minya.’
‘That’s true.’ She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. ‘No sense speculating, I guess. The situation won’t become critical until we get back to Cairo, and surely we’ll be contacted long before then – probably in Luxor. My advice would be to sit tight, play it cool, and be careful.’
It was excellent advice and I had every intention of following it – if I was allowed to.
After she had left I stood stock-still staring at the closed door. My heart was pounding as if I’d run a mile. Her suggestion that Schmidt might be Ali’s replacement was so far out that only a lunatic could believe it. Alice wasn’t a lunatic, though. Did she know something about Schmidt I didn’t know? Did other people know that same something?
Someone groaned. It had to be me; I was the only one there. ‘Impossible,’ I informed myself. Ali other considerations aside, such as the possibility that I was prejudiced, condescending, and easily manipulated by a cute little, shrewd little actor, Schmidt couldn’t have gotten from Munich to Minya in three hours. I prayed with all my heart that the bad guys were as familiar with plane schedules as I was. I didn’t want them to think, as Alice had done, that Schmidt might be Ali’s replacement.