Mohammed slowed the engine and veered the felucca closer to shore, his son making ready the boarding plank. Jack shifted from where he had been lying and looked at his upper right arm. The bullet had glanced off the bone, leaving a gaping exit wound but no apparent damage to major blood vessels. Aysha had done her best to patch it up, cleaning it and applying a shell dressing, but there were no painkillers in the first-aid kit strong enough to have much effect, and there was nothing more to be done until they reached Sea Venture and her bolstered medical team, already on standby to receive Sahirah and any others escaping Egypt who might need assistance.
Aysha clambered over the thwarts to him now, leaving Sahirah with a water bottle looking out over the Nile. “How is she?” Jack said quietly.
“Physically, it’s nothing more than bruises, dehydration, and exhaustion. Mentally she’s obviously traumatized, and desperately worried about Ahmed. She knows his chances are slim.”
“She doesn’t have to worry about her own future. We’ll see to that.”
“How’s Costas?”
Jack jerked his head toward the space under the bow where they had hidden away on the voyage toward Cairo the day before. “The first thing he did was to burrow in his kit bag for some sandwiches he left there. A reserve supply, apparently. Ever since then he and Lanowski have been in there hunched over something technical on the computer. Costas is a rock. Guys like him don’t get traumatized.”
“That’s why you love him, isn’t it?”
Jack paused, the pent-up emotions of the last twenty-four hours suddenly welling up. He swallowed hard, looking away. “Not the word I’d use.”
“No, of course not. Men like you don’t. But you know what I mean.”
Jack took a deep breath. “We just look after each other, that’s all.”
She held his arm. “And you, Jack? You’ve seen some terrible things. You’ve killed people. Don’t tell me that will all wash over you.”
“It won’t. But I’ve been here before. I’ll be fine.”
The felucca came alongside the riverbank, and the plank was laid ashore and tied to the gunwales. Jack gestured at Mohammed. “What will your uncle do?”
“He’ll go back to Alexandria. He’s not like Sahirah, not like me, people who can carve out lives for themselves anywhere in the world. Mohammed is a Nile fisherman and a felucca captain, and his whole life is here. If people like Mohammed were to leave Egypt, then it truly would cease to exist. They are her past, and her future.”
“If there is one.”
“There will be. Inshallah.”
“And you, Aysha?”
Her face hardened. “If it hadn’t been for my son and Maurice, I’d have been with Ahmed right now killing extremists. But I’ll never turn my back. One day the flag will fly again over our institute in Alexandria. You’ll see.”
The boy jumped ashore, laying the plank and holding the bow by the painter. Aysha got up and led Sahirah across to the plank, and Jack followed, pausing to shake hands with Mohammed and his son. He was followed by Costas and Lanowski, who brought the two empty kit bags, Lanowski’s laptop, and any other evidence of their presence with them. Jack crouched down on the riverbank, picked up a handful of dust from the ground, and let it fall through his fingers. “So near, and yet so far.”
“What do you mean?” Costas said.
Jack peered up at him. “You and I know what we saw, but the rest of the world will only be able to take it on our word. It could be a lifetime before anyone gets the chance to explore where we went again.”
Costas went rigid, and put up a finger. “Ah. I nearly forgot.”
“What is it?”
He dug in his pocket and pulled out a small package wrapped in tissue. “Two microchips, from your camera and mine. All the video we took.”
Jack stared, stunned. “Where did you hide that?”
“You don’t want to know. It was in the alley just before we were captured. I don’t know how I did it, but I did. Must have looked pretty odd to anyone watching. But there was no way I was going to ditch those chips after all we went through. No way.”
Jack stood up, suddenly more elated than he could remember ever feeling. “Costas, you know sometimes I really do…appreciate you. Yes, that’s the word. Appreciate. Brilliant. You just tied a big red bow around this whole project.”
Costas pushed the package back into his pocket and zipped it up. “Glad to be of service.” He pointed into the air. “Looks like we’ve got company.”
Two Israeli Air Force F16s streaked far overhead, and in the distance Jack could see the Lynx swooping in low from the north, the sound of its rotor reverberating off the waters of the Nile. He shook the rest of the dust from his hand and stood up. “That was quite a night,” he said.
“And now a new day dawns.”
“Yes, it does.” Jack turned and watched Aysha and Sahirah slowly make their way from the felucca to the landing site, followed by Lanowski. “You know that feeling when you’ve been weighed down by a big project, a really important one, and it’s gone on and on because you’ve wanted to get it right, and then finally you’ve nailed it and it feels as if the whole world has lifted off your shoulders?”
“It makes everything ahead seem that bit more exciting. The little things. A holiday on the beach. Gin and tonics. Sandwiches.”
“The big things. That Phoenician shipwreck off Cornwall. They really were the first Europeans to reach America. Whatever did happen to Akhenaten?”
“Some downtime with Maria? A little holiday with your daughter?”
“That too.”
Lanowski came over to them, his robe and artificial beard removed but his face still darkened with polish. “Well, boys,” he said, holding up one hand palm out. “Did we do it, or what?”
Costas high-fived him, and Jack put a hand on his shoulder. “You made the team, Jacob. Good work.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask.” Lanowski squinted into the dust, watching the helicopter begin its descent. “Is it always like that? I mean, the bad stuff? The present day?”
“Not always,” Jack said, following his gaze. “Sometimes, the adventure’s all in the past.”