The waiter started clearing their loaded table.
Gideon said, “Hotel?”
The waiter scrunched up his face in incomprehension.
“Hotel.” Gideon made the universal gesture of laying his head down on his hands.
“Alfunduq,” the waiter said, nodding in comprehension, and disappeared into the café. He returned with a much-soiled color photocopy of a brochure for what was presumably a hotel, with a map showing its location.
Gideon paid for the meal—six dollars—and they set off, map in hand.
“You see?” he said to Manuel. “That tip is now paying off.”
After a few twists and turns they arrived at the adobe building pictured in the flyer, with a faded doorway, a portico, and a mud façade covered in round blobs that appeared to have been thrown against the wall, where they had subsequently stuck. A sign in Arabic was affixed above the door, with the English words below: TOURIST HOTEL.
“You realize,” said Garza as they paused in front of the hotel, “that those things stuck to the wall are pats of shit. Drying, it seems. I guess that’s what they cook with around here.”
Gideon peered at them. They were indeed balls of dung, fresh blobs at one end, drier ones at the other, and marks on the wall where some had been recently removed. “Welcome to the Shit Hotel.”
They went inside, entering a lobby of faux-marble tiles, many cracked, exposing mud brick behind. A man behind a wooden counter greeted them warmly, gesturing them over and pushing a guest register toward them. With many noddings and signs they managed to book a room on the third floor, with two beds, at eight dollars a night. They immediately went up to the room and, without further ado, lay down on the beds. The window was open and a blessedly cool breeze wafted in, stirring the faded curtains. Beyond a jumble of roofs and mud chimneys lay the dark flat waters of the Red Sea.
“Tomorrow,” Gideon said, “we start outfitting the expedition, find a guide, and work out our cover story.”
But Garza, he saw, was already asleep.
16
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Gideon exited the hotel, returning a short time later with a bundle slung over his shoulders. He found Garza lying on his bed, dressed only in underwear and T-shirt, can of beer in hand. He rose when Gideon entered.
“Have a cold beer,” he said.
“Where the hell did you get beer?”
“Baksheesh.”
He rose and handed Gideon a can from a weeping six-pack, stored in a shady corner. Gideon cracked it. “Ahh, the hiss of paradise.” He took a deep swig and settled in the lone rickety chair. “So. Find out anything while I was gone?”
“Pretty much what we already know. The Hala’ib Triangle is a no-man’s-land, few roads, and certainly none leading where we want to go. Still, there’s a lot of smuggling across the Egypt-Sudan border along the eastern edge of the triangle, so people do get through. The western side where we’re headed is avoided by the smugglers, though. Anyway, that’s the rumor as far as I could comprehend it. I finally found a smuggler who seemed to have an idea of the conditions in the western part of the triangle.”
“So what’s the deal?”
“The only way to get in there is by camel.”
“What about dirt bikes? Or those dune buggies like they use in the Sahara?”
“You saw the satellite images. The Eastern Desert is nothing like the Sahara. It’s far more rugged. Dirt bikes are no good in deep sand, and dune buggies or Land Rovers can’t climb mountains. Even if we could find them, we can’t afford them. As you may have noticed, this town is full of camels and pretty much nothing else.”
“Okay. So we go by camel.”
“That’s what I figured. Given all the trading here—smuggling and legitimate—there are a lot of camel dealers around. Half a dozen, maybe, all set up on the western side of the town. My thinking is that we hire a small caravan, with a guide and camel drivers, take it about ninety miles to the foothills of the mountains. There we’ll dismiss the caravan and travel the rest of the way on foot, maybe fifteen miles, to ensure our final destination remains a secret.”
“Fifteen miles across the mountains? On foot? Sounds like suicide in this heat.”
“We’ll travel at night,” Garza said. “The key is to make those fifteen miles in a single night, carrying our water and supplies. There are valleys in the mountains we have to go through, the mist oases I told you about, and I’m hoping they’ll be cooler, with vegetation and perhaps water.”
“What about maps?”
“I scrounged up a couple of maps when I was looking for the beer.”
“And what if we get there and find nothing? How do we get back out?”
“We’ll cache water along the way and meet the caravan at a prearranged time and location later.”
Gideon shook his head. “Camels. Don’t they spit on you?”
“They bite, too,” Garza said.
“What joy.”
“And you. How well did you handle your morning assignments?”
“I’ve worked out our cover.” Gideon opened his bundle, took out a battered Nikon camera, and tossed it on the bed.
“What’s that for?”
“You’re a National Geographic magazine photographer. I’m a writer. We’re doing a story on Egypt’s most remote desert. The camera is old and doesn’t work, but it makes a nice clicking sound when you depress the shutter.”
“I’d rather be the writer and have you lug that piece of crap around.”
“Sorry.” Gideon reached into the sack and took out a bundle of clothes. “And here’s a new galabeya and headcloth for you.”
Garza looked at the clothes without reaching for them. “Looks like they have lice.”
“They’re freshly washed, I made sure of that.”
Garza gathered up the clothes, smelled them, and made a face.
“Go ahead. Put them on. Beats being a John Deere salesman.”
The camel dealers were located in a series of sandy paddocks amid a scattering of acacia trees, on either side of a bustling dirt road that headed out into the desert. A motley assortment of the beasts were staked out, seated and chewing their cuds. The camel traders occupied elaborate tents, with air-conditioning; hoses snaked from the grumbling external units into the interior.
“That one looks good,” Gideon said, pointing. “Big and prosperous.”
They approached the tent and a boy, evidently an employee of the camel dealer, hustled over. “You want camel?”
“Yes.”
“Come!”
They followed him into the tent, which was remarkably sumptuous inside, the floor carpeted in Persian rugs, with leather cushions for seats around low brass tables. A large man rose from a cushion in the rear and came striding over, hand outstretched.
“Please sit, my dear friends,” he said, in halting but more-than-passable English.
They sat around one of the low tables. Glass cups appeared, and the boy poured them all tea.
“Where you from?” the man asked.
“The States,” said Gideon.
“Wonderful!” He said something to the boy, who came back with a plate of dates. “You need camel?”
“Yes, for packing and riding, plus a handler and guide.” Gideon removed one of the maps Garza had purchased and spread it on the table. “We’re going to the base of Gebel Umm, here. It’s about ninety miles away.”
The man leaned over the map, scowling. “That is in the Hala’ib. Why you go there? Eastern Desert much better.”