The Khamsin Curse Read online

  The Khamsin had died down for the present. White light was just breaking in the east. The orange cloud had settled. It was time to head back to the Sekhmet. He was anxious to check that Jim had done the right thing by the Countess.

  He wondered fleetingly if the others had made it back safely. That sandstorm was fierce. It was impossible to see where they were going. But the alternative, sitting it out in the Kiosk among the dead reptiles, was unthinkable. He should have led them back to the Arc of Diocletian but he was desperate to locate his weapon before the torches burnt themselves out.

  Maybe they all took shelter in that small temple en route. What was it? Temple of Hathor? That would have been the sensible thing to do. But no one was thinking straight. Their brains were scrambled. Colonel Moran was probably the only one with a clear head but he had other ideas on his mind. He and Lorna Baxter were definitely conducting an illicit affair. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Neither of them was married. Still, it complicated matters.

  Someone wanted them off the island that’s for sure. This wasn’t just an act of revenge against Professor Mallisham for opposing the dam, or Jefferson Lee because he was a rich American trespassing on sacred ground, this reeked of cold-blooded cunning. Someone had snared those baby crocs and kept them in cages until it was time to release them. The local servants Mr Lee had hired had all disappeared in a convenient hurry but he doubted they were in on it. They probably had no idea what evil barbarity was about to be unleashed, and if they heard gunfire above the din of the wind, they simply ignored it as they fled to their homes ahead of the sandstorm.

  He stopped at the Temple of Hathor to check if anyone was inside. The place was emptier than a burial chamber after some tomb raiders had been through it. He hadn’t slept all night. Checking under every dead croc had taken longer than he thought, and then there was all that broken china and glassware. He had to pick his way gingerly to avoid cutting himself. In this sort of climate infection set in quickly. He’d seen a man lose a limb to gangrene in less than a month.

  It would be a couple of hours yet before the sun burned through the orange haze. He decided to get some shut-eye and arrive back at the Sekhmet in time for breakfast. A man who had no sleep was no use to anyone. He settled into a corner and closed his eyes. His sleep was fitful, crawling with scorpions and reptiles and the man they called Krokodilus.

  He was back in that shitty hellhole full of grisly toys. Men screamed with pain night after and night. Most of them never made it back to their cell. Sometimes they would drag women out of the cells just for the heck of it.

  He jerked awake and found himself bathed in cold sweat despite the sun slanting a golden beam through the open doorway. He felt a desperate urge to urinate and tried not to wet himself as he pushed to his feet and realised he was shaking like a leaf.

  Gideon reached the Sekhmet moored at the jetty by nine o’clock and all seemed calm. But in the saloon all hell was about to break loose.

  Book of the Dead

  Gideon scanned the saloon and didn’t like what he saw.

  Hypatia was curled up in an armchair sobbing her eyes out. Black khol was smudged unattractively across her puffy face. It was the expensive galena flecked with luminous minerals, sparkly and frosted with gold, not the cheap smutty soot worn by the poorer women, but right now there didn’t seem much difference. She hadn’t yet changed out of her Egyptian costume and her peacock feather was hanging limply, crushed in the tangles of her long blonde hair.

  Colonel Hayter was wearing a plaid dressing-gown. His eyes were bloodshot and there were bags under his eyes. He was mixing himself a gin and tonic, mostly gin. He looked shaky, unsteady on his feet, as if he’d been fighting a losing battle against delirium tremens all night.

  Dr Watson was standing by the sideboard where tea and coffee and fresh pastries had been laid out. The hot food had not yet been sent up via the dumb waiter. He was sugaring a cup of tea. He had obviously dressed in a hurry. The buttons on his waistcoat were misaligned and he had forgotten to brush his hair. He looked as tight as a drawn bow about to snap.

  Ali Pasha was drinking a cup of Arabic coffee and puffing on a fat Havana. He looked like he’d slept in the same chair where he now sat. His fez had tilted and the tassel looked as limp as a palm tree in the desert. He stretched his legs and gave a loud yawn.

  Daisy Clooney was wearing a purple paisley dressing-gown secured at the waist by a cerise cord. She was perched on the edge of a rattan divan, chewing on a fingernail. Her brunette hair was mussed, hanging loose over her shoulders, as if she’d just crawled out of bed and raked some fingers through it.

  Fraulein Graf looked stunning. She was wearing a Morocaine kaftan in a sublime shade of blue embroidered with silver flowers. A silver sash nipped her slender waist. Her long blonde hair had been recently brushed and cascaded like a golden waterfall down her back but the fear in her blue eyes belied the immaculate image.

  Something wasn’t right.

  “What’s going on?” said Gideon, feeling his stomach muscles constrict.

  Heads turned sharply. No one had noticed that he’d entered until he’d spoken. Hypatia took one look then began to sob even louder; she was starting to sound hysterical. He wanted to slap her. He took a deep breath and tried again.

  “What’s going on?” he repeated calmly.

  Dr Watson looked immensely relieved to see him. “Is the Countess with you?”

  “No. She left the Kiosk with Moriarty.”

  “Moriarty! I thought it was him! But I didn’t recognize the uniform. Everything was happening too quickly. The shadows from the flames made everything seem surreal, and the noise from that infernal wind, and the crocodiles – it was like a nightmare. Moriarty!”

  Gideon realized he should have alerted the doctor sooner. “He’s leading an Irish regiment to the Transvaal.”

  “Irish Guards?”

  “Yes.”

  Hypatia hiccupped and sobbed at the same time; her voice was shrill. “Who cares about the Transvaal! Have you seen Daddy or Max?”

  “No,” replied Gideon, forcing focus. “Didn’t they come back with you?”

  “We…we stopped at the Temple of Hathor to get out of the wind for a bit. We…we heard a voice calling for help. Max went off first. He didn’t come back. The voice kept calling for help. Daddy went next. I begged him not to leave me but he said he’d come back in a moment. I…I waited and waited. Dr Watson came along and took me by the arm and…”

  Of course! It wasn’t about who was here, it was about who was absent!

  Gideon understood the root of her current hysteria and felt some sympathy. Jefferson Lee and Max Mallisham were missing. He wasn’t too concerned, however. They were quite capable of looking after themselves. The main thing was that the women were safe. Only the Countess was missing but Jim would never abandon her. Then he remembered Lorna Baxter.

  “Did Mrs Baxter make it back all right?”

  Daisy stopped chewing her fingernail long enough to provide the answer. “No, I went to check her room ten minutes ago and her bed was empty. It hadn’t been slept in.”

  Fraulein Graf spoke up. The German accent seemed more pronounced. “I saw her going off with that man with the rifle. Have you seen my uncle?”

  Gideon was starting to grasp the gravity of the situation. “Is he missing too?”

  “Yes,” said the fraulein, smoothing back her long golden hair as if to give her hand something to do. “He started vomiting. He told us to keep going and he would catch up. Daisy and I didn’t want to leave him but he said: go, go, schnell! We got lost and wandered for a long time, I don’t know how long. It was awful. We were scared. When we saw the lights on the ship we cried.”

  So, three men were missing. Gideon still wasn’t too worried. Men always drank more than women and a fair amount of liquor had been consumed by the time the crocodiles appeared. The men probably stumbled in the dark and just decided to stay put where they fell. They were probably curl
ed up behind a rock somewhere and would turn up sooner or later. Still, it might not hurt to mount a search after breakfast.

  It was the Countess he was concerned for mostly. Not that he believed Jim would abandon her or lead her into danger but it was a wild night. And there was more than one type of danger. The sort of danger Jim represented was the sort he could do nothing about. She had to decide for herself who she wanted.

  Hot food arrived but everyone ate sparingly. They still hadn’t recovered from the carnage of the night before. Halfway through the meal Lorna Baxter and Colonel Sebastian Moran made an appearance. They told a story about getting lost in the sandstorm and taking shelter in one of the temples. No one believed it but to spare Mrs Baxter any embarrassment they nodded compliantly. Moran was invited to join them. He ate with gusto. When Gideon mentioned mounting a search party, Moran was all for it. He knew the island better than anyone and quickly sketched out a map on one of the napkins. He organized the men into pairs and allocated different areas for them to search. The women were excluded. They were told to remain on the ship and if any of the others returned in the meantime, to send a crew member to alert them.

  In effect, it was the Acting High Commissioner’s job to organize a search party, but right now Colonel Hayter was having trouble organizing a cup of tea.

  Dr Watson kept hoping the Countess would turn up along with the others but when breakfast concluded and there was still no sign, he began to feel a sense of rising panic. Gideon cornered him as they were returning to their cabins to get dressed and gather their belongings. His voice was tense and strained.

  “Did you happen to pick up my Webley last night?” he said.

  “No. I saw you looking for it. Didn’t you find it?”

  “No, I stayed back and searched everywhere. That’s why I didn’t return to the ship with everyone else.”

  “Someone must have picked it up.”

  “But who? That’s the problem. Plus now I don’t have a weapon and neither does Hayter.”

  “Hmm, I see.”

  “Do you know if Mr Lee has a gun cabinet?”

  Dr Watson shook his head. “You’ll have to ask Azrafel.” He studied the major at close hand and noted how exhausted he appeared. He was still wearing the costume of Ra, though he had sensibly ditched the sun-disc headdress. This espionage business wasn’t living up to the exotic intrigue he imagined. The major had fought off one assassination attempt and now he was unarmed. Anyone could have picked up his gun. There was too much going on. Three men were missing. And where was the Countess? “Why don’t you go and get cleaned up and find some fresh clothes. I’ll go and find Azrafel.”

  The men met up on the jetty twenty minutes later.

  “The island isn’t large,” Colonel Moran was saying as he handed out a roughly drawn map on a napkin. “Stick to the marked area and return to the Sekhmet as soon as you are done. Don’t forget to check the bottom of any wells.”

  He handed a map to Azrafel who had volunteered to help with the search. He had been paired with Ali Pasha. The two men set off right away. They were heading to the farthest side of the island where Hadrian’s Gate was situated on the western side. They would take in the Coptic Church and the Temple of Harendotes, check the two nilometers, and finish up at the Vestibule of Nectanebos. On the way back they would check the Temple of Arsenuphis and the small chapel.

  Colonel Moran handed a napkin map to Gideon. “You’re going with Dr Watson. I don’t know what’s holding him up.” He looked back over his shoulder to see if the doctor was on his way and scowled. “You check the Inner Courtyard and the Outer Courtyard. I’ve marked them out for you. There are numerous small chambers attached to the two courtyards. Try not to skip any. Don’t forget to check behind the columns in the colonnade. Shadows can be tricky on the eye.”

  Moran turned to Colonel Hayter who was sitting on the steps, mopping his brow with his map and looking wilted. “Let’s go,” he said briskly. “We’re heading back to the Kiosk. There aren’t many buildings to check but plenty of clusters of doum palms. We’ve got a lot of open ground to cover. Try to keep up.”

  Dr Watson made an appearance about ten minutes later and the smile on his face told Gideon that he had been successful in locating a handgun.

  “No Webleys,” he said, “but there was an arsenal of Smith & Wessons. I insisted on Azrafel giving me the key before he rushed away. I’ve still got it. The ammunition was in a locked chest. No one knew where the key was kept. I eventually found it in Mr Lee’s bedside drawer. I’ve still got that key too.” He patted his top pocket, looking pleased with himself.

  “Well done,” said Gideon, checking to see if the gun was loaded before pocketing a handful of spare bullets. The doctor had pre-loaded it for him so they set off immediately.

  They walked without talking to conserve energy. There was still a fair bit of haze hanging about so the sun wasn’t blisteringly hot but it was hotter than what they were generally accustomed to and they had no idea how long the search would take them. Both men had canteens of water and Dr Watson had brought his binocular field glasses.

  The Propyla marking the Inner Courtyard were the largest structures on Philae and were visible from every direction. They headed straight for them, cutting diagonally across the island. Both men were fit and it didn’t take them long. Once they reached the courtyard they began to search methodically, leaving nothing to chance and no stone unturned. There was no point shouting out names if someone was lying unconscious; they had to use their eyes.

  The dark shadow on the pyramidal style walls caused by their proximity to the Tropic of Cancer was just as Professor Mallisham had said it would be and the sunless contrast to the dazzling objects surrounding them was quite extraordinary but they had no time to admire the dramatic son et lumiere effect.

  One end of the courtyard was marked on the map as the mammisi or birthing house, the other end had a series of small columns behind which sat a series of smaller priestly chambers. Dr Watson checked the mammisi. Gideon checked the other end and what he found in the first chamber caused him to reel back.

  Jefferson Lee was lying lifeless on the stone floor. His wrists and ankles were bound with black fabric which was secured to four large stones placed just-so for the purpose of restricting movement. The four stones were chunks of solid masonry that had broken away from the main building centuries ago. If the body had been laid out on a stone slab it would have resembled a human sacrifice.

  Gideon hurried out of the chamber without disturbing anything and gave a low whistle. The doctor came running, took one look and blasphemed.

  “This is madness! It looks like some sort of ancient ritual!” Slowly, he circled the corpse and shook his head in disbelief, lost for words to describe what he was thinking, feeling, and failing to understand. His next thought was for the Countess. Where was she? Had she suffered a similar fate? Or something worse? Rising panic threatened to overwhelm him and for a moment he feared his legs might give way.

  “Take deep slow breaths,” advised Gideon, who was trying to do the same. The death was bizarre, ritualistic; nothing like Rossiter’s grisly death and yet equally nasty. What was that word the doctor had used to describe the previous night? Surreal? Nightmarish? Yes, that was it. It didn’t resemble anything he had previously encountered in the east and yet he had encountered plenty of bizarre and nasty things during his time with the Foreign Office. His thoughts likewise flew to the Countess and he felt his stomach muscles clench. “Stay here. I’m going to check the other chambers.”

  Dr Watson watched Gideon extract his handgun. First those horrid reptiles and now this! This isn’t what he imagined when he agreed to come to Egypt. What did he imagine? A bit of chasing after glamorous foreign spies and trying to decipher secret codes written on papyrus? He almost laughed, and surely would have, but he heard another summoning whistle.

  In the third priestly chamber was Max Mallisham laid out exactly like the American – wrists and ankles tied with
black cloth, secured to four heavy stone blocks to stop him moving.

  “How did he die?” asked Gideon. “I can’t see any obvious wound. I couldn’t see one on Jefferson Lee either.”

  Dr Watson bent over the corpse and jerked back instantly. “There’s some sort of toxic smell. I cannot tell what it is. It appears he was poisoned.” The small chambers were windowless and bathed in shadow, reducing visibility to a minimum. He peered closer at the face. “Oh, this is interesting. It appears the mouth has been propped open with a small stick so that something could be poured down the throat.”

  Gideon bent over the body from the other side and grimaced. “Yes, I see what you mean. And that smell – I’ve smelled something similar. It’s like…”

  The two men looked squarely at each other and knew what the other was thinking but neither could bring himself to voice it.

  Dr Watson tried not to dry retch. “My God! This is a beastly business!”

  Gideon felt a nauseas wave of heat wash over him and pushed quickly to his feet to get as far from the body as possible; his breakfast performed a sickly somersault. “Bloody awful!”

  “Have you ever come across anything like this? What sort of assassin are we dealing with? What sort of vile, inhuman, disgusting monster are we up against?”

  Gideon shook his head grimly. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like this. Let’s go back to the other chamber and check if Jefferson Lee died in the same manner.”

  They quickly discovered that the two deaths had been identical.

  “Did you check the other chambers?” Dr Watson was now thinking about Herr Graf.

  Gideon nodded. “They were empty. What about the mammisi?”

  “Empty. Were you thinking about the missing German too?”

  “Let’s get out of here. The stench is churning my insides.” Gideon wasn’t thinking about Herr Graf but someone much dearer to his heart. He hoped Jim was taking care of the Countess and not in the way his dark side imagined. He didn’t often give free reign to his fears but Jim never feared stepping into the darkness. If the Egyptians needed a new god of the Underworld, Jim would fit the bill.