“The funny thing is,” Gideon said, holding up his hand to refuse the three-foot-long flexible smoking-tube the waiter was offering him, “I believe him.”
“As do I,” Gabra agreed, sighing with his first burbling puff on the narghile that had been placed on the tiled floor beside their table.
At the sergeant’s suggestion they had left Horizon House for a nearby outdoor cafe on Shari Mabaad after concluding their session with Arlo, who had almost wept with relief on being told by Gabra that he was not under arrest or in imminent danger of it, but was merely to keep himself available in Luxor for further questions, and to keep to himself what he had told them.
Arlo had done a cogent if not altogether coherent job of explaining himself. He had spent a terrible night after they had all gone out to look at the skeleton, he said, determining at dawn that he would confess and finally confront his fate that day. He had steeled himself to face Saleh and the wheels of Egyptian justice, and then he had been as flabbergasted as anyone else when the numbers were discovered on the bones the following morning. At first he had leaped at the idea that he had suffered some sort of hallucination four years earlier, that el-Hamid’s death had never happened, that the skeleton really was that of F4360.
But even Arlo, who clearly had some considerable propensity for deluding himself, couldn’t quite make himself believe that. In the end he had accepted the astonishing development as a kind of cosmic gift, like finding a winning lottery ticket among one’s dry-cleaning stubs. He had gratefully accepted his salvation, had asked no questions, had looked no gift-horses in the mouth. He had been delivered from evil, and he had had no intention of upsetting things by trying to find out who had done it or why.
No, it wasn’t very logical, but it did sound convincingly like Arlo.
“Somebody recognized that head for what it was,” Gideon mused aloud now, “then killed Haddon afterward because he’d seen it too. The question is: who?”
“ ‘When the cow stumbles,” “ Gabra said somberly, ” ’many knives come out.“ ”
This gloomy particle of Eastern wisdom hung in the air while the waiter set down their orders: mint tea for Gabra, Turkish coffee (“Here we call it Egyptian coffee,” Gabra had reproved him) for Gideon.
“Here’s what I think,” Gideon said. “I think the skeleton was painted to keep anyone from realizing it was one of the el-Hamids so that no one would make any connection to the theft of the statuette four years ago. That means that somebody besides Arlo knew all along that it was el-Hamid- either that, or knew enough to figure it out when the bones turned up. He also knew enough to make off with the head when he saw it.”
Gabra nodded, stirring sugar into his already sweetened glass of tea. “I too believe this to be so.”
“If it is,” Gideon said, “wouldn’t your next step be to find out if there’s been any new word of the head on the black market? Talk to the el-Hamids?”
“Yes, but to get information from these people is hard. Also, I think by now that this goes beyond the el-Hamids. It is too large a matter.”
Gideon leaned forward. “I have a friend here, a Dr. Boyajian. He thinks he might be able to learn something from people he knows in Luxor, people who might have contacts in the illegal antiquities market-”
But Gideon had pushed a little too far, a little too fast. “Your friend is too much interested, I think,” Gabra said curtly.
“I just thought-”
“This is a police matter, Doctor, a matter of…” He searched for the right words. “Of sensitivity, of discretion.”
Glumly, Gideon took a sip of the thick, syrupy coffee from its small, squat glass. Was he running into another police roadblock after all? “What’s so sensitive about it? Look, there have been two murders. There have been two thefts of antiquities that add up to a single piece of tremendous historical and monetary value. That piece properly belongs to Egypt, but if it’s not already out of the country by now it’s well on its way. I’d think-”
Gabra was shaking his head. “They will not talk to your friend, they will not talk to me. What we require is to have the help of a-a person with disguise, a-‘’ He fumbled for words again.
“An undercover agent?”
“Yes, an undercover agent, a person to pretend to be a rich buyer of antiquities in search of an Amarna statue.”
Gideon calmed down. “That’s a good idea.”
“We must have a person they do not know, a person who is familiar with Egyptian antiquities. We will have to speak with the antiquities authorities in Cairo. Unfortunately, this may take time-”
“How much time?”
Gabra hunched his shoulders while he used a pair of oversized tweezers to adjust the brazier of burning charcoal that kept the tobacco alight. “A week, no more.”
“A week? In a week there wouldn’t be-”
“Perhaps three days. If we are lucky, tomorrow, even.”
Tomorrow. Bukhra. Well, Gabra might be operating on Egyptian time, but Clifford Haddon’s killer wasn’t. “Sergeant, there’s a murderer at Horizon House. He-or she-is still there, but the more time we give him, the more chance he has-”
“Dr. Oliver, believe me, I have this many times before. To rush in without good preparation is bad. A proper undercover agent must first be found. Then he must be explained the situation, he must understand-”
“How about me?” Gideon said, startling himself.
Gabra appraised him for a good twenty seconds, through two pulls on the narghile. For a single, teetery moment Gideon thought he was going to go along with the idea, but then he shook his head. “This is not possible.”
“Why not?” Now that he’d adjusted to having made the suggestion in the first place, he was beginning to see some merit in it. The only part that daunted him was the prospect of telling Julie about it, but he’d work that out later. “They don’t know me. I know a fair amount about antiquities. I think I could do a pretty convincing imitation of a collector or a dealer who didn’t have too many scruples-”
“You don’t know to speak Arabic-”
“Why would a rich American collector speak Arabic?”
“You have no false identification.”
“You couldn’t have some made up for me?”
Again, there was a flash in Gabra’s eye, a brief, eager weighing of pros and cons, but again it dulled. “It is too dangerous,” he said with finality. “Already one American is killed. No. We will wait for a proper undercover agent. In the meantime, I have plenty of questions for your friends in Horizon House.”
“But-”
Gabra smiled and shook his head. “Go slowly, Doctor. You’re in Egypt. May I tell you an old Arabic saying?”
“Sure,” Gideon said with a sigh. Who knew, a few words of guidance from the Koran might be what he needed.
Gabra steepled his fingers and looked sagacious. “How does the camel fuck the ant?”
Or maybe not from the Koran. “How?” Gideon asked.
“With patience,” Gabra said.
Chapter Twenty
“Fortunately,” Phil said, “I have a plan.”
Trust Phil to have a plan.
He had been lying in wait in the shade of a fig tree, angularly wedged into one of the wicker armchairs on the patio, when Gideon had returned from his talk with Gabra. He had listened with exclamations of excitement and interest to Gideon’s accounting; his own researches, it seemed, had also led him to the shadowy el-Hamid family. He too felt an undercover agent was required. And he had a plan.
“What is it?” Gideon asked doubtfully. He hadn’t much cared for Gabra’s bukhra approach, but he wasn’t wild about the idea of a Boyajian Plan either. “If it involves imitating an Egyptian police colonel, forget it.”
“Ha, ha,” Phil assured him, “nothing like that at all. As it happens, you’re John Smith, a rich American antiquities dealer somewhat lacking in scruples. I’m acting as your agent.” He glanced at his watch and unfolded himself from the chair. “Let’s take a walk around the compound. I’ve been sitting here waiting for you since two-thirty. We meet them at five, which doesn’t give us much time to get our act together.”