Ruler of a stricken city besieged on all sides by more-powerful nations who claimed to have only Isk’s best interests at heart. Nations who, according to all the newsfeeds, still demanded that he give up Iskandryia’s leading industrialist. And for what? To prove Isk was fit to join their nest of vipers.
Colonel Abad was right. It was an imposition too far.
Tewfik Pasha was scowling ferociously as he let an automated gangplank carry him down to the waiting dock, a fact that registered with everyone but him. He was too busy staring out over his silent city, looking beyond the crowded Corniche and the odd-angled pyramid of the bibliotheka to the green of Shallalat Gardens and a distant baroque palace that had, a century back, been the winning entry to the competition to design Iskandryia’s railway terminus.
His scowl had everything to do with coming home and the state of his city. Nothing at all to do with the sight of Zara bint-Hamzah standing near the bottom of the gangplank or the fact she gripped the hand of Ashraf Bey as if her life depended on it.
Or was that her father’s life?
“Your Highness,” she said, dropping Raf’s hand.
Tewfik Pasha nodded to the girl and let go his scowl. But even as he fumbled for something appropriate to say, Zara’s attention shifted away from him to her half brother and something passed between the two as silent as thought and swift as electricity. Only then did she notice Avatar’s injuries.
“I have a statement to make,” announced the Khedive loudly.
Camera crews surged. At least that was the appearance. What really happened was that the police cordon relaxed enough to let journalists flow through strategic gaps. They were getting good at that.
Cameras whirred, flashguns fired and questions were shouted.
And all the while the Khedive just stood there, counting down in his head from ten, elegant but slight in a simple black uniform. His face utterly impassive as the chaos broke around him. This was his version of courage. A refusal to engage immediately, to do from instinct what would please everyone else.
“You,” he said finally, reaching zero.
“Your Highness . . .” Having been chosen, the Englishwoman with the lacquered blonde hair appeared uncertain which question to ask first. Too many needed answering, half of them involving the huge vessel moored behind him.
“How did you . . . ?”
“I own the SS Jannah.”
She looked at him, the rest of her question already dead on her lips.
“It belonged to my father,” the Khedive said with a shrug. “Utopia Lines merely lease the vessel.” He could tell them how absurd he found this idea, that such an object should be owned by one person, but now didn’t seem to be the time. If possessing a ship was absurd, then how much more so to possess a city, even a broken one . . .
The journalist looked from the Khedive to the liner, then back again. A tiny camera hummed in the air a few feet above her head; one lens focused on her face, the other fixed on whatever she had in her sights. “Electricity,” she said as understanding suddenly lifted the frown from her face.
“You’re going to use the ship to power El Iskandryia.” Enough capacity to power a small city, she was pretty sure that was in the liner’s specifications somewhere.
“Power the city?”
It was a good idea, the Khedive was happy to admit that. But that wasn’t why the liner had made her first landfall in forty years.
“No,” he said. “Nothing so altruistic. After yesterday’s unprovoked attack on the liner, SS Jannah needs a refit.”
Instant anarchy. Just add . . .
Ignoring the explosion of questions, Tewfik Pasha examined the crowd, his eyes skipping bland and blind over Zara and Raf, until they finally fixed on the man for whom he’d been searching. The Soviet ambassador, Commissar Zukov.
“The attack was yesterday, at noon,” said the Khedive. “Eight men in a Mi-24x Hind gunship . . . A Soviet-made attack helicopter,” he added. Though for most of those gathered on the Silsileh, including Commissar Zukov, no clarification was necessary.
The Commissar was an elderly diplomat, waiting out his last years in a relatively unimportant post. And the Khedive had few illusions about the fact that Iskandryia was Zukov’s reward for a lifetime of doing exactly what he was told. In the man’s face, the Khedive could see panic and fear, but no guilt. Which was what the Khedive had expected.
“It’s possible the helicopter was stolen,” Tewfik Pasha admitted. But then pretty much anything was possible.
“They were terrorists?” The voice came from his right, a Frenchman.
“No,” said the Khedive, “they were jewel thieves . . .” He paused to let the crowd of journalists assimilate that fact. “At least, I assume that’s what they were. They certainly broke into the safe.”
“I thought the vault aboard SS Jannah was unbreakable?” The Englishwoman with the lacquered hair had refound her voice. And the hunger in her blue eyes told the Khedive exactly how this story was going to play.
“Nothing is unbreakable,” he said carefully.
“Particularly not to a safecracker with a thermal lance.” Avatar grinned, his voice street smart enough to suggest he knew all about things like that.
Flashguns fired.
No thermic lance had existed, but she wasn’t to know that and nor was anybody else. The helicopter had been kept. The bodies Tewfik Pasha had ordered tipped over the side. As far as the Khedive was concerned, the press could report that as burial at sea.
“Was there a battle?”
The Khedive thought about that one.
“There was a short skirmish,” he said finally, with an apologetic glance towards Avatar and his bandaged shoulder. “As you’d expect, security aboard the SS Jannah is excellent.” The Khedive’s lips twisted into a sour smile. Now he was beginning to sound like an advertisement for Utopia Lines.
“So the thieves were arrested?”
“No,” the Khedive said. “They came armed and they were killed.” His gaze took in the Commissar, von Bismarck, the American Senator and that old man from Paris whose title kept changing. “Except for two of them,” he added as an afterthought.
On cue, two burly crew members dragged the crippled Soviet girl down the walkway. Behind her staggered a small man, a revolver held to his cropped skull by a third crew member. Cameras fired, as the Khedive meant them to.
“Ashraf Bey.”
Raf stopped his whispered conversation with Zara and stepped forward. The bow he gave was slight, little more than a nod.
The Khedive raised his eyebrows. “I’m putting these two in your charge.”
“Highness,” said Raf, and raised a finger. One of his uniforms instantly broke away from holding back the crowd. “I’m transferring the prisoners to you,” Raf said. “Take them both to the Imperial Free . . . And you.” Raf looked round for Hakim. “Make sure they get full protection. And a doctor,” he added as an afterthought.
Protection from what Raf didn’t say.
“Excellency . . .”
Raf turned back to the excited huddle of journalists.
“What is going to happen with Monday’s trial?”
“In what way?”
“Will you continue as magister. . . Now that His Highness has returned?”
“No, he will not.” The Khedive’s answer was clear enough to reach the back of the waiting group. And even if it hadn’t been, there were enough floating cameras and mics aimed in his direction to carry his reply to the waiting world.
“From now on,” said the Khedive, “Ashraf Bey will be acting as city prosecutor . . .”