The Arabesk Trilogy Omnibus (74 page)

Zara blushed. “I thought it was the Khedive… But it could have been Avatar. I let him go in my place.” Which, like Raf at his most serious, couldn’t have been too popular with His Highness.

“Have you got the engraving?”

Zara nodded.

“Can I have a look?” Hani asked, once it became obvious that Zara intended to leave it at that. “It would be useful…”

“It’s…” Zara hunted for the right word. “Very rude.”

“So’s the angel,” said Hani, nodding to the bare-breasted woman with wings and a discreet drape of cloth across her broad, Victorian hips.

“This is ruder,” Zara said, but she went to get the picture anyway…

“Mmm,” said Hani. She did her best to sound grown-up, but the slight widening of her eyes and a growing grin gave away her shock. “She’s a spider.”

“That’s right.”

“A woman spider, bent over backward…” Hani flipped to the sheet underneath, nodding to herself; it showed the back, on which the General had written a brief note, plus the word
Judecca
.

Next Hani rechecked the titles of the books from which the pictures had been ripped.

“Paradiso, Purgatorio, Inferno…”
The words went down on her sheet of paper one under the other. As an afterthought, Hani numbered them. She’d already found a book called
Inferno
on the shelves by the door. Sure enough, it had the flyleaf ripped out. Hani was as certain as anything that she’d also find vandalized books called
Paradiso
and
Purgatorio,
once she bothered to check.

Only here will you find peace
. That was what the General had written on the back of the first picture. Paradise. Only here will you… It made sense. Hani copied the words onto her bit of paper and numbered it.

Taking Zara’s spider woman, she turned the weird picture over and wrote down
Welcome to limbo
… Having numbered this to match
Purgatorio,
she put
At its centre hell is not hot
directly underneath and numbered that as well.

Apollyon, Judecca
and
Cocytus
came last.

She thought of drawing different-coloured lines to link the General’s comments to the names of the books, but it didn’t seem necessary. Instead, she drew a big exclamation mark under the list.

“Do you actually know what any of this means?” asked Zara.

“Not yet,” Hani admitted. “But I’ll let you know when I do.” Pushing the paper to one side, Hani scraped back her chair and tiptoed to the door, which she opened a fraction. Sudanese soldiers were coming and going in the hall. Mostly they seemed to be Raf’s guard. “The German’s arriving,” she told Zara. “He looks cross.”

Zara peered over Hani’s shoulder at the young German ambassador. “No,” she said, “what he looks is nervous…” Just then, Khartoum came into the hall and bowed to the visitor, ushering him through an open door. “That’s not the audience chamber,” said Zara.

“No,” said Hani, “it’s a waiting room.
Now
he’ll look cross.”

CHAPTER 43

25th October

“Coffee,” Raf suggested and the German youth in front
of him winced; as Raf suspected he might. According to his file, the ambassador from Berlin loathed the stuff.

“In Iskandryia it’s traditional,” said Raf.

“Isn’t everything?” The ambassador’s voice was resigned. According to Koenig Pasha’s notes His Excellency Graf von Bismarck was nineteen. He looked younger, fourteen going on twelve, with the faintest trace of a blond moustache and long hair that flopped over one eye. The unflopped eye, startlingly blue, stared nervously at Raf whenever the ambassador thought Raf wasn’t looking.

Iskandryia was one of the most career-destroying posts on offer, particularly for someone who hated intrigue and coffee. And from what Raf could gather, Ernst von Bismarck had taken it only because his other alternative was marriage to some Schleswig-Holstein. It seemed the Graf wasn’t the marrying type.

“If not coffee,” said Raf, voice suddenly sympathetic, “then what?”

“Orange juice… If that’s possible.”

A clap of Raf’s hands brought not Khartoum but Hani. She’d changed from jeans into a dress at least one size too big. Unfortunately, she’d retained the silver Nike trainers.

“I’m Hani al-Mansur,” Hani announced, thrusting her hand at the startled ambassador. “He’s my uncle.”

“Where’s…?” Raf began.

“Doing something,” said Hani firmly. “Whatever you want—I’ll get it.”

When the orange juice arrived it came on a tray complete with a silver bowl of pistachios, soft-skinned and bright green on the inside, two small brass pipes and a fingertip of sticky resin.

The German ambassador and Raf waited while Hani withdrew. Only then did Raf notice a note folded neatly on the tray under his glass.

“A sweet child,” said the Graf.

Raf reread Hani’s scrawl, nodded doubtfully and pushed the note deep into his pocket. “Endlessly surprising,” he said and changed the subject. “You demanded a meeting…?”

It seemed preposterous to call what was happening an audience, so Raf didn’t.

“Berlin wants…”

“I’m sure it does,” said Raf. “But first explain why your intelligence service has been waging war against Hamzah Effendi.” He stared at the boy, who put down his glass and went deep red.

Personally, Raf lacked the capacity for visible embarrassment, but then he’d had a lung deflated when he was six and a very minor blood-supply nerve to his face snipped where it ran between his second and third ribs. The surgeon went after the nerve through a tiny incision in his armpit.

“They haven’t…”

“Are you telling me the man pulled out of Lake Mareotis wasn’t
Thiergarten
…?”

“You don’t know that he killed the first girl,” Ernst von B said hotly. “Whatever you’ve been saying.”

“What about the attack on the Casino Quitrimala?” said Raf. “Are you telling me the
Thiergarten
didn’t organize that?”

“That had nothing to do with us.”

“And I’m supposed to believe this?”

“You have my word,” Graf von Bismarck said stiffly. He looked as if he was getting ready to cry.

“But the man who died in the fire
was
German?”

The nod was slight enough to be almost invisible.

“Okay,” said Raf. “Just suppose some of your men have been turned… Who corrupted them?”

Needless to say, the Graf had no idea, although he immediately suggested Paris because Berlin always blamed Paris for everything.

“And the bomb?”

“My intelligence officers suggest the mujahadeen.” Von Bismarck looked hesitant. “But I’m not convinced the rebels have that level of sophistication.”

Raf reached behind his chair for a cardboard box and pulled out a thin tube the length of his arm, attached to a small wooden base. “Sophisticated it’s not,” he said, voice grim. “Effective, yes. You can buy most of the components from the nearest souk.”

Circling the thin tube he held, but not touching it, was a spiral of bare copper wire, with a metal clothes hanger looped at the top, like a makeshift replacement for a vandalized car aerial.

The object looked like something from Sculpture 101 at St. Mark’s.

“Detonator,” said Raf, pointing to a cigarette-sized tube rammed into the underside of the weird exhibit. Copper wire, aluminium stuffed with cheap explosive, aerial loop, battery pack.

“To create a magnetic field between copper coil and tube,” Raf added, when the German ambassador looked blank. He didn’t mention that he’d spent the last few minutes before the Graf arrived checking a pencil-sketched schematic for a flux generator, as e-bombs were apparently called.

“Detonate the charge,” said Raf.

“…and the whole thing blows up.” Graf von Bismarck finished the sentence for him.

“You got it.” Raf took a brass pipe from the tray and gave it to the young German, who absentmindedly inhaled.

“As it blows,” said Raf, “the blast rips up the tube at six thousand metres a second or something, the exploding tube flares out to touch the wire and power gets diverted into the undamaged coil ahead…”

Absolute incomprehension closed down the Graf’s boyish face.

“You didn’t do physics, did you?”

The German shook his head. “It wasn’t an option. I took philosophy, politics and history at Heidelberg.”

Yeah, exactly as recorded in Koenig Pasha’s file.

“It works like this,” said Raf patiently. “The magnetic force gets squeezed as the tube behind it explodes. That creates a huge rise in current in the coil ahead. When the current finally hits the loop antenna it sprays out a
terawatt
of electromagnetic energy… From detonation to destruction takes less than…”

He clicked his fingers. “A hundredth of that, probably less. There were seven of these spread across the city… Six went off.”

“But the worst is now over…”

“I wish,” said Raf, meaning it. “The worst is only just beginning.”

“Then even more reason…” The Graf put down his little pipe. “This trial…” He stopped and pursed his lips. “The thing is,” he said, “Berlin are…” The Graf shrugged and reached again for the pipe. “My problem is…”

“Berlin are worried,” said Raf. “Who wouldn’t be?” He picked up his own pipe but didn’t actually inhale, merely watched thin strands of pungent smoke spiral away into what the Graf saw as darkness and Raf knew to be a different density of light.

By now Astolphe de St. Cloud, France’s ambassador to El Iskandryia, would have heard that Ashraf Bey was locked in a meeting with the ambassador from Berlin and would be at the mansion’s gates demanding admittance. Raf was depending on it.

“The trial…?” Raf prodded gently.

“We want it in Berlin,” said the Graf.

“No.” Raf shook his head. “Absolutely impossible.”

“You misunderstand,” the Graf said, sounding nervous. “We demand it be held in Berlin.”

“As I said, impossible.”

Something flitted across the young man’s face that looked to Raf remarkably like relief. “We will be making an official protest…”

“I’m sure you will,” said Raf gently. “But the trial will be held in Iskandryia. Not in The Hague or Paris or Berlin. And I’m relying on you to be a judge… The court will be calling Jean René…”

Ernst von Bismarck nodded knowledgeably.

“The photographer who filmed the aftermath of the massacre,” Raf explained. “I should also inform you,” he added, pulling Hani’s scribbled note from his pocket, “that my intelligence officers tell me Hamzah Effendi may call a character witness from his own brigade.”

“Impossible,” the Graf said. “Every one of them died except Hamzah. I’ve read the report.”

“If that’s true,” said Raf with a smile, “it should make for an interesting trial.”

The Graf frowned. “I will inform Berlin of the situation.”

“How?” Raf asked and watched the Graf realize that doing so would be less simple than he’d imagined. “How will you go about informing Berlin?”

“By letter. There’s a passenger service to Syracuse…”

“If it runs.”

Both ferries would run, Raf already knew that, because one of the first things he’d done was send Hakim to Maritime Station to find out which of the regular boats had been caught in the blast and which, if any, had been lucky enough to be at sea.

They were currently two Soviet liners without electricity, a worthless aircraft carrier, and half a dozen expensive yachts that now needed a partial refit. The people who owned those could afford the damage. It was worse for the fishing boats. Almost all of those had lost their navigation systems and sonar. They also had engines that now wouldn’t start.

“Oh,” said Raf, “if you do write, be sure to tell Berlin that I’m closing the city. A total curfew is being imposed. Other than mine, all cars are banned, assuming any still work. No one comes in or leaves without my written permission… My handwritten permission,” he added grimly. “Except for those travelling under a diplomatic passport or a
carte blanche,
obviously enough. And the accredited press. They can come in. They can even bring cameras. Leaving, of course, is another matter.”

“How long…?”

“Until we catch the bombers.” Raf rose from his chair, waited until the Graf realized his meeting was over, then walked the young German to the chamber door.

“I have a city in meltdown,” he told the boy, “a natural gas plant that can’t pump natural gas, a petroleum refinery that isn’t refining crude, no electricity, no telephones. The few computers that still work are dying by the minute. Most cars don’t run, garages can’t dispense gas… You know what that means? No working hospitals, no schools. Think about it.”

Raf ushered the Graf through the hall and out into the rain. Good-byes said, he went back into the darkened chamber and listened.

“You can come out now,” he said.

Very slowly, Zara appeared. “You knew I was here.” It was half question, half statement.

“I heard you.”

“Across that distance?” She stared in disbelief from where she stood to where Raf and von Bismarck had been sitting.

“I can hear the heartbeat of a bat,” he told her simply, “and see a hunting cat across Zaghloul Square at the dead of night. Everything that has ever happened to me I remember. Everything…”

I can’t die,
he added in his head.
I can only be killed
… But he kept those words where they belonged because her smile was already gone, shocked out of being by his honesty, her shock coloured round the edges with unease, even fright.

“You mean it, don’t you?” said Zara.

Did he? Raf nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid I do.” He didn’t mention that he could smell expensive scent oxidizing on the inside of her wrist, an overlay of white willow extract from her shampoo and something underneath all that, much more animal.

“You remember everything?” Zara asked in disbelief.

“Exactly as it happened.” Raf stopped opposite the girl and caught the point at which her eyes widened and she remembered that night they’d spent on her father’s boat. Her mouth had tasted of olives and her breasts had rested heavy in his hands, salt with the memory of a wine-dark sea and blood from where she’d bitten his lip.