Death on Tour (28 page)

Someone told me once that your brain knows you are going to do something before you are consciously aware of it. Some study had shown that the brain lights up a significant amount of time before its owner acts on a decision. My friend was pondering what this said about our free will, and whether our conscious decisions were actually all that conscious. I very naturally scoffed at this notion, but all I know is, I was bending under that chain and creeping after Mohammad while my conscious mind was still screaming for me to get back to the group and telling me what an idiot I was.

Behind the high, crumbling walls, away from the tourist paths, the dusk had fallen in earnest, and it took my eyes a moment to adjust. In the soft white light of the rising moon and the distant glow of electric lights, I could see the crumbling walls of the temple forming a ragged honeycomb of rooms beside the obelisk. Fallen rocks and other debris as yet uncleared by the restoration teams littered the ground and made walking hazardous. The deep bass from the sound and light show started vibrating over the rocks, thrumming in the distance. Uneasily, I picked my way along a broken walkway, stumbling a little.

I could no longer see Mohammad, and Kyla would be worried by now, wondering where I was and if I was hurt. I jumped at a scuffling sound near my feet and thought of snakes slithering out to soak up the last heat from the rocks before seeking out the local rodent population. That did it. I decided to turn back.

The sudden sound of voices changed my mind. Off to my right, somewhere beyond a jagged wall, I heard a faint moan and then Mohammad’s voice shouting, “What have you done?”

As quickly and silently as I could, I picked my way across the rocks until I could peer over the top of a broken wall. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this.

Mohammad stood aghast in front of Fiona and Flora, and at their feet lay Alan Stratton, motionless. My heart jumped into my throat. They had killed him.

“What have you done?” Mohammad asked again, his voice hoarse and tight with fear.

The shaft of pain that pierced my heart froze the scream that welled up in my throat. Only a small moan escaped my lips, unheard over the beat of the background music.

Flora gave a girlish giggle and held up something that glinted in the light. I was pretty sure it was a knife.

“He was following us, the bad man.” She kicked him none too gently in the back. He stirred a little in protest.

Mohammad lurched forward. “He’s still alive!”

My heart started beating again, or at least I became aware of it, pounding in my chest. He was alive! Alan was alive. I crouched lower, trying to think what to do.

“You said we couldn’t kill anyone else, MoMo,” said Fiona. “So we decided to let you kill him.” Her voice was both peevish and dreadfully cold.

“What do you mean? There will be no killing. No killing!” Even from here, I could hear the outrage in his voice.

“Oh, we think you’ll change your mind. We’ve been watching this one the whole trip. We’re pretty sure he’s been on to our little plan from the start, probably hired by WorldPal to investigate—isn’t that right, Mr. Stratton?”

Alan gave no answer. I wasn’t sure he was conscious.

Fiona went on. “He’s been sniffing around everyone in the group. He’s very dedicated, I must say. Of course, he didn’t suspect us. Even after he ran through almost everyone else, he never really gave us a second look. I told you, our cover is perfect.”

“Then why couldn’t you have left him alone?” whispered Mohammad.

“Wrong place, wrong time. He didn’t suspect us, but he seems to have guessed that something was happening tonight. I’m not quite sure how he knew that.” She frowned and glanced down.

“He would have ruined everything,” added Flora. She was now staring up at the big moon. The light reflected off her huge glasses. “And now you can kill him yourself. If you don’t, he’ll have us all arrested. We can’t have that, can we, MoMo?”

“Don’t call me that,” Mohammad whispered. “And no. We cannot kill him. Another death? Every policeman in the country will be called in.”

Flora and Fiona both laughed. “We’ve already thought of that for you. You’ll have to bury the body in a dune somewhere. He didn’t come with us tonight. No one will notice he’s missing until we’re all getting ready to go to the airport tomorrow, and by then it will be too late. Anni will take us back and leave you to start a search for him. We’ll be home and counting our money before anyone notices. And, if you do your job right, they’ll never find the body.”

I couldn’t understand the change in their voices. The women standing in the moonlight looked like the ditzy sisters who had plagued us with their inane chatter and constant foolish wandering. But they now sounded sharp and logical and very, very cold.

“WorldPal will know,” Mohammad protested. “If they hired him, they’ll know he wouldn’t just wander off. We have to let him go.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He knows about all three of us now.”

Mohammad paused, then said, “We can leave the country. If we left right now, we could catch a plane to Cairo this evening.”

Fiona shook her head pityingly. “You’ve lost your nerve. And your head. Leave now? We haven’t even made the exchange.”

“And we are not leaving without our pay, MoMo,” said Flora.

Mohammad sat down on a fallen pillar and put his head in his hands. In the dim light, he looked more like a bear than ever, his huge shoulders straining at the heavy fabric of his jacket.

Alan stirred weakly.

“What did you do to him?” asked Mohammad. “Did you stab him, too?”

“Goodness, no. We used morphine. There was a nice little supply in the ship’s first aid cupboard.”

“A knife would have been much easier,” added Flora. “The morphine took a minute to kick in. He almost got away, didn’t he, Foney?”

“Yes, he gave us quite a fright. It’s too bad in a way. Such a nice-looking young man.”

Mohammad groaned. “You’re both insane.”

“Now, that’s not nice, MoMo. This was hardly our fault.”

“Not your fault? Not your fault?” Mohammad sprang up again. He paced back and forth. “Killing that tourist? That wasn’t your fault?”

My ears pricked. Millie?
They
were the ones who had killed Millie? My mind reeled. I thought back to that day at the pyramids, Millie’s body lying in the sand, Flora and Fiona crying hysterically, then wandering away together. It had all been an act.

“We had to, you know that,” said Fiona in a reasonable tone. “She found the statue from Alexandria in Florie’s purse.”

“So what?” shouted Mohammad. “She was just a foolish American woman. She wouldn’t have known whether it was an antiquity or not.”

“We couldn’t take that chance. If she’d said something to Anni, the whole thing would have been over. Anni would have asked to see it. And
she
would have known what it was immediately,” Fiona explained.

“And the shopkeeper in Abu Simbel, Foney,” Flora reminded her. “That was MoMo’s fault, too.”

“Yes, it was. And honestly, you should be just a little more grateful to us, MoMo. After all, it was
your
contact at Elephantine Island who cheated us and gave us those old Sudanese dinars instead of the new currency. How were we supposed to know they’d changed money recently and the old stuff was worthless?”

“Yes, you should have warned us about that,” chipped in Flora.

Fiona nodded, then continued. “Now, I grant you, it would have been more fitting to kill him, but we didn’t find out that he’d cheated us until that shopkeeper refused to turn over the diamonds. And what would your Cairo backers have said if we’d told them we exchanged their money for worthless old currency? They certainly would not have paid us. And I think they might have wanted to kill you, MoMo.”

“Stop calling me MoMo!” snapped Mohammad. “And what do you think? Do you think that my Sudan contacts will be pleased that you killed their man in Abu Simbel? Do you not think that they might want to kill me now?”

“Ah, yes, we did consider that,” said Flora, nodding. “But at least we got the diamonds.”

“Exactly,” Fiona agreed. “And we wanted to talk to you about that little matter. We think there is no need to turn those diamonds over to your backers.”

“What do you mean? They paid for them. They will expect to receive them, and they are not the type of people we can cross.”

“Well, not more than once anyway,” Fiona twinkled. “And once is all we need. After all, Mr. Stratton here is proof that WorldPal is suspicious, and Flora and I aren’t exactly getting any younger. This would have been our last trip anyway. As for you, if you’re smart, you will be leaving the country as fast as you can. With any luck, your Sudanese friends won’t think you’re worth hunting down. But it’s expensive to emigrate. You could probably use your share of those diamonds.”

Silence fell on the little group. In the distance, the music and applause from the sound and light show filtered over the cooling stones. Then Mohammad exploded.

“Are you mad?” he shouted.

“Now don’t be nasty,” said Fiona, with a purposeful look at her sister. Flora stepped slightly to the side, and I could see her slip her hand into her purse. I thought that Mohammad ought to be very afraid, but he did not seem to notice.

“We’ve thought this out very carefully,” she went on. “Naturally, we should split everything three ways, but Flora and I agreed that if you will take care of Mr. Stratton here, we will give you two-thirds of the diamonds. Those will be easier for you to convert into whatever currency you choose. We will keep the statue, naturally, since we will be able to smuggle it out without question.”

There was a brief silence, and then Mohammad rasped out a protest.

“The statue is worth as much as all of the diamonds.”

“Only if it could be purchased legitimately. You know very well that we will be lucky to get even half a million for it. Besides, we know you have the necklace.”

“Only because I knew you would kill that girl to get it!”

My hand flew to my throat. My necklace. So it had been Mohammad who had taken it after all. About the only one of my suspicions that had been correct.

Flora giggled. “You almost killed her yourself, hitting her like that. Still, it was a good job. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“You’ve ruined my life,” he said, almost wonderingly.

I’d heard enough. Too much in fact. But what should I do? If I left to find help, they might kill Alan before I could get back. And screaming wouldn’t work over the music and noise from the sound and light show.

I picked up a rock. Somehow, in my head I was thinking if I threw it and then ran, they would know they had been overheard and would be too afraid to kill Alan. I took careful aim at Mohammad, mostly because I figured they needed him to carry Alan, and threw as hard as I could.

Years of playing ball with my brothers had strengthened my arm, but unfortunately had no effect on my aim whatsoever. Straight and true, the rock whistled through the air and struck Alan squarely on the head. He had been woozily struggling to sit up and now collapsed back down like a punctured balloon. I froze in horror. For a long moment all four of us just stared at Alan and the rock, and then Mohammad spotted my head above the wall and gave a roar.

I fled. Exactly like the old mummy movies. Heroine running through Egyptian ruins, pursued by monsters. Except I wasn’t wearing pumps and a dress. I vaulted over a low wall and hit the sand running. Unfortunately, Mohammad wasn’t wrapped in linen bandages, de rigueur for most Egyptian monsters. I could hear him pounding behind me, his breath harsh and loud, gaining fast. I squealed and, with a burst of speed, exploded out of the pillars and into the open obelisk court.

I narrowly missed running into Kyla. She, Anni, and DJ Gavaskar stood in a little cluster, talking. I later learned that Kyla, almost frantic about my disappearance, had rallied the troops to come looking for me.

As I shot past the group, Mohammad’s hands closed on my shoulders. I felt myself jerked back, and my feet flew out from under me. He stooped over me, reaching for my throat, apparently oblivious to the witnesses. In a shining moment, one that she would recount with pride for the rest of her life and one that I would never tire of hearing, Kyla leaped behind him and kicked him squarely in the middle of his wide stance.

Unlike mine, her aim and execution were perfect. I could hear the solid thud as her pointed Gucci ankle boot connected directly with his balls and watched as though in slow motion as he released my throat and dropped like a stone. That is, if stones curl in fetal positions and writhe in agony.

DJ had also leaped forward to deal with Mohammad, but since there was now no need, he pulled me to my feet. I was gasping, my voice hoarse. “Alan! They have Alan.”

“Who? Who has Alan? What is happening? And are you all right?” asked Anni. She was obviously shaken, but instinctively trying to soothe me and calm things down.

I wanted to scream. “They are going to kill Alan,” I shouted, grabbing DJ’s hand and pulling. This time it sank in and we ran, leaving Mohammad where he lay.

I ran back through the columns and past the “No Admittance” chains and around the crumbling walls. To my intense relief, Fiona and Flora were gone and Alan lay where I’d last seen him, stirring feebly. DJ rushed to his side, pulling out a little flashlight.

“He has a head injury,” said DJ. “He’s bleeding and may be concussed. We need an ambulance right away.”

Anni whipped out her cell phone and dialed rapidly.

“He’s also been injected with morphine,” I added.

Three pairs of eyes turned to me with a mixture of surprise and disbelief.

“I heard them talking,” I explained. “That’s how they overpowered him. They lured him out here and gave him an injection before he could stop them.”

DJ lifted Alan’s wrist to take his pulse. “It’s possible. His pulse is very slow. Tell them to hurry,” he directed Anni.

“Who did this?” Kyla asked, looking down at Alan. “Mohammad and who else?”

I knew they weren’t going to believe me even before I said it. Two senile old ladies, doddering and feeble. Still, they would have to listen after the police questioned Mohammad, I thought. He would surely rat them out.