Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) (5 page)

Chapter Four

Cairo 2013

           
The
driver of the white taxi was only too happy—delirious, in fact—to
take her to the Cairo Hilton. So bubbly was he, that Ella seriously worried he
was inebriated or high on drugs. That fear only increased after the first mile
of driving in the most congested and dangerous traffic that Ella had ever seen,
let alone experienced. Forcing herself to concentrate on the cityscape before
her instead of the lunatic’s driving, Ella felt like she was in a kaleidoscope
of color and motion as they whipped down the broad avenues that carved into
central Cairo. From their drive in from the airport, she could see to her amazement
that the river—that would be the
Nile
,
she reminded herself with amazement—cleaved the city in half. Mosques and
high rise office buildings stood side by side affording a hodgepodge overview
of a bustling, vibrant city.

Even from inside
the car, the noise was deafening. On the horizon she saw a thick orange blanket
of air pollution that seemed to emanate from the city like a warm glow. The smog
wouldn’t have been as bad in September, during the original time of the trip.
Neither would the heat have been. The first steps outside the airport in search
of a taxi had her gasping from the searing heat and slick with sweat. The
misery of the heat combined with her burgeoning jet lag made her stomach lurch
queasily. She should have eaten more on the plane but she had been grateful for
the sleep instead.

           
She
had planned to do a little history background on Egypt, and Cairo specifically,
before their trip in September so found herself fairly ignorant of the city
with the exception that she knew there were pyramids nearby and the majority of
the world’s populations of mummies came from Egypt—neither of which lit
her jets in any way. From the safety of the taxicab she saw people walking who
were in full-on robes and turbans—and people dressed like they could have
stepped out of Neiman Marcus in Atlanta, Georgia. Arriving at her hotel, she
paid the driver and the combination of her awareness of her ignorance and his
exuberance convinced her that she had paid him hundreds of dollars more than
was necessary.

           
First
thing, she scolded herself, as she hoisted her carry on bag onto her shoulder:
Figure out the damn money system
.
That would have been a better use of your
time on the flight over than obsessing over Rowan maybe leaving you and how do
you feel about it?

           
She
sternly told herself that for better or worse there was nothing she could do about
her relationship with Rowan while she was Cairo. She couldn’t make it better
while she was gone and she had no control over what his mother did to make it
worse. Might as well focus on the task at hand and
that
was find Maddie and get her the hell out of Dodge.

           
After
checking into her room, the first thing she did was devour half the fruit
basket the hotel had left for her and chug a full liter of bottled water. She
felt an urgency to get to Maddie immediately but knew she needed to have a plan
first. She pulled out the map of Cairo that she’d bought at the airport.
Because she didn’t have the proper converter plugs for her cellphone, she had
watched its battery light die an hour earlier. From what she could tell by the
map and the last email she had received from Maddie, her friend was staying, or
being held, at Gupta’s family home in Gisa. Ella had only met Gupta once and he
seemed as charming and darling a man as you would expect from someone who would
later fool everyone by turning out to be a wife beater. Ella couldn’t blame Maddie
for being taken in. She was so distraught at being thirty-three and still
single that she easily qualified as being flat-out desperate to find a husband.
When Gupta showed up as one of the foreign clients at her law firm, Maddie
couldn’t believe she wasn’t going to have to pay the price of waiting so long
to marry.

           
Some
of Maddie and Ella’s other girlfriends—either still single or
divorced—were having the devil’s own time marrying because they were all
still judging their present day prospects by the standards of their twenty-year
old selves.
A receding hairline? Next! A
paunch? Kids from a prior marriage? No way!
Maddie had felt the same way
but with Gupta, she was able to have it all. He was tall, dark and gorgeous. He
spoke French, Farsi, and English with the most delightful accent. He was educated
at Oxford and was the picture of the perfect gentleman; he always remembered to
think of Maddie first, whether it was car doors, ordering for her off the menu,
or any other single situation where her feelings might need to be considered.

           
The
day Maddie called Ella to say she was getting married—
in Cairo, no less
!—was the
happiest Ella had ever heard her friend. If there had ever been a dormant doubt
or even the tiniest suspicion (
had there
been?)
on Ella’s part with regards to the kind of man Gagan Gupta was, it
was drowned out a thousandfold by the delight she heard in her dear friend’s
voice that day.

           
Ella
drew a finger down what looked like a small mews on the map and glanced out the
window at the waning light. She had enough time to go right now. If she
hurried, she could have Maddie here, tucked in for the night in her luxury
double room at the Cairo Hilton. They’d drink wine and eat pizza and Maddie
would tell Ella the whole sad tale and someday—many somedays from now to
be sure—but someday they would remember this night as a very special one
in the long list of colorful and even romantic moments in their lives.

           
At
that hopeful thought, Ella smiled and then felt her stomach gurgle painfully. She
gripped the side of the bed until the spasm passed. Within two minutes, she bolted
to the bathroom holding her stomach and praying she would make it in time. As
she ran, her glance fell on the bowl of sliced pineapples and peaches that had
come with her welcome fruit basket.

           
The
next morning, after an unfortunate evening of jet lag punctuated by severe diarrhea,
Ella felt fine. She showered, dressed and was ready for her adventure. She
regretted having to leave her cellphone in the hotel room but without a charger
it was useless. She stopped briefly in the Hilton restaurant to eat a banana
and a bowl of muesli.

           
Having
spent some time reading up on how badly she might have been cheated the day
before by the taxi driver, Ella felt confident in allowing the hotel’s doorman
to procure a taxi for her. She told the doorman where she wanted to go and
watched him as he translated it to the driver who looked considerably less
giddy than the one she’d had yesterday. After a brief exchange, the doorman
told Ella she would pay the driver 10 LE and no more. She climbed in the back
of the taxi, hugging her purse with her passport and all her money, and
regretted she hadn’t been able to come into the country with her Taser.
That little baby helped me out of many a jam
in Heidelberg
, she thought with a small smile. This time, she would just
have to do it unarmed.

           
Surely
Gupta would release Maddie when he knew Ella wouldn’t leave without her? What
other option would he have? To imprison Ella, too?

           
Ella
was surprised to see that the address in Giza was an upscale one. The
residential streets the taxi drove her down were beautiful, well-manicured, and
park-like, with the Nile just to the east. While she hadn’t expected Maddie to
be chained in a tent somewhere, Ella was nonetheless surprised to discover her
prison to be so luxurious, at least from the outside.

           
She
pantomimed to the driver to wait and he rubbed his fingers together in the
international symbol of
more
baksheesh
. She dug out three Egyptian
pounds and hand-signaled that the rest would be given him at the end of the
trip.

           
Could
it really be this easy?

           
The
swelter of the summer day hit her full in the face when she swung open the
taxicab’s door. The street was quiet, although even from this distance, she
could hear the hum of the constant noise of the center of town. She had heard
people talking on the flight about the noise pollution in Cairo. They didn’t
exaggerate.
 

           
Deciding
to try to be as respectful as possible because she knew Gupta’s family was
Muslim, Ella had covered up as much as she could—
even in this heat!
She wore a long sleeve t-shirt over linen slacks
with leather driving mocs and a colorful silk scarf knotted at her throat. If
need be, she could wear the scarf on her head or even, if worse came to worse,
over her face
à la
Jesse James. It
was the best she could do. Instead of going to pains not to offend their
religion she told herself, they should consider themselves lucky she didn’t
call the police on them for international kidnapping.

           
The
house looked like a gigantic brownstone with a row of ornate doors facing the
street topped by twin stacks of tall windows. Ella thought she saw the drapery
flutter in one of the windows as she approached. This was definitely the
address that Maddie had sent her a few months back. If she was no longer here,
Ella wasn’t quite sure how to proceed from there.

           
She
mounted the five wide steps and rapped lightly on the door. It opened
immediately.

           
“Why,
Ella, hello! What a wonderful surprise.” Maddie stood in the shadow of the
inside of the door. She wore a full-length
abaya
with her face covered “Won’t you come in?”

           
“Maddie?”
Ella stayed where she was. “I’ve got a driver waiting. Why don’t you come out?”

           
Maddie
took a step outside the door as if to look for anyone who might be with Ella.
When she did, Ella could see one eye was totally blackened. She could also see
the shadows of the two women who stood behind her, draped in head-to-toe black
garments, motionless and silent.

           
Ella
grabbed Maddie’s arm to pull her from the doorway. Her friend surprised her by crying
out and trying to pull back.
 
“No!
What are you doing?! Help!”
     

           
Maddie’s
arm felt thin and shapeless under Ella’s fingers. Nothing like the firm and
toned arms which had been the obvious product of so many successful tennis back
hands. Disconcerted by Maddie’s reaction but determined to take her from the
apartment, Ella pulled her friend across the threshold. Maddie stumbled into
the sunlight and cowered in front of Ella, covering her face as if the sun
would melt her. Instantly, the two women standing in the shadows emerged from behind
Maddie. One held a large stick and brandished it at Ella.

           
“Laa!
Kef!”

           
Ella
pulled Maddie behind her and stepped up to meet the woman. “Back off, Cleo,”
she snarled. “You so much as wave that stick in my direction, I will have the
American Embassy down here to shove it up the south end of your ungreased
burka
.
Capice
?”

           
The
woman with the stick looked from Ella to Maddie. Except for her eyes, her face
was covered, but her eyes were lethal. She regarded Ella with a combination of
fierceness and fear. Ella guessed the latter was for what the old girl was
imagining would be in her future when Gupta got home. The taxicab honked and
Ella, who never let go of Maddie’s arm, backed away from the angry women in
black as they stood guard to the portal of the jail without its prisoner.

           
Later,
Ella would admit that she had been way too optimistic about the aftermath of
rescuing Maddie from her future in-laws. It became very quickly clear that she
and Maddie would never be able to look back at it as a colorful chapter in a
life well lived. It had been absurd to think it.

           
When
Ella brought Maddie back to the hotel, her friend cried most of the way there
until she fell into a sort of stoned silence that worried Ella more than the
crying. She had already been confused by Maddie’s initial resistance to
leaving, feeling more like a kidnapper herself, and now instead of debriefing
about what a bastard Gagan was, Maddie had literally spent an hour weeping about
how much she loved him and didn’t deserve him.

           
Ella
ordered room service, made sure the doors were locked, informed the hotel
security that she felt she was being stalked and to please take special care
that no one was sent up to her room, and drew Maddie a bath. She threw the long
dark
abaya
on the foot of the closet
and laid out a tracksuit and slippers from her own suitcase for Maddie after
her bath. She waited patiently for Maddie to emerge from the
bathroom—checking on her twice to make sure she didn’t try to drown
herself—and then set a slice of pizza and a Coca-Cola in front of her
friend.