The Power of Five Oblivion (17 page)

“Terrorists don’t really need a reason. It’s always just hatred and fanaticism … the complete opposite of reason.”

“You know the terrible thing,” Scarlett’s eyes were far away. “I saw it in my dream. Everything in ruins … all those people dead. But I didn’t feel anything. It was as if I’d never lived there. And the only thing that makes me sad now is thinking about my school friends, and Aidan in particular. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see them again and I’ll never even know if they lived or died.”

“We have to work out what we’re going to do,” Richard said. “If we sit around here much longer, we’re both going to go mad.”

Scarlett saw that Richard was gently nudging her out of her mood. And he was right. Now that she had recovered, she was already bored, sitting in the compound with almost nothing to do. Rémy had found her a few dusty paperbacks in English, although they were barely worth reading, and there was an old chessboard that she and Richard had played on, using pebbles for the missing pieces. But they had been here too long already. It was time to move on.

“We have to get back to the Great Pyramid,” Scarlett said. “That’s our way out of here. I only have to think where I want to go and we’ll be there.”

“That won’t be so easy,” Richard said. “They know you’re here now. Our friend Monsieur Rémy says they’re looking for you everywhere. After what happened, they’re going to have every soldier and shape-changer in Cairo around the pyramids. You’d never get through.”

“We could go in disguise.”

“As a camel?”

“I was thinking more of a burka.”

“I don’t think it would suit me.”

The door opened and Albert Rémy came in. The Frenchman was always pleased to see them and regarded Scarlett’s arrival as something of a miracle, but this morning he was particularly happy.

“I have wonderful news,” he said. “Tarik is here – in the compound. Of course, nobody knew that he was coming until a few minutes ago. But I have seen him and he wishes to speak to you.”

Tarik.

Both Richard and Scarlett had heard a great deal about him. He was the man in the photograph that Scarlett had seen from her bed, the leader of the rebellion. All the commanders revered him. Every night they told stories about operations that he had led, street battles that he had won. He had been fighting the forces of Field Marshall Karim el-Akkad for as long as anyone could remember, and many of the words painted on the walls around Cairo had been taken from speeches that he had made. Tarik was a warrior name in Arabic and that was why he had chosen it for himself. He was the ultimate warrior and urban guerrilla. He had dedicated his life to liberating the city and many people said he was the only hope they had left.

Rémy escorted them out of the building, across the courtyard and into the military wing of the compound. As always, there were guards at every door but Richard was aware that they were more disciplined and better dressed than usual. He could feel the tension in the air. He and Scarlett were shown into a room at the back, dominated by a round table covered with papers and files. There were maps on every wall, most of them showing Cairo and the surrounding area. An old fridge hummed in one corner. Electricity flickered on and off throughout the day but it was obviously working now. The room smelled of sweat and cigarette smoke. It had a shabby carpet, whitewashed walls and a scattering of classroom chairs.

The man who was waiting for them was young and good-looking. That was Scarlett’s first impression. His clothes were semi-military; a combat jacket, jeans, army boots. Around his neck there was a cotton scarf which he would pull over his face when he was out in the sandstorms. He had black hair cut short, brown eyes and a face that seemed to be made up of straight lines: the chin, the cheekbones, even his eyebrows. He was about thirty years old. The picture that Scarlett had seen had been taken perhaps five years before. There was something about him that inspired confidence even before he spoke. Perhaps it was his eyes, which shone with passion and self-belief. There were two men with him – older, weather-beaten and bearded – saying nothing. Tarik dominated the room.

“You are Scarlett Adams,” he said. His voice was soft, his English perfect.

“Yes.”

“And Richard Cole. Mr Rémy has told me all about you. I am very glad you are here. I will confess that there were times when I wondered if the stories about you were even true, but my men saw for themselves that you came out of the Great Pyramid. We have seen the shape-changers. We must accept that the world is no longer as it once was and that we are fighting an enemy who comes out of our worst nightmares and who makes us re-adjust our beliefs.” He gestured at the table. “Please, will you sit down? I have asked for some tea to be brought. It is important that we talk.”

Richard and Scarlett did as they were asked and a moment later a soldier came in, carrying a kettle of steaming green tea which he served in small glasses. The moment briefly reminded Scarlett of another time when she had been served the same drink. Then, she had been a prisoner of Father Gregory in the Monastery of the Cry for Mercy. Of course, this was different. Tarik was a freedom fighter. He was here to help them. But even as she accepted the hot glass, the memory nudged her and she had to repress a shiver down her spine.

“You speak very good English,” Richard said.

“My grandmother was English. I learned it as child.” Tarik seemed to dismiss the subject and turned instead to Scarlett. “A people’s army physician removed a bullet from inside your brain,” he said. His eyes were fixed on her, examining her minutely. “Without his help it is certain you would have died. You should be grateful.”

“I am very grateful,” Scarlett said.

“And yet many people are dying here every day. They are not as fortunate as you. Egypt was promised democracy but Field Marshall el-Akkad stole it from us. Anyone who dared to speak against him was imprisoned or killed, and in the end this war was all that was left to us.”

“I’ll do anything to help you.” Scarlett wasn’t sure why she said that, but it seemed the right thing to say.

Tarik nodded slowly. “Will you? Will you?”

“The only way to defeat the Old Ones is to get the Five together again,” Richard said. “We need to send Scarlett back through the Great Pyramid and search for the others.”

Tarik turned back to Richard. Now his eyes were hooded, thoughtful. “That may not be possible. Our enemies know the power of the doorway and they have been keeping it under close guard. Scarlett slipped through their fingers once. They will not allow her to do it a second time.”

“Could she fly out of here? We’ve seen planes…”

“The only planes belong to the military and the airfields are well protected.” He spoke briefly to Rémy in Arabic and Rémy answered in the same language. Richard realized that it was almost impossible to tell what Tarik was thinking, no matter what language he was speaking. He gave the impression of always being five or six steps ahead. Once again Tarik examined Scarlett. “Are you as powerful as they say you are?” he asked.

Scarlett hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said. There was a silence and she realized that they were waiting for her to go on. “I can control the weather.”

“In Hong Kong, I understand, there was a typhoon.”

“Yes. But I didn’t create it. Maybe I helped hold it back…” Her voice trailed away.

“To hold a typhoon, to stop it in its path, that must have been worth seeing. You are just a girl. You are … how old? Fifteen? And yet we heard of this typhoon that killed so many people and caused so much destruction all those years ago. You did not create it. But maybe you could now?”

Scarlett glanced at Richard. Both of them felt uneasy, unsure where this was going.

“To control the weather…” Tarik continued in his soft voice, his hands cradling his glass of tea. “The heat of the sun, the force of the wind, lightning and thunder, perhaps the very air itself! If you could do it in just one street, Qasr el-Nil Street, for example…”

“The presidential palace,” Rémy muttered.

Tarik looked up suddenly and Richard saw a faint gleam in his eyes. “You say you want to help us, Scarlett. Could you do that for us? Could you kill Field Marshall el-Akkad by perhaps suffocating him or burning him or drowning him?”

“Wait a minute…” Richard cut in.

But Scarlett was already ahead of him. “I’ve never done anything like that before. I mean, I’ve never killed anyone.”

“People died in Hong Kong.”

“That wasn’t my fault. I’ve already told you. I didn’t start the typhoon and I wouldn’t have done it, even if it had helped us escape. I’m sorry, Mr Tarik. Of course I want to help you. But not that way.”

Tarik nodded and although his face still gave nothing away, a sense of sadness had crept into the room. “You think perhaps that I am a monster for even suggesting it,” he said. “To ask a girl to kill a man is not easy. It is not pleasant. But the man himself is a monster. What he has done to this country is monstrous.” Tarik fell silent, then seemed to come to a decision. “Please, come with me.”

He got up and went out of the room. Albert Rémy looked briefly at the two of them, as if warning them to be careful, and they all followed. Tarik’s two officers, neither of whom had spoken a word and who had given no indication that they even understood what was going on, came last. Tarik walked out into the compound, soldiers springing to attention and saluting as they saw him coming. There could be no doubting the effect he had on the men around him. Every one of them was delighted just to stand for a moment in his shadow. He continued into the hospital building, where Scarlett had been treated, and she wondered if he was going to reintroduce her to the surgeon who had saved her life. But instead he led her along a corridor on the ground floor and into a room at the very end, and she found herself in a long ward with sixty beds, stretching out in two lines, facing each other from wall to wall. The beds had been arranged with military precision. Each one had a small wardrobe and a side table. A nurse and a doctor were moving slowly along, checking the occupants, handing out pills.

It took Scarlett a moment to realize that every single patient in the room was a child.

Some of them were as young as nine or ten. They had all been injured in different ways, many of them swathed in bandages, some of them asleep, some staring rigidly at the ceiling as if they were afraid to move. What upset Scarlett perhaps more than anything was that there was nothing in the room to comfort them: no pictures, no toys, no teddy bears. It was as if being wounded had somehow turned them into miniature adults. And not a single one of them was complaining. The silence was almost unnerving.

The doctor and the nurse had stopped, seeing them come in. Both of them bowed as Tarik approached. For his part, the rebel leader walked from bed to bed, speaking softly to one child, rearranging a sheet for a second, offering a glass of water to a third. The children smiled when they saw him or felt him nearby. For a brief moment, Scarlett saw them forget their pain. Tarik made sure he connected with every one of them. He spoke briefly to the doctor. Then, with Richard and Scarlett still following him, he left the ward through a door on the other side.

They were glad to be back in the open air, even with the heat and the sand whipping around them. Richard was already wondering what point Tarik had been trying to make. He soon found out.

“Those children were taken from the street,” he explained. “They had nothing to do with this war. Did you see their injuries, Scarlett? El-Akkad launched an attack on their neighbourhood, looking for insurgents, and they were caught in the crossfire. If we had not brought them here and looked after them, they would have been left to die. What sort of man, do you think, can behave like this? What sort of man wages war against his own people? I will tell you. He is vicious. He is ruthless. And nobody in Egypt will be able to live without fear until he is dead.”

“What are you asking? Scarlett said.

“You know what I am asking. You have this power – or so you claim.” He couldn’t keep the scorn out of his voice. “Use it! Help us! You can rain down fire from Heaven on this man and end his tyranny once and for all.”

Richard stepped forward. “You’re asking her to commit murder,” he said.

“This is not murder. This is war.”

“She’s fifteen years old!”

“The youngest child in that ward is eight and a half.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Tarik.” Scarlett had never sounded so helpless. “I know why you’re asking me to do this. I understand. But I don’t think I could do it, even if I wanted to. I was only able to control the storm in Hong Kong because Matt and Jamie were there. That’s how it works. We have to be together. We’ll only be strong enough to take on the Old Ones when all five of us meet … which is why they’ve always wanted to keep us apart. And right now I’m on my own. I’ve never been more on my own and I don’t think I could do it. I really don’t.

“But I’ll be honest with you. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. I don’t want to make you angry and I am grateful for what you’ve done for me. But no matter how bad this man is, I don’t think it’s my job to kill him. I’m not sure I’d be able to live with myself if I did. That’s just how it is.”

Scarlett faltered and came to a halt. Richard looked at her with genuine admiration. She was standing there, inside the compound, surrounded by heavily armed and grimly determined men. And she had defied them. But he wondered what was going to happen next. If Tarik couldn’t use her as he had hoped, would he continue to protect her?

But the rebel leader had already come to his own conclusion. He lowered his head briefly, admitting defeat. “I understand how you feel,” he said. “And there is no need for us to discuss it any further. Perhaps I was wrong to ask you but we cannot ignore any avenue in this great struggle. We must consider now what is to be done with you, Scarlett. One thing is for sure. You must leave Cairo as soon as possible. El-Akkad does not share your scruples and will do anything to find you. We are all in danger while you are here.”

He snapped out a few words in Arabic to one of his officers, who nodded and left. Richard and Scarlett were standing together. Albert Rémy was looking at them gloomily from the side.