22

They returned to the hotel, and Lara went up to her suite, where she gratefully threw off her robes and reveled in her newfound freedom of motion. After walking around for a moment she turned to Hassam.

“Go down to the lobby and have one of Omar’s cousins visit either the main library or a local branch and take out half a dozen books on Gordon.”

“Are there any particular titles?”

“No, not really. I’ve got to start somewhere. Eventually I’ll read them all.”

“All?” asked Hassam.

“Don’t look so surprised. You don’t search for treasure in a vacuum. If you’re going to be successful, you do your research first.”

“I will go downstairs as soon as Omar returns.”

“He might not get back until dinnertime,” said Lara. “Do it now, before the libraries close. The sooner we find it, the sooner everyone will stop trying to kill me. There’s no sense wasting a night.”

“I can’t leave you alone.”

She drew her pistols as fast as Doc Holliday or Johnny Ringo could have done more than a century earlier. “I’m not alone,” she said. “I have these.”

He looked hesitant. “I don’t know. . . .”

“What’s more important to you?” she asked. “Finding the Amulet, or taking a chance that someone will get past all your friends and relations in broad daylight, make his way up to the suite, and sneak up on me before I can shoot him?”

Hassam sighed in defeat. “When you put it that way . . .”

“I do.”

He walked to the door. “At least promise to lock it behind me.”

“All right.”

“I will knock three times when I return.”

“Everybody knocks three times,” said Lara. “Why don’t you just take the key with you? You ought to be back in less than ten minutes.”

“What if Omar or Dr. Mason shows up first?”

“Then they’ll have to wait in the corridor until you return,” said Lara, tossing him the key. “The sooner you go, the sooner you can get back.”

Hassam walked into the hallway, closed and locked the door behind him, and went off to find someone he trusted to get what Lara needed from the library. As soon as she was sure he was gone, she pulled one of the Black Demons and pointed it toward the heavy draperies that were gathered to the side of a set of French doors that led out to a small balcony.

“I really do need the books, but that’s not why I sent him away,” she said. “You can come out now—and keep your hands where I can see them.”

There was no response.

“I know you’re there,” she continued. “You’ve got exactly three seconds to come out or I’ll put fifteen bullets into the curtain.”

A tall, lean, bearded man stepped out from behind the drapes, his hands in the air.

“There’s no fire escape,” she said. “You either bribed the maid or picked the lock. Why?”

“I must speak to you.”

“I’ve been in Khartoum for a day and a half.”

“This is the first time you’ve been alone.”

“Okay, we’re alone. Now speak—and keep those hands where I can see them. Who are you and what do you want?”

“My name is Abdel el-Dahib. Omar is my cousin.”

“Didn’t his family ever have a hobby?” she said sardonically. “He seems to be everybody’s cousin. Why couldn’t you approach me when Omar was around?”

“Because we are on opposite sides,” said the man. “He wants the Amulet found. I do not.”

“Are you behind the attempts to kill me since I arrived here?”

“No,” he said. “The Silent Ones wish to kill you because you are looking for the Amulet. Some of the Mahdists wish to kill you because they fear you have already found it.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she said. “For instance, why you wish to kill me.”

“I have told you, I do not. I wish only that you stop looking for the Amulet.”

“So you thought you’d pay me a polite visit and ask me nicely to stop my search. How very civilized of you.”

“I am a scholar,” said Abdel. “I seek to persuade you with words, not threats or weapons.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” she said. “Though I must say, I wish more people around here shared your philosophy.”

“Why is it too late?” asked Abdel. “You don’t mean . . .”

“No, I haven’t found the Amulet,” said Lara, seeing his alarm. “But someone will, and soon.”

“How can you be sure of this when it has gone undiscovered for more than one hundred years?”

“Because the Amulet itself wants to be found.”

Abdel nodded grimly. “Some of the Mahdi’s writings hint that the Amulet is a conscious entity in its own right: a demon-possessed artifact, perhaps.”

“Whatever it is,” said Lara, “if it insists on being found, I think it’s better for our side to find it than the Mahdists.” She finally lowered her pistol. “You should be in favor of that. If those who oppose the Mahdists possess it, you’ll be invincible in battle. The Mahdists won’t be able to defeat you or take it away from you.”

“Do not tempt me!” he said passionately.

“Tempt you?” she asked curiously.

“The Amulet is pure, unbridled power, and with absolute power comes absolute corruption. Only those who are totally selfless and noble in thought dare to so much as touch it. If we were to use the Amulet, we would become no better than those we oppose, just as the Silent Ones have become twisted reflections of the Mahdists they were originally formed to combat.”

Lara stared at him for a long moment. “You are an honorable man, Abdel el-Dahib,” she said sincerely, “but you cannot convince me to stop my search.”

“Have you thought about what you will do with it if you do find it?”

“Not yet,” she replied. “First I have to find it.”

“At least you have been honest with me,” he said. “And there is always the chance that you will not find it.”

“Someone is going to find it,” said Lara. “It might as well be someone from our side.” She paused. “Will you try to stop me?”

“No,” he replied. “I am no murderer. But I cannot speak for all of my allies.”

“What will Hassam or Omar do if they find you here?”

“I truly do not know.”

“Well, there’s no sense finding out the hard way.” She looked around the suite. “Go wait in the bedroom. They have Moslem sensibilities; that is one room they will not enter unbidden. When we go out for dinner, I’ll leave the suite unlocked. Let yourself out and go in peace, Abdel el-Dahib.”

“Thank you, Lara Croft,” he said. “I do not wish to kill my cousin, and I know he does not wish to kill me. Continue your search if you must, and may a compassionate Allah misguide you.”

He walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

It was less than a minute later that Hassam unlocked the door to the suite and entered the parlor.

“Ismail himself has gone for the books,” he announced. “He should be back within an hour.”

“Good.” She walked to a sofa and sat down. “I’m going to be hungry in another hour or two . . . and I’ve lost my faith in this hotel’s room service. Why don’t we go back to that restaurant we had a drink at earlier? It looked good.”

Hassam’s face lit up. “You mean the Al Bustan?”

“That’s the one.”

“Then that is where we shall go—if Omar approves.”

“Contrary to what he believes, Omar doesn’t run my life,” said Lara bluntly. “He can eat where he wants. I’m going to the Al Bustan.”

“Good choice,” said Mason, entering and walking into the parlor. “I’ve eaten there before. Try the grilled chicken.”

“Kevin!” she exclaimed, walking over and hugging him. “I didn’t even hear the door open.”

“I’m getting better at all this cloak-and-dagger stuff,” he said, not without a trace of pride. “Did you have any luck at the library?”

“I’m still alive,” she said. “Some might say that was a stroke of luck.”

“There was another attack?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” replied Lara. “How about you—did you get the information you were after?”

“They were Mahdists, all right,” he confirmed. “And working on their own. My source says that if they’d succeeded, their own people would have killed them. They want you watched, not murdered or even hindered.” He checked his wristwatch. “When do you expect Omar back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, if there’s any other place you want to go today . . .”

“I’ve got to stay here,” she said. “I’m waiting for Ismail.”

“Who’s Ismail?”

“A friend,” replied Lara. “I sent him to the library to pick up some books.”

He frowned. “I thought you just came from the library?”

“I left in rather a hurry.”

“What did you ask him to bring you?”

“Books on Gordon,” she answered.

“Any titles in particular?”

“No. I just need to know more about him, to learn how his mind worked. I know he was a brilliant general, and I know he was almost fanatically religious, but that’s hardly enough to go on. I’ve got to put myself in his shoes. He’s got the Amulet, and the Mahdi has declared a sixty-day cease-fire. He doesn’t know for a fact that the city can hold out for the ten months that it did; it might fall in two months, or six weeks, or the day the cease-fire ends. He’s got to hide the Amulet soon. He knows he’s being watched, so he sends Colonel Stewart all the way to Edfu as a decoy. Now what does he do next?”

“He hides it, of course,” said Mason. “And he’s got to hide it within the city limits.”

“Not necessarily.”

“But he turned the city into an island,” noted Mason. “He couldn’t leave it.”

“He didn’t flood the ditch and isolate the city until a month before the siege began,” said Lara. “I learned that much at the National Museum this morning. So he had thirty days in which to get it out of Khartoum.”

“I don’t think so,” said Mason. “He was the most recognizable man in the Sudan, probably even including the Mahdi. There’s no way he could have left without being spotted.”

“He didn’t leave,” answered Lara. “He kept a diary, so we know he was here the whole time, but that doesn’t mean that the Amulet didn’t leave.”

“You’re reaching,” said Mason firmly. “It’s somewhere in Khartoum.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “I’m just pointing out that he could have sent it away with a trusted aide—probably a Sudanese, since any of the British he was here to save would be too easy to spot.”

“He could have done a lot of things,” said Mason. “You’re making it too complex. The answer is right here in Khartoum.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “I’m just trying to be thorough, and to see the city—and the enemy, and the world—as Gordon himself would have seen them.”

“What I can’t figure out is why he didn’t use the damned thing,” said Mason. “Once he had it, why didn’t he turn its power on the Mahdi? How could he make himself part with it?”

“You’re forgetting his nature,” answered Lara. “He was a devout Christian, and he would have believed that the Amulet was a tool of Satan. He’d sooner have surrendered the city to the Mahdi without a fight than blacken his soul by using it.”

“Based on the intimations you’ve received, wouldn’t the Amulet itself have something to say about that? Nothing wants to die, or be hidden away, not even a mystic artifact.”

“It might be able to contact you or me,” said Lara, “but if it tried to influence Gordon, he’d never have touched it again. He’d have locked it in some box and gotten rid of it as soon as he could.”

They fell to discussing Gordon for the next hour, and then there was a gentle knocking at the door. Hassam walked over to it, dagger in hand, cracked it open, saw that it was Ismail with a pile of books, sheathed his blade, took the books, and closed the door again.

“Good!” said Lara. “Tonight’s homework.”

Hassam set the books down on a coffee table.

“Six volumes,” she said to Mason. “That’s three for each of us.”

“Fair enough,” said Mason. “They look pretty old, and it wouldn’t hurt to run a cloth over them. I’ll wager they haven’t been read in years.” He studied the spines. “At least they’re all in English. Have you any preference?”

She shook her head. “Take the top three when you leave; I’ll go through the others.”

They waited another twenty minutes, and when Omar still hadn’t shown up they decided to go out for dinner.

Hassam looked at her strangely as she made for the door.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Your robes,” he said. “Are you not going to wear them?”

“Why? Is there something wrong with how I’m dressed?”

Hassam’s eyes flicked over her bare legs and the open top buttons of her shirt, but he said nothing.

“You won’t be able to wear your guns,” Mason observed. “At least with the robes, you could still wear them underneath.”

“I’ll have the Scalpel of Isis tucked in my boot. That will have to do for now.” Then, looking at their doubtful faces, she added: “Guns are useful, but it’s a weakness to grow too dependent on them.”

As they passed through the lobby Hassam told Ismail, who was working the reception desk, where they would be and to send Omar along if he appeared within the next half hour.

The Al Bustan was on Sharia al Baladiya, just a few blocks in from the Nile, and offered what most foreigners considered to be a typical North African bill of fare. Lara ordered the grilled chicken, as Mason had suggested, while he himself had lamb. They both had sweet figs for dessert, then splurged with a pair of lemonades.

She was aware that she was attracting a lot of stares. Being a beautiful woman, she was used to it, but on this occasion she knew that most of them were coming from people who were offended by her bare arms and legs, and a few were probably coming from men who wanted her dead.

They finally returned to the hotel and went back up to her suite, where she gave Mason the books and sent him and Hassam off to their room, while she prepared to sit down and plunge into the remaining volumes after making sure that Abdel el-Dahib had left while they were at dinner.

She had just opened the first book when Omar entered the room.

“You should lock your door,” he said severely.

“I knew you’d be coming by,” she said. “I’ll lock it when I go to bed. What did you find out?”

“They were not my men, but they were men who did not want you to find the Amulet.”

“That’s strange,” she said. “Kevin’s source said they were Mahdists.”

“Then his source is mistaken.”

“He seemed pretty sure.”

“I’ll check further tomorrow,” said Omar. “Or perhaps even tonight.”

“Go ahead,” she said. “You don’t have to chaperone me. I’m spending the night reading.”

Omar walked to the door, then turned to her. “He was certain, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe I had better check my own sources.” He opened the door and stepped into the corridor. “Remember to lock the door behind me.”

“I will.”

Then he was gone, and Lara locked and bolted the door. She knew there was no fire escape, but she walked over and closed the French doors to the balcony just to be on the safe side, then bolted them shut.

Finally she settled back on an easy chair to read about the fabulous life of General Charles Gordon. Four hours later she had worked her way up to his correspondence with the great Victorian explorer, Sir Richard Burton, and was reading in rapt fascination when she came to a page that was missing. She didn’t think much of it; it was a very old volume, and perhaps six or seven other pages were missing as well. But in a later letter to Burton, Gordon referred to his letter of June 3, 1883, and mentioned that he had used it as the basis for a magazine article. When she turned back to see what he had said on June 3, she found that was the letter that was missing.

She tried to continue reading.

The letter. Find the letter.

“Who was that?” she said, leaping to her feet, pistol in hand.

The letter. June 3, 1883.

It wasn’t a voice. It was more as if the wind itself had formed the words.

The letter.

“All right, all right!” she said to the empty room. “I heard you.”

The letter.

She walked to the door, then thought better of it. There was no way she could go down to the lobby and walk out the front entrance without picking up an escort, and she definitely didn’t want an escort for what she was about to do.

She decided to leave the Black Demons behind again. The last thing she needed was to be stopped by the police for walking around with weapons in the middle of the night, and robes were too bulky for what she had in mind.

She opened the French doors and stepped out on the balcony. There was no fire escape, but every room on this side of the hotel had balconies. She climbed over the edge, holding on to the railing, and lowered herself as much as she could. Then she began swinging her legs back and forth, and when they were over the balcony below she released her grip and landed lightly, then repeated the process, landing on the sidewalk.

She looked around to make sure she hadn’t been seen, then began walking quickly to the library. It was locked, of course, but she had known it would be. She walked around to the alley where she had fought the huge man earlier in the day, again used the pile of discarded crates and boxes to reach the insulated power line, and walked along it to the nearest roof. Then she walked over to the library. Its roof was twenty feet higher than the roof she was on, but there was an ornamental chimney—she was sure it was never used, not in this climate—with enough handholds that she felt confident she would be able to catch it without falling to the alley below.

Her decision made, she hurled herself through the air. Her outstretched fingers latched onto a pair of weeping bricks that extended out from the chimney, and she slowly pulled herself up. Her feet found purchase, and she began climbing the chimney. She reached the roof a moment later.

She had hoped to find a door, or some means of entering the library, but there wasn’t any. She walked to the edge, leaned over, and checked the nearest window. Closed. She methodically made her way around the building, checking each window—and finally came to one that was cracked open.

She slung her legs over the side of the roof and lowered herself until she was hanging by one arm, opposite the window. With her free hand she raised the window until it was fully open.

Her problems didn’t end there. This wasn’t like a balcony she could drop onto. Any kind of straight drop would send her to the pavement thirty feet below. She could have swung her body, as she did on the hotel’s balcony, and crashed her feet through the window, but she didn’t want to alert any guards or passing police.

She extended her body to its utmost, and found to her relief that her toes just reached the windowsill. She slowly released her grip on the edge of the roof, balancing precariously. She felt herself slipping, unable to hug the building as she lowered herself. Then, just before she fell to the ground, she managed to slide her feet inside the window, and she now slid down until she was sitting on the ledge with her legs inside the building. From there it was just another few seconds before she was totally inside. She closed the window behind her, descending to the ground floor, and, using a pocket flashlight, began her search for the missing letter.

There were two dozen books on Gordon still on the shelf, and she picked them up, one by one, thumbing through the index to each—and on the seventeenth book she hit paydirt.

“All right,” she muttered, sure that whatever had directed her here could hear her. “I’ve found it. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to take it back to the hotel and read it there.”

There was no response, nor had she really expected one.

Tucking the book under her arm, she walked to the same side exit she had used earlier in the day and twisted the handle. It was as she had thought: locked from the outside, but not the inside. A moment later she was back in the alley, and heading back to the Arak Hotel, but before she had taken a dozen steps, her way was barred by a glowing skeleton of something that stood erect but would never be mistaken for human, or even primate.

It reached a bony hand out to take the book from her. She backed away.

All right, she thought. The Amulet wants me to read this, so it didn’t send you. That means you’re from the Mahdists or anti-Mahdists, and their magic isn’t as strong as the Amulet’s. I hope.

The hand reached out again, and this time she grabbed it—and was mildly surprised to find that it was substantial, rather than just an illusion. She bent one of the fingers back. It broke off, but the skeleton seemed not to notice.

Its jaws moved, and though it had no tongue, no larynx, no means of making a sound, the words “I want!” seemed to emanate from its missing lips.

“You can’t always have what you want!” said Lara, backing up another step, her eyes searching the alley. Finally she found what she was looking for—a metal garbage can, one of the few. She picked up the lid and, using it as a warrior might use a shield, charged into the skeleton, holding it in front of her.

The bones shattered and the skeleton collapsed, but where each bone fell there was now a small, growling, vicious dog. The closest one launched himself at her ankles, and she kicked it through the air like a football. Before it could fall to the ground it sprouted wings, metamorphosed into a black crow, and flew off, squawking its anger.

Then she was among them, kicking some, picking others up by the scruff of the neck and hurling them away, pounding on some with her shield. Every time contact was made the dog turned into a crow and flapped noisily away.

Finally just one small dog remained.

“You tell your creator that I don’t scare easily,” said Lara, approaching it.

Suddenly the dog’s entire demeanor changed. It turned away, tucked its tail between its legs, and ran off, yipping like a terrified puppy, leaving her to ponder whether the sorcerer had given up or a real dog had accidentally wandered into a pack of its supernatural brethren.

She held up the book to show whatever had directed her to the library that she still possessed it.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” she said into the dark, empty night.

The sigh of a breeze was her only answer.