Scorpia Rising

drivers and tour operators clamoring on the other side of the arrivals gate.
    The heat hit Alex full in the face. As they passed through the sliding doors, leaving the terminal behind them, it was almost like stepping into a furnace. Within seconds his clothes were sticking to him and he felt his case dragging him down. Meanwhile, Blakeway was looking around the concourse.
    “Where’s Ahmed? I told him I’d be only a few minutes. Ah! There he is!”
    He waved at an official-looking black sedan that drew up in front of him, and a small, round-faced man in a white shirt and dark pants leapt out and began to busy himself with the luggage.
    “That’s better. You two can hop in the back. The car’s got air-conditioning, thank goodness. It shouldn’t take us too long to get across Cairo—apart from the blasted traffic.”
    A minute later they were on their way. The car was cool inside and the seats were soft and comfortable, but Alex couldn’t relax. He was worn out from the long journey and although he desperately wanted to fall asleep, he knew it wasn’t going to happen. London didn’t just seem a six-hour flight away. It was another world, and part of him wondered when he would see it again. What a fool he had been to think that MI6 would ever leave him alone. Perhaps it had been the same for his uncle, Ian Rider—and for his parents. They had all discovered the same thing. In the end, there was no way out.
    Sitting next to him, with her head resting against the window, Jack Starbright seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. She was wearing large sunglasses that covered most of her face, along with a floppy white hat, but he could tell that she was concerned about him. She suddenly reached across and put a hand on his arm.
    “We don’t have to stay,” she said quietly, so that Blakeway wouldn’t hear.
    “I know.”
    “I noticed a flight to New York leaving in three hours. We could be on it.”
    “We’re here now, Jack. We might as well see what it’s like.”
    Was it even true? Alex wondered what would happen if he asked the car to turn around, if he tried to get back on a plane. Would MI6 let him leave Cairo? Alan Blunt wanted him here and that was where he was. There would be no departure until the job had been done.
    “All right in the back?” Blakeway asked. He might have overheard them talking after all. “We’ve got some water here if you need it. Just shout . . .”
    He had said the traffic would be bad and he hadn’t been exaggerating. It was horrendous. They had joined a six-lane motorway, but there still wasn’t enough room for the thousands of cars jammed together, the drivers beeping at each other furiously as if it would make any difference at all. Alex stared out the window. It seemed to him that they had driven into a nightmare of steel and concrete, of sand and dust. Old-fashioned office blocks stood next to crumbling houses. Here and there, slender towers rose over the domes of mosques, but they were hemmed in by radio masts, electricity pylons, and cranes, tons and tons of ironwork fighting for control of the sky. Alex’s first impression was that Cairo was a very ugly city. It certainly wasn’t somewhere he would have chosen to live.
    Somehow they fought their way through to the other side. The traffic thinned out a little and they found themselves in a suburb, quieter and less densely populated than the city center but still less than welcoming. Everything seemed half finished. They were driving down a street with palm trees and expensive Arabic-style villas on one side, but piles of rubble and broken-down fences on the other. For the first time, Alex saw the desert. It was there, in the mid-distance, an endless wave of drab yellow sand. It was as if Cairo didn’t dare go any farther. It just stopped. And next to it there was nothing.
    “Not much farther,” Blakeway said. He sounded remarkably cheerful. Alex wondered how long he had been here. He turned to the driver and said something in Arabic. The two of them laughed.
    And then they drove into a bright, modern complex, the automatic gates opening and closing behind them. It was called Golden Palm Heights, a private community of about fifty bleached-out houses and apartments surrounding well-kept lawns with sprinklers twisting in the sunshine and a good-sized swimming pool. It reminded Alex of a vacation village the sort of place you might rent for a week in the sun. The sedan drew in beside a neat block of