Scorpia Rising

“You heard what I said.”
    A second man had crept up behind him and dragged him to his feet. Both of them were in their thirties, clean shaven, with sunglasses. The man with the gun had spoken with an American accent.
    “We have a car. We’re going to walk you there. If you do anything, we’ll shoot.”
    Alex didn’t doubt them. There was a seriousness about them, a sense that they knew exactly what they were doing. This was something they had done before. One man stood in front of him. The other was right behind. Alex felt himself being lifted up and frog-marched into the road. There was a gray Chevrolet parked right in front of him. For a brief moment he considered a countermove. Right now, before it was too late, jabbing with an elbow, then swinging around to kick out.
    But the man had been expecting it. Suddenly his arm was seized and twisted behind his back. “Don’t even think of it,” he said.
    Alex was bundled in. He was facedown on the backseat of the Chevrolet. The door slammed. Both men had gotten into the front.
    The road was clogged up with traffic but the car swerved around, performing a U-turn. And then they were clear, picking up speed, leaving the dead man and the wreckage of the House of Gold far behind.

14

    THE BELL ROOM

    THEY DROVE FOR FORTY MINUTES, heading for one of the many suburbs that were hardly separate from the city itself. That was the thing about Cairo. It was almost impossible to say where one area ended and the next began. If ever a city could be described as sprawling, this was it.
    Alex tried to work out where they were going but soon gave up. He was lying on the backseat with his head facing the floor. This was what the two men had instructed. For the first part of the journey, he did what he was told, feeling, as the car lurched left and right, like a rat caught in a maze. But the farther they went from the House of Gold, the more the two men relaxed, and he was able to twist around so that at least he had a partial view out of the window. Most of what he saw was sky, but a few landmarks flashed by—the hideous modern construction that was the Cairo Tower, the American university, the minaret of one of the main mosques. Alex made a note of them. Later on, it might help to work out where he had been taken.
    He had been dripping wet when the journey began, but somehow—a combination of the heat and the air conditioning—he dried out a little as they continued. Eventually, the driver signaled and the car began to slow down. Alex guessed they had arrived and he tried to sit up, determined to see where they were.
    He was pushed down immediately. But in that one brief second he was just able to see an old-fashioned, possibly abandoned office block and a sign that read Cairo Islamic Authority before they turned off the road and drove down a ramp leading underneath the building.
    The Islamic Authority? Alex wondered what he had gotten himself into. Why should a religious group have any interest in him?
    The car stopped. There was a third man waiting for them. The back door was thrown open and Alex was dragged out. He found himself standing in a drab underground garage illuminated by strip lights that threw a hard white gloss over the concrete walls and floors. One of the lights was malfunctioning, buzzing and flickering. It made the place more nightmarish than it already was. There were about a dozen other cars already parked but no other drivers. Alex was alone with three dangerous men. Their hostility bristled in the air.
    For the moment none of them spoke, and Alex was able to examine them for the first time. They were all of a type, about the same age, all in dark suits and white ties. They reminded Alex of the sort of people who went around towns knocking on doors, trying to convert you to some religion. The man who had first approached him—and who seemed to be in charge—was built like an American football player with huge shoulders and a thick neck. He had a small upturned nose, fair hair cut like a nail brush, and watery blue eyes. His partner was similarly built, fit, possibly ex-army. His hair was dark and he was obviously mixed race . . . Native American, maybe. The third man, the one who had been waiting, was black, angry looking, smaller, and lighter on his feet than the others. He was looking at Alex with disbelief.
    “Is this him?” he demanded.
    “Yeah.” The fair-haired man nodded.
    “What about Habib?”
    “Habib is probably dead. The boat blew