Chapter Six: Dismantle the Sun

'Jonathan, can you make this thing go any faster?'

'Just because I choose not to apply my foot to the accelerator like a sledgehammer-'

A low growl came from the man in the passenger seat.

'Yes, right, speeding up now. See?'

The increase in speed did not earn Jonathan any approbation, but merely another glare and a muttered, 'About damn time.'

The journey had been tense from the beginning - Jonathan's car needed a great deal of coaxing before it would actually start and by the time they finally pulled away, Rick's nerves were reaching breaking point.

Night falls quickly in Africa: unlike England, there is no long period of twilight. Once the magnificent sunset has faded, darkness claims the land and sky. By the time Jonathan and Rick reached the Museum, a moody, ruddy glow on the horizon was all that was left of the setting sun.

The Museum itself was in darkness; only one window emitted a faint light.

'See?' Jonathan said cheerfully. 'Evy's just working late. Nothing at all to worry about.' He slid down in his seat, pulling his hat over his eyes. 'I'll wait here while you go and get her. Only, just a word of advice, old man: try not to drag her out by the hair. Girls don't really go for that anymore.'

Rick slammed the car door and leaned across it. 'Get out of the car.'

'Yes, right, of course.'

The street was deserted. Rick glanced around cautiously. There was nothing unusual, nothing that seemed out of place, but he just couldn't shake the sense of foreboding.

'This door should be locked.'

Jonathan rolled his eyes. 'It's a museum - it is open to the public, you know.'

'At this time of night?'

'Paranoia isn't your most appealing quality, O'Connell. Evy's not going to lock up when she's still in here.'

He chose to ignore Jonathan's comments and moved silently through the massive entrance hall: his footsteps falling silently on the stone floor, his keen eyes piercing the gloom.

Jonathan was less silent. His voice was reduced to a whisper, but he still maintained his trademark stream of chatter. It was, Rick had concluded on their first adventure, a habit acquired merely to conceal his nerves.

He suddenly flattened himself against the wall and drew out his gun, the click of the safety catch sounding preternaturally loud in the heavy silence.

'Oh I say, O'Connell, there's no need to shoot the girl just because she's lost track...' His words died away as he noticed the thing that had attracted Rick's attention.

A dark, motionless shape lay huddled on the floor.

Jonathan felt his chest painfully constrict painfully and there was a distinct roaring in his ears. O'Connell had his gun raised, ready for action; his hands, Jonathan noticed, were enviably steady. His soldier's training kicking in, no doubt.

They approached the prostrate figure, O'Connell nudging it with the toe of his boot so that it rolled onto its back, the light illuminating its face.

'Bob,' Jonathan murmured with a sigh of relief. 'Er, is he..?'

O'Connell crouched beside the body, dexterous fingers pressing against Bob's neck.

'He's just knocked out.'

The discovery of Bob's inert form seemed to break the tension of O'Connell's self-control: he sprang up, calling for Evelyn, his voice echoing in the cavernous spaces of the exhibition rooms.

Jonathan plunged after him, cursing under his breath. They reached the library stacks, a dull glow emanating from one of the gloomy rows telling them where Evelyn had been working. They advanced cautiously. Piles of books, all neatly stacked and classified, were usually dotted around the room, waiting to be placed on the shelves.

Most of these books were now strewn across the floor and the lamp was on its side, the low light casting weird shadows and illuminating a few dark, red droplets.

'Oh...oh no!' Jonathan willed himself to look away, but couldn't. Images of what could have happened playing themselves across his vision in lurid colour.

For the first time, Rick's hand - still grasping his gun - started to shake.

The man watched as Evelyn's inert form was deposited onto the bed. Under other circumstances, he may have been considered good-looking: his blonde hair was darkened to a rich honey shade by the pomade he wore and his eyes gleamed green in his tanned face. But the look of triumph, the light of the fanatic in those green eyes, marred his features.

'Was it really necessary to hit her?' he enquired casually, observing the bruise that was flowering across Evelyn's cheekbone.

The Egyptian who had been carrying her straightened up with a grunt. 'I had to.' He gestured to a gash across his own temple. 'She fought back. Effendi,' he added as an afterthought.

His employer, however, seemed quite happy with the term of deference, no matter how grudgingly expressed. He looked down at the unconscious girl: her heavy breathing betrayed the fact that her slumber was drug induced. A few unruly curls, loosened during her struggle, were clinging to her face.

'I wouldn't have thought Evelyn would be the type to put up a fight. She must have changed, over the years.'

His companion cast a venomous look at Evelyn and muttered under his breath. Almost being bested by a woman - and a small English one, at that - was more than just a blow to his pride. It was the only the presence of the white man that prevented him from exacting a grim revenge.

'There is still work to be done, Ahmed. You know what to do.'

'Yes, effendi.'

'Good, We'll leave the lady to her rest, eh?'

The two men withdrew, locking the heavy door on Evelyn and her dreamless sleep.

'We should call the police,' Jonathan stated. He was impressed by how steady his own voice sounded.

O'Connell paused in his task of checking one of his many guns and looked up at him. 'And what, exactly, do you think that would accomplish? The Egyptian authorities aren't going to be too concerned about the disappearance of an English girl.' His calm was maddening. Or it would have been, had his eyes not been burning so furiously. 'We'll get her back.'

Jonathan remembered the last time he heard those words - right after Imhotep had taken Evelyn. Then, O'Connell had been like a force of nature: merciless, relentless, unstoppable. In the midst of the current cataclysm, it was oddly comforting to have him on the same side.

Rick resumed his task, not so much because his weaponry needed checking - he always kept it in good condition - but because it provided a focus; something to do with his hands while he tried to figure out what to do next. Something to keep him from strangling the next person he met, whether they were involved in Evelyn's kidnapping or not.

Jonathan paced the room. 'But why take her? Who? Unless... Oh God, it couldn't be old Mummy-Curse-Boy, could it? Could it?'

Nah,' Rick didn't bother to meet Jonathan's horror stricken gaze. 'He's dead. Trust me.' He slid the clip into position emphatically. 'Soul ripped out, fatal stabbing, body sucked into a big ol' vat of black goo. You don't get much deader than him, believe me.'

'Oh well, that's comforting.'

Rick froze momentarily. Sometimes they sounded so alike...

Jonathan rubbed a hand over his face. 'What time is it?' The strain of the last few hours was starting to show - the circles under his eyes were almost black, giving his cheerful face an uncharacteristically hangdog expression.

'A little after four. You should try to get some sleep,' he added kindly.

'Don't think I could, old boy.' Jonathan paused by the drinks tray and poured himself a generous measure of brandy. In his mind's eye he could see his sister's disapproving expression and nearly put the glass down. His nerves screamed at him and won the argument. The alcohol seared the back of his throat, but the familiar, comfortably warming sensation started to spread through his body.

'It's gonna be a long day. Get your rest while you can.'

Jonathan nodded wearily. Where they were to begin looking, he had no idea. There was nothing to go on. When Bob had regained consciousness, all he had been able to tell them was that Miss Evelyn had still been working and then he had been attacked from behind. Even O'Connell's network of dubious associates could not, Jonathan feared, shed much light on the proceedings.

He didn't dare ask whether O'Connell felt equally pessimistic.

'I think I'll take your advice. Get some shuteye. You?'

Rick placed the gun in its holster. 'Gonna take a little walk. I need some air.'

He didn't walk far. While he was confident that they were in no immediate danger, he didn't want to stray too far from Jonathan, just in case someone decided to mount an attack on the second Carnahan sibling. Rick prowled around the ground floor, wandering into the courtyard and back into the foyer again. There was no-one else stirring, only the night porter sitting behind the reception desk, his heavy-lidded eyes closing as he propped himself up one elbow.

It was easier, Rick thought, before he had met Evelyn. Then, he would complete a mission or offensive or whatever it was he had been ordered to do and then make sure that he forgot as much of it as possible before embarking on the next one. It was how he had been able to keep going.

And now there was life after Evelyn.

Which meant that there was nothing else in the world outside of her.

He stomped back up the stairs, marvelling over what it was that this petite, not as innocent as she seemed, English librarian had done to him. How it was that every breath he drew, every beat of his heart found its reason for being in her.

Rick stood in the corridor, his eyes drawn towards her door. Part of him wanted to go in there, to breath in her scent that he knew would still be in the air. He fumbled in his pocket, staring dumbly at the object he pulled out.

Her glasses. He had found them on the floor in the library, one of the lenses cracked right across.

He couldn't go into her room knowing that she wouldn't be there, knowing that she wouldn't suddenly appear before him. Madness lay that way. He shoved the glasses back into his pocket and strode resolutely down the corridor.

Jonathan was still fully dressed, lying on top of his bed, still clutching a half-full glass of brandy to his chest. Rick prised the glass out of his hands and then finished what was left of it. No point in letting good liquor go to waste.

The night sky had faded to a dull steely grey - the colourless precursor to the dawn. Rick closed the shutters against the encroaching light and then stretched out on the mattress. One hand behind his head he stared, dry-eyed, at the ceiling.

Evelyn was smart and tough. She had faced horrors that would have made grown men weep with terror and barely flinched. He would find her and she would be fine. And then they would all live happily ever after.

The thought became a sacred mantra.

He hadn't meant to fall asleep.

The shrill scream of the telephone, however, yanked him out of the troubled, semi-doze he had fallen into shortly before dawn. He rolled over, one hand groping blindly for the receiver. He could hear Jonathan mumbling on the other side of the room.

'Uh, hello?'

He heard the switchboard operator telling him to wait and then a click.

'Mr O'Connell?' It was a soft, feminine voice that he didn't recognise.

'Yeah. Who's this?'

'Selina. Selina Marshall? We met the other night, at the Embassy reception.'

Even through the fug of sleep he could hear the tension in her voice. 'Selina. Sure. Er, what was it you wanted?'

'I need to talk to you.'

'Look, now isn't a very good time. Why don't-'

'It's about Evelyn.'

Rick sat bolt upright, fully awake.

'Evelyn? What the hell happened? Where is she?'

The exclamation had evidently roused Jonathan - the older man had leaped from his bed and was now crouched anxiously near the receiver. Rick swatted him away irritably.

'I can't tell you over the telephone,' Selina replied, breathlessly. 'Can you meet me? You and Jonathan both.'

'Why don't you just tell me what-'

'I can't! Please. You have to come. Immediately. Do you know the Cafe Arabique? It's near the suq.'

'Yeah, I know it.'

'Be there in half an hour. Both of you.'

'Okay, okay, I'll be there. We'll both be there.'

'Good.'

Another click told him she had rung off. Rick stared at the receiver for a moment before replacing it.

'Well?' Jonathan exploded in agonised tones.

'That was Selina Marshall.'

'Oh for God's sake, you great American oaf, I gathered that much! What did she say?'

'She wants to meet us in half-an-hour. Apparently she has something to tell us.'

The full heat of the day had not yet built up, but even at this time of the morning the air is so warm that by them time one has finished dressing, another shower feels necessary. The bustling life of this vibrant city had not awoken - one of the few times of day when Cairo is relatively quiet. A few scruffy dogs set up half-hearted barks as the two men got into the car, but soon lost interest and fell silent.

Jonathan turned the key in the ignition. The engine let out a half-hearted rattle, sputtered and fell silent.

'For God's sake!' Jonathan hit the dashboard.

'Jonathan...'

'I don't know why I bloody keep this thing, I really bloody don't!'

'Jonathan!'

The blast rattled the windows in the surrounding streets.

A plume of black smoke reached upward, scarring the clear blue of the early morning sky. What was left of the car - a twisted hunk of metal - lay burning in the street.