T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

In response, the young man addressed the driver with fluent ease. Immediately the driver began pouring forth his story, raising his voice every time a policeman happened by. Clearly he was terrified at being drawn into a tragedy not of his making.

Wynn had to lean against the wall to wedge his hand into his pocket and pry his wallet loose. It was not so much that he was tired as every action required furious concentration and strength of will. His hands shook violently as he peeled open the sticky billfold. Then he found that he could not make the bills come apart. So he extended the entire wad. “Here.”

The driver’s avarice overcame his aversion to touching a hand caked with someone else’s life, or taking bills drenched with calamity. The driver used both hands to accept the money, then lifted the payment to his forehead as he murmured a formal thanks, not realizing he smudged his brow with Sybel’s blood.

The young man from the embassy watched it all with round amazed eyes. “Congressman, if you’ll excuse me, I think you’re going into shock.”

“You’re wrong there.” Steadying himself on the wall, Wynn made his way down the hall and sank onto a bench. “I took that corner about three hours ago.”

Kay Trilling was seated farther along the same uncomfortable bench, talking with another embassy official. She waited as Wynn eased himself down, then reached over and took his hand. “You need to let the doctor give you something.”

“I’m not hurt.”

“Wynn,” she said, her voice softened by sorrow. “Honey, let the doctor give you a pill.”

She signaled a passing nurse, and within moments he was given water and a couple of pills. Not long after, the world receded somewhat, cushioned behind a foul-tasting fog.

From within his chemical cocoon he observed the approach of another American, this one senior enough to draw both the junior officials and the security detail to attention. The new man identified himself as the chief of the embassy’s American Citizen Services Section, responsible for dealing with all problems between visitors and the local government. He apologized that the ambassador was in Alexandria attending a ministerial conference. He inspected Wynn’s blood-drenched form and spoke faster. By his mere presence he forced the process along. Soon they found themselves being ushered downstairs, through a few yards of stinging wind, and into the comfort of an embassy limousine.

The chief aide filled the limo with mindless chatter, telling them that the Egyptian embassy was the biggest in the world, with thirty-nine federal government agencies. Egypt was America’s largest recipient of foreign aid after Israel, which guaranteed their current problem would be looked after well. They would spend the night in the new ambassador’s residence, which stood within the embassy compound. Kay interrupted his attempt to seal out the tragedy by repeating what she had already told several more junior staffers, that Nabil Saad was one of her own aides, on secondment from the World Bank. Instantly the man used his cellphone, speaking in tones too hushed for Wynn to catch. Wynn regretted the absence of the man’s droning lecture. Anything was better than being forced to hear the howling storm.

The next morning the wind still bit fiercely as Wynn crossed the embassy compound and took the elevator to the ambassador’s suite on the main building’s twelfth floor. He stood by the outer office window, staring at a city without edges. This stormy Cairo lacked the softness of glistening fog or rain-drenched clouds. Instead, the world was harshly indistinct. Even the river flowed feverish and yellow.

The ambassador’s secretary was busy on the phone, arguing relentlessly in the quiet way of one experienced with Arabic etiquette. She hung up finally and said, “The National Security and Investigation Office is handling this matter. It appears they will let you go this afternoon. You will need to make a formal statement, and for that you’ll have to go to the Gamal, that’s the tall building on Tahrir Square. The square is-”

“I know the square and I know the Gamal.”

“Ease up, Wynn.”

He turned to see Kay seated in the corner, giving him a look of quiet reproach. He had not even known she was in the room.

“I’m sorry, Congressman. But it appears unlikely the Egyptian authorities will release your sister’s body until after the inquest. On that point they remain adamant.”

He gritted his teeth and nodded. Once. He was not yet ready to speak about that. “I want to go to the hospital and see Nabil.”

“Sir, the storm is raging. Not to mention the fact that the police still haven’t apprehended your attackers.”

“That was not a request.”

Kay walked over to offer support. “Surely you have security detail who could accompany us.”

“Yes, but-”

“I want to go alone, Kay.”

She inspected his face, then accepted his decision with a single nod. “Tell Nabil I’ll be by later. I’m working to have him flown back to the U.S. for treatment. I spoke with the ambassador last night. It’s not simply a matter of hospital care. There is too great a risk the state security will try and pin the matter on him, as an Egyptian and a Copt. I don’t want to risk his being interrogated after I’m gone. Tell him I’ll be by as soon as the matter is taken care of. The ambassador has tasked it out to his best men.”

Wynn left the embassy compound in the ambassador’s bulletproof limo, accompanied by three sharp-eyed men bearing automatic weapons. They drove to the new Kasr Elani Teaching Hospital on the banks of the Nile. Wynn emerged from the limo, turned his back to the river, cupped his hands about his eyes, and stared across the street. He was surrounded by a dead wind, a breath of hatred and hopelessness.

“Sir?”

Wynn remained where he was. He recognized that building opposite the new hospital. The battered entrance was branded into his bones. “That’s the old hospital, isn’t it?”

“Sir, please come inside.”

Wynn swiveled about. “I asked you a question.”

“Yes, sir, that is the old hospital. But your driver is here. We know, sir. We checked.”

“He is not my driver. He is my friend and colleague.”

Angrily the officer by the door waved him forward. “Please come away from the exposed street now, sir.”

They flanked him and refused to permit anyone to share the elevator. Upstairs there was a moment’s angry confrontation before Wynn pulled rank and insisted on seeing Nabil alone. Two men inspected the room before permitting him to enter.

Nabil was awake and watching him. Wynn passed on Kay’s message while standing by the door. Wanting it over and done with. Nabil clearly understood, for he said nothing until Wynn was seated beside the bed. Then he asked, “Your sister, she is gone?”

Wynn glanced down at his hands and their invisible stain.

“What you did, sir, that was the bravest deed I have ever seen.”

“Call me Wynn.” He leaned back, flooded by all that was past. Perhaps it was the smell and the noise and the metal bed and the same gray despair seeping from the walls. Or perhaps it was because of his own helpless fatigue. He knew Nabil was watching him. Wynn had no strength to hold back the deluge. “I remember watching my parents die.”

Nabil shifted slightly, his body held by strappings and tubes. But it was enough of a motion to show he was totally awake.

“When we came into the hospital room, my father was rolled over on his side. His eyes were open. But he didn’t see me at all.”

Outside the room a metal trolley rattled noisily down the hall, the wheels banging and squeaking like the chuckles of cold death. “Then they took us downstairs, but the nurses spotted us kids and tried to keep us from going down the corridor. But I heard Mom screaming. I pushed through them and ran. I came through the door. Mom was lying there with her hair plastered down and her face purple and her mouth was open so wide.”