They spent the rest of the day together, sitting in the shade, talking about anything that would take their minds off the clock ticking away, the evening drawing in. Alex tried to forget what Razim had said.
“. . . more pain than you have ever known . . .”
They talked about Brookland, about Sabina, about the apartment in Chelsea . . . about anything that would fill the silence. There was no sign of Julius Grief, and Razim seemed to have disappeared too. Maybe they were both inside. The sun was blazing down and there was barely any breeze. But slowly the light changed. The temperature began to cool. At half past three a guard appeared and, in broken English, told them that it was time to go back to their cells. Neither of them wanted to show any emotion in front of these people, so they embraced briefly.
“Good luck,” Alex whispered.
“I’ll come for you. I promise . . .”
They were led their separate ways.
Alex was taken to his cell. Jack’s was farther down the corridor, on the opposite side. Before the doors were locked, Alex was able to look around him, and he saw, with a heavy heart, that Razim was being true to his word. He was taking no chances. A wooden chair had been placed in the middle of the corridor and there was already another guard sitting there. If he heard the slightest sound, he would raise the alarm.
The two doors slammed shut. The keys were turned.
Time slowed down. Alex felt every minute as it lumbered past. He knew that all this was part of Razim’s plan. He wanted him to think about what lay ahead, and Alex tried as best he could to put it out of his mind.
“. . . more pain than you can begin to imagine . . .”
But of course he couldn’t. What were they going to do to him? Alex remembered the scorpions that he had seen that morning. Maybe that was their plan. No. Stop. Don’t even think of it. Don’t let your imagination do their work for them.
All too quickly, the sun began to set. Why couldn’t it hover in the sky a little longer? Why was it suddenly so eager for the end of day?
Darkness fell. The door swung open and Julius Grief was there.
He had also changed into a Cairo College uniform as if determined to mimic Alex to the bitter end. “It’s time!” he crowed. “I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this!”
There were two guards with him, both of them armed. Alex stood up. He had no choice. He stepped out into the corridor. There was no sign of Jack.
With Julius Grief striding ahead, the three of them led him out.
19
HELL IS HERE
ALEX COULDN’T MOVE.
He was sitting in a high-backed leather chair, strapped in place by soft cords around his wrists, his ankles, and his neck. No matter how much he struggled, they would make no mark. A series of wires ran down his naked chest. Each one had been carefully positioned and stuck in place by an unsmiling female technician in a white coat; she was the only woman Alex had seen since he had arrived at the fort. There were more wires attached to two of his fingers, his pulse, his forehead, and the side of his neck.
The air-conditioning had been turned up high and Alex could feel his own sweat chilling against his skin. With its thick, white-painted walls curving around him, the room reminded him of an oversized igloo. He was connected to a variety of machines that were already measuring everything that was happening inside him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a green dot pulsing across a screen, and he knew it was recording his heartbeat. The dot was moving very fast. He tried willing it to slow down, but he was no longer in control. Alex hated the way that he had been reduced to nothing more than a laboratory specimen, but there had been nothing he could do. They had finished by wheeling a large TV screen in front of him, and he had wondered what it was for. Was Razim going to show him some sort of horror film? Nothing could be worse than the horror that was all around him. For the moment, the television was turned off. The technician and the guards had withdrawn, leaving him alone.
Alex waited to see what would happen next. He thought about Jack. Even now there was a part of him that was more scared for her than for himself. He had been in situations like this before. A lot of unpleasant people had threatened him with a lot of unpleasant things, but somehow he had always come through. But this was all new to her. While he sat here, she would be putting her plan into operation, trying to escape. He just hoped she would take care. She had no idea what she was up against.
Footsteps on the concrete floor. Julius Grief had returned, this time in the company of Razim. The boy’s face was flushed with excitement and anticipation, and it made Alex’s stomach churn to see this grotesque version of himself capering toward him. Razim had changed into a pale gray collarless jacket and trousers that made him look like an upmarket dentist. He was wearing an earpiece with a wire snaking down behind his shoulder. As he stopped in front of the chair, the spotlights reflected in his spectacles and his eyes briefly disappeared behind two blazing circles of white.
“Are you afraid, Alex?” he asked.
Alex didn’t answer. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
“Would you like a glass of water before we begin?”
Still, Alex said nothing.
“A great many people have sat where you are sitting now,” Razim went on. “I have conducted many experiments in this room, and one day the world will be grateful for the information I have gathered. It is very unusual for me to have a teenager, and in normal circumstances it would suggest to me many possibilities.”
He reached out. He was standing next to a trolley covered with a sheet, and he uncovered it to reveal a long line of knives and scalpels, neatly laid out. Alex knew that he was doing it purposefully for effect. It was the act of a bad stage magician in a cheap theater. He tried not to look at the gleaming instruments. He already knew that he couldn’t break free. All he could do was sit and wait.
“As you can see, there are all sorts of ways that I could cause you pain, Alex,” Razim murmured. “My young friend Julius has ideas of his own. Left to himself, he would, I am sure, do unspeakable things to you, starting perhaps with your toes and working up. He would have enjoyed that very much. Unfortunately, I cannot allow him to go ahead. We are both somewhat limited, for reasons that I won’t go into at the moment. You cannot be marked in any way. No cuts or bruises! No bits missing! And so, with regret, we must say farewell to the knives and the syringes. There will be no bloodshed tonight.”
He covered the trolley and pushed it away.
“However, do not believe for a minute that this offers you some sort of easy way out. I have made it my life’s work to study pain in all its different forms, and the pain that I intend to inflict on you will be perhaps even worse. There are two instruments that I am going to use. Earlier today, I promised you hell. And now, my dear child, it is here.”
He reached down and took hold of two plastic boxes. Alex recognized one immediately. It was a remote control, presumably for the television screen in front of him. The other was similar, about the size of a mobile phone, with a single red button mounted in the center. Razim handed this to Julius, who took it gratefully, licking his lips and rolling it in his palm.
Razim tapped his earpiece as if awaiting instructions. “Are you ready, Alex?” he asked. “There’s something I want you to see.”
He turned on the TV.
Jack had begun working on the bar the moment she had heard Alex being taken from his cell. As the footsteps faded into the distance, she felt a black steel mesh of shock and disbelief slamming down in her mind. Jack had always thought the best of people. She had refused to believe that anyone could be completely heartless and evil. Her breakfast with Razim had proved her wrong.
She had seen the guard sitting outside in the corridor and had no idea if he was still there. She hoped that Razim wouldn’t have considered her important enough to watch over while he dealt with Alex. Even so, she would have to work quietly. And quickly. What were they going to do to him? How soon would they start? Jack felt the tears rising and angrily wiped them away. Crying wasn’t going to help Alex. She had to get out of here.
The window looked out onto a strip of sand and rubble with another building, possibly a storehouse, directly opposite. There were just two vertical bars, solid steel, set side by side, as if in a cartoon. She had to remove only one of them and she would have enough space to squeeze out. And one of them, as she had discovered, was loose.
The fruit knife that she had stolen from the breakfast table was small, with a blunt edge. Even if she had been able to use it to attack Razim, it was unlikely that she would have been able to do him much harm. But it was surprisingly effective against the crumbling brickwork that surrounded the bar. She was using it like a chisel, chipping away, making sure that the rubble fell into the cell where nobody could see it. The cement was very soft, almost like putty. And maybe it had rained—did it ever rain in the desert?—because it was damp to the touch. The bar was already wobbling. Soon she would be able to pull it free.
But how soon? Alex had been gone for about ten minutes and she dreaded to think what they might be doing to him. It was worse than that. She had to use all her mental strength not to think about Alex, to put him out of her mind. Otherwise, she would be too sick to continue. She was his only hope. She was going to break out and bring help. She had come all the way to Egypt to look after him and she wasn’t going to let him down.
She had scooped out a lot of the cement, forming a cavity around the bar. She pulled and it came free. It happened so suddenly that she actually dropped it, trying to grab it with fumbling fingers and only half catching it as, with a dull clang, it hit the floor. She froze, terrified that the sound of metal hitting concrete would alert the guard if he was still sitting outside. She waited a minute, her heart pounding. Nobody came. The door didn’t open.
She pulled herself up and stuck her head out of the gap she had made.
The cell block was in one corner of the fort—on the side opposite of Razim’s house. Leaning out, Jack could just glimpse the main courtyard with the salt pile that the guards had collected. The sun was setting and the sky had gone that strange color unique to the desert, something between blue and mauve and washed-out over the horizon as if recovering from the heat of the day. There was nobody in sight.
Jack was about to heave herself up, then had second thoughts and grabbed the metal bar and looped it through her belt. It was the only weapon she had and she might need it. Getting out of the cell wasn’t going to be easy. The bunk was in the wrong place and screwed down to the floor. There was no chair. She had to hoist herself up, using the muscles in her arms, and then pull her head and shoulders through the narrow space between the remaining bar and the edge of the window.
Somehow she managed to maneuver herself so that she was dangling half outside, and she twisted around, wincing as the loose metal bar dug into her stomach. For a moment she thought she was stuck. Her hips were the widest part of her body and they refused to pass through. She was almost prepared for the humiliation of being discovered and dragged back inside. If anyone walked around the back of the storehouse, they would be certain to see her. The thought gave her extra strength. One final squeeze and she had made it, falling in a tangle of arms and legs to the ground below.
She landed heavily, winding herself. There were marks all the way down the side of her body where she had positioned the bar. For about five seconds she didn’t move. Surely someone would have heard her. She had made so much noise! But perhaps the guards were at dinner. Perhaps they were helping to deal with Alex.
Alex . . . what are they doing to you? I can’t wait. I have to get help.
Nobody came. Jack picked up the bar and got to her feet. Now all she had to do was steal a car and drive away.
The main courtyard was about fifteen paces away, on her right, and this is where she headed, following the wall of the storehouse. It seemed to her that the shadows were darker on the other side, away from the prison block. The courtyard was where the cars were kept parked. She had seen them earlier. About halfway along, she came to an open doorway with a pile of crates and boxes stacked up around it. There were lights on inside—it was already night—and she peered in nervously. It was a kitchen. There was a fridge, a microwave oven, some cupboards, a table, and chairs. Maybe this was where the guards came to eat and relax when they were off duty. But there was nobody there now.
She continued to the end, crouching low in case one of the guards was positioned on the rope bridge that stretched high up from wall to wall. The whole fort seemed to be abandoned. Her pulse raced. There was a car, a very old and beaten-up Land Rover, parked right in front of her. Incredibly, she could even see the keys in the ignition. Surely it couldn’t be as easy as this!
It wasn’t. A young, bearded guard was standing right next to it, leaning on the hood, smoking a cigarette. There was a rifle slung over his shoulder. To get the car, she would have to get past him. Or she could knock him out with the bar. But she would never be able to sneak up on him without being heard. Sound carried too easily in the desert evening, particularly when surrounded by the great silence of the sands. Somehow she had to distract him. She had to make him come to her.