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ear. The child stared up at Hilts and nodded. The money vanished beneath his ragged, dirty robe.
    “Imshee, imshee!”
said Hilts. The boy looked quickly up at Finn, tears still hot in his eyes, then kissed her hand and ran. The child stopped for an instant beside the dead swordsman, kicked dirt onto his face and spit, then clutched the blood-soaked handle of the machete and dragged it away with him, leaving a thin, telltale trace as the point furrowed through the hard-packed earth. In the distance Finn could hear the faint sounds of whistles blowing.
    “We’ve got to get out of here,” said Hilts. He pushed his two Nikons into the carrier bag, handed over Finn’s helmet and slipped on his own. He swung onto the motorcycle. “Come on.”
    Finn climbed on behind him. The sirens were closer now. “Tell me how to say ’thank you’ again,” she said quietly.
    “Shukran,”
Hilts answered.
    She looked at the frail young body of Baqir, sprawled in the dirt. A huge pool of dusty blood surrounded his head and shoulders, and already the flies were gathering.
    “Shukran,
Baqir,” she whispered softly, and pulled down her visor. Hilts fired up the engine, revved it once, and then they raced away, leaving the City of the Dead behind them.
     
     
     

7
     
     
    Hilts delivered the Norton back to its owner then walked back along the tree-shaded street to where he’d dropped Finn off at the Hotel Longchamps. She sat at a secluded table in one corner of the second-floor terrace, sipping a cup of American coffee and looking out over the upscale neighborhood on the island of Zamalek. Here there was nothing of the terrible scenes she had just witnessed. No crowds, ho haze of choking dust, just the quiet movement of traffic on the pleasant street below, the rustle of a breeze in the trees and a distant glimpse of the river a few blocks away. It could just as easily have been somewhere in Westchester or Mount Vernon. The City of the Dead was nothing more than a distant whispered nightmare in a place like this. Beside her, Hilts sat down, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. He ordered a tall glass of iced tea and then ignored it for a long while.
    Finn spoke at last. “I just saw a little boy murdered and I saw you shoot a man to death and you made it look like target practice. You made it look as though it wasn’t the first time. The police are looking for whoever killed that man and I’m involved and I want to know just what the hell is going on.”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “What about that man who was chasing after me? Who was he?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “He couldn’t have known I’d be there unless you told him.”
    “I never saw him before. All I know is that one of Baqir’s kids found me and told me you were in trouble and I came after you.”
    “With a gun.”
    “That’s right, with a gun.”
    “Explain that.”
    “That’s why I went to the City of the Dead in the first place. It’s not as easy as it used to be to just put a handgun in your luggage and bring it through customs.”
    “I thought you were there to take pictures.”
    “I was.”
    “So if I phoned
National Geographic
they’d know what I was talking about.”
    “Talk to a guy named Russ Tamblyn.”
    “You still haven’t explained about the gun.”
    “It was necessary.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I don’t trust Adamson for one thing, and I don’t like our so-called liaison with the Libyan government.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “A man named Mustapha Hisnawi. He’s supposed to be some kind of archaeologist, but from what I hear he’s also a full-tilt colonel in the
Haiat amn al Jamahiriya
: the Jamahiriya Security Organization. The Libyan Secret Police.”
    “Where do you come by that kind of information?”
    “I’ve got a lot of friends, and like I told you, I read a lot.”
    “You seem to shoot a lot too.”
    “From time to time.”
    “Where did you learn that particular skill? Not from reading books.”
    “Boy