He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [147]
“I know.”
“Are you alone?”
The pale-blue eyes rolled toward Ramses and then looked down. Emerson had managed to knot the strip of cloth by holding one end between his teeth. With his lips drawn back, he looked like a wolf chewing on a victim’s torn garments. The German swallowed.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“Take you back to Cairo,” Ramses said, since his father was still tying knots. “First we have a few questions. I strongly advise you to answer truthfully. My father is not a patient man and he is already rather annoyed with you.”
“You torture prisoners?” The boy tried to sneer. He can’t be much over twenty, Ramses thought. Just the right age for a job like this—all afire to die for the Fatherland or the Motherland or some equally amorphous cause, but not really believing death can touch him. He must have attended school in England.
“Good Gad, no,” Emerson said. “But I cannot guarantee what will happen to you in Cairo. You are in enemy uniform, my lad, and you know what that means. Cooperate with us and you may not have to face a firing squad. First I want your name and the name of the man who sent you here.”
“My name . . .” He hesitated. “Heinrich Fechter. My father is a banker in Berlin.”
“Very good,” Emerson said encouragingly. “I sincerely hope you may live to see him again one day. Who sent you?”
“I . . .” He ran his tongue over his lips. “I see I must yield. You have won. I salute you.”
He raised his left hand. Ramses saw it coming, but the split second it took him to comprehend the boy’s real intent was a split second too long. The muscles of his hand and arm had locked in anticipation of an attempt to seize the gun; before he could turn the weapon away the young German’s thumb found Ramses’s trigger finger and pressed it. The heavy-caliber bullet blew the top of his head off in a grisly cloud of blood and brains, splintered bone and hair.
“Christ!” Ramses stumbled to his feet and turned away, dropping the pistol. The night air was cold, but not as cold as the icy horror that sent shivers running through his body.
His father put Ramses’s coat over his bare shoulders and held it there, his hands firm and steadying. “All right now?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
“Never apologize for feeling regret and pity. Not to me. Well. Let’s get at it, shall we?”
It was a vile, horrible task, but he was up to it now. The search produced a set of skillfully forged documents, including a tattered photograph of a sweet-faced gray-haired woman who was probably not the boy’s mother. Emerson pocketed them. “Shall we try to find his horse?”
“We can’t leave it here to die of thirst.”
“No, but to search this terrain in the dark is to risk a broken leg. We will send someone to look for it in the morning, and for his camp.”
There was one more thing. Neither of them had to suggest it; they set to work in silent unanimity, deepening the shallow depression in the corner of the wall. Ramses wrapped his coat round the shattered head before they moved the body. A good hard push sent the remains of the wall tumbling down over the grave.
“Do you remember his name?” Emerson asked.
“Yes.” It was not likely he would ever forget it, or neglect the request implicit in that single answer to their questions. Someday the banker in Berlin would know that his son had died a hero, for whatever comfort that might give him.
Another death, another dead end, Ramses thought. It appeared there was to be no easy way out.
He got the canteen from the body of Emerson’s horse and gave Risha a drink before he addressed his father. “D’you want to go on ahead? You can make better time alone. I’ll be all right here.”
“Good Gad, no. What if I fell off again? You go. I’ll wait here.”
He knew exactly what his father had in mind, and now he had no hesitation in saying so. “You want to explore your bloody damned ruins, don’t you? If you think I am going to leave you stumbling round in the dark, without food or water or transport, you can think