The Amulet of Power - Mike Resnick [57]
“Well?” asked Mason.
“We have eluded all but one of them,” announced Omar.
“What happens now?”
“Now you and Lara go to work.” He turned to Gaafar. “You know what to do.”
Gaafar nodded and walked into the open doorway of a small fabric store.
“We just walk?” asked Mason.
“That is correct,” answered Omar. “Hassam and I will accompany you.”
“And what about the man who’s following us?”
“He won’t be following us once he passes the fabric store,” said Omar with a grim smile.
“Well,” said Lara to Mason, “where do you want to go first—the library, the National Museum, or the Ethnographical Museum?”
“I don’t suppose it matters,” answered Mason. “Sooner or later we have to see them all.”
“Let’s start at the National Museum, then,” she said. “It’s the largest of the three.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Mason. He looked around. “Which way is it?”
“You’re kidding!” said Lara. “Your father contributed two rooms’ worth to it. They named the Kevin Mason Gallery after him.”
“I’m all turned around,” he explained. “It was eluding those men. I couldn’t even tell you where the Nile is.”
“Follow me,” said Lara, leading the party to El Gamaa Avenue. They reached the Botanical Gardens in a couple of blocks, and a large brick building loomed up behind all the foliage.
“Do you know where you are now?” asked Lara.
“Of course,” said Mason.
She turned to Omar. “Are you two coming in with us?”
“I will join you,” he answered. “Hassam will guard the entrance.”
“Why bother?” asked Mason. “He can’t stop anyone from entering.”
“You’d be surprised at what he can do,” replied Omar.
“I mean, it would draw too much attention.”
“To whom?” asked Omar with a smile.
“Ah!” said Mason approvingly. “I see! It will cause enough of a commotion that we’ll be forewarned and can leave by a different exit.”
“All right,” said Lara. “If we hear a fight, we’ll find another way out.”
“And if they’re already waiting inside,” added Mason, “I’ve got a gun in my shoulder holster and I’m sure you’ve got your pistols under those robes. But I doubt they’ll attack us here. They’ve got to have figured out that if we’re here researching Gordon and the Mahdi, we don’t have the Amulet yet, so why rush things when we still might lead them to it?”
“That logic might work for the Mahdists,” said Lara. “But not the Silent Ones.”
“The who?” asked Mason.
Lara explained as they climbed the stairs leading to the main entrance of the museum. Omar, Mason, and Lara walked through it; Hassam remained behind.
“All right,” said Lara. “Shall we split up or do it together?”
“Together,” said Omar before Mason could answer. “If you split up, I can’t watch you both.”
“Watch Lara,” said Mason. “I can take care of myself.”
“If you insist,” said Omar. “We’ll meet you back here in two hours.”
Mason headed off to the far end of the museum, and Lara turned to Omar.
“You agreed awfully fast,” she said. “I thought you wanted to keep an eye on both of us.”
“That was just good manners,” replied Omar. “You are the one we are counting on, so you are the one I will guard.”
“All right,” she said. “It’s too hot to argue. Let me get to a museum directory. I need to find what they have on Gordon and the Mahdi, and if possible I’d like to see a map of Khartoum as it was in 1885.”
She soon found herself in the Gordon Room, which was filled with photos of the man, medals he’d won in China and the Sudan, a proclamation he had signed years before the siege in which he abolished all slavery in the Sudan, a portrait that had been painted in his home in England a year before he’d been summoned to defend Khartoum, and a trio of original manuscripts for religious monographs he had written. His sword and pistol were in display cases, as were three of his uniforms. There was even a glass case containing the saddle he had used when directing the Battle of Omdurman, and another displaying the telescope with which he studied the Mahdi’s forces across the river during the siege.
There were no photos of the Mahdi, but there was a jeweled dagger that was