over the Maestranza,? she said. ?Whatever you did has sent them into a frenzy.?
But Bourne didn?t hear her; he was already passed out.
Soraya and Amun Chalthoum arrived in Al Ghardaqah just before noon. Not that many years before, it had been nothing more than a modest fishing village, but a combination of Egyptian initiative and foreign investment had turned it into the leading Red Sea resort. The hub of the town was El Dahar, the oldest of the three sections, home to the traditional villas and bazaar. As was the case with most Egyptian coastal towns, Al Ghardaqah did not venture far inland, but rather clung to the shore of the Red Sea as if for dear life. The Sekalla district was more modern, made ugly by the proliferation of cheap hotels. El Korra Road was prettier, filled with upscale hotels, lush plantings, lavish fountains, and walled private compounds owned by Russian moguls with nothing better to do with their easy money.
They hit the fishermen first, what was left of them, anyway?time and the tourist business had decimated their ranks. They were old men now, skin wrinkled and brown as well-worn leather, their eyes paled by the sun, their work-hardened hands like boards, gnarly with outsize knuckles from decades in seawater. Their sons had abandoned them to work in air-conditioned offices or in jets that flew high above, leaving their homeland far behind. They were the last of their line and so an insular lot, their suspicions heightened by sweet-talking Egyptians taking their launching sites away from them to accommodate more and more Jet Skis and Sea-Doos. Their innate fear of Chalthoum and his al Mokhabarat manifested itself in cold hostility. After all, they must have reasoned, having lost everything, what more did they have to lose?
On the other hand, they were charmed by Soraya. They adored the soft way she spoke to them even while they admired her beautiful face and shapely figure. For her they would answer questions, although they insisted that it would be impossible for anyone outside their close-knit circle to pose as a native fisherman without their knowledge. They knew by sight every boat and ship that plied the local waters, and they assured her that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred in their recent collective memory.
?But there are the dive companies,? one grizzled seaman told them. His hands, as they mended his nets, were as big as his head. He spat to one side to show his displeasure. ?Who knows who their clients are? And as for their staffs, well, they seem to change from week to week, so no one can keep track of them, let alone note their comings and goings.?
Soraya and Chalthoum divided up the list of twenty-five dive firms the fishermen gave them, setting out for different ends of the city, agreeing to meet at a carpet shop in the El Dahar bazaar whose owner was a good friend of Amun?s.
Soraya went down to the sea, visiting eight of the dive companies, one by one, crossing them off her list as she went. With each she boarded their boats, interviewed the skippers and crew, looked at the customer logbooks for the past three weeks. Sometimes, she had to wait for the boats to return. Other times, the owner was kind enough to ferry her out to the dive sites. After four hours of frustrating work asking the same questions and getting the same answers, she was faced with the reality: This was an impossible task. It was like looking for a needle in an endless line of haystacks. Even if the terrorists had used this method to enter Egypt, there was no assurance that the dive operators would know. And how in the world would they have explained a crate large enough to house the Kowsar 3? Once again, she was plagued with doubts about Amun?s story, with a dread that he had been involved in the downing of the airliner.
What am I doing here? she thought. What if Amun and al Mokhabarat are the real culprits?
Despairing, she decided to can the entire enterprise after she was through interviewing the personnel at the ninth dive shop. She was ferried out to its boat by a grizzled Egyptian who constantly spat over the side. It was exceptionally hot, the sun beating down on her head; the only breath of wind came from the movement of the boat through the listless air. Even through her sunglasses, everything appeared washed out in