Children of the Storm by Elizabeth Peters

Ramses?”
    “He says . . .” Ramses looked again at the curving Arabic script. “He says there is danger awaiting David in Cairo. He wants to warn him.”
    “What danger?” I asked.
    “He’ll tell me when I see him. I must go, this may be a false alarm, but if it is true—”
    “Not alone,” Nefret said.
    “Yes, alone, he is very clear about that. Do you suppose you—any of you—can follow me without his knowing? We are obviously under surveillance. This cannot be a trap,” he added impatiently. “He’s signed his name and given explicit directions. The place isn’t far from here. Do you know it, Father?”
    Emerson read the message. “I can find it.”
    “Wait for me here.” Ramses rose. “I’ll be back in an hour or less.”
    He vanished into the darkness outside.
    “It could be a trap,” I said.
    “Oh, yes,” said Emerson. “Bassam, more coffee, if you please.”
    Nefret did not speak. Her wide eyes were fixed on Emerson’s face. He smiled at her, and patted her hand.
    “You couldn’t have held him back, my dear, nor wanted to—not when there was a threat to David.”
    “I can’t sit here waiting for an hour,” Nefret said tightly.
    “You won’t have to. We will give Ramses and anyone who may be following him time enough to get well away from here. Ten minutes, then we’ll go there ourselves.”
    It was an admirable scheme; there should have been no flaw in it. Rashad had not given a street address. Cairo does not boast such conveniences, except in the modern European quarters. The description had been explicit, however, and Emerson was certain we had found the right place. No one was there except a half dozen impoverished and extensive families, who denied any knowledge of Rashad or of Ramses. Cowering before the thunder of Emerson’s voice and the sight of the terrible parasol, they protested their innocence in terms impossible to doubt; but we searched the wretched place from top to bottom. We found no sign of Ramses.
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    CHAPTER THREE FROM MANUSCRIPT H
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    He wondered where he was, but he couldn’t bring himself to care much. Dimly lit by hanging lamps, the room was small and luxuriously furnished, the walls draped with fabric. A brazier on a stand nearby glowed, giving off a pale cloud of cloying, strange-smelling smoke. He lay on a soft, yielding surface, and not until he tried to move did he realize his hands and feet were immobilized. Vaguely curious, he flexed his wrists; the bonds were soft as silk, tight enough to hold without hurting.
    Considerate of them, he thought sleepily. Whoever they are. I wonder what they want. He was quite comfortable, but he hoped someone would come soon and tell him. Nefret would worry . . .
    He saw his wife’s face, as clearly as if she stood beside him. Like a crack opening in a prison wall, it pierced the clouds of darkened memory. Bassam’s, the beggar, the message . . . How much time had passed—an hour, a day? Nefret didn’t know where he was. She always worried . . . Fighting the pleasant lethargy that weakened his limbs, he hung on to the thought of her, turning his head away from the smoke of the brazier, twisting his hands, trying to loosen the bonds. A stab of pain ran from his wrist up his forearm. An injury of some kind? He couldn’t remember, but he twisted harder, deliberately inducing renewed pain and the temporary clarity of will it brought.
    “Do not struggle. You will hurt yourself.”
    It was a whisper, barely audible, but in the silence it rang like a shout. Ramses turned his head toward the sound.
    How she had entered he did not know. If there was a door, it had closed behind her. Light surrounded her as if her flesh shone through the thin linen that covered her body. Even with the fumes of the drug clouding his mind—or perhaps because of them—he took note of