Brotherhood of the Tomb by Daniel Easterman Read Free Book Online Page A

presbytery began to ring. De Faoite’s hearing was poor, and he would be asleep, unless wakened by the storm. Patrick felt his heart beating, keeping time with the burring of the telephone. He waited two minutes, then hung up.
    ‘Okay, Patrick - so, suppose you cut this out and tell me exactly what’s going on here?’
    He tried to ignore her, starting to take off his wet clothes, but she grabbed him by the arm and forced him to look directly at her.
    ‘Don’t fuck about with me, Patrick! I have a right to know what’s happening. For Christ’s sake, you’re not even in the trade any longer.’
    ‘It has nothing to do with that.’
    ‘Oh no? Then why all the sudden mystery? Walks
    in the middle of the night, mysterious phone calls. Come on, Patrick - I’ve been through all this. If you’re in danger, I’m in danger, so don’t play games.’
    He held her clumsily, unable to respond, or perhaps afraid to do so. Outside, the sea still raged against the shore. Water lay against water, wave against wave, an unbroken ocean round the world, closing in on him, connecting him to his past. Beirut, Alexandria, Bandar Abbas - everywhere the sea, everywhere waves beating furiously against the land.
    ‘It has nothing to do with you, Ruth. Honestly. It’s something out of my own past. Something I have to handle myself.’
    Who were you ringing?’
    ‘Eamonn De Faoite. He’s the parish priest at St Malachy’s in town. Sometimes he teaches Semitic studies at University College and Trinity. He was my teacher back in the sixties when I studied here. I think he’s in danger. I wanted to warn him.’
    “Warn him? About what?’
    Patrick shook his head.
    ‘I don’t know. I...’ He paused. ‘Listen,’ he resumed. ‘About eight years ago, I was in Egypt. The Agency was looking for support among the Coptic Christian population, as a sort of balance against the Muslim Brothers. There’d been anti-Coptic riots back in the early eighties; Sadat had exiled Pope Shenuda to Wadi Natrun; Islamic fundamentalism was spreading.
    ‘I was in a small village in the Delta. Myself and a local agent. The people we were staying with were Copts. They woke us very early one morning. Something had frightened them. They asked if I would go to the next village, a place called Sidi Ya’qub. They kept saying that something terrible had happened, that they wanted me to go to see if what they had heard was true. When I asked them to tell me what
    it was, they just threw their hands up and shook their heads. Finally, I agreed. I took the jeep and drove over to Sidi Ya’qub.’
    He paused. Outside, the troubled sea gave its voice to the storm.
    ‘It was one of the stupidest things I ever did. I very nearly got myself lynched. What had happened was this: Sidi Ya’qub had a school. The building was situated a short stretch outside the village proper, on a low ridge. Some men had come the previous afternoon and herded the children together, put them in a bus and driven them off. About thirty children altogether.
    ‘When I arrived, the village was frantic. They had been looking for the children all night. The police had been called in, the Muslim Brothers were there in force, everyone was acting crazy. Anyway, I stayed and gave a hand. I knew why the Copts in the next village were afraid: if anything had happened to the children, they would very likely be blamed. And if what had happened turned out to be unpleasant, they knew things could get very nasty.’
    He hesitated.
    ‘Yes?’ she asked.
    Well, it did turn out to be unpleasant. Very unpleasant indeed. They found the children shortly after noon, in an old temple about a mile from the village. It’s not much of a temple, not the sort of place that gets on the tourist trail. I went out there with everyone else after word came in that the children had been found.
    ‘There was a stone basin in the centre of the temple. Basalt, I think. And very large. It had been badly damaged, but it could still