“What now?” Joe asked.
Through a window Kurt saw another group entering the room. These men were dressed sharply in fine Arab clothing. Another man dressed in white was pointing out this and that to them. A bearded man in a plain gray caftan trailed behind them.
“That’s Jinn,” Kurt said, basing his guess on a surveillance photo he’d seen.
“Who are these other guys?” Joe asked.
“They look like dignitaries on a tour,” Kurt said.
Jinn led the Arab men around the pool and over to the very stairway Kurt and Joe had just ascended. They went down to the underwater viewing area.
“They’re here for a demonstration of some kind,” Kurt whispered.
“I hate to sound like the reasonable one,” Joe began, “but maybe we should beat a hasty retreat while they’re otherwise occupied.”
Kurt shook his head. “Sage advice, my friend. Except we now have a front-row seat, and they’re about to show us what they’re planning. I think it behooves us to stick around, keep the suits on and try to blend in.”
“Behooves us?”
“It was the word of the day on my calendar last week. Never thought I’d get a chance to use it.”
“Glad to hear you’re expanding your vocabulary. But what if something behooves one of them to ask us what we’re doing here? Or to perform some task we don’t know how to do, like turn some big machine on?”
“We’ll just press a lot of buttons, throw some switches, and pretend we’re incompetent,” Kurt said.
“Go with our strengths, then.”
“Exactly.”
Kurt would have tried to reassure Joe further, but additional machinery starting up dragged his attention back to the window.
He saw Jinn gesturing and speaking, but he couldn’t make out the words through the glass.
“This is like watching TV with the mute button on,” Joe said.
At the far end of the pool, a large yellow drum was being secured to a hoist and lifted by an overhead crane. By the caution they showed, and the fact that only the white-suited men got anywhere near it, Kurt figured he knew what was in that drum.
“Sound or no sound,” he said, “I think we’re about to see a show.”
CHAPTER 22
IN THE CAVERNOUS BAY SURROUNDING THE TANK, JINN’S words to Mustafa of Pakistan and Alhrama of Saudi Arabia echoed with a strange dissonance. He’d managed to be gracious and munificent—at least in his own mind—despite wanting to choke them with his bare hands. But he was ready to send them a message. In fact, he’d decided to send two.
Sabah leaned closer. “Separate them,” he whispered and then stepped back, remaining behind Jinn and out of sight.
Jinn did not react to the words. He had agreed to this show on Sabah’s request. But he would decide what must occur now.
“You see in the tank before you a mock-up of the Aswan High Dam,” he said. “It will soon be the focal point in a demonstration of my powers.”
“I don’t understand,” Alhrama said.
“General Aziz has emboldened you with his refusal to pay what he promised. He has his reasons, but prime among them is the dam. As long as it exists, Egypt has a five-year supply of water stored up. But Aziz has little understanding of either my power or my wrath.”
Jinn lifted a radio to his mouth and pressed the talk switch. “Begin.”
The machinery spooled up again. The crane shifted and moved the barrel out over the water and into its final position. A cable attached to the bottom half of the yellow drum was reeled in and the drum began to tip.
The silver sand began to pour out; millions upon millions of Jinn’s microbots, pouring into the tank and dispersing like sugar in tea. The water began turning murky and gray.