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As the rain fell, they passed another group of signs As luck would have it, a car was traveling in the opposite direction at alh the rain and lit up a sign on the far side of the road long enough for Joe to read it

The weathered blue placard was sandblasted and bent, but the words were clear enough

“Marsa Alan “Fifty kilometers”

The nayptian port on the Red Sea It lay behind them It must have been where the ferry tied up and the trucks disembarked That meant they were three-quarters of the way from Cairo to the Sudanese border and only a couple of hours from Luxor

“I’ what that uys are headed for the Aswan Dam”

CHAPTER 45

RAIN CONTINUED TO PELT THE CONVOY OF JINN’S TRUCKS as they ruhway fro of the desert at night and the wind swirling around the back of the truck as it raced along, Joe began to shiver

At first he welcomed it as a relief from his tiht wore on, the cold began to seep into his bones, and Joe pulled the flap shut to keep the wind and the mist from the truckbed

It was four hours overland froan to slow as they came out of the open desert and into the swath of civilization that bordered the Nile

The trucks crossed the Nile on a e and entered the town of Edfu on the west bank of the river As Joe looked around, he saw overns It wasn’t exactly the Beltway, more like a dusty version of East Berlin in the desert, but it was civilization

The truck slowed further, and Joe hoped they’d coht, but they found a roundabout instead, turning a three-quarter circle before heading north in a straight line once again

“It had to be a roundabout,” Joe mumbled

He figured they hway at any et free As the engine growled in low gear and the truck picked up speed, Joe decided the time to abandon ship had arrived

He clilanced around the edge of the tarp, straining to see as cons The coast was clear, and Joe leapt off the truck

He hit the wet h an expansive puddle of athered as it soaked the street He stayed down in it for a n the drivers had witnessed his stunt