shelter in the caves. It was a halfway point. In the 1930 he had discovered caves with rock paintings there. But the plateau was crawling with Allies and he couldn’t use the wells there. He struck out into the sand desert again. They raided British petrol dumps to fill up their tanks. In the Kharga Oasis they switched into British uniforms and hung British army number plates on their vehicles. When they were spotted from the air they hid in the wadis for as long as three days, completely still. Baking to death in the sand. 

“It took them three weeks to reach Cairo. Almdsy shook hands with Eppler and left him. This is where we lost him. He turned and went back into the desert alone. （We think he crossed it again, back towards Tripoli. But that was the last time he was ever seen. ）The British picked up Eppler eventually and used the Rebecca code to feed false information to Rommel about El Alamein.” 

“I still don’t believe it, David.”  Hana said.

(“The man who helped catch Eppler in Cairo was named Sansom.” 

“Delilah.” 

“Exactly.” 

“Maybe he’s Sansom.” 

“I thought that at first. He was very like Almdsy. A desert lover as well. He had spent his childhood in the Levant and knew the Bedouin.) But the thing about Almasy was, he could fly. We are talking about someone who crashed in a plane. Here is this man, burned beyond recognition, who somehow ends up in the arms of the English at Pisa. (Also, he can get away with sounding English. Almdsy went to school in England. In Cairo he was referred to as the English spy.” )Hana sat on the hamper watching Caravaggio.