Four Ways to Pharaoh Khufu by Alexander Marmer

only time a driver seemed to stop is when there was absolutely no way to squeeze around whoever was in front or to either side of them.
    If Schulze had any chance of surviving, he would have needed to be transported to the hospital within the so-called “golden hour,” the first hour after a trauma where a majority of critical patient’s lives can be saved if definitive medical intervention is provided. As he stared out his smudged window at the gridlock of packed, honking cars, Michael had a dismal feeling. The one-hour time frame sounded like it would have necessitated a miracle.
    Michael was snapped out of his musings when he realized his taxi was driving between two lanes of stopped cars. Blasting his horn and gesturing, Ahmoud laughed again at Michael’s panicked expression. “This is not considered rude or in any way out of place,” the native Egyptian stated with irony. “Nobody respects the traffic regulations. Everybody simply goes his own way. It takes hours and hours to go anywhere. But don’t worry! I’ll get you there in one piece.”
    As Michael’s cab driver turned his attention back to the road, he was able to edge the cab forward a few more car lengths before becoming trapped once again. Ahmoud leaned out his window and began having a lively conversation with a driver in the neighboring vehicle. Michael’s thoughts started drifting away from his current plight of being stuck in traffic. He was happy at finally being in Egypt and seeing the pyramids, even if it was a bit briefer than he would have liked. However, the morning’s incident was seared into his thoughts. He could not shake the strange statements Schulze had made to him nor the lingering sense of unease. Something was not right, but he doubted he had even half the pieces of this puzzle. Hopefully, Schulze would survive and would be able to shed some light on this morning’s events.
    As the taxi inched along, Michael thought about how he had performed CPR that morning. While he was stationed at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, he had trained during the Iraqi war pre-deployment Combat Life Saving Course. But today was the second time he had performed CPR in a real life-or-death situation.
    In March 2003, his unit was one of the first to deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His deployment had occurred near the end of his military days; for six years he had been enlisted in the U.S. Army before retiring at the rank of Sergeant. It was that one-year deployment, “the twelve months boots-on-the-ground,” that had taken a great toll on his mother’s health, as he was her only child. He knew there was not a single day that passed without her fearing for the worst.
    It was in July of 2003 when his mother’s worst fears nearly came to pass. Michael was one of the five soldiers inside a Humvee. They had assumed a nearby vehicle was merely parked until a rocket-propelled grenade was launched at them from it. Then it immediately sped away. Michael was the luckiest of all due to his position on top as a gunner. He received only a few non-life-threatening injuries from the blast, while it killed two of his comrades instantly. The soldier sitting next to the driver had been thrown through the window and knocked unconscious. The driver was saved by Michael’s swift actions. His training kicked in when he saw the driver’s left arm severed and bleeding heavily. He quickly applied a tourniquet and tirelessly began performing CPR while waiting for the rescue helicopter. Thankfully, his buddy had lived to go home. And now he hoped that Schulze would as well.
    The taxi crawled its way to the hospital. He looked up at the overpass of El-Tahrir Street. It looked peaceful with only several people walking and a parked vehicle. Suddenly Michael’s body shook from the abrupt explosion; his eyes discerned a fire spreading throughout the vehicle as a sharp, penetrating pain ripped up his right leg. “We’re hit!” His shout came automatically. The Humvee