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| John Kernick (2) |
Cellular roaming: Bedouin businessman Nasser Hameid works the phone and traditional beads.
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ROTONDI'S OWN TROUBLES came to a head on January 23. At "high noon," according to him, a group of 40 to 50 Mezzeineh carrying sticks and wearing traditional head scarves and ankle-length jalabiyyas, led by the Hameid brothers in two pickup trucks, stormed the resort and tossed Rotondi, his Egyptian partner, Walid Abu El Kir,
and the small Club Red staff out of the main offices. Two of the staff were hospitalized after being cut in the face with broken bottles, Rotondi himself was punched, and Walid was tackled and beaten with a board—and according to one guest present at the time, local police stood by idly. Rotondi retreated to the original Club Red building as about two
dozen panicked guests scattered from the restaurant. A few holdouts moved to rooms above the scuba shop, where Rotondi continued to try to make a stand, but the next day, after failing to rouse the police, Rotondi fled, landing 50 miles down the coast, on the Sinai's far southern tip, in the heat and noise of the Miami Beach–like town of Sharm
el-Sheikh.
The hotel invasion was the final conflagration in a dispute that had been smoldering for some time, and had already turned violent. Short on payments from travel agencies, Rotondi had asked the Hameids to delay cashing his January rent check; but by mid-month Mohammed and Ahmed Hameid were at Club Red threatening to take it over. A desk was thrown out a
window. Rotondi stopped his check. The situation escalated—the electricity cut off, a phone line slashed, a balcony mysteriously burned—until the full-scale High Noon Hotel Invasion (Part I).
The Hameids reopened Club Red as Club Red Sea—using Rotondi's wetsuits, tanks, and gear. Rotondi hired an Egyptian lawyer. Throughout the spring he rallied family and friends (and me) with breathless e-mails recounting his triumphs in court. The deadline for taking back Club Red was always around the corner—tomorrow, two days from now, next
week. But by June, I was increasingly skeptical that he would ever recover the resort.
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