Death of a Pharaoh (32 page)

Palace of the Holy Office, Vatican City: 10.32 CEST November 4, 2016

The cost of housing the Swiss group in downtown Cairo finally paid off.
Father Marco examined the copy of the export permit allowing the archeologist,
Pablo Fernandez, to export a mummy to Spain for scientific study. The Spaniard
was a long-time Servant of the Antichrist Pharaoh. A clerk of the Coptic faith
working in the Ministry of Antiquities uncovered the document almost by
accident. They were lucky that it was more complete than most and included the
name of the customs broker in Alexandria.

The current
location of the body was unknown, although his operatives continued to scour
the city. He had already dispatched a crack team to Valencia on the
Mediterranean coast in Spain to prepare for the arrival. He doubted they
intended to hide the remains there. The Cathedral in that city was linked with
legends of the Holy Grail and a much-visited chapel there contained an artifact
believed by many to be the stone chalice Jesus used at the Last Supper. Father
Marco thought the connection too obvious. The Servants of Ma’at were cleverer
than that. Spain contained numerous religious sites associated with early
Christian tradition and he had less than ten days to discover exactly where
they planned to bury him.

He sent an email
to the Papal Nuncio in Madrid directing him to contact the vast Catholic
network in that country and advise them to remain vigilant for any reference to
the heretic organization. He added the name of the archeologist to the list of
people and terms that required instant notification to his office in Rome.
Father Marco rather liked the Spanish. They were a devout and fervently Marian
people. However, all their Popes had been lascivious pigs and Cardinal Borja
had attempted to usurp the papacy with the Egyptian Rahotep’s blasphemous report.
He admired the efficacy of their Holy Inquisition but even that wasn’t enough.
Only Rome was worthy of being the final resting place for his Savior.

Safe House, Le Plateau, Dakar, Senegal,
15:32 GMT November 7, 2016

With everyone recovered from the fright and with less than a week before
his coronation, Ryan met with Ethan and Zach to review the final plans for his
trip to Egypt. He resolved, against the advice of his security team, to
accompany the body of Jesus to its final resting place in Spain before
continuing on to Cairo. He thought it was the decent thing to do and if it was
him in the coffin, he would want someone to be there despite logistical
complications. The good thing about being pharaoh was once he made a decision
everyone fell in line and made it happen.

Ethan planned to
travel ahead to Spain while Ryan and Zach took a private jet from Dakar to
Tunis where they would board a hired yacht that would take them as close as
possible to the island of Mallorca. There a Spanish flagged boat would be
waiting in order to circumvent passport control. They planned to don wetsuits
and mingle with a crowd of tourists exploring an underwater cave then sail back
with them to the port of Mallorca.

They would
continue on a charter aircraft to Barcelona where Ethan would meet them with a
car and security. Their final destination was less than two hours northwest of
the airport. They should arrive a few hours before the coffin. The entombment
would take place early the next morning and two hours later, they would all be
on a private jet bound for Cairo.

Mariam, Tony and
other staff from Dakar would arrive in Egypt on regular commercial flights.
Some eighty members of the Regency Council would gather at the new hotel with
Herbert Lewis and Ryan’s special guests Susan, Alex and Diego. His high school
buddies knew nothing other than the fact that Ryan had invited them and that
under the circumstances absolute discretion was a must.

Unfortunately,
neither his adoptive parents nor David could attend. As an illegal immigrant,
Manuel couldn’t get a passport and Ethan decided that bringing Ricky was too
great a risk. Ryan’s parents considered adopting Manuel in order to regularize
his status in the United States. They had grown fond of both the boys.

Flocks of pigeons took flight in waves of indignation, like a winged
parting of the seas, as Father Marco marched past the Turia Fountain in
Valencia’s expansive Plaza de la Virgen. He put aside his meetings for an hour
to come and pray to the Lady of the Helpless, the patron saint of the city. Her
vocation was not a reflection of his current frame of mind but it was always
politic to pay a courtesy call on the local Saints. She had a reputation for
granting supplications. He prayed for her to help him locate the secret resting
place for Jesus’ body. Surely, as his mother she would also want to know. The
devout filled the church mumbling their wishes then lighting candles as a
luminous reminder that would echo their entreaties for hours. With such crowds,
she must have a good track record. Even though the Catholic Church had depended
on it for centuries, it was impossible to fool the people all the time.
Eventually, you had to deliver and it seemed that she did.

Every year in
March, her faithful created a giant floral cloak to show their gratitude for
her favors. Workers dangling on ropes from a large wooden frame, placed bundles
of carnations offered by an endless stream of Valencians dressed in sumptuous
traditional costumes. The organizers coordinated the colors of the flowers in
advance and eventually they formed an elaborate design as ephemeral as the
fantastic wood and papier-mâché statues build in squares all over the city then
burnt on the eve of the Feast of Saint Joseph. He had to admit that the Spanish
were unmatched in their ability to combine faith and folklore.

He had one more
stop before he returned to the modest residence for Dominican priests where he
stayed. He turned left through the Door of the Apostles into the cool interior
of the Cathedral of Santa Maria and brushed past the annoying groups of
tourists that were a necessary evil in temples all over the world. It was a
veritable obstacle course each day in the Vatican to ensure that no one
captured his image. As the director of Sanctus Verum, he preferred anonymity.

He followed the
indications to the Chapel of the Holy Chalice that many believed housed the cup
used by Jesus at the Last Supper. Saint Lawrence purportedly brought the
chalice to Spain from Rome in the 3
^rd
Century. The somber atmosphere
was in direct contrast to the exuberance of the Virgin’s church. The sacred
relic sat in a glass-enclosed niche in a stone altarpiece. The vessel itself
was made of dark red agate and mounted on a bejeweled golden base. Studies
confirmed that it originated from the Middle East and dated from the 1
^st
Century BC. Of the many cups venerated as the Holy Grail, this was the most
likely contender and even had the seal of approval of the Vatican. The last two
Popes served communion from the chalice during visits to the Cathedral.

Father Marco
strolled by the artifact bathed in ethereal yellow light and found himself
drawn by the power of the legend. Could this truly be the chalice Christ held
in his own hands? The churches of Europe hosted innumerable sacred relics, many
brought back by gullible Crusaders. The Shroud of Turin was perhaps the most
famous example. Some said there were enough slivers of the True Cross in
existence to rebuild the original. All of them venerated through the centuries,
in man’s unquenchable thirst for a tangible connection to the life and passion
of Jesus.

As impressive as
the Holy Grail was at three meters distance, it paled in comparison to the fact
that the actual body of Christ was due to arrive the next morning. He had
already supervised the deployment of his team in the port, at the customs hall
and at all major exits out of the city. He was determined not to let the coffin
out of his hands this time, until he was certain of its final destination.

As he left the
church, he decided against hailing a taxi. The hostel was only seven blocks
from the Cathedral. The exercise would relieve some of the tension that had
built up since the coffin escaped from his grasp in Egypt. The Holy Father was
not pleased. He enjoyed the Pope’s confidence and a level of autonomy
unprecedented in the curia. However, such trust was always dependent on
results. Only a handful knew his true position and for the first time since his
appointment, the Curia had him under scrutiny. He couldn’t afford another
fiasco.

His worry
accompanied him like a Sword of Damocles all the way back to the residence,
marked only by a discreet plaque. He rang the bell, waited far too short a time
then insisted again with impatience. The plump laywoman, who ran the residence,
arrived out of breath holding a feather duster but still greeted him with
deference. The room was spartan, as these places often were, but immaculate in
its state of cleanliness. A crucifix hung above the bed and a framed photograph
of the current Pope kept watch over his laptop on the small desk. He hadn’t
bothered to hide his money or Vatican passport, who would possibly break the
eighth commandment in a Catholic hostel under the stern gaze of the pontiff?

He hadn’t expected
such a rapid response from The Lady of the Helpless. Among the dozens of emails
cluttering his inbox, was one from the Information Office of the Diocese of Tuy
in the north of Spain. As the writer indicated, the name of the archeologist,
Pablo Fernandez, triggered the communication. It referred to a press release
that appeared in local papers describing the restoration of several Visigoth
era tombs under the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where the remains of
Saint James the Apostle were believed buried.

The popular
destination for pilgrims from around the world seemed a long way from the
Egyptologist’s normal areas of research in Luxor and Saqqara. Father Marcos
wondered why would he be involved in the excavation of crypts that probably
only contained the bones of some obscure bishop or archdeacon? At the very
most, he might dig up some fetuses aborted over the centuries from the wayward
couplings of priests and nuns. The discovery of the infant skeletons in the
graveyards of medieval convents around Europe, never failed to titillate the
public.

The answer came to
him like a bolt of lightning and he fell on his knees to give thanks to the
Holy Virgin Mary. The Servants of Ma’at intended to hide Jesus under the tomb
of his most beloved Apostle. He was certain. Now his men would only need to
follow the truck. He remembered when he walked the Road to Santiago as a
teenager. Galicia was isolated from the rest of the Iberian Peninsula by ranges
of ancient mountains and there was only one major route for heavy loads. It
would be easy to track. He rejected any idea of attempting a hijacking during
the journey. Far better to let his enemy think they had successfully laid him
to rest in Santiago then all he had to do was snatch him back at his leisure.

In this case, the
old saying that all roads led to Rome, had never seemed truer. He would splurge
on his favorite Spanish wine that evening to celebrate, a bottle of Remirez de
Ganuza Gran Reserva 2004 from La Rioja that he first tasted at a dinner offered
by Spain’s Ambassador to the Holy See. It was a heavenly vintage fit for the
body of Christ.