Pharaoh (28 page)

‘With all probability.’

‘But I always thought that Mount Sinai was at the southernmost part of the peninsula, and we’re in the north, in the Negev.’

True. But this is the territory of the Midianites and a little further north is the territory of the Amalekites, the people of the desert who attacked the children of Israel. It makes perfect sense that Sinai is in this area. What you’re referring to – the thesis claiming that Mount Sinai is in the far south of the peninsula – is Byzantine and perhaps dates back to the pilgrimages to the Holy Land by Helen, the mother of Constantine. But that has never had any real basis in fact. No one has ever found the slightest physical trace of the biblical Exodus there. All the relics to be found there are fakes that take advantage of the beliefs of the gullible.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sarah. ‘It all sounds so absurd. For centuries and centuries hundreds of millions of people, including scientists, philosophers and theologians, have accepted the epic of the Exodus as a relatively coherent account. How could they all have allowed themselves to be so deceived?

‘And now you, William Blake from Chicago, say that the faith of two and a half billion people actually hinges on the acts of an impostor. I understand your arguments, but nevertheless I just can’t accept them completely. Are you sure of your theory? Isn’t there anything that casts some doubt on it?’

Blake turned to her slowly.

‘Possibly,’ he said.

‘What, then?’

The look in his eyes.’

O
MAR AL
H
USSEINI
reached home in the early afternoon and turned on the television immediately, switching from one channel to another to catch the news, but there were no revelations about the cassette that had been delivered to the
Chicago Tribune.

He went into his study and switched on the computer, seating himself at the console to get onto the Internet quickly. He checked the mailbox and saw the name ‘Blake’. He opened the file and found himself looking at the five ideograms in hieroglyphics:

and then the signature: William Blake.

He sank back, as if struck by lightning, barely managing the murmur, ‘O, Allah, clement and merciful.’

‘I
T
’
S A SHORT ONE
this time,’ said Pollock with a half-witted smile, observing that Blake had sent his colleague only five ideograms transcribed from a sheet.

‘That’s right,’ Blake said tersely.

‘Is that it?’

‘That’s it. We can go to dinner. Mr Maddox and the others should be waiting for us.’

While Pollock turned off the computer, Blake joined his other dinner companions in the Bedouin tent, acknowledging them with a nod as he sat down.

There was an almost palpable tension around the table and the unease on Maddox’s face was plain, as if his schemes for the next twenty-four hours were written on his forehead. When Blake arrived, however, he said, ‘I should like to compliment our Professor Blake for the brilliant job he has done, and I hope that very soon he will let us in on the contents of the inscription he has transcribed from the sarcophagus and his interpretation regarding the landslide found inside the tomb.’ He was speaking as if he himself were an eminent archaeologist. Yet another of his affectations.

Blake thanked him and said that several more hours would be needed to draw up a full report, but that he was close to concluding his research. The conversation became stilted and intermittent, as if there was little to talk about after what they had seen and experienced that day.

It was obvious, instead, that everyone was lost in their own thoughts and plans, or maybe a strange electrical charge hung in the air, affecting their mood and behaviour.

This held especially true for Maddox and Blake, who seemed to have little to say to each other, despite the fact that they had worked side by side all day. Maddox could only express himself in general terms, announcing, ‘It was the most exciting experience of my whole life, and that’s saying a lot, with everything I’ve seen over the years, in every country in the world.’

Sarah cut in, no less predictable: ‘If anyone had told me what I was getting into when I accepted this job, I would have thought they were crazy, but it’s true, it’s been an absolutely fantastic experience, especially since I was involved personally day by day.’

Sullivan hung his head over his plate the entire evening without uttering a word. At a certain juncture, Gordon started talking about the weather, falling back on his British-Bostonian upbringing, but his choice of topic shocked everyone into the realization that any plans they had for the next twenty-four hours might very well fail due to something so simple as a sudden change in meteorological conditions.

‘I heard the weather forecast on the satellite,’ he said while coffee was being served. ‘There’s going to be a huge sandstorm, starting some time within the next twenty-four hours and lasting for at least a full day or so. It will affect a good part of the Near East, and it could easily hit our camp. They’re predicting disturbances in communication, interruption in flights and poor visibility for thousands of square miles.’

‘We’re well equipped to face such an event,’ replied Maddox. ‘We have plenty of food and water and our trailers have air filters that can be powered by the auxiliary generator. Pollock, make sure that everything is in perfect order and ready to deal with this situation.’

Pollock got up and went to the trailer housing the auxiliary generator, while Maddox bid them goodnight and left.

‘What are you going to do?’ Sarah asked Blake when they were alone.

‘I’m staying. I have to talk to Maddox.’

‘Do you want some advice? Don’t.’

‘I have no alternative.’

‘I imagined so . . . but listen to me anyway.’

‘What is it?’

‘Don’t give Maddox the slightest idea that you know about the operation scheduled for tomorrow night or you’re dead, and I’ll be up to my neck in trouble too. He’ll have no problem figuring out the source of your information. Another thing, Will, I’m serious about this: if he offers you money, take it. If you refuse, he’ll be convinced that he can’t trust you and he’ll eliminate you. Trust me on this one, Will. Maddox won’t even think twice. It’s very easy to dig a hole in the sand. No one knows that you’re here, nobody is going to come looking for you. It’ll be like you just disappeared into thin air, got it?’

‘There are my emails.’

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. ‘In hieroglyphics? Sure.’

‘You aren’t worried? You were with me.’

‘No, with me he’d be biting off more than he can chew.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Please, do as I say. If he offers you money, accept it. I think he likes you. If he doesn’t think it’s absolutely essential to kill you, he’ll have no problem sparing you. But if you refuse any money he’s offering you, I think you’re signing your death sentence. Especially with that Friedkin character involved and the turn things have taken. It feels like everything’s going to explode any minute.

‘Will, I’ll be waiting for you. Don’t be stupid. I’d still like to pick up where we left off the other night.’

‘Me too,’ said Blake, almost to himself. Then, as Sarah started to leave, he held her back. ‘Sarah, there’s something I haven’t told you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s about the inscription.’

‘The one on the sarcophagus?’

Blake nodded.

Sarah smiled. ‘I’m not an Egyptologist but I could tell that you were keeping something from me. You looked like a cat with a mouse in his mouth . . . So?’

‘It’s not true that the text I read you ended up with
The Book of the Dead
. What followed was a curse.’

‘That makes sense. I would have been surprised if it were otherwise. But don’t tell me that a scientist believes in such nonsense. Curses have never managed to keep thieves away – in any century.’

‘Of course not. But there’s something particular about this one. Wait up for me if you’re not too tired.’

‘I will,’ said Sarah, and she went off across the moonlit camp.

For an instant Blake yearned to be with her, anywhere but here. He stubbed the cigarette out with his heel and caught up with Maddox, who had nearly reached his quarters.

‘Mr Maddox,’ he said, making a move to enter, ‘could I have a word?’

‘Of course,’ said Maddox. ‘Come in.’ But he had the look of someone who was being disturbed by an unwanted guest. He turned on the light and opened the liquor cabinet. ‘Scotch?’

‘Scotch is fine, thank you.’

‘What do you think about this sandstorm, Blake? Sounds like it’s going to be a bad one.’

‘It will be a nuisance, at any rate, and could even cause serious damage. But that isn’t what I came to talk to you about.’

‘I know,’ said Maddox pouring him a glass of Macallan from his personal stock. ‘You want to talk to me about the Ras Udash tomb, but I—’

Blake raised a finger, looked Maddox straight in the eye and spoke all at once. ‘Mr Maddox, I have to ask you if you intend to plunder the Ras Udash tomb and scatter its treasures to the four winds.’

‘Blake, what the devil—’

‘No, listen to me, Maddox, or I won’t have the courage to go on. You have to stop, immediately. Nobody has the right to do such a thing.’

‘That’s what you think, Blake. I’m in command here and if you get in my way I won’t hesitate to—’

‘Maddox, before you say another word, just listen to me. You can’t touch that tomb, because the extraordinary collection of things it contains is hiding a mystery that my preliminary research has only touched the surface of. If you disperse those objects, we will have lost a heritage that remained intact for over thirty centuries until we came upon it. We’ll never be able to recover the information that will be lost, and that information could be vital for the whole human race.’

Maddox shook his head, as though he were listening to the ravings of a madman. ‘You told me that you were about to discover the identity of the person buried in the tomb and that knowing that would enormously increase its value. I also gave you permission, more than once, to send – at my own risk – emails to your colleagues for consultation. Isn’t that so?’

‘That’s right,’ said Blake, lowering his head.

‘Well, then?’

‘That is exactly the point. The odds are that we are dealing with a high-ranking person, maybe even a great historical figure. Imagine . . .’ Blake took a deep breath. ‘Imagine that the mummy of a great Pharaoh was threatened by desecration during a period of anarchy. In that case, it’s reasonable to believe that the priests would have transported him to somewhere that was absolutely inaccessible. Or let’s say that a great leader, involved in a military campaign, died far from the capital because of his wounds or an illness, and that it was impossible, for reasons we don’t know, to transport the corpse to the Valley of the Kings for embalming. Mr Maddox, you must believe me. I have done everything possible to squeeze information out of that tomb, but there are still too many questions. I suspect that the side opening, where the debris poured out of, may stretch back further into some sort of tunnel, but I have no idea how far that might go. And I still don’t know exactly what purpose it served.’

‘Unfortunately, we’re out of time.’

‘What’s more, you’ve never wanted to tell me where we are.’

‘I’ve had no choice.’

‘Please, don’t do it, Maddox. Don’t sell off the pieces to the highest buyer.’

‘Sorry, Blake. Our agreement was clear. You were asked to perform a certain job and you did so, very quickly and very well. The rest is my business, isn’t it?’

Blake looked away.

‘I’m sorry that you weren’t able to do more or understand more. I am perfectly aware of your curiosity as a scientist, which in this particular moment is extremely frustrated, but you also have to take into account that you have been given a unique opportunity, a true privilege.

‘If you’re smart, you’ll be satisfied with that. You’ll receive a sum of money that should allow you to live comfortably for the rest of your life, or even to start a whole new life if you wish. Alan Maddox is no ingrate. You’ll have the money within forty-eight hours maximum. I can give you an amount in cash or, even better, wire it to a Swiss bank account and have the statement forwarded to you. This means that you renounce any right to publish these finds. Should you breach this agreement, I am sorry to tell you that you will do so at serious risk to yourself.’