Pharaoh (31 page)

He went and knocked on Sarah’s door.

‘How did it go?’ she asked as she let him in. Her hair was wet from the shower and she was wearing only a T-shirt, as if she had been going to bed.

‘I tried everything to persuade him, but it was no use.’

‘I’m not surprised. There’s no way you could have! All that intellectual posturing of his is just a front. The only thing he’s interested in is money. Speaking of which, did he offer you a reward?’

‘Yes. A fat little sum in a Swiss account.’

‘And you accepted, I hope?’

Blake said nothing, embarrassed.

‘You haven’t done anything stupid?’ Sarah went on, alarmed.

‘No, no. I accepted . . . or at least I led him to believe that I was ready to accept.’

‘Well, the main thing is that he believed you. Otherwise you’re a dead man.’ She pulled his head towards her and gave him a kiss. ‘I’ve got used to you being around. It would be a real pain to have to think of you as being extinct.’

‘Me too, believe me.’

‘So let’s not do anything stupid. Tomorrow evening, Maddox will hand over everything to those fanatics. We’ll take our money, get out of this hole and it’ll be as though we were never here. I’ve done my part. So have you. If we could have done it better, we would have. But right now it’s time to split, take my word for it. You have no idea what kind of hell could break loose here at any moment. Instead, the day after tomorrow, we’re going to be on a flight for the good old United States and that’ll be that. Just as soon as I finish off a little bit of business I have to see to, we’ll go away together for a weekend on the lake. We can rent a cottage and stay for a few days. You know, I can even cook—’

‘Sarah, I’m thinking of going back to Ras Udash.’

Sarah was speechless.

‘And I want you to help me.’

‘You’re out of your mind. What’s there to do at Ras Udash?’

Blake took a notebook out of his pocket and made a fast sketch.

‘Listen, when we cleared the debris away from the opening above the sarcophagus, I didn’t remove it all. The top part of the heap was fairly compact. I smoothed it out with my trowel so that the opening would look like a niche, but with just a little work with a pick we could open a way into what I am sure is a tunnel to the side of the tomb. I want to see where it goes. It may lead outside some way or perhaps to another chamber.’

‘And if it does?’

‘This is my idea. If we can find a way out, I want to try to save as much as I can, and then close the sarcophagus back up and block the entrances.’

‘Will, you have no idea of—’

‘No, Sarah. I’ve thought of everything. In the tomb, there are five biggish pieces. Three are wooden and two are painted plaster. The plaster ones probably weigh fifty kilos or so, but between us we can easily move them. The wooden statues are light. The other pieces, thirty-four in all – perfume burners, headrests, candelabra, vases, cups, weapons and jewels are all small. It won’t take more than an hour and a half. And another hour to close the sarcophagus. We can do it bit by bit, using thinner and thinner wedges. We’ll need another half-hour to place the charges and then we’ll bury the whole complex under a few thousand tons of sand. There’s that rise just to the west of the opening Maddox made. If we set off a charge halfway up the slope, it’ll be enough to create a landslide that’ll close up the entrance.’

‘I see,’ said Sarah. ‘You don’t give a damn about me or about anything else. The only thing you care about is your goddamn academic glory. You’ll go to the States, present a paper and then rush back here to “bring it all out” again. The most fantastic archaeological discovery of all time, apologies and applause for the great William Blake and, guess what, the director’s chair at the Oriental Institute.’

‘You’ve got it all wrong. I—’

‘Haven’t you thought of the consequences? Your discovery will dash to smithereens the hope of an afterlife for two-thirds of the people living on this earth. It will undermine Judaism, Islam and Christianity.’

‘Ra, Amon, Baal and Tanit, Zeus and Poseidon are all dead. Even Yahweh, the Lord of Israel, can fade away without God ceasing to exist.’

‘Look, I’ll help you place a charge inside the tomb. It’s the best thing, believe me.’

‘No, Sarah. If that tomb has come down to us still intact after more than three thousand years, we don’t have the right to destroy it.’

‘But your plan is impossible. We can’t leave the camp without anyone realizing—’

‘You’ve done so at will.’

‘We don’t have any explosives.’

‘They won’t be hard to get from the storehouse. The workmen have the keys. Find some excuse.’

‘But we don’t know what the hell is beyond the landslide opening. We could cause another cave-in. We could be trapped and suffocate to death.’

‘If you don’t help me I’ll do it by myself.’

Sarah lowered her head.

‘Well?’

‘I’ll help you. Otherwise you’ll just get yourself killed. But there’ll be some talking to do when all this is over.’

‘That’s OK by me.’

‘You do realize that we won’t be able to come back here. Have you thought of what we’ll do afterwards?’

‘There’s always water and gasoline in the ATV. We’ll take a couple of packs of survival rations and leave. I’d avoid the trail to Mitzpe Ramon. Better to head south down the Arava Valley to Yotvata and Eilat. There we’ll have to decide what to do. If that’s all fine with you, I’m going to the warehouse.’

‘You’d better not. You’ll only arouse suspicion. Let me do it. You get your things together. Fill up the water bottles and meet me at the parking lot in fifteen minutes. Don’t forget the suncream: we don’t want to end up getting burned.’

Blake went into his trailer and began to pack his things. A feeling of excitement was sneaking over him; this place had become an unbearable prison and the thought of getting out of these people’s clutches seemed like a dream. He kept checking his watch, counting the minutes as he nervously smoked a last cigarette before going out.

The moon hadn’t emerged from behind the hills yet but a pale light was spreading to the east, announcing its imminent appearance over the Paran desert. With just a few minutes to go, Blake stubbed out his cigarette. He went into the bathroom and jumped out of the back window after tossing his rucksack onto the ground.

He stopped for a moment to look towards the camp and saw a dark shadow slowly approaching the parking lot: Sarah.

He crept in the same direction until he was quite close to her.

‘I’m here,’ he whispered.

‘So am I,’ said Sarah. ‘Come on. We’ll be out of here in a minute.’

She approached the vehicle and was leaning forward with her rucksack when they heard the generator start up and suddenly the whole area was lit up like day.

‘Freeze where you are,’ a voice said.

‘Maddox! Damn!’ swore Sarah. ‘Move it! Let’s go!’

‘Stop them!’ cried Maddox to a group of men running in their direction.

Blake jumped into the open back of the vehicle as Sarah fired the engine and set off at high speed.

Maddox’s men had reached the parking lot and were shooting and shouting at them to stop.

What are they doing?’ yelled Sarah, without taking her eyes off the track.

Blake looked back and what he saw made his blood freeze in his veins.

‘Oh, God,’ he said, grabbing Sarah by the arm. ‘Look Look down there!’

Sarah turned for a second and saw searchlights criss-crossing the dark sky. Then she heard a steady beating of rotors and the screeching of engines pushed to their limits.

‘Assault helicopters!’ she yelled. ‘We’re getting out!’

She rammed the accelerator down as hard as she could, while Maddox’s men jumped into Jeeps to spin them around and out of the parking lot.

They didn’t get the chance. The darkness behind them was suddenly shattered by a series of blinding flashes and the deafening explosions of heavy guns hitting the trailers, machines and depots with murderous accuracy. The hammering of the guns was punctuated by the sharp chatter of automatic weapons spraying bullets. In the cone of light projected from the front of the choppers, the bullets raised spouts of sand along the ground and loosed off hundreds of glowing chips of stone that shot like meteorites up across the dark backdrop of the night.

The Jeeps jumped around like toys, then a boom shook the mountain and a gigantic globe of fire lit up the area for miles around when the explosives depot was hit.

‘What’s happening? What the hell’s happening?’ shouted Sarah, who couldn’t take her eyes off the track.

‘The helicopters have attacked the camp and they’re flattening it,’ yelled Blake. ‘It’s like an inferno. They’re firing for all they’re worth at everything they can see.’

Sarah had turned off the headlights and was using the side lights so they wouldn’t be seen.

‘They’re landing now!’ shouted Blake, who was looking backwards. ‘The camp is hidden behind the hills, but I can see the helicopters circling as they’re going down.’

The choppers had disappeared behind the outline of the hills, but the light coming from them and the tracers lit up the sky like the glow of a surreal dawn.

For a while, only the beating of the rotor blades could be heard, then the crack of the automatic weapons started again.

‘They’ve landed. They must be combing the terrain inch by inch. Step on it! We’ve got to get away as fast as we can.’

‘We’ve done almost three miles,’ said Sarah. ‘We should be pretty safe by now.’

Meanwhile, the moon had begun to rise in the sky, spreading a wide expanse of light over the pale desert, and Sarah was able to keep up a steady speed that she increased when they hit the flat plain of the hammada.

The ATV streaked along like a shooting star, leaving a milky-white cloud of moonbeam-crossed dust in its trail.

When they approached Ras Udash, Sarah switched the engine off, slid out of the seat and fell to the ground, completely exhausted.

Blake went to her. ‘I’ve never driven a contraption like that, but I would have taken over from you if you had told me how.’

‘Forget it,’ said Sarah. ‘We got out by the skin of our teeth. One more minute and—’

‘But who were they?’

‘I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything because I had to look where we were going. Did you see any markings on the sides of the helicopters?’

‘All hell had broken loose. What with the explosions, tracer bullets and flashes, I couldn’t make out anything. You were driving so fast

‘Maddox must have stamped pretty hard on someone’s toes and they were out to get him,’ said Sarah. ‘God, we only just escaped in time.’

‘You can still see the light of the fires towards Mitzpe. Look’

Sarah stood up and narrowed her eyes looking north to the horizon, where a confusion of lights flickered behind the low line of the hills.

Yes,’ she said. ‘And now what are you going to do? It looks like your plan doesn’t make much sense any more.’

‘True,’ replied Blake. ‘But I still want to go down into the tomb to check out that side opening and close the sarcophagus. And after that, I’ll set the charges.’

He took the shovel from the ATV and cleaned off the iron plate. Then he took the winch cable and hooked it to the lifting ring.

‘Listen,’ said Sarah, ‘let’s get out of here now. Someone might have noticed we’ve got away. We may not be safe even here.’

‘Help me, quick,’ said Blake as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Start up the engine and drag off the cover plate. I just need to open it enough to get in. We’ll go down on a rope.’

Sarah obeyed. She put the ATV into reverse and accelerated. It sank several times into the hammada and swung left and right until it got a grip and started to pull. The plate slid back slowly, uncovering part of the opening.

Blake tied a rope round his waist, secured the other end to the lifting ring on the iron plate and slipped down inside.

He lit a neon torch and looked around. Everything was in order and the sarcophagus lid was still resting on the crude raising mechanism he had used. He removed the plastic sheet that was wrapped round the sarcophagus and got up onto the stool from where he looked motionlessly at the mask which covered the face of the mummy.

The startling realism of the likeness was austere yet majestic, highlighting the powerful, severe expression of a man whose mere look had held multitudes in sway.

He came to suddenly, as if from a daze, when he felt Sarah’s hand touch his arm.

Silently, he got down and connected the levers on each of the pairs of jacks with a rod so they could be operated simultaneously by a single person. With Sarah’s help, he raised them until the weight of the lid was off the blocks. Gradually, by placing smaller and smaller blocks, he lowered the jacks, two centimetres at a time, until the lid was completely closed.

‘It’s taken us sixty-five minutes,’ he said, wiping his brow as he looked at his watch. ‘Longer than I expected.’

‘Things always take longer than planned,’ said Sarah. ‘Now, please, Will, let’s get away while it’s still dark.’