Treasured Dreams (8 page)

At the top of the stairs was a long corridor. The sun's rays streamed in the windows at a sharp angle, creating alternate light and dark shadows along the walkway. He smelt the salty ocean air but on his tongue he tasted old concrete, dust and mould.

Nox knew exactly where he was going. It was like he'd walked these halls yesterday. Plaster that had crumbled off the walls lay in neat piles along the skirting boards. The door to an electrical box hung open and dozens of wires scrambled in all directions.

Nox wondered if there was electricity. He doubted it. A bare bulb that hung from the ceiling near his head consisted of jagged pieces of white glass. Just like the next three he saw along the corridor.

Nox turned at the fourth open doorway. Before him was a curved balcony. In the distance were grand high-arched windows that looked out across the ocean. Most of the glass was gone. Nox stepped up to the balustrade and looked down.

The beds were still there, dozens of them. All lined up like soldiers. Some had pillows and sheets, some were just a frame and a bare striped mattress, some were nothing more than a metal frame.

He closed his eyes and saw himself, lying in the bed sixteen along from the fireplace, his sheet pulled up to his chin, and staring up into the eyes of the monster.

Zanobi.

Chapter Nine

Alessandro hadn't been able to sleep. The excitement of what today held had kept his mind working overdrive into the small hours of the morning. Ginger, on the other hand, had slept peacefully at his side. She turned with the elegance of a ballerina, and at one point when she'd rolled towards him, he'd studied her beautiful face bathed in the glow from the moonlight filtering through a small crack in the blinds. He watched that slither of light move from her left cheek to her right, and it wasn't until it slipped into her golden hair that he finally drifted off to sleep.

The morning brought unusual chaos aboard
Evangeline
. Their typical morning routine involved a delicious breakfast prepared by Rosalina or Ginger, or both. That would be followed by plenty of discussion, usually revolving around treasure. But not today. Not after Alessandro had received the call last night he'd been waiting for ever since they'd arrived back in Italy.

Professor Sezoine from the Dipartimento di Scienze Archeologiche in Pisa had agreed to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics engraved into the gold monkey statue. But he was only free for six hours today before he headed to Rome for a flight to New York, so this morning it was. Jimmy and Archer would be tied up most of the morning with some of the finer details of
Evangeline
's renovations, and Rosalina had to visit both her doctor and Nonna.

Archer had performed his usual magic, and as he'd arranged, an armoured truck arrived at 6.30a.m. at the marina gates, and the two burley security guards who were as efficient as they were unfriendly transported the sealed crate from
Evangeline
's lounge area to the waiting truck. Under Archer's orders, Alessandro and Ginger were to remain with the crate at all times.

Alessandro was happy with that, and judging by the grin on her face, Ginger was too.

Ginger climbed into the back of the truck, skirted the wooden crate, and chose a seat at the front, up against the wall of steel that separated them from the driver's cabin. Only a rectangular glass window gave them visibility to the outside world when the doors locked them in. She patted the seat beside her as Alessandro sidled around the crate. He joined her, and as he slipped onto the seat at her side, her arm curled over his leg and she pushed her hand beneath his thigh. She did this often, and he liked the familiarity of it.

‘Do you think they can hear us?' she whispered. Her face was a delicate blend of milk and cream with the touch of makeup she'd applied today. The discrete lighting added to her ethereal complexion.

He shrugged. ‘I have no idea.'

She looked through the glass, and when he followed her gaze all he could see was the very top of their heads.

‘We could have sex in here.'

Alessandro gasped at how loud she'd spoken, and she giggled at him. ‘I don't think they can hear us.'

‘Really? That was your test?'

‘It worked, didn't it? They would've done something if they'd heard. Don't you think?'

Ginger's spontaneity was just one of the things Alessandro loved about her. They'd been a couple for only a few months, but he'd already decided she was the woman he wanted to marry. He hadn't asked her yet, though; he was waiting for the perfect moment.

‘Oh look.' She pointed up over his shoulder. ‘There's a button. Press it.'

‘I'm not going to press it.' Alessandro still whispered, despite her ‘test'.

Ginger jumped to her feet and jabbed at the red button. ‘Ciao, fellas. We're all good to go back here.'

‘
Grazie, signora
,' a deep voice replied.

Ginger giggled as she sat back down and squeezed her hand back beneath Alessandro's thigh. ‘Told you they couldn't hear us.'

Alessandro grinned at her.

‘What?' She beamed up at him.

‘Nothing.' He wrapped his arm over her shoulder and tugged her to his chest.

‘You think I'm crazy, don't you?'

He kissed her forehead. ‘I think you're
meraviglioso
.'

She giggled and scrunched up her nose. ‘Sounds wonderful.'

He laughed. ‘That's exactly what it means.'

‘That's alright then.' She reached up to kiss him on the lips.

The truck kicked into motion, lunging both of them onto the floor in a fit of laughter. Alessandro crawled onto his knees and helped the giggling Ginger onto her chair before he re-seated himself. As the truck swerved, they both clutched onto their seats rather than each other.

‘We couldn't make love in here even if we tried.' Ginger laughed.

‘I agree.'

The drive to the Accademia di Belle Arti was an unpredictable trek of bumps and turns, and it wasn't until they hit the freeway that Alessandro felt like he could breathe again.

An hour and a half after taking their seats in the back of the truck, the vehicle pulled to a stop, and moments later the back doors flung open.

‘
Siamo arrivati
,' the taller of the two guards announced their arrival.

Alessandro helped Ginger down from the truck, and in a matter of minutes the crate and its valuable contents were loaded onto a trolley. Two of Alessandro's colleagues greeted them at the back entrance to the museum and Alessandro quickly dismissed the guards before they were whisked inside.

‘Ciao, Leonardo and Lorenzo, this is my girlfriend, Ginger.'

Ginger reached out and shook hands with each of the men. Alessandro could just imagine what was going through his friends' minds. He'd been away for seven months and has returned with not only valuable cargo, but also a stunning Australian woman on his arm. He liked the looks the two men gave him as their glances shifted from Ginger to him to the crate. Even Alessandro had to admit he was no longer the unadventurous professor they knew him as.

He pushed the trolley up to a glass door and Lorenzo swiped the key card around his neck down the security pad. The door popped open, and he pushed the trolley to the waiting stainless-steel table. Alessandro used a crowbar to ease the lid from the crate and the men helped him lift it off and place it on the floor.

Nestled within the custom-built crate, the monkey statue was resting in a bath of cotton wool. Under the harsh lights, it shone with a magnificent glow. Although Alessandro had been looking at it for weeks, he was still astonished at how perfectly crafted the piece of treasure was.

‘
Wow, Alessandro, è magnifico
.' Leonardo didn't drag his eyes from the gold as he spoke.

‘Where'd you find it?'

‘Sorry, but that's classified
informazioni
.'

Lorenzo cocked his head. ‘Come on, you can tell us.'

‘No. We can't.' Ginger said it with authority.

That was another thing he adored about Ginger. She could switch from carefree and joyous to forthright in the blink of an eye.

Lorenzo shrugged as if he didn't care, but Alessandro knew that the secrecy ate at him. Whenever Alessandro had come to work with his lunch in a paper bag, Lorenzo always had to know what was inside. Alessandro liked the lunch guessing game, but this was a thousand times more impressive.

Alessandro glanced at his watch. Professor Sezoine should be here in about twenty minutes. Their timing was perfect. ‘We'll have to work together to lift it out.'

Alessandro pressed a button at the side of the table to lower it to the bottom position.

Between the four of them, they managed to wriggle their gloved hands beneath the statue and stand it onto its base. From there, it was relatively easy to lift it onto the bench.

Professor Sezoine arrived and went straight to the statue that now stood proudly in the centre of the room. He had a woolly head of grey hair that scrambled in all directions, and a beard to match. His eyebrows were enormous tufts of grey fluff that nearly consumed his eyes when he frowned, which he was doing now as he pointed at the decorations over the statue.

‘This work is exquisite.' The awe in his throaty voice was unmistakable. ‘Where did you find this?'

Ginger shot Alessandro a glance.

‘We are not at liberty to say at this point.' Alessandro shifted from foot to foot.

‘Right. You said that on the phone.'

Alessandro caught Ginger's eyes, and she bulged them at him. It was exciting to be sharing this moment with her. As he was the only one who didn't scuba dive, he hadn't had the pleasure of unearthing a treasure yet. Today, he and Ginger were receiving front-row seats for the removal of the monkey's head.

‘This is Thoth, the god of knowledge.' The professor's mouth was barely inches from the gold. ‘He is usually depicted in one of two ways. The ibis head or the baboon head. The baboon is a form of A'an, which is the god of equilibrium. You have the ibis-headed Thoth here.' He pointed at the three men with ibises for heads that were carved into the body of the statue. ‘The fact that a baboon head is on this statue means he is the guardian. But of what?' He waggled his eyebrows in a fluffy grey two-step.

‘You can't tell from the pictures?' Ginger's voice elevated a notch.

Professor Sezoine glanced at her momentarily before he blinked a few times. ‘Patience,' he said, before he returned to the statue. ‘I have never seen a statue of Thoth with both the baboon and the ibis. It is always one or the other. Never both.' He finished his sentence with a low hum in his throat. Alessandro caught Ginger's twinkling eyes, and she winked at him. It helped to alleviate the tension in the room that was as crisp as static electricity.

Sezoine made one indecipherable noise after another as he scrutinised the statue. He paused on a symbol, and Alessandro's heart pounded in the silence as he waited for the professor to reveal the significance of the engraving.

‘Can you tell how old it is?' Ginger made her impatience obvious.

‘Mmmm,' Sezoine mumbled. ‘It's fascinating. We have indications here that it's from the late period, however as it has inscriptions from Ptolemaic Egypt that would place it at a later date.'

‘I've never heard of Ptolemaic Egypt.' Ginger beat Alessandro to the statement.

‘It was a dynasty that started with Ptolemy I Soter who rose to accession after the death of Alexander the Great. Which means this magnificent artefact could date to as far back as 323BC.'

Ginger whistled. ‘That makes it …'

‘About 2,338 years old.' Alessandro did the math for her; she'd pointed out many times that math was not one of her strongest talents.

‘Holy shit,' Ginger squealed.

Sezoine leant in and glided his gloved finger across the symbols that ran parallel to each other at the top and the bottom of the statue. ‘These symbols I can translate.' He pointed at what Alessandro thought looked like a large kitchen knife. ‘See this feather?' Sezoine said. ‘This is I.' He pointed at the next symbol, a bird. ‘This is watched.' As he went from symbol to symbol he translated. He stalled, looked up, and eyeballed Alessandro. He then raised one of the bushy eyebrows in a silent question.

Alessandro put the sentence together. ‘I watched over the building of a splendid boat of 140 cubits in length 60 cubits in breadth to transport.'

After a momentary pause, Ginger opened her palms. ‘Transport what?'

The professor lifted his other brow this time, and his eyes gleamed. ‘Gold.'

Alessandro shared a glance with Ginger and her eyes bulged.

‘The Ptolemy dynasty was noted for its extensive collection of coinage in three metals. Gold, silver and bronze. In particular, they produced large coins of substantial size.' The professor's eyebrows thumped together. ‘Aha … here we have a warning.'

‘What kind of warning?' Alessandro asked.

‘Warning us away from the urn.'

Ginger put her hands on her hips. ‘But we are going to open it, right?'

Sezoine flicked his hand. ‘We must proceed with caution.'

Alessandro tilted his head at the professor. ‘Surely nothing could have survived all these centuries in the ocean.'

‘Quite the contrary. If this has been sealed well enough to prevent water penetrating, then it's possible some of the mechanisms they used could have survived.'

‘Like what?' Alessandro asked.

Sezoine drew his lips into a thin smile. ‘Like mercury.'

‘What would that do?'

‘Mercury is particularly dangerous because at room temperature it vaporises. When that happens, tiny, invisible atoms fill the air.' He wriggled his fingers in the air as if sprinkling fairy-dust. ‘It is both scentless and soluble in oil, so if it's inhaled it's easily absorbed into the body.' He paused for effect. ‘That would be very bad.'