Sixtine- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by Caroline Vermalle

  She slid the piece of paper under the door, and rushed back down the stairs.

  As she stepped out into the tree-lined avenue, she breathed so deeply that she felt dizzy. Now, more than ever, she wanted to understand how Seth’s death related to all the memories she had. She passed in front of the waiter at the restaurant, greeted him, then rushed into a passing taxi.

  She still had a chance; De Bok.

  As the car started to pull away, she noticed a face come out from behind the curtains of the fourth-floor canopy.

  Sixtine’s heart pounded in her chest as she saw her note twisted in the fire of platinum lighter, held by a skull tattoo on a face she didn’t know.

  16

  From: gayle.smith@bbc.co.uk

  To: florence.mornay@bbc.co.uk

  Subject: URGENT: Nefertiti

  Florence,

  We’ve been trying to contact you non-stop on your cell phone for two days. There’s panic here, no one understands anything. Andrew was arrested for the murder of Al-Shamy, he had the murder weapon on him, and the police don’t want to release him. It’s absurd and the whole team is back. Check out the details on BBC News, let us know if you know anything more.

  But Jane, you know her, doesn’t give a damn about these setbacks. She keeps telling us that the channel doesn’t stop broadcasting and she’s furious because she doesn’t have any information about the Khufu tunnel (were you bluffing us or what????).

  In addition to that, see the article on Archaeology Magazine attached. It’s dead to the excluded and it doesn’t help your case, you should have had the interview before them. Jim and I trust you, but it’s getting hot up there and if you don’t want to get fired, you better call with information about the pyramids.

  REMIND US PRESTO!!!!!!!

  Gayle

  JOINED PAPER: excerpt from Archaeology Magazine online

  NEWS – Technology unravels the mysteries of Nefertiti.

  Dr. Cheryl Wood-Smith, Chief Curator of the Egyptian Antiquities Department at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, has agreed to entrust Archaeology Magazine exclusively with the first discoveries about Nefertiti’s mummy.

  Archaeology Magazine: Nefertiti promises to be the Met’s flagship attraction for decades to come. But beyond the spectacle of the mummy star, what does the scientific community expect from the study of its remains?

  Dr. Cheryl Wood-Smith: “Mummies in general are an incomparable source of knowledge. They answer questions that experts and the public have about one of the most sophisticated societies in history. Even if the Ancient Egyptians left many written testimonies, these tell only part of their story, and researchers rely heavily on human remains to complete it. The mummies highlight aspects of their daily lives that the texts do not cover: physical anthropology, family relationships, life expectancy, health, nutrition, diseases, causes of death. And of course, they offer fascinating information on the complex process of mummification; including not only the artificial preservation of the body, but also the ritual elements that played an essential role: the placement of amulets, tapes and the accompaniment of texts and images.”

  Archaeology Magazine: “Until recently, the only way to acquire the knowledge you are talking about was to remove the mummy bandage, a process that is not only destructive, but also irreversible. Technology has made progress in this area.”

  Dr. Cheryl Wood-Smith: “Indeed, a few years ago, X-ray and CAT-scan technology allowed scientists to study mummies without touching them. But today, thanks to the Met’s equipment, which has partnered with Palo Alto Graphics Inc (PAGI) and Smith-Vallard University Hospital here in New York, we are able to go even further. We can create 3-D images of every detail of the mummy, down to the smallest amulet.”

  Archaeology Magazine: “In concrete terms, can you tell us about this new technology?”

  Dr. Cheryl Wood-Smith: “We use a SOMATOM Sensation 64 scanner, which uses a technique that allows the body to travel through the scanner while the radiation source is rotating, collecting data simultaneously in different axial planes. Cross-sectional images of the mummy are obtained at 0.024 inch intervals. The result: exceptional clarity and never before achieved in the 3-D image.”

  Archaeology Magazine: “And for you, personally, what do you hope to find?”

  Dr. Cheryl Wood-Smith: “What my team and I are preparing to do is to confirm Nefertiti’s place in Egyptian history. To decipher the story of her life as told by the objects and inscriptions that were placed here for posterity. The advanced 3-D technology will allow us to virtually penetrate the coffin, gather information about Nefertiti, know her state of health, explore her body, as if we were looking over the shoulders of the embalmers who were preparing it for eternity, 3300 years ago. See her face, too. Personally, this is the happiest day of my life.”

  Archaeology Magazine: “Technology allows you to unlock Nefertiti’s most intimate secrets. Have you ever made any discoveries? Can you tell us some of them?”

  Dr. Cheryl Wood-Smith: “We are only at the very beginning of exploration and have months – or even years – of work ahead of us. For now, after a quick study, we have found everything we were hoping for on the mummy of a character of this rank, including amulets of extraordinary quality. There are also some elements specific to Nefertiti, whose function we do not yet understand, such as a beetle placed in an amazing place. The embalmers themselves sometimes used strange techniques, real puzzles for 21st-century scientists! Remember the bowl of Nesperennub, but it is part of the pleasure we have to work on these remains. What would Nefertiti be without some mystery?”

  17

  Getting invited to Yohannes De Bok’s house that same evening was child’s play. On the phone, the antique dealer assured her that he remembered her from the time they met at the cocktail party before Nefertiti was sold at Sotheby’s. He invited her to dinner at his residence in Polanco, a chic neighborhood, but as was the custom here, they would have a late dinner.

  The sun was already setting on the skyscrapers of Mexico City but there were still three hours to wait before the appointment time. Sixtine, drunk with fatigue, rushed into Angel Fire, an internet café. Spanish Rap made the speakers fixed to the ceiling vibrate in a jumble of electrical wires. The flies circled a large paper-mache angel hanging above the front door, and a teenager with pimpled skin took his few pesos without looking at her.

  She had one hour.

  She settled between two other computers, and connected to the internet. She had promised herself she would not do so, yet she could not help but type Al-Shamy’s name in the search engine. His body had been found and the newspapers already talked about his murder.

  Sixtine, what did you expect?

  Definitely not that a suspect had already been identified and incarcerated.

  A BBC journalist, Andrew Sheets.

  The murder weapon was found in his hotel room. He was present at the sale of Sotheby’s, and witnesses had seen him wandering the streets of Paris that night. He pretended not to remember a thing from that night, even though there was proof that he was elsewhere than where he said he was. Despite the questioning of the reason for his action, everything seemed to indicate that this case would be resolved quickly.

  Sixtine scanned dozens of web pages and the newspapers all had the same information. Some extrapolated, invented, summoned unsavory witnesses, but no one mentioned another suspect.

  No one was talking about Sixtine Desroches.

  There was no doubt in her mind, Oxan Aslanian was behind this setup. He promised her we’d leave her alone. He had kept his promise, and he’d definitely keep the other one as well.

  Instinctively, Sixtine glanced over her shoulder, to check that he was not there, with his bald and greasy face, the rotting stone smell, but there was only the paper-mache angel, a few teenagers and a blond man giggling in front of his screen.

  She had only twenty minutes left, so she put her headphones on and finally focused on why she was here.


  Call Max.

  His face immediately appeared on the screen. His long, rebellious hair, his blue eyes and that look of being totally and absolutely there for her. Even via a poor quality webcam, Sixtine remembered the effect he had had on her when they met at the British Museum. The feeling that he was an ally.

  “Hello, Max.”

  “Sixtine, I found the tunnel.”

  Before Sixtine could say anything, an icon appeared on her screen. Max had just sent her a video file. He explained the circumstances of his discovery, the deductions thanks to the satellite image of a rainy day, the meeting with Naya.

  Sixtine clicked on play. Everything went on in a frantic and underground race. The entrance to the humble house. The bread oven. The luxury of the antechamber. Then the passage, with the strange Egyptian frescoes.

  Before she could reach the end, instinct told her that someone was passing by her, too close.

  She immediately turned off the video and followed a tall silhouette in a black jacket who sat a few stations away from her. The man had left a smell of tequila in his wake. It was him laughing alone the moment before. She was relieved when she noticed he didn’t even notice her, or what she was doing. Just a lost man talking to himself.

  “Sixtine, is everything all right?” Max asked, who had seen her turn around.

  “Yeah, I thought I recognized someone.”

  “Does the video remind you of anything?”

  “Max,” she interrupted, “you have to stop your research on Room X.”

  As she spoke these words, she remembered her presence in Mexico City broke that promise, putting him in danger. The least she could do was to try to spare him.

  Two more days.

  “Sixtine, even if you hadn’t been there, I would be exactly where I am today. Try to understand.”

  “I know you’ve been dreaming of unlocking Cheops’s secrets since you were a kid, Max. And maybe I don’t have the right to ask you to stop. But I just want you to know someone will not hesitate to kill you, to kill me, if we don’t stop this right now. You know Franklin’s dead already.”

  Max’s face froze in silence.

  Sixtine, despite the headphones, noticed a strange noise next to her. A slap, or rather an ultra-fast series of slaps.

  She turned her head towards the blond man. This time he glanced directly at her, his eyes betraying a certain intoxication, a crooked smile on his face.

  She then recognized him: the poet drunk. The day of the rain. The slamming of dominoes falling on the table. Even though she couldn’t see it, but she knew who he was playing against.

  Death.

  A wave of fear ran down her back. Was he there for her? Or was it a coincidence?

  Max’s voice brought her back to the screen. “Sixtine, the pyramid of Cheops, this secret passage, it has become so much bigger than you and I. It is history that is being rewritten – ”

  “So let others risk their lives and go crazy. But swear to me, you’ll forget everything about me, about my husband.”

  Max smiled sadly. “It will be difficult for me, Sixtine, to forget you.”

  Despite the webcam, Sixtine understood, and she lowered her gaze. There was nothing to answer this truth stated so simply, but which no one could do anything about. After a few moments, Max whispered, “All right, I’ll stop my research.”

  “Thank you for everything, Max. Good luck, and please, take care of yourself.”

  The screen turned black, and sadness rose inside her as the images of the tunnel frescoes appeared in her mind, but she quickly chased them away thinking of Gigi.

  Thaddeus. She was supposed to find Thaddeus.

  Clack, clack, clack, clack.

  The man with the dominoes stared out in front of him with a dazed look, kohl on his eyes reddened by alcohol. She noted he was in no condition to follow her, or do anything. He had nothing to do here, except drag his dominoes and delusions.

  He spoke to himself again and Sixtine couldn’t help but overhear.

  “Once upon a time there was an Aztec goddess, the Serpent Woman who regularly visited the Eagle to know the gods of Heaven. During one of her visits, she met a rabbit. A little rabbit, and this rabbit, he had a dahlia in his mouth a dahlia, a red dahlia with eight petals. The gods, oh so wise, the gods of Heaven, the gods who knew everything, they told the Snake Woman to pierce the flower with the sharp needle of an agave. Then, to put the dahlia on her chest the entire night. On her chest, the chest of the Snake Woman, at night, the red dahlia. Do you know what happened next?”

  Sixtine’s eyes widened momentarily as he glanced directly at her, while one of the customers snapped at him to be quiet.

  “Be careful not to disturb the sleeping snakes, little man,” the poet warned.

  Then he turned back to Sixtine, smiling, swinging in his chair. He repeated quietly, to his attention, “Do you know what happened? The next day, the goddess gave birth to a son, already great, half-man, half-god. He was the god of war. He had obtained his power and bloodlust from the dahlia pierced by the sharp needle. And you, did you hold a red dahlia against your chest?”

  Sixtine gathered her things and stood from her chair. Her forehead was on fire, as if Al-Shamy’s visions and bloody chest radiated from her face and spelled out the word murderer. When she passed in front of the poet who wasn’t even looking at her, busy opening a flask that smelled like tequila, she found just enough courage to tell him, “You look like you’re everywhere.”

  “Wherever it takes, soul.”

  She took out a picture of Thaddeus she had carried in the pocket of her jeans from museum to museum and showed it to him. “Have you ever seen him before?”

  “Yes, sweetheart, we were together this morning. To remake the world.”

  He gave her a forced, dismissive smile, as if these things did not interest him. He took a swig of tequila, which ran down his chin.

  Sixtine, regretting having spoken to him, headed for the exit.

  “Hey, lady,” he said, as he grabbed her arm and his dirty fingernails made white marks on her skin. “Be careful, please. I already told you that, didn’t I? The old beliefs. Be careful what you think is dead, what you think is invisible. Always on the surface, the invisible. And the impossible, too, lady. Nothing is impossible. I know something about that, because this man,” he said, looking around him as if to check that no one was listening, “this man. I’m his brother!”

  As he burst out in a fit of mad laughter, two muscular teenagers came to grab him and dragged him to a service door, leaving behind a trail of dominoes.

  Sixtine squeezed under the paper-mache angel, which now seemed different. The night had arrived, she had barely noticed.

  The moon was full in the sky of Mexico City, and Sixtine scanned its gray and tortured relief. A new memory exploded in her head with the cruelty of a ghost.

  Thaddeus was bleeding.

  18

  Max stared blankly at his screen long after Sixtine had hung up.

  He clicked on an icon, where he had recorded the end of their conversation. By the time she asked him to promise to stop his search, he knew she was asking him to say goodbye. Maybe this separation would be less painful if he could keep something of her. He replayed their conversation, his stomach tied, his fingers cold.

  He played it again. And again. And again.

  By the fifth time, he knew every intonation of Sixtine’s voice, every movement of her eyes, her lips, and her body language. He had also detected something strange, which made his image even more surreal and poetic. An angel sat on her shoulder, creating an ethereal feel to their conversation, as if they were watched over by angels.

  Max had been able to zoom in on it, and even though it was only a figurine, probably made of papier-mâché, hanging on the wall of the café where she was, it gave him hope that everything would be okay. Even if it was only for a moment.

  There had been a moment when he had told her that he loved her, or almost; when she had lowered
her gaze, as if to seek an answer to that confession. She glanced back at him awaiting his answer. When he had said, “I promise” as a farewell.

  Two words.

  Enough to write a love story that ended badly before it even started.

  Max phoned the airport find out about flight schedules from Cairo to Cologne, Germany. He’d go home to his parents. It would please his mother, he could rest, and, hopefully, forget it all.

  He finally stood from his cheap chair, and turned off his computer. He walked around his hotel room to stretch his leg, easing the dull pain which had started to travel up his leg from sitting for longer than usual. He glanced down at the long scar etched on his skin. He thought of Aqmool’s disfigured face, and the scars in Sixtine’s mind. The trio suffered from the consequences of a plot, only part of which they still understood.

  What about Naya?

  He took his phone and looked for Aqmool’s number. He had had the entire night to think about their meeting. His instincts told him he had to trust him. If they were in danger as Sixtine claimed, the ex-policeman could offer them protection. But before he pressed the key to call him, his cell phone rang.

  It was Florence. She was in Cairo.

  She was just in time to answer a couple of questions from the British police.

  Recording of the statement by telephone of Miss Florence Mornay-Devereux in the case of the homicide of Dr. Al-Shamy.

  POLICE INSPECTOR (SCOTLAND YARD): “Miss, can you tell me what the suspect in Dr. Al-Shamy’s murder was doing in your hotel room?”

  FLORENCE MORNAY-DEVEREUX: “He was just annoying me. How long is this interview going to take? I don’t have much time.”

  POLICE INSPECTOR (SCOTLAND YARD): “Could you be more specific about your encounter with Mr. Sheets, please?”

  FLORENCE MORNAY-DEVEREUX: “I was quietly sitting in my hotel room, waiting until it was time for my flight to Cairo when he knocked on my door. I opened it, I saw that he had been drinking, he stank of cheap whiskey and some other form of hard liquor. Naturally, it was heavy, if you know what I mean. When I tried to leave, he blocked the door. A bottle calmed him right down, though, and I left.”