“I made you promise that you would go through with it for me, and you did,” she whispered. “I know that if you walk out of the door of this church, you will disappear, and I’ll never see you again. I sentenced you to a life as a fugitive, but without you, I would be one too.”
She reached out to his face and touched his cheek. “Thaddeus, take me away from all of this.”
His high walls seemed to buckle and for a moment she thought he would finally surrender and put his arm around her. Instead, and much to her dismay, he glanced at the church around him and his jaw clenched.
“I vowed to protect you,” he replied harshly. “And the only way to keep that promise is for you to stay away from me.”
“I don’t want to be protected. Don’t you understand?” Sixtine exclaimed. “Until yesterday, I thought I had come back from the dead to avenge Seth and avenge the torture I was subjected to. Whether I lived or died didn’t matter to me. Since then, I’ve found a reason to forget. And to continue. I didn’t want to believe it, but you just proved it again by saving my life.”
Her breath was lost for a moment, then she finally whispered, “That reason is you.”
Thaddeus rose to his feet and pushed Sixtine’s hand away. He took a few urgent steps, and looked up at the dome. A merciless battle was going on inside him.
Suddenly, he turned to her and scoffed angrily. “Can’t you see you’re trading one assassin for another? You have survived the cruelest betrayal that could be made to you and yet you still have faith in the human race, you still have the energy to hope. Go and live, Sixtine. Live the life that should have been yours. Forget Seth, forget De Bok, and forget me.”
Sixtine’s shoulders slumped for a moment, but tensed as soon as they heard voices outside the church.
“You’re wrong! De Bok told me this in the catacombs, and he was also wrong.”
“De Bok, in the catacombs? That’s impossible,” Thaddeus scowled.
“DeBok is Oxan Aslanian. Or at least he was…” Her voice trailed for a moment but she took a deep breath and composed herself. “It was him. He admitted it to me, in the Templo Mayor. He forged your handwriting to lure me there.”
Thaddeus lowered his gaze to the marble of the church floor, but Sixtine, who was kept alert by the voices outside the church, continued. “He also told me to go home to my house on the cliffs, that it was my destiny. But he was wrong. Both of you are wrong. It’s not my destiny.”
“Don’t talk to me about destiny,” he hissed. “You don’t know that.”
“It was true until I wound up dead,” Sixtine exclaimed. “In the hospital in Cairo, I was already in the kingdom of the dead, in front of a ghost court, judged for my sins! I never believed in any of it, but I saw it. I lived it!”
Her voice echoed in the dome of the chapel, and a bird crossed the golden vault. She grabbed Thaddeus’s arms, casting her fingernails into his skin.
“My heart had betrayed itself, they told me. When they weighed it, it betrayed itself. I didn’t know what that meant until yesterday, when I remembered the night you promised me. The moon, the jacarandas.”
Thaddeus’s gaze suddenly changed, it was paler, sadder, more feverish.
“I didn’t at the time, but I realize it now,” Sixtine continued. “My heart betrayed itself when I swore an oath to Seth on my wedding day. It was because of you, the night of the engagement party.”
At these words, Thaddeus put his arms around her and held her tight against him with urgency. His scent filled her lungs and made her dizzy. She heard his heartbeat mixing with hers, perfectly in sync. She kept her head on his shoulder when loud bangs echoed through the church, coming from the large wooden door of the church.
“Where are we going now?”
He abruptly pulled himself out of their embrace and cradled her face with both his hands. Emotions overwhelmed him once more and he whispered, “It’s too late for us, Sixtine.”
Panic consumed her entire being and she grabbed his arm.
“No. I’m going with you. I’m ready to go! Please, don’t leave me,” she called out in desperation.
For an answer, he turned his head towards the large doors, which threatened to give in.
“It’s too late. It’s over now.”
“No, nothing is over,” Sixtine pleaded, but her voice was lost in the crash of an explosion, on the other side of the door.
As Thaddeus touched Sixtine’s face, Cybelle, dressed in black with a hood over her head, looking like Death itself, came out of nowhere.
Cybelle grabbed Sixtine and dragged her into a nearby corner of the church. Sixtine struggled against the woman’s grasp and yelled out, “Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him! It was to save me! It was to save me!”
As a gunshot filled the entire dome, Cybelle hid Sixtine in a confessional booth, covering her mouth with her hands. “Quiet,” Cybelle ordered.
Men had burst into the church and although the priest tried to get between them, the intruders pushed him to the ground. One of them fired a burst at Thaddeus, who disappeared into a crypt. Luckily, the bullets didn’t reach him, but a large blue and black virgin of Guadalupe, whose halo shone in golden tentacles, toppled from its base. It was gigantic, and the men shouted, stopped in their tracks.
Sixtine’s breath was cut off by Cybelle’s hands, and what followed was the sound of the slow fall of the statue.
Finally, Our Lady of Guadalupe exploded on the ground into a galaxy of blue, golden, black and white pieces.
Sixtine called out Thaddeus’s name, but nothing came out of her throat, as the alabaster dust had cast a gray veil on the world and on her soul.
38
“Dr. Wood-Smith, with all due respect, you are aware that what you are suggesting is quite impossible.”
The voice was there, coiled in the darkness a few meters away, manifesting itself only as a stinking fog of gasoline and an echo running through the filthy pipes of a low ceiling in the Meat Packing District parking lot.
Cheryl Wood-Smith’s sulky fingers trembled with cold, and she stammered, “I know, I know. But you have to believe me. I’m not crazy. The data is undeniable.”
“Okay. Let’s start from the beginning.”
“My colleagues at the Met and I studied all the elements, using state-of-the-art equipment. Our work complements that of Sotheby’s experts, those employed by the buyer. The funerary objects, the cardboard, the inscriptions, the materials, the strips around the sarcophagus, the amulets inside it, even the whole embalming process. Everything, you hear me, everything is absolutely authentic, but…”
She swallowed with noise and added, “Nefertiti’s body is not.”
A brief silence made Cheryl feel uncomfortable and she continued. “This body is that of a woman who died only a few months ago. She was mummified immediately, probably the day she died.”
“You’re telling me that someone found Nefertiti’s real tomb, then opened her coffin, and replaced Nefertiti’s with another body?”
“Of course it sounds absurd when you say it like that,” Cheryl muttered.
“Couldn’t a forger have recreated the whole thing?”
“No,” she said with the utmost confidence. “That’s impossible! Counterfeiters spend their entire lives creating and perfecting a single type of object, which can barely fool experts. Here we are dealing with seventy-seven objects, a mummy, a gigantic coffin, the Book of the Dead, canopic vases. Not only would it require knowledge of extraordinary sophistication, but also a whole brigade of master counterfeiters who would work for years on end. No one in Egypt is able to recreate a set of forgeries on this scale, the ambition is beyond comprehension. It would have taken only an approximate hieroglyph for everything to collapse and the imposter to be revealed in a few minutes!”
“And here, it is the body that betrays the imposter. Let’s say the whole thing is a fake. Could the forger have imagined that no one would notice?”
Silence.
“No,” Cher
yl answered. “If there is – and I still find it hard to believe – a forger, his know-how proves he is perfectly informed of the latest academic and scientific advances in Egyptology. He also of the cutting-edge technology and techniques used to forge these items. If it is a fake, it is as if someone had perfectly recreated the whole Sistine Chapel to the last detail, and had painted a mustache onto God’s face.”
The voice gave a slight laugh, but Cheryl seemed lost in thought. “Not even he…”
“Oxan Aslanian,” the voice said. “Is that who you’re thinking about?”
Cheryl nodded absentmindedly. “Or he knew.”
“He knew what?”
A smile formed on Cheryl’s lips and she felt a wave of relief crash over her. “He knew what would happen. He knew the Met would cover it up. Too big to fail, isn’t it? The project would generate so much publicity that the museums would have so much to lose, and that it would be better to claim that it was Nefertiti.”
She took a break, fatigue weighing down her eyelids.
“But even he, the great Oxan Aslanian couldn’t possibly recreate an entire mummy, could he? It’s beyond comprehension. Also there is something else.”
“Don’t be afraid, you have to tell me everything.”
The curator huddled imperceptibly in her cheap coat and whispered, “I had all my results checked. A friend of mine, a forensic scientist at the crime lab, he confirmed everything I feared about the body, that it was not a natural death. The woman was murdered.”
She rubbed her temple, trying to stop another migraine from bursting through her head. “As you know, when it comes to homicide, the usual procedure, by default, is to search the missing persons files. We found out whose body it is.”
“Tell me.”
Cheryl glanced into the shadowy corner where her contact stood, then looked down at an oil stain on the floor at his feet. “Elizabeth von Wär. Helmut von Wär’s daughter.”
The surprise brought the voice out of the darkness. His large silhouette cast a shadow over the oil stain as he stepped out into the light, and his gold earring shone in the pale light of the parking lot.
39
With her feet in the sand, the orange wind caressing her silver hair, Sixtine gazed upon it as if it was the first time.
The pyramid of Cheops.
Max had given Sixtine a while to exorcise the emotions that pressed against her lungs with their cold fingers, to silence the giggling monkey, and to give herself the courage she so desperately needed.
Just as she came to the conclusion that maybe she couldn’t do it, Max approached her and asked, “Are you ready?”
She could have said no, that she was not ready, that Nefertiti stared at her with her empty eyes and that the taste of stone was still burning against her tongue.
The moment he smiled at her, it gave her the necessary courage and she reciprocated the gesture. Although her throat was too dry to form a single word, she gestured to him she was ready, and he led the way.
“The ascent only lasts a few minutes. The return is harder,” Max said, translating what the guide said in Arabic. Sixtine was grateful they had a guide with them, but it was Max who gave her the courage to see this through.
The return is harder.
Yes, she knew that was the truth.
Sixtine had left Mexico City the day Thaddeus disappeared and had read Florence’s message as soon as she arrived at her house with the red walls. She called Max right away, telling him there was no longer any threat, and that she wanted to know the rest.
They had agreed to meet at the pyramid, but not right away.
Sixtine wanted to wait again. Just one more day. Maybe Thaddeus would come back.
By a sordid coincidence, she had read in the local newspaper about an antique dealer named De Bok who had been killed for falsifying passports. Apparently, the culprits were part of a gang, one murder among many in the Mexican news. No one seemed to be looking for other culprits.
She had waited one more day, alone with the pain of Seth’s betrayal and alone with her love for Thaddeus which grew as the memories flowed and days passed.
But Thaddeus did not return.
When she stepped on the large stone blocks, Max offered her his hand, yellowed with dust. She took it immediately since her dizziness was not far away.
Since their meeting at the British Museum, Max’s features had deepened, his movements had become safer, his presence more serious. He too had seen things he should not have. In their short telephonic conversation, he had promised to tell her everything at the top of the pyramid.
She knew he was still in love with her. This confession, made at the Angel Fire Café, was suspended between them like a secret holding its breath.
Sixtine mourned her love, who died at the same time as the Lady of Guadalupe, in the blue chapel. The veil of dust covered her heart. She had to spare Max’s, who was just as hurt as she was.
They climbed the steps to the top of the pyramid, a one hundred and forty-six meters high journey.
Its majesty as much as its power vanished suddenly. Under their hands, under their feet, it was just an uneven heap of stone.
When Sixtine reached the top, she stood tall, her hair in the wind, her eyes lost in the panoramic view, a new sensation flowed over her.
Freedom.
The anguish was gone. The vertigo and visions as well. They had been eradicated by the sight of what spread at her feet. A yellowish fog enveloped the Giza plateau and the city beyond. The sun was a gigantic white orb which pierced the thickness of the stone sky.
Max sat next to an engraved inscription in the stone, dated back to 1899, and invited Sixtine to sit next to him.
Then, like a patient storyteller, he explained everything he knew. On his smartphone, he showed her the video, the photos of the tunnel, the fragments of the granite plaque with the names. He described the connections found between the events, the mysteries which still remained unanswered. He explained the details of the gradual collapse, crosschecked this information with that of Franklin and Florence. He confirmed that the DNA found in De Bok’s trunk matched those of Seth and Jessica Pryce, and the other names.
At times, when the details were too difficult to say, he would stare at a distant point beyond the city, or draw lines in the dust, revealing the stone underneath.
He spoke for more than an hour and Sixtine did not interrupt him, as it had left its mark on both their faces.
The sun soon lowered down behind the city and the fog turned gray. Public lighting and car headlights pierced the fog.
The silence between them was full of questions, but Sixtine only chose one.
“How many others have there been?”
“When we put the images together, we found seven couples. You were the sixth victim. In the newspapers Florence found, Mornay Vivant talked about Greece as well. I think there are many others around the world. Especially in ancient places, I imagine. Those who are connected to old beliefs.”
“The wonders of the world,” Sixtine whispered.
Max nodded grimly and said, “They’ve been the graves of many women, but at least there won’t be any more in Cheops.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The tunnel dated back to the time of Vivant. I think the rooms we found were part of the appeal of the operation in Cairo. I can promise you, unless we bring in construction vehicles and machines, no man can reopen these rooms now that they are closed. Or maybe – ”
“Maybe it would have to be a coincidence like the one that brought us together. A tiny passage, a television crew to hear me, and you, with the right tools to see me, just at the right time. Do you believe in coincidences?”
Max sighed deeply. “I think we have to accept that we will not discover everything. The circumstances of your rescue are still unclear, but,” he said and lowered his gaze, “at least we know who was guilty”.
Sixtine’s gaze was set in the distance, on the horizon which dar
kened as the lights gushed out like fireflies.
“It was important to Seth that I made that promise in church. To life, to death. For him, the rest had to be justified. We had a honeymoon in Cairo. Thaddeus tried several times to save me from the fate that was before me. I was drugged, the memories are fuzzy. What did he do to save me? Did I know, already, at that time what was going to happen? Thaddeus risked his life to protect me, until the very end.”
Sixtine pursed her lips momentarily, tasting the dust on her lips and laughed bitterly. “Seth needed treasure to secure his fortune in the afterlife. De Bok provided him with Tutankhamen. Isn’t that absurd? I guess Seth must have been enraged when he found out he only had a few months to live. I know he sacrificed his short life to be rich. He sacrificed joy, friends, family, everything that mattered, and just when he finally reached the top, death called him. No wonder he wanted to keep all the gold he had accumulated. Room X, the lotuses, me. Everything had to be perfect for it to work.”
Max was silent beside her, and she was grateful he allowed her to open up about everything. “How long did he know about the access to the tunnel under the pyramid? When did he join this secret society founded by Vivant? Does it even still exist?”
“Al-Shamy and De Bok are dead,” Max sighed, “but I can’t help but think back to what he told me, outside the American consulate, when I confronted him. He told me that if the tunnel existed, I would only be able to go through it in one direction. I thought it was a threat, but I think he just wanted to warn me. He was guilty too. He did not hesitate to sacrifice Moswen to get Tutankhamen back. Franklin, Zahara and Naya are all dead because of him.”
“We’ll also never know why Seth fought back,” Sixtine pointed out, “when he could have died without pain.”
“Even the most elaborate plans can go wrong.”
Sixtine shook her head unconvinced and said, “No, I don’t think so. If Seth didn’t know, I’m willing to bet De Bok did. He had obviously developed a taste for murder, and he had little respect for Seth.”
Sixtine- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 46