The Messiah Secret

by James Becker

  ‘Yes, but when this road was built the government may not have realized this was an important site. I thought that most of the excavations over here had been undertaken by foreign archaeologists anyway. Essentially, Egypt’s been dug up by the British and the French and the Americans, not by the Egyptians themselves. They probably just saw a bunch of old stones and thought they’d do nicely as a hardcore base for the road. I don’t suppose it’s the first time something like that has happened.’

  Angela nodded slowly. ‘That’s a remarkably accurate assessment, actually, and you’re quite right – it’s been very common. A lot of people don’t know that when St Peter’s Basilica was being built in Rome, many of the stones they used for it were taken from the Coliseum, which is one reason why it’s in the state it is now. It was only a lot later that the Italians seemed to realize that the Coliseum was an internationally important archaeological site – at least as important as St Peter’s, maybe even more important – and started taking steps to give it the protection it deserved.’

  Bronson put a comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘Let’s take a look at what’s left of the temple.’

  They walked up the slope towards the structure that remained standing beside the road. The walls were very low and the majority were little more than tumbled piles of masonry. Angela crouched down beside one of them and pointed at the carving of a foot and lower leg. The rest of the carving had vanished when the wall fell to pieces – or perhaps was demolished – but there were just a few hieroglyphic characters visible over to one side.

  ‘Anything useful here?’ Bronson asked, bending down beside her.

  ‘Not a lot. The carving could have been of Shoshenq, or even of the god Amun, but of course there’s no way of telling now.’ She bent lower and looked more closely at the hieroglyphic characters, where a curved incision was visible at the edge of a vertical line of characters. ‘That looks like the upper edge of a cartouche, so this inscription probably relates to a pharaoh.’

  ‘A cartouche – that’s the kind of border they drew around an important name, yes?’

  ‘Yes. The names of pharaohs were always enclosed within a cartouche. In fact, these three symbols above it confirm that the inscription is talking about a pharaoh.’

  Bronson looked at the characters she was pointing at. He could see what looked like a walking stick symbol with two curved lines sprouting from either side of its bottom end, a half-moon shape and a wavy line.

  ‘That’s a word, is it?’ he asked. ‘What does the walking stick thing mean?’

  Angela nodded. ‘It’s actually a sedge plant, and it’s used as a determinative. The letters spell “n”, “s” and “w”, and that means “nesu”, or “king”. About the only word which could follow that would be the name of the pharaoh himself and, as this temple was built by Shoshenq in honour of the god Amun, the cartouche almost certainly contained his name.’

  Bronson looked beyond the ruined wall at the space beyond it, studded with stones, mud-bricks and bits of masonry. ‘It looks as if this was quite a big building,’ he said.

  Angela pulled out a small notebook and flicked rapidly through the pages. ‘Yes, it was. According to the few records that exist, this originally consisted of a brick enclosure and inside that was a temple house nearly twenty yards wide and thirty yards long. Don’t forget, Amun was a really important creator god, who was believed to live inside everything. He could appear as a goose or a ram with curved horns – which showed he had a function as a fertility god – or more commonly as a ram-headed man and sometimes as a man with two tall plumes on his head. Later on he merged with the cult of Re or Ra to form Amun-Re, the sun-god. He was really important to the ancient Egyptians.’

  Bronson looked back at the ruined wall. ‘Is there anything here that tells us if Shishaq or Shoshenq did actually seize the Ark of the Covenant?’

  ‘I can’t be sure. I’ll photograph what there is and translate it later.’

  There were a number of surviving pieces of inscription on various bits of wall and even on a few of the fallen stones, and Angela took pictures of every one she could find, checking each image on the screen of her camera to make sure it was clear and legible before moving on to the next.

  Finally, she slipped the digital camera back into her handbag and took a last look around the site.

  ‘Is that it?’ Bronson asked.

  ‘Yes. It’s a real shame. I was hoping there’d be a few complete walls with intact inscriptions still standing. I certainly didn’t expect the temple to be in as bad a condition as it is.’

  ‘Did you see anything helpful?’

  ‘Not really,’ Angela replied. ‘I’ve spotted a couple of cartouches, both with Shoshenq’s name in them, and a few mentions of Amun, but not much else. But obviously I’ve still got to check the pictures I’ve taken.’

  ‘Amun’s name consists of those three symbols – the feather or leaf or whatever it is and the other two drawings?’

  ‘That’s the leaf of a reed plant, a draughts-board and a ripple of water, yes.’ Angela sighed, and Chris could see that she was tired. ‘I’ll take a look at the pictures on our way back to Heliopolis, but I’m not hopeful I’ll find anything useful. I had planned to do the work out here, but there’s so little material on the site that I don’t see any point in trying to do that now. And at least our room is air conditioned.’

  Bronson nodded and turned away from the ruins of the temple towards the road. As he did so, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure wearing a white shirt and light-coloured trousers ducking swiftly out of sight behind a wall on the opposite side of the road.

  He felt a warning stab of surprise. Unlike the citizens of Cairo, the residents of el-Hiba clearly didn’t see that many foreign tourists, and he and Angela had been objects of interest ever since they’d arrived there. But most of the people they’d seen had simply stared at them with frank and not unfriendly curiosity. Maybe that man – and Bronson was reasonably certain the figure had been male – was just shy. The only odd thing was that it looked as if he’d been holding a pair of binoculars or perhaps a camera in his hand. Certainly he’d been clutching a small black object. And his Western-style dress was unusual in a place where most people seemed to be wearing the more traditional Egyptian dishdasha or jellabah.

  ‘What is it?’ Angela asked.

  ‘I think there’s a man over there watching us.’

  ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘I know what I saw. You stay here. I’ll go and check.’

  But Angela grabbed his arm with both hands to stop him. ‘No, Chris. Let’s just get away from here, right now. It might be that priest again.’

  Bronson nodded reluctantly, and looked back up the road to where the car was parked. ‘You start running,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’

  Angela took to her heels, heading back the way they’d come.

  Bronson stared across the road for a few seconds more, then followed her.

  Two minutes later, Bronson spun the steering wheel of the hire car and powered down the street and away from el-Hiba, the car trailing a cloud of dust as he headed for the open road and Cairo.

  37

  While Bronson drove, Angela sat in the passenger seat of the Peugeot, transferred the memory card from her camera to the slot on the laptop and copied all the photographs she’d taken of the hieroglyphics on to the computer’s hard disk. The LCD screen on her camera offered reasonably good quality, but she needed the better resolution of the laptop screen to be sure of what she was seeing.

  And what she was looking at wasn’t what she’d hoped for. There was nothing in any of the surviving sections of the inscriptions in the temple that suggested Shoshenq had seized the Ark of the Covenant. In fact, quite the contrary.

  ‘Oh, damn,’ she muttered, as she looked at one particular image.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘On this picture there’s a readable section of hieroglyphics, just a few words that probably c
ame from the middle and end of a sentence – the rest of the inscription’s long gone. If I’m interpreting it correctly, the top line says something like “the gold from the temple”. That sounds to me like part of a description of Shoshenq’s foray into Judea or Judah. We know he was paid off by Rehoboam, who gave the Egyptians the treasures of the Temple.

  ‘But the second line finishes with “sacred box” – that’s as close a translation as I can get – “which remained”. As far as we know, the Ark of the Covenant was in the Temple of Jerusalem when Shoshenq’s forces entered Judea, and “sacred box” would be a reasonable description of it. This would mean that the Egyptians may not have seized the Ark. They allowed the priests to keep it in the Temple: the “sacred box which remained”. And so—’

  ‘We’ve been looking in the wrong place,’ Bronson said, finishing it off for her. ‘Shoshenq didn’t seize it, so he can’t have taken it to Tanis or anywhere else. Is there anything else there?’ Bronson asked, glancing sideways at the laptop screen. ‘Hang on – I’m getting distracted by all the pictures. I think I’d better stop for a few minutes.’

  He pulled the car to a rapid stop just off the road. The driver of a heavily laden lorry which had been following far too close behind gave an angry blast on his horn, but Bronson ignored him and turned towards Angela.

  ‘There’s nothing else in these hieroglyphics that even mention the Ark,’ she said. ‘These inscriptions, for example, seem to be part of fairly standard texts honouring Amun, and there are a couple that I think are praising Shoshenq’s courage and leadership. Again, pretty much what you’d expect to find in a temple erected by the reigning pharaoh to one of the most important Egyptian gods.’

  She pressed the cursor control key and started flicking back through the other pictures on the computer’s hard drive. One of the images showed a dark-haired man standing beside a chair.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Bronson asked, as he glanced down at the picture.

  Angela had already moved on to a different image, but then scrolled back and looked at the screen. Then she laughed.

  ‘That’s the man who started this hare running. That’s one of the paintings of Bartholomew Wendell-Carfax as a young man, one of the two we were looking for. I told you there were decent-quality photographs of the paintings in Bartholomew’s box of goodies. They were almost A3 size and folded, in fact, and I scanned them both in my office at the museum.’

  Bronson glanced down at the screen of the laptop Angela was holding, and a sudden thought struck him.

  ‘We never really worked out why he had those pictures painted, did we?’ Bronson asked. ‘I mean, we guessed from that remark about “the Montgomerys” that Bartholomew had hidden the text of the parchment in them somewhere, in a cavity in the frame or something, but why did he choose those subjects? Himself as a young man wearing – what – a Red Indian outfit in one and dressed like an Indian prince in the other.’

  ‘Nobody seems to have any idea. Maybe it was just an old man’s vanity, wanting to see an image of how he would have looked in his late twenties.’

  ‘Maybe. Or maybe it was something else. Let me take a look at that.’

  Angela looked at him in surprise, but obediently handed over the laptop.

  Bronson stared at the screen for a few seconds. ‘Where’s the other one?’ he asked. ‘The one in which he’s dressed like a Red Indian?’

  Angela leaned across and flicked through the pictures until she found the correct one. ‘There,’ she said.

  Bronson studied the photograph, then nodded in satisfaction and passed the computer back to Angela. He checked his mirrors and pulled the car on to the road, accelerating to match speed with the traffic approaching them from behind.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded.

  ‘I think I know where Bartholomew hid the text of the parchment he found,’ he said, looking very pleased with himself.

  ‘But we know that: in those paintings. The paintings that we haven’t the slightest chance of finding.’

  ‘No. I mean, I know exactly where Bartholomew hid the text.’

  38

  Killian had got lucky. He’d gone back to his hotel, grabbed a copy of the local phone directory from the reception desk downstairs, and taken it, along with a street map of eastern Cairo, up to his room. Then he’d started from the airport and worked his way outwards, calling each of the major hotels he had located, asking to be connected to Mr Bronson’s room. It wasn’t the commonest name in the world, and the receptionist at the fifteenth hotel he rang told him that the guest he was looking for had been out of his room all day.

  It was as easy as that.

  Killian packed his bags and paid his bill, then set off towards the hotel where he now knew Bronson and Angela were staying. He drove past the building, then pulled in to the side of the road a hundred yards or so beyond it and looked back.

  The hotel was situated on a reasonably straight section that offered good visibility both ways, and Bronson, of course, could approach it from either direction. But the main road ran along one end of the street and that, logically, would be where Bronson would be most likely to appear, so that was where Killian decided to wait. It was essential he spotted his quarry before they arrived at the hotel – once they got inside the building they’d be out of his reach.

  Killian pulled out into the traffic and picked a vacant lot close to the main road where he would see any cars turning into the road. He locked the car, walked down the street to a small store where he bought bottled water and several sealed packets of biscuits and cakes, then returned to his vehicle. He opened all the car’s windows, and placed his food and drink on the passenger seat beside him. He opened the bonnet and skilfully disabled the Renault’s air bag safety system. Then he took a pair of binoculars from his pocket and placed them on the dashboard, where he could reach them easily. Finally, he fastened his seat belt and left the key in the ignition, so that he could start the car and drive away at a moment’s notice.

  Then he settled down to wait.

  39

  Bronson paused and glanced at Angela, who was giving him her full attention, and then some.

  ‘Go on, then,’ Angela said, obviously irritated. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense. Where is it?’

  At that moment her mobile rang, and she rummaged in her handbag to retrieve it. Before she answered the call, she looked at the screen.

  ‘Damn,’ she muttered, ‘it’s Roger Halliwell, probably ringing to find out where I am.’

  ‘I thought you’d left him a message at the museum, saying you were taking a few days’ leave?’

  ‘I did. Maybe that’s the problem. Strictly speaking, I should have got his approval first.’

  ‘That is the usual routine,’ Bronson said mildly.

  ‘Anyway,’ Angela said, ‘he can wait. I’m up to date with everything, and I’ve never known anything to happen in the museum that could possibly qualify as urgent. I’ll call him tomorrow.’

  But as she replaced the mobile in her handbag, they heard the familiar beep indicating that a text message had been received.

  Angela again looked at the screen. ‘It’s from Roger,’ she said, ‘and he sounds really pissed: “Call me now, vital.” Maybe I’d better give him a bell. Can you pull over somewhere – it’s not that good a signal.’

  As Bronson eased the Peugeot off the road again, Angela selected Halliwell’s number from her contacts list.

  ‘Roger, it’s Angela. I got your—’ She broke off and listened intently for a few seconds.

  ‘What? Good God. Is that a joke? Because if—’

  Bronson tried to make sense of the half of the conversation he was hearing, then gave up.

  ‘No, Roger. I wasn’t even there on the last day. I was at the museum, remember? You saw me at least twice.’ Another pause. ‘No. I’m in Egypt. Just a short holiday. I’ll let you know when I’m back.’

  She listened again for a few seconds, then ended the call.

  ‘What is it?’
Bronson asked.

  Angela stared at her phone for a moment, then turned troubled eyes towards him. ‘It’s poor Richard Mayhew,’ she said. ‘He’s dead. Somebody told the local coppers that a car had been left parked at Carfax Hall when we had all left, and they went out there to investigate. They found him in the kitchen.’

  ‘Christ,’ Bronson said. ‘Did he have a heart attack?’

  Angela shook her head. ‘No. He’d been tied to that big old chair in the kitchen and whipped with something like a cat-o’-nine-tails, and then shot. It happened on Friday afternoon, according to the police. They want a statement from me when we get back.’

  Bronson was shocked. For perhaps half a minute he just sat there, making connections and exploring the ramifications of what Angela had told him.

  ‘I think that explains how that bogus priest was able to call you by name,’ he said at last, ‘and how he knew about the things you’d taken from Carfax Hall. He tortured Richard Mayhew and forced him to reveal your name and address, and killed him when he’d got what he wanted. Then he burgled your flat and attacked you in the street outside. And he must have killed Oliver as well, or at least whipped him until the old man’s heart gave out. He’s been one step behind us all the way.’

  Angela shook her head. ‘I think he’s one step ahead of us now, because after the attack on Suleiman al-Sahid in Cairo, he’s got the paintings and we haven’t.’

  Bronson turned to her. ‘This worries me. This guy is clearly utterly ruthless. He’s killed two people that we know about, and it would have been four if you hadn’t got away from him in London and if we hadn’t pulled Suleiman out of his house. We need to decide if this search is worth the risk.’

  ‘But we’re not taking part in any search at the moment,’ Angela said. ‘Face facts, Chris – he’s got the paintings and we haven’t, and without them, we might as well pack up and go home right now.’

  But Bronson shook his head. ‘Here’s the question. If I could produce the entire text of the parchment for you, would you still want to carry on? Knowing that the priest is still at large, and that we would have to face him again some time?’