by Adam Palmer
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘could you keep an eye on my stuff? I’m going to go in and try these on too.’
‘Sure,’ said Sarit.
The girl went in, with the shopkeeper in tow. Without lowering her eyes from the merchandise in which she was feigning continued interest, Sarit opened the shoulder bag and groped around inside. Working more by feel than by look, she found the passport and quickly pulled it out and dropped it into one of her shopping bags.
Then she found the purse and moved it to the top of the shoulder bag, so that the girl would be able to get to it easily. The girl may or may not remember the purse being lower down in the shoulder bag, but this way she was less likely to notice the missing passport. In any case, if she was suspicious, it was more likely to be over the purse with money and credit cards than the passport.
Seven or eight minutes later, the girl came out and bought a couple of the dresses, oblivious to the theft of her passport.
Chapter 53
Six days after they had set out, Daniel and Gabrielle arrived on the outskirts of Cairo.
Gabrielle had taken to life on the felucca a lot better than Daniel had expected, but Daniel had surprised himself by finding it enjoyable too – especially considering how heavily dependent he usually was on his urban comforts.
He realized that as an archaeologist, accustomed to roughing it in some pretty exotic locations, it wasn’t such an unusual experience for Gabrielle. But for a North Londoner who was used to clean hotel suites, business-class airline seating and deferential waiters, it was something of a culture shock. He wondered what Charlotte would have made of it – genteel Charlotte, whose world was that of crisp starched linen and manicured nails.
He wondered if it was because of rather than merely despite the danger that he had found himself enjoying this adventure. It was as if this was the part of his life that had always been waiting for him. It reminded him of that famous line in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden about ‘when I came to die, discovered that I had not lived’.
They bid their goodbyes to Walid and his crew, wished Allah’s blessings on his family and then set off for Cairo’s Zamalek District.
Zamalek was an island in the Nile, connected to the rest of Cairo by bridges – a sort of Manhattan in North Africa. Heavily developed and built-up, the area was home to several luxury hotels as well as quite a few foreign embassies. It was, all in all, quite an upmarket area. But there was only one thing in the Zamalek District that interested Daniel and Gabrielle: the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Daniel knew that there was a risk of being recognized, but was relieved that their most distinguishing feature had now been negated. There were lots of dark-haired Western men in Cairo and none of them would get a second glance. But Gabrielle’s blonde hair was quite striking, and if the police or anyone else was on the lookout for a tall blonde woman, Gabrielle’s hair would have been more than enough to guarantee that they would get a second glance.
They had considered hiding it under a headscarf, but that was not a sure-fire way of avoiding attention. Her height and Western looks might be enough to make it clear that she was trying to hide her hair. Then the game would be up. So instead she had played the adventurous tourist card and persuaded one of the women in the villages along the Nile to dye her hair with henna.
‘It’s something I’ve always wanted to try,’ she had explained with almost schoolgirlish excitement.
She had considered using henna to darken her skin too, but it was more usually used for tattoos. In any case, she was now covering herself up with a robe, showing very little of her flesh. There was nothing she could do about her height, but now, instead of appearing as a tall blonde, she came over as a tall redhead who could pass for a local. And that was not what the police were looking for.
They hailed a taxi in the street and took the short ride across the city to the Supreme Council of Antiquities. The driver dropped them off at the front of the building, which had been given a modern glass entrance and a silver, metallic grey façade with the words ‘Supreme Council of Antiquities’ emblazoned across the portals in huge Arabic letters as well as somewhat smaller in English. Daniel noted, with silent amusement, that the letter f in the word of had become loose and fallen into a diagonal posture.
He let Gabrielle lead the way up the wide steps to this grand entrance. She introduced Daniel as an Australian professor, hoping that the nationality would throw the guard off if he had heard anything about an Englishman being wanted by the police – which was unlikely. The guard had smiled and said a tentatively English ‘hallo’ – prompting Daniel to respond with his best Aussie ‘g’day’.
And with that, they were inside.
As Gabrielle had predicted, the building was surprisingly empty, even allowing for the fact that this was siesta time. They made their way quickly to Mansoor’s office, which Gabrielle promptly opened with her key. Once inside, they went to work rapidly on the oak desk and the grey metal filing cabinets, taking advantage of the fact that the drawers of the desk were unlocked and the filing cabinets had their keys still in them.
For a while it looked like they weren’t going to find anything and then that old cliché about ‘the last place you look’ kicked in.
‘Found it!’ shrieked Gabrielle, louder than she had intended.
It was actually in the very first drawer that Daniel had searched. Somehow he had managed to miss it, probably because he was grabbing whole wads of paper and not going through the pages individually.
She handed the papers to Daniel who started looking through them. In his mind, he started deciphering one marked ‘Tomb of Ay’, testing his memory of the language and script.
‘Interesting.’
Gabrielle picked up on Daniel’s tone. ‘What?’
‘It says here something about “the Sibolet stores built by my father”.’
‘Sibolet?’
‘Yes. I think it’s a variation of Shibolet. The Hebrew word for grain or at least the grain-bearing part of wheat or corn.’
‘Presumably it’s a reference to the grain houses that Joseph persuaded Pharaoh to build to store the grain from the seven plentiful years. And it supports the theory about Yuya being Joseph. Ay was the son of Yuya after all.’
‘Holy shit!’
‘What?’
‘Listen to this: “I pray that one day my bones shall return to the holy mountain of Gerizim”.’
‘Gerizim?’
‘It’s a mountain in the West Bank. There’s also a valley near there that’s believed to be the place where Joseph and his sons were buried.’
‘But if Joseph was Yuya, then that can’t be, because his mummy is in Egypt – the one they found in KV46.’
‘Yes, but what about his sons? Do they have the mummy of Ay?’
‘No, it was never found. But that’s because it was believed to have been removed from the tomb and desecrated by a pharaoh called Horemheb during the counter-revolution that followed the Amarna period, when they restored the cult of Amun.’
‘But maybe it didn’t happen that way. Maybe the body of Ay was taken when the Israelites gained their freedom. Maybe they didn’t succeed in taking the bones of Joseph but managed to take the bones of his sons, or at least one of his sons.’
‘That’s a lot of maybes! But what I’m thinking is maybe we should just make some photocopies and get out of here before we get caught.’
‘Okay, you’re right, but he hasn’t got a photocopier in here.’
They gathered up the papers and left the office furtively. As soon as they left the office, they were spotted by Mansoor’s secretary, who was returning to her desk.
‘Oh hallo,’ she said in Arabic, recognizing the pair of them. ‘Is Professor Mansoor back?’
Once again it was Daniel who wanted to stand his ground and try and talk his way out of the situation. And once again, it was Gabrielle who panicked under pressure. Not waiting for Daniel, she dived towards a corridor and ran, leaving Daniel wit
h no alternative but to follow, while the woman who had spotted them was screaming: ‘Dsst irt’ra el-erm!’
Chapter 54
He came through for me, Goliath was thinking as he wandered aimlessly after leaving the hospital. Once again, he came through.
Goliath couldn’t imagine what strings Senator Morris had pulled to get the police off his back, but whatever it was he had done it. He had known for some time that the senator chaired several powerful committees and that this gave him an enormous amount of influence on Capitol Hill. Some of these committees dealt with foreign affairs so that no doubt gave him a certain amount of clout with foreign governments.
But it was still an awesome feeling, knowing that he had a man with so much power behind him, giving him both guidance and support. It was like having one’s own pit bull. Except that this was a pit bull of international proportions.
Yet the intense pleasure of this feeling was dampened by the sobering thought that once again he had failed. Time after time on this sacred mission, he had tried to serve his mentor, and each time he seemed to be failing ever more spectacularly. It was as if God was punishing him for some unspecified sin, instead of rewarding him for his loyalty and devotion. He knew that good works did not in themselves make him one of God’s Elect. That was in the gift of God alone.
But God chose his elect by looking into their hearts and choosing them for their sincerity. If God was now spurning his efforts, did that mean that he was not sincere? Did it mean that his motives were tainted by impurity? He had killed the wicked – and those who stood in the way of God’s work. That was surely no sin, and even if he had faltered, he had never once thought of personal gain.
And yet now, once again, he had failed. Mansoor and the others were not dead. Daniel Klein and Gabrielle Gusack were not only alive but free and on the run. Their whereabouts were unknown not only to him, but also to the police.
And who was that woman on the road who had thrown the petrol bomb into the jeep? Was she trying to kill him? Or had she thought that he was Daniel or the Egyptian? Was she trying to kill them too?
A thousand questions and no answers. Still he had failed. He hadn’t even managed to get a sample of their clothing and that had been his main task. Killing them had been secondary. He didn’t even know why Morris wanted him to get the clothing. All he knew was that it was God’s will. And although they had left their travel bags in the jeep, the jeep had gone up in flames, taking their belongings with it, including the clothes that he had intended to take in accordance with Senator Morris’s instructions.
But how could he do it now that Daniel and the others had escaped? Did Senator Morris still want him to? Or had the plan been overtaken by events?
He had just purchased a smartphone with Internet capability, like Daniel’s, and thought about contacting the senator to ask him. But that might not be wise. The fact that the senator had intervened on his behalf did not mean that he had done so openly. He might have pulled strings behind the scenes or called in favours from others. The senator had once told him not to mention his name. That probably meant that he operated through third parties and did not like to expose his involvement directly. If Goliath now blew the cover of his patron and mentor might that not be yet another failure? Another breach of his duty? Another mistake?
No, he had to assume that Arthur Morris still wanted him to do what he had told him to do before. And that meant he had to find Daniel Klein and Gabrielle Gusack. As to the other woman – the one who had tried to kill him – he would deal with her later. They had told him her name when they came to warn him that she had escaped: Siobhan Stewart. So at least he had something to work with when the time came. For now, he had to concentrate on finding Klein and Gusack. But how?
He remembered the tracer program that he had planted in Daniel Klein’s phone. Was it still working? Easy enough to find out.
He switched on his newly-purchased smartphone and logged on to the search site with his UserID and password. It gave the ‘last known location’ of Daniel’s phone as the Nile Valley, near Luxor. That made perfect sense. If Daniel was trying to avoid being found by the Egyptian authorities, then he would keep his cell phone switched off. Everyone knew that people can be traced by their cell phones. When a man knows that he is wanted by the police then that is the time to switch off his phone or even get rid of it. As long as Daniel didn’t know he was being tracked, it was not a problem; but now that he was on the run from the Egyptian police, Daniel was presumably taking elementary precautions. And those precautions would also stop Goliath from doing a live trace.
But then Goliath had another idea. A man on the run wouldn’t want to be completely cut off. Of course, he might buy a new cell phone, as Goliath had. But maybe – just maybe – Daniel was switching on his phone temporarily in order to retrieve his messages? That in itself might facilitate tracking by way of giving updated last known locations.
That also afforded another opportunity. It meant that Daniel Klein could be reached. And maybe there was a way of getting through to him. What if that fear could be turned to Goliath’s advantage? What if he could prey upon that fear to lure Daniel into a trap?
He knew now what he had to do.
He called Daniel using his new smartphone and heard a standard message for voicemail. He deduced from this that Daniel was one of those people who was too lazy to create a personalized message: the proverbial absent-minded professor.
‘Hallo, Professor Klein… this is Mr Carter, the man you met on the aeroplane, the rather talkative man as you probably remember me. I’ve just seen a report about you on television, effectively accusing you of all manner of crimes and misdemeanours; and I have to say, having met you, that it sounds like a load of baloney! I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding and I’d like to help you. I am, as you know, a man who is not without means, and I would like to put those means at your disposal. If you could contact me as soon as possible, I can go about arranging lawyers for you both locally and in Britain. My number is…’
When he rang off, he was confident that he had baited the trap. How could a desperate man without a friend in the world, not respond to an offer to help like that one?
Chapter 55
‘We can’t go by bus,’ Gabrielle was saying. ‘They’ll catch us at the checkpoints.’
‘There are checkpoints at the borders too,’ Daniel replied. ‘Any way you look at it we’re going to have to cross a border checkpoint. But I’d’ve thought that with the buses it wouldn’t be as intense as it is at the airports.’
They were in a café by the Nile in a small village outside Cairo, discussing their next move.
‘You have to understand, Daniel, that with the bus it isn’t just one checkpoint. It can be any number. In some ways it’s worse than an airport because at an airport you go through passport control and then you’re through. They only look at your passport when boarding to match it up to your boarding pass. But with the bus, because it stops at several places on the way, there are several checkpoints. And a checkpoint can be wherever an Egyptian army commander chooses to put one.’
‘Well, there’s no way we can use the airport. They’re bound to be watching that.’
‘Okay, so let’s say we find a way of getting to one of the borders. Why does it have to be the Israeli border? Wouldn’t that be the one they watch most closely?’
‘You tell me, Gaby. Do you think the security will be more lax at the Gaza border? Or the Libyan border?’
‘We could try and make it to Jordan.’
‘We could. But we’d still have to get to Taba in Sinai – even if we wanted to make it across to Aqaba. And besides… it’s Israel that we need to get to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we need to talk to the Samaritans.’
‘The Samaritans?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why in God’s name do you want to talk to them?’
‘Because I want to show them those copies of the papyri that we took from Mans
oor’s office. The one that appeared to be written by Ay, whom you think – we think – may have been Ephraim, the son of Joseph.’
‘Why do you want to show it to them?’
‘Because I think they may be able to shed some light on it.’
‘Would you care to elaborate?’
‘You remember what it said? The author expressed his wish that his bones be returned to Mount Gerizim?’
‘Yes, and you said that the valley nearby is the traditional resting place of Joseph and his sons.’
‘Yes. But the thing is, although the valley nearby has that tradition, the mountain itself has no major significance to the Jews. But it is regarded as the most sacred place in the world to the Samaritans. They even claim that it was the place where Abraham, the Israelite patriarch, was going to sacrifice his son Isaac, until an angel stopped him. And they also claim that it was the site where God told the Israelites to build the temple.’
‘But how do you propose to get their co-operation? Are you just going to go up to their leaders, as a complete stranger, and flash this copy of the papyrus and tell them that you’ve translated it and ask them to share their secrets with you?’
‘Basically, yes.’
‘Great. So now all we’ve got to do is get there.’
‘If we can make it to Taba, I have a plan for getting to Israel. But it’s risky.’
‘It’s also going to be risky getting to Taba, with all those checkpoints in the Sinai Desert.’
‘Daniel!’
They both spun round at the familiar voice.
‘My old friend. How are you?’
It was Walid. He was smiling that constant smile of his. Daniel just wished he hadn’t called his name out loud.
‘I’m fine,’ said Daniel, signalling Walid to join them at the table, preferring to converse with him in muted voices than shouting across a distance of a few feet.