‘A Pharaoh? My God, it would be the first inviolate royal tomb since Carnarvon and Carter opened the tomb of Tutan-khamun.’
‘That’s just what we thought. But then—’
‘Although it could be a Hellenistic age tomb. The Ptolemies had begun to imitate the Pharaonic order completely. But without examining the finds directly, there’s no way to tell. You didn’t actually drop down into the room, then?’
‘No, the opening wasn’t big enough. And that’s the reason we’re here,’ said Sullivan. ‘We’d like you to take charge of the discovery. Up until now we’ve kept it a complete secret. The site is under the surveillance of armed guards with orders to shoot on sight.’
Blake ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. He was exhausted and this interminable day, instead of allowing him to rest, kept dragging on in a sequence of increasingly emotional experiences. ‘I’d like to thank you for thinking of me,’ he said. ‘It’s the last thing I could have expected on a day like today. But I’m afraid I can’t accept. Two reasons. First of all, you have to notify the authorities. They will then nominate an inspector who will direct the preliminary inspection and catalogue the materials. Second, due to a series of misfortunes which I have no intention of boring you with, I’m persona non grata in Egypt. And I honestly don’t understand the reason for all this urgency at one o’clock in the morning.’
‘In reply to your first objection, Professor Blake,’ said Gordon, ‘our activity is being carried out in territory which is absolutely off-limits. The military have ruled out informing the Minister of Antiquities. Too many people would come into the area and the stir caused by the discovery would attract too much attention. For this reason, in mutual agreement with our hosts, we’ve decided, for the moment, to rely on the collaboration of a trustworthy specialist whose absolute discretion we can count on. As far as your second objection is concerned, we’re well aware of your misfortunes. The fact that you’re not allowed to enter Egyptian territory has no bearing on the matter.
‘You’ll have to leave with us, now. That’s why we were waiting for you to come home.’
Blake turned to them with a strange expression, having suddenly understood what they wanted from him. ‘Now?’ he asked.
Gordon nodded. ‘The company’s private plane will be taking off from Meigs Field in less than an hour. If you need to get some things together, we can give you about fifteen minutes.’
Blake fell silent.
‘It’s understood,’ said Sullivan, ‘that you will be paid for your work. And given the circumstances and the inconvenience that we’ve caused you, your remuneration will be quite generous.’
Blake didn’t answer. He wasn’t interested in the money at that point. He would have worked for free, given the chance.
He thought of Judy, whom he probably would never see again, and was a little shocked to realize that losing her probably wouldn’t drive him to desperation, and he thought of Husseini, the servant of Allah who had offered him hospitality on Christmas Eve. It all seemed incredibly distant, as though it had happened a long time ago.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Just let me get my toothbrush and throw some things in a suitcase.’
The two men exchanged a satisfied look.
‘You’ve made the best decision, Professor Blake,’ said Gordon. ‘I can assure you that what you’ll find waiting for you is beyond your wildest expectations.’
‘There’s just one thing I want to make clear. I’m not in this for the money. I see that you’re well informed about my status in Egypt and you may know I’ve had problems in my personal life, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’m not on sale for any price. The only thing I’m interested in is publishing the find.’
‘Your views are certainly understandable,’ said Sullivan. ‘But that’s something you’ll have to take up with our superiors. We’re sure that you’ll be able to come to a satisfactory agreement with Warren Mining.’
Blake knew all too well that he was getting himself into a potentially difficult situation, but his only alternative was looking for work in some remote city college or private high school.
‘Alea jacta est,’ he said as he got up and walked into the bedroom to pack a suitcase. The embarrassed smiles of his guests revealed their ignorance of Latin, even the most common of quotes.
He put his working clothes into the suitcase, along with his trowel and scalpel for the dig, Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar, the disk with his hieroglyphic translation program, his underwear, shaving kit, suncream, a bottle of aspirin and one of antacids. He picked up the Prozac, but then threw it in the rubbish bin, knowing that he wouldn’t need it any more now that he would soon be treading the sands of the desert. He found his camera bag and, in less than five minutes, rejoined his travelling companions.
‘Let me lock up and I’ll be right out,’ he said. ‘Go ahead and start the car.’
The black Mercury drove through the deserted metropolis and Blake, sitting on the back seat, seemed hypnotized by the yellow flashing light on the snowplough which preceded them, raising a white cloud which fell in soft waves on the right-hand side of the street. The long day was nearly behind him and he thought with amusement that Gordon was like a benevolent Santa Claus who had brought him his Christmas present nice and early in the morning: an entire unspoiled Egyptian tomb and Lord knew what else.
He was excited by the idea that he would soon be flying over the Nile and plunging into the dry, clear atmosphere of the desert, his natural element. He would soon be breathing in the dust of the millennia and nudging an important someone out of thirty centuries of slumber.
At Meigs Field, Sullivan showed some credentials to a security guard, who let them pass. They drove out on a service runway to the ramp where a Falcon 900EX was waiting with its engines running. When they got out of the car, they were hit by a blast of snow and Gordon held his hat down until they’d got into the plane. Before entering, Blake turned around for a last glance at the snow-covered city, glittering with coloured lights. He remembered how, when he was a kid, he would anxiously scan the sky on Christmas Eve, hoping to see Santa with his sleigh and reindeer flying over the skyscrapers in a cloud of silver dust like in the cartoons, and he wondered whether he would ever set foot in the city again.
Sullivan got in behind him and they settled into the comfortable seats. The Falcon accelerated down the runway and took off into the grey night sky like a dart. It was soon soaring towards the cold northern constellations.
THE OLD MERCEDES advanced in a cloud of dust that the moonlight bleached white against the black rocks and steppe-like plain, towards the colossal ruins of Baalbek. When it reached the entrance to the Valley of the Temples it stopped and switched off its headlights. The six columns of the Great Temple rose towards the starry sky, like the pillars of infinity, and the man in the back seat marvelled at the spectacle in silence, listening to the voice of his soul. He thought of all those he had seen die in the countless clashes that had punctuated his life: dying in bombings or in battle, mowed down by machine guns, ripped apart by mines and grenades. He thought of those he had seen die of starvation and desperation, of disease and injuries, and he thought of all their restless souls wandering through the desert night.
Despite everything, this was one of the rare moments when he could rest his body and his mind, this moment of waiting. He rolled down the window and lit up the last of the three cigarettes a day his doctor allowed him and looked up at the starry black sky. It was times like this that reminded him of his childhood and his youth, the parents he had known for such a short time, the women he hadn’t been able to love, the studies he hadn’t been able to finish, the friends he hadn’t been able to see. Because there had never been time enough.
He thought of the people he had had dealings with: petroleum princes and emirs, tyrants out only for power and money, religious leaders who were sometimes cynical and sometimes visionary, young men devoured by hate and fanaticism, consumed by their frustration at not bein
g able to possess the fetishes of Western wealth, secret service agents playing on both sides, bankers who’d got rich on the poor through the most filthy speculation.
He had used them all, as much as he had despised them, and not a single one of them had learned his real identity. He was waiting for the day of reckoning, when the most ambitious plan ever conceived by an Arab since the time of the Battle of Tours would give him victory over his enemies, the leadership of a nation extending from the Himalayas to the Atlantic Ocean. And the control of a third of the energy resources of the entire planet.
He started when a man dressed in black emerged from the darkness and began to walk towards the car, drawing closer and nodding at him. He nodded in response, got out of the car and followed to a low mud-plastered house. The man let him in.
He was an old man with curved shoulders and eyes dimmed by cataracts. ‘Welcome, effendi,’ he greeted him.
‘What news do you have?’
‘Good news. I was told to tell you: “Three donkeys have been
bought at the market of Samarkand as you ordered, paying a proper price. Now the donkey keeper is bringing each one to its stable, as you ordered.”’
The guest nodded his approval. ‘Praise Allah,’ he said. ‘Everything is proceeding for the best. Now, my good friend, you will tell the young men who are coming on the pilgrimage with me that I need to see them. Three of them will meet me in Bethlehem, three in Nablus and three in Gaza.’
‘Shall I arrange lodging for you at Mecca, effendi?’
‘No, my friend. This is a pilgrimage that we’ll be doing the old way, on camelback. You needn’t do anything else.’
They embraced and the guest walked back to his car, which was waiting at the foot of the columns of Baalbek. The old man watched him go, disappearing like a shadow from his uncertain sight, then he turned to the Temple. The columns seemed like giants on sentry duty in the middle of the night, ensuring that no curious eyes would see the small man hurrying off.
The old man had never seen him before, and would not have been able to describe him later, except for his black-and-white-checked keffiyeh and his grey jacket worn over a white jellaba. But he knew that he had spoken with the man most wanted on the face of this earth, he who above all others his enemies dreamed of having within their grasp.
Abu Ahmid.
THE AIR of Bethlehem was still fragrant with incense and the city still bustled with activity so soon after Christmas. Thousands of pilgrims swarmed through the city streets and past the shops and stands at the bazaar.
It was a crowd that spoke many languages. An Orthodox priest dressed in black with a long-veiled polos on his head and silver icons around his neck, a humble Franciscan friar with his dusty sandals and a rope belt, a mullah with his head swathed in a white turban: the crowds milling around saw them all; they were living proof of how many different ways there were to reach a single God.
No one noticed the man with a black-and-white-checked keffiyeh, wearing a grey jacket over a white jellaba and carrying a woollen shoulder bag, as he entered the city and went to a little two-storey crumbling plaster house at the crossroads of Suk el Berk and Ain Aziza.
An elderly widow was waiting for him in the deserted house and she led him from the entrance to the main room: a modest place, the floor covered with old kilim carpets and a few cushions. The woman lifted one of the kilims, uncovering a wooden trapdoor that led into a cellar illuminated by a dim electric bulb. The man went down a ladder as she closed the trapdoor behind him and put the kilim back in place.
The man walked along a narrow passageway and entered another room about two metres by three, with a mat on the floor and a single light bulb hanging from the low ceiling. Three men were waiting for him, sitting on their heels, their faces completely covered by their keffiyehs.
The man’s face was concealed as well and his voice sounded dull through the strip of cloth covering his mouth. ‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘your mission is about to begin and it is of such importance that the success of Operation Nebuchadnezzar and the victory of our cause depend on it. We have spent years pondering the reasons for our past defeats, and these errors will not be repeated. This time we won’t move until we’ve received the signal that the packages have been delivered. As you know, these packages are quite large and would attract attention, and so they have been divided into three parts, one for each of you.’
He reached into the bag and extracted three envelopes, handing them out. ‘Here you’ll find cash, International City Bank credit cards and the instructions for collecting and delivering your package. You will learn them by heart now, here in front of me, and then I will destroy them. The instructions will also tell you how to contact the coordinator of the operation on American
soil. His code name is Nebuzaradan. You will communicate with him only in code. Unless it is an absolute emergency or I instruct you to do so, you will not meet with him in person.
‘If you are discovered, set off the charge you will have on you and try to take as many victims with you as you can. Have no pity on the elderly, or on women and children, as our enemies have shown no pity for our fathers, our sons, our wives. Once you have terminated the mission, you will return to base, because we need brave, well-trained combatants like you to fight in the final battle.’ He articulated his last words as if pronouncing a sacred formula: ‘The siege and the conquest of Jerusalem.’
The three men opened the envelopes, removed the money and credit cards, and read the instructions carefully. One after another, ending with the one who seemed youngest, they handed back the sheets, which were immediately burned in a copper plate placed on the mat.
‘Allah Akbar!’ said the man.
‘Allah Akbar!’ responded the other three.
Shortly after, the man was walking through the sun on a lovely winter’s day in the crowded bazaar. He passed under a banner that said, in three languages: Peace on earth to men of goodwill.
The three combatants of Allah left the house one at a time, at intervals of about an hour. They departed, each towards his own destination, like the horsemen of the Apocalypse. The first had instructions to reach Beirut and from there go by plane to Limassol, from where he would leave on a Cypriot cargo boat bound for New York. The second was to drive to Alexandria, where he would board an oil tanker heading towards New Haven, Connecticut. The third would travel by ship from Jaffa to Barcelona, where he would take an Iberia flight for San Jose´ in Costa Rica, and from there board a United Fruits banana boat from Puerto Limon going to Miami, Florida.
Two days later Abu Ahmid contacted three more young men in Nablus, in a mosque in the old city, and then, two days after, three others in Gaza, in a hovel in the refugee camp. All six, like the three in Bethlehem, were suicidal combatants sworn to death and trained to face any kind of situation. They also received instructions and itineraries.
They were, and always had been, pawns on Abu Ahmid’s chessboard, replaceable as necessary. Each group, having completed its mission, could detach a member to remedy any losses in the other groups, until all three of their objectives were attained.
All nine of them spoke English without the hint of an accent and were experts in the use of firearms and knives of any sort; they were proficient in the martial arts, could pilot an aeroplane or helicopter, parachute from any height, climb a rock or concrete wall and swim underwater with an aqualung.
They had no names, but were known by their numbers. They had no mothers or fathers, sisters or brothers, and the documents they carried were false but perfectly forged. They did not prize their lives because they had been taught for years to be ready to sacrifice life at any moment for their cause, upon a signal from their leader. They could survive for days on a hard biscuit and a few sips of water. Inured to hunger and thirst, heat and cold, they could endure any suffering and withstand any torture.
Each of the three groups had a leader who had absolute power over his companions, and could decide whether they lived or died. The w
hole of Operation Nebuchadnezzar, from start to finish, would depend on their abilities and their endurance.
When they had all reached their destinations with their packages, they would contact ‘Nebuzaradan’, who would in turn advise him, Abu Ahmid. That moment would mark the beginning of phase two of the operation, the military attack they had been planning day and night for two years in minute detail.
Now all he had to do was find a good vantage point from which to wait and review the operation from beginning to end. He reached Damascus and went from there to his tent in the desert not far from Deir ez Zor.
It was there that he’d been born about sixty years before, and his small Bedouin tribe was still faithful to the memory of his father and to him, whom they knew as Zahed al Walid. He would awake every day at the break of dawn to contemplate the waters of the Euphrates enflamed by the splendour of the rising sun and to watch the herds as they set out for pasture behind their shepherds, while the women washed their clothes in the river and lit fires in the mud ovens to bake the bread that they served him hot and fragrant, smelling of fire and ash. The sun glittered on the coins that they wore on their foreheads and made them seem ancient queens of burnished beauty: Sheba who had seduced Solomon, or Zenobia who had so fascinated Aurelian.
He would take long rides through the desert, towards Qamishli, and would ride so far out that he could see nothing around him, in any direction. Feeling alone between earth and sky on his horse’s back gave him an intense and terrible sensation of power. Then he would dismount and walk barefoot on the desert which once had nourished the lush soil of the Garden of Eden. Or sit on his heels and meditate in silence for hours, his eyes closed, attaining nearly absolute concentration, touching a transcendental dimension, as if in his bent knees were distilled the forces of the sky and of the earth.
He would usually return at dusk and have dinner in his tent with the tribal chiefs, eating bread and salt and roasted lamb, and sit there until late, drinking ayran and talking about completely futile and irrelevant things like pregnant camels and the price of wool at the Deir ez Zor market. This was how he would fortify his spirit and sharpen his mind in preparation for the biggest game that had ever been played on earth, since the day on which Esau had lost his birthright over a bowl of lentils.
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