Pharaoh

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Sarah didn’t persist. Instead she got the camera and took several photos of the inscription, as Blake began carefully to copy the hieroglyphic symbols into a sketch pad.

  In the meantime, the workmen had almost completely freed the board of all debris and had cleared the structure on the eastern wall of the tomb: a lintel and two jambs which framed an opening that was just slightly smaller than the board itself.

  ‘Clean the board completely and clear away the rest of the debris from the sarcophagus,’ said Blake. ‘There are still a couple of hours and we can do it. If you finish by evening, I guarantee you that Mr Maddox will give you a nice bonus.’

  The two workmen nodded in assent and Blake began to dig at the spot where, several days before, they had found the remains of some skeletons. There were just the bare bones of four adults, most probably male. Around them were traces of sulphur and bitumen, the substances used to burn the bodies. He gathered the bones into a little box and set it in a corner of the tomb. When he had finished, he signalled for Sarah to follow him out into the open. They were hoisted to the surface by the winch.

  ‘How are things progressing?’ asked Sullivan.

  ‘Fine,’ answered Blake. ‘If everything proceeds as it should, we’ll have all the debris removed by evening. I’ll see you later, Sullivan. You carry on while we take a little stroll.’

  ‘That’s fine with me,’ said Sullivan, riding the bucket back down into the tomb. ‘But don’t go wandering off too far and be careful of snakes and scorpions.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sullivan,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll take care of him.’

  Blake drank a little cold water from the thermos as they set off in the direction of a hill that rose to the east, not far from the excavation site. The sun was very low in the sky, casting unnaturally long shadows towards the base of the hill. He walked quickly, as if he were in a hurry to get to a certain predetermined destination.

  ‘Why are we going so fast?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘Because I want to get up there before the sun sinks behind the horizon and by now it’s just a question of minutes.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Sarah, trying to keep up with him. ‘What are we going to look for up there? And what did you read that was so extraordinary in that inscription?’

  ‘I told you,’ Blake replied. ‘I’m not sure. The hieroglyphs could be interpreted in different ways. I have to find confirmation, some other evidence, before I want to commit myself. And, above all, I have to open that sarcophagus.’

  By now he was walking uphill, panting. The light was growing dimmer with every step and the sky above him began darkening to a deeper and deeper blue. He finally got to the top of the hill and turned round to look over the plain, where Sullivan’s Jeep and their equipment stood out against the total emptiness.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Sarah asked again.

  ‘Don’t you see anything?’ asked Blake, observing the surrounding territory.

  ‘No,’ replied Sarah, ‘nothing other than Sullivan’s Jeep, our Jeep and the equipment around the dig.’

  ‘Look more carefully,’ said Blake with an enigmatic expression. ‘You really don’t see anything?’

  Sarah just shook her head, her eyes scanning the deserted plain below. ‘Nothing other than rocks, that is.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Blake, ‘rocks. But if you look closely you’ll make out patterns that delineate a kind of perimeter. And the tomb is more or less in the middle.’

  Sarah observed more closely as the sun sank completely behind the horizon and now she could make out the four corners of an enormous rectangle and other stone arrangements inside it that almost seemed to trace further divisions of the space.

  Just then a solitary night hawk took wing, leaving its nest perched on a distant peak of the Mitzpe crater, flying towards the centre of the sky to take possession of the night.

  ‘How did you know about these patterns on the landscape?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘This place is full of patterns, drawings and signs – on the ground, on the rock walls. I was struck by them from the very first time we came out here. There are rock carvings, alignments of the stones, a language that has remained mute up until this moment. I have studied and sketched out a great number of patterns whenever I’ve had free time away from the dig . . . And now the time has come to let them speak . . . Sarah, do you have a Bible in your quarters?’

  ‘A Bible?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I’m not very religious, William. I’m afraid I don’t have a Bible . . . But maybe Pollock might have one. He’s an old lech, but he’s also a bit of a fanatic, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘Ask him for it. I need it. I’ll explain later. Let’s get going now. I’m curious to see how the work is proceeding.’

  They walked past Sullivan, who was dumping the bucket. ‘I think they’re about to finish,’ he said. ‘The bucket is coming up half empty.’

  ‘I’ll go down,’ said Blake.

  Blake lowered himself with the winch and saw that the rubble had been almost completely removed. The two workmen were cleaning the board with brooms. Their beards and hair were white from the fine powder that was floating around in the motionless air.

  ‘When you have finished,’ he said, ‘close the opening but don’t remove the plastic sheeting, because there’s still too much dust in the air.’

  He had himself hoisted to the surface and got into the Jeep with Sarah, while Sullivan put away the tools and hooked the bucket to the slab used for sealing the opening, so he could set it over the entrance to the tomb.

  Sarah drove the Jeep along the road that was still illuminated by the last rays of light from the sunset, as Blake scrutinized the sheets of paper on which he had copied the inscription from the sarcophagus.

  ‘So you’re not going to tell me what’s written on that stone?’ the girl asked suddenly.

  ‘Sarah, this isn’t a matter of telling or not telling. You see, hieroglyphics is a system of writing in which the majority of signs have a variety of meanings, depending on their position in the phrase or in the overall context . . .’

  ‘Nonsense. I saw how upset you looked . . . You can’t hide it. I could tell there was something . . . special about those symbols. Wasn’t there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Blake admitted, ‘but that’s not enough to make me want to go out on a limb with my opinion. Just give me tonight and tomorrow. I promise, you’ll be the first one to know.’

  The Jeep proceeded along the southern rim of the Mitzpe Ramon crater and began to descend into the rugged basin of the wadi. The lights of the camp glimmered in the distance. It was almost time for dinner.

  As soon as they got to the parking lot, Blake got out of the Jeep.

  ‘Are you going out traipsing around tonight?’ he asked Sarah.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Tonight I’ll be here if you should happen to need me.’

  ‘For any reason at all?’

  ‘For whatever reason.’

  ‘And find me that Bible, please.’

  ‘I’ll do everything within my power, and more, if necessary.’

  Smiling at him, she tossed her backpack over her shoulder and headed towards her quarters. Blake sat down on a boulder and lit a cigarette. How much time had passed since that freezing night in Chicago? It seemed like an eternity to him and yet it had been little more than two weeks. He wondered what Judy must have thought when he disappeared without even a phone call . . . He liked the idea of suddenly vanishing like that from her life. She, no doubt, had expected him to call, to somehow get a message to her, to try to invent some excuse for seeing her again. And what about Sarah? He thought he could bet on her disappearing once her mission had been accomplished. What then? He would have to start all over again, dealing with the miserable life he was left with, unless they decided to get rid of him first . . . So what if they did? At least he had experienced the most intense moment of his life and that was probably much more than any number of men
who move about over the face of the earth as if they had never really existed. By the evening of the next day, he would have faced the greatest mystery in the history of mankind, of this he was sure, and he would have looked the Pharaoh of the desert in the face for the first time.

  After lingering a little while longer to enjoy the warmth of the day that still radiated from the rocks, he finally rose and went back to his trailer.

  As soon as he had closed the door, he switched on the radio he kept by his bedside, turned up the volume and got into the shower. It was news time and the station he was listening to was from Cyprus and in English. The announcer was very excited, as if there were some sort of emergency: he was speaking of a concentration of Iranian troops at the southern Iraqi border, just a little north of Kuwait and the islands of the Shatt el Arab. The speaker added that General Taksoun had asked the United Nations and the American government for permission to mobilize at least part of the army in order to defend the threatened border and that the American government had given him the go-ahead. It was a well-known fact that Taksoun was held in high regard in certain State Department circles.

  In Israel there had been another suicide-bombing incident, this time inside a synagogue on Saturday, the Sabbath, resulting in a real bloodbath. The police figured that the explosives had been brought into the place of worship the day before. That’s the only way the commandos could have got around all the strict security checks. Prime Minister Benjamin Schochot had just narrowly escaped an attempt on his life and the Minister of the Interior had issued orders to beef up security measures, closing all checkpoints leading in and out of the Palestinian territories.

  Blake turned off the shower and moved closer to the radio, drying his hair briskly.

  Just then Sarah walked in and, pointing at the radio, asked him whether he had heard the news.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Blake, ‘and I don’t like the sound of it at all. Evidently the situation in this region is completely out of control. No wonder Maddox wants to hightail it as fast as he can.’

  Sarah was holding a book. ‘I found it for you,’ she announced. ‘Pollock loaned it to me. You should have seen the strange look that came over his face when I asked for it. He must have thought I was in the throes of some sort of mystical rapture.’

  Blake got dressed as Sarah thumbed absent-mindedly through the thick volume.

  ‘What do you hope to find in it?’ she asked, raising her face towards him.

  ‘Confirmation of a hunch,’ answered Blake.

  Sarah closed the book and went towards the door. Taking hold of the doorknob she reminded her companion: ‘Dinner’s served in five minutes.’

  And out she went.

  8

  GAD AVNER went into Prime Minister Schochot’s office, where he was faced by a very stern chief executive.

  Avner greeted him with a nod. ‘Mr Prime Minister . . .’

  ‘Have a seat, Mr Avner,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘Can I offer you something? Some whisky, a cigar?’

  Avner knew very well what these pleasantries were leading up to and was aware that this calm would be followed by a storm. He shook his head politely, declining these tokens of hospitality. ‘No, thank you, sir, I don’t want anything.’

  ‘Mr Avner,’ Schochot began, ‘I don’t want to speak about the attempt on my life just yet . . .’ He put a certain emphasis on the just yet’. ‘Instead, I want you to explain to me how a bomb could have gone off in a synagogue in the middle of the day on the Sabbath. Nothing like this has ever happened before. If our security forces can’t keep terrorists from profaning our nation’s places of worship we are really in bad shape. This has been a severe blow to public morale. The polls say that increasing numbers of our people are considering emigrating to America, France or Italy. Some are even considering Russia! Does this mean we have to stand by helplessly in the face of a new Diaspora? Mr Avner, you know as well as I that if the people of Israel leave their homeland, it will be forever. There will be no coming back’

  He spoke with personal conviction and trepidation, and Avner got a glimpse of the man behind the politician.

  ‘Mr Prime Minister, the bomb was carried into the synagogue from below. Under the flooring we found a fifty-metre tunnel that was connected to the municipal sewage system, a system that your government had built to service the new settlements . . .’

  The Prime Minister appeared momentarily disarmed, but he immediately returned to the attack. ‘Don’t they run a security check in synagogues before beginning services? I mean, we’re talking about a whole kilogram of Semtex. That’s a hefty little bundle, hardly the sort of thing that goes unnoticed.’

  ‘Sir, this is how we have reconstructed the incident: a commando unit of terrorists dug the tunnel right through to the floor without actually breaking through, completing their task Friday evening or early Saturday morning. The last security check found nothing unusual and allowed the worshippers to come in. Once the synagogue was full, probably upon a signal from outside, the terrorist burst through the floor of the passageway by means of a small explosion and then leapt up into the synagogue, detonating the explosive material attached to his body. Caught completely off guard, the people inside the temple had no chance to defend themselves.

  ‘Now, Mr Prime Minister, you will rightly insist that it is our job to prevent this sort of thing, rather than just clean up the mess afterwards, but you know as well as I that there’s a limit to what any organization can do. The availability of men and equipment is always limited. It is physically impossible to patrol the whole country both above and below ground. Nevertheless, my technical squad is installing sensing devices in all synagogues and other public places. This equipment can pick up suspicious underground noise and vibrations. It’s a complex and costly operation and this too, of course, is part of our enemy’s plan. By maintaining relentless pressure on us, they force us to keep investing more and more in terms of money, effort and precious human resources . . . We cannot hold out if this pressure doesn’t let up. I’m not referring to myself, and if you have any doubts about me, don’t hesitate to act; I’m ready to step aside. I have no ambitions, sir, other than to protect you and our citizens . . . But if you know of a man better suited than me and more qualified, you should call him in and give him my job right now. I’m at your complete disposal . . .’

  He got up to go, but the Prime Minister stopped him. ‘Sit down, Avner, please.’

  Gad Avner sat down and the two men looked at one other in silence for several seconds. The noise of the traffic below had almost ceased; most of the population had already closed themselves up at home, because of the descending night.

  Schochot got up and went over to the window. ‘Take a look, Avner. There’s nobody on the street. Everyone’s terrified.’

  Avner got up and walked over to the window of the big office, which looked out over the Old City and the gilded Dome of the Rock, just like the view from the window of his terrace.

  ‘Our soldiers are out there,’ he said. ‘See them? And so are my men, but I can’t point them out to you.’

  The Prime Minister sighed. ‘What do you plan on doing?’

  Avner lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and then coughed hard.

  ‘You smoke too much, Avner,’ the Prime Minister told him, almost solicitously. ‘You know it can be bad for you, don’t you?’

  ‘I won’t die from smoking, sir. I don’t have that much time, I’m afraid. So why worry about it? Listen to me, now, because I have to give you some bad news.’

  ‘What could be worse than what we already know?’

  ‘Do you remember how a couple of weeks ago I spoke in a cabinet meeting about a certain “Operation Nebuchadnezzar”, requesting more funding for something I considered a grave and imminent threat?’

  Schochot frowned. ‘Are you saying that these attacks are the beginning of the operation?’

  ‘I’m not sure, of course, but it would certainly appear so . . . The thing I’m really concerned
about is that we will have to fight on two fronts: internal terrorism and a frontal attack from outside.’

  ‘That’s not possible. We have always won by fighting in the open. And so far, we have always maintained a devastating technical advantage. They wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘I’m afraid they would.’

  ‘Do you have any evidence, any proof ?’

  ‘No . . . just a hunch.’

  Schochot looked at him in disbelief. ‘A hunch?’

  ‘It’s difficult to explain . . . A detective just smells these things in the air. I don’t need proof. It has to be that bastard who’s behind all of this. He’s the one who arranged the murder of al Bashar . . . and Taksoun’s coming to power, catching the Americans totally off guard.’

  ‘What bastard?’

  ‘Abu Ahmid, who else?’

  ‘But Taksoun has the respect, if not the friendship, of the Americans.’

  ‘But they weren’t the ones who murdered al Bashar. Although they had deployed a squad of commandos at Mitzpe Ramon for the operation. Didn’t you know about it, sir?’

  Schochot remained dumbfounded for a moment as Avner insisted with a tone of ill-concealed reprimand, ‘Of course you knew, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did know about it, Avner.’

  ‘And why didn’t you inform me, then?’

  ‘Because I thought you’d be against the operation and that . . .’

  ‘Go ahead, you can speak freely.’

  ‘That you would create problems for me at a time when I couldn’t afford to make a fool of myself in front of the Americans.’

  ‘I would have deferred to you without publicly opposing your initiative. I would have only tried my hardest to make you change your mind in private.’

  ‘But why? The Americans trust Taksoun and even you would agree that he’s much better for us than al Bashar.’

  ‘I don’t trust anyone, least of all Taksoun. If he’s a friend of the Americans, he’s a traitor and a mercenary. But if he’s not, as I believe, then someone bailed him out of a really ticklish situation for a completely different reason than our friends in Washington could ever imagine.’