by Paul Sussman
'The place was even easier to find than we thought,' he boasted. 'I had feared that the measurements in the tomb might only be rough estimates, as is so often the case with ancient texts, but our friend Dymmachus pinpointed the spot to within five kilometres. A remarkable feat, given that he had no modern technology to guide him.' He raised a lighter and ignited the cigar, puffing it slowly into life, his lips making a popping sound as they drew on its end. 'We began an aerial sweep of the area at first light,' he continued, 'and had located the site within an hour. After all the complications of the last four days it was a bit of an anticlimax. I had been expecting more drama.'
Away to their right a pair of scrambler bikes powered up the flank of the dune, engines whining, their tyres cutting a deep swathe in the sand as though unzipping the slope beneath them.
'As it is, everything has gone like clockwork,' Dravic said, smiling broadly, goading them with his success. 'Better than clockwork. We've flown in enough equipment to be getting on with: fuel for the generators, packing crates, straw to protect the finds. More is on its way by camel. We've already located a cluster of inscriptions down there on the rock face, so we know the army must be nearby. All we have to do now' – he broke off, sucking deeply on his cigar – 'is to find it. Which I am expecting to do in a matter of hours.'
'It might not be as easy as you think,' said Daniel, glaring at him. 'These dunes are shifting all the time. God knows what level the desert floor was at two and a half thousand years ago. The army could be fifty metres down. More. You could dig for weeks and still not find it.'
Dravic shrugged. 'With traditional methods, perhaps. Fortunately, we have slightly more up-to-date equipment at our disposal.'
He pointed down at the five tubes snaking away from the base of the giant outcrop. Each one, Tara now noticed, had two men standing to either side of its open end. They were gripping what looked like handles, and passing the mouth of the tube back and forth across the sand, which was being sucked up into the snaking plastic gullet behind.
'Sand-vacuums,' explained Dravic. 'Apparently they're all the rage in the Gulf. They use them to clear sand away from airport runways, oil pipelines, that sort of thing. They work on exactly the same principle as a normal vacuum cleaner. The sand is drawn in, passes through the tube and is then deposited a suitable distance away, in this case on the far side of that dune. Each one can, I am told, shift almost a hundred tons per hour. So I think we'll be finding our army rather sooner than you think.'
'You'll be seen,' said Daniel. 'You can't keep this size of operation secret for long.'
Dravic laughed, sweeping his arm around him in a wide arc. 'Who's going to see us? We're in the middle of a desert, for God's sake! The nearest settlement's a hundred and twenty kilometres away, there are no commercial flight paths overhead. You're clutching at straws, Lacage.' He blew a billow of smoke into Daniel's face and his laughter redoubled. 'What a dilemma all this must be for you! On the one hand you must be yearning for me to fail in my task. Yet at the same time, as an archaeologist, a part of you must also be desperate for me to succeed.'
'I don't give a shit about the army,' snapped Daniel.
'You lie, Lacage! You lie with every bone in your body. You're as anxious to know what's down there as I am. We are the same, you and me.'
'Don't flatter yourself.'
'Yes, Lacage, we are! We're the same. We both live by the past. We have an irresistible need to dig into it. It is not enough for us simply to know that somewhere out here in the desert there is a buried army. We must find it. We must see it. We must make it our own. For both of us it is intolerable that history should keep things from us. Oh, I understand you, Lacage. Better than you understand yourself. You care more about what's down there than you do about your own life. Than you do about the life of your friend here.'
'That's bullshit!' snapped Daniel. 'Bullshit!'
'Is it?' Dravic chuckled. 'I think not. I could cut her throat right here in front of you and a part of you would still be willing me to succeed. It's an addiction, Lacage. An impossible addiction. And we both suffer from it.'
Daniel stared at him and for a brief moment it seemed to Tara that Dravic's words had touched something deep inside him. There was a confusion in his eyes, a disgust almost, as if he had been shown a part of himself that he would prefer not to acknowledge. It disappeared almost immediately and, shaking his head, he thrust his hands defiantly into his pockets.
'Fuck you, Dravic.'
The giant smiled. 'I can assure you that if there's any fucking to be done around here, I'm the one who's going to be doing it.'
He leaned back slightly and looked at Tara, then nodded at the three guards. They raised their guns, and prodded them back down the side of the mound towards the camp.
'And don't think about trying to escape,' Dravic called after them. 'If the heat doesn't get you, the sinking sand certainly will. It's everywhere around here. In fact maybe that's how I should dispose of you both. Much more entertaining than a bullet through the head.'
He grinned and turned back towards the excavation. Below him the workmen started to sing.
32
LUXOR, THE THEBAN HILLS
There was a place Khalifa used to go when he needed to think, up in the Theban Hills, beneath the shadow of the Qurn, and he went there now.
He'd discovered it years ago when he'd first arrived in Luxor – a natural seat in the rock, cut into a low cliff halfway up the mountain, with spectacular views down into the Valley of the Kings below. He would sit there for hours, alone and peaceful, and however confused he was feeling at the time, however miserable or hopeless or wretched, his head would always clear and his spirits lift. His thinking seat, he called it. There was no place in the world he felt more in touch with himself or with Allah.
The sun was already past its zenith by the time he got up there. He sat down and rested his back against the cool limestone, staring out across the sun-baked hills. Far below he could see people wandering through the valley, small as ants. He lit a cigarette.
The meeting with Hassani had rattled him. Badly. His immediate reaction, of course, had been to reject the promotion and continue with the case. Two people's lives were in danger, after all – if indeed they were still alive – and he couldn't simply turn his back on them. Nor could he forget what had been done to Suleiman and Nayar and Iqbar. Nor, in a sense, his brother Ali, too.
And yet, despite that, he had doubts. He didn't want to, but he did. This wasn't a movie, after all, where everything was guaranteed to work out OK in the end. This was reality and, although he despised himself for it, he was afraid.
To go up against Sayf al-Tha'r was dangerous enough. Now it seemed there were enemies on his own side too. God knows who and God knows why, but they were powerful. Powerful enough to scare Hassani, and that took some doing.
'There's nothing I can do to protect you,' the chief had said. And he hadn't just been talking about Khalifa's career. He had meant his life. And perhaps the lives of his family too. Was it right to put at risk those he loved most in the world? He owed nothing to Nayar and Iqbar and Suleiman, after all, nor to the English couple. And Ali? Well, yes, that would always torment him, but was it worth this? Maybe he should drop the case. Take the promotion, go to Ismailiya. Sure, he'd hate himself for it. But at least he'd be alive. And his loved ones too. He flicked his cigarette away and looked up at some crude hieroglyphs scratched into the cliff face beside the seat. There were three cartouches – those of Horemheb, Ramesses I and Seti I. Beneath them was a brief inscription, left by someone styling himself 'The Scribe of Amun, Son of Ipu'. One of the ancient necropolis workmen, probably, who must have sat in this very same seat more than three thousand years ago, enjoying the same view as Khalifa, and listening to the same silence, and perhaps even feeling the same things. He reached out and touched the inscription.
'What should I do?' he sighed, running his fingers across the crudely incised images. 'What's the right thing? Tell
me, Son of Ipu. Give me some sign. Because I sure as hell—'
He was interrupted by a clatter of stones. He turned and looked up. A gaunt, filthy man was staring down at him from a shelf a few metres above.
'Sorry sorry forgive me Allah have mercy!' gabbled the man in Arabic, slapping his head. 'Clumsy stupid fool tread in the wrong place.'
He tied his djellaba in a knot around his waist and, swinging his emaciated legs over the edge of the shelf, clambered down the cracked rock face.
'You talk to the ghosts!' he jabbered as he descended. 'I talk to the ghosts too. Hills full of ghosts! Thousands of ghosts. Millions of ghosts. Some good, some bad. Some are terrible! I have seen.'
He was on the ground now and scrabbled round to crouch at Khalifa's feet. 'I live with the ghosts. I know them. They are everywhere.' He pointed behind Khalifa's head. 'There is one. And there is another. And there, and there, and there. Hello ghosts!' He waved. 'They know me. They are hungry. Like me. We are all hungry. So hungry.' He fumbled among the folds of his robes, pulling out a crumpled paper packet. 'You want scarab?' he asked. 'Best quality.'
Khalifa shook his head. 'Not today, my friend.'
'Look, look, very best, no better in Egypt. Just look. Please.'
'Not today,' repeated Khalifa.
The man glanced around and shuffled a little closer, lowering his voice. 'You like antiquities? I have antiquities. Very good.'
'I'm a policeman,' said Khalifa. 'Be careful what you say.'
The man's smile faded. 'Fake antiquities,' he said hurriedly. 'Not real. Fake, fake. Make them myself. Make the fake. Ha, ha, ha.'
Khalifa nodded and, pulling out a cigarette, lit it. The man stared at him, like a dog waiting for a titbit. Feeling suddenly sorry for him, Khalifa threw him the pack of Cleopatras.
'Have them,' he said, 'and leave me in peace. OK? I want to be alone.'
The man took the cigarettes. 'Thank you,' he said. 'So kind. Ghosts like you. They tell me to tell you. They like you very much.' He held his hand to his ear as if listening. 'They say if you ever have problems you come up here and talk to them and they give you many good answers. Ghosts will protect you.' He stuffed the cigarettes into a pocket of his robe and stood. 'You want guide?' he asked.
'I want to be left in peace,' said Khalifa.
The man shrugged and, blowing his nose on the hem of his djellaba, set off along the path at the foot of the cliff face, oblivious to the rocks beneath his bare feet.
'You want to see Kings Valley,' he called over his shoulder, 'Hatshepsut, tombs of nobles? I know all places round here. Very cheap.'
'Some other time,' Khalifa shouted after him. 'Not today.'
'I show you places no-one else see. Very good places. Special places.'
Khalifa shook his head and, turning away, gazed out across the empty hills. The madman stumbled on, until he was almost at the point where the path curved out of sight behind a high shoulder of rock.
'I take you to secret places!' he cried.
Khalifa ignored him.
'New tomb that no-one else knows! Very good!'
He disappeared round the shoulder of rock. There was a brief hiatus and then, suddenly, as if someone had kicked him from behind, Khalifa flew to his feet.
'Wait!' he shouted, his voice magnified and echoed by the rock walls. 'Wait!'
He scrambled down to the path and ran after the man, who, on hearing his cry, had stepped back round the corner.
'A new tomb that no-one else knows,' panted Khalifa, coming up to him. 'You said a new tomb that no-one else knows.'
The man clapped his hands. 'I found it!' he cried. 'Very secret. The ghosts took me there. You want to see?'
'Yes,' said Khalifa, his heart racing. 'I do want to see. I want to see it very much. Take me.'
He clapped the man on the shoulder and they set off together up into the hills.
At first Khalifa couldn't be sure the madman's tomb was the same as the one Nayar had found. As al-Masri had pointed out, these hills were full of old shafts. It was more than possible his guide had stumbled on a completely different one, one that had no relevance at all to the case he was dealing with.
Then, after much cajoling, he persuaded the man to show him the antiquities of which he had spoken and his doubts were dispelled. There were three shabtis, each identical to the ones he'd found in Iqbar's shop, and a terracotta ointment jar with a Bes face stamped onto it, again identical to the one from Iqbar's cache. It was clear they all came from the same hoard. He handed the artefacts back and reached for his cigarettes, realizing only when his hand was in his pocket that he'd given them away.
'Give me a cigarette, will you?' he said.
'No!' replied the man. 'They're mine!'
It took them over an hour to reach the top of the gully and a further thirty minutes to work their way down to the tomb entrance. The last part of the descent, when they had to clamber down the six-metre rock face above the tomb, was particularly painful for Khalifa, who had never liked heights. The madman swarmed down without a care in the world. Khalifa, on the other hand, took five minutes just to pluck up the courage to begin the descent, and when he finally did start climbing, he inched his way downwards so slowly and with such care that he seemed to be moving in slow motion.
'Allah protect me,' he mumbled, pressing his face against the reassuring solidity of the rock face, 'Allah have mercy on me.'
'Come, come, come!' The madman laughed, jumping up and down below him. 'Here's the tomb, why do you wait, thought you wanted to see it?'
The detective reached the bottom eventually and, scrambling through the entrance, sank against the wall of the corridor, breathing hard.
'Give me a cigarette,' he panted. 'And no arguments, or I'll arrest you for possession of stolen antiquities.'
Grudgingly the pack was proffered and Khalifa took one, lighting it, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. After a couple of drags he started to relax. He opened his eyes again.
A thin shaft of sunlight was pushing through the tomb entrance, just enough to illuminate the corridor and, at its bottom, the dark well of the burial chamber.
'How did you find it?' Khalifa asked, looking around.
'The ghosts tell me,' said the madman. 'Seven days, ten days. Not long. They tell me to come down here. They say there is something special. So I come down and here it is, beautiful tomb, very secret, very special.'
He hopped to the entrance and pointed at the gap through which they had climbed.
'See, here, when I first come there is a wall, big wall, cover up all the door so you can't see inside. But I knock down the wall and get inside, just like the ghosts tell me. Very dark inside, very secret, goes down down down. I am scared, I shake with fear, but I go down because I want to see, like someone is pulling me.'
His voice was getting faster. He started to move down the corridor. Khalifa followed.
'A room,' he said, pointing downwards. 'Dark, black, like night. I light match. Many things inside. Hundreds of things. Wonderful things, and terrible things. Very magic. Home of ghosts.'
They were standing in the doorway to the burial chamber now. As Khalifa's eyes adjusted to the gloom he could make out vague colours and images on the wall opposite.
'Treasures, treasures, so many treasures,' gabbled the man. 'I stay here for a night. I sleep here with the treasures, like a king! Many dreams I have, many strange things come to me in my head, like I am flying over the world and see everything, even what people think.' He jumped down into the chamber. 'Later I tell my friend.'
'Your friend?' asked Khalifa.
'Sometimes he comes in the hills, when he has drunk, we talk, he gives me cigarettes. He has a picture. Here.'