“Naughty girl.” He sucked in air. “You know what this means?”
She shook her head, a little bewildered.
“I’m not sure I do.”
“Abdul and Alistair will know that we are working together.”
She paused, savouring the way he said together. “It was inevitable once you called me.”
“Hassid will find out. There is no going back now.”
“I knew what I was doing when I answered your call, Akhoum. I am fully aware of the consequences.”
“Then…”
She interrupted him. “Don’t say it; I want to look into your eyes when we talk properly. Call Abdul and tell him we should close down on them in the next twenty-four hours.”
“And us?
“There will always be ‘an us’, but for now I have to keep up the charade.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Francisco and Jazz studied Akhoum as he returned to his car. She waited until he had disappeared from view before turning to Francisco. “Do you know him?”
“He looks like the man Cara was living with before Hassid. He must have moved back here when they did.”
“Was she cheating on Hassid while they were married?”
“Not physically, but mentally.”
Jazz stepped back. “How can you mentally cheat on someone?”
“She never let Akhoum go. My guess is he was the one she thought about before she went to sleep at night.”
He tugged her arm. “Come on, we might as well catch what is left of the pyramid Sound and Light show from the front terrace.”
Jazz let him take her arm, hoping he could not read her thoughts. The idea of mentally cheating on someone was disturbing.
“They are majestic, aren’t they?” Francisco nodded in the direction of the pyramids.
“They look like they don’t belong here - I don’t mean Egypt, I mean planet earth.” She was grateful to concentrate on something other than mentally cheating.
“Egyptian scholars claim they are tombs.”
“Whoever built them was trying to capture energy not death. You don’t sense that from the hotel room but your do here. You mentioned dark energy earlier.” She turned towards him. “Why are you looking at me like that?
“You’re right about energy; they can’t be tombs.” He grinned back at her. “History proves it. It took months for Al Manun to break into the Great Pyramid, back in 820 AD. He could not crack the outer casing of Tura limestone. The workers had to use fire, and then created a thermal shock by pouring vinegar on the rocks to break the thick stones. His determination was fuelled by his belief that the pyramid was a virgin tomb, not looted by grave robbers. When he eventually broke in, all he found were dark tunnels, apparently leading nowhere, and an unadorned coffer, hewn from a single block of red Aswan granite. The interior bore nothing of the grandeur of a Pharaoh’s burial site. The coffer was too small to have held the mummified body of the King of Egypt. There were no funerary texts on the walls, nothing to indicate it was a burial chamber.”
“Could they have been robbed?”
“No sign of forced entry; and more significantly, there are no paintings or statues. The coffer is unadorned. Egyptian tombs were designed to simulate the conditions of the afterlife; the wall paintings were part of that. They placed the treasures in the tombs so that the pharaohs could use them in the next life. The darkness inside the pyramids is alien to their afterlife culture.”
He shook his head as he considered his hypothesis. “This is going to sound far out.”
“What is?”
“If they weren’t tombs it’s possible that they were trying to simulate a primitive earth-like environment for dark matter. It explains the corridors leading nowhere, along with the absence of wall adornments or statues. It could also explain the curvature built into the pyramid to withstand extreme force.
The air vents maintained the air temperature at sixty-eight degrees. It would not stop bodies rotting, but it would be a very agreeable temperature to meditate in. Perhaps they were trying to absorb dark energy.”
“Dark energy?”
“It could have been a crude attempt by the Egyptians to harness dark energy in order to time travel or flip a dimension. We don’t really know what dark matter is, but we know it exists. It’s possible dark matter is the invisible form of another dimension, perhaps a dimension not too far off our own.”
“This is crazy. I can’t get my head around it.”
“Look at the Great Pyramid: arguably one of the most imposing architectural structures on earth. When it was first built, the light radiating from the limestone would have lit up the desert like a huge beacon.”
Jazz nodded, eager to latch on to something she could comprehend. “A star on earth: when you saw it you would expect it to contain unimaginable treasures.”
“Yet it didn’t. The evidence points to them being used for something we have only just begun to understand. If they were trying to create or capture dark matter, the interior would make perfect sense.”
“We can’t prove any of it.”
“Perhaps we can. There is a stele which dates to around 1,500 BC. It claims that Khufu, the pharaoh credited with building the Great Pyramid, cleared the sands and uncovered the pyramid. It is reputed to have had a black onyx cap on the pinnacle of the white polished limestone.
Jazz rubbed her eyes. “This is too off the wall, even for me.” She stifled a yawn.
“You must be exhausted; it was thoughtless of me not to realise. We are in the safest place; no one is looking for us here. Let’s get our old room; then, tomorrow, we can check out the pyramids.”
“You want to check into our old room after the fuss you made at reception?” Jazz groaned.
“Times are hard, and tourists are tourists no matter how difficult, they all pay money. Come on.”
Ten minutes later they were in the room they had vacated so indignantly a couple of hours earlier.
Jazz glanced at his briefcase. “What about the manuscripts, shouldn’t we finish reading them?”
“Tomorrow is soon enough, we need our strength.” He glanced at the bathroom door. “I’ll take a quick shower if you want to get ready for bed.”
Jazz watched him stride into the bathroom, then hurriedly slipped on her nightdress. She pulled the duvet over her head, imagining him in the shower, the water peppering his muscles. His talk of mental infidelity made her feel worse.
As he entered the room she mentally repeated the mantra “He’s my brother” until she heard his heavy breathing; only then did she open her eyes. She could see his silhouette as he lay on the bed next to her. He only had his bathrobe on.
She closed my eyes and started counting sheep, willing herself to fall asleep.
Her dreams brought no solace, ripening like rotten fruit, visions of her nan erupting into them. She had called Tutankhamun gay because of the pierced ears on his funeral mask. If it meant it was originally intended for Nefertiti, why had she fled Egypt?
Chapter Thirty-Six
Jazz woke in a hot sweat. She glanced across at Francisco, who was sleeping peacefully. He was about a metre away, but it was still too close for comfort. Silently she stole out of bed and reached for her jeans and green sweater in her overnight bag.
She ran her fingers through her hair, then shut the room door silently behind her. It wasn’t just Tutankhamun who was bothering her; Francisco’s rendition of the Great Pyramid as a Great Light in a former metamorphosis was bugging her almost as much as Tut’s earrings.
Deciding against the lift, she ran up the stairs to the wrap-around terrace. As she opened the door on to it she gasped. Earlier, during the Sound and Light Show, it was easy to believe the Great Pyramid had acted as a giant heliograph. Now, illuminated in shadow-light from the moon’s rays it looked like a black hole. The notion that it might have been a receptacle for dark matter was easy to imagine.
Jazz jumped as she heard the door open behind her. She turned; a man
in his mid-thirties, with a striking hawk-like nose, smiled at her. “Sorry, I did not mean to startle you; I can’t smoke in the room, my wife insists on a no-smoking room, but I couldn’t sleep.” He spoke in heavily accented English as he held out a packet of cigarettes. “You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”
Even though she did, Jazz shook her head, then watched him bend to light the cigarette. He drew deeply, then let the smoke out slowly so it formed a river of blue hovering in the night air.
“They don’t look real do they?” He pointed towards the pyramids. “We come every year from our home in Luxor to marvel at them.” He laughed. “Well, I do; my wife likes the Cairo shopping. Is this your first visit?”
“The first of many, I hope; they’re amazing.”
The man smiled. “I felt like that the first time I saw them when my dad brought me here. I was six, and thirty years later I feel the same. When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut – “There’s a star man waiting in the skies…” he sang the Bowie opening off-tune. “Unfortunately, being an Egyptian is a bit of a handicap: we don’t have a space programme. I studied astronomy instead.” He glanced upwards. “There are so many stars out there. Until Copernicus figured it out four hundred years ago, we thought the earth was the centre of the universe. A few years later, thanks to Galileo’s telescope, we began to see the planets. The Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno postulated that there were infinite universes. When you stare at the pyramids you have to say, why not?” He took another drag on his cigarette. “Sorry, didn’t mean to bore you. I tend to get a carried away when I see them.”
Jazz grinned back at him. “You aren’t. Do you really think there are infinite universes?”
“There almost have to be; physics proves it – and so does history.”
“History?”
“Sort of. Not that long ago, we thought the sun was the single star in our galaxy. Then we discovered multiple galaxies. It’s easy to make the leap to multiverses.”
“Multiverses?”
“There are many theories: patchwork universes, brane multiverse, quantum multiverses. No one knows for sure yet. We do know we exist within multiverses, not a universe. Astrophysics is ripping through our old version of what’s up there on an almost daily basis. It’s entirely probable that worlds like ours exist somewhere up there.”
“Really!” Jazz wished she could say something more intelligent.
“Don’t take my word for it; look at the Great Pyramid. Whatever people say about it, it’s out of this world. That’s probably why I love it so much.”
“As in extra-terrestrial? You think aliens built it?” Images of Nommo were spicing up Jazz’s imagination.
He shook his head, laughing. “I wish. But there is no evidence to support the idea of aliens, other than the structure itself.” He took a final drag of his cigarette. “I don’t believe the standard text that slaves and ramps were used to construct it. It makes no sense – besides there weren’t enough trees to build the ramps to construct the Pyramid.”
He threw the cigarette butt down and snubbed it out with his brogue shoe.
“I should be getting back. I promised my wife I’d be quick. Sorry to drone on, I hope I didn’t bore you. My name is Adil; perhaps we will see you at breakfast.”
As he turned, the wind caught his ghutrah, lifting it so that it flowed behind him like a cape. When he opened the door, he seemed to vanish into the darkness.
Jazz peered at the cigarette butt, then picked it up. She looked back at the pyramid. Was it really possible that aliens had built it?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The smell of hot ground coffee spiced with cinnamon woke Jazz.
“Hi, sleepy-head.” Francisco was dressed in the same black cotton sweater and jeans he had worn yesterday, but still looked immaculate. “I ordered room service: warm pitta bread, some fantastic yoghurt, figs, hot croissants and freshly squeezed orange juice. The oranges are excellent at the moment.” He waved a half-full glass in the air. “I could order bacon and eggs if you prefer?”
She ran her fingers through her hair. She was tired. She remembered going out to the rooftop terrace. Her conversation with Adil seemed surreal. For a moment she wondered if she had dreamt it. A quick glance at the red lights of the digital clock revealed that it was five a.m.
“Epic.” She pulled her nightie closer to her as she threw the duvet off.
“Are you cold? I’ll get you the other bathrobe.”
Before she could answer he had retrieved it from the bathroom. She grabbed it from him, afraid of closer encounters of the human kind.
Taking the chair opposite, she began work on devouring a croissant. Seconds later, after a sip of very good coffee, she was strong enough to ask: “Your silence is deafening. What are you thinking?”
Francisco pointed to the window and the pyramids in the distance. “They are so unlike their original state. It’s easy to forget that when they were built they were designed to outshine everything. Imagine how people felt looking at them in the desert sun.”
“Blinded, terrified, in awe of them?”
“Precisely; meaning that whatever went on in the pyramid complex wasn’t for general consumption.”
“Still thinking dark matter?” Jazz poured more coffee, remembering Adil’s words about multiverses.
“It’s a bit of a long shot. They didn’t have the technological knowledge we have today.”
“So?” She was genuinely puzzled.
“If they tried to simulate conditions of absolute darkness, it was probably to copy some long-forgotten memory.”
Jazz nodded. “Classic human behaviour: if we don’t understand something we try to reproduce conditions.”
“Exactly; unfortunately it also suggests that the alien contact was peripheral.”
Jazz sipped her coffee, then glanced at the empty pot.
“Do you want me to order more?”
“Any more and I will blast into outer space on caffeine power for my own alien encounter.”
Francisco laughed. “Perhaps we should try it. The lack of hard evidence leaves a big question mark as to what really happened.”
She looked at him, perplexed. “The papyri talk about an alien encounter.”
“The papyri are hardly evidence. We are using one to prove the other, just like the Bible. No one will allow us to do a proper carbon dating; if you don’t believe me, think about the Turin Shroud.”
She sighed, wondering if she should mention Adil. “I had a weird dream last night; I can’t help feeling it’s somehow related.”
“Go on.”
“When I was young I walked in on my mum and my nan having this horrible conversation about Dad.” She bit the inside of her mouth, determined not to cry. “Mostly I block it out. Last night things started coming back to me. Nan said something about Tutankhamun; his exhibition was in London in the sixties.”
“1972 – at the British Museum.”
“Whenever it was, she went to see it, probably because Dad was associated with it.”
“I doubt it: neither of us were alive then.” Jazz waved her hand. “Anyway, she thought he was gay because of his pierced ears. Nan made all kinds of weird connections. She liked a bit of ear bling. I take after her as far as weird connections go but not the bling. Is it possible the mask was made for Nefertiti?”
He smiled. “People are beginning to question the anomalies. The face is made from 18.4 carat gold. It’s clearly Tut’s. The remainder, and more feminine form, is 22.5 carat. And it’s not the only Nefertiti allusion; many of the items in the tomb refer to her.”
“You think it was Nefertiti’s tomb?”
He nodded. “Many respected Egyptologists suspect it.”
“So why don’t they say something?”
“The politics of Egyptology are very persuasive, in spite of the glaring mistakes.”
“Like.”
“Egyptologists claim Khufu built the Great Pyramid. The stele I mentioned last nigh
t, dating back to 1,500 BC, claims Khufu uncovered it in the sand. He didn’t build it: he found it or repaired it.”
“Maybe the stele lied: a jealous pharaoh.”
“Possible, but unlikely. When Herodotus visited Giza in 443 BC, he recorded numerous inscriptions and drawings on the limestone. Strangely, he didn’t mention the Sphinx. Was it buried in the sand? Later, Abd-al-Laif, the Arab historian, wrote of the inscriptions in his detailed work on Egypt in the twelfth century. There is no reference to Khufu. Current Egyptologists continue to ignore the facts.”
“Why?”
“Politics, fear, religion – who knows? Part of the problem is that we are trying to make sense of the past from a human perspective.”
“We are human.”
He laughed. “What I meant is that our perspective is limited by our belief system. Step outside of that. What if deferred memories influenced the past? A deferred alien memory from across the dimensions could have built the Great Pyramid. Nefertiti may have known what really happened.”
“Deferred what?”
“Memory.” He pulled a face. “It’s possible that dark energy is a catalyst for deferred memories. If there are multiple dimensions, deferred memories may be a key into them.”
“You just lost me.”
“It’s complicated.”
“You don’t say.”
“We know there is life out there.” He nodded towards the window. “Whatever is out there can’t travel through space.”
“Why not?” She helped herself to another rich buttery croissant, half-wondering why she had eaten muesli for the previous fifteen years.
“Time is prohibitive. To reach the window I must move through space and time.” He strode across to demonstrate his point.
“Brilliant deduction, Einstein; unfortunately I require further enlightenment.”
“Think about it.”
“I am.”
He pointed towards the starry sky. “There are billions of stars out there which we can’t see. Our nearest star is sixteen light years away. In case you were wondering, light travels 9,463,700,000,000 kilometres in a year.”
The Ghost Reapers Page 18