“You really think it will work?”
“Let’s just say there is no plan B.” Akhoum made the camel sit as he spoke. The disconcerting exercise involved a lot of lunging but eventually they made it safely to the ground. He jumped down and held out his arms to help her dismount.
The distance between them was infinitesimal. He moved his head slightly as she opened her lips, hungry for his touch. It was so familiar as he ran his hand down her spine sparking shivers of pleasure in every part of her body. It took every ounce of her resistance to push him away.
“Akhoum, we can’t, not now, there’s so little time. Once this is over, we’ll have the rest of our lives.”
“I have waited this long, I can wait a little longer,” he said huskily, not adding how quickly their lives could end.
As they made their way towards the felucca, he tried not to think about it. The riverbank was dotted with caves.
Above them were strange animal-shaped rocks, watching over the shore below them.
He chided himself for being so fanciful… and yet… if the rocks conjured such images in his head, they would have ignited the imagination of the ancients. He pointed to the lion-shaped one, then whispered in Cara’s ear. “My guess is that the evidence is somewhere up there. The body of the Sphinx looks temptingly like a lion, which looks exactly like those rocks. My second guess is they are in the first cave beneath it, opening up jars.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Instinct.”
“Then I trust it. What do we do now?”
“Stick to the plan. It’s best you go in alone, if I am with you they will never trust you. I will sort out our getaway with the felucca man.” He hoped his nonchalance masked his real feelings. Their lives depended upon it.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Cara took deep breaths, trying to lower her rapid heartbeat. She cupped her hands as she entered the cave, then yelled: “Francisco, Jazz.” Their names rippled like ghosts around the cavernous walls.
Francisco stiffened as he turned.
Her hands were raised, demonstrating that she was unarmed.
“I come in peace, don’t be afraid; Akhoum and I have broken ranks.”
Francisco strained his eyes, trying to gauge her facial expression. With the moonlight behind her she looked like a shadow.
“You followed us. Why should we believe you?” he demanded.
“It’s the truth; I want to help you expose the secret. I’ve had enough of secrets. You’re right: I was tracking you. I hacked into Jazz’s email.” She glanced at Jazz. “I sent you those emails: ‘Dad’s in jail’.”
“How did you know my rhyme?” Jazz felt her past being torn apart again.
“It’s standard surveillance to trawl for information we can use later. I hacked into your psychiatric records too, that was a bit more difficult.”
“It was years ago.”
“Records are archived in computers; it’s easy to get into stuff if you know how; fortunately, yours were computerised, because they were part of a research project.”
Her hands remained raised as she walked towards them.
“You must hate me. My actions were unforgivable, but hear me out. I married Hassid to protect him.” Now that she had said it she felt ridiculous. She looked across at Jazz, praying for some sort of connection.
“Is this a sick joke? Stop this tirade of lies. You never loved Hassid.” Francisco’s scathing words ripped into her.
Cara stared at him. The flare from the torch meant she could see his eyes and he could see hers. Whatever she said next was crucial. She took a deep breath.
“You’re right; it was about me. I thought I could make a difference. Alistair, my father, recruited me to the Reformers – the irony is that I ended up as a double agent for the Reformers and Hawwa; oblivious to the fact that I was a pawn.” She laughed. “One of the many. Hawwa can trace its routes to Nefertiti. They were established to protect the Visitation and ended up creating Judaism, which in turn begat Christianity – perhaps the biggest pawn. The Reformers were created during the Reformation to respond to the changing ecclesiastical conditions.”
He nodded. “It fills in a lot of missing pieces.”
Relieved to have Francisco’s attention, she began to relax. “Originally, Hawwa tried to protect Nefertiti and her evidence from the Egyptians. And when the Jewish religion began, they supported it. It was the best way of keeping the Visitation safe. Later leaders were recruited by the various religious groups to ensure the secret stayed that way. After the Reformation and changes to Christian practice, people were fed up of the religious influences, and the Reformers broke away. Until Napoleon’s discoveries, their disillusionment was muted. He gave the Reformers something to focus on. The end of the American Civil War encouraged them to move their base to America.”
The interest igniting in Francisco’s eyes encouraged Cara to continue.
“After Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, information trickled through from unexpected sources. Hawwa was no longer capable of controlling the secret. Initially, the Reformers were, but as new discoveries in science and new political ideas rose to prominence that challenged the existing world order they began to flounder. A ruling body was created to control the religious and a secular power bases; its name is Nommo.”
“Interesting. Very interesting. It explains a lot.” Francisco raised his eyebrows. “What about Hassid? I take it he isn’t with you. You mentioned Akhoum; he was your lover, wasn’t he?”
She hoped he couldn’t see her inflamed cheeks in the torchlight.
“Akhoum is my one true love. I was young and stupid when I married Hassid. It was never my intention to hurt him. If it’s any consolation, I hurt myself more. I was looking for something, and I thought I had found it in the Reformers. I was wrong. My answers lie within me.”
She hesitated before turning away from Francisco, to look directly at Jazz. “I did what I did because of my childhood. I was adopted. I was told my real parents were killed in a road accident. It was a shock to discover that I worked for the bastard. He never said a word about being my father; worse than that, he ordered me to marry Hassid.”
Jazz’s memories of her father flooded back. “My mother neglected to tell me a lot of things too. A part of me wishes I could talk to her.” She shrugged. “Even if I did, she could never explain her actions. No normal person would do what she did.”
Cara nodded vigorously. “Tell me about it. Alistair, my genetic father, is the leader of Nommo, which has full responsibility for maintaining the secret. Nommo took Hawwa’s religious groups on board to ensure that its powerbase survived. It’s controlled by big business, with a vested interest in keeping the secret safe. No one cares about the secret, only about maintaining the status quo.
“Countries were colonised in the name of religion. The Chinese and Asiatic beliefs are impacting on world trade but they are loosely following the Western model. They have an interest in keeping the status quo, for now at least.”
“What about the Reformers?” Francisco interrupted her.
“They’re nothing more than a front for the real power, Nommo. Nowadays they’re made up entirely of billionaires, kept that way by Nommo.”
“How do you know all this?” Francisco demanded, aware that his father had underestimated the reach of the conspirators.
“I worked for them so I made it my business to find out. Akhoum filled in the gaps when we were tracking you.
Shortly after I married Hassid, I realised it was a mistake.” She hesitated. “A big mistake. I thought I was making a difference. I was a fool. I see that now; unfortunately I couldn’t then. For what it’s worth, by marrying him, I probably kept him alive.”
Cara ran her fingers through her hair. “You guessed from what I said about the hacking that I was matterless and nameless.”
Jazz shuddered. “You made me doubt everything.”
“I was acting on orders.”
“So why have you b
roken away now?” Francisco demanded.
“The reasons I gave you. You must believe me; I really want to help you reveal the secret.”
“How? You may know more than we do about the secret organisations, but that is all.” His curt response was laced with scepticism.
“Akhoum is the best double agent in the Reformers and Hawwa. He knows how they work. He also happens to be in love with me, poor man. We can help you get out of here – you can’t do it on your own whatever you may think.”
“Where is he?” Francisco looked around.
“With the felucca man; Abdul’s men are all over the ancient site of Amarna. Alistair’s men will be too.” She saw the blank look on their faces. “Abdul is the leader of Hawwa. Alistair, my father, heads up Nommo and the Reformers. Sorry, I probably already mentioned that. I’m a little emotional; everything is happening so fast, although unfortunately it must. Akhoum reckons if we head for the Amarna site we can take Abdul’s plane. It’ll buy us some time. And believe me, we need as much time as we can get.”
“Just like that.” Francisco snapped his fingers, distracted by the figure emerging from the shadows behind Cara.
“It won’t be easy.” Akhoum’s voice bounced eerily around the cave. “I’m trained in the art of warfare, guerrilla warfare. We used to call it that before 9/11. I believe today the correct terminology is ‘acts of terrorism’. Make no mistake, as far as Hawwa and Nommo are concerned, we are terrorists because we threaten their existence. We are also a massive threat to world security if we reveal the evidence. They will hunt us down and kill us. Al-Qaeda and its derivatives are child’s play compared to the threat we pose to world stability.”
His gaze dropped to the three storage jars. “What’s in there is the biggest danger to world security ever. To be honest, I don’t care about the secret, only Cara. I lost her once. I will do everything in my power not to lose her again.”
As he put his arm around Cara, Jazz made an instant decision to trust them. “We read one of the documents; I agree with you about world security. I’m not sure we should reveal the secret.”
Akhoum shook his head. “You don’t have a choice. Even if you keep the secret they will kill you. Your only chance, our only chance, is to keep it safe until we can reveal it.”
“Given what you have said, do you really think we can get out alive?” Francisco demanded.
“We have a chance. The boat will convince Abdul’s men we are still here. The felucca guy believes in you. He is taking the camel back into town. No one will know for certain if we are with you. I called the bartender and asked him to drive my jeep along the road towards Amarna. There will be a tail on it. Admittedly we stopped for a few hours, but Abdul will figure that Cara and I were getting reacquainted. He must believe that we have not arrived here yet. He won’t expect us to have joined forces and counterattack. He will assume that you are simply gathering evidence.
If our jeep keeps moving towards Amarna, he will presume Cara and I are in it. At the very least, he will have doubts about our whereabouts.” Akhoum spat the points out one by one.
Francisco listened, then nodded “It makes sense. What doesn’t is why you have changed sides. For all we know, this could be a trap.”
“A rather stupid one; you could have been armed. I let Cara walk in here alone. I would never risk that if I wanted to trap you.”
Cara turned to Jazz.
“You know how it feels to have what you believe you know change drastically: it rocks the foundation of your world. It certainly rocked mine.”
Jazz looked Cara in the eye; the golden flecks in her eyes flared in the torchlight. “It changes how you feel about yourself. I believed that my father was a liar and an adulterer for most of my life. Realising I was wrong changed everything. It’s only a few days since Francisco told me, but I’m not the same person.”
Cara brushed a tear from her eye. “My father knew where I was. He spoke to me, but he never once acknowledged me. I don’t care about him, really, I don’t; but I care about what he did. He was responsible for my marrying Hassid, even though he knew I loved Akhoum.
“He thinks he knows me; he has no idea. When this is over I want him to be sure of exactly who I am. Sometimes, the truth is painful, but everyone deserves to know what it is. What they do with it afterwards is up to them.”
Jazz turned from Cara to Francisco. “I believe her. We both know how it feels to be betrayed.”
Francisco looked first at Cara and Jazz, then at Akhoum, who was staring at him intently. “Come on, let’s get out of here. We are in Akhoum’s hands now.” He was surprised to know that he meant it.
Chapter Fifty-Six
A chill wind drifted through the desert stirring whirlpools of sand. Abdul stared through the grainy darkness towards the eastern horizon. Sirius still shone in the heavens as the first glimmer of light spread across the sky.
He blew his cigar smoke into the early morning air. For once it was little comfort – something was wrong. He was so sure that Francisco and Jazz would turn up that he had not asked why they would come to Amarna.
Hawwa had scanned every inch of the site centuries ago. There was nothing of great value, other than a few items; even then you had to know what you were looking for to decipher the clues. Howard Carter was the last person to find anything of note. It was a stone revealing Tutankhamun’s love for Nefertiti and her work. The artefact was obscure, but in the right hands it would cause ripples.
He motioned to one of his men who ostensibly worked on the site as a volunteer but was one of Hawwa’s better soldiers.
“David, you are familiar with this site, are you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many years have you worked here?”
David rubbed his bristled chin, feeling the ten-year-old scar. “Almost a decade, sir.”
“During that time, has anyone uncovered anything important here?”
“No, sir; most of the discoveries relate to Akhenaten, not Nefertiti.”
“Think carefully, David; you know this area well.” Abdul rubbed his hands together. “If you wanted to hide something, where would you put it?”
“In the lions’ watering hole, sir; it’s rumoured that Nefertiti kept her treasures there. But we have never found anything of note.”
Abdul stroked his wedding ring; next year was their fiftieth anniversary. He had promised his wife a trip to Australia. “You mean the Christian rubbish tip?”
“Some artefacts indicate an Essene settlement, as well as a Christian camp; nothing even vaguely relates to Nefertiti.”
“From nothing comes everything. Take ten men and search the area for Jazz and Francisco.”
“Very good, sir.”
David called his men to him, barking orders. “Our two suspects are at the lion hole. Take them alive, and bring back whatever artefacts they have with them.”
The men ran in long easy strides towards the watering hole, reminding Abdul of jaguars stealing through the dawn in search of prey. He held that image as he closed his eyes and prepared to wait.
The felucca’s tall mast was visible long before they reached the Nile. David radioed in to Abdul, speaking in whispers. “The felucca is anchored offshore.”
“Can you see them?”
“No, sir, they must be in one of the caves.”
“Are there any other boats there?”
“No, sir.”
“What about camels?”
“No sign of any beasts, they came on the boat.”
“Get one of the men to check the area. Francisco was followed. I hate surprises, even birthday presents.”
“We will make sure there are no surprises. Is there anyone in particular we might keep an eye out for?”
Abdul hesitated, hating to declare his hand, but his options were limited.
“Akhoum has gone rogue, deal with him.”
David caught his breath. Akhoum was the best soldier he knew.
“It is not a problem fo
r you, is it, David?”
This time David did not falter. “No, sir, I was merely surprised. Why would he desert?”
“Your role is to carry out orders, not ask questions.”
“Sir.” David squinted in the early morning light. Somewhere out there, Akhoum was watching him.
He called to one of his men. “Check this place for camels or mules. Look for any evidence that someone else might be here; any sign of life, radio in.”
His man disappeared into the scrub-land as David called the others to him. “Pair off, check out each cave, don’t go anywhere on your own. Once you find Francisco and Cara, radio in immediately.”
He watched them run towards the caves, then made his way towards the water, clutching his pistol. There was no boatman. He held his gun ready as he leapt on to the boat.
A few cigarette butts littered the bow. He pulled the radio out of his khaki jacket pocket. “Abdul, the felucca is empty. A felucca is a limb to its owner. They sleep on it, make love on it and shit from it.”
Abdul watched Akhoum’s car continue up the road towards Amarna on the computer screen, as David expounded. “There is no sign of Akhoum, but I’m pretty sure he is here.”
“What about Francisco?”
“No sign yet, sir.”
“Hurry up. I have a bad feeling about this.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Ten minutes earlier
Akhoum lay next to Cara in the thick papyri. Francisco and Jazz were to her immediate left. Akhoum’s eyes were fixed on Abdul’s men as they moved into the area. They were too obvious to be professionals. If he had been alone he would have taken them out; but he wasn’t on his own. More worryingly, the man who had peeled off from the others proved that Abdul suspected that he had joined forces with Francisco.
He kept his thoughts to himself. Abdul might have his suspicions, but as long as their car was headed towards Amarna there was room for doubt. He was tempted to circle behind the lone man and kill him, but there was no time; there was Alistair to consider. Once he learnt what had happened there would be reinforcements - professional reinforcements who would take no prisoners.
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