The Emerald Tablet

by Meaghan Wilson Anastasios

  Ben moved to the side of the statue that was shielded from the forecourt’s entranceway and sat on its base, his back to the front entrance. His heart was pounding. He’d never been able to work out what it was about her that was so different. But the woman who’d managed to deceive him twice had a hold over him that was incomprehensible and also – apparently – unshakeable.

  His heel tapped nervously on the crushed quartz beneath his feet. From a distance, he heard the click of high heels. Fingernails digging painful welts into his palms, he glanced around the edge of the statue to see a shapely figure striding towards the entrance.

  It’s her.

  The blood pounding in his head made him dizzy as he watched her step up the short flight of marble stairs to the museum’s bronze doorway.

  What do I do? What do I do? Even as he thought it, and knowing that to confront her was lunacy, Ben rose to his feet. Why? What do you think she’s going to say?

  He had no idea of the answer to that question. But he didn’t plan to miss the opportunity.

  He began to walk towards the entrance.

  A crunch of gravel behind him alerted him just as a forceful hand took hold of his elbow.

  Ben spun around.

  17

  Cairo, Egypt

  As Essie approached, it appeared as if the museum director’s already well-filled shirt had been inflated with a tyre pump, his chest puffing up and shoulders squaring. She knew the effect she had on most men, and had no qualms about using it to her advantage. Not that she thought it would be necessary here.

  Hosni Zahir primped and preened, adjusting his lapels and smoothing the front of his suit jacket before extending his hand in greeting.

  ‘Mrs Peters, I presume?’ He raised her hand to his lips. ‘I’m Professor Hosni Zahir, director of this establishment.’ He looked her up and down appreciatively. ‘Charmed. Really . . . quite charmed. Might I offer you some tea – or coffee – before I show you the statue?’

  ‘You really needn’t bother, professor.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be a bother at all. My man brews a lovely coffee. Can I tempt you with a slice of cake? All women adore cake . . . and you’re a woman – and quite a lovely one, if I may be so bold. So, surely it’s an offer you can’t refuse?’

  You’d be surprised, Essie thought. ‘Thank you, no. It’s very kind of you. But I’m in quite a hurry. If you could please just show me the statue of Psamtik, I won’t take up any more of your time. I shan’t be long – I was here to examine it many months ago; but then I met with your assistant. I just need to check my translation of the inscription.’

  ‘Of course. Of course.’ He smiled and nodded benevolently, guiding her towards the entrance to the warehouse.

  Hosni opened the door and ushered her through. ‘It’s been like Waterloo Station in here this morning.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘Just before you – you probably passed the man on your way out. He was here to look at the exact same statue you’re interested in. What are the chances of that?’

  Essie’s blood ran cold. ‘A man, you say. What was his name?’

  ‘An archaeologist. Got himself in a bit of trouble with the authorities a while ago, I’ve been told. But it seems he’s back in the good books now. You might have heard of him – Dr Benedict Hitchens.’

  Essie’s heart leapt in her chest. She froze in the doorway.

  Hosni took Essie’s hand when he saw the pallor of her face, his brow creased with concern. ‘Are you all right, my dear lady? You look pale. Do you need to sit down?’

  ‘No . . .’ Essie struggled to gather herself. ‘No, really. I’m fine. Thank you. It’s just the heat.’

  ‘Ah, yes. You English roses aren’t made for a desert climate, are you? Are you sure you don’t need a moment to recover in my office?’

  ‘I’m absolutely fine,’ she said, hoping she delivered it with enough bravado to disguise the roiling turmoil within her.

  ‘Fine. If you’re sure. We’ll go on, then. But, remember, my offer stands – that coffee will be waiting for you.’

  Although a decent shot of caffeine was probably exactly what she needed right now, if Benedict Hitchens was on the hunt for the same thing she was, Essie knew she had no time to spare.

  But how did he find out? she wondered. And – most of all – what does he know that I don’t? Because if there’s anything I’ve missed, he’ll find it.

  18

  Cairo, Egypt

  ‘Hitchens? It is you. I’d know that damned ugly mug anywhere, pardon the French!’

  A tall man wearing a well-cut double-breasted suit and a grey, narrow-brimmed Stetson filled Ben’s field of vision, his square-jawed and suntanned face split with a beaming smile featuring the unnaturally perfect teeth that seemed to be a defining characteristic of the American race.

  He released Ben’s elbow and grabbed his hand, pumping it enthusiastically as his other hand slapped Ben’s shoulder. ‘You don’t remember me, do you? It’s Harry. Harry Martin. We met at Arcadia. Been a while, though!’

  Harry Martin? Ben’s recollections were of a grim-faced American officer recovering from a leg shattered by machine-gun fire, whose disapproval of the riotous behaviour that reigned at the countess’ home found expression in regularly spouted Bible verses. His memories of the man didn’t match the exhausting vigour of the person standing before him. ‘Ah . . . Harry. Of course I remember you. It’s just that . . . well, you’ve changed.’

  ‘Yep, yep. You’d be right there. The good Lord’s been kind to me. Got myself a fine lady wife. Been blessed with three kids. And I’m working at the US Embassy here.’

  Another man of similar build and with the same generic, lantern-jawed American-quarterback good looks had been hovering a few feet away. Harry summoned him over. ‘Hey – Roger! Get over here. This guy here – you’d never guess it to look at him now, but he was a maniac, back in the day. Roger Ford . . . Ben Hitchens. One of the craziest men I’ve ever met.’

  Roger stepped forward and shook Ben’s hand.

  ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘Likewise.’ Ben glanced at the entrance to the museum. Essie was gone. Dammit! She’d be in there a while if she was going to view the statue. But he couldn’t afford to lose sight of her once she left the building.

  ‘So, how’ve you been, Ben? Got yourself hitched yet?’

  Ben flinched. ‘I was married . . .’

  ‘Damn! I knew that. She passed, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. During the war.’

  ‘Nobody since then?’

  ‘No one I wanted to marry, anyway.’ It wasn’t a lie.

  ‘Well, gotta say, there are days when the rugrats are squalling fit to burst and – between you and me – I miss the bachelor’s life. Bet you’ve got some stories to tell.’

  ‘Don’t know about that, Harry.’

  ‘Sure, sure. Nothing to see here, right? I don’t buy it for a minute – seem to remember you swatting the ladies away like ants at a picnic. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink! Still, it’d be just super to hear what you’ve been up to. Say – we were just headed for lunch at Café Riche. How about you join us? Take a trip down memory lane.’

  ‘It’s a kind offer, Harry.’ Ben’s eyes were fixed on the museum. ‘But I’m waiting for someone.’

  ‘Ah, I see. So, what brings you to Cairo then, Ben? You still into that archaeology caper?’

  Ben laughed. ‘Caper? I suppose you could call it that. Yes, I am.’

  ‘That’s why you’re here then, is it? What’re you looking for?’

  ‘Why would you think I was looking for something?’

  The American’s eyes narrowed and he shrugged. ‘Well, this place is going to hell in a handbasket. Why else would you be here? You’d hardly come to a battlefront to do a bit of sightseeing, now, would you?’

  Ben focused his attention on Harry’s expression. The jocular façade was intact, but the American’s eyes were icy. ‘You said you’re working at the
embassy. What exactly do you do there?’

  ‘A bit of this. A bit of that.’ Harry cocked his head. ‘We just keep an eye on what’s going on around town. Looking out for Uncle Sam’s interests.’

  A flock of pigeons burst into the air and flew overhead, the sudden clapping of their wings making Ben start. Sensing danger, his muscles tensed reflexively. So. CIA, then. Great. Just great. ‘Well, this reunion has been delightful. But if you don’t mind, I really must be going.’

  Harry grabbed Ben’s upper arm. ‘Whatever you Brits are doing here – whatever it is you’re trying to get your hands on – well, we’re not just going to let you take it, you can bet on that. Not without a fight.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Harry.’ Ben pulled his arm away. ‘You’ve really got the wrong end of the stick. And don’t you remember? I’m not a Brit. I’m an American.’

  ‘Well, as a patriotic citizen, then, you’ll be wanting to help out these United States of ours, won’t you? How about you come with us for a little chat about what it is that so many people seem to be running about trying to find?’

  ‘I’m no help to you. Really. I’ve no idea what’s going on.’

  ‘You think we’re not listening in to the phone calls that come out of Arcadia? You know, all your dear countess cares about now is getting back to her damned “old country”. Forget it’s swarming with Commies now. Nothing goes on in her house that we don’t know about. And there aren’t any secrets from the Reds, either. What she doesn’t tell them herself they pick up from the bugs they’ve planted in that dump she calls a house.’

  ‘Katerina? In with Stalin and his crowd? You’re lying. She’s a White Russian – she wouldn’t piss on a Communist if he was on fire.’

  ‘Trust me. Your dear countess just wants her family estates back. She’ll sell anything and anybody to the Reds to make that happen – even you. And she’s desperate enough to believe the promises they’ve made her.’ Harry signalled to his partner. ‘Sorry about getting physical here, but if you won’t come with us willingly, well, I’ll have to insist.’ The two men began to frogmarch Ben towards the museum’s gatehouse and a car that idled at the kerb, its rear door open. ‘It was a mistake to trust her, you know.’

  ‘Here’s the thing, Harry.’ Ben wrenched his arms out of the men’s grip and spun on his heels, readying to fight. ‘I make it a rule not to trust anyone these days.’

  ‘Let’s not make this a public fight, Ben. It won’t end well for you.’

  Ben sized Harry up and raised his fists. The other man was in fighting form and moved with a physical grace that showed him to be an intimidating adversary.

  This is going to hurt . . . me, not him, Ben thought as he drew his fist back and Harry prepared to defend himself.

  Ben felt it before he heard it – a movement of air above and past his right temple. A grim, black hole appeared at the centre of Harry’s brow as his head jerked back, the whites of his eyes exposed as his pupils rolled in their sockets. It was only then that Ben heard the shot, nearly deafening him. The American’s jaw dropped open as the back of his head was blown off in an explosion that left a halo of arterial red fog in the air, and blindingly white shards of skull and grey flecks of brain matter splattered into the air in a grisly starburst. Harry’s body hit the pavement with a wet thud.

  Harry’s legs were still twitching as Roger reached for the holster hidden beneath his pinstriped suit jacket. He was taken down by a second shot before he could withdraw his own gun.

  It felt as if time was on a loop as the thunder of the gunshots ricocheted around the stone walls and monuments, the museum’s forecourt silent but for the sound of death.

  Run. Ben’s survival instinct kicked in. Run, Ben. Get out of here.

  As the Americans’ blood seeped out of their now empty brain cases and pooled on the pavement, Ben ran. Nobody tried to stop him.

  19

  Cairo, Egypt

  As he watched the first man’s head disintegrate, Ricard Schubert thought it was probably the first time he’d killed someone with the intention of saving another. Killing was what he did – but it was usually a means to an end. It rarely came with any collateral benefits to any of the people involved. He killed to get information, as he had in Cappadocia and at Topkapı. He killed to get rid of people who got in the way. And he killed just for the hell of it. But he couldn’t remember a time he’d done it to help someone else.

  The spent casing spat onto the paving and Schubert set the other man’s skull in the sights of his Luger pistol as the target’s head swivelled round, searching for the shooter and fumbling for his holster. Before he had a chance to take hold of his own gun, Schubert squeezed the trigger and saw him fall to the ground, a cascade of gore exploding from his skull. Neither of the men twitching on the pavement would be posing a threat to anyone again.

  Hidden behind the fragmentary torso of an ancient statue, Schubert steadied his hand on the crook of the neck of a pharaoh whose head was as large as Schubert was tall. He watched as the archaeologist took a moment to recover from the shock of what had just occurred. But this was a man Schubert knew had been acclimatised to the brutal sensory assault of war. For Hitchens, violence was an old – and most likely loathed – acquaintance. As the German had anticipated, it took only a fraction of a second before the American’s well-honed reflexes responded and he was bolting across the museum’s forecourt and out onto Cairo’s streets like a hare pursued by hounds. Finger hovering over his pistol’s trigger, Schubert feigned a shot.

  Whether or not the other man knew how easily Schubert could have brought him down didn’t matter. It was enough for the German to know that he could have, if he’d wanted to.

  Unlike the Turks he’d murdered in Istanbul and Cappadocia, he didn’t bear the archaeologist any real malice – or the two Americans he’d just shot, either. That was just a job that needed doing. The Turks had been another matter. Although he’d been acting under instructions to get information from them, there’d been no real need to kill them. But he’d just gone with the mood in the room at the time. And he’d enjoyed every minute of it.

  Ricard Schubert had been born in Smyrna to a German railway engineer and a Turkish mother. His fiercely patriotic father had forbidden him from speaking anything but German when he was growing up, casting his son in the role of pariah in the cosmopolitan Aegean city where Turkish and Greek were the languages spoken on the streets. As a skinny and knock-kneed child, he was tormented by schoolyard bullies. But as he grew, he began to fight back, and his poisonous contempt for his Greek and Turkish schoolmates found expression in fists that became calloused through the beatings he distributed. Antipathy spread like a tumour inside him, and he relished any opportunity to revisit his childhood grudges. The people he’d tortured and killed in Turkey had been the unfortunate targets of those urges.

  When he’d told his employers what he’d learnt at Topkapı and Niğde, they’d instructed him to keep watching the archaeologist and make sure nobody got in his way. Whether that meant he was to eliminate anyone who looked like they were giving Hitchens trouble hadn’t been made clear. They hadn’t gone into specifics, which to Schubert meant he could do whatever he deemed necessary. Nobody who asked him to do a job would be in any doubt about the lengths to which he’d go and the methods he’d employ to make sure he did what was required. And although he didn’t know exactly who the people were who’d been intent on bustling Hitchens into the car that was waiting outside the museum’s grounds, he could make a fair guess; the vehicle had American diplomatic plates, which to Schubert’s way of thinking meant trouble.

  Even now, the driver of the sedan and the other man who’d been sitting in the passenger seat jumped out of the car and ran towards where their colleagues lay dead on the pavement. It was Schubert’s signal to move. Once they confirmed their countrymen were dead – and one glance at the state of their skulls would tell them that – they’d start looking for the gun that had brought th
em down. And he had no intention of being found.

  He already knew where the archaeologist was headed, so he didn’t need to follow him. Schubert ducked below the level of the raised garden bed to keep out of sight of the men now scoping the forecourt, and took the same route out of the side service entry to the museum grounds he’d taken when he’d arrived on the American’s heels earlier that day.

  Schubert didn’t know why it was so important to make sure Hitchens was allowed to keep doing whatever it was that he was doing unhindered. More to the point, he didn’t care.

  20

  Cairo, Egypt

  ‘Mrs Peters?’ The museum director’s voice echoed about the walls of the enormous warehouse.

  Essie stood from where she’d been kneeling beside the statue of Hathor and Psamtik to re-examine the inscription. What the hell is it now? she thought, brushing the dust from her knees. ‘Yes, professor?’

  He edged between the statues and took her benevolently by the elbow. ‘Now, you mustn’t be alarmed, my dear. But I’m afraid you’ll need to take me up on my offer of a coffee whether you wish to or not. Something terrible’s happened . . . outside. A shooting.’

  She drew in her breath sharply. Ben . . . Please, no. Don’t let it be him.

  Interpreting her response as fear, Hosni patted her hand. ‘You really need not concern yourself, Mrs Peters. You’re quite safe in here with me. Apparently two men from the American embassy were shot. But it would be most unwise of you to go outside now while the police are hunting for the shooter.’

  Men from the embassy . . . not Ben. Thank God. The intensity of the reflexive response to the thought that something might have happened to him surprised her.

  The director shook his head disapprovingly. ‘This unrest . . . people are just losing their minds. It’s all quite irrational, of course. It will be the end of us all. Now . . . your coffee . . . or would you prefer tea? And don’t forget that cake!’