‘Was that the sound of your mind closing, Curtis O’Connor? For a man with an intellect and scientific background like yours, you’re very quick to judge. I won’t get back onto the crop circles,’ said Aleta, her brown eyes dancing, ‘but we’re very quick to dismiss things we don’t understand.’
‘So you have a favourite theory?’ O’Connor asked.
‘On how the pyramids were built, or their purpose?’
‘Both, but let’s deal with how they were built first.’
‘The short answer is, we don’t know. For decades, the theory with the most credibility has been the notion that around 2360 BC, a hundred thousand slaves laboured for more than twenty years, using wooden levers and rollers, stone tools and plaited rope made out of flax, to haul over two and a half million limestone blocks. A lot of those blocks came from Aswan, which is 500 miles down the Nile, and some of them weighed more than 50 tonnes. Somehow they were hauled up ramps to construct a building that is half the height of the Empire State Building and sits on over 13 acres – but that theory no longer stacks up. Someone did the math on how many wooden rollers would be required, and allowing for the destruction of ten rollers for every ten-tonne block, they would have needed over twenty-five million rollers and levers.’
O’Connor nodded. ‘A lot of trees, and Egypt and the Levant are not renowned for forests. But I read somewhere that the blocks might have been secured between wooden discs and rolled to the site.’
‘I’ve read that theory too, and it’s a method described by a Roman engineer, Vitruvius, in his book De Architectura. But he wrote in the first century BC. The ancient Egyptians around the time of Pharoah Khufu, whose tomb the Great Pyramid is purported to be, had no knowledge of the wheel. That came much later in the sixteenth century BC when Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos from west Asia. They brought with them the horse and the chariot that Hollywood is so keen to associate with Egyptians.’
‘So when compared to the Great Pyramid, the Pharos lighthouse pales by comparison?’
‘The lighthouse is still worthy of being one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, but the Pharos lighthouse, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Artemis’s temple at Ephesus, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the Colossus of Rhodes . . . they’ve all either disappeared or fallen into ruin. The Great Pyramid is the oldest and the only wonder to be still standing. Regardless of what theory we come up with to get the blocks to the site, and somehow allow for the miles of massive ramps that were needed, we still haven’t found an answer for the extraordinary precision of construction.’
‘Our old friend Fibonacci . . . we don’t seem to be able to shake him,’ O’Connor said with a grin, signalling the waiter for another two coffees. In 1202 AD, Fibonacci, arguably one of the most talented mathematicians the world had ever seen, wrote his Liber Abaci, in which he introduced an extraordinary sequence of numbers, one well known to the Maya, the Inca and the Egyptians. Each term in the sequence was obtained by adding the previous two terms:
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233 . . .
But even more importantly, the extraordinary ratio of 1.618 or phi, designated by the Greek letter Φ, was obtained by dividing any number by its predecessor. The early divisions produced approximations, but as the numbers got larger, the divisions stabilised to become 1.6180339 . . . a ratio that had captured the attention of Einstein, Schrödinger, and other great Nobel Laureates. It was postulated that Φ could be the connecting thread of the cosmos and perhaps the basis of the elusive theory of unity. The golden ratio had been shown to be part of life itself.
Aleta nodded. ‘As you and I discovered with the Maya and the Inca, the golden ratio determines everything from the spirals on a nautilus shell, through to the distances between leaves on the plants, right up to the spirals in the galaxies of the universe. It’s unseen but everywhere, and the ancients knew this,’ she said. ‘It’s embedded in the pyramids of the Maya and the Inca, and there is compelling evidence the Egyptians knew about it as well, because the Great Pyramid’s ratio of the length of its side to its height is 1.618. Yet it’s so perfectly built, it would push the limits of even today’s technology. There’s even evidence,’ Aleta said, her enthusiasm growing, ‘that the original limestone casing was polished to today’s optical standards and the surfaces were precisely flat planed to within 2/10000ths of an inch. The pyramid is aligned with the earth’s cardinal compass points, and it’s sited at the exact apex of the angle drawn to the east and west sides of the Nile delta. And if that’s not enough, Khufu’s engineers used basic units of measurement that are exactly one ten-millionth of the mean radius between the centre of the earth and the poles.’
‘We both agree it was built by superb mathematicians and engineers, and not some primitive culture using hardened stone tools, but the purpose?’ O’Connor asked. ‘Leaving aside Hollywood’s slaves under the whip, it would have taken just about every resource the Egyptians had.’
‘Precisely, and even the most demented of pharaohs wouldn’t have got away with that, especially not for decades. The tomb theory is in just as much trouble as the primitive construction theory. The first people to break into the Great Pyramid were the Arabs under Caliph al-Mamun, in 820 AD. They miscalculated the location of the original entrance, which the builders disguised, and had to bore their way in. After months of work, they eventually reached the internal descending passage. They then tunnelled their way into the inner chambers, in search of gold and mummies. They found neither,’ Aleta said. ‘Nor did they find any soot on the ceilings of the chambers, which would have been left from torches used in any earlier break-in . . . they were the first to get inside since the pyramid was built.’
‘So you don’t think it was Khufu’s tomb?’
‘In a word, no. Or any other tomb. And the most telling evidence for that is the construction of air shafts, which run from the King’s Chamber to the surface of the pyramid. That’s something that this papyrus may shed some light on. Dead pharaohs don’t need air, especially if they want their bodies preserved for the afterlife. There has been no civilisation more expert than the Egyptians in the art of embalming, and they knew well that air would lead to deterioration and decomposition. Furthermore, there was none of the splendour that Howard Carter found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. The King’s Chamber is plain rock, yet its roof has an unbelievably complex design, something that I’m hoping that this Euclid Papyrus might also shine a light on . . . if we can find it.’
‘So not only was it never used as a tomb, but it wasn’t designed as one. I’ll bet that prompts some interesting arguments in your world,’ said O’Connor.
Aleta smiled. ‘That’s an understatement. The world of archaeology is a bitch, and you can multiply that by ten for Egyptology. There’s a herd mentality and woe betide anyone who challenges the accepted wisdom. Some have put forward a theory that the Great Pyramid was built, at least partly, as an observatory, utilising the angle of the air shafts to the heavens. Some argue that not only is the geometry of the pyramids very precisely aligned with the earth’s geography, but the Great Pyramid is aligned with the heavens as well.’
‘I read up on that on the plane flight. There seems to be some disagreement between these scientists . . . Orion versus Cygnus?’
Aleta nodded. ‘Some disagreement? A lot. The Orion theory was put forward in 1994, postulating the Egyptians laid the pyramids out to mirror the belt stars in the Orion constellation. The Orion constellation is located on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from anywhere in the world, and it was known to many of the ancient civilisations. In Arabic, the main stars are named Mintaka, which means ‘the belt’, Alnitak, ‘the girdle’, and Alnilam, ‘the string of pearls’. All three of those Orion stars are immensely hot. Mintaka is what we call a giant star, and Alnilam and Alnitak are supergiants, hundreds of times larger than our sun, so there’s no doubt they were very visible to the ancient Egyptians.’
‘But the belt doesn�
��t quite fit?’
‘You have been reading! Not quite: Alnitak and Alnilam fit precisely over the tops of Khufu’s Great Pyramid and Khafre’s middle pyramid, but Mintaka falls to the south-west edge of Menkaure’s pyramid, the third and smallest of the three.’
‘And Cygnus?’
‘There’s still a lot of argument as to whether the complex is aligned with Orion or Cygnus. Cygnus is one of the Milky Way’s northern constellations, and it takes its name from the Greek for swan. It would have been visible to the ancient Egyptians in the northern hemisphere’s summer and autumn and the papyrus we discovered with Euclid’s notations supports the theory that Cygnus’ Delta, Gamma and Epsilon stars fit precisely on to the apex of each pyramid. But it’s the star that Euclid appears to have superimposed over the rock formation near the Sphinx that’s had me intrigued, and there’s an even fainter dot to the north of it.’
‘Which might also support the idea the pyramids were built as observatories?’
‘I think that theory’s pretty far-fetched. There are much simpler ways to build observatories.’
‘None of which answers why Crowley seems so keen to get his hands on the Euclid Papyrus,’ said O’Connor.
‘I think I might know why. There’s one theory that hasn’t had a lot of attention to date, and that theory links the pyramid to an ancient energy grid. If that theory turns out to be correct, Crowley will want to make sure this papyrus never sees the light of day. I want to discuss this further with Professor Badawi, but the poor man’s been inundated ever since the theft of Tutankhamun’s funerary mask and I may not get to see him for weeks, perhaps months. With that in mind, and not knowing what you’re going to be up to . . . ’ Aleta paused to look at Curtis over the top of her sunglasses. ‘I’ve arranged to spend some time at Abydos, not far from Luxor. An American team from the University of Pennsylvania have made a very exciting discovery – the tomb of a previously unknown king. You’re very welcome to come but that depends on your schedule, which you’ve said absolutely nothing about?’
‘I have a small task tonight, and then I have a couple of days before McNamara wants me back.’
‘A couple of days . . . is that all I get?’ Aleta pouted, but her eyes were smiling.
O’Connor parked in a narrow laneway, a hundred metres from the perimeter fence of the Kashta Palace, put on his balaclava and leather gloves and scanned the area with his night vision goggles. The CIA station chief at the Cairo embassy had done well, O’Connor mused. Not only had Cairo organised a lengthy surveillance, showing the palace had remained unused ever since the mysterious meeting here, but the station chief had also organised for one of his agents to infiltrate the cleaning company. The intelligence reports indicated a detachment of two security guards was based on site, operating out of a large control room in the basement that would be at full capacity when meetings took place with a level of security not out of place at a gathering of G7 world leaders. The shifts changed at seven a.m. and seven p.m, with an external patrol of the building conducted at ten p.m. and another at two a.m.
It was just on ten p.m., and right on cue, a swarthy, thickset guard appeared through the front door, cigarette dangling from his mouth. O’Connor waited until the guard completed his inspection of the exterior of the buildings and disappeared back inside. He focused his night-vision goggles on the iron perimeter fence. Wireless CCTV cameras were in place, every 60 metres, but at the rear of the complex, two large sycamore trees overhung the fence. O’Connor stood behind one of the trees, fixed a small, powerful laser to the tree trunk and aimed it at the camera covering that section of the fence. The near-perfect monochromatic light source of the laser obliterated any image being transmitted by the camera, and in the control centre, if it was being monitored at all, it would look like a simple malfunction.
O’Connor checked the silencer on his 45-calibre Glock 21 and replaced it in his shoulder holster. The Austrian pistol had long been O’Connor’s weapon of choice. He scaled the fence with ease and headed toward the main building, moving silently through the extensive gardens, past statues, ponds and palm trees, his tools of trade in a bag slung across his broad shoulders. The agent in the cleaning crew had provided a layout of the building, and more importantly, the location of the alarm box and a large safe in the basement. It was possible that with security guards on the premises, the alarm would not be activated, but O’Connor wasn’t prepared to take that risk, and he made his final approach along the front of the building, keeping close to the stone façade. The heavy wooden door was set under a stone arch and the lock was as the agent had reported, a relatively common ‘five-pin and tumbler’ barrel lock, and O’Connor chose a small diamond-shaped pick. O’Connor had excelled on the courses at ‘the farm’, the CIA’s top secret training area on the south bank of the York River in Virginia, where instruction on the dark arts had no peer.
He slipped a tension wrench into the barrel lock and applied a small amount of pressure on the plug. He then took his pick and began work on each of the pins. Two minutes later, the final pin was forced flush with the shear line. He quietly turned the cam and the door swung open.
O’Connor moved quickly across the black-and-white Italian tiles in the foyer to a wooden cupboard on the far side. The faint sound of Arab music drifted up from the basement. At least they’ve got good taste, O’Connor thought, recognising the sultry tones of Elissa Khoury. He opened the cupboard door, sprung the back from the alarm box, quickly disabled it and disconnected the phone line, just in case it was programmed to send an automatic warning to the control room. He was about to retrieve his pick and tension wrench and close the door when the music got louder and a shaft of light appeared from the stairwell below. O’Connor moved back into the gloom of the foyer and waited.
The guard reached the top of the stairs and immediately spotted the open door. ‘What the —!’ The guard quickly moved toward the entrance, but before he could reach it, O’Connor moved behind him and cracked him over the head with the butt of his Glock, using just enough force to knock him out. His quarrel was not with innocent security guards. He dragged the unconscious guard to the rear of the foyer, retrieved some gaffer tape from his bag and in less than a minute immobilised him.
Now for the second guard, O’Connor thought, closing the heavy entrance door. The music coming from the control room gave O’Connor some cover, but he descended the stone steps slowly, Glock drawn, and he cautiously approached the control room. The guard had his back to him, swaying to the sensual tones of the music. Above him, one of the screens was filled with a blurry reddish-orange glow from the CCTV camera O’Connor had disabled. Was that what the first guard had gone to investigate? O’Connor closed the gap quickly but at the last moment the guard turned. Wide-eyed, he reached for his pistol lying on the table. O’Connor fired twice, hitting the guard in the wrist and shoulder. The guard’s pistol described a gentle arc, clattering onto the stone floor.
‘Ebn El Sharmoota! Son of a bitch!’ The guard launched himself forward but O’Connor smashed him with a left hook and followed up with a knee into the man’s groin. The guard doubled over in pain and O’Connor whipped him around and bound his hands behind his back. He continued to scream obscenities, and O’Connor none-too-gently wound gaffer tape over his mouth and secured him in the corridor.
‘So far, so good,’ O’Connor muttered as he made his way to the heavy safe door, which the Cairo agent had located at the end of the subterranean corridor. O’Connor already knew it would be a tough one to crack. Although it was a slightly older design with a combination lock, the manufacturer had silenced the mechanism, making it resistant to the time-honoured method of using a stethoscope to listen to the sound of the tumblers. The manufacturer had also installed a cobalt plate, which made it very resistant to drilling from the front, and O’Connor knew that even if he could get through the cobalt with the special drills he had in his kit, there was a real danger of fracturing the last line of defence – a glass relocking plat
e, which, if broken, would trigger a secondary locking mechanism that would effectively close the safe down. Once that was broken, even if the combination was known, it could not be opened. O’Connor had considered blowing it, but that was noisy and a last resort, and he’d resolved to come at it from an angle above the cobalt and glass plates.
O’Connor measured off 20 centimetres above the dial and extracted from his satchel a small, powerful drill fitted with a titanium bit. Using a wooden brace angled at 40 degrees, O’Connor began to drill through the tough, reinforced steel. It took nearly thirty minutes, but finally he felt the drill bit break through, and he quickly extracted it and inserted a fibre-optic borescope in its place.
Bingo, he thought. The CIA didn’t muck around when it came to borescopes, and the image of the lock mechanism was crystal-clear. O’Connor turned the combination dial and watched as first the lug on the drive cam engaged the first wheel, and then a lug on the first wheel engaged a lug on the second wheel, which in turn engaged the third, until finally the last wheel began to turn. O’Connor slowly turned the dial and watched until a recessed notch on the fourth wheel came into view. He stopped it at the very top of the turn, directly underneath a small metal bar or ‘fence’; it was designed so the bar would not drop until all the notches on each wheel were perfectly aligned. He slowly spun the dial back the other way, lining up the third wheel, then the second wheel, and finally the front wheel notch came into line and the metal bar dropped with a quiet thunk. O’Connor turned the safe’s big three-pronged metal wheel and with the fence out of the way, the bolts slid back into their recess.
The door swung silently, to reveal several shelves, each labelled with different years, and each containing identical leather folios. The first year was labelled 1992 and O’Connor noted that each year the number of folios seemed to increase, until it stabilised at sixteen for the past five meetings. He extracted a folio from the most recent meeting and thumbed through it, letting out a low whistle, but the revelations were cut short by the sounds of sirens in the distance.
The Alexandria Connection Page 22