Death of a Pharaoh

  If a colleague had been watching, he would have worried about more than him stroking his salami. It took five minutes of acrobatics with his pants around his ankles before he found three bars of the signal with the antenna perched precariously near the top of the stall. Fortunately, he had plenty of cable to reach his Wi-Fi card. He sat his bare butt on the seat and signed in with his password. He expected security to come bursting in any second. He knew he didn’t have much time and quickly searched for a folder named TP003. It was 3.2 gigabytes in size. It took twenty agonizing minutes to copy the data. As soon as he finished, he flushed and returned to the cafeteria mumbling to everyone in sight that he had a bad case of the tourist trots. They all nodded in sympathy.

  He sat at a table by himself and attached the files to an email with the direction Cedric gave him in the kahwa. He was sweating when it was all over, something that only added credibility to his earlier excuse for spending so much time in the bathroom. After he ate, he made a second run for the toilet just to make it look more convincing.

  That evening when he got home there was a message from Cedric congratulating him for his excellent work. They arranged to meet tomorrow night for him to receive 50% of his fee. He still had one more task to do before getting the rest of the money. Cedric needed the exact location of the crypt. Along with his first payment, they would give him a small GPS transmitter disguised as a pen. All he had to do was carry it with him to the dig, leave it in the cafeteria and his work was finished. Jake fell asleep dreaming of how he would spend the money.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Village of the Habiru Tribe, south of Saqarra, Egypt, October 31, 2016

  The buses left at noon after a short practice with the parihuela and a swim in the pool. Eduardo could get used to this kind of luxury. The men were having fun but now that they were on their way, there was some nervousness. Tonight they had to perform for the cameras. It took one and a half hours to arrive at Hassan’s village.

  The males greeted them with a spectacular camel charge and the women ululated like in Lawrence of Arabia. Hassan explained that his people called themselves The Guardians and apparently, their only job in life was to guard the tomb of the Kings. They escorted their guests to a cluster of typical Bedouin tents where a lavish banquet awaited. Some of the costaleros grumbled that there was no alcohol, but Eduardo preferred it this way; today was not a day for drinking.

  A group of young men put on a demonstration of swordsmanship at full gallop; it was impressive. After lunch, everyone stretched out on cushions in the shade of the tents for a nap until the sun went down. The heat was oppressive and Eduardo was grateful they were doing the transfer at night.

  They awoke to the sound of a herd of camels protesting. There had to be fifty as well as a small fleet of jeeps waiting to ferry them to the starting point. They were only ten kilometers from the tomb and within forty-five minutes, they were all together again. Fernando did a head count. Nobody had fallen off a camel on the way. Eduardo gathered the men around. It was time to give them more information.

  “Señores, we will start in three hours, at eight in the evening. I want to give you an update. This is not just an experiment rather much more. Apparently, we are carrying the remains of a great Pharaoh, who will remain unnamed. His mummy is in very delicate condition and part of the reason they asked us to come here was to get the sarcophagus to the nearest paved road without any jarring or bumps. We have a total of 22 kilometers to do in about nine hours.”

  He paused for a moment to let the figure sink in.

  “That’s about 500 euros a kilometer,” he added with a smile. They all laughed.

  “They usually pay me by the centimeter,” Angel interjected with a lurid smile as he grabbed his genitals.

  “Maybe the young girls at the beach because they have never seen a real man like me,” Eduardo countered. The ribald costalero relationship was in direct contrast to the religious nature of their vocation but it acted as a much-needed counterweight to the deep emotions that poured over their souls like the sweat on their backs.

  “These people trusted me because of my friendship with Pablo who was a costalero with me in the Gitanos so long ago I prefer not to remember. Make me proud.”

  The faces of his men assured him that he had nothing to worry about.

  “You have thirty minutes to get ready then we will have to help with the process of getting the mummy here to the entrance. Since telephones can be traced, I would ask all of you to turn in your cellphone to Fernando who will return them when we get back to the hotel.”

  “Any questions?”

  “What about food and water?”

  “We will do carries of around 500 meters. Every kilometer the people from the village will set up tables with water and food. Make certain you drink enough.”

  “What about all these guns?” asked Javier, a policeman in Seville.

  “Security is high, many people would like to steal what we are carrying and the people of the village are sworn to protect it. Nothing like that is going to happen on our watch.”

  He paused, waiting for any other questions.

  “Ok so let’s get dressed and I want the costals done well.”

  The men split up into small groups to don their gear. The first thing they did was wrap a cloth tightly around the waste to protect the lower back. Some wore kidney belts like those that weightlifters used. It takes two men to do a costal. The headpieces are fabricated from old coffee or flour sacks quilted in softer cloth. The men overlap each end of the costal over the center and then fold a sausage shaped tube filled with soft stuffing so that when they put it on their heads it sits over the atlas point both to hold their necks under the wood and to protect them from getting hurt. It was a wonderful time-honored system and when the costal was worn properly and the costalero stood with his back perfectly straight he was capable of carrying an astonishing weight for long distances. Indeed, if they had needed to invent men to do this very task then they would have come up with costaleros.

  There was a network of pulleys already installed in the long entrance to the tomb. The Guardians led the men to the top of the ramp where they stood with their mouths open. There had to be more than one hundred large stone coffins stretching to the end of the long corridor cut in the rock. It was an amazing feat of engineering. The coffin, labeled TP003, consisted of a large piece of granite with a top but you could barely see the crack where it joined. The workers attached ropes to the sarcophagus and with the help of the costaleros, it was easy to slide the coffin across the smooth stone floors; covered for the operation with a layer of fine sand. They went slow to avoid any bumps and it took them almost an hour to move the coffin to the front entrance.

  It was already dark. Someone had erected a tripod with pulleys to act as a hoist. They fitted large flat cloth straps under either end of the coffin and a metal ring joined them together. With the help of so many strong arms, it was easy to raise the coffin about ten feet. Half of the costaleros took their places under the parihuela and following Eduardo’s commands maneuvered it directly under the coffin. There were moments of tension while they lowered the slowly onto the top of the float with barely a sound as it settled onto the wood causing the structure to groan.

  The rest of the men took their places. When they were ready, Eduardo tapped once on the metal frame with a small hammer he brought for the occasion. The men took their places with one foot forward and knees bent. On the next tap of the hammer they all braced bringing their hips forward straining, pure strength contained like thoroughbreds in the gate just before a race. Eduardo signaled a third time. To those standing around it looked as if nothing happened there was only an almost imperceptible shudder of the frame.

  Slowly the huge float began to rise inch by inch in an agonizing lift called a ‘pulso’. It rose so slow that those watching could barely tell when it was off the ground. Only when it swayed gently from side to side and began to move forward did everyone finally take a breath
. Their Pharaoh had begun his journey. There was a murmur of excitement by the Guardians gathered around on foot and on camels. Mustafa seemed overjoyed and Pablo beamed with pride. His idea worked and the impossible was taking place.

  He turned to Mustafa who watched with a broad smile.

  “They sent us an army of angels after all,” Pablo remarked.

  “Such a great truth you have just spoken,” Mustafa agreed as he prayed to the Gods for success over the next eight hours.

  The relief costaleros walked on ahead removing large rocks from the path. If a stone was too big, they advised Eduardo and he guided the float around the obstacle. The going was slow but it was obvious that the mummy would not suffer during the transfer. Two archeologists monitored the sensors they had attached to the sarcophagus and were delighted that the needle barely twitched.

  After half a kilometer, Eduardo signaled for the men to stop and lower the float for the first rest. It had taken eight minutes with the loose sand. At this rate, they would manage about three kilometers an hour for seven and a half hours. It was now 8.42 in the evening and even with some longer breaks, they should be at the transfer point before dawn. The relative quiet from the men below surprised him. It was as if they understood the seriousness of the situation and even if they were not carrying a statue that represented their God, they knew that whomever they carried had once been a great king and their silence was a tribute to his status.

  They followed the course of a dry riverbed with a gentle continuous downward slope. Eduardo made out the dark silhouettes of low hills on either side and he was certain no one could see them from a distance. Perhaps that was the whole idea. At times, all he could pick up was the sound of 144 feet shuffling through the sand and the occasional grunt from a camel. Eduardo had the impression that he was in some surreal combination of Easter and the Three Kings. There were few complaints from the men who were in their glory. Seldom had they ever had the chance to go so far in one single night. They would be bragging about this for years to come. Eduardo finally began to relax. The costaleros of Seville would deliver their end of the bargain.

  Every once in a while they came to a ditch or a gulley that was too wide for the men to step over and they would stop so that everyone could grab a shovel and fill it in with sand. It slowed them down but they had been keeping a good pace. If they didn’t run into the Grand Canyon they would be fine. Eduardo looked up and noticed that there were millions of stars. He had never seen so many. He did not know who was in the stone coffin they carried but he couldn’t have had a more regal crown above his head.

  After ten kilometers, Eduardo called a lunch break. He filled a plate with some fruit and dried dates. Pablo came over to sit with him.

  “This brings back great memories,” Pablo remarked.

  “They must be pleased with the way it is going.”

  “They are speechless,” Pablo assured him. “They could never have imagined what these men can do.”

  Eduardo was thoughtful for a moment.

  “You know who is in the coffin don’t you?” he asked Pablo.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to tell your old friend?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Of course!”

  “You must promise on your father’s grave that you will never tell a living soul.”

  “I swear on my dead.” The ultimate promise for a Spaniard.

  “Then come with me.”

  Pablo led Eduardo up a small dune out of earshot of the other men.

  “Two thousand years ago a Pharaoh was crucified in Jerusalem and his body was rescued by a special team and brought back to Egypt. His mummy is in the coffin.”

  “Two thousand years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jerusalem?”

  Pablo nodded his head.

  Eduardo pieced together what he had just heard. “Virgen Santa!” he exclaimed as he made the connection.

  “Close.”

  “You can’t mean that Jesus Christ is on top of the parihuela?”

  Pablo only smiled.

  “We can’t be transporting the real body of Christ across the desert?”

  “Tell me who in the world are better suited to carry Jesus than the costaleros of Seville?”

  Eduardo was dumbstruck. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Would you have come?”

  “I almost wish you hadn’t told me now.”

  “No you don’t,” Pablo assured him, “this is the most glorious cuadrilla of costaleros in the history of the world and you are their leader. The Gods will remember your great service.”

  He lets his words sink in for a moment then put his hand on Eduardo’s shoulder. “Now get back to the float. Your savior awaits.”

  By 4:30 in the morning, the men began to tire visibly from the continuous effort. Hassan trotted by on his camel to inform Eduardo that they had four and a half kilometers left. It would be sunrise in one hour and twenty-seven minutes. Success was within their reach but they couldn’t relax. Eduardo went to the front of the float and whispered words of encouragement to his men as the leader often did at Easter when the going was tough.

  “Gentlemen, we have less than five kilometers remaining and well over an hour. This thing weighs nothing. Who is tired?”

  There was only silence.

  “Good. This is not Easter but we carry a great king. We will finish our task in a regal manner. We will show the world what it means to be a costalero of Seville.”

  He tapped on the frame and the men took their positions. Once again and they braced. A final time for them to lift the float; the muscles of dozens of strong thighs screamed silently in pain as they fought against gravity for the fortieth time since they began.

  Only the men in the first row heard Eduardo’s muted command, “Al cielo con El, to heaven with Him,” as they often yelled in Seville to resurrect symbolically their Savior. Tears streamed down his face soaking his walrus like mustache.

  After an hour, he glimpsed the silhouette of a high tent made of military camouflage in the distance with a large truck parked underneath. It was still dark but in the Eastern horizon, he could see the gossamer aura of the new day. They were going to make it. Barely!

  The women of the village came to greet them and they ululated softly from the top of the surrounding hills. It wasn’t the same as the saetas, the gut wrenchingly beautiful flamenco prayers sung in the streets of Seville at Easter; but they shared the same origins and it gave the men a much-needed boost for the final push.

  With only a few meters left in their journey, Eduardo asked them to listen closely to his commands and deftly maneuvered the float through the door of the tent. He ordered them to stop and lower it for the last time.

  “It stays here,” he pronounced as the costaleros turned and hugged each other for a job well done and in anticipation of the cash payment. He allowed them their moment before he reminded them that he needed their muscle to lift the coffin one last time. The Guardians had brought the same hoist from the tomb by camel and within moments, they raised the sarcophagus so they could move the float and replace it with the truck. Eduardo and Pablo scrambled on top to supervise the final movements. They each held one end of the stone sarcophagus to guide it the last few inches onto the computerized steel platform.

  Eduardo quietly recited the Lord’s Prayers as he hugged the coffin of his Savior. Pablo had reassured him that Jesus had gone to heaven as a God, just not in the way that Catholics believed. It didn’t matter to him. He now stood only inches away from the recipient of most of the prayers he had ever voiced in his life. With a soft thud, the huge stone coffin settled gently on the back of the truck.

  Eduardo remained a moment touching the granite as if he might feel a special force. It felt surprisingly warm or perhaps it was just his imagination? He once had the privilege of placing his hand on the silver plated coffin of Saint James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostela, at the end of a pilgrimage.
It had the same electricity but this was far more intense. Eduardo had lived for more than sixty years. He fell in love stroking his wife’s face, held his newborn children in his large hands and played with his grandchildren. Now that he had almost touched the son of God, he knew his life was complete.

  Tears streamed down Mustafa’s face as he watched the truck pull away headed for Cairo. They had done their job with the help of the Gods and the costaleros. He sent an encrypted message to Herbert Lewis recounting the success of the operation. Their efforts removed most of the obstacles for the coronation. All they needed was the head on which to place the crown.

  Tomb of the True Pharaohs, somewhere near Saqarra, Egypt, 09.00 EET November 1, 2016

  Jake arrived at the site at his normal time that morning. There were three scans scheduled for today but his mind was more on his meeting that evening to collect half the money. He consulted the worksheet then headed for the first sarcophagus. He’d pass TP003 on his way. He’d never really paid any attention; they all looked the same to him. When he got to the spot it occupied, he almost fainted. It was gone. Instead of the massive granite stone, there was a giant empty space. He felt sick and mumbled to his assistant that he needed to get something from his locker.

  He grabbed his laptop and wrote a quick email to Cedric explaining that the sarcophagus had disappeared. He asked if he could still collect his money.