'The specimen I have found is the greatest surviving example of Greek sculpture in the world today, yet ironically, Western scholars still assign its construction to an unknown artist. It was found in 1863 by a French archaeologist, Charles Champoiseau—'
'Oh, no way . . .' Wizard gasped in understanding. 'It's not. . .'
Zaeed nodded. 'The very same. Champoiseau found it on the Greek island of Samothrace, and thus the statue now bears that island's name: the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
'It was taken back to France, where its genius was quickly appreciated, whence it was taken to the Louvre. There it has sat to this very day in pride of place on a great landing at the top of the Daru Staircase, underneath a high domed ceiling in the Denon Wing of the Louvre in Paris.'
The Halicarnassus sped towards Europe.
It was decided that the team would split into two.
West would lead one sub-team to Paris to go after the Zeus Piece, while Wizard would lead a smaller team to Rome, to chase the Artemis Piece. As for Zaeed, he would stay with Sky Monster on the Halicarnassus, bound and secured.
Everyone scattered around the plane, some to rest, others to research, others to just prepare for the missions ahead.
It happened that Pooh Bear found himself preparing his guns near Mustapha Zaeed, still handcuffed to his chair.
'Hello, my brother,' Zaeed whispered. 'May Allah bless and keep you.'
'And you,' Pooh Bear replied, more out of religious habit than because he meant it.
'Your father, the sheik, is a great man,' Zaeed said. 'And a fine Muslim.'
'What do you want?'
'The presence of the Jew concerns me,' Zaeed said simply, nodding at Stretch over on the far side of the main cabin. 'I can understand your father aligning himself with these Westerners for convenience, but I cannot believe he would ally himself with the Jewish State.'
Pooh Bear said, 'The Israelis were not invited to join this mission. They discovered us somehow—and threatened to reveal our mission unless we allowed them to join it.'
'Is that so? How typical,' Zaeed hissed. 'Then I am doubly glad that you are here, my friend. The second assembling of the
Capstone will be one of the greatest moments in all of human history. Before the end, all will show their true colours. When the time comes, Allah's brethren should stand together.' Pooh Bear just kept his eyes downcast.
In West's office in the rear of the plane, West, Wizard, Zoe and Big Ears were gazing at the brown leatherbound diary West had found inside Hamilcar's Refuge: Hermann Hessler's notebook detailing his search for the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World during World War II.
Translating it from the German, they found several references that they understood:
WORD OF THOTH—MULTIPLE DIALECTS OF INCREASING DIFFICULTY . . . NEED TO LOCATE THE ORACLE FOR PRECISE TRANSLATION . . .
CATHOLIC CHURCH = CULT OF AMUN-RA.
COLOSSUS: THIRD NECKPIECE.
MYSTERIOUS BUILDING EXPEDITION IN 85 BC.
• IMHOTEP VI + 10,000 WORKERS;
• ALL MARCHED WEST TO SECRET LOCATION ON COAST NEAR CARTHAGE;
• A WORKER'S PAPYRUS FOUND AT ROSETTA MENTIONS THE MAN'S PARTICIPATION IN AN EXTRAORDINARY CONSTRUCTION PROJECT: THE COVERING OF AN ENTIRE COASTAL INLET AND THE FABRICATION OF A SECTION OF COAST.
• THE MEN WHO PLACED TWO COVERED TREASURES IN THE INNERMOST HOLY CHAMBER WERE ALL EXECUTED.
• PHAROS AMD MAUSOLEUM PILCES???
Accompanying these last entries was a teletyped order from Heinrich Himmler himself authorising Hessler to use a U-boat to trawl the entire North African coast of the Mediterranean for the false section of coastline.
There were also some hand-drawn hieroglyphics that Wizard translated aloud:
'THE CHOICE OF MAN
ONLY ONE OF THE TWO RITUALS MAY BE CHOSEN.
ONE BEGETS PEACE,
THE OTHER POWER.
ON THE FINAL DAY,
A CHOICE MUST BE MADE,
A CHOICE MADE IN THE PRESENCE OF RA HIMSELF
THAT WILL DETERMINE THE VERY FATE OF MEN.'
Wizard leaned back. 'It's a reference to the two incantations— the rituals. But only one of them can be performed when the Capstone is placed atop the Great Pyramid.'
They found other references, however, that they did not understand. Like these rather ominous inscriptions:
1ST INSCRIPTION FROM THE TOMB OF IMHOTEP III:
WHAT AN INCREDIBLE STRUCTURE IT WAS,
CONSTRUCTED AS A MIRROR IMAGE,
WHERE BOTH ENTRANCE AND EXIT WERE ALIKE.
IT PAINED ME THAT MY TASK—WHAT WOULD BECOME MY LIFE'S
MASTERWORK—WAS TO CONCEAL SO MAGNIFICENT A STRUCTURE.
BUT I DID MY DUTY.
WE SEALED THE GREAT ARCHWAY WITH A LANDSLIDE.
AS INSTRUCTED, THE PRIESTS' ENTRANCE REMAINS OPEN SO THEY
MAY TEND THE SHRINES INSIDE—THE PRIESTS HAVE BEEN
INFORMED OF THE ORDER OF THE SNARES.
2ND INSCRIPTION FROM THE TOMB OF IMHOTEP III:
ONLY THE BRAVEST OF SOULS
SHALL PASS THE WELLS OF THE WINGED LIONS.
BUT BEWARE THE PIT OF NINGIZZIDA.
TO THOSE WHO ENTER THE SERPENT-LORD'S PIT,
I OFFER NO ADVICE BUT THIS:
ABANDON ALL HOPE,
FOR THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THERE.
WINGED LIOMS. COMMON ASSYRIAN STATUE FOUND IN
PERSIA/MESOPOTAMIA.
NINGIZZIDA: ASSYRIAN GOD OF SERPENTS & SNAKES.
POSSIBLE REF TO THE HG OF BABYLON???
A few pages later there was a pair of scribbled pictures, simply titled 'Safe Routes':
After this there was another translation, which caused Wizard to say, 'Ooh, it's a reference to one of the rituals that must be performed on the final day.'
It read:
THE RITUAL OF POWER
AT THE HIGH ALTAR OF RA,
UNDER THE HEART OF THE SACRIFICIAL ONE
WHO LIES IN THE ARMS OF VENGEFUL ANUBIS,
POUR INTO THE DEATH GOD'S HEART
ONE DEBEN OF YOUR HOMELAND
UTTER THOSE ANCIENT EVIL WORDS
AND ALL EARTHLY POWER SHALL BE YOURS
FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.
'"One deben of your homeland"?' Big Ears frowned. 'What's that supposed to mean?'
Zoe began, 'A deben was an ancient Egyptian unit of measurement: about 100 grams. I imagine it means—'
But suddenly Wizard jumped up and gasped, seeing the next entry. It read:
FROM THE SECRET GOSPEL OF ST MARK
AT DAWN ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT,
THAT FINAL HORRIBLE DAY,
AT THE ONLY TEMPLE THAT BEARS BOTH THEIR NAMES,
THREAD THE POWER OF RA THROUGH THE EYES OF
GREAT RAMESES'S TOWERING NEEDLES,
FROM THE SECOND OWL ON THE FIRST
TO THE THIRD ON THE SECOND . . .
. . . WHEREBY THE TOMB OF ISKENDER WILL BE REVEALED.
THERE YOU WILL FIND THE FIRST PIECE.
Beneath this entry, Hessler had scrawled:
THE TOMB OF ISKENDER—THE BURIAL PLACE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT. ALEXANDER WAS BURIED WITH THE FIRST PIECE!
Wizard leaned back, his eyes wide.
'The Secret Gospel of St Mark.' Zoe exchanged a look with West. 'The Heretical Gospel.'
'Explain,' Big Ears said.
West said, 'It's not widely known, but St Mark actually wrote two gospels while he was in Egypt. The first gospel is the one we all know, the one in the Bible. The second gospel, however, caused an incredible stir when he produced it, so much so that nearly every copy of it was burned by the early Christian movement. And Mark himself was almost stoned for it.'
'Why?'
Zoe said, 'Because this secret gospel recounted several other things Jesus did during his life. Rituals. Incantations. Bizarre episodes. The most infamous of which was the so-called homosexual incident.'
'The what!' Big Ears said.
Zoe said, 'An e
pisode in which Jesus went away with a young man and, according to Mark, initiated the young man into "the ancient ways". Some sensationalist writers have interpreted this to have been a homosexual experience. Most scholars, however, believe it was a ritual of the Cult of Amun-Ra, which has subsequently been adopted as the initiation rite of the Freemasons, another Sun-worshipping faith to have emerged from ancient Egypt.'
West said, 'Now do you understand why it's called the Heretical Gospel?'
'Yuh-huh,' Big Ears said. 'But wait, the Freemasons. I thought they were anti-Catholic.'
'They are,' Zoe said. 'But the Freemasons hate the Catholic Church as only siblings can hate each other. They are like rival brothers, religions born from the same source. Just as Jerusalem is holy to both Judaism and Islam, so too do Catholicism and Freemasonry share a common source. They are simply two faiths born out of the one Mother Faith—Egyptian Sun-worship. They just diverged in their interpretations of this Mother Faith somewhere along the way.'
West patted Big Ears on the shoulder. 'It's complicated, buddy. Think of it this way: America is a Masonic State; Europe is a Catholic State. And now they're both fighting for the greatest prize of their two faiths: the Capstone.'
Big Ears said, 'You say America is a Masonic State. I thought it was overwhelmingly Christian. The Bible Belt and all that.'
Zoe said, 'Just because the population is Christian, doesn't mean the country is. What is a country anyway? A group of people with a common heritage who band together for reasons of mutual prosperity and security. And that's the key word: security. You see, countries have armies; religions don't. And who commands the armed forces of the entity we call "the United States"?'
'The elected president and his advisers.'
'Exactly. So, America's people are indeed honest Christians; but America's leaders since George Washington have almost exclusively been Freemasons. Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, the Bushes. For over 200 years, the Freemasons have used the armed forces of "the United States of America" as their own personal army for their own personal purposes. Hey presto, a religion got itself an army, and the population never even knew.'
West said, 'You can see Masonic worship of the Capstone everywhere in America. Why, over the years, American Freemasons have built replicas of each of the Seven Ancient Wonders.'
'No way . . .'
West counted them off on his fingers: 'The Statue of Liberty, built by the leading French Freemason, Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, replicates the Colossus of Rhodes almost exactly—she even holds a torch aloft just as the original statue did. The Woolworth Building in New York is disturbingly similar to the Pharos. Fort Knox is built according to the floorplan of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The Statue of Zeus, a great figure seated on a throne, is the Lincoln Memorial. The Temple of Artemis: the Supreme Court.
'The Hanging Gardens of Babylon couldn't be exactly replicated, since no-one knows what they looked like, so a special rambling garden was built and tended in their honour at the White House,
first by George Washington, then Thomas Jefferson and later, Franklin Roosevelt. The Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, tried to rip the garden up, but he never managed it entirely. And while he didn't survive, the garden did. It's had many names over the years, but we now call it the Rose Garden.'
Big Ears folded his arms. 'What about the Great Pyramid, then? I don't know of any monumental pyramids in the US.'
'That's true,' West said, 'there are no giant pyramids in America. But when the Egyptians stopped building pyramids, do you know what they started building instead?'
'What?'
'Obelisks. The obelisk became the ultimate symbol of Sun-worship. And America does indeed possess one colossal obelisk: the Washington Monument. Interestingly, it is 555 feet tall. The Great Pyramid is 469 feet tall, 86 feet shorter. But when you take into account the height of the Giza Plateau at the point where the Great Pyramid stands—86 feet—you will discover that the peaks of both structures sit at the exact same height above sea-level.'
While this conversation was going on, Wizard was gazing at the text in the notebook.
'The only temple that bears both their names . . .' he mused. Then his eyes lit up. 'It's Luxor. The Temple at Luxor.'
'Oh, yes. Good thinking, Max. Good thinking!' Zoe clapped him on the shoulder.
'It would certainly fit . . .' West said.
'What would fit?' Big Ears asked, again not understanding this code they were using.
'The Temple of Amun at Luxor in southern Egypt, more commonly known as the Temple at Luxor,' Zoe said. 'It's one of the biggest tourist attractions in Egypt. The famous one with the giant pylon gateway, the two colossal seated statues of Rameses II, and the lone obelisk out the front. It stands on the east bank of the Nile in Luxor, or—as it used to be called—Thebes.
'The Luxor Temple was built by several older pharaohs, but Rameses II comprehensively rebuilt it and so claimed it as his own. It was also augmented, however, by none other than Alexander the Great. Which is why—'
'—it's the only temple in all of Egypt in which Alexander the Great is recorded as a pharaoh,' Wizard said. 'At Luxor alone, Alexander's name is carved in hieroglyphics and enclosed in a ringlike cartouche. The only temple that bears both their names: the Luxor Temple is indeed the only temple that bears both the names of Rameses II and Alexander.'
Big Ears said, 'So what about threading the power of Ra through the eyes of Great Rameses's towering needles}'
West said, 'Towering needles are usually obelisks. The power of Ra, I'm guessing, is sunlight. Dawn sunlight on Judgement Day: the day of the Tartarus Rotation. This verse is telling us that on the day of the Rotation, the morning Sun will shine through two matching holes in the obelisks to reveal the location of the tomb.'
Big Ears turned to Zoe. 'But I thought you said there's only one obelisk still standing at Luxor.'
Zoe nodded. 'That's right.'
'So we're screwed. Without the two obelisks, we can't see how the Sun shines through them, so we'll never be able to find Alexander's Tomb.'
'Not exactly,' Wizard said, his eyes gleaming at West and Zoe.
They both smiled back at him.
Only Big Ears didn't get it.
'What? Whatr
Wizard said, 'The second obelisk from the Temple at Luxor still exists, Big Ears, just not in its original location.'
'So where is it?'
Wizard answered him. 'Like many of the obelisks of ancient Egypt, it was given to a Western nation. Thirteen obelisks went to Rome, taken by the Sun-worshipping Catholic Church. Two went to London and New York—the pair of obelisks known as Cleopatra's Needles. The second obelisk from the Temple of Luxor,
however, was given to the French in 1836. It now stands in pride of place in the Place de la Concorde, in the very heart of Paris, about 800 metres from the Louvre.'
'The Zeus Piece and the obelisk,' Zoe said. 'Looks like it's going to be double-trouble in Paris.'
West leaned back in his seat.
'Paris,' he said, 'isn't going to know what's hit her.'
THE CHAMPS-ELYSEES
PARIS, FRANCE
18 MARCH, 2006, 11:00 A.M.
2 DAYS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS
Jack West Jr sped around the huge multi-laned roundabout that encircled the Arc de Triomphe, whipping through traffic in a rented four-wheel drive SUV.
Lily sat in the passenger seat, while in the back were Pooh Bear, Stretch and Big Ears.
They all sat in tense silence, as one does before an outrageously daring mission deep inside enemy territory.
The heart of Paris is shaped like a Christian cross.
The longer beam of this giant cross is the Champs-Elysees, which travels all the way from the Arc de Triomphe to the Palais du Louvre. The short horizontal transept of the cross ends with the National Assembly at one end and the stunning Church of St Mary Magdalene at the other.
Most important of all is what lies at the junction of these t
wo
axes.
There one will find the Place de la Concorde.
Made famous in the French Revolution as the venue for the executions of hundreds of noblemen and women, the Place de la Concorde was the bloody home of the guillotine.
Now, however, in the exact centre of this plaza, in the exact
centre of Paris—the very focal point of Paris—stands a towering Egyptian obelisk.
The second obelisk from the Temple of Luxor.
Of all the obelisks in the world—whether still in Egypt or not—the Paris Obelisk is unique in one important respect:
The pyramidion at its peak is coated in gold.
Historians love this, because this was how obelisks appeared in ancient Egyptian times: the tiny pyramids on their peaks were coated with electrum, a rare alloy of silver and gold.
Interestingly, however, the golden pyramidion on the Paris Obelisk is only a very recent addition—it was added to the great stone needle in 1998.
'Pooh,' West said as he drove, 'you checked the catacombs?'
'I did. They're clear. The entry gate is under the Charles de Gaulle Bridge and the tunnel runs all the way under the Boulevard Diderot. Lock has been disabled.'
'Stretch. The train?'
'TGV service. Platform 23. Leaves at 12:44 p.m. First stop Dijon.'
'Good.'
As West drove down the Champs-Elysees, he eyed the wide boulevard ahead and beheld the Paris Obelisk, rising above the traffic, easily six storeys tall.
He had climbing gear in his car—ropes, hooks, pitons, cara-biners—ready to scale the great needle and examine its upper reaches. He figured he'd look like just another reckless thrill-seeker and if he was fast enough, he'd be gone before the police arrived. After that, his team would proceed to the Louvre, for the larger, more dangerous mission.
Only then, as he drove closer, the traffic parted—
'Oh, no . . .' West breathed.
The entire lower half of the Obelisk was concealed by scaffolding. There were three storeys of it, plank-like levels shrouded with netting, like the scaffolding on a construction site.
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