Eagle of Darkness

by Christopher Wright

  "Maybe Denby Rawlins and Andy Olsen. I've heard them chanting a so-called hymn of Aten sometimes, but I think Dr. Wynne sees the Pyramid Texts as something academic to study. When he says Aten has spoken, he means he's found something interesting in the prophecies."

  "So what are these Pyramid Texts?"

  "Hundreds of Egyptian spells and prayers were carved inside the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara. Dr. Wynne guessed the cylinders were newer than that -- a thousand years newer -- and were made in the time of the Pharaoh Akenaten. He says the third marking on Olsen's cylinder refers to Tutankhamun."

  "Is that surprising? I thought Dr. Wynne said Tutankhamun was Akenaten's son-in-law or something."

  "Dr. Wynne thought it could be a prophecy to an event that would concern Tutankhamun in the future, and the rings were important. Seventeen rings further along from Tutankhamun he found what looked like a reference to a worldwide war. Let's suppose the reference to Tutankhamun on the third ring relates to nineteen twenty-two, when Howard Carter dug his way into the tomb. That would make World War Two start in nineteen thirty-nine, which it did."

  "Pushing it a bit, I'd say."

  "The Institute claims the cylinder refers to the present time. One hundred rings equals a hundred years, from nineteen twenty to twenty nineteen."

  "Is that all they have to go on?"

  "Unfortunately the cylinder missed predicting the end of the First World War by a couple of years, which would have tied everything in a little more positively. But they've found references to powered flight, and men on the Moon."

  "And the Titanic?"

  "That was too early."

  "It was meant to be a joke.

  Panya looked up. "They found television."

  "Anything decent to watch on it?"

  "A foretelling of television."

  "And this is all clearly written in the Pyramid Texts? I bet they didn't find anything about the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon."

  "The prophecies are mostly for the countries around Egypt. They don't even reach as far as Afghanistan. But there's plenty about trouble predicted in the Middle East over the next few years."

  "And these predictions are always found in advance, not with hindsight?"

  "Not always."

  "Ah."

  "Okay, Sam, I'm skeptical too. You can read the hieroglyphs on the Pyramid Texts left or right, up or down, or a mixture of all these. You have to understand how the Egyptians wrote, and know what you're looking for. But there's a straightforward message on the cylinder about a Man of Power in the West."

  The feeling of weariness began to return. "Heidi List mentioned it."

  "Andy Olsen says it's not part of the prophecy. It's a substitution key used to set the code."

  He yawned, but tried to hide it. "It's all too complicated for me to get my head round tonight."

  But Panya was on a roll. "Olsen has worked out that if you take the symbols on the cylinder, in conjunction with their position relative to the rings, you can tell which way you have to read the Pyramid Texts. The computer keeps arranging the ancient words in columns, so many letters wide, and uses the substitution code until eventually you can read prophecy. You might need to go up, or down, or sideways."

  "Like a wordsearch competition?"

  "Not quite. You also have to know how many letters to skip."

  "You have to skip letters?" He started to feel more awake and began to examine the ancient symbols. Little birds, tools, men, beetles. There were too many to count. Perhaps two or three hundred miniature Egyptian hieroglyphs. And the smell. He should be wearing gloves.

  Panya came close and leaned over for a look. "You copy out all the Pyramid Texts from the Pyramid of Unas, then skip letters according to a complex mathematical formula based on these cylinder rings and symbols. But you need to know planetary and star alignments to get the exact date."

  "How can you possibly believe this nonsense?"

  "I don't, but it's coming true."

  He laughed. "If you know what you're looking for, I imagine you can keep arranging and rearranging letters until they spell out anything you want them to."

  "But the computers..."

  "Especially with computers. Computers can crunch billions of letters until they find the words you want to find. What have the newspapers been saying about the prophecies?"

  "Most of them didn't want to know when Dr. Wynne first published his findings, which didn't go down too well here. But the bird from Mitzrayim made a few of them take notice."

  "I know a hardened reporter who should have retired years ago. Bill Tolley. He had the cheek to get into my car when I was leaving for Berlin. He even gave me his card -- as if I'd want to get in touch with him. He wants to dig the dirt on this place, as he puts it."

  "I think we should let him dig," said Panya. "Perhaps I can encourage him."

  Sam recalled his earlier confrontations with the man from the Morning Herald. "You're not getting involved with Tolley." He studied the fine grooves in the clay and held his fingernail lightly in a groove that cut across the tip of a bird's beak and rotated the cylinder. His nail moved from the beak to the eye, picking up dirt as it went that could either be earth from Frau List's cellar, or bits of Gestapo officer that had migrated through the oilskin.

  "These grooves are a spiral," he said in surprise. "My parents used to take me to see a really old aunt when I was a little kid. She always terrified me, but she had an Edison phonograph. It had wax cylinders with recordings of old music hall songs. She made me act out the love songs by kissing her as she played them. It was disgusting."

  "You're not suggesting there's a recording on this cylinder?"

  The idea was ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than Dr. Wynne's foolish predictions. "Of course not. But you've got a key to the Institute. Let's see if Olsen's cylinder has a spiral. And if the paintings on it aren't identical to these, you can blow Dr. Wynne's Prophecy right out of the water."

  Panya looked excited. "We'll have to wait until everyone's gone to bed."

  "Do you have an empty yogurt pot?"

  She looked at him strangely. "I have a full one. Black cherry okay?"

  He tried to explain. The way for playing this phonograph recording, if it was one, had come to him in an instant, although his brain felt ready for sleep. Plastic yogurt pots and Panya's record turntable. Or to be more precise, one plastic yogurt pot, a thorn from the hawthorn tree by the gates, and a pack of rapid epoxy adhesive from the glove box of his car.

  He poured the black cherry mixture into a bowl and rinsed out the small container. Panya told him he could eat it, but it was late and he didn't fancy it right now. She went out to cut a long, sharp thorn from the tree for him to stick to the base of the pot.

  Sam applied the adhesive and put the joined components in a low oven to warm, to speed the epoxy setting time. Twenty minutes later he stood the cylinder vertically in the center of the turntable and started it going. He pressed the thorn lightly against the clay, picking up a groove. There was nothing to hear, except a sharp and irregular spitting sound. The yogurt pot refused to speak. One problem was that the grooves were not always as perfectly aligned, as they would have been before the repair, and the needle kept slipping tracks.

  It wasn't as though the idea was rubbish. He'd used yogurt pots as a kid, drilling a hole in the bottom of each one and joining the pair with a long piece of string to make a telephone. He'd been able to embarrass the girl next door with intimate conversations. Small yogurt pots made good sound pick-ups.

  The up-ended cylinder revolved on the record turntable at a gentle thirty-three rpm. He tried the only other choice of speed, forty-five, but it sounded no better. The long thorn stayed firmly in place, thanks to a generous application of rapid epoxy. He scratched the sharp point down his thumb, listening to the amplified noise growling from the bottom of the pot.

  Of all the so-called modern inventions, getting a sound recording onto a cylinder would sur
ely have been one of the easiest for early civilizations. Most modern innovations needed technological developments that ancient races wouldn't have been able to use. A primitive phonograph needed no electricity, just a vibrating membrane and a sharp thorn. The ancient Egyptians had lathes, and anyone could turn a handle and shout into a mouthpiece. The soft clay would then be baked hard, like the black resin used for old 78s. Just because no one had found one, that didn't mean the ancient Egyptians hadn't been able to make primitive recordings. Unfortunately this one, if that's what it was, was unplayable.

  He pulled a face. "I need to think about it. Let's go and find Olsen's cylinder."

  They stepped through the front door and the cold hit him. Even for November it felt colder than he'd expected. Even colder than Berlin. He pulled his jacket collar up.

  Panya stood close to him. "That's Dr. Wynne's room on the top floor," she whispered. "All the upstairs lights are out, so I imagine everyone's in bed. If we don't make a noise, no one's going to disturb us."

  He took hold of Panya's arm as they triggered the security light at the front of the house. For a moment he thought he heard the sound of an upstairs window being opened, but all the rooms stayed in darkness.

  Panya bit her lip. "Dr. Wynne won't like it if he finds us snooping around."

  "You've got a key."

  "It's midnight. I'm supposed to be in bed."

  He raised a finger in caution. "Then let's make sure no one finds us."

  Panya put the key in the lock. "Give me a moment to check the alarm."

  She opened the door and Gresley Wynne stood facing them in the hall.

  "Do come in, Mr. Bolt." Dr. Wynne sounded breathless. "I thought I heard someone outside, so I came down to investigate. I'm sorry if I startled you."

  "I've just got back from Berlin," said Sam, quickly recovering his composure.

  Dr. Wynne smiled, showing his elongated yellow teeth. "It was good of you to come round so late. As you have obviously guessed, I'm an impatient man." He turned to Panya. "Thank you for bringing Mr. Bolt over. You may go now."

  Sam nodded to Panya, as though he hardly knew her, then looked at the old Egyptologist who fortunately was wearing pajamas under his maroon dressing gown.

  "I'm so glad Mrs. Pulaski let you in," Dr. Wynne continued excitedly when Panya had gone. "Ringing the doorbell would have made the other Partners wonder who was calling so late. Mrs. Pulaski is an extremely resourceful housekeeper."

  Sam decided he could never have thought up the story himself and expect to be believed. Perhaps Dr. Wynne was suspicious, but found the news from Berlin more important.

  "I've brought back Frau List's cylinder," he said, before Dr. Wynne could reconsider.

  "Excellent, young man. Excellent. I cannot wait to see it."

  Sam told the story for the second time, but on this occasion he decided to leave out the bit about the corpse under the flagstones.

  Gresley Wynne examined the stained pottery with great interest. "Olsen's cylinder is in the next room," he announced, putting an arm on Sam's shoulder. "Let us see what we can see."

  Olsen's cylinder definitely looked old, but it was understandably cleaner and fresher than the one that had spent sixty years next to a rotting body in a Berlin cellar.

  "It looks the same," Sam said, wondering why Panya had bothered to try getting in without anyone knowing, if Dr. Wynne was as friendly as this.

  The Doctor frowned. "The illustrations are remarkably similar." He peered closely at the colored hieroglyphics. "So much is identical, yet I can see several significant dissimilarities. The question is, which one is genuine?"

  Sam leaned forward and tapped Frau List's. "Look at this symbol of some sort of bird. There's a small, black crack across its eye. Now look at Olsen's. Someone's painted a short line that happens to look like the crack. So it must have been copied after Heidi List's father mended the cylinder. Most suspicious, I'd say."

  Dr. Wynne picked up the Berlin cylinder hastily. "That will be all, Mr. Bolt. Your services are no longer required. Let me know what I owe you in the way of expenses. I would appreciate your silence on the matter."

  The Egyptologist looked visibly shaken. His prophecy seemed to be falling apart. Sam wanted to get back to Panya.

  Chapter 20

  INTERNATIONAL NEWS BUREAU

  As air raid sirens sounded across Jerusalem in the early hours of this morning, the Israeli army was placed on a full war footing. Later described as tests, the alarms heralded what many citizens consider to be the inevitable attack by Egyptian forces, even though Egypt has made it clear that it has no wish to become involved in an act of hostility against Israel. The Egyptian President made a statement on Cairo television this morning, stating that his country regards Israel as a friend and ally. However, reports from Egyptian observers show a strengthening of military bonds with neighboring Arab countries.

  Chapter 21

  Cairo, Egypt

  AHMED drove straight into Cairo from the International Airport, in the Mitsubishi that Endermann had arranged for him to use. He left it on the edge of the Darb al-Ahmar district and proceeded on foot in the morning sunshine. He had no wish to advertise his presence in this downtown quarter of Cairo. Besides, the sheer size of the off-roader would make it difficult to steer through the twisting alleys in this age-old part of the city.

  He felt less secure here than in Cheltenham. Although Endermann had assured him that his false Egyptian passport was good, he desperately wished he was an ibn al-balad, a son of the city who could blend into the narrow streets and not be noticed. It was a little before noon when he glanced at his watch. Nayra should be ready. Slowly, trying to appear casual, he walked into the market.

  Everywhere it was men. Men on the stalls. Men shouting orders to other men. Cairo had changed little since he'd worked here in the mid 1980s. A young woman in jeans and a colored shirt stepped forward from a stall of leather goods where she had been examining the bags hanging from a line stretched across the display.

  "Do you like it?" she asked, holding up a large purse for his inspection.

  Ahmed drew back slightly. His entrenched modesty with Arab women would always haunt him. Years of Western living had done little to change his nurtured instincts. "Are you Nayra"?" he asked hesitantly.

  She smiled a cold, formal smile. The young woman was clearly local, but in the eyes of Cairenes she would be seen as a liberated female, despised by her own sex and by the majority of Egyptian men. "Would you like to buy me this purse?"

  The stall holder glowered at Ahmed, and Ahmed had no idea if this was due to his familiarity with the woman, or his apparent lack of generosity. He bought the purse.

  "I will walk with you to your car," Nayra said without a word of thanks. "We will not be followed."

  He was glad of the confidence. The pushing crowd in the market and the neighboring alley made it impossible to detect a tail. "I am parked in the el-Qa'La."

  Four minutes later he sat in the bright blue Mitsubishi with his contact, and put the large vehicle's gear selector into drive. "We're going straight to the al-Sûfiya mosque," he told her. "You can keep checking behind us. I don't want to be followed."

  "I too do not wish it." Nayra appeared Western in her attire, but sounded local, a true bint al-balad, a daughter of the city. Ahmed watched her as she fidgeted into a comfortable position in the passenger seat. He breathed deeply as he waited for the traffic ahead to move off, fighting down a tremor of remorse. There had been a time when fear of God had governed his actions. Insha' Allah. The will of God. The phrase which could mean almost anything to a Muslim had long-since lost any meaning for him. He sought revenge, and loved the power that came with it. Should he feel guilt? He pushed the question from his mind. Justifiable action?

  "The explosives are ready," said Nayra.

  Ahmed turned his attention to the square ahead and drew into the side of the street, facing a small ornate mosque. "We have to get them down into the sewers before the U
nity Through Faith meeting," he told her.

  "So soon?" The woman sounded anxious.

  Ahmed looked up sharply. "Do you have a problem?"

  "I have the help of a man," said Nayra, almost coyly, as she placed her new purse on the floor by her feet. "He covets my body and will do what I ask if I offer him enjoyment."

  Ahmed switched off the engine. The slender legs, the swell of her thighs. And he could glimpse Nayra's full breasts down the loose neck of the blouse as she leaned forward. She would give any man enjoyment. Was such pleasure on wider offer? "He is indeed a lucky man."

  "He is a fool!"

  Ahmed looked again at the legs. The hardness in the woman's voice did not blend easily with the roundness of her body. A woman who could handle explosives would not submit meekly for man's pleasure. He placed his right hand on her legs, forcing his fingers between them.

  "Try that again and I will kill you." Nayra's hand lashed across his cheek, sending his head crashing against the back of the seat. "You think my body is at the call of every pervert in Egypt?"

  His instincts for survival allowed him to act with a semblance of rationality. The work he had come to Egypt to carry out was of greater importance than having this woman. "I say it again: the man who will be helping you is a lucky man."

  "The man who will help me hide the explosives under the mosque cannot control his urges, my friend. His wife cannot satisfy his unnatural lust for female flesh. Not in the manner in which he demands it."

  "Can you trust this man to follow Endermann's instructions to the letter?"

  She turned to stare at him. Her eyes looked cold. "He is in charge of the sanitation in this part of the city. He will supply a road workers' tent and traffic cones. He even has a suitable truck in which to carry the Semtex."

  "Tell him to stack it inside the sewers and I will put it in place. Endermann has given me the plans of the mosque. Can you trust the man to deliver everything on time?"

  "He believes it is a blasphemy for the service to take place. He believes it is the will of God for the people of all faiths to perish in the al-Sûfiya mosque."

  "And the security searches?"

  "There have already been many searches of the building. When the Vatican is involved, there is much security. And the Jews have taken an even greater interest, but they have found nothing."