Rose knew exactly where she was going, the kitchen. On her way there she looked towards the table in the corner by the window, where coffee and cake was being enjoyed by a young couple.
It was Alex who saw her first. “Hi, Rose, what are you doing here?”
Emmy turned in her seat. “Rose, how lovely to see you. Will you join us?”
“Hi Alex, Emmy, lovely to see you both,” she said without slowing her step. “I just need a moment and I will be back.” One of her suspicions had now turned into a fact. Alex and Emmy were safe. She disappeared into the kitchen at speed, yet she returned almost immediately. “Where are they? The cook and the waiter?”
“I have never seen the cook, but the waiter was here when you pulled up.” Alex gestured towards the kitchen. “He went through there. I thought he had gone to get you and Joe some tea.”
“Hi Joe,” Alex and Emmy said as one as he entered and immediately turned the sign on the door to closed, something which was becoming the norm for Joe. Upon seeing them safe and happy the look on his face turned from shock to one of immense relief.
Rose span around and returned to the kitchen. Everyone heard a constant loud banging of wood against metal. The waiter came out of the kitchen holding his hands over his ears while saying, “Why did she have to do that?” Joe was about to race in and save Rose, but the banging of a large wooden rolling pin on the metal cupboard, which had been used as a hiding place, stopped. It was followed by a heated discussion between Rose and a man. Both were speaking German! Joe and the waiter sat with Alex and Emmy as they listened, though failed to understand, the conversation.
It was obvious to all that though it was a heated conversation, it also sounded somewhat friendly. At times there was even a giggle. Rose was annoyed, not extremely annoyed, but definitely more than slightly annoyed, with a friend. A few minutes passed before Rose returned to the dining room, though this time she was in the company of a not exceptionally tall, slightly stocky man, with wild unkempt hair.
As if it had been choreographed, Alex, Emmy and Joe turned as one to look at the picture on the wall, beside the quote in support of a vegetarian lifestyle. They turned back to look at the man standing beside Rose. Then back to the quote and read the signature underneath … Albert Einstein. They looked back at the man.
“No!” Alex exclaimed.
“It cannot be!” Emmy exclaimed.
“Does Dr Margretti know that when he arrives he is going to meet Einstein, the Einstein?” Joe asked.
“Yes, Alex, it is … Yes, Emmy, it can be … And do not worry, Joe. The good doctor is well aware that this troublesome creature here is our cook.”
“Chef, if you do not mind.” Einstein said in English, though with a very German accent.
“Then you admit to being a troublesome creature?”
“Rose, that is not what I said, but I am definitely not a cook!”
She beckoned for him to sit. “Do you wish to tell them what you did?”
“No, no, no, feel free, Rose,” Einstein said through the biggest smirk.
Rose remained standing. “Albert and I chat frequently, so in some way I only have myself to blame for recent events. By the way, are you both okay?”
Alex and Emmy nodded and wished that they had not. Both said that apart from stinking headaches they were fine. Even though they did not know all that had been going on, even though there had been the murder of Babs, Alex still went as far as to say it was the most exciting couple of days he had experienced in over a year, to which Emmy nodded in agreement, immediately regretting it.
“Exciting is one thing, causing Dr Margretti to raise the alert to a Ramses thirteen is quite another.”
“He didn’t!” Einstein exclaimed with glee.
“Oh yes, he did,” Joe replied.
“What a success my new computer program is. Wunderbar!”
“Your success is relative.” Rose remained standing as she asked the waiter to get drinks for them all. There was a minute or so of taking orders during which time Einstein stated that everything was relative. “Now, quickly, before the Doctor arrives, as he cannot be much more than twenty minutes behind us.” Everyone went quiet. All eyes were on Rose. “The Doctor does not know about Albert’s program and I think it would be best for all concerned if it stayed that way. The moment Joe told me that both of you had been abducted from the Business Class lounge at Heathrow I knew we were not dealing with ancients. Not directly anyway!”
“I do not consider myself to be an ancient,” Einstein said with indignation. “How does dying in 1955 make me an ancient?”
“Now, Albert, we have had this conversation before,” Rose said with a smile in her voice. “Everyone who is in the afterlife is referred to as an ancient. It keeps things simple … As I was saying, I immediately knew we were not dealing with ancients.” She gave Albert a look. Joe looked at Rose with confusion writ large on his face. “Too high up, Joe. Too far above ancient ground.” Joe smacked his forehead. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. The Doctor also pushed this fact to the back of his mind. Once panic set in clear thinking didn’t just leave by the window, it was thrown forcibly out of it. Good old Dr Margretti panicked and he sent his panic out to everyone else, though in fact, mostly you to Joe.”
“He panicked me, alright. He gave me an order and told me that if I failed to carry it out he would give me to his ex.”
“Unlikely he would really do that, Joe.”
“Unlikely or not, I was unwilling to take the chance. Just thinking of what Nefertiti does to people she doesn’t like sends a shiver down my spine.”
“Me too,” Emmy said as she put a finger in the air.
“This is a real problem that we face within the organisation.” Rose addressed her comments to Alex and Emmy as she put a reassuring hand on Joe’s shoulder. “The Doctor can teach you, can castigate you, he can even praise you, but in the end it all comes down to how we each react, not in the classroom, but in real life situations. When under pressure!” Rose had wanted to say ‘this is what makes you very special, Alex, your ability to think straight under pressure,’ but she could not do so without hurting Emmy’s feelings. “Dr Margretti, in my opinion, added two and two together and came up with an answer of fifty.”
“Strictly speaking he was not wrong. Though the speed of light is the one constant in the universe, you could bend time to make two and two make—”
“ALBERT! We do not have time for this.”
“Okay, sorry, your loss.”
“Writing a computer program that automatically alters a moving picture takes thousands and thousands of lines of code—”
“One million, one hundred and forty-eight thousand, two hundred and sixteen, to be precise.”
“Thanks, Albert.”
“Quite alright, Rose, anytime.”
“Don’t you have cakes in the oven?”
“Oh, yes,” Einstein said, though he quickly followed it with an “Oh, no,” as he realised they had been in the oven much longer than they should have been. He raced off to the kitchen.
“Einstein bakes cakes, the great Einstein!”
“Yes, Alex. I, or more than likely he, will tell you all about it one day.” Rose gave a little shake of her head before she continued. She was obviously frustrated by recent events. “Albert is the world’s greatest theoretical physicist. So he can come up with excellent computer code.”
“I can see that making people invisible on camera is a neat trick, but I cannot immediately see how it will help us defeat ancients.”
“It will not help us defeat ancients, Joe. It will, however, make the clean up after ancient incidents much easier as well as much quicker. Imagine ART being able to walk into the British Museum, Buckingham Palace or even the Tower of London without being seen. Not having the worry of being picked up by any camera. Albert has been working on this for a long time and he has really done us proud.”
“Thank you, Rose,” Einstein said as he returned to his seat.
“Yes, I understand.” Joe gave Einstein a nod of appreciation.
“Don’t get too smug,” Rose said as she looked directly at Einstein. “It was great work to save Alex and Emmy, but why bring them back here and why didn’t you tell us what you had done?
“I was baking.”
“Enough! Albert here can work out in his mind how every part of his computer code will work, just as easy as we can write out a shopping list. However, he cannot use a computer or keyboard as they were not around in his time.” Einstein made a typing motion with his hands.
“I can see where you are going with this, Rose. It’s that flipping Hacker One and his lightning speed hands!”
“Exactly, Joe. Albert used Hacker One to input his code in minutes rather than days, possibly weeks.”
“Okay. Now I understand that ruddy robot’s reluctance to show the Doctor his edited video. He uploaded the code without any authority. I am going to kill him!”
“No, Joe … you will not. Albert’s program worked well and is the only reason why these two are safe,” she gestured toward Alex and Emmy who were each dissecting a piece of Einstein's over cooked cake as they listened.
“If it had not been inputted this way we would have waited months for the Doctor to agree to its trial. You know how he can make an art out of prevarication.” All heads nodded. “If you want to be annoyed with anybody, be annoyed with me.”
Joe said, “Never,” but before he could say more Rose held up a hand to silence him.
It needed no explanation that had it not been for Albert’s program disrupting the cameras, the organisation would never have been able to get the drugged youngsters out of the high security airport and away from whoever had drugged them.
“I knew early on just how fed up Alex was. He really missed Egypt. The wonder job Dr Margretti had promised him, turned out to be nothing more than boring classroom work.” Alex nodded in agreement and regretted it again. “We most certainly do not want to discuss this in front of the Doctor. Let me try and fill you in with a few facts. Then you should all be able to understand why we do not need to escalate to a Ramses thirteen.
“Regardless of what the Doctor thinks, we have had many problems with ancients in Egypt over the last year, possibly even more than usual. Nothing really serious though, and nothing we could not handle. Nobody wanted him to be distracted from training the two of you,” Rose gestured to Alex and Emmy, “so we dealt with the problems without reporting back. I know other countries did the same. It was vitally important to let the Doctor concentrate on training you both.” Rose really meant training Alex, but she was ever the diplomat. “What nobody counted on was the death of Babs, sorry Alex, or the attack on you both at the British Museum, and then, what we can only presume was an attempted abduction, at the airport. These are the incidents we need to focus on. Everything else is nothing more than a case of really bad timing.
“Who would have thought Quentin would have headed back to Luxor this week of all weeks.” Rose gestured to the waiter for some more tea. “We all knew there would be trouble the first time he stepped back into Egypt. We also knew it would not be anything Bast couldn’t handle. The warlock’s followers have mostly drifted off. The ones who remain are nearly all accounted for.
“As for Kate and David going missing, we have no idea if they are actually missing or not. Let’s face it, they are as bad as each other at keeping in contact.” Rose grabbed a chair from a nearby table and sat down. “Cairo is no fool. He has ‘seen’, just as the both of you have ‘seen’. I think you will be surprised when you meet him, because his ancient memories have really kicked in. You all speak with a maturity well beyond your years, Kate excepted of course!”
“How is she?” Alex asked.
Emmy stiffened at the mention of her name. She felt ever more certain that she was losing Alex to Kate, though she clung to the thought that he had wanted to kiss her. He had only been stopped by the untimely arrival of his father. Emmy was conflicted.
“Not now, Alex, if you do not mind. Later!”
“Of course, Rose, sorry.”
“As you now know, Cairo, Ropet and Sanuba headed off to Amarna in order to check on the whereabouts of Kate and David. In reality though, their adventure is much more about impressing the daughters of Inky, than actually meeting up with either Kate or David. Cairo and I had a long chat.”
“In the bar at the Winter Palace?”
“Where else?” Alex was immediately envious. “And not for one moment does Cairo feel they have been abducted.”
Emmy expressed her concerns. “But, they are at Amarna, they could not get any closer to the enemy.”
“Yes, correct, but what has Nefertiti to gain by bringing the wrath of Ramses, Nakhtifi and Akhenaton down on her in her current weakened state. Nothing! Absolutely nothing! She was severely weakened by the events of last year. You know that, you were there. I am not saying she does not crave vengeance, but she is definitely no fool. She will have weighed up the pros and cons, and there are far too many cons for her to risk of harming Kate, David or anyone protected by the family right now.”
“I estimate that the Doctor is no more than five minutes away,” Joe said after looking at his watch.
“We do not know exactly when he left, but you could well be right.” Rose thanked the waiter for the fresh tea.
“Rose, for the first time today, I can tell you with absolute certainty, I am correct. My phone has just pinged. That is the five-minute warning.”
“You have a Dr Margretti app on your phone!” Alex exclaimed in disbelief. Joe smiled.
“Just glad you are back to thinking straight.” Rose said, before she stood and went to look out of the window. The rain had not eased at all. She longed to be back in Egypt, back to blue sky, and most of all, back into the arms of Gadeem. Upon hearing the Doctor was about to arrive Albert and the waiter had stood and headed off to the kitchen without saying a word. Rose turned back and for the second time today she placed a reassuring hand on Joe’s shoulder, though when she spoke she addressed them all. “Once Dr Margretti arrives please give the usual pleasantries, nothing more. I will, in my own way, let him know what is going on.”
“Roger … happy with that,” Joe said.
Alex and Emmy both nodded.
They all heard “Willingly” and “Wunderbar” come from the kitchen.
Chapter 9
-
Quotations!
“I listened to how you described recent events to Dr Margretti,” Alex said as he continued to look out of the cabin window to the cumulus clouds below. “You were certainly economic with the truth, but it had the desired effect. No Ramses thirteen.” He turned to look at Rose. “What I don’t get … what I don’t understand at all … is why you are not worried, not in the slightest, about my father going to Cairo, when we know he is going to collect an award from a society that does not exist. He has to be in real danger there, yet we are flying to Luxor. I looked it up online, Luxor is just under 700 kilometres to the south of Cairo. We are not going to be able to get to dad quickly.”
“Oh, Alex, you worry far too much. Bast is with Quentin. She will not let any harm come to him. He will be in Luxor in a couple of days, three at the most. That will give you both,” she gestured first to Alex and then to Emmy, “enough time to work out what is going on. As for your father going to collect an award from a society that does not exist, it happens all the time.” Her comments were greeted by sceptical faces. “Consider this. If an organisation books a famous person to give a lecture, it costs them a fortune. Do you know how much your father charges, now he is world famous?”
“For one lecture in Germany he told me he had received fifteen thousand euros plus all his travelling and hotel expenses. He was so excited about it.”
“How much is he being paid to collect this award in Cairo?”
“Nothing … they do not pay when they offer an award.” The penny had dropped. “So, by offering an award, even a
fictitious one, they get dad for free. He has even paid for his own flight. I should not have doubted you, Rose.”
“No, Alex, you should always doubt, always question, as that is how you learn … how you stay alive. It is the best way to keep your brain active. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has the monopoly on being right.”
Dr Margretti had arrived at The Meeting Place. He and Rose had talked and talked. Joe had spent most of this time on the phone to the base commander at RAF Mildenhall. A British airbase used by the United States Air Force (USAF) which was not far from where they were enjoying – perhaps that was not quite the right word in the circumstances – afternoon tea. The outcome of this protracted call was why Rose, Alex and Emmy were aboard a United States Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) Lockheed MC-130, heading over France, on their way to Egypt. There was a crew of five. Four up front, with the fifth member, Chuck, who rather ominously held the position of Ejector according to the tag sewn onto his work gear, with them, though separate from them, in the belly of the beast. It was a big belly which was virtually empty, empty that was apart from an oversized sand coloured dune buggy.
Alex and Emmy had walked completely around the buggy before taking their seats in an area just behind the bulkhead which separated them from the two pilots, combat systems officer and one of the two loadmasters. Chuck was the second loadmaster, but he preferred his title of Ejector. For the most part he kept his distance, but he had made it blatantly clear that he was there to watch them and that he would, without a second’s hesitation, use extreme measures in order to protect the aircraft. They touched nothing and sank into seats which were the quality you would expect from a top of the range luxury car, rather than any military aircraft.
“I don’t like to ask this,” Emmy said, “but I have been thinking.” There was a very long pause. “Forgetting everything else that could be put down to bad timing, we were attacked in the British Museum the same day Babs was killed.” She squeezed Alex’s hand. “With the warlock removed from the afterlife, the only person whom I know wants us dead is Nefertiti. Yet you say she is so badly weakened that she would not dare attack us, not now, not at this time. I’m not so sure she isn’t behind this.”
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