“What! We created the perfect world for another super villain? I don’t think so.”
Alex decided, as he more and more frequently did, that to rise to Kate was the wrong thing to do. “We succeeded where nobody else had ever been able to succeed. We defeated the warlock and substantially reduced Nefertiti’s power. We had already reduced Merenptah’s power to almost nothing, with his army scattered throughout the Theban hills. The problem we now face is partly because Dr Margretti has not been keeping his eye on things in Egypt, because he’s been far too focused on us,” he pointed towards Emmy and then himself, “for the last year. Possibly of more relevance is that we secured Nakhtifi’s place in the afterlife.”
“Yes, so?”
“Well, Kate, the so is that Ramses and Nakhtifi have spent a year celebrating in an afterlife which is now quite different.” Quite independently they each instantly conjured up the image of Ramses drinking red wine, with that mischievous boyish grin of his, whilst winding up Nakhtifi. “Ramses took his eye off the ball.”
“Okay, I get it,” Kate said, “and you are right.” Alex gave a look of shocked horror as he clutched his chest as if he were having a heart attack. “Get over it! You had to be right once in a lifetime … Cleopatra saw an opening, a weakness, and she exploited it. She is going for total control of the afterlife.”
The Italians had all left. It was the turn of a large Korean group to have lunch. There were now many more tourists than tables. Suddenly everything was cleared from in front of Kate, Alex, Emmy and Cairo, and a bill produced. Kate slid this over to Alex. “Get that, would you? Emmy and I are going to change. It might be cold out on the water!”
Alex was about to say, “Pay with what?” but as he put his hand in the pocket of his new trousers, he found a small though not insignificant wad of money. “Kate, you truly are one of a kind!” he muttered as he went to pay the bill.
Chapter 37
-
Falling Into Thin Air
Alex’s attempt to enter Quentin’s and Rose’s cell quietly had failed. The crash of his steel scuba tanks hitting the floor resounded around the tiny cell louder than any alarm bell. The guard may have missed this, unlikely, extremely unlikely, but the screams of pain from Alex – for he was still attached to the tanks – could not have been missed.
“Welcome to earth,” Quentin said as he gave the Vulcan V sign. An unusual combination of words and action, as a Vulcan was most unlikely to be welcoming anybody to Earth!
It hurt Rose to laugh, though in just twenty-four hours she had improved greatly. The simple fact that her pain was no longer on the increase afforded her the warm feeling of immense hope. She had previously reached a point where her body would have been unable to cope with any further rise in pain – however little that rise was. Cleopatra’s thugs certainly knew how to inflict the maximum pain without killing the person. She so wanted retribution, though for now she would happily settle for being back in the arms of Gadeem.
Quentin took hold of Alex and pulled him to his feet. The heavy metal twin scuba tanks had effectively pinned him to the floor. “You look as though you will live,” he said, after giving Alex a cursory once over.
“Oh, Dad, I really am not the sporting type,” Alex said in obvious discomfort, as he flexed his body and looked up at the water above. “Cairo even warned me about falling in, but the weight of these,” he clenched a fist and pointed a thumb over his shoulder, “was just too much.”
“Are you okay?” Rose asked.
“Okayish!” Alex was only now taking in how Rose looked.
“Please don’t look so shocked. I am much better than I was.”
Alex could see that Rose was suffering. If she regarded this as better, then what on earth was she like before? Cuts here and there, a nasty one which was still obviously leaking blood out into her hair, many bruises, and a real shiner of a black eye; the bruising having now come out. The pain of her broken ribs did not show anywhere, except on her face as she moved.
“Are you the rescue party?” Quentin asked as his eyes followed a rope which extended from Alex and on up into the water.
“Sort of.” Alex pulled hard, twice, on the rope. Almost instantly a dark bag slid down it and ended up crashing to the floor beside him. He only just managed to step out of its way. “Wow! That was close,” he said as he bobbed down and unzipped the bag.
“This really does have to go down as the nosiest rescue in history.”
“Well, Dad, you should know about history,” Alex said as he handed out improvised weapons – large tools from a ‘borrowed’ work bag – “though I do have a few things to tell you about Cleopatra which you should find enlightening.” Alex paused and listened. “Why is nobody coming in to see what caused all the noise?”
Quentin and Rose both smiled conspiratorially.
Alex was bemused. “Okay, what do you know that I do not?”
“Simply that Helios will open the door when we knock.” Rose’s smile broadened though there was the slight sign of a wince.
“Helios?”
“Our guard. We sort of had to calm him down after Cairo and Emmy escaped.” Rose was not speaking too badly, just as long as she did not take any deep breaths.
“You could say that Rose is being just a tad economical. When our guard came in and found that two of his prisoners had fled, I really thought we had had it. He is massive, but don’t let that fool you, he can move really quickly when he wants to. We didn’t stand a chance if he flew off the handle. It really was so strange, almost surreal. He looked at the footholds, his eyes followed them right up the wall, then, to our absolute amazement, he just stood there for a full minute, before he collapsed backwards onto that wall,” Quentin pointed to the wall directly to the right of the cell door, “and slid to the floor. Now you tell him, Rose.”
“Nothing much to tell.” She stopped for a breath and hugged herself more tightly before continuing. “Apparently only one person has ever escaped from here before, and that was not from a secure cell like this. Helios had had to endure listening to the screams of that guard, his friend, his very special friend, if you know what I mean, day after day, which turned out to be week after week, before he and his entire family were finally removed from the afterlife. Anyway, I came to an agreement with Helios–”
“Agreement! Another understatement. Rose gave him every reassurance possible that we would be rescued and that he could leave with us and be safe. She assured him, over and over again, that if he did not raise the alarm there would be enough time for both him and his family to get down to Luxor before anyone had even realised that he was no longer here. Didn’t you, Rose?” She gave a half nod. “She impressed on him that there they would be under the protection of Ramses. He agreed, instantly, just like that! Rose saved us!”
“You are forgetting just one thing, Quentin. I was furious, because he has no family he wished to take with him. Would you believe it, Alex, they disowned him, every single one of them, years ago?”
“Oh, yes, he needed reassurance that he would be welcomed, being … how did he put it?”
“It doesn’t matter how he put it, Quentin, I assured him he would be welcome and he will be!”
“Of course, of course, I didn’t mean anything. We both gave him reassurance; it was just that he used a word, ancient Greek slang I suspect, that I have never heard before.”
“It was very clear what he meant!”
“Blatantly clear, yes.”
Rose looked at Alex with both anger and pain in her eyes, “Do you know, everybody, his entire family, cast him out. They only stopped short of telling Cleopatra he was gay because if he was removed from the afterlife then they would also be removed. I was so angry.” Rose was definitely still very angry, though by now she had taken in too many deep breaths and her ribs were hurting like hell.
“Of course we will welcome him with open arms,” Alex said.
“You will have to open your arms very wide,” Quentin had laughter i
n his voice as he said this, “because he makes Mohamed on reception look positively anorexic!”
“What, big Mohammed at the Winter Palace?”
“Yes, Helios is … well, you will see very soon.”
There were several tugs on the rope, quite violent tugs. “That had to be Kate,” Alex thought, because Emmy and Cairo had far more patience. “It’s time for you to leave Rose.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Oh, yes you are,” Quentin said, “and this time I am not accepting ‘No’ for an answer!”
Alex had completely forgotten to take off his scuba tanks. Quentin now helped him. “There was a bit of a problem last night, several boats caught alight.”
“Yes, we wondered if that was the case, as we saw the sea glowing red all night. We worried about you all, didn’t we, Quentin?”
“Yes … we did … we both did.” Quentin could not have said this with less sincerity if he had tried. “What happened up there?”
“I’ll tell you about it another time. Though because of the fires it was difficult to find scuba gear that was undamaged. These two tanks are linked, so, Dad, you can take all the weight.” Quentin soon had them on. “However, there are two demand valves so you will both be able to breathe.” He pressed the button on the back of each and air could be heard hissing out. Cairo had shown him how to do this and also told him what they were called. His television watching had come in useful yet again.
It was not long before Alex was watching Rose and his father ascend to the surface, using the rope for guidance. He turned and banged on the cell door. After his initial shock at just how big Helios was, he had convinced the guard to follow Rose, to protect her, and to get her back to Gadeem. Despite his obvious fear of Cleopatra, Helios did offer to stay and help. However; Alex insisted that Rose needed to be guarded and he was by far the best person to do it.
Obviously, by inference, this meant that Quentin and Emmy would also be protected, because Emmy was not to be part of Alex’s plan. He felt that she had already suffered too much at the hands of Nefertiti, and if this all went horribly wrong, then he was not going to have her suffer at the hands of Cleopatra as well. He really loved her and wanted to protect her. He wished that he could have told her everything he had told her in his thoughts, but the conversation did not go well. She had so desperately wanted to be part of the team and win, in order to put the horror of Nefertiti behind her. She had protested so much that in the end Alex had told her, quite bluntly for him, that there was no place for her in his plan. Unlike Kate she had not exploded, but it had been clear to see that he had hurt her. Alex had so wanted to hug her and tell her that he was only doing this to protect her. He had known that he could not, because had he shown any sign of weakness then, she would be arriving in the cell just as Kate and Cairo were about to.
They virtually fell to the floor, just as Alex had done. Helios took hold of the rope, took a deep breath, and headed for the surface.
“Who, that?” Cairo asked.
“What, was that?” Kate asked.
“He is big, isn’t he? His name is Helios, he’s on our side, and he is going to make sure Rose gets back to Gadeem.” Kate and Cairo both agreed that that was good.
After further consideration, and just after she had discarded the scuba gear and picked up a hefty wrench, Kate asked, “Wouldn’t it have been better if he had stayed here to help us find our way around?”
“Not really. He is a prison guard, so it would be very unusual for him to be seen in other parts of the palace. There is also the size of him.”
“Too big to hide.”
“Exactly my thought, Cairo.”
Things had changed, so Alex explained what he now had in mind.
“Great plan.” Kate discarded the wrench. “Just one thing wrong with it.”
Alex looked at her as he wondered what could be so wrong with his plan if she had been confident enough discard the wrench. This was rather obviously going to be nothing more than Kate making unnecessary objections because she did not come up with it, because she was not seeing herself as being in charge. “Okay, I will play your game,” he thought, before asking, “What is wrong with it?”
“Do you really believe that there is no army here?”
“Yes!”
“None, anywhere in this palace, because they are still ringing Alexandria in order to stop us getting in? Do you, Alex?” She rather extended the Alex.
“You know that is not–”
Kate had no intention of letting him speak until she had finished. “Because after yesterday, the war zone, remember … don’t you think she may have, just possibly, the merest inkling that we got past her soldiers?”
“We going to die!”
“No, Cairo, we are not … well we might … but I hope we will not!”
“That not funny, Mr Alex.”
“Sorry, Cairo, but that is the truth. I am, however, absolutely positive that she will have left her soldiers ringing Alexandria. She would have to. I would if I was her. Anybody would have to if they were in her situation.” He turned to Kate. “And you know that was a totally unnecessary question, because you know why they would remain in place.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why did you drop the wrench?”
“It was heavy and it slipped from–”
“This is not the time for games, Kate. Tell Cairo, and tell him now!” Alex said this with as much anger in his voice as he could muster. The trouble was that he did not feel angry. It was Kate being Kate. Nothing more than that.
“Oh, all right.” She shrugged her shoulders and gave an exasperated expression as she looked to Cairo. “She will have left her soldiers in place to stop Ramses or Nakhtifi’s, or both their armies, from attacking.”
“But they not.”
“But she doesn’t know that, does she!” Kate stretched out the words.
Cairo looked confused so Kate unconfused him!
“Enough of this, it is time we should be moving,” Alex looked up and down the corridor. He was not too worried about anybody being around, because Helios, in answer to Alex’s question, had said that he had never seen the palace so devoid of soldiers. This had to be true, because with all their chatter they would have been easily captured by now if there had been. He felt satisfied with the way he had handled Kate’s attitude. Possibly a little too satisfied as there was a definite spring to his step. A violent thump between his shoulder blades almost caused him to end up face down on the floor. He managed to remain standing, but he failed to retain his look of accomplishment.
“Never … Are you listening to me? Never think that you can be that smug and not get smacked for it.”
“One day, Kate, I will work out your meaning of friendship,” Alex said as he walked on, flexed his shoulder blades, and ensured that he was out of her reach.
“Words of warning, Alex, don’t try and get inside my head because you really will not like the mess you find there.”
Alex considered those to be some of the truest words she had ever spoken.
Chapter 38
-
It’s all in the Voice
Alex, having scanned the piles of gold, selected two pieces. “See, I told you,” he said excitedly rather than smugly.
Kate looked from Alex to the two pieces of virtually identical reworked gold, which he held out for her and Cairo to see, “It’s all Greek to me!”
“Greek me too. That say Cleopatra, I know that!” Cairo pointed with confidence at, almost touching, the vertical cartouche on the golden figure of Isis in Alex’s left hand. He turned his head and moved in close to look at the other Isis figure. There were some similarities within the cartouche, though whatever it was saying, it most definitely was not saying Cleopatra. “Not know who that is.”
They had made their way through the maze that was Cleopatra’s palace with amazing ease. The corridors were wide, the ceilings high, very high. Everything was mostly white marble with just a litt
le gold inlaid here and there; all very plain in design. ‘Boxy’ was how Kate had described each new area they had arrived at, whether it had been yet another corridor or one of the vast number of rooms they had checked out, each of which had been just as devoid of people as the previous.
It was only the life-sized statues, which were absolutely everywhere, that added any ornamentation. Each of these was sculpted from pure white marble, so there was no splash of colour to be seen anywhere. Just like the palace itself gold ornamentation on the statues was kept to an absolute minimum. The vast majority depicted overly perfect naked men in various sporting poses. Alex had become increasingly irritated by the disparaging way Kate had compared their athletic and muscular bodies to his. He had not risen to the bait because, well, because Kate was just being Kate. Having had an unreasoned battle of words would have served little or no purpose. His focus had been on the plan. First and foremost to locate Bast, so they could have informed her that Rose was safe and therefore she was free to leave and set the ball rolling. Then, either locating Cleopatra’s library, where he had hoped to find out what had really happened to Caesarion, or the gold room, so they would know whose name was being placed upon the stolen gold. However, it had been the gold room they had come across first.
There were only two forms of female figures as statues, though they were repeated time and time again. Aphrodite – the Greek goddess of love, beauty, desire, and pleasure – appeared sensuous and naked, whilst Athena – the Greek goddess of warfare and battle strategy – was tall, muscular, and kitted out in full military attire, including helmet and shield. She looked seriously serious!
Each statue, male and female, stood upon an oversized polished marble plinth. These had proved perfect to hide behind on the few occasions that anyone had walked past them. They had not seen one soldier. It did not then, and it did not now, take a genius to know that something was far from right. They were each acutely aware of this, without any discussion being needed. No army, because they were in a defensive ring around Alexandria, was understandable, no royal soldiers in the corridors, no palace guards, was quite another.
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