“Wait outside.” I pointed at the door.
He bowed low, went quickly to the door. As he closed it behind him he pushed his head back in and said. “Not a drill. Please be quick.”
I got dressed as fast as I could. It would have been good to spend a little more time in that room relaxing, but I didn’t seem to have a choice.
The servant led me down the corridor and through an ornate, gold rimmed door into a stairwell. The stairs were wide enough for two people to pass. On the walls there were hieroglyphics, as if we were in a stairwell in an ancient Egyptian temple. At each landing there was a small black marble table with a white marble statue of a seated jackal headed man on it.
We went down three flights. The servant was ahead, walking fast for someone his age, turning now and then, calling me forward. I looked over the banisters. There were at least another three floors below us. Yacoub had an elaborate basement area. What the hell was he doing down here with all these extra levels?
On the floor below a woman in a long white uniform came out of the door. I hurried past as the white door closed behind her. I saw a thin sliver of what lay beyond. It was an intriguing sliver. The corridor she’d exited from looked like a hospital corridor, all white and bright lights.
I stopped, looked back at the woman who had passed me going upwards. Her uniform could have been something from the era of Florence Nightingale, when good British ladies were expected to cover up from head to toe. But she definitely looked like a nurse. Was Yacoub running a clinic down here? Was this where he was doing his research?
“You must come,” said a voice beside me. I turned. The servant I’d been following had his hand out and was about to pull at my arm.
“Don’t rush me.” I held my hand up, as if to keep him away from me.
He stepped back, a look of surprise in his eyes. Maybe women he met didn’t fight back, but I wasn’t putting up with any bullshit. Maybe, before Sean had disappeared, I might have been softer, laughed at what he was doing, but ever since that day a darker part of me had emerged, fully formed.
I could bite at people who pushed into me in the street and I’d even caught myself shouting at the TV. The old “nice Isabel” was crumbling into dust with each day that drifted into the next. And I didn’t care. I was sleeping less and my grief was coming out in weird ways, changing me.
“We must go. They are waiting.”
“Who is waiting?”
He didn’t reply. He just kept going down.
We’d reached what I worked out as the third underground level when he pressed his palm against a security panel and the door to the corridor beyond opened. He held the door wide for me.
This level was more like a residential level. There was a red carpet on the floor in a flowery Persian pattern, gold side tables with small statues at intervals. The wall lights were scarab shaped. At the far end of the corridor was an ebony statue of a pharaoh with a long beard.
The servant knocked on a door on the left half way along the corridor. He held it open for me. I was interested in the statue. I walked straight past the door, muttered something, quickened my pace.
I was right. The statue had Yacoub’s face and he was dressed like a pharaoh. I shook my head. So that was what he really wanted.
“It’s a good likeness,” said a voice behind me.
I turned, did a double take, rocking back on my feet. Yacoub was standing behind me, but it wasn’t Yacoub. This man was a little fatter and he had let the gray hair stay gray at the side of his head.
“My name is Mustafa.” He bowed.
39
The gate to the compound around the pyramid site was closed. Not only closed, but a tank stood in front of it, blocking the way.
Mohammad, who had been allowed to exit the compound, was now standing in a line waiting for permission to get back in. The line was not moving. At the top of the line a wire mesh gate was closed and padlocked. Behind the gate three black uniformed guards held their machine pistols as if they were about to use them.
On the far side of the entrance, beyond the tank, a fierce row was going on. Officers of the Antiquities police, in black with small gold epaulets, were inside the gate. Army officers, from the 15th Division, Special Forces Regiment, were outside, guns raised, pointing them at the Antiquities police.
As Mohammad watched, a Major aimed his pistol in the air, let off a shot. The tank in front of the gate moved forward, its gears grinding and black smoke coming out of the back.
A shout went up from inside the gate. The Major barked something into a black microphone at his shoulder, which he twisted to face him.
The tank stopped, its barrel pressing into the gate, bending it. The side gate barring the Special Forces from entering the compound was opened and the Major stepped through. He shouted more orders and the black suited Antiquities police officers moved to one side. Filtering among them were members of the Special Forces. They pulled hands behind backs and applied plastic cuffs to each officer.
Shouts went up from the line of men watching all this. Almost all these men were cleaners, working for the Antiquities Department, whose duties were about to start.
Another shot rang out. The major, who had taken control of the gate, shouted at the men through the wire mesh.
“Come back tomorrow. The loyal forces of the Egyptian army have taken over this site.”
A muttering went up from the crowd, then some of the men started to leave. Mohammad had his phone out and was whispering into it.
40
“I am Yacoub’s brother.”
“You look very alike. You could be twins,” I said.
“But we are not,” said Mustafa, as he led me into a large, low roofed room, which could only be described as a veneration of opulence.
The walls, and the square columns dotted around the room, were covered in gold wallpaper, with hieroglyphics in black. The floor was black marble and black marble statues lined the walls.
They looked like originals. Plato and Julius Caesar were on the left. Pythagoras and Constantine the Great were on the right. At the far end of the room was what looked like a picture window looking over the Nile. But it couldn’t be, not this far down. It had to be a print or a screen.
“This is a view over the Nile onto the city of Heliopolis at the time of Moses.” Mustafa pointed at the houses. “See, they have the same flat roofs as we have, but without the television aerials.”
“When was Cairo founded?”
“This reconstruction is from one and a half thousand years before Christ. The city here was thousands of years old already.” He pointed under his feet. “The slab of rock this building was built on might even have been the foundation of a house Moses lived in. Certainly, it was the house of a magician. The hieroglyphs you see are reproductions of the ones found in an underground room near here.”
“You found his name?” I looked around the walls for any sign of anything original. People would claim anything had an ancient connection, in my experience, if they thought they could make some money out of it from gullible tourists.
“Not the name you Christians call him, but there is a record of the Nile turning red in the hieroglyphs concerning a famous magic spell. Moses was trained by the priests of the holy mountain, that is what they called the Great Pyramid. He trained as a phykikos, a high level sorcerer, and surpassed all his teachers in the end. But you know this. It is all in your Holy Bible.”
“I thought a dust storm turned the Nile red.”
“Not every dust storm turns the river red. It happens once in a generation, at most. But Moses knew that this type of storm was coming. Prediction and the reading of signs are the work of magicians, are they not?”
“What about this earthquake your man told me about to get me down here?”
Mustafa pointed at a table in the corner of the room. “Look at the readings. Tremors have been coming closer together.”
“I haven’t felt an
ything.”
“Come.” He waved at me to follow him. The instrument in the corner of the room had a paper read out and what looked like the inside of a clock exposed. He pointed at the paper. Wavy lines certainly seemed to show some recent disturbance.
“Is this common?”
“No. That is why I asked you all to come down here.”
A noise from the far end of the room made me turn my head. Aisha and Sawda had come into the room. They were walking towards us.
Aisha spoke, almost shouted, as she came near. “Is this another of your false alarms, uncle?”
“This time something is happening. Mark my words. You will see they are true.”
I took my phone out of my pocket. There was no signal. Had I been brought down here to cut me off from the phone network? I was about to put my phone away when I saw part of a message. I flicked at the screen. Yes, it was a text message from Henry. It must have come in before I got down here.
CONTACT ME, was all it said.
I put the phone back in my bag, put my bag on my shoulder.
“I should leave you all now. Thanks for everything.” I stepped back from Mustafa and his nieces and glanced at the door.
“I am sorry. I must insist, to protect you, you see. You must stay here for at least the next ten minutes, until we see if the next shake brings down the building above.” Mustafa pointed at the paper read out. “See the frequency. The effect is growing exponentially every ten minutes.”
It didn’t feel right giving in to his bullshit.
“I can’t stay down here. Whatever happens up above, I’ll take my chances.”
I stepped back. None of the people in this room could stop me if had to get out of here. I hadn’t used the self-defense skills I’d been trained in for a few years, but I was confident I could stop these two women and their uncle putting their hands on me.
Mustafa put his hands up, as if he was defeated.
“You can go any time you wish, Mrs. Ryan. You are not a prisoner.” He smiled, shrugged. “But before you do, please, I wish to show you one thing. I believe you will find it interesting.” He pointed at the screens behind me. “Please, it will take only a few minutes.”
“What is it?”
“Another view of our city. It’s from a different time. A few minutes, that is all it will take.” He began walking towards the window like screens on the back wall. He pressed at the remote control in his hand. The picture on them changed.
“Tell me what time period you think this is?”
The screens went black for a second. Now we were looking over a city at night. Torches lit up a citadel’s walls in the distance. The shape of the roof tops between us and the high walls could be glimpsed by the light from occasional roof top braziers and torches set into the walls of some of the buildings, high up.
Above the city, stars glistened like pearls in a velvet sack.
I was mesmerized. The stars were moving, as if the night was unfolding in triple time. In the east, a star was rising.
“No idea. Could be any time.”
“Watch carefully.”
Smoke, mixed with red firefly like embers, burst from a roof top in front of us. Guards, in leather breastplates, and with bows on their backs, were illuminated along the roof of a nearby building. Out of the smoke and fireflies, which were pouring from a hole in the center of the roof, emerged a figure.
He was robed in Arab costume, an ankle length white shirt, and had a tight white turban around his head. He strode towards the center of the roof, uncovered a stone box, took a scroll from inside it, sat and began reading. He was facing away from us.
“No. Idea,” I said.
Mustafa put a finger to his lips.
I got the sudden notion that this was a computer game I was watching, because in the distance, around the high walls of the citadel arcs of flame came up from ground level. Arrows with flaming heads.
A shout rang out. Then another. It felt like we were there, watching an attack. The four guards on the roof were gathered on the edge looking towards the citadel. The man in white was still sitting, reading. He hadn’t moved.
In the distance the citadel burned. Flames leaped up from one corner, then another. Screams could be heard. It sounded as if women and children were in fear of their lives.
The guards on the roof had their bows out, arrows nocked. They were pointing them down at the street below. The man in white said something to them in Arabic. The guards lowered their bows.
“What is this all about?” I said, turning to Mustafa.
He pointed at the screen. “This is the tale of what your Jesus Christ did when he was in Egypt, here in what we now call Cairo.”
“Jesus was here?” It sounded a bit far-fetched.
“Yes, yes. It is in your bible. Do you not know the story of Herod? The baby Jesus being taken to Egypt by Joseph to escape a massacre of the newborns.”
“But he went back to Israel soon after.”
“Who knows for sure. And where else would he have learnt his healing skills, bringing Lazarus back from the dead and healing the blind and so many others. This is how he became famous. He learnt all these things in the most important center of medicine between here and China, here at the temples of Osiris and Isis. I am sure of this, even though it’s not in any record.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Roman Emperors used Egyptian physicians. They were the best in the world. This means our schools of medicine were the best in the world. The majority of Jesus’ miracles were healings and cures. One and one makes two, Mrs. Ryan.”
The screen in front of us changed again. The sun was coming up. The citadel was burning in the distance, a plume of black smoke rising.
The guards had gone away, but the white robed figure was back reading scrolls in the center of the roof.
“This is all very well done, but I reckon the world will need some proof, before believing any of this.”
“I agree. That is what we are looking for.” His smile was about as sincere as a crocodiles, before it ate you.
“Why not use our telephone here, if you have an urgent call to make.” He pointed at a small table in the corner beside the screen.
“I need some fresh air.” I wasn’t going to let him listen in to my conversation with Henry.
“One moment.” He went back to the device with the earthquake detector. He turned back to me, waved. “Yes, the moment I feared has passed. Please do go back up now.” He looked at Aisha. “Please show our guest out.”
Aisha and Sawda accompanied me back up the stairs. This time no one came out of the floor I’d had a glimpse inside on the way down.
“Would you like to see Professor Bayford before you go?” said Aisha.
“I’ll catch him later.” I had to get out of this place. It felt as if a fog had descended on me. A fog of bullshit. All that earthquake stuff was clearly a ruse to get me down to that room and show me their video collection. And that stuff about Jesus being in Cairo? It was a stretch, and who the hell cared anyhow?
I had to focus on why I was here in Cairo, to find Sean. As we reached the ground level my phone started to bing. Three new messages came in.
Aisha opened the door to the corridor. I wanted to look at my phone, but I didn’t.
“Do you wish our driver to take you somewhere?” she said, as she opened another door and ushered me into a reception area with a huge glass chandelier above our heads. Her sister was right behind her. She didn’t look happy.
“No, I can find my own way.” Something about this pair made my skin crawl, and it wasn’t just because I was a foreigner here. I’d met a lot of strange people during my time working in Istanbul and London. I’d rarely felt this off feeling.
“There is a taxi rank at the end of the street,” said Aisha, as I opened the double height main doors. There was a short flight of stairs and a side gate below. This was a different way into the building than
the way I’d entered.
“Thanks for your hospitality.” I waved as I went down the stairs. Already I had my phone out. As I went through the gate to the street it was in front of me.
There were two messages from Henry. The first one said CONTACT ME. The second one said CALL ME. There was something urgent going on back in London.
Another message read URGENT NEWS. It was from my taxi driver friend.
41
The air in the King’s Chamber was hot, unmoving. Xena was sitting with her back to the wall opposite the entrance. She had almost given up waiting for Mohammad to return.
Little progress would be made without new drill bits. It had been a gamble bringing the drill in, without a selection of drill heads, but it had been their best hope of avoiding too many questions.
Something must have happened to him. It was likely that the disturbances in the pyramid had been notified to officials in the Antiquities Ministry. They weren’t all under Yacoub’s spell. It was possible they’d shut down the area around the pyramid.
That made it even more important that she made progress tonight. But what the hell could she do on her own? The light from the torch on the floor dimmed. She turned it off.
Before she could switch it off, the chamber plunged into darkness.
She sat up. The torch wasn’t the problem. The darkness wasn’t the problem. There was something else going on, which had only just come to her.
42
I pressed the phone to my ear. Henry could wait. If there was a chance I could find out what had happened to Sean, or if there was any possibility he was still alive, I had to follow up on that first.
“Is it you, madam?” The taxi driver sounded tired, as if he’d been up all night.
“Yes. What news do you have?” I knew I was being a little abrupt, but I didn’t care.
“Please, where are you, madam. I must come for you.” I looked up and down the street. In the distance, beyond a set of traffic lights, there was a McDonalds. “I see a McDonalds restaurant.”
The Cairo Puzzle Page 12
