Pharaoh

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  He closed the door and returned to the living room. He lit another cigarette and sat in the dim light, thinking about William Blake and the papyrus of the Exodus.

  At eleven he switched on CNN. The crisis in the Middle East was old news, but he liked seeing the places anyway: the horrible roads of Gaza, the ruined buildings, the piles of filth. It reminded him of his childhood: the friends he’d played with in the streets, the scents of tea and saffron in the bazaar, the taste of unripe figs, the smell of dust and youth. But at the same time he found unutterable pleasure in living in this comfortable American apartment with a salary in dollars and a girlfriend, warm and uninhibited, a secretary at the university who came by two or three times a week and never set any limits in bed.

  The telephone rang as he was getting ready to go to sleep. He thought that William Blake must have changed his mind and decided to spend the night in his apartment instead of facing the long trip through snow and icy wind.

  He picked up the receiver and was about to say, ‘Hi, Blake, changed your mind?’ but the voice on the other side froze his blood.

  ‘Salaam alekum, Abu Ghaj. It’s been a long time . . .’

  Husseini recognized the voice. There was only one person in the world who would call him by that name. For a moment he was speechless, but then he forced himself to react and said, ‘I thought that phase of my life was over a long time ago. I’ve got my life here, my work—’

  ‘There are promises that we must remain faithful to our whole lives, Abu Ghaj, and there’s a past from which no one can escape. Aren’t you aware of what is happening in our country?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ said Husseini. ‘But I’ve already paid all I can. I’ve played my part.’

  The voice on the other end fell silent and Husseini could hear a train passing in the background. Maybe he was calling from a phone booth near the El or was in the lobby of the station.

  ‘I have to meet you as soon as possible. Now, actually.’

  ‘Now . . . I can’t. There’s someone here with me,’ improvised Husseini.

  ‘The secretary, huh? Send her home.’

  He even knew that, then. Husseini stammered, ‘No, really, I can’t. I—’

  ‘Then you come here. In half an hour, at the Shedd Aquarium parking lot. I have a grey Buick La Sabre with Wisconsin plates. I’d advise you to be there.’ He hung up.

  Husseini felt his world cave in on him. How was this possible? He’d left the organization after years of fierce battles and furious gunfights. He thought he’d paid his debt to the cause in full. Why this call? He would have given anything not to go. On the other hand he knew very well, from personal experience, that they were not people who fooled around. Least of all Abu Ahmid, the man whose voice he had heard and whom he knew only by his nom-de-guerre.

  He sighed, turned off the TV and put on a fur-lined parka and gloves. He switched off the lights and closed the door behind him. His car was parked down the block. He scraped the ice and snow off the windscreen and left for his appointment.

  The snow was falling hard and fine, blown by an icy wind from the east. He left the neo-Gothic buildings of the university campus on his left and drove up 57th Street to Lake Shore Drive, which was nearly deserted at that hour.

  The spectacular scenery of the city centre loomed up before him: the serried ranks of the glass and steel giants, lights sparkling against the grey sky. The top of the Sears Tower was lost in low cloud and the beacon at its tip throbbed inside the foggy mass like lightning in a storm. The John Hancock stretched its colossal antennae into the clouds like the arms of a Titan condemned to hold up the sky for all eternity. The other towers, some encrusted with gilded ornaments on ribs of black stone, others bright with anodized metal and fluorescent plastic, fanned open at the sides of the street like enormous stage settings in the magic atmosphere of falling snow.

  He passed slowly alongside the Field Museum, its Doric columns bathed in a green light that made them look like bronze. On his right was the long peninsula, with the Shedd Aquarium at one end and the stone drum of the planetarium at the other. He drove with care, leaving deep grooves in the white blanket, following tracks already covered by the snow that continued to fall incessantly in the glow of his headlights, in the continuous alternating rhythm of the windscreen wipers.

  There was a car pulled over with its side lights on. He stopped, got out and walked towards it through ankle-deep snow. It was him. Husseini opened the passenger door and sat down.

  ‘Good evening, Abu Ghaj. Salaam alekum.’

  ‘Alekum salaam, Abu Ahmid.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have interrupted your evening.’

  ‘You did not interrupt my evening, Abu Ahmid. You interrupted my life,’ said Husseini, his head low.

  ‘You should have expected it. We always find deserters sooner or later, wherever they are.’

  ‘I’m not a deserter. When I joined the organization, I said that I would leave as soon as I couldn’t take it any more. And you accepted this condition. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘I remember very well, Abu Ghaj. Otherwise you would not be here now, alive and well and talking with me. The fact remains that you left without a word.’

  ‘There was nothing to say. It was as we’d agreed.’

  ‘That’s your story!’ exclaimed Abu Ahmid sharply. ‘I’m the one who decides. And I could have condemned you to death then.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I never act on impulse. I wrote your name in my book. On the you-owe-me side.’

  Husseini lowered his head. ‘So now you want me to settle up, is that it?’

  Abu Ahmid did not answer, but his silence made Husseini realize that his life alone would not be sufficient to settle his debt.

  ‘Is that it?’ he repeated.

  Abu Ahmid began to speak, as if he had been asked to express his opinion on a philosophical matter. ‘Circumstances are so dramatic and so pressing that all of us are called upon to make our contribution. Our private lives have no significance in such a moment.’

  ‘Mine does. Leave me out of it. I don’t have that kind of energy any more, or the motivation behind it. I can contribute some money, if you want, but please leave me out of it. I can’t be of any use to you.’

  Abu Ahmid turned towards him suddenly. ‘Your attitude could be taken as a full confession to the charge that has been hanging over your head for years: desertion! I have the power to pass judgement on you and to execute the sentence, right now, this very instant.’

  Husseini felt like saying, ‘Do it, then, you bastard, and go to hell,’ but as he watched the snow dancing down in the glow of the street lamps and the myriad lights of the city glimmering in the dark mirror of the lake, what he actually said was, ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Abu Ahmid began to speak in a low voice with his hand on his chest. ‘When I have told you what is about to happen, you will thank me for having sought you out, for having given you the chance to participate in such a historic moment for us and for our nation. The Zionists will finally be wiped forever from the face of this earth and the city of Jerusalem will be restored to the true believers.’

  Husseini shook his head. ‘I can’t believe that you’re planning yet another bloodbath. More slaughter? More massacres? Hasn’t all the blood that’s been spilled, futilely, all these years been enough for you?’

  ‘This time it’s different. This time our victory is certain.’

  ‘My God . . . that’s exactly what you’ve said each time, and each time the defeat has been more humiliating. Look around you, Abu Ahmid. See these colossal towers? Each one of them contains more people than the inhabitants of many of our villages. Each one of them represents an economic power that is stronger and richer than a single one of our states. They are the symbol of an imperial power that has no comparison – and no competitors – anywhere in the world, equipped with weapons and instruments so sophisticated that they could listen in on our every word and hear our every breath ri
ght now, from miles and miles away. And this power does not want any changes in the current political order in our region. They don’t care about any trouble this may cause or any violations of so-called agreements.’

  Abu Ahmid turned and stared at him with a strange smile. ‘It almost seems . . . as if you’ve become one of them.’

  ‘I have, Abu Ahmid. I’ve been an American citizen for years.’

  ‘Citizenship is just a piece of paper. The roots of your soul are another thing . . . something which can never be cancelled. Never. But you’re wrong in what you say. This time the battle will be on equal terms. They won’t even have the chance to deploy their potential for destruction. This time the Islamic armies will take Jerusalem by force, like in the times of Salah ad Din. We will fight hand to hand, and the men who live on the top of these towers won’t be allowed to change the outcome of the battle. This time we will win, Abu Ghaj.’

  Husseini fell silent and his breath condensed into little clouds of steam as the winter air invaded the parked car. He wondered just what those words could mean: was he bluffing or did Abu Ahmid really have a trump card that he could play at the table of history? He still couldn’t believe what was happening.

  He pressed on with his weak protests. ‘Do you really want to start a war? Unleash destruction on thousands or millions of human beings? I want you to know that, for me, there is no cause worth all of this. I believe that history has something to teach humanity, and that the most important lesson is that war is too high a price to pay, under any circumstances.’

  ‘Moving words, Abu Ghaj. That’s not the way you talked when you lived in the refugee camp, when you saw poverty and death up close every day, disease and hunger, when you saw your family annihilated by an enemy mortar . . .’

  Husseini felt a hard knot in this throat.

  ‘Then you thought fighting back was the only way out. Think back. Think back and you’ll find that your wise, conciliatory words are just coming out of the tranquil existence you lead now. They are nothing more than an expression of your egotism. But I won’t insist. This is not the moment to debate such complicated, difficult problems. I just want to know whose side you’re on.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Certainly. But your choice, whatever it is, will involve consequences.’

  ‘I see.’ Husseini nodded, thinking. ‘If I give you the wrong answer tomorrow morning they’ll find my body lying stiff right out here in the bloody snow.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Abu Ahmid, ‘we need you. I can guarantee that you will not be involved in operations which result in the spilling of blood. We need someone beyond suspicion. I’m the only person who knows your true identity. You’ll just be the point of reference here, inside the system, for the cells that are about to enter this country.’

  ‘Isn’t that the same thing?’

  ‘We don’t want to spill blood in vain. We only want to fight our enemy on equal terms. That means we have to immobilize America until the duel is over. Whether we are victorious or have been annihilated, it doesn’t matter. But this will be the last battle.’

  ‘What is it that I have to do?’

  ‘Three groups made up of our best men, completely trustworthy, will be operating within the United States for as long as necessary. They do not know each other, they’ve never seen each other, but they will have to move in unison, in perfect coordination, timed to a fraction of a second. They will act as a deadly weapon pointed at the head of a giant and you will be the man holding your finger on the trigger.’

  ‘Me? Why me?’ asked Hussein, incredulous. ‘Why don’t you do it, Abu Ahmid?’

  ‘Because my presence is required elsewhere. And because here no one knows who you are, Abu Ghaj.’

  Omar al Husseini realized that everything had been provided for and decided upon and that there was no way out. All Abu Ahmid had to do was provide the American authorities with proof that Professor Husseini was in reality Abu Ghaj, the terrorist hunted by all the police of the Western world for years. The man who had mysteriously vanished into thin air. Husseini would end up in the electric chair.

  ‘When is the operation scheduled to begin?’

  ‘In six weeks, on 3 February.’

  Husseini lowered his head in surrender.

  Abu Ahmid gave him a gadget that looked like a small black box. ‘All the instructions will be sent in code to your computer, which will transmit them in turn to the destinations indicated. This is the reserve unit. You must never lose it. You must carry it with you at all times. The password for access is the name of the operation itself: Nebuchadnezzar.’

  Omar al Husseini put the box into his jacket pocket, then walked back to his car, started it up and disappeared into the swirling snow.

  3

  WILLIAM BLAKE parked his car in front of the house at one in the morning and walked towards the entrance of his small rented apartment. It would be the worst Christmas of his life, and yet those few hours spent with Husseini had warmed his heart, as well as his numbed limbs, and if it hadn’t been for a residue of self-pride, he would have accepted the invitation to sleep on Husseini’s couch. At least he’d have had someone to talk to tomorrow morning over a cup of coffee.

  He heard a sharp click as he turned the key in the lock, but it wasn’t the door he was opening. It was a car door snapping shut behind him. He tried to slip in quickly; the neighbourhood wasn’t the best and, at that late hour, he had reason to worry. But an arm stretched out in front of him, preventing him from entering.

  He wheeled around to try to get back to the car but bumped into another person who was standing directly behind him.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed, Professor Blake,’ said the man who had stopped him from entering. ‘And do excuse the antisocial hour, but we’ve been waiting for you because we need to speak to you urgently.’

  ‘I don’t know you,’ said Blake in an unsteady voice. ‘If you just want to talk, come back in a couple of days. People usually spend Christmas with their families, you know.’

  The man who had spoken to him was about forty. He was wearing a Gore-Tex jacket and a fake-fur hat. The other was about fifty and was wearing a tailored coat and a fine felt hat.

  ‘I’m Ray Sullivan,’ the older man said, extending his hand. ‘I work for the Warren Mining Corporation, and this is Mr Walter Gordon. We have to talk to you now.’

  Blake rapidly reflected that if they were criminals there was no way they would be interested in someone like him in a place like this, and this convinced him to grant their request. He wasn’t busy, after all, and had no pressing plans.

  ‘Please allow us just a few minutes,’ said the man with the coat. ‘You’ll realize that we had no choice.’

  ‘OK,’ said Blake, nodding, ‘you can come in, but the place is small and I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess.’

  ‘We’d just like to have a few words, Professor Blake,’ said the man with the jacket.

  Blake turned on the light, let them in and closed the door.

  ‘Please, sit down,’ he said, reassured by the respectable appearance of the pair and their politeness.

  ‘Please excuse our intrusion, Professor. We thought you’d be back for dinner. We certainly didn’t plan on such an unsettling encounter, at this time of night.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Blake. ‘But please fill me in on the reason for this little visit, because I’m very tired and would like to go to bed.’

  The two men exchanged a perplexed glance, then the one who had been introduced as Walter Gordon began to speak.

  ‘As my friend Ray Sullivan was saying, we work for the Warren Mining Corporation and we’re doing some exploratory drilling in the Middle East. We’re looking for cadmium.’

  Blake shook his head. ‘My God, you’ve made a huge mistake: I’m an archaeologist, not a geologist.’

  Gordon continued, unperturbed. ‘We know very well who you are, Professor Blake. As I was saying, we’d been doing this exploratory drilling, and t
hree days ago a team led by Mr Sullivan was coring when suddenly the ground started to cave in, as if sucked into a chasm.’

  ‘I went over to the opening we had just drilled,’ interrupted Sullivan, ‘to see what could have happened. I thought at first that it was a natural sink hole: the area we’re working in is full of them due to the calcium carbonate deposits that are found there. But all I needed was one glance to realize that this was totally different.’

  Blake’s eyes, bleary with fatigue, suddenly snapped to attention. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘The drill had penetrated the ceiling of an underground room and the sun filtering through shone against something metallic in the darkness. I immediately interrupted the operation, moved out the team and referred everything to Mr Gordon, my direct superior, back at the camp. When everyone was sleeping that night, we went back.

  ‘It was a clear night and the chalky colour of the sand reflected the moonlight, so we could see almost as well as by day. As soon as we got there, we leaned down into the hole and lit up the inside with torches. What we saw left us, literally, breathless. We were so amazed we didn’t know what to say. Although our angle of view was limited, we could see objects made of bronze, copper, gold and ivory down there. What we could see clearly looked like an unspoiled tomb.’

  ‘I don’t know how you feel when you find yourself in front of a great discovery,’ Gordon took over, ‘but I swear that for a few minutes I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was shaking. I could barely control my excitement . . . We calculated that the tomb below us had to be pretty vast. The chamber measured about four metres by five. It was a couple of metres high, and we supposed there could be side chambers as well.

  ‘It looked like a natural cavity which had been adapted to contain those incredible treasures. The shape of the sarcophagus, which we could partially see, the statues of the divinities and the style of the decorations left us in no doubt. We had found the tomb of some very high-ranking Egyptian dignitary. We’re no specialists, but as far as we could guess, it looked like the tomb of a Pharaoh!’