Pharaoh

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘There’s nothing else left,’ he said, ‘nothing at all . . .’

  ‘If they’d been Christians, they would have picked it up, don’t you think? Maybe they were Arabs . . . Oh, it’s no use racking our brains. I’m afraid we aren’t going to find out anything anyway.’

  They sat on the ground and drank sparingly from their water bottles.

  Blake took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one while he continued to stare at the cloud of smoke that snaked across the expanse of desert. He seemed to be miles away.

  ‘The road to Yotvata seems to be the best to take,’ said Sarah. ‘If we ration the water and the food, we can do it. It’s about eighty miles.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blake. ‘If we aren’t surprised by the storm tonight.’

  ‘There’s no saying it will hit this area.’

  ‘No, I guess not. But it might.’

  ‘Will?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why did you stop in the tunnel? You could have died.’

  ‘I saw—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Angels’ wings . . . of gold.’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘You’re exhausted. You were seeing things.’

  ‘Maybe I just wanted to believe I was seeing them.’

  ‘Seeing what, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Golden angels, kneeling . . . on the Ark. And there were other things too, vessels, incense burners.’

  Taken aback, Sarah looked into his eyes. ‘My God, William Blake, are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blake. ‘It all makes perfect sense now. I know why that sandal was in the tomb and perhaps whom it belonged to as well.’

  He leafed through the charred Bible. ‘See? It’s here in a passage from the Book of the Maccabees.’

  Sarah stared at him in amazement and she pulled her cotton jacket more tightly around her. It wasn’t equal to the biting wind that was blowing even more strongly from the north.

  ‘That sandal goes back more or less to the time when the Babylonians, under King Nebuchadnezzar, laid siege to Jerusalem. Somebody there must have realized that the pagans were about to break into the city, desecrate the Temple, steal the treasure and carry away the Ark of the Covenant. That person would have tried to take the treasure to safety, using a secret passage that only he knew about. His destination was a place in the Paran desert, where his people’s first sanctuary had been raised in a tent at the foot of Mount Sinai. His intention was to hide the Ark there, where it had come from originally. Perhaps he found that little cave by chance and thought that it would be a good hiding place. Or perhaps he knew there was a cave nearby where the ancient tent sanctuary had been and went there on purpose. He began to make his way through the tunnel and put his treasure in a niche in one of the walls—’

  ‘And then?’ asked Sarah, her head spinning with the enchantment of such a faraway past.

  Blake was trying to light another cigarette, shielding the lighter from the insistent wind. When he finally succeeded, he blew out a great mouthful of bluish smoke and continued.

  ‘The man had carried out his duty and he was about to retrace his steps, but the tunnel that went down into the bowels of the earth seemed to have been waiting for his visit for many years and beckoned to him irresistibly. Instead of going up again, he started to descend.

  ‘He must have had some sort of light so he could see where he was going and, when he got to the tomb entrance, without realizing it, he unknowingly triggered the protection device and an enormous pile of rubble slid down into the tomb. That was when he lost his sandal. It was dragged down into the tomb by the unexpected rock slide and was the only object in that funerary world that came from another period.

  ‘He probably got dragged down as well, but the slide stopped because an infiltration of water had solidified some of the plaster. The entrance wasn’t completely blocked, and he could probably see the inside of the tomb and read the first part of the inscription. It’s likely that he knew Egyptian hieroglyphics.

  ‘If he guessed the truth, he must have had the shock of his life. He turned and fled without leaving a trace behind him.’

  ‘Who was the man?’ asked Sarah. ‘You said you knew who the sandal belonged to.’

  Blake turned the last pages of the large, half-burnt book.

  ‘This volume has a very special appendix: the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. I’ve read it many times in the course of my research but, when I was reading one particular passage the other night, the penny dropped.’

  ‘Which passage?’ Sarah asked. She still couldn’t really fathom how he could be gathering clues from thirty centuries ago, like a detective does at the scene of a crime just a few hours after it has been committed.

  ‘It’s a passage by Baruch. He says that during the siege of Jerusalem, his master disappeared from the city and was absent for two weeks. His master was the same man the Book of the Maccabees talks about: that is, the Prophet Jeremiah! And two weeks is exactly how long it takes to get here and back from Jerusalem on a mule. Surely the man with the sandal was Jeremiah, the prophet who wept for the desolation of Jerusalem, abandoned by its people and by its kings, who had been dragged off into slavery.’

  Sarah said nothing and just stared at him as he smoked his cigarette and looked off into the void, the wind blowing through his dusty hair and his empty soul.

  ‘Come on, Blake,’ she said suddenly. ‘We have to get a move on. It’s a long way and it won’t be easy. If we get caught by the sandstorm on the way, we’ll get completely lost.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Blake. ‘I’ve told you everything about me, but I still don’t know who you are.’

  ‘I really am a topographical engineer, you’ve seen that for yourself. And I did the work I had to do for Warren Mining. But I was put there by a private organization that does jobs on commission for certain government agencies.’

  ‘Like the CIA?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. But I can’t exclude the possibility. In any case, I have the impression that the powers-that-be don’t trust Maddox completely and are keeping an eye on him.’

  ‘I’d be surprised if they weren’t. There’s nothing that’s not suspicious about this set-up. The only thing that works is the season. It’s the only time of year you can do any sort of mining out here in the desert.’

  ‘Well, that’s all I know. But I don’t simply take orders sitting down. I have my own points of view and my own way of doing things. And when I’m involved in something, I move the way I think is best.’

  ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘All right. At the start I didn’t trust even you, because in my line of work I know I can’t afford to trust anybody. Then I tried to keep you out of it as much as possible because, one way or another, I figured you would find some means of getting yourself killed. And now, please, let’s get moving.’

  They made their way over an empty wasteland – a bleak, flat expanse, scattered here and there with thorn bushes parched by the lack of water. Meanwhile, the sun had risen above the horizon and was beginning to warm the air. The boundless plain glittered with countless fragments of black flint that covered it for as far as the eye could see.

  When the sun was high in the sky, they stopped to eat some food, but there was nowhere to take refuge from the burning rays of the sun.

  Blake tried to find their position on the map while Sarah nibbled at a cereal bar. ‘I figure we must have covered about ten miles,’ he said. ‘If we keep this pace up, by evening, we should be crossing the trail of Beer Menuha, which is approximately here,’ he said, putting his finger on the map.

  He looked over to the east, where the sky was veiled in milky mist.

  ‘You haven’t told me yet what the rest of the inscription was about,’ said Sarah.

  ‘True,’ replied Blake, folding the map, putting away the compass and walking into the blinding sun.

  SELIM KADDOUMI landed on the evening of 5 February at Luxor airport. From there he
took a taxi to the outskirts of the city, paid the fare and continued on foot. It took him twenty minutes to reach the old house where his mother now lived alone. At first, she didn’t want to open the door, not believing that it was indeed him, showing up at such a late hour without letting her know beforehand.

  ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘I’ll explain everything later. Right now I’ve got a very important matter to attend to.’

  He wasted no time in removing his Western clothes and putting on a jellaba before hurrying out of the back door. He walked for nearly half an hour until he found himself in a solitary spot at the edge of the desert. There was a grove of palm trees not far away from a well. Shortly afterwards, a boy arrived, carrying under his arm a pitcher which he started to draw water with.

  He went up to the boy and said, ‘Salaam alekum. Isn’t it a little late to be drawing water out of the well? You could risk falling in when it’s dark like this.’

  ‘Alekum salaam, el sidi,’ answered the boy without hesitation. ‘One draws water when one is thirsty.’

  Selim uncovered his head and came nearer.

  ‘I am Kaddoumi,’ he said. ‘Where’s Ali?’

  ‘Let’s get away from here,’ the boy said. ‘Follow me.’

  They followed a path which the full moon had lit almost as brightly as day and came to the top of a small hill. At the bottom, they could see the village of El Qurna in the middle of the valley. They continued until they reached a little house halfway down the slope. The boy pushed the door open and let his companion in.

  ‘I can’t see anyone,’ said Selim.

  ‘Ali must have told you he is being watched. The same people as before are around, understand? We have to be very careful. Have you got the money with you?’

  Selim nodded.

  ‘Then wait here. He’ll come during the night. If you haven’t seen him by sunrise, come back here tomorrow night, without being seen, and wait until, inshallah, he comes.’

  ‘Inshallah,’ said Selim.

  The boy closed the door and the sound of his steps faded away along the path down to El Qurna.

  Selim blew out the light and waited in the darkness and silence, smoking a cigarette. When his eyes had got used to the gloom, the bare mud-plastered room seemed almost light in the bluish rays of the moon. He was tired after his long journey and very sleepy at this late hour. He smoked cigarette after cigarette and forced himself to get up and pace back and forth in the tiny space. Every now and then, he would glance out of the cracks in the blinds to see if someone was coming up from the valley.

  At a certain moment, he was overcome by fatigue. His head flopped against the back of the chair and he fell asleep. He slept for as long as his exhaustion was stronger than the sense of discomfort caused by the hard chair. When he opened his eyes and looked around, the shadows seemed strange and the room was immersed in a soft red light. He went over to the window to look outside and saw the disc of the moon suspended over the houses of El Qurna. It was obscured by a red shadow that covered it almost completely.

  An eclipse. He had never seen such a thing before in his whole life. The shadow did not hide the moon’s shape, but rather veiled it with a blood-red mist, and the dusky face of the night star had caused a deep silence to fall over the valley, as if the night creatures themselves had been struck dumb by the disquieting metamorphosis.

  He felt dead tired and thought about leaving, but as he was picking up his bag, he saw the door open and a dark shape nearly filled the room. He stumbled to his feet.

  ‘Is that you, Ali?’ he asked.

  The figure seemed to sway for a moment, then fell forwards. Selim caught him before he collapsed on the floor and tried to make him comfortable by putting his jacket under his head.

  ‘Ali . . . is it you?’ He flicked on his lighter and recognized the face of his friend. It was deathly pale and, when he withdrew his hand, he saw that it was bathed in blood.

  ‘O merciful Allah, my friend, my friend . . . What have they done to you?’

  ‘Selim,’ gasped the youth. ‘Selim, the papyrus . . .’ His forehead was beaded with drops of cold sweat.

  ‘Where is it? Where is it?’

  ‘Winter Palace . . . The bald man with a red moustache . . . has a bag with silver . . . buckles.’

  He turned his terror-stricken eyes to the red moon and, with a long sigh, passed away.

  Selim looked around, feeling lost and bewildered, and then pricked up his ears at a distant sound: sirens. In just a few minutes he would find himself in the same situation as Professor Blake, but one that was far more dangerous. He had to get away immediately. He closed his friend’s eyes and set off into the night, running as fast as he could towards the foot of a wadi that cut the valley in two on his right, about half a mile away.

  He threw himself down behind a boulder seconds before he saw two police vehicles roar up the hill and come to a stop in front of the little house where his friend lay dead. If he had waited just a few moments longer, he would have been caught with blood on his hands, standing beside a corpse.

  He waited until they had left and, making sure that there was no one around, he walked slowly back the way he had come. In the courtyard of his home, he drew a bucket of water from the well and put his hands into it. The water turned red.

  12

  FABRIZIO FERRARIO entered Avner’s office carrying a stiff-sided black suitcase, which he put down on the floor in front of his chiefs desk.

  ‘This is how they move during sandstorms,’ he said, unzipping it.

  Avner stood up and walked around his desk.

  ‘What is it?’ he said, looking at the contraption sitting inside the case.

  ‘A beacon transmitter. They’ve placed them all the way along the lines of invasion. They can move through the densest fog guided by the signals sent out by this gadget.’

  And here we are down to only 20 per cent of our potential helicopter and aviation strength. The weather conditions to the east of Jordan are impossible. How did you get your hands on this thing?’

  ‘They’ve installed them in the Bedouin tents, pretty well all over the place. Someone tipped me off about where I could find this one. What’s the weather forecast?’

  ‘Bad. It’s going to get worse over the next twenty-four hours. When it clears, we’ll probably find them at our front door.’

  Ferrario zipped up the case.

  ‘I have to go to a meeting with the general staff and experts who’ve been sent by the Americans. You’ll come with me. Unfortunately, I already know we’re going to get bad news, but at least we’ll find out how we’re going to die. Bring the case with you.’

  Ferrario grasped the handle on the large case and pulled it over to the elevator. He waited for Avner to get in, then he pressed the down button. The staff car was waiting for them in the street and the two men took the rear seats.

  ‘It seems that the people who sent the video have shown signs of life. That’s why the Americans will be at today’s meeting as well. I should kick their arses. They prevented us from acting early and now they’ll say they can’t make a move,’ said Avner. ‘You can bet on it.’

  ‘If they’ve got three atomic bombs in their own backyard, they can’t be blamed,’ commented Ferrario.

  The car drew to a halt at 4 Ashdod Street and Ferrario entrusted the guards with the task of carrying the cumbersome case he had brought with him up to the fourth floor, where the meeting was being held.

  The men who had been at the first meeting were there. Avner came in at the same time as General Yehudai, who was both the chief of the general staff and commander of the ground forces.

  Sitting on the other side of the table were three men in civilian clothes who had just arrived from the American consulate. Avner signalled to Ferrario to wait outside with the case and walked in, greeting all those present. From their faces, it was easy to see that they weren’t expecting good news.

  One of the three Americans, General Hooker from the Pentagon, started s
peaking in an embarrassed tone.

  ‘We regret to admit that we were mistaken,’ he said. ‘General Yehudai was right. The presence of the nuclear arms on our territory, as seen in the video sent to the Tribune, is directly connected to what’s happening in this part of the world. Our State Department has received this recorded message.’

  He pressed the start button on a cassette recorder. A metallic voice, without a trace of an accent, spoke:

  As you listen to this message, an attack by Islamic forces is taking place against the Zionists. It will sweep them away once and for all from the lands that they usurped with the help of the imperialist Americans and Europeans. This is a fair battle because, this time, there cannot be any outside intervention. If the American government or the governments of any of its allies should act, the nuclear devices which you have seen, and which are now in place on American territory, will be activated.

  There was a buzzing sound and then silence.

  Each one of the men looked around at the others. Avner said nothing, aware that everybody already knew what he had to say, but his expression was more eloquent than a thousand words.

  ‘Unfortunately, the threat has to be taken seriously. Our experts have ascertained that the video is genuine and original and, as you already know, the terrorists have become so cocky that they have even shown us where the bombs were assembled. The evidence they left behind is such that there can be no doubt about the authenticity of their threat.’

  ‘Am I right in thinking that the news has been kept secret so far?’ said the Minister of the Interior.

  ‘Certainly,’ said General Hooker. ‘But if we can find out where the bombs are currently located, then we’ll be able to neutralize them and evacuate the population at the same time. Already aircraft equipped with highly sophisticated radiation-detection equipment are flying back and forth over the United States. I’m sorry to say, however, that the results of this operation haven’t been very encouraging.

  ‘The enemy has probably hidden the devices carefully so as to prevent detection. Our attempts to intercept their communications have so far met with failure. Unfortunately, the whole country is being held hostage by these criminals and, right now, we’re not in a position to help anyone because we are helpless ourselves.