He threw his overcoat round his shoulders and left the bar, walking through the streets of the old city until he found himself in front of his house. He went in and took the stairs all the way up, slowly, as he did whenever he’d managed not to overdo the cigarettes. When he got to his landing and paused to catch his breath, a voice he had not heard for some time sounded from a dark corner.
‘Good evening, sir.’
Avner was slightly startled but did not turn. He said, as he was turning the key in the lock, ‘Hello, night porter. Frankly, I never thought we’d meet again.’
‘I believe you. It wasn’t easy to outlive all those cut-throats you sent out after me. From land and sky.’
Avner opened the door and gestured for his unexpected guest to enter. ‘Come in, Professor Blake. I imagine you have something to say to me.’
Blake walked in. Avner switched on a light and indicated a chair, then sat down himself. He brought his hands to his face. ‘You have a gun in that briefcase, don’t you? You’ve come to kill me,’ he said. ‘Go ahead, if you want. For me there’s no difference between living and dying.’
‘We had a pact,’ said Blake.
‘That’s true. I had you released from fifteen years of prison in Egypt. You, in return, were to continue researching the Breasted papyrus, for us this time, providing us with any useful information you found in the course of your research.’
‘And that’s what I did. Taking considerable risks. So why . . .’
Avner cracked a mocking smile. ‘The unexpected, Blake. Unforeseen circumstances are those that determine the course of events. When my agents went to Chicago to bring you the documents you’d need to establish a new identity and a new cover that would get you back into Egypt, you weren’t there any more. You’d disappeared. At first I thought that the shock of being kicked out of your university had proved too much for you, but then I heard your voice.’
Blake widened his eyes. ‘That’s impossible. But then . . . Gordon and Sullivan—’
‘They never worked for me. I didn’t even know their names before you started talking about them. Now, if you had violated the rule that you were given – never speak of the organization or refer to the true identity of another agent, not even with the person himself – you would have realized the truth right away.’
‘I always respect the terms of an agreement.’
‘So do I. When I can. The first time you called, I realized immediately that something was wrong. But what you were discovering was even more interesting. And so I let you continue, as if it had all been prearranged. It was extraordinary how you reported in without ever referring to yourself in the first person, not even when you were talking about your own dig. Extraordinary! A natural talent.’
‘I was following the security measures you had given me. You can never be sure that someone isn’t listening in.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And yet you ordered the massacre at Ras Udash! Pointless slaughter! Then you unleashed everyone you could on me: the Israelis, the Egyptians, the Americans—’
‘Pointless?’ Avner jumped out of his chair, incensed. ‘You stupid, naïve American. Do you realize what consequences your discovery would have had if the world had found out about it? Blake, you would have deprived most of humanity of their faith in eternity! You would have wiped out what remains of the spirit, the soul, of Western civilization. And you would have destroyed the identity of my people. Isn’t that enough for you? I would have done what I did for much less.’
‘So, if I don’t kill you now, I’ll never leave this country alive.’
‘No, you won’t,’ said Avner. ‘You should never have come here.’
‘You’re wrong. You’d just be committing another senseless murder.’
‘So you still don’t understand,’ said Avner as he watched Blake’s hand slip into his briefcase. His thoughts wandered, and he knew that he didn’t care about anything any more and that he had absolutely no desire to fight back. He turned his gaze to a photograph on the tabletop, of a young man of about twenty,
and said, ‘Hurry up if you’re going to do it. I can’t stand indecision.’
Blake didn’t say anything, but placed a white folder on the table.
‘What’s that?’ asked Avner, suddenly perturbed.
‘The Breasted papyrus. I always live up to my word. My translation is alongside. If you trust me.’
Avner opened the folder. The colours and the ideograms of the papyrus shone under a sheet of protective plastic. He began to read the translation, his expression filling, line by line, with increasing amazement and consternation:
From Pepitamon, scribe and overseer of the sacred palaces of the Royal Harem, humble servant of your Majesty, to the princess Bastet Nefrere, light of Upper and Lower Egypt. Greetings.
I followed the Habiru from Pi-Ramses through the Sea of Reeds as you commanded me, and then into the desert of the east, where they wandered for years living on locusts and roots. I lived like them and spoke like them. I ate what they ate and drank the bitter water of the wells and only in secret did I pray to the great Gods of Egypt.
On the day that the Habiru went back to worshipping Apis the sacred bull, melting their golden earrings to build an image, I rejoiced, hoping that even the heart of your beloved son Moses would be won over. But Moses destroyed the Bull, committing a sacrilege, and built an altar to the God of the Habiru and a wretched sanctuary made of goat skins.
When his time came and Moses became ill and died, the Habiru buried him in a hole in the sand, like the carcass of a dog or a jackal, without even a marker that remembered his name.
Since I could not bring him back to Egypt, His Majesty having forbidden the return of the exile, I waited until his people had gone, and then I did your will. I had our quarrymen and stone-cutters come all the way to the heart of the desert, where they excavated a tomb worthy of a prince. The place I chose was the same where Moses had raised his sanctuary of goat skins, so that it might be purified.
I embalmed his body and I laid a finely fashioned mask on his face. I added the images of the gods and everything that a great prince could need for his journey to the Immortal Place and the fields of Yaru. And I have ensured that the secret will never be violated. No one left that place alive, except your humble servant.
May Osiris, Isis and Horus protect Your Majesty and your humble servant Pepitamon, who prostrates himself in the dust before you.
‘You killed them for nothing,’ said Blake when Avner had finished reading. ‘It’s true that Moses was buried according to Egyptian ritual, in the tomb of Ras Udash. But he was already dead, and it was done against his last wish.’
‘I . . . I could never have imagined . . . and neither could you, Blake. No one could have imagined this. Where is the tomb, Blake? Where is he buried?’
‘I won’t tell you, Avner. Because where he was buried is also the site of the tent sanctuary, the place where the Ark was hidden during the siege of Jerusalem. I saw it, Avner. The Ark. I saw it shining through the dense dust. I saw the golden wings of the cherubs. But you have the nuclear bombs of Beersheba, Avner. You don’t need the Ark of the Covenant.
‘Oh, I was forgetting,’ he added. He reached into his jacket pocket, extracted a small transmitter shaped like a fountain pen and laid it on the table. ‘I can only use this to communicate with you, and, frankly, I have nothing more to say.’ He left and closed the door behind him.
When he was at the bottom of the stairs, he heard a pistol shot, dampened by a silencer. He turned on the landing and looked up.
‘Goodbye, Mr Avner,’ he said. ‘Shalom.’
And he left, losing himself in the crowd.
Author’s Note
The idea for this novel emerged during my four excavation campaigns at Har Karkom in the Negev desert of Israel, several kilometres south of the Mitzpe Ramon crater. The place was apparently insignificant, a windswept landscape carved by erosion, but the mountain hid a secret. All around
its base were traces of dozens of semi-nomadic settlements, with altars, shrines and necropolises testifying to human presence there from Palaeolithic times to the Hellenistic age. At the peak of the mountain we found signs of a sanctuary; on the plateau surrounding it I excavated a large mound of flint blocks that contained a single artefact: a piece of white limestone carved into a half-moon shape. I hypothesized that the mountain had been consecrated to the moon-god Sin. Along with other finds, this led the director of the mission, Professor E. Anati, to believe that Har Karkom might be the true Mount Sin-ai of the Bible. Over thirty thousand stone carvings have been identified and catalogued on the mountain’s slopes, but on the land surrounding it there is no trace of human activity for kilometres and kilometres, not a single scratch or symbol. Some of the carvings on the mountain are very striking because they reproduce biblical symbols, such as the staff and the serpent, a man praying before a fire or a burning bush, two tablets divided into ten sections and an oft-repeated eye, hinting at an invisible but ubiquitous presence. On Mount Karkom proper there are no traces of human presence after the early Bronze Age (in fact, the beds of the Palaeolithic huts are still perfectly conserved), possibly indicating that it had become taboo to set foot on the mountain itself.
The events that lead up to the story told in the first chapter are inspired by the Book of Kings as well as the Book of Baruch, which reveals that the prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark of the Covenant at Mount Horeb (Sinai) and returned to Jerusalem two weeks later, coincidentally the exact amount of time it would take for a man on foot to reach Mount Karkom from Jerusalem and make his return. Not too far from Har Karkom there is another mountain topped by enigmatic stone platforms which may be altars, on which traces of extremely high-temperature fires have been found. I excavated one of these platforms, but was unable to find a single element that could help me to understand its significance.
The rest of the story is pure imagination, but the reader will soon notice that the plot embodies the threat of a monstrous terrorist assault on US soil, although using different means and methods than the attack of September 11th, 2001. The novel was first published three years before 9/11 and could not have foreseen the actual turn of events, but I was certainly influenced by the premonition of an imminent act of extreme violence, made inevitable, to my mind, by the clash of civilizations. The novel also hypothesizes that in a time of great political tension, such as that engendered by the situation in Israel and Palestine, a chance discovery might rock consolidated religious ‘certainties’ and seriously destabilize the balance of international power.
The story is told in the fashion of a classic international thriller, but it contains many well-founded – and quite chilling – suggestions and hypotheses, which I hope will not pass unnoticed.
Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Christmas 2007
PHARAOH
VALERIO MASSIMO MANFREDI is professor of classical archaeology at the Luigi Bocconi University in Milan. Further to numerous academic publications, he has published ten works of fiction, including the Alexander trilogy, which has been translated into thirty-four languages in fifty-five countries. His novel The Last Legion was released as a major motion picture. He has written and hosted documentaries on the ancient world and has written screenplays for cinema and television.
Also by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
ALEXANDER: CHILD OF A DREAM
ALEXANDER: THE SANDS OF AMMON
ALEXANDER: THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
SPARTAN
THE LAST LEGION
HEROES
(formerly The Talisman of Troy)
TYRANT
THE ORACLE
EMPIRE OF DRAGONS
THE TOWER
THE LOST ARMY
First published 2008 by Macmillan
First published in paperback 2008 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
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www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-52808-5 PDF
ISBN 978-0-330-52619-7 EPUB
Copyright © Valerio Massimo Manfredi 2008
Translation copyright © Macmillan 2008
First published in Italian 1998 as Il Farone delle Sabbie by
Arnoldo Mondadori S.p.A, Milano
The right of Valerio Massimo Manfredi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him/her/them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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