Chaney raised a hand, then dropped it quickly as if realizing he weren’t in school. “What about the Muslims?”
“Several Muslim texts refer to the destruction of the Library at their hands after their conquest due to it containing information that contradicted the Koran. But these accounts were written over five hundred years later. Modern scholars think that these were stories spread by Saladin to justify his own destruction of a collection of heretical texts.”
“It would make sense though, if you think about it,” said Terrence. “What with what they did to the Buddhas in Afghanistan, and what they’re doing in Timbuktu right now.”
Laura nodded. “There’s definitely a pattern, but in this case, I think history has judged them unfairly.”
“So what happened to Cleopatra?” asked Chaney. “How did she die?”
Acton poked the fire, eliciting a shower of sparks that drifted over their heads. “There was a civil war in Rome, between Octavian and Antony. Antony and Cleopatra’s armies suffered a series of defeats, and they ultimately fled to Egypt, but Octavian’s armies pursued them. Nearing defeat, Antony received word that Cleopatra had committed suicide, and rather than go on without her, he ran himself through with his sword. As he lay dying, he received word that she was alive, and he was taken to her, to die in her arms.”
“That’s so romantic,” cooed one of the girls, sniffles given anonymity by the darkness indicating she wasn’t alone in her sentiment.
“Probably why Shakespeare wrote about it,” mumbled Reading.
“I didn’t know you were a Shakespeare fan,” said Laura.
Reading shrugged. “School, the occasional play. That’s about it.”
“Are you sure you’re not a closet fan?”
Reading shot her a look that left her giggling.
“So what happened?” asked Chaney, hanging on every word it seemed.
“Octavian captured Cleopatra, but she was permitted to carry out the burial rites, then she too committed suicide.”
Chaney gasped. “Why?”
“She knew Octavian planned to parade her in chains in Rome, and she wanted none of it. She killed herself using what was probably a king cobra, to bite her chest. When she died, her son was briefly named Pharaoh, but he was killed by Octavian, ending the rule of the Pharaohs; Egypt becoming a Roman province called Aegyptus.”
“So why here? Why bury her in the middle of nowhere”—Chaney raised his hand—“sorry, Professor—in a small town like this?”
Laura smiled at the apology as Acton continued. “I find it highly unlikely she would have been buried here. Most think she is buried near Alexandria, and with much of the ancient parts now underwater after a series of earthquakes, it has always been assumed it had been lost forever. But”—Acton shrugged, looking over his shoulder at the new dig site—“it would appear somebody moved her tomb, probably to protect it from grave robbers. And from what we’ve seen, I would guess that they were successful.”
“Until we came along,” laughed Terrence.
“Until we came along,” repeated Acton, his voice drifting as he wondered who might have been protecting the tomb, and whether or not they were still around. It’s been two thousand years. He frowned. That means nothing. His own experiences over the past couple of years had proven that two thousand years only meant an organization could grow to immense proportions if needed, or remain a devoted few, still thriving, if the devotion were strong enough.
We need more guards.
“Umm, Professor?”
Laura leaned toward Acton to see the face the timid voice belonged to.
“Yes, Angela?”
“What would happen if they found out about the tomb?”
“Who found out, dear?”
“The fanatics. Like those who destroyed the Buddhas.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. We’re quite safe here,” said Laura, exchanging a glance with Acton who suddenly felt as unconvinced as she sounded.
For he knew when word got out, they might be in serious danger.
En route to Nubian Desert, Egypt, University College London Dig Site
Morning of the Liberty Island Attack
Colonel Soliman hung onto the dash of the truck, eyeballing Mansoor who was behind the wheel, apparently trying to hit every hole in the road he could find. He kept his mouth shut, as he knew time was of the essence. Their two trucks of men, two dozen in total, as well as a third truck for those at the tomb, had departed within an hour of hearing the news. The location was remote, and their observers had been chased off but remained near, and would join them when they reached the camp, which Soliman estimated should be less than five hours away at this point.
The only thing that could stop them now was a checkpoint, more frequent now with the chaos after the so-called elections, which was why Mansoor was taking the back roads to the site. It was a few hours slower, but even the army didn’t care about this area.
The real question was whether or not the press would beat them to the dig site. He had had his contacts immediately call the press to claim they were at the site and that it wasn’t true, but the feedback had been less than encouraging.
Everyone wanted to confirm the story and were sending out teams.
And they would take the faster main roads, and some would have had a massive head-start since he himself only found out from an advance copy of the paper his connections afforded him.
If they couldn’t beat the press to the site, he didn’t know what they would do. He glanced over his shoulder at the men crammed into the back, their automatic weapons at the ready, their military uniforms genuine, though those wearing them no longer soldiers defending their country.
They were now soldiers of The Brotherhood.
And what task he would ask of them, he did not know, though he feared the worst.
Safe House, Cairo, Egypt
Imam Khalil lay on his bed, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the city. Images played across the back of his eyelids like movies, imagining the glory of today’s deeds to be carried out by his followers in the name of Allah. He opened his eyes and surveyed the austere room without moving his head.
It will be difficult.
He knew once he went public with his address to the world, he would be the most hunted man in the world, and would eventually die, hopefully years later like Osama, with a gun in his hand, having lived out what remained of his life in relative comfort.
He had followers. He had connections. And he would need them all to survive in the days to come.
And this small room in this small house was only the first of many he would be rotated through over the coming months and years. If, Allah willing, all went perfectly, the Muslim Brotherhood would complete its takeover of Egypt, tossing aside its long alliance with the United States and the Infidels, and organizing a joint Arab invasion of Israel to eliminate the cancer that festered in their region. Push them into the sea; leave what remained for the filthy Palestinians. Empty the refugee camps so they could return to their own “land” and stop leeching of the good people of Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere.
He always enjoyed a good chuckle watching or reading the Western press when they would refer to the Palestinian situation. They quite often seemed to ignore the fact that the Arab nations surrounding Israel were home to millions of Palestinian refugees, and none had been allowed to become citizens of their new homelands, all forced to continue to live in squalor for fifty years as the Arab nations wanted them even less than the Israelis did. The Palestinians throughout most of history never truly had a country, always subjugated by one empire or another, and the idea of a Palestinian nation was a modern construct created by Westerners who had no understanding of how much of the world had worked before they conquered it. Most modern borders throughout the Middle East, Africa and much of Asia were drawn by men in London and Paris, who had a penchant for straight lines, ignoring tribal histories in favor of borders composed of neat lines, rivers and mo
untain ranges.
And the legacy?
Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The Kashmir region ignored, not to mention the fact there is no concept of borders amongst Pashtun culture. Then there was Turkey, Iraq, Iran, ignoring the Kurds, and Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and others, ignoring the Palestinians. It wasn’t the Jews who had forced the Palestinians out; it was the ignorant post war leaders who did, by arbitrarily drawing lines on maps to suit their needs, rather than those of the indigenous peoples.
And in the end the Palestinians were forgotten, the Arabs were insulted, and they immediately went to war with Israel. And that infidel state had continually won the wars, and expanded their territory. All perfectly legal, since they were invaded, and didn’t invade to take over territory, but the public relations campaign waged by the Palestinians and the Arabs had confused the issue so much, many if not most in the West thought Israel was the aggressor.
But soon we will be once again.
And with one final push, one concerted effort with the newly restored Islamic fundamentalist states working together, the Jewish question would be solved once and for all, and the single blot on the map of the Arab world would be gone forever, a page in the history books never to be taught to the children who would live there in the future.
Khalil closed his eyes again, a smile on his face as he pictured a world free of the Jews.
If only Hitler had been given more time.
He wasn’t one of those naïve holocaust deniers. He knew it had happened. He simply didn’t think it was a bad thing. Ridding the world of the Jews, along with the homosexuals, mentally and physically handicapped, was merely the responsible thing to do. By ridding the world of them, Hitler intended to create a purer race, and he had succeeded. Look at Europe today. More peaceful than it ever has been throughout its tumultuous history. And why? What had changed?
Hitler had removed eleven million problems. Six million Jews, along with five million other problems.
A glorious achievement.
And his beloved Egypt would soon follow. The Jews were pretty much gone already. Now it was the Christians. With enough pressure, enough violence, those who weren’t killed in the streets or their churches, would flee to the West as refugees, and the Islamic State of Egypt would be happy to see them go, leaving behind a purely Islamic nation.
But first to go would be the false idols. And he could think of nothing more egregious than the pyramids and other structures built to honor pagan false gods. These would be eliminated over time, the first of which would be this afternoon.
There was a knock on his door that had him sitting up and swinging his legs from the bed.
“Enter.”
The owner of the house he was now staying in, Fadil, entered, holding up a copy of the newspaper, shaking it in the air.
“I thought you should see this.”
“What is it?”
Rather than answer, Fadil unfolded the front page and jabbed a finger at the headline.
Khalil’s heart leapt as he saw the page, his chest tightening as adrenaline pumped through his veins as he thought of the opportunity this news brought. To think that today they were going to attack the Pyramid of Cheops, most likely in a failed yet heroic battle, when here lay an even better, unprotected opportunity that would enrapture the world with its audacity.
Today they would destroy the Tomb of Cleopatra.
Nubian Desert, Egypt, University College London Dig Site
Professor James Acton looked at the computer screen, the satellite connection he was using nowhere near the speed he was accustomed to, but as the CNN.com site refreshed, he cursed as he saw a link pop up on the left listing the top stories.
Cleopatra Found?
“We’ve got trouble.”
Laura, lying in her cot, looked up from her eReader.
“How’s that?”
“The story just broke on CNN.”
Laura swung her legs from the cot, putting the eReader under her pillow. “Blast! Already? You’d think they’d at least verify the story before running it.”
Acton chuckled. “Not today, hon. Remember 9/11? CNN and the other stations were reporting everything, unverified, so they wouldn’t be scooped. I remember watching the coverage, and the outlets were reporting seventeen planes unaccounted for, explosions on Capitol Hill, helicopters being shot down at the Pentagon. It was ridiculous! The news is no longer the news, it’s just opinion mixed in with some verified facts now and then. There just isn’t twenty-four hours of interesting stuff happening in the world to keep the viewers’ attention.
“When I was a kid I would sit on my parents’ couch and we would all watch Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings or Sam Donaldson read the news, depending on who my dad wasn’t mad at that week. You’d get the day’s news in thirty minutes, and it was the news. You could flip between the channels, and they’d all be reporting the same, verified facts, and occasionally one would scoop the other. But once CNN came along, everything changed for the worse.” Acton shook his head. “I love sitting in front of the TV watching news, listening to the commentary, but too many people nowadays think it’s all news.”
He looked at Laura who was grinning.
“What?”
“Done?”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her puzzled, then it dawned on him what she was talking about.
“Ha ha. Yes, my diatribe is finished.”
“You should have the university do a study.”
“Remind me when we get back.” Acton stood up. “We better get the site ready for the newshounds. They’ll probably be here by the end of the day.”
Laura rose and they both exited the tent. She stepped over to a pole that had a bell attached to it, and rang the bell several times, signaling the students to assemble at the main tent. Heads poked up from grids, out of tents and one from the port-a-potty, and within minutes everyone had gathered, including the ex-SAS guard.
“May I have everyone’s attention please,” said Laura, raising her voice over the flapping of the tent behind her, a stiff breeze suddenly blowing. “CNN is reporting our discovery, most likely from one of our laborers who fled yesterday. That means we will probably have company soon.”
“Should we be worried?” asked Terrence Mitchell. He had been on this very site when Laura had been kidnapped, and Acton knew full-well how terrified all the students had been based upon Reading’s account when he found them. It was a tribute to their courage that they all came back.
“No,” said Acton, shaking his head. “We might get a deluge of reporters that will quickly die off as they discover we won’t give them access. They’ll get bored, might leave some local crews here for a bit, then things will get back to normal. You’ll probably all get your fifteen minutes on camera, become social media celebrities, get on all the talk shows when you get home, date famous actors, then when the next big discovery is found, you’ll all be dumped like yesterday’s King Tut exhibit.”
There was laughter from the gathered students, and Laura elbowed him.
“You see I’m clearly not marrying him for his sense of humor.”
More laughter, and Acton faked a stab to the heart, dropping to a knee as he looked up at her in mock horror.
“In all seriousness, we will have company. Untrained company, and we need to protect our dig. Luckily I’ve prepared for this. We’ll stake off the site, extending our perimeter to include the new discovery, then set up an area where they can park, set up their own tents if they want, and have access to our latrines and a common area for interviews. Our tents and storage facilities are off limits, the digs and of course the tomb are off limits. Feel free to answer any questions, we’re not hiding anything, but if they want to see anything, they have to come through either myself or Professor Acton.”
Acton, having already risen to both feet, pointed toward the guards.
“If you discover a security breach, don’t try to deal with it yourself, get one of the guards. That’s why they’re
here. We might have some riffraff come in and try to steal some artifacts, which is why we’ll need the tomb guarded at all times, twenty-four-seven.”
Leather nodded an acknowledgement.
Laura handed a map to Terrence. “I want you to take charge. Stake off everything with one meter high stakes and cord as indicated by the blue line on the map.”
Terrence took the map and looked it over along with several other students.
“Questions?”
Head shakes and “no’s” rippled through the gathered throng.
“Okay, get to it, we don’t have much time.”
The students broke, leaving Acton and Laura along with Reading and Chaney and the four guards.
“How can we help?” asked Reading.
“When they get here, having a copper might settle things down a bit, so be prepared for that,” said Laura. “I really hate to ask this of you two, but if you could perhaps keep an eye on things when they get here, maybe in shifts, until things die down or we see how it’s going, that would be fabulous.”
Chaney nodded. “No problem. I’ll help the kids with the staking, Hugh, you get some sleep until our visitors get here. You can take the first shift, I’ll take the night shift.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Reading. “I’m going to make a couple of calls first, see if we can get some local crowd control.”
“Rahim?”
Reading nodded. “He may be more than he said he was, but he’s still an Egyptian cop.” Laura handed him the satellite phone and he wandered off to make his call.
“Rahim?” she asked with a whisper.
“Local cop who was actually a plant. He and Reading were first on the scene when you were kidnapped.”
“Of course, I forgot his name.”
Acton smiled. “If that really is his name.”
The Arab Fall (A James Acton Thriller, Book #6) (James Acton Thrillers) Page 12
