by A J Marshall
“You presume right, Mam,” answered the man. He had a pronounced southern accent. “You had better come in here . . . please, if you will,” he continued, and led the way into a small sitting room. An overhead light came on automatically and cast its effect over a sparsely furnished square-shaped room. There was an open fireplace where a number of small logs glowed in the hearth in a controlled, subdued fashion. “Sorry,” the man said, gesturing to a place on a two-seater couch. “Electricity is expensive and when my wood supply is gone – and that’s going to be pretty soon – it’s gunna get damn cold around here.” He sat down opposite Abbey in a comfortable chair and his narrow face contorted to show his indifference. “I’m too old for this. You know that, don’t you?” he snapped.
Abbey loosened and dropped her patterned, dark blue scarf and unbuttoned the coat to her waist. Her smooth shoulder-length bleached fair hair held its shape by turning in at the bottom, and her makeup was immaculate, particularly her pale red lipstick. Although in her late fifties, she looked younger. On the other hand, the man looked older than he actually was and his unshaven and unkempt appearance fell well short of his professional reputation. Abbey eyed him for a few moments: his blue jeans, his wide brown leather belt, his open-necked cowboy-check shirt and his scuffed calf leather ankle boots. “You are sixty-three next month, Mr Smith,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Retirement age is seventy, and that’s global. Unless, of course, and contrary to your profile, you are a man of independent means?”
The man squirmed. He knew that they knew his exact financial status. “Not for this kind of work it isn’t,” he replied gruffly. “It takes a lot out of you – you’ve got to be fit, both mentally and physically.”
“You are on the CIA’s reserve list, Mr Smith. That means you have a responsibility to keep fit.” Abbey gave no quarter.
The man’s eyes narrowed and he went to speak but Abbey cut him short. “It was you who found our agent in Egypt. That was a brilliant piece of work.”
“You mean Richard Reece and that woman, that special woman . . . that was four years ago and it was a biased zone with a narrow profile. What I mean is we had a high probability factor; we knew about Luxor and KV5 used that location to kick off the search – that made it easier. I remember it clearly – you don’t forget it when someone senses your presence. She had an ability to see the subconscious. I never heard of that before and never since. Anyway, in this business you need to practice, otherwise you lose the ability . . . to give direction, I mean. You lose it!”
Abbey nodded in an understanding way. “I am aware of that, Mr Smith, but this mission is vital, absolutely vital, both for the US and the United Kingdom. But you already know that, don’t you.” She pierced him with her eyes. “We need your abilities and your cooperation,” she said, forcing her will. “To help you we have recruited Oscar Perram.”
Ike Smith’s eyes widened. “You’ve got Oscar! But he left the programme a decade ago.”
“He was your best friend for more than twenty-five years, that I know. Within the department your partnership was legendary – you had the best results of any pairing.”
Ike Smith nodded and reminisced for a few moments. “He was a good man . . . and a good friend, yes he was.”
“He still is both of those things as it happens; it’s just that the new identity programme prevents any contact between former operatives – that’s standard procedure. He is on-board, Mr Smith, and we need you too.” Abbey drew back her pointed stare.
Smith looked warily at her. “Why are the Brits involved in this . . . ? Why not the department?”
“It’s our job, Mr Smith. Our agents and our call – quite simple. Of course we will be working in close collaboration with . . .”
“Okay . . . okay, I understand. When then, do we start? And where is it you want me to survey?”
“I am unable to brief you here, Mr Smith, for security reasons. You must realise that.” Abbey smiled and her expression softened. “But there is something I must ask you.”
“What is it . . . if I can?”
“We are trying to reform an earlier team – from the twenties and thirties. There was a good deal of success during that period within your department; it’s well documented, although that information is still top secret. You had two colleagues during those years – Charles Springer and Leon Rickenbach. Like you they have been in . . . semi-retirement, shall we say. The department has tried to contact them, unsuccessfully I might add. It seems that they are missing. Their respective overseers have not heard from them in almost two weeks – that’s two compulsory registrations missed. One more, due on the thirtieth – well, that will result in a recall and disciplinary procedures – most unusual, I’m told. Notwithstanding the anonymity protocol, do you have any idea as to their whereabouts, Mr Smith?”
“Those two . . . they weren’t colleagues, but I knew them well enough. They joined the programme after me and left before. Unreliable, yeah, always were – rebels, renegades. They got caught surveying the inside of the Shanghai and Oriental Bank once – the US Headquarters on Wall Street. Only they got more than they bargained for, because there was some kind of Feng Shui or something going on inside. It restricted Rickenbach’s flow. There were subliminal markers; he disturbed them and the alarms went off. It was Rickenbach who went in and Springer debriefed. They got away with it though. No criminal charges; no prosecution. Why? Because the programme was so secret – they said it was for practice, but everybody knew they were passing information out. Nothing was ever proved.” Smith nodded knowingly. “Springer was a dual operative, a surveyor and a debriefer. He had a talent for both, that’s true. He was money orientated . . . had no scruples. Nor did Rickenbach. Couldn’t see either of them surviving on a pension, not into their old age. The department should be careful, that’s my advice.”
“So you have no idea where they can be?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. Anyway, I’m the last person either of them would call. I was the programme’s self-defence instructor for more than a decade. Fitness of mind and body is key to extreme distance projection – that’s why I did so well in that field. Springer tried his luck once. I put him down well enough.”
“I see,” said Abbey, thoughtfully. She sat bolt upright during their conversation. Perched on the edge, she found the couch uncomfortable. She eyed the room for a few seconds before giving Mr Smith her full attention again. “The United States Air Force has kindly provided an aircraft to take us to London,” she said. “It is waiting for us now. Apparently, we have an hour’s drive to Charleston Airport. How soon can you be ready?”
CHAPTER 13
Ancient Conscript
Due to the time difference, Richard had put in a call to Rachel in the early hours. It had been patched through the government system routing by way of an off-shore warship and broadcast via the secure but ageing IMARSAT 2 satellite, care of Peter Rothschild. He was grateful for the opportunity, although Rachel’s remarks had left him unsettled for the remainder of the night and now he felt tired. He knew how unimpressed she was with his recall and rightly so, taking its timing into account, but it was hardly his fault. She had become a difficult woman to please of late, he mused, and he wondered if the confinement of Andromeda – with its social and cultural limitations – was taking its toll. But surely no more so than on Mars, and she has been happy there, he recalled. Perhaps I should have taken up my old job again, a few years ago, when Commander Miko had offered it, instead of accepting promotion. And there was the religious thing, too – or rather lack of it. Andromeda provided adequate facilities, there was no question of that, and with the expansion every faith had its own place of worship. But she had left God behind on Earth, she said, and that continued to trouble her – perhaps because the permanence of life on the Moon now loomed. Would the fertility programme be the last straw? His thoughts lingered on her for some time. She will have finished her duty in the clinic by now and would probably be in the gym starting her dai
ly electrostatic heavy-gravity routine, he concluded. He breathed a long sigh.
Someone called from outside the room; it was muffled and, together with the accent, quite incomprehensible. Richard sprang out of bed, pulled on borrowed cotton pyjama trousers and half-hopped to the door. Keeping his body concealed he opened the door and pushed his head through the gap. It was the housekeeper, the wife of Ashai – he had met her briefly the evening before. “Oh! Good morning, Hinda. How are you?”
“Sabah el kheer, Mr Richard. I am well thank you. The Professor is already in the dining room. Please, breakfast is served.” She handed Richard his laundered shirt and trousers and pointed down at his boots that had been cleaned, polished and placed neatly together outside his door. “Ashai,” she concluded.
Richard bowed graciously and checked his chronometer. “Jeez, it’s almost ten! Sorry. I’ll be down in five minutes.”
Richard and Professor Mubarakar walked from the impressive dining room, which was more like an art gallery-cum-museum, into a broad hallway. That in turn led to the study – only this time they entered through a secondary doorway. Richard sat in the same chair as he had the previous evening and appeared very satisfied with his breakfast. “Excellent hospitality.” he said, “Thank you.”
The ever-efficient Hinda, as Richard now thought of her, had left them with a pot of Mubarakar’s customary mint tea and the Professor seemed content to sip from his porcelain cup in silence for some time. Eventually, after a second cup, this time sweetened with two generous teaspoonfuls of honey, Mubarakar appeared refreshed enough to tackle the day and he focused his attention on the screen of an electronic tablet reader and began scanning the day’s headlines.
Richard, for his part, thinking it polite to allow the Professor his own routine in the morning, wandered the room. He was fascinated by what he saw. More pictures hung on the walls, and a particularly large work that caught his eye was of the familiar Pyramids on the Plain of Giza. The beautiful blue sky made him stare longingly at it. A long camel train comprising twenty or more animals passed in front of the great monuments. It was a desert scene of amazing depth and clarity. Apparently carrying wealthy merchants, as the oil painting was called Gifts for the Emperor, each gangling beast was draped in colourful traditional fabrics. The surrounding, sprawling conurbation of Cairo that Richard knew well was nowhere to be seen. It was an inspiring landscape, a scene full of texture, depth and movement.
“1799,” said the Professor, proudly, looking up at Richard and then at the masterpiece. “During our occupation by the French. It was painted by one of Bonaparte’s favourite war artists, a man called Frederic Garçony. Apparently, so the story goes, he was present when the Emperor ordered the shelling of the Sphinx the previous year, because he thought the monument had a contemptuous smirk, or similar. In reality, he may have been responsible for some minor damage, but primarily it is believed that successive Mamelukes did most of the defacing. Over a period of centuries you understand.” The Professor shook his head sadly, as he had probably done a hundred times before at the very thought of it. “And that one,” he said with emphasis. “Did you see that great work?” Mubarakar pointed to a much smaller painting to Richard’s right. It hung at head height and Richard walked over to it. He could see that it had a naval theme and studied the details keenly. This oil on canvas was less than a metre long and a little over half a metre high, although the wide gilt frame made it look much more substantial. “That one is more up your street, as you English say,” Mubarakar added.
Richard stared at the scene for a few moments. Sailing warships from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; ships of the line engaged in heated battle. The exploding light around the cannon ports took his eye – Richard sensed the heat. And billowing smoke from a dismasted galleon and the shredded French colours that hung limply from another masthead. Richard gestured his admiration and pointed at particular elements of detail where contoured oils applied with such enviable skill made the sea dark and ominous with its swell and whitecaps and the flotilla of small boats, some with survivors clinging to their toprails and transoms and there, a British Man of War was holding station in the thick of the action. He turned to look at the Professor. “Rear Admiral of the Blue Sir Horatio Nelson on HMS Vanguard, against Admiral Brueys d’Aigalliers,” he said, with a questioning tone. “Is it an original?”
“I see you know your naval history well, my young friend. The Battle of the Nile, 1st August 1798, also known as Aboukir Bay. It was fought east of here, but not by far. Of course the British Fleet won a resounding victory, arguably one of the decisive battles of naval warfare.”
Richard nodded, he knew of it well enough.
“The painting was acquired by my great-great-grandfather . . . from an Egyptian Prince, my father told me. Payment for services rendered, some even said to clear a gambling debt. The artist’s name. Do you see it? Do you see it there?”
“John Randolph Scott, 1799,” Richard said and shrugged.
“The favoured artist of King George III, you know. You do make me smile, you British, so patriotic and yet that King was from the House of Hanover – he was German!”
“Does the Admiralty know of this work? It must be priceless,” Richard said, neutrally, side-stepping the remark.
Mubarakar nodded. There was a glimmer of mischief in his expression. “They know. I told them more than thirty years ago. I would like to . . . exchange it, for a piece of ancient Alexandria – Cleopatra’s Needle. What do you say?”
Richard laughed. Cleopatra’s Needle . . . ! “That obelisk has stood on the Embankment in London since, well, the eighteen hundreds.”
“1878 to be precise, but before that it was here in Alexandria, and before that in Heliopolis for several thousand years. Do you think they will grant a dying man’s wishes, um?”
Richard smiled warily. “You are not dying Professor, contrary to popular belief. You are just slowing down a bit – and that’s acceptable, even for you. As for an exchange . . . I don’t think so, somehow.” He shrugged. “Rightly or wrongly, old empires tend to hang on to their contraband. Anyway, if I remember rightly that monument was a gift.”
“No doubt you are right.”
“You know well enough, Professor.” Richard smiled wryly.
Mubarakar leaned back in his chair in a resigned way and took another sip of tea, lifting the cup to his lips with both hands. “Now, Richard,” he said, after a few moments and seemingly enlivened by the promise of a new quest, “we must discuss what has been found here in this great city of the past. There is not and never has been another city to match this one, Richard.” He pulled some notes onto his lap from the table. “It was a glittering metropolis, founded by those whose ambitions knew no bounds. It was a magical place that boasted one of the Seven Wonders of the World, where intellectual geniuses from both East and West jostled and debated, where, in its great library, the knowledge of the entire planet was contained. Had things been different, Alexandria would be a household name, like Babylon or Athens or Rome, and yet this amazing city with its sprawling suburbs is just a footnote in history. Why?”
Richard fidgeted, wondering where the Professor was going with his history lesson.
“Queen Cleopatra, her lovers Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, Archimedes, and many other great Greek thinkers all walked its streets,” Mubarakar continued, “but what is more important is what they saw here.” Mubarakar’s eyes sparkled at the thought of it. “Machines roamed elegantly appointed streets. They moved as if alive, Richard . . . all here, where we are. Steam-powered lions, trees full of singing mechanical birds, automatic doors, hovering objects, this is all recorded fact. It is said that the Great Library contained seven hundred and fifty thousand books. The ‘chatterers’, scribes, the scratching of their reed pens on papyrus, day and night, year after year, the copying of tombs, one after another - the sum of vast but now forgotten knowledge.” Mubarakar paused briefly. “Where did it come from, Richard?” He leaned forward to rein
force the gravity of the question. “Historians believe that this city dates from the third century BC, when Alexander the Great first dreamed of dominating the known world. However, I have found proof that it is much, much older. I have found proof that this city served as the sea port to Atlantis, sharing in its technology and ideology. And there were other ports too, in the Eastern Mediterranean. Of lesser importance, it is true.”
“But Professor, the existence of that level of science can’t be proved – not in Atlantis, not anywhere, at that time. We’ve been down that road. There is some documentary evidence, mention of it, yes. The mapped coordinates in the spaceship’s log I found on Mars, for instance. But the consensus of opinion is that the technology came much later. There’s always someone with a better explanation.” Richard paused, seemingly a little disappointed. “As far as Atlantis goes, we know of the earthquake and the tsunami, and I read that a good deal of ancient Alexandria still lies beneath relatively shallow water as a result of that catastrophe.” Richard shook his head. “I think Atlantis will always be a fable, Professor.”
“Not this time!”
Richard breathed out heavily. “What have you got then? And how old? What period are we talking here?” he asked, in a humouring kind of way.
“At least as old as Eridu, and that of the great civilisation in Mexico. It is a shame that nothing remains of Mohenjo Daro in Pakistan.”
“How is this going to help, Professor?” Richard asked, unable to hide an element of frustration. “Peter said that you had something to show me, something that might help with our understanding of the crystals.”
“And that I have,” replied Mubarakar exuberantly. He checked the time again. “My team of archaeologists from the University found it five days ago. There is a diving facility at the docks. That is where we go now. Where is my stick?” At that moment a loud bell sounded outside. Its reverberations still echoed in the hall as Ashai knocked and opened the door to the study.
