The Exodus Quest

by Will Adams

  ‘He’s boarded! He’s boarded!’

  ‘Follow him.’

  ‘Stop the train. Stop that damned train.’ A burst of static. ‘What the hell do you mean, you don’t know how? Follow it, idiot. Get ahead of it. Wave to the driver. I don’t know.’

  Naguib released his Lada’s handbrake, coasted down a slight incline to park in the shelter of trees as close to the Nile’s edge as was prudent in this dreadful weather. If his bearings were correct, this was all happening a kilometre or so upstream. He turned his headlights on full, the camber aiming them down so that they painted brilliant yellow ellipses on the Nile’s foaming surface, the reflected light illuminating a million raindrops from beneath.

  He felt, for an exquisite moment, that delicious moment of stillness when you don’t have the answer quite yet, but you know for sure it’s coming. And then it arrived.

  Light coming from beneath.

  Yes!

  How blind he’d been! How blind they’d all been!

  III

  The local fishermen had hauled their rowing boats high up the Nile bank in anticipation of the storm, turned them turtle. It took Knox a couple of minutes to find one with a pair of sturdy long slats for oars. He righted it, dragged it down to the water, glanced back. No sign of chase. With luck the police still believed him on the train.

  He pushed out into the fast-running current, jumped aboard, began to row, his mind whirring with the implications of the mosaic. Was it truly possible they referred to Akhenaten? Or was his imagination running away with him? He’d never given much credence to Amarna-Exodus theories. For all their superficial plausibility, there was precious little physical evidence to support them. He was an archaeologist; he liked physical evidence. But the mosaic changed everything.

  Akhenaten, Theoeides, Threskia.

  It wasn’t just theoeides that linked to Akhenaten. Threskia did too. The Greeks hadn’t had a word for religion. Threskia was as close as they’d got. It had denoted anything done in the service of the gods, and the people who did it too, which was why it was sometimes translated as ‘servants of the gods’. Scholars still debated fiercely the etymology of the word ‘Essene’, but it quite possibly meant something very similar, as the word ‘Therapeutae’ almost certainly did. And then there was the name Akhenaten, the one the heretic pharaoh had chosen for himself. For it literally meant ‘One who is useful to the Aten’; or, more simply, ‘Servant of God’.

  The current was fierce, storm-water swelling the Nile as it raced downstream towards the Delta and the Mediterranean. And maybe that was significant too. After all, why should a mosaic of Akhenaten be found on an ancient site outside Alexandria? If the story of the Exodus were even faintly true, and if the Atenists had indeed become the Jews, he could see an explanation.

  Plague had ravaged Egypt during the Amarna era. Perhaps it had started during the reign of Akhenaten’s father, for he’d famously commissioned hundreds of statues of Sekhmet, goddess of disease. And it had certainly persisted throughout Akhenaten’s reign, as made clear by independent Hittite texts as well as the human remains recently found in Amarna’s cemeteries, which showed stark evidence of malnutrition, shortness of stature, anaemia, low life-expectancy; all the classic indicators of epidemic. That fitted neatly with the Exodus account. After all, God had warned Pharaoh to let his people go by inflicting a series of plagues on Egypt. Historians and scientists had long sought to explain these plagues with natural phenomena. One theory argued that they’d actually all been triggered by a volcanic eruption, specifically the eruption of Thera in Santorini sometime during the mid-second millennium BC. It had been a blast of extraordinary magnitude, six times more powerful than Krakatau, the equivalent of thousands of nuclear warheads flinging one hundred cubic kilometres of rock into the atmosphere, debris crashing to earth for hundreds of miles around, just like the hail of fire described in the Bible. And, in the ensuing days and weeks, a great cloud of ash and smoke would have blacked out the sun, turning the world to darkness, just as described in a second plague.

  The rain was still bucketing down, slopping around in the foot of his boat. Knox rested his oars for a while to bale it out with his cupped hands.

  Volcanic ash was strongly acidic. Excessive contact not only caused sickness and boils, it could kill cattle too. Its high iron-oxide content would turn rivers red, suffocating fish. But other species would thrive, particularly egg-layers whose predators had died out. All their eggs would hatch for once, triggering mass infestations of lice, flies, locusts and frogs. So a volcanic eruption could legitimately explain all the biblical plagues except the slaughter of the first-born, and Knox had even heard ingenious explanations for that.

  But it didn’t stop there. From a distance, an eruption looked like a pillar of fire by night, a pillar of smoke by day – just like the one followed by the Jews as they’d fled. And if they’d truly started from Amarna, their obvious route would have been north along the Nile, taking them in the direction of Thera. In fact, by Knox’s reckoning, a line drawn between Amarna and Thera would pass almost directly through the Therapeutae settlement.

  A glow ahead. In the deluge it was hard to make out. But then he realized it was a pair of headlights, pointing directly out over the Nile. Maybe they were out looking for him. He stopped rowing at once, lay down in the boat, let the current drift him through the beams, hoping he was far enough out to remain unseen. The darkness swallowed him again. He picked up the oars once more, rowed towards the bank, his mind back on ancient riddles.

  The Chosen People. That’s what the Jews considered themselves. If any one episode proved the truth of their special covenant it was surely the moment when God parted the Red Sea to help them escape, then brought the waters back to destroy Pharaoh and his army. But actually, according to the Bible, God hadn’t parted the Red Sea at all. That was a mistranslation. He’d parted something called the ‘Sea of Reeds’ instead.

  Scholars debated vigorously where this sea was, many placing it in the ancient marshlands of the eastern Nile Delta. But it would certainly have been an appropriate name for Lake Mariut too, surrounded as it had been by reeds, and directly abutting the Mediterranean in places. Tsunamis were well documented along that stretch of coast, triggered by underwater earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. The first sign of a tsunami was the sea being sucked away in a massive ebb tide, creating acres of new dry land. It could stay that way for hours too, plenty of time to enable an escape, before a huge tidal wave swept in, destroying everything in its path.

  The Nile’s eastern bank came into view ahead.

  Knox stopped paddling and let momentum drift him in.

  The Therapeutae had sung antiphonal chants celebrating the Exodus and the parting of the Sea of Reeds. And so he asked himself a startling question: was it possible that they’d chosen that particular site not out of fear of pogroms, or a wish to be left alone? That, in fact, the Therapeutae weren’t some small offshoot of the Essenes, but that their Borg el-Arab site actually commemorated the great miracle of Exodus itself?

  The boat’s keel scraped earth. He jumped out, hauled it up the bank out of the river’s reach and stowed the oars. He was about to head on up the slope when he heard a distinctive noise behind him. A handgun had just been cocked. He stopped dead, slowly raised his hands and turned around.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  I

  It was a sultry evening, not made any more comfortable by the malfunctioning air conditioning inside Cairo Airport’s Terminal 2. Griffin was sweating profusely by the time he and his students reached check-in, his anxiety levels off the chart, certain it had to be showing on his face. But the woman behind the desk was fighting a yawn as she beckoned him forward. She took the fan of passports he offered, printed out their boarding cards, checked in their luggage, then muttered something that he didn’t quite catch, thanks to a buzzing in his ears that he sometimes suffered under stress. ‘I’m sorry?’ he said. He leaned in close as she repeated it. But her English was hea
vily accented and he couldn’t make it out.

  She sighed, exasperated, scribbled a figure on a piece of paper, turned it to show him. His heart was pounding; he could feel the dank pools of sweat beneath his armpits. He fished out his wallet, pulled out a thick wad of twenty-dollar bills, begging her with his eyes to take however much she wanted, just as long as she let them through. She glanced over her shoulder, saw her supervisor standing there, turned back to him with downcast eyes, plucked a single note from his sheaf, made a calculation on her screen, then gave him his change in Egyptian pounds. His heart-rate relaxed a little, only to pick up again as they queued for passport control. But they got through that safely too, leaving him feeling drained and nauseous with relief. He found a restroom, leaned against a sink, studying himself in the mirror, the greyness of his complexion, how old he looked, the wild trembling of his hands.

  He felt a twinge of guilt as he thought of Claire, but he shut her from his mind. One thing at a time. Boarding would start in forty-five minutes. With luck, in two hours or so, they’d be out of Egyptian jurisdiction altogether. Then he could worry about Claire.

  He ran cold water into his cupped hands, brought them up to meet his face, almost as if he was at prayer. He dried himself off with a paper towel that he screwed up and threw at an overflowing bin, so that it fell onto the floor. Conscience pricked him: he picked it up and put it in his pocket. Then he practised a smile in the mirror and concentrated on holding it in place as he went back out to rejoin his students.

  II

  In the darkness, it took Knox a moment to see the policeman sheltering beneath the trees, his handgun pointed slightly to one side, prepared to use it, but not yet. He was short and slight but he carried himself with calm self-assurance, so that Knox didn’t even consider running. ‘You’re Daniel Knox,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Knox.

  ‘I am going to ask you some questions. Lie if you wish, that is up to you. But you’d be wise to tell the truth.’

  ‘What questions?’

  ‘To start with, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Looking for a friend.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Her name’s Gaille Bonnard. She was taken hostage a couple of—’

  ‘I know who she is. But she was abducted down in Assiut. So what are you doing here?’

  ‘I don’t think it happened in Assiut,’ said Knox. ‘I think it happened here.’

  ‘My name is Naguib Hussein,’ said the policeman. ‘My wife and I, we saw you on television one time. It was you, wasn’t it? With this woman Gaille and the secretary general, announcing the discovery of Alexander’s tomb?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My wife said how nice you looked. It twists me inside when my wife says that about a man. I think that’s why she says it. But their names stay with me too. So when I hear on my radio that it is Daniel Knox my colleagues are searching for, I think, ah, he is worried for his friend the woman, he has come to see if he can help.’

  Knox jerked his head in the direction of the far bank. ‘Have you told them that?’

  ‘It would do little good, I assure you. My boss does not think much of me. And he’s already told me once today to stop pestering him with my crazy ideas about strange goings-on in Amarna.’

  ‘Strange goings-on?’ asked Knox.

  ‘I thought that might interest you,’ smiled Naguib. He lowered his handgun, gestured along the bank. ‘My car is that way,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should get out of the rain and tell each other what we know.’

  III

  As long as she could remember, Lily had struggled with thoughts of killing herself. Mostly they were just blinks, gone as quickly as they’d arrived, locked safely back in their box. But sometimes the thoughts wouldn’t leave. They’d stay with her for hours, days, even weeks. They’d build and build until she’d think she’d never get through to the other side. Whenever it got too much, she’d hurry to some place of sanctuary, lock out the world, let the tears come. I wish I were dead, she’d yell. I wish I were fucking dead. And she’d mean it too. At least, her wish for oblivion felt sincere. But she’d never done much about it, other than edge near the platform as trains hurtled past, or stare hungrily up at the top-floor balconies of high-rises.

  The water was coming down as relentlessly as ever. Lily was kneeling throat-deep on the mound, her arms around Gaille, supporting her head on her shoulder, allowing the rest of her to float. The chill had long-since penetrated right into her bones, so that every so often she’d break into violent shudders.

  Strange childhood memories. Standing in the shadows outside a party, trying to summon the courage to knock. Her neck burning at half-heard remarks. A stray dog she’d once seen, trapped in a garden by two callous young boys so they could throw stones at it, how she’d ducked her head and hurried past, scared of what they’d say if she tried to intervene. How those whimpers and yelps had haunted her for days, a stain upon her soul. Her whole life dictated by her birthmark, a birthmark that didn’t even exist any more.

  ‘I’m not like that,’ she yelled out at the darkness. ‘I’m not fucking like that, okay? That’s not how I was made.’

  It was one thing to think about death in the abstract. There was something noble, romantic, even vindicating in the prospect. But the real thing wasn’t like that. All it provoked was terror. Another set of shivers wracked through her. She clenched her eyes in an effort not to cry, tightened her grip around Gaille. She’d never believed in God, she’d always felt too bitter with the world. But others did, people she respected, and maybe they knew what they were talking about. Beneath the water, her hands clasped tight. Just let me live, she begged silently. I want to live. I want to live. Please God, I want to live.

  IV

  Claire was hustled through the corridors of the police station to a small interview room with greasy yellow walls and an ugly acrid smell. Farooq made her sit on a hard wooden chair he placed deliberately out in open space, so that she didn’t even have a table to hide behind. Then he prowled round and round her, jabbing his cigarette at her, thrusting his face into hers, spraying her with spittle that she didn’t dare wipe away. He had a gift for languages, it turned out. He used it to abuse her in Arabic, French and English. He called her a whore, a thief, a slut, a bitch. He demanded she tell him where Peterson and the others were.

  Claire hated conflict. She always had. It made her feel unwell, provoked an overwhelming longing to placate. But she remembered what Augustin had told her. ‘I want to speak to a lawyer,’ she told them.

  Farooq threw up his hands. ‘You think a lawyer can help you? Don’t you realize how much trouble you’re in? You’re going to gaol, woman. You’re going in for years.’

  ‘I want to speak to a lawyer.’

  ‘Tell me where Peterson is.’

  ‘I want to speak to a lawyer.’

  ‘The others. I want their names. I want the name of the hotel you’ve been staying at.’

  ‘I want to speak to a lawyer.’

  ‘I’m going for a coffee,’ spat Farooq. ‘You need to get wise fast, you stupid bitch. It’s your only chance.’ He stormed out, slamming the steel door so hard it made her jump.

  Hosni had been leaning against the wall this whole time, arms folded, neither condoning nor intervening. But now he cocked an amused eyebrow at her, pulled up a chair that he set obliquely to hers, instantly reducing the sense of confrontation. ‘I hate all this,’ he sighed. ‘It’s not right, bullying nice people. But he’s my boss. There’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘I want to speak to a lawyer.’

  ‘Listen, you need to understand something. Farooq’s been made a fool of today. He’s lost face with the guys. He needs a victory, however small. Something to show them, you know. I’m not defending him. I’m just telling you how it is. Give him something, anything, and this can be over for you, just like that.’

  She hesitated. Augustin had promised he’d be right behind her, but she’d kept glancing out of the
back of the police car, and there’d been no sign of him. She remembered how short a time she’d known him, how little she knew about him, that she had no reason whatever to trust him, other than her instincts and her heart. ‘I want to speak to a lawyer.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That’s not possible. You must see that. This isn’t America. This is Egypt. We do things the Egyptian way. And the Egyptian way is to cooperate. That way everyone benefits. Where are your colleagues?’

  ‘I want to speak to a lawyer.’

  ‘Please don’t keep saying that. It’s discourteous. You don’t strike me as a discourteous person. You’re not, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t think so. You look nice. Out of your depth, sure. But nice. I promise you, if you trust me, I can help you sort this out.’

  She glanced around at the steel door, not just locking her in, but locking help out too. ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘Please. I’m on your side, I really am. I want to help you. Just give me some names. That’s all I ask. We didn’t write them down earlier. Give me some names and I’ll get Farooq off your back, I promise.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You have to. Someone has got to pay for what’s been going on. You must see that. If we can’t find anyone else, it’s going to be you.’

  Tears of self-pity pricked the corner of her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand, wondering what time it was, whether Griffin and the others would have boarded their plane yet, be safely on their way. ‘I can’t,’ she said again.

  ‘I hate to see women being bullied. I really hate it. It’s against our culture. Please just tell me the names of your colleagues. That’s all.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I understand,’ he nodded seriously. ‘They’re your colleagues, your friends. It wouldn’t feel right. I appreciate that. I admire it. But look at it this way: they’ve left you here alone to face the consequences of their actions. They’ve betrayed you. You owe them nothing. Please. Just one name. That’s all. I can convince Farooq you’re on our side if you give me just one name.’