Pharaoh (Jack Howard 7)

by Gibbins, David

  Costas stood up and backed away. ‘I don’t want to see.’

  Hiebermeyer put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. We’ve reburied them exactly as they were, and we’re about to infill the trench. We’ve arranged that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who administer the Khartoum War Cemetery, will take charge of the site. They mainly deal with Second World War casualties from the desert campaign against the Italians and the Germans, but they also have charge of First World War casualties from the war against the Turks as well as any bodies discovered from the 1880s and 1890s. We know the names of these two soldiers from their personal effects, and the Sudanese authorities have allowed the Commission to build a monument at this spot.’

  ‘So that closes the chapter on that fateful day in December 1884,’ Jack murmured, looking pensively at the tarpaulin.

  ‘It closes that chapter, but it opens another one,’ replied Hiebermeyer, his eyes gleaming. ‘Just like in the sangar, when they dug down here the soldiers cut through something else, something ancient. They probably thought it was the remains of earlier human burials, but when Aysha and her team removed the surrounding sediment, they found something unexpected. Prepare to be amazed.’ He lifted a flap of canvas dividing off part of the tent beyond the trench, and they stared in astonishment. On a hospital gurney at one end was an intact mummy, the criss-crossed strips of linen clearly visible beneath the hardened resin on the surface. The head was in the form of a stylised mask, with eyes and other features picked out in paint, the colours faded to pastel shades of green and blue and grey. Only it was not the mask of a human being. The mummy was lying on its front, and the head tapered to a snout, jutting out and ringed with painted teeth. Jack whistled. ‘Well I’ll be damned,’ he said. A crocodile.

  He gently put a hand on the resin, feeling the warmth where it had absorbed heat from the sun, a disconcerting sensation, as if the mummy were still alive. ‘Is it real? Inside, I mean?’

  Hiebermeyer nodded. ‘We took it to the Khartoum School of Medicine for a CT scan. It’s a fully mature adult male Crocodylus niloticus. There was a scarab in part of the wrapping that we unravelled dating to the reign of our friend Senusret III, about 1850 BC.’ Hiebermeyer moved to another hanging curtain. ‘Now, get a hold of this one.’ He pulled the canvas away, and they stared in even greater astonishment. A second gurney held another crocodile mummy, this one in fragments, with only the snout and head and the lower part of the tail intact. But the head was huge, at least twice the size of the first mummy. And instead of painted features, the mask was picked out with gold leaf and encrusted jewels, black stones like jet for the eyes and a beautiful translucent green stone for each of the nostrils. Jack leaned forward and gently touched one of the stones, seeing the reflected light turn his finger a watery green, a shade he had never seen before.

  ‘The nostril stones are peridot, from St John’s Island in the Red Sea,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘The Egyptians sailed there specially to mine it. In the sunlight they reflect an amazing beam of light, almost too dazzling to look at.’

  ‘It’s huge,’ Costas said in a hushed tone. ‘I mean the crocodile. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘Despite the richness of the embellishments, it was pretty crudely mummified, and hasn’t survived so well, even taking into account the damage to the torso caused by the British soldiers digging through it,’ Hiebermeyer continued. ‘Our analysis of the wrappings shows that the smaller mummy was encased in linen and papyrus characteristic of the reeds grown along the banks of the Nile in upper Egypt, whereas this one is local desert grass mixed with Nile clay probably from the pool below, as well as scraps of papyrus documents that seem to have been discarded from the fort.’

  ‘This is where you found the Semna dispatch you read to us earlier?’ Jack said.

  Hiebermeyer nodded. ‘The smaller mummy was undoubtedly brought here from Egypt, whereas we’re sure this one is a crocodile that lived here and was mummified on the spot. And yes, it’s big. Huge. The largest known Nile crocs are those recorded in the nineteenth century by European hunters. Maybe there were leviathans among them, but this one now stands as the largest Nile crocodile ever recorded. I sent Lanowski the CT scan and his computerised reconstruction of the bones gives its length. Most fully grown male Nile crocs average about four to five metres. This one is almost nine metres, the size of a bus.’

  ‘Ibrahim was telling us about local stories of a leviathan in the river here,’ Jack said. ‘This seems to bear them out.’

  ‘Lanowski calculates the crush strength of the jaw at twenty-five kilonewtons, enough to split a cow in half,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘But like all crocs, the muscles that open the jaws are weak, and you’d be able to hold them shut if you wrestled it down. Lanowski says the IMU medicos will be particularly interested in the integumentary sense organs on a crocodile of this size, as they may reveal ways of sensing pressure that have applications to diving technology. But you’d have to catch one live.’

  Costas stared at him. ‘Don’t even think about it. I’m not acting as fishing bait for one of Lanowski’s experiments. He wants a live crocodile, he can catch it himself.’

  Jack gazed back at the trench. ‘What are they doing buried up here, so high above the river?’

  ‘That was my first question too,’ Hiebermeyer replied. ‘Nile crocs lay eggs in November and December, the time of year when the level of the river was already well down, and yet they instinctively nested above the summer high-water mark in order to prevent their nests being inundated as the river rose again when the eggs were due to hatch. It was the reason why the ancient Egyptians thought crocodiles could foretell the future. They’d choose a sandy spot where they could bury their eggs and stand guard. Where we are now is one of the few locations with any depth of sand close to the cataract, even though it would have meant a lumbering climb for them up the slope. It’s an exposed location, but open on all sides so difficult for anyone intent on stealing the eggs to sneak up unobserved. Given the size of the crocs that lived here, anyone chancing on them would have kept their distance. On open ground like this a croc can move faster than most people can run. In the water, one this big would be even faster, up to forty kilometres per hour in bursts.’

  ‘I’m glad you used the past tense,’ Costas murmured. ‘Lived, not live.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure. Absence of evidence isn’t proof of absence. At night our workmen who sleep in the open claim they sometimes hear deep breathing from the pool, a snorting sound.’

  ‘Oh great,’ Costas muttered. ‘This gets better by the moment.’

  ‘Do you think there are more mummies here?’ Jack asked.

  Hiebermeyer shook his head. ‘You can see the lower courses of a masonry enclosure beside the trench with the soldier burials. We think the two crocodile mummies were buried side by side as offerings, one a tamed crocodile carefully mummified in Egypt, the other an untamed leviathan from this place. Perhaps there was some meaning to the double burial: the one to demonstrate that the priests could subdue the creature, the other to show respect for the primordial beast, here at this place on the very edge of civilisation.’

  ‘You mention priests,’ Jack said, peering at Hiebermeyer intently. ‘At all the other places where crocodile mummies have been found, they’ve been discovered in large numbers, stashed in temples to the crocodile god Sobek. At Crocodilopolis, for example.’

  Costas looked horrified. ‘At where?’

  ‘Crocodilopolis. Crocodile town. On the Nile near Memphis.’

  ‘They had a place called that?’

  Hiebermeyer snorted impatiently. ‘That’s Jack being Greek again. The ancient Egyptians called it Arsinoe. The priests there kept a crocodile embellished with jewels and gold in a special pool, replacing and mummifying him when he died. They called him Petsuchos.’

  ‘Petsuchos? You’re kidding me. They kept a pet croco
dile?’

  ‘Not a pet exactly,’ Jack said. ‘More like a personification of a terrifying monster god. I don’t think you stroked it and took it for walks.’

  Costas stared at the mummy. ‘I’m beginning to get it. You think the same kind of thing was going on here, don’t you?’

  Jack peered at Hiebermeyer intently. ‘The cult of Sobek was always associated with a temple. That’s the one thing missing here. I may be wrong, but I think you have something more to show us.’

  Hiebermeyer’s eyes gleamed, and he dropped the flap covering the mummy. ‘Back to the plateau where we started. We should get moving. We haven’t got much time.’

  ‘One final question,’ Costas said. ‘How did the crocodiles here get so big?’

  Hiebermeyer’s phone went off, and he read a text message. He clicked it shut and put it away. ‘That was Aysha. The inspectors have arrived at the opposite bank. Scheisse. They were supposed to come here first. We’re not ready for them yet over there.’ He snorted in annoyance, glanced at his watch and charged out of the tent, then stopped and looked at Costas. ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘How did the crocodiles get so big?’

  Hiebermeyer scratched his chin, looked thoughtfully down and then peered at Costas, a glint in his eye. ‘Oh, human sacrifice, I should imagine.’

  ‘What? Human sacrifice?’

  ‘The priests couldn’t do it in the civilised heartland of Egypt, where that sort of thing was a no-no. But I’ve always thought there were those among the Egyptian priests who were itching to do it. Thank God they couldn’t know what the Aztecs used pyramids for, otherwise Giza would have been a bloodbath. But out here, where no one was looking, they could have had a field day. There were all those awkward foreign prisoners of war: Hittites, Canaanites, Hebrews, Nubians. Perhaps even the odd Greek too, as a tasty morsel.’ He eyed Costas mischievously. ‘So instead of summoning up a mythical monster, they create a real-life leviathan. What better way to placate the god than to keep him happily engorged in his pool of death here, rather than letting him go hungry and swim south to bring darkness over Egypt?’

  ‘Pool of death,’ Costas said miserably. ‘That’s where we’re going diving.’

  Hiebermeyer grinned at him. ‘And where it’s been waiting for three thousand years. Pretty hungry by now.’

  Costas groaned, and Hiebermeyer strode on ahead. A few minutes later they stood on a rocky plateau about the size of a tennis court overlooking the Nile, just beyond the site of the sangar. Aysha appeared over the ridge and joined them, holding the baby. Jack could see that Hiebermeyer was bursting to tell them what he had found. ‘Well?’

  Hiebermeyer pulled a folded sheet out of his pocket. ‘Extra-high-frequency ground-penetrating radar,’ he said, beaming. ‘Another little project with my friend Lanowski, developed for a new search I’m planning in the Valley of the Kings. The new technology can penetrate deeper into rock than ever before, and I’m certain it’s going to give us another find to rival Tutankhamun’s tomb. But this is the first chance I’ve had to try it out for real. And it came up trumps. Big-time.’

  He unfolded the sheet and passed it to Jack, his hand shaking slightly with excitement. Jack opened it out, and Costas peered over. ‘Holy cow,’ Costas murmured. ‘There’s something really big down there.’

  Jack stared at it, his heart pounding. The printout showed the ghostly image of a square chamber beneath the rock, some twenty metres across. ‘How deep under the surface is this?’ he asked.

  ‘Our geophysicists agree with Lanowski that the ceiling of the chamber is at least eight metres below ground level. Before you ask, there’s no chance of getting to it from here, at least not without explosives and mining equipment. This whole outcrop is solid pre-Cambrian rock, as hard as iron. It must have taken the ancient Egyptians decades to dig out that chamber.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s that old?’

  ‘I’m certain of it, Jack. You said it: there’s one thing missing in the archaeology of this place, and that’s a temple. Finding those crocodile mummies clinched it for me. I knew it had to be to the crocodile god Sobek. I used our database to check the dimensions of known Sobek temples elsewhere in Egypt, and what we have here looks bang-on. It would have opened up beside the river, and had access to that pool.’

  ‘Do we know what the cliff face looks like?’

  Hiebermeyer produced another sheet of paper. ‘Ibrahim’s been hard at work over the last few days. He was desperate to tell you, but I asked him to wait until I’d put you in the picture. He took a Zodiac out on the river and used an echo-sounding imager he’d brought from his Red Sea equipment store. It couldn’t penetrate the mud in the centre of the pool, but it did produce this.’ He handed Jack the sheet. It showed a graduated profile image of the underwater cliff and the former rocky shore in front of it. At the base of the cliff Jack could clearly see the outline of a massive doorway, the jambs and pediment carved out of the living rock. Maurice was right. It was an incredible image, an ancient temple carved into the cliff, the entrance submerged completely under the waters of the Nile.

  ‘The door looks shut, and it’s probably stone,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘But below it, you can just about see what I think is a rock-cut channel that led out to the pool. That also fits with other temples of Sobek: a channel to allow tame crocodiles to swim between the river and a sacred pool within the temple. It’s just possible that you might be able to get inside that way. The channel is about thirty metres below the present level of the Nile.’

  ‘What about before the Aswan dam?’ Jack said. ‘At low water before the 1960s the temple would have been exposed. Has it ever been reported?’

  Hiebermeyer shook his head. ‘The photographs show a huge drift of sand and rocky debris coming down from the plateau below the sangar and concealing the entire entrance. It might have been possible for someone to slide into the upper part of the doorway, where there was usually a narrow triangular opening above the actual door to let in air and light. But it looks to me as if there’s been a rock fall that’s blocked up any opening that might have existed. If the locals know anything about a temple here, they’re keeping quiet. They seem to be terrified of this place.’

  ‘Can’t say I blame them,’ Costas murmured.

  ‘Can you do it?’ Hiebermeyer asked Jack. ‘Can you dive here?’

  Jack slapped him on the back. ‘We can certainly try.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Costas mumbled. ‘First you violate the sacred crocodile mummies by excavating them, and now we plan to swim right into their lair. Just great.’

  Jack gestured at the printout. ‘Have you told your Sudanese inspector about this?’

  Hiebermeyer pulled down his hat and stood up. ‘We haven’t told anyone except you and Costas and Ibrahim. And I’ll be doing my very best to avoid him. I don’t get on with him and I’m liable to say something that will scupper us. Aysha’s the official permit-holder and site director here, and she knows how to deal with men like that.’

  Costas watched Hiebermeyer’s shorts sink dangerously below his waistline, and then stared as he hitched them up and tightened the lederhosen suspenders. He shook his head. ‘Well, if Aysha can deal with you, she can deal with any man.’

  Aysha waved dismissively. ‘Maurice is a piece of cake. Dangle an Egyptian mummy in front of him, and he’s putty in my hands.’

  ‘Even a crocodile mummy?’

  ‘Just one mummy,’ Hiebermeyer said, gazing fondly at Aysha and the baby, then glaring at Costas. ‘Just remember, not all the crocodiles around here are mummified.’

  Costas suddenly looked dismayed, and Jack grinned. ‘While the inspection’s going on, my aim is to be underwater. It’s always the best place to be.’

  Costas looked doubtfully at the river. ‘Usually the best place to be.’ He checked his iPhone. ‘Huh. A message from Sofia.’<
br />
  ‘She reminding you about that dinner date?’ Jack said.

  ‘She says she’s sending you her draft of the press release on the Beatrice for your approval. And she’s come up with a name for the submersible: Nina. It was one of Columbus’ ships; apparently its master was an ancestor of Sofia’s. It means “girl”. I like it. She wants us to do more exploration in the Americas.’

  Aysha peered at him. ‘Who’s Sofia?’

  ‘Oh, just a friend.’

  ‘A dinner-date friend?’

  ‘I’ve sent her a picture of me with Ahren.’

  ‘Whoa,’ Aysha said. ‘That’s diving in at the deep end.’

  ‘Just showing her my friends.’

  Aysha smiled. ‘You know how to touch a lady’s heart.’

  Costas paused. ‘Will Sofia think I’m hitting on her?’

  ‘Well, are you?’

  ‘She and Costas met in a submersible,’ Jack said. ‘They plummeted to the depths together.’

  ‘You were there too, Jack!’ Costas exclaimed.

  ‘So, you’re taking a page right out of Lanowski’s book,’ Hiebermeyer said, smiling at Costas.

  ‘I’d rather not take anything out of Lanowski’s book,’ he muttered.

  Hiebermeyer slapped him on the back. ‘You ever need any advice on the man stuff, you come to me.’

  ‘Yeah, you and Lanowski both,’ Costas said glumly.

  ‘He’d be more than happy to help out, I’m sure,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘We could do the male bonding thing, a weekend maybe, and combine it with the two-day seminar I know he’s itching to give you on submersible circuitry. Or is it three days? He’s told me all about it. I think he called it an idiot’s guide. I might even sit in on it myself. I could learn a few things.’ He beamed at Jack mischievously.