Joe stared blankly and shook his head.
The professor looked at Kurt, who shrugged. “I’m afraid our expertise begins with Rameses and ends with King Tut.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” the professor replied. “Few people outside the halls of academia would recognize the name. But it’s an important one nonetheless. Herihor was a man who changed the course of Egyptian history. Twice.”
Kurt found it hard to believe such a man was unknown. “How so?”
“By uniting the kingdom during a time of war and then dividing it again.”
Blank looks suggested that was not enough information.
“Can you be a little more specific?” Morgan asked.
The professor nodded, adjusted his tweed cap and began to explain. “Perhaps it would be helpful if I start at the beginning. You see, Herihor is a unique member of royalty since he began life as a commoner. Some say he wasn’t even Egyptian, suggesting he came across the desert from Libya. And while that’s probably not true, it gives you some idea how much of an outsider he was. At any rate, he first enters the historical record as a General for Rameses.”
“The Rameses?” Joe asked.
“Not the character from the Bible,” the professor said, “a later descendent. The eleventh Pharaoh to use that name.”
“Like Henry here in England.”
“Exactly,” the professor said. “As one of Rameses’s Generals, Herihor won several battles, culminating with a rebellion that he crushed in Ethiopia that had threatened to destroy the dynasty. For this heroic act, he was rewarded with Pharaoh’s sister as a bride and, by this marriage, lay claim to royalty. At the same time, and of equal importance, Herihor was given the most exalted position in the religious order of the day—High Priest of Amun.”
“Sounds like he had a good year,” Joe said.
“A banner year,” the professor said. “Titled and now married into Pharaoh’s line, Herihor began his new life in Thebes—far from where Rameses ruled. Over a course of several years, he grew wealthy, and power-hungry, and sometime around 1080 B.C. he declared himself Pharaoh of Upper Egypt, splitting the civilization into Upper and Lower Kingdoms.”
“Causing a civil war?” Kurt asked.
“No,” the professor said. “It seems there was no conflict. Threats and posturing, of course—all the rumblings of war, that sort of thing—but no actual battles. Perhaps an agreement was struck or perhaps it was a cold war that never got hot. At any rate, six years after declaring himself Pharaoh, Herihor abruptly and completely disappeared.”
Kurt, Joe and Morgan were looking at Cross with rapt attention, but the professor said no more.
“What happened to him?” Kurt asked. “Did Rameses kill him?”
“Doubtful,” the professor said. “The truth is, we don’t know. He vanished from the pages of history. Egypt was reunited and continued for the rest of the classical period as a single kingdom. As for Herihor, he was never heard from again. No record of his death has survived to modern times and no tomb bearing his name has ever been found.”
Morgan asked, “Weren’t the Egyptians known for trying to wipe out evidence of their ancestors and others they didn’t like?”
“It was a common enough practice,” the professor admitted. “Thutmose III tried to erase all memory of Hatshepsut, the only female Pharaoh and quite likely his mother. Rameses the Great allegedly did the same to his adopted son, Moses, if you believe the biblical account. But Herihor’s name survived in many places, leading historians to believe he wasn’t erased from history by some other ruler so much as he disappeared from it by choice.”
“Why would a Pharaoh choose to disappear?” Kurt asked. “I thought they spent most of their reigns trying to build monuments so that they wouldn’t be forgotten.”
“An important question,” the professor said. “We don’t have an answer. But because he chose to do this himself, we must assume it was not on a whim. And the most likely reason that makes sense is that he was attempting to vanish to avoid his tomb being violated by grave robbers. They were the scourge of the time. Their acts were not only distasteful, but for a Pharaoh who wanted to enter the Afterlife with chariots and servants and gold and jewels, they were a great fear.”
“So Herihor escaped them by hiding his death as well as his tomb,” Morgan said. “Is that what you’re telling us?”
The professor paused. “Most of us believe his grave is out there somewhere. More importantly, that it’s never been touched by robbers.”
“Bloodstone Group’s interest in these stones suddenly makes more sense,” Morgan said. “A tomb that hasn’t been looted, like Tutankhamen’s, would yield treasures worth hundreds of millions of pounds or more.”
“Yes,” the professor said. “But the discovery of Herihor’s tomb would be many times more spectacular than the trinkets found with Tutankhamen. In fact, should it be found undisturbed, Herihor’s treasure would rival anything found in history. It would almost certainly contain more artifacts—gold, jewels, statuary and furniture—than everything currently held in all the world’s museums combined.”
Joe and Morgan stared at the professor like mesmerized children. They were stunned by the estimate.
Kurt found himself surprised to hear what sounded like wild exaggeration coming from such a renowned source. The professors he’d known in his life tended to understate everything. “I’m not sure I follow,” he said. “Why would a Pharaoh who only ruled half a kingdom for a short period of time be in possession of such an unrivaled treasure?”
The professor looked at Kurt with a glint in his eye and Kurt knew he’d been set up. Taking his spectacles off, Professor Cross explained. “Because long before he declared himself Pharaoh, Herihor was given that title in the priesthood that I told you about. As High Priest of Amun, he had unlimited access to every temple and burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings—a thousand years’ worth of collected riches at his fingertips just sitting there for the taking. And make no mistake, he took it. He took all of it. Lock, stock and golden barrel.”
“He looted the valley?” Morgan asked.
The professor nodded. “Everything that wasn’t nailed down and many things that were. The collected riches of a civilization that spanned a millennium before he was even born.”
“Just how much loot are we really talking about?” Morgan asked.
The professor shrugged. “Difficult to say. Maybe a hundred times what was found with Tutankhamen. Maybe five hundred times as much. You could expect at least forty golden coffins bearing the Pharaohs, along with all they’d have taken with them. Burial masks made of gold and lapis. Animal figurines carved from ivory and jade. Statues with sapphires and rubies for their eyes. Alabaster canopic jars. Weapons and other important items gilded in silver and gold. Not to mention the cache of papyrus texts and writings inscribed on tablets and walls that would give us a complete history of their rule.”
The professor paused for a breath and then looked at Kurt and Joe. “I can only compare it to some future adventurer stumbling upon your National Archives and Fort Knox at the same time.”
“That would be quite a find,” Kurt said, pushing the boat forward with a smooth, easy stroke.
“As will this.”
“What would all this be worth,” Morgan asked, continuing to probe. “In monetary value?”
“Oh, you couldn’t hope to put a price on it,” the professor said.
“The Bloodstone Group will.”
“Right,” the professor said. He paused and then threw out a number. “Billions,” he said. “Tens of billions—if you could sell it all.”
Morgan’s mood darkened. “Even a small portion of that wealth could give them enough cash to fund a war.”
Kurt had no doubt about that, but he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. “Just because Herihor had access to the Valley of the Kings doesn’t make him a thief. How do we know he’s the culprit?”
“Because he told us,” the profess
or said, fixing the glasses back on his nose. “There are carvings in the walls of several tombs—KV57 and KV9, if I’m not mistaken—which tell us that Herihor, executing his sworn duty as the High Priest, had moved the contents of the tombs to a safer location. A process they euphemistically called restoration. Beyond that, we have the Writings of Qsn.”
“The writings of who?” Joe asked.
“Qsn,” the professor said. “Qsn is the Sparrow. Stealer of the Harvest. The texts are attributed to someone using that acronym. A strange choice, considering Egyptian beliefs. At any rate, the writings themselves tell us a rather mysterious and controversial story in which Herihor is described as becoming a religious fanatic and creating a cult of his own followers who helped him collect his ancestors’ buried riches.
“Interestingly enough, the hieroglyphics were written on broken stone pieces of facia originally designed to be affixed to a temple building”—he picked up the fragment of flat stone they’d brought with them—“very much like this.”
“That is interesting,” Morgan said. “Where were they found?”
“I’m afraid that’s part of the controversy,” the professor said. “No one knows for sure. They first turned up in the private collection of a Frenchman named DeMars sometime in the late twenties, I believe. They disappeared during the war and haven’t been seen since.”
“Late twenties,” Kurt said, seizing on the date. He glanced at Morgan, who nodded.
“Does the time frame mean something?” the professor asked.
Kurt wasn’t about to answer, but Morgan did. “Along with the stones, we’ve recovered the logbook of an aircraft that crashed in 1927. We’re still searching for a connection between the two. But if these stones have an odd provenance, then it’s likely they were stolen and shipped. Perhaps the log is connected. It might help us find out where they came from in the first place.”
“What else can you tell us about DeMars?” Kurt asked.
“He was like many wealthy men at that time, interested in adventure, history and making a name for himself as part of the New Enlightenment. He proposed an odd theory suggesting Europe—and France, in particular—had been colonized by the Egyptians a thousand years before the Romans named it Gaul. His interest and enthusiasm were admirable, his methods and lack of scruples less so. As you can imagine, part of the controversy surrounding the Writings of Qsn came directly from his unwillingness to explain where the stone pieces were found and how he gained possession of them.”
“Could they be a hoax?”
“I think it unlikely,” the professor said, “but perhaps only DeMars knew the truth.”
With the sense that they were making progress in their quest, Kurt eased the punt under the next bridge. He ducked to keep his head from striking the underside of the structure. Gazing straight ahead, he saw the prow of the boat emerging back into the sunlight. As it did, a figure dropped onto it from above.
Short, stocky and wearing a wool cap, the man faced the passengers. He had his legs set wide for balance and a pistol in his hand aimed directly at the stunned occupants.
CHAPTER 19
The sudden appearance of a man with a gun surprised everyone.
While Morgan dove on the professor, covering him up the way a Secret Service agent would protect a high-ranking government official, Joe spun around, coming face-to-face with the business end of the gun.
Only Kurt had an advantage and that was his reach.
As the man landed on the boat, Kurt swung the punting pole out of the water and snapped it sideways across the boat. The tip of the pole, barely missing Joe’s head, caught the gunman’s outstretched hand.
Bones cracked, the pistol flew into the river and the man doubled over, cradling his wrist. Stunned and oblivious, he never saw Joe launching himself from his seated position.
With a powerful surge, Joe slammed a shoulder into the attacker, sending him backward and tumbling off the boat. He hit the water with a great splash and came up only after the punt had passed over the top of him.
They had been free of boarders for only an instant when two additional men jumped from the bridge. A thin man with long hair landed awkwardly in the middle of the boat, nearly capsizing it, while a bigger, bulkier attacker came down on Kurt’s back.
Morgan raised her service weapon to fire, but in the close quarters scuffle, the second assailant grabbed her wrist and forced the weapon downward.
As they fought, the gun discharged once into the bottom of the punt, blasting a hole in the wood and letting in water. The taller man bent her arm back, twisting her hand until she could no longer hold on to the gun. It dropped, hit the edge of the boat and went overboard.
Using the leverage of his position, the man continued to twist her arm, forcing her off balance. She responded by driving a knee into his groin. As he doubled over in agony, she pulled him forward and tossed him into the river.
Kurt saw part of the brawl from a position flat against the tiller. The man who’d jumped him was a heavyset, muscle-bound type. He outweighed Kurt by a good fifty pounds and all of it was brawn. The man landing on him had pancaked Kurt to the deck and kept him there.
Somehow, Kurt was still holding the punting pole in his right hand. He brought it backward and upward over the top of his body and, at the apex, twisted his hand and snapped it down. It thumped against the man’s skull, split the skin, drawing blood, and knocked him cold.
Kurt rolled to one side, shouldering the brute sideways and into the Cam.
The instant he was free, Kurt jumped up and shoved the pole in the water and pushed the boat forward with all his might.
He was on his second push when Joe shouted a warning. “Get down.”
Kurt dropped and covered up. A man had appeared on the riverbank with a pump-action shotgun in his hands. He aimed, then hesitated.
Kurt kept his head down and pushed the boat forward again. He had no idea why the man hadn’t fired, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth—at least not until they were out of range.
“They’re getting in a boat,” Morgan said.
“Faster,” Joe said. “This is the slowest getaway since the Stone Age.”
The professor chimed in. “Hate to admit it. But if we’re going to be racing, the Oxford way is preferred.”
“Oxford way?”
“Down here. Press your feet against the seat back.”
Realizing it would give him more purchase, Kurt made his way to the center of the punt. With each move of the pole he twisted his body as far as he could, pressing forward with his legs, shoving the boat along.
From his effort, and the new position, they picked up more speed, but it wasn’t going to help. The pursuers had piled into a small boat with an outboard motor that was rushing toward them, its nose pointed high.
“Motorboats aren’t allowed on the River Cam,” the professor said, outraged.
“Hate to tell you, but that’s not our biggest issue at the moment,” Kurt said. “There’s no way to keep ahead of them and we’re severely outgunned.” He turned to Morgan. “How many shots left?”
“Plenty. But the gun is at the bottom of the river.”
“And we’re taking on water.” It was the shore or nothing. Kurt turned the boat and angled for the right bank of the Cam, opposite where the shotgun-wielding man had been.
Unfortunately, the punt was ponderous and slow and now filling with water and it changed direction with all the agility of a tanker.
A shotgun blast ringing out overhead told him the race was over.
“Give us the briefcase,” the gunman shouted from the bow of the approaching boat.
Kurt gripped the pole, ready for one last fight, but calmer heads prevailed.
“Give them what they want,” the professor insisted. “Quickly.”
Morgan looked pained, but with little choice she shoved the loose items into the briefcase, latched it and held it up. “Don’t shoot.”
“Throw it to us,” the g
unman demanded.
Morgan leaned back and then flung the case like a Frisbee. It spun flatly, soaring over the men in the boat and splashing into the water on the far side. Sealed, it was buoyant and bobbed to the surface, before starting to sink.
The motorboat turned instantly toward it, with the men on board dropping their weapons and grasping at the foundering case.
As they attempted to retrieve it, Kurt shoved the punt in the other direction and with three quick pushes reached the shore, stopping as the bow hit the mud. “Everyone off,” he ordered.
Morgan and Joe helped the professor up onto the grassy riverbank as Kurt held the tiller steady. Without looking back, they rushed across the green lawn and headed for cover.
They needn’t have bothered. Their attackers had collected the sinking briefcase and were heading downriver as fast as they could go, the grinding sound of the outboard at maximum power disturbing the peace and quiet as they went.
“They’re letting us be,” the professor said.
“They have what they came for,” Kurt pointed out. “Now they have to get away before the law catches up with them.”
“At least we’re alive,” the professor said. “But, with apologies to Sherlock Holmes, the game is afoot.”
“Regrettably, they’ll soon know everything we know,” Morgan said.
“Not everything,” Kurt said. “They don’t have the logbook. Something tells me that lost plane is the key.”
CHAPTER 20
NUMA headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Rudi Gunn had been in his office at NUMA headquarters for an hour when the sun rose over Washington, D.C. An early riser who liked using the quiet of the morning to get the day off to a good start, Rudi was the number two man at NUMA and the de facto handler of the day-to-day operational work. He was often called the XO, the executive officer, of NUMA, as compared to Dirk Pitt’s status as captain.
As a former naval officer who’d graduated first in his class from Annapolis, Rudi didn’t mind the analogy at all. He was well suited to the position. It required attention to detail, doing things by the book and running a watertight ship.
Journey of the Pharaohs - NUMA Files Series 17 (2020) Page 11
