As the captain made preparations to get under way, Barlow pulled on a jacket and left the bridge. It was quite a hike down the stairs to the main deck and then along to the bow. By the time Barlow reached the reinforced forward hatch, the chopper’s wheels were touching down.
Barlow waited as several of the ship’s crewmen secured the craft. While they worked, the side door slid open. Barlow was puzzled to see Robson standing there alone.
“Where’s Kappa?”
“He’s dead,” Robson announced bluntly.
“And the others?”
“They died before he did.”
Barlow’s eyes froze in a look of anger. “Explain this to me.”
Robson jumped down from the helicopter. “I didn’t kill him, in case that’s what you think. He got ambushed by the two operatives from NUMA and the woman from MI5.”
“What about his team?”
“They lost a firefight where they had the high ground,” Robson explained. “In their defense,” he added, “they got bounced at a bad time.”
Barlow didn’t bother with sentiment, but he was quick with figures and he was now down ten men thanks to Austin, Zavala and Agent Manning. “You seem to have emerged unscathed,” he said. “I hope that means you’ve brought home what they dug up.”
Robson reached back into the helicopter, grabbed the straps of the duffel bag and heaved it onto the ship’s deck. “Unlike Kappa, I deliver what I’ve promised. Between that and the fact that there isn’t anyone else left, I’d say it’s time you put me back on point.”
Barlow ignored the request for the moment. He dropped down on one knee and unzipped the bag. It was filled with flat, tile-like sections of stone—dozens of them, maybe a hundred—all broken up like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
“They were like that when we found them,” Robson said.
Barlow pulled a palm-sized fragment from the lot, then looked over several more. There were hieroglyphics on every piece. All he had to do was put them back together.
He placed the stones back into the duffel and zipped it shut. “You’ve done well. The number one position is yours. Don’t screw it up like Kappa did.”
Because the Bloodstone Group operated like a pirate corporation, with the men earning their pay in percentages and shares, the simple promotion might add up to millions for Robson.
After giving Robson a moment to enjoy the news, Barlow gave a new order. “Take this to my cabin. We need to put it together and figure out its secrets.”
CHAPTER 41
Villa Ducal de Lerma, Spain
Arriving back in Lerma meant a parting of the ways. After saying good-bye to Father Torres, young Sofia and her aunt, the NUMA team headed toward a small airfield forty minutes away. There, they found two jet aircraft waiting. One bound for London, the other for Washington.
Kurt climbed into the NUMA Gulfstream and spoke briefly to the pilot before coming back down the stairs. He waited until Joe, Paul and Gamay had said their good-byes to Morgan before speaking to her himself.
“Why don’t you come with us?” he said. “I’ve already checked with the pilot. There’s plenty of fuel and an extra passenger won’t affect the flight.”
Morgan looked briefly at the NUMA jet before shaking her head. “It would ruffle a lot of feathers back in London if I didn’t show up now. Colonel Pembroke-Smythe and I will have to report to the Chief of Operations and most likely spend a few hours being grilled by members of Parliament. I’d also like to check in with Professor Cross and see if he’s thought of anything new. Once all that’s taken care of, I’ll think about making my way to America.”
“Something tells me that won’t take long,” Kurt said. “Let me know what flight you’re on. Austin Car Service is the best around.”
“Very well,” she said, her formal bearing firmly in place. “Until we meet again.”
There was no handshake, no hug, no kiss. Just a swift turn on her heels and a composed march to the Learjet on the far side of the ramp.
Kurt watched her board and then climbed back up the stairs into the NUMA Gulfstream.
“Five passengers?” the pilot asked.
“No,” Kurt said. “Just four.”
While the pilot secured the door and returned to the cockpit, Kurt moved toward the back of the plane. Finding a seat was no problem, the aircraft was spacious. It had been designed to let twelve passengers fly in comfort for long distances, but NUMA had modified it for smaller groups and added a few additional touches.
It had eight premium seats in two rows of four, then an area where comfortable couches offered retractable footrests and the option of reclining into beds, and a high-tech workstation with a computer terminal connected by satellite links directly to NUMA’s servers. Across from the sectionals lay a kitchenette, complete with wet bar, and behind that on the wall were a pair of fifty-inch flat-screen TVs connected to satellite.
Kurt took a seat on the aisle, one row ahead of Joe and directly across the aisle from Paul. Gamay sat next to him, gazing wistfully out the window at the Spanish countryside they were about to leave behind.
As the Gulfstream began to move, Kurt settled back. He had no doubt he would see Morgan again, but his mind had already switched lanes and was focused on the next steps in the search for the missing treasure. Figuring out who killed Jake Melbourne would be one avenue of investigation. Another would be the stone fragment in his jacket pocket.
Pulling the stone out, Kurt ran his thumb over the surface once more. It was soft and porous. Some of the red particles rubbed off on his skin as he brushed it. He turned to Paul and held the fragment out. “What do you make of that?”
Paul had a Ph.D. in Ocean Sciences and was a specialist in deepwater geology. He’d written a thesis on rock formation found on the seafloor. As far as Kurt was concerned, sea-based geology and land-based geology couldn’t be all that different.
Paul took the stone from Kurt, studied it for a second and then switched on the overhead light. “Sedimentary rock,” he said, “with a high level of iron content, which accounts for the red color. Reminds me of Navajo sandstone.”
“Navajo sandstone?”
Paul nodded. “The vermillion-colored rock you see so much of in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.”
“Is that a unique color?”
Paul shook his head. “There are red sandstones all around the world. They come from similar formations, but that’s what first came to mind. Is this stone from a section of the hieroglyphics tablet?”
Kurt thought so. “It has no writing on it, but it’s the same color and has smooth edges.”
Paul dabbed a napkin in some water and gave the stone an additional cleaning. “It’s flat on three sides, with a ninety-degree angle at the point. Could be a corner piece. Might have broken off in the crash as the fragments were jostled around.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Kurt said. He glanced out the window as the Gulfstream pulled onto the runway and the engines began to ramp up. “Is there any way you could determine what part of the world this stone came from?”
A thoughtful look came over Paul’s face. “There are several ways to narrow it down.”
“Such as?”
“We could look for microscopic fossils embedded in the sandstone,” Paul said. “That could tell you when, geologically speaking, it formed. We could check its uranium content and radioactivity levels, we could grind it up and analyze its exact chemical makeup. Sandstones around the world are all slightly different. It depends on when, where and how they were laid down. But even if we narrow down the source area, I’m not going to be able to give you a latitude and longitude.”
As Paul finished speaking, the aircraft began its takeoff run. Kurt leaned back in his seat, relaxing, as they picked up speed. “Just name me a continent,” he said. “We’ll go from there.”
CHAPTER 42
Cambridge, England
Professor Henry Cross arrived home later than usual on a Wednesday night. A meeting at
the university had run long and a minor traffic accident on the roundabout south of campus had held him up further.
He parked his Mini Cooper in the drive, pulled his briefcase off the passenger seat and walked around to a side door of the modest cottage-style home he’d lived in for two decades.
Unlocking the door and stepping through, he flipped a switch to ignite a gas fireplace in the living room. The flames gave the house a warm, cozy feel. They also lit the place in orange, illuminating a man sitting in one of the professor’s high-backed chairs.
“About bloody time you got here,” the man said.
Professor Cross studied the man the way he might examine an ancient scroll. He noted the prominent nose, the dark stubble on the man’s face and neck, the wool hat pulled down over the ears. He also noticed the pistol in his hand and the cylindrical tube screwed into the end of the barrel.
“Why do you have a silencer on your gun?”
The scruffy-looking man aimed the pistol at Professor Cross. “A respectable neighborhood, this. Wouldn’t want to go disturbing the peace if I had to shoot you, now would I?”
The professor leaned against the wall. He was more annoyed than afraid. “What do you want, Robson?”
“Answers.”
“I would have given you the answers,” the professor began. “I would have sent you everything you needed, had you and those hooligans of yours not acted so clumsily when the Americans were here.”
Robson shifted in his chair and crossed his legs as if he owned the place. With practiced movements, he slid the pistol back into a shoulder holster and tucked it away. “Thought you’d appreciate us coming down on you like gangbusters. Keeps your impeccable name above suspicion.”
Professor Cross shook his head and glared at the man. The growing anger building inside him came out when he spoke next. “You’d just better hope they never wonder how you happened to arrive at Cambridge on the same exact day at the same exact moment they did.”
“Actually,” Robson said, grinning, “you’d better hope that. It’s not my name that’ll be dragged through the mud if they get suspicious.”
Robson stood up and walked toward the professor, passing him and stepping into the kitchen. Without asking permission, he pulled open the refrigerator and began pawing through its contents. “Blimey,” he said. “Half this stuff is out of date, Professor. I know you like old things, but, jeez, go shopping once in a while.”
The professor sighed. “I wasn’t expecting guests. Now what, exactly, do you want? I’ve already given you all the information I have.”
Robson’s head appeared above the refrigerator door. “You make it sound like a charity case. Like we never paid you. What are you doing with all of Barlow’s money anyway? Certainly haven’t spent it on this place.”
“I have my own pursuits,” the professor said.
“A little bit of crumpet on the side? That nice secretary of yours maybe?”
“Don’t be crass.”
Robson went back to foraging and finally settled on a bunch of grapes, pulling them out and closing the refrigerator door. Plucking several off, he began popping them into his mouth.
Street thugs, Professor Cross thought, no sense of decorum. “If you’re here for a snack,” he said, “I’m going to retire.” He turned for the bedroom.
“We need you to look at something,” Robson told him. “A new set of hieroglyphics.”
The professor stopped in his tracks. “New set? From where?”
“They come from the red tablet,” Robson said. “The part that’s never been seen.”
Slowly, the professor’s eyes widened. “You’ve found more fragments?”
Robson nodded. “Found them all, I’d say. Out in the old plane. Right where the logbook said they’d be.”
Suddenly, the professor understood Robson’s newfound confidence, his cock-of-the-walk attitude. No doubt Barlow had heaped praise and money on him for finding what no one else had been able to. “Do you have them here?”
“Of course not,” Robson said, popping another grape into his mouth. “Barlow isn’t going to let them out of his sight. But I have this.”
He pulled the architect’s tube off his shoulder, popped the cap off one end and removed a rolled-up poster-sized sheet of paper.
“This is a computer-enhanced drawing,” he said. “One of Barlow’s people took pictures of all the broken bits of stone and had the computer match them together. Then he slotted in the photos MI5 was nice enough to give us. Altogether, it produced this. A full image of the stone to look at instead of a hundred pieces. Care to take a gander?”
Professor Cross took it without hesitating. Unrolling it slowly, he found a white page with grayscale images on it. It looked like a photographic negative. He carefully spread it out on his kitchen table, placing various items at the corners to keep it from curling up.
He reached for the overhead light, pausing with his fingers on the chain.
A nervous glance out through the kitchen window reminded him how dark it had grown. Night had come on while they spoke. Any light would let the world see in through his windows. He turned to Robson. “Close the blinds.”
The blinds came down tight and Professor Cross switched on the overhead light to see the masterpiece before him.
Looking at the images, he was rapidly consumed. He studied the poster as if it were a scroll from an ancient century. It didn’t matter that it was ink and paper. What mattered was the information.
Running a finger across the glyphs, the professor racked his brain for translations. “Incredible,” he whispered, his eyes darting from spot to spot. “This is a message sent three thousand years ago. One only now being received.”
“All Barlow cares about is what it says.”
“It tells us of a fleet that traveled the Nile without stopping,” the professor said. “They sailed through the night and passed Memphis under the light of the quarter moon.”
“Memphis?”
“Think Cairo,” the professor explained. “Alexandria. The ancient capital of Egypt.” He read on. “They left the world behind the next day.”
“The world?” Robson said.
“It’s a euphemism,” Professor Cross said. “A figure of speech.”
“I know what a euphemism is,” Robson snapped. “What’s it supposed to mean?”
“It means they left the Land of the Ancients. They left Egypt itself.”
Robson seemed satisfied. He popped another grape in his mouth and sat back. “To go where?”
Professor Cross turned back to the computer-generated poster. Continuing on down, he took notes and explained what he was finding. “On the Day of the Long Sun—that would be the summer solstice—Pharaoh Herihor, Ruler of the Great House, unfurled a new banner to be flown by all ships in the great fleet. The Mark of Aten is upon the banner.”
“And what does that tell us? What, exactly, is the Mark of Aten?”
The professor went back to make sure he’d read that correctly. “Aten was the name of the Sun God,” he said quietly. “Now, that is surprising.”
“I thought the Egyptian’s worshipped the sun,” Robson said. “Ra and all that.”
“The Egyptians worshipped many gods,” the professor explained. “They had a pantheon like the Greeks and the Romans. But during one brief part of their history a Pharaoh named Akhenaten took over and tried to force everyone to worship only the sun. He tried to turn the whole empire away from their many gods to just the one. From a multitheistic religion to a monotheistic one. Ra became Aten. And believing in the other gods became heresy, a crime punishable by death. The name Akhenaten literally means Worshipper of Aten and he spent his time constructing monuments dedicated to the sun. He even moved some of the entombed Pharaohs from old burial places to new graves where they would be illuminated by the first rays of the sunrise.”
“And …”
“And, Mr. Robson, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Akhenaten’s decrees
brought about a backlash. Followers of the old gods met in secret and plotted against him. He was poisoned, went blind, then died.”
“Too bad for him.”
“Yes, it was,” the professor said. “The next Pharaoh, the famous Tutankhamen, spent years undoing everything Akhenaten had done, setting the religious order back to the way it had been. The old gods were restored, Akhenaten was labeled a heretic and things returned to normal. But if Herihor built himself a fleet and sailed it under the banner of Aten two hundred years later”—the professor looked up at Robson—“that means all of history is changed and we may now have a different understanding of why he took the treasures to begin with.”
Professor Cross all but swooned for a moment. If this small tablet could reveal so much, he only dared to imagine what finding Herihor’s tomb would bring.
“What’s so different?” Robson asked. “Are you telling me he’s not a thief?”
“Herihor was no thief,” the professor said sternly, “he was a king. He was surrounded by wealth. Drowning in it. He had all the gold and luxuries and delicacies one man could possess. Not to mention power, armies, servants and wives. To call him a commonplace grave robber is a disservice. And, quite frankly, unimaginative.”
The professor saw a look of surprise appear on Robson’s face, but he wasn’t finished. “If Herihor just wanted to be richer than he already was, then he could have plundered the tombs, taken the gold for himself and left the Pharaohs’ decaying bodies behind. If it was greed and avarice, he could have stolen everything piecemeal, melted it down and claimed it as newly discovered gold and freshly mined jewels. Trust me, there was no one in the Valley of the Kings to stop him.”
“No need to get angry,” Robson said. “It’s not like he was your brother or something.”
The professor adjusted his glasses and continued. “I’m not angry, I’m passionate. You must understand that what Herihor did he did out of a religious fervor, not greed. He valued preserving the past of his ancestors more than wealth, power and even glory. He gave up a kingdom to do it. Not only that, he risked his life on a journey into the unknown to make it happen. In truth, I would be honored to be called his brother.”
Journey of the Pharaohs - NUMA Files Series 17 (2020) Page 20
