A smile came to the lips of Dr Margretti as he said, “I do not think that he will want to give Mademoiselle Bast the slip, do you?”
Alex relaxed, smiled and agreed. Mademoiselle Bast was how Ramses’ Bast, the ancient cat god, had introduced herself to Quentin while in human form. He had been totally captivated by her. “So you knew they were after dad all the time.”
“No, actually we did not. Your reasoning, however, does make perfect sense, to a point!” Dr Margretti was being deeply serious and his voice lowered. Everyone leaned in as nobody wanted to miss a word. “My reasoning behind asking Bast to shadow your father was made before recent events. It was simply that he was returning to Egypt for the first time since we defeated the warlock. I needed Bast to be with him as a precaution. Quite frankly, it would be somewhat unrealistic of us to expect that after the warlock’s death all of his supporters would quietly disappear into the night. There are bound to be a handful of his followers who still feel aggrieved. Not many by now, I suspect. But possibly a few who might try and do something rash.” The Doctor’s hand went to his pocket, “Joe picked this up from where you were attacked in the British Museum.” He unfolded a square of paper and placed it on the table where all could see.
“It’s papyrus,” Alex said as he turned it around.
“It is also full of hieroglyphs. I can’t read them, can you, Alex?” Emmy twisted her head around to see the hieroglyphs from different angles, but nothing sprang to mind.
“No … Are they a clue?” Alex asked, who did not mean his question to sound the way it came out. “Yes, I know it is a clue. It proves that whoever the assassin was, he was Egyptian.” Alex had taken to calling their attacker an assassin as he felt it sounded more frightening, and anyway, he was an assassin.
“This piece of papyrus is quite revealing for several reasons.” The Doctor tapped his long thin index finger on the papyrus. “Firstly, the colour of this papyrus. It has the distinctive brown hue of papyrus from northern Egypt.”
“Is that Lower Egypt?” Emmy asked.
“Yes, and this is consistent with the hieroglyphs. They are also written in such a way as to point us towards Lower Egypt.”
“Sorry, Doctor, but why is papyrus from the north of Egypt different in colour, as all the plants grow in flowing water, and all that water comes from the Nile?”
“It is not the colour of the papyrus plant as such. That is the same everywhere. It is the colour of the paper which is made from it which changes. Do you know how papyrus paper is made?” Both Alex and Emmy gave a ‘sort of’ reply. “Okay. The cut stems of the papyrus plant are soaked in water to become soft. They are then opened up and the individual layers placed so as to slightly overlap. Once the required size is reached, the papyrus is left to dry while it is kept under pressure. Once dry you have a single sheet of papyrus paper. Are you with me so far?” Alex and Emmy nodded. “Wherever this is made, Upper or Lower Egypt, it all looks the same at this stage. It is the drying time which affects the colour. In the very hot south it dries quickly. Very quickly indeed. This results in a paper which is very light in colour. In the very north of Egypt, Alexandria for example, it is a Mediterranean climate. This means that papyrus takes much longer to dry out, especially during the winter months. The longer the papyrus takes to dry, the darker in colour it is. This darker colour alone does not point us to an exact location, but when combined with the style of hieroglyphs, it definitely points us towards Lower Egypt.”
“What do the hieroglyphs say, Doctor?” Alex asked. “Do they give us any idea of what is going on? The assassin tried to read it out to us before he tried to kill us, but I do not think he could read.”
“It tells us that this ancient Egyptian was not very bright. Of course he was much, much brighter than any ancient Briton, but, yes, he was unable to read.” Confused faces stared back at the Doctor. “It is basically his order to kill. It tells him to kill you quickly, not to get clever, not to tell you why you have to die. He obviously attempted to read this and thought he had to tell you why you had to die.”
“Not much point in giving him something to read if he cannot read!”
“He would have hidden that fact.”
“Of course he would. Does it say who gave him the order?” Alex asked.
“No, all we know is that his orders came from Lower Egypt. That is not quite true, as we also know that his orders use hieroglyphs in their singular form, so you are correct, Alex, he was working alone.
“As for who the three are, and where they are going, this is where I may have some idea who sent the assassin. Joe and I were concerned about telling you this until we had confirmation. Sadly, it does not look as though we will be receiving that confirmation; not today anyway. I need you to stay calm, Alex, and not to react hastily as I tell you this. Can you do that?”
“What! You do not want me to explode when you tell me that Kate and her father have gone missing and Cairo, Ropet and Sanuba, who left for Amarna to find out what has happened, are now unreachable by mobile phone! I think you have me confused with Kate. She is the one who flies off the handle.” You could have heard a pin drop.
Joe slipped out his mobile phone and made a call. “Good afternoon Dina … Yes, I am fine. How are your family? … Good, good … I need a ticket to Cairo on your next available flight.” Emmy put her arm through that of Alex, who immediately gestured with two fingers. “You had better make that two tickets, Dina, and make them business class.”
Chapter 6
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Cairo, the City
Alex finished his call and sat back down beside Emmy in the Business Class lounge at Heathrow Airport. “Joe says there is still no word from Cairo.”
“That does not tell me much.”
“What?”
“Cairo, where your dad is, or Cairo, our friend?”
“Oh, I see. Sorry. Nothing from Cairo.”
“You are doing it again!”
“Sorry, I meant Cairo, our friend Cairo.”
“Should we be worried?”
“Yes, is my immediate reaction, but in truth, I don’t know. We do not even know if Kate and David are missing, and if they are, we haven’t the faintest idea why they are missing. If they are not at Amarna, they could quite simply have wandered off looking for artefacts in a different area.”
“I would not have thought that was very likely, as David has made Amarna his home for many years.”
“Yes, he has, but he still had time to visit Crocodilopolis on several occasions, remember, he told us when we entered the tunnel. And Crocodilopolis is a long way from Amarna.”
“I had forgotten that. Our search area has widened quite dramatically. So, what do we know?” Emmy asked, as she lifted her coffee from the low table in front of them.
“All we know for certain is that my dad’s life is at risk. We have no idea why it is at risk or for that matter why an ancient, either known or unknown to us, would want to harm him. Something does not quite add up here, but I cannot put my finger on it.”
“True, but why then was Dr Margretti’s first instinct to ask Cairo, Ropet and Sanuba to go to Amarna and check on Kate and David? With all of his experience in these matters, it must count for something.”
“As I understand it, his concern was raised,” Alex said this as he placed his now empty coffee cup on the table, “because nobody Kate keeps in contact with has heard from her for several weeks. Joe, on the other hand, tells me that that in itself is not unusual. He is not at all concerned. Look at me, I used to be her best friend, and I have not heard from her since the day she left the Winter Palace. That was well over a year ago.”
“Have you tried to contact her?”
“I did at first. I sent several e-mails. Not one reply. I sent a couple more where I flagged them as High Importance and requested a Read Receipt. Nothing!”
“I know there is no mobile service in the area around Amarna, but what about an ordinary phone?”
“A landline. No su
ch thing there. Too remote. And before you ask if I have sent a letter, there is no postal delivery service in Luxor, let alone where she is.”
“You still care about her, don’t you?” Emmy could not hide the hurt. She cared so much for Alex, she loved Alex, and she thought Alex had felt the same about her when they were in Egypt. Since being back in England, something had changed in him. He was great to be with. They had talked about many things and she had learned much from him, especially when he told her about his ancient memories. Emmy also had ancient memories, but they were all jumbled up. Talking to Alex helped her to sort them out, to understand what they meant. They were close, very close, though something remained between them. Whereas she did not before, she now wondered if it was Kate.
Alex attempted a reply. Emmy saw his lips move, though what she heard, as her now empty coffee cup and saucer slipped from her hands, was unintelligible. Neither of them heard the china hit the polished wood floor.
“What do you mean, ‘They were not on the plane’?” Joe was far from calm. His usually calm, military like, assertiveness temporarily left him as his seventh or eighth call resulted in the same answer. They were definitely not on the plane when it arrived at Cairo International Airport. Joe could not comprehend what he was hearing as he had taken every precaution. He had dropped Alex and Emmy off at the upper level of Heathrow Airport. From there, after baggage check-in and customs, they would have gone straight to the Business Class Lounge, which was on the uppermost level of the airport. Ancients could not reach them where they were. Also, ancients, with the exception of Dr Margretti, could not travel in an aeroplane. Not even ancient gods, who could go most places, could travel by air.
Joe was surrounded by banks of monitors. He had reviewed digital video from every security camera Alex and Emmy had passed, from every different angle, and each one he had reviewed at least a dozen times. Their faces simultaneously appeared on six different screens. This was not something that fell within Joe’s field of expertise. He had more than a little help from someone, or something, which looked human from the waist up. He also looked exactly like their driver. A robot with a name, Hacker One.
Joe used to find it unnerving that every robot in the organisation looked the same. When he had mentioned this to Dr Margretti, he had responded by saying they had spent so much money on making the face look and work like that of a human, there had been no money left to make them all look as if they were different humans. From the waist down there was nothing more than a jumbled mass of wires intermingled with cooling tubes. Each tube was no thicker than a pencil and each had translucent yellow liquid running through it. It was the air bubbles which showed that half were feeding into the robot, and half were leaving. Everything lead off to another room which hummed slightly. The computing power in there must have been phenomenal.
A driver robot had limited abilities and computing power. Hacker One was an extreme robot. He had learning capabilities and had developed a personality and attitude, which one day would be his downfall. Many a time he had pushed Joe to the limit. Tonight, however, he was in Joe’s good books. Joe heard the door open behind him and someone step into the room.
“Well, Joe, what do we know?” Dr Margretti asked. He moved closer, in order to watch the images on the screens.
“If you want the truth—”
“I always want the truth.”
“Nothing, we know nothing!”
“Well, I asked for the truth, so I cannot complain that you did not sugar-coat it for me.” He leaned in and peered even closer at every monitor. The video was looped and in sequence. It made for very boring watching. Alex and Emmy appeared on the left-hand monitor as they left Joe. By the time they appeared on the right-hand monitor, every excruciating part of their progress to the Business Class Lounge had been documented. The checking in of their bags, passport control, even down to where Alex had made two attempts at putting his belt back on the right way around, after the security checks.
“Why do we not see them on the camera in the Business Class Lounge?” Dr Margretti asked, as he tapped the monitor with his index finger.
“The cameras there only cover the entrance and exit. As many diplomats and presidents use the lounge, it is made clear that they can talk freely without either being on camera or picked up by microphone.”
“That may be useful if you are heading back to Europe and wanting to moan about the bad attitude or weakness of the British Prime Minister, but it is not very helpful for us, Joe. Hacker One, have you picked up on anything?” He did not respond. “Okay, Joe, whatever it is that you have disconnected, I need you to reconnect it.”
Without saying a word Joe pushed his chair back, bent right down to the floor and pushed two multi-connectors back together.
“I wish you would stop him from doing that. I might be a robot, but I still have my non-human rights!”
“I also wish I could stop him from doing that, Hacker One, and I am sorry. Now … have you noticed anything we need to know about?”
Hacker One’s hands moved at lightning speed. Only one monitor remained on. The largest one, which was in the centre of the array. Using a trackball, the image moved back and forth. Hacker One did not stop talking the whole time. I am great, I am one of a kind, I am unappreciated, without me where would you be, that sort of thing. It was as he zoomed in and slowed down the video from the camera at the entrance to the Business Class Lounge that both Dr Margretti and Joe saw just a few pieces of broken china enter and leave the shot.
“Their coffee must have been drugged.” Upon hearing Dr Margretti say this, Hacker One proceeded to give them detail after detail of every possible agent that could have been added to their coffee, and it was a long list.
He showed no signs of stopping when Dr Margretti said, “Joe,” rather firmly, in order to catch his attention.
“Yes,” Joe said as he swivelled on his chair to look directly at the Doctor. He watched the hand action, got the message, and Hacker One was cut off in mid-sentence.
“I really do think that his learning program needs to be tweaked just a little. Perhaps you could arrange someone to sort that out, though only when we do not have a crisis on our hands.”
“Happily, Doctor, happily.”
“Now that we have a pretty good idea that Alex and Emmy were drugged, I do wonder if my original thoughts were incorrect.”
“Nefertiti?”
“Yes,” he said in an elongated fashion. “Nobody knows better what an ex-wife will do for vengeance than their ex-husband. She can, and she does, hold a grudge long after most people would fail to remember what caused the grudge in the first place. Think about it, Joe. It is only just over a year since Kate and Emmy tied her up; Queen Nefertiti tied up in her own bedchamber of all places. She vowed to get her revenge and Kate and her father are right on her doorstep. That must have been awfully tempting for her.”
“Surely, Doctor, her venom does reach as far as England.”
“Her venom, as you so correctly put it, can reach much further than these shores. There is something very familiar with the hieroglyphs on that papyrus. I cannot put my finger on it … oh … and while I think of it, do we have any idea how, whoever did this, Alex and Emmy were taken out of the Business Class Lounge without any cameras picking them up? If they did indeed leave. Have you thought, they might still in there?”
“They are definitely not in there, and what is more, we never see who delivered the coffee. Whoever it was knew exactly where the cameras were and how to avoid them. Something really serious is going down as this was well planned.”
“Alert everybody in Egypt, and I do mean everybody. I am moving this up to a … What is our highest level of alert?”
“Ramses thirteen,” called so because there were only ever eleven Ramses’. “We usually use Ramses twelve in an emergency situation. We have never gone to a Ramses thirteen.”
“Well, we have now. I do not want you to leave this room until you have received confirmation that
everyone who needs to know, does in fact know. This is not an attack on Quentin, this is an attack on us all, on the organisation.”
“Sorry, Doctor,” Joe said with some hesitation in his voice, “but, don’t you think you are overacting just a little? In our entire history, we have never gone beyond a Ramses twelve.”
“I shall give you thirty seconds after I have stopped speaking. If by that time you are not contacting everyone in Egypt, and also everybody here in England, I shall personally make a present of you to Nefertiti! Think, Joe, what is happening. I have been an idiot. Since when have we not had even a minor problem with ancients, anywhere, for a whole year?”
“Never!”
“Exactly. Something must have been going on. Planning, meetings and alliances forged. I am certain that Nefertiti has some part to play in this, as she knows me too well. I have failed everybody. Whoever is behind this is taking us out, one by one, and I have played right into their hands.”
Joe now understood. It was a classic battle plan. Divide and conquer. Babs was on her own, and she was killed. That was an easy kill. Alex and Emmy were at the airport on their own. That would have been relatively easy too. Joe did not want to think of them being killed, so he stuck with drugged. Kate and David, working alone had gone missing; easy. The Doctor sent Cairo, Ropet and Sanuba off to look for them. The three of them would have also been a really easy target. With Ropet and Sanuba being ancients, they could not travel along the River Nile. They would have had to take the desert route. The route of the bandits. The organisation was being intentionally split up. “Ramses thirteen it is, but I do have one other thought. Quentin! … We know that he is going to Cairo to collect an award, but does anybody actually know who the award is from?”
Dr Margretti shook his head. Joe bent down and reconnected Hacker One. After both Joe and Dr Margretti had told him to shut up, he did. The next time he spoke he confirmed Joe’s suspicion. Quentin had flown to Cairo to collect an award from an archaeological group which did not exist.
Gold of the Ancients Page 4
