Gold of the Ancients

by Graham Warren

  “Roll onto your face.”

  Alex did as Emmy requested. He heard a knife slit the bag and a second later he felt his arms being freed. He was soon sitting up, with Emmy’s help. Now propped against the buggy he rubbed his arms in a desperate attempt to get the feeling back. “So sorry about crashing the buggy. Are you hurt?”

  “Bruised, yes, but nothing broken. I will be okay,” Emmy said with a genuine smile on her face and a glowing red mark where the bully had hit her.

  “But I not be. I am dying.”

  “Cairo, get over here now, and do stop being so flipping dramatic,” Emmy said quite forcefully. “Alex already feels bad enough about rolling the buggy, so he can do without your amateur dramatics.”

  And Cairo did get up, and he did walk over to them. No limp, though lots of blood.

  “Tomato sauce,” Emmy said. “Mohammed obviously likes tomato sauce … a lot! Would you believe it, there were over twenty of those little plastic sachets in just one food box?” Alex smiled. “Our biggest problem was opening all of them before we were discovered. How do they expect anyone without a pair of scissors to get to the sauce? Absolutely awful design. Of course, after Cairo gave himself up I found this knife. Isn’t that always the way?”

  Cairo kicked an ancient on the ground as he said in real anger, “You a bully and I hate bullies.” The ancient stirred.

  This caused a minor panic in Emmy. “We had better start removing names, as we do not know how long they will be down for.”

  Cairo immediately started to search for and remove names.

  Alex stood, hugged Emmy as best as he could, kissed her and told her just how wonderful it was that she was alive. He then also started removing names.

  Emmy went about removing names in high spirits. Alex’s kiss had been quick, but oh boy, it was a kiss which had rang all the right bells.

  Alex was happy to reduce an ancient to a shimmer, but he could not make himself remove the very last instance of any ancient’s name. The thought of being responsible for removing one lowlife ancient from the afterlife he could almost live with, but removing an entire family, a possibly innocent family, was too much for him. Cairo had no such qualms. Soon there was not one body left, not even one shimmer.

  “Do you think we should have kept one and tied him up?” Emmy asked. “That way we could have found out who sent them.”

  “Bit too late to think of that now,” Alex replied.

  “They not talk, they never talk, and did you see the size of them? Any one of them could have finished all three of us. Best they gone.”

  “Yes, Cairo, I think you are right. They were a mean looking bunch,” Emmy said, before turning to look at Alex.

  He was walking around the buggy and assessing the damage. There was a slightly out of shape front wheel, however, the good news was that the tyre had remained inflated. There were also obvious scratches, scrapes and more than a few dents. The lights attached to the roll bar were now nothing more than crumpled flattened shells. All things considered the buggy appeared to be serviceable. The roll cage had certainly lived up to its name. He looked into the now empty back of the buggy. “I suppose we had best save what supplies we can and put them back in here.”

  Emmy looked at the many bits and pieces spread over an area the size of a football pitch. “I don’t know about the both of you, but I am beginning to boil out here.”

  Alex agreed. “I am already at boiling point. Wish we had some water.”

  “We do,” Emmy said excitedly. “We hid several bottles under the sand. They found those which we could not reach before they did, but they definitely did not find them all. Come on Cairo, let’s go and retrieve them.”

  With all the scattered items, which were still of any use, collected and loaded back into the buggy, they headed off towards Tanis. With quite a wobble on a front wheel they kept at a pleasingly sedate pace. They had a spare wheel, they had found a tool kit, yet they had failed to find anything they could have used to jack the buggy up with.

  “Glad you found the water,” Alex said after taking a swig and handing the bottle back to Emmy. It was very warm water, however, none of them complained. The mini-fridge, despite being dented and having to have the door held in place by piling boxes around it, had done really well to bring the water down to a drinkable temperature in such a short period of time. Their other mini-fridge had been a total write-off.

  “Well, I suppose, if the worst had come to the worst, we could have survived by drinking the wine.”

  “What!” Alex said in shock as his head spun to look at Emmy.

  “All I meant was that if we really had no water, we could survive by taking sips from the bottle of red wine in the back.”

  Alex brought the buggy to an immediate halt. He jumped out and went around to the back. “Where, Emmy, where is the bottle?”

  Emmy was taken aback by the reaction of Alex and rather nervously stuttered out, “I think it is in the hamper, but it could be in that box.”

  “Are you sure it is red wine?”

  “I think so.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “YES!” Emmy shouted. “What’s the big deal? So Mohammed packed us a bottle of red wine!”

  It was indeed in the hamper. Alex lifted it out and both he and Cairo, who had spun around on the rear seat to peer into the back, knew exactly what it was.

  “He knows we here, Mister Alex.”

  “He knows all too well. With this he is sending us a message.”

  “Who knows, and what message is being sent to us? It is just a bottle of wine.” Both of the boys looked shocked as they took in Emmy’s words.

  “You couldn’t be more wrong.” Alex rolled the bottle around in his hands. “This, Emmy, is anything except an ordinary bottle of wine. This is Ramses’ red wine, a very rare red wine. This is not something he would easily part with.”

  “I never thought we see anything except empty bottle.”

  “Well, Cairo my friend, this bottle is most certainly full.” Alex inspected it closely. “And it is unopened.”

  “Well, if it is full, it would be unopened … wouldn’t it!” Emmy stated in slight annoyance.

  “Not necessarily. Knowing Ramses as I do, I would have expected this to have been either an empty bottle or one refilled with cheap wine.” Cairo nodded. “Look, this bottle has never been opened. This is very rare red wine, very rare indeed.”

  “Probably, yes perhaps, I don’t know. I know nothing of wine.” Emmy was more than a little confused because she also knew little of Ramses’ great love of red wine. “So Ramses drinks red wine. So do many ancients. What message is he sending us?”

  “This is twelve hundred and ninety BC red wine and Ramses does not share this very special wine willingly. I am unsure as to how many bottles–”

  “Sorry to interrupt you, and please don’t think I’m disinterested, but do you think you could tell me as you drive? I really do miss the breeze.”

  “Oh, of course, sorry.” Alex very carefully put the bottle away before jumping back into the buggy. He told Emmy the story of the twelve hundred and ninety BC red wine as they travelled towards Tanis. How it had been presented to Ramses II’s father, Seti I, in celebration of his birth. He repeated the story Gadeem, Rose’s husband, who was also an ancient, told of Ramses complaining throughout the centuries that he was down to his last three hundred bottles. As Gadeem put it, this was a figure stuck in time, just as much as Ramses himself.

  Cairo excitedly told Emmy the story of the table in the map room. Where the top had been lifted off to reveal Ramses’ three hundred bottles of red wine. And how they had seen Ramses pick a bottle from his collection only for it to be instantly replaced.

  “So, if his collection will never drop below three hundred, then why is it so special when he gives a bottle away?”

  “When you know Ramses as well as we do, you will know that it is very special.”

  Cairo enthusiastically agreed with Alex.

  Al
ex hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “What a fool I am! I should have realised that he would have known we were in Luxor. Why didn’t I see it before now? Bast virtually told us that he would when she was with us in the bar.”

  “What did Bast tell us?” Emmy asked. She really wished that she had never mentioned the bottle of wine. It was such a nothing comment.

  “She told us that Rose was not in Upper Egypt, or Ramses would have known, because somebody would have told him. I should have seen it then, not now.” He hit the steering wheel again. “I failed to make the link. If someone would have told Ramses about Rose being in Upper Egypt, then most certainly someone would have told him about me … about the three of us being in Luxor.”

  “So what does it matter if he knows we are in Egypt? We can go and see him when we get back to Luxor if you are so worried.”

  “She doesn’t get it. Cairo, can you explain?”

  He bounced up and down on the seat in excitement, clapping his hands at the same time.

  “Okay, Cairo, you had better tell me because I really do not get it at all.”

  “With red wine Ramses say he know we here, he know we deal with problem, but he not deal with problem. We on our own.”

  “Exactly! See … Cairo gets it.”

  Emmy shook her head because she still did not get it. “Can we take this back a few steps, and please don’t get annoyed with me, but could you explain in just a few words?”

  It was very rare for Alex to get annoyed, it was not his way. “Happily, though I am not sure I can explain in a few words. You had better stop me if anything isn’t clear.” The combined breeze and slow pace made for a relaxed journey. At this speed Alex gave all the appearance of an experienced driver. Even the wobble on the wheel was not causing him a problem. “What we do know is that somebody is willing to kill in order to stop my father coming back to Egypt, though they do not want to kill him.”

  “Not quite that far back.”

  “How far back then?”

  “To our discussion in the bar, back at the Winter Palace. I do understand that whoever is behind all of this does not want Quentin to go to his ‘dig’, because some of the gold is being stolen and going north to Tanis. I also understand when you tell me that silver bought in Luxor is being taken to Tanis. That is why we are going to Tanis.”

  Alex nodded as he said, “Exactly.”

  “In Tanis you think that criminals are buying the stolen gold with legal silver. And before you say anything … since you explained, I do understand why the silver is being exchanged for gold in Tanis rather than in Luxor.”

  “Because silver would not buy gold in Luxor.”

  “Oh, sometimes I hate you,” Emmy said in a playful way, though her thump to Alex’s shoulder hurt.

  “It’s as bad as having Kate here. She never stopped hitting me.”

  Emmy did not want to hear the ‘K’ word and immediately regretted her playful punch. She decided to move the conversation on and turned around to see what Cairo thought of all of this. “Alex?”

  “Yes?”

  “We have sleeping beauty on the back seat.”

  “Oh, he can sleep anywhere, and often does. Now, tell me what you don’t get?”

  “How the stolen gold is being bought with legal silver so that it can be legally taken it out of Egypt.”

  Alex looked uncomfortable. “We know that Merenptah and Psusennes are behind this in some way. It has to be Merenptah who is shipping the gold out of Luxor. Psusennes must be dealing with it in Tanis.”

  “Yes, okay, I agree that that is the most likely sounding scenario, but how does it become legal, exportable gold?”

  “They must have been working together since ancient times, otherwise Psusennes would never have been able to take Merenptah’s outer and middle sarcophagi without his permission. His gods would have been guarding his tomb; they still are. After all, that is what the gods are there for. The sarcophagi had to have been taken to Tanis with the permission of Merenptah. It said in the book that Psusennes did not even bother to remove the cartouche of Merenptah.” He turned to look directly at Emmy. “This cannot be anything except a sign that they have somehow linked together in the afterlife.”

  “Twice now you have avoided my question. I need to know how the gold is made legal and exported. That I cannot work out!” Emmy looked at Alex, who said nothing and did everything to avoid eye contact. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Okay, okay, I took my theory and ran with it. I really have no idea how they would make it legal, or what they are using the gold for, once it gets to Tanis.”

  “For evil,” the now awake Cairo said as he stuck his head between them. Alex almost crashed the buggy for the second time in one day.

  “Yes, as you so correctly say, for evil, that is a given,” Alex said after regaining control.

  “Okay, I am somewhat relieved that you do not know what we are going to come across in Tanis,” Emmy said, “or for that matter didn’t crash for the second time today,” she thought. “But how does this bottle of Ramses’ wine fit in?”

  “The bottle of red wine tells us that Ramses cannot get involved with whatever is going on.”

  “Why?”

  “That I do not know, but Merenptah became pharaoh upon the death of Ramses. Perhaps that has something to do with it.”

  “No, Mister Alex, Ramses never afraid of Merenptah. We are heading into something much worse than Merenptah. Much, much worse.”

  Cairo had an honesty which was sometimes too difficult to accept. Alex drove on for some while before Emmy spoke again. “Yes … I now think I understand. Ramses gave us a bottle of wine to drink before we die. A sort of goodbye gift. So what evil are we going to find at Tanis?”

  Alex had been having similar thoughts, not the dying part, but the ‘what evil are we going to find at Tanis’ part. “We cannot be far from Tanis now, so we will soon find out.” No sooner than the word ‘out’ had left his lips the buggy plunged into the desert, into a hole that had not been there a fraction of a second before.

  Chapter 18

  -

  A Big Operation

  “Shush,” Alex said forcefully though not loudly. They had been shocked rather than hurt by their descent. Before they had time to comprehend what had just occurred they heard a swoosh overhead. The vivid blue of the desert sky disappeared and they were plunged into blackness.

  “What is–”

  “Silence!” Alex was again forceful, though far from loud. “Sorry, Emmy,” he whispered, “we need to listen.”

  Nobody moved, let alone spoke, for quite some time.

  Emmy broke their silence. She leant over to where she thought Alex was and whispered in his ear. “Do you hear that?”

  “Yes,” Cairo replied. Giggles had to be stifled. Heads together they talked in whispers. All agreed that this was no trap, otherwise they would have been taken hostage by now. They also agreed that they could hear noises ahead of them, though whatever they could hear was a long way off.

  “Are you positive that neither of you has a torch?” Alex was left in no doubt that neither Emmy nor Cairo had brought a torch with them. “Any weapons?” He challenged Emmy on her reply.

  “Yes, I had a knife. I put it down because I had nowhere to safely put it as I removed names.” She rather sheepishly admitted that she had forgotten to pick it up afterwards.

  Alex knew that he had failed to bring either a torch or a weapon, and reckoned that, all things considered, they were dreadfully ill prepared for their adventure. Being out of Egypt for just over a year really had dulled his brain. Alex made a vow that if he survived this adventure he would never leave Egypt for any longer than a few days. Previously he would have mentally beaten himself up for missing clues or for failing to have the correct equipment. Now he was not so hard on himself. One thing he had really learnt from the likes of Dr Margretti, Aryamani and Ramses, was that even great people were not averse to making mistakes, really big mistakes. I
t was how they recovered from those mistakes that made them great.

  “Come on, Mr Alex.”

  “Okay, get ready for it.” Alex fumbled with the controls. The windscreen wipers screeched across the dry, dusty glass. “Must be the other stick.” He moved his hands across the steering wheel and flicked up the other stick-switch. The buggy’s side lights came on.

  “Well, that is not very illuminating,” Emmy said, but soon followed it with a, “Wow,” as the buggy’s headlights sprang to life.

  They found themselves to be at the bottom of a far from deep vertical pit. It was obviously man made because the walls were lined with polished white marble. Some sort of heavy duty cloth covered overhead. That had been the source of the swoosh they had heard earlier and the reason why they had been plunged into darkness. Deep or not, there was no way they would be able to climb out; there was absolutely nothing they would be able to get a purchase on. There was space all around the buggy, possibly a metre on each side, or maybe just a little more.

  It was the golden frame around the tunnel entrance directly in front of them which had been the cause of Emmy’s ‘wow’. The entrance was as high as the pit was long, though it was barely wide enough for a single person to be able to walk through. Each side there was a highly polished gold column. Both were topped with the classic Egyptian closed lotus flower design. Further down a single ancient god was depicted on each; Thoth, the scribe. Both images of him peered down the tunnel. Across the top was a narrow though substantial lintel, upon which far too many hieroglyphs had been crammed, as only ancient Greeks could do. It all shone very brightly in the headlights.

  “Do you see that? Classic Egyptian columns with a definite Greek influence across the top.”

  “What is your point?” Emmy asked.

  “My point is that this is what we would expect to see when ancient Egyptians and Greeks worked together.”

  “Are you using this golden doorframe in support of your theory that Merenptah and this, I forget his name, are working together?”