Death of a Pharaoh (4 page)

Eshe’s memory archive ended at that point. Lord Thoth switched to the
detailed report submitted by her driver after the accident.

Herbert held the
baby close to his chest as he lunged through the window into the dark unknown
of the river. He turned in time to catch one last glimpse of the Princess’s
serene face as the water rushed in and the car sank like a stone to the bottom
of the river. He knew there was no use in coming back; his duty was to the baby
now. An ex-Navy Seal and a strong swimmer, he remained underwater as long as he
could; blowing tiny puffs of air from his own lungs into the baby’s nose and
mouth.

They surfaced only
a few yards from the embankment near where they crashed through the barrier. He
hoped the angle would be enough to keep them hidden. He assumed the assassin
waited on the edge of the road searching for survivors. He chose the location
well. Traffic was light at this time of the night. Herbert’s free hand stroked
forward and touched one of the large stones lining the bank. He pulled himself
into a patch of reeds and carefully lifted the baby out of the water.

Praise be to Lord
Horus he whispered when he saw that the baby was breathing, a soft gurgle and
tiny bubbles on his lips the only evidence of the ordeal. As if he sensed the
danger, Nkosana didn’t cry and even played with some of the reeds with his
hands and feet. Herbert saw the silhouette of a man at the side of the road
standing under a streetlight about twenty feet above them. He had a powerful
flashlight and methodically searched the waters below for any sign of life.

After three
minutes when the only sound that remained was the echo of silent screams, the
killer turned and Herbert caught a full view of his face illuminated by the
streetlight. He was young; maybe 26 or 27, with short cropped hair and wore a
priest’s collar. He turned his head, perhaps at the sound of an approaching
car, made the sign of the cross then disappeared into the darkness.

Herbert shivered
while he waited on the bank of the river for another five minutes holding the
baby close to his body to keep him warm. He crawled up the embankment with
Nkosana in his left arm and sprinted toward Lansdowne Drive. The Philadelphia
Zoo was close by and it didn’t take him long to find a payphone. The security
team from the Falcon Foundation arrived less than ten minutes later. With the
Princess late for her scheduled arrival at home, they had moved to high alert.

On Herbert’s
instructions, they took the baby while he jogged back to the accident scene. He
flagged down the first car and asked the driver to call 911.

In Herbert’s
statement to the police, he told them that the baby had been swept out of the
back window as the mother tried to escape but couldn’t as she was pinned by the
crushed door. There was nothing he could have done. He was distraught and the
paramedics treated him for shock.

Within an hour,
divers located the wreck. They attached cables and a powerful winch on the back
of a fire engine brought the car to the surface protesting with metallic
groans. They attempted but failed to remove the body until they pulled the
vehicle to the road. With her legs hopelessly trapped in the twisted metal, the
first responders needed the Jaws of Life to free the corpse. There was no sign
of the baby. Nothing could have prevented her from drowning they reassured the
only survivor.

Eshe’s security agents took Nkosana directly to his grandmother. She
sat holding him in her arms for almost an hour, whispering gently in his tiny
ear until the team arrived to take him to New York. Herbert’s sighting of the
priest, the latest incarnation of her organization’s arch nemesis, sent
shockwaves through the security apparatus of the Falcon Foundation. They had
assumed mistakenly that the identities of the current Royal Family had escaped
the relentless probing of the Vatican’s most tenacious and secretive office. If
Sanctus Verum murdered the Princess, then Nkosana was no longer safe and the
decision to pretend that his tiny body disappeared in the river was a difficult
but brave one by the Pharaoh. She understood it was for the best but it broke
her heart to know that it would be years before she could ever hold him again.

Late that evening a woman pushing a small stroller walked up to the
front door of a Catholic orphanage in Woodbury, New York. She diligently
applied the brakes, readjusted the blanket around the sleeping child, rang the
bell then quickly walked around the corner to a waiting car. A few seconds
later, Sister Mary Frances opened the door to find the dozing infant who would
become their fifth John Doe of the year. Sadly many mothers, especially ones
involved in drugs and prostitution, felt compelled to abandon their newborn
babies. Unlike most, this child seemed healthy and well cared for. He looked to
be about five or six months old.

A
n obituary appeared in the late edition of
the Philadelphia Inquirer the next day announcing the passing of Eshe Carter
and her infant son, Nkosana. The cause of death was a traffic accident still
under investigation by the authorities. In lieu of flowers, the family
requested donations in her name to the American Cancer Society.

That same week, a
young white couple from Cornwall arrived at the orphanage to look for a child
to adopt. They visited the nursery and fawned over several infants but quickly
fell in love with the chubby Afro-American boy with the precious smile. The
paperwork took ten days but baby John Doe finally had a good home and loving
parents. He was one of the lucky ones. They named him Ryan James Murphy, as his
adoptive father was of Irish descent.

Thoth closed the file. Herbert’s description of the priest did not
match Fannie’s killer. He was much older and had a twisted nose as if it had
been broken several times. It was not the same man. He would communicate the
information to Timbuktu. Thoth would miss Fannie very much. They had met
several times when she appeared before the Supreme Council and he liked her endearing
combination of doting grandmother and sharp businesswoman.

Sheshat arrived
with the Book of Kings. It felt as heavy as his heart. With the death of the
Pharaoh, only one member of the royal family remained alive. Someone who knew
nothing of the fate that awaited him. Within an hour, by earth time, he should
receive another message telling him whether they had confirmed Nkosana as the
true heir. He sensed there was much anxiety among his fellow deities. Most of
them knew little about the boy destined to reign and there would be many
questions should the report confirm the transfer of powers as everyone
expected. He thought it wise to prepare and reached for the file embossed with
the name ‘Nkosana’.

As a child, people would show me bad things, really bad things! Before
I went to kindergarten, I witnessed rapes, murders, multiple wife-beatings and
guys having sex with kids younger than me. It was scary trying to comprehend
adult evil when I hadn’t even joined the Boy Scouts yet. It always started with
an innocent pat on the head or a pinch on the cheek, so it wasn’t long before I
hated being touched. Hugs were the worst; they lasted longer. I think my
parents knew but they didn’t do anything to stop it. Still, I forgave them.
Orphans often do that because it is better than being alone. I didn’t
understand at the time that they had no choice.

I prayed for it to
stop. Every single night I knelt beside my bed, clasped my tiny hands together
and begged Jesus not to let bad people touch me anymore. I guess he wasn’t
listening.

Weekends were a
lottery at my house with a constant stream of visitors. Mostly they were
neighbors, ladies from my Mom’s bridge club on Saturday morning or guys that my
Dad invited over to watch the game on Sunday. No matter how my parents tried to
protect me, someone would inevitably give me a hug or tousle my hair. Right
away, I saw everything evil they had ever done or even wanted to do. Like
watching a movie in my head except there was no remote to change the channel.

Most of the time
it would pass quickly but once in a while, I’d recoil like a puppy that just
got kicked and I’d squirm until my mother excused me. Sometimes, the reaction
was more extreme! I’d burst into tears and run to my room as if I had just seen
a ghost. My Mom blamed it on the flu or some other seasonal bug in front of the
company then came up and calmed me down by stroking my hair. It never bothered
me when she touched me. It was a nice sensation, like the smell of cotton candy
at the circus. I’d fall asleep only to wake up having forgotten what frightened
me so much in the first place. It didn’t screw me up because I could never
remember the details for more than a day. Still it was confusing and I couldn’t
understand why my parents never talked about the incidents or even punished me.
I sensed they knew something that I didn’t and they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell
me.

Apart from seeing
other people’s nightmares, I soon developed a few of my own. Most of the time
I’d be in dark water like in a lake or a river; I was drowning but never did. I
saw a face below me in the depths. She had the same skin color as me and I
suspected it might be my birth mother. She looked calm and she called to me
with her eyes. I tried to swim to her. No matter how much I struggled, she only
seemed to get farther and farther away. Then I woke up.

By the time I
turned five, the face in the water haunted my sleep and obsessed my daydreams.
That August my parents took me to a lake in upstate New York for summer
vacation. It was a nice cottage with beachfront, a swing under a big old tree
and a fire pit to roast marshmallows at night. I paddled in the lake for hours
every day with those inflatable water wings under my mother’s watchful eye

I hadn’t learned
to open my eyes in the water yet so I couldn’t see if it looked like my
nightmare down there. I spent half my vacation practicing in a bucket until I
could keep them open without blinking. One day I decided to search for the
woman in my dreams. I hugged my mother and left her in the kitchen preparing
lunch. At the time, I barely weighed fifty pounds soaking wet so I figured that
I needed some help. I loaded up my pockets with a bunch of stones about the
size of my palm. The shore was dotted with them. I couldn’t really judge how
many I needed, so I shoved a few more down my pants just in case. Then I
waddled like a duck to the end of the dock and jumped in, as simple as that!

The first part was
easy. Almost fun, like when you slide down in the bathtub and stick your head
under. The stones did a great job and before I knew it, I was sitting on the
bottom looking at a bunch of rusty tin cans and a slime covered rubber tire. I
spun around in a circle real proud of my new aquatic vision, but the woman wasn’t
there. I wondered if she only came at night like in my dreams and perhaps I
needed to try again after dinner. That seemed the best solution. It was time to
get out.

Problem was with
the weight of the rocks; I couldn’t even stand let alone swim to the surface. I
panicked. My lungs were already bursting and screaming would only make things
worse. I guess I wouldn’t even be here to tell the tale if that nice Mr.
Sampson hadn’t been taking a stroll and seen me jump in. All of a sudden, the
water above me exploded and a black man stared me in the face just before he
wrapped his arms around me. He was a good person and there weren’t any
nightmares to see, only decency, loyalty and strength. He pulled me to the
surface. He had to work at it somewhat and it wasn’t until I lay on the shore
coughing and sputtering that he noticed all the stones.

“I better get rid
of these before your parents come,” he said as he pitched most of them into the
water just as my Mom raced down the hill yelling my name hysterically.

“You won’t be
doing anything crazy like that again, will you?” he admonished me. “It isn’t
right to test the Gods,” he sternly warned as he stepped back to let my Mom
scoop me up in a soggy bear hug.

Never saw him
again after that but I’ll always remember his face and what he said about
testing the Gods. I’m certain he said Gods, as in more than one. So much so
that I went searching in the Bible, but the only times it mentioned Gods were
in a bad way. The people with the funny names who wrote the thing seemed very
serious about there only being one God and all. Other than that “s” and the
tanning I got from my Dad for playing on the dock, I escaped any serious
consequences for my dumb stunt. Not surprising, it took me years to build up
the courage to get back into the water.

When I was seven,
I had a fight with one of the kids at school. I had been taking karate already
for two years so I was confident in a scrap. He’d been bullying a younger kid
and I decided to step in. One of the teacher’s saw us brawling and made a
report. The principal called my mother. The next day I knew why I had gotten
into Billy’s face during recess because a week earlier I started to keep a
diary. Every afternoon when I did my homework, I took a few minutes to write
down anything I saw, heard or imagined that day. When I woke up the next
morning, I still wouldn’t remember anything but all I had to do was flip
through my diary to know why I had punched someone in the nose. That notebook
changed everything.

My Dad served in
the marines and he always encouraged my interest in karate. He met my Sensei,
David, in the first Gulf War. David was my hero. He could smash bricks with his
bare hands and all those things but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He never let on
that my newly discovered sense of schoolyard justice worried him but he did
remind me that I should only use karate in self-defense. He never asked me
about the fights or made a judgment. I appreciated that he didn’t.

Without a doubt, I
was his favorite and he devoted a lot of time to me. Everyone else was white
but I didn’t believe he thought I needed to defend myself more because of the
color of my skin. Something else motivated him. He made himself available
whenever I wanted to talk and we frequently travelled to tournaments together.
I thought of him as my best friend. When he grabbed me to demonstrate a hold or
to practice a move, I couldn’t pick up on many of his thoughts. Maybe he had
never done anything bad. I only sensed concern that I should turn into a good
person. I was determined to make him proud of me. On my eighth birthday, he
told me that within a year I’d be able to try for my black belt. If I passed
the test, I’d be the youngest in the history of the dojo.

“What about
defending others?” I asked him one day.

“It takes experience
to know when getting involved is a good or a bad thing,” he told me. “You may
believe you know what is right but you shouldn’t use your gifts to judge
others.”

When he said
gifts, I felt that he referred to more than my karate skills. I never did get
my black belt and most of it had to do with the day I broke Vince Natale’s jaw
in two places and sent him to the ER. I wasn’t sorry and would do it again if I
had to.

Vince was three
years older and much bigger but the solid sidekick I landed knocked him right
out. It was sweet! I heard the sound of my heel making contact with the bone.
Sure, I knew it was wrong to use karate as an aggressor but Vince was a serial
bully and he deserved having his face rearranged. For two years, he’d
terrorized the younger kids, grabbing their Nintendo’s, sneakers, lunch money
or anything else of value. Lately, he’d graduated to forcing them to steal cash
from their parents at home. If they refused, they’d get a nasty beating.

Just last week, he
broke Drew Summerland’s arm and got away with it. He had her so terrified; she
told her parents that she fell off her bike on the way home from school. The
day of our fight in the schoolyard, Vince bumped into me during recess and I
knew right away that he was planning to light one of the younger student’s
uniform on fire just to teach him a lesson. He’d bought a can of lighter fluid
at the corner store and would have torched the kid if I hadn’t put him out of
action. That night after a spanking from my father, I made certain to note
everything in my diary before I went to bed so I’d remember why I’d kicked
Vince in the first place. This time there’d be plenty of questions.

Vince’s parents
threatened to press charges because of the whole karate thing but the Principal
talked them out of it by showing them a video of Vince bullying a second grader
that one of his buddies posted on the internet like an idiot. My parents agreed
to send me to five sessions with a school psychologist in order to avoid a
suspension. The appointments were after school and it meant I’d miss karate. I
wondered if my Dad and David made certain the times coincided as punishment.

I never knew but
from that day onward, my relationship with David changed. He seemed real
disappointed and because of the police report, he never put my name forward for
the black belt. Without his written recommendation as my Sensei, it was
impossible. I never blamed him but there was a distance between us after that
and although I would continue with the classes, the friendship never recovered.

Life as a human
YouTube for the wicked, the weird and the downright wretched could screw up any
kid, even without the thing with the streetlights. I first noticed it when I
was nine. My Mom sent me to the corner store for milk one evening in November
after dark. It wasn’t irresponsible of her or anything like that since we lived
in a nice safe neighborhood.

She might not have
felt so confident if she knew what I did about Mr. Pasquale in number 17; or
about the young blonde Mrs. Badowski across the street who was well on the way
to bankrupting her husband buying expensive lingerie online. She insisted on
trying the skimpy items on right there in front of the deliveryman who always
accepted her offer to stay for coffee, and more! I knew all of this because she
couldn’t resist giving me a kiss on the cheek whenever she saw me.

Anyway, I go
strolling down the street minding my own business when the second light from
the corner of Main Street, the one in front of Tommy Skokan’s house, blew out
as if someone had pulled the plug right when I walked underneath! I might have
considered it a coincidence if the same thing hadn’t happened at a different
spot two days later coming home after karate. I tried taking detours but it
only got worse. It was so bad by Christmas that Conn Edison had a repair truck
parked permanently in front of the donut shop two blocks from my street.
Eventually, I learned to swerve around the lights. Especially after I got a
skateboard. It seemed that my capacity to fry the bulbs had a limited range.

I didn’t have the
same effect on fluorescent lights at school, thank goodness, or the smaller
ones at home; especially those energy savers that look like a corkscrew. That
is unless my emotions ran high or something like that, if you get my drift.
Once I discovered masturbation, I had to keep spare bulbs in my bedside table
drawer or do it in the dark. My personal paranormal activity really came to a
head when I started to date at fifteen. Most of the girls at school found me
attractive even if a bit weird. Years of karate lessons had sculpted my body
lean and solid with an impressive six-pack.

A month before my
sixteenth birthday, Maria Fanelli snuck me into her bedroom while her parents
slept downstairs. It kind of added to the excitement along with all that
Catholic stuff. Everything went great until I got to home base and all she
could think about was how much bigger Tyrone was; this dude who played football
and looked like a black version of the Hulk. Hardly a turn on but she didn’t
know that I could read her thoughts so I gamely plowed on so at least I could
say I had lost my virginity.

At what should
have been the defining moment in my young male life, in the middle of my first
ever, non-solo orgasm, the bedside light exploded, Maria screamed, my erection
went south and her parents woke up. Seconds later, I snuck out the back door
tugging on my jeans as I hopped toward the gate like someone in a three-legged
sack race with an invisible partner. I almost fell into their swimming pool. It
took me as long to take the plunge again with girls as it did to get back into
the water after my near drowning.