Pharaoh (16 page)

‘I don’t know,’ answered Sarah. ‘And I’m not all that interested. I’ve learned to mind my own business since I’ve been here, and you should do the same, as far as you can. Goodnight, Will.’

She gave him a light kiss on the lips and went inside, closing the door after her.

Blake felt a wave of heat rise to his face, as though he were a kid falling in love for the first time. Thank God it was dark enough for her not to have noticed. He walked to his own trailer and noticed that there was no longer anyone in the Bedouin tent.

He powered up his computer and immediately inserted the disk with the file he’d copied from Sarah’s hard disk. The map appeared, with the coordinates at its sides. Sarah had lied to him!

At the same time he heard a very slight noise, like the creaking of a door. He looked out of the window, just in time to see Sarah leaving her trailer and disappearing around the corner.

He left as well and went towards the parking lot, keeping out of sight behind the trailers. When he got there, Sarah was gone and an ATV was missing. After several minutes, he heard the distant rumble of the vehicle being started up. Sullivan, Gordon and the others were housed close to the generator and wouldn’t have heard a thing.

The noise faded completely, carried away on the northerly wind. For a few seconds, Blake thought he saw headlights reflected on the top of a ridge. Sarah was probably following Maddox towards an unknown destination, alone, in the middle of the desert.

Even though she had tricked him he still felt worried for her, thinking of the danger she might be headed for. But there was nothing he could do.

He went back to his trailer and sat in front of the computer. He transcribed the coordinates and printed them, but could not manage to localize them precisely, since he didn’t have a general map of the Middle East. He’d have to get someone outside to look them up for him. Husseini, maybe. But how could he get around Pollock?

He couldn’t ask Sarah to repeat her performance while Pollock was in the can, nor could he attempt a break-in himself, being off at the dig all day.

An idea: he’d use hieroglyphics!

There was probably no one in the camp who could read hieroglyphics, and a text in ancient Egyptian wouldn’t arouse Pollock’s suspicions, given the circumstances. He could send an uncensored message without being found out.

He remembered Husseini’s answer to his message and pulled the disk that Pollock had given him out of his pocket.

A text in hieroglyphics followed.

Blake uploaded his hieroglyphic translation program and with the help of the grammar he’d brought, tried to work out a message for Husseini which would ask him to identify the place and region that the coordinates referred to. It wasn’t easy to find the terms in ancient Egyptian to express modern geographical concepts, and when he reread the message he wasn’t at all sure that Husseini would understand what he needed, but he had no choice. He intended the message to say:

Hoping that Husseini would understand: northern latitude 38°18'50", eastern longitude 34°43'.

When he finished he called Pollock on the phone. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Pollock. It’s Blake and I have to send an email’

‘Can you be more specific, Professor Blake?’

‘It’s a text in hieroglyphics that I have to consult a colleague about, the same person I sent the last message to.’

‘I’m sorry, Professor, but seeing that Mr Maddox is not here, I can’t accept your request.’

Blake reacted aggressively. ‘Listen, Pollock, this colleague is the only person I can trust on this, and he just happens to be leaving town tomorrow. He’ll be gone for a couple of weeks. That means that I won’t be able to fully decipher the texts that I’ve transcribed, and that information is absolutely essential for my work. If you want to take the responsibility for hindering my work, go right ahead, but I don’t think Mr Maddox will be happy about it.’

Pollock didn’t answer immediately. Blake could hear his breathing on the other end of the phone, and the noise of the generator in the background, much louder than it was outside.

‘All right,’ said Pollock, ‘if you guarantee that’s all there is in the message.’

‘That’s it, Mr Pollock,’ insisted Blake. ‘If your computer is on, I’ll send you the text directly by modem so you can email it right away. I might even get an answer back quickly, if you could leave the generator on for a little while longer.’

‘Well,’ replied Pollock, ‘I did plan to take advantage of Mr Maddox’s absence to take care of a few things and to let the refrigerators run a little longer. Send me through the message.’

Blake hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. He immediately transmitted the text he’d prepared to Pollock’s computer, hoping that Husseini was still in the house. He figured that in Chicago it would be between twelve and one in the afternoon.

After he’d sent the message he pulled up Husseini’s response again and printed the three lines of the Breasted papyrus, comparing every line and every palaeographic detail with the figures from the tomb he was excavating. They matched incredibly. It really looked as if the same scribe had written the two texts. But how could that be?

He suddenly realized that he’d been working on his analysis for nearly two hours and the generator was still on. It was a quarter to ten. Evidently Maddox hadn’t returned yet, and probably neither had Sarah.

He opened the door and walked outside. The air was cold and crisp and the waning moon wandered between a thin layer of clouds and the wavy profile of the mountains.

He thought of Sarah out all alone in the desert. Sarah who had lied to him and used her beauty to manipulate him. No one in that camp was who they seemed to be and he realized that he couldn’t allow himself to feel any emotion other than diffidence. His only remaining contact was Husseini, the colleague who had taken him in off the street that lonely Christmas Eve. And even that contact felt very precarious; he could be cut off at any time.

He lit up a cigarette and tried to relax, but with each passing moment the situation seemed even more difficult and dangerous. And he realized that he had absolutely no influence on the outcome. Those people roaming around at night through the desert, those distant noises, those strange flashes of light on the horizon: what did any of this have to do with their presumed mining activity?

He imagined that they might even be planning to take him out, once they’d got what they’d wanted from him. Or blackmail him, forcing him to keep his mouth shut about everything.

The ringing telephone interrupted his thoughts and he jumped to his feet. He went back in and picked up the receiver.

‘Hello.’

‘It’s Pollock. There’s an answer to your email. If your computer’s on, I’ll send it through.’

‘Thanks, Mr Pollock. I’m ready on this end.’

Husseini answered him in the same way, in hieroglyphics. He seemed to have understood perfectly what Blake needed to know. He had to make a rough interpretation of the answer; some parts of it weren’t entirely clear. But there was one phrase that left no doubt:
Your place is in the desert called Negev, near the low land called Mitzpe Ramon, in the land of Israel.

He added:
How could that possibly be?

G
AD
A
VNER
left archaeologist Ygael Allon’s company at one in the morning. A thrilling tour, Professor,’ he said, as soon as they’d come up from the tunnel under the Antonian Fortress archway. ‘How long do you think it will take to reach the end of the tunnel?’

Allon shrugged. ‘Hard to say. It’s not a construction like a house or a sanctuary or a thermal bath where we know the approximate dimensions. A tunnel can be ten metres long or even three kilometres. The extraordinary thing is that it seems to lead to the Temple.’

‘I can see why you had me called,’ said Avner. ‘I’ll give immediate orders to have the area with access to the dig cordoned off, and I’ll ensure that you have everything you need to finish your investigation as soon as possible. Because of where we are, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that this whole operation must remain completely secret. Tension is so high that news like this could have unforeseen consequences.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Allon. ‘I think you’re right. Goodnight, Mr Cohen.’

‘Goodnight, Professor.’

He walked off, followed by his companion. ‘Ferrario,’ he said as soon as they’d taken a few steps, ‘give immediate instructions to have the area blocked off and infiltrate a couple of our agents among the excavation crew. I want to be continually informed of what’s going on down there.’

‘But sir,’ protested the officer, ‘blocking off the area will draw attention to it and—’

‘I know, but I’d say we have no choice in the matter. Do you have a better idea?’

Ferrario shook his head.

‘See? Do as I ask. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon in the King David lobby at five, for a cup of coffee.’

‘I’ll be there,’ answered Ferrario. He turned and disappeared into the shadows of the Antonian Fortress.

Avner reached his private residence in the Old City and took the elevator up to the eighth floor. He never had a bodyguard with him at home, having given his agents firm orders that no one should cross into his private territory. He had always calculated the risks and he preferred it this way. He turned the key in the lock and went in.

He walked through the apartment without even switching on the light and walked onto the terrace to look down at the city, as he did every night before going to sleep. He let his gaze roam over the domes and towers, over the city walls, over the Mosque of Omar rising on the mount that was once the site of the Sanctuary of Yahweh. He needed to know that he had the situation under control before calling it a night.

He lit a cigarette and let the stiff, cold wind from the snowy peaks of Mount Carmel numb his face and forehead.

This was the time when he thought of his dead. Of his son Aser, killed at twenty in an ambush in the south of Lebanon, and his wife, Ruth, who had died shortly after, incapable of surviving without him. He thought of his own solitude at the top of that apartment building, at the top of his organization and at the turning point of his existence.

He scanned the eastern horizon in the direction of the desert of Judah and the high Moab plain and he felt his enemy moving like a ghost somewhere beyond those barren hills, through that sterile land.

The elusive Abu Ahmid.

The man who had been directly responsible for the death of his son and the massacre of the boy’s comrades. Avner had sworn that day to hunt him down relentlessly. But since then he’d only managed to catch a glimpse of him once and only after the bastard had already slipped out of his hands, during a parachute raid on a refugee camp in southern Lebanon. But he was sure he would recognize him if he ever saw him again.

The cigarette burned quickly, helped by the wind. Gad Avner walked back into the house and switched on his table lamp: the light on his private telephone line was flashing in the dark.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘It’s the night porter,’ replied a voice on the other end.

‘I’m listening.’

‘I’m working, but it’s not easy in these surroundings. There have been unforeseen newcomers . . . intruders, you could say.’

Avner fell silent, as if taken by surprise. ‘The risks of the profession. Who are they?’

‘Americans. A commando unit. And there’s talk of an operation in progress.’

‘Can’t you find out anything else?’

‘A date: 13 January. And the situation seems to be moving along quickly.’

‘Anything else going on at the front?’

‘Lots. But I have to cut off, sir. There’s someone coming.’

‘Be careful. If something happens to you there’s no one who can replace you. Thank you, night porter.’

The little green light went out and Gad Avner turned on the computer. He connected to the databank at headquarters to access a schedule of events for the entire Middle East: local functions and festivities, religious celebrations, political and diplomatic meetings.