The Lost Army of Cambyses (23 page)

'First things first. We find out what this is,' he

said.

He looked around again, then pulled away the

string and lifted the lid. Inside, sitting on a bed of

straw, was a flat object wrapped in newspaper.

There was a small card sellotaped to it:

Tara. Thought this might be appropriate. Love, as

always,

Dad.

He glanced over at her, then removed the object

from the box and tore away the paper. It was a

fragment of what looked like plaster, roughly

rectangular in shape, the edges jagged and uneven.

The surface was painted a pale yellow, with three

columns of black hieroglyphic figures running

down it and, on the left, part of a figure from a

fourth column. A line of snakes with their heads

reared slithered along the bottom – the reason,

Tara assumed, her father had chosen it for her in

the first place.

Daniel turned the piece over in his hand,

nodding slightly as if in recognition.

192

'You know what it is?' she asked.

He didn't answer immediately and she had to

repeat the question.

'Gypsum plaster,' he said distractedly. 'From a

tomb decoration. The hieroglyphs would have

been part of a longer text – see, these ones have

been cut off mid-word. It's pretty good workman-

ship. Very good, in fact.' He smiled to himself.

'Is it genuine?'

'Definitely. Late Period by the looks of it. Greek,

maybe, or Roman. Possibly Persian occupation, not

much earlier. Almost certainly from Luxor, though.'

193

'How can you tell that?'

He nodded at the piece of paper the object had

been wrapped in. Across the top was written a

legend in Arabic.

'Al-Uqsur,'
he translated. 'Luxor. It's from the

local paper.'

She took the fragment from him and stared at it,

shaking her head. 'I can't understand why Dad

would have bought it if it's genuine. He despised

the antiquities trade. Never stopped going on

about how much damage it did.'

Daniel shrugged. 'I guess he must have thought

it was a fake. It's not his period, after all. Unless

you're an expert in late dynastic tomb art you'd be

hard pressed to tell the difference. If it was Old

Kingdom I expect he'd have known immediately.'

'Poor Dad.' She sighed. 'He would have been

devastated if he'd realized.' She handed the piece

back. 'So what do the hieroglyphs mean?'

He laid the fragment in his lap and scanned the

text.

'It reads right to left. See, the text always runs

into the faces of the signs. This first column trans-

lates
abed
which is month, and then those strokes

are the number three, and then
peret,
which was

one of the divisions of the Egyptian year, roughly

equivalent to our winter. So,
in the third month of

peret.
Then we've got' – he squinted down – 'looks

like some kind of name,
ib-wer-imenty,
Great

Heart of the West;
ib-wer,
great heart;
imenty,
of the west. It's not a proper name, more a sort of

nickname. Certainly not part of a royal titulary.

Or not one I've ever heard of.'

He thought for a moment, repeating the name

194

to himself, then moved his finger to the second

column of text.

'This top word is
mer,
which means pyramid.

Then
iteru,
which is an ancient unit of measure-

ment, and then a number, ninety. So,
the pyramid

ninety item.
Then the next column starts with

what looks like
kheper-en,
although these top two

hieroglyphs are broken off so . . .' He held the

fragment up, trying to catch the light. 'No, it's

definitely
kheper-en,
it happened, and then
dja

wer,
a great storm. Then this cut-off figure on the

left seems to be another number, although it's

impossible to tell what. And that's it.'

He stared down at the fragment for a moment

longer, turning it over in his hands, shaking his

head, then returned it to its box and slid the box

back into Tara's bag.

'If it does come from a Theban tomb of the Late

Period, that certainly makes it rare,' he said. 'You

don't get much painted tomb decoration post New

Kingdom. Even then, though, I doubt it's worth

more than a few hundred dollars. Hardly worth

killing anyone over.'

'So why do these people want it?'

'God knows. Maybe they want the complete

version of whatever text it was once a part of.

Why that text should be so significant, though,

I've no idea.' He pulled a cheroot from his shirt

pocket, lit it and stood up, exhaling a billow of

smoke. 'Wait here.'

He crossed to the telephone booth and, snatch-

ing up the receiver, pushed a phone card into the

slot and dialled. For a moment he looked at her,

then turned away and began talking. He spoke for

195

almost three minutes, at one point seeming to

gesticulate angrily, then put the receiver down and

returned to the bench. His forehead, she noticed,

was beaded with sweat.

'They've been at my hotel. Three of them.

Turned my room upside down, apparently. The

owner was terrified, poor bastard. Christ, this is a

mess.'

He hunched forward, rubbing his face with his

hands. A little girl ran up, looked at them and ran

away again, laughing. Somewhere nearby a

monkey was howling.

'We should go to the police,' said Tara.

'After we've hijacked a car and killed two

Egyptian nationals? Not fucking likely.'

'We were defending ourselves! They were

terrorists!'

'That's not necessarily how the police would see

it. Believe me, I know how they think.'

'We have to . . .'

'I said no, Tara! It'll only make things worse. If

they could possibly get any worse.'

There was a tense silence.

'Then what?' she asked. 'We can't just sit here.'

Another silence.

'The embassy,' he said eventually. 'We'll go to

the British embassy. That's the only safe place.

We're out of our depth here. We need protection.'

Tara nodded.

'Do you have the number?' he asked.

She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the

card Squires had given her the previous day.

'OK. Call. Tell him what's happened. Say we

need help. Urgently.'

196

He handed her his phone card and she crossed

to the booth and dialled. It was answered after just

two rings.

'Charles Squires.'

That soothing avuncular voice.

'Mr Squires? It's Tara Mullray.'

'Hello, Miss Mullray.' He didn't sound

especially surprised to hear from her. 'Is every-

thing OK?'

'No. No, it's not. I'm with a friend and we're—'

'A friend?'

'Yes. An archaeologist. Daniel Lacage. He knew

my father. Look, we're in trouble. I can't explain

over the phone. Something's happened.'

A pause.

'Can you be any more specific?'

'Someone's trying to kill us.'

'Kill you!'

'Yes. Kill us. We need protection.'

Another pause.

'Is this something to do with the man you told

me about yesterday? The man you said was

following you?'

'Yes. We've found something and they're trying

to kill us because of it.'

She was aware she wasn't making much sense.

'OK,' he said soothingly, 'let's just stay calm.

Where are you?'

'In Cairo. In a zoo.'

'Whereabouts in the zoo?'

'Um . . . by the elephant cage.'

'And you have this artefact with you?'

'Yes.'

He was silent for a moment. She had the

197

impression he'd put his hand over the receiver

while he spoke to someone beside him.

'OK, I'm sending Crispin over immediately. You

and your friend just stay there. Do you understand

me? Just stay exactly where you are. We'll be with

you as quickly as we can.'

'Right.'

'Everything's going to be all right.'

'Yes. Thank you.'

'See you soon.'

He hung up.

'Well?' asked Daniel as she sat back down.

'He's sending someone over. Said we should stay

here.'

He nodded and they lapsed into silence, Daniel

puffing on his cheroot, Tara staring down at her

bag. She'd been hoping the mysterious object

would provide some sort of answer to what

was going on, but instead it seemed to make

things even more obscure, as though an

already complex code had had an extra line of

encryption added to it. She felt confused and

frightened.

'Perhaps Dr Jemal can help,' she said eventually.

Daniel raised his eyebrows enquiringly. 'He's an

old colleague of my father's,' she explained. 'I met

him yesterday at the embassy. Maybe he'll know

why the object's so important.'

Daniel shrugged. 'Never heard of him.'

'He's deputy head of the Antiquities Service.'

'Mohammed Fesal's deputy head of the

Antiquities Service.'

'Oh. Well, he's something in the Antiquities

Service, anyway.'

198

There was a pause. Daniel pulled on his che-

root. 'Jemal?'

'Yes. Dr Sharif Jemal. Like Omar Sharif.'

'I've never heard of a Dr Sharif Jemal.'

'Should you have?'

'If he's someone important in the Service, yes, of

course. I deal with these guys every day.' He raised

the cheroot again, but this time didn't draw in,

just let it hover in front of his face. 'What else did

he say, this Dr Jemal?'

'Nothing much. He said he worked with my

father at Saqqara. They found a tomb together. In

1972. The year I was born.'

'What tomb?'

'I can't remember. Hotep or something.'

'Ptah-hotep?'

'Yes, that was it.'

The cheroot was still suspended in front of

Daniel's mouth. He looked across at her. 'Who did

you just speak to, Tara?'

'What?'

'At the embassy. Who did you just speak to?'

'Why? What's wrong?'

The bubbles of sweat on his forehead seemed to

have multiplied. There was unease in his eyes.

'Your father found the tomb of Ptah-hotep in

1963. The year
I
was born. And he found it at

Abydos, not Saqqara.' Suddenly he threw the

cheroot aside and stood up. 'Who did you just

speak to?' His voice was fast now, urgent.

'Charles Squires. The cultural attaché.'

'And what did he say?'

'He just said wait here. They'd send someone

over to get us.'

199

'That's it? You told him where we were?'

'Of course I told him where we were. How else

are they going to find us?'

'And the piece. Did you mention the piece?'

'Yes. I said we'd—'

'What?'

A sudden tingle of unease rippled down her

back.

'He asked if we still had the artefact with us.'

'So?'

The tingle was growing stronger.

'I didn't tell him it was an artefact. I just said

we'd found something.'

For a moment he remained where he was, then

hoisted her to her feet.

'We're getting out of here.'

'But this is crazy. Crazy. Why would the

embassy lie to us?'

'I don't know. But this Dr Jemal clearly isn't

who he says he is, and if he's not then it would

seem your friend the cultural attaché isn't

either.'

'But why? Why?'

'I've told you I don't know! We've got to get out

of here. Come on!'

The alarm in his voice was unmistakable. He

seized the knapsack and they hurried away, skirt-

ing the elephant cage and following a path up the

side of a tree-covered mound. At the top they

turned and looked back.

'Look!'

He pointed back down to where three men,

conspicuous in suits and dark glasses, had just

come up to the bench on which they'd been sitting.

200

One crossed to the telephone booth and looked