The Exodus Quest (13 page)

TWENTY-ONE

I

There was a thin gap between Augustin Pascal’s front door and its jamb, enough for Peterson to see it was locked only on the latch, a trivial challenge to anyone with a past like his.

A door slammed below. He took a step back, stood with his hands clasped respectfully in front, as though he’d just knocked and was waiting for an answer. Elevator cables cranked. Doors opened and closed. The lift disgorged its occupant. The block fell silent again.

He put his ear against the door. Nothing. He quietly released the latch with a credit card, slipped inside. The bathroom door was half-closed; he could hear the splash of a man relieving himself. A laptop was set up on the kitchen table, a photograph of the mosaic from his site displayed upon it. He stared stunned at it. No wonder the Lord had brought him here.

The loo flushed. Peterson hurried across to the bedroom, leaving the door a fraction open so that he could see. Knox came out a moment later, wiped his hands on his trousers. He went into the kitchen, sat down with his back to Peterson, clicked the laptop’s mouse, brought up an Internet browser.

He was a naturally powerful man, Peterson, and he kept himself fit. He despised people who let any of God’s gifts go to waste. He’d been an accomplished wrestler as a young man too. He’d enjoyed pitting his strength and technique against others, the mutual respect of close combat, the way you had to wear down your opponent like a constrictor its prey, the tautness and ache of stretched muscle, the slick sheen of pressed flesh, faces just inches apart, how that other man became your entire world for those few intense minutes of the bout. Best of all, he’d loved that delicious moment of succumbing, that almost inaudible exhalation when his opponent had known and then accepted his defeat. So he knew he had the raw attributes for the task that faced him now. Yet still he felt nervous. The Devil was a powerful adversary, not one to be taken lightly, and rarely had he sensed his presence so strongly in anyone as in Knox. Besides, even if everything went perfectly, he’d risk at least one moment of exposure. He needed to make sure that should he be seen, he couldn’t be recognized.

On the top shelf of the wardrobe, he found a motorcycle helmet. Perfect. He put it on, tightened its chinstrap. The way it reflected his breath sounded strangely like fear. Knox was still absorbed in his laptop. Peterson pushed the door slowly open and crept up quietly behind him.

II

‘Was this burial chamber truly built for the man we know as Moses?’ Stafford asked rhetorically, as Lily filmed. ‘I believe it was.’

Gaille stood quietly outside the burial chamber as he talked, well out of shot and Stafford’s eye-line. He had a low tolerance for distraction, a low tolerance for everything.

‘No trace of Akhenaten’s body was ever found here,’ he continued. ‘No trace of any body. Think about that. This wonderful burial chamber, yet no one buried here.’

Gaille pursed her lips. Traces of human remains
had
been found here, according to reports, though none had been preserved for analysis. And fragments of a sarcophagus built for Akhenaten had certainly been found, along with numerous
shabtis
, miniature Akhenaten figurines designed to do the menial work in the afterlife so that Akhenaten’s own spirit wouldn’t have to. Even should Stafford be right about the Jews coming from Amarna, it was hard to accept Akhenaten as Moses. Egyptian society had been fiercely hierarchical. Pharaohs had been obeyed, even heretic pharaohs. While Akhenaten lived, he’d have remained in charge and he’d have had no reason to leave Amarna. On the other hand, she could easily believe he hadn’t been buried in this chamber. It would have been too easy a target for vindictive enemies. So maybe they’d taken his body with them, or moved it to the Valley of the Kings, or maybe even somewhere close by.

‘So what
did
happen to Akhenaten?’ asked Stafford. ‘Where did he go? And what about all his followers, his fellow Atenists? Come with me on a marvellous journey, as I reveal for the first time ever the true story of Moses and the birth of the Jewish nation. Join me on my extraordinary Exodus quest.’

A few seconds’ silence as Lily panned around the burial chamber, filming the faded gypsum murals. Then she lowered the camera, passed Stafford the headphones, enabling him to review the footage. ‘I preferred the first take,’ he grunted.

‘I told you it was fine.’

‘Then let’s go back up. Scout our sunset shot.’

‘Sunset shot?’ asked Gaille.

‘From the hill opposite,’ nodded Stafford. ‘We’ll pan around from the tomb mouth to the Royal Wadi. It’ll finish this segment off nicely. We start with the sun rising over Amarna, you see.’

‘And end with the sun setting on it?’

‘Exactly,’ nodded Stafford, leading the way up the steps. ‘The symbolism, you see.’

‘Quite.’

He smiled sourly at her. ‘You academics,’ he said. ‘You’re all the same. You’d sell your soul for what I have.’ They emerged back out into daylight. He strode across the road to the far side of the wadi without a backward glance, surveyed it for a place to climb.

‘Hey! You! Stop!’

Gaille looked around. Captain Khaled Osman was striding belligerently towards Stafford, anger and something like fear in his expression. Stafford decided to ignore him, began to climb, but Khaled grabbed his leg and violently tugged him back. Stafford fell tumbling onto rock, scraping his palms. He stood up, turned incredulously to Gaille. ‘Did you see that?’ he demanded. ‘He put his hands on me.’

‘You finish here,’ said Khaled. ‘Leave.’

‘Leave? I’ll leave when I’m good and ready.’

‘Leave now.’

‘You can’t do this. We have permission.’ He turned to Lily, emerging from the tomb. ‘Show him our paperwork.’

Lily glanced at Gaille for some clue of what was going on, but Gaille only shrugged in bewilderment. Lily opened her folder, pulled out several paper-clipped sheets of paper. ‘There!’ said Stafford, snatching them from her, thrusting them in Khaled’s face. ‘See?’

Khaled slapped Stafford’s hand away. The pages fluttered to the ground like a wounded bird. ‘Leave,’ he said.

‘I don’t believe this,’ muttered Stafford. ‘I don’t fucking believe this.’

Lily picked up the pages, flipped through for the authorization to film at the Royal Tomb, and found a wide and deferential smile as she pulled the single sheet out. ‘We really do have permission, you know,’ she said, offering it back to him.

Khaled’s complexion darkened. He took the page from her, tore it into confetti that he flung disdainfully into the air. ‘Leave,’ he said, putting his hand meaningfully upon his holster. ‘All of you. Now.’

Gaille’s heart was thumping wildly. ‘Let’s do as he says,’ she murmured, taking Stafford’s arm. He scowled but let himself be led back to the Discovery, his bravado punctured. Gaille belted herself in, drove back down the Royal Wadi road and then across Amarna to the car ferry, Khaled and his truck looming like perdition in her rear-view mirror.

III

Knox felt a mild but distinctly illicit thrill as he typed in the web address of Gaille’s Digging Diary. He made the occasional visit, curious to know what she was up to. He found it strangely comforting. And this morning, with everything he’d been through, he hankered for that comfort more than usual.

A new thumbnail photograph had been uploaded. Gaille standing outside her room with two of Fatima’s Egyptian staff, smiling happily in the sunshine, their friendship and good spirits obvious. He clicked on it; it began to download. He pulled up a second browser while he was waiting, reopened her email.

I miss you too
.

That ‘too’ intrigued him. He’d clearly said it first. It was true enough, of course. It was just that he was surprised he’d said it. Ever since they’d become partners, he’d been scrupulous about not letting his personal feelings affect their professional relationship. Gaille’s father had been his mentor after all. His death had left Knox in a strange position. He felt a certain responsibility to her, almost as though he was
in loco parentis
.

The way her hair tumbled when she turned her head. The brush of her fingertips on his forearm as she steered him across the street. There was nothing
in loco parentis
about that.

The photograph finally came up. He was staring at it when he saw a shadowy reflection in the screen, a man in a motorcycle helmet creeping up behind him. He whirled around, but too late. The man grabbed him like a straitjacket, pinioning his arms down by his side. He lashed out with his heels and elbows and the back of his head, but to no effect. The man was too strong for him. He dragged Knox out through the open glass doors onto the concrete balcony, then lifted him bodily and hurled him over the rail and out screaming into space.

TWENTY-TWO

I

Knox threw out his hand as he was flung from Augustin’s balcony, instinctively grabbed his assailant’s wrist, clung on for dear life, breaking his outward trajectory, falling downwards instead, swinging like a wrecking-ball on the man’s arm, crashing numbingly hard into the concrete base of the balcony. The impact knocked the wind out of him, strength from his muscles. He lost grip and tumbled down a storey to land flush on the metal railing of the balcony beneath, his left knee buckling beneath him as he fell outwards again, scrabbling desperately for something to cling to, grabbing a cast-iron stanchion as he whirled past, skin flaying from his palm on the speckled rust, until his wrist crashed into the concrete base and ripped him free once more, yet now swinging inwards far enough to hit the rail beneath and fall onto the balcony itself, the breath once more punched out of his lungs, his whole body bruised and sore, but somehow still alive.

He hobbled to his feet, leaned against the railing, looked up to see his helmeted attacker with his visor up, a glimpse of a compressed fraction of his face provoking a shudder of memory; but he vanished before Knox could quite grasp it, or fix his features in his mind.

He looked around the balcony. A steel shutter stood between him and the main body of the apartment. He tried to work his fingers beneath it to prise it up, but without success. He rattled it, pounded on it, trying to attract attention. No one came. He leaned over the railing once more. The car park below was deserted. He was about to call for help when he thought again. Even if he could get someone’s attention, they’d surely only summon the police; and he didn’t fancy explaining himself to them right now, not while they still held him responsible for Omar’s death. Which left him marooned out here while a stranger in a motorcycle helmet plotted ways to kill him.

II

No one at the hospital was talking, so Augustin headed over to the SCA instead, arrived to find it buzzing with rumour, disoriented by grief. Omar was evidently one of those people only fully appreciated after they’re gone. Mansoor, Omar’s deputy, was in his cluttered office. ‘Terrible business,’ he said, shaking his head, looking grey and harried. ‘I can’t believe Knox had anything to do with it.’

‘He didn’t.’

‘There’s a man from the police here who thinks he did.’

‘The police!’ mocked Augustin. ‘What would they know?’

Mansoor narrowed his eyes shrewdly. ‘Have you heard something?’

‘No.’

‘You can trust me, you know.’

‘I know,’ agreed Augustin. He removed a stack of reports from a chair, sat down. ‘But how could I tell you anything? I don’t even know what happened. They wouldn’t say a damned thing at the hospital.’

‘You should talk to this policeman,’ suggested Mansoor. ‘He’ll still be around here somewhere. I promised to go out to Borg el-Arab with him.’

‘Borg el-Arab?’ frowned Augustin. ‘Is that where they crashed?’

‘Yes.’

‘What the hell were they doing out there?’

‘Visiting some training dig apparently.’

‘A dig? In Borg?’

Mansoor nodded. ‘No one here knows anything about it either. Being administered out of Cairo, apparently.’ He went over to his filing cabinet, shifted a boxed aerial-photography kit out of the way to get at a drawer.

‘A remote-controlled aircraft,’ grunted Augustin, impressed. ‘How the hell did you get the budget for that?’

‘Rudi lent it to me,’ said Mansoor. ‘Easier than him shipping it back and forth to Germany every season.’ He handed Augustin a dog-eared sheet of paper, the writing so faint that Augustin had to take it to the window to read. Mortimer Griffin. The Reverend Ernest Peterson. The Texas Society of Biblical Archaeologists. An address in Borg el-Arab. Nothing else. But surely it had to be the source of Knox’s photographs. ‘I’d like to go and see this place for myself,’ he murmured.

‘Maybe you can,’ said Mansoor. ‘You’ve seen how the guys are. My place today is here with them. What if I were to ask this policeman if you could go out there instead of me?’

‘Yes,’ nodded Augustin. ‘What a good idea.’

III

Peterson hurried in from the balcony, aghast that Knox had once again escaped justice. The Devil was working overtime today. The laptop was still open on the kitchen table, reminding Peterson of the urgent need to destroy all Knox’s photographs of his site.

There were two browsers open, one showing a photo of a dark-haired young woman with two Egyptian men in
galabayas
, the other an email from a certain Gaille Bonnard, perhaps the woman in the photo. He scanned it quickly, assimilated the implication that she had a set of Knox’s photographs. He sat down, typed out a reply.

Dear Gaille, thanks for these. They’re terrific.
One more thing. Delete all copies, including
the originals. Can’t explain now. I’ll call later.
But please do as I say. Delete everything as
soon as possible! Before calling me even. Very,
very important. Can’t stress it too much
.

All love, Daniel
.

A makeshift solution, but it would have to do. He sent it on its way then deleted her email from Knox’s hotmail account, consigning it and all its attachments into oblivion. He was no computer expert, but he’d heard stories about sodomites and other abominators being trapped by images recovered from their hard disks even after they’d thought them deleted. He couldn’t risk anyone recovering these, so he unplugged the laptop from its various connections, tucked it under his arm and hurried out.