Golden Relic (21 page)

"It's not funny," Sam insisted. "On the other hand, it's hysterical, or I am," she said breaking
into laughter herself. "Do we have any idea what's going on yet?"

"Obviously the key we claimed here goes with the number on the drink coaster and opens a safety
deposit box at the Americo Bank," Maggie stated.

"Obviously," Sam agreed, as Emil returned to their table. "But it's just another in an endless
line of clues - to what? We haven't learnt anything at all, except that MM is Muu-Muu is
you."

"We've learnt enough to hypothesise that Alistair and Noel may have in fact been poisoned like
Lloyd was. That is one coincidence that is too hard to swallow. And we know that there's a Turkish
bloke out there who wants whatever it is we're looking for, and a Mexican who is either your
guardian angel or is simply waiting for us to find whatever it is before pulling his own knife."

"That's a nice thought," Sam said. "But what could interest both a Turk and a Mexican?"

"And have been worth the lives of Lloyd, Alistair and Noel?" Maggie added and then frowned as she
glanced around the bar.

"Not to mention my very close call," Sam reminded her. "I hope you've got some pain killers in
your first aid kit because I'm developing a cracker of a headache."

"Well don't drink any more beer Sam, you've probably got a concussion," Maggie advised. "But
speaking of your close call, I rather think it's time we left this hotel. Once your assailant
realises his key won't open anything this side of the equator, he's going to come looking for
us."

"Where do you suggest we go?" Sam asked. "Somehow or other he knew to wait for us here. How many
people knew that?"

"Quite a lot actually," Maggie replied. "Apart from the fact that I mentioned it at dinner in
Melbourne last night at a table full of your suspects, I also booked the room in advance which means
that anyone who knew we were coming to Cairo could have found us quite easily."

"Oh great," Sam moaned.

"We need to split up," Maggie began.

"Oh no, we are not doing that again," Sam stressed.

Maggie leant forward. "I will go to the phone in the lobby," she whispered, "ring my friend
Michael at the Embassy and get him to book us a room, in his name, at the Hotel Mena House Oberoi.
Emil can take you on his bike and I will take a taxi with our bags."

Sam looked sceptical so
Maggie added, "You'll like it there, Sam. It's a grand and elegant old hotel about as close to the
pyramids as you can get."

"Okay," Sam agreed, "although I believe a lifetime desire to see the Sphinx is clouding my better
judgement. Explain why we have to go separately, though," she requested.

"If we're still being watched by your Turkish friend he won't know which of us to follow."

"Oh, like last time. Good plan," Sam nodded, squinting at Maggie. "Let's hope the Mexican isn't
actually in cahoots with the Turk, and only helped out because he thought it premature to bump me
off in the Khan."

"This time you will be safe with Emil and we'll leave at the same time, after laying a false
trail by telling the concierge we're checking out because we've decided to fly to Luxor
tonight."

"Maggie, the only good thing about this plan is that if Mr Fez-head turns up at our next hotel
we'll know your Embassy buddy is the mule who led him to us in the first place," Sam stated.

"The mule?" Maggie queried.

"Mole, I meant mole," Sam stammered. "The informer, the rirty dat who squealed on us."

"The rirty dat?" Maggie repeated. "I think you'd better take the taxi, Sam."

"I think we'd better get our stuff together and get out of here before I cark it completely. I do
believe the day has caught up with and is about to overwhelm me," Sam announced.

In the end Maggie took the taxi, or rather a series of taxis, while Sam clung on to
Emil for dear life as he navigated a network of narrow backstreets before emerging onto to Sharia al
Ahram, or Pyramids Road. By eight o-clock they were ensconced in their extravagantly luxurious suite
at the Mena House Oberoi where Sam was contemplating notions of untimely death versus immortality as
she gazed in awe at one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The largest and closest of the Great Pyramids, that of Pharaoh Cheops, rose shimmering with a
supernatural glow from the dark desert of the surrounding Giza plateau. It was as if the ancient
gods had left a light on to guide the Pharaoh's ka, or life force, home again after a spot of astral
travelling.

Sam shook her head and moved the ice pack from her jaw to her temple. She knew the nightly Sound
and Light Show was in progress and that, according to Maggie, even archaeologists and academics went
a bit silly during their first pyramid experience, tending to pile adjectives and superlatives on
top of wild theories, but Sam worried that she'd developed some kind of weird New Age side effect
from having her head smashed into a wall.

Still she couldn't help but be completely awestruck. The pyramids, she knew, were not just
monumental tombs to safeguard a dead king's desiccated, organless body and his household treasures,
but were designed as indestructible sanctuaries to protect his life force and provide a place for
his subjects to worship his immortal ka.

And, in a sense, Cheops and Chepren had achieved a kind of immortality whether their ka had
actually survived more than four millennia or not. For even now, at the end of the 20
^th
century AD, their names were still uttered with a kind of reverence because their beliefs had
culminated in feats of engineering so incredible they had conquered history itself. The pyramids had
outlived the pharaohs, outlasted invading Greeks, Romans and Arabs, survived Marmelukes, Ottomans,
the French, and British occupation, and had withstood the ultimate test of time and the unforgiving
desert.

How the hell did I get here? Sam wondered suddenly. Why did a stranger try to kill me? And why am
I letting all this shit happen around me, without tying Maggie to the bed and dragging the truth out
of her?

Because Sam, she said to herself, you decided to make the most of a bizarre
situation. Two days ago your being here was only a possibility in your wildest dreams, then Maggie
says 'we're going to Cairo' and your boss orders you to do just that. So you reply 'oh okay,
whatever you say'. I mean who would turn down a free trip to Egypt?

"Who are you talking to, Sam?" Maggie asked, emerging from the bathroom dressed in a purple
knee-length T-shirt.

"Cheops," Sam replied. She was about to begin a serious interrogation of the woman before her
when she noticed a strange mark on her throat. "Maggie, I don't mean to get personal, well yes I do,
but is that a love bite on your neck?"

Maggie pursed her lips, waggled her head and said, "What if it is?"

Sam opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, then finally managed to say, "Hercules?"

"Yes of course. Who else? I told you he got all my wires abuzzing. I'm sure you and
Phineas…"

"We did not," Sam protested.

"Why ever not?" Maggie asked.

"Apart from the fact that the opportunity didn't actually present itself, I was too preoccupied
with the wild idea that I had less than 20 hours to prepare for my first overseas trip. Besides,
being with Marcus is kind of like having the flu, it affects your entire body but the moment you've
recovered you can't even imagine feeling that bad."

"Sam dear, I believe you have a problem if you equate good old fashioned lust with the flu."

"I wasn't. I was equating Marcus with the flu. When he's not in my space I don't give him a
second thought, except as a suspect. Speaking of which, I would like to know exactly what you told
Jim Pilger to convince him that I should accompany you into this international bloody clichéd
web-thing of murder and intrigue."

Maggie sat down on the edge of the bed and looked seriously at Sam. "I told him that I believed
Lloyd's murder was connected to a missing and priceless artefact, that we were already on the trail
of said artefact, and that it would reflect gloriously on him should we, on behalf of the Australian
Government, recover whatever it is and return it to whoever owns it."

Sam was completely nonplussed. "Since when have we been on the trail of a priceless
artefact?"

"Well we must be," Maggie said. "We've got Turks and Mexicans after us. What else could it
be?"

"I have no idea Maggie," Sam admitted. "But none of that explains why I'm here."

"Jim owed me a favour. I asked for you," Maggie stated. "It was a very big favour," she added,
when her explanation didn't seem to be good enough for Sam. "Fifteen years ago Jim suffered a
profound lack of judgement in his choice of bedmate during a week-long fact finding mission in
Western Australia. I helped the potential problem go away by securing her a job she'd always wanted
on a national magazine." Maggie shrugged. "I needed your help. That's how I got it, although Jim
could see the potential PR value in my artefact story."

"So you lied to him."

"Not exactly, Sam. We are on the trail of something are we not? You wouldn't have agreed to come
if you didn't think there was a good enough reason."

"I don't know about that," Sam said doubtfully. "I was here before I had time to think about the
logic of it."

"Well, the Rites of Life and Death show's visit to Cairo does coincide with Noel's so-called
stroke, doesn't it?" Maggie observed.

"Yes," Sam confirmed. "The exhibition was here from March 23 to the end of May, before going to
Paris. Maggie, I think we need to talk to Patrick again. He said Noel went for coffee with an
acquaintance, not a friend or a colleague, but an acquaintance. Maybe it was Barstoc."

"Perhaps, but of all those involved with the show my money's on Enrico Vasquez," Maggie stated.
"Why else would he be trying so hard to turn your attention towards everybody else?"

"That's a good point," Sam noted, a little vaguely because she'd just been struck with a 'why
didn't I think of it before' type thought. "What about your mate Pavel Mercier?"

"Pavel's not responsible for any of this, Sam," Maggie said defensively. "He's…"

"He's dead, I know Maggie," Sam interrupted. "But it's the fact that he is dead too that makes
him a potential piece in this puzzle. Where, when and how did he die?"

"Peru, January last year, I think."

"What do you mean, you think?"

"I mean I think it was January. In the last 25 years Pavel has been reported killed or rumoured
to be dead at least 11 times, and all in weird or sensational ways. You see he was so well known, at
least throughout our little world, that an innocent story about Pavel coming down with glandular
fever would sort of Chinese whisper its way along the archaeologist's/university/museum grapevine
until it became a fact that he'd been killed in the jungle by a poison arrow."

"He was poisoned?" Sam was incredulous.

"In 1973 he was poisoned, in 1978 he was killed in a landslide, in 1982 he had a heart attack
while doing the deed with his non-existent Peruvian mistress, in 1990 he was shot by a jealous
husband, in 1992 he died in a plane crash in the Andes."

"And last year?"

"Last year he finally did it for real. He got knocked down by a car in Cuzco and died of his
injuries in hospital three or four days later."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. After the poison arrow incident in 1973 I made Pavel promise to contact me every
three months regardless of where he was or what he was doing. It became a sort of joke because
although his work often kept him deep in the jungle for up to 10 months at a time he always managed
to find someone to pass on his messages. I regularly got notes that simply said 'still ticking' or
'jumping for joy' or 'these old bones ain't what they used to be'.

"I received that last one nearly two years ago, in October '96, so when I heard about the car
accident I ignored it until the start of February. When I didn't hear from Pavel, I contacted the
manager of the hotel where he always stayed when in Cuzco. She sent me a newspaper clipping about
the accident, dated December 29th, and a box of his stuff."

"Okay so it wasn't a stroke, but maybe he was run down on purpose," Sam suggested.

"Pavel's death doesn't fit your Exhibition itinerary theory. Marcus's show did not go to
Peru."

"But maybe someone from the show did," Sam suggested.

"Sam, I think you're starting a whole new puzzle here, with Pavel as the only piece."

"No, no," Sam disagreed, getting up to pace the room. "His piece has to be connected somehow."
Sam stopped pacing and rested her forehead against the cold window as she stared blankly out at the
Great Pyramids and sifted through the clutter in her memory. Her eyes were shining when she turned
to face Maggie. "I think this whole thing has something to do with Manco City," she announced. "That
photograph is the only connection between all four men."

"Forty years of friendship and parallel careers is a much stronger connection," Maggie
stated.

"But four out of the 16 people in that photograph have died in unusual circumstances in less than
two years," Sam remarked.

Maggie shook her head doubtfully. "You found that photo by accident under a pile of magazines,
Sam. There was no reference to it, direct or obscure, in the notes left by either Lloyd or
Noel."

"But the same photo was missing from its frame in Marsden's office," Sam reminded Maggie, taking
a set next to her on the bed. "Marsden and Winslow both referred to 'the finder'. The Professor had
a ticket to Lima, and Winslow's note said he was going to 'seek the finder'. I bet Patrick will
confirm that Noel Winslow had been struck with a sudden urge to visit Peru."

After running a gauntlet of hawkers and money changers on their short walk down
Talaat Harb, Sam and Maggie sat in the hushed atmosphere of the Americo Bank waiting for the
manager; for it was only he, they had been informed, who could attend to the safety deposit box
vault. They'd already been waiting 15 minutes and Emil, who had picked them up at 8 am in a
nondescript vehicle, as per Maggie's request, was probably making his first drive-by. He had
deposited them just around the corner from the bank, where Maggie had asked him to wait for quarter
of an hour, before cruising around the block to pass the bank every 10 minutes until they
emerged.