Shooting the Sphinx (9 page)

“We are owned by all the American oil companies,” said General Hanawy.

“We can move men and equipment all over the Middle East and North Africa from Cairo International Airport,” added Shawky.

“I see.” Ari began to understand that this operation was a web, a nexus connecting giant oil companies to their wells. “What do you charge for a chopper?”

“Don't worry.” General Hanawy raised his hand like shooing away a fly. “If we did this, we wouldn't be doing it for the money. We would do it for Ahmed Maher, my instructor.”

Shawky stifled a pained expression at the general's largesse. “You have a gyrostabilized camera?”

Ari held up the model helicopter with the little camera ball mounted on it. “Yes, it's called the SpaceCam. In about three hours, our technician can mount it on the nose of a chopper.”

“From a practical point of view, this is very possible,” said Shawky.

“Oh, that's great.” Ari knew he had them hooked.

“However, if Dr. Nejem called…” cautioned Shawky.

“Look, I could do this and I could probably get away with it,” mused General Hanawy. “But people I know would be very angry with me.”

“Dr. Nejem,” repeated Shawky.

“If Dr. Nejem called, I would have to stop immediately. You can understand the importance of the minister of antiquities in Egypt. Why don't you go to the Air Force? They would have to approve it anyway.”

“We've already got a chopper from the Air Force,” said Ari.

“You have?” asked the general, taken aback. “Then what are you doing here?”

“The SpaceCam got stuck in customs,” admitted Ari.

“Oh they are terrible.” Shawky commiserated. “We have troubles with them all the time.”

“And you have a permit to fly on a specific date?” guessed the general.

“Today.”

“Typical,” said Shawky.

“I'm wondering,” began Ari, “if there's some way that we could hire you … or your company … as a consultant … to pull some strings … or consult on helping us get a new date from … the Air Force as soon as possible?”

“I suppose I could be of some service,” said General Hanawy.

“They won't even rent us an American helicopter,” complained Ari.

“What do they want to give you?” asked the general. “Not one of those old Soviet Mi-17s?”

“Exactly.”

“Unbelievable.” The general was disgusted. “That's not a helicopter. It's a bus with a rotor on the top. You can drive a jeep inside of it. You can put twenty-two men inside of it, with equipment. Have you flown in it?”

“No, sir.”

“Very shaky, a lot of vibration. Not good for snipers. Photographers, like snipers, would like the helicopter steady, I would imagine. And you want to fly low?”

“As low as possible, about a hundred and fifty feet off the ground.”

“If you fly that low in a ship that big, you will kick up so much dust it will be a cyclone around the Sphinx, like a sandstorm. The tourists will be running for their lives.”

“And that would make Dr. Nejam scream like an eagle,” added Shawky.

“The Defense Ministry can ignore him; when I was chief of staff of the Air Force, I could ignore him, but now, not so much.”

“You were chief of staff?” Ari was about to hire a four-star general as a consultant. He couldn't believe his luck.

“I retired two years ago to take this job. Did Ahmed Maher not tell you?” General Hanawy looked perplexed. “How do you know Ahmed Maher?”

“General Sheh … ata?” Ari tried to remember his last name. “I went to the website of the Egyptian Pilot's Association,” explained Ari, “and asked if anyone knew where to rent a helicopter. He e-mailed back and told me to call you.”

“You never met him?”

“No, sir.”

“Never spoke to him?”

“No, sir.”

“You have no connection with any American oil companies?”

“Uh, no?”

“You are not a member of the CIA?”

“CIA? Me?” Do they think I'm some kind of a spy? wondered Ari. “I just, I just … met him on the Internet.”

The two top executives of Petroleum Air Charters looked at each other bewildered. Ari got the distinct impression that his appointment had been given under the misapprehension that he was someone else.

“Thank you for coming to see us, Mr. Basher.” The general stood up and held out his hand to shake. “We don't think there is anything further we can advise you with.”

The meeting was over. Ari found himself back out on the street in about sixty seconds still juggling his gold sphinx, mini pyramids, and little toy helicopter.

 

Chapter 17

The team rode on camels up to the foot of the Great Pyramid, the Tomb of Cheops or Khufu as the Ancient Egyptians would have called it. Samir warned them, “When the camels kneel to let you down, hold on as tight as you can.”

Ari, Don, and Charley didn't need the warning; they had seen some Russians dismounting, and one of them had been flipped over a camel's neck into the sand. Each camel made a plaintive groan as a herder tapped its belly with a stick to make it kneel. Ari was bucked forward in the saddle, then as the hind legs buckled, he was whiplashed backward. He slid down the side of the animal's hump and looked up at the immensity of the 2.3 million huge stone blocks above them.

They met their guide, Farouk, an Egyptian archaeology student with curly brown hair and long thin fingers that pointed precisely and lifted delicately. They were like punctuation as he spoke. He led the climb. Tiny ant people on a giant rock staircase, they dodged around, then scrambled on top of the massive blocks. “The largest of these stones weigh up to eighty tons, some quarried five hundred miles away in Aswan then transported by barge almost five thousand years ago,” said Farouk.

Samir leaned into Ari's ear as they were climbing. “Do not speak about our movie,” he whispered.

“But how are we going to discuss the shot?” Ari was annoyed. “That's our whole reason for climbing up here.”

“Wait until we are alone. Farouk is a graduate student. We cannot trust him.”

“Because he's a student?”

“No, because he is not the normal type of guide. He is upper class. He must have some family connections to get his job.”

Ari was confused. Trying to read some basis for suspicion, Ari watched the elegant young Egyptian. “Trust him about what?”

“There are no secrets in Cairo,” replied Samir cryptically.

As they climbed higher, Farouk continued speaking. “When completed around the year 2560 B.C., this pyramid stood 481 feet high and was the tallest man-made structure for the next 3,800 years.”

“How'd'ya think they got all these blocks up here?” asked Don in his Australian drawl. “Not by helicopter.”

“The ancient Greeks believed wooden levers were used to lift the blocks,” explained Farouk. “We believe that up to one hundred thousand men divided into large work gangs pulling long ropes dragged each stone up ramps all day and all night over a period of twenty years.”

About halfway up the side of the Great Pyramid, Farouk stopped. “We must not climb any higher,” he announced.

“Why not?” asked Ari.

“It is forbidden.”

They all looked up at the top of the pyramid, only another two hundred feet above them. The hunger to top it, a kind of summit fever, had seized them.

“Is it really forbidden?” Ari put on a sly look, probing the possibility of a bribe. “Or sort of forbidden?”

Samir winced and shook his head.

With stern disapproval, Farouk said, “Only Dr. Nejem can allow it.”

“Dr. Nejem?” asked Ari. The name sounded familiar.

“The leader of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.”

“Okay.” Ari turned around to the view of Giza, and the city of Cairo beyond. It was surprising to see how very much a part of the city they were. “Is it permitted to walk around the pyramid on this level?”

“Certainly,” said Farouk. He led the way. Ari hung back. Don brought up the rear.

“It's a funny sight, isn't it?” said Don to Ari. “We're right on the edge of the city. On one side, urban sprawl for miles as far as you can see. But behind us—”

“Desert.” Ari finished the sentence as Farouk disappeared around the corner onto the other side of the pyramid. “So, Don, if we start the shot low and tight on the head of the Sphinx, so tight you don't even know what it is … Then we orbit around in front of it, pulling back to reveal the top of that pyramid.” Ari pointed out the path in the sky that the helicopter would take. “Then we fly right past the top of this pyramid here … what do you think?”

“Should be a dynamic shot. I like it,” Don replied.

The two men stood there discussing possible flight paths; the haze of pollution, which was thick in the sky; the angle of the sun, which could hurt or help them.

“The Sphinx looks so small from on top of this thing.” Ari zoomed in with his camera on the back of the head of the Sphinx. In the street beyond, he could see the police truck with the blue box. He snapped a last shot of it.

“The whole world looks small from on top of this thing,” said Don.

Ari followed Don, traversing after the others, onto to the desert side. They turned the corner and gazed out over a vast expanse of sand. Farouk was speaking to the others.

“Both human and divine, the pharaohs were chosen by the gods to communicate with the people and tell them how to live. After death, the pharaoh actually became Osiris, the god of the dead. In the afterlife, he needed this pyramid. He needed the immense wealth of his treasure buried around him forever.”

As Farouk continued, a hint of the supernatural seemed to possess him. He took a sudden step backward toward the edge of the precipice he was standing on, his heels hung out over the edge of the stone. Another three inches and he would have tumbled down the face of the pyramid. Ari and Don leaned forward poised to catch him.

“For you see”—Farouk opened his arms as if receiving some divine energy from inside the pyramid—“in death, the pharaoh grew even more important and powerful than he ever was in life. He had finally become a god.”

 

Chapter 18

Having walked down the quarter of a mile long ramp that carried the stones up to the great Pyramid, the team stood next to the Sphinx.

“Not much of a shot from behind,” said Don.

“Nope. You're looking at the city not the desert,” agreed Ari.

A documentary crew was setting up a camera, and a tall canvas chair, for an interview in front of the Sphinx. Ari and his own team drifted over to watch. Next to the police truck with the big blue box, a white Range Rover pulled up. An Egyptian got out dressed like Indiana Jones with the wide felt hat and the safari jacket.

“There you see him.” Samir pointed. “The second-most famous man in Egypt. Almost a god.”

“The minister of antiquities?” guessed Ari.

“Yes, Dr. Nejem. ‘His Excellency' is being interviewed.”

“So we have to get out of the way?” asked Ari.

“Of course.” Samir nodded. “The Sphinx belongs to him. Today it is his film set.”

“But tomorrow…” Ari left the sentence unfinished.

As Dr. Nejem waited for the interview to start, a small crowd gathered to watch him. Ari got a sudden idea and walked over to the man.

“Dr. Nejem?” Ari stuck out his hand.

“Yes?”

“My name is Ari Basher.” Ari shook hands with the famed archaeologist. “I'm here working on an American movie.”

“Oh, that's terrific!” Nejem pumped Ari's hand. The ultimate archaeologist had a leathery face and a contagious passion, inspiring and upbeat. His trained eyes darted around Ari's clothes and face making a quick determination. Ari figured he was looking for signs that he was neither a tourist nor crazy. Satisfied, Nejem relaxed.

Ari dove into selling mode. “And the Sphinx will be the signature shot of the movie. In every trailer, poster, and ad. Every movie theater anywhere will have the Sphinx and the pyramids. A seventy-million-dollar marketing campaign; a free gift for the Egyptian tourist industry.”

“Wonderful!” Dr. Nejem beamed. “I'm so pleased. You know I went to college in Pennsylvania?”

“Ah, is that right?” Ari basked in the man's charismatic enthusiasm. “I wonder if you couldn't help us. We're having a bit of a problem.”

“Anything you need,” said Dr. Nejem. “Hollywood has always been a powerful advocate for archaeology.”

“We have a special camera for the helicopter shot of the Sphinx, and it seems to be stuck in customs.”

The good doctor's smile vanished. His wide twinkling eyes squinted down to narrow slits. “Helicopter shot?”

“You…” Suddenly on quicksand, Ari stammered, “You … don't know about this?”

“You may not fly a helicopter over the Sphinx.” Dr. Nejem made a pronouncement. “I forbid it.”

“I thought that … you knew,” protested Ari.

“Not at all. Excuse me.”

Dr. Nejem stepped over to the documentary crew and took his seat on the tall canvas chair. He regained a beneficent expression for the camera. Furious, Ari walked straight back to Samir.

“Samir? What's going on?” demanded Ari. “He doesn't know?”

Samir looked at Ari as if he wanted to slap him across the face. “I do not want to see you again,” he said, and walked away.

Ari ran after him. “Why? Because I introduced myself to Dr. Nejem?”

“No, because you do not know what you are doing!” Samir stopped and drilled a question into Ari. “Why did you go over there?”

“Because I thought the minister of antiquities might be able to help us,” answered Ari.

“Do you think I do not know how to find the Ministry of Antiquities?” Samir was almost yelling.