The Moses Legacy (17 page)

Breakfast on board Walid's boat was
shakshouka
– fried eggs in a thick sauce made from fresh tomatoes, onions and chillies, that he had bought from a riverside vendor. As they ate, they listened to the radio in the background. It was tuned to some local music station, lulling Walid and his crew into a state of restfulness. But it was coming up to the hour and the news came on.

Daniel and Gabrielle both listened out just in case anything was said about the tomb incident. The first two items were about local politics and the third was about the United States. But then another item came on that caught them by surprise.

‘Police in Luxor are looking for a Western couple after an attempt was made on the life of Akil Mansoor, the Deputy Minister for Culture and Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Professor Mansoor was locked in a tomb together with the Western couple in an apparent attempt to kill him, but the three of them managed to escape. The couple, however, then abandoned Professor Mansoor and ran away when confronted by the police. Professor Mansoor is now recovering in hospital from the incident.'

Daniel sighed with relief at the news that Mansoor was okay. He exchanged eye contact with Gabrielle and saw that she shared his feelings.

‘The couple are Daniel Klein, an Englishman, believed to be an expert on Semitic languages, and Gabrielle Gusack, an Austrian professor of Egyptology. They are also being sought over other matters, concerning a recent death in England. Professor Klein is forty years old, brown haired and of average build. The woman is blonde, thirty-five years old and speaks with a slight Austrian accent.'

Even before they looked up from the radio, Daniel and Gabrielle knew that Walid and the other two were looking straight at them.

‘We thought we should warn you. If she was trying to kill you then she might try again.'

The police captain was talking to Goliath, who had now fully regained consciousness. The doctors were treating his burns and the police were treating him with compassion and humanity. But he remained handcuffed to the bed frame as a precaution.

‘Thank you for telling me.'

‘You have no need to worry, of course. We will post extra guards outside your room and at the entrances to the hospital. If she
does
try to come here, she will be arrested before she gets anywhere near you. But we thought that you should be informed.'

‘Thank you.'

‘But having got that out of the way, the best way we can protect you is if you tell us the truth.
Why
did this woman try to kill you? And why were you driving the jeep that was rented by our Deputy Minister of Culture?'

At that moment a man in a suit entered the private hospital room, flanked by a couple of soldiers. The police captain and the uniformed officer by the bed both leapt to their feet in an obvious sign of deference to the visitor.

A vociferous exchange in Arabic followed; the new arrival
appeared to be throwing his weight around and the police captain appeared to be pleading or at least arguing from a position of weakness. Eventually, both men calmed down and the police captain looked – and sounded – beaten.

He took out his evident frustration on a subordinate, barking an order to the unformed policeman, who produced a key and unlocked the handcuffs from Goliath's wrist and the bed frame. Goliath rubbed his wrist while the uniformed policeman put away the handcuffs. The police captain looked embarrassed at his sudden loss of authority.

‘I don't understand,' said Goliath.

‘It would seem, Mr Carter, that you have friends in high places. I have been ordered to release you. You are, of course, free to go at any time. However I would strongly advise you to stay here in the hospital to continue with the silver nitrate treatment for the burns.'

‘I'm telling you – we didn't have anything to do with it,' Gabrielle was saying in Arabic. ‘We were locked in the tomb and stuck there for several hours.'

Walid's brother and son were looking at her like they
wanted
to believe her. But Walid himself was hard to read, like he had been around the block a few times and was a natural sceptic about everything except his religion.

‘Then how did you get out?'

‘We used a stone to smash a hole in the door. Then we used the key. That's why Mansoor is in hospital. He cut his wrist on the metal of the door.'

‘Then why are the police looking for you? And why did you run away?'

‘Because the police started shooting at us! They didn't even give us a chance to talk.'

She was worried that he was going to ask why the police would do that. This could be a problem. If she told him that the police thought they were carrying a contagious disease, he would hardly be inclined to carry them further. All she knew was that they hadn't spread this news in the radio reports – presumably because they did not wish to start a panic. In the face of such restraint, it would hardly make
sense to share the police's belief with the very person they were still hoping would help them get to Cairo.

‘Okay, I know our police can sometimes be a bit… overzealous. But I still don't understand why you abandoned Professor Mansoor.'

Daniel finally decided to step in. The reporter had already blown his cover and revealed that the Englishman was an expert on Semitic languages, so there was no reason not to show his fluent command of Arabic.

‘We didn't actually abandon him. We left him temporarily because it was a five-kilometre walk to get help and he'd cut his wrist badly. We bandaged it up as best we could and then set off to get help.'

Walid did not seem surprised by the quality of Daniel's Arabic. ‘Couldn't you have called for help? Don't you have mobile phones?'

‘We tried, but we couldn't get a decent signal. Then when the police saw us – maybe because he wasn't with us – they assumed that we'd done something to him and started firing. But you know he's all right because they said so, and as they pointed out,
we
were locked in the tomb too. Whoever did it might have been trying to kill us.'

‘And what about what they said about you being responsible for a death in England?'

Daniel wasn't sure which way the wind was blowing in Walid's mind. He knew that his and Gabrielle's fate lay in his hands. He had to say something more to sway him.

‘The man who died was Gabrielle's uncle. He was a great professor. The police think it was a family dispute but we think he was killed by a jealous rival.'

Daniel wanted to convey a sense of aggrieved innocence and he sensed that offering a hint of high intrigue would create the kind of cover story that a man who led a mundane
life would
want
to believe. As a former amateur magician he knew that getting the audience to want to believe was half the trick.

‘This sounds so…'

Daniel wondered if he had
over
-dramatized it, so he was relieved when Walid's face mellowed. ‘I believe you. But I have a family to feed. If we get caught then I will be in trouble too… and that will hurt my family.'

Daniel sighed. ‘You're right, of course. I cannot ask you to put yourself and your family at risk for us – especially after we took advantage of your hospitality and didn't tell you the truth. If you can put us ashore, we will be on our way.'

Walid looked at him, surprised.

Daniel followed up quickly. ‘You can keep the money, of course. Consider it as payment for the trouble we've put you through.'

Walid met his eyes. They both knew what the other was thinking, as did Gabrielle. The radio report hadn't said anything about a reward, but at some point a reward might still be offered. Daniel was offering to pay Walid for his silence. Even if a reward was offered that dwarfed the money already paid him, Walid would consider it dishonourable to betray them after accepting their money.

‘I cannot do that,' said Walid quietly.

‘You don't understand,' said Daniel. ‘I
want
you to keep the money. I have put you to so much trouble already… and you have a family to feed.'

‘No, it is
you
who do not understand,' said Walid firmly. ‘I
will
take you to Cairo.'

Sarit was in the Wekalat Al-Balah Bazaar, wearing a
jilbab
that she had just bought to cover her body, and
khimar
to cover her hair. By dressing modestly she knew that men were less likely to bother her, and she also reduced the likelihood of being recognized. But at one point she would have to take a risk.

What she was looking out for were Western women – specifically Western women with large shoulder bags in which they carried everything under the sun. In some Muslim countries, women tended to be more careless than they would be in a Western street market, because they knew that the draconian laws made theft less likely. However, here the laws were not quite so severe and so the women were more careful.

Eventually, she found what she was looking for: a young, obviously Western woman who had a bag with some other items already and who was interested in trying on one of the colourful dresses. Even better, when the woman spoke, it was with a Liverpool accent. Sarit could do American accents if she had to but RP was a lot easier. And of course the passport wouldn't say ‘Liverpool', it would state ‘United Kingdom'.

Sarit had already bought several items and had them in
a collection of bags, to create her cover, so now she was ready to pounce. She sidled up to the woman and started looking at the dresses. By giving the impression that she was not sure, she drew the attention of the merchant to her. He was not going to let her slip away if he could persuade her to stay and make a purchase.

‘Would you like to come in? We have many more dresses inside. Very nice dresses for the pretty lady.' He pointed to the inside of the shop.

‘Oh, I like this one,' she said, holding up a particularly gaudy, colourful embroidered dress from the rack. ‘But I was wondering if it's too big for me. Do you have somewhere I could try it on?'

‘Yes, I have a changing room inside.'

Again, he pointed. Sarit looked down at her bag full of other purchases.

‘You can take it ins—'

She didn't let the man finish. She half-turned to the woman who had been looking at the same colourful collection and addressed her quickly.

‘Excuse me, would you mind keeping an eye on my bag for two minutes? I just want to try this on.'

The woman looked hesitant.

‘I'll only be two minutes. I just want to see how it looks.'

‘Okay,' said the other woman.

And with that, Sarit went inside, leaving not only the big bag containing the items she had bought earlier, but also her shoulder bag – as if to imply that it was unsafe to take it into the shop. The reality was the exact opposite. The shopkeepers here would guard it with their lives sooner than let anyone take it, whereas outside there was a chance that someone might steal it.

Two minutes later, Sarit emerged a happy, satisfied
customer, reclaimed her possessions and after a bit of skilful haggling, bought the gaudy embroidered dress. Meanwhile the woman who had guarded her possessions appeared to have made up her mind, at least to the point of narrowing down her choices.

‘Listen,' she said, ‘could you keep an eye on my stuff? I'm going to go in and try these on too.'

‘Sure,' said Sarit.

The girl went in, with the shopkeeper in tow. Without lowering her eyes from the merchandise in which she was feigning continued interest, Sarit opened the shoulder bag and groped around inside. Working more by feel than by look, she found the passport and quickly pulled it out and dropped it into one of her shopping bags.

Then she found the purse and moved it to the top of the shoulder bag, so that the girl would be able to get to it easily. The girl may or may not remember the purse being lower down in the shoulder bag, but this way she was less likely to notice the missing passport. In any case, if she was suspicious, it was more likely to be over the purse with money and credit cards than the passport.

Seven or eight minutes later, the girl came out and bought a couple of the dresses, oblivious to the theft of her passport.

Six days after they had set out, Daniel and Gabrielle arrived on the outskirts of Cairo.

Gabrielle had taken to life on the
felucca
a lot better than Daniel had expected, but Daniel had surprised himself by finding it enjoyable too – especially considering how heavily dependent he usually was on his urban comforts.

He realized that as an archaeologist, accustomed to roughing it in some pretty exotic locations, it wasn't such an unusual experience for Gabrielle. But for a North Londoner who was used to clean hotel suites, business-class airline seating and deferential waiters, it was something of a culture shock. He wondered what Charlotte would have made of it – genteel Charlotte, whose world was that of crisp starched linen and manicured nails.

He wondered if it was
because of
rather than merely despite the danger that he had found himself enjoying this adventure. It was as if this was the part of his life that had always been waiting for him. It reminded him of that famous line in Henry David Thoreau's
Walden
about ‘when I came to die, discovered that I had not lived'.

They bid their goodbyes to Walid and his crew, wished Allah's blessings on his family and then set off for Cairo's Zamalek District.

Zamalek was an island in the Nile, connected to the rest of Cairo by bridges – a sort of Manhattan in North Africa. Heavily developed and built-up, the area was home to several luxury hotels as well as quite a few foreign embassies. It was, all in all, quite an upmarket area. But there was only one thing in the Zamalek District that interested Daniel and Gabrielle: the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Daniel knew that there was a risk of being recognized, but was relieved that their most distinguishing feature had now been negated. There were lots of dark-haired Western men in Cairo and none of them would get a second glance. But Gabrielle's blonde hair was quite striking, and if the police or anyone else was on the lookout for a tall blonde woman, Gabrielle's hair would have been more than enough to guarantee that they would get a second glance.

They had considered hiding it under a headscarf, but that was not a sure-fire way of avoiding attention. Her height and Western looks might be enough to make it clear that she was trying to hide her hair. Then the game would be up. So instead she had played the adventurous tourist card and persuaded one of the women in the villages along the Nile to dye her hair with henna.

‘It's something I've always wanted to try,' she had explained with almost schoolgirlish excitement.

She had considered using henna to darken her skin too, but it was more usually used for tattoos. In any case, she was now covering herself up with a robe, showing very little of her flesh. There was nothing she could do about her height, but now, instead of appearing as a tall blonde, she came over as a tall redhead who could pass for a local. And that was not what the police were looking for.

They hailed a taxi in the street and took the short ride across the city to the Supreme Council of Antiquities. The driver
dropped them off at the front of the building, which had been given a modern glass entrance and a silver, metallic grey façade with the words ‘Supreme Council of Antiquities' emblazoned across the portals in huge Arabic letters as well as somewhat smaller in English. Daniel noted, with silent amusement, that the letter
f
in the word
of
had become loose and fallen into a diagonal posture.

He let Gabrielle lead the way up the wide steps to this grand entrance. She introduced Daniel as an Australian professor, hoping that the nationality would throw the guard off if he had heard anything about an Englishman being wanted by the police – which was unlikely. The guard had smiled and said a tentatively English ‘hallo' – prompting Daniel to respond with his best Aussie ‘g'day'.

And with that, they were inside.

As Gabrielle had predicted, the building was surprisingly empty, even allowing for the fact that this was siesta time. They made their way quickly to Mansoor's office, which Gabrielle promptly opened with her key. Once inside, they went to work rapidly on the oak desk and the grey metal filing cabinets, taking advantage of the fact that the drawers of the desk were unlocked and the filing cabinets had their keys still in them.

For a while it looked like they weren't going to find anything and then that old cliché about ‘the last place you look' kicked in.

‘Found it!' shrieked Gabrielle, louder than she had intended.

It was actually in the very first drawer that Daniel had searched. Somehow he had managed to miss it, probably because he was grabbing whole wads of paper and not going through the pages individually.

She handed the papers to Daniel who started looking through them. In his mind, he started deciphering one marked ‘Tomb of Ay', testing his memory of the language and script.

‘Interesting.'

Gabrielle picked up on Daniel's tone. ‘What?'

‘It says here something about “the Sibolet stores built by my father”.'

‘
Si
bolet?'

‘Yes. I think it's a variation of
Shi
bolet. The Hebrew word for grain or at least the grain-bearing part of wheat or corn.'

‘Presumably it's a reference to the grain houses that Joseph persuaded Pharaoh to build to store the grain from the seven plentiful years. And it supports the theory about Yuya being Joseph. Ay was the son of Yuya after all.'

‘Holy shit!'

‘What?'

‘Listen to this: “I pray that one day my bones shall return to the holy mountain of Gerizim”.'

‘Gerizim?'

‘It's a mountain in the West Bank. There's also a valley near there that's believed to be the place where Joseph and his sons were buried.'

‘But if Joseph was Yuya, then that can't be, because his mummy is in
Egypt
– the one they found in KV46.'

‘Yes, but what about his sons? Do they have the mummy of Ay?'

‘No, it was never found. But that's because it was believed to have been removed from the tomb and desecrated by a pharaoh called Horemheb during the counter-revolution that followed the Amarna period, when they restored the cult of Amun.'

‘But maybe it didn't happen that way. Maybe the body of Ay was taken when the Israelites gained their freedom. Maybe they didn't succeed in taking the bones of Joseph but managed to take the bones of his sons, or at least one of his sons.'

‘That's a lot of maybes! But what
I'm
thinking is maybe we should just make some photocopies and get out of here before we get caught.'

‘Okay, you're right, but he hasn't got a photocopier in here.'

They gathered up the papers and left the office furtively. As soon as they left the office, they were spotted by Mansoor's secretary, who was returning to her desk.

‘Oh hallo,' she said in Arabic, recognizing the pair of them. ‘Is Professor Mansoor back?'

Once again it was Daniel who wanted to stand his ground and try and talk his way out of the situation. And once again, it was Gabrielle who panicked under pressure. Not waiting for Daniel, she dived towards a corridor and ran, leaving Daniel with no alternative but to follow, while the woman who had spotted them was screaming: ‘
Dsst irt'ra el-erm!
'