The Moses Riddle (Thomas McAllister 'Treasure Hunter' Adventure Book 1) (5 page)

This perpetual excitement, this eternal optimism, pervaded everything he did. People sometimes wondered why he was always in a good mood, always ready with a kind word. Occasionally, he wondered if he were too nice. Too happy. But he always shrugged off that notion. No such thing. It was his nature. He’d found what he was passionate about at a young age. Archeology.

An archeologist has two career options. Really only one, but the romantic side of Thomas, and the adventurous side, liked to believe there were two. The first, and more conservative of the two, was to teach. That was what 99 percent of all archeologists did. They taught, wrote and did field work during summer breaks or on a sabbatical. That was the road Thomas had chosen. He had decided to teach and his legacy would be the fine department he would build at Arizona State. He would be Head of the Department, possibly become Dean of Faculty, then retire and spend winters in Egypt, exploring and writing. His course was set.

To that end, Thomas had spent the first six years of his career, the critical building years, working towards that goal. Investing in it. He could have been out in the field searching for treasure, looking for undiscovered tombs of Egyptian pharaohs, but he hadn’t done it that way. He had chosen to contribute to what he thought was a greater good.

Now that dream was gone. With this suspension on his record, he would never chair a department. He couldn’t go out and demand a job at a Harvard or Yale or Stanford, like before. He’d be lucky to get a regular teaching job at an average school.

The second, more romantic pursuit for an archeologist, was fieldwork, but field work was expensive. The 1 percent of all archeologists who dedicated 100 percent of their time to fieldwork were either independently wealthy or so well-known from their university work that they could gather the financial support necessary to sustain a long series of field projects. It was that kind of notoriety that Thomas had hoped to build, so that someday he would be able to lead fully funded expeditions. Now . . . this option was also closed to him. With the death of both his dreams—the only two things he had ever been passionate about—he fell into a deep depression.

He tried not to ask himself how much of this he had brought on himself. Yes, others were to blame too, but his own actions demanded scrutiny. Hadn’t he relished being the young maverick? When Brown decided not to retire, hadn’t he played the renegade, pushing the administration, the faculty, and the students? Had he tried
too
hard to show them all how good a university could be, if only they all would try as hard as he did? Hadn’t that invited jealously? Antagonism?

Wallowing in his self-made stew of perfectionist’s self-pity, he came to realize that regardless of what happened in the future, his life would never,
ever
, be as he had planned. Or hoped. This realization was unlike any he’d experienced before. And at an adult level, he felt an innocence slip away, to be replaced by a feeling that it was too early to accurately identify, but that felt a hell of a lot like cynicism.

The next day, he was in his basement, listening to the best version of “Stormy Monday” that he owned, the one by Muddy Waters, drinking Boodles Gin at one o’clock in the afternoon, when the phone rang. Since he’d quit working, it had rung a lot. People were calling to find out what had happened and to see how he was holding up.

A half-full highball glass in his left hand, Thomas would never have answered the phone if he still had one of the Marlboro cigarettes he’d been smoking in his right, but he’d just put it out. His brain told him to reach for the lighter but his hand reached for the portable phone and he picked it up and hit TALK before his brain could exert control over his motor functions.

He glared at the red light on the phone. What a sick little social norm. Ring a bell and sit and wait for someone to answer you. “Hello?”
“Thomas McAlister, please.” It was a man.
Thomas put the phone down and took his time lighting a Marlboro Light. He never smoked and he’d bought the Lights because they were longer. It took him a long time to light it. Finally, he picked up the phone again and said, “Hello?”
“Thomas? Is that you?”
Thomas rolled his eyes. Who the fuck else would it be, he thought. “Yeah.”
“Thomas, it’s Gene. Gene Smith. How are you?”
Thomas had gone to graduate school with Gene. Now, he was a professor at Dartmouth. They had kept in touch over the years, each calling the other for an occasional favor. Gene was always interested in research. He loved libraries, and was always finding old forgotten books and manuscripts. He had recently found some forgotten Egyptian papyrus in the Belgium National Museum in Brussels. Thomas took a sip of his drink, remembering what Gene’s face looked like. He had always liked Gene. He decided not to hang up on him.
“Washington fired me, Gene.”
“
What
? You’re all they had going over there! Shit, Thomas, you’re one of the ten best archeologists alive!”
“Well, you can tell it to Washington, but it still won’t pay the bills . They fired me for teaching the Atlantis Theory.”
“Those close minded SOBs! I’m going to send the whole goddamn Board of Directors a copy of
Inherit the Wind
.”
Thomas smiled. He’d forgotten about that. He decided to rent
Inherit the Wind
soon. His life story. “I didn’t even get a trial.”
“Well, if you want a referral at Dart, let me know. Foster, the Dean over here, is good. Not progressive, but fair.”
“Thanks. I’ll pass for now, but thanks. What’s up, you old pedantophile?”
“Do you still have that rare version of the
Amenophis Builders Notes
that you used to keep for the Library of Cairo? The one with the complete Book III?”
Thomas smiled and looked over at his bookcase. There, in a climatecontrolled case, lay the
Amenophis Builders Notes
. One of only three in existence. Thomas’s version was the only one with a complete Volume II, Book III. Technically, it was the property of the Egyptian government but, since he had uncovered it in Room Four of the Amenophis III tomb, he was entrusted with it, with the caveat that he make it available to other researchers. It was worth three-quarters of a million dollars, maybe a million at the right auction
. More than enough to fund a yearlong expedition in the Valley of the Kings.
“Yes, I’ve got it right here, Geno. What do you need?”
“Well, I’ve got a translation here—Morgan’s first edition—but in the middle of Volume II, Book III, Morgan skips five pages. Skips them cold. He notes it with an asterisk, saying that these pages were unreadable at the source. But his translation is off of Carter’s version, not yours. I was wondering, old buddy old pal, if you could copy those pages for me and fax them over. What do you say?”
Thomas smiled. This was exactly why he liked Gene. Ever the sleuth.
“Sure, I’ll fax them to you. I don’t have a copier here, though. I’ll have to take it over to the university.” He caught himself and a wave of dread poured over him. “I mean, I’ll take it to Kinko’s.”
“Thanks, Thomas. It’s Volume II, Book III, pages four through nine. Front and back. I really appreciate it. It’s for a class I’m putting together on Egyptian building techniques.”
“No problem. I’ll do it tomorrow. Is that all right, time wise?”
“Sure, that’s perfect, no rush. Hey, you ever read that thing cover to cover? The
Builders Notes
?”
“You know, Gene, I never have. But, if I don’t rent
Inherit the Wind
, I just might do it tonight. It’s still early here.”
Gene gave Thomas his fax number and apologized again about the job, reminding Thomas to call if he wanted a referral, and they hung up.
He liked old Gene the Pedantophile. Tomorrow he’d like Gene a whole lot more.

An Egyptologist could not possibly read every document written by the ancients. Most of them were records of economic transactions. The
Amenophis Notes
would be interesting to a student doing a dissertation on the detailed construction of an Egyptian tomb, or to someone wanting to learn about ancient restoration projects, but not to a seasoned Egyptologist. That would be like a World War II expert reading not only the plans for the buildings that Hitler’s architect Albert Speer built, but actually reading the construction notes taken as the building went up. Too much detail.

But Thomas was drunk, too drunk to drive to the video store to rent a movie. So he started to read the
Builders Notes
. There were two volumes, each containing three ten-page books. He had read Volume I years ago, so he started with Volume II.

The notes were written in hieroglyphics, and although Thomas was fluent, it was slow going. Especially when drunk. To make matters worse, Thomas continued to drink as he read. He was into Book Two when he finished the gin and discovered he was low on cigarettes. Instead of going out for replenishments he kept reading. His eyes became heavy, yet he plodded on. It was 4:00 a.m. when he turned from the second book to the third. In a mental fog, he was having trouble interpreting the symbols. The normal process of understanding each symbol, sentence, paragraph, and page became laborious. He read on, however, determined to finish.

There were times when he thought he might be asleep, but the reading had become more vivid and then, suddenly, it was in the first person. Someone was writing about strange visitors, guarded treasures, and time spent—days spent—by a stranger with a long silver beard in the old temple at Saqqara. But soon Thomas got lost, had trouble following a line, trouble defining basic words. He wondered why the Notes had changed so much. Why they’d gone from basic restoration description to the story of a man with a long silver beard, who traveled with guarded treasure, and then on to a story about a fair-haired maiden, so beautiful, so vulnerable, yet so full of veiled deceit, and he could see the veil but he couldn’t see through it, no matter how hard he tried, until finally she became the incredible, perfect-woman in Turgenev’s
Torrents of Spring
. The girl who opens her window to the street, to her young lover, bosom exposed, sweet wind blowing beautifully through her immaculate hair, and Thomas ran to her, and she embraced him with all her might, pulling him close, against her bosom, in a move that was all at once so taboo, innocent and sensual that for the first time since his firing Thomas became happy, truly happy. But, then, the footsteps behind him, always the inevitable footsteps. And there was Sir Thomas Moore. Approaching. Not with his rose, the famous last rose of summer, but rather a gun. And Thomas remembered that every season ends, and all roses die, and he remembered the lines to Moore’s incredibly sad poem about the rose, lying senseless and dead, soon to be followed, by friendship, love, gems, hearts, and all fond ones that have flown, and then amazingly, shockingly, there in the Notes, Moore asks, in all his crotchety genius, how the hell could anyone live in this bleak world alone?

At seven in the morning, Thomas woke up. He was beginning to feel the effects of a serious hangover when adrenaline shot through his body. He knew, instinctively, that something had happened the night before. With difficulty, he took himself chronologically through the previous night. Something had excited him while he was reading the Amenophis Notes. He couldn’t immediately remember what it was, but he knew one thing. He was on to something . . . and it was big.

Thomas’ mouth felt as if it were stuffed with cotton as he walked up the stairs to the kitchen. The pain in his head reverberated with each step. He had never before consumed so much alcohol. Normally a very light social drinker, his tolerance was low. And he never smoked. It was a habit he abhorred. He took the empty pack of Marlboros from his pocket and flipped it into the trash can.

He opened the refrigerator door, not knowing what he’d find. Thankfully, there was half a pitcher of orange juice. He filled a glass, quickly took two small sips, and immediately felt better. It would be hours before he would feel normal again. In fact, if it weren’t for the miniscule shots of adrenaline he kept getting, he would’ve been really sick. He took another sip of orange juice and headed back down to the basement to find out what the hell he had read that had gotten him so excited. Whatever it was, it was thankfully proving much stronger than his hangover.

When he reached his desk, he eased himself into his chair and picked up the
Amenophis Notes
. After Gene had called, he’d read some or all of Volume II. Somewhere, in one of the three books, he’d hit on something. But he had no idea what.

He perused Book I and didn’t see anything but standard builders notes. After he almost threw up from moving his eyes back and forth across the pages too quickly, he took a short walk around the basement. When he returned he finished Book II. Still nothing. With only one book left, he was becoming convinced that it must have been a dream that had gotten him so excited.

He opened Book III and after reading two pages it all came rushing back to him. It was widely thought that slaves had built all of the pyramids and temples in Egypt, and it was true, slaves had performed much of the unskilled labor. However, a large contingent of highly skilled artists and craftsmen, most of whom lived in a village called Deir el-Medina, made the biggest contribution.

Abubaker, the author of the
Amenophis Notes
, who chronicled the building and restoration of the temples, had been one of these skilled artisans. His job had been to paint temple interiors. When he wasn’t working, or waiting for a project to begin, he wrote in his journal. Book III of the Abubaker journal documented a restoration ordered by the Pharaoh Thutmosis III. It described general repair work on certain deteriorating areas of the Pyramid of Zozer, a pyramid located at the Necropolis. But this was not what caught Thomas’s eye. Pyramids were often repaired; the Zozer pyramid was already a thousand years old in the time of Thutmosis III so its restoration was completely normal. What caught Thomas’s eye was something else.

One day, while Abubaker was making routine observations, he wrote that around twelve o’clock noon, a tall man with a long silver beard arrived at Saqqara, accompanied by twenty guards. They were on foot and, as they walked, the guards surrounded a wagon pulled by oxen. Abubaker couldn’t tell what they were transporting, because it was covered with hide. He assumed that the load was valuable, because the men were heavily armed. He noted that ten warriors walked in front of the wagon and nine warriors walked behind it. One rode atop the wagon. At that time, in Egypt, it constituted a very well-funded group of soldiers. The bearded man walked in front of the short caravan, and was clearly the leader.

Thomas read faster. Abubaker wrote that the bearded man entered the ancient pyramid of Unas, where there were extensive texts written on the walls, and had not come out for two days. He described the man as a tall Egyptian, with a mane of silver hair and a prodigious silver beard. Abubaker called him Son of Reuel, Priest of Midian.

When Thomas read this, his heart skipped a beat. He read the passage a second time and again the translation was the same. This was definitely the passage that had excited him the night before. His pulse quickened, dampening his hangover
. Could it be true
?
Could this be what it looked like it was
? It must! After all, the Builders Notes was a primary historical document of the best kind: written first hand, from direct observation.

Thomas stood up, then sat down again, unsure what his next move should be. He had to learn more.
If what he read were true, then he had stumbled upon one of the most significant pieces of new biblical information since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered!
He read it again, and again, arriving at the same conclusion each time. He shook his head, feeling completely bewildered. Amazed. There was only
one
Son of Reuel, Priest of Midian . . . and that person was . . .
Moses
!

This was possibly the most incredible piece of evidence Thomas had ever uncovered. Here, in a primary source document, was an original account of a sighting of Moses that had gone completely undiscovered. For that alone it was significant, because after the Exodus, Moses was not known to have ever returned to Egypt. But what mattered to Thomas, what he
had
to answer was:
what did Moses do in the temple of Unas for forty-eight hours? And what was in the heavily guarded box on the ox-drawn wagon?

First, Thomas had to be sure. He would have to scour the Pentateuch— the first five books of the Old Testament—to be sure that Moses’ return to Egypt was, in fact, not documented. He would also have to study every line in the
Builders Notes
to see if there were any more clues confirming that the man was Moses. If he couldn’t disprove his theory, there would be only one more move to make. He would go to Egypt, to the temple Unas, to try to find what Moses had done in there for two days and two nights.

Thomas tried to recall all he knew about Moses. He knew Moses wasn’t Reuel’s real son. The Bible clearly stated that Moses was found floating in the Nile, and that no one ever knew the identity of his birth father. Moses was thought to have been from the House of Levi, but even that was suspect. After fleeing from Pharaoh, Moses had married a woman named Zipporah, who was daughter of Reuel, Priest of Midian. Even though he would have only been Reuel’s son-in-law, Thomas was sure that Abubaker was referring to Moses, when he wrote “Son of Reuel.” He was sure, because Reuel didn’t have any sons, only daughters . . . seven of them!

Many Christians, and people in general, forgot that Moses was raised in Egypt and schooled in Egyptian ways. They remembered him as the Charlton Heston figure who fought the Egyptians, parted the Red Sea, and descended Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments.

In fact, Moses was schooled in Heliopolis, an ancient city outside Cairo known for its immense sanctity and religious significance, and only a few miles from Saqqara. Given his knowledge of Egyptian ways, it would not have been hard for Moses to reenter Egypt after the Exodus. He knew the landscape and he understood Egyptian culture. The fact that the diarist, Abubaker, thought that Moses was an Egyptian was very plausible. The only unanswered questions were what had Moses done for two days in the temple of Unas—the oldest pyramid in Egypt, the one that held the famous Pyramid texts—and what was the heavily guarded treasure on the ox-drawn cart? A treasure hunter by nature, Thomas felt the latter question gnawing at him, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to relax again until he had the answer.

When in Egypt as a student, Thomas had been inside Unas. In fact, he’d been in it several times, not so much to study it as to simply see it. The Saqqara necropolis was the most ancient of all Egyptian sites and was one of, if not the, earliest massive stone structures man ever attempted to build. Recorded man, that is. The writings on the walls, or pyramid texts as they were called, were the oldest in all of Egypt, dating to before 2700 BC. Saqqara was built by the great Egyptian architect Imhotep, and was located about thirty minutes outside of Cairo.

Inside the temple of Unas was an amazing room, with ancient hieroglyphic writing covering every inch of the walls. There were stars on the ceiling and it was believed that the walls represented the earth and the ceiling the heavens. Therefore, many scholars thought the writings were an attempt by this earlier civilization to pass along the secret worldly knowledge that they possessed. The hieroglyphics were thought to be written by extremely early priests from Heliopolis but, truthfully, no one really knew who carved them. They seemed to have been written at different times rather than all at once and, amazingly, because they were so old, they were still undeciphered. Over the years there had been many different interpretations but, to this day, no one was sure of their meaning. All that was known was that the early Egyptians carved them, in the most permanent place they knew, in an attempt to communicate with future generations about their world. If Moses had wanted to get a message to future generations, there would be no better place to do it than inside Unas.

Over the next two days, Thomas poured over everything he could get his hands on regarding Moses and his life. He started with the Pentateuch and ended with the renowned book
The Life of Moses
. There was absolutely nothing that told of Moses returning to Egypt after the Exodus. Therefore, if the man described in
the Builders Notes
was Moses, and Thomas had a strong intuitive feeling that it was, then the trip must’ve been a secret one. That meant that whatever he had with him on that trip was valuable.

From Thomas’s perspective as an archeologist, anything worth guarding was worth finding. There were so many treasures commissioned by God in the first five chapters of the Bible that it was hard to believe that God hadn’t encouraged idol worship. Thomas closed his eyes and treasures paraded by, as if he were a child on the night before Christmas. There was the golden bell, the gleaming engraved onyx stones, and the bejeweled breastplate. He saw the Staff of Aaron, used to intimidate Pharaoh and, ultimately, to bring about the plagues. He saw the Jar of Manna, that perplexing life-force mentioned only briefly in the Bible, but with utmost reverence. There were many shapes and forms fashioned from silk, gold, glass and jewels. After the parade was over Thomas opened his eyes. W
ait! There was something else
. Thomas closed his eyes again. It was the grand finale, the greatest of all the Biblical treasures. The last treasure in the parade was the golden Ark of the Covenant, proudly moving by with two unearthly cherubs riding on top.

Thomas crinkled his nose. Yes, movies and books had raised it to another level, making it king of all treasures. But, in the process, the Ark had been overdone. Commercialized, then over-marketed. Like a once beautiful prostitute who lowers her price as her looks diminish, the Ark had been overexposed, over sold. In the minds of many it had already been found, many times over, in toys stores around the world, with the words “Made in China” or “Hecho en Mexico” printed on the bottom. It was now a glossy golden rectangle, invented by Steven Spielberg. But something about the original story of the Ark pulled at Thomas’s memory. Something he’d read long ago. He opened a file deep in the recesses of his mind, one of the dusty ones labeled
Ark of the Covenant: Ten Commandments
. Seldom used. He could not grasp the fact eluding him so he put a little yellow post-it note on the mental file. It would eat at him all day.