Lang walked through revolving doors into a lobby that was a mixture of desert oasis, sheik’s palace and exuberant if less-than-tasteful decor. Plastic date palms drooped under the weight of plastic dates against walls painted with life-size scenes of heroic-looking Bedouins riding camels far too clean and mannerly to be realistic. In the background, painted, burkashrouded women obediently tended to domestic tasks, drawing water from a well and preparing meals over open fires.
To the Western eye, even more unrealistic than the camels.
Lang pretended to study the artwork as he took in the occupants of the lobby. Two men in low chairs were in intense conversation, a little table between them on which were two small coffee cups and an overflowing ashtray. The only other person other than hotel staff was hidden behind an Arabic newspaper. Pretending confusion between the registration desk and the concierge’s, Lang managed a view of the reader, a swarthy Arab.
“This way, sir,” a uniformed employee called from the registration desk as though shepherding a lost child.
Lang proffered the passport with the recently purchased visa. “Dr. Henry Roth,” he announced. “I believe I have reservations.”
The man behind the desk ran one hand over hair that could have been slicked back with axle grease. The other hand edged a finger down a list.
He spoke in British-accented English. “Oh, yes, here it is: Henry Roth. You will be staying with us tonight and tomorrow night?”
“Possibly longer, if I can. I’m not sure yet.”
The expression of distress would have credited an actor. “Oh, dear. I fear we are quite full after tomorrow.”
He studied a computer screen as though it might hold the solution to the problem, a solution Lang knew was elsewhere.
Reaching into a pocket, Lang palmed a fifty, placing his hand on the marble countertop so only the man behind it could see. “I trust you will do your best.”
As the desk clerk reached for the bill, Lang slowly withdrew the money, returning it to his pocket. “Your best is all I can ask.”
There was a meaningful moment of eye contact before the man behind the desk inhaled deeply. “I assure you, my best is what you will get.”
Turning, the desk clerk faced an old-fashioned letter box behind him, the square holes in which letters and room keys were kept.
He selected a key. “I see you have a message.”
He handed over both the key, attached to a heavy bronze tag, and a folded piece of paper. “If you will let me have a credit card and sign the register here…”
He pushed a registration form across the marble. Lang scribbled a signature that matched the one on his passport. As the clerk entered the information into the computer, Lang unfolded and read the read the handwritten note. Dr. Roth: You may find me at the Catholic cemetery of Terra Santa. Rossi
Lang smiled. Antonio Rossi, curator of the Archaeological Museum in Rome, a man he had known briefly during the affair that had ended so badly in the ancient Roman necropolis under the Vatican. Except the archaeologist had known Lang as a Mr. Joel Couch, an American from Indianapolis. But it had taken only a single e-mail to remind him that no matter the name, the American had saved him from an assassin’s bullet at Herculaneum.
At Lang’s request, Rossi had taken over one of the endless digs going on in Alexandria, his credentials satisfying the rigorous requirements of Zahi Hawass, the photogenic if dictatorial general secretary of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
For centuries, if not millennia, Egypt’s artifacts had been plundered. From the poaching of towering obelisks by the Romans to the relatively minor pilfering of mummies and small statues by Sir John Soane for his private, three-house museum in London in the eighteenth century, all had been available for whatever conquering power had the desire and the means to cart them off.
No more. Dr. Hawass zealously guarded his country’s ancient treasures, even demanding vociferously if futilely for the return of some of the major items: the Rosetta Stone and a colossus of Ramses II from the British Museum, the swan-necked bust of Nefertiti from Berlin, a collection of sarcophagi from the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, statuary from the Louvre.
Other than native laborers, a person in Egypt needed an archaeology pedigree, accreditation and a vita Dr. Hawass approved to even be on the site of a dig. Wealthy backers were helpful.
Lang had none of the above. Dr. Rossi did.
In his room, an overdone version of some caliph’s harem, Lang supposed, he took the usual check on precautions, enjoying a cold Stella larger from the minibar as he worked. The damn thing probably cost the Egyptian equivalent of five bucks, but what the hell, he was thirsty. Disassembling the phone, he made certain there was no listening device there. Nor were any to be found behind the electrical switch plates or any of the places where they could have been installed without tearing out Sheetrock. Lang had expected none but no one he knew had ever died from overcaution. He pulled the heavy drapes closed, pleased to note they were heavy satin, an excellent insulator against remote-listening devices.
Lang pulled on a pair of jeans and T-shirt and, after only a second’s thought, slipped the Browning in its holster onto his belt, sliding it to the small of his back. A short-sleeve shirt, unbuttoned, and shirttails hanging outside his pants concealed the weapon.
In front of the hotel, he chose one of the city’s yellow and black cabs rather than the more conspicuous Mercedes. The first thing he noticed was that all motor traffic, cars, trucks, scooters, had a common trait: they all belched out a brownish exhaust that joined the thickening layer just above the rooftops.
Within minutes, Lang witnessed the chaos of Egyptian driving. Cars charged the wrong way down one-way streets and backed up against traffic to make a missed turn. Red lights, stop signs and lane markings were deemed advisory only. Drivers’ intentions were communicated, if at all, by hand. Passengers exited moving buses and pedestrians paid as little heed to the rules of the road as did drivers.
After a trip that would have compared favorably with any Dodge ’Em carnival ride, the cabby turned down the radio long enough to say “Terra Santa.”
In jeans that had been prefaded just short of white, T-shirt, worn desert boots, and holding a broad-brimmed hat, Lang felt like an extra in an Indiana Jones movie. The costume was, however, a close replica of the clothing he had carefully noted in the most recent National Geographic article concerning desert exploration. He had originally opted for shorts rather than long pants until reading that their function was not only to protect skin from the merciless African sun but to serve as a potential shield against the scorpions who frequently inhabited Egyptian ruins.
Lang took a long glance around the cemetery as the taxi disappeared into the morning’s traffic. After falling into disuse as a burial ground, the discovery of the so-called Alabaster Tomb in 1906 had given archaeologists hope Alexander’s final resting place had been discovered. A cylindrical shaft lined with white marble had led down into a single room hacked into the limestone, its shape possibly Macedonian. This was all they initially found. No other chambers had been discovered. The area eventually became a plant nursery and was forgotten until 1988 and ’89 when modern electromagnetic measuring revealed unexplained anomalies, cuts into the limestone large enough to have served as passages that could well have been sealed off intentionally or by an ancient earthquake.
Lang walked along a fence topped with razor wire until he came to a gate guarded by a large man seated on an uncomfortable-looking camp stool and wearing a holster on his belt. The guard lifted his eyes from the newspaper in his hands and looked Lang over suspiciously.
“Dr. Rossi… I’m here to see Dr. Rossi, Antonio Rossi.”
Without response, the guard produced what looked like a small radio and said something into it Lang could not understand. Lang stood in the increasing heat of the sun for a minute or two, shifting his weight, before Dr. Rossi appeared.
Lang checked his watch. Back in Atlanta, it would be close to Manfred’s time for school. He entered the number and was rewarded with his son’s voice.
“Where are you, Vati?” the child asked.
Ever-cautious about nonsecure communications, Lang replied simply, “A long way away.”
