‘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 cliche 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! ’
Chapter 54
He came through for me, Goliath was thinking as he wandered aimlessly after leaving the hospital. Once again, he came through.
Goliath couldn’t imagine what strings Senator Morris had pulled to get the police off his back, but whatever it was he had done it. He had known for some time that the senator chaired several powerful committees and that this gave him an enormous amount of influence on Capitol Hill. Some of these committees dealt with foreign affairs so that no doubt gave him a certain amount of clout with foreign governments.
But it was still an awesome feeling, knowing that he had a man with so much power behind him, giving him both guidance and support. It was like having one’s own pit bull. Except that this was a pit bull of international proportions.
Yet the intense pleasure of this feeling was dampened by the sobering thought that once again he had failed. Time after time on this sacred mission, he had tried to serve his mentor, and each time he seemed to be failing ever more spectacularly. It was as if God was punishing him for some unspecified sin, instead of rewarding him for his loyalty and devotion. He knew that good works did not in themselves make him one of God’s Elect. That was in the gift of God alone.
But God chose his elect by looking into their hearts and choosing them for their sincerity. If God was now spurning his efforts, did that mean that he was not sincere? Did it mean that his motives were tainted by impurity? He had killed the wicked – and those who stood in the way of God’s work. That was surely no sin, and even if he had faltered, he had never once thought of personal gain.
And yet now, once again, he had failed. Mansoor and the others were not dead. Daniel Klein and Gabrielle Gusack were not only alive but free and on the run. Their whereabouts were unknown not only to him, but also to the police.
And who was that woman on the road who had thrown the petrol bomb into the jeep? Was she trying to kill him? Or had she thought that he was Daniel or the Egyptian? Was she trying to kill them too?
A thousand questions and no answers. Still he had failed. He hadn’t even managed to get a sample of their clothing and that had been his main task. Killing them had been secondary. He didn’t even know why Morris wanted him to get the clothing. All he knew was that it was God’s will. And although they had left their travel bags in the jeep, the jeep had gone up in flames, taking their belongings with it, including the clothes that he had intended to take in accordance with Senator Morris’s instructions.
But how could he do it now that Daniel and the others had escaped? Did Senator Morris still want him to? Or had the plan been overtaken by events?
He had just purchased a smartphone with Internet capability, like Daniel’s, and thought about contacting the senator to ask him. But that might not be wise. The fact that the senator had intervened on his behalf did not mean that he had done so openly. He might have pulled strings behind the scenes or called in favours from others. The senator had once told him not to mention his name. That probably meant that he operated through third parties and did not like to expose his involvement directly. If Goliath now blew the cover of his patron and mentor might that not be yet another failure? Another breach of his duty? Another mistake?
No, he had to assume that Arthur Morris still wanted him to do what he had told him to do before. And that meant he had to find Daniel Klein and Gabrielle Gusack. As to the other woman – the one who had tried to kill him – he would deal with her later. They had told him her name when they came to warn him that she had escaped: Siobhan Stewart. So at least he had something to work with when the time came. For now, he had to concentrate on finding Klein and Gusack. But how?
He remembered the tracer program that he had planted in Daniel Klein’s phone. Was it still working? Easy enough to find out.
He switched on his newly-purchased smartphone and logged on to the search site with his UserID and password. It gave the ‘last known location’ of Daniel’s phone as the Nile Valley, near Luxor. That made perfect sense. If Daniel was trying to avoid being found by the Egyptian authorities, then he would keep his cell phone switched off. Everyone knew that people can be traced by their cell phones. When a man knows that he is wanted
