Chapter 80
‘You have to send me in there,’ Sarit told Dovi.
‘Send you in where? You think he’s hanging around waiting to be arrested? He’s got whatever he came for.’
‘Let me go to Holon. I can help the police. Give them a description.’
‘They’ve already got descriptions.’
‘Well, at least let me work with them.’
‘They don’t need you. Look, they now know what he looks like and a big man like that is going to find it very hard to hide.’
‘He’s managed to stay hidden till now.’
‘The Egyptians actually had him and then they let him go when Senator Morris intervened.’
‘And now he’s somehow managed to enter Israel. That makes it personal.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about, Sarit: you making it personal. He’s already survived an attack by you and he knows what you look like.’
‘And by the same token, I know what he looks like.’
‘As long as he’s in Israel it’s in the hands of the General Security Services.’
‘What – that bunch of clowns? If they were doing their job, they’d’ve arrested Goliath as soon as he crossed the border. How did he even get in?’
‘We don’t know that yet.’
‘And what identity is he using?’
‘We don’t know that either.’
‘So let me get this straight. Some guy who’s six foot five tall, who we’re looking out for specifically, enters the country undetected, gives the GSS the slip, kills a prominent Samaritan rabbi and then vanishes without leaving a trail?’
‘He’s evidently a lot smarter than we thought.’
‘And what about the senator?’
‘What about him?’
‘Can’t we get anything from the phone intercepts?’
‘Goliath must have a new phone and we haven’t identified it yet. We’re working on it.’
‘What about the senator?’
‘We can’t monitor him with a US-based intercept ’cause it’s against Federal law.’
‘Do we care? It hasn’t been sanctioned by the PM. If we get caught, there could be a whole lot of fallout.’
‘It’s a matter of life and death!’
‘We have to work within our means.’
‘So how did we monitor Morris until now?’
‘That’s why we need assets like Audrey Milne. When he called Egypt, we could monitor locally from Urim. It seems like Goliath is a whole lot more resourceful than we gave him credit for.’
‘So all the more reason for me to get in on the act. At least I know what he looks like.’
‘But you’re no better placed than the security services to track him down. In fact, rather less so.’
Chapter 81
‘Look, I know this is painful,’ said Daniel. ‘If you want me to stop, I will.’ He understood how difficult it must be for these serious men of religion to find their sacred truths contradicted by a text more ancient than the Bible; their patriarch exposed as an incestuous adulterer and a murderer who betrayed his own daughter.
The high priest refused to succumb to the pain. ‘No… please continue.’
Daniel looked down and again struggled with the text as he continued. And Neferayim had the ear of Tutankhaten and advised him to fulfil his father’s wishes and worship the Aten and not to allow the priests of Amun to pray to their false god or to offer sacrifices to him. And the king worshipped the creator of all. And Neferayim persuaded Pharaoh to marry Ankhesenpaaten his favourite granddaughter who was also his daughter. But Horemheb had the other ear of the king and he told him that Neferayim and Nefertiti killed his mother because she wanted to restore the old gods.
‘Is that new?’ asked Daniel. ‘Or more of what we already know?’
‘A mixture,’ said Gabrielle cautiously.
‘But why didn’t Horemheb simply tell Akhenaten about the murder of King Tut’s mother? Why this elaborate, roundabout response?’
Gabrielle had to think about this.
‘Well, we do know that from the twelfth year of Akhenaten’s reign, Egypt was in turmoil. They stopped building in Amarna and Egypt was economically strapped. Their new enemy, the Hittites, were becoming more powerful. And Akhenaten may not have had all his marbles. From what it said earlier in the papyrus, Nefertiti was ruling as co-regent. Although co-regencies were quite common in ancient Egypt at that time, it was rare for it to be with a woman. Not unprecedented, but rare. It was more likely to be with a son, in order to prepare him for leadership. If he ruled with Nefertiti as co-regent, instead of waiting for his son to get older, that could suggest that he was no longer able to rule by himself. Maybe the death of his beloved wife/sister affected his mind in some way.’
‘That’s logical,’ said Daniel.
He looked at the high priest to see if he wanted to add anything. The high priest nodded towards the papyrus, making it clear that all he wanted to do was get this over with. He could have told them to stop, but it was clear that he had no intention of running away from the truth. He would go wherever the truth took him. Daniel continued. And when Tutankhaten heard this he became bitter and angry and he summoned Neferayim and cursed him and threatened him with death. But Neferayim begged for his life and told the king that it was his daughter and not he who had killed the mother of the king. And so Tutankhaten spared his life but ordered him to prove he was true by cutting out the words that praised the Aten from his tomb.
Daniel looked at Gabrielle. ‘That was at the other tomb, right? The Amarna tomb, not the one we were locked in.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And was it erased? The Great Hymn to Aten, I mean.’
‘Parts of it were chiselled out. Let’s talk about it later. Carry on.’ And Pharaoh restored the old gods and ordered the city of Akhetaten abandoned and changed his name to Tutankhamen to show his support for the old gods and their priests. Then Tutankhamen appointed Horemheb to be his heir.
‘Now we’re getting to things that are quite familiar,’ said Daniel.
‘Very familiar,’ Gabrielle agreed. ‘The counter-revolution, the abandonment of Akhetaten, the restoration of the Amun priests in Luxor. And that was only the beginning.’
Chapter 82
‘Which bus do I need for the Hebrew University?’ Goliath asked a random Israeli as he stepped out of the central bus station in Jerusalem.
‘What campus you want?’ asked the Israeli in broken English. ‘Givat Ram or Mount Scopus?’
‘I don’t know. The one with the library.’
