Six hundred American dollars.
Forrest was skeptical. They already had the body, didn’t they? If they were so sure about the inlays and the head why hadn’t they themselves stolen them? Why hadn’t they stolen them years ago? They responded with wounded pride. To take something from a museum would be stealing, and the el-Hamids were not thieves. Removing an object from the ground was an entirely different matter, however. Who could claim before God or the law to own what had lain beneath the desert for ten thousand years? But steal from a museum? Never.
Forrest, who also preferred not to sully himself or his staff with stealing if he could pay someone else to take the risks, pressed them to reconsider their convictions. He would pay $800 if they would get him the head as well as the body.
Never, said the el-Hamids, not even for $1,000.
But when he got to $1,200-almost four times the average annual wage-one of the family, Abdul Nasrel- Hamid, made it clear that his own ethics might not be quite as rigid as those of the others, and that he had little love for Horizon House. Moreover, having worked there for a little while, he knew his way around.
An agreement was reached, but when two weeks passed without hearing anything more, Forrest made contact again. He was told that Abdul had unaccountably disappeared, failing to show up after his foray to Horizon House. Forrest assumed they had simply found a better buyer, and accepted the situation with a shrug. That was the way the game was played. The matter was dropped.
Four years later, with Forrest and Kermit back at Horizon House for Reclaiming History, it was picked up again. When Arlo, Jerry, and TJ walked into the crew’s late-night pizza party with a tale about the remains of a body in the storage enclosure, a light had clicked on. Forrest had gone to check for himself and had found the head. In the seven hours before Gabra and Saleh were due to arrive, he and Kermit had painted the numbers on the bones, buried the real F4360, and put the head in the most logical of places: its own drawer. By now, knowing more about Horizon’s nonexistent security precautions, they were more at ease about retaking it later. All Forrest had to do now was reinstate the visit to the el-Amarna Museum to get at the inlays, buy the body from Ali Hassan, who had gotten it from the el-Hamids, and remove the head at his pleasure. He would realize enough money from the statuette’s eventual sale to finance whatever films he wanted to make for the rest of his life; no more Reclaiming Historys or Joy of Spring Bulbs. Kermit was to get twenty percent of the profits. And they would manage it all without leaving a single clue or even a single lingering question behind.
Except, as they were shortly to find out, that Haddon had seen the head.
“You know, Gideon,” Julie said, “now that I think about it, there’s one part of this I’ve never gotten straight.”
Gideon smiled. “Only one? Congratulations.”
“Amarna and Luxor are a long way apart-”
“Two hundred miles.”
“So what were the head and body doing in a sculptor’s studio near Luxor-Thebes, it would have been-while the inlays were being made in another studio way up in Akhetaten?”
“Good question,” Gideon said. “I think that’s what kept me from putting it all together for so long. But you have to remember, this was right at the time the capital was being moved. What probably happened is that the stonework was commissioned while they were still in Thebes, and then the finish-work was done in Amarna, after the move. Or maybe the metalsmith was given the job in Thebes and moved to Akhetaten before he finished it.”
The date inscribed on the statue-1350 B.C. by modern reckoning-supported this, being about the time of the capital’s transfer. The statue itself was now known to be that of a noblewoman of Akhenaten’s court named Semet.
“Well, it all worked out for the best,” said Rupert, understandably anxious to impress this point on Gideon, who still bore some of the bruises he’d gotten in the Western Valley. “The Gustafsons,” he added, purring, “are very well-satisfied.”
The Gustafsons weren’t the only ones. Sergeant Gabra had had his picture in newspapers from Novosibirsk to Nova Scotia and had received a commendation from the president of Egypt for retrieving a priceless piece of his country’s patrimony. And, as Gabra had delightedly told Gideon, he’d managed to do it without having to arrest a single American!
The restored statuette of Semet, glowing with refurbished gold, would go to a place of honor in the Cairo Museum. First, however, in gratitude for the part played by the Horizon Foundation, it was to have a brief tour in the United States. At Bruno’s request, the first stop would be the Burke Museum on the campus of his alma mater, the University of Washington.
To celebrate this coup, Rupert had arranged today’s luncheon for officials from the university, the Horizon Foundation, and the Egyptian embassy. And Julie and Gideon. Bruno was to make the after-lunch speech.
“And speak of the devil,” Rupert said, “here he is now.”
Bruno and a few of the other guests, having just come in from a reception at the museum, were clustering at the bar. Bruno, catching sight of them, came smiling to their table, martini in hand.
“Ah, just the people I wanted to see.”
There was news on several fronts, it turned out. First, gifts and donations to the foundation were up almost twenty percent, no doubt attributable to all the recent publicity. And demand for Reclaiming History, its editing complete, was beyond anything they’d hoped, which boded well for the future.
Second, TJ, whom everyone had been expecting to accept the directorship of Horizon House when it was offered, had amazed them by turning it down.
“I can’t say I’m really surprised,” Gideon said. “She’s an archaeologist, not an administrator.”
“She put it another way: ‘I’d rather be down on my knees in dirt than up to my eyeballs in crap.” “
On the other hand, Bruno told them, Arlo, who had been expected to turn down the directorship if offered, had also amazed them-by accepting.
“You know,” Gideon said, thinking about it, “that just might work out.”
“I think Arlo will do fine,” Julie said. “All he needs is a chance to spread his wings.”
“I just hope he has wings,” Bruno said.
And third, he continued, third, some really exciting news. In the late spring he would be taking another film crew to Giza, Saqqara, and Medum. Stimulated by the success of Reclaiming History, he was producing a documentary of his own, something he hoped would be a lasting contribution to Egyptology: the first completely scientific and unbiased examination of the powers of pyramids. Did they know, by the way, that new studies had shown that sleeping in a pyramid could extend the human lifespan by fifteen percent and also inhibit male-pattern baldness? That keeping butter in a pyramidal container could keep it fresh indefinitely?
“I don’t suppose,” he said, rolling his chair a little closer to Gideon’s, “that, um, you’d be interested in coming along to narrate? Another exciting, no-expenses-spared trip to the Land of the Pharaohs?”
Gideon laughed and waved over the bartender for another round.
“Talk to me after I’ve healed up from the last one,” he said.
