The Rosetta Key

You’re a turncoat, a liar, and a hypocrite who fought in the company of English sailors! You probably are a spy, as Najac said. If you weren’t so silly, as Monge also points out.”

“Sir, Najac there tried to rob me of my critical medallion in France when I was already committed to your expedition. He’s the traitor!”

“He shot me,” Najac said.

“He’s a henchman of Count Alessandro Silano and an adherent of the heretical Egyptian Rite, enemy of all true Freemasons. I’m certain of it!”

“Silence!” Bonaparte interrupted. “I’m well aware of your dislike 1 0 6

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of Count Silano, Gage. I also know he has shown admirable loyalty and perseverance despite his tumble at the pyramids.” So, I thought: Silano is alive. The news was going from bad to worse in a hurry. Had the count pretended his fall from the balloon had been from the pyramids? And why did nobody say anything about Astiza?

“If you had Silano’s loyalty, you wouldn’t have condemned yourself now,” Bonaparte went on. “By the saints, Gage, you were accused of murder, I gave you every opportunity, and yet you switch sides like a pendulum!”

“Character tells, mon general,” Najac said smugly. I longed to strangle him.

“You were actually looking for treasure, weren’t you?” Napoleon demanded. “That’s what this is all about. American mercantilism and greed.”

“Knowledge,” I corrected, with some semblance of truth.

“And what knowledge have you found? Speak honestly, if you value your life.”

“Nothing, General, as you can see from my condition. That’s the truth. All I tell is the truth. I’m just an American investigator, caught up in a war not of my . . .”

“Napoleon, the man is clearly more fool than traitor,” the mathematician Monge interrupted. “His sin is incompetence, not betrayal.

Look at him. What does he know?”

I tried to grin stupidly—not easy for a man of my basic sense—but I figured the mathematician’s assessment was an improvement over Najac’s. “I can tell you the politics of Jerusalem are very confused,” I offered. “It is unclear where the loyalty of the Christians and the Jews and the Druze truly lie . . .”

“Enough!” Bonaparte looked sourly at all of us. “Gage, I don’t know whether to have you shot or let you take your chances with the Turk. I should send you into Jaffa and let you wait for my troops there. They are not patient men, my soldiers, not after the resistance at El-Arish and Gaza. Or perhaps I should send you to Djezzar, with a note saying you are a spy for me.”

I swallowed. “Perhaps I could aid Doctor Monge . . .” t h e

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And then came the sound of gunfire, horns, and cheering. We all looked toward the city. On the south side, a column of Ottoman infantry was boiling out of Jaffa while Turkish guns thudded. Flags thrashed, men skittering down the hill toward a half-finished French artillery emplacement.

French bugles began to sound in response.

“Damn,” Napoleon muttered. “Najac!”

“Oui, mon general !”

“I’ve a sally to attend to. Can you find out what he really knows?” The man grinned. “Oh yes.”

“Then report back to me. If he’s truly useless, I’ll have him shot.”

“General, let me talk to him . . .” Monge tried again.

“If you talk to him again, Doctor Monge, it will be only to hear his last words.” And then Bonaparte ran toward the sound of the guns, calling his aides.

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I’m no coward, but there’s something about being hung upside down above a sand pit in the Mediterranean dunes by a gang of hooting French-Arab cutthroats that made me want to tell them anything they want to hear. Just to stop the damned blood from welling in my head! The French had repulsed the Ottoman sally, but not before the plucky Turks overran the uncompleted battery and killed just enough Frenchmen to get the army’s fire up. When told I was an English spy, several soldiers enthusiastically offered to help Najac’s gang excavate the pit and construct the palm-log scaffold I was suspended from. Officially, the idea was to wring from me any secrets I hadn’t already shared. Unofficially, my torture was a reward to Najac’s particular assortment of sadists, perverts, lunatics, and thieves, who existed to do the invasion’s dirty work.

I’d already told the truth a dozen times. “There’s nothing down there!” And, “I failed!” And, “I didn’t even know exactly what I’m looking for!”

But then truth isn’t really the point of torture, given that the victim 1 0 8

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will say anything to get the pain to stop. Torture is about the torturer.

So they roped my ankles and hung me upside down from the cross-beam over the sandy pit, my arms free to