But. She wasn’t a silly tourist, either.
For a second, she considered going back in the museum, but as she thought that, the light went out and she heard the door lock behind her.
Instead of walking past that doorway, which would lead her directly to her hotel, she’d take a more circuitous route to get back. She’d turn a street early and then cut back over once she was certain nobody was following her. Her cross-body bag hung near her waist. But her passports and other important documents were safely tucked into the passport belt that lay flat under the waistband of her jean shorts. In addition, her leather belt was a money holder. It had a zipper on the inside and fit carefully folded currency out of sight.
With her shoulders back, head held straight, she walked purposefully toward the figure, but then at the last minute turned down the first street.
She turned onto the narrow street that led to her hotel, casting a wary glance behind her. When she turned back, she gasped.
A woman draped in fabric with only her eyes peering out stood before her.
“Oh, good Lordie, you scared the bejesus out of me,” Dallas said with a nervous laugh. The woman just stared.
Then the woman moaned and slumped against the wall of a building. Dallas rushed over and kneeled down, peering into the woman’s wrinkled face. “Are you sick? Do you speak English?” Dallas was meeting with her interpreter tomorrow for the rest of her trip. That would’ve come in really handy right then.
Dallas heard a snap and tug and felt the weight of her cross-body bag disappear. She whirled and caught a glimpse of folds of material from a skirt at her level rushing away. She stood and gave chase instinctively but then paused. She needed to help the old lady. But when she turned back the woman was gone. And the woman’s cohort, the actual thief, was long gone, disappeared in the darkness.
She’d been had.
The thieves had targeted her as a naïve tourist and obviously been right.
At first Dallas was angry—at the women and at herself—but then she realized this was likely how the women put food on the table. With a sigh, she turned back toward her hotel. She’d have to replace the camera. And that wouldn’t be cheap. She only had about twenty U.S. dollars in that bag with the rest safely tucked in her money belt. All in all, the women probably would be disappointed in their haul.
The road she was on led to a major street with bustling activity and she sighed in relief. At least she wouldn’t be robbed again tonight.
After she was safe in her hotel room, with an upholstered chair pushed up against the door, Dallas logged onto her laptop. The hotel’s Wi-Fi was spotty, but she wanted to search for David Caldwell’s whereabouts—by seeing where the sunken Egypt exhibition was now. After all, wouldn’t he have to be traveling with the exhibition? She wanted to make sure he was far, far away from Cairo.
But when she looked up the stops for the exhibition, she found it was over. Which meant he could be anywhere.
Police had said he was out of town when her break in occurred. That meant that somebody else was sending her that warning by breaking into her home and office.
And of course, that meant she was onto something and they wanted to know what it was.
She knew she was right. This was proof.
After today’s visit to the museum, Dallas knew just which temple that was.
But just to be sure, she loaded the pictures she’d taken of a stele today onto her laptop and then blew them up. She scribbled the images into her notebook and then flipped through a book she had on ancient hieroglyphs.
It didn’t take long for her to decipher the gist of the ancient writing. Her knowledge of hieroglyphics was rudimentary, but this seemed clear.
When she did, it confirmed what she’d thought earlier at the museum—the hieroglyphs told a story about how Antony and Cleopatra were buried at Taposiris Magna. If you read the stele correctly. It wasn’t obvious. The top of the stele spoke about the death of Cleopatra, showing her with an asp held to her breast and Antony dead at her feet. Then it showed her body on the ground as well and the two lovers being carried to a tomb. It was only later, further down below on the stele that Taposiris Magna was mentioned at all. Unless people suspected that Cleopatra was buried at a temple, they would never make the connection between the queen’s death and the mention of the temple far below in the script.
It made sense with everything Dallas had compiled about Cleopatra’s tomb over the years. It aligned with all the hours she’d spent studying and logging small details, considering factors as diverse as architectural and icons, and the symbolism and mythology and even the chronology of all the temples within a certain radius of Alexandria.
She’d gone over it so many times and while she was seeing the sunken treasures exhibition here in Cairo, the stele had sealed it.
Looking at her notes, Dallas reaffirmed her conclusion. A piece of paper listed four cities that made up the majority of Cleopatra’s world: Alexandria, Canopus, Heracleion, and Taposiris Magna.
Alexandria was her home and the capital. Canopus, which had sunk into the sea, was a religious hub. Heracleion, a port of entry, was now also underwater.
Twenty-nine miles to the west of Alexandria was Taposiris Magna. This city, more than the other three, possibly played the largest role in Cleopatra’s family history and ancestry since it was founded by her forefather, Ptolemy II as a temple to Osiris.
Dallas’s theory was that if Cleopatra believed she was the living embodiment of the goddess Isis and Marc Antony was Osiris incarnate—after all
