Coincidence Theory

It did not take Carl long to find a taxi rank. As it turned out, there was a fortress the locals thought was one of Solomon’s not far from the oasis, and most of the tourist that came here did so outside of the normal coach tours frequenting the region.

  The drivers were shocked when four, soaking wet Westerners turned up and asked for a lift, but three hundred dollars changed their tunes, and soon they were on their way.

  The taxi tore along the empty road toward Cairo, its windows open and its air-con shut off to ensure the parched desert breeze dried their clothing.

  “Everything still working as it should, kid?” asked Carl, as Justin looked over their electronics.

  “I think so.” said Justin, turning the drives in his hand to check for water damage.

  “Last thing you guys need is to lose all your evidence. When this thing is over, someone is going to need to see that you’re innocent.” said Carl.

  “So why are we heading to Cairo, Carl?” asked Chris.

  “It’s all about the numbers that are repeated all over the Bible?” said Carl, crossing his fingers contemplatively.

  “Three, four and twelve.” said Justin, beaming.

  “Correct; twelve tribes of Egypt, twelve apostles, twelve brothers of Joseph, twelve signs of the zodiac. Well the significance of twelve in those stories may have been erroneous.”

  “How so? It seems like twelve is important.” said Louisa.

  “That’s because I didn’t see the real message: Twelve tribes of Egypt and one Moses, twelve apostles and one Jesus, twelve brothers and one Joseph, twelve Knights of the round table and one King Arthur. You see? The story isn’t about the twelve, that’s just the way to tell if the information is related to the real story.”

  “Which is?” asked Chris, irritation lining his words.

  “Ophiuchus!” said Carl, triumphantly.

  “Oh, that explains everything.” said Chris, losing interest.

  “Don’t be like that.” said Carl, realising his dramatic style was wearing thin. “Ophiuchus is the thirteenth sign of the zodiac.”

  “Thirteen zodiac signs! I know for a fact there are twelve.” said Chris, dismissively.

  “It’s not always been so. There were originally thirteen, but one was removed from the pages of history about the same time as the figure we know as Jesus came to prominence, because of its similarity to the creature associated with the devil.”

  “The serpent?” asked Louisa.

  “That’s right Louisa. Ophiuchus translates as ‘the Serpent Bearer’. The stories are all about our Pioneer People.”

  “So what did the message in the tomb say?”

  “It took a while to fathom it out and I’m still not sure we’ve got it exactly, but here goes.” said Carl, removing a sodden sheet of paper from his pocket. “The ever living garden cannot be travelled to through buildings of stone. The tree is borne still in the lair of the serpent by the blue river’s edge.”

  “So how does that lead us to Egypt?”

  “Well, I’ve had to be creative in my assessment, but I think the ever living garden it refers to is the Tree of Life, and I think the next part is where you can find it. I struggled with the serpent reference, because it relates to the blue river, which I think is the Nile, the river that always ran blue when this was written. However, Egyptians did not worship a serpent.”

  “That’s where I came in.” said Justin. “I pointed out what Carl said on the way to Jerusalem. He said a serpent was a snake with legs, and the Egyptians, to honour the God they assumed was a snake with legs, would have looked to the one creature they did have that fitted the bill.”

  “Sobek, the crocodile-headed God.” said Chris, lost in thought.

  “You’re right, Chris.” said Carl, surprised. “Built around two hundred BC, the temple of Sobek at Kom Ombo, about thirty miles north of the city of Aswan, is the best preserved temple to Sobek in Egypt. In ancient times it was actually an Egyptian city called Nubt, which translates as ‘the city of gold’, giving us even more links to the Ark. When it ran into disrepair, the Egyptians vacated it. A few hundred years later the Copts, the early Egyptian Christians from the first century, repopulated it, which provides our link to the Jesus tomb. The pieces fit! Somewhere underneath Kom Ombo temple is the final resting place of the Ark of Ra!”

  “So how do we get there?” said Chris, suddenly interested in what Carl was saying.

  “We get to Cairo airport and we get on an internal flight. It’s the quickest way.”

  When the group arrived on the edge of Cairo, it was deep into the evening and traffic was painfully slow all the way to the airport.

  The airport did not run services into the night and Carl knew they were pressed for time if they were going to make a flight. He tossed the driver his bounty and headed into the check-in hall at pace.

  “I still don’t see what the entire Pyramid link was that Dave was trying to get us to see.” said Justin, as they ran toward the one remaining open desk to Luxor. “Surely it would have been simpler just to tell us the end rather than the start, to save us going through all this!”

  “He was just giving us the pieces he’d been unable to fit together. I mean the entire Templar’s Dollar thing had me for a while. Then we talked about…”

  Carl skidded to a halt on the tiled floor, causing his trainers to squeal against the smooth surface in protest, his mind racing. Was Justin right? Was this just an easy target? What was he missing?

  Dave provided them all the information they had followed. He knew about the Yeshua tomb, and he knew about the origin of the pyramids. So how had he not been able to put that together to get to the same result?

  Carl’s thoughts ran by in a blur. There was something horribly wrong with his train of thought. He watched, as Chris turned from the check-in desk and called out across the hall to him. What was he doing?

  Carl did not even register someone talking. He ran through the words Dave struggled out before he died. Havilah, Templar’s Dollar, Yeshua’s followers, the twelve, never lost, disc and tablet, hidden place, don’t follow the copy, God buried him. The words flowed through his mind, as he tried to order them with his knowledge.

  Dave knew all this, but needed help with its deciphering. It was given to them, so Carl could find something Dave was missing. It was logical to assume the trail did not lead to an obvious conclusion. Kom Ombo was obvious, thus it had to be wrong. There must be another explanation.

  “Mate, we’ve got to go.” Chris said, rushing up to Carl and grabbing him by the arm. “The flight is going to leave without us!”

  “Why are we getting on a plane?” asked Carl, suddenly assured of his reasoning. “When we’re only a taxi ride from where we really need to be.”

 

  Chapter 47