‘What time period do you think it’s from?’
Blake took an apple from the bag and bit into it.
‘It’s difficult to say with any precision, but what I’ve seen would lead me to place it in the New Kingdom, in the age of Ramses II or Merenptah, but I could be wrong. I noticed, for example, a plaque from Amenemhat IV on the headrest which is much, much older. It’s a real puzzle.’
‘No idea of who could be buried inside?’
‘Not yet. But I have to decipher the texts and get that landslide out of the way so I can open the sarcophagus. The characteristics of the mummy and the objects inside should give me the key for ascertaining his identity. I can only say that he seems to be a very high-ranking person, perhaps even a Pharaoh. Tell me where we are, Sarah, and it will be so much easier for me . . . We’re at Wadi Hammamat, right?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘William, I’m sorry, I can’t help you. Don’t ask me any more, please.’
‘Fine,’ said Blake, tossing aside the apple core. He lit up a cigarette and quietly watched the sun as it began to descend over the boundless desert plain. There was not a stone, not a single feature of the terrain that recalled anything familiar. It was all so strange and different; even the sun looked different in this setting, as absurd as it seemed.
He buried the cigarette butt in the sand and said, ‘Let’s get back to camp now. I’m really tired.’
It was nearly dusk when they arrived and Blake went to make a report to Maddox after a quick shower in his trailer. He explained his point of view and the doubts that had arisen during his exploration of the tomb.
Maddox seemed very interested and attentively followed every word of his report. When Blake had finished, Maddox accompanied him to the door.
‘Relax a little, Blake,’ he said. ‘You must be dead tired. Dinner is at six thirty in the Bedouin tent, if you’d like to join us. Last night we ate later because we were expecting you, but usually we eat early, American style.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Blake, and then, before leaving, ‘I have to develop and print some photos.’
‘We have all the necessary equipment,’ replied Maddox, ‘because we often take aerial photos from the balloon and develop the film in our own darkroom. Sarah Forrestall will show you where it is.’
Blake thanked him and walked south towards the wadi to while away the time until dinner. He was too tired to work.
The air was a little cooler. The tamarisks and broom cast long shadows over the clean gravel on the bottom of the river bed. Blake watched the lizards scatter at his arrival and for a moment saw an ibex, standing with its great curved horns against the disc of the sun descending behind the hills. The animal seemed to consider him for an instant and then turned with a quick sidestep and vanished, as if into thin air.
He hiked for nearly an hour before turning back and that long walk calmed and relaxed him, dissolving the tension that always gripped the nape of his neck when he was absorbed in his research. The sun had nearly disappeared behind the line of hills, but its rays skimmed the peaks that rose up from the plain, sculpting and cloaking them in a clear, tawny light.
Just then, as he returned towards the camp, his gaze was attracted by a rise to his left which was about half a mile away. Its peak was lit up by the rays of the setting sun.
It looked exactly like a pyramid. The horizontal layers of its stratification accentuated the impression, creating a perfect illusion of a man-made structure. He thought of the other mountain dominating the camp; it looked like a crouching lion or a sphinx. What place was this, where nature and chance had combined to recreate the most emblematic and suggestive landscapes of ancient Egypt? He turned it over and over in his mind as the valley of Ras Udash sank slowly into the shadows of the night.
5
IT TOOK BLAKE a few days to photograph, describe and survey all the objects in the tomb, with Sarah’s help. He decided to leave each item in its original position and built a partition with wooden boards and plastic sheeting to isolate the sarcophagus and most of the rubble around it from the rest.
Ray Sullivan helped him to build a kind of vacuum cleaner to remove the dust, which would be especially useful when he began to remove the debris and to transfer it all up to the surface. To make the job easier, he built a framework over the opening and equipped it with a pulley so he could let down the Jeep’s winch cable with a big hanging bucket-like container that he’d had made at the camp to hold the rubble. When he was ready to start clearing it away, he went, as usual, to Maddox’s trailer shortly before dinner.
‘How are things going, Professor Blake?’
‘They’re going well, Mr Maddox. But there’s a problem I have to talk to you about.’
‘What’s the matter?’
Well, I’ve finished all the surveying work, but now I have to free the sarcophagus from the landslide that’s covering it. I’m calculating that it’ll be about twenty cubic metres of material – dust, pebbles and sand, mostly – and the only way to get it out is by hand. Now, I’m wondering how many people are aware of what we’re doing. You, Sullivan, Gordon, Miss Forrestall and me make five. We’ll need workers if we want to get it done in a reasonable amount of time, but that means other people will have to be involved in the find. I’d say that it’s up to you to decide.’
‘How many men do you need?’
‘Two for removing the rubble. No more, because there’s not enough room. One working the vacuum cleaner and another at the winch.’
‘I’ll give you three workers. Sullivan can take care of the winch.’
‘How many other people, at the camp, know about the tomb?’
‘No one, besides those you’ve just mentioned. I don’t think we have a choice as far as the three workers are concerned.’
‘I’d say not.’
‘How long will it take to remove this slide?’
‘If they work hard, we can get up to two or three cubic metres out a day, which means that in a little over a week we’d be ready to open the sarcophagus.’
‘Fine. We’ll start on this tomorrow. I’ll choose the workers personally. At seven tomorrow morning they’ll be waiting for you at the parking lot. Will you still need Miss Forrestall’s help?’
Blake hesitated for a minute, then said, ‘Yes. She’s been a great help.’
The only people present at dinner, perhaps not by chance, were those who knew about the tomb, and so they continued talking about it until they went to have their coffee in the Bedouin tent. Listening and watching them attentively, Blake realized that Sullivan, besides being an excellent technician, was Maddox’s right-hand man, maybe even his bodyguard. Gordon seemed to be the middleman between Maddox and the company administration, and Maddox himself seemed to think very highly of him, if not to fear him. There was no doubt that Sarah Forrestall was the most independent of the bunch, and that wasn’t easy to explain.
After Gordon and Sullivan had turned in, Maddox asked him, ‘Professor Blake, in your opinion, just what are those things down in the tomb worth?’
It was a question that Blake had been expecting for some time. ‘In theory, they’re priceless. Certainly in the field of tens of millions of dollars.’ And he tried to look for a reaction to his words in the eyes of both Maddox and Sarah.
‘In theory?’ asked Maddox.
‘Yes, that’s right. Getting the material out of here would be almost impossible. You’d have to corrupt half the public officials of the Arab Republic of Egypt and even if you did, that wouldn’t be enough. In theory, you could use your Falcon, but you’d have to practically rebuild it inside to make it suitable to transport such goods, and out here that wouldn’t be simple. Without considering that you’d have to build a protective framework around each piece, increasing their bulk tremendously. Some of the pieces wouldn’t even fit through the door.
‘And even if you did manage to move a certain number of objects, the smaller ones, say, you wouldn’t be able to exhibit them or allow potential bu
yers to make them public in any way. The sudden appearance of all this material from such a rich archaeological find, completely undocumented, would lead immediately to an investigation and Egypt would demand the return of the goods. It would be a very big mess to talk your way out of.
‘My opinion, once again, is that the discovery should be announced officially and the findings published, Mr Maddox.’
Maddox didn’t answer and Sarah Forrestall continued to sip her coffee, as though it were none of her business.
‘It doesn’t depend on me, Professor Blake,’ said Maddox finally. ‘In any case, we need a detailed estimate of the value of the tomb contents, as accurate as possible.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said Blake, ‘but only when I’ve finished with the excavation. It wouldn’t make sense now. We don’t even know what’s in the sarcophagus.’
‘As you wish, Blake, but keep in mind that we won’t be here for long. Goodnight, Professor.’
‘Goodnight, Mr Maddox,’ replied Blake. Then, as soon as Maddox had left, he turned to Sarah. ‘What is this story about the estimate?’
‘Shall we take a walk?’ asked Sarah.
Blake followed her and they crossed the camp, passing in front of the tents of the workers, who were sitting around playing cards and drinking beer. It was almost time for the generator to go off.
‘It’s logical, isn’t it?’ observed Sarah. ‘There are tens of millions of dollars down there in assorted antiquities and it’s more than understandable that Warren Mining is eager to do business.’
‘I thought that cadmium exploration and processing were Warren Mining’s core business.’
‘They are, but the company’s in financial trouble.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Rumours.’
‘Just rumours?’
‘No, not only. I accessed a restricted file in the host computer. These guys owe me a lot of money. I had the right to find out more about the company’s financial situation.’
‘But this is crazy! You really think they want to solve their financial problems with archaeological finds?’
‘Why not? All they are to them are goods with an extremely high market value that could save them from bankruptcy. You tell me why else they would have organized this whole thing, and why they picked someone like you.’
‘You mean, why did they pick a failure?’
‘I mean a man who’s an outsider, isolated, out of a job.’
Blake didn’t answer. The generator abruptly went off and the camp was plunged into darkness, leaving the mountain peaks to hold up the miracle of the night sky. Blake’s gaze wandered through the infinity of stars teeming across the diaphanous veil of the galaxy. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘But it’s not important compared to the enigma that’s hidden in that tomb. You have to help me save the evidence that destiny has protected over thousands of years.’
‘How? Maybe you don’t realize how tightly controlled we are. We are always being watched, every time we leave the camp, and I can guarantee that every time we drive back in, someone checks the mileage on the Jeep. Are you thinking you could just load it all up and carry it off with you across the desert? With what?’
‘Damn,’ burst out Blake, realizing how totally powerless he was. ‘Damn!’
‘Come on,’ said Sarah. ‘Let’s go back. We’ve got a tough day ahead of us tomorrow.’
They walked in silence to Sarah’s trailer and, as she inserted the key into the lock, Blake put a hand on her arm. ‘Sarah.’
The girl turned towards him, trying to make out his expression in the dark. ‘What is it?’
‘You have got to have a topographical map of this area.’
Sarah seemed disappointed by his question. ‘Yes, of course, but it won’t help you. All the coordinates have been taken out. All the place names are in Arabic. You know that this place where we are is called Ras Udash, but that hasn’t answered any of your questions, has it?’
‘Sarah, I want to see that map. Please.’
‘This isn’t an excuse to get into my room, is it, Professor Blake?’
‘That’s a possibility. So, can I come in?’
Sarah opened the door. ‘Let me light the gas lantern,’ she said, feeling her way in the dark to find some matches. She placed the lantern on a drawing table with the map tacked onto it. ‘Here it is. See, just like I told you. No references. Just about ten named places in all, including Ras Udash.’
Blake put on his glasses and examined the map carefully. ‘It’s like I thought. This map is a computer printout. That’s how they deleted all the references. There’s got to be a master copy somewhere that contains all the coordinates.’
‘Very probably.’
‘Do you have a mobile hard disk?’
‘Sure.’
‘What capacity?’
‘Two gigabytes.’
‘Great, that’s more than enough.’
‘I get it,’ said Sarah. ‘You think you can find the master, copy it onto a disk, transfer it onto your computer and print it. Right?’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Fine, but I have no idea where to look for the master, if it exists. And how could I manage to fool around with Maddox’s computer without anyone noticing or getting suspicious?’
‘You told me that you’d accessed a restricted file on the main computer. If you wanted to help me, you could do it again.’
‘It’s not the same thing. What you’re asking me to do would take too long. The guy in charge of the computer is one of Maddox’s must trusted men, a technician named Pollock. He sits there the whole time the generator is on.’
‘Well, how did you do it the first time?’
‘Pollock has his habits. Every morning at ten he goes to the latrine and spends ten minutes there, if not more. It depends on whether he takes a magazine to read or not. But for your problem, Blake, ten minutes or even fifteen would not be enough. A topographical map takes up a lot of memory. Finding it will take time and copying it even longer.’
‘I realize that,’ said Blake. ‘But I absolutely have to know where I am. It’s the only way I’ll be able to figure out who is in that tomb and why it’s located in such an out-of-the-way place. If what you’ve said is true, as soon as I’ve finished excavating they’ll send me packing, leaving them free to ransack the chamber and take away all their goodies. Sarah, I didn’t come here to help a bunch of tomb raiders. This is an extraordinary scientific discovery and a unique opportunity for me. Help me, for God’s sake.’
‘Tomorrow I’ll give it a go. I have an idea I could try.’
‘I really appreciate it,’ said Blake. ‘If we succeed it will really give me a fighting chance.’ He turned towards the door. ‘Goodnight, Sarah. And thanks.’
‘Goodnight, Will. No problem.’
‘Know something?’
She looked at him with curiosity. ‘What?’
‘This thing about turning off the generator at this hour seems totally idiotic.’
‘It’s Maddox,’ said Sarah. ‘He can’t sleep with the noise the generator makes. Or maybe he can’t fall asleep if he knows someone is doing something he doesn’t know about. It does give us some interesting opportunities, though. Like they say, every cloud has a silver lining, right?’
Blake looked at her as if seeing her for the first time and lowered his gaze, confused. ‘Sarah, don’t play games with me. I’m not the type of man who could have an affair with a woman like you and come out smiling the day it was over. Just a week ago, you invited me to stay out of your life and that’s no problem for me. My balance is still a little . . . off.’
He caressed her hand lightly, then nodded goodbye and walked towards his own lodgings. In the distance he could hear the insistent noise of helicopter blades, and lights were flashing in the same direction, behind the hills. He could hear Jeeps rumbling over the mountainside and noticed the wake left by a couple of tracer shells. It was certainly the strangest mining camp he’d ever hea
rd of.
He lit his gas lantern as soon as he got in and began to study the photographs he had taken of the inscriptions from The Book of the Dead on the walls of the tomb. There was something strange, something peculiar, in those hieroglyphics that he couldn’t quite get a handle on. Something familiar nagging at the back of his memory. Was it the type of expression? Or the style of the writing, the ideograms?
He boiled water for tea and lit a cigarette, walking back and forth in the little room, trying to focus on what was disturbing him.
He poured the dark, clear tea into a glass, Oriental-style, dropped in a couple of sugar cubes and drank, enjoying the strong, sweet beverage. He inhaled a puff of smoke from his cigarette and for a moment felt that he was back in Omar al Husseini’s apartment in Chicago, on that freezing, desolate evening. His heart skipped a beat: the Breasted papyrus!
That’s what the writing on the tomb wall reminded him of ! The use of certain ideograms with given meanings, the way the scribe had drawn the signs for ‘water’ and ‘sand’. Could it possibly be the same person? Maybe it was just a casual coincidence, Breasted’s handwriting that for some weird reason looked like that of a scribe who had decorated the walls of a tomb in the desert.
He sat down at his desk, took paper and pen, and wrote out a letter that he would email the next day. His hands trembled with excitement.
Dear Husseini
I’m studying a series of wall hieroglyphics, mostly taken from The Book of the Dead. What is extraordinary is that they seem drawn by the same hand as the Breasted papyrus. Maybe it’s just an impression, or a strange coincidence, but I absolutely must know whether I’m on to something. Could you please:
a) email me an exact reproduction of the first three lines of the Breasted papyrus, as soon as possible,
b) check if the Breasted transcription is considered a reliable reproduction or just a rough copy of the original.