THE SMITING TEXTS_Anson Hunter_Egyptology action adventure thrillers Read online

  “Perhaps because the afterlife exists.”

  “No. The world has reverted to paganism like that of the ancient Egyptians who also attempted to communicate with the dead. They wrote pathetic letters to the dead on the sides of offering bowls imploring the dead to cease their curses or to come to their aid and provide guidance with the insoluble problems of living. Even in a monastery you hear about the modern craze of near-death experiences. People believe that when they die they too will enter a bright tunnel of light and find themselves in heaven with their friends and families, when in fact all they are basing their hopes upon are the graphic, neuro-chemical spasms of an oxygen-starved brain, or perhaps the tricks of demons. Heaven comes only with the resurrection and the resurrection comes only through a relationship. There is no automatic afterlife. It is time the world knew the truth behind a great untruth and on that, Professor Hunter and I were one. You see, we both believed that ancient Egypt invented heaven.”

  “A man of god and a man of Shaitaan.” She shook her head. “An unholy alliance indeed.”

  “God can use even unbelievers to work his will.”

  “So can Shaitaan, who has the power to breed evil, pride and intellectual arrogance in the heart of men.” She cast a quick glance around his paper and book-strewn floor. “I see that you are a chronicling monk, like the ones of old. Have you written about your collaboration with Professor Hunter? Is it here? If I read all of this, what would I find about the work of Emory Hunter?”

  “Not much. But if you read it all you would find in me a very happy man. It’s my great fear that my writings will end up in the sand like me and that nobody will ever care to read them.” She gave him a hard look as if trying to decide whether to believe him. “I fear you are right, in the end, Abuna. Your words are going to die with you.”

  She reached with a gloved hand into her chador and produced a weapon, a matt black automatic. The shadow of evil has come to my cave, Daniel thought.

  “You are as dangerous as your collaborator,” she said to him.

  He was at the edge of the mat, several metres away from the mouth of the cave. It was too late to run. He dropped swiftly to his knees like a Muslim going down on a prayer rug, but not to pray. The weapon went off with a crash, a black wind ripping past his head. He grabbed the edge of the mat and hauled with all of his might.

  She, staggered, lost balance, toppled. He saw her go down. He leapt on top of her, the two black-robed figures wrestling for the weapon. He grabbed her wrist in both hands and shook the gloved hand. She reached out with her free hand and grasped something on the floor, a leather-covered volume. She swung it hard, bashing the side of his head.

  The gun flew out of her hand. He let go of her arm, his head ringing.

  She rolled over and scrambled on all fours after her weapon. He made a grab for the edge of her black cloth and missed. She was going to get to the weapon before he could stop her, even if he made a dive.

  Daniel made a swift decision. Try to catch her. Or survive. He sprang up. She reached the fallen weapon, grabbed it, turned to fire. Daniel fled from the cave and into the gathering darkness.

  And he kept running as if the Devil were after him.

  Chapter 11

  THIS TOUR was not going to go by the book, Anson thought.

  No sooner had the group checked into their Cairo hotel than the concierge produced a message from the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, requiring Anson to make himself available, with all urgency, at their offices.

  First the US Homeland Security Department, now Egypt’s SCA. Why is everybody suddenly taking such an interest in my career? Anson thought.

  “You go ahead,” Bloem said. “We’ll be at the Embassy.”

  A clerical assistant took Anson up to a small, crammed documentation office on the sixth floor of a building in Adel Abu Bakr street in Zamalek, where he found not only the new head of the SCA waiting, but also a top government man, the Minister for Culture, Saleh Haroun, whose portfolio included responsibility for the organization.

  “May I express my profound regret and the commiserations of the Egyptian government and the Council at the loss of your father, such an eminent man of archaeology and one whom we are in the process of honouring at this very time. I’m sure your grief is felt very deeply, but perhaps you will comfort yourself in the knowledge of what a great service to Egyptology your father has provided.”

  The tall, flamboyant, grey-templed Minister of Culture pressed Anson’s hand in a handshake.

  “Thanks,” Anson said, “I suppose this is where I should vow to carry on my father’s great work, but it’s not going to happen. I’m the black sheep of the family, you see.”

  “Black sheep, no, surely not. Merely one who has abandoned the flock of Egyptology to seek out the darker mysteries of our past.”

  Was it recognition of something he saw and maybe even respected in Anson? He couldn’t quite decide.

  Anson also met and shook hands with the new, studiously polite SCA Secretary General, Gamal Fawzi and also said hello to a young Egyptian woman in a grey Islamic headscarf, whom the official introduced as Saneya, an inspector.

  “As a result of recent events, and for your own safety, we are assigning Saneya to be a personal advisor and facilitator to your tour group,” the Minister informed him.

  An SCA nanny, Anson thought. Perfect.

  She was a handsome, erect girl with an air of authority in the breadth of her shining eyes and in the tilt of her chin.

  The Minister had an air of restless energy about him and he took eddies of it with him towards the door.

  “I am sorry to rush away, but I have meetings with the illustrious Egyptologist Dr Melinda Skilling, and also one of her great sponsors from America. All part of a small gesture we are making in honour of your father, his university and his adopted country. I shall leave you in the good hands of Fawzi and Saneya.”

  He left and the room drained of energy.

  The colourless Gamal Fawzi sat down behind his file-strewn desk and Anson sat opposite, next to the girl.

  There was one good thing about having the SCA on board, Anson thought. It guaranteed them easy access to sites not always, if ever, open to the general public, such as the Fifth Dynasty pyramid of the pharaoh Unas, locus of the earliest pyramid texts, a potent collection of Words of Power.

  The Supreme Council of Antiquities man cleared his throat to break the silence.

  “Your father’s death is a lamentable event that has sent shock waves through Egyptology,” the Antiquities official said. “We wanted to meet with you in order to urge caution on your part. It seems that your father stirred up antipathy in religious circles. Coupled with this, there are strange currents swirling about Egyptology today. Certain irrational people – those, for example, who seek to discover the lost records of Atlantis under the Sphinx, or who assert that aliens built our great Pyramids.” He said the word pyramids as ‘purramutts’.

  “I’m intrigued by your concern,” Anson said. “And flattered to be invited here. The Supreme Council normally shows a supreme disinterest in my existence.”

  “I fear that your presence in Egypt will act as a lightning rod that may attract unwelcome elements and I urge upon you caution. The last thing Egyptology needs is more violence done to it. Saneya will be at your side and she can call on my department or extra police protection at short notice… She has also worked with tour groups in the past.”

  Anson exchanged polite nods with the SCA-appointed watchdog.

  “I’m sure Saneya will be unshakeable, I mean indispensable. Now what are these unwelcome elements you referred to?” he asked. “Do you know something I should?”

  “There are dangerous shadows, conspiracies and forces gathering like storm clouds over Egyptology. If you believe the Internet, everybody is envisioning some kind of revelation and apotheosis in Egypt. The CIA, global business consortiums, dark esoteric institutions and, of course, aliens from outer space. While ther
e are many shadowy groups eager to discover new secrets, there are other conservative forces just as eager to stop them.”

  “Muslim fundamentalists?” Anson said. “Go on, let’s say it.”

  The antiquities man looked embarrassed.

  “Of course.” ‘Of course’ came out of his mouth as ‘off course’. “We must consider the possibility. Militant extremism is a reality in Egypt today. There have been rumblings of criticism in the conservative Islamic press about your father’s incendiary theories, which many view as highly hostile to accepted belief systems in the Middle East. They speak out in anger even though the Egyptian government is cracking down hard on Islamic extremism. We are on the alert, but there is always danger. Hence, as a precautionary step, it will be necessary to send Saneya with you. And you will have armed police security.”

  Anson felt a net of bureaucratic control tightening around their quest.

  “Can you tell us about the progress of the investigation into the death of my father?”

  A frown of severity gathered around the official’s eyes.

  “The culprits will be found shortly. However, there are no details to announce at this stage, although the police are making a number of arrests among known dissident element in the community.”

  “Rounding up the usual suspects,” Anson said.

  A cover-up by officialdom, in an attempt to avoid a national and international scandal? He could almost feel the grittiness of the sand being flung into his eyes.

  “No clues left at the site where my father died?”

  “None. All we know is that your father met his end while on a visit to the mastaba tomb of Mereruka in Saqqara. A guard found him on the steps of the serdab. A shooting occurred by persons unknown.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  Gamal Fawzi shrugged.

  “I am sorry. It is a complete mystery.”

  Chapter 12

  AFTER HIS MEETING with the SCA officials, Anson and his group travelled by minibus to the Cairo Museum,

  He turned around in the front seat to survey them. There were five so far. Bloem, now bulking up a floral shirt, Browning, still in a suit, although this time with an open collar as a concession to Egypt. I hope he’s not armed, Anson thought. Browning seemed to have come along as security, even though he was now very far from the Homeland.

  Two other two young men, clean-cut intelligence officers by the look of them, sat on either side of the aisle of the bus. CIA? FBI? One sat plugged into an iPod, the other seemed to be engaged in making mental notes as he looked out at the passing Cairo scene. Spooks. The Eyes and Ears, Anson suspected. The fifth person was a young Egyptian post-graduate student, Kalila, a Christian Coptic girl with vivacious, Mediterranean features and eyes as dark as olives, who had been a student of his father’s. She had met them at the airport and taken to Anson in a ready, open way, consoling him in his loss by wrapping him in a hug. Kalila would act as interpreter and girl Friday organiser and not only was she a keen student of Egyptology, she also had a tour guide’s licence if needed. You needed them in Egypt, like a lucky rabbit’s foot, he recalled. Authorities allowed only licensed Egyptian guides to conduct tours at sites. It was illegal for Westerners to do so. Officials frowned if they so much as saw a foreign tour leader pointing at antiquities.

  The sixth member of his party, Saneya, the SCA’s appointed watchdog, would meet them at the Cairo Museum.

  The team had not reacted well to the news of her inclusion.

  “It means we’re already under the microscope,” Bloem said in a heavy tone.

  “How about you?” Anson asked him. “Any progress in finding a disaffected Sufi involved in archaeology?”

  “Still digging.”

  This was not going to be an easy dig, Anson thought as their minibus crossed the bridge from Zamalek into the clamour of Cairo traffic, a mixture of hooting cars, coaches and trucks combined with the sedate clip of donkeys and mules pulling carts while pedestrians darted on suicide missions to cross the street.

  Chapter 13

  ABUNA DANIEL Yacoub, clean-shaven for the first time in twenty-five years, and dressed in a borrowed, ill-fitting dark suit and open-necked shirt, slid the sunglasses higher up on the sweating bridge of his nose with a squat index finger. He went among the throng of tourists up the steps of the museum in brilliant sunlight.

  Who might be watching for him? It could be anyone, fundamentalist Islamic activists, crooked antiquities officials, maybe even the police. Yet I have done no wrong.

  My only sin would seem to be my association with Emory.

  Daniel had puzzled long on the violent interruption of his seclusion as he took the big step of losing himself, not in the wilderness this time, but back in the world. I feel I am on the run, he thought. But from what? And from whom?

  He went inside the museum. Here at least he found himself on familiar ground. The Egyptian Museum, Cairo, was still a marvelous shambles, a warehouse of antiquity with treasures stashed away in every corner. The building echoed like a big city railway terminal and the place had an air of threshold excitement as people set out on a journey from one time to another.

  He, for one, would be sorry to see everything moved and clinically displayed in the new state of the art museum constructed at the foot of the pyramids.

  How long had it been since he had last stepped in here to visit the greatest collection of Egyptian antiquities in the world? He threw a look down the length of the crowded hall to a pair of colossal, seated statues of a king and queen that towered above the ground floor. Amenhotep III and his wife Queen Tiye. Echoes of the excited voices of visitors fluttered like birds around their tranquil, gently smiling forms. Eternity enthroned in stone, he thought. At least that was the hope of the royal pair.

  It was going to be difficult to get a message to Anson since the place would be crawling with officials.

  A young Islamic woman in a grey headscarf came his way. A memory of eyes in a black chador flashed up at him like an approaching car’s headlights. He tensed. Could it be her? Wide and composed eyes took him in, but incuriously, with no flicker of recognition.

  She passed, slowed to glance at a limestone statue, a seated figure. A sign told her that it was a statue of the pharaoh Djoser, found at the step pyramid.

  Daniel let out a silent but ragged stream of breath. I am developing an antipathy towards females in Islamic dress after that she-devil with the gun came to me, he thought. It had been close. He had dodged her shot, pulled the mat to tip her off balance. But she had reached for the Word of God and bashed the side of his head using a hard, leather Coptic Bible. He had run from the cave and never returned.

  If I am that threatening, or valuable, to the world because of my link with Emory Hunter, then I must find out why.

  Was this his female attacker?

  Perhaps not. She struck him as being perhaps a little too slender, recalling the strength of the form that had wrestled against him.

  The flow of visitors set off on their journey to explore the past, proceeding in a clockwise direction, beginning in the Old Kingdom. Daniel moved with the flow, shuffling. He had come early to check out the lie of the land. A cousin in antiquities had informed him that Anson’s group was here this morning.

  Was she following?

  He paused at a triad sculpture carved in rippling, dark, greywacke stone. It showed the pharaoh Menkaure, flanked on one side by Hathor, wearing a cow-horned crown on her head and holding the king’s hand, and on the other side by a goddess of the region. As Daniel moved on, statues of servants, a woman kneading dough, men in a bakery preparing loaves of bread, caught his eye.

  No, she had passed.

  Jostling visitors and noisy tour guides packed the building in Al-Tahrir Square. The place vibrated with sound, pressing, eager humanity, excited voices, the ring of heels, the shuffle of feet, a rush of noise.

  Daniel went into the relative quietness of a side gallery to see if she would follow. He lingered to vi
ew the statue of King Khafre. Carved in veiny black diorite, the king sat on a throne, a falcon spreading its wings protectively behind his head cloth.

  People came in behind him, but not the girl. Good. He left the side gallery and continued down the west wing of the building.

  He dodged the advance of a matronly Egyptian tour guide. The woman waved a furled blue and white parasol above her head like a flag to draw the attention of a tour group who straggled behind her. The guide stopped beside a carved sphinx with a pharaoh’s head. Her group gathered around. The face of the stone sphinx, surrounded by a lion’s mane, wore a brutal expression. The guide declaimed in ringing words that fell like chisel blows:

  “And here we have huge, big sphinx statue of Pharaoh Amenemhat Three, Middle Kingdom pharaoh who built pyramid at Hawara and Great Labyrinth at Fayoum. Statue here carved from black granite.” The guide’s voice had an edge that could have cut a pharaoh out of stone.

  The group went on.

  Daniel passed a seated scribe, a painted shrine, a statue of the warrior pharaoh Thutmose III, sculpted in smooth green basalt, a queen in black granite, a sphinx of queen Hatshepsut and in Gallery Three, an unfinished head of Nefertiti that rivaled the famous painted sculpture in Berlin. The artist had depicted her in unpainted quartzite, with her characteristic airborne eyebrows and her fine eyes outlined on the stone.

  Abuna checked around again for the headscarf lady and decided to make his way to the Tutankhamun exhibition.

  Chapter 14

  DIM CEILING LIGHTS filtered into the Royal Mummy Room. It was like a darkened movie theatre in here, Anson thought. The spotlights gave an unreality to the sleeping bodies. The forms in their softly lit cases looked like images projected from the ceiling.