The Pharaoh Key

42

THE CRIMSON SUN declined behind a limp row of palm trees lining the western shore of the Nile as the old boat chugged northward, belching a stream of diesel smoke. Imogen and Gideon stood leaning on the rail, watching in silence as the scenery slipped by in the evening light. After escaping both the mountain and their pursuers, the trip became for them a nightmarish four-day journey across a scorching desert. They were so plagued by mirages of distant water that when they at last reached the shores of Lake Nasser, Gideon could scarcely believe it was real. A dirt road had led them to a dusty village on the shore opposite the tourist attraction of Abu Simbel. Their robes were so filthy, and their faces so sunburnt, more than one person had mistaken them for local beggars and tried to drive them away. In Abu Simbel, an eternally smiling man with a single gold tooth had good-naturedly swindled them out of their camels and saddles. They had been too tired to argue. He had then kindly helped them buy tickets for the boat journey to Cairo, arguing furiously with the ticket seller to bargain the man down to a price they could afford, given how little he’d paid them for the camels. Despite carrying the grand and ironic name of the Queen Nefertiti, the boat was a shabby tourist cruiser that had seen better times. They were booked for the three-day trip into two windowless cabins deep in the belly of the ship, close to the throbbing engines.

They had nothing—no passports, no money, and no Western clothes. Gideon figured that when they reached Cairo, he could get a new passport from the American embassy. Imogen had promised to wire for money and loan Gideon airfare back home to New Mexico.

Leaning against the rail, watching the swirling muddy waters of the Nile pass by, Gideon felt almost paralyzed with grief for his lost partner. Once again, he reflected that he’d never met a man with such rare courage. And not just in holding off their attackers at the end, but throughout the entire journey: saving children on the sinking ferry even though he couldn’t swim; rescuing the chief’s daughter from the leopard. It had been a horrible way to die, slashed to pieces by Blackbeard and his men. He hoped to God it had been quick: the idea that Garza might have been captured alive by Mugdol made him feel sick.

Imogen had remained almost silent the entire trip. They stood pensively watching as the sun disappeared below the horizon and the air turned from yellow to green to an unnatural desert mauve. He noticed that Imogen had her soiled notebook in hand, at the rail, turning its crude pages pensively.

“You know,” Gideon said, thinking out loud, “if we hadn’t stopped to rob the treasure chamber, if we’d only kept going, Manuel would still be alive. I can’t escape the feeling it’s my fault he’s dead.”

“You can’t think that way. You’ll just cheapen his sacrifice. Besides, you decided together to rob the treasure.”

She hesitated for a moment, then turned toward him. “Listen to me, Gideon.” She spoke quickly, the words tumbling out as if they’d been bottled up for days. “We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to say about all this. I mean, what our story’s going to be.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“I…I think we should keep our mouths shut.”

“About the treasure?”

“About everything.”

“Why?”

Imogen was silent for a long time. “Remember what I first thought I’d discovered back in that chamber? An early formulation—a first draft, if you will—of the Ten Commandments. Inscribed by the Pharaoh Akhenaten.”

“I remember.”

“To me, it’s more evidence that Akhenaten was the father of monotheism—and in being so he changed the world.”

“But I thought it was Moses who received the Ten Commandments, on a mountaintop in the Sinai—directly from God.”

“Makes a brilliant story, doesn’t it? And a great way to legitimize a new religion. But what I found in the golden cabinet seems proof that the Ten Commandments were first formulated in Egypt by Akhenaten. When the Egyptians rejected monotheism after his death, a follower—most likely a follower named Moses—left Egypt with other adherents to this new religion.”

“To found Israel.”

“Yes.”

“That’s crazy.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not even a new idea. Sigmund Freud, of all people, claimed in his book Moses and Monotheism that Moses was Egyptian. Some biblical researchers go so far as to say Akhenaten was Moses, chased out of Egypt with his followers.”

“So what does this have to do with our not telling of the discovery?”

“I’m getting there. Those inscriptions I deciphered indicate there was a split among the monotheists. Afterward, Moses led one group—the main group—east to Israel. But another, much smaller group split away from them and went south to Gebel Umm. They were no doubt the ancestors of our little tribe. They carved the commandments into that tablet and placed it in that golden cabinet, their very own Ark…the location of which was recorded on the Phaistos Disk. They haven’t exactly thrived over the centuries, as you know, but it’s probable they started out as a far larger group—and as we’ve speculated, it’s also possible several of those disks were carried by proselytizing adherents to other areas of the world.”

“Why did the two groups split?”

“Well…” Her voice, which had been so urgent, trailed off. “Doctrinal differences.”

“What do you mean?”

“The group that fled south had an Eleventh Commandment.”

“Eleven commandments?” It sounded like a joke.

“Eleven is the most sacred number in Egyptian numerology. Having only ten would feel incomplete to an ancient Egyptian.”

“What did this Eleventh Commandment say?”

Imogen shook her head.

“It’s that bad?”

“It wasn’t a commandment in the form we’ve come to know,” she said. “It—well, it was more of a disturbing prophecy. Proclamation might be a better word. On the nature of the One God.”

“So? Spill it. Stop being coy.”

“It was so strange I’m not sure my translation is accurate. Besides, I…would hate to burden you.”

“You’re kidding, right? Burden me?”

She shook her head. “Trust me, you’re better off not knowing. You and everyone else.”

“Are you burdened by it?”

“Let me put it this way: I’d give almost anything not to have read it.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t tell me you believe it, whatever it is? You just said you’re unsure of the translation. And it’s not like we’re talking about the literal word of God here: it’s just some disaffected, heretical group of ancient Egyptians or something. False prophets weren’t exactly a rare thing in that era.”

She said nothing, turning over the notebook in her hands as if it were a sort of worry stone. “The main point is, we can’t tell anyone about what we found. The tribe would be overrun and destroyed. All the secrets they’ve been guarding—and I believe they have been actively guarding them these many centuries—will end up in museums. The tribe itself will be relocated to government housing and eventually cease to exist. And the world will become a poorer place.”

“What about Manuel’s death? What do we tell his siblings?”

“That he was brave and saved our lives and died during an expedition in the desert.” She glanced at him. “You didn’t tell anyone else about your discovery, right? The secret of the Phaistos Disk?”

Gideon shook his head. “No. Not that anyone would believe us. All we have for evidence are those scribbled notes of yours.”

“Oh, someone would believe us,” Imogen said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because…” She hesitated, a faint tremor in her voice. “I know Eli Glinn will believe us.”

Thunderstruck, Gideon stared at her. “You know Glinn?”

“I’m his niece.”

Gideon went mute as he tried to process this.

She ran one hand along the rail. “Eli helped raise me when I was orphaned by a plane crash. He put me through Westminster School and Balliol. I stayed on at Oxford for graduate work. I’ve been freelancing as an archaeologist and Egyptologist in Cairo, and he called me up with an unexpected favor to ask—an assignment. He explained how he’d discovered that you and Manuel had stolen the Phaistos Disk translation and were apparently headed to the location it revealed. He’d managed to track you as far as Safaga. He asked me to talk my way onto your expedition and then report back to him what you found.”

“And you said yes? Just like that?”

“I couldn’t exactly refuse him. Besides…” She paused. “The Egyptian Middle Kingdom really is my area of expertise. And it wouldn’t have been the first time I’d done work for EES.”

Gideon felt like he’d been sucker-punched. He stared at her. “You dirty little liar!”

She shrugged. “We’ve been lying to each other all along.”

“Maybe, but I finally told you the truth.”

“And so have I.”

Gideon gathered himself to retort, but to his surprise nothing came to mind. She was right. “So you’re going to report back to Eli?”

“Of course.”

“What are you going to say?”

“That we found nothing.”

“Really? And why is that? Why agree to this mission, risk your life, if you weren’t going to see it through to the end?”

“I’d always planned to see it through to the end. But after all that’s happened…well, I just can’t rat you out like that.” She looked out toward the far bank. “Don’t think it’s easy for me. I know Eli and his ways even better than you do, but he was still a kind of surrogate father. At least, he tried to be.”

“I can imagine.”

She flared up. “He was very kind to me, and he did his best.”

“So what will you tell him about Manuel? About the treasure chamber—and the tablet?”

“Oh, I’ll make sure Eli has enough closure to content himself with. I’ll inform him, through our private back channel, that Manuel died and was buried in the desert; that the expedition was a total bust; and that you went off, disappointed, to your cabin to…” Her voice trailed off as she seemed to catch herself.

“To what?”

She did not answer right away. “Eli also told me about your terminal condition.”

“Of course he would.” He could see her eyes fill up.

“Look. The more I got to know you two—especially after we reached the village—the more I realized I wanted to come down on your side, not Eli’s. I wanted to be on your side particularly, Gideon, because…” She stopped, as if to consider her words carefully. “Anyway, I can’t count the times I wanted to tell you all this, but I never seemed to find the right moment. I’m sorry.”

Gideon shook his head. It was all too much. Losing the treasure, losing Manuel, and now this confession. Eli Glinn. A sect who believed in a mysterious and apparently frightening Eleventh Commandment. There’s so little time. Of course she didn’t want to fall in love with a dying man. None of it seemed real.

“The best thing,” said Imogen in a firmer voice, “is for us to get our stories straight and make sure no one ever, ever finds out about that chamber. You understand? Nobody must know.”

“As you said, I’m going back to my cabin. To die.”

She flinched, as if in pain. She hesitated for a moment. And then—whether on impulse or premeditation he could not tell—she flung the notebook into the Nile, where it bobbed for a moment before sinking into the murky water.

“When the world is ready,” she said, “the chamber will be opened. And the truth—if we choose to believe it—will be known.”