Kingdom of Darkness

5

Nina opened the shutter to squint out of the window of the 747 at the blue Mediterranean below and the sandy shoreline on the horizon. She checked her watch; the flight had taken over twelve hours, yet on the ground it was a full day ahead of when they had left New York. ‘God, overnight flights always screw me up,’ she mumbled. ‘My body clock’ll be so out of sync, I’ll probably think we’re meeting Alexander the Great in person.’

Eddie was holding her Kindle. ‘Good, we can tell him he should be called Alexander the Dick.’

‘You’ve been reading about him?’ Before falling asleep, she had used the e-book reader to refresh her memory of both the Alexander Romance and the historical exploits of the ancient leader.

‘Yeah. I knew a bit about him — that he was a tactical genius who never lost a battle — but I’d no idea he was such a bloodthirsty arsehole. That story you told me about how he threatened to kill the entire tribe who took his horse; he would’ve done it, wouldn’t he?’

‘Yes, he would. Alexander preferred to show mercy to the rulers of the lands he conquered, as it made the transfer of power smoother if it seemed like they were voluntarily submitting to Macedonian rule. When it came to ordinary people, though,’ she went on with a grim shrug, ‘he could be completely merciless. It took his army months to win the siege of the city of Tyre, and when they finally broke through the walls, Alexander let his soldiers murder every man, woman and child they found during the first few hours, as a reward for what they’d endured to get in there. After that, anyone suspected of being a defender of the city was crucified, and every surviving civilian was sold into slavery.’

‘Nice bloke,’ Eddie said sarcastically. ‘Doesn’t sound much better than someone like Hitler, but he still somehow ended up being called “the Great”.’

‘History’s written by the winners,’ she reminded him. ‘And Alexander was definitely a winner. He was said to rule “the entirety of the known world”. Which isn’t true, as there were plenty of places the ancient Greeks knew about that he didn’t control — he didn’t even rule the whole of Greece, for that matter. The Spartans wanted nothing to do with him.’

He smiled. ‘Did they meet him and go, “This! Is! Spartaaaaarghhh!”?’ Other passengers in the first-class cabin looked around irritably at the noise.

‘Words to that effect, I’m sure. But he still ruled the largest empire in history to that point.’

‘“Alexander saw the breadth of his domain and wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that from the book?’

‘No, Die Hard.’

‘Well, wherever it’s from, it’s a misquote. The actual one’s from Plutarch: “Is it not worthy of tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one?” Totally the opposite meaning.’

Eddie snorted. ‘Who are you going to listen to — some old Greek, or Hans fucking Gruber?’

The aircraft’s captain spoke over the intercom; they were now only fifteen minutes from Cairo. ‘Shame we couldn’t get a direct flight to Alexandria,’ said Nina, stretching to make the most of her remaining time in the luxurious reclining seat. ‘I’m not looking forward to driving a couple of hours through the desert.’

Her husband was less bothered by the impending slog. ‘At least somebody’s meeting us at the airport.’

Somebody was — though not anyone they had expected.

‘Macy?’ Nina said, wondering if the Egyptian heat was already affecting her.

It wasn’t a mirage. ‘Hi!’ Macy replied, giving the couple a perfect white smile. She was wearing what by her standards were quite modest designer clothes, though some of the locals waiting at the arrivals gate were still shooting disapproving — or lecherous, depending on gender — looks at the amount of tanned olive skin on display. ‘How was your flight?’

‘Uh… fine, I guess. What are you doing here?’

‘Waiting for you,’ the young woman replied, as if it were self-evident. ‘I came here to help you!’

‘I’m not an invalid,’ Nina said.

Macy either didn’t pick up on her irritation, or chose to ignore it. ‘My flight got in from LA about an hour ago, so I decided to wait for you. It’ll save me catching a bus to Alexandria. Trust me, you do not want to spend any length of time on an Egyptian bus.’

Nina glowered at Eddie. ‘How much did you tell her?’

‘Nothing!’ he protested. ‘I said you wanted to go to Egypt to sort out the dig, that’s all. I didn’t say what flight we’d be on or anything.’

‘Oh, Dr Assad told me all that,’ said Macy.

Nina was surprised. ‘You spoke to Assad?’

‘Sure! I phoned him and asked if I could come with you and Eddie. He remembered me from when we discovered the Pyramid of Osiris, so he said yes.’

‘What — he said it was okay for you to join a high-security dig, just like that?’

Her expression became sweetly evasive. ‘Okay, well I might have let him think that I was still working for the IHA. I didn’t say I wasn’t, and he didn’t ask, so…’

Eddie chuckled. ‘Never mind archaeology, you’ll go a long way in Hollywood blagging like that.’

‘Anyway, once he said yes, I persuaded Grant to pay for my flight. And here I am!’

‘Macy, you can’t just turn up and waltz into someone else’s dig!’ Nina spluttered.

‘You mean, like when you beat Dr Berkeley into the Hall of Records under the Sphinx?’

‘That was different!’

‘Not really. Anyway, what’s the harm?’ said Macy. ‘I wanted to make sure you guys are all right, and I’ll be able to use this dig as experience for my master’s. I mean, you’d rather see me become an archaeologist than a model, wouldn’t you?’

The Englishman laughed again. ‘I saw your Lara Croft photos; no reason you can’t do both.’

The conversation was interrupted by a call of ‘Dr Wilde!’ The trio looked around to see a tall, neatly bearded Egyptian in a loose-fitting suit striding towards them.

‘Ay up,’ said Eddie. ‘Who’s this?’

‘He doesn’t look like an escaped Nazi war criminal, so I’m guessing it’s our ride,’ Nina replied.

The young man reached them and extended a hand. ‘Dr Wilde, welcome to Egypt. I am Deyab, from the Antiquities Special Protection Squad; Dr Assad sent me. I will be your driver while you are in the country. And also your bodyguard,’ he added in a more conspiratorial tone, lifting his left lapel to reveal a holstered gun concealed beneath.

‘Hello,’ said Nina. ‘Hopefully we won’t need that side of your services.’

‘I am told you had some trouble recently, so it is good to be prepared.’ He turned to Eddie. ‘You must be Mr Chase.’

‘I must,’ said Eddie, shaking hands.

‘And you are Miss Sharif, yes?’ Deyab went on, addressing Macy. Rather than shake her hand, he raised and kissed it, to her surprise. ‘Dr Assad told me to expect you. Welcome to Cairo.’

‘Well, I’m expected,’ the faintly blushing Macy said to Nina as Deyab released her hand. ‘So I guess I’m coming with you after all.’

‘I guess you are,’ Nina echoed through a frozen smile.

‘Ignore her,’ said Eddie, winking at Macy. ‘It’s always fun when you’re around. So, where’s your car?’ he asked Deyab.

The Egyptian’s comfortable Mercedes C-class sedan was waiting outside the terminal; the ASPS apparently had immunity to parking restrictions. Luggage was loaded, then they set off for Alexandria.

The drive was tedious, first negotiating the eternally choked roads of Cairo before heading along an increasingly desolate highway, the irrigated farmlands of the Nile delta giving way to barren desert. All four occupants were glad of the Mercedes’ air conditioning. By the time they reached Alexandria, the sun was wallowing towards the rippling horizon. Deyab guided his vehicle through the busy streets of Egypt’s second-largest city, bringing them into the heavily built-up downtown area that had been the heart of the ancient port. ‘This is where the dig is?’ Eddie asked dubiously.

‘It’s underneath all this,’ Nina explained. ‘The modern city’s literally built on top of the old one. They only found Alexander’s tomb by chance when they demolished an old building and started excavations for a new one.’

‘We hope it is Alexander’s tomb,’ Deyab corrected cheerfully. ‘If it is not, we have gone to a lot of trouble for nothing, eh? But we will find out tomorrow.’

‘So nobody even knows if it’s the real thing?’ said Eddie. ‘Great, it’ll probably just turn out to be Imhotep the Seventeenth’s latrine or something.’

‘That’d still be a fascinating find,’ Nina insisted. She saw his expression. ‘Yes it would! But they’re confident it really is the tomb of Alexander the Great, based on what they’ve discovered in the outer chambers.’

‘That is why the ASPS are here,’ said Deyab. ‘The stories say Alexander was buried with many great treasures. It is our job to make sure they stay with him!’

He sounded the horn to encourage a dawdling van to clear his path, then turned the Mercedes down a side street. The buildings here were squeezed together even more closely, but there was a prominent gap ahead. Tall wooden boards and plastic road cones around a space between apartment blocks marked a building site — but the armed men in dark paramilitary uniforms showed that there was more going on than normal construction work.

Deyab gave another quick blast on the horn, this time to alert the guards to his arrival. One waved, then rolled aside a high metal gate. The Egyptian guided the Mercedes through.

The area beyond was roughly square, strewn with dirt and rubble. Ragged trenches marked where the developers had begun to dig out foundations for the new building — but it was a far more carefully excavated section that was the focus of attention. A shelter had been erected over it, a pair of portable cabins nearby acting as operations centre and security post. More armed men watched the new arrivals closely.

The car stopped. Deyab got out and spoke briefly to one of his fellow ASPS, then opened the doors for Nina and Macy while Eddie emerged from the other side. ‘Dr Assad and Dr Banna are underground,’ he told them.

‘Dr Banna?’ said Eddie. ‘You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.’ Macy giggled.

Nina was puzzled. ‘What?’

Her husband and the younger woman exchanged mocking looks. ‘Seriously, Nina?’ said Macy. ‘You’ve never heard of the Incredible Hulk?’

‘Of course I have!’ she replied, adding with a smile: ‘I’m married to him.’

Eddie feigned modesty, brushing the lapel of his leather jacket. ‘Yeah, I am pretty incredible, aren’t I? But Banner, Banna, they sound — oh, never bloody mind.’

Deyab looked on with bewildered amusement. ‘This way,’ he said, leading them to the shelter. They clomped down a series of sloping wooden planks to the bottom of the covered pit. A ladder led into a hole in the ground. The floor was about eight feet below, faint inscriptions and images visible on the dust-covered walls.

Nina knew the dig’s background from the files she had read while still at the IHA. The construction work had opened up a hole in the ceiling of a long tunnel running at an angle beneath Alexandria’s street grid. Archaeologists had since discovered a complex of chambers at its far end, everything found within adding credence to the theory that this was indeed the long-lost tomb of Alexander the Great, but as yet the final barrier — sealing what was believed to be the burial chamber of Alexander himself — had not yet been opened.

That would happen tomorrow… assuming all went to plan.

Their Egyptian minder descended the ladder, then gestured for them to follow. Nina went first, taking the opportunity to examine the tunnel as she waited for Macy and Eddie. Lights strung along the wall revealed that in one direction the passage was blocked after about forty feet by rubble where the ceiling had collapsed long ago. In the other, it continued on for some distance until the line of lights dropped out of sight at a set of stairs.

She took a closer look at the wall. Cracks lanced through the surface, but she could still see what was left of the reliefs carved into it. Alexander’s name stood out beneath a scene showing a group of men in battle against a far larger force.

The picture’s focus was clear: a figure on horseback leading the group of soldiers, sword hand raised high. The Macedonian king had not been one to issue orders from a safe distance behind the lines.

Eddie joined her. ‘So that’s the big man, is it?’ he said, before indicating other bas-reliefs along the passage. ‘And that, and that… I can see why they think this is the tomb.’

‘Yeah, it’s fairly compelling evidence,’ said Nina. Macy reached the bottom of the ladder, and Deyab led the way down the tunnel. ‘But I know why they’re being cautious. Alexandria’s riddled with ancient sites, and people have been mistaken about what they’ve found before. There are even fringe theories that the tomb isn’t in Alexandria at all.’

‘How can you lose a tomb? It’s a hole in the ground — it’s not like they can go anywhere.’

‘No, but what’s in them can,’ Macy piped up. ‘Some of the Egyptian rulers who came after Alexander moved his body to their own seats of power, so they’d look like his legitimate successor.’

‘That’s right,’ said Nina. ‘He was supposed to be buried in Macedonia, his homeland, but Ptolemy — one of Alexander’s generals, who took control of Egypt after his death — hijacked his body and buried it in Memphis, south of Cairo. Then his son Ptolemy the Second brought it to Alexandria after he took power.’

Eddie shook his head. ‘So if Alexander’s body was so important, how the hell did they lose track of it?’

‘Alexandria hasn’t exactly been the most stable place in history. Plenty of wars have been fought over it, and there have been natural disasters too — most of the old city was destroyed at one time or another. The most recent historical reference to the tomb was by Leo Africanus, in the sixteenth century, and even that only seemed to be a marker of its location rather than the tomb itself. The last person we know to have actually gone into the tomb was the Roman emperor Caracalla, who died in the third century. So there’s kind of a long gap.’

They reached the end of the passage, which dropped down a flight of age-worn steps. Deyab called out in Arabic. A reply soon came. ‘Dr Assad and Dr Banna are in here,’ he told his charges.

Nina, however, was less interested in who they were about to meet than where they were meeting them. ‘God!’ she exclaimed as she reached the foot of the steps. ‘This is amazing!’

The space they entered was a rectangular room around fifty feet long and thirty wide, its arched ceiling supported by two rows of ornate columns. The walls were decorated with more reliefs depicting the life and conquests of the Macedonian leader. At the far end was a marble tableau, statues kneeling before a larger-than-life figure poised in an eternally heroic stance.

Alexander the Great.

The sculpture was similar to other representations of the king that Nina had seen: waves of thick hair flowing down around a handsome yet hard face with a broad, almost leonine nose. A noticeable change from other statues of Alexander was a greater sense of age — not of the stone, but the subject it had captured. This leader was near the end of his short but eventful life, weariness showing through his commanding presence in contrast to the almost boyish features usually portrayed.

‘So that’s him?’ said Eddie as they passed two armed ASPS stationed on each side of the entrance.

‘That’s him,’ Nina replied. ‘Alexander of Macedon.’

‘Nice hair, I’ll give him that much.’

A young Egyptian man with a thin and patchy beard emerged from behind a pillar. ‘Dr Wilde?’

‘Yes, hi,’ said Nina, peering past him for the senior archaeologists they were there to meet. ‘I’m here to see Dr Assad and Dr Banna. Can you take us to them?’

The man’s eyes widened, and he rose to his full height, affronted. ‘I am Dr Banna!’

‘Really?’ she said, surprised. He only appeared to be in his mid twenties, just a few years older than the recently graduated Macy, and nowhere near old enough to have earned a PhD. ‘I mean, of course you are,’ she quickly corrected as his expression of offence deepened.

It did not mollify him. ‘I should have expected nothing else from the great Nina Wilde,’ he said, the emphasis positively dripping with derision. ‘Why would you bother to find out who you are meeting? Everyone else is beneath the world’s most famous archaeologist! And here you are, swooping in to take credit for someone else’s discoveries, as you have done so many times before.’

Eddie nudged Nina. ‘I said you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.’

She held up her hands to the scowling Banna. ‘Okay, don’t know what I’ve done to make you so mad, but we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. Is there a problem?’

‘Oh no, there is no problem at all!’ he said, shrugging as his sarcasm threatened to break the top of the scale. ‘You think I am some intern, some child, because I am young, but there is nothing wrong with that. Nor is there anything wrong with the IHA taking control of an Egyptian dig, and there is especially nothing wrong with you coming here to feast on the publicity of opening the tomb like some desert vulture!’

‘All right, mate, that’s enough,’ said Eddie, stepping forward.

Banna gave him a dismissive glare. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m her husband. And I’m also the bloke who’s going to pop you in the face if you’re rude to my wife again.’

‘I do hope that won’t be necessary, Mr Chase,’ came a booming voice from behind Banna. Dr Ismail Assad, wearing dust-caked overalls, stepped into view. ‘Ubayy is simply full of the fires of youth.’

Banna fumed, but under the level gaze of the country’s chief archaeologist decided to say nothing more… for the moment. ‘Dr Assad,’ Nina said, stepping around Banna to greet him. ‘It’s great to see you again.’

‘And you too, Dr Wilde. Mr Chase as well — I last saw you in Switzerland, I believe? That was an exciting night.’ His smile widened, a twinkle appearing in his eye as he saw Macy. ‘And Miss Sharif, welcome back. The discoverer of the Pyramid of Osiris returns to the land of her ancestors!’

‘Co-discoverer,’ Nina pointed out. Macy jokingly made a face at her.

Banna spoke sharply in Arabic to Assad, then said to Nina: ‘This is exactly what I mean! When you are around, no one else is allowed credit. You are like a black hole, except all the light you pull in comes from camera flashes.’

By now, Nina had recovered from her initial startlement. ‘Hey, you listen, Doogie Howser,’ she said, jabbing a finger at him. ‘I don’t know where you’ve got this idea that I’m some sort of insane publicity hog, but point one: the Egyptian government asked the IHA to assist on the dig; it didn’t barge in and take over. And point two: I don’t even work for the IHA any more! I’m here entirely as a favour, again by request of the Egyptian government. And frankly, right now I’m not in a frame of mind to take crap from anybody. Okay?’

Banna bristled, but Assad intervened smoothly before he could reply. ‘Perhaps we should go and meet Dr Schofield, hmm? You can see the final preparations for the opening of the tomb tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, I think that’d be a good idea,’ said Eddie.

Macy sidled up to him. ‘Whoa. She gets scary when she’s pissed at someone,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t I bloody know it,’ he replied.

‘What was that?’ Nina demanded, eyeing the pair.

‘Nothing,’ Eddie said with an innocent face.

Deyab stayed behind as Assad gestured for the others to come with him, heading for an opening in one corner. ‘This room is the antechamber,’ he began, his voice becoming oratorical. ‘Visitors would enter here to pay homage to Alexander. The most important visitors, or those who brought sufficient tribute, would be permitted to go through to the treasury and the burial chamber beyond, to see the body of the king in person.’ He gestured at the floor as they descended another set of stone steps. ‘Emperors and pharaohs have trodden these very stairs.’

‘Not for a long time, though,’ said Nina.

‘No indeed. We believe the tomb has been sealed since around 40 °CE. There is evidence that a structure was built to mark its original entrance — which we have not yet located, as the tunnel to it is blocked. That would explain how Al-Masudi and other scholars of the Middle Ages could claim to have seen it, but until now, nobody has entered the tomb itself for at least sixteen centuries.’

‘No wonder the place needs a bit of dusting,’ said Eddie.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and continued along a passage, rounding several corners before seeing bright spotlights illuminating a large metal door. A small group of people stood at the obstruction. ‘You know Bill, of course,’ the Egyptian said to Nina as they reached them.

‘Yeah, I might have met him somewhere before,’ she replied with a wry smile as she shook the hand of Dr William Schofield. Her former colleague was now on the shortlist of candidates to take her place as the permanent director of the IHA.

‘Can’t think where,’ Schofield said with a grin of his own. ‘Nina, hi. Good to see you again — although having heard what happened to you in LA, I’m sorry about the circumstances.’

Assad completed the introductions. ‘And this is Dr Youssef Habib, my associate from the Ministry, and Dr Dina Rashad.’ He gestured to a pair of Egyptians, the former a doleful middle-aged man, the latter a plump woman in her thirties with a brightly patterned headscarf over her long black hair.

Nina recognised her name. ‘Did you write a paper on the tomb of Queen Hetepheres a year or two ago?’ she asked.

Dina smiled, blushing slightly. ‘Yes, I did. Thank you! I am honoured that you would remember it, Dr Wilde.’

‘It was a very thought-provoking paper. I always remember things that interest me.’

Eddie smirked. ‘You written anything Nina’d remember?’ he asked Banna.

‘Eddie,’ Nina chided.

Banna scowled. ‘I have written three very highly regarded papers, as a matter of fact. My monograph on the founding of Alexandria is the reason I was put in charge of this dig.’

‘He is very good,’ said Assad, adding with a tiny smile, ‘for a man so young. Now,’ he went on, before Banna could complain, ‘will this door be opened tomorrow?’

‘I think so,’ said Schofield. ‘We’ve finished checking the lock with the fibre optics.’ He nodded towards a laptop and endoscopic camera on a bench.

‘The lock is a simple latch,’ Dina added. ‘Once we release it, we should be able to pull the door open.’

Assad nodded. ‘Good, good. So what do you think, Dr Wilde?’

‘Very impressive — and very exciting,’ she said, examining the door more closely. As in the outer passage, reliefs had been worked into its surface. The figure of Alexander was at the centre, standing tall above the supplicants around him. ‘It’ll be an incredible find.’

‘As long as nobody tries to take it from us,’ the Egyptian said with dark humour.

‘Anyone trying to break in here’d have a job,’ said Eddie. ‘The only way in or out’s down that long corridor, and you’ve got, what, a couple of dozen blokes with guns at the top?’

‘That many — that you can see,’ said Assad. ‘The whole street was being watched, even before this new threat. The ASPS guard the tomb, inside and out, twenty-four hours a day.’

Habib spoke up. ‘This threat, I cannot believe it is serious. You would need an army to break in here! We are worrying about nothing.’

‘It was serious enough for a man to kill someone to stop them from telling me about it,’ said Nina. ‘And serious enough for them to try to kill me, even though I’m not even with the IHA any more.’

‘Perhaps they did not know that,’ suggested Dina. ‘I did not know you had left until Dr Assad told me.’

Banna faced Nina, radiating both disdain and scepticism. ‘Dr Assad also told me what these raiders are supposedly trying to steal. A statue of Bucephalus?’

‘That’s right,’ she told him. ‘We managed to save some of the plans, which say it’s their primary objective.’

‘But we have found no such statue in the outer tomb.’ He thumped his fist against the imposing bronze barrier. ‘This door has been closed for centuries. Nobody could know what is inside. And there are no mentions of a statue of Bucephalus in the texts describing the tomb. I know this for a fact; I have read every one of them.’

‘Then maybe they’ve got a text you haven’t,’ said Eddie.

He folded his arms. ‘I doubt that. And why would they want to steal this one statue alone, and ignore the other treasures?’

Nina hesitated before answering, unsure how much she should reveal to the Egyptian archaeologists — and to Macy, for that matter. But she decided that since they could be at risk if the raiders carried out their plan, they had a right to know. ‘From what we’ve learned, they think the statue will lead them to the Spring of Immortality.’

The revelation produced different reactions from her audience: puzzlement from Macy, surprise from Dina, a look of uncertainty from Habib. But it was Banna’s response that was the most clear and forceful. ‘Hra’!’ he scoffed in Arabic, drawing a disapproving glare from Assad, before continuing: ‘You believe the Alexander Romance?’

‘I don’t believe or disbelieve it at this stage,’ Nina insisted. ‘The point is, whoever these people are, they believe it. And since they’re willing to kill for what they believe, I’m taking the possibility seriously. And so should you.’

‘The Romance is fiction, a fairy tale!’ said Banna. ‘It is not even correct on simple historical facts.’ He searched his memory for an example. ‘Like the role of Ariobarzanes.’

‘Who’s he?’ Eddie asked.

Nina knew the name. ‘In the Romance, he was one of the men who killed Darius, the last ruler of the Persian Empire. Alexander wanted to capture Darius alive, but his own people murdered him first.’

‘So says the Romance,’ Banna continued. ‘But according to the actual chroniclers of history, Ariobarzanes was killed by Alexander and his men at the Battle of the Persian Gates, half a year before Darius died!’

‘Well, that depends which chronicler you’re reading,’ Nina countered. ‘He was killed in battle, or he and his officers surrendered to Alexander, or he survived the Persian Gates and was killed while trying to return to Persepolis. Those are all from accepted historical records — but they’re also all mutually exclusive.’

‘But what you are talking about is fantasy, not history. Giant crabs! Invisible men with whips! Six-eyed horses! It is all nonsense — amusing nonsense, yes, it is very entertaining. But it is not true.’

‘The people who tried to kill Nina obviously think it is,’ said Macy, defending her friend.

Assad intervened once again. ‘There is a simple way to find out. When we open the tomb tomorrow, if there is indeed a statue of Bucephalus inside, then perhaps we should give the possibility more thought.’

‘It would prove nothing,’ insisted Banna. ‘I will be surprised if there is not a statue of Bucephalus in the burial chamber. Alexander and his horse were almost inseparable.’ He shook his head. ‘The world’s most famous archaeologist,’ the words oozed with disdain, ‘believes that the Spring of Immortality is real. What is next? Noah’s Ark? Pandora’s Box?’

‘I dunno, maybe Atlantis?’ Eddie said sarcastically. ‘Oh, wait, Nina’s found that already. Or Hercules — no, hang on, she found his tomb an’ all.’

‘And the Pyramid of Osiris,’ Macy added. ‘And the city of El Dorado, and King Arthur’s tomb…’

Assad chuckled at the younger Egyptian’s growing annoyance. ‘I think Dr Wilde has proven her credentials, don’t you, Ubayy?’

Scowling, Banna spoke in tight-lipped Arabic to the government official. Assad grudgingly conceded some point, then faced Nina. ‘You know that I will always listen to you, Dr Wilde. But Ubayy reminded me that this is his dig; I put him in charge myself! So when the burial chamber is opened—’

‘I never wanted to step on anybody’s toes,’ said Nina, raising her hands in conciliation. ‘My number one concern is to protect a major archaeological site — and my own life, of course! But it looks like you’ve got everything covered.’

‘I certainly hope so.’ Another exchange in Arabic, then Assad checked his watch. ‘It is getting late, and I’m sure you are tired after such a long journey. I suggest that for now, we leave Dr Banna and his team to continue their preparations, and return here tomorrow morning to observe as they open the tomb. Deyab will take you to your hotel, and anywhere else you wish to go.’

‘That sounds good,’ said Nina, nodding. ‘I could use something to eat.’

‘Yeah,’ Eddie agreed. ‘Last thing I ate was on the plane, and even in first class it doesn’t really count as food.’

‘You will not have trouble finding a good meal in Alexandria,’ Assad assured them. ‘And while you are eating, I am sure you will have much to talk about.’