The Exodus Quest

III

'This is bad,' muttered Griffin, whey-faced, hurrying after Peterson. 'This is a disaster.'

'Cleave ye unto the Lord thy God, Brother Griffin,' said Peterson. 'No man will be able to resist you.' The visit of Knox and Tawfiq had, in truth, exhilarated him. For was not Daniel Knox a one-time protege of that shameless abominator Richard Mitchell? Which made him an abominator himself, a servant of the Devil. And if the Devil was sending his emissaries on such missions, it could only mean he was worried. Which in turn was proof that Peterson was close to fulfilling his purpose.

'What if they come back?' protested Griffin. 'What if they bring the police?'

'That's what we pay your friends in Cairo for, isn't it?'

'We'll need to hide the shaft,' said Griffin, holding his belly as if he had a stomach ache. 'And the magazine! Good grief. If they find those artefacts…'

'Stop panicking, will you?'

'How can you be so calm?'

'Because we have the Lord on our side, Brother Griffin. That's how.'

'But don't you realize-?'

'Listen,' said Peterson. 'Do as I tell you and everything will be fine. First, go and talk to our Egyptian crew. One of them stole that lid. Demand his colleagues give him up.'

'They never will.'

'Of course not. But use it as an excuse to send them all home until your investigation is complete. We need them off the site.'

'Oh. Good thinking.'

'Then call Cairo. Let your friends know our situation, that we need their support. Remind them that if there's any kind of enquiry, we might not be able to prevent their names from coming up. Then move anything that could cause us a problem out of the magazine and back underground. Store it in the catacombs for the moment.'

'And you? What are you going to do?'

'The Lord's work, Brother Griffin. The Lord's work.'

Griffin paled. 'You're not seriously planning to go on with this?'

'Have you forgotten why we're here, Brother Griffin?'

'No, Reverend.'

'Then what are you waiting for?' Peterson watched disdainfully as Griffin slouched away. A man of terrible weak faith; but you had to use the tools to hand when you did the Lord's work. He strode up a hummock of rock, relishing the tightness in his hams and calves, the burnish of the setting sun upon his nape, the long sharp shadow he cut in the sand. He'd never for one moment imagined he'd feel such affinity for Egypt, away from his church and flock and home. Yet there was a quality to the light here, as though it too had suffered in the flames and been purified.

He breathed in deeply, filling his lungs. The earliest Christian monks had chosen this place to answer God's call. Peterson had always imagined that an accident of history and geography; but he'd soon realized that there was more to it than that. This was a profoundly spiritual place, all the more so the further you ventured into the desert. You felt it in the blazing sun, in the sweat and ache of labour, in the way water splashed gloriously over your parched skin and lips. You glimpsed it in the voluptuous golden lines of the dunes and the shimmering blue skies. You heard it in the silence.

He paused, looked around to make sure no one could see him, then went down into the slight dip in which they'd found the mouth of the shaft two years before. That first season, and the next, he'd allowed himself to be constrained by Griffin's anxieties, excavating the cemetery and old buildings during the day, only going about their true business once their Egyptian crew had left for the night. But his patience had finally run out. He was an Old Testament preacher by temperament, scornful of the divine social worker championed by so many modern religious leaders. His God was a jealous God, a stern and demanding God: a God of love and forgiveness to those who submitted utterly to him; but a God of furious wrath and vengeance to His enemies and to those who let Him down.

Peterson had no intention of letting his God down. He had one night to complete his sacred mission. He intended to make the most of it.