The Exodus Quest

III

The high sandstone walls of the Royal Wadi made little impression on Captain Khaled Osman as Nasser drove them out along the new road to Akhenaten's Royal Tomb. He'd escorted dozens of tourists this way these past few months, but he'd never felt anything like this nervous before. Perhaps it was because these were TV people, and he knew to his own cost what damage TV people could do.

They reached the generator building. Half a million Egyptian pounds they'd just spent on the new generator! Half a million! He felt slightly queasy at the thought of all that money as Nasser drove the short distance down the side-spur that housed the tomb and parked next to the Discovery. He opened his door, jumped down. The sun was still low enough that the spur was in shade. He gave a little shiver. There were ghosts in this place. He put a hand on the holster of his Walther and felt a little better.

His childhood friends had bitterly resented the prospect of conscription into the army, being ripped away from home and family. Only Khaled had looked forward to it. He'd never envisaged any other life for himself. He liked the discipline, relished the cold authority of a weapon, savoured the way women looked at a handsome man in uniform. He'd breezed through basic training, had volunteered for Special Forces. Officers had murmured of him as the coming man.

He walked over to the tomb entrance, unlocked the door, pushed it open, revealing the sloped shaft of steps leading down to the burial chamber below, floor-lamps glowing either side with their soft insect buzzing. He watched sourly as the TV people made their way inside and then down.

His army career had died one afternoon in Cairo. A street urchin had spat at his driver window as he'd been escorting his commanding officer to a meeting at the Ministry. It was a level of disrespect that simply couldn't be tolerated, not with his CO watching. A passing tourist had filmed what had happened next, then passed on the footage to some do-gooder journalist who'd tracked the kid down, had filmed him lying wrapped up like some mummy in his bed. His CO had stepped in, saved him from the courts. But he'd had to agree to a transfer out of the army. He'd had to agree to join these wretched tourist police, be stationed here in the arse-end of nowhere. Six months, he'd been promised. Just until the dust settled.

That had been eighteen months ago.

The TV people reached the foot of the steps, crossed the wooden walkway over the sump into the burial chamber. Khaled turned his back on them. What they got up to down there meant nothing to him. It was only up here they needed watching.

Six months ago, Amarna had been struck by the fiercest of storms, as if the end of the world had come. He and his men had driven around the site the morning after. It had been Faisal who'd spotted her, lying face-down on the rocks a little way from here, one arm flung out above her head, the other bent grotesquely back, her matted hair glued with congealed blood to a blue tarpaulin.

Khaled had knelt beside her, touched her cheek. Her skin had been waxy and cool, speckled with sand and grit. He'd heard stories about local kids scouring the wadis after storms, hoping that the rains had broken open some undiscovered tomb, or more realistically looking for fragments of pottery in the sand, the characteristic Amarna-blue gleaming brightly after the spray-clean of violent rain. Poor stupid thing. To risk so much for so little.

'Captain!' Nasser had said. 'Look!'

He'd glanced up to see Nasser pointing at a narrow black slash in the sandstone wall high above their heads. His heart had clenched tight as a fist as he'd realized that the girl hadn't died in pursuit of mere pottery fragments after all. She'd been after bigger quarry.

Men chose their destiny in such moments. Or perhaps they simply learned who they truly were. Khaled had known his duty, that he should report this at once to his superiors. It might even win him a reprieve, a return to soldiering. But not for a moment had he considered it. No. He'd walked straight over to the cliff-face and begun to climb.