The Exodus Quest

IV

Peterson drove back to the excavation site as quickly as prudence would allow, stopping only to hurl Knox's laptop and mobile phone into the reed-fringed waters of Lake Mariut, watching with satisfaction as they splashed and sank.

Claire came out of the office to greet him. An awkward young woman, all elbows and knees, yet with a certain steeliness too. He'd have done without her if he could, but her medical know-how and fluent Arabic were too useful. 'Are those men okay?' she asked, her arms folded.

'What men?'

'Nathan told me about them last night. He was in a terrible state.'

'They're fine,' Peterson assured her. 'They're in the Lord's hands.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'We're all in the Lord's hands, Sister Claire. Or perhaps you think differently?'

'Of course not, Reverend. But I'd still like to-'

'Later, Sister Claire. Later. Right now, I have urgent business with Brother Griffin. Do you know where he is?'

'In the cemetery. But I-'

'Then if you'll excuse me,' he said, striding off.

Griffin must have heard his car, because he met him halfway to the cemetery. 'What the hell happened last night?' he demanded.

'In good time,' said Peterson. 'First, have you done everything I told you to do?'

Griffin nodded. 'You want to see?'

'Indeed, Brother Griffin.'

They visited the emptied magazine, then the shaft. To Peterson's surprise, he had a hard time spotting where it had been, even standing right beside it. 'I suppose it will do,' he said. His greatest worry now was that someone might shoot their mouth off. Specifically, Griffin or Claire. He glanced back towards the office. 'I don't want Claire here should the police or the SCA turn up. Take her back to the hotel. Keep her out of sight.'

'But what will I tell her?'

'Tell her you need to talk to the hotel people about something, and you need a translator.'

'But they speak English at the hotel.'

'Then think of something else,' snapped Peterson. He watched Griffin traipse away, then headed to the cemetery. The authorities were certain to visit sooner or later. His students needed to know what to tell them.

V

Captain Khaled Osman felt uncharacteristically anxious as Nasser drove him and his men out along the Royal Wadi road. He didn't like visiting the tomb before dark, but Faisal had insisted he needed some natural light to work by. It should be safe enough, he told himself. No tourists ever arrived this late; Amarna was simply too big to see in less than half a day. And he'd made it quite clear to the locals that they were not to come down here any more.

They parked behind the generator building. Abdullah walked back a little way along the road to stand sentry just in case, while he, Faisal and Nasser traded their uniforms for old shirts and trousers. It was dirty work, what lay ahead. He'd have let Faisal and Nasser handle it themselves, but he didn't trust them to do good work if they weren't supervised. Besides, he felt the need for one last look.

He belted his holster back on. He felt naked without his Walther, his pride and joy, an unofficial memento of his army days that he'd taken along with an AK-47 and a box of grenades for fishing with. Decent kit too, not like the Egyptian-made pieces-of-shit his men had to put up with. They crossed the drainage channel, picked their way across boulders and scree.

'These damned boots!' muttered Faisal, who always got agitated near where they'd found the girl.

The easiest way to reach the tomb mouth was to walk beyond it, climb the side of the wadi, then cut back across the top to a thin ledge. Faisal led the way. The man was a mountain goat. He reached the mouth, pulled back the sackcloth curtain, invisible from more than a few paces. Dust and grit sprinkled Khaled's hair as he followed him inside. 'How long do you need?' he asked.

'That depends, sir,' said Faisal.

'On what?'

'On how much help I get.'

Khaled stood there uncertainly. There was something about this place that seemed to incite insubordination. 'One last look,' he said, picking up a torch. 'You never know.'

'Sure,' said Faisal. 'You never know.'

Khaled headed along the passage to the burial chamber, still fuming. Who did Faisal think he was? But he put it from his mind in the greater frustration of his failure in this place. Their first visit here, they'd found three statue fragments in the debris, a scarab and a silver amulet. He'd truly believed it was the start of great things. But the finds had dried up, and they'd only fetched a fraction of what he'd hoped because no one believed they were genuine. He hadn't even got enough for them to share anything with his men. It was a paltry return for so much work. Whole sections of ceiling had caved in over the centuries, so that the whole place had been choked with sand and rubble. They couldn't dump it out the mouth, or someone would soon notice, so they'd shifted it from area to area instead, like cleaning house. And all by night, too, their only free time. They'd grown increasingly weary and irritable, yet had never quite been able to give up. That was the cruelty of hope.

There was a sump in front of the burial chamber, just like in the Royal Tomb. So much sand and rubble had fallen down it over the millennia that at first they hadn't even realized it was there. But it was there all right, the full width of the passage. And deep! Once they'd checked everywhere else, they'd turned their attention to it, removing basket after basket, digging ever deeper, until they'd had to bring in a rope ladder to climb down to the foot, and then tie lengths of rope to their baskets so that one of them could stay at the bottom to fill them while the others hauled them to the top for sieving and disposal.

He climbed down the rope ladder for one last look. But his torch lit nothing save their own detritus: empty water bottles, discarded food wrappings, the stub of a candle, a book of matches. Discipline had been an early casualty of failure. Six metres deep already, and still they hadn't reached the foot! Six metres! He shook his head at the absurdity of the ancients. So much effort! And so pointless too.

After all, who on earth needed a sump six metres deep?