The Lost Testament

36

Ali Mohammed read the latest email from Angela Lewis with growing concern. If she was right, and Mohammed suspected that she probably was, if only because of the events that had taken place in Cairo over the last couple of days, then the relic was too important to be forgotten about.

And that realization placed him in something of a quandary. Anum Husani had been adamant that he should just walk away, forget about the parchment altogether, for his own safety. But Mohammed was a scientist, and a part of his creed — part of the creed of every scientist, in theory if not always in practice — was the pursuit of knowledge. What Angela Lewis had suggested about the parchment was simply too compelling to ignore. He owed it to his own conscience, to the tenets of his profession, to investigate the truth of her suggestion.

What’s more, he had the tools to do so. Although he’d given the photographs he’d taken of the parchment to Husani, the originals were stored on the hard disk of his laptop.

For another couple of minutes he sat at his desk, silently contemplating the situation, then he nodded to himself. Decision made. He selected all the photographs of the relic, and sent them to his laser printer. Studying the images of the parchment on his laptop wasn’t really an option: he needed to have the pictures in his hands.

Printing the twenty or so pictures he’d taken would be a lengthy process, so he decided to reply to Angela’s email. When he’d finished the message, he paused, wondering if he was doing the right thing. Then, exhaling rapidly, he added a final short paragraph, and pressed Send.

But almost as soon as the email vanished from his screen, Mohammed had an abrupt change of heart. He muttered to himself, typed rapidly, and sent another message. He knew he really had no choice.