CHAPTER THREE
I smell a change coming, a shape turning leaves in the wind.
--Excerpt from "The Bath", Egyptian Book of the Dead, as translated by Normandi Ellis
Eliana wrapped her hands around her mug and sipped the too-strong coffee, tiredly trying to wake up after another almost sleepless night. She had gotten to bed late, after helping her father and Eric see to last minute preparations that had to be complete before this morning, when the dig would officially start. Then, the dreams had started again, the same as before, the same as every night. They had kept her tossing and turning until well past midnight, and now here she sat, in the dark pre-dawn, waiting to spend the day under the burning sun, raking through scalding sand. All she wanted was to crawl back into her tent, burrow into her sleeping bag and stay there for a week. Alone. Asleep. Dreamless. And yet…
She sighed, raking her fingers through her shoulder length hair. Stop it, she scolded herself; disgusted that not only was her priest (as she had come to think of him) invading her dreams and stealing her sleep, but he was now lurking about in her mind during her waking hours, too. Normally, Eliana was almost single-mindedly focused on her job, but lately, she'd started feeling almost scatterbrained. Too frequently during the last few days, she'd found her thoughts turning to the dreams she'd had the night before, and the man who seemed to be haunting her subconscious.
"You're looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, El," Eric teased, as he sat down across from her at the rickety table. "Not getting enough beauty sleep, are we?" At her scowl, he laughed. "Or are you just thinking about how much fun it will be now that our welcoming committee has finally arrived?"
At that, Eliana rolled her eyes and grimaced. The Sudanese had arrived yesterday, a solid week later than expected. At midafternoon, the team had heard the helicopter coming in from Khartoum, to the west, and had watched while it dropped out of the heavens and unloaded its cargo. The delegation of six officials had deplaned like a swarm of briefcase-carrying locusts, buzzing about and attempting to look important as the pilot did a quick equipment check before heading back. Eliana suspected he was glad to see the last of them.
The supposed leader of the delegation, Bursuq Mousa, a short, squat, bearded man with a large belly and a larger ego, had been the first to approach the waiting site team. Eliana shook her head, remembering with some amusement how the rotund Mousa had immediately strutted over to her tall, distinguished-looking father and imperiously introduced himself, declaring that he and his staff would require the best of accommodations, as they would be staying on for the duration of the dig. Her father had simply nodded and pointed to one of the rather spartan tents, telling the indignant little man that "the sand is better over in that one." Not a very auspicious beginning, and it had gone downhill from there.
"So how'd they like Sabir's cooking?" Eric asked, reaching for one of the large, ceramic mugs.
"Didn't say too much about it, actually. They grabbed their plates and ran off to the tent to have some kind of emergency meeting, I guess. Don't think they were too pleased that Dad had gotten so much of the prelim excavation work done already." Reaching over, Eliana grabbed the coffee pot and filled Eric's mug with the hot, thick brew that she'd been drinking. "Here—this is more grounds than coffee, but it'll wake you up."
"I warned him about that," Eric muttered, taking a swallow of the bitter liquid. "He was bound and determined to get as much as possible done before they arrived, and I can't say that I blame him. But I agree—they weren't too happy to see that the grid was up and marked, and that all we hadn't done was to actually start excavating."
Eliana shrugged. "Dad's never been one to follow the letter of the law, you know. If he'd waited for them to get here before setting up the grid, we would have lost weeks." She knew from the past digs she'd been on that a lot of preliminary work went into setting up a site, even after the geological team had finished doing a sediment stratification survey of the area. The information gathered from that data would determine soil layering patterns in the site, which would later help in classifying the relative age of recovered artifacts.
"So what'd you think of Mousa's little group?" Eric asked her. Eliana laughed.
After his ignominous introduction, Mousa had stomped off towards his new, obviously sub-par lodgings, snapping his fingers imperiously. Three others of the group had immediately scurried off after him, grabbing their luggage and almost running to catch up with him. They didn't reappear until dinner, when the dig team had learned that those three were Mousa's personal staff members. Three more cringing, subservient yes-men would have been hard to find. The men had huddled together over the food, talking in whispers and glancing furtively between Mousa and the dig team, as though expecting to be reprimanded at any moment for eating too much, or taking up too much space, or breathing too much of the communal air. They had taken some food, nervously fidgeted while Mousa finished generously heaping his plate full, and then scuttled off behind him. Apparently, Mousa didn't find it necessary to fraternize with his country's American and Egyptian guests, even during meals.
The other two Sudanese, not part of Mousa's personal staff, had eaten with the crew, talking quietly and asking questions about the dig that would start the next day. Muhammad Hassan, a tall, thin man with deep-set obsidian eyes and a stern, unsmiling countenance, had come at Mousa's specific request, in the interest of Sudanese national security. A high-ranking officer in the Sudanese military, Hassan had spent twenty years rising through the ranks of the counter-intelligence division. He was there, presumably, to keep an eye on the Americans, and make sure that they didn't run off with any of the treasures that would surely turn up.
The last of the six, Rais Azziz, was the only one to really make any effort to welcome the foreigners to Sudan. A member of the diplomatic corps, Azziz was a gregarious man, of average height and looks, but well schooled in American customs and possessing an easy charm. He spoke flawless English and spent the supper hour telling the dig team hilarious stories about his days as an ambassador to Great Britain. On the whole, he was likeable and friendly, as different from the other Sudanese as day was from night.
"I think that they had better stay out of Dad's way, and not mess with his treasure hunt, or there'll be hell to pay. They've already kept him waiting longer than he's ever been willing to wait before."
Nodding in agreement, Eric took another swig of his coffee and stared out into the desert.
"I thought we'd start digging in several areas at once," Professor Bernstein said, glancing over at Akil Hamid, his friend and counterpart at the Cairo museum. "Since the underground structure seems to fan out from a central location, it seems obvious to start there, and that's where I want to put Eric and the graduate students. They'll have the experience to know if they find something important.
"But I'd also like to get going on some of these outlying areas," he said, pointing out several locations on the map of the site. "Eliana can take some of the undergrads out there, and see what turns up. Good practice for them, and Eliana can fill them in on some of the history of the site, while they're working. She's been on enough digs with me to know what to do if something turns up."
"I quite agree, John," nodded his colleague. "Cover territory more quickly, and all that." Hamid had attended university in England, and his voice, when speaking English, still reflected a pronounced British inflection and phrasing.
Bernstein had been up long before sunrise, his excitement building with each passing minute. The damn pencil-pushing bureaucrats had finally shown up, and had been just as irritatingly incompetent as he'd expected. Bernstein didn't suffer fools easily, and the majority of the Sudanese had been just that. He, like Eliana and Eric, had liked Azziz, and he was, at least for now, cautiously neutral about Hassan. The other four, though, including—no, especially, he amended—that pompous little twit, Mousa, were just a damned nuisance.
After setting them straight about the fact that he had followed their ridiculous and overly rigid antiquities rules to the letter, if not the spirit, he had then informed them that he intended to start working, with or without their blessing and approval. They had grudgingly agreed that, yes, the Americans had followed the rules sufficiently; and that yes, their permits were fully compliant; and so, yes, they could get on with the dig as soon as possible. After that, he had had little to do with them.
He was still irritated and angry with having been kept waiting for so long, but he was content, for now, that they were going on about their business, and letting him get on with his. They could have their secret meetings and they could fill out their reams of paperwork, and as long as they left him alone, he would smile and be somewhat agreeable.
Gathering up the map, several files and his large knapsack, Bernstein suddenly frowned, remembering something that he'd meant to ask his associate before they left this morning.
"Akil, did you get a chance to look over the details of the stratification column information the geological team sent over?"
"Ah, yes, John! Most interesting information, wouldn't you say? Most interesting…" Hamid bobbed his head up and down several times as he spoke, to emphasize the point he was making. "I found it quite curious, to say the least, but I'm sure there must be some logical explanation, or perhaps the team was simply mistaken…"
"That's your take on it, then? You think that the team might have made an error?"
"What other reason could there be?" Hamid shrugged.
"It's just rather puzzling, is all. So much so that I asked them to redo their initial findings. This report was actually the second one. It restated what they had found the first time."
"You mean the fact that the geologists are convinced that there ARE no layers?" the Egyptian man snorted.
"Indeed," confirmed Bernstein, frowning at the report, as if the answer would suddenly appear in large print that he had previously missed. "It's not unheard of for several areas of a particular site to initially appear layerless, or for the layers to be mixed up, somehow. But for a whole site to look that way…" He shook his head, obviously not willing to believe, either, that this information could be correct.
"It's like those sediment layers were just obliterated, somehow. Like someone stuck a giant vacuum into the damned desert, sucked everything up and then spit it out again."
While the sun was still well below the horizon, and shadows still blanketed the camp, a solitary figure moved stealthily behind the row of tents. Moving quietly and keeping low to the ground, every once in a while peering back over his shoulder, the man made his way out into the open desert just beyond the encampment. Finally reaching the sheltering cover of a large dune of sand, he crouched down and rummaged in the leather satchel he had dragged with him.
From within, he removed a black plastic case. Again, he looked around furtively to make sure he hadn't been followed. Apparently reassured, he opened the case and began to assemble the little miracle of technology contained inside.
The satellite phone was fairly small, not much larger than a laptop PC. The man placed the phone on a flat rock, connecting it to the compact receiving dish with a short cord. Fingers moving rapidly over the keypad, he punched in a series of codes, then slowly rotated the dish until it picked up the signal from the satellite, moving in geosynchronous orbit somewhere high above. As soon as the signal was confirmed by a steady beeping, he turned his attention back to the keypad, punching in another series of numbers, this one connecting him to a hotel suite in Tripoli.
"Speak," commanded the voice on the line, in perfect Arabic. "Do you have news?"
"Yes," the man answered, also in Arabic, again looking over his shoulder for eavesdroppers. "They are about to begin excavating. I knew you would wish to have this information. I will not be able to risk contact again for some time. But rest assured, the moment something is discovered, I will transmit the information to you."
"See that you do," the voice snapped. "Until then, watch every move the Americans make. We cannot afford to miss any opportunity…"
"Do not worry, friend," the man soothed. "I am aware of the great honor it is for me to have been chosen for this mission. I will not fail you or our cause. The American infidels will be closely monitored, and I will inform you at once if they turn up anything that can be of use to us."
"Good. We will be waiting to hear from you, then." With that, the speaker in Tripoli abruptly broke the connection.
The man, his objective complete, disassembled the phone, packed it up in its carrying case, and cautiously crept back towards the camp, taking care not to be seen.
Unseen by the archaeological group in the valley below, five black-clad riders perched on their mounts atop the hillside high above. Silently, they watched as more and more of the excavation crew appeared from their tents and prepared for the day's work. The sun had not yet risen completely, so the group of horsemen appeared as nothing more than slightly darker silhouettes against the still dark sky.
"And so it begins, eh, friend?" one rider said to another.
The man to whom he spoke said nothing in return, simply staring down into the shadowed valley with a sober expression in his dark eyes. As he turned to look at the speaker, the tattoos painted in black across his high, well-defined cheekbones stood out sharply against his bronze skin. Lifting his arm in a silent command, he waited as a bird dropped, silently and gracefully, from the blue-black sky. The falcon flapped its wings once, then settled its feathers, perching majestically on the leather gauntlet protecting the man's forearm from the sharp talons.
"I must ask you to take Horus for me, brother," the falconer said, finally addressing the speaker. The man nodded, silently signaling his assent. The bird, intelligent eyes missing nothing, shifted position to more firmly grasp the leather shielding the man's arm.
"You will go, then?" the first man asked, nodding towards the valley floor.
"I must. They do not know what they are in danger of disturbing. I had thought Ahm Shere was safely buried, lost forever to mankind," he sighed. "But apparently, that is not so."
He turned again to look down into the valley. "If they should find either the book or the Creature, and somehow manage to…" he broke off abrubtly, shaking his head. "Well, that does not bear considering," he finished.
Nodding again, the first man acknowledged what had been said. Holding out his arm, he spoke a word, and the falcon hopped onto his gloved arm. Never once, though, did the bird's eyes leave its master.
The dark rider, now assured of the safety of his most treasured friend, touched his fingertips to his brow, bowing his head in a brief salute.
"I will send word if you are needed." He lifted his hand in a gesture of farewell, spurred his mount, and galloped away to the south, intending to circle the valley and come up to the camp from the opposite direction.
"May Allah go with you," his friend offered soberly.
Then he turned, signaled to the others, and they rode off to the northwest, disappearing back into the desert from which they had come.