CHAPTER SIX

The sun rises, an eye of fire, and through its light we come to see the world as gods would have it.

--Excerpt from "The Confession", Egyptian Book of the Dead, as translated by Normandi Ellis

"Are you insane?" The heavily inflected British voice bellowed. Bernstein held the phone away from his ear and waited until he could no longer hear the steady stream of invective issuing from the earpiece. Calmly, he began again.

"I'm quite serious, Charles. We have good reason to believe that the diamond you have up there is the key to unlocking a bit of a mystery we've uncovered."

Charles wasn't buying it, and the scathing tone in his voice reflected his disdain. "The inscription—yes, you've already said that. You've found some sort of inscription on a chunk of rock, and now you think that my diamond is going to be the key to restore the mythical Oasis of Ahm Shere. Tell me—how much sun have you been getting down there?"

Bernstein was hard pressed to remain calm and reasonable himself. He didn't like the tone of arrogant sarcasm that was practically dripping from the receiver, and besides that, he was in a hurry. He and Hamid had come into Khartoum specifically to make this phone call and to restock their food and supplies, and their time was almost up. The chopper was fueling up right now, and within an hour, the pilot would be ready to take them back to the dig. Hamid was off at the market, and Bernstein envied him—he was sure Akil was having a much better time right now than he was.

"Charles," he said, slowly and patiently, much as if he were talking to a slow and rather stupid student, "I realize this is a bit much to take, all at once, but we really have uncovered the upper portion of a golden pyramid, and we really have found an inscription.

"Furthermore, that is not your diamond—it belongs to the British Museum, and you just happen to be the chief curator. If I have to go over your head, I will—you can count on that, friend." Bernstein knew he shouldn't have added that last threat, but his patience was wearing parchment thin, and he wanted—no, he needed—to get past this wall of disbelief so Charles would help him.

"Now just a bloody minute," Charles spluttered, and Bernstein curled his lip in a grimace of disgust as he imagined angry spittle hitting the phone on the other end of the line. "You can't go over my head—this is my museum, and this is my decision."

"I can, and I will, old boy," Bernstein corrected him. "If you recall, a couple of the good fellows on the Museum Board are old friends of mine. If you don't help me with this yourself, out of curiosity, or scientific interest, or a sense of fellowship, one archaeologist to another, or—hell, I don't give a damn why you help me! If you don't cough up that damned diamond soon, and get it down here pronto, I will waste no time in renewing old acquaintances with those board members. I will also certainly let it be known that you are more interested in moldering in your musty little office in London, dusting off the museum's tired old displays, than you are in participating in the biggest archaeological find in years! How long has it been, friend, since the museum has added something new and amazing to its Egyptology collection? Been a while, hasn't it?"

The silence on the other end of the line stretched on for so long that Bernstein began to wonder if Charles had hung up on him. Finally, he heard a small cough, and what sounded like a throat being cleared. When Charles spoke, his voice was once again calm and well modulated, with that precise British accent.

"All right, John—tell me one more time why I should pack up the Carnahan Diamond and lug it all the way to Sudan—an area which, if no one has bothered to inform you, is not exactly on Great Britain's list of countries where tourists are most likely to be welcomed. Lots of chaps there, I'd guess, who wouldn't mind lifting a fifty kilo diamond off a British tourist..."

"Pack it right, Charles," Bernstein interrupted, "and no one will even know what you're carrying. In fact, even better—work out a deal with those diplomat types you're forever brown-nosing with over at the embassy, and they might be able to get you in through less official channels. I don't care how you do it, but get that diamond down here. It is absolutely crucial to this dig."

From the loud huff that resonated clearly over the phone, Bernstein could tell he'd offended the stuffy British museum director again. He didn't care, though—he could tell from the way the discussion was going that Charles was caving in. Most probably, this was from the clear threat he'd made to involve the Museum Board, which was relentless in pestering Charles to add to the museum's aging display on Ancient Egypt. In fact, Charles had let it slip, several months back, and after a few too many drinks, that he'd begun to worry about his tenure at the prestigious institution. Bernstein was sure that Charles was regretting that moment of alcohol-induced candor right about now; but again, he didn't care. He wanted that diamond, and he wanted it soon, and he'd do whatever it took to get it here.

"So all you want me to do is bring the diamond there, plunk it down on top of your rock pile, and then see if some magic hocus-pocus happens and suddenly—POOF! Ahm Shere exists?"

"Ahm Shere does exist, you bloody fool!" ranted Bernstein. "I told you—we've already found the golden pyramid, and an entrance into it. Even holed up in your office for all these years, you must have read enough about the Ahm Shere legends and the recent geological goings-on in Sudan to have some clue about this whole expedition. Eliana translated those hieroglyphics on the pyramid, and the inscription is as plain as the skinny, pointed nose on your face—the Carnahan Diamond is the capstone for that pyramid, and replacing it will do something—trigger something—to restore the Oasis!"

Charles sighed, but it was obvious he was giving up. Arrogant and hot-tempered though he was, tenacity under pressure had never been one of his strengths, and he was hopelessly outgunned by the sheer, ruthless determination of someone like John Bernstein on a mission. Still, he tried once more.

"You are that convinced of it, are you? I would hate to go to all this trouble and then…"

"I would bet my entire fortune on it," Bernstein vowed, cutting him off, and hoping that Charles didn't know how much—or in this case, how little—a college professor/archaeologist had in the way of a "fortune."

"All right, then—I'll see what I can do. I'll talk to some of my friends at the embassy and see what they can do to help me get this monster past customs. You know this will have to be cleared by the Museum Board, anyway, don't you? They may not be very happy to let me jet off into the bowels of Africa with one of their museum pieces, you know. Even if I can somehow persuade them to go along with it, they'll be expecting something substantial from this dig as payback."

"Tell them they can have whatever they want, as long as they can talk the Sudanese into letting go of it. I'd say that if this diamond does what I think it will do, the Sudanese will be quite indebted to the British Museum, anyway," Bernstein affirmed. That is, he thought, if they aren't too upset about the fact that it was a British citizen who absconded with it in the first place…

"This may take a few days," Charles cautioned. "Don't expect to see me, or the diamond, in less than a week—maybe even two."

"Do the best you can—we've got some other things to check out in the meantime."

"John, you know you're going to owe me for this, don't you?" Charles couldn't stop the hint of a whine that buzzed in his words.

"I'll be happy to be in debt to you for this, friend," Bernstein offered, in a pleasant mood once more, now that he had gotten his way. "You take care, and get yourself here as soon as you're able."

Hanging up, he wandered over to the market where Hamid was waiting, surrounded by the food and other supplies. He had gotten ice, too, Bernstein noticed. Not that it would last long in the furnace of the desert, but at least they'd have cold drinks for a couple of days.

Charles walked across the old, highly polished hardwood floor of the room in which the Carnahan Diamond was displayed. There it was, in the center of the room, snug in its glass enclosure and nestled safe on its bed of crushed red velvet. It was a sight to behold, it was; and Charles marveled at the singular beauty of the gem. Huge, many-faceted, it seemed to catch every single speck of light in the room and reflect it back, purified and enhanced by its journey through the diamond's prismatic depths.

He glanced over at the multi-paned windows of the room, where heavy velvet draperies hung to deflect and filter the bright light of the warm afternoon. He sighed, thinking about the fight he was surely about to have with the Museum Board when he announced that he wanted to take one of their treasures on a little African safari. The arm-twisting he'd need to do over at the Embassy would be just as difficult. Still, he had given Bernstein his word, and there was also that little threat that John had made about going over his head. Actually, maybe Bernstein was onto something. Maybe the Board would be more than willing to take a bit of a risk if it might mean adding to their increasingly out-of-date Egyptian collection. Maybe this kind of risk-taking was what he should have been doing all along. Maybe they would actually appreciate what he was doing on their behalf. Maybe…

Maybe I'd better stop canoodling about this and get on with it, he thought. As he turned to go, a stray beam of golden sunlight hit the diamond's surface and bounced off again, making the large gem almost appear to wink at him.