Seven Ancient Wonders (27 page)

Throughout the team’s time in Kenya, a large glass jar sat on top of the kitchen bench.

It was the ‘Swear Jar’. Every time a member of the team was caught swearing or cursing in front of Lily, they had to put a dollar in it.

And since they were soldiers, it was nearly always full. The proceeds of the Swear Jar went toward toys or books or ballet clothes for Lily.

Naturally, since it was she who would ultimately benefit from their indiscretion, Lily loved catching team-members swearing. It became commonplace for any curse heard around the station to be followed by her voice chiming: ‘Swear Jar!’

She was also given pocket money in return for doing chores around the farm.

It was West and Wizard’s idea. They wanted her upbringing— already highly unusual—to appear, at least to her, as normal as possible. Doing chores with the other team-members—gathering wood with Big Ears; helping Pooh Bear clean his tools; and on a very momentous occasion, feeding Horus for West—made her feel like she was contributing; made her feel like she was part of a family. It also just made her a nice kid.

As she grew older, however, she grew increasingly curious, and she began to learn more about the team around her.

She learned, for example, that Pooh Bear was the second son of the most powerful sheik in the United Arab Emirates.

And that Wizard had once studied to be a Catholic priest but never went through with it.

She also discovered that Zoe had once been reassigned from the armed forces to study archaeology under Wizard at Trinity College, Dublin.

Apparently, Jack West had studied there with her—having also been sent by his home country to learn from the Canadian professor.

West’s home country.

Lily was ever curious about Australia. It was indeed a curiosity, full of contradictions. Eighty per cent of its enormous landmass was made up of desert, yet it also possessed supermodern cities like Sydney, famous beaches like Bells and Bondi, and superb natural formations like Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef, which—she discovered—had been named as one of the Seven
Natural
Wonders of the World.

Over time, Lily developed more sophisticated questions about Australia, including its place in international relations. Australia only had a population of 20 million people, so despite its physical size, globally speaking it was a small country.

And yet while its military was equally small, one particular aspect of it was world-renowned: Australia was the home of what was widely acknowledged to be the best special forces unit in the world, the SAS—West’s former regiment.

Another thing piqued her interest: during the 20th century, Australia had been one of America’s closest and most loyal allies. In World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Australia had always been the first country to stand beside the United States.

And yet not now.

This perplexed Lily, so she decided to ask West about it.

One rainy day, she went into his study, and found him working
in darkness and silence (with Horus perched on his chair-back) staring at his computer screen, chewing on a pen, deep in thought.

Lily strolled around his office, idly touching the books on the shelves. She saw his whiteboard with the words ‘4 MISSING DAYS OF MY LIFE—CORONADO?’ still written on it. She also noticed that the sealed glass jar with the rusty-red dirt in it had been removed.

He didn’t acknowledge her presence, kept staring at his computer monitor.

She came round behind him, saw the image on his screen. It was a digital photo of some giant hieroglyphics carved into a wall somewhere. Lily translated them quickly in her head:

ENTER THE EMBRACE OF ANUBIS WILLINGLY, AND YOU SHALL LIVE BEYOND THE COMING OF RA.
ENTER AGAINST YOUR WILL, AND YOUR PEOPLE SHALL RULE FOR BUT ONE EON, BUT YOU SHALL LIVE NO MORE.
ENTER NOT AT ALL, AND THE WORLD SHALL BE NO MORE.

‘What do you reckon?’ West asked suddenly, not turning to face her.

Lily froze, put on the spot. ‘I . . . I don’t know. . . ’

West swivelled. ‘I’m thinking it’s about death and the afterlife, in the form of an address from Amun to the Jesus-like character, Horus. “The embrace of Anubis” is death. If Horus accepts his death willingly, he will rise again and confer a benefit on his people. A bit like Christ dying on the cross. But enough of that. What brings you here today, kiddo?’

A vigorous discussion followed about Australian–American relations, about the rise of America as a sole superpower, and the concerns of Australia that its friend was becoming something of a global bully. ‘Sometimes a good friend,’ West said, ‘has to show tough love. It’s also much better to get taught a difficult lesson from your friend than from your enemy.’

West then abruptly changed the subject. ‘Lily, there’s something I have to tell you. When all this comes to a head, if it turns out as I
hope it will, I’m probably going to have to go away for a while—’

‘Go away?’ Lily said, alarmed.

‘Yes. Lie low. Go someplace where no-one can find me. Disappear.’

‘Disappear. . . ’ Lily gulped.

‘But I want
you
to be able to find me, Lily,’ West said, smiling. ‘Now, I can’t tell you where I’m going, but I can point you in the right direction. If you can solve this riddle, you’ll find me.’

He handed her a slip of paper, on which was written:

My new home is home to both tigers and crocodiles.
To find it, pay the boatman, take your chances and journey
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell.
There you will find me, protected by a great villain
.

‘And that, kiddo, is all I’ll say. Now scram.’

Lily scampered out of the study, gripping the slip of paper.

She would pore over West’s riddle for months—even going so far as to punch every word of it into Google—trying to figure it out.

She had other questions, however, which
were
answered.

Such as where West had acquired Horus.

‘Horus’s former owner was once Huntsman’s teacher,’ Wizard said, as the two of them sat outside in the brilliant African sunshine.

‘He was a nasty man named Marshall Judah. Judah was an American colonel who taught Jack how to be a better soldier at a place called Coronado.

‘Judah would walk around the Coronado base with Horus on his shoulder, yelling at the troops. And as an example to them, he would beat Horus if she didn’t perform as she had been trained. He would say, “The only way to get obedience is through discipline and brute force!”

‘Huntsman didn’t like this. Didn’t like seeing Judah being so cruel to the falcon. So when West left Coronado, he stole the bird
from her cage in Judah’s office. Ever since, Jack has treated Horus with kindness and love, and she returns his affection tenfold.

‘Lily, as you grow up, you’ll find that some people in this world are not very nice at all. They favour cruelty over kindness, power over sharing, anger over understanding.

‘These people think only of themselves. They seek to rule over others, not for others’ sakes, but for their own desire for power. Lily, one day you are going to be very powerful—
very
powerful— and I hope that if you learn nothing else from us here, you learn that the truly great people think of others first and themselves last.

‘For an example of this, look no further than Huntsman and Horus. A beaten bird will obey a cruel master out of fear. But a kind master it will die for.’

One day, Lily was helping Wizard organise some of his ancient scrolls.

She loved all his old stuff—the parchments, the tablets. To her, they held within them all the mysteries of ancient faraway times.

On that particular day Wizard was collating everything he had on a series of Egyptian architects all named
Imhotep
.

Lily noticed some design plans for a quarry-mine in a place called Nubia, with four rising levels and lots of water-driven booby traps. Marked on the plans were descriptions of all the traps, and in the case of a set of concealed stepping-stones, five numbers written in Egyptian hieroglyphics:
1-3-4-1-4
.
Wizard placed those plans in a file marked ‘Imhotep V’.

She also saw a really old drawing that looked like an ancient game of Snakes and Ladders. It was titled: ‘
Waterfall Entrance— Refortification by Imhotep III in the time of Ptolemy Soter
’ and it looked like this:

Wizard noticed Lily’s interest and so he taught her things about the various Imhoteps.

Imhotep III, for instance, lived during the time of Alexander the Great and his friend, Ptolemy I, and he was called ‘the Master Moat Builder’—he had been known to divert entire rivers in order to provide his structures with uncrossable moats.

‘This waterfall entrance,’ Wizard said, ‘must have been a beautiful decorative cascade at a palace in ancient Babylon, near modern-day Baghdad in Iraq. The lines dictate the course of the flowing water. Sadly, in all the excavations of Babylon over the years, it has never been found. Such a shame.’

Lily spent the rest of that day curled up behind some boxes in the corner of Wizard’s study, reading all manner of parchments, absolutely rapt.

She hardly even noticed when Zoe came in and started chatting with Wizard. It was only when West’s name came up that she started listening more closely.

Zoe said, ‘It’s been good to see him again. Although he seems to have changed since we studied together in Dublin. He’s become even quieter than he already was. I also hear he’s quit the Army.’

Lily listened, although she never looked up from the parchment she appeared to be reading.

Wizard leaned back. ‘Gosh, Dublin. When was that—1989? You two were so young. Jack’s been down a long road since then.’

‘Tell me.’

‘He quit the Army soon after Desert Storm. But to understand why, you have to understand why he joined the Army in the first place: to both please and spite his father.

‘Jack’s father was a great soldier in his time, but Jack was better. His father had wanted him to join the military straight after high school, but Jack wanted to study, to go to university. But he acquiesced to his father’s wishes . . . and quickly became a much more formidable soldier than his father had ever been.

‘Jack rose through the ranks, was fast-tracked to the SAS Regiment. He particularly excelled at desert missions; he even set a
new record on the desert survival course, lasting 44 days without being captured.

‘But unlike his father, Jack didn’t like what they were turning him into: a killing machine, an
exceptionally good
killing machine. His superiors knew this, and they were worried that he’d quit—that was when they sent him to study with me in Dublin. They hoped it would satisfy his intellectual needs for the time being, and then he’d stay on with the Regiment. And I suppose it did satisfy him, for a time.’

‘Hold on a minute,’ Zoe said. ‘I need to backtrack for a moment. Jack told me once that his father was American. But he joined the
Australian
Army?’

‘That’s right,’ Wizard said. ‘Thing is, Jack’s
mother
is not American. To please his father, he joined the military, but to spite his father, he joined the military of his mother’s birth-nation: Australia.’

‘Ah. . . ’ Zoe said. ‘Go on.’

Wizard said, ‘Anyway, as you know, Jack’s always had a sharp mind, and he started to look at Army life critically. Personally, I believe he just enjoyed studying ancient history and archaeology more.

‘In any case, things started to go downhill when Jack’s superiors sent him to a series of multinational special forces exercises at Coronado in 1990—exercises hosted by the Americans at their SEAL base, where they invited crack teams from all their allies to partake in high-end wargames. It’s a huge opportunity for smaller nations, so the Australians sent West. In 1990, the exercises were hosted by none other than Marshall Judah, who instantly saw Jack’s potential.

‘But something happened at Coronado that I don’t know about fully. Jack was injured in a helicopter accident and lay unconscious in the base hospital for four days. The four missing days of Jack West’s life. When he woke up, he was sent back home, no serious damage done, and after a few months, he was back on active duty—just in time for Desert Storm in 1991.