The Curse (7 page)

“The exception is Tut's treasures.”

“Yes, and you must appreciate the effect that the discovery had on my people. When the tomb was found there was enormous pride and patriotism and identification with the greatness and glories of our past. The boy king's heart came to be called the ‘Heart of Egypt' and symbolized all the greatness that we once were.

“During that era of colonialism, a nationalistic movement arose determined to drive out the foreigners who controlled our country and rebuild the country's greatness. It was galvanized by the discovery of the incredible tomb. The theft of the heart scarab, the most sacred object belonging to King Tutankhamen, had a disheartening effect on my people. As time went on we remained first under the heel of foreign governments and then in the hands of corrupt officials because the people had lost hope.

“Our greatness has been taken away from us. I want it back for my country.”

I was getting the picture.

The magical power of the scarab had to do with a person's thoughts and not its spiritual force.

“You believe the scarab's magic will once again galvanize the people of your country into achieving their potential.”

He spread his fingers on the table. “Their
great
potential. What's stopping my people is their unwillingness to rid themselves of a government that keeps most of them poor.”

Years ago a Cairo taxi driver told me the government kept control in the poor country by keeping the price of rice down—something Marie Antoinette and hubby Louie could have done to keep their own heads.

“Where is the scarab now?” I asked.

“Radcliff brought it back to his estate in England and housed it there in his private museum. Over the decades it had only been brought out to show a few private friends because to display it publicly would cause an uproar and an admission that it had been stolen from the tomb. Radcliff's great-granddaughter, Heather, came into possession of it and agreed recently to return it.”

That caught me by surprise because it would have been major news in the world of antiquities.

He chuckled at the look on my face.

“But not publicly. Each of Radcliff's heirs have perpetrated the fraud by failing to admit to possession of the scarab. Not only would a public admission hurt Heather's family's reputation and her own, but many items Sir Jacob acquired during his time in Egypt and other places in the Middle East would come under scrutiny. To avoid publicity, a ruse was decided upon.”

“What was the ruse?”

“The assistant curator in the Radcliff museum agreed to remove the scarab from the vault where it was kept and return it to Egypt. However, she would never admit where she obtained it from, although everyone would know that it came from the museum.”

“I suppose it isn't stealing if the Radcliff woman agreed to it. Something went wrong?”

“Yes,” he said, “something did go wrong or I wouldn't be seeking your services, would I? The scarab was actually stolen. A gang of thieves apparently learned of the scheme and intercepted the assistant curator at a hotel in London before she was to go to the airport.”

I nodded, finally realizing where I fit into the grand scheme of things. “Now they want a ransom.”

It was an educated guess. With world-class art, there was a thin line between “priceless” and “valueless.” When a well-known art object was stolen, there was no market for it—except back to the original owner or their insurance company. It was an accepted practice to negotiate a price and exchange with an “innocent” go-between for return of the item.

The go-between who brokers the deal is, of course, usually a member of the gang of thieves, but one who didn't actually participate in the theft.

The sword of Damocles that hung over the stolen item was that the thieves threatened to destroy it if the ransom wasn't paid.

“They have demanded a great deal of money,” he said.

“How much?”

“Five million American dollars.”

I shrugged. “There are pieces that go for dozens of times that. The Egyptian government should pay it.”

“The government is not involved. I am a poor man but I have raised the money among some wealthy patriots.”

I almost scoffed out loud at his “poor man” statement. I deliberately looked at his ring.

He fingered it with his other hand. “I see you are admiring my ring,” he said. “The ring is a fake. The vanity of a poor man imitating a rich one.”

Was this a test?

“It's not a fake,” I said. “It was once worn by a king and is probably worth a down payment on a 747.”

The ring had a cobra with wings on it, a design that King Farouk was famous for wearing in his jewelry. No one else had worn that symbol, which was a takeoff of the cobra crowns the pharaohs wore.

Farouk was Egypt's last king and went into exile in the 1950s on the heels of a revolution.

“It was part of King Farouk's crown jewels,” I said.

“How do you know it's not an imitation? What do you Americans call it, a knockoff?”

“It's hard to define. Some art appraisers refer to it as a ping going off in their head when something is real. I don't hear pings, but I do get a feeling that tells me when something is real. But when the fake is really good, it takes a while to see it.”

In art terms, a “fake” made to fool buyers usually doesn't mean the object is a reproduction of an original piece, like making a copy of da Vinci's
Mona Lisa,
which everyone knows is hanging in the Louvre. Instead, the fake would often be a painting done by the counterfeiter in the style of da Vinci—the fraud is in passing it off as an original da Vinci.

That made many fakes extremely hard to sort out because a good counterfeiter can mimic the style of great works of art right down to the chemical compounds of the paint and the age of the canvas.

I told him about Howard Carter's theory in determining whether an artifact was a fake.

“Carter sat it aside in a spot where he would pass by or be able to glance at it once in a while as he went about his work. He paused to look at it several times a day. If the piece got better the more he looked at it, he knew it was genuine; if it got worse, he decided it was a fake.”

“Very clever,” he said. Then he gave me a sly smile. “You're right. The ring was a gift from the late king's family for services I provided.”

“You should have asked them for the nickel.”

“The nickel?” He gave me a puzzled look.

“King Farouk owned a 1913 Liberty Head nickel, one of only five of its kind known to still exist. One of the nickels recently sold for nearly four million dollars.”

Four million dollars for a nickel. Paintings selling for hundreds of millions. Chinese vases going for tens of millions. Collecting had become the sport of billionaires.

And I was counting pennies to keep my cat in free-range chicken.

His eye started to twitch again as he stared at me. It made me wonder if it wasn't a lie detector.

“How would you go about authenticating the scarab?” he asked. “Can it be tested to determine its age?”

“Not as you might imagine. Radiocarbon dating, measuring how old an object is by how radioactive its carbon content is, only works on things that were once living—like wood and paper. It can't be used to test mineral objects like stone. The heart is probably made of lapis lazuli.”

It was an easy guess. Lapis lazuli was a rich, sky blue, semiprecious gem. Although not as valuable as precious gems like diamonds and rubies, it was easier for the ancients to cut into desired shapes than harder stones.

“Yes. And I have been told that counterfeiters are able to take the same material and duplicate the heart, making it extremely difficult to tell if it's a reproduction. Stone does not change over time, especially if it has been sealed in a tomb for thousands of years. Isn't that true?”

“Hard stone like lapis lazuli, marble, and limestone wouldn't materially change under those conditions. But other clues can determine if it's ancient. Lapis lazuli is a rock, formed from different minerals. Even though pieces of it from mines in different parts of the world may look similar, no two deposits of it have exactly the same chemical makeup.”

“Ah, yes, like DNA and fingerprints. It has to be examined by a chemist?”

“Yes. Records, testing, and geological surveys have identified many of the pits and mines that were used by the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians for the marble, clays, and other materials to make objects. Chemical analysis can reveal what site the piece came from and whether that source was one customarily used to make the type of piece we're examining.”

He shook his head. “There would be no time to subject it to scientific analysis. Obviously, the thieves are not going to permit anything more than a quick examination done in a secret place and under the most stringent circumstances.”

“Then you would have to gamble on its appearance alone. But there are clues that help. A stone object made for a pharaoh will be of the finest material available to the ancients.

“The lapis lazuli that your god-kings preferred came from Afghanistan, where it's been mined for thousands of years. It's intensely sky blue and has just a slight dusting of tiny pyrite particles, what we call fool's gold. I can tell by looking at the piece whether it's of the quality used by royalty.”

“But a good forger would know to use the best Afghan lapis lazuli?”

“True, but there's more to consider. Like the type of tools they used. Modern tools, even hand tools, make subtly different impressions than the stone, copper, and bronze tools that were used during the time of the pharaohs.

“The patina, the outer coating that appears over time on an object, also has to be examined because it can reveal the age of an object and where it's been kept. Obviously, items kept sealed in a tomb have a different patina than those buried in the ground or exposed over the eons to the elements.”

“I've been told that forgers can duplicate the patina to appear aged.”

“They can try. Microscopic examination can usually show whether the tarnish has developed over thousands of years or was just put on recently. Now you're going to tell me that there won't be an opportunity to examine the piece under a microscope, right?”

“Unfortunately, that is the case.”

“Which brings the situation down to the most basic test of the authenticity of a piece of art: gut reaction—what it looks like … feels like.”

I realized he was already aware of everything I had told him. Any expert he spoke to could have pretty much told him the same thing.

“You already knew that it would come down to an opinion based upon a quick examination,” I said.

“Yes, I confess I did. The other experts I spoke to made the same conclusion. With so little time, complete reliance would have to be on the instincts of the person making the examination. As you pointed out, the gut reaction of what the expert sees and feels.

“Which is why I am particularly interested in hiring you. No one I spoke to had any actual field experience with antiquities as you did working at archaeological sites. And in this case, because the scarab has never had the intense scrutiny by experts that all the other Tut pieces have had, there is nothing to compare it with.”

I wanted to get across to him that if there was nothing to compare it with, and no time to take tests, there was no guarantee of success.

“Modern reproductions are often so good that it's not uncommon for experts to come up with different opinions as to whether an object is genuine—and that's after subjecting it to scientific tests. It's not uncommon for pieces to be declared genuine and revealed to be a fraud years later,” I told him.

“I'm aware of that. Which is why I have come to you. Most art professionals learned their trade from books and working in museums. You have actually done fieldwork and that impressed me. Not only was the object stolen from a dig, but it's been kept in seclusion over the years rather than being exposed to different environments.”

He paused and leaned toward me across the table. “I have great faith in my own powers of judging people and situations. My gut, as you put it, is telling me you would be the right person to take on a mystery that began nearly a century ago.”

And my gut right now was telling me to get up and walk away.

Not all the pieces were connecting, especially the ones about returning the scarab to Egypt in secret and the Egyptian government not being involved in either the attempt to return it or coming up with the money to ransom it.

Even though my gut was telling me to walk away, my brain was screaming that I needed the money and it was the only game in town at the moment.

“So you want me to authenticate the scarab before the ransom money changes hands,” I said.

“True.”

“And every other expert you talked to turned you down.”

He smiled and folded his hands together. “You're right again. No one is eager to assist me.”

“Frankly, Mr. Kaseem, there are easier ways of making money than getting involved with a gang of art thieves. The scarab isn't going to come with a stamp of approval on it proving that it came from Tut's tomb. It's not something you can glance at or even spend an hour examining and be sure it's genuine.

“It's almost impossible to authenticate a piece without having precise information about it and even then three experts may come up with three different opinions.”

He started to say something and I talked past him.

“The examination is going to take place in secret without the expert even knowing where they're at. If it turns out it isn't the real scarab, or the expert is unsure or needs more time to examine it, the person could likely get their throat slit. Sometimes the expert gets killed just because they saw too much even when an exchange is arranged.”