The Exodus Quest (16 page)

TWENTY-SEVEN

I

Knox took the tray back through to the library, set it down on the low coffee table. He wasn’t exactly in the mood for a tea party, but Kostas evidently was, so he tried to master his aches and jitters. He was at least safe here, after all. He poured them each a cup of aromatic pale tea from the silver pot, cut two thin slices of moist chocolate cake. ‘You were telling me about Harpocrates and the Gnostics,’ he prompted, passing Kostas his plate.

‘Yes,’ agreed Kostas. He nibbled the end of his cake, washed it down with a decorous sip of tea. ‘You see, there was a group of Gnostics actually
called
the Harpocratians. At least, they
may
have been called that, though it’s hard to be categorical. They’re only referred to once or twice in the sources, you see. And there was another, much better-known group of Gnostics called the
Carpocratians
, founded by an Alexandrian by the name of Carpocrates. So it seems feasible, perhaps even probable, that these two were one and the same.’

‘A spelling mistake?’

‘It’s possible, of course. But our sources were the kind of people to know the difference. So my suspicion has always been that these Carpocratians might have been reputed to worship Harpocrates as well as Christ. That the names were therefore interchangeable, if you like.’

‘Is that plausible?’

‘Oh, yes,’ nodded Kostas vigorously. ‘You have to realize that Gnostics weren’t Christian in the modern sense. In fact, even grouping them together as Gnostics is really to miss the point, because it implies they had a single way of thinking, whereas in fact each of the sects had its own distinct views, drawn eclectically from Egyptian, Jewish, Greek and other traditions. But the great pioneers of Gnosticism, people like Valentinus, Basilides and Carpocrates, did have certain things in common. For example, they didn’t believe Jesus to be the Son of God. Come to that, they didn’t believe that the Jewish God was actually the Supreme Being at all, but merely a demiurge, a vicious second-tier creation who mistook himself for the real thing. How else, after all, could one explain all the horrors of this world?’

‘So who
was
the Supreme Being?’

‘Ah! Now there’s a question!’ His eyes were watering freely, his skin flushing. Like many solitary people, Kostas tended to become over-stimulated in company. ‘The Gnostics held that it was incapable of description, incapable of even being contemplated, except perhaps in mathematical terms, and only then by the exceptionally enlightened. A very
Einsteinian
God, if you like. And that’s where Christ came in, because Gnostics saw him, along with Plato and Aristotle and others, as gifted but essentially ordinary men who’d nursed their divine sparks sufficiently to have glimpsed this truth. But I’m getting away from the point, which is the similarities between Harpocrates and Christ.’

‘Such as?’

‘Oh my dear Daniel! Where to start? Luxor Temple, perhaps. The nativity reliefs. A newborn pharaoh depicted as Harpocrates. Nothing surprising about that, of course. Pharaohs were the physical incarnations of Horus, so infant pharaohs were by definition Horus-the-child or Harpocrates. But the details of this particular tableau are curious. A mortal woman impregnated by a holy spirit while still a virgin. An annunciation by Thoth, the Egyptian equivalent of the archangel Gabriel. A star leading three wise men from the east, bearing gifts.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘I thought you’d enjoy that,’ smiled Kostas. ‘In fact, the wise men crop up all the time in divine nativity stories, especially among sun-worshippers. An astronomical allegory, of course, like so many religious conceits. The three stars of Orion’s belt point towards Sirius, the key to the ancient Egyptian solar calendar and for predicting the annual inundation. Gold, frankincense and myrrh often crop up too. Man’s very first possessions, you know, given by God to console Adam and Eve after their expulsion from Eden. Seventy rods of gold, if my memory serves.’

‘Rods?’ frowned Knox. A rod was a unit of distance, not of weight.

‘According to
The Book of Adam and Eve
,’ nodded Kostas. ‘Or was it
The Book of the Cave
of Treasures
?’ He sighed wistfully. ‘My memory, you know.’

‘I don’t think it was
The Cave of Treasures
,’ said Knox, who’d wasted countless glorious summer afternoons in a forlorn effort to master Syriac by studying that particular text, about a cave in which Adam, Abraham, Noah, Moses and most of the other leading Jewish patriarchs had supposedly been buried. ‘Anything else?’

‘There are some startling parallels between Horus’s mother Isis and Mary the mother of Christ, of course. You must be aware of those. And Harpocrates was believed to have been born on a mountain, the hieroglyph for which was the same as that for a manger. Ancient Egyptians used to celebrate his birth by parading a manger through their streets. Easier than carrying a mountain.’

‘Ah.’

Kostas nodded. ‘The Gospel of Matthew claims that the Holy Family fled to Egypt when Jesus was a child to avoid the Massacre of the Innocents. According to Saint Edward the Martyr, they got as far south as Hermopolis, city of Thoth. Which brings us neatly full circle, for Hermopolis was directly across the Nile from the city founded by this pharaoh I mentioned, the one in those Luxor reliefs.’

‘You mean Amarna?’ asked Knox. ‘The pharaoh was Akhenaten?’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Kostas, allowing himself a little chuckle. ‘Just think of it! The New Testament accounts of Christ’s Nativity borrowed from the birth of a heretic Egyptian pharaoh. Not something the Church has sought to publicize, for some reason or other.’ He held out his cup. ‘You couldn’t pour me some more tea, could you?’

II

‘Come back!’ yelled Khaled, hurrying after Gaille, almost losing his footing in his haste. ‘Come back!’ he shouted again. But Gaille did nothing of the sort. A flash of movement and colour above, a cascade of grit and pebbles. Khaled glanced up to see Lily bringing her camera to bear. Khaled felt sick. He had to stop them getting away, contacting the outside world. He scrambled recklessly along the path, feet slipping on the limestone, clinging on desperately with one hand, trying to holster his Walther with his other. Faisal came up behind and hauled him back to safety, but valuable seconds had been wasted, allowing Gaille to get further ahead.

He reached the top to see her fleeing helter-skelter after her companions, Stafford way out in front, Lily flailing inelegantly with the camera on her shoulder. Khaled put in a burst, closing the gap a little, but not enough. They ran down the hillside into the wadi, clambered east over the scree towards the desert. Khaled couldn’t sustain his pace. He slowed, came to a halt. ‘Wait!’ he panted, hands on his knees, his leg muscles fibrillating wildly. They slowed and turned, if only to catch their breath. ‘Let’s talk,’ he shouted, holding up his hands and smiling in an effort to convince them he was no threat. ‘We can sort this out.’ But even he could hear the falseness in his voice.

They began to hurry again. He scowled, drew his Walther, fired a single shot into the air. It made them run all the faster. Nasser and Faisal came up alongside him, wheezing for air. They set off again, legs heavy with exertion. The Discovery came into view ahead. Lily looked around to check on their pursuit and promptly stumbled on a stone. Her camera went flying and hit the rocks hard, shattering into component pieces. Stafford reached the Discovery. He tried the door but it was locked. ‘The keys,’ he yelled at Gaille, who was hauling Lily back to her feet. ‘Throw me the bloody keys.’

Khaled heaved for breath. His shirt had tugged free from his belt, he felt obscurely furious at the indignity. He fired another shot but the women didn’t even break their stride. He put in a last burst, giving everything to the chase. Gaille took out her keys, pressed the remote. The corner lights on the Discovery flashed orange. Stafford opened the driver door and climbed in. They were going to get away. Khaled stopped, aimed as best he could, squeezed off three rounds. Metal pinged. The driver-side window disintegrated and fell out. The two women stopped dead, as though they believed Khaled some kind of marksman who could pick them off at will. They raised their arms and turned to face him.

He walked towards them, his hand against his side, heaving for breath, trying not to let it show, wanting to appear in control. Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead and trickled chillily down his flanks. Faisal and Nasser came up behind, but he kept his eyes firmly on the foreigners, the sag of their shoulders, their shiny faces and bedraggled hair, their dread-filled eyes, that poignant dash of hope. He scowled, hardening his heart towards them. These weren’t people. They were problems. Problems to be solved. Problems to be eliminated. He drew to within a few paces, wondering which one to take out first.

The one with the car keys. Gaille.

He was raising his gun to kill her when a mobile phone began to ring.

III

Knox poured more tea for Kostas and himself, watched his sugar dissolve in the whirlpool of his stirring. ‘What about the Therapeutae?’ he asked. ‘Did they have any links to these Carpocratians?’

Kostas pulled a face. ‘I’ve heard it claimed that Carpocrates was a devotee of the teachings of a Talmudic figure called Jehoshua Ben Panther. A fascinating character. You may have heard of him, because he’s been conflated with Christ by some, but he was most probably an Essene leader.’

‘Linking him to the Therapeutae.’

‘Quite,’ nodded Kostas. ‘And their doctrines mesh too, though admittedly with one major discrepancy. The Therapeutae were famously chaste, you see, whereas the Carpocratians were notorious for licentiousness and orgies. But almost everything we know about the Carpocratians was written by their enemies, so it’s quite possible that that was nothing but malicious propaganda. And if you discount it, the two groups prove a remarkable fit.’

‘In what way?’

‘In every way. Long initiations. Water baptisms. The rejection of materialism. Carpocrates is credited with the phrase “Property is Theft”, you know. Both abhorred slavery. Both believed in some kind of afterlife or reincarnation. Both accorded unusual respect and power to women. One of Carpocrates’ most celebrated followers, Marcellina, even became quite a figure in Rome. They both had very Hellenic elements, and shared a great deal with Pytha-goreanism. Both included traces of sun-worship. Both studied angels and demons. Both believed in and practised magic. Both prized numbers and symbols. And both were hideously persecuted too. Maybe that’s why they both lived outside Alexandria. And, now that I think about it, the Carpocratians appeared around AD one hundred and twenty, around the same time we lose track of the Therapeutae.’

‘You’re suggesting the Therapeutae
became
the Carpocratians?’

‘It’s not inconceivable, I suppose. But all I’m really saying is that it’s quite possible they
overlapped
in some way. Bear in mind that this whole region was fervid with philosophical and religious energy back then – everyone borrowing, sharing, arguing. Religions hadn’t yet
set
in the way they have today. Places that were sacred to one were holy to others too. Many early churches were built on old pagan temples, you know. Even the Vatican. So perhaps they lived together for a while, or perhaps the Carpocratians took over this antiquity of yours after the Therapeutae moved on.’

Knox nodded. It seemed plausible enough, though plausibility was a very different beast from truth. ‘What else do we know about the Carpocratians?’

‘Founded in Alexandria, like I say, but they flourished elsewhere too. In Rome, as I mentioned. And I believe they also had a temple in …’ He pushed himself to his feet, went over to his shelves, plucked down a volume, leafed through it, then put it back, shaking his head.

‘Come on, Kostas. Just tell me.’

‘Patience, young man. Patience.’ He pulled out a weighty church encyclopaedia from his shelves, hefted it over to the corner table, licked his thumb and forefinger to turn the thin leaves until he found the page. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They had a temple on one of the Greek islands.’

Knox frowned as he recalled his recent phone call with Augustin. ‘Not Cephallonia, I don’t suppose?’

Kostas smiled quizzically. ‘How on earth did you know that?’

‘What else does it say?’

He licked his fingertips, turned the page. ‘Ha! How about that!’

‘How about what?’

‘Oh, yes. Oh, you’ll like this.’

‘Come on, Kostas. Just tell me, will you?’

‘You know how Christian groups identified each other with secret signs and markings like the fish and the cross? Well, the Carpocratians had one of their own.’

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t say,’ said Kostas. ‘All it says is where on their bodies it was tattooed.’

‘And?’

Kostas’s eyes twinkled. ‘It was on the back of their right earlobes,’ he said.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I

The mobile continued to ring. ‘Turn that off,’ said Khaled. Then louder, a touch of panic in his voice: ‘Turn it off.’ Stafford reached slowly into his pocket, pulled out his mobile, turned it off. But it was too late. The damage was done. Or, more accurately, the ringing had made Khaled aware of a serious problem. Mobile phones emitted as well as received signals, even when they weren’t being used. They just had to be switched on, as Stafford’s clearly was.

If he disappeared now, it would be a simple matter for the police to trace their movements. They’d come straight here. He and his men would be their automatic chief suspects. Out would come the canes, the hosepipes, the water-boarding. And one of them would surely crack. Faisal, probably. There was something almost womanish about him.

Abdullah had been summoned from sentry-duty by the sound of gunfire. ‘What going on?’ he panted.

‘What does it look like?’ scowled Khaled, glaring at the foreigners. The tomb had seemed a gift from Allah. But now he saw it for what it truly was. A satanic trap. Five years in jail, if they were caught. Five years minimum. More likely ten or even more. And Khaled had seen the inside of Egypt’s prisons. They were cramped and dirty places, filled with disease and brutality. He wasn’t a weakling, but the prospect unnerved him.

‘Why don’t we just kill them, sir?’ asked Nasser, ever the practical one. ‘Dump them in the desert, like we did with the girl.’

‘Yes,’ scoffed Khaled. ‘And that worked well, didn’t it?’

‘We have more time this time. We have all night.’

‘All night?’ snarled Khaled. ‘Don’t you know what’s going to happen when these people don’t appear wherever they’re expected?’ He pointed his gun at the woman Lily. ‘Where
are
you expected?’

‘Assiut,’ she said, her face drained of colour. ‘The Cleopatra Hotel.’

He turned back to Nasser. ‘The moment they don’t show up, their hotel will notify the authorities. Nothing terrifies
them
more than bad things happening to foreigners, especially to TV people. It jeopardizes their hotel investments, their precious tourist dollars. Believe me, by morning there’ll be a manhunt like you’ve never seen! And the first place they’ll come is here. And the first thing they’ll do is follow all the tyre tracks in the sand out to this wonderful hiding place of yours.’

‘Then let’s dump them in the Nile.’ Nasser made waves with his fingers to indicate a car vanishing beneath the surface.

Khaled shook his head. ‘Without being spotted? And even if by some miracle we get away with it now, the police are sure to drag the river, or some fisherman will snag his net on the car. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, their damned mobile phones are going to lead them straight to us.’

‘Oh,’ said Nasser gloomily. ‘Then what are we going to do?’

‘I’m trying to think,’ scowled Khaled. ‘Give me some quiet, will you?’ He squatted, not wanting his men to see how baffled he was. Perhaps he could shift all the blame onto them. Make it look like a shakedown gone wrong. A gunfight erupting, leaving the three foreigners and all his men dead. But it was a desperate solution. Even a half-competent investigator would see straight through it. So maybe they should strike a deal. But while these foreigners were scared enough to agree to anything right now, that would all change the moment they were released.

‘We should blame it on terrorists,’ muttered Abdullah. ‘They’re always killing foreigners.’

‘Excellent idea,’ scoffed Khaled, seizing the opportunity to vent some anger. ‘But, tell me, which terrorists, exactly?’ He waved an arm around the desolate wadi. ‘Show me these terrorists of yours and sure, we’ll blame it on them.’

‘It was only a suggestion, sir.’

‘There aren’t any terrorists around Amarna. Don’t you know that? They’re all down in Assiut and …’ He broke off, a thought coming to him. Abdullah was absolutely right. In Egypt, only terrorists would dare take out foreigners like this. And it was a story the authorities would instinctively believe. The merest hint of terrorism made intelligent people behave like idiots. As far as anyone knew, these three were on their way to Assiut tonight. There’d been major unrest down there recently. He’d been watching it on TV. Riots. Demonstrations. Firebrand Muslims up in arms against the West because five of their brethren had been arrested for the rape and murder of two young Coptic girls. And, just like that, the idea came to him.

‘Yes, sir,’ asked Nasser, reading inspiration on his face. ‘What is it?’

‘One moment,’ begged Khaled. He thought it through, its implications, the resources they’d need, the steps they’d have to take. It was crazy, yes, but then the situation was crazy and demanded crazy solutions.

‘Please, sir,’ pressed Nasser. ‘Tell us.’

Khaled nodded twice, breathed deeply. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘This is what we’re going to do.’

II

Knox sat back in his chair, leather creaking voluptuously, giving himself a chance to assimilate his new knowledge. Peterson and his team had cut those six ears from the mummies to check them for tattoos under ultraviolet light. That, along with the link to the TSBA’s previous excavations in Cephallonia, surely meant that they were here on the trail of the Carpocratians. The only question left was why.

Kostas brooded for a moment or two when Knox put this to him. ‘These Texan archaeologists of yours: they’re highly religious, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then there is
one
possibility, I suppose. You see, the Carpocratians were reputed to—’ The doorbell sounded at that moment. Kostas broke off, sighed, pushed himself to his feet. ‘Excuse me.’

‘Of course.’ Knox went over to the table. The encyclopaedia was lying open. He scanned the entry for the Carpocratians, but nothing caught his eye. He wandered the shelves instead, pulled down a slim biography of Philo, flipped through the creamy pages, the crumbling leather binding leaving smears like dried blood on his palms and fingers.

The library door reopened. Knox looked around to see Kostas standing there, pale and shaken. ‘What is it?’ frowned Knox. But then he saw two policemen come into view behind Kostas and instantly went cold. He’d thought himself safe here; had allowed himself to relax. But somehow they’d found him. For a mad moment, he contemplated trying to run for it, but there was nowhere to go. And then he caught the glimmer of a smile twitch on the shorter of the two policemen’s lips, as though that was exactly what he wanted, an excuse to lay in to him. So he forced himself to relax instead, go quietly; see if he couldn’t find out what the hell was going on, and how they’d tracked him here.

III

Augustin and Farooq were learning precisely nothing from Peterson’s archaeology students, crew-cut clones with morons-for-Jesus smiles who all just happened to have exactly the same story to tell. ‘And your name is?’ Farooq asked the latest arrival.

‘Green, sir. Michael Green.’ He glanced around at Peterson, standing over his shoulder, as though he needed to check he’d got his own name right.

‘And you saw this intruder too?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Well, sir. It was kind of dark, you know. I don’t know that I can—’

Farooq’s mobile began to ring. He sighed and raised an eyebrow at Augustin. ‘I need to answer this,’ he grunted. ‘You want to take his statement?’

‘Sure,’ said Augustin, stifling a yawn. He nodded at the young man as Farooq wandered off. ‘Go on.’

‘I was just saying, I don’t know that I can add much to what the others told you.’

‘Try. What was this intruder doing?’

‘I’m sorry, sir?’

‘Was he standing, kneeling, crawling? Was he coming towards you? Going away? What was he wearing? How tall was he? What colour hair? Did he realize you’d spotted him?’

‘Ah.’ A touch of colour flamed Michael’s cheeks. He glanced at Peterson once more. ‘It’s difficult to remember, exactly,’ he said. ‘It all happened so quickly.’

‘You must have some recollection.’

Peterson stepped forward. ‘Is it really wise to bully witnesses into telling you things they didn’t see?’

‘I want to make sure he isn’t forgetting anything.’

‘Are you forgetting anything, Michael?’ asked Peterson.

‘No, sir.’

‘There you go, Doctor Pascal. He’s not forgetting anything.’

‘Good news,’ announced Farooq, finishing his phone call, coming back to join them. ‘My men have found Knox.’

Augustin’s heart skipped a beat. ‘What?’

‘Do you know the thing I hate most in this world, Doctor Pascal?’ he asked. ‘Being taken for a fool. All those people at the Supreme Council this morning. Do you know what they told me? They told me, if I wanted to find Knox, I should talk to you, Augustin Pascal. Pascal will know, they said. He and Knox are best friends. But when I ask you about Knox, you tell me nothing about this great friendship of yours. Not one word. You think I’m an idiot? Is that what you think?’

‘Oh, Christ! You speak French.’

Farooq’s right hook knocked Augustin clean onto his backside. ‘And that’s for calling my mother a fat sow,’ he said.