The Lucifer Gospel (2 page)

The young man gave a worldly sigh, breathing twin lines of smoke from his nostrils. He looked ridiculous. “Which one are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I said. Field Crew? Lab Crew? Volunteer? Specialist?” His English was perfect and nearly without accent.

“I’m the staff illustrator.”

He nodded, looking her up and down. If he hadn’t been so young she might have called it a leer. “Specialist.”

“Who exactly are you?”

He made a sour face. “Achmed, the driver. Achmed, the translator. Achmed, the labor supervisor.”

“I gather your name is Achmed.”

“You couldn’t pronounce my real name. Americans think all Egyptians are named Achmed, or Abdullah, or Mohammed, so I’m Achmed. Achmed the Egyptian.” He barked out a bitter little laugh.

Finn smiled. “What do Egyptians think all Americans are called?”

“In your case,
Ah’mar katha ath nan,
” Achmed replied, arching an eyebrow.

“Excuse me?”

“It means red-haired… sort of,” said a voice behind her. It was Hilts, the dark-haired photographer from the plane. He was now wearing a battered pair of amber-tinted aviator-style Serengeti Drivers, a very old dark blue peaked cap with gold pilot wings embroidered on the band, and a cracked and ancient leather flying jacket that was far too heavy for the terrible heat. He smoked a fuming, slightly deformed cigarillo. His only luggage was a large gray canvas duffel bag with the name HILTS stenciled on the side.

“I’m Hilts,” he said, leaning close to Achmed, then whispering,
“Balaak bennana derri lawTul’a!”

Achmed’s jaw dropped.
“Aawwaah!
You speak Dardja?”

Hilts rattled off another brief speech in the melodic, high-speed dialect, and the blood ran out of the young Egyptian’s face. He muttered something to Finn, his eyes refusing to meet hers.

Hilts translated. “He apologizes for what he said and for offending you and he also begs your forgiveness.”

“What did he say?”

“You don’t want to know.” He turned back to Achmed. “Why don’t you put our bags on the bus?”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Hilts,” Achmed said with a nod. He began loading the luggage.

“You’re part of the expedition?” Finn asked, surprised.

“I told you, I’m a photographer.”

“You look more like a flyer wearing that getup,” she said, nodding at the cap and jacket.

“That too.” He smiled. “I’m—”

“Don’t tell me,” Finn said and laughed, “you’re an aerial photographer.”

“You’re quick for a girl.”

They climbed into the minibus. Achmed got behind the wheel and they headed into the city. The drive into Cairo was a quick education in the art of automotive mayhem. There were thirteen million people living in Egypt’s capital city, and by the looks of things all of them were in their cars and trying to get somewhere. Most of the vehicles were old and Japanese, Russian, or French, and the vast majority were missing at least one body part. All of them were blowing their horns. Red lights were ignored. There were no lanes of any kind and traffic cops were everywhere, having absolutely no effect on anything.

“Think like an autumn leaf floating on a fast-flowing river,” Hilts cautioned philosophically as Achmed bullied his way into the city. “You’ll eventually get there, but not necessarily by the route you intended or the speed you thought you’d be going.”

The Nile Hilton was a late-50s monolithic slab and the first modern hotel built in Cairo. It sat like a giant pack of cigarettes blocking the view of the Nile on Midan Tahir, the overpopulated dead center of the city’s financial district and the place where, one way or the other, all that traffic was headed. Achmed dropped them off at the Corniche El Nil entrance, dumped their bags on the sidewalk, and promised to be back in forty-eight hours to take them and the rest of the expedition to the civil airport in the Imbaba district on the other side of the river. The young man gave them a brief nod, slammed his door, and drove back into the seething traffic in a blast of exhaust, horn blaring.

“Welcome to Cairo,” said Hilts. He helped Finn with her luggage and they checked in at the standard blonde oak and marble front desk. When they were done the pilot-photographer rode up with her in the elevator. “I’ll meet you at Da Mario’s in an hour,” he said, getting out on his floor. “I need a lasagna fix.”

“Da Mario’s?”

“The best Italian food in Cairo. It’s either that or Latex.”

“Latex?”

“It’s the hotel bar; very classy, believe it or not. They’ve got flavored vodka hookahs.”

“I’ll go for the lasagna.”

“Good choice. Da Mario’s, an hour.” The door slid closed. Finn rode up another two floors, found her room, and dropped her bags at the end of the bed. She went to the balcony and stepped out. The sun was setting now and the western horizon was a streaked bloody fog of dying light. It was the most sinister, most dangerous, most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, like looking at the memory of a battle fought long ago, or a vision of one yet to come. She thought about where she would be going the day after tomorrow—out there, six thousand years of history waiting just around the corner. She stayed for a moment, then turned away, her heart beating hard with excitement. She went back into her room and began to unpack.

Da Mario’s had old lamps, dark wood, and raffia-covered Chianti bottles. Very Egyptian-looking waiters wandered around with huge pepper grinders, inviting the guests to have pepper on any and everything. Somebody in a dark corner was playing “Che Sera, Sera” on a twelve-string Spanish guitar. Hilts was sawing his way through a vast plate of liberally peppered lasagna and Finn was working on a small salad. They were sharing one of the raffia-covered bottles of Chianti. Hilts was now wearing shorts and a plain red T-shirt, while Finn had changed into jeans and an NYU sweatshirt against the frigid air conditioning.

Finn took a bite of salad and shook her head. “My first meal in Egypt and it winds up being something I could get just as easily on Mulberry Street.”

“We could go out to a local joint and get you some nice
bamya
or maybe some
shakshukat beed iskandarani
if you wanted something light, but you’d spend the next three days on the toilet, if you’ll pardon my French.” He took a sip of wine and then continued attacking his lasagna. “The first rule about Egypt is don’t ever drink the water. The second is, don’t ever eat the food.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“It’s not a question of bad, it’s a question of acclimatization. The tap water here is what they cook with, what they mix their food with. Anything in the tap water is going to wind up in the food. They’re used to the particular bugs, you’re not. It’s pretty simple.”

“What about the dig?”

He shrugged. “You’ll probably be sick as a dog for a couple of days. And they’ll most likely boil the water. You’ll be okay.”

“The things my father never told me about the life of an archaeologist.”

“You’re L. A. Ryan’s kid, right?”

“That’s right. You knew him?”

“Knew of him. I resurveyed his original site in Mexico.”

“The one in Yucatan? All I can really remember were the spiders. The size of dinner plates.”

“That’s the one. Quintana Roo. Chan Santa Cruz. It was the first time they ever had an infrared survey done. Tricky flying.”

“You really have been everywhere.”

He grinned. “I get around.” His shoulders lifted and he took another sip of wine. “It’s a job.”

“What do you think about this one?”

“The job?” He shrugged again. I do know Rolf Adamson’s a bit of a flake.”

“All I read was the profile they did of him in
Newsweek
a while back. It’s the only thing the library at school had on him.”

“The reclusive billionaire thing?”

“I wonder how much of it’s true,” Finn said. “It made him sound like a cross between Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, and Howard Hughes.”

“With a little of the guy who owns Virgin Records thrown in for good measure. Balloon flights around the world, trips to the South Pole and all that.”

“An adventurer who’s interested in archaeology,” said Finn. “Spending a million dollars financing a dig in the desert. He must have a serious side.”

“According to my sources he’s got a bee in his bonnet.”

“Who are your sources and what kind of bee?”

“A lady on a dig he ran last year in Israel. They eventually took away his permits. Originally it had to do with one of those fake ossuaries that have been making the rounds. He tried to smuggle one out of the country and he got caught. It turned out to be one of the phonies, but that didn’t change the intent. If he wants something he’ll get it, no matter what the cost or whether it’s legal or not.”

“So what’s the bee in his bonnet?”

“If you read the
Newsweek
profile you know who his grandfather was.”

“Some kind of big-time evangelist from the twenties.”

“Schuyler Grand. ’The Grand Army of God’s Final Hour of Redemption.’ They’ve written books about him. California’s first radio evangelist. The ABN, Angel Broadcasting Network. Made millions and invested it all in orange groves and made millions more. Then he lost his radio license because everyone was saying he was secretly a Nazi. Committed suicide on the morning of Pearl Harbor. Adamson’s tried to whitewash his reputation for years. Clear his name, resurrect his theories.”

“What does that have to do with the dig?”

“Among other things, Schuyler Grand was an amateur archaeologist. He believed all the pseudo-science the Nazis were spouting about master races, and he mixed it up with all sorts of other things, including the Holy Grail. His big pitch was that one of Christ’s disciples carried the Grail to America.”

“From what I was told we were digging up the remains of an old Coptic monastery at the Al-Kufrah oasis.”

“We are. The Italians dug there in the late thirties. A guy named Lucio Pedrazzi. They were looking for the monastery too.”

Finn smiled. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Officially this is a dig at a Coptic monastery. But I know for a fact Lucio Pedrazzi was digging for the tomb of a specific Coptic monk. A man named Didymus. In both Hebrew and Greek it means the same thing—‘the twin.’ Better known as Thomas the Apostle, or Doubting Thomas. Apparently Pedrazzi had evidence that after the Crucifixion Thomas went west, into the desert, rather than east, to India.”

“It sounds like an Indiana Jones story.”

“Pedrazzi was working for Mussolini’s Italian Archaeology Mission in Libya. There’s another story that says the monk in question wasn’t Thomas at all. It was Christ himself, mysteriously disappeared from his own tomb with the help of a Roman legionary. Pedrazzi was trying to prove that the Roman legionary was part of the so-called Lost Legion. When Christ actually died years later the legion were in charge of his bones. They took them to some sort of lost city in the desert. According to Mussolini that gave him some sort of leverage with the Vatican. Crazy stuff. Pedrazzi disappeared in the middle of a sandstorm and was never seen again.”

Finn looked skeptical. “I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Rolf Adamson.”

“Supposedly the legionary finally took the bones to America for safekeeping, which fits in with even more pseudoscientific stuff about ancient pyramids in Kansas and Egyptian galleys rowing down the Mississippi—after all, your average savage red Indian couldn’t have built all those huge burial mounds, now could he? Racist horse crap, but lots of people believe it.”

“And you think Adamson does?”

“I think Adamson’s paying the freight. I’m a pragmatist. Jobs are scarce.” He paused and took another sip of wine. He put down his glass and leaned against the back of the booth. “What about you?”

“Like you said, jobs are scarce.” She fiddled with her own glass. “Besides, an adventure is an adventure.”

“Which you seem to be in favor of.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t be bashful. How many Finn Ryans, daughter of renowned archaeologist Lyman Andrew Ryan, are there? You were all over the papers last year with that caper of yours under the streets of New York.”

“It wasn’t just me.”

“No, it was you, the bastard son of a Pope of Rome, and the grandson of Mickey Hearts, your bigger-than-average New York mobster from the good old days. Not to mention a broad assortment of dead bodies and about a billion dollars’ worth of looted art. And now you turn up here. Speaking of which, how exactly did you get the job?”

“I was recommended.”

“By the young Mickey Hearts?”

Finn bristled. “His name is Michael Valentine and he’s a book dealer, not a mobster. There is no mob anymore.”

Hilts laughed. “Who told you that, your Mr. Valentine?” He shook his head. “You know that old story about the Devil—that the smartest thing he ever did was convince the world that he didn’t exist? Pretty slick. Everybody talks about the Russians and the Japanese and the Hong Kong Triads but nobody talks about the Mafia anymore.”

Finn was about to continue the argument but then saw the twinkle in Hilts’s eye. “You’re teasing me.”

“Not really. Michael’s a friend of mine too. He asked me to look out for you. He’s not too happy about some of the people Rolf’s involved with.”

“You know Michael?” She could feel herself getting angry. She and Michael had briefly been lovers, but she didn’t like the feeling that she was being patronized.

“We’ve done each other a few favors.”

“I don’t need a babysitter, Mr. Hilts.”

“I don’t intend to be one, Ms. Ryan. Michael just asked me to watch your back, that’s all.”

“I don’t need that either.”

“The desert’s a big place, Finn. I could use a friend on this expedition myself.” He held a hand out across the table. “Peace?”

Finn hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. She valued her independence, but she’d also learned the hard lesson that there was sometimes strength in numbers. A friend in a strange land like this couldn’t do any harm. She shook the offered hand. “Peace.” She went back to her salad for a moment as Hilts finished his meal. “So when do we meet our benefactor?”