The Moses Riddle (Thomas McAllister 'Treasure Hunter' Adventure Book 1)

Three thousand years ago on the dry, sandy plains of Egypt, Abubaker, a historian, documented a temple restoration at the Necropolis of Saqqara. One day, Abubaker observed the arrival of a man with a long silver beard, accompanied by a contingent of armed guards. The guards were stationed around a cart, pulled by oxen, which carried a large square object covered by hide. The bearded man entered the temple of Unas and stayed inside for two days. The guards remained outside. Abubaker noted this peculiar incident in his journal, thus capturing a secret journey Moses made to Egypt. This was the only time Moses returned to Egypt after the Exodus, and the trip was not documented anywhere else, not even the Bible.

At the end of the temple restoration, Abubaker’s notes were stored with all the others in the general archives building in Cairo. When the Pharaoh, Amenophis III, died, Abubaker’s notes were buried with him in his tomb, to serve as proof to the gods of the civil good deeds Amenophis III performed during his rule. The notes remained in the Pharaoh’s tomb, undisturbed, for over three thousand years, until the tomb was discovered by a young archeologist named Thomas McAlister. Many of the documents removed from the tomb stayed in Egypt. But some of them, including Abubaker’s notes, were entrusted to the man who found them, and they remained with him, undeciphered and all but forgotten, until a life-changing crisis brought them to his attention.

As he’d done the other times, he flicked the first bullet, a big 250 grain .45 hollow-point, out of the clip with his thumbnail. He then took out his Swiss Army knife, opened the nail file, and slowly, deliberately, carved the initials TM into the soft brass on the side of the shell. TM: Thomas McAlister. When he had the letters just right, he brushed the brass filings away, placed the shell back into the clip and the gun back into his holster. It was done. The bullet was addressed. He felt better already. The knot in his stomach relaxed.

At this point, it was only symbolic. It was too early to need to kill McAlister. If his intuition was right, however, and McAlister had gotten away, the need might arise soon. The need wouldn’t come from his employer, the U.S. government. No. It would be a greedy, dark, personal need. He had only been tricked two other times in his career. Only two other times had he felt the shame of exposed failure, and the lust for concrete revenge that had followed. In both cases he’d addressed bullets and, in both cases, his lust for vengeance had been quenched. His problems had disappeared. Forever. As he thought of all the ways to dispose of a human corpse, thousands really, the edges of his mouth curved upward to form a reptilian smile.

DJ was a walking case solver. He’d solved more cases for the FBI than anyone else in the agency’s history. In crime fighting circles he was a legend. But despite his auspicious past, and the knowledge that the recently addressed bullet was inside his .45, riding comfortably on his hip, inwardly he was terrified. Little jolts of fear pulsed uncontrollably throughout his body. The same helpless jolts of fear you’d feel if you saw your child snatched up by a passing van, or if you were pushed by a stranger off a cliff.

DJ had two rules when he had someone under surveillance, and he never broke them. First, he watched vigilantly for changes in the individual’s routine, because a change usually meant that he or she was getting ready to run. Second, he demanded that his surveillance teams have either audio or visual contact with the subject at all times. If either of those rules were broken, it usually meant trouble. Thomas McAlister, the archeologist currently under surveillance, had just broken the first rule, and his own surveillance team had broken the second one.

It was only mildly disconcerting that McAlister did not wake up and go downstairs for coffee at his usual 5:30 a.m. Men were prone to oversleep. But the fact that he had not made any noise
at all
for over two and a half hours was chilling. It basically meant that McAlister was no longer in his house. That he had gotten away. That DJ had been outmaneuvered.

People are noisy creatures. Though not in any FBI manual, DJ knew that the average person sneezed once every eight hours, coughed every six hours, and yawned two to three times a day. On average, men urinated every three to four hours, and one in every five men snored. McAlister snored intermittently, but DJ’s team hadn’t heard him all night. He should have been awake by now, and despite the fact that men averaged fewer words per day than women, two thousand words versus seven thousand for women, McAlister hadn’t said a single word or made the smallest sound for two hours and fifty minutes.

DJ’s encyclopedic knowledge of these statistics and anthropological facts, and thousands more like them, helped him solve cases. He could expound on the history of modern ballistics, explain the phases of bodily decomposition, and tell you the names and detailed personal histories of the FBI’s ten most wanted. It was as if he’d been born with the knowledge. But, if you asked him his daughter’s middle name, he’d look at you with a blank stare.

DJ’s current quarry was Thomas McAlister, an unemployed Egyptologist who had supposedly found an amazing treasure. DJ had been briefed on this assignment a week ago, by his direct supervisor Chief Hargrove. From the start, this case had been different. Hargrove had held the meeting in a highly secure section of the Pentagon.

At the meeting, Hargrove had been extremely nervous. DJ had spent a lifetime observing people, he knew when someone was on the edge, and when their nerves were frayed. Hargrove had exhibited all the signs: trembling hands, an odd timbre to his voice, and worst of all, his repeated insistence that this was the most important case they’d ever worked on together. He had almost pleaded with DJ to complete it successfully. “It’ll make or break us,” he’d said over and over again. “It’ll make or break us.”

Hargrove had informed him that the treasure was the actual Ten Commandments . . . the very ones God had given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Inwardly DJ was surprised that such an artifact existed, and had been found, but he didn’t show it. He maintained cold objectivity. The briefing had taken place one week ago and, up to now, his instructions had been simple. Keep the archeologist under surveillance. Don’t lose contact with him. Don’t move in on him. Just observe and keep detailed records, until the President granted permission to confiscate the treasure.

Other than a demand that the case be resolved successfully, the only other requirement was that he keep the assignment strictly confidential. He would have every government resource and asset at his disposal, but no one must know what they were trying to locate, and eventually take.

DJ had taken it all in stride. He didn’t let Hargrove’s desperate behavior penetrate his thick reserve of confidence. He was a problem solver. Hargrove had a problem. He would solve it. That was his job. Selfishly, he was excited. It was sheer luck to have such an easy assignment so late in his career. This was a true plum. He’d retire after this one.

At the time of the briefing, DJ didn’t know much about the Ark of the Covenant or the Ten Commandments. Hargrove had briefly explained why their discovery by an American citizen could have such an extreme negative affect on world politics and economy. It had all sounded terrible, but it was peripheral, outside the shell of DJ’s assignment. Besides, he planned to be successful, so consequences of failure didn’t matter.

In the days after the initial meeting with Hargrove, DJ had learned all he needed to know about the Bible, the Ten Commandments, and the Ark that held them. His knowledge was utilitarian, useful facts that would help engineer success. He’d learned its dimensions, which told him how big a vehicle he would need. He’d learned its weight, which told him how many men to have ready to carry it once he confiscated it.

Never in his career had DJ observed so much interest in a single man. And now, at the worst possible time, it looked as though McAlister had escaped. Later that very day Hargrove was briefing the President for the first time. Hargrove was not aware that McAlister might have escaped. It was too late to inform Hargrove; he would already be at the White House waiting to see the President. Even if DJ could get through to him, in his boss’s current weak mental state, this type of news would demolish him. There was only one solution. If McAlister had, in fact, gotten away, DJ needed to find him immediately.

He called his team leader, who was in the surveillance van outside McAlister’s house. “Anything yet, Scott?”
“Nothing, sir. It’s been two hours, fifty minutes.”
DJ knew exactly how long it had been. To the second.
He thought for a moment, then said, “Have you heard the scratching?” Early on in the assignment, the listening devices in the house had picked up odd scratching noises coming from the living room, even when McAlister wasn’t home. One day, after McAlister had left the house, DJ had sent one of his agents into the house to find out what it was. The scratching was coming from a three-inch-long, jumbo scarab beetle that McAlister had brought back from one of his Egyptian campaigns. Beetles were considered sacred in ancient Egypt. McAlister’s was iridescent green, and he kept it in a large aquarium on the mantle above his fireplace.
DJ could hear Scott’s muffled voice as he covered the phone and asked the technician listening to McAlister’s house if he had heard the scratching noise. Scott came back on the line. He paused. “No, DJ. He hasn’t heard any scratching at all.”
“Damn it! Damn it, Scott. I don’t like this. McAlister’s out. I can feel it. I want you in there right now. Do you hear me? Right now!”
“There’s no way he could’ve gotten out, sir. We’ve been here all . . . .”
“I said
now
, agent!”
“Yes, sir. But what do we do if he’s home?”
DJ hated agents who couldn’t improvise. “Go up to the door alone. Knock first. If he’s home, tell him you’re selling newspaper subscriptions or something and then leave. But if he doesn’t answer I want you and your team in there immediately. I want the door down and all of you through every inch of that house. Search the whole place. Use the thermal imagers. He may be in there hiding. Got it?”
“Ten-four. Out.”
DJ slammed the phone down and shook his head. “He’d better be there. Damn it, he’d better be there.”
Of all the days to lose McAlister, this was the worst. It was simply unacceptable. Any minute Chief Hargrove would be briefing the President on the catastrophic danger of not confiscating the Ten Commandments
before
McAlister made their discovery public. Hargrove was going to describe the mission as a slam dunk. He was going to gloat about how they had already had McAlister under twenty-four hour surveillance. And why not? They had every government resource at their disposal. But now it looked like McAlister might have escaped the surveillance. DJ shook his head. Unacceptable.
He wadded up his paper coffee cup, threw it forcefully into the trash can, kicked the can across his hotel room and started for the door. He needed to get over to McAlister’s house. What worried him most was that the beetle was gone. He knew from experience that people who are leaving, and not planning on coming back, always take their pets.