2021 (10 page)

1
^st
January 2021

Cairo, Egypt.

T
he following day, still nursing some fairly sizable hangovers, the Americans all set off from their hotel as they headed for the Cairo bazaars.

‘Maybe we can find a buyer for the
cup and scroll in here?’ suggested one as they came upon a sign partly written in English.

‘Yaseem Brushna – Buyer and Seller of Fine
Egyptian Antiquities and Artefacts’ Hank read out the sign ‘yeah, that looks promising, let’s try in here’ he smiled.

So they all
just piled into this the narrowest of narrow shops within the bazaar.

‘Yes, Gentleman, how can I help you?’ a cheerful looking man at the far end counter asked
them.

‘It’s more what we can do for
you
!’ muttered Jack the oldest member of their group.

‘Yeah, show the man the
cup and scroll inside it, Hank’ insisted one of the others as Hank promptly just marched up and banged the cup containing the tightly wrapped scroll down hard onto the counter.

‘Yeah, Buddy, we found this
cup thing, it has a scroll inside it. We wondered if you might like to take it off our hands?’ smiled Jack.

‘By ‘take’ he means
‘buy’ of course’ corrected Marvin, another member of their group.

‘We wondered w
hat it’s worth?’ added Dan, the group’s fourth member.

‘Well then, Gentleman, let’s take a
closer look’ smiled the shop owner as he put an eyeglass over his eye as he studied the large metal cup before he began to carefully unclasp the scroll’s metal fixing before gently unwrapping it all across the countertop.

‘
It’s interesting, Gentleman, where exactly did you find it?’ asked the shopkeeper curiously.

‘Near the Great Pyramid’ replied one of the Americans.

‘Yeah, about ten miles in
that
direction’ smiled Hank ‘ooo, my head hurts’ he added as he now grabbed his head.

‘He means about ten miles W
est of here of course’ nodded Jack.

‘Well I’m sorry to tell you this, Ge
ntlemen, but these types of things are found all over the Giza site. Most of them are just basic instructions for the stone engravers, not much more than that, and there are thousands of these found all over the site every year. I’ll take them off your hands for say twenty Dollars if you like though, as they may interest one of the tourists’ the shop’s owner concluded.

The Americans
though, weren’t at all impressed with that offer.

‘Come on, Bud, you can do better th
an
that
’ laughed Marvin.

‘OK, Gentlemen, you Americans drive a hard bargain. Forty Dollars then’ the shop owner smiled.

‘Jack, I think I can see another place a few hund
red yards up the road’ Hank called out as he now leaned out of the shop’s front ‘come on, let’s try up there’ he called out to them.

Then as Jack
grabbed the cup and scroll back and they all began to stroll off again the trader suddenly shouted after them.

‘OK
, GENTLEMEN! I’LL GIVE YOU TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS!’ Then as he saw the Americans all look at each other and then shake their heads he quickly added ‘
EACH
!’

They
now all looked at each other and smiled.

‘That’s more like it, Buddy
’ smiled Hank as they all went back to hand over the cup and scroll and collect their cash.

After paying them all off in American Dollars the shopkeeper then carefully stored the cup and scroll away, before politely waving them all goodbye.

‘Please, come again, Gentleman
, if you find anything else’ he smiled as he watched them all stroll off into the busy bazaar.

The moment they were out of sight he quickly cl
osed up his shop and then locked its front doors!

He then took the
metal cup containing the scroll into his back office to examine them both more closely.

He
laid the scroll out carefully as he studied its hieroglyphs with his eyeglass over his eye.

‘Oh, my God!’ he uttered as he suddenly realised he might have something of a new discovery
in his possession.

He immediately telephoned
a buyer he knew who worked at the British Museum in London.

‘BRIAN
!’ he almost shouted in his excitement ‘I’ve just discovered the most amazing find, found at the site of the Great Pyramid itself’ I swear, it’s GENUINE, Brian’ he told him almost bursting with excitement.

‘Slow down, Yaseem, tell me what you’ve found again
?’ asked his friend in London.

‘It’s a
metal cup with a scroll hidden inside it, Brian, they contain writing in ancient Hebrew’ Yaseem announced again.

‘The language of the Bible, the Old Testament by the sound of it’ nodded the Englishman. ‘It sounds like you’ve got quite a find there, Yaseem.’

‘Would you like to buy them
for the British Museum?’ the trader then enquired.

‘Well I’d love to, old b
oy, but unfortunately the British Museum has just spent the whole of this years budget on ensuring that many of our finest paintings stay in this country’ explained his English friend ‘otherwise I’d jump at the chance, definitely.’

‘I’ll have to take
them to auction then’ the shopkeeper commented sounding a little disappointed.

‘Better not, old b
oy, the Egyptian government is now coming down hard on anyone they catch selling off any of their ancient antiquities’ advised his friend.

‘I know’ replied Yaseem ‘I’ll have to go careful
’ he agreed.

‘Have you contacted the Vatican?’ asked the Englishman.

‘Pardon me, Brian?’ queried Yaseem.

‘E
ven the Egyptian government would be reluctant to challenge the Vatican on something like this, Yaseem, as the Catholic Church may lay claim to these artefacts anyway, if they truly are as old as you suspect they are’ he explained.

‘You think they would buy them
?’ queried Yaseem.

‘I’m sure they would
, Yaseem. Take down this number, it’s the telephone number of their head buyer’ explained the Englishman.

‘Thank you very much, Brian
, my good friend’ smiled Yaseem.

‘You are welcome, Yaseem’ smiled the Englishman
.

Then he paused for a moment as if in thought.

‘Tell me, Yaseem, have you been able to transla
te anything on the cup or scroll?’ he asked curiously.

‘Yes, a little, enough to know it is genuine. Sadly not enough to really read it
through though’ he explained honestly.

‘Gosh, I’d give my eye
teeth to know what it says’ laughed the Englishman ‘why it could be a whole new missing Gospel or something for all we know. Sadly, we can’t afford it in the British Museum though. These bloody cutbacks are a nuisance’ he cursed.

With that they said a warm goodbye
to each other before Yaseem immediately telephoned the number at the Vatican Brian had kindly given to him.

Soon a deal had been struck and the ancient
cup containing the scroll found its way to Cardinal Moretti’s desk as the leading expert on transcribing ancient Hebrew texts.

Cardinal Moretti had examined any number of these texts over the years with th
e vast majority turning out to be of very little significance.

This one however, proved
very different. He had never seen one hidden inside a metal cup before.

The metal cup itself had little written upon it but he quickly translated it.

‘The Prayerman’ he read out aloud.

Then he examined the scroll itself.

He immediately became very animated and called for Cardinal Greco to quickly join him.

‘What’s the matter, Cardinal Moretti, is there a problem? I was told to get to you as quickly as possible?’ Cardinal Greco inquired urgently as he rushed in to see his old friend.

‘Cardinal Greco
, you are not going to believe this, but I have just transcribed an ancient scroll brought to me today hidden inside a large metal cup. It describes a young man given the power of God himself in the year 2021!’ explained Cardinal Moretti excitedly.

‘Is this telli
ng of the second coming?’ immediately asked Cardinal Greco.

‘No, this is another man
entirely. It roughly describes him as a young man given the power of God through prayer. It calls him
The Prayerman
’ Cardinal Moretti explains as he reads from the scroll.

‘It is a hoax surely?’ queries Cardinal Greco.

‘It
is definitely no hoax’ explained Cardinal Moretti. ‘I had a small section of the document quickly carbon tested and it is as old as the bible itself. It is also written in the same ancient Hebrew dialect. This ancient document and its solid Gold container that remained hidden all these years, I believe are both 100% genuine!’ he told him excitedly.

Cardinal Greco
sat opposite his friend and now looked quite shocked as Cardinal Moretti continued to read important sections from the scroll.

‘
It continually calls this man ‘The Prayerman’ and describes how he has been sent to Earth to save the world’ explained Cardinal Moretti.

‘Save us from our sins?’ queried Cardinal Greco.

‘No, it says he
has been sent to save us from a great evil, a great evil from the stars’ explained Cardinal Moretti.

‘But what
does that mean exactly?’ queried Cardinal Greco.

‘I don’t know’ confessed Cardinal Moretti as he
just shrugged his shoulders.

Sudde
nly Cardinal Moretti’s eyes lit up.

‘
Oh no! I’ve just had a terrible thought. Do you think this man, given the power of God, could be the self same man we thought to be the Anti-Christ?’

‘No,
that’s the man in the painting, he’s quite different surely?’ suggested Cardinal Greco as he began to look quite worried.

‘But if this is the self same man, far from being the Anti-Christ as we thought, he may well have been sent here to save us instead?’ queried Cardinal Moretti.

Cardinal Greco was now visibly shaking and holding his face in horror.

‘My old friend, what’s wrong?’ queried Cardinal Moretti
as he now looked alarmed at seeing the sudden distress of his good friend.

‘
No, it
can’t
be?’ Cardinal Greco suddenly uttered ‘I’ve just ordered his destruction!’

‘YO
U’VE DONE WHAT?’ suddenly shouted Cardinal Moretti as he looked very shocked. ‘I never dreamt you’d actually really go through with this crazy idea of yours.’

‘But
, we thought he was the Anti-Christ then didn’t we?’ uttered Cardinal Greco in his defence.

‘Cardinal Greco, you may have just ordered the death of the only man who could save us! If this man is ‘The Prayerman’ as predicted to come to save us in the year 2021, then he must
not
be harmed in any way’ stated Cardinal Moretti forcefully as Cardinal Greco immediately rushed from the room.

‘ORDER
THIS MADNESS TO BE STOPPED,
IMMEDIATELY
! THAT MAN MUST
NOT
BE HARMED!’ Cardinal Moretti shouted after him.

‘I FEAR
, MY FRIEND, IT MAY ALREADY BE
TOO LATE
!’ Cardinal Greco shouted back as he continued to rush off down the corridor.

‘Then you
may well have spelt the very end of the world!’ muttered Cardinal Moretti to himself as he lowered his head as he put the palms of his hands on the desk in front of him in despair.