Keystone (34 page)

Now, Gail, ask him now
. Her idea to
contact George had been darting in and out of her mind for hours, forming and
reforming dozens of times from plausible scenarios to preposterous long-shots.
Finally, in the last few minutes and moments, it had formulated into what could
conceivably be described as a ‘plan’. She still had the memory stick in the
envelope, but now she had a shot at something far more likely to succeed. She
had one opportunity to put it into action.

“We can go to
the Library,” she started. “But we’ll need unrestricted access, with machines
and electronic equipment; that kind of thing is controlled by the Tourism and
Antiquities Police, in conjunction with the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It takes
weeks, months, sometimes even years to get that granted, with all the necessary
paperwork.”

“Unfortunately,
we don’t have that kind of time; and with al-Misri gone, I have no contacts
there,” Henry said sadly, scratching his chin.

 
Gail swigged her wine and swallowed hard;
deception wasn’t her forte, though perhaps the wine would help.

“I have an old
friend in Cairo who can get us in, bypassing all of that red tape, for a
moderate ‘donation.’” She looked over Henry’s shoulder as if in thought, before
continuing. “If you send him an email, saying you need urgent access to the
site and can be as generous as needs be, he should get that sorted. To make it
plausible, you’ll need to pretend you’re doing some research, and need to check
an inscription inside the Library.”

“Is that all I
would need to tell him?” Henry asked.

“I’ll give you
a picture from my tablet. You can attach that and say it relates to your
studies. That should do the trick easily.”

He pondered
the idea for a few moments, then nodded approvingly. “I don’t think we can
reasonably wait even several days, so if it could work and he gets us in no questions
asked, it’s got to be worth trying. Otherwise, I imagine they’ll just force
their way in. But these guys know the importance of being discrete, so they’ll
appreciate that. I’ll check it with Mallus in the morning, and we’ll get the
picture on my laptop and send the email.”

She almost
suggested they send it straight away, but stopped herself in time.
Best not to seem too eager in case it gives
me away
, she thought. Instead, she finished her wine, and offered her glass
to Henry for another refill.

Filling it up,
he caught the twinkle in her eye and smiled, wrongly assuming it was meant for
him. “What’s his name?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What was his
name? This friend of yours in Cairo?”

“Oh! Sorry, I
was miles away. His name is Farid Limam.”

He repeated
the name to himself, as if mentally writing it down.

“Yes, but he
doesn’t use the
Farid
much, only on
official documents and such. His email address uses his nickname.”

“Which is?”

She sauntered
to the bedroom, leaving the door open behind her as she came back with a pencil
and small notebook. “Just like a hotel,” she joked as she waved the pencil at
him, showing the NASA symbol along its edge. After jotting down the address,
she passed it to him and picked up her glass once more, trying to look as
relaxed as possible.

“How strange,”
he said, raising an eyebrow.

Her heart
skipped a beat. Had the unofficial-looking email address caused an alarm bell
to ring in Henry’s mind? “What’s that?” she managed to say with a smile before
taking a mouthful of wine.

“How on earth
does
Farid
give him the nickname
Ben
?” he said with a grin.

She breathed
out in relief and swallowed the warm red wine, before returning what she hoped
was an amused shrug. Internally, her mind raced as she thought of the complex
chain of events that would still have to occur for her escape to be successful:
getting the picture to Henry without it being scanned for encrypted messages,
Henry sending the email to Ben, Ben reading the email and having the presence
of mind to send it to George, George having the common sense to work out what
the hell it all meant, and then being there in Amarna at the drop of a hat,
armed with hopefully more than just a laptop and a pencil, to rescue her from
Henry, Seth Mallus, and however many henchmen they decided to bring with them
to protect their investment.

Henry looked
across the table at her, the grin still painted on his face. His eyes rested
for a fraction of a second too long over her shoulder at the door of her
bedroom, which she had forgotten to close on her way back with the pencil and
notebook.

Bugger
, she thought, coming back to the
here-and-now with a thud. Before all of those things could happen, before the
picture, the email, the unlikely common sense of her husband and the improbable
rescue in Egypt, before all of that came one little thing: making a man wait
for the second date.

Suddenly, in
comparison, the rescue in Egypt seemed like a walk in the park.

George had never seen such a
surreal change in behaviour. Once the police had finished fully searching the
car, and both himself and Ben, they lowered their guns and all broke out in
smiles. Ben was shaking the hand of a policewoman, the only female in uniform
he could see in front of the airport, who pointed to a row of parked cars behind
a now-raised barrier.

Looking to his
right, he saw the steady line of airport traffic diverted from the drop-off
point, people inside their cars looking over at them and the
tantalizingly-close entrance to the terminal. It was a miracle they were still
alive, and had not been shot on sight.

While Ben
parked the car, George was escorted to the entrance. They met at the revolving
doors, and Ben gave him a wink before saying goodbye to the woman.

“We go way
back,” he explained with a laugh. “We did our military service together!” They
entered the door and followed it round until they were spat out into the
air-conditioned foyer of the airport.

George shook
his head. “It didn’t look like you went way back before they’d checked us out a
bit, though. Doesn’t she trust you?”

“I haven’t
seen her for years, and today is a special day,” Ben explained. “We got on well
for the short time I was in the army, we keep in touch every now and then.”

“Did she just
do us a massive favour, by letting us in?”

“Yes and no.”
Ben looked up at the departures board. “I said we had to get you home, she said
the only way was to swim, I said there must be a plane, she said go and check
it out for yourself.”

George looked
at him, then up at the departures. Everything was cancelled, with the exception
of an Iberia flight to Madrid, which was boarding: it was the last flight out
of Cairo.

“I can get
that plane,” he said pointing at the departures list. “Then it’s easy to get to
America!” He started running towards the ticket office, followed closely by
Ben.

“I think I’ve
changed my mind, George,” he shouted as his friend shot off. “I mean, are you
sure you want to get on a plane today?”

Groups of
tourists with luggage strewn around them stared as they ran past.

“Sure, why
not?” George shouted back.

“Well,
because…” Ben hesitated. There were words you just didn’t say in airports.
“Because of the things that are happening out there.”

“You said so
yourself: I need to get to the US somehow, and that isn’t going to happen if I
stay here.”

He reached the
Iberia ticket desk. Slamming his passport on the desk, he took a few moments to
catch his breath before asking for a ticket to Madrid.

Behind the
desk, the two clerks looked at each other and shook their heads in unison.

“I’m sorry,
sir. There are no seats left. I can sell you a ticket for Monday; we expect
full service to resume by the morning but understandably we have a backlog of
passengers so all seats for the next two days are already taken. In the
meantime, you will have to return to your hotel, or stay in the terminal.” She
pointed to some seats behind him.

He looked
around, and realised that all the seats were taken. There were even people
sitting on the floor, some sitting on their luggage, and quite a few leaning
against the walls. Almost all of them had looked over at George and Ben, and
were now returning to their own little worlds with smiles on their faces, as if
to say
idiots, don’t they think we would
have tried that if there had been any seats left?

Seeing the
mass of people that filled the terminal, George suddenly came back to reality.
“OK,” he turned to Ben. “Looks like your policewoman-buddy was right. Do you
think it’s safe to go back to your place?”

“Probably,” he
ventured.

“First, I need
a drink, though.”

They found a
café in the far corner of the terminal building, nestled between a shop and the
outer wall of the airport. It was a small, discreet little outlet, quite some
distance from the usual hubbub of Departures and Arrivals. But today was
proving to be exceptional in many ways, and it took him ten minutes to get to
the front of the queue and order their drinks. He chose a couple of cakes, too,
and several minutes later they had settled on a large rectangular flower pot
set into the marble floor on which they could sit and contemplate their next
move.

“God, I am
starving,” George said as he munched his way through both of the chocolate
muffins he had bought.

Ben was
flicking through messages on his phone, sipping the unfamiliarly-sized ‘Grande
Cappuccino’ or whatever it was, when he suddenly gave a confused grunt.

“No way,” he
said.

George didn’t
reply, as his mouth was full of chocolate and coffee at the same time. Not
wanting to talk with his mouth so grotesquely full, he started chewing faster
to offer a reply, but Ben passed him his phone to look at instead.

On screen was
an email in English.

Dear Mr Limam,

I understand that you are responsible for
archaeological expeditions to the ancient Library of Akhetaten at Tell
el-Amarna.

While most research to date has focussed on
the texts that were found there, my main area of interest lies in the Library
itself. I am particularly interested in the attached inscriptions, and would
like to correlate this with the physical evidence on-site.

I would like to be able to access the
Library to see some of the evidence first-hand with some special equipment I
have developed. I have been led to believe that you may be able to help me with
this, without having to go through all of the ‘red-tape’ of a full excavation.
My equipment is extremely experimental, and my fear is that authorisation will
not be forthcoming.

It is vital that I am able to present some
findings to my sponsors at the end of next week; as you will appreciate, my
continued research depends on this.

I will be arriving in Amarna on Saturday
afternoon; while I know that this is very short notice, I would be very
grateful to you if you can make the necessary arrangements.

Naturally, I will ensure you are more than
compensated for any costs you may have in setting this up.

Yours Sincerely

Dr Henry Patterson

Harvard University

Department of Anthropology

George looked
up from the phone. Having swallowed his muffin and coffee, he asked Ben. “Do
you really do this sort of thing?”

Ben shook his
head. “I haven’t been near Amarna for years, since just after the dig, in fact.
I wouldn’t know how to get this guy in there to save my life!”

He took the
phone back and clicked on the picture attached to the email. Studying it
carefully for a few moments, he turned to George and raised an eyebrow. “And he
sent a load of hieroglyphs, too.”

George glanced
over and shrugged. “He’s clearly full of crap. I bet he sent this to everyone
who ever went to Amarna. It may even be from the police, trying to trap you.”
He thought for a second. “Come to think of it, it’s probably from that bastard
Kamal, trying to get some leverage on you so that you won’t talk and spill the
beans on him for what he did. He didn’t expect you to be there today, so he’s
probably desperately trying to cover his tracks now.”

Ben shook his
head slowly as he looked at the ancient writing. “Kamal doesn’t know who I am,
George. And it seems like a pretty roundabout way of doing things. I’m sure
Kamal could just silence me if he wanted to. I mean, I’m just a little guy in a
big city, and accidents happen. Besides, if he was looking to cover his tracks,
the last thing he would have done is to tell us there had been a cover up, and
on top of that leave a clue to help find your wife.” He zoomed out on the
screen and looked at all of the hieroglyphs at once, then re-read the letter
from Dr Henry Patterson.

“That is very
strange.”

“What?” George
asked.

“I’m a bit out
of touch with my ancient Egyptian, but that text, I am certain, is not from the
Library. Firstly, it refers to the god Amun, and Ipet-Isut.”

“Ipet-Isut?”

“The great
temple complex at Karnak,” Ben explained. “And secondly, it occurs to me now
that there are no engravings inside the Library, save for the cartouche of
Nefertiti and the Stickman.”

George thought
for a second then raised an eyebrow. “You’re right, come to think of it!”

“So what is
this idiot Dr Patterson from America on about? Contacting the wrong person with
the wrong hieroglyphs!”

They stared at
the screen in silence for almost a minute, before George’s eyes opened wide.
“Could it be?” he said under his breath.

“Could it be
what?”

“Forward me
that email,” George said, standing up.

Ben was about
to ask why but he had already gone, striding towards a couple of Internet
terminals.

 
“Come on,” he said over his shoulder.

Ben jumped up
and followed him, bringing his coffee with him.

By the time he
reached his friend, the Englishman had already paid for an open session with
his credit card, and was connecting to a remote computer through the Internet browser.
Seconds later, a boot screen appeared, followed shortly by a whirling logo and
a welcome dialogue, asking George to enter his password.

“Is that your
home PC?” Ben asked, obviously impressed by the speed with which George used
all the shortcuts on the keyboard and touchscreen. “Wow. You’re quick.”

George
grinned. “I have to use this stuff every day; anything that makes it quicker
has to be good. Plus, it looks cool,” he added with a wink. “Did you send me
the picture?”

Ben obliged,
forwarding the email from his mobile phone.

Seconds later,
George had extracted the image and opened it. “A little app I wrote for Gail; the
secret to all her translation skills,” he commented, tapping the side of his
nose.

Ben had seen
enough movies and TV shows to know that tapping the side of your nose implied
that they were now sharing a secret; in Egypt, however, it usually meant ‘trust
me’. The smile also suggested George was probably joking, and that there was no
real secret to be shared.
 

He tapped the
screen and a small input dialogue appeared. In it, he entered his usual
password, and an error popped up: ‘
incorrect
keyword!’
He entered all the passwords he’d used in the past, in his secret
messages with Gail, each time with the same error. He cast his mind back as far
as possible, to their first days together. Memorable places, anniversaries,
places, people.

“Jesus, Gail,
what’s the keyword?” he growled in exasperation. In response to Ben’s quizzed
expression, he explained. “I built a little cryptographic function into this app
when I wrote it,” he said. “Just a fun little tool to send each other hidden
messages. It’s called steganography. You can hide pretty much whatever you want
in an image, as long as the ratios are correct.”

Ben looked at
the picture again. “And you think this is one of those?”

“It has to be.
Have you ever been sent hieroglyphs by anyone?”

“No,” Ben
admitted.

“Then why now?
Why would anyone send you hieroglyphs now? It has to be Gail trying to get a
message to us, using this Dr Patterson and you as proxies to get hold of me.”
He hit the enter key and slammed the keyboard when the same error popped on the
screen for the twentieth time.

“Why do you
need a password?”

“It’s called a
keyword, and I need it to decrypt the message. Without it all I have is a
series of zeros and ones in no particular order. I wouldn’t know where to
start. The keyword is set when the original message is encrypted. It would be a
word that Gail would have chosen.”

“What have you
tried?”

“Everything.
Birthday’s, our pet names for each other, parents, hometown, university
friends, pets, favourite TV shows, films, towns, and I even tried Amarna, just
in case.”

“I probably
would have chosen Amarna first,” Ben commented. He thought for a moment. “Have
you tried ‘Mars’?”

George keyed
the four letters in and hit enter. The error popped up. “Yes, I have.”

Ben thought
for a few more moments then asked George for the keyboard. When he was in front
of the keys, he took a second or two to find the letters on the unfamiliar
layout, and then hit enter.

After a longer
delay, a popup informed them that the decryption had succeeded.

George looked
at Ben in wonder. “What did you type?”

“Nefertiti.”

George slapped
his forehead for not thinking of it. It had to be an archaeologist thing, he
told himself. Taking control of the computer screen once more, he tapped the
popup to open the secret message.

They both read
in silence.

Being held by DEFCOMM, Florida.
Dr Henry Patterson. Help. No chance of release. Sorry.

ILY.

G

George could
feel the emotion rising in him as Ben squeezed his shoulder. He put his hand on
the screen, touched the words, caressed the initial of her name, and pressed
the ‘
ILY
’ fondly.
She isn’t dead
, he thought.
She hasn’t been dead
. His mind raced
back to the body identification he had been taken through back in the morgue,
when he had punched Captain Kamal. Had it been Gail? Had he been so close to
his wife, still breathing imperceptibly, and not known the truth?

He punched the
screen, liquid crystals changing colour grotesquely as they gave way under his
fist. “I could have stopped him!” he blurted out. “Bastard!”