The Moses Legacy (29 page)

‘What the hell do you think you were playing at?'

Dov Shamir had flown in from Herzliya by helicopter and asked Sarit to join him there so that he could talk with her in private. It wasn't every day that someone was murdered in the National Library or that a helicopter landed in the grounds of the Hebrew University, so the whole scene had already attracted a certain amount of attention.

When he had first arrived in the lab, he had found Sarit looking remarkably calm considering what she had just been through. She had been about to throw her arms around him, but he gave her a look that warned her off; he didn't want their romance becoming any more public than it was already. There was a certain amount of whispering about it in Mossad – that was in the nature of things where female officers were concerned and even non-existent romances assumed the aura of reality in the tight-knit world of intelligence – but he wanted to keep a lid on it as far as possible.

‘I'd like to speak to her alone,' Dov had said to the senior police officer at the scene, flashing his ID in time with the request.

‘Of course.' The officer signalled the other police there to let them leave unhindered. Only once they were inside the
helicopter, where they had complete privacy, did Dov give vent to the full force of his anger… and his concern.

‘After you told me about Aryeh Tsedaka, I figured he'd come here.'

‘
Who
, Sarit? Figured
who'd
come here?'

‘Whoever killed Tsedaka.'

‘And I told you that was the business of the General Security Services, not Mossad.'

‘Not any more it isn't. They've gone to Petra.'

‘What are you talking about?'

She explained about the body and the message that the high priest had left for them, written in his own blood.

‘That still doesn't explain why you came here in the first place.'

‘I was worried that we were going to lose them. I guess I feel bad because I cocked up in Egypt. I wanted to make up for it.'

‘And it didn't occur to you that stepping on the toes of GSS out here might cock it up even more?'

‘If I'd seen any sign of GSS I'd've backed off, but I didn't. Look, it seems to me that GSS aren't exactly on top of the situation.'

He didn't like the way she had turned the tables on him like that. But what she had said was true.

‘The fact is, now that we've got ourselves involved, it gives them leverage for blaming us.'

‘Is that what this is about, Dovi? Inter-service fucking rivalry?'

‘It's politics, Sarit. Something you have the luxury of not having to deal with!'

‘All right. Look, I'm sorry I jumped the gun and didn't tell you what I was doing. But the fact is it's a whole different ball game now. He's gone to Petra and he's got two hostages with him.'

‘I know that. I'll get on to our contacts in Amman.'

‘Why don't you send me out there? To work with them?'

‘Look, Sarit, I'm not going to send you to Jordan, okay? That's final! We've got a liaison office out there to deal with that. I can't send unauthorized officers without clearance from the Jordanian government – not after some of the other cock-ups we've had in that area.'

‘So get authorization. Tell them it's an emergency – for them as well as us.'

‘I can't do that, Sarit,' he said, his tone almost apologetic.

‘Why not?'

‘Because you're suspended.'

‘Suspended?'

‘Yes, suspended. I don't even want to see you in the office! God knows how I'm going to clear up this mess.'

He looked at her, wondering what her reaction was going to be.

‘So what am I supposed to do? Just sit around doing nothing?'

‘You're due for some leave anyway. Why don't you spend some time at that kibbutz in the Galilee? The one where they have that great fish restaurant you're always going on about?'

‘I can't just sit around. I need some excitement.'

‘I'd've thought you've had enough of that for a lifetime.'

‘I guess it's like what we call the hair of the dog. The only cure for too much excitement is
more
excitement.'

‘Then have an adventure holiday. Do some paragliding in Tel Aviv.'

‘It's too humid on the Med.'

‘Well, stay in Jerusalem.'

‘I just said I wanted some excitement and you want me to sit out my vacation in the most boring city in Israel?'

He looked at her with a brotherly smile. ‘Are you trying to be difficult?'

‘Not really. I'm just trying to say I feel like doing some scuba diving in Eilat.'

‘Well, at least we've found something to occupy your time,' he said with a sense of relief.

‘Not to mention all the excitement of driving through Palestinian territory and army checkpoints.'

Something in the way she said this alerted Dov.

‘You know… I'm not sure if I can trust you.'

‘What – to go to Eilat? You can if you fly me there in that chopper.'

‘I think I might just do that.'

 

An hour and a quarter later, the helicopter landed in Eilat at the north end of the airport. Dov saw Sarit into a waiting taxi which would take her to the hotels that were all grouped around the lagoon and the beach. Then he had the helicopter refuelled and took off for Herzliya.

From inside the taxi, Sarit watched the helicopter vanish into the distance before jumping out, apologizing to the taxi driver and dashing to the main building to hire a car with four-wheel drive.

Then she drove to the Yitzhak Rabin terminal on the Israeli side of the border, presented her Irish passport and passed through the Wadi Araba, crossing into Jordan as Siobhan Stewart.

From there, she proceeded north to Petra.

‘We shouldn't be doing this,' said Daniel, still in a daze from what had happened as he sat in the driver's seat of the car outside the visitor centre.

‘Doing what?'

‘Running away. If they find Sheikh Ibrahim's body back in that cave—'

‘They
won't
find it. At least not for a long time.'

‘We can't just leave him there. His family has a right to know… to give him a decent burial—'

‘Okay, but we need to buy some time.'

‘For what? At the moment we're just wasting time.'

His heart was still pounding, after both the events at the cave and the long trek back.

‘Well, I for one would like to know what's in
The Book of the Wars of the Lord
.'

And with that she took the tablets out of the carrier bag and put them on the space between the seats.

‘We can hardly go through it here.'

‘Why not?'

‘Well, how long is it?'

‘There are five tablets.'

She picked up the first of them.

‘What's the hurry?' he asked irritably. ‘Why don't we just take it back to Israel?'

‘And what if we're searched and they catch us trying to smuggle historical artefacts out of Jordan? I don't know how this is going to pan out, but if we're arrested now, there's a chance that we may never see these tablets again. Now I don't know about you, but if these tablets were written by the hand of the biblical Moses, then I want to see them translated.'

‘Then maybe we should just turn it in to the authorities here.'

‘And never see it again? Remember what Ibrahim said about those bones. They took them to the university and wouldn't talk about them after that.'

Daniel realized she was right. This was a piece of ancient history they held in their hands. And there was no guarantee that they would get another chance like this.

‘Okay.'

Gabrielle breathed a sigh of relief as Daniel put a large, illustrated guidebook on his lap and then placed the first of the tablets on it. He raised one knee to tilt the tablet slightly to catch the light better and then studied the script.

‘Can you read it?' she asked.

‘Barely.'

‘Wait a minute,' he said, breaking off. ‘Can you work out from that who the author might have been?'

Gabrielle gave this a few moments' thought.

‘Let's see. He refers to Sethi as his
brother
. Now there were a number of people called Sethi,' she said ponderously. ‘But he
also
calls him the son of Mernepteh! That's the one who
wrote the famous Mernepteh stele that we saw at the museum back in Cairo. So that would make his son Sethi the
Second
. And that means that this was written by someone called Amenmesse who may or may not have been Sethi the Second's brother but who was certainly involved in a power struggle with Sethi the Second.'

‘Is there any evidence that this Amenmesse had a Jewish wet nurse?'

‘There's no record of it. But then again, not much is known about him at all. It certainly wouldn't have been impossible by any means.'

‘I was just thinking about the story of Moses,' said Daniel. ‘After his mother hid him in the bulrushes and he was found by Pharaoh's daughter, his real mother came forward and offered to be his wet nurse.'

‘Then this reference to her other son being more like a brother than Sethi…' She trailed off.

‘Could be a reference to Moses' brother Aaron.'

‘Go on,' she prompted.

They looked at each other, astonished.

‘The slaying of the firstborn son,' she said. ‘Just like on that papyrus that was found at the same site as the Mernepteh stele.'

‘Not quite,' said Daniel. ‘The slaying of the firstborn
Egyptian
son was the last of the ten plagues. However, this refers to Pharaoh's decree that all the male
Israelite
babies be put to death – hence the incident with Moses being hidden in the bulrushes. But of course there is an approximate symmetry between the two events and also, I guess, a certain poetic irony.'

‘So it could be that this one event was the
source material
for both those biblical legends?'

‘I suppose. But does this fit the
Egyptian
record?'

‘Only that papyrus Mansoor showed us, which was written in Proto-Sinaitic. There's nothing specific in the annals to confirm it, but that doesn't rule it out. If you take the line in the Mernepteh stele about “Israel is laid waste, nought of seed” and combine it with the papyrus and now this, then I suppose it counts as a record. How does it continue?'

Daniel read aloud.

‘Papyrus Salt 124!' Gabrielle blurted out, letting the excitement get the better of her academic reserve.

‘What's that?'

‘Remember what we talked about when you were released on bail after my visit to the British Museum? The Place of Truth is the village where the artisans and craftsmen who worked in the necropolis lived.'

‘I remember, but what has—'

‘Wait! Let me explain. Henry Salt was a contemporary of William John Bankes. He was one of that whole crowd
of Victorian British explorers and adventurers from the great age of Empire who travelled to Egypt and the Middle East in search of the treasures of the ancient world. He was a wealthy man and during the course of his travels he acquired a papyrus now known as Papyrus Salt 124. It was one of a number of papyri that he donated to the British Museum.'

‘And what made you think of that just now?'

‘Because that's what this is about! It refers to the same events.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘The papyrus consists of a complaint by the brother of someone called Neferhotep. Neferhotep was the works foreman for the necropolis. And the complaint is mainly against someone called Paneb, but also partly against someone called Mossy or Mussi.'

‘And who were they?'

‘Paneb was Neferhotep's adopted son. Mossy or Mussi was someone in a position of authority who took Paneb's side when the case against Paneb was brought to judgement. And Mossy or Mussi also appears to be the author of this text.'

‘But I thought you said that the man who wrote this text was called Amenmesse.'

‘Yes, but there has long been speculation and debate as to whether Amenmesse and Mossy were one and the same. And the problem is compounded by the almost biblical use of ambiguous pronouns.'

‘So wait a minute – what exactly happened? I mean, who judged who and what was the outcome?'

‘That's what I'm trying to explain. The complaint makes all manner of accusations, some of them quite possibly exaggerated. It starts off by saying that Neferhotep, the complainant's brother, was killed by some unspecified “enemy” – a term usually reserved for a traitor to Egypt. Then it says that Paneb
usurped his role as works foreman by bribing a corrupt vizier with five of the late Neferhotep's own slaves. But the complaint also goes on to list all manner of other crimes allegedly committed by Paneb
during Neferhotep's lifetime
, including stealing from the necropolis, threatening to kill Neferhotep, beating up nine guards that Neferhotep set to guard him by night and various rapes of both women and boys.'

Daniel was puzzled by this account. ‘So why didn't Neferhotep bring the complaint himself? Before he was killed by this “enemy”, I mean?'

‘Well, first of all, like I said, there may be an element of exaggeration in the complaint itself. But secondly, Neferhotep
did
bring a complaint against Paneb to the vizier – not the corrupt vizier, but his honest predecessor. According to the papyrus, the vizier who heard the complaint
upheld
the claims and ordered that Paneb be flogged for his crimes. But Paneb then appealed the ruling and the appeal came before this Mossy or Mussi.'

‘And who was this Mossy or Mussi?' asked Daniel.

‘We don't know who he was. But one thing we can be sure of is that he must have been someone of high enough rank to veto the local vizier. One suggestion is that it was Amenmesse who ruled part of Egypt during his power struggle with Sethi the Second. Another is that it was someone called Messuwy, who had previously been the pharaoh's viceroy in Nubia. Yet another theory is that they were one and the same – although there is some vigorous debate about this.'

‘Well, from what you've said, Gaby, this text suggests that it was Amenmesse.'

‘Yes, but the name Mossy sounds like Messuwy. So taken as a whole it could also be interpreted as meaning that they
were
one and the same. Anyway, go on!'

Daniel turned to the second tablet, which lay between
them on top of the remaining two. He switched on the car light to illuminate it better and continued reading.

‘Wadi el-hol!' said Gabrielle.

The name sounded familiar to Daniel. ‘The place where they found an early sample of the ancient script?'

‘Yes! Remember… it's only twenty miles from the workers' village. He must have run away when he realized that the pharaoh was after him.'

Suddenly Daniel found himself gripped by the excitement of a profound realization. ‘Then this phrase “appeared to me in fire” must be a reference to the burning bush… the burning bush which
Moses
saw after he ran away from…'

‘What?' asked Gabrielle.

‘After he
killed the Egyptian taskmaster who was beating an Israelite slave
!'

‘Holy shit!' said Gabrielle. ‘It really happened… maybe not quite the way the Bible described it, but it really happened.'

There were tears in Daniel's eyes.

‘And Mossy must have been…'

‘Moses,' Gabrielle muttered, barely able to raise her voice above a whisper.