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.