‘We were looking for Alexander’s tomb.’
‘But you found the settlement instead.’
‘Exactly!’ Manjani said. ‘On its own, the settlement was a very nice discovery. Not nearly as glamorous as Alexander’s tomb, but still a solid find. My students, most of whom were light in fieldwork, were absolutely elated.’
‘But not you.’
He shook his head. ‘When you’re hunting for Moby Dick, a shark won’t suffice.’
Cobb smiled. ‘Good point.’
Sarah used the moment to reenter the conversation. ‘Out of curiosity, what led you to believe that the tomb was where you were digging?’
Manjani glanced at her. ‘Are you familiar with the Bahariya Oasis in the Western Desert? It is home to a modern archaeological site known as the Valley of the Golden Mummies. Since its discovery in 1996, hundreds of bodies have been uncovered there, and I believe thousands more will be discovered — all followers of Alexander.’
Cobb connected the dots. ‘You thought the body was moved to Bahariya?’
‘It was a working theory,’ Manjani said with a shrug. ‘You see, the Temple of Alexander is located in Bahariya. It is the only such temple in all of Egypt to honor him. Although there is no tomb inside, we found several records of travelers who asked to be buried near the temple in the belief that it would bring them closer to Alexander. That might not seem like much, but these messages weren’t the scribbled notes of commoners. They were written by the personal scribes of noblemen from Egypt, Greece, Rome, and beyond. These people left their homelands to be buried in the middle of the desert, and we thought the reason was Alexander.’
‘What about now?’ Sarah wondered.
‘Now?’ he asked, confused.
‘You said the tomb’s presence in Bahariya was a working theory. I noticed that you used the past tense, was. Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose I have.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Pardon the pun, but I saw the writing on the wall.’
The look on her face said that she wasn’t amused.
‘Just hear me out,’ Manjani said as he pointed at the image frozen on the screen. ‘These three symbols of the spindle, the scroll, and the shears represent the Fates. It means that a prophecy was foretold by the oracle. This square, here, is Pandora’s box. Whatever the prophecy was, it wasn’t good news. And look here — the horned man inside the block that these people are carrying? That’s Alexander. They’re moving his tomb.’
Sarah had heard all of this before from Jasmine. ‘Right. They evacuated Alexander to a waiting ship. Isn’t that what the ram’s head on the boat means?’
Manjani shook his head. ‘In the language of the priests, the ram’s head on a man refers to Alexander. The ram’s head by itself refers to his father, Amun. The boat with the symbol of Amun simply tells us that he was directing their attention to the water. You have to understand the context to appreciate what he was trying to convey.’
She was getting impatient. ‘What did he say?’
‘It’s a warning, telling the priests to fear the water. It implores them to remove Alexander’s body from the city, because something terrible was coming from the sea. If I had to guess, I’d say it refers to the tsunami in 365 that nearly wiped out the city. Unfortunately for me, the accounts that led us to Bahariya were all written at least a hundred and fifty years before the tsunami. That means we were wrong about the Valley of the Golden Mummies because Alexander’s tomb was still in Alexandria for more than a century after the noblemen asked to be buried near the oasis.’
‘Good,’ Cobb said. ‘I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but that’s one less place that we have to check. What else does the wall say? Does it give us a location?’
‘None that I saw, but let me check again.’
Manjani fast-forwarded the video and studied the final frame of the pictograph, searching for the smallest of clues. In his excitement, he realized it would have been easy to neglect a crucial detail in the coded message about the tomb. He scanned the image slowly and methodically, looking for a symbol that would point them in the right direction, but he found nothing.
‘You’re sure this is everything? There were no other carvings on the wall?’
‘I’m positive,’ she answered. ‘I looked over every inch of the wall. And Jasmine examined it, too. That’s everything we found.’
Manjani cursed in Greek, obviously frustrated.
‘What’s missing?’ Cobb asked.
‘I don’t know — I really don’t — but something. There has to be more. There just has to be. Because this doesn’t make any sense!’
64
Manjani leaped to his feet and began to pace around the room. ‘If the priests were abandoning the city, they wouldn’t have left their message so open-ended. They would have been explicit about where they were headed next.’
‘Why?’ Sarah asked.
‘Because they didn’t have cell phones and they didn’t have e-mail, and they were expecting the city to be swallowed by the sea. This was their one and only chance to get a coded message to their followers, whether it was a priest who was stationed in Thebes or a pilgrim from a faraway land who would read the message ten years later. Keep in mind only those fluent in the priestly language would know how to read the actual message. Everyone else would look at the symbols and think that Amun had spared the priests by warning them about the flood. That alone would have kept the priests safe from harm. No one — not even the Romans — would have risked the wrath of their god by chasing after the priests. This wall bought their freedom.’
Cobb smiled. ‘Two birds, one stone. It kept the guards away, and it told the followers of Alexander where the priests were relocating to.’
‘Exactly!’ Manjani said. ‘Now all we have to do is figure out the location.’
Sarah, who had more than a little experience when it came to classified information and the acquisition of valuables, viewed things from a different perspective. ‘I concede I know next to nothing about history, but I disagree with your assessment. There’s no way in hell that I would put all of the pieces to the puzzle in one place. I mean, why put your jewels in a safe if you’re going to leave the key in the lock?’
Manjani considered her statement. ‘You raise an interesting point. Perhaps they hid the key to the safe but kept it nearby. Do you have any film of the other walls?’
Cobb shook his head. ‘Not on my phone.’
‘What kind of key are you looking for?’ she asked.
Manjani answered. ‘It could be directions, a reference to a landmark, or even the actual name of the place involved. I’m not sure exactly, but I know there’s something missing from the coded message.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘There was nothing like that further down the tunnel. The only thing I found was a series of steps that led back up toward the surface. That’s where I found the glow stick.’
‘On the steps?’
‘No, after the steps. It was in the grotto by the water.’
He nodded excitedly. ‘That’s right! You mentioned that before but we haven’t discussed it. Please tell me everything.’
Sarah glanced at Cobb, wondering how much she should reveal. A subtle nod gave her permission to continue. ‘At the end of the steps was a grotto with a number of columns that held up the ceiling. The room was connected to the sea by an underwater channel. That’s how I made it out when the bombs went off. I swam to safety.’
Manjani closed his eyes, as if he were praying while he spoke. ‘Please tell me you have video from the cave. Please.’
Sarah honestly didn’t know the answer. Her flashlight camera had been working when she looked around the cave, but she was sure that the footage was a low priority for Garcia. Their focus was the wall, not the tunnel beyond.