“So what’s the bee in his bonnet?”
“If you read the Newsweek profile you know who his grandfather was.”
“Some kind of big-time evangelist from the twenties.”
“Schuyler Grand. ’The Grand Army of God’s Final Hour of Redemption.’ They’ve written books about him. California’s first radio evangelist. The ABN, Angel Broadcasting Network. Made millions and invested it all in orange groves and made millions more. Then he lost his radio license because everyone was saying he was secretly a Nazi. Committed suicide on the morning of Pearl Harbor. Adamson’s tried to whitewash his reputation for years. Clear his name, resurrect his theories.”
“What does that have to do with the dig?”
“Among other things, Schuyler Grand was an amateur archaeologist. He believed all the pseudo-science the Nazis were spouting about master races, and he mixed it up with all sorts of other things, including the Holy Grail. His big pitch was that one of Christ’s disciples carried the Grail to America.”
“From what I was told we were digging up the remains of an old Coptic monastery at the Al-Kufrah oasis.”
“We are. The Italians dug there in the late thirties. A guy named Lucio Pedrazzi. They were looking for the monastery too.”
Finn smiled. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Officially this is a dig at a Coptic monastery. But I know for a fact Lucio Pedrazzi was digging for the tomb of a specific Coptic monk. A man named Didymus. In both Hebrew and Greek it means the same thing-‘the twin.’ Better known as Thomas the Apostle, or Doubting Thomas. Apparently Pedrazzi had evidence that after the Crucifixion Thomas went west, into the desert, rather than east, to India.”
“It sounds like an Indiana Jones story.”
“Pedrazzi was working for Mussolini’s Italian Archaeology Mission in Libya. There’s another story that says the monk in question wasn’t Thomas at all. It was Christ himself, mysteriously disappeared from his own tomb with the help of a Roman legionary. Pedrazzi was trying to prove that the Roman legionary was part of the so-called Lost Legion. When Christ actually died years later the legion were in charge of his bones. They took them to some sort of lost city in the desert. According to Mussolini that gave him some sort of leverage with the Vatican. Crazy stuff. Pedrazzi disappeared in the middle of a sandstorm and was never seen again.”
Finn looked skeptical. “I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Rolf Adamson.”
“Supposedly the legionary finally took the bones to America for safekeeping, which fits in with even more pseudoscientific stuff about ancient pyramids in Kansas and Egyptian galleys rowing down the Mississippi-after all, your average savage red Indian couldn’t have built all those huge burial mounds, now could he? Racist horse crap, but lots of people believe it.”
“And you think Adamson does?”
“I think Adamson’s paying the freight. I’m a pragmatist. Jobs are scarce.” He paused and took another sip of wine. He put down his glass and leaned against the back of the booth. “What about you?”
“Like you said, jobs are scarce.” She fiddled with her own glass. “Besides, an adventure is an adventure.”
“Which you seem to be in favor of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t be bashful. How many Finn Ryans, daughter of renowned archaeologist Lyman Andrew Ryan, are there? You were all over the papers last year with that caper of yours under the streets of New York.”
“It wasn’t just me.”
“No, it was you, the bastard son of a Pope of Rome, and the grandson of Mickey Hearts, your bigger-than-average New York mobster from the good old days. Not to mention a broad assortment of dead bodies and about a billion dollars’ worth of looted art. And now you turn up here. Speaking of which, how exactly did you get the job?”
“I was recommended.”
“By the young Mickey Hearts?”
Finn bristled. “His name is Michael Valentine and he’s a book dealer, not a mobster. There is no mob anymore.”
Hilts laughed. “Who told you that, your Mr. Valentine?” He shook his head. “You know that old story about the Devil-that the smartest thing he ever did was convince the world that he didn’t exist? Pretty slick. Everybody talks about the Russians and the Japanese and the Hong Kong Triads but nobody talks about the Mafia anymore.”
Finn was about to continue the argument but then saw the twinkle in Hilts’s eye. “You’re teasing me.”
“Not really. Michael’s a friend of mine too. He asked me to look out for you. He’s not too happy about some of the people Rolf’s involved with.”
“You know Michael?” She could feel herself getting angry. She and Michael had briefly been lovers, but she didn’t like the feeling that she was being patronized.
“We’ve done each other a few favors.”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Mr. Hilts.”
“I don’t intend to be one, Ms. Ryan. Michael just asked me to watch your back, that’s all.”
“I don’t need that either.”
“The desert’s a big place, Finn. I could use a friend on this expedition myself.” He held a hand out across the table. “Peace?”
Finn hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. She valued her independence, but she’d also learned the hard lesson that there was sometimes strength in numbers. A friend in a strange land like this couldn’t do any harm. She shook the offered hand. “Peace.” She went back to her salad for a moment as Hilts finished his meal. “So when do we meet our benefactor?”
“He’s already on-site. We’re waiting for a late addition to the group and then I fly us out to Al-Kufrah the day after tomorrow.”
“Who’s the mystery guest?”
“A Frenchman named Laval. He’s a specialist in Coptic inscriptions from l’Йcole Biblique in Jerusalem.”
“A priest?”
“A monk.”
“Could be interesting.”
“Could be very interesting,” said Hilts. “There was a monk from the same school on Pedrazzi’s expedition back in the thirties. A man named DeVaux. He was with Pedrazzi when he disappeared. Maybe this guy Laval is interested in more than just scrawls on a wall.”
Finn laughed. “How do you know all this stuff?”
“I like to know who I’m working with and I’ve got a lot of time to read on long flights.” He cocked an eyebrow. “And I’m also an amateur conspiracy theorist. Show me a mystery and I’ll connect it to the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa and the Kennedy assassination.”
“When does the mystery monk arrive?”
“Late tomorrow night.”
“I guess I can play tourist for one day.”
“I’m doing a photostory for National Geographic Traveler. Why don’t you come along?”
“Where are you going?”
“The City of the Dead. The liveliest cemetery in the world. You’ll love it.”
4
In the immense, ancient, and melodramatic sprawl that is the city of Cairo, there are five major cemeteries that were once located on the eastern edges of the city beneath the Muqattam Hills, but which had been absorbed by the ever-growing metropolis many years before. In the old way, in a time when the family of the departed would mourn beside the grave for forty days and nights, the tombs for even the most modestly endowed were provided with small shelters for the living, while great mosques and death houses were built by the rich and the important. Streets and alleys between and around the graves and monuments appeared, and eventually the five cemeteries beneath the hills became known as the City of the Dead. In the second half of the twentieth century overcrowding, immense poverty, and a population that grew by a thousand a day forced the living into the confines of the dead. Over the years a city within a city grew until the cemeteries were occupied by more than a million desperate souls, all of them surviving without heat, electricity, or sanitation.
It was Friday, the Muslim holy day, and the streets of Cairo were almost empty of traffic, a nearly miraculous change from Finn’s arrival. She waited under the shaded entrance to the hotel, looking out across the square. On the left was the old Museum of Antiquities, already under siege by the occupants of a dozen tour busses parked out front. To the right was the sand-colored slab of the Arab League headquarters, and directly across the square was the entrance to the Cairo Bus Station.