No Living Soul Read online

  Slash ran his gloved fingers gently across the wood. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It really is. Do you think it’s Moses’s staff?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “What are those markings down there?” I asked shining the flashlight closer.

  “Egyptian hieroglyphics.” He pointed to the lower part of the staff. “This is Hebrew writing down here.”

  I pointed my finger at some shapes. “That must be where it says ‘I am that I am’ in Hebrew. Just like Arthur said it would.”

  He looked at it and nodded. “It does make a compelling case for this being the true staff.”

  I leaned over, resting my chin on his shoulder.

  “So, what do you think those dots are for?” I pointed at the spots where there were small clusters of dots.

  He examined them for a moment. “I’m not sure, but I think they are significant. I’m going to see if the top will come off.” He gently turned the rounded knob. It rotated, but didn’t come off.

  “Interesting,” he murmured. “Several sections of the staff rotate at both the top and bottom. He slid his fingers down to flat bottom. “This must be where Arthur found the plague endospores.”

  I leaned against him. “I can see the Hebrew markings and the line around the bottom. Look, the lid isn’t even on tight. Arthur didn’t put it back on very well. Sloppy.”

  “Agreed.”

  Slash gently eased off the lid and I shone the flashlight into the small cavity. It was empty.

  “So, Arthur was able to open that end, but he had no idea how to crack the end with the dots at the top,” I observed. “It must be a different puzzle to crack in order to retrieve the antidote, provided one actually exists.”

  “It’s definitely a puzzle.” Slash returned the lid to the staff and then ran his fingers over the dots on the other side. “I’m not sure how to start looking for a pattern.”

  “Maybe it would help if we could determine the purpose of the rotation.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Slash began rotating the section closest to the top. “My guess is it’s some kind of ancient combination lock. I think we have to line up these figures and writing just right.”

  I leaned over, nearly putting my nose to the staff to get a better look. “You did notice that the top panel are hieroglyphics of pyramids, right? When you rotate them, you get a different configuration of how the pyramids are laid out.”

  “Giza,” Slash said. “There are this exact number of pyramids at Giza.”

  “Minus the Sphinx.”

  “The Sphinx isn’t a pyramid. But that’s an interesting angle, cara.”

  We studied the markings for a bit more until Slash’s watch suddenly beeped. “Time for the rendezvous.”

  We stood and walked back to the sidewalk. After going a few blocks, we stopped in front of an outdoor café that was closed for the night. He pointed to a chair and table. “Stay here. Give me five minutes. If something happens and I don’t return, take the staff and get to the American Embassy as quickly as you can. Tell them everything.” He handed me the staff and rattled off an address.

  I grabbed his arm. “Wait. What? You think something is going to happen at the rendezvous?”

  “No, I don’t. I’m going to be too careful for that. But I’m giving you a contingency plan, just in case. Be careful, cara. Look at the time.” I glanced at my watch. “It’s three forty-two. Five minutes. Mark.”

  Giving me a quick kiss on the cheek, he melted into the shadows. I watched him go, my mouth open. I hadn’t expected to be separated from Slash and left alone with the staff.

  Oh. My. God. Literally.

  I looked down at the rod. No pressure at all.

  Since my legs were shaky, I sank into the chair and waited. My pulse was kicking. I sincerely hoped I didn’t see anyone.

  I glanced at my watch. Wow. A whole thirty seconds had passed.

  A couple more minutes passed. My hands gripped the rod so tightly I was pretty sure the blood wasn’t flowing to my fingers. I wanted to relax, but I felt hyper alert and kept searching for anyone, or anything, lurking in the shadows ready to leap out at me.

  I had just started to relax a fraction when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I yelped and jumped up, wielding the staff like it was a weapon.

  Slash stood there, amused. “Good reflexes.”

  “Slash. Jeez. You scared the beejeebies out of me.”

  “I’m sorry, cara. I had to make sure you were alone.” He put an arm around me, pulling me to his side.

  I closed my eyes, willing my heart to get back to its normal rhythm. “Where are Gwen and Zizi?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see either of them at the rendezvous and I didn’t get the right feeling. We won’t be going back.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t get the right feeling? Did they capture Gwen?”

  “I don’t know. I simply didn’t get a good feeling about the site. That’s it.”

  “But Gwen...the plague...the website. What are we going to do?”

  He stroked my cheek. “We can’t do anything about Gwen right now. If she’s in custody, we’ll have to sort it out later. I assure you, we will. On the other hand, if Zizi has her out safely and we don’t show for the rendezvous, Gwen knows to wait three hours and go to the hotel. If the guys with Arthur’s laptop have logged in by then, we can be sure Elvis will be tracking them and doing whatever he can to stop them from uploading the plague to the website.”

  “He can’t stop them once they break through, though. You know that.”

  “I know. But he’ll do whatever he can to slow them down. He’s good and we have to trust him. Us being there wouldn’t change any of that.”

  “They are going to be so worried about us.”

  “They will. But they’ll have to trust us to do the best we can.”

  I looked at the staff in my hands and took several calming breaths. Slash was right. We could only control our own movements at this point. “So, what do we do now?”

  “We go somewhere private.”

  “Where? We can’t use our passports. We don’t even have our passports.”

  “Money speaks volumes. I’ll find us a place. Come on.”

  We walked past several small hotels and hostels, but all looked dark and closed up. Finally, we came upon one that appeared to be open 24/7.

  “Wait here,” he instructed and then disappeared into the building.

  I leaned against the building wall, looking in through the glass in the door as Slash spoke with a man behind a desk. After a few minutes, Slash came back out holding a silver key between his fingers.

  “You got a room?”

  “Yes. We’ve got two hours.”

  “Two hours? How did you pull that off?”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “I said I needed a couple hours alone with my woman. I promised we’d be out before morning. I paid him well enough that he graciously agreed.”

  “Oh, jeez.” I couldn’t help it, I blushed. “He agreed to it without asking for our passports?”

  “Si. This is between him, me and a roll of cash. We’re good. Come on.”

  He angled me behind him, so we mostly hid the staff as we walked in through the lobby and down a dark corridor to a room with the number six on it. It wasn’t necessary as there was no one awake, but Slash wasn’t taking any chances. He inserted the key to the room and turned the knob. It opened and we stepped into the room, closing the door behind us.

  Slash flicked the ceiling light on. It was a dark and dismal room that smelled of food and unusual spices. There was a single bed, a dresser and a nightstand that held a lamp with a faded shade. A small bathroom with a toilet and small sink was t
o the right. No shower. Slash set the staff on the bed, turned on the light in the bathroom, then picked up a desk lamp that was on the nightstand near the bed. He removed the shade, which gave us more light, then set it down on the bed next to the staff.

  “Let’s take a better look. See if you can find some paper.”

  I checked in the dresser drawers but came up empty. The nightstand had two pencils and a pen, but no paper. I went into the bathroom and since I was there, used the facilities. I came out with a roll of toilet paper. It wasn’t soft and mushy like American toilet paper, but firmer. I could speak with firsthand experience that it was a lot less comfortable. It wasn’t ideal in terms of writing material, but it was sturdy enough that it would work.

  Slash raised an eyebrow when I handed him a roll, but he tore off a piece without comment and placed it on the nightstand where the lamp had been.

  “I think the key has to be in these dots,” he said. “Let’s see if we can determine a pattern to them.”

  “This would be a lot easier if we had our laptops,” I said.

  “It would. But since we don’t, we’ll have to use the old-fashioned hard drive—our brains.”

  I sat down next to him on the bed. “Okay, then let’s take a look at what happens to the dots when we rotate the staff.”

  Slash did a full rotation while I carefully sketched the pattern of the dots. After we had gone one rotation, I looked at the dot configurations to see if anything jumped out at me. It didn’t.

  I handed it to Slash. “I’ve got nothing.”

  He looked at it and then shook his head. “Of course, not. It wouldn’t be that easy.”

  “It never is. Why can’t saving the world be easy for once? It’s totally unfair.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  We sketched, calculated, tried to discern patterns. After an hour, we had exactly nothing. I pushed my hand against my forehead in frustration. “It isn’t working.”

  Slash tapped his pencil against the nightstand where he had his notes. I leaned over to read what he was doing and noticed he no longer focused on the dots.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Something you mentioned earlier at the park about the placement of the pyramids is bugging me. The placement seems significant. Watch. When I rotate the staff, their configuration changes.” He demonstrated by rotating the staff an entire circulation. The pyramids changed positions. During one rotation, I noticed a small hieroglyphic showed up beneath one of the pyramids.

  “What’s that?” I asked, tapping my finger next to it.

  Slash picked up the lamp and angled it closer to the staff for a better look. “I think it’s the Egyptian Sun God Ra.”

  I squinted at the picture. “Is that supposed to be the sun next to him?”

  “I think so, thus my conclusion that it’s the Sun God.”

  “Are there any other pictures of Ra on the staff?”

  “Excellent question. I don’t know.” Slash marked a spot in the center of the staff. “You take that end and I’ll take this one. Let’s see what we find.”

  We each examined our sections of the staff, but came up empty.

  “Okay, so there’s the only one. Think it’s significant?”

  “It might be.” I examined the hieroglyph again. “It’s smaller than the other pictures and it’s placed oddly. It’s the only hieroglyphic at this end of the staff. That alone implies it’s important.”

  “Agreed. But what does it signify?”

  Something was tugging at my mind, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. “You said earlier there are the same number of pyramids on the staff as there are at Giza.”

  “Exactly.” I pressed my hand to my forehead. It was hard to keep my focus on the matter at hand when there was so much to worry about. Gwen, Elvis, the plague, Arthur, Zizi, and the jihadists.

  Had the museum noticed the staff was missing yet?

  Were the police looking for us?

  Had Zizi turned us all in?

  What could be happening with any one of those things was cause for enormous stress, let alone all of them together. I stole a sideways glance at Slash. How did he compartmentalize everything so easily? It seemed effortless for him, but I knew better. It must take a toll. What had he said to me earlier? We had to focus on what we could control and do what was needed operationally in the moment.

  Everything else had to wait.

  He was right, but it seemed a heck of a lot easier said than done. A wicked headache was already brewing behind my eyes.

  I focused on the staff. There were multiple configurations of the pyramids. A small hieroglyphic of Ra the Sun God under one of them. In sum, what did it mean?

  My eyes flew open. “Slash, what if these pyramids actually represent the ones at Giza?”

  “That would be logical. I considered that, but what would be the significance?”

  “Well, it might be why the configurations are different when you rotate the staff.”

  Slash shook his head. “I’m not following you.”

  “Direction. The configurations look different depending upon what direction you are facing them. So, say we’re standing to the west of the pyramids, the configuration will look differently than if we’re standing and viewing them from the north.”

  Slash’s eyes lit. “That’s good thinking, cara. If that’s true, how are we to know which view is the right one in order to line up the configuration properly?”

  “Ra. The Sun God.”

  Slash snapped his fingers. “South. He’s facing the sun. So, we have to see the pyramids as they look from a southern view and then line it up the same way on the staff. That might be the first part of the combination. Perceptive, cara. But what about the dots? We must figure out what they represent.”

  “I don’t know, Slash. Maybe when we look at the south view, something will present itself. It’s worth a shot.”

  “It certainly is.” Slash stood, held out a hand to me. “You know there’s only one way to find out.”

  “Yep.” I took his hand and rose from the bed. “We go to the pyramids.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  After a short walk from the hostel we managed to catch a cab. Since Cairo is a big city, there was no shortage, regardless of the hour. Giza was thirteen miles from Cairo and, thankfully, the roads were mostly empty.

  Fortunately, the cab driver didn’t ask why a couple of foreigners—one of them carrying a six-foot staff—were catching a cab in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, the mostly deserted streets didn’t stop him from driving like a maniac. I closed my eyes, sat near an open window in case my stomach revolted, and hoped for the best.

  The night air was hot and arid, making it hard to draw in a deep breath. Within two minutes of being outside, I was thoroughly sweating.

  Slash sat up front, saying something to the driver. When we stopped, I opened my eyes. I was surprised to see the cab driver had halted alongside the curb of a quiet neighborhood of tall apartment buildings. I thought perhaps the driver was checking a map or something, but Slash looked over his shoulder at me in the backseat and motioned for me to get out.

  “This is our stop.”

  I wondered why this was our stop, but I dutifully climbed out of the cab holding the staff. Slash paid the driver and the cab sped away.

  I looked around. This neighborhood didn’t look like the best part of town, especially in the dark, but Slash didn’t seem worried. He took my elbow, directing me down a street, confident in our direction.

  “Why exactly did he drop us here?” I asked.

  “It’s on the south side of town. The pyramids are less than a mile in that direction. I didn’t want to let him know exactly where we were going.”

  “Okay, understood.” Our footste
ps echoed loudly on the streets as we walked. Glancing around, I saw a couple of lights coming on in a few apartments. I looked at my watch and realized we were nearer to dawn than I expected. I adjusted the staff in my hands.

  “We’d better hurry,” I said.

  “Agreed. Walk briskly.”

  Haste was important. It was one thing to be walking around with a staff in the dark, but it was much more dangerous in the daylight, especially if the theft had been noticed by the museum.

  We walked behind an apartment complex and onto the base of a hill. A small row of trees screened us from the building behind us, so we continued walking up the hill climbing until we hit the top of the small rise.

  I gasped in surprise at the sight that greeted me. Although I had seen numerous photographs, pictures, and documentaries of the great pyramids I was not prepared for the spectacle and majesty of seeing it in person. The view was far grander than I’d ever expected. They were situated on a flat plateau, surrounded by tombs and stones and other small pyramids that were falling into disarray. Amid all of this, the Sphinx rose proudly into the desert sky, its body partially buried in the sand. The sheer stateliness and splendor of that monument alone commanded respect and was breathtaking in its own right.

  The pyramids and Sphinx were still lit up by artificial lights, but those were muted by the faintest hint of dawn on the horizon. Although every second of time was precious, we could not move, both of us utterly riveted by one of the most incredible sights in the world.

  “It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

  Slash put an arm around my shoulder and we stood there for a few minutes staring at the exceptional sight. It seemed surreal, yet I felt blessed to be viewing the pyramids with my boyfriend while possibly holding the same staff Moses had once wielded to part the Red Sea.

  “The view is extraordinary,” Slash murmured. “The pyramids, the Sphinx, they are unparalleled mathematical masterpieces born of exceptional human effort and ingenuity.”

  I liked that his thoughts mirrored mine exactly. The finished product was remarkable, but my mind lingered on all of the breathtakingly hard work that had been done by the engineers and the excruciating cost in lives when the pyramids had finally been raised and finished. While they were truly fantastic examples of engineering precision, technical innovation and pure genius, the human cost of creating such lasting monuments was inestimable.