Death of a Pharaoh Read online

  Death of a Pharaoh

  by Gary Bedell

  First book in the trilogy

  The End of All Reigns

  Text copyright

  © 2014 Gary Bedell

  All Rights Reserved

  Dedication

  To my late father, Roy,

  my eternal hero. He left me

  far too soon. Seven years ago,

  I survived the same cancer

  that took his life. I live every

  blessed day for the both of us.

  As I grow older, friendship

  becomes my greatest joy.

  The unconditional love and

  generosity of spirit of my best

  friend, Estanis, make everything

  seem possible. Thank you, my dear

  friend, for never giving up on me.

  To you Jamón, I owe the endless

  gratitude of a rescued soul.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  In the tremulous light of a single oil lamp, the four men neared completion of the painstaking task of wrapping the body with long strips of linen. They labored in reverent silence, beads of sweat glistening on their foreheads. The entire process, beginning with the removal of the organs, had consumed seven precious hours due to the cramped conditions in the tomb. Far too long, but the circumstances left them no choice. The sensitive nature of the mission forced them to work out of sight. Only the Gods could be their witnesses this night.

  “We have finished, my Lord,” Ahmose announced as he secured the last binding.

  Rahotep shook his head at the less than perfect result of their efforts. The shield of darkness afforded too little time but it would have to do until they arrived back in Egypt where he could complete the job with fresh linen and resins. He removed a gold amulet in the shape of a falcon from his leather pouch and tucked it between two folds. "May Horus protect you, my Lord Pharaoh, on your journey to the Field of Reeds," he intoned.

  As a final step, they enfolded the mummy in a large shroud and secured it with a hemp cord tied around the ankles and the neck.

  Each of them lent a shoulder to carry their king outside on the embalming board, their sadness a far greater burden. They lowered the corpse into the false bottom of the wagon then buried it under a thick layer of natron salt. After a thorough search to ensure they left nothing behind, Rahotep instructed his men to replace the floorboards.

  He returned alone to inspect the tomb. The original burial shroud lined the trough where they first discovered the body. The cloth that had covered his face lay folded on top. No visible sign remained that might betray their enterprise and to anyone who entered the now vacant tomb, it would appear that the body had simply vanished.

  Rahotep rejoined the others outside. The Roman soldiers were still asleep under the effects of Pasheri’s potion. He glanced to the heavens and counted the decan stars; it would be dawn in just over an hour.

  Ani changed into a robe that belonged to the Pharaoh. Earlier in the tomb, the resemblance astonished all of them. Ani more than anyone, struck speechless as he stared at his own likeness in death. A member of the Pharaoh’s security team happened upon him by chance in a small village in Canaan two years ago and brought him to Alexandria to study Aramaic. When Rahotep summoned him to explain what the Royal Council required, he accepted the task with pride.

  Pasheri applied a balm to Ani’s wrists and feet to help numb the pain the nails would cause. The objective was not to enact another crucifixion but to create superficial wounds that to the believing eye would look convincing enough. Even so, the pain would be excruciating. To his credit, Ani barely flinched throughout the ordeal and Pasheri immediately administered an ointment to stop the bleeding. Finally, he wrapped Ani’s wrists and feet in fresh linen coated with honey.

  “Try to keep them clean until they are dry,” Pasheri advised while he and Ahmose helped him get up. He tested his balance gingerly, wincing as he placed weight on the wounds. Ani embraced each of his companions, his tears a combination of pain and deep emotion.

  Rahotep waited to be last. He grasped Ani's shoulders and looked him straight in the eye, “May Lord Horus, patron of the True Pharaoh, take you under his wing until you return safely to us!”

  With that blessing ringing in his ears, the Pharaoh’s double turned and limped away in the direction of Galilee. In the following days, he would appear before hundreds of witnesses. Many would swear that they had just seen Jesus of Nazareth resurrected from the dead. They had designed the elaborate rouse to cover their escape yet no one, except perhaps the late Pharaoh, could have imagined the true consequences of their actions.

  The remaining three finished loading the wagon then started down the hill toward Jerusalem. The rumbling of the metal bands of the wheels on the stone pavement sounded like thunder in the stillness of dawn and they feared it might wake the guards.

  Just before the intersection with the road to Bethlehem, they passed three Jewish women dressed in mourning carrying small jugs of oil. They walked in the direction from which they had just descended. Rahotep suspected that they were on their way to visit the tomb because no one would have had time on the day of the burial to clean and anoint the body in accordance with their traditions. Yesterday they observed the Jewish Sabbath and today would have been the first opportunity to attend to the corpse.

  No doubt, they were family or close friends of the late Pharaoh and the wave of sympathy that swept over him was almost strong enough to cause him to reach for the wagon brake. He longed to tell them that the man they loved had given his life to save mankind. He ached to ease their grief by explaining that his remains now traveled to Egypt where devoted followers would replicate their tears a thousand fold and provide a funeral fit for the King that he was. He wanted them to rejoice in the knowledge that their Messiah’s journey would end in the Field of Reeds where Osiris would embrace him as a son and invite him to sit on his right in the Council of the Gods for all eternity. His compassion tempted him to stop, but his sense of duty prevailed. He urged the horses on and continued south in the direction of Bethlehem. With Jerusalem at his back, he pondered whether the world would ever know the remarkable true story of his Pharaoh.

  After the long and glorious funeral rites, Rahotep sat with a scribe
and dictated a full account of his sacred odyssey. They made two copies in Latin. A clerk deposited the codices in the secret archives of the Royal Council in Alexandria along with the other documents related to the reign of the late True Pharaoh, Jesus of Nazareth. The robbery of one codex during the transfer of the vast collection to Timbuktu in the Empire of Mali almost thirteen centuries later, unleashed a tragic chain of events that would threaten the very future of humankind.

  Chapter One

  The Pharaoh died at precisely 19:35:47.389 EDT; the exact moment the universe stopped expanding. It even contracted for 78 nanoseconds. By coincidence, the Hubble Space Telescope recorded the remarkable cosmic disturbance while it photographed a small region of the Fornax constellation; part of its ongoing Deep Field observation.

  Several days passed before researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology in California would discover evidence of the incident. Despite the clear indication of blue shifting in the computer-generated images of distant galaxies, they would assume that what they saw was the result of a malfunction of the telescope or perhaps an error in their own calculations. Most of them, even the avowed atheists, would pray for such an explanation. No scientist on the team even dared to imagine that the unprecedented celestial event captured in a dozen photographs and distributed around the office in a plain manila folder labeled “BLUE SHIFT” was in reality Creation gasping in horror.

  It was the 12th day of September of the year known as 2016, according to the calendar used by most humans. It was a day that all histories will remember forever as the bastard son of infamy. Her life ended in the least regal manner. Shot down in cold blood as she strolled along a quiet residential street near her modest condominium in Cedar Park. She slipped out just after sunset to donate a three layer chocolate birthday cake to the nearby homeless shelter where she volunteered every week.

  No bystanders witnessed the heinous crime. A neighbor later reported to the police that she heard gunfire as she prepared a package of microwave popcorn for her and her cat Cleo; just as she did every Saturday night five minutes before Law & Order came on at nine. The fact that the contents seemed to explode even before she pressed start, startled her. Unlike the assassination of John F. Kennedy, few people were likely to remember where they were or what they were doing at the precise moment this tragic murder took place, even though the consequences for Americans, indeed for all humankind, would prove infinitely more devastating than the loss of a popular president.

  Herbert Lewis arrived at the scene of the crime only seconds after the first squad car. At the sound of gunfire, he bolted out of his armchair and across the hall to the Pharaoh's apartment. She didn’t respond to his loud banging and without hesitation he delivered two rapid kicks to the reinforced door; breaking it off the hinges.

  Only the kitchen lights were on. The aroma of fried chicken lingered in the air. She had cleared the table and the dinner dishes waited in the sink. He turned to verify what he already suspected; her purse was missing from the hook by the door. At the sound of approaching footsteps, he dropped to one knee and leveled his semi-automatic pistol in the direction of the entrance just as two of his agents arrived with their weapons drawn.

  "Secure the apartment!" he yelled as he tore past them and down the hall toward the emergency exit, his mind already fearing the worst. He took the stairs three at a time, stopping a few seconds at the bottom to conceal his pistol in the leather holster underneath his jacket. He could hear the Doppler effect of a siren approaching rapidly from down the block.

  He burst out the front door just as a police cruiser sped by then turned left on 49th Street before screeching to a halt. Herbert sprinted across the manicured lawn in a flash; his speed belied the amount of grey in his thinning hair. Before he reached the corner, he could see part of the body sprawled on the sidewalk, her upper torso hidden by a mailbox. He recognized the turquoise print dress she wore when she dropped by earlier to tell him that he could take the night off since she planned to spend the entire evening at home celebrating her grandson's birthday. He had looked forward to several hours of basketball games on television and a few cold beers. Now he only wanted to vomit. The scene before him was an abomination to the Gods. He couldn't fathom what had possessed her to leave without a security escort. He only knew that both he and Lord Horus had failed to protect her.

  One of the police officers walked over to the body, squatted beside the head and palpated the carotid artery. After a few seconds he got up, slowly peeled the latex glove from his right hand and discarded it in a manner that suggested an absence of urgency. He looked over to his partner and nodded side to side. Careful not to disturb any evidence, he examined the immediate area while his colleague called in a report. There was no sign of a purse, only a large round plastic container with what looked like a chocolate cake inside. He walked over and opened the trunk of the squad car to get a roll of yellow crime scene tape.

  Herbert approached just as he shut the lid.

  "Officer, my name is Herbert Lewis," he volunteered, "I'm the super of her building. She lives…excuse me, she lived in number 10075." He pointed with his thumb to the elegant two-level brick building behind him.

  "Name?"

  "Fannie Carter." Herbert waited while the policeman wrote the names in his notebook.

  "That's with an ie not a y,” he corrected the officer. “She's a widow. Retired,” he continued. What he didn’t tell the Officer was that he and a privileged few knew her as Fannie II, True Pharaoh of Egypt, Defender of Ma'at and Beloved of Osiris. In the absence of that information, the officer had no idea that what seemed a routine homicide was actually a regicide.

  "Any next of kin?" the officer asked, his pen poised.

  "Only a grandson, he lives in New York."

  “Got a contact number?”

  “No,” he lied.

  "Does she usually carry a purse?"

  "Yes, black patent leather with short straps,” he indicated. “She always takes it with her."

  Both of them turned as an ambulance pulled up, lights flashing but sirens muted, as if the paramedics already knew that their services wouldn't be needed. Herbert motioned to the officer that he wanted to make a call and retreated across the street to get out of their way. He dialed a local number on his cellphone.

  A male voice answered within two rings, "Good evening, The Falcon Foundation."

  "Initiate voice confirmation!" he ordered.

  "Roger, initiating voice confirmation." After a short pause, he heard, "Go ahead!"

  "This is Herbert Lewis, Chief of Security for the Falcon Foundation," he waited knowing that it would only take three or four seconds.

  "I have confirmation Sir. You may proceed"

  "Code Five. I repeat this is a Code Five. Falcon down. Contact the lead agent with Falcon Two and request a TOP report."

  The delay in the response was almost imperceptible.

  "Roger that, implementing standard operating procedures for a confirmed Code Five," the voice sounded calm and assured, almost military in precision. "We are moving to full alert. Please standby."

  Herbert Lewis remained on the line as he watched a member of the emergency personnel duck under the yellow crime scene tape carrying a large plastic utility box in his right hand. He wore a navy blue jacket with the letters MEO stenciled in white letters on the back. He bent over to examine the body.

  The voice returned and shattered the unbearable silence, "Mr. Lewis, I have alerted Falcon Two's team. They will provide a status report ASAP."

  Herbert breathed a sigh of relief, "Is this line secure?"

  "Yes sir. You are on satellite and encrypted."

  "Patch me through to Timbuktu."

  "Right away, sir."

  Across the street, the medical examiner extracted a pair of scissors and began to cut away Fannie's dress in search of the entry wound in her chest. Herbert flinched as if the metal had just dug into his own flesh. He turned away and gasped for air.
He needed to concentrate. Later, there would be time to grieve and to fight the demons of remorse. He heard a few clicks on his phone followed by a pause then a double ring similar to many telephones in Europe.

  Someone picked up but fumbled the receiver at first. It was 2.57 in the morning in Mali.

  "Oui, Bonjour."

  "This is Herbert Lewis. Code Five. Falcon down. This is a not a drill. Code Five. Thoth notification required immediately! Confirmation of the transfer of powers is in progress."

  "Mon dieu. C'est pas vrai!" responded a startled Ahmed Kader, Director of the Archives of Ma’at in Timbuktu, Mali. "Oui…I mean yes. I will proceed at once."

  He hung up but his hand remained frozen to the phone as if what he had just heard couldn't be true if he never let go of the receiver. The Pharaoh was dead? Murdered? He scarcely believed the news but he knew Herbert Lewis’ voice and the call came through the secure line from the Falcon Foundation switchboard.

  Ahmed willed himself to move. He threw the covers back and sat up. He donned the djellaba draped at the foot of the bed then slipped into his soft leather barbouches. His wire rimmed glasses sat on the nightstand; he reached for them then under his pillow to find the set of keys. They felt strangely cold as he opened the wooden door that led to the central patio. A multitude of stars carpeted the night sky and he silently voiced a prayer to Osiris. The moon had already set but he didn’t need its light to select the proper key. He had worked here for more than forty years, the last decade as Director and Chief Archivist. It was not only his home; it was his life.

  He unlocked a more substantial door and once inside he shivered from the air conditioning at full throttle meant to protect the large number of ancient volumes on display in the elegant Reading Room. It was as close as most visitors ever came to the main archives stored in bombproof vaults under where he stood.

  He walked directly to a bookshelf on the opposite wall then partially removed three books in practiced order. The whirring of the motor made almost no sound as the entire panel slid to the left uncovering a sturdy metal door with a screen on the right for scanning his iris. He positioned himself as he had so many times before and tried not to blink. Three seconds later the door clicked open revealing a small vestibule with an elevator directly in front. The car was idle at that level with the door open.